Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/39

10 Perfects. I give a specimen of one of these old Perfects, found both in Sanscrit and English.

It is easy to see that, thousands of years before Christ's birth, our forefathers must have used a Present tense, like wit or vid. Our verbs may, can, shall, will, must, dare (most of which we use, with their new Perfects, as auxiliary verbs), have been formed like wot, and are Irregulars.

Our verb to be is most irregular, since it comes from three roots, as, bhu, and vas. One of the points, in which English goes nearer than Sanscrit to the Mother Speech, is the first letter of the Third Person Plural of this verb. We still say are, the old ar-anti or as-anti; in Sanscrit this word appears only as s-anti. The Germans have no form of our am, the Sanscrit asmi.

The old word, which in Sanscrit is da-dhâ-mi, with its Perfect, da-dhau, was brought to the Northumbrian shores by our Pagan forefathers in the shape of ge-dô-m, di-de. Hence our irregular do, did, the latter of which plays a great part in building Weak Teutonic verbs.

Our verb ga, which is now go, is found in Sanscrit as gi-gâ-mi, with its Perfect derived from another verb; we now say went, instead of the old eôde, which Spenser