A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BY OLIVER FARRAR EMERSON, A.M., PH.D. PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH PHILOLOGY IN WESTERN RESERVE New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1896 All rights reserved HARVARD COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PREFACE WHEN the author's History of the English Language was passing through the press, a friend suggested the advisability of preparing a brief book on the same subject for schools not desiring the longer work. This suggestion, together with the success accorded to the larger book in this country and abroad, largely accounts for the present volume. The aim has been to shorten and simplify the History by the omission of technical details, especially regarding the phonology of the language, without changing materially the scope of the former work. Each part has been rewritten or much altered, usually by omission, but sometimes also by addition and rearrangement. The greatest changes have been made in Parts IV and V. In Part IV the history of English sounds has been replaced by some chapters illustrating the most important and characteristic changes in the forms of words. It is hoped that these chapters, without being too technical, will emphasize the importance of phonetic change, analogy, and accent. They also make it possible to treat inflections on a phonetic, rather than an orthographic basis, thus simplifying classification and arrangement. |