Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/180

 144 NOTES AND QUERIES, [io» s. iv. AUG. 19. IWB. I have also found evidence of Leii-arraga's use of the Greek—e.<j., 2 Peter iii. 10, where the French has "un bruit sifflaut de tern- pete," and the Basque simply kabarrotsequin. Van Eys has, " Abarrots, g.b., abarrox, b.n. ...vacarme, fracas, bruit desagreable." The Greek is poifaSov. Again, in St. Matt. xvi. 18 the French nas " n'auront point de force a 1'encontre d'elle, but the Basque " etzaizcala hari garaithuren (vaincre, surpasser) = ov KO.riiT<rov<Tiv avrm. T. K. ABBOTT. Trinity College, Dublin. PUNCTUATION IN MSS. AND PRINTED BOOKS. (See 10th S. ii. 301, 462.) THE superior figures refer to the examples at the end of the article. In Trin. Coll. Library (Camb.). MS. B. 10, 4, is an English MS., probably written at Westminster early in the eleventh century <New Pal. Soc., 'Facsimiles,' Part I.).—The frontispiece is ' Liber Generationis J'. The abbreviation for Christ is used regularly amid Latin letters ; e.ff., in the Prologus.2 This =ch occurs side by side with =x (in •extra, dejctra) of the same shape. Here, pre- sumably, are the beginnings of our X in TH.-IS. This MS. regularly or commonly uses the <fc (1) alone, viz.=et, (2) — et at ends of words.3 Note that the scribe here borrows the sign to stand for the syllable et, not vice versa,; i.e., et was not in this MS. on its way to becoming &. The latter was already formed, and is used by this scribe as a convenient abbreviation. Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 3 D. vi., A.D. 1283- 1300.—Most probably written in England. There are no dots on the * in this MS.4 The second word is parituram. The third, as 1 understand it, is IH + SUM, a hybrid, due to -extreme veneration, which preserved (see eleventh-century MS. note attached) the •exact Greek-letter form of the first three letters until the origin was forgotten. So also there is confusion in the group 5, where the second mysterious member is the Gr. p, •which is seen more distinctly in the eleventh- century MS. The first word = &, is almost et. ' Pal. Art. di M. C.,' tav. xlv., Lectionary written at Monte Casino in broken Lorn- bardic between 1058 and 1087.—In this we have a sort of ecphoneme just where it would Tje natural. ° It is not here by the same hand, I am sure (the dot by the first hand and the stroke above by a later), yet this kind of thing occurring makes difficult the proof of derivation of words from letters. The Laurentian MS. of Sophocles has . = comma, and ' = semicolon and full stop. Once, 65 b (' Trach.,' 77), it has ; = ?, but usually : . There is, of course, no ! . Date probably of the eleventh century. Harleian MS. 2895 (B.M.) showcases.— Diurnale in Latin. Second half of the twelfth century. Flemish initials. No marks on i. "Laudate pueri domirni! laudate nomen domini. Sit nomen doinini bene 7." In this and the preceding ' = comma. But in this MS. ; marks omission of final letter, there ; = semicolon. Note ~ as suprascript abbreviation-mark. Arndt, ' Schrifttaf.,' 51, gives facsimiles of Origen's Homilies, A.D. 1163, in which 8 is exactly like our written question mark ?. So also ' De Cura Pastorali' (Pal. Soc., ii. pi. 69), early eleventh century, uses 8 with variations ; e.g., once (at least) all three 9 ; and often it resembles a ! thus. 10 So Bede (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 72), after 1147, has a very clear tick. " English charter hands of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also show the punctua- tion mark, * sometimes of that shape, and sometimes /(common). B.M. Royal MS. 1 D. ii.-O. Test, in Gk. (LXX.). Twelfth century. Has full accents and breathings, and also many double-dotted iotas not initial, e.g. '. Punctuation consists of comma, colon, and high and low point Omont, 'Facsim.,' pi. 60, Chrysostom (A.D. 1273), has generally i. £.g., rri The same is true of Theophylactus, A.D. 1255; a Porphyry, 1223; Balaam MS., 1321 ; and Constantino Harmen., 1351. In the fourteenth century a new style of charter writing, by more expert scribes, is to be noted (Thompson, ' Pal.,' p. 308). This is accompanied by the use of /= a comma, as seen in German documents and books. It is seen side by side in the charters with 8 ; e </., charter of 1310, "en autre/ Chasteux/ villes/ et terres/." Sometimes / is doubled (//) for longer pause. From a Norwich charter of 1321, e.ff., "Bungeye/ ac Religiosis Mulieribus// Em me Prioresse ...... iuxta Bungeye nostre Dyo- ceseos 14 que ad iios," <fec. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries punctuation in charters seems neglected. F. W. G. FOAT, D.Lit. (To be continued.) DR. FOAT may be interested in some notes and quotations in an article by Charles Thurot in ' Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliotheque Nationale,' &c., xxii. (1874), ii. 407-17. Q. V.