IRON-CLAD EVIDENCE IN EARLY MEDIAEVAL DIALECTOLOGY: Old English 'īsern', 'īsen', and 'īren'

A search of the Old English corpus for three forms of the Old English word for iron - isern, isen, & iren - strongly indicates that isern, which reflects *isarno-, was the original form & that two innovative forms, isen & iren, have their respective points of origin in the south & the West Midlands. Both of the innovative forms spread to other regions in written materials, the former via the late West Saxon standard. The frequent occurrence of iren in Beowulf, where all three forms are attested, is deemed a pecularity of the transmission of that work, as isern is more representative of the Old English poetic koine first identified by Kenneth Sisam (1953). 69 References. J. Hitchcock