The Etymology of " Church:' 189 



which through the influence of Norman French is aspirated in 

 the Southern dialect : chirche for cir (^) c — e. To c (k) corres- 

 ponds in Old High German ch^ which appears usually as hh in 

 the middle of a word : chirihh — a. If we remember that from 

 about 200 A. D., words with ^^ began to be spelt with a, it will 

 be easy to derive the Teutonic cyrice and chilihha from curacioj 

 on the condition of the vowel changes in consequence of the 

 shifted accent, as above mentioned. See A. Fuchs^ Die Roman- 

 isdien Sprachen (Halle 1849), p. 304. 



The reason why the Latin word cura {curaiio) had found 

 such an easy access into the Teutonic speech and held its 

 ground so tenaciously, until it was appropriated by Christian 

 missionaries, perhaps already in the second century, who fol- 

 lowed in the wake of the Roman soldiers and merchants — may 

 be found in the fact that it has a similar meaning as theGrothic 

 hara^ O. H. G. chara^ A. S. cearu, caru, E. care, though 

 Grimm's Law does not allow to connect the Teutonic words 

 with the Latin cura. Compare with these words the A. S. carci 

 cark, in which c is an excrescent consonant, as k in h ear-ken, etc. 



Those changes, through which we have accompanied our 

 word, we may call its history anterior to the period, when it 

 was taken into Christian usage. It had lived on in the mouth 

 of the common people, which prepared it for casting it into the 

 declensional mould of the Teutonic dialects. It was undoubt- 

 edly familiar to and perhaps permanently appropriated by 

 Columhanus (590-615) who worked in Switzerland, in the 

 neighborhood of Ziirich, by his fellow-worker and country- 

 man, Gallus (690-640) who, with a perfect knowledge of the 

 native dialects, promoted the conversion of the Swiss and 

 Swabians, and later by Kilian (650-889), the center of whose 

 labors was at Wiirzburg, in Franconia. As these missionaries 

 came from Ireland, it is probable, that the Gadhelic word Kil 

 which we find in a large number of local names in Ireland and 

 which is said to denote originally a hermit's " cell," and after- 

 wards "church," may have caused the change of r into 1 in the 



