Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/16

 letters with the same values. If we misinterpret the spelling—if, for instance, we fancy that the letter z was meant to be sounded as in zeal, when it really stood for ts—we shall be led astray in our etymologizing. It is often difficult to find out the pronunciation expressed by the old spelling of a name, but with adequate scholarship it is usually not impossible.

Suppose now that we have arrived at the pronunciation of our place-name as it was, say, a thousand years ago. We shall very likely find that the name has altered so much that any etymological guess based merely on the modern form must of necessity be wrong. We may find also, if we have the needful linguistic knowledge, that the name now interprets itself; that it is either a simple word or a grammatically-formed compound in the English of the year 900, or in some other language (perhaps Old Danish) which was spoken in the district at the time when the document was written; and that it expresses a meaning which either correctly describes the place or tells something credible about its history. In that case we may reasonably assume that our problem is solved.

On the other hand, it may turn out that the earliest accessible form of the name would have been just as unintelligible at the time when our document was written as it is to-day. Even then, however, our inquiry is not necessarily hopeless. For modern scholars have learned, by laborious comparison, to know the laws according to which English sounds have changed from century to century. Hence, when we know how a name was pronounced at a certain epoch, we can often infer with certainty how it must have been pronounced some centuries earlier. The name, reduced to its prehistoric form, may be found to be obviously significant in the language of the earlier date. If not, we can only conclude that the etymology is with our present means insoluble, and wait for further light.