Page:An elementary grammar of the old Norse or Icelandic language.djvu/9

Rh singular and plural numbers; besides which, the pronoun of the first and second persons has a dual, or form exclusively appropriated to the number two. The adjective has two forms of inflection; the one employed when the adjective is used without a determinative, the other when it is preceded by an article or a pronoun agreeing also with the noun. These forms are called, respectively, the indefinite and definite. The verbs have four moods; the indicative, subjunctive, imperative and infinitive, and but two tenses, the present and the past. In both languages the definite article partakes very strongly of its original character of a demonstrative pronoun. The nouns have three genders, and the masculine and feminine are often applied to objects incapable of sex.

Furthermore, Icelandic, from its close relationship to Anglo-Saxon, furnishes more abundant analogies for the illustration of obscure English etymological and syntactical forms than any other of the kindred tongues. "It is but recently", says Marsh in his Lectures on the English Language, "that the great value of Icelandic philology has become known to the other branches of the Gothic stock, and one familiar with the treasures of that remarkable literature, and the wealth, power, and flexibility of the language which contains it, sees occasion to regret the want of a thorough knowledge of it in English and American grammatical writers, more frequently than of any other attainment whatever".

The incursions which the piratical Danes and Norwegians, by whom Iceland was colonized, made upon the shores of Britain, supply our history with many important incidents during the two centuries immediately preceding the Norman Conquest. Along with their peculiar customs and superstitions, these sea-kings introduced several words and phrases into our language, which have left their impress up