30 G. Stephens, 



Scandinavia generally, save in Iceland, EM, and even in Icelandic the 

 spoken language has long said and written ER '). And so old in Ice- 

 land is this use of the 3 pers. sing, in the 1'' pers. sing, that in Ice- 

 landic codices from the first half of the 14"' century we have not only 

 ER very frequently for EM, but even ER and EM promiscuously on the 

 same page. It must therefore be very much older in that dialect, locally 

 stood long beside EM, and at last killed it, as in the rest of Scandina- 

 via. In »vulgar» provincial English we have also AE and ARE. First 

 the IS of the 3"' pers. becomes IR, then this IR falls to ER, and then 

 it creeps up into the P' pers. In England the book-language still says 

 I AM, HE IS. But in the 2"" pers. ART, and the plural, ARE, we 

 have long had the R, as in the mother-land. In all our Scando-Anglic 

 dialects there are endless and curious variations of this present tense, 

 from the longest to the shortest (yE, E). 



By analogy, the 2 sing, would be AST (in B we have ÀSTW, 

 ESTHW, ^ AST TU), and the 2 pi. ÅREN. — 3 s. pr. subj. is: ware, warä. 



Prepositions are used very loosely. They are found governing 



Gen. tyl. 



Dat. när; tyl. 



Dat. and Ac. aff, af; ath; epter, ephter, effther, effter; for; fran; j; 

 medh, medher; moth, j moth. 



Ac. blandh, j blandh; gynom; j; medh, medher; millan; ofiPwer; 

 oppa; tyl, til; vm; vndher; vthen; vthi; widh. 



Ac. Gen. Dat. tyl. 



HWARS tyl en är pliktogher ok HWAR til ekke, ch. 59. — FRAN, 

 never FRA. — We have also Compound Prepositions: (dat.) gudhi alsz- 

 mechtoghom ok alle hymmelrj'kes herskape til-lof -ok-är e; (dat.) androm 

 tyl-qodlie ok (dat.) syäla gaghn. — As we know, a Compound Prep, may 

 open and admit words between: THER werdoghen TIL =^ dertill värdig; 

 THER wile wy mer särdelis tala VM^derom; THER hon ekke pliktogh 

 är TYL = dertill; THER tro OPPA = deruppå tro!; swar THER TYL, 

 THER swar TYL = dertill svara du! 



Adverbs: hwaszke . . . eller = hvarken . . . eller; annat hwarth . . . 

 eller, hwath . . . eller, ^ antingen . . . eller; twerth moth = tvärt-emot. 



— In B inD oppa, like as inDlyk, inDswep. — We have the double 

 forms of the comp, adverb ynyha ledhis.^ yngha lundh (never ingalunda^. 



— Adverbs in -EN and -T are unknown, the ending is always -A. 



') See an excullent little book on the present spoken (and now written) Ice- 

 landic, — exclusive of the present local Icelandic dialects — : »Skyring hinna almennu 

 mdlfrœôislegu hugmynda eptir H. Kr. Friôriksson». 2 cd. Reykjavik 1864, 8™. p. 27. 



