OUTLINES OF A HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 
 GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. STRONG, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 Professor of Latin in the Liverpool University College, Victoria University, 
 
 AND 
 
 KUNO MEYER, PH.D., 
 
 Lecturer on Teutonic Languages in the Liverpool University College, 
 Victoria University. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LE BAS & LOWREY, 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1886. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS work is the result of a want felt by the authors in the 
 course of their professional teaching. Several good New High 
 German grammars are in existence to supply the wants of Eng- 
 lishmen, but a good history of the German language has, as far as 
 the authors know, still to be written. The present work pretends 
 to be nothing more than a mere sketch, which they hope that they 
 may one day have the opportunity and leisure to fill in. It was 
 intended to call the work " A Short History of the German Lan- 
 guage, based upon Schleicher's Geschichte der deutschen Sprache 
 (Stuttgart, 1879)," for Schleicher's book seemed to them long to 
 have been the best single work on the subject. But of late years 
 the study of philology has been making such strides, and the 
 Germans especially have applied themselves with such energy to 
 the study of general and special linguistic studies, that it was felt 
 to be more probably useful to give the results of the most 
 recent studies of their own language by German philologists. The 
 works found most useful by the authors for this purpose are after 
 Schleicher's Geschichte^ Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte, 
 Riickert's Geschichte der Neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache, Scherer's 
 Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, and Wedewer's Zur Sprachwissen- 
 schaft (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861). To this must be added Kluge's 
 admirable, but all too brief Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen 
 Sprache, from whose Introduction the authors have, with Prof.Kluge's 
 permission, borrowed much, and as far as possible adhered to his 
 words and illustrations. Chapter I. is, in the main, based upon 
 Paul's Principien , and Chapter II. upon Kluge and Wedewer. In 
 the description of the Indo-European languages Schleicher has, 
 
 830235 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 generally speaking, been followed, not, however, without some 
 important alterations. The illustrations have been always, where 
 possible, drawn from German or English, for this little work is 
 intended before all things as an introduction to Teutonic philology. 
 
 It must further be pointed out that before an English reader can 
 peruse it advantageously, he must possess some knowledge of 
 German, otherwise many of the illustrations will be meaningless to 
 him. It is intended, in the first instance, to be useful to teachers, 
 who can fill up and amplify principles which space forbade the 
 authors from illustrating more fully ; but it is hoped that advanced 
 students may derive some aid from it. 
 
 In the study of the Science of Language, as indeed in other 
 studies, one seems to learn that a few great facts and principles are 
 by degrees established, but that much which seems certain to one 
 generation has to be unlearnt by the next ; and one of the chief 
 difficulties in the study of comparative philology is to draw a hard 
 and fast line between what one may call the poetry of the Science, 
 and its ascertained facts. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 I. THERE are several ways of regarding language, and entering 
 upon its study ; and it is important that these several ways 
 should be kept distinct. Language may be studied for its own 
 sake ; and this method differs from the study of the Philosophy of 
 Language on the one hand, and from the study of language as the 
 mere vehicle of thought and conversation on the other. The 
 Science of Language is the name commonly adopted by English 
 writers for the science which concerns itself with language for its own 
 sake : its object is therefore concrete and real ; it deals with actual 
 given languages, their sounds, their words and the functions of these, 
 their inflexions, their etymology, &c. The study of the Philosophy 
 of Language is that of its general principles, and the way in which 
 these depend upon human thought and affect it in turn : it is thus 
 a study of the abstract and ideal. It follows that the Philosophy 
 of Language belongs to a wholly different sphere of intellectual 
 activity from the Science of Language ; it forms no part, strictly 
 speaking, of the latter ; but belongs to the department of Philosophy 
 properly so called. 
 
 2. The Science of Language is also called in England 
 the science of ' Philology/ or of ' Comparative Philology.' In 
 B 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 France it is commonly called ' la linguistique,' and in Germany is 
 known by the name of ' Sprachwissenschaft.' It is particularly 
 necessary to notice this, because the Germans employ the term 
 ' Philologie ' to denote the study of language from its purely 
 literary side ; and thus it must be remembered that, in the mouth 
 of a German, * Philologie ' means something very different from 
 ' Philology ' in the mouth of an Englishman. In English we have 
 appropriated no single word to express what the Germans mean by 
 ' Philologie,' and must be content to fall back upon the expression 
 ' the Science of Literature.' This science is simply a branch 
 of history. Its object is the apprehension of the intellectual 
 life of intellectual nations as recorded in their writings, and the 
 interpretation of that life to us. Where a nation has no written 
 history and no literature, such a science is impossible. The Science 
 of Literature naturally turned its attention in the first instance to the 
 intellectual development of the nations of antiquity which have left 
 the most important literary records, viz. the Greeks and the Romans, 
 but the progress made by Philology has created as well many other 
 Sciences of Literature, as that of Indian, of Egyptian, Celtic, or of 
 Chinese literatures. Several kindred literatures are sometimes 
 grouped together for convenience sake. Thus the science which 
 embraces Semitic, Sanskrit, Persian, ancient Egyptian and Turkish 
 literature a union philologically speaking impossible is com- 
 monly called the Science of Oriental Literature, just as that which 
 deals with the literatures of Greece and Rome is called the Science 
 of Classical Literature. 
 
 3. Philology, on the other hand, or the Science of Language, 
 is only in part a historical science ; in part it must be reckoned a 
 branch of natural history. It does not concern itself directly with 
 history in its widest sense, but simply with the regular and un- 
 changing laws of language ; laws which are only partially discovered 
 and investigated, but which are fixed and abiding, and are as much 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 beyond the power of any single individual to alter as it is beyond 
 the power of the nightingale to change its note. The Science of 
 Language does not ask whether the people who speak a particular 
 language are intellectually gifted or not. It regards literature 
 merely as the record of language ; and interests itself not less in 
 languages which have never been committed to writing than in 
 those which have served to express the thoughts of the most gifted 
 and thoughtful nations. Literatures, then, have their main 
 significance for the student of language in the fact that they put us 
 in possession of the forms of language employed in past epochs. 
 The Science of Language finds its main scope in language itself ; 
 the Science of Literature presupposes the existence of a language 
 in order that it may examine the thoughts and style thereby 
 expressed, and may thus arrive at conclusions regarding the 
 intellectual state of the people who speak and write in it. 
 
 4. The Science of Literature then has to take account of that 
 side of language which depends most on the will or taste of the 
 individual, such as style and syntax : the doctrine of the more 
 natural side of language, its sounds and its forms, it treats as a 
 matter of but secondary importance. These interest the student of 
 literature mainly as channels for conveying information ; and from 
 another point of view as elements with which the writer can deal at 
 his will ; and thus as acquainting us with the taste and style of each 
 author. But a scientific appreciation of the construction and the 
 sounds of one or more languages is impossible without some insight 
 into the laws of sound and construction in other languages. This is 
 the work of the Philologist proper ; it is his business to state the 
 results of his careful comparison of different languages and of their 
 structure : the student of literature can apply this knowledge to his 
 own purposes. The aim of the Philologist, as such, is then entirely 
 different from that of the student of literature. That the two 
 sciences have something in common we shall presently see : but 
 
 B 2 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 while the student of literature mainly concerns himself with 
 the use made of language, the Philologist confines himself 
 in the first instance to the study of its forms. The student of 
 literature must have a perfect acquaintance with the language 
 of the people with whose literature he has to deal ; for language is 
 merely the expression of thought, and it is his aim to reproduce 
 for us the intellectual life of nations as mirrored forth in the 
 expression of their thoughts. The Philologist must compare 
 several languages, and he must choose for his comparison the 
 most characteristic of the chief groups in the scientific division 
 of languages. He has first and foremost to concern himself with 
 their organic structure : incidentally, indeed, their syntax and 
 their functions will come under his notice ; but these are likewise 
 as was stated, the object of the student of literature. 
 
 5. A good Linguist, as we say, differs from the Philologist on the 
 one hand, and from the student of literature on the other. He is an 
 artist rather than a man of science. His talent consists in a good 
 memory and a considerable power of imitating sounds. The 
 Science of Language, however, appeals practically to the linguist, 
 and offers to aid him in his special vocation. Its methods, based 
 upon reason and logic, can claim to confer a readiness in 
 the acquisition of languages such as no unscientific method can 
 offer. Philologists would do well to take into account the increasing 
 intercourse between the different nations of the world, and by 
 applying themselves to exhibit the practical use of the science they 
 profess, to lighten the task of those whose business it is to master 
 foreign languages. 
 
 6. The question has been asked whether the Science of 
 Language can properly be called a science. It cannot be called 
 an exact fc science, if by an exact science be meant a science 
 whose results can be quantitatively measured like those of 
 mathematics or astronomy. It is a branch of the large Science of 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 Human Culture ; and a branch the conditions of whose development 
 may be watched more accurately than other branches of the same 
 science, such as those of history, ethics, or political economy. The 
 Science of Culture depends to a very large extent upon our 
 knowledge of the laws of psychology, which is gradually more and 
 more, as its laws are better understood, tending to become an 
 exact science. But in so far as there is in language itself an 
 historical development, we have to take into account the operation 
 of physical forces as well. Man's mind must work in harmony 
 with his body and with his natural environment in order to generate 
 any product of culture ; and the process by which such product 
 is formed depends as well upon physical as on psychical 
 conditions. 
 
 7. The Science of History, and that of Human Culture, which 
 is merely a department of the Science of History, has, too, its 
 physical and mathematical conditions. True, we are not as a 
 rule conscious of this ; for we commonly content ourselves with 
 an unscientific observation of what passes in our daily life. The 
 Science of Language also, as a branch of the Science of Culture, 
 is made up, as has been well said, of segments of several other 
 sciences ; and in proportion as these are isolated, and their exact 
 force measured, will the Science of Language itself tend to become 
 more and more exact. It is just the appreciation of this fact which 
 makes the difference between the popular and the scientific 
 methods of observation. Now language is peculiarly fortunate in 
 this respect ; the factors which go to its composition are 
 comparatively simple. It is true that in language considered 
 universally, we find traces of every subject which has engaged the 
 attention of the human mind ; traces of its bodily organism, of its 
 ratural environment, of its intellectual acquisitions, of all that has 
 coloured its experience and its life, and from this point of view it 
 might appear that language depends upon the most manifold and 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 complicated factors. But all these factors do not come under the 
 view of Philology, whose first object is to investigate the relations 
 under which the ideas, which it is the object of language to express,, 
 range themselves into definite groups of sound. And so it is that 
 Psychology and Physiology play the most important part among 
 the sciences which we may call the factors of Philology. 
 
 8. Another important point in language is that each of its 
 creations is the work of an individual and of an individual 
 operating unconsciously. To effect a change in language men do 
 not set their heads together as they do in economical or political 
 matters. True, what one man originates in language may be forth- 
 with adopted and modified by others, and in this way a division of 
 labour and process of co-operation takes place which is an essential 
 condition of all culture. But still language originates by no 
 convention, and it must be remembered that the creations of 
 language are unintentional and unconscious on the part of the 
 individual who creates them. In proportion as they confer on 
 language advantage or disadvantage will these changes survive or 
 disappear. 
 
 9. The absence of intention in originating change does not 
 of course apply to the artificial creation of a common written 
 language, but only to the natural and healthy growth of 
 dialects. Even such an artificial language as we have mentioned 
 must, however, be based upon a natural one, and can transform it 
 only within certain limits. Just as the cattle-breeder or the 
 gardener cannot produce anything at his will from nothing, 
 but can merely produce certain variations within certain limita- 
 tions, so must an artificial language be limited by the 
 natural laws of language, and repose upon them. It follows 
 that the exactness with which we can trace the changes in 
 language due to individuals must be the measure of our power 
 of investigating the changes which occur in any given language ; 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 and it is the simplicity and regularity of this change-producing 
 power which renders the science of language peculiarly 
 capable of being more and more approximated to an exact 
 science. 
 
 10. The materials which we possess for our observations on the 
 development of language fall mainly into two divisions: (i) 
 There is the language as we speak it ourselves, and as it is spoken 
 by our contemporaries ; (2) There are the records of the past, in 
 which languages have been handed down to us with more or less 
 exactness. Of these, the first-mentioned division is obviously the 
 more valuable : writing can never adequately take the place of 
 spoken sounds ; and, further, the records of the past can never 
 give us such full or exact data from which to argue, as the 
 present spoken language. The older the records, as a rule, the 
 less perfect will be their state of preservation : but even the oldest, 
 as we have them, confirm the conclusions which we are able to 
 draw from the more modern forms, as regards, for instance, the 
 laws of sound and the effects of analogy. 
 
 IT. The Philologist regards as the field of his labour all the 
 utterances of human individuals and their reciprocal effect. All 
 the diverse sounds of human speech furnish the materials for 
 the history of language, and in proportion as these are known and 
 understood, shall we be in a position to follow its development. 
 That the task is so huge as to be insurmountable needs not be said ; 
 fortunately, neither do all those utterances nor their intricate inter- 
 play enter into the phenomena of language with which the philo- 
 logist requires to deal. No doubt speaking and hearing are essential 
 phenomena here, as are indeed the ideas that spring into existence 
 with them : but these and the ideas they awaken are not the only 
 factors that come into consideration. Psychology now lays it down 
 Jhat many psychical processes take place unconsciously ; and 
 that everything which has once been present in consciousness 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 remains as an active force below consciousness. All spoken 
 utterances proceed from this obscure region of the unconscious 
 in the mind. In this region lie all the materials of speech 
 which are at the disposal of any individual ; and these form 
 a most complicated psychical product consisting of groups of 
 ideas laced and interlaced in the most puzzling and varied ways. 
 12. These ideas are the complex product of all that has entered 
 into human consciousness through hearing others speak, through 
 one's own utterance, and through thoughts mirrored forth in the 
 forms of speech. It is thanks to these, that what was once in con- 
 sciousness can again under favourable circumstances return to 
 consciousness : and thus what has once been understood or spoken 
 can be so again. The principle then must be grasped that no idea 
 which by means of language has once penetrated into consciousness 
 can ever disappear and leave no trace. The ideas are introduced 
 as groups into consciousness ; and consequently continue to live as 
 groups below consciousness. They associate themselves into a 
 regular succession from certain sounds which follow on each other, 
 and certain movements of the organs of speech which take place 
 successively. The different series of sounds and of movements 
 associate themselves with each other. The ideas, of which these 
 sounds and movements are the symbols, associate themselves with 
 each other : the ideas, not merely of verbal signification, but likewise 
 the ideas of syntactic relations. And not merely single words, but 
 entire series of sounds, and entire sentences associate themselves 
 with the contents of thought with which they have become charged. 
 These groups, originally entering the mind from without, now 
 associate themselves in each man's mind in richer and more com- 
 plicated combinations, which attain complete development to a very 
 small extent consciously, and then proceed to operate automatically, 
 and indeed, seldom if ever attain to actual consciousness, though in 
 spite of this they are still active and effective. It is in this way that 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 the different usages of a word or phrase that one has heard used, 
 group themselves with each other. So also the different cases of the 
 same noun, the different tenses, moods, and persons of the same verb, 
 the different derivations from the same root group themselves, owing 
 to the relationship existing between the sound and the signification 
 And, further, all words of identical function, such as substantives, 
 adjectives, and verbs : also words with identical suffixes derived 
 from different words : forms again of different words and similar 
 functions, such as all plurals, all genitives, all passives, all perfects, 
 all conjunctives, all first persons; again, words of similar inflexion 
 such as the German and English weak verbs in contrast to strong 
 verbs ; all masculines which form their plural by modification in 
 contrast to those which form it otherwise, &c. These and such 
 associations can and do take place unconsciously, and must not be 
 confused with the categories which grammarians have deliberately 
 formed by conscious abstraction, even though they sometimes tally 
 with these. 
 
 13. It is as important as it is obvious that these organised 
 groups of ideas manifest themselves in each individual in a 
 perpetual state of change. Every impulse which receives no re- 
 inforcement from a renewal of the impression or from some fresh 
 introduction into the domain of consciousness, must lose in strength. 
 Again, each effort of speech, hearing, or thought introduces some 
 novelty. Even supposing an earlier effort to be merely repeated, such 
 repetition implies a strengthening of the organic group previously 
 set in action. Besides, in each new effort of speech, the relations of 
 ideas within this organism are disturbed alike by the weakening or 
 the strengthening of the old elements, as by the addition of new. 
 It must further be insisted on that the organisation of the groups 
 of ideas develops itself in a special way in the case of each 
 individual, and thus in each single case takes a particular form. 
 And it is from a consideration of the limitless liability to change 
 
io ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 and the special character of each individual organisation, that we 
 infer the necessity of an equally limitless liability to change in 
 language in general, and thus of an equally limitless growth of 
 dialectic varieties. 
 
 14. It must then be borne in mind that historical develop- 
 ment depends mainly on psychical processes. What has been 
 actually uttered, however, has no development, strictly so called. 
 We say indeed, though the expression is incorrect, that any given 
 word took its origin from any other spoken at a previous date. 
 Words, the joint products of psychical and physical causes, disappear 
 and leave no trace, as soon as the organs concerned in their 
 utterance have ceased to act. In the same way the physical 
 impression on the hearer is merely transitory. The organs of 
 speech may be set in motion once, twice, thrice : but between these 
 motions there is no physical connection of cause and effect ; their 
 connection is purely psychical. 
 
 15. It is the office of the physical element in speech to render 
 the influence of individual psychical organisations on each other a 
 possibility. There is no such thing as direct influence of mind 
 upon mind as such. The physical element appears as an essentially 
 transitory phenomenon, but still by co-operating with psychical 
 organisations it aids these to leave effects which endure after they 
 themselves have disappeared. Their operation ceases with the 
 death of the individual, and thus the development of a language 
 would be confined to the length of a generation, were it 
 not that new individuals gradually come on, and, in these, new 
 organisms of speech gradually form themselves under the in- 
 fluence of those actually existing. It is a truth which is very 
 manifest, but not less important to lay hold of, that those who 
 actually contribute to the historical development of a language 
 all disappear in a comparatively brief period, and are regularly 
 replaced by a new set. 
 
ON LANGUAGE. ir 
 
 1 6. The student of history has for his object to show how 
 late phenomena are conditioned by former. He has thus to turn 
 his attention in the first instance to the products resulting from 
 previous occurrences which have conditioned later phenomena : 
 in other words to such psychical organisms as have been 
 already mentioned. And the history of language must be 
 content to confine itself to a history of the development of 
 such organisms. 
 
 17. The language of descriptive grammar has to a great extent 
 affected the Science of Language. For instance, what is com- 
 monly meant by ' change in language/ is simply an abstraction and 
 generalisation of the usage current at a given period. Now if we 
 find that the results of this abstraction are different at different 
 times, we commonly say : ' Language has changed in this or in 
 that way.' The real meaning of this expression is that an uniform 
 change has manifested itself in all the complex psychical condi- 
 tions which belong to the domain of language, and that these have 
 come to their fulfilment in one uniform way, or else that the 
 organic psychical conditions in the younger generation have, 
 in the particular point under discussion, shaped themselves differ- 
 ently from those of the elder generation. And we must never 
 lose sight of the fact that in the single organisms a quantity 
 of changes are always taking place which are less manifest ; 
 but these must be taken into account as well as the others. We 
 can gain a slight idea of these changes only by observing closely 
 what is daily passing in and around ourselves ; while as to the 
 occurrences of the past, those alone come to our knowledge 
 which have wrought themselves out identically in large groups of 
 individuals, whether the impulse thereto was spontaneous or 
 whether it was communicated from one to the other. 
 
 1 8. In treating of the classification of the changes which 
 occur in language, we are tempted to abide by the common 
 
12 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 grammatical division into the doctrine of sounds, of inflexion, of 
 word-formation and syntax. But this division takes no account 
 of one large department which is commonly omitted from gram- 
 mars without any proper justification, but simply from use and 
 wont. This department is the doctrine of the development of 
 meaning, or, as it is sometimes called, sematology. It must further 
 be remarked that the border-lines between these divisions are not 
 sharply marked, nor can they be strictly adhered to. It would be 
 difficult to frame a definition of flexion or word-formation which in 
 every case absolutely excluded doubt as to the propriety, or other- 
 wise, of applying the term to one or the other of the processes 
 indicated. The instinct of language here comes into the definition, 
 and the instinct of language varies in the course of time with regard 
 to the same forms. Scientific grammar speaks about the formation 
 of a present, perfect, and aorist stem : and still has to revert to this 
 nomenclature in ' the doctrine of inflexions.' The nominal forms 
 of verbs stand in close relation with the other verbal forms, so close 
 that the instinct of language perforce demands that they shall be 
 regularly inserted amongst these. And still in their actual forma- 
 tion they stand on the same footing as other words which must be 
 regarded as nouns, e.g. theNHG. altgebracht, das wesen werden, 
 E. old told, own grown, Sc. bairn born. Adverbs, again, are 
 almost exclusively cases of nouns. Again, the divisions between 
 word-formation and syntax are often broken through. It is an 
 almost universally recognised fact that the entire formation of 
 words and all inflexions sprung originally from syntactical com- 
 binations. And even in the period when we are able to mark the 
 development of language most closely, we witness not uncom- 
 monly a syntactical compound passing into a fixed and indissoluble 
 word. For instance, we cannot help regarding words like NHG. 
 landsmann, rindsbraten, augenweide, edelmann, kahlkopf, as com- 
 pounds like landmann, rindfleisch, augapfel, amtmann, kohlkopf. 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 13 
 
 And what is more, the development of meaning stands in a very 
 near relation to word-formation and syntax. A change in significa- 
 tion has brought it about that the old participles bescheiden and 
 gediegen in German are no longer felt as verbal forms, but as ad- 
 jectives pure and simple. So too standing in the phrase a standing 
 dish, or again lorn are no longer felt to belong to their verbs. It is 
 a change in signification, again, when such words as the substantive 
 weil(e) while t the pronoun dass that, the adverbs alsas, 
 da then, wenn when, become conjunctions, and the substan- 
 tives kraft, laut, trotz spite, and the participle wdhrend during 
 become prepositions. English is peculiarly rich in examples of 
 this kind ; almost any so-called part of speech may take the 
 function of any other.* It almost always happens that a change 
 in signification is bound up with each syntactical accretion. If 
 we travel beyond the sphere of the Indo-European languages, 
 the attempt to separate inflexion from word-formation, and often 
 both of these from syntax, becomes an absolute impossibility. 
 
 19. The processes of language, as will have been gathered 
 from what has been said above, worked themselves out but 
 slowly. Traditional usage in time fixed the meaning of words 
 to denote objects, qualities, activities, and relations ; and the 
 same usage in time differentiated the several component parts of 
 a sentence into its different parts. And as this differentiation 
 took place, phonetics lent their aid to bring it more vividly before 
 the senses. A word came to be written and pronounced in a 
 particular way, so as to aid the hearer or reader to mark the 
 function which it had to fulfil in the sentence. 
 
 20. It is now commonly recognised, as has been remarked above, 
 that it is impossible to adhere to the categories of the parts of 
 speech as they were laid down by the old grammarians. Their 
 
 * See Earle's Philology of the English Tongue, p. 206. 
 
14 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 division of words committed the logical fault of being a 
 crossdivision. For instance, they divided the noun into substantive, 
 adjective, and pronoun, regardless of the fact that some pronouns 
 perform the functions of a substantive, and others those of an 
 adjective. For instance, in such sentences as jeder spricht or 
 welcher spricht, jeder and welcJier are substantives ; in such 
 instances as jeder (or welcher} mensch spricht, the same words 
 are adjectives. In the same way substantives and adjectives are 
 formally separated in German by the fact that the adjective 
 changes its form in accordance with the gender of the substantive 
 with which it agrees, and that it admits of forms of comparison. 
 Nay, in German it actually admits of three forms of inflexion : 
 gut guter der gute ; while in the case of the substantive no 
 such change of forms takes place. But when a German uses 
 expressions like der junge he turns the adjective into a 
 substantive without any formal change in the word. In some cases, 
 again, the word is in fact a substantive in function, and is felt as 
 such, but its adjectival quality betrays itself by its regular changes 
 of strong and weak inflexions as in mein bekannter, der bekannte. 
 Again, in expressions like es ist scJiade and pity 'tis 'tis true, it 
 is hard to say whether schade and pity are substantives or 
 adjectives. Again, to take the case of the verb : when the so- 
 called infinitive is used with the article, as in das liebeu, it can be 
 used throughout in every case as a substantive. In the same way 
 in expressions like das morgen soil dem schb'nen heute gleicJien, 
 we feel that morgen and heute are both used as substantives. In 
 the case of adverbs and prepositions, many words are in form at 
 once one and the other, such as anstatt, nach, seit, and since in 
 English. These examples may serve to illustrate the truth that 
 words must be classified not according to their form, but to the 
 function they perform in a sentence ; and the consideration of these 
 functions will lead us further to the conclusion that neither words 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 15 
 
 nor sentences are exact representations of the ideas which the 
 speaker connects with them. These ideas are in some cases more 
 definite, in some cases more powerful than language can express. 
 They contain something which usage has brought them to connote, 
 and which connotation is more or less perfectly understood by the 
 hearer. In time this connotation comes more and more to be felt 
 as the ordinary meaning of the word or sentence. 
 
 21. What has been said above about the psychical and 
 physical forces which are the main factors in language, will lead us 
 to understand the origin of dialects. The ordinary idea of these is 
 that they spring from a parent stock like branches from a tree, and 
 that the new dialects so formed similarly produce others. Indeed, 
 the common method of illustrating dialects and their relations is 
 by a genealogical tree. As a matter of fact, a flight of infinitely 
 small steps would be a more correct illustration. Each individual, 
 possessing as he does a different mental and physical constitution 
 from all other individuals, must and does speak a dialect of his 
 own. A sharp division and a satisfactory classification of dialects 
 is impossible until the speakers of these have been separated for 
 several generations. In other words, the formation of dialects means 
 nothing more than the growth of individual peculiarities beyond a 
 certain point. 
 
 22. The tendency of these individual peculiarities to develop 
 being so great and so striking, we have rather to answer the 
 question what are the influences which tend to keep language 
 intelligible to a community than what tends to make languages 
 split up into dialects. The first of these is the imperative necessity 
 which exists for a community to maintain its means of com- 
 munication, and this necessity prevents individual peculiarities from 
 asserting themselves beyond a certain limit. The next is the 
 iriitative tendency in human nature which transfers some part of 
 the peculiar utterances of each individual to those with whom he 
 
16 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 comes into contact. But the most powerful assimilator in language 
 is the existence of a written language, and in proportion as this is 
 widely used among the speakers and writers of a language so will 
 dialectical variation be checked. 
 
 23. It is a common fallacy with respect to dialects that those 
 which appear as the transitional stage between two or more larger 
 and well-defined groups are an outcome of the contact of these. 
 The fact is that one dialect passes into another by a series of gradual 
 transitions, as may be seen in the most different languages, and 
 most markedly in the case of German. A Swiss cannot understand 
 a Holsteiner, but the transitions which separate the one from the 
 other are very gradual. Just so the North Italian dialects have 
 much in common with the French, and the Gascon stands 'halfway 
 between the Provencal and the Spanish. 
 
 24. Geographical circumstances may occur to isolate a dialect, 
 and in that case it follows a development of its own which in the 
 course of a few generations gives it a decided stamp. In this way 
 different independent languages come to be formed from a single 
 language, and this process may be repeated. A very good instance 
 of such formation of dialects is that of the Celtic dialects in Great 
 Britain. The Irish are geographically separated from the 
 Scottish Highlanders, who moved off from them during the fifth 
 century. They are now mutually unintelligible, as are both alike 
 to a Manxman. Similar changes are found to have occurred like- 
 wise in the case of the development of Cornish and Armorican. In 
 the English language it is certain that new dialects are being formed 
 in the English colonies, such as Australia and New Zealand, as 
 they have already been formed in the United States of America. 
 Geographical isolation has, in the case of America, sundered the 
 American dialects in two ways from those of England. In the first 
 place, it has had the effect of retaining many old words, and pro- 
 bably in some cases pronunciations, current in England at the time 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 17 
 
 of its early colonisation ; in the next place it has encouraged the 
 development of individual peculiarities on a larger scale and 
 under different circumstances from those which would have been 
 possible in England. 
 
 25. It is then impossible to arrive at any other conclusion 
 than this. As long as a language has existed, peculiarities must 
 have existed in portions of that language, distinguishing these 
 portions from others. The wider the extent of territory over which 
 a language extends, and the more that portions of it are geographi- 
 cally isolated, as by mountains or water, the more will it tend to 
 develop dialectical peculiarities. The longer the development 
 which any language has in its history, the more marked will these 
 dialectical peculiarities become. It is further true that the relations 
 of the sounds are a more important factor in dialects than the 
 words themselves. Words can be borrowed, copied, or insensibly 
 creep in and assert themselves. But sounds are the utterances of 
 individuals, and are differently apprehended by different hearers. 
 And thus it happens that in the department of sound, changes 
 are at once more rapid and more marked than in that of 
 words. 
 
 26. It must further be noted that the natural development 
 of language conduces to a perpetual and unchecked growth of 
 dialectic peculiarities. It is a common error to suppose that 
 dialects are a degraded form of a once uniform language. The 
 truer view is that as long as individuals have existed, so long have 
 existed those characteristics which have forced individuals to form 
 dialects ; in fact, that as long as language has existed, dialects 
 must also have existed. 
 
 27. We have stated that a written language is one of the chief 
 promoters of linguistic uniformity. A few words upon the ad- 
 vantages of a written language will fitly close this chapter. It is 
 obvious that a written language is the means whereby individual 
 
 c 
 
18 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 peculiarities may be spread over a number of individuals, and 
 transmitted to posterity. But it should never be forgotten that no 
 alphabet, i.e. no artificial attempt to represent sounds, can do so 
 more than imperfectly, any more than the written notes of music 
 can adequately represent a harmony. Sound is continuous : an 
 alphabet represents a series of broken sounds. 
 
 28. Commonly speaking, alphabets are divided into those which 
 attempt to represent language phonetically, and those which 
 represent it historically. Among the alphabets used by the Indo- 
 Europeans, modern Italian is commonly reckoned to be the most 
 perfect, and the German probably to hold the next highest rank. 
 But even these fail, for the reason above stated, to convey anything 
 more than a very rough sketch of the sounds they are intended to 
 represent. And in German (in a much less degree, however, than 
 in English) the written language attempts to combine the task of 
 teaching history and that of the representation of sounds. Thus in 
 words like hist and haus, the hard s sound is represented by a 
 simple s ; whereas in reiszen and flieszen, it is represented by 
 sz y in order to remind us that the latter words represent MHG. 
 rizen and flizen ; and numerous other instances might be 
 quoted. 
 
 29. The most obvious reason for the deficiencies of the ordinary 
 alphabets is to be sought in the fact that the nations which employ 
 these alphabets did not themselves invent them to suit their 
 requirements, but adopted the alphabet of a foreign language, as 
 the Romans, the Goths, and the Bulgarians adopted that of the 
 Greeks. The immediate consequence of this has been that all such 
 alphabets are at once redundant and defective. For instance in 
 NHG. we find several signs in use, in the case of the hard guttural 
 check, to express the same sound, as , , ch t q ; and in this case the 
 redundancy is true of English as well. These instances of re- 
 dundancy are as old as the Latin alphabet on which the German 
 
ON LANGUAGE. 19 
 
 has been formed. Others have gradually sprung up owing to the 
 fact of several sounds originally distinct being merged into one, as 
 in the case of ie, which in MHG. still represents a diphthong. 
 When the Middle G. pronunciation z became the prevailing one, 
 the old orthography was preserved. Thus we now find in 
 MHG. side by side mir, ihr^ me, vieh, all representing the 
 same sound. Deficiencies are found, as where a single combination 
 of letters represents the ch palatal and guttural ; for these letters 
 originally, as they still have in Upper Germany, had the guttural 
 pronunciation only. At a later date the different sounds attached 
 to this symbol spread from Middle Germany, where they took their 
 rise, and there was then but one sign forthcoming to represent 
 both sounds. 
 
 30. Languages when reduced to writing are less liable than 
 before to suffer the natural operations of organic change. It is 
 further obvious that the more uniformly and consistently an 
 alphabet is employed, the more will it tend to vary from the 
 spoken language. The law of sound being continuous change we 
 must always expect to find a growing discrepancy between writing 
 and pronunciation, and this in spite of the fact that a written 
 language is less open to change than an unwritten one. The less 
 fixed orthography is, the more capable is it of development 
 according to the development of fresh sounds ; and conversely, 
 the more that it strives to follow the development of language 
 the less fixed must it be. 
 
 31. The various phonetic alphabets which have in modern 
 times been proposed and partially adopted have the great 
 advantage of rendering orthography much easier to learn, and, 
 further, of offering facilities for registering the pronunciation of a 
 language as spoken at a particular period. But they have the 
 corresponding disadvantage of putting out of sight certain 
 differences which are marked by the present system of orthography 
 
 C 2 
 
20 ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 and materially assist us in grasping the sense. Thus in 
 French the difference between the singular and plural would in 
 many cases absolutely disappear before a phonetic alphabet ; as 
 would that between clair and claire. 
 
 32. Closely connected with the question of a written language 
 is that of a common national language which each nation aims at 
 possessing, and which each portion of a nation recognises as its 
 general language. Such a language is as a matter of fact merely 
 an ideal which is from the nature of the case never fully attained. 
 This language is commonly based upon some dialect spoken over 
 a large portion of a nation's territory, and becomes the national 
 dialect owing to some political or dynastic cause. Thus the 
 modern French national language is the dialect of the He de France, 
 while that of Germany, as we shall see in a succeeding chapter, 
 took its origin from the political and religious circumstances of 
 the country of Luther. 
 
 33. The classical language of a nation may be defined as that 
 of the most educated among the speakers of the national language. 
 In some countries, as in France, a body, the Academic franchise, 
 exists for the purpose of artificially maintaining this language in 
 its purity and integrity. In Germany it is most nearly represented 
 by the language of the stage ; for Germany is the home of dialects, 
 and the German actors have carefully laboured to produce and 
 maintain a language which shall be as free cts possible from 
 dialectical peculiarities and yet be equally understood by the whole 
 nation. In England it is spoken by the most educated classes in 
 all parts of the country, who as a rule strive to free themselves 
 from all trace of dialect. For the maintenance of a classical 
 language it is essential that there should be constant intercourse 
 between a small circle of well-educated speakers, for the more 
 widely a language is spoken, the more liable is it to change. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS 
 
 THOUGHT. 
 
 34. THERE are many ways in which a nation gives us an 
 opportunity of judging of its thoughts and its character; such are 
 its religion, its art, its laws, its government, and its language. Most 
 of these have, however, the disadvantage of reflecting no more 
 than the views or feelings of a more or less restricted portion of the 
 community, whereas language is nothing less than the embodied 
 and reflected thought of the entire community of those who speak 
 it. Whether thought can exist without language is a question 
 which need not here be discussed. This much, however, is certain, 
 that when thought and language are coexistent, language, although 
 always an imperfect reflection of thought, is still the most perfect 
 and the most general means of reproducing and registering it. 
 Thinking beings who desire to express their thoughts as exactly 
 as possible, can find no more exact method for effecting their 
 purpose than language. Language is, in fact, uttered thought, 
 and may be so defined, as, conversely, thought may be defined as 
 unuttered language. It is true that the thoughts of men or nations 
 are but imperfectly reflected in language, just as the series of 
 sounds they utter is but imperfectly represented by an alphabet ; 
 it is however also true that speakers are ever striving to bring their 
 language to a level with their thoughts, and that the tendency of 
 their thoughts may be fairly gauged by an examination of their 
 
22 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 language. ' Language ' (say Lazarus and Steinthal in the 
 preamble to their ' Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie und Sprachwis- 
 senschaft ') 'not merely presents us with a nation's view of the world, 
 but acts also as a reflection of its perceptive activity. Science 
 does not step in till the later stages of a people's culture, carrying 
 on through individuals the effort originally made by all in the 
 creation of language.' Even in cases where nations have lived 
 their life and are past and gone, as in the case of the ancient 
 Egyptians, the ancient Persians, or the Assyrians, their language, 
 though dead, has by the genius of great savants in this century 
 been quickened into life and made to throw light on the civilisation 
 and methods of thought of these great nations of old. 
 
 E35. It is so far true that we can judge of a nation's thought 
 d character by its language that we may lay it down as an axiom, 
 it where a nation has no word to express a conception, the con- 
 ption is wanting to the greater part of the nation. Conversely, 
 where a nation possesses numerous words to express special 
 conceptions, we are justified in assuming that its thoughts have 
 made considerable progress in the domain of those conceptions. 
 Again, as the language in which conceptions are expressed is not 
 the mere echo of the sounds of the external world, but consists to- 
 a large extent of metaphors and of names given to objects from 
 some real or fancied characteristic, we are able, by tracking words 
 to their original meaning, to see the workings of the human mind 
 as exhibited in its processes of word-formation. 
 
 36. Nor is it merely in its vocabulary that a nation reveals 
 its thoughts ; just as we catch something of the character of a man 
 from his style, so do we learn something of a nation's method of 
 thought and logic by its grammar, its syntax, and its power of 
 subordinating sentences. Language by itself would show us that 
 the whole cast of thought of a Chinaman, with his series of roots, 
 differentiated from each other merely by such devices as their place 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 23 
 
 in the sentence or by the tone in which they are uttered, must be 
 very different from that of the Indian or Greek, with his admirably 
 precise inflexions and power of word-composition. 
 
 37. If we knew nothing of the history or civilisation of the 
 Greeks, we should be able to gather from their language alone 
 that they had served as the world's schoolmasters in art and in 
 philosophy. We should further be able to learn that they were a 
 seafaring folk : for no nation, with the exception of the English, em- 
 ploys so many current nautical terms or forms, and so many nautical 
 metaphors, as the Greek. The Romans, in the same way, would 
 stand revealed to us as masters of the arts of agriculture, of war, 
 and of law-making : their expressions for these are strikingly 
 numerous, and their metaphors are constantly drawn from one or 
 other of these sources. Passing to modern nations, the English 
 language would show those who speak it to be sea-rovers, politicians, 
 and traders : the French have fashioned their language into the 
 most handy vehicle for the expression of social life and intercourse ; 
 while the German in its richness of terms for philosophy and 
 metaphysics stands unrivalled. 
 
 38. One of the most natural and legitimate ways in which a 
 language enriches itself is the borrowing of words and expressions 
 from foreign languages in order to supply its own deficiencies. 
 Thus an examination of the Romance languages shows us that 
 many of the expressions which have reference to war or to military 
 occupations were taken from the German : even bellum has been 
 replaced by the Teutonic guerre and guerra. On the other hand, 
 modern German has adopted many of the military terms of 
 modern French, which have indeed passed into most modern 
 languages. In the same way an examination of the Italian loan- 
 words in German would show us that there was a time when the 
 Italians were the acknowledged masters of the Germans in matters 
 of commerce, as they were in music. 
 
24 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 39. To compare French and German more closely, we should 
 gather that the Germans were the deeper thinkers of the two 
 nations, from the numerous words they possess for intellectual 
 processes and their results, such as wahrnehmung, auffassung, 
 vorstelhmg, begriff, verstand, vernunft. The French words, which 
 in some measure represent these, such as perception, notion, idee, 
 entendement, raison, esprit, &c., do not cover exactly the same 
 ground, and as a rule are not so clearly defined. Geist represents 
 something deeper than esprit, but lacks the lightness of the latter. 
 Again, the German is able to express deep and tender feelings by 
 a store of words which defy translation into any other language. 
 Such are gemilt, sehnsucht, wonne, wekmut, schwermut, tiefsinn, 
 heimweh, innig, sinnig. This association of deep and tender 
 feeling with words in themselves simple and homely, coupled with 
 the flexibility of expression lent by the power of inversion which 
 belongs to the German language, makes it a natural and successful 
 vehicle for the popular poetry in which the German language is 
 so rich. French, on the other hand, is extremely copious in 
 expressions denoting character as it shows itself in social inter- 
 course. Thus, to take the French words expressive of different 
 phases of wit, we have pointe, saillie^ trait d 1 esprit, dicton, calembour, 
 &c. ; while again certain words expressive of light and more 
 delicate shades of humour can be rendered by no other language 
 so well as by French. Such words as persiflage, naivete, espieglerie, 
 liaison, courtoisie convey shades of meaning which can only be 
 approximately rendered in other languages, and many similar 
 words have in fact been adopted by both English and German. 
 
 40. The most obvious traces of the influence of one nation's civi- 
 lisation and culture on those of another are seen in its loan-words.* 
 
 * In these German is especially rich, and the study of these will show us 
 more clearly than anything else the various sources from which Germany has 
 derived many elements of her civilisation. 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 25 
 
 The earliest loan-words in the German language are those borrowed 
 from the Latin, such as kaiser (caesar)* and a few words having 
 reference to agriculture and wine-growing, such as wein (vinum), 
 sicJiel (secula), karren (carrus), keller (cellarium). Other Latin words 
 zxtpferch (M. Latin, parcus, parricus),//^/ (palus), pfosten (postis), 
 ziegcl (tegula), schindel (scandula), matter (murus), fenster (fenestra; 
 the Gothic was augadauro, lit. 'eye-door'), pforte (porta), speicher 
 (spicarium), soller (solarium), pfeiler (pilarius). An examination 
 of these words will show that the Germans must have adopted 
 them from the Romans at a comparatively early period, in most 
 cases before the end of the fourth century ; the regular sound- 
 changes by which they are marked show the date, for they must 
 have been borrowed before the characteristic HG. sound-shifting: 
 
 o 
 
 process which has affected them set in. They point to a time when 
 a number of tribes leading a nomadic life were proceeding to adopt 
 a more settled one, and were receiving into their language the 
 most suitable words from the most civilised source available. 
 Thus besides the words above mentioned we find a series of 
 loan-words to express cookery and its necessary implements, 
 and horticulture, such as koch (cocus), kilche (cucina), schiissel 
 (scutula), tisch (discus), senf (sinapi), pfeffer (piper), kohl (caulis), 
 feige (ficus). Not that we need necessarily draw from the fact 
 of a word's being borrowed by a nation conclusive proof that 
 the nation did not possess the object before. We know for in- 
 stance that the Germans exported, in Pliny's time, geese into 
 Rome to supply feathers for the cushions of the wealthy, and 
 brought back their words flaum^ kissen, pfiihl, representing the 
 Latin ' pluma/ 'cussinus,' and 'pulvinus.' The West Teutonic 
 
 * The earliest loan-word in the Teutonic languages is kanf, E. hemp, which 
 is not borrowed from Greek or Latin cannabts, but came together with these 
 from the word in use with some Asiatic tribe inhabiting the district where 
 liemp is indigenous. See Kluge, Etymologischis Wortcrbuch, s.v. 
 
26 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 group had no direct dealings with Greece, as far as we know ; it 
 was through the Romans that they received their first knowledge 
 of Christianity. But the sojourn of the Goths upon the Balkan 
 peninsula (the Goths of the Crimea did not die out till the last 
 century) exercised an influence upon the German language ; it was 
 from them that the first knowledge of Christianity spread to other 
 parts of Germany. The terminology of the earliest Christian words 
 in the German language is Greek, and was unknown to the Roman 
 Church : ktrche (icvpuunj) and pfaffe (TraTras) are certainly due to 
 Grecian influence exerted by the Arian Goths ; and very pro- 
 bably pfingsten (Tro/re/coon?), engel (ayyeAos), and teufel (Sta/3oXos). 
 The connection of German tribes with the Goths, which we further 
 seem to find in words like lieide (Got. hdtyno) and tanfen (Got. 
 ddupjan), lasted into the seventh century ; the Alemanni were 
 under Gothic sway till A.D. 635. The orthodox Christianity of the 
 middle ages, which mastered and set aside Arianism, was unable 
 to do away completely with the accepted terminology, and it 
 thus happens that the German language has maintained down to 
 the present day some expressions of Gothic Arian Christianity. 
 41. But the later borrowed terminology, imposed by Roman 
 / missionaries on the German, bears clearly upon its face the marks 
 of a later period of language. It was not till the formation of the 
 I rpeculiar sound-form of High German (for from this epoch a new 
 ; process of sound-shifting separated High German from Low 
 German) that the influence of Roman Christianity began to 
 find expression in the language. From the end of the eighth 
 to the beginning of the twelfth century the German language was 
 almost entirely consecrated to the use of religious literature. This 
 is the first period of German history in which literary records 
 make their appearance, and it is in this period that High German 
 acquires a growing influence owing to Roman Christianity. Traces 
 of this are to be found in a quantity of Latin words which now 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 27 
 
 passed into German, such as kreuz (crux), predigen (predicare), 
 priester (presbyter), probst (propositus), kilster (custor), mesner 
 (mansionarius) ; and further in the formation of certain German 
 words after the model of the Latin, such as beichte (confessio), 
 gewissen (conscientia), barmherzig (misericors), gevatter (compater). 
 
 42. It also occurred in German, as in the other languages 
 spoken by the ' nations who embraced Christianity, that a 
 number of words received thereby a new and more spiritual 
 significance, such as gnade, erbarmung, milde, hold, Jmld, schopfer, 
 heiland, auferstehen, erlosen, versohnen, geist, heilig, siinde, schuld y 
 glaube, bekehren, reue, busse, deimit, gericht. The age of chivalry 
 and the Crusades continued the process, though not so effectively 
 as Christianity. The Reformation, and the Renascence of classical 
 studies, finally exercised an important influence on the ideas of 
 the epoch in which they occurred, which were in their turn re- 
 flected in the language. 
 
 43. We are thus able by examining the German language 
 to learn much of its history as well as something of the character 
 of its speakers. And if it be true that the national character 
 
 . is strongly and clearly reflected in the words of the speakers of 
 a language, it is equally true that it is similarly reflected by 
 the methods employed by these to form new words by derivation 
 
 - and composition. Not to speak of languages which, like Chinese, 
 have no compounds, it is well understood that in ' the case of 
 inflected languages, those which stand nearest to their primitive 
 form, when the sense of the component parts has not quite 
 died out, are far more flexible and capable of composition 
 than the languages derived from them, such as for instance 
 the Romance languages. The Sanskrit and Greek, in their great 
 flexibility and power of forming such compounds, seem to reflect 
 the fertile fancy of the peoples who dwelt in early times on 
 the banks of the Ganges and the Ilissus. The Latin, again, the 
 
28 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 language of the unimaginative conquerors of the world, rebels most 
 strongly against the formation of new compounds ;* though indica- 
 tions are not wanting that certain writers, like Ennius and Plautus, 
 not merely conceived the possibility of such powers existing in the 
 Latin, but endeavoured themselves to give effect to them. German, 
 though less elastic in this respect than Greek, is far more so than 
 Latin. It possesses a great number of methods for forming 
 abstract substantives, and far greater readiness than either English 
 or French in forming composite words. 
 
 44. And, what is more, in seeking to find in language a re- 
 flection of the national character, we have to consider more than 
 its mere words, more even than its grammar and syntax. Just 
 as a man's style reflects his ways of thought, so does the style of a 
 nation serve to reflect the national genius. The word ' style ' is of 
 course metonymically applied from the instrument for writing 
 used by the Greeks, to the peculiar way which individuals or 
 nations may choose for expressing their thoughts. Now the 
 most important factor in style is the sentence ; and indeed, until the 
 sentence has received a certain amount of elaboration, it is im- 
 possible to speak of ' style ' in the conventional sense of the word. 
 In regarding a language as throwing light on the characteristics of 
 those who speak it, we have to consider the words in the first 
 place in themselves, and then as component parts of a sentence. 
 The words of a language, as we have seen, throw light on the 
 original stock of objects and ideas possessed by a nation : while 
 the manner in which a nation composes its sentences gives us an 
 insight into the way in which it arranges its thoughts, and displays 
 to us in the choice and position of its words the colour which 
 these words have taken from its fancy and imagination. 
 
 * A striking instance of this is afforded by the Latin proper names which, 
 unlike those of all other IE. peoples, the Lithuanian excepted, are uncom- 
 pounded. Cf. Porcius, Fabius, &c., with Candra-raja, Alex-ander, Beo-wulf, 
 Uumno-rix, Drago-mil. Vide Fi*k, Die Griechischen Personennamen. 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 29 
 
 45. Thought and language have a similar and simultaneous 
 development, and neither of these processes of development can be 
 disregarded by us. On the side of thought, we see apprehensions 
 ripening into conceptions, conceptions into judgments, judgments 
 into conclusions and larger unities of thought : on that of language, 
 we see roots developing into words, words into sentences, sentences 
 into periods, and these into larger unities of language. Not that 
 every nation alike possesses an equally perfect instrument for the 
 creation and development of its thoughts. The Chinese, for 
 instance, with their monosyllabic roots which they are fain to weld 
 into a sentence by position and by affixing to each a definite 
 musical pitch, could never arrive at style in our sense of the word. 
 It is clear that the vehicle which a nation finds at hand for the 
 conveyance of its thoughts, must exercise a powerful influence upon 
 those thoughts. The languages of nations philologically in a lower 
 state of organisation must always, by reason of their poverty in 
 words expressing relation, offer great difficulties to the logical ex- 
 pression of thought, and therefore corresponding difficulties to the 
 free play of thought itself. Higher families of language, such as 
 the Indo-European, depending as they do on our mental capacities 
 for synthesis and analysis, mark out and allow us to classify single 
 conceptions as words; while they maintain, on the other hand, and 
 clearly define and limit the unity of the sentence. And it is 
 in the more or less definite way in which logical relations are ex- 
 pressed whether by organic terminations and inflexions, as in 
 synthetic languages, or by special formal words, as in the analytic 
 ones that the greater or lesser logical power of nations manifests 
 itself. 
 
 46. Again, the colouring of the words, whether they are tinged 
 with metaphor, or are simple abstractions ; and their position in the 
 sentence, whether it be comparatively free and unfettered as in the 
 synthetical languages, or sharply defined as in the analytical ; and 
 
30 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 again the system of accentuation, whether the accent be phonetic 
 or logical; and again, the general rhythmical harmony of the 
 sentences : all these considerations throw light on the genius of the 
 nation which speaks the language. 
 
 47. But it must further be remembered that a series of 
 simple sentences is employed only by speakers in a low state 
 of intellectual development. Composite sentences are the next to 
 arise : cases in which two sentences are closely joined, and in 
 which, in some cases, one is subordinated to the other. The co- 
 ordination or subordination of such sentences is marked by 
 conjunctions, and the store and variety of these are again 
 instructive in aiding us to judge of the logical powers of the people 
 who employ them. 
 
 48. But besides composite sentences, cultivated nations 
 advance still further, and employ successions of composite and 
 connected sentences, which we call periods : and as the order 
 and succession of ideas are reflected even more clearly in these 
 than in its sentences, the analysis of the period becomes the 
 most important factor in the examination of a nation's style. 
 
 49. The question then arises, now that we have before us the 
 main factors in style, what is the position occupied by the German 
 language when compared with the other great languages of the 
 most cultivated nations ? 
 
 The plasticity and beauty of the Greek language seem to re- 
 flect the thoughts of that most artistic nation which ' shaped and 
 moulded its language into forms that appealed alike to intellect 
 and feeling, and answered the demands both of reason and 
 beauty.'* The practical Romans, in their terse and concrete 
 language, betray the power of will and force of character which 
 made them the conquerors of the world. The special character- 
 istics of the German language are its power of expressing abstract 
 
 * Professor Butcher's Inaugural Address, Edinburgh, 1882. 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 31 
 
 ideas, which renders it peculiarly suitable as the language of 
 philosophy, and the resources which enable it to represent deep and 
 manifold feeling. The numerous abstract terminations in -ei, -ung, 
 and those in -heit and -keit, first employed on a large scale in the 
 fourteenth century by the Dominican Tauler, form a special feature 
 of German. Again, in the power of forming composite words the 
 German surpasses most other languages, and many of these com- 
 pounds, from the comparison which they introduce into the word, 
 have a very striking and picturesque effect. Take such words as 
 cngelrein, bettelann, tunnhoch^ eiskalt> schneeweiss. These have 
 to be translated into English by a periphrasis, and the force of the 
 expression is thereby diminished. Another class of remarkable 
 compounds are those where a verb enters into conjunction with a 
 substantive, as schreibtisch, denkkraft, trotzkopf, fechtmeister. 
 
 50. Again, in derivatives, as well as compounds, German marks 
 the chief element in the compound by the accent, and in the latter 
 case it further distinguishes the special portion of the compound 
 from the general, as in such cases as haiistiir ehrsucht: by 
 which process clearness and precision are eminently furthered. 
 In the variety of its inflexions the German surpasses the 
 English, but is surpassed by Greek and by Latin. The fact 
 of the accent falling upon the significant syllable of the word 
 has caused the last syllables in many cases to be either slurred over 
 or rejected. Thus the Gothic had five cases, a dual number in 
 verbs and pronouns, a complete system of adjectival declensions, 
 reduplication of the perfect, traces of a passive voice ; it had no less 
 than forty terminations for its substantives, in which all the vowels 
 are represented in the most manifold combinations. In the number 
 and variety of its particles the German language surpasses the 
 Latin, but yields to the Greek. 
 
 51. In common with other modern languages, German has 
 lost many original inflexional forms, but as a compensation for the 
 
32 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 want of richness and fulness produced by such loss, it possesses 
 two special characteristics which tend to promote clearness and 
 definiteness of expression. The first of these is the large store of 
 auxiliary verbs, such as haben, sein, werden, mogen, konnen, diirfen, 
 by the aid of which it is enabled to express the modal relations of 
 possibility and necessity more exactly than most other languages ; 
 and under this head must be also reckoned the two articles, with 
 their wide and varied use, and the numerous store of pre-positions. 
 
 52. The second is the method of accentuation in the German 
 language, whereby the accent falls upon the syllable which 
 gives the significance in other words, on the stem which carries the 
 conception ; such a system marks the fact that the significance of 
 the conception is present to the mind of the speaker, and is rightly 
 called the logical method of accentuation. The logical method is 
 formally opposed to what is known as the phonetic method of 
 accentuation. We can trace in the Teutonic languages the process 
 by which the former has developed out of the latter which was 
 once common to all IE. languages alike. Now the logical 
 accent pleases the hearer, by satisfying his feeling for correct- 
 ness as well as complying with the conditions of harmony. 
 The Germans have, in fact, logically carried out what in other 
 languages is merely a tendency : for instance, in modern Greek 
 and in the Latin church-hymns, the accent has carried the day 
 over the quantity. 
 
 53. In the collocation of its words, the German language 
 holds an intermediate position between the ancient and modern 
 languages. It possesses the great advantage over the Romance 
 languages and indeed over the English that it has the power of 
 placing any word which it wishes to emphasise, at the beginning of 
 the sentence. Take, for instance, Er hat mir das geld gestohlen : 
 as one or other of the words in this sentence occurs first the whole 
 sentence will receive a different colouring. Er hat mir das gela 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 33 
 
 gestohlen : he and no other. Mir hat er das geld gestohlen : 
 from me and from no other. Gestohlen hat er mir das geld : and 
 not merely borrowed it. Das geld hat er mir gestohlen : and not 
 a ring. 
 
 54. Another advantage shared by German with the two great 
 classical languages is that, like them, it retains in many of its words 
 their original significance unimpaired. The force of a meta- 
 phor, which German words may contain, is not lost so quickly or so 
 thoroughly as in the Romance languages. This power of keeping 
 the metaphor alive renders German particularly suitable for poetry; 
 for it is of the essence of poetry to rivet attention by forcible and 
 novel figures. This power is seen in such adjectives as hartndckig, 
 halsstarrig, eingewurzelt, vermessen ; and in verbs such as einflossen^ 
 untergraben, begreifen, erklaren, &c. In such words as Fr. expliquer, 
 opprimer, insister, insulter, &c., the metaphor is no longer felt. 
 
 55. German, again, possesses a large quantity of onomatopoetic 
 words, which, by actual imitation of natural sound, have the 
 power of bringing the actions they denote prominently before the 
 mind's eye ; such are achzen, briillen, girren, grollen, klappern, 
 kichern, puffen, wimmern, &c. 
 
 56. Another great characteristic of German style is the 
 originality which it owes to its power of forming new words 
 from old materials : in this it resembles the classical languages. 
 Thus from the word mensch, German is able to form a quantity of 
 new words by derivation and composition, such as menschlicJi, 
 2inmenschlich, ubermenschlich, vermenschlichen, menschlichkeit, 
 menschheit, entmenschen, tmmcnsch, menschenalter, menschwerdnng, 
 menschenfeind, menschenfreund^ menschenliebe : this list might be 
 indefinitely increased, and the meaning of the word in the com- 
 pound would not be thereby impaired ; whereas, in French, such 
 words as homme^ humain, humanite, anthropophage, philanthrope, 
 incarnation, are not felt to have any idea in common. It is obvious 
 
 D 
 
34 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION 
 
 that where new words can be coined at will without obscuring 
 the sense, much scope is left to the fancy of an author, and 
 thus it is that the German language itself directly encourages 
 originality and the free play of an author's fancy. 
 
 57. The oldest German literature employs almost exclusively 
 co-ordinate sentences, but gradually passed into the employment 
 of perfectly finished subordinate clauses. But it was long before 
 the Period, which is the most perfect form of the sentence, reached 
 its present development. And it must always be borne in mind 
 that German prose (like the German schriftsprache itself) was 
 an artificial product. " German Prose,*' says Mundt,* " was 
 originally a scientific creation, a production due to learning, an 
 abstraction from the ancients ; it was called into existence not by 
 the necessities of public life, nor by social causes. Its first growth 
 dates from the time of the renascence of science in Germany, 
 and these elements of learned, and especially of Latinising periods 
 which mark it with a thoroughly scientific, as opposed to a social 
 stamp, long left their impress upon it. Nay, they even passed into 
 the correspondence of private life, and imperceptibly affected even 
 the style of the people. We may assume that most of the writers 
 drew their style from their school-tuition in the dead languages, 
 especially from their lessons in Cicero. Hence grew up a German 
 style which is, strictly speaking, based upon the construction of the 
 periods of a foreign language, and which yet lacks the numerous 
 auxiliary constructions of that language, such as the absolute 
 sentences, and the inflexions unclogged by the dragging articles. 
 Thus it was that the system of endless insertions came into our 
 style ; insertions which are wholly repugnant to the grammatical 
 organisation of the German language, and which can attain the 
 effect of imposing beauty in the ancient languages and in these 
 alone : languages which offer special advantages for such a 
 
 * Mundt, Die Kunst der Deutschen Prosa, p. 59 (quoted by Wedewer).' 
 
AS AN EXPRESSION OF ITS THOUGHT. 35 
 
 periodical style. The Latinising tendencies of German prose are 
 mainly referable to two models, Cicero and Tacitus, of whose 
 influence the former has been absolutely prejudicial to German 
 style, the latter wholly beneficial. The wearisome length to which 
 auxiliary verbs are dragged out in German, and the wearisome 
 iteration of expressions like gewesen sein, geworden sein y gehabt 
 haben, &c., with which we make such an unnecessary parade, 
 we have to set down to Cicero's influence, whose fine effects 
 produced by his esse videattir and other rhythmical termi- 
 nations seem never to be praised too highly by our teachers." 
 
 58. In judging of German style as evidenced by the general 
 effect of the writings of German authors, we may remark that 
 personal feeling is one of their earliest characteristics. The 
 Germans are at their best in lyric poetry, and it is not too 
 much to say that even their epic and dramatic poems are coloured 
 by lyric feeling. With the Greeks the reverse is the case ; they 
 are at their best in epic poetry, which looks at persons and events 
 more from without than from within. As an instance, we may 
 cite the two cases of the great national epics of the two nations. 
 In the Greek poems of the Iliad and Odyssey we find that their 
 heroes produce the effects they wish by their mere appearance 
 and their actions. The German heroes, on the other hand, of 
 the Nibelungenlied attract us by their loyal feeling towards their 
 subjects, and by the expression of that feeling. 
 
 59. So powerful is the lyric spirit of German poetry, that it 
 prompts the German poets, especially the more modern, to reveal to 
 us much of their personality in their poems. The poetry of Schiller 
 and still more that of Goethe has been rightly described as a series of 
 self-confessions, from which we receive the most vivid impression of 
 the writers themselves. The German prose-writers, on the other 
 hand, are distinguished by an earnest striving after truth, philo- 
 sophical or scientific. It is a significant fact that some of the first 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ON THE LANGUAGE OF A NATION, ETC. 
 
 essays in German prose are didactic the Sac/tsen- and Schwa- 
 benspiegel, containing the provincial laws of the Saxons and 
 Swabians. This style of prose has in the course of time tended 
 more and more to develop into a strictly scientific style; which 
 species of prose has made much greater strides than any other in 
 German literature. Consequently, German style is to be seen at 
 its best in German philosophical, didactic, and historical works ; in 
 these the German language appears to most advantage, and 
 shows the greatest individual variety. On the other hand, what 
 may be called the business style is little developed in German, as is 
 natural, giving as it does so little scope for originality or for the 
 expression of feeling. 
 
 60. The above remarks may lead us to reflect that an exami- 
 nation of a language will show us something of the character of 
 the persons who speak it, and that the essential characteristics of 
 the German language are those of a nation of deep feeling 
 with a love for learning and philosophy. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 61. THE Families of Speech are very numerous ; and they have 
 been differently classified by different authorities. Of these 
 families the only one which concerns us here is that which 
 comprises the languages of the most cultivated nations which 
 the world has produced, viz. the Indo-European, to which German 
 as well as English belongs.* 
 
 The following is a list of the groups of languages which make 
 up the Indo-European family. We will begin by enumerating the 
 Eastern groups. 
 
 62. (i) The Indian group. We are fortunate enough, in 
 this group, to possess a very ancient form of the language, 
 more ancient than any other IE. language, and thus for the 
 purpose of the Science of Language the most important 
 of the whole stock. In this language the oldest religious 
 hymns of the Indians are written, which are incorporated 
 
 * It is necessary to point out that German authors employ the term { Indo- 
 Germanic ' instead of Indo-European ; the term Aryan has also been applied to 
 it by some authors ; but as this term is more correctly applied to the two Asiatic 
 branches of the family, and to them only, it seems best to abide by the term 
 Indo-European ; for although, as Schleicher justly says, a name need not be a 
 definition, yet surely it is no disqualification to a name to approach as nearly as 
 possible to one. We have to examine this family somewhat more closely in 
 order to appreciate the relation of German to its cognate languages, in fact to 
 arrive at a clear conception of its early history. 
 
38 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 with much older and later materials, and are together com- 
 prised under the name 'Veda.' The Vedic language bears 
 on its face the marks of a genuine popular language. It is not an 
 artificial written language differing from the living language spoken 
 by the people ; on the contrary, it is clearly established that the Vedic 
 hymns were in existence long before they were consigned to writing. 
 This language, in the course of time, changed in this respect 
 following the common law of language into more modern forms, 
 much as Latin changed into Italian and the other Romance 
 languages. But, at the same time, its speakers clung to the old 
 language, maintaining it for the purposes of writing and cultivated 
 intercourse, as well as for religious and learned purposes. Thus it 
 came to pass that a written language developed from the older 
 popular language, differing no doubt in many points from its 
 original : simplified in its forms, and reduced by rules to a fixed 
 standard of correctness : but, taken as a whole, remaining true in 
 sound and in grammar to the older stage of development, just as we 
 see is the case with the written languages of other nations. The 
 language we speak of was never a popular one : it is the language 
 employed by the learned down to the present day almost unchanged, 
 just as Latin until recent times was employed as the universal 
 learned language in Europe. This language is callec[j>arLsjrit (i.e. 
 ' put together ' or * perfect ' ), in contrast to the living and changing 
 dialects of the people ; dialects which take new shapes according 
 to the inherent laws of the life of language, and of whose essence it 
 is to constantly change both in sound and in form. The dialects 
 were called in ancient times Prakrit, i.e. ' vulgar ' or ' copied ' 
 language. From these elder popular languages, in the course of 
 later times, the numerous descendants of the original popular 
 language deposited in the Veda developed ; viz. the languages 
 and dialects spoken in India such as the Hindustani, Marathi, 
 Bengali, &c. The appellation of * Indian,' from the river Indus 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 39 
 
 and the peoples adjacent, was not used by the old Indians 
 themselves. They preferred to style themselves Aryans, in order 
 to distinguish themselves from all who were not of the same noble 
 race. The same name was applied to themselves by the oldest 
 stock of the 
 
 63. (2) Iranian, or more correctly Eranian, group, which 
 may with equal propriety be called the Persian, from the best 
 
 A 1 
 
 known of the Eranian tribes. The name Iran, or Erdn, is derived 
 from aryas, ' true, noble,' dry as, ' Aryan.' The oldest Eranian 
 languages that we know are the O. Persian and the O. Bactrian : 
 the original language of the Eranian family has not been pre- 
 served. By O. Persian, or O. Western Eranian, we understand 
 the language of the inscriptions of the Akhaemenians, viz. Darius, 
 Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. These inscriptions, as is well known, 
 are in one of the different forms of cuneiform writing, so called 
 because their separate signs consist of wedge-shaped lines cut in 
 stone ; this form was first deciphered with certainty, and is the 
 simplest of all. It is an alphabet of letters still containing some 
 remnants of the syllabic method of writing. Fortunately the 
 inscriptions which have come down to us are copious, and 
 enable us to form a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the 
 numerous forms of this ancient language ; if we cannot master 
 its whole range, at least we can take cognisance of its most 
 salient features. The O. Bactrian or O. East Eranian language, 
 commonly called Zend, is the language in which the Ayesta 
 (the sacred writings of the Parsees) has come down to us. 
 The text is in a somewhat imperfect condition. This language 
 also exhibits marks of great antiquity in its grammatical forms, 
 more so indeed than in its sounds. 
 
 The Huzvaresh, or Pehlevi, and the Parsi are commonly called 
 Middle-Eranian languages ; these are mainly preserved in the 
 Commentaries on the Zend writings : the Huzvaresh is much mixed 
 
40 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 with Semitic words : the Pars! closely resembles the modern 
 Eranian. Modern Eranian is the name we give to modern Persian; 
 a language still living, but affected by many Arabic influences. It 
 possesses, as is well known, a rich and much-prized literature. The 
 greatest epic of modern Persian is the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, 
 composed about 1051 A.D. There are numerous modern dialects of 
 Persian, such as the Kurdic dialects, comprising the Kurmanji, the 
 Beluchi, and the Ossetian spoken in the neighbourhood of the 
 Caucasus. Modern Persian has all the characteristics of a very 
 modern language ; its grammar is extremely simple; it has ceased 
 to mark gender in the third personal pronoun, and it expresses the 
 genitive by adding the vowel /, viz. the old relative, to the nomen 
 regens. In the simplicity of its grammar it reminds us of English. 
 
 64. (3) The Armenian may be regarded as a connecting-link be- 
 tween the Asiatic groups and the European. The name Armenian 
 first appears in Greek history about 500 B.C., as applied to the 
 inhabitants of what was later called Armenia Minor. The 
 Armenians call themselves Haiq. About their early history little 
 or nothing is known, the well-known history of Armenia by Moses 
 of Chorene, who wrote in the fourth century A.D., being no more 
 than a patchwork of Hebrew, Greek, and Persian learned tradition 
 interspersed with lists of proper names and fanciful legends.* 
 The language shows many peculiarities in common with the 
 European groups of the same family. We may regard it as the 
 sole extant representative of the Indo-European languages of Asia 
 Minor, all the other languages having died out with the people 
 that spoke them, among whom may be mentioned the Phrygians, 
 Lydians, and Carians. 
 
 65. (4) The Greek family. The original language of this 
 family seems never to have parted into groups differing widely 
 from each other, but rather to have produced merely dialectical 
 
 * See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Orients im Alterttim, 248, 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 41 
 
 variations, unless indeed the Albanian (Skipetar or Arnautic) is to 
 be looked upon as a very ancient offshoot of the Greek family.* 
 We know the Albanian merely in its modern and much corrupted 
 form, so that the question of its origin is of considerable difficulty. 
 The Greek language had passed through considerable linguistic 
 changes before it became fixed by writing ; still it must always 
 be regarded as a language of high antiquity. It has at all 
 events maintained many of its old forms in their original functions 
 more faithfully than its sister languages, the oldest form of Indian 
 not excepted. Instances of this are the difference between the 
 present and aorist ; between the imperfect and the aorist ; between 
 the perfect and pluperfect; and between the optative and con- 
 junctive. The Doric, and especially the Aeolian dialects, are 
 those which have remained most faithful of all the ancient Greek 
 dialects to the original Greek language ; they often show more 
 ancient forms than the Ionian and Attic.f Modern Greek, as now 
 spoken, has developed from ancient Greek, passing through the 
 series of changes in sound and form which a prolonged age 
 naturally brings to languages. It presents many gradations of 
 dialects. The modern Greeks employ the ancient Greek alphabet. 
 Their language is the genuine historical Greek, and endeavours 
 are now being made to assimilate the modern written language 
 more and more to the classical form.J 
 
 66. (5) The Italian group. The original language is not 
 
 * In the ' Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmanner ' in Dessau, 
 1884, Prof. G. Meyer, of Graz, read a paper on the most ancient history of the 
 Albanians, in which he maintains that the Albanian is an Indo-European lan- 
 guage, though hard to recognise as such. See Berliner Philologische Wochen- 
 schrift, No. 45. 
 
 t Cf. Gustav Meyer, Griechische Grammatik, Einleitung, p. xii. if. 
 
 J A good handbook of Modern Greek has been compiled by Messrs. Lewis and 
 Dickson. Professor Jebb's labours^in this department are also well known. 
 
42 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 preserved ; we meet with its daughters in the very earliest 
 times, viz. O. Latin, Umbrian, and Oscan. The Messapian is 
 Indo-European, but does not belong to the Italian family*; it 
 appears to be connected with the Albanian. The relationship 
 of the Etruscan is still a matter of doubt. In the course of 
 time the Latin absorbed all the other dialects. The Latin 
 language of literature was never spoken by the people, and 
 remained generally speaking unchanged, but the really living Latin 
 language as spoken by the people, the language which was never 
 used in writing after the formation of the correct standard language, 
 changed incessantly, as the regular law of every language demands. 
 Irregular changes invaded the different parts of the wide territory 
 conquered in the course of centuries by the Latin tongue. As soon 
 as these became so marked, that Latin no longer occupied the 
 position of a written language with regard to its own dialects, but 
 appeared as one essentially different, the modern languages which 
 sprang out of it began to be employed in writing .as well. Hence 
 it comes to pass that the Romance languages, which certainly 
 were previously in existence, are not attested by any record 
 previous to the ninth century. The Romance languages are 
 divided into the following groups, each of which has its own 
 peculiar phonetic laws : 
 
 (1) An eastern one, of which the Italian, Roumanian, and 
 
 the so-called Romaunsh, spoken in the Engadine, are 
 the modern representatives. 
 
 (2) A south-western, comprising Spanish and Portuguese. 
 
 (3) A north-western one, of which the Provengal dialect, or 
 
 langue doc (M. Lat. Occitania), and French, the langue 
 d'oil, are the modern representatives. (The modern 
 written French sprang out of the dialect of the Ile-de- 
 France, the old Duchy of Francia.) 
 
 * See G. Stier, Kukri's Zeitschrift, vi., p. 142 sqq. 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 43 
 
 67. (6) The Celtic group. In this case we have no record 
 of the language at any ancient stage. The scanty remnants of the 
 ancient Gaulish language which we possess are due to the records 
 of Roman and Greek writers, to inscriptions, and to coins bearing- 
 Gaulish legends. The records of the language, strictly speaking, 
 begin with glosses due to the Irish ecclesiastics, interlinear 
 versions, &c., and date from the eighth century or the be- 
 ginning of the ninth. At this stage we find the Celtic 
 already in a state of decay, i.e. much altered in its sounds and 
 forms. 
 
 Of all the Celtic languages the O. Irish is the most important, 
 and, in its wealth of forms, stands nearest to the original language. 
 Modern Irish, the still living form of the Irish, the Gaelic spoken 
 in the Highlands of Scotland (which differs but slightly from 
 Irish), and the dialect of the Isle of Man (Manx), form one 
 division of the Celtic, which is called the Goidelic or Irish division. 
 The second division, called the Brythonic or Cymric, consists of the 
 Cymric, spoken in Wales ; the Cornish, once spoken in Cornwall, 
 now a dead language; andtheArmorican or Bas Breton, still spoken 
 in Lower Brittany.* 
 
 68. (7) The Slavonic group. The original language is lost 
 in this branch as in most others of the Indo-European family. 
 But one language in this group preserves very nearly the forms 
 of the original language, viz. the O. Bulgarian or O. Church 
 Slavonic, which we possess in its pure form in the oldest 
 manuscript records (dating from the eleventh century) ; the later 
 MSS. and books exhibit a form much changed owing to the 
 influence of the dialect of the editors and scribes. The later form 
 of this language, in which it survives to this day as the Church 
 
 * The Picts also were undoubtedly a Celtic people, but the remains of their 
 language are so scanty that it is impossible to establish their exact position in 
 the Celtic group. 
 
44 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 language, is called Church Slavonic. Thus, O. Bulgarian is of all 
 the Slavonic dialects the most important for the student of 
 language ; it is the form which we may with tolerable confidence 
 employ for the purposes of linguistic research, instead of the 
 Slavonic original language. This language underwent such violent 
 changes in the mouth of the people, that the modern Bulgarian is 
 the most lawless of all Slavonic languages. The Russian written 
 language is thickly set with Church Slavonic elements ; its alphabet 
 was fixed mainly after the Church Slavonic model. Little 
 Russian (Ruthenian or, in Austria, Russinian) is not to be regarded 
 as a Russian dialect, but as a Slavonic dialect co-ordinate with 
 Russian as with the other dialects of the same Slavonic group. 
 Russian and Little Russian can be verified as far back as the 
 eleventh century. Servian is, if not the oldest, certainly 
 the most musical of all the Slavonic dialects. Croatian is a 
 dialect of Servian ; Servian can be proved to have been in 
 existence as early as the ninth century. Slovenian is the 
 name given to the dialects spoken by the Slavonic inhabitants 
 of Carinthia, Styria, and Carniola. We possess a record of the 
 Slovenian dialect dating from the tenth century. 
 
 The dialects mentioned above are commonly spoken of as the 
 south-eastern division of the Slavonic languages ; the following 
 compose the western division : 
 
 The Polish, together with several dialects which in many respects 
 differ from it considerably, has no records to point to earlier 
 than the fourteenth century. The Bohemian or Czech exhibits in the 
 Moravian, and especially in the Slovakian dialect of northern 
 Hungary, older forms than those possessed by the Bohemian 
 dialect properly so called, and by the present written language. 
 It is difficult to speak decidedly about the O. Bohemian records, 
 as the spuriousness of many of these is evident. What we possess, 
 however, proves at all events that genuine records must have 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 45 
 
 existed, and that they were used as models whereon to create the 
 spurious, for the language of these documents is not to be set 
 down out of hand as counterfeit. Even granting, for the sake of 
 argument, that many of the genuine copies may have been des- 
 troyed after being recast, or turned to account in whatever method, 
 still we must be slow to believe that all O. Bohemian documents 
 are to be regarded as forgeries. For instance, if the fragment we 
 possess of an interlinear version of the Fourth Gospel is genuine, 
 then O. Bohemian, in its oldest records, reaches back to the tenth 
 century, Sorabian, also called Wendish (divided into Upper and 
 Lower S.), extends, in the scanty fragments which we still possess 
 of it, only as far back the sixteenth century. Of those Western 
 Slavonic dialects which have died out and been replaced by Ger- 
 man (those of the Weletes, Germ. Wilzen, the Obotrites, and 
 others), commonly comprised under the name of Polabian, merely 
 a few records have descended to us. 
 
 69. (8) The group called, from its most important representa- 
 tive, the Lithuanian, called also the Lettic or Baltic, is not able to 
 exhibit records dating from further back than the last three 
 centuries. Its principal representative is the Lithuanian language 
 still spoken by two millions of people. Schleicher has tried to 
 determine its dialects and distinguishes High Lithuanian (south 
 of the Niemen) from Low Lithuanian (north of the Niemen). 
 The first of these is now rapidly dying out. The oldest sources 
 of the Lithuanian language are found in the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. The O. Prussian was nearly related to the Lithuanian ; 
 its home was the stretch of coast between the Vistula and the 
 Memel. The O. Prussian shared the fate which threatens the 
 High Lithuanian. As early as in the second half of the seven- 
 teenth century it gave way to, and was replaced by, German. 
 The Lettic, still spoken in Courland and Livonia, is a younger 
 language of this family. 
 
46 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 70. (9) The Teutonic group. A special chapter will be devoted 
 to this group. It may, however, be remarked here that the original 
 German language, which the Gothic most nearly resembles, can be 
 arrived at by conjecture only. 
 
 71. The nine groups of language mentioned, then, take us 
 back to nine original languages, which we have, where the original 
 language has disappeared, to conjecturally reconstruct by the aid 
 of their daughters, many of whom bear a strong resemblance to 
 their mother. These nine original languages of the IE. family 
 spring themselves from one original language ; they belong to one 
 family, and show themselves to be related. The manner of the 
 descent, however, of the different languages of this family, may, 
 for all we know, be very different. They may one and all be 
 daughters or granddaughters or great-granddaughters of the 
 original language, or even partly the one and partly the other. 
 How are we to manage, out of the numerous possibilities which 
 present themselves, to select the only ones which have here 
 come into play? What means do we possess for methodically 
 conjecturing the previous history of the languages, not merely 
 while they were as yet undivided, but in the course special to 
 each ? 
 
 72. We know two methods, and only two, of arriving at the 
 original form of a language. In the first place, the construction 
 of the language itself bears upon its face the evidence of its gradual 
 growth, and thus testifies to a prehistoric time when the language 
 was in process of formation. The second method of arriving 
 at a knowledge of the later prehistoric vicissitudes of languages 
 is the observation of their relationship to each other. By the 
 appreciation of the fact that all the original IE. languages are 
 related, we have attained to the very general and indefinite 
 result, that they one and all proceed from one original language. 
 A closer observation of the relations of kinship of these nine 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 47 
 
 languages will aid us to define more closely the conclusion at 
 which we have arrived. And it will become clear to us how these 
 nine languages proceeded from the original Indo-European 
 language. Supposing that the nine original languages were related 
 to each other in a degree of perfect equality ; that each diverged 
 equally from the other, and that neither surpassed the other in 
 antiquity ; in this case we should have to assume that they all 
 had an equal length of life, and that they all proceeded in the 
 same way to develop themselves contemporaneously into nine 
 different bodies of language. But the case does not stand 
 thus. 
 
 73. The Eranian and Indian, e.g., display a much nearer relation- 
 ship to each other than to any other of the IE. languages. We 
 therefore rank these two families of language as the Asiatic division 
 of the IE. group of languages ; since the oldest Indians and the 
 oldest Eranians alike call themselves Aryans, we call the original 
 language common to both, in other words the language whose 
 separation into two created them, the Aryan or Asiatic division. 
 In some respects indeed Persian is more archaic than even Vedic 
 Sanskrit, as in its retention of the old ablative in -at, and the 
 preservation of the diphthong au, ao. In any case the oldest 
 Eranian stands very near the oldest Indian ; so that the division 
 of the Aryan language into the Aryan pair of languages cannot 
 have taken place till a comparatively late date. 
 
 74. In the case of the other IE. languages Schleicher pro- 
 ceeds to draw up a regular system, showing how in his opinion 
 certain of the European languages are more nearly related than 
 others, and defining the historical relation between the groups by 
 the fidelity with which each, in his opinion, adhered to the original 
 type. He argued that the Slavo-Lettic and Teutonic groups 
 show a marked resemblance to each other, and preserve the 
 type of the original language less clearly than the other -languages 
 
48 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 of the same family ; he therefore assumed that this was the 
 division which first parted from the primitive stock ; and then the 
 Graeco-Italo-Celtic (the S. European division) ; so that the Aryan 
 or Asiatic group alone of all the IE. stock remained. 
 
 75. But more recent scholars have pointed out with great force 
 that it is possible for two languages to possess many points in 
 common without these necessarily implying an original community 
 of life. Some languages, for instance, may agree in having lost the 
 augment which others still possess : but it does not therefore follow 
 that this loss necessarily took place during the common life of these 
 languages. Again, identity of vocabulary unless this identity is 
 very marked, as in the case of Dutch and English for instance 
 cannot be held to prove necessarily a previous coexistence of those 
 who speak the languages ; the word may have existed in other 
 languages as well, and then have disappeared. Take, for instance, 
 the case of ' horse,' for which the regular Slavonic word is kon. In 
 the Russian we find a Finnish or Tartar word loshad? employed to 
 express this notion. But we know from history that it was not 
 until quite a recent period that the Russians came into contact 
 with the Tartar race, and we are therefore justified in assuming 
 that they possessed at an early period some IE. word to express 
 the idea mentioned. Therefore the only conclusive linguistic 
 evidence which remains to us as to the previous common life of 
 nations is the common development of new formations. For 
 instance, it was held until lately that\ the Indo-Europeans before 
 their separation possessed one k only, and that this k separated 
 into the two sounds of k and s (or sz) in the Asiatic and Slavo- 
 Lithuanian families alike. It was again assumed that where the 
 Asiatic families exhibited a, the European stock assumed e in 
 common : that the r which characterises the middle and passive 
 voice of Italic, as in Lat. sparg-ier, was likewise developed in Celtic, 
 as in Ir. ber-ir (fertur), Welsh cer-ir (amatur), and that the -m 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 49 
 
 developed itself alike in the dative plural both of the Slave- 
 Lithuanian languages and of the Teutonic^languages, Compare 
 Got. brdthrum and Russ. brat jam, with Lat. fratribus. 
 
 76. But recent scholarship has made it probable that these 
 sounds existed in the primitive speech : that two 's existed in 
 the primitive language, one of which might be palatalised (cf. p. 58), 
 that the sound e was found there also by the side of a, that 
 the r of the middle and passive in Italic and Celtic may be 
 connected with the r of the Indian -re and -rate ; and that there 
 may have been an w-suffix in the primitive language by the side 
 of the ^-suffix. In fact there seems no reason to suppose that 
 those who spoke the primitive language had not the command of 
 as copious sounds as their descendants. It thus seems to follow 
 that the correctness of Schleicher's system of grouping must be held 
 as not proven : with the admitted exception of the members of 
 the Asiatic group, which alike change the old e into #, and must 
 be held as closely related. 
 
 77. The view then generally accepted at the present day, 
 as to the primitive language of the Indo-Europeans, is that it 
 must have developed into dialects before the separation of the 
 different peoples composing the Indo-European stock. It seems 
 probable that this language had existed for centuries before 
 the separation, and therefore it must have been in a constant 
 state of development. It needs little reflection to see that 
 language has a constant tendency to split up into dialects, that 
 is into branches of the same family, commonly, to some extent, 
 intelligible to their speakers, but differing from each other in 
 pronunciation, and in the meaning attached by the speakers of 
 each dialect to words fundamentally the same. As each man's 
 mind is differently constituted from that of his neighbour, it 
 follows that each man must necessarily attach to words meanings 
 differing from those attached to them by his fellow-men. It is 
 
50 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 owing to this difference in men's minds that there are very few 
 absolute synonyms in language, i.e. very few pairs of words which 
 exactly cover the same ground ; and it would be hard to discover 
 two men who could be found to give an identical definition of the 
 most ordinary word. The natural tendency in language then is to 
 produce a multiplicity of words relating to identical objects, but 
 relating to them in different points of view. Some of these terms 
 fall into disuse : the fittest survive ; but often with a meaning 
 far removed from that with which they started. This natural 
 'tendency then is the first agency at work in the production of 
 dialects. 
 
 78. The second great agency is geographical isolation. It 
 produces isolation in the language as well ; and it is hard to 
 conceive that in such a vast extent of country as that which 
 our Indo-European ancestors are held to have occupied, no such 
 isolation should have occurred. Indeed traces of differences in 
 speech occurring in the parent language have been pointed out 
 by recent scholars, and they have insisted with great probability 
 that such differences are the germs of some of those which 
 we observe in the Indo-European languages. In the course of 
 time then these dialects, thus formed, arrange themselves into 
 groups, which we are enabled to classify as languages : and 
 these fall under the larger head of ' families of speech/ each 
 of which contains numerous languages, just as each language 
 contains numerous dialects. 
 
 79. Though it does not come strictly speaking into the scope 
 of philology properly so called, yet we may be allowed to 
 take a passing glance at the speakers of the original IE. 
 language, and form some idea of the civilisation they had 
 attained when they still spoke it. Since language forms such 
 an important factor in nationality, that each language grows 
 only in the domain of one single nationality, we may assume that 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 51 
 
 the primitive history of the IE. group of languages may pass for 
 the primitive history of the IE. group of nations. One primitive 
 nation, the Indo-European, through excessive increase of its mem- 
 bers, or different developments of its tribes, parted into two main 
 divisions ; the same process repeated itself until the nine main 
 divisions which we have spoken of were formed. 
 
 80. On the question of the primitive home of the Indo- 
 Europeans, different theories have been formed. The form of the 
 language of the Asiatic branch, as more original, leads us to select 
 it as standing nearest to the original language ; i.e., we are justified 
 in assuming that the people who spoke this language has travelled 
 least far from the cradle of the IE. primitive people, and con- 
 sequently was the last to leave its original home. The position of 
 the tribes of Lower India exhibits the Aryan stock as having driven 
 out and replaced an older aboriginal stock, from whose language 
 it has actually adopted foreign words and sounds into its own. 
 The Aryan Indians thus appear as immigrants into the Lower 
 Indian peninsula, and, as the position of the countries occupied by 
 the tribes thus driven back shows us, they must have passed from 
 north to south. Further, traditions point to the land round the 
 Indus as a still earlier dwelling-place of the Aryan Indians, but 
 this is all we can gather on this head. The Indians then had their 
 earlier abode in the Punjaub ; and after settling there, they spread 
 into the valley of the Ganges, and further : in fact they immi- 
 grated thither from the north-west. 
 
 8 1. But the oldest traditions of the Eranians point to the 
 east. The further west we find the Indo-Europeans settled, the 
 less original are their languages : and hence we draw conclusions 
 as to the longer process of migration and earlier separation of the 
 populations who spoke these languages. Since then all the IE. 
 races, with the exception of the Indians, migrated westwards, and 
 the Aryan Indians migrated towards the south-east, we are 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 compelled to conclude that the home of the Indo-Europeans 
 must have been to the east of that of the Eranians, and to the 
 north-west of the Indians, i.e., in the Highlands of Central 
 Asia, to the west of Belurtag and Mustag. 
 
 82. We have already seen how difficult it is in our present 
 state of knowledge to decide definitely which tribes were the first to 
 break off from the parent stem. Some have supposed that the 
 ancestors of the Celtic nations were the first to hive off; referring 
 to the violent departure taken by their language from the 
 primitive tongue, and also to the fact that they are everywhere 
 found in the far west of Europe, as though they had been pressed 
 hard by other tribes. Others, like Schleicher, have assumed a 
 period in which the Slavonians, Lithuanians, and Teutons lived 
 together, and that they were the first to leave the parent stock. 
 The only fact upon which all are agreed, is that the Eranians and 
 Indians continued to dwell together after the departure of the other 
 tribes, and that finally they separated, the Indians moving to the 
 east, the Eranians to the west. 
 
 83. The question arises whether the countries into which 
 the IE. race overflowed, were uninhabited, or were already 
 occupied. As to the Indians, we know for certain that the country 
 they occupy at present was previously occupied by alien races, 
 especially those of Dravidian ( Deccanic ) origin (Telugu, Tamil, 
 Canarese). About the Eranian branch we have no such certain 
 information ; in Europe the Basque population was pushed further 
 and further back by the IE. tribes ; possibly the Etruscans were 
 the remnants of some such ancient race. Besides these, the Finnish- 
 Tschudic peoples (of which the Finns, the Hungarians, the Turks 
 are the modern representatives) seem to have occupied the north of 
 Europe before the Indo-Europeans. (Indeed the Russians them- 
 selves believe that Moscow was till three or four centuries ago a 
 Finnish capital.) Many tribes may have gone down before the 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 53 
 
 mighty Indo-Europeans, with their high intellectual development ; 
 and indeed the course of history points to the fact that peoples 
 are constantly giving way and disappearing before others, but that 
 really new races are not formed. In any case it cannot be doubted 
 that many peoples of different families existed side by side with 
 the Indo-European original people. 
 
 84. We spoke of the Indo-Europeans as possessing a high 
 intellectual development before they entered on their migrations. 
 We are able to draw conclusions on these points by attending to 
 the laws of the history of language. Words have a function, and 
 a meaning : thus, if we possess the language of a people, and 
 on comparison find that words of different sister languages tally 
 with the words of this, we possess the range of their common 
 views, ideas, and conceptions. For instance, if we discover that 
 the Indians and the Germans employ a word not borrowed 
 but originally identical, in the same function, we must assume 
 that this word is a common inheritance which has descended 
 from the ancient mother to both languages ; and we must 
 assume that what this word expresses belongs to the range of the 
 views, ideas, and conceptions common to the primitive people. 
 This certainty becomes more absolute in proportion as the word 
 appears in the same function in more languages. No doubt it may 
 have easily happened that an original word was maintained in a 
 single language only, or was entirely lost ; and certainly our 
 knowledge has limitations of this kind. The IE. people may 
 possibly have been richer in words and conceptions than we can 
 prove, but not poorer. It is then this agreement of the IE. 
 languages, which enables us to arrive at an approximate know- 
 ledge of the pitch of civilisation attained by the IE. people. 
 Every word which is common for instance to the Slavonic, 
 Teutonic, Aryan, &c., must have existed in the primitive 
 language ; but this does not necessarily hold good of words 
 
54 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 belonging to one only of the two divisions : it is possible 
 that these took their origin after the division of the original 
 language. 
 
 85. A few examples may illustrate what we have said. 
 From the G. vater, Lat. pater, Gr. -n-ar^p, Skr. pitd(r), we are 
 able to infer that the original IE. form must have sounded 
 pitar-s in the nominative singular, and that it possessed the 
 same function as it possesses to-day ; the word denotes originally, 
 ' protector.' In the same way, if we compare the word for mother ; 
 NHG. mutter, OHG. muoter, Lat. mater, Gr. pjnjp, Skr. 
 mdtd(r], we must conclude that the word was pronounced among 
 I.-Europeans mdtar-s, originally 'the creating one.' NHG. sohn, 
 Got. sunus\lAt. sumts, OB. syniuSkt. sunus, point to the fact that 
 the IE. original people likewise spoke of sunus (meaning 'the 
 begotten,') &c. The same process holds good with the other family 
 relations, as with the words NHG. tochter, Skr. duhitar, Got. 
 dauhtar; NHG. bruder, Got. brothar ; even NHG. schwager, 
 Gr. e/cvpos, Skr. $va$uras, Got. svaihra, and NHG. schnur, Lat. nurus. 
 In fact the family relations* were very precisely defined, as is 
 commonly the case among nomads, who think more of the 
 tribe than of the community. There were words for a wife's 
 sister (Skr. sydlas, cf. Gr. de'Aioi) and the wife of a brother (Skr. 
 ydtar, Gr. cti/arepes, Lat. janitrices), just as there were in OHG. 
 for father's brother and mother's brother: cf. NHG. oheim and 
 vetter with Lat. avunculus and patruus, and cf. AS. fat/m and 
 modrie with Lat. amita and matertera ; thus the Welsh call 
 the mother mam, but the mother's sister modryb. The father was 
 the ' lord ' of the family, Skr. patis, Gr. TTOO-IS (cf. Seo-Tror^? ' lord ') 
 and the wife was the Skr. patni or Gr. TroVna, i.e. ' mistress.' The 
 people were divided into clans, who held in common certain 
 
 * See Kluge, Etymologisches Worterbuch, Introduction, p. xiii. 
 
ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, 55 
 
 pasturage lands, but possessed houses and cattle of their own- 
 The family was developed among the Indo-Europeans, and, as 
 we have seen, its relations were defined, and, a point of main 
 importance, marriage was instituted. 
 
 86. This is merely an example of the method by which we 
 proceed to attain these results. By it we are able to arrive at the 
 further conclusion that the primitive IE. stock believed in a 
 simple religion, worshipping mainly the great powers of nature, 
 such as the orbs of heaven : that they were in some degree 
 settled, and were acquainted with at least one kind of grain ; that 
 oxen, horses, sheep, and dogs were already domesticated by them, 
 though agriculture itself seems to have been practised on no large 
 scale. 
 
 87. They were acquainted with the decimal system of numera- 
 tion, but only as far as 999 ; at least, the names of the numbers in 
 the different IE. families have a common origin up to this point, 
 but there is no common IE. word to express 1000. For instance, 
 the Lit. exhibits tukstantis, the O. Prussian tusimtons, 
 O.B. tysashta, agreeing with Got. thusundi whereas in Gr. 
 we find x i '^ lot > Lesb. x / ^- tot > for * x^Atot, agreeing with Skr. 
 sa-hasra, Zend hanzara. The Celtic borrowed mil from the 
 Latin mille. 
 
 88. The designations of the different parts of the body are 
 common to most IE. languages. Thus the brain appears in Skr. as 
 $iras (hr*karas), Zend $ara y Lat. cere-brum, Got. hvairnei t OHG. 
 Jtirni, Scot. hams. A similar resemblance meets us in the words 
 for the ear, the eyebrows, the nose, the teeth, the neck, 
 the shoulder ; and for arm, elbow, nail, knee, foot. The 
 Deity was worshipped under the form of the bright sky. The 
 common word to express God means 'The Shining One' Skr. 
 devas, Lat. deus, divus, Lit. devas, preserved in the ON. 
 plural form tivar. The IE. form of this word was daivas t 
 
56 ON THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 The name of the highest God is common to several languages : 
 Skr. dyaus (gen. divas], Gr. Zeus, AID'S ; Lat. Jup-piter y Jovis ; 
 ON. Tyr, gen. Tys (the original Teutonic form was probably 
 *Tms, gen.*Tivts), originally ' The bright sky,' from the root 
 div y ' to shine.' This has left a trace in the ON. Tysdagr y 
 NHG. Dienstag % AS. Tivesd&g, E. Tuesday t as another primitive 
 divinity, Auses, Lat. Aurora, Teut. *Atistro y AS. Eastre, has left in 
 NHG. Ostern, our Easter. The words for night, month, and sum- 
 mer, seem to be an IE. inheritance, but there are not many 
 common names for the divisions of the year or day. The 
 personification of the phenomena and conceptions of nature 
 or mythology, properly so called must, in spite of certain 
 points of agreement between different nations, have originated 
 at a later period, for in the oldest records of the Indian, 
 viz. the Vedic hymns, we find these for the most part still 
 in process of growth. The agreement is to be explained by 
 the common stock of the conceptions of nature which underlies 
 mythology. 
 
 A written alphabet was of course unknown. We now quit the 
 wider domain of the IE. family, and turn to a closer study of a 
 single group of languages which issued from the common IE. 
 original stock in the way we have described, viz. the Teutonic. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 89. THE following are the principal characteristics common to all 
 the Teutonic languages, which taken together mark and assign 
 to them their peculiar position as a separate group in the IE. 
 family. 
 
 i.) The changes which the IE. original stock of consonants 
 underwent in Teutonic, generally known as the first sound-shifting 
 process (G. lautverschiebung), or Grimm's Law ; the eminent 
 German philologist Jacob Grimm, following the Danish philologist 
 Rask, having been the first to lay down the laws of these changes. 
 This process, though it allows of an uniform statement, must not be 
 regarded as having sprung up uniformly, or at one time, consisting 
 as it does of many separate changes that have on the whole 
 occurred independently of each other. Nor is this process unique 
 as affecting solely the Teutonic family of language ; many other 
 languages exhibit changes of the same nature.* 
 
 90. The following consonants existed in the IE. language : 
 Three voiced (soft) checks (mediae) : &, g, d. 
 
 Three voiceless (hard) checks (tenues) : /, k, t. 
 Three aspirated voiced checks (mediae aspiratae) : b/i, gk, dh. 
 Four spirants : v (= E. w), s voiced (= E. #), s voiceless, y. 
 Two liquids : /, r. 
 
 * The most striking analogy to the whole process is found in Armenian, where 
 IE. gh, bh, dh, g, and d are represented by g t b, d, k and / respectively, exactly 
 as in the Teut. languages. (See Hiibschmann, Kuhrts Zeitschrift, xxiii., 
 pp. 1 8 sqq.) 
 
58 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 Three nasals : n (dental), m (labial), h (guttural). 
 
 This original consonantal system appears considerably modified 
 
 in the separate languages. Thus in the Teutonic group, while the 
 
 spirants, liquids, and nasals remained essentially unchanged (L. 
 
 vid-ere = Got. vit-an ; L. sed-ere = Got. sit-an ; L. jug-um Got. 
 
 juk ; L. mar-e = Got. mar-ei ; L. no-men = Got. na-mo), the checks 
 
 are liable throughout to the following changes : 
 
 y^x" 91. The IE. mediae appear as tenues in the Teutonic languages. 
 
 a) IE. b = Teut./. Very few examples of this exist, as# was 
 no doubt of rare occurrence in IE., indeedjts existence has 
 altogether been doubted by some scholars.) Lat. turb-a = Got. 
 thaurp\ Gr. a-o/3?; = ON. svipa ; Lat. subitus=GN. svtpa ; and two 
 loan-words : Lat. cannabisQN. hanpr, E. hemp\ Gr. /fruVr; = Got. 
 
 paida. 
 
 b) Here we have in IE. to distinguish between two kinds of 
 gutturals, ione_set pronounced more in the Jront^of the mouth, yet 
 not quite palatal,' generally written g a k ly gh^ ;l and another set 
 pronounced at the back of the mouth, viz., the gutturals proper, 
 written g a 2 , gk f . These two sets suffered different changes in 
 most IE. languages. 
 
 IE. g t = Teut. k: Lat. ager = Got. akrs\ Gr. yevofwu = Got. 
 kiusa ; Gr. yoVv, Lat. genii = Got. kniu. 
 
 IE. g? = Teut. k : Lat. augeo = Got. duka ; Skr. gurus, Gr. 
 jSa/ovs = Got. kaurus. It is often followed by u in Greek, Latin, 
 Celtic, and Teutonic, never in Aryan and Slavo-Lettic. It is then 
 = Teut. qu (kv) : Gr. ywrj = Got. quind ; Skr. jdnis Got. quens, 
 E. queen ; Skr. gam-ati, Gr. ySatV-etv = Got. quim-an. 
 ^ , c) IE. */ = Teut. / : Lat. vid-ere = Got. vit-an. 
 
 92. The IE. tenues appear as voicekss spirants in anlaut, and also 
 in inlaut if the principal accent originally preceded them ; as voiced 
 spirants, if it followed them. This law, which was first discovered 
 by Karl Verner (in Kuhris Zeitschrifl, xxiii., pp. 97 sqq.), and is 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 59 
 
 hence called (Verner's Law, is best exemplified in the conjugation, 
 where the present tense and the sing, indicative of the preterit 
 form one group, having the principal accent on the root ; the 
 plural and dual of the preterit indicative, the optative of the 
 preterit, and the past participle forming another group which 
 originally had the accent on the last syllable. J Cf. e.g. Skr. 
 vdrtati, vavdrtavavrtimd, vavrtyam, vavrtands. While in the 
 Gothic this change in the verb is no longer recognisable, analogy 
 and assimilation having combined to destroy the original difference ; 
 the other Teutonic languages have better preserved this original 
 difference, some of them maintaining it even to the present day. 
 Thus e.g. OHG. ziuhu, zok zugum, zugi, zogan\ NHG. ziehe, 
 but zogen, *zoge, gezogen, and through analogy of these forms also 
 .0gV Thus also we find the adjective gediegen, which is the original 
 form of the past participle of gedeihen, by the side of the modern 
 gediefan, which has been formed by analogy. 
 
 We have therefore to distinguish : 
 
 i) IE. tenuis = Teut. voiceless spirant, when preceded by 
 the principal accent. 
 
 a) IE./=Teut. /: Gr. (Lesb.) 7re/x7T=Got J #;;z/; Lat./tfter = 
 
 Got. /J&dfor ; Gr. irvp = Got. fair. 
 
 b) a) IE. / x = Teut. h, which had the value of x certainly in 
 
 inlaut, perhaps also in anlaut. Lat. canis = Got. hunds ; 
 Lat. sequi = Got. sailivan ; Lat. duco = Got. titi/ia ; 
 Skr. gvdguras = Got. svaihra ; Gr. Se'ica, Lat. decent = Got. 
 talhun. 
 
 (3) IE. / 2 = Teut. h : Skr. kravyam, Gr. icpc'a?, Lat caro = Got. 
 hraiv. 2) = Teut. hv : Skr. kataras, Gr. Trorcpos = Got. 
 hvathar ; Skr. kas = Got. hvas* 
 
 c) IE. t = Teut. th : Lat. tu = Got. tM. 
 
 * The /of fidvdr = Skr. catvdras has taken the place of original hv l,y 
 analogy of fimf, just as in Greek inscriptions we find OTTTW instead of OKTO> 
 formed by the analogy of eTrra. See Joh. Schmidt, Kuhris Zeitschrift, xxv.,p. 130. 
 
60 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 2) IE. tenuis = Teut. voiced spirant, when followed by the 
 principal accent. The tenuis was first regularly as in the 
 instances under i) shifted to a voiceless spirant, then the effect of 
 the different accentuation began to work, and changed the voiceless 
 to a voiced spirant, which is lastly often again changed to the 
 corresponding media. 
 
 a) IE. / = Teut. b\ Skr. saptan, Lat. septem, Gr. 7rra=Got. 
 
 sibun. 
 
 b) IE. k = Teut. g Gr. SeKas = Got. tigus\ Skr. ankds, Lat. 
 
 tmcus = Got. (hals-}agga. 
 
 c) IE. t = Teut. d\ Gr. iraTrjp = Got. fadar\ Skr. $atdm> 
 
 Lat. centum = Got. hund. 
 
 93. The IE. mediae aspiratse appear as mediae in Teutonic. 
 
 a) IE. #/ = Teut. b : Skr. bharami, Gr. <J>ep<, Lat. fero 
 
 Got. baira ; Gr. <>77s = Got. boka ; Gr. Kc<aA>/ = Got. 
 haubitk. 
 
 b) IE. gk = Teut. g\ Gr. xP TOS > Lat. tortus = Got gards\ 
 
 Gr. Aexo? = Got. //rj. 
 
 c) IE. % = Teut. d: Gr. 0u/oa = Got. daur; Gr. Ovyar^p = 
 
 Got. dauhtar ; Gr. !0os = Got. j^/s. 
 
 The only exceptions to these laws of change are to be met in 
 cases where a tenuis is preserved by a preceding s, as in sp, st, sc ; 
 t also after h and /remains unchanged : Lat. nocti- = Got. nahti- ; 
 Gr. KAeTmj? = Got. hliftus ; Gr. vrdyu = Got. steiga. 
 
 94. A second though not so prominent feature of the Teutonic 
 languages is their peculiar treatment of the nasals m and n 
 and of the liquids r and / where these originally formed a separate 
 syllable. In this case an u -f consonant is developed. Brugman 
 was the first to establish this law. Skr. vrkas, Gr. XVKOS, Lat. lupus, 
 OB. vluku, Lit. vllkas = Got. vulfs, OHG. wulf\ Skr. gati-> 
 Gr. PO.O-I-, Lat. z/^//- = Got. ga-qumths\ Skr. mati-, Lat. menti- 
 = Got. ga-munds. 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 61 
 
 95. Thirdly. The word-accent in all Teut. languages, in contrast 
 to the other languages of the IE. group, rests on the root-syllable. 
 By thus emphasising the syllable which conveys the meaning, the 
 Teut. languages show a tendency to emphasise and lay stress 
 on what may be called the logical element in language. This was 
 not the case in the IE. language, nor is it now in any other IE. 
 group but the Teutonic. 
 
 96. Fourthly. The treatment of terminal consonants and vowels 
 (auslautsgesetz). Each language shows a preference for certain 
 terminal sounds, and for these only, whilst many languages, like 
 Greek, go so far as to allow only certain sounds, to the exclusion of 
 all others, to close a word, or as Modern Italian and Old Bulgarian, 
 where vowels only are allowed to close a word. Cf. Lat. bonus 
 with It. buono, Lit. vilkas with OB. vlnkn. Westphal (Kuhn ii., p. 
 163 sqq.) was the first to establish these laws in the Teutonic 
 languages. We have to distinguish between the law for the conso- 
 nants and that for the vowels : the consonants were the first to 
 undergo the effects of the law, which may be thus stated. An 
 original group of consonants terminating a word is preserved intact 
 only when it is closed by s, as in the ace. plur. vulfans, balgins, 
 sitnuns. Where no s closes the word, the last sound must disappear : 
 *bairainth becomes bairain. It is the same after vowels and single 
 consonants : sunns, is, vulfs (for *vulfaz], gasts (for *gastiz\ but 
 hva (for *7wat) = Lat. quod; brothre (for *brdtkrdm) t &c. It was 
 not till the completion of this process that the laws affecting the 
 terminal vowels came into play. These are the following : 
 
 1) Terminal -a and -i disappear where they originally 
 closed a word and also before a single consonant. Gr. oTSa = 
 Got. vdit ; * gasliz becomes gast, * vulfaz vulfs. u remains: 
 sumis. 
 
 2) Terminal a is shortened to -a : *gibd becomes giba, *faddr 
 (cf. Gr. irar-rip) fadar. 
 
62 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 3) Terminal -ai is likewise shortened to -a : Gr. ^eperai = Got. 
 bairada. 
 
 4) Terminal -ja and -jd become -i: *kunjam becomes kuni^ 
 *bandja bandi. 
 
 97. The following peculiarities are common to the Teut. 
 languages in their inflexion. 
 
 1) The tendency to develop nominal stems in -n. Cf. Skr. 
 gvagura- y Gr. e/<upo-, Lat. socero-> Lit. szeszura-, with Got. svalhran-\ 
 Lat. dingud- with Got. tngg&n-\ Gr. oy*o-, Lat. unco-, with Got. aggan-. 
 
 2) The use of the adjective in three forms, a so-called strong 
 form with pronominal inflexion, a weak form with a stem in -;/, and 
 an uninflected form. 
 
 3) In the conjugation we notice the loss of the augmented 
 tenses, of the future tense and of the subjunctive proper for 
 which the optative has to do service ; the formation of a weak 
 preterit in -d\ a systematic development of the principle of 
 ablaut ; and preterito-presents after the model of vail = Gr. oTSa, 
 plur. vitum. 
 
 98. Lastly, the Teutonic languages have also many syntactic 
 peculiarities in common, and their vocabulary shows a striking 
 agreement both in the development of new words to express new 
 meanings and new ideas and in the development of new meanings 
 from old roots. 
 
 Thus the IE. root vert ' to turn,' Skr. vrt, Lat. vertere, took the 
 new meaning of 'to become,' Got. vairthan, OHG. werdan, AS. 
 weorthan, cf. Engl. 'to turn' ; the IE. root mor { to die,' Lat. mori 
 came to mean ' murder,' Got. maurthr ; Lat. sequi ' to follow ' is 
 in Got. saihvan 'to see '; Gr. CTTCIX LV * to step ' is Got steigan 'to 
 mount.' Again words derived from stems already in existence 
 received special characteristic significations; such as AS. cyning^ 
 OHG. ktming -king,' lit. 'father of a race' from AS. cyiie, OHG. 
 kunni y Got. kuni ' race,' ' family ' ; Got. skduns> AS. scyne ' fair/ 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 63 
 
 beautiful/ ME. (Chaucer) scheene, from the root skau 'to show'; 
 Got. guth, AS. god, OHG. got, from the root ghu 'to call upon, 
 adore/ &c.* 
 
 99. While these peculiarities are shared by all Teutonic languages 
 alike, and must therefore have sprung up and spread while all the 
 Teutonic languages still formed one whole, there are others which 
 are peculiar to one special stock of them only. 
 
 Hence we are able to distinguish two main groups of the Teu- 
 tonic languages, to which, from the geographical position of the 
 stocks by whom they were spoken, the names have been given of 
 East-Teutonic and West-Teutonic. JTo-th-~EHT. belong the Gothic 
 and Scandinavian languages,\to the WT. all the other Teutonic 
 languages, viz., the Old High German, the Low Franconian, the Old 
 Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, and Old Frisian. Of the WT. languages 
 again, the first three are more intimately connected and may be 
 comprised under theTname of South-West Teutonic,' the Anglo- 
 Saxon and Old Frisian thus forming a North-West Teutonic group. f 
 
 100. The following are the principal characteristics which dis- 
 tinguish these two groups from each other, the WT. showing, as 
 will be observed, more modern formations in lieu of the old IE. 
 forms preserved by the ET. 
 
 1) In the 2d. sg. pret. of the strong verbs the ET. retains the 
 IE. inflexion in -ta : Got. vdist = Skr. vettka, Gr. olo-0o, Lat. vidisti. 
 In the WT. an optative form in -i affixed to the lengthened stem 
 is employed instead : OHG. gdbi 'thou gavest,' wdri 'thou wert,' 
 AS. ware ' thou wert,' side by side with wast, scealt, thearft, &c. 
 
 2) The ET. retains the IE. ending -s (ON. -r) of the 
 
 * See Kluge, Etymologisches Wortcrbuch, p. xiv. 
 
 f We have here mentioned only those stocks of whose languages we possess 
 literary records, but it should be said that the ET. group embraced in addition 
 the Burgundians, the Vandals, Herulians, Rugians and Skires, while to the 
 WT. belonged the Langobards and Burgundians. 
 
64 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 nominative of masculine nouns which has been given up by the 
 WT. : Got. dag-s, ON. dag-r, but OHG. tag, AS. dag. 
 
 3) In the ace. plur. of short vowel stems the WT. differs from 
 the ET. by having adopted a new form : Got. nom. dagos, ace. 
 dagans, ON. nom. dagar, ace. daga, OHG. nom. and ace. taga, 
 AS. nom. and ace. dagas ; Got. nom. balgeis, ace. balgins, ON. 
 nom. balgir, ace. balgi, OHG. nom. and ace. balgi, pelki. 
 
 4) The declension of the comparative is different in the ET. 
 from that in the WT. 
 
 5) The IE. neuters in -man are neuters in ET. while they 
 have become masculines in WT. Got. namo, ON. nafn are 
 neuters, OHG. namo, AS. nama masculines. 
 
 101. It is noteworthy, however, that between Gothic and ON. the 
 relations are not throughout as close as those existing between the 
 different languages of the WT. group. Yet Gothic and ON. have 
 some very marked characteristics in common, e.g., the insertion of 
 gg before v :* cf. Got. triggvs ( true.' ON. tryggr (ace. tryggvan) 
 with OHG. triwa, AS. treove, OP. druwis, m. ' belief,' dmwtt 
 'to believe.'! 
 
 1 02. The Goths and Scandinavians are by Tacitus (Germ. 44) men- 
 tioned as the most eastern Teutonic stems. They lived then on the 
 Vistula, and to the north of it. The later history of the Goths is well 
 known. In the migration of tribes in the fourth century, many of 
 the Teutonic tribes were completely destroyed or at least lost their 
 nationality. In the fifth century Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians 
 migrate to Great Britain, the Scandinavians advance from the 
 islands in the Baltic and take their place in Jutland. Those who 
 remain on the continent are mainly the Alemans, Swabians, 
 
 * This insertion of g before v appears also commonly in the Brythonic 
 branch of the Celtic languages and in the Romance languages. Cf. W. 
 giuynt, E. wind, Lat. ventus ; It. guastare, Fr. gdter, Lat. vastari. 
 
 t See Kluge, Beitrdge zur germanischen Conjugation, pp. 127 sqq. 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 65 
 
 Bavarians, Franks, part of the Saxons and Frisians. The dis- 
 appearance of so many intervening links leaves the ET. and 
 WT. groups in such apparently strong contrast. 
 
 103. GOTHIC. Of all the Teutonic languages the Gothic,* 
 speaking generally, presents the most ancient characteristics, and in 
 fact approaches most closely to- the original Teutonic language. 
 The Gothic language enables us to draw the most trustworthy 
 conclusions as to this original language. Of all Teutonic languages 
 it alone still retains the Medio-Passive forms common to the Greeks, 
 the Indians, and the Eranians, forms which the Letts and Slavs have 
 completely lost. Again lit alone has preserved in its entirety the 
 perfect reduplication, and ~it~aloine"still maintains in their least 
 crippled form the grammatical terminations of the old language. 
 But true as Gothic has in the main been to the primitive type, it has 
 still lost many forms, which other German stocks, notably OHG. 
 and ON., still possess. For instance, when it meets us it retains 
 merely traces of tEe instrumental case which is still frequently 
 found in OHG. ; the perfect formed with -s still occurring in 
 OHG., and especially in ON., is entirely wanting to the Gothic, 
 a sufficient proof, among others which might be cited, that neither 
 German nor Norse can possibly be descended from Gothic ; both 
 of these languages have retained single heirlooms, inherited 
 from the common mother, in a greater state of perfection than 
 
 the Gothic heiress-in-chief. 
 
 * 
 
 104. We owe our knowledge of the Gothic language to the Bible 
 translation of the Gothic Bishop Vulfila,t who is better known by 
 the Greek form- of his name Ulfilas. He lived from 311 to 381, 
 A.D. Besides this we possess merely some scanty fragments of the 
 
 * The proper form of the name is Got* not Goth. Pliny calls them Guttones, 
 Strabo Tovrwve?, Tacitus (Medic.) Gotones^ the ' Germania' alone having the 
 form Gothones. They called themselves Gut-thiuda, ' the people of the Goths.' 
 
 t This is the modern Germ. Wolf el frequently occurring as a surname. 
 F 
 
.66 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 language. Any national epic poetry or written laws that the Goths 
 may have possessed have been lost. The Gothic has left no issue,* 
 as the Goths were absorbed by different foreign nations whose 
 languages they adopted. Gothic, therefore, must be looked on as a 
 truly dead language, while we cannot regard such languages as 
 Greek and Latin as dead languages ; these have merely suffered a 
 transition into more modern forms. The alphabet employed by 
 the Goths was that known as the Runic ; this was a series of letters 
 employed by the other German stems as well ; its varieties seem 
 to point back to one original form. This they employed until the 
 introduction of the alphabet of Vulfila which was founded on that 
 of the Greeks. The Runic alphabet (from rtina 1 a secret,' cf. litter- 
 arum secreta, Tac. Germ. 19)! was derived from that of the Romans, 
 as is seen most clearly from the letters fr ^ H Y (denoting the 
 voiceless spirant like Latin f, not the voiced one like the Greek 
 digamma), and \^ = RTHFS.J We have to distinguish two 
 Runic alphabets, an older and longer one of twenty-four characters 
 which is common to all Teutonic peoples, and a shorter one of six- 
 teen characters which was employed by the Scandinavians and 
 seems to have been in existence since about 800 A.D. This latter 
 was afterwards again enlarged by the addition of the so-called 
 punctuated Runes. The oldest testimony to the existence of 
 a Runic alphabet is found in Venantius Fortunatus (about 580 
 A.D.), the friend of Gregory of Tours, who, writing to a friend, 
 exhorts him to write if it be even in Runes : 
 
 ' Barbara fraxineis pingatur rima tabellis,' 
 
 where pingere answers to the Got. meljan ' to write,' OHG. mdlen 
 to draw, to paint,' cf. 
 
 * With the sole exception of the so-called Tetraxitic Goths in the Crimea 
 where the last traces of them and their language were discovered by the Dutch 
 traveller Busbeck in the i6th century. 
 
 t The root still exists in the G. raunen, E. to round, roundel. 
 
 % See Wimmer, Ursprung und Entwickehmg der Runenschrift im Norden. 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 67 
 
 After this the mention of Runes becomes increasingly frequent, 
 and soon their existence is attested by the monuments them- 
 selves. Wherever the Teutons have passed we find Runic 
 records, such as the famous Bucharest ring, the two golden horns 
 found near Tondern in Schleswig, and many others. 
 
 105. OLD NORSE. The oldest monuments are the Runic inscrip- 
 tions written in the so-called long alphabet. They already manifest 
 that Norse peculiarity, me change of an original voiced s (2) into r, 
 commonly called rhotacism. Thus we find gastir, ' guest,' on the 
 ' Golden Horn ' for an original *gastiz, Got. gasts. Since the 
 twelfth century we have a written literature, in which two dialects 
 are distinguishable, theiNorwegian and the Icelandic. Iceland had 
 been colonised by Scandinavians since the year 874. When 
 Norway, in 1397, was united with Denmark, Danish there became 
 the language of the educated, whilst the Norwegian lived on in the 
 lower classes, and, as a written literature was wanting, split up into 
 a great many dialects. The Swedish-Danish dialect appears after 
 the twelfth century. Not till the sixteenth century are we enabled 
 to distinguish Swedish and Danish as separate dialects. 
 
 1 06. THE SAXON language, bounded by the Frisian, Franconian, 
 and HG., can be traced through the following periods : 
 
 1) Old Saxon iioo. Beside the Heljand (an alliterative 
 poem on the Saviour) preserved in two MSS. of the ninth century, 
 unimportant records alone are extant. 
 
 2) Middle-Low-German, 1400, has no independent literature 
 to exhibit, though many writings remain. The HG. was, at that 
 time, already the written language of the LG. districts. 
 
 3) New-Low-German, or Plattdeutsch, so called from being 
 spoken in the /tote toz^orthe low country, in contradistinction to 
 High German, ffocMeutscfysppken in the mountainous parts of South 
 Germany. It possesses a literature of a very modern date. Men 
 like Fritz Reuter (employing the Mecklenburg dialect) and Klaus 
 
 F 2 
 
68 ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 Groth (employing the Holstein dialect) have tried to raise it to a 
 written language. But it has long ago been superseded everywhere 
 by High-German. In 1621 the last Low-German Bible was printed, 
 and since then the HG. has become predominant in schools 
 and churches, as will be seen later on. 
 
 107. THE Low FRANCONIAN. This was spoken on the lower 
 Rhine. The oldest monument in it is the so-called Malberg (i.e. 
 maJtal-berg ' mount of justice ') Gloss, i.e. Franconian vocables 
 entered as glosses into the Salic Code of Law written in Latin. 
 In later time the name Franconian ceases to be applied to this 
 language, it is then called Netherlandish (Dutch) and can be traced 
 through three periods : 
 
 1) Old Dutch 1150. 
 
 2) Middle Dutch, 1150-1500, with a rich literature, that had 
 a great influence on MHG. literature. 
 
 3) New Dutch, since the time of the Reformation. We must 
 distinguish in it between (a) the Dutch proper, (b) the Brabantian, 
 and (c) the Vlamisch, viz. the Dutch dialect spoken in Belgium, 
 which was not raised to the rank of a written language till the 
 third decade of our century (by the so-called Vlamish 
 movement). 
 
 1 08. THE PARISIAN. The Frisians occupy the sea-coast from 
 the mouth of the Rhine as far as western Schleswig, a situation 
 which well explains the gradual decay of this language. The only 
 documents we have of Old Frisian literature are the law codes of 
 the twelfth to the fifteenth century which have been edited by 
 Richthofen, Friesische Rechtsquellen, who is also the author of an 
 Old Frisian Dictionary. The dialects of this language are very 
 numerous. The three principal ones are : 
 
 1) The West-Fr. from the Zuydersee to the Dollart. 
 
 2) The East-Fr. between the Dollart and the Weser. This 
 dialect is now dying out, and being replaced by the Plattdeutsch 
 
ON THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES. 69 
 
 (or Low Saxon). There is a Worterbuch der ostfries. Sprache by 
 ten Doornkat Koolman. 
 
 3) The North Fr. on the west coast of Schleswig and Holstein, 
 and on the adjacent islands, Sylt, Fohr, Amrum, &c. 
 
 109. THE ANGLO-SAXON. This name we give to the language 
 which we find written in Great Britain, where Teutonic stocks from 
 the North of Germany, viz. mainly Angles and Saxons, but also 
 Jutes, Franks, and Frisians, settled as early as the middle of the fifth 
 century. There are numerous dialects of which the West-Saxon in 
 the W. and S., the Northumbrian and Mercian in the N., and the 
 Kent dialects in the S.E., are the most important. The language is 
 to be traced through two periods : 
 
 1) Old AS. 1 1 oo. 
 
 2) New AS. 1250. See R. Wiilcker, Paul and Braune's Bei- 
 trdge, i., pp. 57-88. 
 
 Nearly two centuries after the Norman conquest a process of 
 intermixture between AS. and Norman-French has been going on, 
 the result of which is 
 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, which may be roughly divided 
 into the following epochs : 
 
 1250-1350 Early English. During this period authors write in 
 their native dialects, no standard type of English having yet been 
 recognised. 
 
 1350-1500 Middle English. A common literary language is 
 gradually evolved from the Midland dialects. 
 
 Since 1500 Modern English (1500-1600 Later E.). 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 1 10. WE now come to speak of that language of the WT. group 
 with whose history we have to deal more particularly. 
 
 The High German language, though belonging to the WT. group, 
 is yet divided from the other members of this group as well as from 
 those of the ET. by a process of consonantal soundshifting which in 
 many respects bears great similarity to that which separates all the 
 Teut. languages from the other IE. languages. It is therefore some- 
 times called the second soundshifting process. This process set in 
 about 600 A.D., originating in the mountains of South Germany, and 
 began thence to spread southwards and northwards, affecting the 
 languages of the Langobards, Alemans, Swabians, Bavarians, and 
 Franks, until it gradually came to a standstill in the regions of the 
 lower Rhine. Taking these sound-changes as a test, we call all 
 Teutonic languages and dialects that were affected by them High 
 German, and all those left unaffected by them we call Low 
 German. 
 
 in. This whole soundshifting process was, however, nowhere 
 consistently carried out. While the centals are consistently shifted 
 on the entire HG. territory, excepting alone in the Middle- 
 Franconian dialect, the shifting of gutturals in anlaut and in auslaut 
 after consonants is confined to the so-called Upper German 
 dialects, and that of initial labials ceases to operate in the Rheno - 
 Franconian dialect. 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 71 
 
 112. The following is a short summary of the whole process. 
 We have to distinguish between the treatment of the consonants 
 a) in j anlaut and in in- and auslaut after consonants, and b) of 
 consonants in in- and auslaut after vowels. 
 
 1. a) Teut. t granges to the so-called affricate #, i.e. / + s> 
 also written (after short vowels) tz, and in OHG. c, cz. Got. hair to 
 = OHG. herza (herz), 'L&t.planta = OHG. phlanza (pflanze). 
 
 b) Teut. t changes to the hard spirant s, also written sz t ss, 
 and in O. and MHG. z, zs, zss : AS. hat OHG. keiz (heiss), 
 AS. wester = OPIG. wazar (wasser). 
 
 In the combinations ft, st, cht (written ht in O. and MHG.) 
 and tr y t is not shifted. We find in the O. Kheno-Franconian 
 dialects orthographies like unrehd (unrec/it), gidrosda (getrost), and 
 in the glosses of Kero stthdic (siichtig), crefdic (kraftig). This shows 
 that the t was not strong enough in such combinations to enable 
 it to undergo the change to z. 
 
 This shifting process of / has spread over the largest territory,* 
 and does not cease to operate until we reach the Middle-Franconian 
 dialect, where final t remains unchanged, so that in that district 
 (e.g. in Cologne) we hear people saying dat, et, but wasser. \ 
 
 2. a) Teut. p changes to the affricate pf y in OHG. also written 
 ph. Instances of this in anlaut are found in loan-words only, 
 thus : Lat. puteus = OHG. phuzzi (pfiitze), Lat. paraveredus = 
 OHG. pferd. ON. tappi, E. tap = OHG. zapfo. 
 
 b) Teut. / changes to f y between vowels ff\ Got. vepn 
 OHG. wdfen. Got. skapjan = OHG. scafanjAS. open = OHG. 
 offanfaot. slepan = OHG. staff an. S 
 
 * It has hence been popularly made the shibboleth of High and Low 
 Germans, Schleicher actually proposing to call their languages the Dat-sprache 
 and Das-sfirache respectively. 
 
 t If they also s&yJluss>JI0ss, &c., this is no exception to the rule, having been 
 brought about by analogy to the oblique cases in which / standing in inlaut 
 regularly changed to ss. Wat^ dat^ etc., of course had no oblique cases to 
 affect them. 
 
72 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Sp remains unchanged : Got. speiwan OHG. spwian. 
 
 The Middle Franconian dialect again marks the boundary of this 
 process. While initial /, and / after consonants is here left un- 
 changed, it is shifted between vowels, e.g. paffe from Greek or 
 Latin papa ; dorp, Got. tRaurp, E. thorp, but slafen, &c. In the 
 Rheno-Franconian dialect initial p is left unchanged while it is 
 shifted in inlaut, e.gV helphan Got. hilpan ; werphan = Got. 
 vairpan, but .palz from the Lat. palatium is still heard. 
 
 3. a) Teut. k changes to the affricate kch, which change is, 
 however, confined to Upper Germany alone. AS. did = Alein. 
 chindy AS. cirice Alem. ckilikhe. 
 
 b) Teut. k in inlaut changes to the long spirant ch, which in 
 OHG., where h had the value of the modern ch, was written hh. 
 Final k becomes ch. Got. mikils = OHG. mikkil, Got. sinks = 
 OHG. sioh (siecJi), siohker, Got. sokjan = OHG. suohhan (suchen), 
 Got. ik = OHG. ih. sk remains unchanged : Got. skduns = 
 OHG. sconi. 
 
 While these changes of the hard checks are comparatively uni- 
 form, and therefore easily remembered, there is a great dialectical 
 variety in the changes of the Teutonic soft checks and spirants. 
 
 4. IE. dk, Teut. 4 (in anlaut) and 5 (in inlaut), is changed to /. 
 Got. dauhtar = OHG. toktar, Got. biudan OHG. beotan. The 
 Middle and Rheno Franconian leave it unshifted : dohtar, bccdan. 
 
 5. IE. bh, Teut. b (in anlaut), and v (in inlaut), is variously 
 treated by the different dialects. It is b in Middle Germany, while 
 in Upper Germany it is frequently shifted to/, at least in anlaut. 
 The Middle-Franconian, on the other hand, preserves even to the 
 present day the LG. system : bodun (boten}, ergeve (ergebe), selvs 
 (selbe), gescriven {geschrieben}. 
 
 6. IE. gh, Teut. g (in anlaut), and y (in inlaut) is treated very 
 much in the same way as Teut. b. It appears as g in Middle 
 Germany, while it is shifted to k in Upper Germany. 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 73 
 
 7. Teut. th and 5 becomes d in OHG., a change which took 
 place by very slow degrees, and which can be traced step by 
 step through the dialects and their various records. The Bavarian 
 dialect was the first to accomplish this change, as is testified 
 by its oldest record, the so-called Paris glosses (about 750 A.D.), 
 where we find th but rarely. In the Alemanic, th prevails till about 
 780, since 800 A.D. d has everywhere taken its place. It is note- 
 worthy that d first prevailed in inlaut. In the Franconian 
 dialects th and S remained longest, but about 1000 A.D., d had 
 here likewise made good its ground. This change of th and $ to 
 d is the only one that has penetrated into LG. No LG. dialects 
 on the Continent still recognise the sound th or 5, but all have 
 replaced it in the same way as HG., i.e. by d. Examples: Got. 
 thaiirnus, E. thorn = G. dorn t Du. doorn\ AS. hrceth (whence the 
 E. rath, comparative rather) ' quick ' = OHG. hrad\ A.S. thiorna 
 = OHG. diorna. 
 
 8. Teut f is preserved in HG. when initial, often written v in 
 O. and MHG., whilst in inlaut it is softened to b in the Upper 
 German and to v in the Franconian dialects. Examples: Got. 
 
 fotus = OHG. vuoz\ Got. hlaifs, AS. hldf t E. loaf = OHG. Jdeib. 
 
 9. Teut. h had the value of the spirant ch. This was origin- 
 ally the case in OHG. also, as is proved by Franconian docu- 
 ments of the fifth and sixth century, which represent e.g. the 
 modern Ludwig by Chludowig. In the eighth century, however, 
 ch was weakened into the genuine //-sound, as is shown by its loss 
 before consonants, hwer changing into wer, &c., and by its being 
 often wrongly put in anlaut before vowels : as hubili (tibel), herda 
 (erde) for ubili, erda, or dropped, as : elfe for helfe, &c. It is the 
 same in inlaut between vowels. Only in auslaut does it remain as a 
 gi.ttural spirant and is there frequently written ch already in OHG. 
 
 113. As a result then of the more or less complete opera- 
 tion of these different soundshifting processes we are able to 
 
74 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 distinguish the following dialects in OHG. : dialects which 
 have more or less preserved their characteristics to the present 
 day. 
 
 1) The Upper German dialect (Oberdeutsch) spoken in the high- 
 lands of South Germany. 
 
 a) Alemanic : 
 
 a) High Alemanic spoken in Switzerland and the South 
 of Baden (the Bret sgau y Altgau and Hegazi). 
 
 (3) Swabian-Alemanic, spoken in Bavaria as far as the Lech, 
 and in Wiirtemberg* 
 
 y) Alsatian-Alemanic. 
 
 b) Bavarian : 
 
 a) Old Bavarian, from the mountains to the Danube. 
 
 /3) Bavarian of the Upper- Palatine district (Oberpfalz), from 
 
 the Danube to the Fichtelgebirge. 
 y) Austro-Bavarian, or the dialects of the marches, i.e. 
 
 Austria, Styria and Karinthia. 
 
 2) The Franconian dialects. See W. Braune, Zur Kenntniss des 
 Frdnkischen, Beitrage i., pp. 1-56. 
 
 a) East Franconian, i.e. the dialect spoken in the old duchy of 
 Franconia Orientalis. To this belonged also the Thuringian dialect. 
 The classical place for this dialect during the OHG. period is 
 Fulda. 
 
 b) The Rheno-Franconian, or the dialect of Franconia Rhen- 
 ensis, the Palatinate and a large part of Hessen. The southernmost 
 part of this district (around Weissenburg) has by Miillenhof been 
 distinguished as South Franconian. In this some Alemanic 
 characteristics are found. 
 
 a) and b) may again be comprised as Upper- Franconian, as they 
 have characteristics in common which separate them from 
 
 c) the Middle-Franconian, the dialect spoken along the banks 
 of the Moselle and of the Rhine from Coblenz to Diisseldorf. To 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 75 
 
 the north-west of this district we then find the Low-Franconian, 
 which belongs as we have seen (p. 68) to the LG. dialects. 
 
 1 14. The border-line between High and Low German cannot be 
 traced with anything like exactness before the thirteenth century, 
 for records in the German language do not appear in any great 
 number before that time. The line which marks the separation of 
 the two languages begins north of Cologne (Low German never 
 crossed the Rhine) ; it thence proceeds in a south-east direction and 
 turns at almost a right angle towards the Harz Mountains, leaving 
 Marburg, Frankenberg, Fritzlar, Kassel, and Heiligenstadt on 
 HG. territory (Franconian). While this line has remained to the 
 present day unchanged, to the east of the Harz a notable advance 
 of High-German is apparent. While it formerly touched the 
 Saale south of Merseburg, it now proceeds on the line of Calbe 
 along the Elbe to Wittenburg. It thence advances in a straight 
 line up to Slavonic territory. It is curious to note the decided 
 tendency of the dividing-line to follow almost throughout its 
 extent the course of rivers.* 
 
 115. The boundary of the HG. towards the East has in his- 
 torical times been subject to changes depending on the advance or 
 retreat of the Slavonic tribes. The oldest records exhibit to us the 
 Germans as occupiers of the whole vast plain extending from the 
 Rhine to the Memel. In the sixth century, however, Slavonic 
 inroads into German territory from the East began, and the fullest 
 extent to which they reached is shown by a line drawn from Kiel 
 through Liineburg, Uelzen, along the left banks of the Elbe and 
 Saale, through Thuringia, and thence, along a course not yet 
 perfectly defined, to the Adriatic Sea. Under Charlemagne, and 
 especially under the dynasty of the Ottos, a process of Germanisa- 
 tion begins to set in against these Slavonic encroachments, which 
 
 * See Bernhardi, Sprachkarte von Deutschland, 1849. 
 
76 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 process has never ceased to operate since the occupation of Prussia 
 by German settlers in the thirteenth century, who reclaimed for 
 Germany a large portion of the Slavonised district. It is note- 
 worthy that in these eastern districts Low-German speakers 
 represent the German element in the towns, where it was mainly 
 fostered under the influence of the Hansa league, while the nobility 
 and peasantry came from Middle Germany. 
 
 1 1 6. We know Old High German from numerous, and in some 
 cases comprehensive fragments, proceeding almost exclusively 
 from ecclesiastical sources. St. Gallen in Switzerland may 
 specially be cited as the oldest storehouse of OHG. writings, and 
 here is the original home of the Alemanic. But the OHG. can boast 
 of no truly national literature ; it is essentially a literature of trans- 
 lations, and of interlinear renderings of Latin words in a German 
 dress, renderings often characterised by a bold and tedious fidelity. 
 Besides these we have collections of words or glosses ; and both 
 these and the interlinear versions had for their aim the conversion 
 of the people to Christianity and the education of the clergy. Even 
 the poetry of this epoch aims almost exclusively at the instruction 
 and confirmation of the faithful in the tenets of Christianity. The 
 old national poetry, which had gods and heroes for its theme, in the 
 common German alliterating (or stave-riming form), has all, down 
 to a few fragments accidentally preserved, disappeared from High 
 German districts. The reason of this must be sought in the fact 
 that the domain of the OHG. was annexed to Christendom at an 
 early epoch, and by foreign missionaries. The contrast between 
 the old Teutonic national heathen life with the later foreign and 
 Christian epoch is the key to the right understanding of the OHG. 
 literature. The scanty fragments which have survived to us from 
 the old poetry, taken in conjunction with those preserved to us 
 more fully in Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry, afford a certain 
 proof that the first period of German national literature, or rather 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 77 
 
 of its poetry, falls in the epoch which preceded the conversion of 
 our Old High German ancestors. We say poetry, because the first 
 prose with any pretensions to a literary style makes its appearance 
 at a later date, viz. in the New High German. A rich store of 
 ballads on themes of gods and heroes was sung throughout the 
 villages of the Fatherland ; those on the theme of the gods were 
 the first to disappear, nor have they left any traces except a few 
 mystical rimes for incantations (the so-called Merseburger Zauber- 
 spriiche) and a few scanty remains treating of the Creation ( Wesso- 
 brunner Gebet) and of the end of the world (Muspilli] which found 
 their way into Christian poetry. The hero-ballads held their ground 
 longer, as was natural, for they contained little opposed to Chris- 
 tianity. Of these we still possess a tolerably extensive fragment 
 in the Lay of Hildebrand and [his son Hadubrand, the so-called 
 Hildebrandslied, consigned to writing by two missionaries in the 
 seventh century ; while another the Waltkarius has come down 
 to us only in a Latin versified form. 
 
 117. All the Teutonic races in the oldest period are found to 
 employ one and the same epic metre ; a sufficient proof that the 
 primitive Teutons were acquainted with this metre, and with the 
 ballads of gods and heroes whose praises it undertook to express. 
 Thus it appears that such poetry is an ancient and genuinely 
 Teutonic heirloom. Riming poetry, which at an early period 
 developed from the alliterative, gave proof of no remarkable capa- 
 bilities in the OHG. period. Such poetry is, however, for us of 
 great interest and importance, as showing that from the oldest 
 alliterative poetry down to the artificial forms of the MHG. a 
 regular and steady progress was in force. The whole of the 
 OHG. and MHG. poetry has one common characteristic, viz., 
 th.it it marks the scansion of the verses by the stress (ictus), i.e. 
 the higher accent laid upon certain root-syllables, of which each 
 verse contains a certain number. This principle is peculiar to the 
 
78 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Teutons, and is to be distinguished from prosodiacal or quantitative 
 scansion of classical poetry on the one hand and from rhythm 
 depending on the number of syllables on the other (as is the case 
 in the poetry of the Celtic, Slavonic, and Lithuanian peoples). 
 
 118. Thus the OHG. literature as we possess it cannot be said to 
 form any period of literature properly so called, and we must consider 
 it merely as a period of transition. It was not until Christendom 
 and the national life of Germany had ceased to be antagonistic 
 and had fused with each other, that a second period of national 
 literature, the Middle High German, succeeds to the OHG. In this 
 we find again the old hero-ballads, but in a different form, and 
 looked at through the medium of Christianity. The old national 
 heathen element is however still in the background, and reveals 
 itself by glimpses to the historical eye. Accordingly, the High- 
 German literature may be said to fall, roughly speaking, into three 
 periods : (i) the OHG. entirely lost, excepting in the case of a 
 few fragments; (2) the MHG. of the thirteenth century; and (3) 
 the NHG. It follows that the OHG. literature possesses mainly 
 a philological value, and belongs only to a limited extent to the 
 department of German national literature. 
 
 119. To return to the language itself. We are able to divide the 
 HG. language roughly into the following three periods : 
 
 1) OHG. which we know since the seventh century. 
 
 2) MHG. from nootoi4OO. 
 
 3) NHG. from 1400. 
 
 The transition of OHG. to MHG. is marked by a general 
 weakening of the vowels which follow the stem-syllable into a 
 monotonous e. The vowels of the stem-syllables remain in 
 MHG. practically the same as in OHG. (they experience no 
 essential change till the NHG. era), and the same remark ap- 
 plies to the consonants. As long as such forms as gibu, geban, 
 fisctnn, blindaz, blindono, &c., were in use, we call the language 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 79 
 
 OHG. ; when these forms have fully disappeared and are re- 
 placed by gibe (NHG. gebe), vischen (dat pi.), blindez (NHG. 
 blmdes, neut. sg.), blinden (gen. pi.), we may consider that OHG. 
 has disappeared and is replaced by MHG. The period of tran- 
 sition is not sharply marked : in OHG. we find occasional forms 
 with -*, just as in MHG. we find that all the full vowels of the 
 final syllables have not yet been weakened into -e. 
 
 1 20. No common written language was evolved during this 
 period. The attempt of MiillenhofT to show that the Rheno-Fran- 
 conian dialect* occupied the position of an official language at the 
 Carolingian court must be regarded as a failure. Neither can we 
 suppose MHG. ever to have attained to the national influence 
 and importance of a common written language.! Indeed it was 
 formerly the general opinion that there existed a common MHG. 
 language which was employed by all the poets alike. This 
 language was considered to have been spoken at the several 
 German courts, and was hence called the Jwfsprache. H. Paul in his 
 pamphlet Gab es eine mittelhochdeutsche schriftsprache ? was the first 
 to investigate the accuracy of this view, and he arrives at the 
 conclusion that no such language actually existed, no dialect 
 having any recognised superiority over another, but that every 
 author of the MHG. period wrote in his own dialect; while he 
 explains the fact that in MHG. literature the dialectical varieties 
 are not so manifest as in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by 
 assuming that these varieties were at that period not yet so fully 
 developed as later on. 
 
 121. At this period a HG. dialect or rather group of dialects 
 comes into importance to which the name of Middle-German has 
 
 * In this dialect the so-called Ludivigslied (celebrating the victory of King 
 Louis the Third at Sancourt in 88 1) and the Strassburg Oat /is (842) were 
 composed. 
 
 f The fact must not be lost sight of that at that time literature was composed 
 not so much for perusal as for recitation. 
 
8o THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 been given, properly speaking Middle Middle- German, viz. the 
 language of Middle Germany during the MHG. period. This 
 group, whose importance in the history of the German language 
 Pfeiffer was the first to point out, embraces the following dialects: 
 
 a) West Middle German, comprising all the Franconian dialects 
 (as far as they are not LG.) and those of Hesse. 
 
 b) East Middle Grerrrlan, comprising the dialects of Thuringia r 
 Upper Saxony and Silesia, thus spoken almost entirely on ground 
 formerly occupied by Slavonic peoples. 
 
 122. MG. thus standing as it does geographically and linguis- 
 tically between MHG. proper (viz. the dialects of Bavaria and 
 Alemania) and LG., was in the course of time to become the main 
 source of the German national language, much as in England the 
 Midland dialects are those that have contributed most to the 
 English national language. It is in the MG. dialects that we see 
 many of those peculiarities first spring up which characterise 
 the NHG. written language. The principal of those characteristics 
 which mark the MG. dialects equally with the NHG. written 
 language are the following: 
 
 I. The diphthongs ie, uo, and He have been contracted into the 
 long vowels t (which however in NHG. continues to be written 
 ie), ti, il : MHG. ziegel, MG. and NHG. ztgel, not different from the 
 t in sin. MHG. muot, MG. and NHG. mAt, like Ms. MHG. 
 miiede, MG. and NHG. milde. 
 
 2) In MG. as in NHG. long vowels before double consonants 
 are shortened. MHG. brahte, lerche, Gertriit = MG. and NHG. 
 brachte, lerche, Gertrut. 
 
 3) The disappearance of the original difference between e (ap- 
 proaching the a sound) and *? (approaching the i sound) in accented 
 syllables, as carried out in NHG., is first recognisable in the MG. 
 dialects. 
 
 4) Thus also the consonants of MG. are essentially those of 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. Si 
 
 NHG., the soundshifting process being carried out practically in 
 the same way in the NHG. schriftsprache as in the East Franconian 
 dialect. 
 
 5) The lengthening of short accented syllables found in NHG. 
 can be traced in MG. as early as the thirteenth century.* This is 
 the all-prevailing difference between MHG. and NHG. The stress 
 renders the syllable on which it falls long, or rather we ought 
 to say the stress is now the only factor which comes into play ; 
 for the sharply marked distinction between long and short has 
 disappeared. Thus a quantity of original differentiations dis- 
 appears : MHG. main * to grind 5 and MHG. mdlen 'to paint' 
 have both become mdlen in MG. and NHG., MHG. tor 'agate' 
 and tor ( a fool' in the same way tor. MHG. neme and n&me are 
 now represented by nehme and ndhme respectively. 
 
 123. Beside such linguistic advantages as MG., owing to its 
 central position between the HG. and LG. territory enjoyed, other 
 factors combined to make it the basis of the national language of 
 Germany. This was brought about through the mighty influence 
 exercised by the Reformation on the whole national life of Germany, 
 which took its rise, as is well known, from Middle Germany, 
 and found its representative interpreter in the person of Luther. 
 
 124. On the whole at the end of the fifteenth century one may say 
 that circumstances were favourable for the formation of a common 
 German speech based on the MG. There were, however, two great 
 obstacles to the realisation of this tendency. The first of these 
 was that Germany could boast of no one centre of intellectual life 
 which could claim to dominate the rest of the country, in the same 
 way as Paris could dictate to France, London to England, and 
 even Florence to Italy. Germany could indeed point to twelve or 
 fifteen towns which stood much upon an equality with each other, 
 
 * This principle is still at work, and may be observed in such occasional pro- 
 nunciations as a'ngenehnii u'nangenehm. 
 G 
 
82 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 but none of which could claim to occupy the position of Ger- 
 many's intellectual capital. The second of these obstacles was 
 the Humanistic movement of the fifteenth century, which invested 
 Latin with a peculiar sanctity, and saw in that language the only 
 possible means of communication between the litterati of all 
 countries. As the tendency to form a common German language 
 was patriotic, so was the Humanistic movement essentially cos- 
 mopolitan. The most undoubted patriots employed Latin in their 
 writings and in their conversation : men like Ulrich von Hutten, 
 Reuchlin, and Pirkheimer. Nor, indeed, were the existing books 
 written in German, such as Sebastian Brant's N&rrenschiff or 
 Murner's Eulenspiegel, read as widely and with such gusto as 
 Erasmus' Encomium Moriae, or the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorurn, 
 or the Facetiae of Rebel. 
 
 125. The one man whom character, genius, and circumstances 
 alike placed in a position to vanquish these obstacles was Luther. 
 In the first place he was a peasant by birth, and as such understood 
 the real thoughts of the majority of his countrymen far more truly 
 than had he sprung from the nobility, to whom the idea of a state, 
 as Luther understood it, would have been simply unintelligible. 
 This circumstance of his birth also gave him a command of a store 
 of simple and quaint expressions, which enabled him to explain his 
 meaning forcibly and clearly to hearers whom a more elaborate 
 diction would merely have puzzled. His restless life brought him 
 into contact with all sorts and conditions of men, from whom his 
 natural receptivity must have enabled him to learn much. In the 
 next place, Luther had the singular fortune to have arrested the 
 attention of his fellow-countrymen by his deeds on their behalf, 
 before he actually became their prophet by his voice and his 
 writings. 
 
 126. Not the least favourable circumstance, however, for Luther 
 as the founder of the Modern German language was the fact that he 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 8 3 
 
 was born in Central Germany and spoke a Middle German dialect. 
 His works again were essentially popular, that is to say they were 
 intended to be read by all, high and low alike. And as a matter 
 of fact they were so read. It was of course essential that in order 
 to address the whole German nation he should employ a language 
 which should be as widely understood as possible. That he set to 
 work with the greatest deliberation and with the full consciousness 
 of the magnitude of the task which he had imposed on himself 
 may be gathered from his own words ( Tischreden ch. 69) : " I 
 employ in German no special (gewisse, sonderliche, eigne) form of 
 language, but make use of the common German language, so that 
 both High and Low Germans alike can understand me. I 
 follow the language of the Saxon Chancery, which all the 
 princes and kings in Germany take as* their model ; all the 
 imperial cities and all the courts of our princes write according 
 to the Chancery of the Saxons and of our Prince ; hence the lan- 
 guage which I employ is the most common German language." 
 From these words we gather that Luther follows a given and distinct 
 model : a model already adopted as such in certain higher circles, 
 though even this he does not follow in a servile way, nor 
 in every point. While he rejects on the one hand all merely 
 local varieties and peculiarities (mundarten) he yet draws un- 
 hesitatingly and freely on the living dialects of his native 
 Middle Germany, and of these he possessed a marvellous 
 personal knowledge. Hence, generally speaking, we may affirm 
 that Luther drew mainly upon two sources, (i) the K ' anzleisprache 
 or language of the Saxon Chancery and (2) Middle German ; 
 and these he employed so as to make them reciprocally correct 
 each other's deficiencies. He was an eclectic in his use of both. 
 
 1 27. The K anzleisprache of which we have spoken, or language 
 of the Saxon Chancery, is to be traced back to that of the Bohemian 
 Chancery. It was in Bohemia that this curious combination of 
 G 2 
 
84 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 AustroBavarian with- Middle German vocalism* so peculiar to 
 NHG. actually originated ; in Bohemia, where Germans were 
 foreigners and appear only sporadically. From Bohemia this 
 language of the Kanzlei spread farther over Germany ; we find it 
 in Silesia and in Saxony in the Lausitz. The Emperor Maximilian 
 and the Elector Frederick the Wise sought, with the aid of the 
 other Electors, to spread and establish it, and to this end made a 
 regular propaganda. Nor were its encroachments limited to Upper 
 Germany, but we see it making its way even to Low German 
 territory, and find it at home in the Netherlands in the fifteenth 
 century. It was, of course, an artificial dialect only, and we find 
 that even the Emperor Maximilian in his private correspondence 
 employed his own Austro-Styrian dialect.! 
 
 128. The chief works Which made Luther's reputation and aided 
 to form the modern German written language, are his translation of 
 the Bible, completed in 1531, his lyrical poems and religious songs 
 (Geistliche Lieder\ and his numerous pamphlets (Flugschriften). 
 
 He was recognised even during his lifetime as an authority on 
 language. Thus the grammarian Sebastian Frangk, in his grammar 
 published in 1531, called " Teutscher Sprache Art und Eigenschaft" 
 who is the first to draw a sharp distinction between dialects 
 and a written language, mentions as the best types of the latter 
 "Kaiser Maximilian 's Kanzlei und Luther's Schreiben? 
 
 129. We have seen that one of the great obstacles to the 
 formation of the German language was the Humanistic movement, 
 and the desire among learned men to create out of Latin one 
 
 * The Austrian dialect has turned i and u into ei and au, and brought these 
 sounds more nearly to coincide with those of the genuine diphthongs ezandou, 
 sounds essentially different from these. No German dialect e.g. can be found 
 whicn confuses mein with stein (MHG. mm stein, cf. E. mine stone} or 
 haus with auch (MHG. hus ouh, cf. E. house eke). The written language 
 alone confuses these sounds. 
 
 f Cf. E. Wiilcker, Ueber die Entstehung der Kursachsischen Kanzleisprache. 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 universal language of literature. And we saw that the other great 
 difficulty with which the young language had to cope was the want 
 of a central town of power enough to dictate intellectual laws to 
 the rest of the empire. Had the Germans at this epoch received a 
 ruler at once masterful and German-hearted enough to apply him- 
 self to the task of unifying the German language, the difficulty 
 with which Luther set himself to grapple would have been rendered 
 indefinitely lighter. But it was not so to be. The process of what 
 the Germans call verwalschung the introduction into Germany of 
 non-German elements was going on apace when Charles V. was 
 elected Roman emperor in the year 1519. His election was welcomed 
 even by thoughtful men and good patriots like Luther and Ulrich 
 von Hutten as a heaven-sent remedy to heal the times which the 
 yearning for political freedom had put out of joint. But, unfor- 
 tunately, Charles V. was so far from being a good German that he 
 was the quintessence of cosmopolitanism. French was his mother 
 tongue, and indeed one hundred and fifty years before Richelieu 
 French had become the European State language. Next to French 
 he loved Spanish, and this was the favourite language of his 
 brother Ferdinand. Charles's own boast was that he spoke German 
 only to his horse, but it seems questionable if that animal, 
 however intelligent, could have been much the wiser for the broken 
 jargon which the Emperor fondly fancied to be the despised German. 
 He employed French also in his State correspondence, as far as 
 depended on himself to do, though German was the official language 
 in which the office of the Reichskanzler and the officials of the 
 empire were bound to correspond. 
 
 130. But in our review of the agencies which militated against 
 the acceptance of a written language such as that which Luther 
 aimed at, we must not leave out of sight the opposition of those 
 parts of the German-speaking countries which fancied that their 
 own claims to the possession of such were irresistible. Of these the 
 
86 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 most formidable opponent was Switzerland, a country which had 
 practically achieved its independence by its success against the 
 Emperor Maximilian in 1500, after which its cantons were declared 
 free from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber and from all 
 contributions imposed by the Diet. Religious motives were in 
 their case not less potent than political, and what is more, the 
 amour propre of the Swiss prompted them to the belief that they 
 were already in the possession of the purest form of Hoch Deutsch, 
 or Hochtiitsch as they call it. 
 
 131. The Low-German speaking population, again, offered a 
 decided opposition to Luther's schriftsprache. The language which 
 in 1498 had produced the Reineke Vos, and in 1499 the first edition 
 of the Cronica von der hilliger stat Coellen was not likely at once 
 to give up its claim to provide a general language for the territory 
 where it was spoken. But in this case it was the Reformation which 
 decided the result. The spirit of the modern age which had now 
 begun was linguistically bound up with the High-German language. 
 And thus it happened, that although at first most of Luther's works 
 were under his own eyes and by the aid of his North-German 
 " adlatus " Bugenhagen, translated into a kind of Low-German 
 common language, and though many corporations, &c., continued 
 to employ Low-German in their official documents, yet it was 
 merely a question of time when the Low-German should for every 
 purpose of literary communication be replaced by High-German. 
 It was quite significant as a guide to Germany's linguistic future 
 that the most talented linguistic author of his time, Thomas 
 Kantzow (born in Stralsund), translated his great history of 
 Pomerania, originally written in Low-German, into High-German, 
 and himself edited it in this language. Thus we may safely say 
 that by the end of the sixteenth century, Luther's High-German 
 language had actually become, or was at least in a fair way 
 to become, the common literary language of all Germany. 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 87 
 
 132 We have already seen the great dangers to which the purity 
 of the German language was exposed from verwalschung. We have 
 seen how powerfully the Humanistic movement with its Neo-Latin 
 classicism counteracted the creation of a schriftsprache at an 
 earlier period. We have also seen how the accident of the election 
 of Charles V. as emperor ranged the French and Spanish of the 
 courts as an ally of the Latin as against German. To this must 
 be added the influence of the French Calvinists, who combined the 
 zeal of reformers with the intelligence of men who had thought 
 and suffered for a cause, and who deemed their view of the future 
 of civilisation bound up with their own language. 
 
 133. The South German courts were veritable polyglots Spanish, 
 French, Italian were indifferently at home there. The proverb 
 " es komnit tnir etwas spanisch vor " in the sense of " it 
 sounds foreign " originated at this period. In Konigsberg, again, 
 Polish was the court language, and in North Germany English 
 was almost as fashionable as was French in the South, partly 
 owing to the influence of the English comedians, who played in 
 both English and German, while Dutch was only second in estima- 
 tion to English. It is true that all these languages combined 
 were not strong enough to oust German from its native soil ; but if 
 they could not uproot it they at least could mar its purity and dis- 
 figure its form. Their baneful influence was strongly felt. There is 
 but one voice among all good Germans as to the harsh treatment 
 to which their language was subjected. 
 
 134. The man who came to the aid of the German language in its 
 confusion and helplessness was Opitz, who rightly discerned that in 
 order to restore the German language to its proper position a 
 regeneration in its poetry must be effected. He applied himself to 
 his task with great deliberation and great self-confidence. He was 
 only twenty years old when he ventured to advertise himself in his 
 Aristarchus sive de contemptu linguae Teutonicae( published in 1617) 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 as the saviour of the German language. He followed up this in 
 1624 by his Buck von der deutschen Poeterei. His greatest merit 
 was the discovery of the German (and generally speaking of the 
 Teutonic) law of metric, which he saw rightly observed by the 
 Dutch, from whom he took his ideas upon it. The law referred to is 
 simply that in German poetry word-accent must be brought into 
 harmony with verse-accent. In establishing his theory of the part 
 played by accent in German poetry, Opitz simply and clearly 
 pointed out the main characteristic of all Teutonic poetry, which 
 distinguishes it from the poetry of other stocks (see p. 77). The 
 real facts had been overlooked or given up by the poets of his 
 time, and accent, ever since the decay of MHG. poetry, had been 
 discarded in favour of a slavish imitation of the prosodial metre 
 of the classics, a system utterly alien to the spirit of the 
 Teutonic languages. 
 
 135. The seventeenth century was, as far as the German language 
 went, a season of restless creative energy. Societies were called 
 into being, having for their end the cultivation of a pure and 
 general German language, after the example of the Accademia delta 
 Crusca which had been founded in Florence, with a similar object, 
 and other Italian academies of the cinquecento. The highest 
 circles in Germany patronised these societies. The first and most 
 important of these societies was Die fruchtbringende Gesellsckaft 
 founded in 1617 A.D. by the Prince Ludwig von Kothen. 
 This society reckoned eight hundred members, among whom 
 were numbered the leading litterati of those days, including Opitz 
 himself ; Moscherosch, author of the satirical novel " Geschichte 
 Philanders von Sittewald" \ Johann Rist, a lyrical poet of Holstein; 
 Philipp von Zesen ; Neumark ; Harsdorfer, author of the notorious 
 " Nilrnberger Trickier" \ Logau, an epigrammatic author; and 
 Andreas Gryphius, the father of German dramatic poetry. 
 It is a significant fact that these societies contained only 
 
THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE. 89 
 
 twenty Roman Catholics, and in spite of the fact that through 
 the thirty years' war one half of Germany was again drawn 
 back to Catholicism, all the German literature from this 
 period forward was Protestant. The great question and aim of 
 these and similar societies was where to find the real Hoch- 
 deutsch in its purest form ? They answered this question by the 
 assumption that it was to be found in the German of the educated 
 classes in the large cities of Dresden, Leipzig, Merseburg, and 
 Wittenburg. 
 
 1 36. The weak side of these reforming societies was their over- 
 proneness to indulge the puristic tendency which animated their 
 efforts. The name of Zesen has been identified with these and with 
 similar attempts. He went so far as to attempt to bring in zeuge- 
 mutter for the Romance natur ; while for eidechse he seriously 
 proposed to substitute sternbalg, as Latin stellio was derived 
 from stella. In a similar spirit of exaggeration he suggested 
 Harnmelgotze as the equivalent of Jupiter Hammon, while 
 Amor was to appear as der verschalkte kleine Frduhold ! The 
 mistaken efforts of this school even led them to offend against 
 grammar: thus Zesen and others affected to write warden instead 
 of wtirden, as the plural of ward. 
 
 137. These efforts after purity were, as has been said, entirely well- 
 meant, though the course they took was perverse, exaggerated, and 
 unscientific. But with Leibniz began a new era, for he it was who 
 pointed out a more rational and scientific way which German must 
 pursue in order to meet the requirements of the advancing civiliza- 
 tion of the age. His great name must ever be mentioned with 
 gratitude by those who bear in mind the crisis which German had 
 scarcely tided over in the Humanistic movement. The educational 
 efforts of the reformers generally now began to bear fruit, and Latin 
 began more and more to be recognised and taught as a dead 
 language, instead of one which might be successfully resuscitated 
 
90 THE HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE 
 
 as the language of a particular guild or class. German now 
 became the language of teaching in schools ; the Latin Gelekrten- 
 schule still existed, but the German Volksschule stood by its side 
 and flourished. Among the names of the lesser champions of the 
 German language at this period must be cited that of Balthasar 
 Schuppe, but the greatest name is that of Leibniz. In the year 
 1679 he wrote his treatise Ermahnung an die Teutsche ihren 
 Ver stand und Sprache besser zu ilben. It is remarkable that this 
 was not published till 1846. In the year 1677 ne wrote his 
 Unvorgreifliche Gedanken betreffend die A usiibung und Verbesserung 
 der teutschen Sprache, which was not published till 1717. Opitz 
 had seen and bewailed that the one thing wanting to Germany 
 for the development of her language was an intellectual centre. 
 Indeed, Paris was the real intellectual capital of Germany, "die 
 zier der stadte, die schule der leutseligkeit, die mutter der guten 
 sitten bei der insul der Seine," as Opitz himself describes it. Still, 
 as a consolation for this want, smaller local centres of German 
 culture and intellect were gradually created, and when once the 
 object was achieved of creating a common German language and 
 literature, the existence of the smaller residencies and of local 
 universities has proved favourable to the expansion of learning 
 throughout the German States. 
 
 138. When then the German language had once got a firm hold of 
 the universities and schools throughout Germany, it ran no further 
 risk of being dislodged in a country where instruction was so 
 valued by the people of the nation. But the main factor in the 
 production of the linguistic unity of Germany was the outburst of 
 national literature which falls in the middle of the last century, 
 and forms the most striking epoch in German national life. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 LANGUAGE, as we have seen, is constantly developing fresh 
 sounds and fresh significations. We have also seen that this 
 process would in no long time cause language to become absolutely 
 unintelligible and useless as a means of communication were it not 
 for certain tendencies which work in the direction of unity, and 
 produce a reaction against the tendency to linguistic change. 
 One of the several ways in which this simplification and reaction 
 manifests itself is in the identification of forms which have come to 
 resemble each other accidentally in signification and in sound. 
 Such is the explanation of many cases of so-called popular ety- 
 mology. For instance sundflut is popularly believed to be the 
 Sin-flood, and to explain itself, whereas it really stands for sin- 
 vluot ; the sin (Eng. syne) being an OHG. word signifying Marge,' 
 'general,' 'perpetual,' found in sin-grun, and in the Latin 
 sem-per, Got. sin-teins, AS. synible^ OHG. simblum. Einb'de 
 appears in MHG. as ein&te ; where the last two syllables 
 represent OHG. -6ti t a derivative suffix, but have been connected 
 with ode. Beispiel, the MHG. bispel> properly ( a proverb,' really 
 represents the O. German spell, ' an artistic prose composition ' (cf. 
 the English^^/for^^r/^/) ; but has become confused with spiel \ 
 
92 ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 found in the English game of spillikins. Ohmnacht really represents 
 the OHG. and MHG. d-maht\ the prefix <?(from the older a) had 
 lost its significance, and the ohn depends on the attempt to explain 
 it by ohne. Zu guter lelzt should really be zu guier letz ; letz 
 (connected with English 'let ' in the sense of 'to retard') signifying 
 ' a farewell,' so that the expression really means ' as a good fare- 
 well ' ; but the word letz has become confused with letzt ' last.' 
 Seltsam is formed by conventional analogy to take the place 
 of the adjective seltsceni, MHG. seltscme, which comes from 
 selten. Other such instances are sucht, which really comes 
 from the MHG. and OHG. suht (Got. sduhts\ E. sick-ness] and 
 has nothing to do with suchen (Got. sokjari) 'to seek.' In NHG. 
 there are however many words compounded with sucht, such as 
 wassersncJtt* mondsuckt, ehrsncht, gelbsucht, eifersucht, tobsucht, 
 schwindsucht, and sehnsucht, which popular feeling regards as ' a 
 yearning for water, for the moon, for honour,' &c. Schwierig comes 
 from the MHG. swiric, and means strictly 'full of boils' (sckware)* 
 but the NHG. instinct of language has connected it with schwer 
 and modified its meaning accordingly. Cf. the unreal connection 
 between sorrow and sorry \ sorrow is really connected with G. sorge t 
 and sorry is AS. sdrig, an adjective from sdr, E. sore. Wahnwitz, 
 waknsinn, wahnschaffen are referred to wakn, with which they have 
 really no connection. Wahnsinn seems to have been compounded 
 upon the model of wahnwitz, which itself depends on the MHG. 
 adjective wanwitze, OHG. wanawizzi, 'wanting understanding.' 
 Cf. E. wan in wanhope, ( despair.' Leumund is from the 
 MHG. liumunt 'reputation'; the word is a compound from 
 hliu, a root signifying ' hearing/ from which we have Got. hliuma 
 ' hearing ' ; -munda is a derivative suffix answering to the 
 Greek -//-ar- and the Latin -mento- in co-gno-mentum. Popular 
 
 * In OHG. wazar-chalp = water-calf; see Grimm's Teutonic Mythology^ 
 translated by Stallybrass, p. 1158. 
 
ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 93 
 
 instinct would however connect the word with leute ' people ' and 
 mund ' mouth.' In the same way vormund is popularly supposed to 
 be connected with mund, ( a mouth,' whereas it really represents the 
 MHG. munt, possibly connected with Lat. manus, and signifies 
 ' hand,' 'protection.' Fried/wfis properly not connected with friede, 
 ' peace,' but means an eingefriedigter ort y MHG. vride, in the 
 same signification. Verweisen has nothing to do with weisen, 
 but etymologically represents the MHG. verwizen, 'to punish.' 
 Beschwichtigen is not connected with schweigen, but is the repre- 
 sentative of an older HG. swiften, ' to make quiet,' cht standing 
 for older ft. Popular etymology explains heuschrecke, ( a grass- 
 hopper,' as ' the terror of the hay,' and connects it with schrecken : 
 it is really a compound of the now obsolete but once good 
 MHG. word schricken, 'to spring or leap'; so that heuschrecke 
 means strictly speaking ' the hay-leaper.' 
 
 The word beichte, ' confession,' comes from the MHG. biht, 
 itself a contraction for bijiht\ the word is a regular verbal noun 
 formed from OHG. bi-jehan, 'to affirm.' The MHG. geruochen, 
 OHG. geruochan, 'to take care of,' 'vouchsafe,' AS. reccan, 
 whence English to reck, has passed into the form geruhen> because 
 it was identified with ruhen ' to rest,' with which it has really no 
 connection. 
 
 Beifuss, the plant artemisia (mugwort), represents the OHG. 
 and MHG. btbdz ; it is formed from bozan = E. beat, like anaboz, 
 NHG. amboss y and should properly have the form beiboss ; its proper 
 meaning would then be = beisMag(by-blovi).* Similarly pyrethrum 
 is changed into bertram ; wider ton (adiantum, maidenhair) formed 
 with the past part, of tuon> ' to do,' into widerton and widertod. 
 A legend concerning its miraculous healing powers attached itself to 
 the word. The German wegebreit (broad) appears in E. as way-bread. 
 
 The people in Bavaria and other parts of S. Germany call the 
 
 * See Grimm Teutonic Mythology^ translated by Stally brass, vol. iii., p. 1211. 
 
94 ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 Roman fortifications pfalgraben, which they believe to be con- 
 nected with pfahl, ' a stake ' ; but these seem really to owe 
 their name to phol, ' the boar,' the devil's animal, connected 
 with the belief in devil' 's dykes. Weissagen, MHG. wissagen, is not 
 related to sagen, but comes from the OHG. wizago, 'prophet.' 
 Hagestolz represents an older form hagestalt, OHG. hagustalt, 
 properly ' hedge-proprietor,' cf. Germ. Jiag y and Got. staldan, ' to 
 possess ' ; it is explained by Kluge s.v. as a WG. legal term in exist- 
 ence before the Anglo-Saxons crossed to England, as is shown by 
 AS. hcegsteald. The eldest son, according to the OHG. right of 
 primogeniture, inherited the kqf '; the other brothers merely a small 
 piece of land adjacent called the hag, E. haw ; so that the word 
 means properly ' the small proprietor,' and the development of 
 meaning is similar to that seen in Med. Lat. baccalatireus, Fr. 
 bachelier, E. bachelor (baccalarius, a farm-servant). 
 
 Other instances of words which have been falsely connected with 
 others are abdecker (a skinner), a popular corruption of apotheker 
 ' an apothecary ' ; abseite, ' off-side,' the wing of a building, from 
 absida, ' apsis, an apse.' 
 
 Bauchgrimmen, 'the colic,' connected with grimmig, ( painful '; 
 really from grimmen, ( to clutch or gripe.' 
 
 Baum-wolle, ' cotton,' not ' tree-wool,' but a corruption of the 
 Latin bombycinuin. 
 
 Dienstag is not the day of service (dienst\ but a corrupted form 
 of MG. diestag) Tin's day. 
 
 EbenJwlz is not 'the even wood,' but a derivative from the Latin 
 ebenus, Gk. e/?j/os. 
 
 Eichhorn, not ' the animal which frequents the oak ' (eicke), 
 but probably a popular corruption of the Romance word ecureil. 
 
 Erlkonig, well-known from Goethe's famous poem, is the 
 Danish Ellekong, where elle has been taken to mean ' alder,' 
 but here means ' fairy.' 
 
ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 95 
 
 Feld-sttihl, ' a folding chair' is not a ' field chair/ but a folding stool 
 (fatten, to fold). 
 
 Griffel, a slate pencil, not from greifen ' to clasp,' but from Latin 
 graphium* 
 
 Hdnge-matte, not ' a hanging mat,' but a corruption of hammock 
 from a native American word hamaca. 
 
 Lanzknecht, ( not a soldier with a lance (lanze}', but a soldier in 
 the service of the lord of the manor (landesknechf). 
 
 Murmeltier, not the ' growling beast,' the marmot, which, as 
 a matter of fact, whistles, but properly murem mantis, OHG. 
 murmunti, Fr. marmotte, It. marmot ta. 
 
 Pantominen, not the play where all is gesture (mienen\ but from 
 Lat. mimus. 
 
 Pedell, not from pes, a foot-messenger, but latinised from MHG. 
 bitel, from biten to bicl. Cf. NHG. biittel, E. beadle. 
 
 Petschaft, not from schaft, but from the Bohemian, peZet, ' to write.' 
 
 Pickelhaube has nothing to do with picket ( a spike,' but is from 
 beckelhanbe (beckel or becken, ' a basin '), Med. Lat. badnetum. 
 
 Rohrdommel, * a bittern,' not ' the reed-bird,' but a corruption of 
 OHG. horotumil (from hor t ' mire,' and tummeln). 
 
 Schleuse, ' a sluice,' not connected with sMieszen, but from Low 
 Latin exclusa, Fr. ecluse. 
 
 Windkund, not a dog as swift as the wind, or scenting the wind, 
 but the MHG. wint meant the dog itself, and the compound wind- 
 Jmnd contains a pleonastic addition of the species to the genus, like 
 maulesel and walfisch. Curiously enough the E. word greyhound 
 itself is also similarly compounded, cf. the Norse word grey, a dog. 
 
 Besides the words to which popular etymology affixes false 
 derivations, there are a great number whose origin is altogether 
 forgotten. Who thinks of heiland as the participle of Iieilen ? or 
 understands that karwoche, and karfreitag contain an OHG. 
 chara, grief, mourning ? Ktirf first comes from kiiren ' to choose/ 
 
96 ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 willkiir ; nachbar stands for the more correct dialectical form 
 nachber, and is a shortened form of nachbauer, nachgebauer, 
 OHG. ndhgibur, 'the near-dweller,' compounded of ndh (E. nigh) 
 and gebur, bauer (E. boor), formed from batten ; grummet (from 
 gruon-mat) E. green-math) ; adler again is not felt to be a com- 
 pound from edler aar. Hiibsck, MHG. hubesch, is properly Jibfisch 
 ' courteous ' and has undergone a change similar to that seen in 
 urbanus. Besser is connected with btisse, 'improvement,' the 
 radical meaning of usefulness being common to both ; the idea of 
 interest occurs previous to the ethical idea. Angst is con- 
 nected with enge ; de-mut with dicnsl and dime ; diu is used 
 in the masculine as a ' servant boy/ in the feminine as * maid ' ; 
 from the same stem is the OHG. dionra for diuwarna, MHG. 
 dierne : to this root must likewise be traced dienen, dienst, 
 OHG. dio-non, dio-nost, which must be traced back to diu above, 
 together with deinut, OHG. dio-muote, ' readiness to serve,' 
 'humiliation.' Gespenst, widerspenstig, and abspenstig are all 
 connected with the OHG. spanan 'to entice' (cf. Gk. o-Traw ?); 
 so that gespenst meant originally merely ' cajoling,' or ' enticing,' 
 and has been specialised into its meaning of ' ghost,' much as 
 this very word ghost has been specialised from a Teutonic 
 root gis, meaning 'to terrify.' From an entirely different 
 root comes the span in spanferkel, ' a sucking-pig,' a diminutive 
 from spenvarch from MHG. spen ' breast ' ; gespan is properly 
 ' milk-brother,' ' foster-brother.' Se/ir and unversehrt are con- 
 nected ; the MHG. sere meant ' painfully/ cf. the Gothic sub- 
 stantive sdir, English sore : but these connexions are forgotten. 
 Even the relationship between such words as fahren and erfahren, 
 kommen and vollkommen (properly ' come full/ come to fulness or 
 perfection), and that between arg and drgern (English arch from 
 AS. earg ' idle '), requires some reflection before it is obvious. Again 
 in the case of genuine German Christian names, such as Friedrich 
 
ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 97 
 
 ('the powerful one in peace, 1 OHG. rthhi ' powerful'), Dietrich 
 (QHG.diot, MHG.okV/, ' people,' Gothic T/iiudareiks, Lat. Thcode- 
 ricus, 'prince of the people,' A^ao/cpar?^), Heiiirich (for Hcimrich = 
 ' powerful in the home '), Konrad (Kuonrdt = ' of bold counsel '), 
 Albert and Albrecht (from Adalbercht, 'brilliant in the clan'), 
 Bcrta (for berhta, berchta, it ti\z shining one'), well known as the 
 name of a German goddess ; the origin of such names, whose 
 list might be increased, has faded from the memories of the 
 nation who still rejoices in the genuine German ring about these 
 its national names, and sees with dissatisfaction the increasing 
 tendency to welcome the flood of foreign names now setting in 
 on Germany. 
 
 There are few who think of the foreign origin of vogt(Q>HG. 
 fogat\ viz. = Lat. vocatus; who connect bursch with bursa, properly 
 ' purse,' then ' society,' lastly ' partner in the society,' from which 
 last meaning the present signification developed ; in borse (OHG. 
 burissd], the same word appears in a different form. (The develop- 
 ment of meaning in this word is similar to that of fellow; ON. f Magi, 
 ' a partner in a felag or association,' from fe * property,' and lag, ' a 
 laying together, laid.') Few think of pilger or pilgrim in connection 
 with \j&. peregrinus i orof&tevrwith Ka6ap6s ; few connect Pfingsten 
 with nei/TCKotm}, the fiftieth day after Easter; or mette with Lat. 
 matutina, sc. hora ; or ziegel with Lat. tegiila ; or segen with signum, 
 ' the sign,' especially that of the cross ; or stiefel (MHG. stivaf) with 
 Lat. aestivale ' summer boot ' ; or tafel (of which a doublet zabel 
 which has undergone the sound-shifting occurs in O. and MHG ) 
 with Lat. tabula ; pflanze vi\'d\ Lat. planta ; weihcr, OHG. wtwari^ 
 wiari (for h instead of w, cf. MHG. ruowen, NHG. ruJien) with 
 the Latin vivarium from vivus,"' alive': properly a place to keep 
 animals alive in, especially used of a fish-pond ; larm with allarinc, 
 properly * to your arms' (cf. English alarm and alarum)'. Samstag 
 with sabbat-tag y OHG. sambaztag, from Hebr. schabbat, 'holiday,' 
 
98 ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 Jew Germ, schabbes ; (schacli} matt with the Arabian mdta (he is 
 dead), an importation from the East with the game of chess, &c. 
 
 No doubt there are some cases in which the Germans have so 
 completely assimilated the foreign word and completely replaced 
 its elements by similar sounds, that no uneducated man could 
 guess that these words were other than genuine German words 
 of somewhat striking form. Such are armbrust, as if from arm and 
 brust, but really from Lat. arbalista, arcubalista (bow-shooting 
 weapon); abenteuer, which has nothing to do with abend and later, 
 but represents MHG. aventiure, M. Lat. adventura 'an occurrence,' 
 from advenire, M. Lat. for cvcnire, &c. 
 
 The uneducated go even further and coin rattenkal out of 
 < radical ' ; hariibel from 'horrible ' ; dicketon from ' ducaton,' a half- 
 ducat ; sternlichter from stcarinlichter ; vermost from Lat. famosus ; 
 nay, they even produce an nmgeivendten Napoleon from unguentum 
 Ncapolitamim, &c. In fact, however they may twist and turn the 
 sense of the word which puzzles them, if they cnly dress it in 
 German garb it passes muster. The English sailors who convert 
 Bellerophon into ' Billy Ruffian ' ; and English gardeners who 
 convert la rose des quatre saisons into the ' quarter sessions ' rose, 
 do precisely the same. 
 
 But the most singular thing is that in many cases where the 
 genuine German words had ceased to be understood, the Germans 
 have coined them anew, and affixed a derivation which they undcr- 
 ;stood ; thus maulwurfis the 'animal which throws up earth with its 
 .mouth ' (it really uses its front feet). It is MHG. moltwerfe, earth- 
 thrower (cf. Eng. mould), Scotch moudiewarp. Nay, even out 
 >of wal-fisc/t, ' whale,' they have fashioned wald-fisch. The 
 'Teutonic type of this word was hwala-, AS. hwael, and seems to 
 have been applied to any large fish ; it is probably connected with 
 wheel, and refers to the rolling of such sea-monsters as porpoises. 
 
 It may be added that sometimes these false or popular 
 
ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 99 
 
 etymologies have given rise to legends,* like that of the wicked 
 Bishop Hatto, popularised by Southey. The origin of this legend 
 is believed to be a popular corruption of the name of the maut-turm 
 or ' custom-house ' into maus-turm, mause-turm, or ' mouse-tower.' 
 Rolaudseck again probably stands for rollende ecke, from the rolling 
 waves at the bend of the Rhine where the place is situated : a 
 legend has become attached to the spot, telling of the romantic love 
 of Roland the Crusader for the daughter of the lord of Drachen- 
 fels. Thus again when a universal power to heal sicknesses was 
 attributed to a herb, the Greeks called it TO Trava/ces or 17 wavaKaa (as 
 the Celts named the mistletoe olliach y tiile-icach\ which was itself 
 personified into Hava/ceia, a daughter of Asklepios. The best 
 instance of this kind is perhaps lindwiirm. It is compounded of 
 two words each signifying ' a serpent,' in the same way as we saw 
 windkund to be compounded of two words signifying ( a dog. 5 The 
 meaning of the first syllable in the compound was forgotten, and 
 thus it came to pass that lind was taken to mean ' lime-tree,' as if it 
 were equivalent to, or connected with, linde. Hence grew up a 
 legend that the dragon slain by Siegfried lived in a lime-tree, and 
 it was a lime-leaf which fell on his shoulderblades when he 
 bathed in the blood and rendered himself invulnerable save in the 
 spot where the leaf had fallen. Cf. Nib. 899, 2 : 
 do er den lintracJicn an dem bcrge sluoc 
 and 902, i : 
 
 do von dcs trachen wunden vloz daz heize bhwt, 
 und sick dar inne badete der kilene recke guot, 
 do viel im zivischen Jierten ein linden blat vil breit. f 
 In the same way Wuotanes her 'Wotan's host' has become 
 the Wiitendes heer of the German fairy-tales. 
 
 * See Isaac Taylor's Words and Places, p. 269 sq. 
 t Quoted by Herman Hager, On Loanwords in German, p. 14. 
 H 2 
 
ioo ON POPULAR AND FORGOTTEN ETYMOLOGIES. 
 
 The French colony of Beauregard in Brandenburg has been 
 Germanised into Burengarten or Bauerngarten, and indeed the 
 influence of popular etymologies is especially felt in the case of 
 proper names ; for in these cases the word bears no obvious 
 meaning which may serve as a check to popular fancy. Thus 
 Claudii Forum appears now as Klagenfiirt ; Venustus mons as 
 Finstermuns. Thus the Italians have turned the Capitolium into 
 CampidogliO) and Jerusalem appears in Greek as 'lepoo-oAv/xa, or the 
 'holy place of the Solymi':* 'leptxovs represents Jericho, as if it were 
 ' the holy mound or hill.' Thus also the Syrian name Elaigabahts 
 appeared in Latin as Heliogabalus, as if the meaning were the 
 ' Sun-king, 5 and the Vandal name Hunerich became Lat. Honoricus. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the principle underlying these 
 various manifestations of popular etymology is to be explained by 
 the instinct of language which rebels against the acceptance of any 
 term which conveys no meaning to those who use it. This instinct 
 prompts speakers to extract from each group of sounds a definite 
 signification, and to render each absolutely intelligible as interpreted 
 by their own ideas. In this case similarity of sound, and this alone 
 guides the instinct of language, which here operates in a simple 
 and almost childlike fashion. Popular etymology is, in fact, 
 nothing but the outcome of the tendency of language to simplify 
 itself by analogy, and is but one instance of the working of the 
 ' principle of economy,' which successfully arrests the tendency 
 of language to part into endless varieties and to thereby become 
 unintelligible. 
 
 * Similarly in Middle Welsh we find Caerusatem, as if from caer ' a town. 
 
SYNOPTICAL TABLES 
 
 OF 
 
 GERMAN ACCIDENCE. 
 
DECLENSION. 
 
 THE varieties of declension depend not upon the difference ot 
 inflexions, which were the same throughout, but on the differ- 
 ence of stem-endings. The various ways in which the case- 
 endings have been welded to the stem, and have coalesced with 
 it, have produced the apparent varieties of declension. This original 
 state of things suffered another and greater change when, through 
 phonetic decay and the operation of the law of finals, many case- 
 endings disappeared altogether, and when through the influence 
 of analogy inflexions properly belonging to one class only were 
 transferred to others, and thus classes originally different have 
 sometimes taken identical forms. 
 
 The original state is best preserved in Gothic, where the following 
 stems can be distinguished : i) Vocalic, or strong stems, viz. 
 
 0- stems (of which those in/0- form a variety) comprising masculine 
 and neuter nouns, a- stems (and ja- stems) of feminine gender, 
 
 1- stems comprising masculine and feminine nouns, u- stems of all 
 three genders. 2) Consonantal stems, viz. those in -n (weak stems) 
 comprising nouns of all genders, stems in -r, comprising a few 
 nouus expressive of family relations, stems in -nd, comprising 
 participles present used as nouns, and a variety of stems in dentals 
 (d, t, t/i) and gutturals (g, k, h). 
 
DECLENSION. 
 
 In OHG. this great variety of stems, though still clearly 
 discernible, has still under the influence of the principles 
 mentioned above been reduced, the few remaining stems in -u and 
 the gutturals and dentals being inflected according to the analogy of 
 stems in -z, &c. This is seen still more in MHG., where the old 
 variety of vowels in final syllables has been replaced by a uniform 
 e, so that the vocalic stems are no longer discernible, except where 
 original i andja have left a trace of their existence in the modifica- 
 tion of the root-vowel. In the ;/- stems the loss of all inflexion has 
 brought it to pass that what was originally a stem-ending is now 
 felt to be a case-ending. In NHG. the process of analogy has still 
 farther destroyed the original condition of things, modification e.g. 
 having now become a principle by which to form the plural. 
 
 Of the original eight cases of the IE. language, viz., the 
 nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative, 
 and vocative, the five first only are found to exist in OHG. 
 The locative has disappeared in the dative, the vocative in the 
 nominative, the instrumental is only found in masc. and neut. 
 nouns, and dies out with the tenth century, being syntactically 
 replaced by the dative. The ace. pi. is always like the ncm. pi. 
 
 The dual number has completely disappeared in the declension 
 of nouns, even in Gothic. 
 
DECLENSION OF NOUNS. 
 
 VOCALIC STEMS. 
 
 (Strong Declension.) 
 i) o- stems. 
 
 These stems were originally formed from the root by the simple suffix -fl, or 
 by such compound suffixes as -ro, -lo, -no, -mo, -ivo, &c. Teut. fug-lo-, nom. sg. 
 fug-lo-z, Got. fugls, OHG. fogal, NHG. vogel, AS.fugol, E. fowl. 
 
 a) MASCULINES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N. A. tac (day) tac tag 
 
 G. tages, as, is tages tag(i)s 
 
 D. tage, a tage tag(e) 
 I. tagu, o 
 
 PI. N. A. taga, o, e tage tage 
 
 G. tago tage tage 
 
 D. tagum, om tagen tagen 
 
 In OHG. proper names of this declension take in the ace. sg. the pronominal 
 ending -an, as Christan = Christum. So also gotan = Deum, truhtinan == 
 Dominum. The instrumental dies out with the tenth century, and is syntactically 
 replaced by the dative. Thus Notker uses tage both for the dat. and instrum., 
 while the latter ought to be tago, as in the adverbial forms allo, &c. (Cf. 
 p. 115). The nom. pi. is sometimes written tagd by Notker, which is the 
 original form developed out of *tagds. Got. dagos. 
 
io6 VOCALIC STEMS. 
 
 Stems in -wo change the final w into o in the nom. ace. sg., as OHG. sea 
 ' sea,' gen. se-wes. This o is next lost after vowels, se being the regular form 
 in Otfrid, whilst it is preserved after consonants and becomes e in MHG., as 
 OHG. scato * shadow,' gen. scat awes, MHG. senate. 
 
 In NHG., and in some instances as early as in MHG., many old stems of 
 this declension have by analogy with the z'-stems undergone modification in the 
 pi., as NHG. hof>, MHG. hove (cf. NHG. -hofen in proper names); NHG. 
 bdume, MHG. bourne-, NHG. arzte, MHG. arzdte. The modern plurals in-er 
 formed by analogy with the neuter stems of this declension, belong to the NHG. 
 period only : N H G. geister, MHG. geiste ; N H G. gotter> MHG. gote, the MHG. 
 gofer, abgbter coming from the neuter got * idol/ 
 
 b) NEUTERS. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. wort (word) wort wort 
 
 G. ivortes, as, is wortes wort(e]s 
 
 D. worte, a wort(i) wort(e) 
 I. wortu> o 
 
 PI. N.A. wort wort worte 
 
 G. worto worte worte 
 
 D. wortum, om worten worten 
 
 To this class belong, among other stems, the diminutives in -li, -i, Franc, -lin, 
 -in, Alem. -////, -in, which form their gen. and dat. in mines, -ine, pi. -ino, -mum. 
 The -n then passes from these cases into the nom. as chindelin, NHG. kindlein* 
 ivengelin, NHG. wanglein, or -i is thrown off and the word ends in -el, as chindel. 
 The Alemanic alone preserves the old nom. in -li to the present day, as chindli. 
 
 The NHG. plural in -e (which first occurs early in MG.) is formed by analogy 
 with the masculine stems of this declension. The dat. sg. sometimes loses its 
 final -e as early as in OHG., where we find Ms by the side of huse. 
 
 The old seemingly uninflected form for the nom. pi. is preserved to the present 
 day in such words z.~>pfund{=^ Lat. pondus\ buck, paar, &c., when these are 
 used to express a measure or weight. They gave rise to the use of such un- 
 inflected forms for masc. and fern, terms of measure or weight, as fuss, 
 soil, grad, mark, as well. Cf. the Engl. neuter plurals sheep, horse, deer, 
 swine, AS. sceap, hors, deor, swin. 
 
 Beside this plural we have one in -er, OHG. -z>, causing mutation of the root- 
 syllable, a form only found in the West Teutonic languages. This -ir (IE. 
 -es, in Gr. yev^o--, Lat. gener-*) originally belonged to the singular as well, and is 
 thus found in OHG. ehir t ' an ear, a spike of corn ' ; kelbir, ' a calf,' dat. kelbire, 
 and still lives in such names of places as Kalbersbach, Bldttersbach (OHG. Kcl- 
 birisbach, filettirsbach}. Cf. AS. hrither (G. rind], pi. hritheru (G. rindcr). 
 
VOCALIC STEMS. 
 
 107 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 N.A. wortir 
 
 worter 
 
 worter 
 
 G. wortiro 
 
 wbrter(e) 
 
 worter 
 
 D. wortirum^ om 
 
 wbrter(e}n 
 
 wbrtern 
 
 2) jo-stems. 
 a) MASCULINES. 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 Sg. N. hirti (herdsman) hirte 
 
 G. hirties, es hirtes 
 
 D. hirtie, e hirte 
 
 A. hirti hirte 
 
 I. hirtiu, it, o 
 
 PL N.A. hirte, i hirte 
 
 G. hirtio, eo, o hirte 
 
 D. kirtium, um, im hirten 
 
 NHG. 
 
 hirt(e) 
 hirts, hirten 
 hirt, hirten 
 hirt, hirten 
 
 hirten 
 hirten 
 hirten 
 
 To this class belonged originally the numerous stems in -er, MHG. -are, Teut. 
 -arjo, such as: NHG. lehrer, MHG. ttrcerc, OHG. I er art, Got. Idisareis. The 
 few remaining short z-and -stems are in MHG. sometimes inflected according 
 to this declension, such as OHG. sunn, MHG. sune, NHG. sohn 'son'; OHG. 
 sign, MHG. sige, NHG. sieg ' victory ' by the side of sun, sic-, MHG. wine, 
 OHG. uuini ' friend,' still preserved in proper names such as Bald-win. 
 
 The w-fonns here given for NHG. only, are found sporadically even in MHG. 
 
 b) NEUTERS. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinnes 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinnen 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. kinni(ch\r\) 
 
 G. kinnies, es 
 
 D. kinni 
 
 PL N.A. kinniu, u, i 
 
 G. kinnio, eo, o 
 
 D. kinnium, eom, om, im 
 
 These stems also sometimes take -ir in OHG., as gifildir (NHG. gefilde], 
 -er in the modern language : gesichter, geschlechter. 
 
 The scanty remains of neuter *"- and u- stems have in MHG. been merged into 
 this declension, as vihe, NHG. vieh* OHG. fihu. 
 
 NHG. 
 kinn 
 
 kinn(e)s 
 
 kinn(e) 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinne 
 
 kinnen 
 
loS 
 
 VOCALIC STEMS. 
 
 3) d-stems. 
 FEMININES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 Sg. N. buoz, e (retaliation) buoz, e 
 G. buoza, n, o, e buoze 
 
 D. buozu, o, a, e buoze 
 
 A. buoza, e buozo. 
 
 PL N.A. buozd, 6, a buoze 
 
 G. buozono buozen 
 
 D. buozom, on, on buozen 
 
 4) ja-stems. 
 FEMININES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. sunte, ea, ia, a (sin) silnde 
 
 G. sunte silnde 
 
 D. sunte silnde 
 
 PL N.A. sunte, ed t id, a, 6, a silnde 
 G. sunteono, ono silnden 
 
 D. suntditi silnden 
 
 NHG. 
 
 busse 
 
 busse 
 
 busse 
 
 busse 
 
 bussen 
 bussen 
 bussen 
 
 NHG. 
 
 silnde 
 silnde 
 silnde 
 
 silnden 
 silnden 
 silnden 
 
 In NHG. both d- and jd- stems follow the weak declension, which is also 
 frequently the case in MHG. The modifying -e has in many instances been 
 given up in NHG., as scham, MHG. schame; konigin, MHG. kiineginnt ; 
 mahnung, MHG. maminge, &c. 
 
 Originally there existed a distinction between the long and short stems of 
 this declension, the former dropping their termination in the nom.sg., as OHG. 
 buoz, the latter preserving it, as OHG.ge&a, MHG. gebe 'gift.' In MHG the 
 -e of the ace. then penetrated into the nom. of the long stems, whence buoze, 
 halbe, stunde, wise, site, by the side of such phrases as ez wirdet buos (' fit 
 restitutio 1 ) oberhalp,jensit,dristunt, ander ivis, &c. 
 
 The original difference between the nom. and ace. sg., also seen in AS. giefu 
 giefe, drdre, is preserved in the nouns in -unga and -in. These make the nom. 
 -unc, -in, the ace. -unga, -inna, as OHG. samanunc ' agathering,' ace. samanunga. 
 This nom. in -unc then gave rise to a masc. form, as we find it e.g. employed by 
 the translator of Isidor, who has a masc. bauhnunc * significatio ' by the side of 
 the fern, bauhnunga. MHG. kiineginne ' queen ' is originally the ace. vikunegin 
 (to be distinguished from kilnegin\ but afterwards comes to be used for all cases 
 
VOCALIC STEMS. 109 
 
 of the sg., and forms a weak pi. Hence NHG. konigin, but pi. koniginnen. 
 Stems ending in -in in OHG. were left without any inflexion in MHG. where 
 they end in -en. Thus it came to pass that the -n was taken for the ending of 
 the weak decl., and there was formed a nom. sg. in -e, as NHG. kette, MHG. 
 keten, ketene, QYLG. ketina = "L<&. catena \ NHG. kiiche, MHG. kitchen, OHG. 
 kuchma = M. Lat. cocina ; NHG. metle, MHG. metten, OHG. mattina = Lat. 
 matutina. 
 
 The gen. pi. has taken the form of the weak declension, as in most Teutonic 
 languages, cf. &S>.giefena by the side of giefa t Got. gibd. 
 
 5) i-stems. 
 
 a) MASCULINES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. bale (skin) bale balg 
 
 G. balges balges balg(e]s 
 
 D. balge balge balg(e) 
 
 I. balgiu, u, o 
 
 PI. N.A. belgi beige balge 
 
 G. belgio, eo> o beige balge 
 
 D. belgim belgen balge ti 
 
 The' original -z of these stems has left its effect on the root-syllable by 
 modifying it. Where no modification was possible, there is now no difference 
 between these stems and those of the 0-declension, as schritt, pi. schrittc ; 
 brief, pi. briefe. 
 
 In O. and MHG. we have to distinguish between original short and long 
 stems. The former preserve the stem-ending -/, as OHG. ivini^ MHG. wins 
 ' friend.' 
 
 b) FEMININES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. kraft (strength) kraft kraft 
 
 G. krefti, e krefte, kraft kraft 
 
 D. krefti, e krefte, kraft kraft 
 
 PL N.A. krefti, e krefte krafte 
 
 G. kreftio, eo, o krefte krafte 
 
 D. kreftim kreften kraften 
 
 In NHG. many words belonging originally to this declension now take the 
 weak inflexion, as arbeit, pi. arbeiten, MHG. arbeite; geburt, pi. geburicn, MHG. 
 gebiirte, and all those ending in -heit, -keit, and -schaft. 
 
no CONSONANTAL STEMS. 
 
 6) u-stems. 
 MASCULINE. FEMININE. NEUTER. 
 
 fuosi 
 
 henti, e 
 
 fiMu, fehu, o 
 
 fuozio 
 
 hentio, eo, o 
 
 fcho 
 
 fuozum 
 fuozim 
 
 hantum.om; 
 hentim 
 
 fehen 
 
 fuozi 
 
 henti, e, 
 
 fihiu^fehu, o 
 
 a) Short. b) Long. 
 
 Sg. N.A. sunu, o; sun (sort) fuoz (foot) hant (hand) fihu,o> ^(cattle) 
 G. suno ; suites fiiozes henti, e fehes 
 
 D. suniu, u ; sum fuoze henti, e jehe 
 
 I. sunu, iu, o fuozu, iu, o 
 
 PI. N. suni, c 
 G. sunio, eo, o 
 
 D. sunum, om ; 
 sunim 
 
 A. sunu, i, e 
 
 This declension is already dying out in OHG., and is being replaced by the 
 a- and /0-declensions, into which all original -u stems are gradually absorbed. 
 Thus the sg. of fuoz shows the terminations of the #-decl. throughout, and sunu 
 has by its side an <2-stem sun. Only two neuter stems are preserved in OHG., 
 fillip and witu 'wood,' MHG. wife, wit', cf. OHG. Witumdnoth * September.' 
 
 We have, as in the -i stems, to distinguish between the original treatment of 
 short and long stems, the former of which preserve the stem-ending -u> which the 
 latter give up ; cf. sunu and film with fuos and hant. 
 
 The only form of this declension that has survived in NHG. is the unmodified 
 dat. plur. handen, in the phrases vorhanden, abhanden. 
 
 CONSONANTAL STEMS. 
 
 7) n-steins. 
 
 (Weak Declension.) 
 
 These stems, which are more numerous in the Teut. than in the other IE. 
 languages (cf. p. 62), are to be compared with such Lat. stems as homen-^ 
 ptaedon-. The ;/ of the stem disappears in the nom. sg., as Got. hana, OHG. 
 hano, MHG. hane, NHG. hahn 'cock,' with which compare Lat. homo ; and in 
 the dat. pi. before the ending -;/*. 
 
CONSONANTAL STEMS. 
 
 in 
 
 MASCULINES. 
 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 SJT. 
 
 N. 
 
 hcr(i)ro (master) herre 
 
 Jierr 
 
 
 G. 
 
 her(i]ren, in 
 
 hcrren 
 
 Jierr(i)n 
 
 
 D. 
 
 Jir\i)ren, in 
 
 Jierren 
 
 herr(e)n 
 
 
 A. 
 
 Iicr(i}ren, on, an 
 
 Jierren 
 
 Jierr(e)n 
 
 PI. 
 
 N.A. 
 
 Jicr(i)rnn^ on, en 
 
 Jierren 
 
 lierr(e]n 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Jier(i)r6no 
 
 hcrren 
 
 herr(e)n 
 
 
 D. 
 
 her(t)rtm 
 
 Jierren 
 
 Jierr(e)n 
 
 FEMININES. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg 
 
 . N. 
 
 znnga (tongue) 
 
 znnge 
 
 znnge 
 
 
 G. 
 
 znngnn 
 
 znngen 
 
 znnge 
 
 
 D. 
 
 znngiln 
 
 znngen 
 
 znnge 
 
 
 A. 
 
 znngnn 
 
 znngen 
 
 znnge 
 
 PL 
 
 N.A. 
 
 zung&n 
 
 znngen 
 
 znngen 
 
 
 G. 
 
 znngono 
 
 znngen 
 
 znngen 
 
 
 D. 
 
 zangom 
 
 zungen 
 
 zungen 
 
 
 
 
 NEUTERS. 
 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg 
 
 . N.A. 
 
 herza (heart) 
 
 Jierze 
 
 Jierz 
 
 
 G. 
 
 herzen, in 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 Jierzens 
 
 
 D. 
 
 herzen, in 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 herzen 
 
 PI 
 
 . N.A. 
 
 herznn, on, en 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Jierzono 
 
 Jietzcn 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 
 D. 
 
 herzom 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 Jierzen 
 
 In these stems every trace of the original inflexion had disappeared even in 
 MHG., and the -n originally belonging to the stem was then apprehended as a 
 case-ending. The feminines have in the singular passed into the ^-declension ; 
 though the older inflexion is still preserved in a few cas2s, like auf erdcn, 
 221 ehren, unserer licbcn frauen, &c. 
 
113 
 
 CONSONANTAL STEMS. 
 
 In NHG. the nominative -e has been given up in many words, as in mensch 
 (MHG. mensche, orig. a weak adj. from man, OHG. mennisco), tor (MHG. 
 tore), the consequence of which is that some of these now follow the strong 
 declension, as schmerz in the singular ; in others n has passed from the oblique 
 cases into the nominative, as'mgarten, M.KG. garte; graben, MHG. grabe, &c. 
 These then follow the strong declension. The genitives in -ns, which many 
 of these stems now take, belong to the NHG. period. 
 
 Cf. E. ox-en, and the double plurals kine, brethren, children. 
 
 friunt (friend) 
 
 man (man) 
 
 friuntes 
 
 man, mannes 
 
 friunt, e 
 
 man, manne, a 
 
 friunt 
 
 man, mannan 
 
 friunt, a 
 
 man, -mana 
 
 friunto 
 
 manno 
 
 friuntum 
 
 mannum 
 
 8) OTHER OLD CONSONANTAL STEMS. 
 
 MASCULINES. 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N. fater( father) 
 G. fater, eres 
 D. fater, ere 
 A. fater, eran 
 
 PI. N.A. fater, era 
 
 G. fatero 
 
 D. fate rum 
 
 Like fater is declined bruoder. In MHG. the gen. and dat. sg. is still some- 
 times vater, bruoder, by the side of vater(e)s, bruoders ; the plural is generally 
 modified: veter, briieder. So also vriunt, an old present participle (Got.frijond, 
 fromfrijon ' to love '), still makes vriunt by the side Qfvriundevn. MHG. in the 
 nom. ace. pi. MHG. man has both man and mannes, man and ?nanne in the gen. 
 and dat. sg., and shows the following plural forms : nom. ace. man, gen. manne 
 and man, dat. mannenman. The nom. plur, man, now written mann, is still 
 preserved in counting, as vierzig mann. 
 
 Sg. N. tohter (daughter) 
 
 G. tohter 
 
 D. tohter 
 
 A. tohter 
 
 PI. N.A. tohter, era, emu 
 
 G. tohterono 
 
 D. tohterum, erom 
 
 FEMININES. 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 
 ;er) brust (breast) 
 
 naht (night) 
 
 brust, i 
 
 naht, i, es 
 
 brust, i 
 
 naht, i, e 
 
 brusti 
 
 naht 
 
 i brust, i 
 
 naht 
 
 b rustic, o 
 
 naJito 
 
 brustim 
 
 nahtum, im 
 
CONSONANTAL STEMS. 13 
 
 Like tohter are declined muoter and swester. In MHG. these modify their 
 plural: tohter, miieter\ swester, which could not be modified, has passed 
 the weak declension. Brust and naht as nom. ace. pi. are still found in 
 MHG., as well as the dat. pi. brusten and nahten, which latter is preserved to 
 this day in ivcihnachten, from the usual combination zen wihen nahten. The 
 adverbial genitive nahtes, NHG. nachts, is either formed on the analogy of tages, 
 or else on that of the masculine forms. It is even in OHG. (Williram) fourd 
 with the article, des nahtes, and in MHG. we find such phrases as des 
 trsten nahtes, which explains the sporadic occurrence of a masculine naht. Cf. 
 AS. nihtes. 
 
DECLENSION OF ADJECTIVES. 
 
 Adjectives are declined as strong or weak. The weak decl. does not differ 
 
 from that of the substantives, except in NHG., where the original ace. sg. fern, 
 in -en has been replaced by the nom. in -e. The strong decl. follows partly 
 
 that of o- or jo- stems (in the masc. and neut.), and of the a- stems (in the fern.), 
 .and partly the pronominal declension. Originally there were adjectival i- and 
 .u- stems as well, but these have, even in Gothic, been merged into the jo- 
 'declension. 
 
 Strong Declension. 
 
 a) MASCULINE. 
 
 MHG. NHG. 
 
 blinder; blint blinder; blind 
 
 blindes blindes 
 
 blindem(e) blindcm 
 
 blinden blinden 
 
 blinde blinde 
 
 blinder(e) blinder 
 
 blinden blinden 
 
 blinde blinde 
 
 b) FEMININE. 
 
 blindiu; blint blinde ; blind 
 
 blinder(e) blinder 
 
 blinder(e) blinder 
 
 blinde blinde 
 
 blinde blinde 
 
 blinder(i) blinder 
 
 blinden blinden 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N. 
 
 blinter ; blint 
 
 G. 
 
 blintes 
 
 D. 
 
 blintamu 
 
 A. 
 
 blint an 
 
 I. 
 
 blintu 
 
 PI. N. 
 
 blinte ; blint 
 
 G. 
 
 blintero 
 
 D. 
 
 blintem, en, en 
 
 A. 
 
 blinte 
 
 Sg. N. 
 
 blintiu, u, o; bli'> 
 
 G. 
 
 blintera 
 
 D. 
 
 blinteru 
 
 A. 
 
 blinta 
 
 PI. N.A. 
 
 blintb, o ; blint 
 
 G. 
 
 blintero 
 
 D. 
 
 blintem, en, en 
 
DECLENSION OF ADJECTIVES. 115 
 
 c) NEUTER. 
 
 Sg. N.A. blintaz ; blint blindez ; blint blindes ; blind 
 
 G. blintes, as, is blindes blindes 
 
 D. blintamu, emo blindem(e) blindem 
 
 I. blintu, o 
 
 PI. N.A. blintiu, u,o ; blint blindiu blinde 
 
 G. blintero blinder(e) blinder 
 
 D. blintem, en, en bliden blinden 
 
 The form blind, which is now used for all cases alike when placed as a predicate, 
 is commonly called uninflected, though it was not so originally, but has simply 
 lost its inflexion by regular sound-law, like tag, wort, OHG. buoz, &c. With 
 y'0-stems this form ends in -i in OHG., in -e in MHG., as OHG. mitti, MHG. 
 mitte, cf. Lat. medins ; OHG. muodi, MHG. miiede, NHG. miide. This e is fre- 
 quently dropped in NHG. as schon, MHG. schcene, OHG. skoni. 
 
 In O. and MHG. the uninflected form of the adj. is also used for the attribute, 
 as em guot man, ein schcene froiiwe, c. In NHG. this is possible only in the 
 neuter, as ein %ut teil, manch mal, and in such unreal compounds as bosewicht, 
 altmeister, jungfrau, edelmann, &c. 
 
 FORMATION OF COMPARISON. 
 
 The comparative degree of adjectives is formed in OHG. by the terminations 
 ir and -or, M. and NHG. -er, the superlative by OHG. -ist (which is preserved 
 in NHG. obrist ' colonel ' by the side of oberst} and -ost, M. and NHG. -est; -ir 
 and -ist caused mutation of the root- vowel, as OHG. alt, comp. eltir, superl. 
 eltist, cf. E. old, elder, eldest. Those adj. that took -or and-ost in OHG. are 
 frequently found without mutation in MHG., as langer by the side of lenger, &c. 
 
 The comparative in O. and MHG. follows as a rule the weak decl., the super- 
 lative is declined both weak and strong. 
 
 Some adjectives form the comp. and superl. from a different stem from that of 
 the positive, as OHG. guot, bezir, bezist ; ubil, wirsir, wirsist (E. worse, worst} ; 
 luziKJL. little}, minnir, minnist(NHG. minder, mindesf); mihhil (Sc. muckle), 
 mer, meist. 
 
 ADVERB. 
 
 In OHG. adverbs are formed from the adjective by the termination -o, as 
 ubilo ' badly' from ubil ' bad.' This -o becomes -e in MHG., as iibele, and is 
 dropped altogether in NHG., as iibel, except in a few cases like lange, gerne 
 by the side vigern, VKG. gerno. 
 
 In the/0- stems the adv. in MHG. is not distinguished from the adj., unless the 
 latter has undergone modification which has not affected the adv., as : spate 
 'late,' adv. spate; vriieje ' early,' adv. vruo ; cf. NHG. spat und jruh. Thus 
 schon is the adv. of schon, fast of fest. The adv. of guot is wol. There is 
 another way of forming adverbs in O. and MHG., viz. by the termination -liche^ 
 the AS. -lice, E. -ly, as groz ' great,' adv. groezliche. In NHG. -weise and 
 -massen affixed to the gen. sg. fern, of the strong adj. are used in a similar way. 
 
DECLENSION OF PRONOUNS. 
 
 i) Personal Pronouns. 
 
 a) i. PERSON. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N. *//, ikhd ich ich 
 
 G. min mm mein> meiner 
 
 D. mir mir mir 
 
 A. mih mich mich 
 
 PI. N. wir wir wir 
 
 G. unser unser unser 
 
 D. uns uns uns 
 
 A. unsik unsich, uns uns 
 
 The -d in ihhd is simply a strengthening suffix, also found in neind, an 
 emphatic 'no.' Of dual forms none but the OHG. gen. unker is preserved, 
 
 which reappears in the Bavarian dialect of the I4th century in the form 
 enker as the possessive of the i. pi. 
 
 b) 2. PERSON. 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg.N. 
 
 dii, die 
 
 M, du 
 
 du 
 
 G. 
 
 din 
 
 din 
 
 dein, deiner 
 
 D. 
 
 dir 
 
 dir 
 
 dir 
 
 A. 
 
 dik 
 
 dick 
 
 dick 
 
 PL N. 
 
 ir 
 
 ir 
 
 ihr 
 
 G. 
 
 iuwer 
 
 iuwer 
 
 euer 
 
 D. 
 
 iu 
 
 iu 
 
 euch 
 
 A. 
 
 iuwi/i 
 
 iuwic/i, iuch 
 
 euch 
 
DECLENSION OF PRONOUNS. 
 
 117 
 
 
 
 
 c) 3. PERSON. 
 
 
 
 
 Reflexive. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg.G. 
 
 sin (ird) 
 
 sin (ir) 
 
 sein, seiner 
 
 D. 
 
 (imu, iru) 
 
 (im, ir) 
 
 sick 
 
 A. 
 
 sik 
 
 sick 
 
 sick 
 
 PL G. 
 
 (iro) 
 
 ('>) 
 
 (ihrer) 
 
 D. 
 
 (im) 
 
 (in) 
 
 sick 
 
 A. 
 
 sick 
 
 sick 
 
 sick 
 
 
 
 MASCULINE. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg. N. 
 
 ir, er 
 
 er 
 
 er 
 
 G. 
 
 (sin) 
 
 (es) 
 
 (sein, seiner) 
 
 D. 
 
 imu, o 
 
 im(e) 
 
 ihm 
 
 A. 
 
 in, inan 
 
 in 
 
 ikn 
 
 
 
 FEMININE. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg. N. 
 
 siu, si 
 
 si, si, siu, sie 
 
 sie 
 
 G. 
 
 ira, u, o 
 
 *<*) 
 
 ihrer 
 
 D. 
 
 iru, o, a 
 
 ir(e) 
 
 ihr 
 
 A. 
 
 sa, sia 
 
 sie, si, si 
 
 sie 
 
 
 
 NEUTER. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg.N.A. 
 
 iz, ez 
 
 ez 
 
 es 
 
 G. 
 
 is, es 
 
 es 
 
 (sein, seiner) 
 
 D. 
 
 imu, o 
 
 im(f) 
 
 ihm 
 
 
 
 PLURAL. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 N. A. 
 
 se, sie, sia 
 
 si, si, sie 
 
 sie 
 
 G. 
 
 iro 
 
 ir(e) 
 
 ihrer 
 
 D. 
 
 im, in 
 
 in 
 
 thnen 
 
 In OHG. and MHG. we find a special form siu for the neuter nom. ace. 
 plur., and in OHG. for the same cases, a fern. sio. 
 
n8 
 
 DECLENSION OF PRONOUNS: 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N. der;de,die t 
 
 G. des 
 D. demu, o 
 A. den 
 
 I. diu 
 
 2) Demonstrative Pronouns. 
 MASCULINE. 
 
 MHG. NHG. 
 
 der ; de, die, dp* der 
 
 des des, des sen 
 
 dem(e) dem 
 
 den den 
 
 FEMININE. 
 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 din 
 
 die 
 
 der(e) 
 
 der, dercn 
 
 der(e) 
 
 der 
 
 die 
 
 die 
 
 NEUTER. 
 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 das 
 
 das 
 
 des 
 
 des, dcssen 
 
 dem(e) 
 
 dem 
 
 din 
 
 
 PLURAL. 
 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 die 
 
 die 
 
 der(e) 
 
 der, deren 
 
 den 
 
 den, denen 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N. din 
 
 G. dera, n, o 
 D. dent) o, a 
 A. dia, die, dia 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. N.A. daz 
 G. des 
 D. d'emn, o 
 I. din 
 
 OHG. 
 
 PL N. A. de, dea, dia, die 
 G. dero 
 D. dem 
 
 In OHG. and MHG. a special form for the neut. nom. ace. plur. diu occurs, 
 and in OHG. for the same cases a fern. deo> did. The instr. neut. is still pre- 
 served in de-sto> answering to E. the (AS. thy] before comparatives. 
 
 * MG< forms with loss of final -r. Thus also wi, mi, dl are found for 
 tnir, dir, 
 
DECLENSION OF PRONOUNS. 
 
 119 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MASC. FEM. NEUT. 
 
 Sg. N. dese'r, dese (Is., Tat.), disu t in; dzisn dezi> dizi, diz 
 dirro (Notk.) 
 
 G. di'ses y desses desera,derera(Qtfx.i deses, desses 
 
 Tat.) dirro (Notk.) 
 
 D. desemUt o deseru, dereru y desetmi, o 
 
 dirro 
 
 desa 
 
 A. dcsan 
 
 I. desu, iu ; disu 
 
 PIN. A. dese dcso 
 
 G. dcsero,derero, dirro desero, &c. 
 D. desem desem 
 
 For the e of the stem i also occurs throughout : disSr, dise, 
 
 MHG. 
 
 MAS. FEM. 
 
 Sg. N. dirre y diser, dise disiu 
 
 G. dises 
 
 D. disem(e) 
 
 A. disen 
 
 PL N.A. dise 
 
 G. dirrei diser 
 
 D. disen 
 
 dirre, diser 
 dirre, diser 
 dise 
 
 dise 
 
 dirre, diser 
 disen 
 
 dizi, diz 
 desu, iu ; disu 
 
 desu, iu; dcisu 
 desero, &c. 
 desem 
 
 NEUT. 
 
 ditze, ditz, diz 
 dises 
 disem(e) 
 ditze, ditz, diz 
 
 disiu 
 
 dirre, diser 
 disen 
 
 3) Inter rogatives. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. N. hwer y n. hwaz wer, n. was wer, n. ivas 
 
 G. hw'es wes (wes}, w ess en 
 
 D. hwemn, o wem(e) wem 
 
 A. hw'c'n, hwcnan wen, n. waz wen, n. was 
 
 I. hwin, hiu ; hweo win wie 
 
 Two plural forms occur in OHG., nom. hwie, dat. hwen* In the same way is 
 declined OHG. and MHG. swer (for sd wer} 'whosoever.' 
 
i-o NUMERALS. 
 
 PRONOMINAL ADJECTIVES. 
 
 These are declined like strong adjectives, taking, however, in 
 the nom. sg. and ace. sg. neut. the so-called uninflected form only.* 
 Under this head fall the possessives which are formed from the gen. 
 of the pers. pronouns, with which their stem is identical. Min, din > 
 sin, wiser, iuwcr take in O. and MHG. the strong declension also 
 after the definite article: daz sin gewant ' his garment,' in der smer 
 zi'swen in his right hand/ &c. Here belong further : ein l one, a/ 
 which if declined weak means 'alone,' 'sole'; dehein, dechein, kein 
 4 no ' ; ander ' other ' ; OHG. hwedar, MHG. weder l which of two ' ; 
 deweder ' neuter ' ; soldi ( such ' ; welch ' which/ 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 I. Cardinals. 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 N.A.M. zwene F. zwd (zwo) N. zwie M. zwene F. zwd (zwa}^.zwei 
 G. zweio (zweiero) zweier 
 
 D. zweim, zwem, zwim zwein, zweien 
 
 The masc. zween and fern, zwo were in use even in this century, but have now 
 been entirely superseded by the neut. zwei. In composition zwi- is the original 
 form, which still exists in such words as ziviefach, zwiefdltig> but has in NHG. 
 been replaced by a form with ei, as zweifach, ziveifdltig. 
 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 N.A.M. dn, drie F. dria, dno N. driu M.F. dri N. driu 
 G. drw, driero drier 
 
 D. drim, drin ; drien drin^ dri(e)n 
 
 In composition dri- was the original form, which has, however, as early as in 
 OHG. by analogy with the other forms with , become dri-, NHG. drei, as 
 drivalt, NHG. dreifdltig. 
 
 The other numerals are as follows in OHG. showing both 
 uninflected and inflected forms. 
 
 * With the exception of jener 'yon,' of which no uninflected forms occur. 
 
NUMERALS. 121 
 
 4. fior\ infl. nom. fieri, n.fioriu, u\ gen.forw, o\ dat.Jiorim. 
 
 5. fimf\finf,funf\ nom.fimfi, n.fimfiu ; gen. fimfo ; dzk.fimfim. 
 
 6. se/is ; nom. se/tst, n. se/isiu, u ; dat. sehsim. NHG. j^rAr, JOT/H*. 
 
 7. .#&# ; nom. sibuni, n. sibuniu ; gen. sibuneo, o ; dat. sibunim. 
 8 tf//to ; dat. ahtowen. MHG. #//fc. NHG. ^^///, ^^r///^. 
 
 9. niun\ nom. niuni, n. niuniu; gen. niuno. NHG.neun,neune. 
 
 10. selian : nom. zekani, n. zekaniu, zeniu ; gen. ^^; dat. z$nen. 
 
 11. einlif\ in MHG. also inflected like an adjective. 
 
 12. zwelif\ MHG. jsze/^, also inflected. NHG. ^ze/^y zwolfe. 
 
 13. drizcn. 
 
 l^fiorzehan, i^.finfzeJten, 1 6. sehszfa, 17. sibunzehan^ 1 8. ahtozehen, 
 nom. aJitozekeni, n. ahtozeniu, 19. niunzene. 
 
 20. zweinzuc, 30. drizuc, 40. fiorzuc, 50. fimfzuc, 60. se/tszuc, 70 
 sibunzuc, 80. aJitosuc % 90. niunzuc, 100. zehanzuc. 
 
 Zuc, or ,sw, originally a noun meaning ' a decade,' Got. //>w, m., 
 Gr. 8e/ccts, is sometimes inflected, as drizuge, zehanzuge, &c. For 
 70-100 the forms sibunzd, ahtozo, niunzo, zehanzd, are also found. 
 For 100 we have also ^///, then 200 js^e/ 7///;^, &c.; for 1000, 
 diisunt, a neuter noun, whence 2000 .smz dtisuntd, dat. dusimtim, 
 um y dm. 
 
 2. Ordinals. 
 
 1. rm^, , ^ ; furisto, a, a (whence MHG. fiirste, TSHG. fiirst, ' a 
 
 prince ') with weak inflexion only. 
 
 2. anderer, with strong and weak inflexion, or uninflected. 
 
 3. dritto, a y a. 4. fiordo* &c. 5. fimfto. 6. seJisto. 7. sibunto. 
 8. ahtodo. 9. niunto. 10. zehanto. 1 1. einlifto. 12. zwelifto. 
 13. drittezendo. 14. fiordozendo. 15. finftozendo, ftmfzendo. 16. 
 seliszendo. 19. niuntazehanto . 20. zweinzicfisto. 30. drizugfisto 
 40. feorzugdsto. 50. finfzugdsto. 60. seh(s)zugdsto. 70. sibunzogSsto. 
 80. ahtozogdstO) 90. niunzogosto. 100. zehanzugcsto* 
 
CONJUGATION. 
 
 We have, as in English, to distinguish between strong and weak verbs, the 
 former of which form their preterit by a change of vowel in their root-syllable 
 (German ablauf)> the latter by a suffix beginning with a dental (-de, -te) which is 
 supposed to represent the pret. of the verb 'to do,' OHG. tuon, AS. don, a 
 word not found in the East Teut. languages. The past part, of strong verbs 
 ends in -en ; that of weak verbs, in a dental. 
 
 i) Strong Verbs, 
 a) INFLEXION. 
 
 Present. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 MHG. 
 nime ; var* 
 nimest ; verst 
 nimet ; vert 
 
 OHG. 
 
 Sg. I. nimu, o ; faru, o 
 
 2. nimis(t) ; feris^t) 
 
 3, nimit ; ferit 
 
 PI. I. nemem^es) ; farum(es) nemen; varn 
 2. nemet ; faret 
 ^.riemant ; far ant 
 
 OHG. 
 Sg. I. neme ; fare 
 
 2. nemes(t) ; fares(f) 
 
 3. neme ; fare 
 PI. I. riemem ; far em 
 
 2. nemet ; faret 
 
 3. nemtn ; far en 
 
 nemet ; vart 
 nement ; varnt 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 MHG. 
 neme ; var 
 nemest ; varst 
 neme ; var 
 nemen; varn 
 nemet ; vart 
 nemen; varn 
 
 NHG. 
 
 nehmen ; fahre 
 nimmst ; fdhrst 
 nimmt ; fdhrt 
 nehmen ; fahren 
 nehm(i}t ; fahr(e)t 
 nehmen ; fahren 
 
 NHG. 
 
 nehme ; fahre 
 nehmest : fahrest 
 nehme ; fahre 
 nehmen ; fahren 
 nehmet ; fahret 
 nehmen ; fahren 
 
 In MHG. e drops off or is elided after short syllables ending in r and /. 
 
CONJUGATION. 
 
 123 
 
 Sg. 2. nim ; far 
 PI. I . nememes ; faramcs 
 2. riemet ; faret 
 
 OHG. 
 nemanti ; varant 
 
 OHG. 
 Sg. l. nam; fuor 
 
 2. ndmi ; fuori 
 
 3. nam ; fuor 
 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 nim ; var 
 rie'men ; varn 
 riemet ; vart 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 MHG. 
 riemende; varnde 
 
 Preterit. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 MHG. 
 nam ; vuor 
 nceme ; vilere 
 nam; vuor 
 
 PL i.ndmum(es);fuorum(es) ndmen ; viioren 
 2.ndmut ; fuorut 
 3. ndmun ; fuorun 
 
 OHG. 
 Sg. I. ndmi ; fuori 
 
 2. ndmts(t) ; fuorts(t) 
 
 3. ndmi ; fuori 
 
 PL I. n&mtm ; fuorim 
 2.ndmit; fuortt 
 3. ndmin ; fuorin 
 
 ndmet; vuoret 
 
 ndmen; vuoren 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 nceme ; vuere 
 
 nimm ; fahr(e) 
 nekm(e)t ; fahr(e)t 
 
 NHG. 
 nehmend ; fahrend 
 
 NHG. 
 
 nahm ; fuhr 
 nahm(e)st ; fuhr(e) 
 nahm ; fuhr 
 nahmen ; fuhren 
 nahm(e)t ; fuhr(i)t 
 nahmen ; fuhren 
 
 NHG. 
 
 ndhme ; fiihre 
 
 nczmest ; viierest ndhmest ; fuhrest 
 n&me ; vilere ndhme ; fiihre 
 
 nczmen ; vileren nahmen ; filhren 
 n<zmet ; vileret ndhmet ; filhret 
 
 OHG. 
 
 ginoman ; givaran 
 
 ncsmen ; viler en 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 MHG. 
 genomen ; gevarn 
 
 nahmen ; fuhren 
 
 NHG. 
 genommen ; gtfahren 
 
 b) FORMATION OF TENSES. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 i) OHG. i 
 MHG. t 
 NHG. ei 
 
 PRETERIT SG. 
 ei,e 
 
 [Y, ie] 
 
 PRET. PL., PART. 
 i 
 i 
 
 i, ie 
 
 (for original Teut. at) is found before k, iv> r, and in auslaut. 
 
124 CONJUGATION. 
 
 Examples : OHG. rttan reit ritum, MHG. riten reit riten, 
 NHG. reiten ritt (by analogy to) ritten. MHG. dthen deck 
 digen ; NHG. gedeiJien gediehgediehen (cf. gediegen and see p. 92) . 
 
 An analogous E. verb is ride rode ridden, AS. ridan rad 
 ridon, riden. 
 
 PRES. FRET. SG. PRET. PL. PART. 
 
 2) OHG. iu ou, duo 
 MHG. iu, ie on, duo 
 NHG. ie o \p\ o 
 
 6 (for original Teut. au] is found before d, t, z, s, //, and in auslaut. 
 Examples : OHG. biugan bouc bugum gibogan\ MHG. biegen 
 (i. sg.biuge) bouc bugen gebogen ; NHG. biegen bog, bogen (by 
 analogy with the sing.), gebogen. Under this head come the verbs 
 with u in the pres. in O. and MHG., an in NHG., as MHG. sugen 
 souc sugen gesogen ; NHG. saugen sog, sogen, gesogen. 
 
 An analogous E, verb is choose chose, chosen, AS. ceosan cfas 
 curon coren* 
 
 PRES. PRET. SG. PRET. PL., PART. 
 
 3) OHG. e,i a u, o 
 MHG. e, i a u, o 
 NHG. e, i a u, o 
 
 All verbs of this series have a nasal or liquid + consonant following the root- 
 vowel. Those with a nasal have i throughout in the Present tense, and u in the 
 Participle Pret. in O. and MHG., those with r or / change between e and / in 
 the Present tense, and have o in the Part. Pret. 
 
 Examples: OHG. rinnan (i. sg. rinnu) ran runnum, 
 girunnan ; MHG. rinnen ran runnen, gerunnen ; NHG. rinnen 
 rann, rannen (by analogy with the sg.) geronnen. The old dis- 
 tinction between the tenses is perfectly preserved in NHG. werden 
 ward wurden (wiirde) geworden. 
 
 An analogous E. verb is drink drank drunk(eti). 
 
CONJUGATION. 125 
 
 PRES. PRET. SG. PRET. PL. PART. 
 
 4)OHG. e\i ado 
 
 MHG. e, i a d o 
 
 NHG. e, i \a\ a o 
 
 Most verbs of this series have a nasal or liquid after the root-vowel. 
 Examples: OHG. rieman (i. sg. nimu) nam ndmum 
 ginoman ; MHG. nemen (i. sg. nime) nam ndmen genomen \ 
 NHG. nehmennahm, nahmen genommen. 
 
 An analogous verb in E. is bear bore (for older bare) borne, 
 AS. beran beer bceron boren. 
 
 PRES. 
 
 PRET. SG. 
 
 PRET. PL. 
 
 PART. 
 
 5) OHG. e,i 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
 e 
 
 MHG. e,i 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
 e 
 
 NHG. e t i 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 e 
 
 To this series belong verbs whose root-syllable is followed by a consonant 
 neither liquid nor nasal. 
 
 Examples : OHG. gcban (i. sg. gibii) gap gdbum gigeban, 
 MHG.ift (i. sg. gibe) gap gdbengegeben t NHG. geben 
 gabgabengegebeu. Cf. E. give gave given. 
 
 PRES. PRET. SG. AND PL. PART. 
 
 6) OHG. a uo a 
 MHG. a uo a 
 NHG. a u a 
 
 Examples: OHG. graban gruop, gruobumgigraban\ MHG. 
 graben gruop, gruoben gegraben\ NHG. graben grub, gruben 
 gegraben. Cf. E. slay slew slain, AS. slean slog, sldgon 
 slagen. 
 
 7) Under this head come the verbs that originally (and still in 
 Gothic) formed their preterit by reduplication, but are in OHG. 
 (as well as in all other Teutonic languages) shortened by 
 contraction. Cf. AS. heht, reord, leolc with Got. hailidit, rairoth y 
 lailaik. We can distinguish the following classes in OHG. : 
 
126 CONJUGATION. 
 
 PRES. PRET. PART. 
 
 1) a (Got. a) ia (Got. ai-d) a (Got. a] 
 
 2) d (Got. e and ai) ia (Got. aid, ai-f) a (Got. e and #z) 
 
 3) ci(Qo\.ai) ia (Got. ai-ai) ei(Got.ai) 
 
 4) ou, 6 ^Got. tfz/) 20 (Got. ai-ati] ou, 6 (Got. ail) 
 
 5) 2/0 (Got. <?) io (Got. tfzV) 2/0 (Got. 6} 
 
 In M. and NHG. all these groups have ie (for OHG. ia and/0) in the preterit.* 
 Examples: i) OHG. kalian hialt gihaltan, MHG. and NHG. 
 halten hielt gehalten. Cf. E. hold held- 
 /widen, AS. healdan heold healden. 
 
 2) OHG. ratanriatgiratan, MHG. and NHG. 
 
 rdten riet gerdten. 
 
 3) OHG. heizan hiaz giheizan, MHG. heizen 
 
 hiez ge heizen. \ 
 
 4) OHG. houwan hiob gihouwan, MHG. houiven 
 
 hiu and hie gehouiyen, NHG. Jiauen hieb 
 gehanen. 
 
 5) OHG. ruofan riofgiruofan, MHG. nwfen 
 
 liefgeruofen, NHG. rufen riefgerufen. 
 
 WEAK VERBS. 
 
 In OHG. we have to distinguish three classes of weak verbs. In the first the 
 inf. ends in -enior an older -jen (Got. -Jan), in the second in -on (Got. -<?/z), in the 
 third in -en (Got. -ail). The first class is then again subdivided into verbs with 
 a short, and verbs with a long root. In MHG. the original differences between 
 these three classes have for the most part disappeared, owing to the weakening 
 of the unaccented vowels to -e. 
 
 For the present tense the OHG. forms alone are given, as there is no difference 
 in the inflexion from that of the strong verbs, except that the root-vowel remains 
 unchanged through all persons. 
 
 * Few only, such as loufen, have in MHG. also z'u: liuf, side by side with lief. 
 
 t Analogy has operated largely in NHG. to destroy the old state of things. 
 Thus from scheiden we have the past part, geschieden by analogy with the pret., 
 the adj. bescheiden preserving in this case the old form. 
 
CONJUGATION. 
 
 127 
 
 
 
 Present. 
 
 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 
 I. Class. 
 
 
 II. Class. 
 
 III. Class. 
 
 
 a) Short. 
 
 b) Long. 
 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 neriu y io 
 
 suochiU) u, o 
 
 minndm, on 
 
 habem, en 
 
 
 (I save) 
 
 (I seek) 
 
 (I love) 
 
 (I have) 
 
 2. 
 
 neris, ist 
 
 suochis, ist 
 
 minnos, ost 
 
 habes, est 
 
 3- 
 
 nerit 
 
 suocliit 
 
 minnot 
 
 habet 
 
 PI. I. 
 
 nerium, em 
 
 siLochem 
 
 minndm 
 
 habem 
 
 2. 
 
 nerit 
 
 suochit 
 
 minnot 
 
 habet 
 
 3- 
 
 neriant, ent 
 
 suochent 
 
 minnont 
 
 habent 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 nerie, nere 
 
 suoche 
 
 minnoe, 6 
 
 habee, e 
 
 2. 
 
 nercs 
 
 suoches 
 
 minnoes, 6s 
 
 habees.es , 
 
 3- 
 
 nerie, e 
 
 suoche 
 
 minnde, 6 
 
 habee, e 
 
 PL i. 
 
 nercmcSy ernes 
 
 suochemes 
 
 minnoem, 6m 
 
 habeem, em 
 
 2. 
 
 nerct 
 
 suoclict 
 
 minnoet, ot 
 
 habeet, et 
 
 3- 
 
 ner iC'ii t en 
 
 suochen 
 
 minnoen, on 
 
 habeen, en 
 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 
 s 
 
 g. 2. neri, suochi 
 
 
 minno 
 
 habe 
 
 p 
 
 1. i. nerames, ernes ^ suochemes 
 
 minnomes 
 
 habemes 
 
 
 2. nerety iat, at. 
 
 suochet 
 
 minnot 
 
 habet 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 neriantiy enti suochenti minnonti habenti 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 
 nerian, en, an suochan, en minnon haben 
 
 Preterit. 
 The endings are the same for all three classes. 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 OHG. MHG. 
 
 Sg. I. nerita^suohta^ninnotajiabeta nerte,suochte y minnete,habete 
 
128 CONJUGATION. 
 
 2. neritosy &c. nertest, &c. 
 
 3. nerita nerte 
 PL I. neritum, tin; em, on, on tier ten 
 
 2. neritut (unt\ 6t (out) nertet 
 
 3. neritun ; an, on nerten 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 Sg. i. neriti(t}$Q\k),suohti t mi}tndti t habeti Same as Indicative. 
 
 2. neritis, &c. 
 
 3. neriti (t Notk.) 
 PL I. neritim, in 
 
 2. neritit (ini) 
 
 3. neritin 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 ginerit, gisuochit (gisuoht\ giminnot, genert, gesuochet, geminnet, 
 gihabct gehabet 
 
 IRREGULAR VERBS. 
 
 Under this head fall four verbs which join their inflexional terminations 
 directly to the stem, answering thus to Greek verbs in -/xt (cf. also Lat. sum, 
 tnquam), as the regular verbs answer to those in -co. They are the following : i) 
 the substantive verb, OHG. wesan 'to be ' (a form still preserved in the noun 
 das ivesen ' the being ') developing its forms from three different roots, (a) es, 
 Skt. as ' to breathe,' (b) bu, Gr. <v, Lat. fit, ' to grow,' (c) wes, cf. Got. vfsan 
 *to dwell, live,' Gr. aarrv 'town' for Fda-rv. 2) OHG. tuon 'to do/ AS. don, 
 cf. Gr. 0e-/us, ri-Oij-ju. 3) OHG. gen, gdn to go,' AS. gdn, cf. Got. gaggan, 
 Sc.gang. 4) OHG. sten, stdn ' to stand,' Gr. i-o"n7-/u, Lat. sta-re^ cf. Got. AS. 
 standan. The two last-mentioned verbs develop some of their forms from 
 a strong stem gang- and stand- respectively. 
 
 I ) zvesen, sin ' to be.' 
 
 Present. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 OHG. MHG. NHG. 
 
 Sg. i. bim bin bin 
 
 2. bis bist bist bist 
 
 3. ist ist (MG. is) ist 
 
CONJUGATION. 
 
 129 
 
 PL i. 
 
 birum 
 
 birn, sin (MG. sint) 
 
 sind 
 
 2. 
 
 birut(unt) 
 
 birt (bint), sit (sint) 
 
 seid 
 
 3- 
 
 sint, sintun 
 
 sint (MG. sin) 
 
 sind 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 si 
 
 si, sie (sige) 
 
 sei 
 
 2. 
 
 sis, sist 
 
 sist, siest 
 
 seiest 
 
 3- 
 
 si 
 
 si, sie 
 
 sei 
 
 PL i. 
 
 sim 
 
 sin, sien 
 
 seien 
 
 2. 
 
 sit, sint 
 
 sit, siest 
 
 seiet 
 
 3- 
 
 sin 
 
 sin, sien 
 
 seien 
 
 
 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg.2. 
 
 
 
 wis, bis 
 
 sei 
 
 PL 2. 
 
 sit 
 
 sit 
 
 seid 
 
 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 
 wesanti 
 
 wesende 
 
 setend 
 
 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 
 
 
 wesan 
 
 w'esen, sin 
 
 sein 
 
 
 
 Preterit. 
 
 
 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg.i. 
 
 was 
 
 was 
 
 war 
 
 2. 
 
 wdri 
 
 waere 
 
 warst 
 
 3- 
 
 was 
 
 was 
 
 war 
 
 PL i. 
 
 wdrum 
 
 wdren 
 
 waren 
 
 2. 
 
 ivdrut 
 
 ivdret 
 
 war(e)t 
 
 3- 
 
 wdrun 
 
 wdren 
 
 waren 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 
 wdri, &c. 
 
 ivaere, &c. 
 
 ware, &c. 
 
 giwesan 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 gewesan (gewest,gesin) gewesen 
 
130 CONJUGATION. 
 
 
 
 2) tuon ' to do.' 
 
 
 
 
 Present. 
 
 
 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 
 
 OHG. 
 
 MHG. 
 
 NHG. 
 
 Sg. I. 
 
 tuom 
 
 tuon, tuo 
 
 tue 
 
 2. 
 
 tuos, tuost ; Fr. duis tuost, MG. afc*.tf 
 
 tust 
 
 3- 
 
 tuot; Fr. </## 
 
 tuot, MG. deit 
 
 tut 
 
 PI. I. 
 
 /#0W 
 
 tuon 
 
 tun 
 
 2. 
 
 to/ (tuont) 
 
 tuot (tuont) 
 
 tut 
 
 3- 
 
 tuont 
 
 tuont 
 
 tun 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg i. 
 
 tuo, tuoe; Fr. due 
 
 tuo, tiieje 
 
 tue 
 
 2. 
 
 UU 
 
 tuos, tuoes ; dues 
 
 tuost, tilejest 
 
 tuest 
 
 3- 
 
 tuo, tuoe ; due 
 
 tuo, tiieje 
 
 tue 
 
 PL i. 
 
 tuom, tuoem ; duem tuon, tilejen 
 
 tuen 
 
 2. 
 
 tuot, tuoet ; duet 
 
 tuot, tilejet 
 
 tuet 
 
 3- 
 
 tuon, tuoen ; duen 
 
 tuon, tilejen 
 
 tuen 
 
 
 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. 2. 
 
 tuo 
 
 tuo 
 
 tu 
 
 PI. I. 
 
 tuom 
 
 tuon 
 
 tun 
 
 2. 
 
 tuot (tuont) 
 
 tuot 
 
 tut 
 
 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 
 
 /&0/2, tuoan; Fr. </&## /#<? 
 
 tun 
 
 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 
 tuonti, tuoanti ; 
 Fr, duenti 
 
 tuonde 
 
 tuend 
 
 
 
 Preterit. 
 
 
 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 teta 
 
 fete 
 
 tat, tat* 
 
 * The modified forms are now employed only in popular or poetical language^ 
 when tun is used as an auxiliary, as, die augen tdten ihm sinken, <&. 
 
CONJUGATION. 
 
 2. 
 
 tdti 
 
 taete 
 
 latest, tdtst 
 
 3- 
 
 t'e'ta 
 
 tete 
 
 tat, tat 
 
 PL i. 
 
 tdtum 
 
 tdten, taeten, teten 
 
 taten, tdten 
 
 2. 
 
 tdtut 
 
 tdten, taetet, tetet 
 
 tatet, tdtst 
 
 3- 
 
 tdtun 
 
 tdten^ taeten, teten 
 
 taten, tdten 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 tdti, &c. 
 
 taete, tete, &c. 
 
 tdte, &c. 
 
 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 
 gitdn 
 
 getdn (MFr. gedon) 
 
 getan 
 
 Sg. i 
 
 3. 
 
 PL i, 
 
 2. 
 3- 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 PL i. 
 
 2. 
 3- 
 
 Sg. 2. 
 
 PL i. 
 
 2. 
 
 get, gdnt; Fr. 
 gent, gdnt 
 
 3) gen, gdn 'to go.' 
 
 Present. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 gem, gam gen, gdn gehe 
 
 ges,gdst; Fr. geist gest,gdst; MG. geist gehst 
 
 get, gdt ; Yr.geit get, gdt ; MG. geit geht 
 
 gdm gen, gdn gehn 
 
 get, gdt geht 
 
 gent, gdnt gehn 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 ge, gd, gange gehe 
 
 gest, gdst, gangest gehest 
 
 ge, gd, gange gehe 
 
 gen, gdn, gangen gehen 
 
 get, gdt ganget gehet 
 
 gen, gdn, gangen gehen 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 
 ganc, gene, ginc ; ge, gd geh 
 
 gdn gehn 
 
 get, gdt geht 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 genti, gdnti, gdenti gende, gdnde gehend 
 
 get, gent 
 
 gdm 
 
 get, gdt, gdnt 
 
132 
 
 
 CONJUGATION. 
 
 
 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 
 
 
 gen, gdn 
 
 gen, gdn 
 
 geltcn 
 
 
 
 Preterit. 
 
 
 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 genc,geanc,gianc, 
 
 gienc,gie, 
 
 ging, 
 
 
 &c. 
 
 &c. 
 
 &c. 
 
 PL I. 
 
 gengun, o*c. 
 
 giengen, &c. 
 
 gingen, &c. 
 
 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 
 Sg. i. 
 
 gengi, &c. 
 
 gienge, &c. 
 
 ginge, &c. 
 
 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 
 
 gigangan 
 
 (ge)gangen t gegdn 
 
 gegangen 
 
 4) sten, stdn ' to stand.' 
 Present. 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 sten, stdn, ste, std stehe 
 
 2. stfs, stdst; Fr. steist stdst, stest; MG. steist steh(e}st 
 
 3. stet, stdt; Fr. steit stdt, stet; MG. steit steh(e)t 
 PL I. \stdm\ sten^ stdn steh(en) 
 
 2. stct, stdt(stdnt); Fr. stet, stdt, MG. steit stek(e]t 
 
 Sg. I. stem, stdm 
 
 steit 
 3. stent, stdnt 
 
 steh(e]n 
 
 stent, stdnt 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 std, ste, stande, &c. stehe, d-< 
 
 IMPERATIVE. 
 
 stant ; ste, std steh 
 
 sten, stdn stehn 
 
 stet, stdt steht 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 stenti, stdnti; Fr. steinti stende, stdnde stehend 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 sten, stdn steh(e]n 
 
 Sg. I. ste, &c. 
 
 Sg. 2. stant 
 
 PL I. stem 
 
 2. j/#, j/^/, stdnt 
 
 sten, stdn 
 
CONJUGATION. 133 
 
 Preterit. 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 Sg. I. stuont y stuot,&c. stuont, stuot, &c. stand (stunc),&c. 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 Sg. I. stuonti, &c. stuende.&c. stilnde^stdnde^c. 
 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 gistantan gestanden, gesttin gestanden 
 
 B. Verba Praeterito-praesentia. 
 
 This is a class of strong verbs whose preterit, has adopted a 
 present meaning (cf. Gr. o!Sa, Lat. novi), as a consequence of which 
 their original present has been lost. From the stem of the plural 
 they form a weak preterit as well as an infinitive and present 
 participle. With the exception of the 2. sg. which ends in -t and 
 takes the vowel of the I. and 3. sg., the inflexion of their present is 
 that of the regular strong verbs. 
 
 The plural undergoes modification. 
 
 They are the following : 
 
 1. OHG. an ' faveo/ pi. unnum, pret. onda, onsta, inf. unnan. In 
 MHG. we always find the compound gan for ge-an, 2. sg. ganst, pi. 
 
 gunnen, gilnnen, pret. gunde, part, gegunnen, gegunnet, gegunst. 
 NHG. gonnen. 
 
 2. OHG. kan 'I know,' 2. sg. kanst, pi. kunnum, pret. kunda, 
 kunsta, inf. kunnan. NHG. kann^ konnen. 
 
 3. OHG. darf l \ need/ 2. sg. darft^ pi. durfum, pret. dorfta, inf. 
 durfan. NHG. dilrfen. 
 
 4. OHG. tar ' I dare,' 2. sg. tarst, pi. turrum, pret. torsta, inf. 
 turran. 
 
 5. OHG. skal (Notk. sol), 2. sg. skalt, pi. skulum, przt.skolta\ 
 MHG. sol, sal, pi. sutn, stiln, pret. solde.solte. NHG. soil, sollte.sollen. 
 
 6. OHG. mac ' L can/ 2. sg. maht, pi. mugum, magum, pret 
 mohta, NHG. mag, mochte, mogen. 
 
134 
 
 CONJUGATION. 
 
 7. OHG. weiz ' I know,' 2. sg. weist, pl.zvizum, pret. wissa^ wista, 
 inf. wizan. MHG. pret. wisse, wiste, wuste, pret. gewist, gewest 
 (gewizzen used as an adjective). NHG. weiss, wissen, wuste. 
 
 8. OHG. touc ' I am fit or good for,' pi. tugum, pret. tokta, inf. 
 tugan. MHG. touc, pi. tugen, tiigen, pret. tohte. NHG. taugen. 
 
 9. OHG. muoz * I must,' 2. sg. mtwst, pi. muozum, pret. muosa, 
 muosta, inf. muozan. NHG. wjj, mussen, muste. 
 
 10. OHG. ^z^ *to own' (Got. digan, AS. dg-an),of which only 
 the pi. eigum, eigut, eigunt occurs. The NHG. adjective eigen is 
 the pret. participle of this verb, as E. own is the AS. participle 
 dgen. 
 
 This verb is preserved in 
 used in an indicative sense, 
 were then formed. 
 
 Sg. I. wili, willu, a 
 
 2. wili, wilts 
 
 3. wili t wilit 
 
 PL I. wellem, wollem 
 
 2. wellet y wollet 
 
 3. wellant y wollent 
 
 Sg. I . ivelle, wolle^ &>c. 
 
 wellenti 
 wellan 
 
 C. wollen. 
 
 its optative forms only (cf. Got. mljati) which are 
 From these a new optative and a weak preterit 
 
 Present. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 wil\ MG. wille will 
 
 wily wilt willst 
 
 wil\ MG. willct, wilt will 
 
 welleity weln wollen 
 
 wellet wollt 
 
 wellent wollen 
 OPTATIVE. 
 
 welle, &c. wollc, &c. 
 PARTICIPLE. 
 
 wellende wollend 
 
 INFINITIVE. 
 wellen wollen 
 
CONJUGATION. 135 
 
 Preterit. 
 INDICATIVE. 
 Sg. I. welta, wolta, &c. wolte, wolde, &c. wo lite, 
 
 OPTATIVE. 
 Sg. I. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 The numbers refer to the paragraphs, unless preceded by p. 
 O. and MHG. forms are printed in italics. 
 
 -page n.=note. 
 
 A. 
 
 ^-sterns, p. 108 
 -d (emphatic), p. 117 
 aar, p. 96 
 abenteuer, p. 98 
 abdecker, p. 94 
 abgot, p. 104 
 r.bhanden, p. 108 
 abseite, p. 94 
 abspenstig, p. 96. 
 achzen, 55 
 acker. 71 
 Adalbrecht, p. 97 
 adler, p. 06 
 Albert, Albrecht, p. 97 
 allo, p. 103 
 als, 18 
 
 alt, 1 8, p. 115 
 altmeister, p. 115 
 dmahty p. 92 
 amboss, p. 93 
 amtmann, 18 
 ander, p>. 120, p. 121 
 andervuiS) p. 108 
 angenehm, p. 8i,n. 
 anstatt, 20 
 apotheker, p 94 
 arbeit, p. 107 
 arg, argern, p. 96 
 -arjo-, p. 105 
 armbrust, p. 98 
 arzt, p. 104 
 auch, p. 84, n. 
 auferstehn, 42 
 auffassung, 39 
 augapfel, 18 
 augenweide, 18 
 
 B. 
 
 Baldwin, p. 105 
 
 balg, ico, p. 107 
 barmherzig, 41 
 bauchgrimmen, p. 94 
 bauen, p. 96 
 bauer, p. 96 
 Bauerngarten, p. ico 
 bauhnunc, p. 100 
 baum, p. 104 
 baumvvolle, p. 94 
 becken, beckel, p. 95 
 begreifen, 54 
 beichte, 41, p. 93 
 beifuss, p. 93 
 beischlag, p. 93 
 beispiel, p. 91 
 bekannt, 20 
 bekehren, 42 
 Berta, p. 97 
 bertram, p. 93 
 bescheiden 18, p. 126, n. 
 beschwichtigen, p. 93 
 besser, p. 96 
 bettelarm, 49 
 bestir* bezist, p. 115 
 bieten, 112 
 btbdz* p. 93 
 biegen, p. 124 
 bijehan, bijiht, p. 94 
 bispel, p. 91 
 Blattersbach, p. 104 
 blind, p. 114 
 borse, p. 97 
 bosewicht, p. 115 
 bozan, p. 93 
 brachte, 122 
 brief, p. 107 
 briillen, 55 
 brust, p. 115 
 buch, p. 104 
 buoz, pp. 106, 115 
 
 burissa, p. 97 
 bursch, p. 97 
 busse, 42 ; pp. 96, 106 
 biittel, p. 95 
 
 D. 
 
 da, 1 8 
 
 das, 1 8 
 
 dechein, dehein, p. 120 
 
 dein, p. 120 
 
 demut, 42, p. 96 
 
 denkkraft, 49 
 
 der, p. 118 
 
 desto, p. 118 
 
 deweder, p. 120 
 
 dienen, p. 96 
 
 Dienstag, 88, p. 94 
 
 dieser, p. 119 
 
 diet p>. 07 
 
 Dietricn, p. 97 
 
 dihen, p. 124 
 
 din, p. 120 
 
 dionon, dionost, p. 96 
 
 dime, 112, p. 96 
 
 diu, p. 96 
 
 dorf, 91, 112 
 
 dorn, 112 
 
 du, 92, p. 116 
 
 diirfen, 51, p. 133 
 
 dnsunt, p. 121 
 
 dreifaltig, p. 120 
 
 dri) p. 120 
 
 dri-, p. 120 
 
 dristunt, p. 108 
 
 drtzen, p. 121 
 
 drizuC) p. I2i 
 
 E. 
 
 ebenholz, p. 94 
 edelmann, 18, p. 115 
 
INDEX. 
 
 137 
 
 ehir, p. 104 
 
 Friedrich, p. 96 
 
 Hammelgotze, 136 
 
 ehre, p. m 
 
 fruh, p. 115 
 
 hand, p. 108 
 
 ehrsucht, 50, p. 92 
 
 fiinf, 92 
 
 hanf, p, 25, n., 91 
 
 eiche, p. 94 
 
 fiirst, p. 121 
 
 hangematte, p. 95 
 
 eichhorn, p. 94 
 eidechse, 136 
 
 fuoz, p. no 
 fuss, 112, p. 106 
 
 hartnackig, 54 
 hauen, p. 126 
 
 eifersucht, p. 92 
 
 
 haupt, 03 
 
 eigan, eigen, p. 134 
 
 G. 
 
 haus, 28, p, 84, n 
 
 ein, p. 120 
 
 
 haustiir, 50 
 
 einflossen, 54 
 
 gast, 105 
 
 heide, 40 
 
 eingefriedigt, p. 93 
 eingewurzelt, 54 
 einode, p. 91 
 eiskalt, 49 
 -en, p. 126 
 
 gan, p. 133 
 gdn, p. 131 
 gang-, p. 128 
 geba, p. 1 06 
 geben, p. 125 
 
 heiland, 42, p. 95 
 heilen, p. 95 
 heilig, 42 
 heimweh, 39 
 Heinrich, p, 07 
 
 enge, p. 96 
 engel, 40 
 engelrein, 49 
 enker, p. 116 
 
 geburt, p. 107 
 gedeihen, 92, p. 124 
 gediegen, 18,92; p. 124 
 gefilde, p. 105 
 
 . r ?/ 
 
 heiss, 112 
 heissen, p. 126 
 -heit, 49, p. 107 
 helfen, 112 
 
 entmenschen, 56 
 
 gehen, pp. 128, 131 
 
 herz, 112 
 
 -er (plur.), pp. 104, 105 
 -er (compar.j, p. 115 
 -er (nom. agent.), p. 105 
 erbarmung, 42 
 erde, 112 
 
 geist, 42, p. 104 
 gelbsucht, p. 92 
 gemiit, 39 
 gericht, 42 
 Gertrut, 122 
 
 heuschrecke, p. 93 
 heute, 20 
 him, 88 
 hirte, p. 105 
 hleib, 112 
 
 erfahren, p. 96 
 ergeben, 112 
 erklaren, 54 
 erlosen, 42 
 
 gerne, p. 115 
 geruhen, p. 93 
 geschlecht, p. 105 
 gesicht, p. 105 
 
 Hludowig, 112 
 hof, pp. 94, 104 
 hofisch, p, 96 
 hold, 41 
 
 
 gespan, p. 96 
 
 hor, p. QC 
 
 F. 
 
 gespenst, p. 96 
 
 7.7 
 
 liorotiimiL p. oc 
 
 fahren, pp. 96, 122 
 
 getrost, 112 
 
 i i j ^ 
 huld, 42 
 
 falten, p. 95 
 
 gevatter, 41 
 
 Imnt, p. 121 
 
 fast, p. 115 
 
 gewissen, 41 
 
 hns, p. 104 
 
 fechtmeister, 49 
 
 geivizzen, p, 134 
 
 hwedar, p. 120 
 
 feige, 40 
 feldstuhl, p. 95 
 
 girren, 55 
 glaube, 42 
 
 hwer, p. 119 
 
 fenster, 40 
 
 gnade, 42 
 
 T 
 
 fest, p. 115 
 
 gonnen, p. 133 
 
 i . 
 
 feuer, 92 
 
 got, 98 ; pp. 103, 104 
 
 i -stems 
 
 fihu, pp. 107, no 
 fimf, p. 121 
 fimfisuc^ p. 121 
 
 gott, 98 
 graben, p. 125 
 grad, p. 104 
 
 -i (dimin.), p. 104 
 ich, p. 116 
 ihhd, p. 116 
 
 finfzehen* p. 121 
 Finstermiinz, p. 100 
 
 greifen, p. 95 
 griffel, p. 95 
 
 ihr, 28; pp. 116, 117 
 in (fem.), p. 106 
 
 fior, p. 121 
 
 groezltche, p. 115 
 
 -in (dimin-), p. 104 
 
 fiorzekan, p. 121 
 
 fiorzuc, p. 121 
 flaum, 40 
 
 grollen, 55 
 groz, p. 115 
 grummet, p. 96 
 
 in nig, 39 
 ir (pron.), p. 117 
 -ir (plur.), pp. 104. 105 
 
 flieszen, 28 
 
 guot,p. 115 
 
 -ir (compar.), p. 115 
 
 fiizen, 28 
 
 
 -ist (superl.), p. 115 
 
 floss, p. 71, n. 
 
 H. 
 
 iuwer y p. 120 
 
 fluss, p. 71, n. 
 
 haben, 51, p. 127 
 
 is, p. 117 
 
 fogr.l,p. 105 
 
 hag, p. 94 
 
 J' 
 
 fogat, p. 97 
 
 hagestolz, p. 9 
 
 
 
 frau, p. in 
 
 halb, p. 106 
 
 jeder, 20 
 
 friede, p. 93 
 
 halsstarrig, 54 
 
 -jen, p. 126 
 
 friedhof, p. 93 
 
 halten, p. 126 
 
 jener, p. 120, n 
 
138 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 jensit, p. 1 08 
 
 larm, p. 97 
 
 miissen, p. 134 
 
 /^-sterns, pp. 103, 104, 
 
 laufen, p. 126, n. 
 
 mut, 122 
 
 107 
 
 laut (prep.) 18 
 
 mutter, 85 
 
 joch, 90 
 
 lehrer, p. 105 
 
 N. 
 
 junge, 20 
 
 -lein, p. 104 
 
 
 jungfrau, p. 115 
 
 lerche, 122 
 
 -stems,pp. 103, 104, no 
 
 
 letzt, p. 02 
 
 nach, 20 
 
 K. 
 
 leumuna, p. 92 
 
 nachbar, p. 96 
 
 kahlkopf, 1 8 
 kaiser, 40 
 Kalbersbach, p. 104 
 
 leute, p. 93 
 -It, -ttn, p. 104 
 -liche, p. 115 
 
 nacht, nachts, p. 113 
 nahren, p. 127 
 ndhgibur, p. 96 
 
 kann, p. 133 
 
 lieben, 20 
 
 name, 90, 100 
 
 kara, p. 95 
 
 linde, p. 09 
 
 namo, 100 
 
 karfreitag, p. 95 
 
 lindwurm, p. 99 
 
 natur, 136 
 
 karren, 40 
 
 -lo, p. 105 
 
 nerian, p. 127 
 
 karwoche, p. 95 
 kein, p. 120 
 
 Ludwig, 112 
 lust, 28 
 
 nehmen, pp. 122, 125 
 neind, p. 1 16 
 
 -keit, 49, p. 107 
 kelbir, p. 104 
 
 /a**/, p. 115 
 
 nie, 28 
 -westerns, p. 103 
 
 keller, 40 
 
 M. 
 
 -no, p. 105 
 
 kette, p. 107 
 
 mac, p. 133 
 
 O. 
 
 ketzer, p. 97 
 kichern, 55 
 kind, 112 
 kindlein, p. 104 
 
 mahnung, p. 106 
 mal, p. 115 
 malen, 104, 122 
 -massen, p. 115 
 
 0-stems, p. 105 
 oberhalp, p. 108 
 oberst, obrist, p 115 
 offen, 112 
 
 kinn, p. 105 
 kirche, 40, 112 
 kissen, 40 
 Klagenfurt, p. IOD 
 klappern, 55 
 
 mauer, 40 
 maulesel, p. 95 
 maulwurf, p. 98 
 mauseturm, p. 09 
 mautturm, p. 99 
 
 oheim, 85 
 ohne, p. 92 
 ohnmacht, p. 92 
 -on, p. 126 
 ostern, 88 
 
 knie, 91 
 
 meer, 90 
 
 
 koch, 40 
 
 mein, p. 84, n. 
 
 P. 
 
 kohl, 40 
 
 meist, p. 115 
 
 paar, p. 104 
 
 kohlkopf, 1 8 
 kommen, 91, p. 96 
 
 mer> p. 115 
 
 mensch, 56 
 
 pantominen, p. 95 
 pedell, p. 95 
 
 konig, 98 
 konigin, p. 106 
 konnen, 51, p. 133 
 
 mesner, 41 
 mette, p. 97 
 miene, p. 95 
 
 petschaft, p. 95 
 pickelhaube, p. 95 
 pilger, pilgrim, p. 97 
 
 Konrad, p. 97 
 
 mihhil,?' 115 
 
 pfafle, 40, 112 
 
 kraft (prepos.), 18 
 
 milde, 42 
 
 pfahl, 40, p. 94 
 
 kraft (noun), p. 107 
 
 min, p. 1 20 
 
 pfalgraben, p. 94 
 
 kraftig, 112 
 
 minder, mindest, p. 115 
 
 pfalz, 112 
 
 kreuz, 41 
 
 minnon, p. 127 
 
 pfeffer, 40 
 
 kiiche, 40, p. 107 
 
 mir, 28, p. 116 
 
 pfeiler, 40 
 
 kiinegin, kiineginne, p. 
 
 mitti, p. 115 
 
 pferch, 40 
 
 1 06 
 
 -mo, p. 105 
 
 pferd, 112 
 
 kuning, 98 
 kiiren, p. 95 
 
 mogen, 51, p. 133 
 mondsucht, p. 92 
 
 Pfingsten, 40, p. 97 
 pflanze, 112, p. 97 
 
 kurfurst, p, 95 
 
 morder, 98 
 
 pforte, 40 
 
 kiister, 41 
 
 moltwerje, p. 98 
 
 pfosten, 40 
 
 
 morgen, 20 
 
 pfiihl, 40 
 
 L. 
 
 miide, 112, p. 115 
 
 pfund, p. 164 
 
 laib, 112 
 
 mund, p. 93 
 
 pfiitze, 112 
 
 landesknecht, p. 95 
 
 -munda, p. 93 
 
 phuzzi, H2 
 
 landmann, 18 
 
 munt, p. 93 
 
 predigen, 41 
 
 landmann, 18 
 
 muoter, 85, p. 113 
 
 priester, 41 
 
 lange, p. 115 
 
 mitozan, p. 134 
 
 probst, 41 
 
 1 mzknecht, p. 95 
 
 murmeltier, p. 95 
 
 paffen, 55 
 
INDEX. 
 
 139 
 
 R. 
 
 sehr, p. 96 
 
 taugen, p. 134 
 
 raten, p. 126 
 
 sein, 51 
 
 tausend, 87 
 
 raunen, p. 66, n 
 
 seit, 20 
 
 -te p. 
 
 reich, p. 97 
 reiszen, 28 
 
 selbe, 112 
 seltsam, p. 92 
 
 teil, p. 115 
 teufel, 40 
 
 reiten, p. 124 
 
 senf, 40 
 
 tiefsinn, 39 
 
 reue, 42 
 
 seo, p. 104 
 
 tisch, 40 
 
 rlhhi, p. 97 
 rind, p. 104 
 
 s'ere, p, 96 
 sichel, 40 
 
 tobsucht, p, 92 
 tochter, 85, 112 
 
 rindfleisch, 18 
 
 siech, 112, p. 92 
 
 tohter, p. 115 
 
 rindsbraten, 18 
 
 sieg, p, 105 
 
 tor, 122 
 
 rinnen, p. 124 
 
 sign, p. 105 
 
 tor, 122 
 
 rizen, 28 
 
 simblum, p. 91 
 
 treu, 101 
 
 -ro, p. 105 
 
 sin (pron.), p. 120 
 
 triwa, 101 
 
 Rolandseck, p. 99 
 rohrdommel, p. 95 
 
 sin, p. 128 
 singriin, p. 91 
 
 trotz, 1 8 
 trotzkopf, 49 
 
 rufen, p 126 
 
 sinnig, 39 
 
 truhtin, p. 103 
 
 ruhen, pp. 93, 97 
 
 site, p. 106 
 
 tummeln, p. 95 
 
 riina, 104 
 
 sitzen, 90 
 skulan, p. 133 
 
 tuon, pp. 122, 128, 130 
 turmhoch, 49 
 
 S. 
 
 sohn, 85, p. 105 
 
 turran, p. 133 
 
 sabbat, p. 97 
 
 solch, p. 120 
 
 
 samanunc, p. 106 
 
 sollen, p. 133 
 
 . 
 
 samstag, p. 97 
 
 seller, 40 
 
 -stems, pp. 103, 104, no 
 
 saugen, p. 124 
 
 sorge, p. 112 
 
 ,.- , J XT XT J9 ^T-* * *w 
 
 ubel, 112 
 
 scato, p. 104 
 schabber, p. 98 
 schachmatt, p. 98 
 schade, 20 
 
 spanan p. 96 
 spanferkel, p. 
 spanisch, 133 
 spat, p. 115 
 
 ubil, ubilo, p. 115 
 iibermenschlich, 56 
 unangenehrn, p. 81, n. 
 -ung, p. 1 06 
 
 -schaft, p. 107 
 scham, p. 106 
 scheiden, p. 126, n. 
 
 spen, p. 96 
 spenvarch) p. 96 
 speicher, 40 
 
 tinker, p. 116 
 unmenschlich, 56 
 unnan, p. 133 
 
 schindel, 40 
 
 speien, 112 
 
 unrecht, 112 
 
 schlafen, 112 
 
 spen, p. 96 
 
 unser, p. 120 
 
 schleuse, p. 95 
 schliessen, p. 95 
 schneeweiss, 49 
 
 spenvarch, p. 96 
 spiel, p. 91 
 stdn, p. 128 
 
 untergraben, 54 
 unversehrt, p. 96 
 
 schnur, 85 
 
 stehen, p. 132 
 
 V. 
 
 schon, p. 115 
 schon, 98, 112, p. 115 
 schopfer, 42 
 schrecken, p. 93 
 schreibtisch, 49 
 schricken, p. 93 
 schritt, p. 107 
 schuld, 42 
 schiissel, 40 
 sch wager, 85, 92, 97 
 schware, p. 92 
 schweif, 91 
 schweigen, p. 93 
 schwermut, 39 
 schwierig, p. 92 
 schwindsucht, p. 92 
 se, p. 104 
 
 steigen, 98 
 stein, p, 84, n. 
 sternbalg, 136 
 stiefel, p. 97 
 stunde, p. 106 
 suchen, 112, pp. 92, 127 
 sucht, p. 92 
 siichtig, 112 
 siinde, 42, p. 106 
 siindflut p. 91 
 sunu, pp. 105, 108 
 surer, p. 119 
 swester, p. 113 
 swiften, p. 93 
 swiric, p. 92 
 
 T. 
 
 vater, 85, 92 
 vermenschlichen, 56 
 vermessen, 54 
 vermmft, 39 
 versohnen, 42 
 verstand, 39 
 verweisen, p. 93 
 verwizen, p. 93 
 vetter, 85 
 vieh, 29, p. 105 
 vogel, p. 103 
 vogt, p. 97 
 vollkommen, p. 96 
 vorhanden, p. 108 
 vormund, p. 93 
 vorstellung, 38 
 vride, p. 93 
 
 segen, p. 97 
 
 tafel, p. 97 
 
 
 sehen, 92, 98 
 sehnsucht, 39, p. 92 
 
 tag, 100, p. 103 
 taufen, 40 
 
 W. 
 wahrend, 18 
 
140 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 waffen, 112 
 
 wer, p. 1 19 
 
 wollen, p. 134 
 
 wahn, p. 92 
 
 warden, 18, 51, 98, 136 ; 
 
 wonne, 39 
 
 wahnschaffen, p. 92 
 
 p. 124 
 
 wort, pp. 104, 115 
 
 wahnsinn, p. 92 
 
 werfen, 112 
 
 Wiitendes Heer, p. 99 
 
 wahnwitz, p. 92 
 
 wesen, 18, p. 128 
 
 
 walfisch, pp. 95, 98 
 
 widerspenstig, p. 96 
 
 Z. 
 
 wanglein, p. 104 
 
 widerton, p. 93 
 
 zabel, p. 97 
 
 was, 92, p. 119 
 
 wie, p. 119 
 
 zapf, 112, 
 
 wasser, 112 
 
 will, p. 134 
 
 zehn, 92 ; p. 121 
 
 wassersucht, p. 02 
 
 willkiir, p. 96 
 
 zeswe, p. 1 20 
 
 wazarchalp, p. 92. n. 
 weder, p. 120 
 wegebreit, p. 93 
 
 wimmern, 55 
 windhund, 95, 99 
 wini, pp. 105, 107 
 
 zeugemutter, 136 
 ziegel, 40, 122 ; p. 97 
 ziehen, 92 
 
 wehmut, 39 
 
 wirsir, wirsist, p. 115 
 
 -zigr, p. 121 
 
 weiher, p. 97. 
 
 wise, p. 1 06 
 
 ii * 
 zoll, p. 104 
 
 Weihnachten, p. 113 wissen, p. 
 
 zunge, 97 
 
 weil, 18 
 
 witu, p. no 
 
 zween, p. 120 
 
 -weise, p. 115 
 
 Witumdnoth, p. no 
 
 zwei, p. 120 
 
 weisen, p. 93 
 
 -wo, p. 105 
 
 zweifach, p. 120 
 
 weiss, p. 134 
 weissagen, p. 04 
 welch, p. 120 
 
 wol, p. 115 
 wolf, 94 
 Wolfel, p. 65, n. 
 
 zwie, p. 120 
 zwo, p. 120 
 
 CHAS. STRAKEK AND SONS, PRINTERS, BISHOPSGATK AVENUB, LONDON, E.G. ; AND REDHILL. 
 
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