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Anglicized word order in Old English continuous interlinear glosses in British Library, Royal 2. A. XX
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
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The Old English interlinear glosses in the prayerbook London, British Library, Royal 2. A. XX frequently render certain Latin verb phrases and noun phrases into Old English with English word order rather than Latin, in contrast to almost all other surviving Old English interlinear glosses of the same prayers. Investigation of the occurrences of similar syntactic tendencies in all other Old English continuous interlinear glosses (the thirteen Old English interlinear glosses to the psalms, the eleven glosses to canticles of the psalter, the two interlinear glosses to the gospels and the thirty other numbered entries under ‘continuous interlinear glosses’ in Angus Cameron's ‘A List of Old English Texts’) reveals that such anglicization is restricted to relatively few texts from various centuries and places. Analysis of the features and conditions of these few witnesses reveals that neither scribal education, region, century nor other particular of situation is a factor common to all witnesses. The scribe of the Old English glosses in Royal 2. A. XX appears to have had deficiencies in Old English grammar, yet confidence in Old English phrasings of the prayers. His gloss was probably not made for students learning Latin grammar; it was more likely intended simply to help laypeople or less-than-well-educated religious persons to understand the Latin prayers. The context is clearer when we consider the Latin prayers in the margins (and a few interlinear glosses in Greek) that were added by the same hand.
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References
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Beforan his freonde biddeþ se þe his wædle mæneþ
POSTULET CORAM AMICO QUIPENURIAM SUAM PREDICAT.
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97 I wish to thank Helmut Gneuss for years ago first suggesting work with the glosses in Royal 2. A. XX, the late Ashley Crandall Amos for later encouraging my getting started, the National Endowment for the Humanities' Summer Seminars for College Teachers programme for the opportunity to gather sources in the Harvard University Library, Auburn University Montgomery for granting leave with pay to work on this project, Mary P. Richards, Sarah Keefer and Michelle P. Brown for helping with questions about the tenth-century Old English and Latin gloss scripts, Susan Keefe for help with the Latin marginal prayers and Daniel Donoghue, Michael Lapidge and, especially, Phillip Pulsiano for giving encouragement, information and many valuable suggestions for the improvement of this article in the later stages of the project.