Changes in the English Language

A Comparison of Old, Middle, and Modern English

Luke 2:1-19

The Old and Middle English texts above are taken from The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels in Parallel Columns with the Versions of Wycliffe and Tyndale; Arranged, with preface and notes, by the Rev, Joseph Bosworth, D.D.F.R.S.F.S.A. Professor of Anglo Saxon, Oxford; Assisted by George Waring, Esq. M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Third Edition, London: Reeves & Turner, 1888. Reprinted as The Gospels: Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe and Tyndale versions arranged in parallel columns. Fourth Edition. London: Gibbings, 1907. The text of the King James Version is reproduced as it appears in The Holy Bible, 1611 edition. King James Version. A word-for-word reprint of the First Edition of the Authorized Version presented in roman letters. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993.

Characters Used in Old and Middle English Writing
æ	Aesh. a ligature of "a" and "e," borrowed by English scribes from Latin.
œ	Oegule. A ligature of "o" and "e."
þ	Thorn. Borrowed by Old English scribes from the runic alphabet for a non-Roman, Germanic sound, now written "th." The "th" combination was introduced by Norman scribes in the Middle English period. The þ later became similar to a Y in handwriting (though not phonetically) and in this form it continued to be used by printers as an abbreviation for "th" in early printed books.
	Crossed thorn. An abbreviation for þæt, "that," often used by Old English scribes.
	Tironian et, the form of the ampersand used by Old English scribes.
ð	Eth. Another way of representing the Germanic "th" sound, invented by Old English scribes. The eth and thorn were used interchangeably in Old English manuscripts. The eth fell out of use by the Middle English period, while the thorn survived to the end of the fourteenth century.
	Wynn. borrowed by Old English scribes from the runic alphabet for the Germanic "w" sound. The "w" character (originally written as a double "u") was introduced into English manuscripts by Norman scribes in the Middle English period.
	Yogh. The form of the letter "g" in the Insular script commonly used in Old English manuscripts. In Old English, yogh is used for the sound of "g." In Middle English manuscripts, Norman scribes introduced the character "g" but continued to use yogh for gutteral "y" and the "ch" of Scots "loch."
ß	Eszed. Appears frequently in medieval manuscripts for the "ss" or "sz" sound, as in modern German.

Characters and Contractions Used in Early Printed Books
¯	The macron. A horizontal stroke printed over a letter to indicate that the following letter or syllable (usually an n or m) has been omitted. For example, the is put for them. A curled macron (tilde) represents an omitted a. By this means, scribes and early printers often abbreviated a word so that their columns would be neatly justified.
	The "Y" character, which came to be used to represent the runic "thorn" (þ - see above) was often used as an abbreviation for "th" in early printed books, and when it was used in this way it was normally printed with a superscript "e" or "t" as an abbreviation for "the" or "that."
	Up till about 1790 the "long s" was used for s at the beginning and in the middle of words. In Roman type the long s looks like an f with the cross-stroke on the left only, and in italic type it looks like a stretched round s.
u v	The "U" and "V" are not distinguished phonetically in early English spelling. The "U" character is used for both the v and u sound when it occurs in the middle of a word, and the "V" character is normally used for either sound at the beginning of a word.
&	The ampersand, often used for "and" in early books.
e	The silent "e" occurs much more often in early English spelling than it does now. It was often used by printers simply to expand the length of a word in order to justify their columns of type.

For the differences between the Early Modern English of the King James Version and the form of English spoken today, the following books will be found helpful:

• Luther Weigle, Bible Words That Have Changed in Meaning. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955.
• Melvin E. Elliott, The Language of the King James Bible: A Glossary Explaining its Words and Expressions. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1967.
• Ronald Bridges and Luther Weigle, The Bible Word Book: Concerning Obsolete or Archaic Words in the King James Version of the Bible. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1960. Reprinted as The King James Bible Word Book: A Contemporary Dictionary of Curious and Archaic Words Found in the King James Version of the Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994. This is a helpful scholarly book, though unfortunately Weigle often seems more interested in recommending the Revised Standard Version's renderings than in explaining the language of the KJV. In 1999 the book was revised by Martin H. Manser and issued as I Never Knew that Was in the Bible! (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999). This revision adds a good deal of irrelevent trivia about the renderings of more recent versions, which only distracts further from the usefulness of the book. (The new title, and the childish cartoons which have been added, are sadly indicative of recent downgrade trends in Christian publishing.)
• William Aldis Wright, The Bible Word-Book. London, 1866. Revised and enlarged in a 2nd edition published by the MacMillan Company, 1884.
• Henry Cotton, A Short Explanation of Obsolete Words in our Version of the Bible (Oxford, 1832).
• Lewis Davies, Bible English. London: George Bell & Sons, 1875.
• James Gurnhill, English retraced, or, Remarks, critical and philological founded on a comparison of the Breeches Bible with the English of the present day. Cambridge: H. Wallis, 1862.
• James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible, Dealing with its Language, Literature, and Contents, including the Biblical Theology, edited by James Hastings, with the assistance of John Selbie, A.B. Davidson, S.R. Driver, H.B. Swete. 5 volumes. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1898-1906. Reprinted by Hendrickson Publishers in 1988. This Bible dictionary contains many articles explaining in great detail the vocabulary and idioms of the King James Version. For example, the entry "OF" in volume 3 fills two whole pages with examples and explanations of the archaic usages of this preposition in the KJV.