The paper identifies changes in the semantics of the Old English word ælf (‘elf’) through a rigorous analysis of two textual traditions in which Old English words based on ælf are used to gloss Latin words for nymphs.

It is difficult to detect lexical change within Old English, since most of our texts derive from a relatively short period, but lexical change can afford valuable insights into cultural change. As the generic identification of and relationships between these poems has been problematic for more than a century, the ability of the meme-based theory to explain their similarities and differences is support for both the theory’s coherence and its utility. We will therefore in this chapter test the meme-based theory of tradition and influence by seeing if it can shed light on some specific cultural productions: a group of Old English poems from the tenth-century Exeter Book.

So it is important to check the tendency within literary and cultural studies toward theoretical over-development unconstrained by empirical evidence.

Any sufficiently complex theory runs the risk of following its internal logic to conclusions that seem reasonable in light of the theory but, due to unconsidered factors, are not consistent with observed reality. Urban middle classes, on the other hand, were the most likely English-speaking early adopters of new norms.Ī theory of cultural evolution needs not only to be internally coherent and logically consistent, but it must also be able to account for the details of specific cultural productions or phenomena. Preachers of the new type were the multilingual innovators who generated new lexis in English and at the same time were instrumental in its diffusion, serving as weak ties between the various levels of the medieval society. The innovation and spread of new francophone religious lexis was conditioned by the new preaching practices that began to develop in Europe in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council and the emergence of mendicant orders. It is postulated that two kinds of inherited Old English lexis should be distinguished in the Middle English period: (i) established terms that had belonged to the West Saxon standard and were still preserved in general use by the lower regular clergy, parish priests and the faithful at large, and (ii) terms of limited currency that had failed to spread outside local communities with strong ties and survived for a short time after the Conquest in smaller religious foundations. This study shows that the survival of old lexemes into Middle English is largely determined by the extent of their diffusion and frequency of occurrence before the Norman Conquest. Other terms, however, survive from the Old English period into the present day, resisting contact-induced pressure. Due to the intake of new French religious words, English lexemes and also whole word families undergo semantic transformation and lexical replacement. Middle English religious vocabulary is radically different from that of the previous period: while Old English is characterised more by lexical pattern replication of Latin (and Greek) etyma, Middle English is the period of matter replication.

Tremulous etymology