Page:A simplified grammar of the Swedish language.djvu/83

Rh  ''jag viste sanheten! '' If I only knew the truth!

Man gör framsteg  man är flitig. One makes progress by being diligent.

We give the following examples of the manner in which nouns, adjectives, pronouns and nouns were inflected in the Forn-Svenskan (Ancient Swedish), in order to show the leading characteristic differences between that earlier form of the language and Modern Swedish.

As has already been noticed in the Introduction, the so-called Forn-Svenskan which was spoken by Goths as well as Swedes, and which was almost identical with the Dönsk Tunga (Danish Tongue), and Forn-Norskan (Ancient Norse) of the early Northmen, continued with slight modifications to be the spoken speech of the Swedish people till about the time of the Reformation. At that period, under Gustaf Vasa, the language passed to that middle stage of its development which is characterized as that of Gammal-Svenskan, or Old Swedish, in contradistinction to its latest and still existing phase Ny-Svenskan, or Modern Swedish.

In Forn-Svenskan we have, therefore, the earliest intermediate link between the Swedish of our own times and the Old Northern, which was the common tongue of all the Scandinavian peoples before their separation into distinct nations as Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. This remnant of ancient Scandinavian consequently possesses an