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THE LORD'S PRAYER.

From the MSOGOTHIC VERSION of ULPHILAS; made about A.D. 365.

Aivaggelyo thairh Matthaiu.

Gospel through Matthew.

Atta unsar thu in himinam

Father our thou in heaven

Veihnai namo thein

Be-hallowed name thine

Kvimai thiudinassus theins

Come kingdom thine

Vairthai vilja theins, svê in himina yah ana airthai
Be-done will thine as in heaven yea on earth

Hlaif unsarana thana sinteinan gif uns himma daga
Loaf our
continuous give us this day.

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Svasve yah veis afletam thaim skulam unsaraim

So-as yea we off-let those debtors

Yah ni briggais uns in fraistubnyai
Yea not bring us in temptation

Ak lausei uns af thamma ubilin
But loose us of the

Unte theina ist thiudangardi
For thine is kingdom

Yah mahts Yah vulthus
Yea might Yea glory

In aivins. Amen.
In eternity. Amen.

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16. The Low Dutch family of languages falls into two natural divisions, the Southern or Teutonic Platt-Deutsch, and the Northern or Scandinavian. It was at the point of junction between these halves-at the neck of the Danish

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peninsula, along the banks of the Elbe, and along the southwest coasts of the Baltic-that our continental progenitors lived and spoke.

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17. The Saxons were a border people, and spoke a Low Dutch strongly impregnated with Scandinavian associations. But the more we go back into the elder forms on either side, the more does it seem to come out clear, that our mother tongue is, in fundamentals, to be identified with the PlattDeutsch, the dialect of the Hanseatic cities, the dialect which has been erected into a national language in that which we call the Dutch, as spoken in the kingdom of the Netherlands. The people of Bremen call their dialect Nieder Sächisch, i. e. Lowland Saxon; and the genuine original Saxony' of European history was in this part, namely, the middle and lower biet of the Elbe. The name of 'Saxon' has always adhered to our nation, though we have seemed almost as if we had been willing to divest ourselves of it. We have called our country England, and our language English: yet our neighbours west and north, the Welsh and the Gael, have still called us Saxons, and our language Saxonish. It has become the literary habit of recent times to use the term 'Saxon' as a distinction for the early period of our history and language and literature, and to reserve the term 'English' for the later period. There is some degree of literary impropriety in this, because the Saxons called their own language Englisc. On this ground some critics insist that we should let the word English stand for the whole extent of our insular history, which they would divide into Old English, Middle English, and New English. But on the whole, the terms already in use seem bolder, and more distinct. They enable us to distinguish between Saxon and Anglian; and they also comprise the united nation under the compound term Anglo-Saxon. As expressive of the

dominant power, it is not very irregular to call the whole nation briefly SAXON.

§ 2. Domestic relations.

18. We have no contemporary account of the, Saxon colonisation. The story which Bæda gives us in the eighth century, is, that there were people from three tribes, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The latter were said to be still distinguishable in Kent and the Isle of Wight; but, except in this statement, we have lost all trace of the Jutes. The Angles and Saxons long stood apart and distinct from one another; they had each a corner of their own. The Anglians occupied the north and east of England, and the Saxons the south and west. The line of Watling Street, running from London to Chester, may be taken as the boundary line between these races, whom we shall sometimes speak of separately, and sometimes combine, according to prevalent usage, either under the joint name of Anglo-Saxons, or under the dominant name of Saxons.

When the Anglo-Saxons began to make themselves masters of this island, they found here a population which is known in history as the British race. This people spoke the language which is now represented by the Welsh. It was an ancient Keltic dialect somewhat tinctured with Latin. The Britons had been in subjection to Roman dominion for a space of between three and four centuries. This would naturally have left a trace upon their language. And hence we find that of the words which the Saxons learnt from the Britons, some are undoubted Latin, others are doubtful whether they should be called Latin or Keltic. Of the first class are those elements of local nomenclature, -chester, from castrum, a fortified place-Saxon form, CEASTER: street, from strata, i. e.

'via strata' = a causeway-Saxon form, STRÆT. PORT, a word derived from the Latin porta, a gate, signified in Saxon times just a town, a market-town:' this is the sense of it in such a compound as Newport Pagnell. Wall, Saxon WEALL, is through the same filtered process a descendant of the Latin vallum, a rampart: mile, Saxon MIL, from the Latin 'milia passuum,' a thousand paces, has lived through all the ages to our day, and we are the only people of Western Europe who still make use of this Roman measure of distance. The French keep to their league (lieue), the measure which they had in use before the Romans troubled them, the old Keltic leuga. In Saxon poetry we find the old highways called by the suggestive name of milpadas, the mile-paths. CARCERN, a prison, is the Latin carcer, with the Saxon word ERN, a building, mingled into the last syllable: TIGOL, a tile, is the Roman tegula. At this time, too, we must have received the names of many plants and fruits, as PYRIGE, the pear, Latin pyrus.

19. Many of the words which pertain to the personal and social comforts of life, were in this manner learnt at secondhand from Roman culture: as DISC, a dish; from his handing of which a royal officer all through the Saxon period bore the title of DISC-PEGN, dish-thane.

When we consider that there was much originally in common between the Latin and the Keltic, it is no matter of surprise that after so long a period we should find it difficult to sift out with absolute distinctness the words which are due to the British. The most certain are those names of rivers and mountains, and some elements in the names of ancient towns, which have been handed on from Keltic times to Thus the river-name Avon is unquestionably British, and it is the common word for river in Wales to this day. So again with regard to that large class of river-names which

ours.

are merely variations of the one name Isca-Usk, Ux, Wis(in Wisbech), The Wash, Axe, Exe, Esk (in the Lothians), Ouse:- all these are but many forms of one Keltic word, uisg, water; which is found in usquebagh, the Irish for eau-de-vie, and in the word whiskey. There are however, on our map, a great many names of rivers and cities and mountains, of which, though so precise an account cannot be rendered, it is generally concluded that they are British-because they run back historically into the time when British was prevalent -because they are not Saxon-because, in short, they cannot otherwise be accounted for. Such are, Thames, Tamar, Frome, Derwent, Trent, Tweed, Severn, and the bulk of our river-names.

20. In like manner of the oldest town-names, and some names of districts. The first syllable in Winchester appears, through the Latin form of Venta, to have been the same as the Welsh gwent, a plain or open country. The first syllable in Manchester is probably the old Keltic MAN, place; just as it probably is in the archaic name for Bath, Ake-manchester. York is so called from the Keltic river-name Eure; from an elder form of which came the old Latin form of the city-name Ebur-acum. But often where the sense cannot be so plainly traced, we acquiesce in the opinion that names are British, because their place in history seems to require it. Such are, for instance, Kent, London, Gloucester.

We will add a few words that have a fair Keltic reputation, basket, bran, breeches, clout, crag, crock, down, den, hog, manor, paddock, park, wicket. The word moor, for wild or waste land, I imagine to be Keltic, but naturalised by the Saxons on the continent before the immigration.

It is very probable that a few Keltic words are still living on among us in the popular names of wild plants. The cockle of our corn-fields has been with great reason attributed

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