Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/73

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In the last example we see the Norse n making its way into the Old English numeral. There are other remarkable changes. In Matthew ii. 4 we find heom employed for hig, just as we say in talking, ‘I asked 'em.’ The Norse Active Participle is often used instead of the Old English, as gangande for gangende: and this lin&shy;gered on in Scotland to a very late date. The Norse&shy;men, in this instance, brought English speech nearer to Sanscrit than it was before. The Infinitive, as will be seen in the above table, has already been clipped.

The Southern geworden became in Yorkshire awarð; where in England the old prefix ge lingers in our days, it commonly takes the form of a. The cases of Sub&shy;stantives and Adjectives, so carefully handled in the South, are now confused in the North; the Dative Plural in um often vanishes altogether. The letter h is sometimes put in or dropped, the most hideous of all our corruptions; k and ch are found instead of c. Sio (our she) for heo and ih for ic are most remarkable; in the latter form we go nearer to the Sanscrit aham than to the Latin ego.

Few of England's children, have done her better service than Alfred's son and daughter, whose deeds are written in the Saxon Chronicle. King Edward's reign was one steady war against the Danish lords of