Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language.djvu/17

Rh enough, and not always transparent enough, to furnish sufficient material for a clear view of these pre-historic events. It is generally acknowledged that the intercourse with the neighbouring Slavonic people took place in the second period of the history of the German language. For the influence of the Kelts upon the Teutons, and  afford valuable testimony, which at the same time shows what decisive results can at times be obtained from language itself. We have in the term the last offshoot of the Teutonic word Walh (borrowed from the Keltic tribal name Volcae), by which the Kelts were formerly designated by the Teutons.

The name by which the Teutons called themselves is unfortunately lost to us. Our learned men have therefore agreed to use the Keltic term which was customary among old historians, and which, according to the testimony of the Venerable Bede, was applied in England to the immigrant Anglo-Saxons by the Britons even in the 8th century. The national character of the Teutons and the type of their language were for a very long period after the division into tribes the same as before. In the last century before our era, when numerous Teutonic tribes became known to the ancient world, we have not the least evidence to show that the language had branched off into dialects. The same may be said of the time of Tacitus; but his account of the genealogy of the Teutonic tribes seems to have some connection with divisions into dialects, recorded at a later period.

The linguistic division of the Teutons into an Eastern group, comprising Goths and Scandinavians, and into a Western, including the English, Frisians, Saxons, Franks, Bavarians, Swabians, and Alemannians, is generally regarded as undoubted. The evidence of language goes, however, to prove that a close connection exists only among the West Teutonic tribes; and unless Tacitus' ethnogony includes all the Teutons, his group of tribes, comprising the Ingaevones, the Erminones, and the Istaevones, are identical in fact with the Western division. The permutation of consonants and the development of the vowel system, which we assume to have been effected before the beginning of our era, were the chief characteristics of all the languages of the second period; but the most important factor in the development of West Teutonic was the uniform attrition of the old final syllables. With the operation of this law in West Teutonic begins the decay of the old inherited forms, most of which were lost in the third period. The German language is now entering upon a stage of development which had been reached by English some centuries ago.

But in spite of this loss of forms, the language retains its old pliancy in undiminished force; after independent words, even in the second period, had been transformed into suffixes and prefixes, the language still possessed new elements which were ready to replace what had been lost. Moreover, the same forces operate in the later history of the vocabulary as in the primitive Teutonic period.

Thus West Teutonic has preserved the stems of old words, which in Gothic and Scandinavian have either died out or have fallen more or less into the background;, , , , , , as well as , , , , &c., are the essential characteristics of a West Teutonic language. Other words, such as, , , , , and , owe their existence to later composition. But, above all, the absence of numerous old words, preserved by Gothic or Scandinavian, is a main feature of the West Teutonic group. But this is not the place to adduce every loss and every compensation which has diminished and re-shaped the old elements in the sphere of languages most closely allied to German.