Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/64

40 history. That is simply the demonstrative, and has its own appropriate use; but who, whose, whom, what, which, are really interrogatives. They are so in Sanskrit, where who is ka as in Gaelic (co) still. Sans. and Gr. clearly differentiate relative and interrogative, not so Lat. Who as a relative in Eng. was not recognised by Ben Jonson, the author of our earliest English Grammar, who says "one relative which." Dr. Furnivall says it was first used once in Wyclif's Bible, and very sparingly till Shakspere. In Gothic the interrogative is hwa-s, Sc. whaw, whae; its instrumental hwé we have in why, Sc. hoo, foo. A peculiar idiom is the Scots at hoo for how that. Which is a descriptive form of adjectival relationship quite distinct from who. Latin qualis, Fr. lequel, Ger. der welcher, and Shakspere's the which, all show this peculiarity. Gothic proves it to be a compound, where it is hwi-leiks. The first member is wha = wha; leiks is the word for body, as in Lich-field, lich-gate. This is our like, both separately and in composition, as in life-like = lively. For it has become our general adverbial suffix, -ly, e.g. like-ly = like-like. Sanskrit affords a curious parallel; Lat. corpus, a body, is the Sans. kalpa, which also forms adverbs in the sense of like, but not quite, e.g. pandita-kalpa = a quasi-pundit. Scottish people similarly use like in making explanations, e.g. He gie'd it to me like; I gaed wi' him a mile like.

The following table exhibits the pronominal compounds of like, to which Sc. adds thi-lk = that-like:—

The foregoing imperfect sketch of this fascinating subject is an attempt to tell the strange story of the Gothic MS. and its enlightened author, of the people among whom he laboured, and the sad fate that has buried them in oblivion. On the fragmentary evidence of the Gospels, excluding altogether the Epistles, I have endeavoured to illustrate the intellectual condition of the Goths in the fourth century, and to prove that whatever there is in the language of to-day that we regard as most homely and familiar, the indispensable materials of every-