Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/68

44 by the late T. Graves Law, LL.D. While among the very oldest specimens of Scots prose, and strictly comparable with Gothic on the score of subject-matter, it has the disadvantage of reflecting unduly the influence of contemporary English. For it must be remembered that the Scots never had a native Bible or Psalter. Nearly all the popular Reformation literature was produced under the influence of English. Nisbet's version was at no time in general use.

The more than literal versions of the passages here presented are not intended to be read as a translation or rendering of their sense. The words employed do not always convey such an acceptation as would satisfy the mere modern reader. That purpose is sufficiently met by the accompanying rendering into Lowland Scots, valuable in itself as supplying a philological commentary, or by the version in common use. Any rendering that is cognate with the corresponding word in the text, whether old or modern English, Lowland Scots or German, is adopted. Words that have no such cognates are italicised, while anything necessary to complete the sense is put in brackets. The mere look of the text, therefore, should show how much of the language spoken in Moesia in the fourth century has still representatives, more or less distantly related.

As an aid to the text and translation some knowledge of the grammar is necessary. No complete scheme need be given here, but pronominals and connectives, as they so frequently recur, will give good return for some attention. In the personals (I and thou) only the plurals call for notice. Of the cases the nom., poss. and obj. are—for I, weis (we), uns (us), unsara (of us and our); for thou, jus (ye), izwis (you), izwara (of you, your). Little has survived of the third person pronoun, so that it has to be shown entire, distinguishing termination from stem. This stem is the unemphatic demonstrative i-. The equivalents here given are the Anglo-Saxon forms: