h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am hopeful that this discussion will move across to H2G2 - I know that BBC Devon are hoping to achieve this.

However - just in case this discussion 'freezes' I thought I would inform all that there is a Devon Celtic Language website about to be launched.

It will have a url of http://members.fortunecity.com/gerdewnansek

It is still 'in production' but it will provide a brief introduction to:

1 Old Devonian - the Celtic language of Devon and surrounding counties as it was spoken around the seventh century. This may have been the language of the legendary King Arthur. It was certainly the 'common ancestor' of modern day Breton and Cornish languages.
The language has been recreated via a handbook by linguist Joseph Biddulph and this website will provide a very very brief taste of it, and a chance to learn more.
It would be great to see this ancient language resurrected.

2 Cornish for Devonians. We know the Celtic language survived in Devon for some time after the period above. As far as I can tell the Cornish language (itself a resurrection via a handbook published by Jenner a century ago) is the closest we can get to what Devon's language was.
The site will provide a link to (some less political) Cornish language resources as well as a chance to join a forum where you don't have to pretend you are Cornish!

3 Devon Celtic placenames

4 Devons Celtic Saints.

All this will be complementary to the discussions that (hopeully) will continue here on the 'Celtic Devon' site (wherever that ends up being). In fact - if this surives it will be a great forum to discuss these issues!!

Test - I note that BBC Devon have taken down the Sense of Place link (on their front page), but the SoP wite still seems to be running.

It has let me log-on so this is to test it is still allowing postings.

Whether this is a temporary measure (and we are still awaiting the transition to h2g2) or whether this is IT, I don't know

I have seen some books recently with photos of England around 1900. In the countryside, many of the women were wearing costumes looking very much like those that the Ancient British are thought to have worn. Could this be a cultural survival (even in supposedly Saxon areas like Sussex) of almost two thousand years, or are the similarities merely coincidental? Has anyone else noticed these similarities?

Hello everyone, hope you remember me from the devon flag campaign!
glad to see the forum is alive and well.

looking at all the stuff you can now buy with the Devon flag on it, it seems it was all worth the hard work.

the discussion on language and celtic survival is great, i've really enjoyed reading it.

I was so angry at the guy from the celtic league demanding that Mr. Flag take the flag from the list of celtic nations/regions that i wanted him to know he was behaving like a nazi, one man deciding who was and who wasn't allowed in the 'club'.

Anyway often down in axemouth flying the flag on my dad's boat and getting lots of interest(even an old sea-dog type standing up and saluting it!)

all the best London Devonish

London Devonish - the return of the prodigal son!

Good to hear that the Devon Flag is still flying in Axemouth!

You refer to a member of the Celtic League asking to take down the Devon Flag from the list of Celtic nations/regions.

Where or when was this?

Have I missed something or am I going senile (quite possible).
The only thing I can recall is some Cornish dude (or three) getting angry about the mention - and Mr Flag did change the words - slightly.

Certainly Mr Flag's website still has the Devon Flag under the 'Celtic' nations section.

Ozzie Exile,

I believe that it was the irate Cornish Nationalist who London Devonish was referring to, as he said that he would be raising the matter with the Celtic League at the time. As we have received no stern warnings (joke) from the Celtic League about our flag, I can only assume that the Celtic League treated his plea with the contempt it deserved. I have found in my dealings with people from the other Celtic regions that they think the Cornish Nationalist extremists are total cranks, just as much as we do.

Incidentally, talking of cranks, a certain Nick person has turned up at the Gesithas site and has started to have a go at us again. I am concocting one of my put-downs for him currently.

London Devonish,

Good to hear from you again. Have you visited Ozzie Exile's "Devon's Celtic language" site yet, which is just getting started. We could do with some fresh input.

Plymouth Exile

I would be interested in knowing the opinion of people writing on this message board as to why the town names west of the Tamar become much more obviously Celtic. I do have an idea of some possible reasons (and I certainly don't think it's because the population of Devon is less Celtic), and I also know that large numbers of place names are disguised or Anglicised, but still the transition is quite distinctive when looking at a map. Anyway I was wondering why this would be.

Einion,

“Place Names of Devon” states that less than 1% of Devon place names are Celtic in origin. There are two main reasons for this statement. Firstly, PN Devon only lists major place names, and most of the Celtic names in Devon are minor names of small hamlets and farmsteads. It is mostly the names of towns and larger villages that one sees on most maps that show both Devon and Cornwall, so the difference between the two counties is much more apparent at this scale (PN Devon lists only three ‘tre’ names at this scale, whereas there are at least thirty). Secondly, PN Devon assumes that almost all names containing roots such as ‘combe’, ‘dun’, ‘tor’, ‘pol’, ‘cors’, etc. are English names as they assume that these Celtic words were borrowed into English. As Devon is full of places with names containing these roots (especially ‘combe’), this assumption reduces the supposed number of Celtic (or partly Celtic) names drastically.

The histories of the Devon towns differ from those in Cornwall. In Devon, a number of towns grew up during the boom in woollen manufacture in the 14th and 15th centuries, at a time when the Brythonic language was either dead, or in decline. Therefore, these woollen industry towns acquired English names. There was no such woollen boom in Cornwall. Here, the smaller towns and the villages were settlements, which grew from small farmsteads or hamlets and these retained their original Cornish names. This is why a number of Cornish towns and villages have names beginning with ‘Tre’ (meaning ‘farmstead’), because that is what they originally were.

Returning to the names in Devon containing the ‘combe’, ‘tor’, ‘dun’ etc. elements, I feel that the ‘borrowed’ explanation is no longer tenable. This theory was introduced in Victorian times when it was fashionable to believe that the Britons did not survive the Anglo-Saxon invasion/settlement outside of Wales and Cornwall, so some explanation had to be given for the apparently large number of Celtic place names in counties such as Devon. Now that we know for certain (from DNA surveys) that the descendents of the Britons (Celts) considerably outnumber the descendents of the Saxons in the whole of the South West (not just Cornwall), the ‘borrowed’ explanation loses it credibility. Are we expected to believe that a relatively small number of Saxons settled in Devon and renamed the homes of all the Britons, who were already living there, and named their own homes, using ‘borrowed’ Celtic names, and yet continued to speak their own language?

Add to this the observation that many names containing the element ‘pen’, which are clearly Celtic in origin, such as ‘Pennycombe’ (near Exeter) have been ascribed as having an English derivation (meaning ‘enclosure in the valley), rather than the much more obvious Celtic derivation (meaning ‘head of the valley’), which precisely describes its location. Again we see the assumption that ‘pen’ is the English word for enclosure and ‘combe’ is a ‘borrowed’ word and therefore also English. How do they explain the equivalent Welsh name ‘Penycwm’ near St. Davids in Wales? I bet they wouldn’t claim it to be English.

Plymouth Exile,
It makes sense that the boom in the woollen industry is a large factor in the difference of place names between Devon and Cornwall, that's something I had'nt really thought of. Would it be the comparative hilliness of Devon which caused such a boom in wool? I have noticed that north-west Cornwall has more Devon-style names, which, going by the system of roads etc., is more hilly than the rest of Cornwall (I am from Australia by the way, so I mainly know Devon and Cornwall by maps and pictures).
Do you know of anywhere on the internet I could view a smaller scale map of Devon which includes farmsteads and hamlets?

The idea that the Saxons decided to borrow many more Celtic names in Devon and the west than elsewhere in England is indicative of the great lengths some people are prepared to go to in support of their pet ideas; it is almost laughable to think (and realise!) that some historians take the idea seriously.
Speaking of such ideas, I think I have heard it said that the prefix 'beer' (as in Beercrocombe) is of Saxon origin. It seems to be almost exclusively confined to the south-western peninsula of Britain, so I have wondered whether it is actually of Celtic origin. Would that be a correct assumption?

Einion,

I had a quick search on-line, but I couldn’t find any maps of Devon, which show detail down to individual farms. To get an accurate impression of the place-name elements used for farms and hamlets, there is no substitute for the GB Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 series maps.

However in her book “The Landscape of Place-Names”, Margaret Gelling states:

“Combe is much more common in South West England than in any other region. Ekwall (1960) includes 42 settlement-names containing ‘combe’ in Somerset, 36 in Devon and 26 in Dorset. The statistic of 36 major names does not give an adequate impression of the use of ‘combe’ in Devon. If minor names are taken into account, it is the commonest place-name element in the county apart from ‘ton’.”

Unfortunately Gelling, unlike most other writers, doesn’t even accept that ‘combe’ is a word borrowed from Celtic. She has found an Old English word ’cumb’, meaning ‘cup’ or ‘bowl’, which she thinks may be the origin of the place-name element ‘combe’, as many of the instances of ‘combe’ are bowl shaped valleys. However, she then admits:

“A great many of the ‘combe’ names in Devon do not refer to ‘cumb’ shaped valleys.”

She attempts to explain this observation by postulating that by the time that the Saxons migrated from Somerset and Dorset into Devon, they had probably forgotten that ‘combe’ referred to bowl shaped valleys only, so started to apply the name to all valleys. I will leave it to your common sense to decide whether such a tortuous explanation has any merit, but as the Celtic word ‘combe’ (Welsh, ‘cwm’) refers to most types of valley (apart from steep sided gorges), this would seem to me to be by far the most likely explanation for ‘combe’ names throughout the South West.

The place-name element ‘beer’ or ‘bere’ is a more difficult one to pin down. There is certainly an Old English word ‘bearu’, meaning ‘small wood’, and this is the derivation usually given by the so-called place-name specialists. However, there is a Celtic word ‘ber’ meaning a promontory, which they only assign ‘bere’ names to if there is a very clear existence of a promontory and there is no indication of there ever having been a small wood in the area (such as Bere Alston and Bere Ferrers, which both lie on the promontory of land between the Tamar and the Tavy rivers). Because of their reluctance to use the Celtic ‘ber’ derivation, unless forced to do so, it is possible (if not probable) that there are many more instances of ‘beer’ or ‘bere’ names in the South West, which are really Celtic in origin.

Plymouth Exile,

Looking again at the Road Atlas of Britain, 'combe' certainly does stand out as a common place name element in Devon. Anyway, I think I have a bit of common sense but it appears that Margaret Gelling is prepared to forfeit some when analysing elements of place names in the West Country.
As you mentioned DNA tests in your previous message, I was wondering if they took into account pre-saxon invasions, such as Beaker Folk or even earlier, which would possibly cause the Saxon element in the population to seem greater than it really is. I understand the survey of the Midlands led by Mark Thomas did take this into account as much as possible. They could virtually confirm that some invasion or large movement of people took place between Denmark/northern Germany and Britain after 500 b.c. But do you know if this was the case with the West Country surveys and Blood of the Vikings? If 20 to 25 percent of Devon's population were Saxon, I would have thought that the Celtic language may not have survived as long as it did.

Einion,

I have picked up a 1:50,000 scale OS map at random and opened it up at the first fold. It shows the 65 square mile area bounded by Exeter in the North, Newton Abbot in the South West and the River Exe in the East. I have counted all the place names which are either completely Celtic (such as Dunchideock or Pennycombe) or which contain a Celtic root (such as Smallicombe). The total of such Celtic names is 47, of which 19 contain the root ‘combe’ and one contains the root ‘tre’. This gives a rough idea of the density of such names in Devon (total area 2,591 square miles).

The Blood of the Vikings survey is reported in “A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles”, which is available to view online. It looks at the Y-Chromosome differences, which exist today, with no speculation being made about the genetic composition of pre-Iron Age settlers, such as the Beaker Folk. However, it is unlikely that any earlier migrants had the same genetic signature as the Saxons; otherwise this would have shown up in the present day Welsh population. I do not have much information concerning the West Country surveys, apart from the fact that the general conclusion was drawn that there were no significant differences between the Cornish and the Devonians.

I don’t see any problem with the survival of the Brythonic Language due to the presence of a 25% Saxon element in the population, as we know that this was definitely the case in Cornwall. In fact in Cumbria, the Brythonic Language survived until well after the Norman Conquest, despite the fact that the Y Chromosome census reveals a 40% Germanic element in the population in that region.

Hi, everyone,

I have been interested in Devon’s Celtic past for many years now, and recently posted a couple of contributions on the Celtic Devon thread.

A very good resource for placename research and well as just finding your way about the UK, is the multimap resource at multimap-dot-com. It is free to use and displays maps down to hamlet and farm level. I recently did a random scan of Devon and found examples of the surviving Celtic names that have been discussed on this thread, plus two incidences of a hamlet name ‘Lana’ which may derive from the old word for church or enclosed land, as in Welsh ‘Llan’ or the anglicised Devon names Landkey (Church of St Kea), Landcross and Landcove. The name Lana also exists in Cornwall.

Another point to add to the Celtic placenames debate is that the pre-Saxon Celts of Dumnonia had few known large centres of population. The only big place, Exeter (Isca or Keresk), being of course in Devon. Outside of Exeter they appear to have been a mainly agrarian people living widely scattered in very small groups. This reality is represented in the Celtic placenames that survive in Devon today. The good farmland in Devon and lack of natural barriers made Devon far more susceptible to Saxon settlement than Cornwall. With Cornwall, the Tamar and the rugged interior acted as a natural brake to further settlement by the English, as did of course, Norman the Conqueror’s invasion! By that point the capital of Cornwall was at the Saxon town of Launceston, in the east of the county, where it remained for centuries afterwards.

Devon, in contrast, has a much greater number of Saxon-era and early medieval settlements, which like their contemporaries in Cornwall—Helston and Launceston—bear either English or anglicised names. Also settlements in Devon often bear hybrid names, made up of both British and English words, but the bias of placename research always gives the English component predominance. Even clearly anglicised Celtic names are attributed solely to English when, as in the Pennycombe-Penycwm example cited by Plymouth Exile, or in Cwmbran-Branscombe, the former being a Welsh town, the latter a village in east Devon, the original root is far more likely to have been the British language. Some say cwm-combe is an English word, later borrowed into Welsh and other Brythonic languages, but the other components of both of these names are the same in Devon as they are in Wales.

As an afterthought I find one of the most intriguing Anglo-Saxon placenames of Devon is Stockleigh English, in mid-Devon. Stockleigh English lies near the area I was brought up in, and I always wondered why, as we are in England, the village’s name should need to so boldly assert the fact! I recently found, just inside the English border with Wales, near Monmouth, there are two villages called English Bicknor and Welsh Bicknor. Given that there is probably a completely rational conventional placename explanation for Stockleigh to declare its Englishness in mid-Devon, without bringing in ‘Wealcyn’ or other such mysterious people who should have been in Cornwall, I am not going to suggest anything more!

ExeValleyBoy,

You raise an interesting point concerning the presence of English Bicknor and Welsh Bicknor in the Wye Valley area. There is also the pair of villages in Shropshire called English Frankton and Welsh Frankton, which are also close to the Welsh border. According to “Celtic Voices English Places” by Richard Coates and Andrew Breeze, much of the area close to the Welsh border was Welsh speaking territory up until comparatively modern times, this being reflected in the significant number of Welsh place-names thereabouts. It is therefore almost certain that these names arose in order to distinguish between English and Welsh speaking settlements of the same name.

Concerning the name Stockleigh English in Devon, there is no balancing ‘Stockleigh Welsh’ or ‘Stockleigh Cornish’ name. One could therefore conjecture that it acquired the ‘English’ element to identify an area where a group of English (Saxon) settlers lived among a predominantly indigenous British population. I can think of no other reason why the appellation ‘English’ would have been added, and this explanation would tie in with the Welsh border instances.

I have seen the contention that the Welsh word ‘cwm’ was a borrowed English word, on a previous occasion, but not in any serious place-name study, where it is always stated that the borrowing is in the other direction. Even Margaret Gelling, who has postulated that most of the English ‘combe’ names are derived from an old English word for bowl or cup, admits that there is a genuine Brythonic word ‘cumm’ or ‘cumb’ (valley), which is seen in the Welsh ‘cwm’. I think that if ‘cwm’ had been a word borrowed from English, one would expect to see many more instances of its usage in Welsh areas close to the border with England, but this is not the case, as it seen frequently all over Wales.

There is another possible derivation of the name ‘Branscombe’, apart from it being the equivalent of the Welsh ‘Cwmbran’ (Valley of crows). It could be St. Brannock’s Valley, but this is probably less likely as the influence of St. Brannock was more apparent in North Devon around Braunton, than in South East Devon.

ExeValleyBoy,

Whilst Exeter/Keresk may have been the only town or city in Devon in pre-Saxon times, it was not the only settlement.

I can think of two with Celtic links with respect to name.

Newton Abbot seems quintessentially English in nomenclature, but the area was also known as 'Penn'. A road junction to the west of Newton Abbot still bears this name. Possibly this represents two settlements - one Saxon one Celtic - that ultimately merged, or perhaps two different names existed for the same town - again suggesting some survival of Briton speakers in the area.

The other one that springs to mind is Barnstaple, which is recorded as being founded by the Saxons, and yet is also known by the Celto-Roman name of Barum to locals. Perhaps this was the name of a native settlement that became enveloped in the growing town, or perhaps it was the name of the area (rather than the town).

The fact that in all three cases (Exeter/Newton Abbott/Barnstaple)it was the English name which came to be accepted probably reflects the social dominance of the English language.

[By this I refer to the theory as to why the Britons appear to have adopted the English language whilst DNA evidence suggests they remain the largest percentage of the population. Essentially this states that the English language gradually became seen to be seen of superior status. Whilst many Britons would have continued to speak Celtic amongst themselves over time (and in Devon's case this was centuries) the Celtic usage dwindled into disuse].

To correct myself.

Penn is to the EAST of newton ABBOT

here is a webcam of the junction.

http://www.devon.gov.uk/text/index/transport/traffic/cctv/webcam_penn_inn_newton_abbot.htm

Although many Anglo-Saxonists seem keen to deny it, the fact remains that a conquered population imposing their language on conquerors is the exception rather than the rule, even when the conquerors are a minority. I think Britain is often compared with the continent in this respect, where virtually all the conquered nations eventually imposed their language on the barbarians. It seems fairly obvious that the reason for this is that the dominant tongue in Italy, Gaul and Spain at the time of the invasions was Latin, a very prestigious language and one which many of the barbarians were already familiar with. Many of the Saxons would also have been familiar with Latin (having been in contact with the Roman world as early as the mid-200s A.D. and served in its army), but it appears that in Britain not even the aristocracy spoke it as a native language (though it was certainly in widespread use), so there is nothing surprising in the fact that a barbarian tongue eventually became dominant, and it doesn't mean that the Saxons were more barbarous or tyrannical than the other conquerors of the Roman world, and neither does it mean that the British language falling into disuse was a result of 'cultural cringe'.

Einion,

The provenance of modern English from Old English or Anglo-Saxon is a commonly accepted fact, when there is little resemblance between Wessex ‘English’, the language of the dominant ruling group of Saxons, and modern English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is a language related to modern English, but it reads as a distinctly foreign language. Familiar words appear, but they are familiar only in the way you can recognise certain words in Danish, German or Dutch, but those languages are more like each other than they are like English. The grammar and vocabulary of Old English, in so many ways, are completely different to modern English, which gives rise to the question was the language of Saxon Wessex the origin of what we know as English?

The change to ‘middle English’, the language of Chaucer we speak today and which although different in many ways to today’s English is much more familiar and comprehensible than ‘Old English’, is attributed to the Norman invasion and the introduction of French. But as with the replacement of Brythonic, we are again, after the Saxons with the Norman invasion, talking about the replacement of an entire nation’s speech. According to accepted theories of the development of the English language we are actually dealing with two ‘lost’ languages; Celtic Brythonic and Wessex Anglo-Saxon, both of which were replaced within an 800 year period. I know of no other country on earth where such abrupt lingual replacements have occurred.

‘England’ is bizarre in this respect, in that its native language appears to have been completely annihilated on two separate occasions, separated by less than a thousand years. As you pointed out regarding the language of Roman Britain, this was not the case in every single other former Roman province that was subsequently occupied by ‘barbarians’. Why was ‘England’ or Britain so different? Why did Britain-England lose its language on two occasions, after Rome, when the rest of the old Roman empire maintained related Latin languages? The traditional theory is that Romano-Celtic Britain was a peripheral area of the Roman empire, and more backward, when archaeological evidence points to the conclusion that southern ‘Britannia’ was as sophisticated and developed as any other part of the Roman empire was at the time. Some of the finest housing and gardens of the Roman empire were unearthed at Fishbourne in West Sussex.

From http://www.aboutbritain.com/FishbourneRomanPalace.htm

‘The sumptuous palace itself was constructed AD 75, possibly for a Celtic king, Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus, and rivalled in size the imperial palaces in Rome.’

The Anglo-Saxon mythology on which the English nation is based says that there was nothing left of consequence when the Saxons arrived, and that our entire history starts with Wessex and King Alfred. I suspect that, as in other parts of the Roman Empire, the invading barbarians encountered a sophisticated but degraded native culture—owing to the cultural and economic decline of Rome—and that in ‘England’ a lot more was adopted from the native inhabitants by the Anglo-Saxons than we are led to believe. This may include the ‘English’ language, which may be a lot older in its ‘modern’ form than we have been led to believe.

ExeValleyBoy,

Certainly modern English is only an indirect descendent of the old Wessex tongue. I have read that between the Norman Invasion (when Norman French supplanted the 'English' of the day for the nobility and almost all written records) and when English 'resurfaced' some three centuries later a staggering 85% of words had been lost (source: Bill Bryson - Our Native Tongue).

The language changed in other ways as well - such as in grammar and sentence construction - (eg germanic languages generally having three genders whilst English hardly uses them at all)

I also think that many words given an 'Anglo-Saxon' heritage often have original roots in other languages - such as Latin, or Celtic!
The Anglo-Saxon is chosen because..well..because if they can they will.

I have always considered it stange that English is considered Germanic. In many ways French seems to have greater similarity than (say) German.

However I am not sure a would draw the bow back as far as to say that the English language was inherited from the Celts. Perhaps it has had more impact than most believe, but I think I would draw the line there.

Of course when when looks at local devon dialect words I think there are far more Celtic linkages.

Haven't been here for a while, so I'm sorry if I'm coming to this discussion a little late, but with regard to the Wessex dialect of Old English, a Wessex Society member named Robert Craig, whose main interest is linguistics, has reconstructed how he thinks Wessex English might have evolved without Norman influence (he is also interested in West Country Brythonic/Old Devonian and has reviewed Joseph Biddulph's book on the subject for the WS newsletter - in his review, he calls Cornish "a dialect of Devonian", which I don't think will go down too well west of the Tamar!).

This reconstructed language, which he calls "Zexysch" is hard going at times, but with a bit of work, it is intelligible to English speakers, though it sometimes sounds closer to German than modern English.

As an example, I reproduce below (again from the WS newsletter) a piece of his entitled "O Zghort Hystory Of Zexysch". His historical analysis can be questionable at times, but I thought people here might be interested from a linguistic point of view.

"Won þe Roman admynystration wyþdrew vrom þe Brytayns back yn þe vyft century A.D., þei left behynd am on assortment of Germanyk soldiers, most of wutch wur Zaxons.

Þe Zaxons (Zeaxes) quyklych toke over þe provynce of Upper Brytayn wyþ hys ancient capytal at Cyrencester. At þe zame tyme, þe Engle (Angles), wo wur o volk vrom þe Zouth of Jutland, wur zettlyng an Lower Brytayn (þe Norþern provynce, wyþ hys capytal at Iork).

Yn þe urlyest dais, þare wur zum zufven cunedoms, zuch as Kent and Deyra. Over tyme, þese zufven wur reduced to dree - Northumbrya, Mercya and Wesseax. Northumbrya and Mercya wur vounded by Engles, wyle Wesseax had as hys vurst cunyng, þe Bryton, Cerdic, i.e., Caradoc, probably þe natyve commander of Zaxon soldiers stationed at Cyrencester, or Carleon.

Northumbrya was þe most ymportant of þe dree. Ac, yn þe menetyme, Wesseax contynued to grow at þe expense of þe Mercyans and þe Brytons of Zomerset, Devon and Dorset. Kent came under hys zwai. Mercya vound ytzulve squeezed by hys powervol neyibours.

Northumbryan supremacy dyd noit last, as Vykyng armyes zwept across þe land, and Northumbrya and Mercya vel to am. Onlych Wesseax zdood aienst am. Cunyng Alvred reeched on agreement wutch partytioned Mercya and created Greeter Wesseax and þe Dane-law.

Vrom þan up to þe Norman Conquest West Zaxon was offyciallych þe Englysch language. Vollowyng þe unyfycation of England, þe Anglyan dyalects came under þe ynfluence of þe West Zaxon language. However, wyþ þe deth of Cunyng Harold at Hastyngs, and þe passyng of þe crown to Wyllyam, eal þe dyalects wur put an on equal votyng aien.

West Zaxon (also known as Old English [O.E.]) was now eclypsed by Chancery Englysch, developed vrom þe East Mydland dyalect zboken yn London. Zeth þun, Zexysch hath been yn retreat, wyþ dyalect myxyng contynuyng apace.

Noit onlych hath Chancery Englysch iufven us dyalect myxyng, but also language myxyng, zdartyng wyþ Norman Vrench, goyng an to Latyn and Greek, and now ever each language under þe zunne hath been brouit yn to make Englysch as we know yt.

Under Norþern ynfluence, hath hath becum has, chycken hath been replaced by chicks, chyldren is beyng replaced by kids, father hath replaced vader, eggs hath replaced eyeren, shoes hath replaced zghoen, cows hath replaced cuen/kyen/ kine. Even þe eald words vor she, they, them, their have been lost. Wel, we can do zumþyng about bryngyng zum back."