288 GERMANIC LANGUAGES 



High German time. Here direct tradition abandons us almost 

 entirely. For the Gothic language, the first Germanic language to 

 receive by the translation of the Bible a written literature, is 

 obviously not the direct ancestor of Old High German. It is at this 

 point that the comparative study of the Germanic languages has 

 come to our aid. 



The close relationship existing between the various Germanic 

 languages and dialects necessarily presupposes an epoch in which 

 there was found, instead of the various dialects, only one more or less 

 uniform language. This is the language which we designate by terms 

 like "Early Germanic" or "Early Teutonic," or "Primitive Teu- 

 tonic." I have said that this language was "more or less" uniform. 

 It is a well-known fact that dialectical variation is inseparable from 

 the life of languages, and it would be erroneous to imagine that there 

 had ever existed in the history of the Teutonic languages a period of 

 absolute uniformity. But it is also a fact that, the further we follow 

 the development of the Teutonic dialects back into the past, the 

 more we notice the dialectic varieties, on which their difference at 

 present rests, diminishing. We therefore arrive, almost necessarily, 

 at a period when every one of these dialectic varieties is reduced to 

 uniformity. How then can we reconcile this apparent contradiction? 



In addition to dialectic variation we find in the life of languages 

 a process which we may call dialectic convergence. We find, in other 

 words, that certain changes, which at first are individual or local, 

 gradually spread over a larger area and finally are universally adopted. 

 It is possible, therefore, that dialectic variations may have existed in 

 cases in which we now find in all of the Germanic languages a uniform 

 transformation of certain Indo-European sounds, while we naturally 

 would ascribe to Early Germanic the uniform sound found at present 

 (or at the beginning of our direct historical tradition). 



The fact that dialectic changes always spread gradually must 

 account for another line of differences that we neglect in reconstruct- 

 ing a uniform Germanic period. There are many instances where the 

 Old Germanic dialects differ in this way, that one or some of them 

 preserve a sound in its oldest form, while in others the sound has been 

 altered. We take it for granted that Early Teutonic possessed in most 

 cases the sound in its oldest form, while of course the possibility 

 always exists that the dialectic variation reaches back in its begin- 

 nings into the Primitive Teutonic period. 



We may have to admit then that the uniform " Early Germanic " 

 period which we reconstruct has probably never existed precisely in 

 this form. Yet we shall maintain that there was in the life of the 

 Germanic languages a period exhibiting very nearly the form of 

 speech which we call Early Germanic, and that our mistake consists 

 at the utmost in ascribing to one and the same age the features which 



