Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/44

Rh in sûnu-bhjas (compare the Latin ped-ibus), our English word by entering into the third syllable. Sunubhjas was in time pared down in Teutonic mouths to sunub, and this again to sunum. This last corruption of the dative kept its ground in our island until Becket's time. The tendency of old, when we dwelt on the Oxus, and long afterwards, was to pack different words into one; our custom, ever since the days of Henry I., has been to untie the words so packed together; thus sunubhjas has been turned into by sons. We have two of these old Datives still left, hwîl-um, whilom, and seld-um, seldom.

We keep to this day many prefixes to verbs (a, be, for, fore, gain, mis, un, with), and many endings of substan&shy;tives and adjectives, common to us and to our brethren on the mainland; seen in such English words as leech-craft, man-kind, king-dom, maiden-head, wed-lock, glee-man, piece-meal, ridd-ell, kind-red, bishop-rick, friend-ship, dar-ling, sing-er, spin-ster, warn-ing, good-ness, stead-fast, mani-fold, East-ern, stân-ig (stony), aw-ful, god-less, win-some, gold-en, right-wis (righteous). Others, older still, I have given before. Many old Teutonic endings have unhappily dropped out of our speech, and have been replaced by meaner ware.

The Teutons, after turning their backs on the rest of