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Early Latin loan-words in Old English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Alfred Wollman
Alfred Wollman
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of Eichstätt
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Extract

It is a well-known fact that Old English is rich in Latin loan-words. Although the precise number is not yet known, it is a fairly safe assumption that there are at least 600 to 700 loan-words in Old English. This compares with 800 Latin loan-words borrowed in different periods in the Brittonic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton), and at least 500 early Latin loan-words common to the West Germanic languages. These rather vague overall numbers do not lend themselves, however, to a serious analysis of Latin influence on the Germanic and Celtic languages, because they include different periods of borrowing which are not really comparable to each other. The basis of these estimates, moreover, is often not stated very clearly. Although the establishment of a complete list of Latin loan-words in the various Germanic languages is a desideratum, it can only be achieved in a later stage of our studies.

Type
Research Article
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Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 22 , December 1993 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The following abbreviations are used: CIL = Classical Latin; D = Dutch; Gmc. = Germanic; L = Latin; OFr = Old French; OHG = Old High German; VL = Vulgar Latin; W = Welsh. The number of Latin loan-words in Old English will finally be ascertained only with completion of the Toronto-based Dictionary of Old English [ = DOE] on the basis of A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, compiled by Healey, A. di Paolo and Venezky, R. L. (Toronto, 1980)Google Scholar and of the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altenglischen by Professor Alfred Bammesberger at Eichstätt; see also Gneuss, H., ‘Some Problems and Principles of the Lexicography of Old English’, Festschrift für Karl Schneider, ed. Jankowsky, K. R. and Dick, E. S. (Amsterdam, 1982), pp. 153–66, at 154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There are quite a few estimates of the quantity of Latin loans in Old English which are mainly based upon the substantial but far from complete lists supplied by Serjeantson, M. S., A History of Foreign Words in English (London, 1935). The list given there in Appendix A (pp. 271–88)Google Scholar comprises approximately 540 loan-words and is arranged by semantic fields assigned to three chronological strata (A, B and C, respectively). According to Scheler, M., Der englische Wortschatz, Grundlagen der Anglistik und Amerikanistik 9 (Berlin, 1977), 38, n. 23Google Scholar, there are some 600 Latin loans in Old English, including some 50 loans adopted during the late Old English period after the Norman Conquest. With respect to the quantity of Latin loans in Old English, Barbara, Strang, A History of English (London, 1970)Google Scholar, depends heavily upon Serjeantson, although she gives no overall number. The number of early Latin loan-words in Germanic is estimated at some 400 (ibid. p. 388). A relatively comprehensive list of loan-words is provided by Skeat, W. W., Principles of English Etymology. First Series, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1892), §§ 398–9.Google Scholar For a preliminary list of early loan-words borrowed before AD 600 arranged on the basis of the sound changes of Latin tonic vowels, see Wollmann, A., Untersuchungen zu den frühen Lehnwörtern im Altenglischen. Phonologie und Datierung, Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 15 (Munich, 1990), 152–80.Google Scholar

2 Jackson, K. H., Language and History in Early Britain. A Chronological Survey of the Brittonic Languages First to Twelfth Century A.D. (Edinburgh, 1953) [hereafter LHEB], p. 76 including n. 3Google Scholar; Haarmann, H., Der lateinische Lehnwortschatz im Kymrischen, Romanistische Versuche und Vorarbeiten 36 (Bonn, 1970), 8–10, estimates the number of Latin loan-words in Welsh at some 700. See also below, n. 31.Google Scholar

3 A comprehensive but far from inclusive list of Latin loan-words in the Germanic languages was provided by Kluge, F., ‘Vorgeschichte der altgermanischen Dialekte. Mit einem Anhang: Geschichte der gotischen Sprache’, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ed. Paul, H., 2nd ed. (Strassburg, 1899) I, 333–54 (‘Die lateinischen Lehnworte der altgermanischen Sprachen’).Google Scholar

4 Cf. e.g. Krapp, G. P., Modern English. Its Growth and Present Use (New York, 1910), pp. 212 and 216Google Scholar; Robertson, S., The Development of Modern English (New York, 1934), pp. 44–5.Google Scholar Loan formations have been dealt with in depth by Gneuss, H., Lehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutungen im Altenglischen (Berlin, 1955).Google Scholar

5 Campbell, A., Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959) [hereafter Cpb], §§ 493 and 545.Google Scholar

6 Cpb, §493.

7 It is possible that borrowing had set in already around AD 560: ‘With the coming of Augustine and his 40 companions in 597, and possibly even at an earlier date, with the arrival of Bishop Liudhard in the retinue of Queen Bertha of Kent in the 560's, reading and writing Latin became one of the skills offered by the young Church. How soon the use of the Latin alphabet was extended to the writing of Old English we can infer from the promulgation of Æthelbert of Kent's written law code early in the seventh century’ (Derolez, R., ‘Runic Literacy among the Anglo-Saxons’, Britain 400–600: Language and History, ed. Bammesberger, A. and Wollmann, A., Anglistische Forschungen 205 (Heidelberg, 1990), 397–436, at 399).Google Scholar

8 For OE antefn, see Wollmann, A., ‘Zur Datierung christlicher Lehnwörter im Altenglischen: ae. antefn’, in Language and Civilization. A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour of Otto Hietzsch, ed. Blank, C. (Frankfurt and Bern, 1992), pp. 124–38Google Scholar; for OE œlmesse, see Pogatscher, A., Zur Lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen Lehnworte im Altenglischen, Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Culturgeschichte der germanischen Völker 64 (Strassburg, 1888), § 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for L episcopus (> OE biscop), see Rotsaert, M.-L., ‘Vieux-Haut-Allem. biscof/Gallo-Roman *(e)bescobo, (e)bescobə/Lat. episcopus’, Sprachwissenschaft 2 (1977), 181–216Google Scholar; for OE mœsse, see Wollmann, A., ‘Lateinisch-Altenglische Lehnbeziehungen im 5. und 6. Jahrhundert’, Britain 400–600: Language and History, ed. Bammesberger, and Wollmann, , pp. 373–96, esp. 392–4.Google Scholar

9 See A. Wollmann, ‘Early Christian Loanwords in Old English’, Germania Latina II (forthcoming).

10 W. W. Skeat, Principles of English Etymology. First Series (see n. 1). Skeat discriminates pre-Christian loan-words (‘Latin of the First Period’ up to AD 600) and Christian loan-words (‘Latin of the Second Period’).

11 Pogatscher, Lautlehre (as cited above, n. 8).

12 Ibid. pp. 4–5.

13 Ibid. p. 5: ‘If loan-words were borrowed early they should show signs of great age with respect to the Romance or Germanic phonological form. On the Romance side an infallible criterion is the conservation of intervocalic voiceless stops, on the Germanic side the High German consonant shift. If one of these criteria is attested in a genuinely popular word it is a continental loan-word.’

14 Jud, J., ‘Probleme der altromanischen Wortgeographie’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 38 (1917), 1–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Pogatscher, , Lautlehre, p.1Google Scholar: ‘Unter diesen Bedingungen sind für den Grammatiker wieder zwei von besonderer Wichtigkeit, nämlich die Art der Vermittlung fremder Sachen und Worte, und falls ein grösseres Gebiet hierbei in Frage kommt, die geographische Lage der Berührungsstellen oder Berührungslinien, an welchen jene Vermittlung sich vollzogen hat. In allen Fällen wird die Beantwortung der Frage nach den Berührungslinien zugleich auch wesentliche Hilfsmittel zur Erkenntnis der Art der Vermittlung bieten, während in vielen Fällen die Art der Vermittlung zwischen verschiedenen Völkern eine ähnliche oder gleiche sein wird; die Feststellung der Berührungslinien wird daher ein erhöhtes Interesse für sich in Anspruch nehmen können.’

16 Ibid. p. 7.

17 Ibid. p. 13. It may be noted that Pogatscher sees no significant difference between the Latin of Roman Gaul and the variety of Latin spoken in Britain: ‘… im Allgemeinen mag hier bemerkt werden, dass die grammatische Form der Æ. Lehnworte für das britannische Volkslatein ein so enges Zusammengehen mit dem gallischen erweist,… dass wenn die Angelsachsen nicht nach Britannien gekommen wären, England wohl eine dem Französischen sehr nahestehende Sprach erhalten hätte, natürlich vorausgesetzt, dass die Romanisierung Britanniens ausgedehnt genug gewesen war. Daher bin ich bei dem Ansatz der Substrate auch unbedenklich überall von gallorom. Grundformen ausgegangen.’

18 Luick, K., Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache I (Leipzig, 1921–1940) [hereafter Lck], p. 63.Google Scholar Luick's account goes back to J. Hoops.

19 Ibid.Jungandreas, W., Geschichte der deutschen und englischen Sprache. Teil III: Geschichte der englischen Sprache (Göttingen, 1949), p. 312,Google Scholar even sets up a period of a ‘nordwestdeutschen Sprachgemeinschaft zwischen Somme, Weser und Nordsee im 4. Jh.’, which would imply an approximately simultaneous adoption of a certain set of Latin words into Old English, Old Frisian and Old Saxon.

20 Lck, § 208, n.: ‘Eine Feststellung ist jedoch nicht möglich, da bisher an keinem Lehnwort Spuren des Durchgangs durch einen anderen germanischen Dialekt unmittelbar, d.h. in seiner Lautgebung, nachgewiesen werden konnte.’

21 Although AD 450 can no longer be seen as the historical date of the adventus Saxonum, it still is suitable as a useful date for a working model, if we take into account a transitional period of some decades during the first half of the fifth century. For a concise survey of the historical background of the settlement period, see Wollmann, , ‘Lehnbeziehungen im 5. und 6. Jahrhundert’, pp. 377–80Google Scholar and especially Hines, J., ‘Philology, Archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum’, Britain 400–600: Language and History, ed. Bammesberger, and Wollmann, , pp. 17–36.Google Scholar The integration of historical dates into a relative chronology was one of Pogatscher's aims: ‘Insbesondere habe ich – wenn ich nicht irre – hier zum ersten Male den Versuch gewagt, mit Hilfe der ältesten Lehnworte neben und an Stelle der bisher zumeist relativen einige in sich zusammenhängende Grundlinien einer absoluten Chronologie gewisser Erscheinungen des vorlitterarischen Lautstandes der beiden hier in Frage kommenden Sprachgebiete [i.e. Old English and Gallo-Romance] zu ziehen’ (Lautlehre, p.ix).Google Scholar

22 Pogatscher, , Lautlebre, p.12Google Scholar: ‘Für die Kulturentwicklung der Angelsachsen war diese zweite Periode, welche sich von 450 bis 600 erstreckt, von der grössten Bedeutung. Die beträchtliche Zahl der innerhalb dieser Zeit aufgenommenen Lehnworte zeigt, welche neuen Anschauungen der neue Boden, der von römischer Bildung durchdrungen war, den Ankömmlingen erschlossen hat.’

23 Pogatscher, , Lautlehre, pp. 2–4Google Scholar, citing Wright, T., The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 4th ed. (London, 1885)Google Scholar and Winkelmann, E., Geschichte der Angelsachsen bis zum Tode König Alfreds, Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, 2. Hauptabtheilung, 3. Theil (Berlin, 1883).Google Scholar See also Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 9–11 and 15.Google Scholar

24 Ibid. p. 4: ‘The natural consequence appears to be the continued existence of Latin in Britain for a longer period. Hence the source of the Latin and Romance loan-words borrowed after AD 450 is Britain.’ Although Pogatscher's book was the first relatively comprehensive linguistic study of the Latin loan-words, Pogatscher naturally did have precursors (see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 4–11).Google Scholar Earlier remarks in historical works and shorter studies on Latin loan-words in Old English, however, were frequently marred by the presupposition that the Anglo-Saxons could have adopted originally Latin loan-words only through the mediation of romanized Celts in Britain; cf. Guest, E., ‘On Certain Foreign Terms, adopted by our Ancestors prior to their Settlement in the British Islands’, Proc. of the Philol. Soc. 5 (1852), 169–74 and 185–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar No date is normally given for the final extinction of British Latin, but it becomes sufficiently clear that Latin was supposed to have been a spoken language at least during the fifth and sixth centuries. Surprisingly, direct borrowing due to contacts with the Romans on the Continent was regarded as a possibility only from the middle of the nineteenth century.

25 ‘British Latin’ is a term used by Jackson, LHEB, p. 5Google Scholar, as representing ‘the variety of Vulgar Latin spoken in Britain during and for some time after the Roman occupation’; in an earlier essay Jackson used the term ‘Vulgar Latin of Roman Britain’: ‘On the Vulgar Latin of Roman Britain’, Medieval Studies in Honor of J. D. M. Ford, ed. Holmes, U. T. and Denomy, A. J. (Cambridge, MA, 1948), pp. 83–103.Google Scholar The sociolinguistic aspect is stressed by Pogatscher's usage of ‘britannisches Volkslatein’ vs. ‘Schriftlatein’ (Lautlebre, pp.9 and 13Google Scholar) and especially by E. P. Hamp's ‘British spoken Latin’ (‘Social Gradience in British spoken Latin’, Britannia 6 (1975), 150–62, at 160–1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although ‘British Latin’ tends to suggest a uniform language, it seems to be the most satisfactory term available.

26 Shevelov, G. Y., A Prehistory of Slavic: the Historical Phonology of Common Slavic (Heidelberg, 1964), pp.159–60.Google Scholar

27 Jackson, , LHEB, pp.119–20.Google Scholar The Lowland Zone comprises the fertile and relatively densely populated plains ‘roughly south and east of a line drawn from the Vale of York past the southern end of the Pennines and along the Welsh border to the fringes of the hilly country of Devon and Cornwall’ (ibid. p. 96). In this area the majority of Latin loan-words were borrowed into Celtic (see also below, n. 96), while the Highland Zone became an area of retreat for the Celtic population of the Lowland Zone. According to Jackson (ibid. p. 120), the Highland Zone ‘from having been the home of semi-barbarous hillmen kept in subjection by the Roman garrison, had now become the last refuge of Roman life in Britain, and the sphere of powerful half-Romanized Christian chiefs. Many of the inhabitants of the Lowlands had fled here, bringing with them no doubt some remnants of their Roman civilization, and very likely now introducing to the West many of the Latin words borrowed centuries before into their British speech, so that in this way they survived into medieval Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.’

28 Johnson, S., Later Roman Britain (London, 1980), pp. 150–76Google Scholar; Thomas, A. C., Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500 (London, 1981), pp.75–6.Google Scholar The same applies to the abandonment of Dacia by Aurelian in AD 271. As in Britain roughly one hundred and fifty years later, the urban settlements were affected most seriously by the retreat of the Romans.

29 Shevelov, , A Prehistory of Slavic, p.160.Google Scholar

30 Ibid.; this percentage does not take into account the medieval and modern loans from Latin and only refers to the size of the lexicon, not the frequency of the lexemes. Figures vary depending on the basis of computation. Haarmann quotes a study by D. Macrea who estimated the share of original Latin words including derivations at some twenty per cent, compared with sixteen per cent of Slavic loan-words, twenty-nine per cent of French loan words and thirty-three per cent of words of other origin (including modern Latinisms). Haarmann's corpus comprises 1771 Daco-Rumanian lexemes; see Haarmann, H., Balkanlinguistik (1) Areallinguistik und Lexikostatistik des balkanlateinischen Wortschatzes, Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 93 (Tübingen, 1978), 16–17 and 150–2.Google Scholar

31 See above, p. 1, nn. 2 and 3. A comparison of the number of Latin loan-words in languages situated on the periphery of the Romania reveals that Welsh includes some 700 Latin loan words, compared with 674 in Basque, 636 in Albanian, 483 in the Germanic languages and 471 in Breton; see Haarmann, H., Der lateinische Einfluβ in den Interferenzzonen am Rande der Romania. Vergleichende Studien zur Sprachkontaktforschung, Romanistik in Geschichte und Gegenwart 5 (Hamburg, 1979), 35.Google ScholarJackson, K., ‘The British Language during the Period of the English Settlements’, Studies in Early British History, ed. Chadwick, N. K. (Cambridge, 1954), pp.61–82, at 62Google Scholar, estimates the number of Latin loan-words in British at roughly one thousand. I believe that the number of loan-words, especially in the Germanic languages, is somewhat higher, but nevertheless the general proportions become sufficiently clear; see also above, p. 1.

32 Cf. the illuminating account of Reichenkron, G., Historische Latein-Altromanische Grammatik. I. Teil (Wiesbaden, 1965), pp. 347–54.Google Scholar The ditinction of Verkehrssprache and Heimsprache (the native languages like Dacian, Thracian or Illyrian) goes back to E. Gamillscheg (see below, n. 70).

33 For a convenient summary of the discussion on romanization and continuity in Dacia, see Arvinte, V., ‘Die Entstehung der rumänischen Sprache und des rumänischen Volkes im Lichte der jüngsten Forschung’, in his Die Rumänen. Ursprung, Volks- und Landesnamen, Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 114 (Tübingen, 1980), 11–36, esp. 20–31.Google Scholar

34 Haarmann, , Der lateinische Lehnwortschatz im Kymrischen, p.212Google Scholar, contends that the romanization of Roman Britain could only have been superficial since the province possessed only four coloniae compared with Dacia's eight and that generally the net of settlements was wide-meshed. This argument is, however, not wholly convincing since in both provinces the towns disappeared after the retreat of the Roman military.

35 In ‘The British Language during the Period of the English Settlements’, p.61Google Scholar, Jackson, seems to be more uncertain about this than in his LHEB, p. 109.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.; the use of Latin in the army as an instrument of romanization is rightly stressed by Salway, P., Roman Britain (Oxford, 1981), p. 508.Google Scholar On the other hand he assumes that British Latin ‘remained a second language, but like English in India it was not only indispensable for public affairs but the only practical lingua franca in what was becoming a very mixed population’ (ibid. p. 506). This Verkehrssprache is apparently identified by Salway with ‘the rather archaic type of spoken Latin which appears to have been more common in Britain than in other western provinces’ (ibid. pp. 506–7) restricted to an isolated Romano-British upper class. From the discussion above it becomes plain that, in fact, we have to deal with at least two varieties of Latin. Salway also misunderstands the character of the Latin loan-words in Welsh which in his view are motivated primarily by the introduction of new things and concepts. A brief look at the composition of the Latin loan vocabulary in Welsh shows that the Celts were subject to a far-reaching romanization. If this was not so why should they have borrowed, for instance, L piscis > W pysc, pysg? Cf. Reichenkron, , Historische Latein-Altromanische Grammatik, pp. 324–7.Google Scholar

37 The continuity of Latin was denied by Loth, J., Les mots latins dans les langues brittoniques (gallois, armoricain, cornique) avec une introduction sur la romanisation de l'ile de Bretagne (Paris, 1892), pp. 10–11Google Scholar (for Loth's discussion of Pogatscher's Lautlehre, see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 30–8).Google Scholar The most prominent proponent of discontinuity in recent times is Jackson, K., ‘The British Language during the Period of the English Settlements’, p. 62Google Scholar: ‘However, by and large, Britain was a Celtic-speaking country, and there is no basis for the view still sometimes expressed that but for the English invasion we should have been speaking some sort of Romance language, allied to French, at the present day.’ See also his ‘The British Languages and their Evolution’, The Mediaeval World, ed. Daiches, D. and Thorlby, A. (London, 1973), pp. 113–26, at 119.Google Scholar Loth's and Jackson's views are adopted by Baugh, A. C. and Cable, T., A History of the English Language, 3rd ed. (London, 1978), p. 46.Google Scholar According to Baugh only five words were borrowed during the ‘Insular’ period (‘Latin Influence of the First Period’): OE caester, port, munt, torr and wic. For a discussion of Baugh's presentation, see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 68–71.Google Scholar

38 Murray, J. A. H., ‘English Language’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. (London, 1882) VIII, 390–1.Google Scholar For similar views on the continuity of Latin, see below, p. 13; Pogatscher, , Lautlebre, p. 13Google Scholar; Reichenkron, , Historische Latein-Altromanische Grammatik, p. 321Google Scholar; Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 9–13.Google Scholar

39 Wyld, H. C., The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue: an Introduction to Philological Method (London, 1906), p. 243.Google Scholar Wyld's treatment of the Latin loan-words is one of the best ones in early textbooks. A comparatively extensive survey of the subject is also given by Sheard, J. A., The Words We Use (London, 1954)Google Scholar, adopting Pogatscher's model.

40 Ibid. p. 246; ‘In cases where Latin words contain no test sounds such as intervocalic stops, there cannot be absolute certainty as to whether they belong to the earliest continental class of loans, or whether they were acquired early in the English period, and even the fact that the same word exists in OHG or OSax does not necessarily settle the matter in favor of the former class, since each language may have adopted the words independently. On the otherhand, words which retain the Latin intervocalic t, etc. might belong either to the Continental period or the late English, if their vowels are not such as are liable to early English sound changes.’

41 Poerck, G. de, ‘La diphtongaison des voyelles fermées du latin, principalement dans le domaine gallo-romance, et la palatalisation de u’, Romanica Gandenia 1 (1953), 23–92, at 45–60 (‘Le témoignage du britto-roman’).Google Scholar

42 Cf. Jackson, , LHEB, p. 5Google Scholar: ‘Britto-Romance’ must not be confused with the term ‘Romano-British’ which ‘is confined to forms of the [British] language reported by Roman writers in Latinized spelling; and the term is stretched to include those given by Greek authors, chiefly derived from Latin sources, in Greek spelling, e.g. by Ptolemy.’

43 Reichenkron, , Historische Latein-Altromanische Grammatik, pp. 322–7.Google Scholar

44 Serjeantson, , A History of Foreign Words in English, pp. 271–88.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 62–4.Google ScholarStrang, , A History of English, pp. 388–91Google Scholar, apparently relies on the lists of Serjeantson but does not provide a coherent model of periodization, a situation partly based on a misunderstanding of Jackson's view. Although she accepts Jackson's theory of a conservative British Latin, she assumes that ‘very many Latin words passed into OE at this stage’ partly borrowed from ‘Latin-speaking Britons who remained among them’ (ibid. p. 390). This way, however, Jackson regarded as improbable, since in his view the majority of the educated Celtic upper class retreated to the Highland Zone not immediately affected by the Anglo-Saxon onslaught. Strang rightly takes into account the possibility that in the fifth and sixth centuries there were ‘Continental loans resulting from the close contacts the English still maintained with Europe’ (ibid.). For a detailed discussion of Strang's treatment of the loan-words, see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 75–80.Google Scholar

46 See above, p. 6, n. 17.

47 Jackson, , LHEB, p. 107.Google Scholar

48 Jackson, K., ‘The British Languages and their Evolution’, p. 117Google Scholar and LHEB, pp. 108–9Google Scholar: ‘To the ordinary speaker of Vulgar Latin from the Continent, the language from which the loanwords in Brittonic were derived must have seemed stilted and pedantic, or perhaps upper-class and “haw-haw”.’

49 In contrast to LHEB, Jackson in other publications stressed the position of the conservative school Latin as the virtually sole variety of Latin current in Roman Britain. See ‘The British Language during the Period of the English Settlements’, pp. 61–2Google Scholar: ‘There is some very slight reason to think that some of the Latin-speakers, presumably in the cities, used the general middle-class Vulgar Latin lingua franca of the Empire; but there is strong evidence that the upper classes, and specifically the rural aristocracy, spoke Latin with a much more refined and literary, almost archaising pronunciation…’

50 LHEB, pp. 82–94.Google Scholar For a discussion of the features supposed to be specific of British Latin, see Smith, C., ‘Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain: Epigraphic and other Evidence’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. Temporini, H. and Haase, W., Teil II: Principat 29.2 (Berlin, 1983) [hereafter ANRW], 893–948, at 938–42.Google Scholar

51 LHEB, p. 82.Google Scholar

52 There is much important recent work on British Latin. Jackson's criteria for a conservative variety of British Latin have been severely criticized by Gratwick, A. S., ‘Latinitas Britannica: Was British Latin Archaic?’, Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, ed. Brooks, N. (Leicester, 1982), pp. 1–79.Google Scholar See also, however, MacManus's, D. critical review of Gratwick's essay: ‘Linguarum Diversitas: Latin and the Vernaculars in Early Medieval Britain’, Peritia 3 (1987), 151–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Evidence of British Vulgar Latin has been adduced by Mann, J. C., ‘Spoken Latin in Britain as evidenced by the Inscriptions’, Britannia 2 (1971), 218–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. P. Hamp, ‘Social Gradience’; Shiel, N., ‘The Coinage of Carausius as a Source of Vulgar Latin’, Britannia 6 (1975), 146–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Campanile, E., ‘Valutazione del latino di Britannia’, Studi e saggi linguistici 9 (1969), 87–110Google Scholar; a comprehensive survey including an extensive bibliography is given by Smith, ‘Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain: Epigraphic and other Evidence’ (cited above, n. 50). The language situation in Roman Britain is discussed by Evans, D. Ellis, ‘Language Contact in Pre-Roman and Roman Britain’, ANRW 29.2 (1983), 949–87Google Scholar: Polomé, E. C.;, ‘The Linguistic Situation in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire’, ANRW 29.2 (1983), 509–53, at 532–4Google Scholar; Thomas, , Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, pp. 71–9Google Scholar; Schmidt, K. H., ‘La romanité des Iles britanniques’, Actes du XVIIIe Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes, ed. ämer, D., 2 vols. (Tübingen, 1992) 1, 188–209.Google Scholar

53 Cf. Wollmann, , Untersucbungen, pp. 114–18Google Scholar; MacManus, , ‘Latin and the Vernaculars’, p. 160.Google Scholar

54 Jackson, , LHEB, p. 123.Google Scholar

55 Ibid. p. 124.

56 Ibid. pp. 70–2.

57 Smith, , ‘Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain’, pp. 945–6.Google Scholar

58 MacManus, , ‘Latin and the Vernaculars’, p. 161.Google Scholar This new interpretation goes back to Wright's, R. important book, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982).Google Scholar That Christian Latin in its early stage had by no means a literary and conservative pronunciation is also shown by the category of early Christian loan-words in Old English; see above, p. 4, n. 9.

59 Jackson's view that the so-called Lowland Zone was abandoned by the majority of the native Celts retreating in the Highland Zone can be doubted in the light of the archaeological evidence, which suggests a continuity of settlement. See Jackson, , LHEB, p. 119Google Scholar and Thomas, , Christianity in Roman Britain, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar

60 Jackson, , LHEB, p. 109.Google Scholar

61 Ibid. p. 255: ‘The conclusion must be that during the period of Pogatscher' Insular borrowings, c. 450–600, the possibility of contact between Latin-speaking Britons and the English cannot be excluded, though it is not likely to have been more than trifling. Whether any Latin words were, in fact, adopted by the English in this way is a different question.’

62 See Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 487–507.Google Scholar

63 See e.g. Emerson, O. F., The History of the English Language (New York and London, 1894), pp. 146–7Google Scholar, who cites ‘beet, box, chervil, fennel, feverfew, gladen, lily, mallow, mint, mul(berry), palm, pea, pear, pepper, periwinkle, pine, plant, plum, poppy, savine, spelt’ as tree- and plant-names presumably borrowed in the context of monastic horticulture and medicine. Krapp, , Modern English. Its Growth and Present Use, p. 216Google Scholar, maintains that besides plant-names like ‘decar’ or ‘box’ many words of everyday-life like ‘butter, cheese, kitchen, mill, cup, kettle’ were borrowed only in the Christian period: ‘A number of those words were plainly taken over because of the superiority of the monastery cooks and cooking over the native, just as today English has a kind of kitchen-French which has come into the language in a similar way.’ Likewise Bourcier, G., An Introduction to the History of the English Language, ed. Clark, C. (London, 1981), pp. 38–9Google Scholar, subsumes words like ‘box, chalk, cook, dish, fever, kitchen, pear’ under the group of Christian loan-words. According to Baugh and Cable, A History of the English Language, §§ 60–2, nearly all plant-names are of Christian origin.

64 Jackson's view of a conservative variety of British Latin has often been misinterpreted. Jackson never held the view that British Latin due to a supposed relative geographical isolation generally was of a conservative or archaic nature. Jackson's new approach consisted in the introduction of the sociolinguistic concept of registers or grades thereby abolishing the concept of a uniform and monolithic Vulgar Latin. Pogatscher's view of an identity of British Latin and Gallo-Romance (see above, p. 6, n. 17) and Jackson's description of a socially differentiated British Latin are not incompatible, the latter revealing the diastratic multiformity of Vulgar Latin.

65 Jackson, , LHEB, p. 252.Google Scholar

66 The lowering of unaccented final L /u/ > /o/ takes place at the end of the fifth century while the lowering of tonic /u/ is a process of the fourth century. See Straka, G., ‘L'evolution phonétique du latin au français sous l'effet de l'énergie et de la faiblesse articulatoires’, Les sons et les mots. Choix d'études de phonétique et de linguistique (Paris, 1979), pp. 257–8Google Scholar; Chaussée, F. de la, Initiation ´ la phonétique historique de l'ancien français, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1982), p. 190.Google Scholar

67 LHEB, pp. 616–18.Google Scholar

68 Corazza, V. D., ‘Inglese antico læden “latino”,’ Feor ond neah. Scritti di filologia germanica in memoria di Augusto Scafidi Abbate, ed. Lendinara, P. and Melazzo, L. (Palermo, 1983), pp. 129–41, at 137–8Google Scholar; see also Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 581–2.Google Scholar If the Celtic etymon was already *laden the problem of Old English i-mutation would be irrelevant.

69 Ibid. p. 252.

70 See Gamillscheg, E., Romania Germanica. Sprach- und Siedlungsgeschichte der Germanen auf dem Boden des alten Römerreicbes, I. Zu den ältesten Berührungen zwischen Römern und Germanen. Die Franken, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1970), pp. 166–7Google Scholar; Müller, G. and Frings, T., Germania Romana II. Dreissig Jahre Forschung Romanischer Wörter, Mitteldeutsche Studien 19.2 (Halle, 1968), 167–8.Google Scholar

71 Jackson, , LHEB, pp. 616–17.Google Scholar

72 Ibid. pp. 560–1.

73 For a discussion of OE cæfester, see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 613–24.Google Scholar

74 Wyld, , The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue, p. 244.Google Scholar

75 Pogatscher, , Lautlehre, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar For L /a:/ > Proto-W /O:/, see Jackson, , LHEB, pp. 287–92Google Scholar; e.g. the river-name Don which can be derived from Romano-British Dānum > Proto—W. *Dōn> OE *Dōn. There is no convincing explanation of OE ag in popœg.

76 Jackson, , LHEB, p. 290Google Scholar, suggests that in some cases (e.g. L Iānŭārĭus > W Ionor; L nātālĩcĭa > Middle W Nodolye beside W Nădolig) a Latin pretonic /a:/ was not shortened by the conservative upper-class speakers of British Latin. Lower-class speakers of British Vulgar Latin would have pronounced a shortened /a/. Without having recourse to the concept of a conservative British Latin, this case is, however, easily explainable by assuming a variation of L /a:/~/a/ at the time of borrowing.

77 See the doubts expressed by Gratwick, discussed by MacManus, , ‘Latin and the Vernaculars’, pp. 163–5Google Scholar, and the utter rejection of the usefulness of dating the loan-words by Vennemann, T., ‘Betrachtung zum Alter der hochgermanischen Lautverschiebung’, Atthochdeutsch. I: Grammatik, Glossen und Texte, ed. Bergmann, R., Tiefenbach, H. and Voeth, L. (Heidelberg, 1987), pp. 29–53, at 33.Google Scholar Cf. also Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 125–7.Google Scholar

78 Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, p. 548.Google Scholar

79 Ibid. p. 549.

80 See Wollmann, ‘Die Chronologie des altenglischen i-Umlauts’ (cited above, n. 69).

81 Pogatscher, , Lautlebre, §§ 366–7.Google Scholar

82 See above, p. 4.

83 Rotsaert, , ‘Vieux-haut-allem. biscof’, p. 214.Google Scholar

84 Ibid. pp. 189–90, citing Pope, M. K., From Latin to Modern French (Manchester, 1934), §§ 164, 180 and 336.Google Scholar Straka, however, proposes an earlier date for /ß/>/b/ which he believes to be current already in the course of the fifth century; this early date is dependent on Straka's dating of the voicing of /p/ > /b/ which should have taken place at the end of the fourth century. See de la, Chaussée, Initiation à la phonétique historique de l'ancien français, p. 51Google Scholar and Straka, , Les sons et les mots, pp. 260 and 273.Google Scholar

85 For a survey of the datings, see Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, pp. 437–49Google Scholar; Löfstedt, B., Studienäge zur frühmittelalterlichen Latinität, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Latina Upsaliensia 1 (Stockholm and Uppsala, 1961), 138–49.Google Scholar

86 Wollmann, , Untersuchungen, p. 438.Google Scholar

87 See Cravens, T. D., ‘Phonology, Phonetics and Orthography in Late Latin and Romance: the Evidence for early Intervocalic Sonorization’, Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Wright, R. (London, 1991), pp. 52–68.Google Scholar

88 Latin loan-words in Old English are frequently cited in the literature on Romance historical phonology. Meyer-Lübke, W., Historische Grammatik der französischen Sprache, 5th ed., 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1934) 1, § 157Google Scholar, cites OE læden and Sīgen as proving Romance voicing to have taken place at the beginning of the fifth century; see also idem, ‘Die lateinische Sprache in den romanischen Ländern’, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, ed. Gröber, G., 2nd ed., 4 vols. (Strassburg, 1904–1906) 1, 474.Google Scholar However Meyer-Lübke, W., Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1890–1902) 1, § 647Google Scholar, places Romance voicing in the sixth century because OE laden seems to have been borrowed only at that time. Battisti, C., Avviamento allo studio del latino volgare (Bari, 1949), pp. 158–9Google Scholar, also adduces the evidence of Latin loan-words in Old English for his dating of the generalization of voicing into the fifth century.

89 Cf. e.g. Frings's, succinct statement in his Grundlegung einer Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, 3rd ed. (Halle, 1957), p. 26Google Scholar: ‘Wir beobachten ein Einheitsgebiet Gallien, Britannien, Niederlande-Niederrhein mit einer südlichen Grenzsetzung in der Augusta Treverorum oder Colonia Agrippina, Trier oder Köln.’

90 Research on the Latin loan-words specifically in the Northwest-Germanic languages is scant or outdated. For Dutch, see Weijnen, A., ‘Leenworden uit de Latinitas, stratigrafisch beschouwd’, Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Tall- en Letterkunde (1967), pp. 365–480Google Scholar; for Old Frisian, see Wollmann, A., ‘Zu den lateinischen Lehnwörten im Altfriesischen’, Aspects of Old Frisian Philology, ed. Bremmer, R. H., van der Meer, G. and Vries, O. (Amsterdam, 1990), pp. 506–36.Google Scholar