This book is planned for an introductory course in Anglo-Saxon. The glossary has been constructed so as both to facilitate the use of a grammar and to reduce the necessity of grammatical notes. Cook's excellent translation of Siever's Grammar has made available for reference the best exposition of Ango-Saxon phonology and inflection. March's Grammar will assist the teacher in matters relating to syntax.

In the choice of texts by which the student is to be introduced to the language and the literature of Anglo-Saxon times, an editor is compelled, in view of the practical end, to suppress many considerations: there must be gradation that may contradict chronology, or dialectal relationship; there must be a degree of variety that may do violance to completeness. An adjustment in partial harmony with all reasonable requirements is as much as can be hoped for.

The West-Saxon dialect, though not exactly in the line of the subsequent developement of the language, is best yet adapted to the conditions of the beginner, for it possesses sufficient uniformity in the phonology and inflection, the grammars are based on it, and it embraces most of the literature. The style and the character of the literature also determine the easiest introduction to be through the later form of this dialect. The following texts have been selected and arranged in accordance with these views. The first

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Most of the selected texts, it will be observed, are such as have been employed, either wholly or in part, in other Anglo-Saxon readers. In the case of some of them, exclusion from an introductory course would be welcome to few teachers; in the case of others, the choice cannot be expected to please all. The selections which are now admitted for the first time will, it is hoped, serve an obvious purpose.

The text are given according to the best manuscript sources, sithout normalization, withot silent changes, and, for the most part, with but slight emmendations. the variant readings, in some case complete even for unessential details, are to give a wider view of the condition of the language and of the orthographic fashion of the scribes. the first, second, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and eighteenth selections are based on my own copies and collations of the manuscripts. For the Homily on St. Gregory Professor W.W.Skeat, of Cambridge, has collated the Cambridge MS. and Professor Arther Napier, of Oxford, has supplied the readings (given in full) of the next best MS., that of the Bodlein Library. The seventeenth and Nineteenth selections are according to the collations of Dr. Frank G. Hubbard, of the University of California. For the extracts from the Bede the recent edition by Miller has been used, and for the 'Wars of Alfred,' Plummer's edition of the Chronicles. The remaining texts have been taken from the publications of Thorpe, Sweet, Earle, and Morris.

Othographic variation (chiefly due to chronological differences in the texts) has made difficult a compact yet clear arrangement of the glossary; however, the varient forms in parentheses, the principle parts of the verbs, and the citations will be found, it is beleived, to mitigate the somewhat sparing use of cross-references. The etymmological hints conveyed either in the definitions or by the bracketed forms will suggest some of the fundamental principles of derivation, but they are especially meant to lead the student to consult the Etymological Dictionaries of Skeat and Kludge.

It is pleasant to aknowledge the special obligations incurred in the preparation of this book. The kind assistance, already mentioned, given by professor Skeat and Professor Napier is to be added to many personal kindnesses in the past; I also reguard it as a further pledge of their hearty interest in the cause of english studies in America. My thanks are due to Dr Frank G. Hubbard for the use of a sheaf of his first gleanings in the libraries of england, and to Professor James Morgan Hart, of Cornell University, for valuable suggestions always freely given. More than can be expressed in a brief aknowledgement is due to Professor George Lyman Kittredge, of Harvard University; He has read the entire work in proof, with the discrimination of a scholar, and with the helpfulness of a friend.

JAMES W. BRIGHT

Johns Hopkins University
December 1, 1891

in compliance with a persistant request made by teachers, this edition has been augmented by An Outline of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. This Outline is to be sufficient for a thorough elementary course. Moreover, it has been planned so as to direct the teacher to the more complete work of Sieveres, and it may serve perchance to give to the student an impulse toward subsequent study of the more technical aspects of the subject.

The favorable reception of this Reader has created welcome opportunities for the correction of misprints and for supplying omissions in the Glossary. I owe much to the exact observation of those teachers who have discovered and kindly reported many of these error and ommisions.

J.W.B.

May 1, 1894

AN OUTLINE OF ANGLO-SAXON
GRAMMAR.



INTRODUCTORY REMARK

1. The following outline of Angloe-Saxon Grammar is restricted to the West-Saxon Dialect, that form of the language which in the rein of Alfred the Great (871-901) became dominant for literary purposes and maintained that supremacy to the close of the Anglo-Saxon period. The changes whch took palce within the West-Saxon Dialect, though slight in respect of phonology and inflection, make it necessary to distinguish Early West-Saxon (EWS), the language of Alfred's time, from Late West-Saxon (LWS), the language of the following two and a half centuries, with &Aelig;lfric (died between 1020 and 1025) as the central literary figure. In this outline EWS is reguarded as the norm to which LWS is subordinated.

2. The Anglo-Saxon alphabet, as here employed, has two characters (þ , ð) that are not emplyed in Modern English.

Note. &emdash; The MSS. Use a special character for w; for g; & (=and) and (= þat) are usual.

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a		as in German Mann.
		the preceding sound lengthened.
æ		like a in at, man.
		the precedng sound lengthened.
e		as in let, men.
		the preceding sound lengthened, as in they.
i		as in hit, sit, in.
		the preceding sound lengthened, as in machine.
o		as in German Gott.
		the preceding sound lengthened, as in German so.
		as in "not.
u		as in full, put.
		the preceding sound lengthened, as in rule.
y		like the ü in German, hübsch, Brücke.
		the preceding sound lengthened, as in german grün.
		like ö in German schön.
		These dipthongs (long and short) receive the stress upon the first element; the second element, being unaccented, is very much obscured in pronunciation. the sound of ea, a is approximately that of æ + a, + a (perhaps more æ + uh); otherwise the component parts of the dipthongs are to be pronounced as indicated above.

Note. - the dipthongs ie, e are peculiar to EWS, where they, however, begin to change into i, ; in LWS, the most usual representation is y, . (S. §§ 22, 31, 41, 97.)

(b) c has always the sound of k (the use of the symbol k is exceptional). The sound of kw or qu is,
accordingly, represented by cw (or cu), as in cwn, cweþan, etc. and cs has the value of x.

Note. - this k-sound has a gutteral or a palatal quality (somewhat as in English cold and kin), according to it's pronunciation with gutteral or with palatal vowels.

(c) f has two values. (1) In the initial and final positions, in the combinations ff, fs, ft, and in the medial position (cf. the note below), it has the usual (voiceless) sound. (2) In the medial position between vowels and voiced consonants it has the sound of v; e.g., hlford, oferm sealfian, fre.

Note. - In compounds like -fyrhtan, of-lystan, etc. f is strictly not in the medial position, and has therefore it's usual sound.

(d) g has two values, (1) It almost always represents a voiced spirant, which is either gutteral, or palatal, (like the g in German sagen, or like y in English you), according to it's pronunciation with gutteral or with palatal vowels. (2) It is pronounced like g in english go only when doubled, as in frogga, frog; and in the combination ng, as in the English longer.

The combination cg (by origin a geminated g) may be pronounced as dg in English ridge.

(e) h is never silent; it is always to be pronounced as a voiceless spirant either gutteral (as in German ach), or palatal ( as in German ich) in quality, according to the sounds with which it is combined.

wesan, rsan,

(g) ð and þ are used without distinction to denote the dental spirant, th in all positions, presumably, the voiceless spirant (as in English thin), except, (as in the case of f between vowels and voiced consonants, where the voiced spirant (as in English thine) is employed; e.g. ðor, cweðan, siððan, weorðan, etc. The voiced spirant may also be employed in the pronomial forms ð, ðæt, ðs, etc.

5. In Anglo-Saxon words are accented according to the following rules:
 Rule 1. - Simple (uncompounded) words are accented on the first syllable, (the radical syllable); derivative and inflectional syllables are unaccented.
Thus, fder, dágas, léornunga, túnge, túngan, túngena,
swéotole, bérende, frmede, wúnode, séalfode.

Note. - there are no tests by which to determine the limits in prose of a secondary stress on derivative and inflectional syllables. In metrical usage a secondary stress may fall on the ptc. ending -ende; on the adj. and pron. endings -en, -er, -ig; on the patrynomic ending -ing; on the subst. endings -ung, -ing, -er; on the inflectional ending (gen.pl.) -ena; on the class-vowel in verbs of the second weak conjugation, etc. See the chapter on VERSIFICATION.

 Rule II  - Compound words constitute two classes, (1) substantive compounds, and (2) verbal compounds.

A substantive compound receives the chief stress upon the first syllable of it's first component. (cf. Rule 1); the accent of the second component is usually retained as a secondary stress.

A verbal compound is accented on the radical syllable of the verb; the prefix is therefore unaccented.

  Note. - It might be supposed that the i of endings in the second weak conjugation, and in the infinative ending ending -ian, would change a into æ in an open syllable; but this was originally , therefore words like laðian, manian, wanian, etc., constituted only an apparent exception to the rule.

THE CHANGE OF a INTO .

nd, and; hnd, hand; lnd,land; mnig, manig; gngan, gangan; gesmnian, gesamnian.

  Note. - When the preceding n (<an) occurs before a voiceless spirant, f, ð, s, the nasal disappears, and, in compensation, the vowel is lengthened to . Under the same conditions, in and un become i and . (S.§§ 66,185).
  Thus, sfte (<*snfte), softly; tð (<*tnð), tooth; ðor (<*nðor), other; gs (<*gns, goose; sð (Goth. sinþs), a going; swð (Goth. swinþs), strong; mþ (Goth. munþs), mouth.