Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/35

Rh the A.S. tóh, and Sc. tyuch and tchuch. A similar survival is e-nyuch (enough), compared with Go. ga-nohs, sufficient.

But the strongest changes appear, as is natural, in double consonants, for here we encounter a potent factor in phonetic change, human laziness. To the favourite initial guttural the liquids r, l, w, or v attach themselves with persistence. In these cases the guttural has a tendency to disappear in favour of the weaker parasitic sounds. This feature may be illustrated in hrugga, a staff (Sc. rung), hrot, a roof (O. Fris. hrof; Du roef), hrukjan, to crow—"suns hana hrukida," soon the cock crowned. Scotch sometimes uses this strong initial as in Go. hropjan, to call, for which we find not only roup, an auction, but hraep, sometimes heard as thraep, to argue—"He thraepit it doon my throat." Hropei, a call or harsh cry, is seen in Sc. roopie, croaky, croupie. Another instance is hrains, pure, Ger. rein and our rinse. Hrishjan, again, to shake, passes through A.S. hrysian to our "rush." A derivative is Sc. reeshle, rustle, a stronger form of rush, as in "I'll reeshle yer riggin" (back Ger. Rücken). Of the loss of h before l our laugh for example, for it is Go. hlahjan, though the Sc. lach better preserves to original guttural.

A favourite inital in Gothic, sk, has generally been softened in cognate tongues to sh, Ger. sch. The South African Taal consistently preserves the hard form where the home Dutch softens it, as in Taal skap, sheep. We see this change in skreitan = shred, but contrast Sc. screed, scart (scratch), skiuban = shove, skura = shower, Sc. shoor. When Christ stilled the tempest Mark says, "wrath skura windis mikila," a muckle shoor of wind arose. As we usually find in Scots, s has the hard sound regularly in Gothic, where un-weis, unlearned, un-wise, sounds quite like Sc. on-weiss. The English cousin often sounds cúss-in on a North-country tongue. A striking example of the hard s is where Matthew, telling of the stilling of the tempest (viii. 26), says, "jah warth wis mikil," and there was a muckle wheesh. If followed by i, it must be softened, as siujan (Sc. shoo), and sow = saian (Sc. saw). The Gothic laus with s hard has exactly the Scotch sound of loose, though the sense is somewhat different, viz., empty, of no effect. The difficult th is often changed to d, as Go. maurthra = murder, sinthan, go, wander