17. No satisfactory explanation has yet been given of this permutation of consonants throughout the Indo-European family of languages, "nevertheless we have no reason to believe it of a nature essentially different from the other mutations of sound1 of equally arbitrary appearance, though of less complication and less range, which the history of language everywhere exhibits."-WHITNEY.

The changes of sounds just noticed have arisen from what Max Müller terms dialectic growth. Even in the history of our own language we find traces of similar changes, as vat, in wine-vat, is the old Southern English form for the Northern fat, a vessel.

In the dialects of the South of England, we may still hear dirsh thrush; drash = thrash.

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The aspirate dental th has become s in the third person singular of verbs, as he loveth = he loves. But this was once a dialectical peculiarity.

18. There are other changes that must not be confounded with the permutations coming under Grimm's Law: the chief are those that arise from an endeavour to make the work of speaking easier to the speaker, to put a more facile in the stead of a more difficult sound or combination of sounds, and to get rid of what is unnecessary in the words we use.

"All articulate sounds are produced by effort, by expenditure of muscular energy, in the lungs, throat, and mouth. This effort, like every other which man makes, he has an instinctive disposition to seek relief from, to avoid; we may call it laziness, or we may call it economy-it is in fact either the one or the other-according to the circumstances of each separate case; it is laziness when it gives up more than it gains; economy when it gains more than it abandons." -WHITNEY.

2

These wearing down processes are often called euphonic 2 changes. Max Müller terms them the results of phonetic decay.

Thus, as he remarks, nearly all the changes that have taken place in our own language within the last eight centuries come under this class of changes.

(1) Softening of gutturals at end of words, as silly from sålig, godly from godlic godlike, barley from bær-lic

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All letter-change must be based upon physiological grounds.

2 The seat of euphony is in the vocal not in the acoustic organs.

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3 bar O. E. bere barley, cp. Lat. far; -ley O.E. -lic (as in garlick, hemlock) = plant.

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In laugh, cough, &c. the guttural is represented by a labial aspirate (cp. O.E. thof though; thruf, thurf through). A similar change is seen in Lat. frio, frico, as compared with Gr. xpiw, Sansk. gharsh, to rub; Lat. formus, warm; Sansk. gharma, and Gr. θερμός.

Trough is pronounced in some parts as troth, just as we hear children saying fum for thumb, and nuffing for nothing. The Russians put regularly for th, turning Theodore into Feodor or Fedor (cp. Gr. Ohp, Lat. fera, Eng. deer).

In dough and plough (also in dry, buy, O.E. drige, bugge) the guttural sound is altogether lost, just as it is in many Sanskrit words, as mah for magh, to become great; duh for dugh, to milk, &c. (cp. anser for hanser = ghanser, Gr. xýv).

G has been softened down to j in ridge, edge, bridge, &c. from O.E. rigg, egg, brigg.

In bat and mate a t supplies the place of an original k (cp. O.E. bak mate, fette = fechche fetch, scratte = scrachche

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bat, make

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scratch).

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(2) Softening of initial gutturals, as child for cild, &c.

(3) Substitution of d for th, as burden for burthen, murder for murther, &c.

(4) Loss of letters, as woman for wif-man (cp. goody for goodwife, huzzy for huswife), lord for hláford, king for cyning, mole for moldwarp, stranger for estrangier (Fr.) = extraneus (Lat.), &c. (cp. loss of n before th in English words, tooth for tonth, mouth for munth, &c).

(5) Insertion of letters, b, d, as slumber for slumer-ian, thumb, limb, for thum, lim (cp. number from numerus, and the insertion of pafter m in Latin), thunder for thuner, hind for hine (cp. souna for soun, from Lat. sonus; and cinder, tender, from Lat. cinis, tener; Gr. yaußpós for yaupós; and Goth. hund-s, Eng. hound, Lat. can-is, Gr. ἄνδρες for ἄνρες).

It must be recollected that certain letter-changes are brought about under the influence of neighbouring sounds, as English cob-web for O. E. cop-web, where the influence of w has changed the p into a b; orchard = O.E. ort-yard = ort-geard: so we find in the sixteenth century goujeer for good year.

When two consonants come together the first is often assimilated to the second, or the second to the first, thus d or t+s will become s,

as O.E. god-sib has become gossip. So gospel, grunsel, foster = godspel, ground-sel, foaster; chaffare = chapfare; cup-board is pronounced cubboard; Lat. ad-fero affero, &c.; puella

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puerella, &c.

When two dentals come together, the first is sometimes changed into a sibilant, as mot-te =mostemost, and wit-te=wiste wist (cp. Lat. hest from O.E. hat-an, to command; missus for mittus from mitto; esum = edtum from edo).

&c.

Sometimes s becomes st, as O.E. whiles

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When two consonants come together, the first is made like the second or the second similar to the first, as wept weeped, kembd and kempt kembed combed; so we have clotpoll and clodpoll (cp. Lat. scriptus = scrib-tus). To a similar principle must be ascribed the loss of the guttural sound of h or gh before t; thus might (= mihth), night (= nihth): cp. It. otto for octo.

In other words the only combination of mutes are flat flat and shurp + siniry.

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

19. WE must bear in mind, (1) that English is a member of the Indo-European family; (2) that it belongs to the Teutonic group; (3) that it is essentially a Low German dialect; (4) that it was brought into Britain by wandering tribes from the Continent; (5) that we cannot use the terms English or England in connection with the country before the middle of the fifth century.

20. According to the statements of Bede, the Teutonic invaders first came over in A.D. 449, and for about 100 years the invasion may be said to have been going on. In the course of time the original Keltic population were displaced by the invading tribes, who became a great nationality, and called themselves Englisc or English. The land they had won they called Ængla-land (the land of the Angles) or England.

Bede makes the Teutonic invaders to consist of three tribesAngles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Saxons, he tells us, came from what was known in his time as the district of the Old Saxons, the country between the Elbe and the Eider.

The Angles came from the Duchy of Sleswick, and there is still a district in the southern part of the duchy, between the Slie and the arm of the Baltic, called the Flensborg Fiorde, which bears the name Angeln.

Bede places the Jutes to the north of the Angles, that is, probably the upper part of Sleswick or South Jutland.

There were no doubt a considerable proportion of Frisians from Greater and Lesser Friesland. Bede mentions the Frisians (Fresones) among the natives from whom the Angles were de scended.

The settlements are said to have taken place in the following order :

I. Jutes, under Hengest and Horsa, who settled in KENT and the Isle of Wight and a part of Hampshire in A. D. 449 or 450.