Foreword¶

I, Ælfric, decided to write in the English language this small volume about the literacy skill known as grammatica after I translated two books containing eighty homilies since good literacy is the key to unlocking the meaning of those books. And I thought that this book might benefit young children at the start of their studies until they have reached greater understanding. It is desirable that each man, if he has any skill, make it useful to others and entrust to them the talents which God has entrusted to him, lest he let God’s wealth lay idle and he be called a wicked servant and that he be bound and thrown into darkness, just as the holy gospel says. It befits the young man that he learn some wisdom and it is right for the old to teach understanding to the young, for it is through teaching that faith is maintained. And each man who loves wisdom is blessed and if he neither learns nor teaches if he may, he diminishes his understanding and moves little by little from God. From where shall arise learned teachers for God’s people unless he teaches the young? And how may faith be advanced if teaching and teachers fall away?

Now therefore God’s servants and monks are earnestly cautioned that the holy teaching not wane nor diminish, just as it did for the Anglicans a few years ago, when no English priest could compose or explicate a letter in Latin until archbishop Dunstan and bishop Aðelwold established teaching once more as part of monastic life. I do not claim that this book will help many to great learning, but nevertheless it may give some understanding of both languages if it is of use to anyone. I ask now in God’s name that if you have this book copied, that you correct it from the exemplar, for I have no control over errors that may be introduced by unreliable scribes and inaccuracies are their responsibility and not mine. Much evil does the bad copyist do should he introduce error.

De littera¶

Littera means ‘letter’ in English and is is the smallest part of a book and is indivisible. We may divide a book into sentences and further divide the sentences into words, and again the words into syllables and then the syllables into letters. The letters, then, are indivisible, for a letter has no meaning if it is divided in two. Each letter has three properties: nomen, figura, potestas, that is ‘name’ and ‘form’ and ‘function’. Name: what it is called (a, b, c); form: how it is written; function: what power does it have when placed among other letters.

Furthermore in Latin there are twenty three letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, x, y, z. Of those there are five uocales, or vowels, that are voiced: a, e, i, o, u. Those five letters reveal their names through their own sound and without these letters no word may be written and therefore they are called quinque uocales. To these is added the Greek y for use in Greek names and this same letter is also very common in English. All of the other letters are called consonates, that is ‘sounding with’, for they make sound only when combined with one of the five voiced letters. Some are found with the voiced letters and are semiuocales, that is ‘half-voiced’; some are mutae, that is ‘silent’. There are seven semiuocales: f, l, m, n, r, s, x. These are called half-voiced because they are not fully-voiced like the quinque uocales. And six begin with the letter e and end with themselves; x alone begins with i according to the teaching of scholars. The other nine consonantes are said to be mutae, that is ‘silent’. They are not completely silent but they have little sound. They are: b, c, d, g, h, k, p, q, t. These begin with themselves and end with their voiced letter: b, c, d, g, p, t end with e; h and k end with a if spoken properly; q ends with u. Finally z, a Greek letter, end with a; the letter is borrowed from Green into Latin for use with Greek words. I and u are considered consonates when placed together or when combined with other vowels. If you were to now say iudex, you find the i consonans. If you were to say uir, you find the u consonans. Ianua: here is the i consonans; uatis: here is the u consonans. These two letters also have more functions than we will say here. In addition, we might discuss the various other ways to pronounce these letters if it were appropriate for English.

Incipit de verbo¶

Verbum est pars orationis cum tempore et persona sine casu aut agere aliquit aut pati aut neutrum significans: ‘a verbum is a word which is part of Latin with time and person without case, signifying either the doing of something or the enduring of something or neither’. Verbum habet septum accidentia: ‘a verb has seven things which belong to it’. It has significatio, that is ‘meaning’, what that word means: a deed, a thing to be endured or neither; tempus ‘time’, modus ‘mood’, species ‘function’, figura ‘form’, coniugatio, ‘conjugation’, persona ‘person’, numerus ‘number’. We shall now in order carefully consider each of these.

Significatio is ‘meaning’, what the word means. Each complete word with -o or -or. An -o ending denotes an actiua uerba, that is an ‘active’ word, one that shows what one does: amo ‘I love’ describes my action; likewise doceo ‘I teach’, lego ‘I read’, audio ‘I hear’. In each of these words it is my action which is described. These and their like are called actiua, that is ‘active’, since they describe actions. Add an -r to these words and they become passiua, that is ‘passive’, not in the sense that they denote suffering, rather that the other person’s action happened to me rather than to you; in Latin they are passiuum uerbum. I now say amo ‘I love’, then you say quem amas? ‘Whom do you love’? I say te amo ‘I love you’ and so my love is directed at you and you may say amor a te ‘I am loved by you’; doceo te ‘I teach you’, and you say: doceor a te ‘I am taught by you’, et cetera.

So, there is a word called actiua, that is ‘active’, that you end with an -o and you make it passiua uerba, that is a ‘passive verb’, by giving it an -r, as we said above. A word which ends with with an -o and may not be understood to be passiua is called neutra, that is ‘of neither kind’ or ‘neutral’; uiuo ‘I live’, spiro ‘I breathe’, sto ‘I stand’, ambulo ‘I walk’, sedeo ‘I sit’. These words be cannot be passiuum, since their action cannot be performed by any other person but the speaker. However, some which are neutrum are passiuum in the third person, not in relation to a person but to another thing: aro ‘I plough’, aras ‘you plough’, arat ‘he ploughs’. No one says ‘I am ploughed’ but in the third person it is said: aratur terra ‘the land is ploughed’; bibo ‘I drink’, bibitur uinum ‘the wine is drunk’; manduco ‘I eat’, manducatur panis ‘the loaf is eaten’; laboro ‘I toil’, laboratur uestis ‘the clothing is worn out’, et cetera.