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West Saxon is the term applied to the two different dialectsEarly West Saxon andLate West Saxon with West Saxon being one of the four distinct regionaldialects of Old English. The three others wereKentish,Mercian andNorthumbrian (the latter two were similar and are known as the Anglian dialects). West Saxon was the language of the kingdom ofWessex, and was the basis for successive widely used literary forms of Old English: theEarly West Saxon ofAlfred the Great's time, and theLate West Saxon of the late 10th and 11th centuries. Due to the Saxons' establishment as a politically dominant force in the Old English period, the West Saxon dialects became the strongest dialects in Old English manuscript writing.[1]
Early West Saxon was the language employed byKing Alfred (849–899), used in the many literary translations produced under Alfred's patronage (and some by Alfred himself). It is often referred to as Alfredian Old English, or Alfredian. The language of these texts nonetheless sometimes reflects the influence of other dialects besides that of Wessex.
List of texts:
By the time of theNorman conquest of England in 1066, the language had evolved into Late West Saxon, which had established itself as a written language and replaced the Alfredian language,[5] following the Athewoldian language reform set in train by BishopÆthelwold of Winchester. The name most associated with that reform is that of AbbotÆlfric of Eynsham, Ælfric the Grammarian. Despite their similarities, Late West Saxon is not considered by some to be a direct descendant of Early West Saxon.[6]
Late West Saxon was the dialect that became the first standardised written "English" ("Winchester standard"), sometimes referred to as "classical" Old English. This dialect was spoken mostly in the south and west around the importantmonastery atWinchester, which was also the capital city of the Saxon kings. However, while other Old English dialects were still spoken in other parts of the country, it seems that all scribes wrote and copied manuscripts in this prestigious written form. Well-known poems recorded in this language includeBeowulf andJudith. However, both these poems appear to have been written originally in other Old English dialects, but later translated into the standard Late West Saxon literary language when they were copied by scribes.
In theWessex Gospels from around 990, the text ofMatthew 6 (Matthew 6:9–13), theLord's Prayer, is as follows:
The "Winchester standard" gradually fell out of use after theNorman Conquest in 1066. Monasteries did not keep the standard going because Englishbishops were soon replaced byNorman bishops who brought their ownLatin textbooks and scribal conventions, and there was less need to copy or write in Old English[citation needed]. Latin soon became the dominant language of scholarship and legal documents,[9] withAnglo-Norman as the language of the aristocracy, and any standard written English became a distant memory by the mid-twelfth century as the last scribes, trained as boys before the conquest in West Saxon, died as old men.
The new standard languages that would come into being in the times ofMiddle English andModern English were descended from theEast Midlands dialect, which wasAnglian, and not from West Saxon. Late West Saxon is the distant ancestor ofWest Country English.[citation needed]