Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/235

VI.] group, and are languages of literary culture. They are not direct descendants of the "Old Norse" tongue, as the ancient Icelandic is usually called: the Norwegian comes nearest to being so; the others represent more ancient dialectic divisions of Scandinavian speech.

How many other Germanic branches, originally coördinate with the three we have described, once had existence, but have become extinct in later times, by the extinction of the communities who spoke them, we have not, nor shall we ever have, any means of knowing. But of one such, at least, most precious remains have escaped the general destruction of the nationality to which it belonged. One portion of the western division of the great and famous Gothic nation crossed the lower Danube, some time in the early part of the fourth century, and settled in the Roman province of Mœsia, as subjects of the empire and as Christians. For them, their bishop and leader, Ulfilas, later in the same century, made a translation into their own vernacular of nearly the whole Bible, writing it in an alphabet of his own devising, founded on the Greek. Five hundred years afterward, the Gothic was everywhere an extinct tongue; but considerable portions of the Gothic Scriptures—namely, a part of the Gospels, Paul's epistles nearly complete, and fragments of the Old Testament—are happily still preserved, in a single manuscript of the fifth century, now at Upsala, in Sweden. Scanty as these relics may be, they are of inestimable value in illustrating the history of the whole Germanic branch of Indo-European language, and bridging over the distance which separates it from the other branches. For, as in time, so still more notably in material and structure, their idiom is much the most ancient of all the varied forms of Germanic speech: it is not, indeed, the mother of the rest, nor of any among them; but it is their eldest sister, and fully entitled to claim the place of head of their family.

The Slavonian branch—to which, on account of its local vicinity, as well as its probable nearer relationship, to the Germanic, we next turn our attention—need not occupy us long. It is of much less interest to us, because of its greater remoteness from our race and from our knowledge, its inferior