Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/36

14 = send, hlethra = ladder, but Sc. lether, sneithan, to cut = Sc. sned, snod, Ger. schneiden, balths = bold, Sc. bauld, kiltheis = child. In Sc. th is often heard for Eng. d, e.g. shoother = shoulder, poother = powder, bethel = beadle (Lat. bedellus).

English characteristically weakens initial hw, in contrast to Sc. and the original Go., into w, as hwaiteis, wheat, Sc. hwait; hwairpan, to throw, warp; hwairnei, brains, Sc. harns, Ger. Ge-hirne. Whet preserves its original sense of cutting in Sc. as, "to white a stick." It has several forms in the Gospels. Wulfila shows a striking metaphorical usage as when the crowd "hwotidedun" blind Bartimæus for addressing Jesus, rendered by our "rebuked." The guttural in Latin is, according to rule, the hard k, as in quis, Sanskr. kas, compared with Go. hwas, Sc. whaw, who. In this and its derivatives, on the other hand, the guttural disappears in English. Our which is a good illustration of such changes—Go. hwi-leiks, Sc. whi-lk, compared with which or witch. A countryman, sauntering near the Strand, on asking a passer-by, "What street is this?" was answered, "Wych Street." This, meaningless to him, made him repeat the query, whereupon the Londoner testily said, "W'y, Wych Street, of course," and walked on, doubtless mentally forming his own opinion of Doric dulness. On the road to Calvary the mob railed on Jesus, "wagging their heads," withondans hauhida seina. This withon, to shake, is for an older hwithon, as seen in Lat. quatere, to shake. As expressing a rapid movement, whid, whidding, withon has many representatives in Scotch. Among the powers promised by the Master is that of treading on serpents, "trudan ufaro waurme," where the word has its original sense of dragon, "monster of the prime," as in the Welsh cape, christened by the Norsemen Great Orme's Head. The original is hwaurms, which again is the Sansk. krimi, and this, through early Arab traders, has given us carmine and crimson.

If we turn now to the Wulfilic remains as we find them, it may be asked. With what degree of completeness do they present the Gospel narrative? The second Gospel is almost