Mercian was a dialect spoken in the Anglian kingdom of Mercia (roughly speaking the English Midlands of England, an area in which four kingdoms had been united under one monarchy). Together with Northumbrian, it was one of the two Anglian dialects. The other two dialects of Old English were Kentish and West Saxon.[Skeat, W. W., English Dialects, from the Eighth Century to the Present Day. Cambridge, 1911.][Bennett, J. A. W. & Smithers, G. V., Early Middle English Verse and Prose. Oxford, 1968, etc.][Dickins, Bruce, & Wilson, R. M. Early Middle English Texts. Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1951.]
History
The Mercian dialect was spoken as far east as the border of the Kingdom of East Anglia and as far west as Offa's Dyke, bordering Wales. It was spoken in an area that extended as far north as
Staffordshire, bordering
Northumbria, and as far south as South
Oxfordshire/
Gloucestershire, where it bordered on the Kingdom of Wessex. The
Old Norse language also filtered in on a few occasions after the foundation of the
Danelaw. This describes the situation before the unification of Mercia.
The Old English Martyrology is a collection of over 230 hagiography, probably compiled in Mercia, or by someone who wrote in the Mercian dialect of Old English, in the second half of the 9th century. Six Mercian hymns are included in the Anglo-Saxon glosses to the Vespasian Psalter; they include the Benedictus and the Magnificat.[Sweet, H. (1946) Anglo-Saxon Reader; 10th ed. Clarendon Pr.; pp. 170-179]
In later Anglo-Saxon England, the dialect remained in use in speech but rarely in written documents. Some time after the Norman conquest of England, Middle English dialects emerged and were later found in such works as the Ormulum and the writings of the Gawain poet. In the later Middle Ages, a Mercian or East Midland dialect seems to have predominated in the London area, producing such forms as are (from Mercian arun).
Mercian was used by the writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien to signify his fictional Rohirric language.
Alphabet
Modern Old English orthography adds additional diacritics above certain letters to show specific phonological features. These distinctions largely were not shown in Old English. Such diacritics include macrons for vowel length and overdots for palatalization. Sound approximations from various European languages have been given, but it is best to learn by the International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions for more precise pronunciation.
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a for /ɑ/; General American English c ot
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ā for /ɑː/; Norwegian t a
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b for /b/; English boy
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c for /k/; English cold
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ċ for /tʃ/; English cheese
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d for /d/; English ''di d
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e for /e/; Spanish m e
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ē for /eː/; German S ee
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f for /f/; English fun; realised as v between voiced sounds (English thri ve)
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g for /g/; realised as ɣ (Dutch getrouw)
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ġ for /j/; English yes
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ġġ or ċġ for /dʒ/; English we dge
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h for /h/; realised as h (English hunt) syllable-initially, as x after back vowels (German Na cht), and as ç after front vowels (German Si cht); h also represented devoicing before certain voiced consonants
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i for /i/; Spanish m í
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ī for /iː/; English thr ee
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k for /k/; English kind; k was used rarely
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l for /l/; English light
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m for /m/; English m om
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n for /n/; English ni ne; realized as ŋ before c or g (English thi nk)
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o for /o/; Spanish y o
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ō for /oː/; German fr oh
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p for /p/; English p ip
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r for /r/; likely r (a "rolled" r), which is present in Scottish English
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s for /s/; English sit; voiced to z when between voiced sounds (English wi se)
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sċ for /ʃ/; English ship
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t for /t/; English t art
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u for /u/; Spanish t ú
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ū for /u/; German H ut
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x for /ks/; English fo x
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y for /y/; equivalent to /i/ with rounded lips; Finnish m ykkä
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ȳ for /yː/; equivalent to /iː/ with rounded lips; German fr üh
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ƿ for /w/; often replaced by modern w; English win
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ð for /θ/, which realised as θ (English think) or ð (English fea ther) depending upon position; interchangeable with þ
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þ for /θ/, which realised as θ (English think) or ð (English fea ther) depending upon position; interchangeable with ð
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æ for /æ/; English b at
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ǣ for /æː/; Finnish ääni
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œ for /ø/; Hungarian j övő
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œ̄ for /øː/; German sch ön or Hungarian jöv ő
Grammar
Mercian grammar has the same structure as other West Germanic dialects.
Nouns
Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and four cases:
nominative,
accusative,
dative and
genitive. These, in addition, all have singular and
plural forms. They can also be strong or weak.
Examples
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Strong masculine noun stān (stone)
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nominative (singular, plural): stān, stānes
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accusative: stān, stānes
-
dative: stāne, stānen
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genitive: stānes, stāne
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Weak masculine noun name (name)
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nominative: name, namen
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accusative: namen/name, namen
-
dative: namen/name, namen
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genitive: namen/name. namene/namen
Pronouns
(I/me, you, he, she, we, you (pl.) and they) come in all the above cases and come in three numbers: singular, dual ('you/we two'), plural.
Demonstrative pronouns vary in the same way described below for the indefinite article, based on 'ðes' only for this. That and Those are the same as the definite article.
(who, which, that) are usually 'ðe' and 'ðet.'
Articles
The
definite article is equally complex, with all genders changing in the singular in all cases, based on variations of 'ðe.' In the plural all genders take the same word. The indefinite article was often omitted in Mercian.
Adjectives
Adjectives are always declined, even with some verbs (which means they can double up as
adverbs), e.g. I am cold. Having split into weak and strong
declensions (depending on the strength of the noun), these split again into all four cases, both singular and plural.
Comparative adjectives (e.g. bigger) always add 're.' Example: Æðelen (noble), æðelenre (nobler).
Verbs
Verbs can be conjugated from the
infinitive into the
present tense, the past singular, the past plural and the
past participle. There exist strong and weak verbs in Mercian that too conjugate in their own ways. The future tense requires an
auxiliary verb, like
will (Mercian
wyllen). There are three moods:
indicative,
subjunctive and
Imperative mood. Like most inflected languages, Mercian has a few irregular verbs (such as 'to be'
bēon and 'have'
habben). For basic understanding, the four principal parts must be known for each strong verb: weak verbs are easier and more numerous, they all form the past participle with
-ed.
Vocabulary
Mercian vocabulary is largely inherited from
Proto-Germanic, with
Latin loanwords coming via the use of Latin as the language of the Early Church, and Norse loanwords that arrived as part of the Norse incursions and foundation of the
Danelaw which covered much of the midlands and north of
England.
Some morphological differences between the Mercian and West Saxon include:
-
Change of West Saxon final -c to -h, presumably alluding to its ultimate loss in Modern English.
- Ic (I) ↔ Ih
-
The preservation of -k in Proto-Germanic in some pronouns, like mec (me).
See also
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Biddulph, Joseph (2004) The Mercian Language: Introduction to the English Midlands Dialect of Late Anglo-Saxon and Early Middle English. 56 p. Pontypridd: Joseph Biddulph (Text in modern English, with examples in Old and Middle English)
Further reading
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Mitchell, Bruce, and Robinson, Fred C. (2001) A Guide to Old English (6th edition). Oxford: Blackwell
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Sweet, H., ed. (1885) The Oldest English Texts: glossaries, the Vespasian Psalter, and other works written before AD 900. London: for the Early English Text Society
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The Vespasian Psalter facsimile of the MS.: Wright, David H. (ed.) (1967) The Vespasian Psalter. (Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, #14) Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger OCLC 5009657, an interlinear gloss found in a manuscript of the Book of Psalms in the Cottonian Library (now British Library). The gloss was prepared around 850. This gloss is in the dialect.
