The First Book Printed in Swedish. 5- 



every translator. Still all must now admit that they are NOT in »Ice- 

 landic» or anything like it, but in local dialects whose general character 

 agrees with all the other oldest known Scando-Gothic tungs. The Passive, 

 the Post-article, and such, are as yet absent in Scandinavia, and first 

 begin to develop themselves after the time when Iceland was colonized. 

 Neither did they exist in the dialects taken by the immense Wiking- 

 colouies to England in the 9"' and 10"' centuries, and consequently no 

 trace of such has ever been found in England. 



Generally speaking, as Iceland was Scandinavia's (especially Nor- 

 way's) 2°'' great colony, so was England all Scandia's first great colony, 

 and no monuments and dialects in all Europe are so costly in illustra- 

 tion of the rapid modernisation of the Scandian talks as those of the 

 similarly developt old Northumbrian, Old-North-English. Comparing 0. 

 Southern with 0. Midland English, and these again with 0. North-Eng- 

 lish, we see as in a glass the processes which the 0. Scandian dia- 

 lects have gone thro ^). 



Thus in this whole science, as in every other, we want facts^ not 

 theories, facts first^ theories and paradigms aftenrards. A great begin- 

 ning has been made by the illustrious Swedish speech-lorist Johan Erik 

 Rydqvist, whose name shall never die. But he could not do everything. 

 No one man can do more than offer his whole life in hard work. We 

 others must follow after, and do what we can, however little. 



') I beg to point out to Scandinavian students the invaluable 4 volumes of the 

 4 Gospels, in Old-South-Engliäh (2 texts) and Old-North-English (2 versions), chiefly 

 from the 10*'' century, printed synoptically by the University of Cambridge. Vol, 1 

 was commenced by Mr. Kemble ; Vols 2, 3, 4 are admirably edited by Prof. Skeat, 

 4'", Cambridge, 1858 — 1878. Such a treasure for real »comparative philology» exists 

 in no other European tung. In the 0. N. E. versions the Infin. (now and then -AN) 

 is already almost always in -A (occasionally -E), while in the South it is still (and 

 ibr nearly 300 years after) in -AN, later in -EN. And so of hundreds of such lin- 

 guistic phenomena. — Add to the above the precious »Rituale Ecclesiœ Dunelmensis» 

 [Durham, in North England], publisht by the Surtees Society, London 1840, 8™. 

 This codex, from the beginning of the 9"" century, contains an interlinear gloss in 

 Old-North-English, in a dialect nearly akin to that of the Lindisfarne Gospels, and 

 written in about the last quarter of the lO"" year-hundred. — Another priceless work 

 is the »Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter», printed by the Surtees Society, Lon- 

 don, 8™, 2 vols. 1843, 1847. The Latin skinbook is from the 8"' century, the Old- 

 North-Engl. interlinear gloss from about the year 900, and is more Southern in its 

 character than the preceding. The ^Metrical version, in Middle-North-English, is from 

 about 1315. 



