early latin loan-words in old english

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Early Latin loanwords in Old English

Alfred Wollman

AngloSaxon England / Volume 22 / December 1993, pp 1 26DOI: 10.1017/S0263675100004282, Published online: 26 September 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0263675100004282

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Early Latin loan-words in Old EnglishALFRED WOLLMAN

It is a well-known fact that Old English is rich in Latin loan-words. Althoughthe precise number is not yet known, it is a fairly safe assumption that there areat least 600 to 700 loan-words in Old English.1 This compares with 800 Latinloan-words borrowed in different periods in the Brittonic languages (Welsh,Cornish, Breton),2 and at least 500 early Latin loan-words common to theWest Germanic languages.3 These rather vague overall numbers do not lend1 The following abbreviations are used: C1L = 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 withcompletion of the Toronto-based Dictionary of Old English [ = DOE] on the basis of AMicrofiche Concordance to Old English, compiled by A. di Paolo Healey and R. L. Venezky(Toronto, 1980) and of the Etymologisches Worterbuch des Altenglischen by Professor AlfredBammesberger at Eichstatt; see also H. Gneuss, 'Some Problems and Principles of theLexicography of Old English', Festschrift fiir Karl Schneider, ed. K. R. Jankowsky and E. S.Dick (Amsterdam, 1982), pp. 153-66, at 154. There are quite a few estimates of the quantityof Latin loans in Old English which are mainly based upon the substantial but far fromcomplete lists supplied by M. S. Serjeantson, A History of Foreign Words in English (London,1935). The list given there in Appendix A (pp. 271-88) comprises approximately 540 loan-words and is arranged by semantic fields assigned to three chronological strata (A, B and C,respectively). According to M. Scheler, Der englische Wortschat^, Grundlagen der Anglistikund Amerikanistik 9 (Berlin, 1977), 38, n. 23, there are some 600 Latin loans in Old English,including some 50 loans adopted during the late Old English period after the NormanConquest. With respect to the quantity of Latin loans in Old English, Barbara Strang, AHistory of English (London, 1970), depends heavily upon Serjeantson, although she gives nooverall 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 W. W. Skeat,Principles of English Etymology. First Series, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1892), §§ 398-9. For a preliminarylist of early loan-words borrowed before AD 600 arranged on the basis of the sound changesof Latin tonic vowels, see A. Wollmann, Untersuchungen %u den friihen Lehnwortern irnAltenglischen. Phonologic und Datierung, Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie15 (Munich, 1990), 152-80.

2 K. H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain. A Chronological Survey of the Brittoniclanguages First to Twelfth Century A.D. (Edinburgh, 1953) [hereafter LHEB], p. 76 includingn. 3; H. Haarmann, Der lateinische Lehnivortschat^ im Kymrischen, Romanistische Versuche undVorarbeiten 36 (Bonn, 1970), 8-10, estimates the number of Latin loan-words in Welsh atsome 700. See also below, n. 31.

3 A comprehensive but far from inclusive list of Latin loan-words in the Germanic languageswas provided by F. Kluge, 'Vorgeschichte der altgermanischen Dialekte. Mit einemAnhang: Geschichte der gotischen Sprache', Grundrissdergermanischen Philologie, ed. H. Paul,2nd ed. (Strassburg, 1899) I, 333-54 ('Die lateinischen Lehnworte der altgermanischenSprachen').

1

Alfred Wollmann

themselves, however, to a serious analysis of Latin influence on the Germanicand Celtic languages, because they include different periods of borrowingwhich are not really comparable to each other. The basis of these estimates,moreover, is often not stated very clearly. Although the establishment of acomplete list of Latin loan-words in the various Germanic languages is adesideratum, it can only be achieved in a later stage of our studies.

Earlier introductory histories of the English language sometimes maintainthat the number of Latin loan-words in Old English is not very significant dueto the predominance of loan-formations.4 The low frequency of many loan-words in Old English texts does not, however, support the argument thatLatin influence on Old English generally was of minor importance. Manyloan-words which presumably had a high currency and acceptability in OldEnglish, for example, words belonging to the agricultural vocabulary, areoften attested only rarely in Old English texts. This can easily be explained bythe nature and vicissitudes of the tradition of literary texts which generally isnot dominated by matters of everyday life.

THE PERIODIZATION OF LATIN LOAN-WORDS IN OLD ENGLISH

Loan-vocabulary is often the result of linguistic interference extending over avery long time-span. Old English was subject to Latin influence throughoutthe Old English period. If we take into account the pre-Old English period, aswell, we can say that the study of Old English vocabulary means also the studyof nearly a millennium of language contact between Latin and Old English.Due to changing historical and cultural settings the intensity and range oflanguage contact varied. This leads us to the problem of the periodization ofthe Latin loan-vocabulary. The question appears to be a primarily chronologi-cal one, but it ultimately rests on the problem of whether we can set updistinctive groups of loan-words which differ in their linguistic appearance(phonology, morphology or semantics) and which can be tied to a specifichistorical situation or — in rare cases — to a geographical zone of origin.

"Early and later Latin loan-words

Alistair Campbell's treatment of Latin loan-words in his Old English Grammar'1'is one of the most comprehensive ones in recent times and presents a simple

4 Cf. e.g. G. P. Krapp, Modern English. Its Growth and Present Or* (New York, 1910), pp. 212and216; S. Robertson, The Development of Modern English (New York, 1934), pp. 44—5. Loan-formations have been dealt with in depth by H. Gneuss, Lehnbildungen and Lehnbedeutungen imAltenglischen (Berlin, 1955).

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

Early Latin loan-words in Old English

and useful model of the chronology of Latin loan-words in Old English whichseems fully adequate for the purposes of a handbook.

Campbell distinguishes 'early* and 'later' loan-words: 'The Latin loan-words found in Old English can be roughly classified into (1) those in whichthe sound-changes operate which would effect the same sound-successions innative words, and (2) those which were introduced into Old English byscholars without modification of their sounds, or at least without theindication of such modification in spelling.'6

The 'early' loan-words were borrowed in the Roman and sub-Romanperiod. They reflect the superiority of Roman civilization and mainly denoteconcrete things of everyday life adopted from the Romans. A frequentlypractised semantic classification of the early loan-words shows that they can beattributed mainly to the fields of agriculture, building, food, household andcommerce. Not surprisingly these loan-words linguistically, or more strictlyspeaking, phonologically, exhibit a high degree of integration into the nativelanguages. L caseus was adopted as VL /ka:sjo/. Old English and the otherGermanic languages preserve the C1L etymon while in Gallo-Romance theword was supplanted by VL forma (> OF'r formage). The Old English loan-word underwent a number of early sound changes like brightening /a:/ > /ae:/,palatal diphthongization of /ae:/> /e:a/ and subsequent i-mutation /e:a/ > /i:e/,to become OE ciese.

The 'later loan-words' are a quantitatively dominating sub-group of whatwe may call 'Christian loan-words' and were introduced during the laterperiods of Christian culture. In his account of the 'later loan-words' Campbellobviously did not include the early Christian loan-words borrowed in thecourse of Christianization since the end of the sixth century. This date is anextra-linguistic chronological criterion indicating a terminus post quern for mostof the Christian loan-words.7 However, there is a small number of Christianloan-words denoting basic terms of ecclesiastical life and -liturgy which musthave been very common from the beginnings of Christianization or in somecases perhaps even before in heathen times, for example, OE masse 'mass',

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 arrivalof Bishop Liudhard in the retinue of Queen Bertha of Kent in the 560's, reading and writingLatin became one of the skills offered by the young Church. How soon the use of the Latinalphabet was extended to the writing of Old English we can infer from the promulgation ofjEthelbert of Kent's written law code early in the seventh century' (R. Derolez, 'RunicLiteracy among the Anglo-Saxons', Britain 400—600: Language and History, ed. A. Bammes-berger and A. Wollmann, Anglistische Forschungen 205 (Heidelberg, 1990), 397-436, at399).

Alfred Wollmann

deofol 'devil', engel 'angel', biscop 'bishop', mlmesse 'alms'.8 Even a word likeantefn 'antiphon' shows that many early Christian loan-words are linguisticallycomparable to the early loan-words of Roman times because they reflect Latinand Old English sound-changes indicating a high degree of integration intothe native vocabulary. It must be assumed that what is often vaguely called'Church Latin' - at least the spoken form - was heavily influenced by, or evenessentially was, Romance in its early stage but gradually gave way to the co-existing 'book-Latin'. A convergence of ecclesiastical Latin with classicalLatin was only achieved more or less successfully by the Carolingian reforms.9

Phonologically and morphologically early Christian loan-words belongrather more to the preceding group of 'early' loan-words than to the 'later'loan-words. On semantic grounds, however, a dividing line around AD 600can be drawn. By a modification of Campbell's distinction and the adoption ofSkeat's model10 all Christian loan-words could be categorized as 'later'loan-words.

WHERE DID THE EARLY LOAN-WORDS COME FROM?

Alois Pogatscher, the founder of Latin loan-word studies in Old English,attempted to establish chronological and geographical criteria for the datingof such loan-words. His ground-breaking and often quoted study on thephonology and chronology of the Latin loan-words in Old English waspublished in 1888.n Pogatscher's Lautlehre centred on the question of whetherit would be possible to define further strata of loan-words within the greatgroup of early loan-words. Methodologically this attempt at a furtherdifferentiation in turn depends on the more or less precise dating of everysingle loan-word.

8 For OE antefn, see A. Wollmann, 'Zur Datierung christlicher Lehnworter im Altenglischen:ae. antefn', in Language and Civilisation. A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour ofOtto Hiet^sch, ed. C. Blank (Frankfurt and Bern, 1992), pp. 124-38; for OE almesse, see A.Pogatscher, 2.ur Lautlehre dergriechischen, lateiniscben undromanischen Lehnworte im Altenglischen,Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Culturgeschichte der germariischen Volker 64(Strassburg, 1888), § 38; for L episcopus ( > O E biscop), see M.-L. Rotsaert, 'Vieux-Haut-Allem. W-rco/yGallo-Roman *(e)bescobo,(e)bescob3/Lat. episcopus', Sprachvissenschaft 2 (1977),181-216; for OE masse, see A. Wollmann, 'Lateinisch-Altenglische Lehnbeziehungen im 5.und 6. Jahrhundert', Britain 400-600: Language and'History, ed. Bammesberger and Woll-mann, pp. 373-96, esp. 392—4.

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

10 \y 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).


Continental and Insular loan-words

Within the group of early loan-words Pogatscher made a geographically baseddistinction between 'continental' loan-words borrowed by the Anglo-Saxontribes during their different periods of settlement on the Continent and'Insular' loan-words borrowed in the course of the settlement period in Britainup to the beginnings of Christianization at the end of the sixth century.12 Thisview was later adopted in many introductory textbooks and languagehistories. According to Pogatscher, loan-words could be attributed to thecontinental group if the Latin etymon also exists in other West Germaniclanguages. However, even if there were no equivalent loan-words in othercontinental Germanic languages, there were phonological criteria sufficientfor attributing them to the continental group: 'Der friihen Entlehnungentsprechend miissen sie Zeichen hohen Alters im rom. oder germ. Laut-stande bieten. Als ein untriigliches Zeichen kann z.B. auf rom. Seite Bewah-rung der intervokalischen Tenuis, auf germ. Seite die hd. Lautverschiebunggelten. Wo in einem echt volkstumlichen Worte eines der beiden Anzeichenerscheint, liegt Entlehnung in kontinentaler Periode vor.'13

Nearly thirty years before the publication of Jakob Jud's 'AltromanischeWortgeographie'14 and long before Theodor Frings's studies on the GermaniaRomana and Bartoli's linguistica spa^iale, linguistic geography played a majorrole in Pogatscher's methodological approach.15 Pogatscher rightly assumedthat the Anglo-Saxons adopted a significant number of Latin loan-wordsdirectly from the Romans when they were still migrating in the north-westerncontinental coastal plains. The origin of these words must have been the Rhine

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 infalliblecriterion is the conservation of intervocalic voiceless stops, on the Germanic side the HighGerman consonant shift. If one of these criteria is attested in a genuinely popular word it is acontinental loan-word.'

14 J. Jud, 'Probleme der altromanischen Wortgeographie', Zeitschriftfiir romanische Philologie 38(1917), 1-75.

15 Pogatscher, Lautkbre, p. 1: 'Unter diesen Bedingungen sind fur den Grammatiker wiederzwei von besonderer Wichtigkeit, namlich die Art der Vermittlung fremder Sachen undWorte, und falls ein grosseres Gebiet hierbei in Frage kommt, die geographische Lage derBeriihrungsstellen oder Beriihrungslinien, an welchen jene Vermittlung sich vollzogen hat. Inalien Fallen wird die Beantwortung der Frage nach den Beriihrungslinien zugleich auchwesentliche Hilfsmittel zur Erkenntnis der Art der Vermittlung bieten, wahrend in vielenFallen die Art der Vermittlung zwischen verschiedenen Volkern eine ahnliche oder gleichesein wird; die Feststellung der Beriihrungslinien wird daher ein erhohtes Interesse fur sich inAnspruch nehmen konnen.'

Alfred Wollmann

area and Gaul.16 Consequently, the Gallo-Romance variety of Latin was theultimate linguistic source of all early Latin loan-words. This seems to be avalid assumption even if there was a separate variety of British Latin whichPogatscher assumed to have been a major source of Insular loan-words.17

Luick tried to describe more precisely the possible areas of origin of early loan-words. The earliest loan-words might have been transmitted by Romanmerchants in Schleswig-Holstein and the coastal regions around the Elbe.Names for vessels, commercial, naval and perhaps some military terms mighthave reached the Anglo-Saxon tribes still distant from the imperium.18 Directcontacts between the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans came about by themigrations of the former along the North Sea coastal regions down to theSchelde estuary and the Channel coast. Close contacts especially with RomanGaul occasioned the adoption of numerous terms of vini- and horticulture, ofbuilding and road construction.19 Luick also states a third, at least theoretical,possibility of a transmission of Latin loan-words through linguistically relatedGermanic tribes which had a closer contact with the Romans.20

The dichotomy of'continental' vs 'Insular' loan-words implied a linking ofthe geographical to the chronological dimension. According to Pogatscher,the 'Insular' loan-words must have been borrowed roughly between AD 450and 600. The geographical criterion is supplemented by historical dates givingan absolute chronology. Pogatscher adopts the date of the invasion of theAnglo-Saxon tribes evidenced by the historical sources as a terminus post quernand the beginnings of Christianization at the end of the sixth century as aterminus ante quem.2X Pogatscher's assumption that the Anglo-Saxons bor-

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 hierbemerkt werden, dass die grammatische Form der JE. Lehnworte fur das britannischeVolkslatein ein so enges Zusammengehen mit dem gallischen erweist, . . . dass wenn dieAngelsachsen nicht nach Britannien gekommen waren, England wohl eine dem Franzosis-chen sehr nahestehende Sprach erhalten hatte, natiirlich vorausgesetzt, dass die Romanisier-ung Britanniens ausgedehnt genug gewesen war. Daher bin ich bei dem Ansatz der Substrateauch unbedenklich iiberall von gallorom. Grundformen ausgegangen.'

18 K. Luick, Historische Gramtnatik der engliscben Sprache I (Leipzig, 1921—40) [hereafter Lck], p.63. Luick's account goes back to J. Hoops.

19 Ibid. W. Jungandreas, Geschichte der deutschen und englischen Sprache. Teil III: Geschichte derenglischen Sprache (Gottingen, 1949), p. 312, even sets up a period of a 'nordwestdeutschenSprachgemeinschaft zwischen Somme, Weser und Nordsee im 4. Jh.', which would imply anapproximately simultaneous adoption of a certain set of Latin words into Old English, OldFrisian and Old Saxon.

20 Lck, § 208, n.: 'Eine Feststellung ist jedoch nicht moglich, da bisher an keinem LehnwortSpuren des Durchgangs durch einen anderen germanischen Dialekt unmittelbar, d.h. inseiner Lautgebung, nachgewiesen werden konnte.'

21 Although AD 450 can no longer be seen as the historical date of the adventus Saxonum, it still issuitable as a useful date for a working model, if we take into account a transitional period of


rowed 'significant' numbers of loan-words especially during the fifth century22

was based not primarily on linguistic considerations but on then-currentarchaeological and historical views revising the earlier received opinion thatthe decline of Roman culture in the wake of the withdrawal of Roman troopsafter AD 407/408 entailed the extinction of Latin as a spoken language.23

Britain was now regarded as a deeply romanized province. Consequently theuse of Latin was no longer supposed to have been strictly restricted to theRoman army and administrative apparatus. A more widespread use of Latinespecially in the towns and to some extent in the countryside could not havedisappeared suddenly with the dissolution of Roman military and administra-tive structures. Pogatscher's conclusion, seemingly corroborated by archaeo-logical evidence, was that 'eine langere Fortdauer des Lateinischen inBritannien ebenso natiirlich wie das Gegenteil befremdlich erscheinen [muss].Die Heimat der nach 450 ins AE. eingedrungenen lat. bez. rom. Lehnworte istdaher Britannien.'24

some decades during the first half of the fifth century. For a concise survey of the historicalbackground of the settlement period, see Wollmann, 'Lehnbeziehungen im 5. und 6.Jahrhundert', pp. 377-80 and especially J. Hines, 'Philology, Archaeology and the adventusSaxonum vel Anglorum', Britain 400-600: Language and History, ed. Bammesberger andWollmann, pp. 17—36. The integration of historical dates into a relative chronology was oneof Pogatscher's aims: 'Insbesondere habe ich - wenn ich nicht irre - hier zum ersten Male denVersuch gewagt, mit Hilfe der altesten Lehnworte neben und an Stelle der bisher zumeistrelativen einige in sich zusammenhangende Grundlinien einer absoluten Chronologie gewisserErscheinungen des vorlitterarischen Lautstandes der beiden hier in Frage kommendenSprachgebiete [i.e. Old English and Gallo-Romance] zu ziehen' (Laut/ehre, p. ix).

22 Pogatscher, Laut/ehre, p. 12: 'Fur die Kulturentwicklung der Angelsachsen war diese zweitePeriode, welche sich von 450 bis 600 erstreckt, von der grossten Bedeutung. Diebetrachtliche Zahl der innerhalb dieser Zeit aufgenommenen Lehnworte zeigt, welche neuenAnschauungen der neue Boden, der von romischer Bildung durchdrungen war, denAnkommlingen erschlossen hat.'

23 Poga t sche r , Laut/ehre, p p . 2—4, c i t ing T . W r i g h t , The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 4 th ed.

( L o n d o n , 1885) a n d E . W i n k e l m a n n , Geschichte der Angelsachsen bis i^um Tode Konig Alfreds,

Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, 2. Hauptabtheilung, 3. Theil (Berlin, 1883).See also Wollmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 9-11 and 15.

24 Ibid. p. 4: 'The natural consequence appears to be the continued existence of Latin in Britainfor a longer period. Hence the source of the Latin and Romance loan-words borrowed afterAD 450 is Britain.' Although Pogatscher's book was the first relatively comprehensivelinguistic study of the Latin loan-words, Pogatscher naturally did have precursors (seeWollmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 4-11). Earlier remarks in historical works and shorter studieson Latin loan-words in Old English, however, were frequently marred by the presuppositionthat the Anglo-Saxons could have adopted originally Latin loan-words only through themediation of romanized Celts in Britain; cf. E. Guest, 'On Certain Foreign Terms, adoptedby our Ancestors prior to their Settlement in the British Islands', Proc. of the Philol. Soc. 5(1852), 169-74 and 185-9. 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 atleast during the fifth and sixth centuries. Surprisingly, direct borrowing due to contacts withthe Romans on the Continent was regarded as a possibility only from the middle of thenineteenth century.

Alfred Wollmann

BRITISH LATIN— A SOURCE OF LATIN LOAN-WORDS IN OLD

ENGLISH?

The problem of continuity of British h.atin

Pogatscher's basic assumption was that the 'Insular' period depended on thecontinuing existence of British Latin25 as the source language of Latin loan-words in Old English after the final withdrawal of the Roman troops and thebreakdown of Roman power. The invading Anglo-Saxon tribes were sup-posed to have had close contacts with romanized Celts still residing in urbansettlements and speaking Vulgar Latin. Because what may be called the'continuity theory' is the precondition of the constitution of an Insular layer ofloan-words it deserves to be discussed in a wider context. This scenario oflinguistic contact is roughly comparable to the situation in the Balkans in thesecond half of the sixth century, when the Slavs began to spread southwards.Besides speakers of native Indo-European languages (Thracian, Illyrian,Dacian) they encountered a partially romanized population speaking somesort of Vulgar Latin or Romance. Under favourable geographical andhistorical conditions, the linguistic differentiation of a (probably neveruniform) Balkan variety of Latin ultimately led to distinct Romance languagesof which Rumanian and Dalmatian are clearly discernible. At the time of theSlavic invasions there were certainly no uniform, contiguous and adjacentlanguage areas, but rather a medley of interspersed speech communities ofdifferent origin.

The Latin speaking population was not blotted out by the Slavs nor was itderomanized in its language, but it was greatly dispersed. The major result of theSl[avic] incursions was the destruction of the national and linguistic boundaries. If anethnographic or linguistic map of the Balkans of that time existed, it would not haveany uniformly colored large surfaces, but instead its character would be that of amosaic inlaid with tiny pieces. Sl[avic] speaking people lived side by side withRom[ance] speaking (as well as the remnants of those who spoke the pre-Romancelanguages of the area). It took several centuries for centers to crystallize, where oneparticular language would prevail.26

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

26 G . Y . S h e v e l o v , A Prehistory of Slavic: the Historical Phonology of Common Slavic ( H e i d e l b e r g ,1964), pp. 159-60.

8

Early LMtin loan-words in Old English

There are striking similarities between the Balkans of the sixth century andfifth-century Britain. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that in fifth-century Britain there was more continuity of settlement than was formerlythought. While Jackson still assumed that after the Anglo-Saxon invasions agreat part of the Celtic inhabitants of the Lowland zone fled to the HighlandZone,27 we can now presume on good grounds that institutional and socialcontinuity was considerable and that there was not a catastrophic breakdownof Roman civilisation but what could be best described as a fading away.28 Thelinguistic development in Britain and in the Balkans had the same initialsettings in the sense that there was 'a development from co-territoriallanguages, through the crystallization of nations, to adjacent languages.'29

The degree of interference and bilingualism in the Balkans, however, musthave been much higher than in Britain. This is clearly shown by the fact thatthe Slavic element in Rumanian vocabulary accounts for twenty to thirty percent.30 The percentage of Latin loans in Old English and Welsh is much lower,the latter having a higher number of Latin loan-words than the former.31 If we

27 Jackson , LHEB, pp . 119-20. T h e Lowland Z o n e comprises the fertile and relatively denselypopula ted plains ' roughly south and east of a line d rawn from the Vale of Y o r k past thesouthern end of the Pennines and along the Welsh bo rde r to the fringes of the hilly coun t ry ofD e v o n and Cornwal l ' (ibid. p . 96). In this area the majority of Latin loan-words werebo r rowed into Celtic (see also below, n. 96), while the Highland Z o n e became an area ofretreat for the Celtic popula t ion of the Lowland Zone . According to Jackson (ibid. p . 120),the Highland Z o n e ' f rom having been the h o m e of semi-barbarous hil lmen kept insubjection by the R o m a n garr ison, had n o w become the last refuge of R o m a n life in Britain,and the sphere of powerful half-Romanized Christ ian chiefs. Many of the inhabi tants of theLowlands had fled here, b r ing ing wi th t h e m no d o u b t some remnants of their R o m a ncivilization, and very likely n o w in t roducing to the West many of the Latin w o r d s b o r r o w e dcenturies before into their British speech, so that in this way they survived in to medievalWelsh, Cornish, and Breton. '

28 S. J o h n s o n , Later Roman Britain ( L o n d o n , 1980), p p . 150-76; A. C. T h o m a s , Christianity inRoman Britain to AD 500 (London , 1981), pp . 7 5 - 6 . T h e same applies to the a b a n d o n m e n t ofDacia by Aurelian in A D 271. As in Britain roughly one hundred and fifty years later, theurban sett lements were affected mos t seriously by the retreat of the Romans .

29 Shevelov, A Prehistory of Slavic, p . 160.30 Ibid.; this percentage does no t take into account the medieval and modern loans from Latin

and only refers to the size of the lexicon, no t the frequency of the lexemes. F igures varydepending on the basis of computa t ion . H a a r m a n n quotes a study by D . Macrea w h oestimated the share of original Latin w o r d s including derivat ions at some twenty per cent ,compared with sixteen per cent of Slavic loan-words , twenty-nine per cent of French loan-w o r d s and thirty-three per cent of w o r d s of o the r or igin ( including mode rn Lat inisms).Haa rmann ' s corpus comprises 1771 Daco-Rumanian lexemes; see H. Haa rmann , Balkan-linguistik (1) Areallinguistik und Lexikostatistik des balkanlateinischen Wortschat^es, TubingerBeitrage zur Linguistik 93 (Tubingen, 1978), 16-17 and 150-2.

31 See above, p. 1, nn. 2 and 3. A comparison of the number of Latin loan-words in languagessituated 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 and471 in Breton; see H. Haarmann, Der lateinische EinflujS in den Interferens^pnen am Rande der

Alfred Wollmann

take into account the qualitative semantic composition of the loan vocabularyin Welsh and Old English, respectively, it is obvious that in nearly fourhundred years of Roman occupation Welsh was exposed to a more far-reaching and intensive influence of Latin than Old English. Even if we pay dueregard to this, a comparison between Roman Britain and the Balkans showsthat the romanization of the former province was relatively superficial or lessintensive. As in Britain, in Dacia the usage of Latin as a colloquial standard{Umgangssprache) was certainly confined to the urban centres. The main propfor the survival of Latin in the Balkans was, however, its function as a linguafranca (Verkehrsspracbe) for the very heterogeneous native population other-wise adhering to their autochthonous languages, and the migrating 'barbar-ous' tribes, as well. In this function Latin survived the abandonment of Daciain AD 271 and the ensuing disappearance of urban life for a long span of timeuntil the end of the sixth century when in the areas north of the Danube arevival of romanization set in.32 The discussion on the continuity of settlementin the regions north of the Danube after the retreat of the Romans seems to besettled in favour of continuity. With the collapse of urban life the Daco-Roman population was completely ruralized but with the exception of themilitary and administrative apparatus there was no retreat of the wholeromanized population to the regions south of the Danube. Romanizationprobably differed from region to region. Certain highly romanized 'core areas'formed the basis of the later northward expansion of the Romance languagearea following the Slavic invasion in AD 602.33 In Roman Britain the use ofLatin cannot have been as widespread as in the Balkans. Although bothregions shared the collapse of urban life after the retreat of Roman power andthereby lost the main centres of Latinity and their Kulturtrdger (culturallytrend-setting social groups) - probably with the exception of the Church - inthe Balkans Latin managed to survive in some regions despite the Slavic

Romania. Verghicbende Studien %ur Sprachkontaktforschung, Romanistik in Geschichte undGegenwart 5 (Hamburg, 1979), 35. K. Jackson, 'The British Language during the Period ofthe English Settlements', Studies in Early British History, ed. N. K. Chadwick (Cambridge,1954), pp. 61-82, at 62, estimates the number of Latin loan-words in British at roughly onethousand. I believe that the number of loan-words, especially in the Germanic languages, issomewhat higher, but nevertheless the general proportions become sufficiently clear; see alsoabove, p. 1.

32 Cf. the illuminating account of G. Reichenkron, Historische Latein-AItromanische Grammatik.I. Teil (Wiesbaden, 1965), pp. 347-54. The distinction of Verkebrssprache and Heimsprache(the native languages like Dacian, Thracian or Illyrian) goes back to E. Gamillscheg (seebelow, n. 70).

33 For a convenient summary of the discussion on romanization and continuity in Dacia, see V.Arvinte, 'Die Entstehung der rumanischen Sprache und des rumanischen Volkes im Lichteder jiingsten Forschung', in his Die Rumdnen. Ursprung, Volks- und l^andesnamen, TiibingerBeitrage zur Linguistik 114 (Tubingen, 1980), 11-36, esp. 20-31.

10


invasion.34 In the regions north of the Danube and in Transylvania the Slavicinvaders were even romanized. The reverse process took place in the regionsouth of the Danube where the romanized population retreated to the northunder the pressure of Slavic settlement, a process reminding the student ofearly British history of the retreat of the Celtic population to Devonshire,Cornwall and Armorica in the course of Anglo-Saxon advance. In Britainthere was also at least some continuity and there were certainly core areas ofLatinity even after the retreat of the Roman troops (e.g. the northwesternHighland Zone). The fact that the Anglo-Saxons were not romanized and thatin Britain dispersed Romance language areas could not develop as in the caseof the Balkans (e.g. Megleno-Rumanian, Aromunian, Istro-Rumanian) ismainly due to the different communicative functions which Latin had in bothareas. For various reasons, in Britain Latin evidently was no lingua franca to theextent it was in the Balkans where Rumanian developed on the basis of a corevocabulary of some two thousand Latin lexemes. For the communicativeneeds of the indigenous population (Late) British sufficed. According toJackson, the peasantry did not speak Latin while the active command of Latinby lower and middle classes of the towns is uncertain.35 Urban colloquial Latinconfined to 'the upper classes, the official and administrative ranks, and thearmy' and the Latin used by the different nationalities within the Roman armyas a lingua franca36 disappeared after the withdrawal of the Roman troops, thedissolution of the Roman administrative structures and the consequentabandonment of urban settlements. This does not mean, however, that there

34 Haarmann, Der lateinische Lebnivortscbat^ im Kymrischen, p. 212, contends that the romaniza-tion of Roman Britain could only have been superficial since the province possessed onlyfour 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 thetowns disappeared after the retreat of the Roman military.

35 In 'The British Language during the Period of the English Settlements', p. 61, Jackson seemsto be more uncertain about this than in his LHEB, p. 109.

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

11

Alfred Wollmann

was no Latin lingua franca at all between the British and the Romans whichoccasionally might have been used even among the British. Obviously,however, its existence was not sufficiently widespread in order to ensure thatLatin could survive in the long run (apart from the Church).37

This contrasts with the older view that Romanization and Latinization wassupposedly so thorough that a Romance language eventually could havedeveloped in Britain:

Latin . . . was probably the ordinary speech of the towns. Gildas, writing nearly acentury and a half after the renunciation of Honorius, addressed the British princes inthat language, and the linguistic history of Britain might have been not different fromthat of Gaul, Spain, and the other provinces of the Western Empire, where a rusticLatin giving birth to a Neo-Latinic language family finally superseded the native oneexcept in remote and mountainous districts, when the course of events was entirelychanged by the Teutonic Conquests of the 5th and 6th centuries.38

This potential development, that was eventually to be aborted only by theAnglo-Saxon invasion, in all probability had no real basis; it is, however,conceivable that the Anglo-Saxons could have had some contact in the shortterm with spoken Latin in the early settlement period even if the towns quicklydeclined. In this context the theory of continuity has some justification.

H. C. Wyld's statement may be cited as an example showing thatPogatscher's view on the continuity of British Latin has been widely accepted:'This form of spoken Latin was the source of the numerous popular words ofLatin origin which passed into English during the period between thesettlement of Britain and the acceptance of Christianity .. ,'39 Wyld, however,

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

38 J . A. H . M u r r a y , ' E n g l i s h L a n g u a g e ' , Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9 th ed. ( L o n d o n , 1882) VII I ,390-1. For similar views on the continuity of Latin, see below, p. 13; Pogatscher, Lautlehre,p . 13; R e i c h e n k r o n , Historische Latein-Altromanische Grammatik, p . 321 ; Wol lmann , Untersu-chungen, p p . 9 - 1 3 .

39 H. C. Wyld, The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue: an Introduction to Philological Method(London, 1906), p. 243. Wyld's treatment of the Latin loan-words is one of the best ones in

12


states clearly that the constitution of a continental and Insular stratum of loan-words only applies to the criteria which were dealt with by Pogatscher. If aword lacks these criteria, it cannot be definitely assigned to the continental or'Insular' period, respectively.40 G. de Poerck41 maintains that, from the middleof the fifth century to the eighth, there was a bilingual situation, the dominantlanguages being Anglo-Saxon and 'Britto-Romance'.42 In de Poerck's view'Britto-Romance' shared all the characteristic features of Vulgar Latin. Hesupposed that links between Britain and Gaul were severed after thesettlement period; nevertheless, the development of 'Britto-Romance' wassupposed to have been in line with the evolution of Gallo-Romance. So far dePoerck accurately renders Pogatscher's assumptions on British Latin. Inaddition, de Poerck proposes that the majority of the loan-words originated inthe eastern part of Britain (Jackson's Lowland Zone), while at least someChristian and learned loan-words might have come from Hibernian sources.G. Reichenkron43 is more careful although he concedes that in Britain a Britto-Romance language could have been in the course of development. As in thecase of Albanian, however, the decisive turning-point was not yet reached atthe time of the Anglo-Saxon invasion, namely the dissolution of the nativeBritish flexional system.

In her influential list Serjeantson assigns 114 loan-words to the 'Insular'stratum ('Phase B', AD 450-650), which compares with 184 loan-wordsbelonging to the continental period ('Phase A') and 244 loan-words of thelearned Christian stratum ('Phase C) borrowed since AD 650.44 Serjeantsonstrongly emphasized the semantic aspect of Latin loans in Old Englishaccording to the Sachgruppen-method, which was linked to a diachronic

early textbooks. A comparatively extensive survey of the subject is also given by J. A.Sheard, The Words We Use (London , 1954), adopt ing Pogatscher 's model.

40 Ibid. p . 246; ' In cases where Latin words contain no test sounds such as intervocalic s tops,there cannot be absolute certainty as to whether they belong to the earliest continental classof loans, or whether they were acquired early in the English period, and even the fact that thesame word exists in O H G or OSax does not necessarily settle the matter in favor of theformer class, since each language may have adopted the words independently. O n the otherhand, words which retain the Latin intervocalic /, etc. might belong either to the Continentalperiod or the late English, if their vowels are not such as are liable to early English soundchanges. '

41 G. de Poerck, 'La diphtongaison des voyelles fermees du latin, principalement dans ledomaine gallo-romance, et la palatalisation de «', Komanica Gandensia 1 (1953), 23—92, at 45—60('Le temoignage du bri t to-roman') .

42 Cf. Jackson, LHEB, p . 5: 'B r i t to -Romance ' must no t be confused with the term ' R o m a n o -Brit ish ' which 'is confined t o forms of the [British] language repor ted by R o m a n wri ters inLatinized spelling; and the te rm is s tretched to include those given by Greek au thors , chieflyderived from Latin sources, in Greek spelling, e.g. by Ptolemy. '

43 R e i c h e n k r o n , Historische l^atein-Altromanische Grammatik, p p . 322—7.44 Serjeantson, A History of Foreign Words in English, pp. 271-88.

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Alfred Wollmann

dimension in trying to impose Pogatscher's model of chronological strata ofloan-words upon the Latin loan-vocabulary. The reasons for the attribution ofan individual loan-word to a specific stratum are obscure, since Serjeantsondid not attempt a linguistic analysis of individual words. This surely wouldhave exceeded the scope of her otherwise very useful work.45

The linguistic character of British Latin

While Pogatscher assumed a linguistic identity of Gallo-Romance and BritishLatin,46 Jackson made an attempt further to define British Latin in the light ofthe evidence of Latin loan-words in the Celtic languages. In Jackson's viewBritish Latin - or more precisely the variety of British Latin which was themain source of loan-words in Celtic - was a markedly conservative one:

. . . the sound-system of Latin in Britain was very archaic by ordinary Continentalstandards, still clinging in the fifth century to pronunciations which had gone out ofcolloquial use elsewhere as early in some cases as the first. One obvious explanationwould be that Britain is an island, cut off from the mainland, and therefore particularlyliable to foster an individual dialect. But British Latin did share many of the newdevelopments, and on the other hand it betrays hardly any fresh one of its own, itspeculiarity lying in its conservatism; moreover, Britain was not really much moreisolated than, for instance, Spain.47

Jackson contends that the majority of Latin loan-words in Celtic wasborrowed by the romanized native Celtic upper class learning Latin as asecond language in schools. This variety of Latin was a conservative, educatedor hypercorrect school Latin imitating classical pronunciation as far as it wasknown or thought to be known to the schoolmasters and 'pedantic "gram-marian" teachers'.48 While the Romance languages were based upon variousvarieties of Vulgar Latin as a colloquial language, British Latin as it is reflected

45 Cf. Wollmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 62-4. Strang, A History of English, pp. 388-91, apparentlyrelies on the lists of Serjeantson but does not provide a coherent model of periodization, asituation partly based on a misunderstanding of Jackson's view. Although she acceptsJackson's theory of a conservative British Latin, she assumes that 'very many Latin wordspassed into OE at this stage' partly borrowed from 'Latin-speaking Britons who remainedamong them' (ibid. p. 390). This way, however, Jackson regarded as improbable, since in hisview the majority of the educated Celtic upper class retreated to the Highland Zone notimmediately affected by the Anglo-Saxon onslaught. Strang rightly takes into accountthe possibility that in the fifth and sixth centuries there were 'Continental loans resultingfrom the close contacts the English still maintained with Europe' (ibid.). For a detaileddiscussion of Strang's treatment of the loan-words, see Wollmann, Untersuchungen,pp. 75-80. "* See above, p. 6, n. 17. "7 Jackson, LHEB, p. 107.

48 K. Jackson, 'The British Languages and their Evolution', p. 117 and LHEB, pp. 108-9: 'Tothe ordinary speaker of Vulgar Latin from the Continent, the language from which theloanwords in Brittonic were derived must have seemed stilted and pedantic, or perhapsupper-class and "haw-haw".'

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in the loan-words in Celtic was primarily based upon the conservative literarystandard. It was a product of a special socio-linguistic situation and of thedegree of Romanization specific to Roman Britain and only to a lesser extentthe result of a relative geographical isolation. It is important to understandthat Jackson emphasized the aspect of different socio-linguistic grades of Latincurrent in Roman Britain. He did not state, however, that British Latingenerally was archaic. As in other parts of the Empire in Roman Britain at leasttwo varieties of Latin co-existed, ordinary Vulgar Latin and conservativeschool Latin.49

Jackson adduced eighteen linguistic criteria which British Latin arguablyhad in common with continental Latin, and twelve criteria which he regardedas peculiar to upper-class British Latin.50 The latter include the lack of thelowering of Latin /i/ > /e/ and /u/ > /o/, the lack of the voicing of intervocalicstops and the conservation of the quantities of Classical Latin. On the otherhand '. . . a number of the characteristics of spoken everyday Imperial Latin,i.e. Vulgar Latin, as it is known in other parts of the Empire (and of course,especially in Gaul, the nearest province), can be traced in the loanwords fromLatin in British.'51 This implies that the lower-class variety of British Latin wasnot substantially different from continental Vulgar Latin. Recent research hasbeen producing increasing evidence of British Vulgar Latin and therebymodifying Jackson's fundamental assumptions.52 The absence of marked

49 In contrast to LHEB, Jackson in other publications stressed the position of the conservativeschool Latin as the virtually sole variety of Latin current in Roman Britain. See 'The BritishLanguage during the Period of the English Settlements', pp. 61-2: 'There is some very slightreason to think that some of the Latin-speakers, presumably in the cities, used the generalmiddle-class Vulgar Latin lingua franca of the Empire; but there is strong evidence that theupper classes, and specifically the rural aristocracy, spoke Latin with a much more refined andliterary, almost archaising pronunciation. . .'

50 LHEB, pp. 82-94. For a discussion of the features supposed to be specific of British Latin,see C. Smith, 'Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain: Epigraphic and other Evidence', Aufstieg undNiedergang der romischen Welt, ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, Teil II: Principat 29.2 (Berlin,1983) [hereafter ANKW], 893-948, at 938-42. 51 LHEB, p. 82.

52 There is much important recent work on British Latin. Jackson's criteria for a conservativevariety of British Latin have been severely criticized by A. S. Gratwick, 'Latinitas Britannica:Was British Latin Archaic?', La/in and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, ed. N.Brooks (Leicester, 1982), pp. 1-79. See also, however, D. MacManus's critical review ofGratwick's essay: 'Linguarum Diversitas: Latin and the Vernaculars in Early MedievalBritain', Peritia 3 (1987), 151-88. Evidence of British Vulgar Latin has been adduced by J. C.Mann, 'Spoken Latin in Britain as evidenced by the Inscriptions', Britannia 2 (1971), 218-24;E. P. Hamp, 'Social Gradience'; N. Shiel, 'The Coinage of Carausius as a Source of VulgarLatin', Britannia 6 (1975), 146-8; E. Campanile, 'Valutazione del latino di Britannia', Studi esaggi linguhtici') (1969), 87-110; a comprehensive survey including an extensive bibliographyis given by Smith, 'Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain: Epigraphic and other Evidence' (citedabove, n. 50). The language situation in Roman Britain is discussed by D. Ellis Evans,'Language Contact in Pre-Roman and Roman Britain', ANKW 29.2 (1983), 949-87; E. C.

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Alfred Wollmann

differences of British Vulgar Latin from continental Vulgar Latin is notsurprising in view of the fact that all efforts to describe distinct regionalvarieties of Vulgar Latin on the basis of the written sources available failed.This does not mean, however, that Vulgar Latin was a uniform language.Although the inscriptions exhibit a great degree of uniformity, writtenlanguage works as a filter imposed upon a multitude of regional varieties.53 Inview of the intensive prolonged contacts of British society with Romancivilization it seems rather improbable that linguistic interference was re-stricted to a small-numbered squierarchical bilingual British elite transmittingLatin loan-words in a conservative pronunciation to the lower classes ofBritish society. On the other hand, Jackson himself admits that there musthave been a group of speakers, namely the clergy, who had a thoroughcommand of Latin: 'Latin was a living spoken language in Britain in the fifthcentury, and probably still in the sixth, especially among the clergy.'54 Theevidence of British loan-words in Irish suggests that in some cases the loan-words were derived from Latin, that means 'British Latin, that is, Latinpronounced (up to a point) as if it were British'.55 Although the interferencebetween British Latin and Primitive Irish is a matter of the end of the fifth andthe sixth centuries, it is logical to suppose that British Latin must have beenexposed to British substratum influences in earlier periods as well. The mostimportant example in this context is the Celtic lenition influencing thepronunciation of Latin words. Celtic lenition roughly coincided with thevoicing of intervocalic stops in Latin, the latter perhaps reinforcing the BritishLatin pronunciation.56 Smith argues that Jackson over-rated the conservativeinfluence of school Latin because quite a number of Latin loan-words in Celticmight have undergone a later re-latinizing process by ecclesiastical Latin.57

That learned influence retarding, modifying or reversing phonological de-velopments was operative at that time has been convincingly refuted byMacManus, who emphasizes the fact that 'no such archaizing spoken varietyhad any existence prior to its invention in Carolingian France in the late eighthcentury'.58

Polome, 'The Linguistic Situation in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire', ANR W2<).l (1983), 509-53, at 532-4; Thomas, Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, pp. 71-9; K.-H. Schmidt, 'La romanite des lies britanniques', Actes du XVIIIe Congres international delinguistique et de philologie romanes, ed. D. Kramer, 2 vols. (Tubingen, 1992) I, 188—209.

53 Cf. Wollmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 114-18; MacManus, 'Latin and the Vernaculars', p.160. M Jackson, LHEB, p. 123. » Ibid. p. 124. * /£,>/. p p . 70-2.

57 Smith, 'Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain', pp. 945-6.58 MacManus, 'Latin and the Vernaculars', p. 161. This new interpretation goes back to R.

Wright's important book, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France(Liverpool, 1982). That Christian Latin in its early stage had by no means a literary andconservative pronunciation is also shown by the category of early Christian loan-words inOld English; see above, p. 4, n. 9.

16


In the light of these arguments the conclusion can be drawn that BritishVulgar Latin, meaning Latin as a colloquial standard, was apparently notmarkedly different from the Vulgar Latin of Gaul. However, in four hundredyears of Roman rule Latin could and certainly did develop local or regionaltraits, thereby gradually acquiring individuality and constituting a specificBritish Latin variety. The role of the Celtic substratum in this processprobably was not insignificant. The extent of bilingualism in Roman Britain isa matter of dispute. Although Jackson allowed bilinguals only for the nativeelite, there is no serious argument as to why some knowledge of Latin, whichmight have varied diastratically and diatopically, should not have been morewidespread. The use of Latin as a lingua franca, however, never reached thecritical momentum necessary to be become independent of the changes ofpolitical settings as it was the case in the Balkans. This leads us back to thebeginnings of loan-word studies. The received opinion at the time ofPogatscher was that Britain was deeply romanized and that British Latinsurvived well into the sixth and seventh centuries.

The extent of the existence of a conservative literary or school Latin as itwas proposed by Jackson remains open to discussion. Even if it existed onesuspects that its relevance to linguistic interference was only marginal. In thecontext of language contacts of Anglo-Saxons with the Celtic populationJackson's conservative Latin spoken by the romanized Celtic upper class andsquirearchy certainly was not a major source of loan-words to be borrowed bythe Anglo-Saxons.59 At the early stages of the settlement borrowing is possiblefrom bilingual speakers of colloquial Vulgar Latin which was at least to someextent spoken by the middle and lower classes in the towns.60 Jackson did notcompletely dismiss this possibility. He regarded it, however, as a remote onebecause he postulated that the Lowland Zone was abandoned by the Latin-speaking native Celts retreating to the Highland Zone.61 LinguisticallyJackson's Lowland Zone of the later fifth century was a monolingual areainhabited by destitute Celtic serfs and tenants deprived of their landlords andupper-class. In his discussion of Pogatscher's 'Insular' period Jacksonunderlined the fact that both the voicing of intervocalic stops and the lowering

59 Jackson's view that the so-called Lowland Zone was abandoned by the majority of the nativeCelts retreating in the Highland Zone can be doubted in the light of the archaeologicalevidence, which suggests a continuity of settlement. See Jackson, LHEB, p . 119 andT h o m a s , Christianity in Roman Britain, p p . 7 5 - 6 .

60 Jackson, LHEB, p. 109.61 Ibid. p. 255: 'The conclusion must be that during the period of Pogatscher's Insular

borrowings, c. 450-600, the possibility of contact between Latin-speaking Britons and theEnglish cannot be excluded, though it is not likely to have been more than trifling. Whetherany Latin words were, in fact, adopted by the English in this way is a different question.'

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Alfred Wollmann

of Latin /i/ and /u/ are not sufficient criteria to define an Insular period becauseboth processes set in already before the fifth century.

Potential borrowings from British Latin

Two aspects of the early Latin loan-vocabulary in Old English have to be dealtwith: the geographical origin and the dating and periodization of loan-words.It has been shown that borrowing from romanized Celts or from survivingspeakers of British Latin cannot have been but scant. This means that thelinking of linguistic geography and chronology originally advanced byPogatscher has to be revised. According to Pogatscher Latin loan-words inOld English are to be divided into three strata: the 'continental' loan-wordsoriginating in the lower Rhine area and mainly in Gaul were borrowed by theAnglo-Saxons to AD 450, 'Insular' loan-words were borrowed between AD450 and 600 from the romanized urban British population, and Christian loan-words were borrowed after AD 600. The first two strata make up the group of'popular' loan-words, supplemented by early Christian loan-words of theseventh century. The absolute chronology hinges upon two dates: the Anglo-Saxon settlement - supposed to be a precisely dateable event in AD 450 - entailsa complete severing of links between the Anglo-Saxons and the Continent,while the Christianization at the end of the sixth century is deemed a securedate. In Pogatscher's view the age of Latin loan-words could be ascertained bythe presence or absence of the Latin voicing of intervocalic stops, of the Latinlowering of /i/>/e/ (e.g. L signum 'sign'>VL segnu) and /u/>/o/ (e.g. Lfurca > Vhforca 'fork') and by the High German consonant shift. Progress inRomance historical phonology and recent research on the nature of soundchange shows, however, that the relevant Latin sound changes extended overa great time-span and generally set in considerably earlier. This means that theperiod of borrowing of loan-words reflecting them cannot be tied a priori to arelatively short period of two hundred years as Pogatscher tried to do with hisconcept of 'Insular' loans. The dating of loan-words is much more compli-cated and every single word has to be analysed on the basis of a synthesis ofphonological and historical criteria.

There are no loan-words which can definitely be assigned to the 'Insular'period in the sense that there is a positive proof that they were borrowed fromromanized Celts or some dispersed speakers of British Vulgar Latin. How-ever, there is a small number of examples where we cannot exclude borrowingfrom Celtic or Celtic influence on phonological grounds. A superficialphonetic similarity between Old English and Celtic loan-words from Latin isnot a sufficient criterion for assuming a loan-relationship. This case may beillustrated by W ffenigl 'fennel' and OYLfinugl. Both words were borrowed from

18

Early l^atin loan-words in Old English

hjenuculum in different periods, from L /fe:niklu/ and /fenuglu/, respectively.62

If W ffenigl were not a late learned loan-word, the Celtic borrowing wouldreflect an unaltered Latin consonant group /-kl-/ which would have beensubject to later Celtic lenition. The Old English borrowing took place after thevoicing of Latin /-kl-/ > /-gl-/ which is a very early process (third century) inLatin and predates the general voicing of intervocalic stops (fifth century).The example of Latin fenuculum shows that voicing is by no means a processtypical of the Insular period of the fifth and sixth centuries, as Pogatschersuggested. Secondary consonant clusters like /-kl-/ were affected by voicingsignificantly earlier than single voiceless stops. OYLfinugl therefore is an earlycontinental loan-word which by the way draws our attention to the fact thatthe borrowing of plant names cannot be generally assigned to the Christianperiod, as is frequently argued in introductory language histories applyingonly semantic criteria.63

As a test word for dating the voicing of intervocalic Latin stops, OE ladenis not suitable because we have to take into account a potential Celticinfluence. Apart from the possibility of a borrowing from Vulgar Latin, be itGallo-Romance or British Vulgar Latin, K. Jackson apparently suggests aborrowing from a conservative upper-class variety of British Latin stillpreserving intervocalic voiceless stops.64 Celtic lenition would then have actedas a substrate influence. 'The d in Laden could have arisen through Britishlenition, and if so the word came from elevated British-Latin speech; but it62 See W o l l m a n n , Untersuchungen, p p . 4 8 7 - 5 0 7 .63 See e.g. O . F. E m e r s o n , The History of the English Language ( N e w Y o r k and L o n d o n , 1894),

p p . 146—7, w h o cites 'beet , b o x , cherv i l , fennel , feverfew, g l aden , lily, m a l l o w , min t ,

mul(berry), palm, pea, pear, pepper, periwinkle, pine, plant, plum, poppy, savine, spelt' astree- and plant-names presumably borrowed in the context of monastic horticulture andmedicine. Krapp, Modern English. Its Growth and Present Use, p. 216, maintains that besidesplant-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 wereplainly taken over because of the superiority of the monastery cooks and cooking over thenative, just as today English has a kind of kitchen-French which has come into the languagein a similar way.' Likewise G. Bourcier, An Introduction to the History of the English Language,ed. C. Clark (London, 1981), pp. 38-9, subsumes words like 'box, chalk, cook, dish, fever,kitchen, pear' under the group of Christian loan-words. According to Baugh and Cable, AHistory 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 geographicalisolation generally was of a conservative or archaic nature. Jackson's new approach consistedin the introduction of the sociolinguistic concept of registers or grades thereby abolishingthe concept of a uniform and monolithic Vulgar Latin. Pogatscher's view of an identity ofBritish Latin and Gallo-Romance (see above, p. 6, n. 17) and Jackson's description of asocially differentiated British Latin are not incompatible, the latter revealing the diastraticmultiformity of Vulgar Latin.

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could also be due to the ordinary VL voicing of intervocal /, in which case itmight have been borrowed either from low-class urban dwellers in Britain orfrom the Gallo-Latin of the Continent.'65 L Latlnus would have undergoneCeltic lenition of /t/ > /d/ which was dated by Jackson to the second half of thefifth century. If we assume an early Latin loan-word in Celtic, the resultingCeltic form *ladin at the end of the fifth century is identical with the VulgarLatin one which presumably had reached the stage *[ladino] at the sametime.66 A borrowing from a Celtic loan-word is perfectly possible. However,the currency of Latin lattnus in the Celtic dialects cannot be ascertained sincethere are only learned variants extant. W lladin is a late learned loan-word sinceit lacks Celtic infection of /a/ > /e/ (*lledin) dated by Jackson to the seventh andeighth centuries.67 Corazza suggests that the advancing Anglo-Saxon tribescould have come into contact with a Celtic *ladin surviving in somerudimentary Christian contexts.68

OE ceaster 'castle, fort, town' is mostly regarded as an Insular loan-word'likely to have been borrowed from Latin speakers living in the Romantowns',69 because there are no congeners in the Celtic languages. On the otherhand, Latin castra is attested in continental place-names in Flanders and thelower Rhine area.70 As in the case of OE torr 'tower' the Anglo-Saxons couldhave borrowed *caster on the Continent, as well.

OE cajester 'halter' < L capistrum 'a halter, a muzzle of leather for animals'has a Congener in W cebystr (Cornish cebister) reflecting the internal i-affectionof /a/ > /e/ which is dated by Jackson to the seventh (Welsh) and eighthcenturies (Cornish and Breton).71 Celtic lenition of /p/ > /b/ is a process of thesecond half of the fifth century.72 This means that in the sixth century there wasa Celtic form */kabistr-/ which could have been the basis of OE cafester. OldEnglish phonology gives some chronological hints, too. In the case of

« Jackson, LHEB, p. 252.66 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 G. Straka, 'L'evolutionphonetique du latin au francais sous l'effet de l'energie et de la faiblesse articulatoires', Les sonset les mots. Choix ietudes de phonetique et de linguistique (Paris, 1979), pp. 257-8; F. de laChaussee, Initiation a la phonetique historique de tancien francais, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1982), p. 190.

67 LHEB, pp. 616-18.68 V . D . C o r a z z a , ' I n g l e s e an t i co laden " l a t i n o " , ' Feor ond neah. Scritti di filologia germanica in

memoria di Augusto Scafidi Abbate, ed. P. Lendinara and L. Melazzo (Palermo, 1983), pp. 129-41, at 137—8; see also Wollmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 581—2. If the Celtic etymon was already*laden the problem of Old English i-mutation would be irrelevant. 69 Ibid. p . 252 .

70 See E. Gamillscheg, Romania Germanica. Sprach- und Siedlungsgeschichte der Germanen auf demBoden des alien Rb'merreiches, I. Zu den altesten Beruhrungen %u>ischen Rb'mern und Germanen. DieFran/ken, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1970), pp. 166—7; G. Miiller and T. Frings, Germania Romana II.Dreissig]ahre Forscbung Romanischer Wo'rter, Mitteldeutsche Studien 19.2 (Halle, 1968), 167-8.

71 Jackson, LHEB, pp. 616-17. 72 Ibid. pp. 560-1.

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borrowing from Celtic */kabistr-/, /a/ would have been substituted by OE /ae/.Old English i-mutation of/ae/ > /e/ would have produced OE *cefester. Hencethe possible period of borrowing could be narrowed down to the second halfof the sixth century, after Old English i-mutation, which is dated to the firsthalf of the sixth century, and before Celtic i-affection. Whether OE ca/esteris infact a loan-word borrowed from Late British or Primitive Welsh or anotherCeltic language cannot be decided on phonological grounds. A sixth-centuryborrowing from Romance /kavEstro/ is equally possible.73 The proponents of'Brito-Romance' would argue that in this case the borrowing would have beenpossible from speakers of Vulgar Latin in Britain.74 It is remarkable that in theGermanic languages L capistrum (like ervum 'the bitter vetch, ervum erviliaL. '>OE earfe) is extant only in Old English. Of course, this fact is not acompelling argument in favour of a borrowing from Celtic.

The development of OE popceg 'poppy' is obscure. Pogatscher suggests alater borrowing from Celtic because the replacement of L /a/ inpapaver by OE/o/ is uncommon. This theory presupposes L /a:/ to be substituted by Proto-Welsh jo:j which in turn would be reflected in OE by /o:/>/o/.75 This is,however, dubious since a long pretonic vowel would have been shortened inVulgar Latin. A shortened L /a/, however, would remain in Welsh.76

Since possible Celtic interference can be restricted to a few cases, we areobliged to state that the majority of the early Latin loan-words were ofcontinental origin. This also includes loan-words which on the basis ofRomance sound chronology can be assigned to the fifth and sixth centuries. AsJackson rightly pointed out, there is no positive linguistic proof that loan-words were borrowed in Britain and not by way of trade and intercourse withGaul. It cannot be determined whether a loan-word was 'imported' by theinvading Anglo-Saxon tribes from the Continent, whether it was borroweddue to continuing contacts with the Continent after the early settlement periodor whether it was adopted from romanized Celts or through contacts with theCeltic church. The latter possibilities hold true only if there are reasonable andconvincing grounds for assuming a continuity of British Latin on a broader

73 F o r a d i s c u s s i o n o f O E cafester, see W o l l m a n n , Untersuchtmgen, p p . 613—24.74 W y l d , The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue, p . 244 .75 Pogatscher, iMutlehre, pp. 13-14. For L /a:/ > Proto-W /o:/, see Jackson, LHEB, pp. 287-92;

e.g. the river-name Don which can be derived from Romano-British Danum > Proto-W.*Don> OE *Don. There is no convincing explanation of OE -ag iapopag.

76 Jackson, LHEB, p. 290, suggests that in some cases (e.g. L Ianuarius>'W lonor; Lnatalicia > Middle W Nodolye beside W Nadolig) a Latin pretonic /a:/ was not shortened by theconservative upper-class speakers of British Latin. Lower-class speakers of British VulgarLatin would have pronounced a shortened /a/. Without having recourse to the concept of aconservative British Latin, this case is, however, easily explainable by assuming a variation ofL /a:/~/a/ at the time of borrowing.

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scale. The 'Insular' stratum of Latin loan-words is based upon the assumptionof the continuity of Roman civilization after the withdrawal of the Romantroops and consequently of the continuity of British Latin for a considerablespan of time, perhaps lingering on as late as the seventh century. BritishVulgar Latin, which linguistically could be identified with Gallo-Romance,would be the source of a great number of loan-words borrowed by the Anglo-Saxons during the period of settlement. The continuity of British Latin, oreven of some sort of 'Britto-Romance', has been a matter of dispute since thetime of Pogatscher. Continuity gains some probability with respect to the veryearly period of Anglo-Saxon settlement, that is, the second and thirdquarters of the fifth century. In the fifth and sixth centuries there wereprobably core areas of Latinity in Jackson's Highland Zone which could beascribed mainly to the Celtic Church and less to romanized Latin-speakingrefugees from the Lowlands, the numbers of whom cannot have been verylarge. Whether these centres of Latinity played a major role in linguisticinterference in the early period of settlement is very doubtful. Even if thehistorical and cultural setting allows the possibility of borrowing, thephonological criteria for defining the 'Insular' period are unreliable. VL /e/< L/i/ and /o/ < L/u/ are clearly of relatively early origin and were generalizedin the third and fourth centuries, respectively. The only sound changes whichon chronological grounds roughly coincide with Pogatscher's 'Insular' periodare Romance voicing and assibilation, sound changes which appear to havebeen generalized in the fifth and sixth centuries. In sum it is advisable torelinquish Pogatscher's terms 'continental' and 'Insular' in favour of Camp-bell's 'early' and 'later' loan-words, because the supposed division of geo-graphical origins cannot be proven.

THE CHRONOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF PHONOLOGY AND THE

IMPORTANCE OF LATIN LOAN-WORDS IN OLD ENGLISH

The discussion of possible loans from Celtic, such as OE cafester and laden,showed that a differentiation of the continental loan-words into differentchronological strata depends not only on the careful evaluation of the soundchronologies of Latin and Old English, but also on certain historical criteriawhich could help in establishing a rough absolute chronology. Since therelative and even more the absolute datings of many sound changes aredisputed, the dating of loan-words becomes a very risky undertaking whichhas been often criticized.77 However, we have to take into account the fact that

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

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popular loan-words reflect two systems of sound chronology and by theircorrelation we are often able to date them with some precision. At the sametime they can give valuable hints on the sound chronology of at least onesystem. In contrast to OE laden, where we cannot exclude Celtic influences,OE byden < L butina 'vessel, tub, barrel' is a good case in point. In the area ofRomance speech, the Latin etymon is no longer extant, with the exception oftraces in southern Italy and possibly in Romanian.78 The word expanded withthe spread of viniculture along the Rhine valley. It is also attested inAlemannic (OHG butin,putin).19 OE byden reflects the Latin voicing of/t/ > /d/and the OE i-mutation of /u/ > /y/. If it had been borrowed before voicing, weshould have to expect OE *byten. However, the word must have beenborrowed before the completion of i-mutation. That means that the period ofborrowing lies between the completion or generalization of Gallo-Romancevoicing and the completion of Old English i-mutation. If we accept the firsthalf of the sixth century as the traditional dating of the latter, which appears tobe confirmed by the comparison of a number of Latin loan-words in OldEnglish,80 we have a terminus ante quern which in all probability points to thefifth century as the period of Romance voicing. However, we lack aphonological terminus post quern. As butina in Latin is attested only relativelylate in Hesychios, a Greek grammarian of the fifth or sixth century, a verymuch earlier borrowing from Latin is improbable. OE byden shows that thedating of Romance voicing depends on the traditional dating of the OldEnglish i-mutation, which I believe to be convincing.

In Pogatscher's chronology, all Old English loan-words reflecting Latinvoicing are Insular loan-words. However, the discussion of the possibility ofCeltic mediation showed that OE laden is an ill-suited example for the attemptto prove that loan-words reflecting the voicing of Latin intervocalic stopswere borrowed during the 'Insular' period. Pogatscher himself admits that thebeginnings of voicing reach back into the continental period,81 a fact which inhis view seems to be corroborated by L episcopus> ebescobu (> OE biscop). Asthe word is present in the continental Germanic languages, OE biscop couldhave been borrowed at the end of the continental period or at least before AD450.82 This dating is to some extent confirmed by the recent study of Rotsaert,who concludes that 'il n'est pas impossible que l'emprunt ags. remonte al'epoque continentale, comme le croyait A. Pogatscher'.83 Rotsaert, however,stresses also the possibility that the word could have been borrowed in thesixth century. A borrowing at the beginning of the fifth century presupposesan early voicing of Latin /-p-/ > /-b-/ which can be assigned only broadly to the

78 W o l l m a n n , Untersuchungen, p . 548 . 79 Ibid. p . 549.80 See Wollmann, 'Die Chronologie des altenglischen i-Umlauts' (cited above, n. 69).81 Pogatscher, hautlehre, §§ 366-7. 82 See above, p. 4.83 Rotsaert, 'Vieux-haut-allem. biscof, p. 214.

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whole of the fifth century. A terminus ante quern for the borrowing of a WestGermanic *biscop is supplied by the fricativization of a secondary Gallo-Romance /b/ > /B/ which took place in a period immediately after thecompletion of voicing of intervocalic stops.84 As the /6/-stage was certainlyreached in the course of the sixth century or at the beginning of the seventh atthe latest - a compromise between the datings of Straka and Pope - we are onsafe ground if we conclude that OE biscop must have been borrowed in thecourse of the fifth century. This does not prejudice any conclusion on the areaof origin of the word. OE biscop shows that the voicing of intervocalic Latinstops is a process of the fifth century setting in on a broader scale presumablyalready at the end of the fourth century.

Although the dating of Romance voicing to the fifth century is far frombeing the received opinion in Romance historical linguistics, it seems to be themost convincing one if we understand the fifth century as the period ofexpansion and generalization of voicing in Western Romance.85 This does notpreclude the possibility that the tendency of voicing as an unconditionedphonological variable already began very much earlier, as is shown by someisolated forms of the second century attested in Egypt, Pompeii and theBalkans.86 A sound change does not operate in strictly delimited time spansbut starts as a variable gradually gaining ground in the lexicon. Theoccurrence of occasional mis-spellings on a low quantitative level indicates avery advanced stage of the sound change and not its beginning.87 ReliableGallo-Romance evidence for the voicing occurs only very late in inscriptionsand manuscripts of the seventh and eighth centuries. At this time of increasingevidence in written documents, voicing certainly must have been completed inthe spoken language. Nevertheless there is a huge gap between the earliestevidence of the second century and the Gallo-Romance evidence setting in inthe seventh century. A more precise dating of a sound change like voicingalways means trying to establish the period of its generalization. Although theevidence of the loan-words must be examined with the utmost caution, they

84 Ibid. pp. 189-90, citing M. K. Pope, From Latin to Modern French (Manchester, 1934), §§ 164,180 and 336. Straka, however, proposes an earlier date for /B/ < /b/ which he believes to becurrent already in the course of the fifth century; this early date is dependent on Straka'sdating of the voicing of /p/ > /b/ which should have taken place at the end of the fourthcentury. See de la Chaussee, Initiation a la phonetique historique de fancien francais, p. 51 andStraka, Les sons et les mots, pp. 260 and 273.

85 For a survey of the datings, see Wollmann, XJntersuchungen, pp. 437—49; B. Lofstedt, Studienfiber die Sprache der langobardischen Geset^e. Beitrage %ur friihmittelalterlichen Latinitat, ActaUniversitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Latina Upsaliensia 1 (Stockholm and Uppsala, 1961), 138—49. K Wollmann, Untersuchungen, p. 438.

87 See T. D. Cravens, 'Phonology, Phonetics and Orthography in Late Latin and Romance: theEvidence for early Intervocalic Sonorization', Latin and the Romance Languages in the EarlyMiddle Ages, ed. R. Wright (London, 1991), pp. 52-68.

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often provide essential chronological criteria. In the case of the dating ofGallo-Romance voicing, Old English loan-words in fact play a significantrole.88

In our search for the relevance of Latin loan-words to Old Englishphonology we have to be very cautious. From OE byden we can deduce that i-mutation was later than Romance voicing. Since the dating of the latter,however, ultimately rests on Old English evidence we cannot state that i-mutation must be a process of the sixth century, because Romance voicingoperated in the fifth century. The dating of Old English sound changes mustbe based on internal evidence. Likewise, the early Christian loan-word OEsealm 'psalm' does not prove that Old English breaking is a process of theseventh century. On the background of Old English evidence we have tointerpret this form as a later analogical introduction.

The relative chronology can be corroborated by the semantic and compara-tive analysis of the words in question. Christian loan-words must commonlyhave been borrowed after the end of the fifth century, although in some cases aborrowing prior to Christianization is probable. OE abbod 'abbot' clearlyshows the effect of voicing of L /t/ > /d/ in L abbatem. Since the word probablywas borrowed at the initial phase of Christianization this means that at thebeginning of the seventh century the fricativization of VL /d/ > \b\ had not yetreached a critical stage.

The above-mentioned rule that a Latin loan-word in Old English can best beidentified as an early 'continental' one if it is reflected in other (West)Germanic languages leads us to the methodological approach that early Latinloan-words in Old English always have to be seen in the wider context of anorthwest Germanic language community, an aspect which was repeatedlystressed by Theodor Frings.89 The Latin loan vocabulary, especially in Dutch,Old Frisian, Old Saxon and Middle Low German, is of the utmost importancefor the dating of a loan-word. However, in some cases a word like segn < L

88 Latin loan-words in Old English are frequently cited in the literature on Romance historicalphonology. W. Meyer-Liibke, Historische Grammatik derfran^psischen Sprache, 5th ed., 2 vols.(Heidelberg, 1934) I, § 157, cites OE laden and Slgen as proving Romance voicing to havetaken place at the beginning of the fifth century; see also idem, 'Die lateinische Sprache in denromanischen Landern', Grundriss der romanischen Pbilologie, ed. G. Grdber, 2nd ed., 4 vols.(Strassburg, 1904-6) 1,474. However, W. Meyer-Liibke, GrammatikderromanischenSprachen,4 vols. (Leipzig, 1890-1902) I, § 647, places Romance voicing in the sixth century becauseOE laden seems to have been borrowed only at that time. C. Battisti, Avviamento allo studio dellatino volgare (Bari, 1949), pp. 158-9, also adduces the evidence of Latin loan-words in OldEnglish for his dating of the generalization of voicing into the fifth century.

89 Cf. e .g. F r i n g s ' s succ inc t s t a t e m e n t in his Grundlcgtmg einer Geschichte der deutschen Spracbe, 3 rded. (Halle, 1957), p. 26: 'Wir beobachten ein Einheitsgebiet Gallien, Britannien, Nieder-lande-Niederrhein mit einer siidlichen Grenzsetzung in der Augusta Treverorum oderColonia Agrippina, Trier oder Koln.'

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signum in its pre-Christian meaning 'sign, military standard, banner' is onlyextant in Old English. Although the word lacks continental congeners, thelowering of L /i/ > /e/ provides a phonological criterion proving the relativelyearly borrowing of the word. In establishing the age of a loan-word, a corpusof early loan-words in the North-West-Germanic languages would be mosthelpful.9"

CONCLUSION

Campbell's dichotomy of'early' vs. 'later' loans provides a broad and practicalperiodi2ation. It does not preclude the statement that within the group of'early' loan-words there can be discerned various layers of loan-words whichare defined by the chronology of the Latin sound changes. For instance, loan-words reflecting VL /e/ < L /i/ like OE peru 'pear' < L pirumjpira wereborrowed earlier than words reflecting VL /o/ < L /u/ like OE torr 'tower' < Lturris. Likewise words reflecting Romance voicing were mainly borrowed inthe course of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth centuries.90 Research on the Latin loan-words specifically in the Northwest-Germanic languages is scant

or outdated. For Dutch, see A. Weijnen, 'Leenworden uit de Latinitas, stratigrafischbeschouwd', Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Kotiinklijke Vlaamse Academic voor Tall- enLetterkunde (1967), pp. 365—480; for Old Frisian, see A. Wollmann, 'Zu den lateinischenLehnworten im Altfriesischen', Aspects of Old Frisian Philology, ed. R. H. Bremmer, G. vander Meer and O. Vries (Amsterdam, 1990), pp. 506-36.

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early latin loan-words in old english

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