Editing Mercian dialect (section)

==History==
[[File:Old English Dialects.png|thumb|The dialects of Old English {{circa|800 CE}}]]
The Mercian dialect was spoken as far east as the border of the [[Kingdom of East Anglia]] and as far west as [[Offa's Dyke]], bordering Wales. It was spoken in an area that extended as far north as [[Staffordshire]], bordering [[Northumbria]], and as far south as South [[Oxfordshire]]/ [[Gloucestershire]], where it bordered on the [[Kingdom of Wessex]]. The [[Old Norse]] language also filtered in on a few occasions after the foundation of the [[Danelaw]]. This describes the situation before the unification of Mercia.

The [[Old English Martyrology]] is a collection of over 230 [[hagiography|hagiographies]], probably compiled in [[Mercia]], or by someone who wrote in the Mercian dialect of Old English, in the second half of the 9th century. Six Mercian hymns are included in the Anglo-Saxon glosses to the [[Vespasian Psalter]]; they include the [[Benedictus (Song of Zechariah)|Benedictus]] and the [[Magnificat]].<ref>Sweet, H. (1946) ''Anglo-Saxon Reader''; 10th ed. Clarendon Pr.; pp. 170-179</ref>

In later Anglo-Saxon England, the dialect remained in use in speech but rarely in written documents. Some time after the [[Norman conquest of England]], Middle English dialects emerged and were later found in such works as the ''[[Ormulum]]'' and the writings of the [[Gawain poet]]. In the later Middle Ages, a Mercian or East Midland dialect seems to have predominated in the [[London]] area, producing such forms as ''are'' (from Mercian '''arun''').

Mercian was used by the writer and [[philologist]] [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] to signify his fictional [[Rohirric]] language.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=[[The Road to Middle-Earth]] |date=2005 |edition=Third |orig-year=1982 |publisher=Grafton (HarperCollins) |isbn=978-0261102750 |pages=131–133}}</ref>