444 Riii'ORT S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



lengthening of koe to kaei, and then discuss the form Afrikaander 

 which not vers long ago some ignorant anonymus made the text of 

 a long sermon in the "Cape Times" about the stupidity of Cape- 

 Dutch. 



It undoubtedly does sound bad to a Hohander when for the 

 first time he hears oris ivil for wij willen, and. when he has told 

 his English friend that the Cape-Dutch form is just as bad as if in 

 English one were to say us will, they both raise their eyes in piotis 

 and pit\ing horror and give thanks that they " are not like these." 



l^ut ARE they not? In English the Nom. of the personal 



pron. of the 2d. pars. Plural was ye, and the Ace. was you. 'l"he 

 man who for the first time said you have, for ye have, made absolutel}- 

 the same mistake as he would make who now said us have for we have. 



But the usiis ivr annus has accustomed us to* you have, and there- 

 fore it now IS correct and now SOUNDS correct. The only marvel 

 is that there is not some wiseacre whO' sa\ s : " Yes, we all say you, 

 but it ought tO' be ye," and then proposes henceforth tO' reintroduce 

 the older form. 



It will be unnecessary, 1 trust, to point out that 1 am not lr\ing 

 to argue that the Englishman ought henceforth also to use us as 

 nomin.. because he says you, but I do maintain that if you for ye 

 is not incorrect now, and is not a sign of intellectual inferiority, 

 merely because usage has established it, the same reason ought to be 

 admitted as sufficient tO' justify ons for ivij in Cape-Dutch. 



And the Dutchman? true, he does not use the ACCUSATIVE 



for the nom., but instead of that nomin. HE uses the 



GENITIVE, or — if he prefers to call it so^ — the nominative feminine 

 of the possessive adj. pron. ! Unblushingly he will assure the Afrikaan- 

 der (wdth the !>.!): " ziet //, ons is verkeerd, u moest wij zeggen." 

 This little word //. which he considers, and which of course now IS, 

 the correct translation for the ace. form you, is nothing but die 

 remnant of the fuller polite form of address : " uwc cdclhcidr i.e. \i>ur 

 grace, which still lives in the obsolescent iiiccc. and which can be 

 perfectly matched by the Italian Lei. 



And have not both the Englishman and the Duichmau mud lleil 

 up their Datives and Accusatives, when they began lo sa\ ////// or 

 //(•///. reallv or originally the dative forms (of German ihm) instead of 

 hiue or Jwii, which forms still live in several of the dialects? 



Does all this mean that // or him or licni is " wrong." and diat 

 henceforth r.^j^. the Englishman, prouil <>f his newly acquired historical 

 information rmght to say: "/ seen . Of ccmrse not! TUit. once 

 more! if him is now right, though (Mice it was wrong, and if not e\en 

 the schoolmaster pretends that it "ought to i»e ;/. wh\ then object 

 to another, jierfectl) parallel transition, in usage in another lang- 

 usage. merely because in OURS that particular change has not taken 

 place ? 



We need not, and cannot, discuss with equal fulness of detail the 

 odier forms we quoted. Init it will be suftici;"Mt ^> remind him whf) 

 objects to the omission of the last s\llable in varkcii. which omission 

 is due to an unconscious, in this case mistak'^n, feeling that the ter- 



