PROBLEMS IN GERMANIC PHILOLOGY 297 



(Berlin, 1869). Soon afterwards, however, we meet with a growing 

 tendency to find the vowels which are lost in Gothic still preserved 

 in other Old Germanic dialects, especially Old Norse and Anglo- 

 Saxon, and in the most recent works on Germanic philology the 

 statement is made that the original vowels of final syllables are to 

 a large extent preserved in the oldest Norse inscriptions, and here 

 and there in the old West Germanic dialects, so that Westphal's law 

 would be valid only for Gothic and not for the Primitive Teutonic 

 period. 



This modern view may impress us as if it was not intended to be 

 taken seriously. For every one who is accustomed to look at the 

 various Germanic languages from a comparative point of view must 

 recognize that the two languages supposed to have retained most of 

 the original vowels are the ones in which, as a rule, final vowels are 

 treated more recklessly than in the other Old Germanic dialects. For 

 it is especially in Old Norse and in Anglo-Saxon that we observe in 

 final syllables the dropping of Gothic short vowels, the shortening 

 of Gothic long vowels, and the contraction, followed by shortening of 

 Gothic diphthongs. Is it credible, then, that these languages should 

 have retained short vowels which had been dropped in Gothic? 



To be sure, the contention is that the alleged pre-Gothie vowels are 

 found not in regular Old Norse, but in the oldest Norse Runic inscrip- 

 tions, those which are supposed to exhibit the so-called "Primitive 

 Norse" language. 1 But let us not be misled by the term " Primitive 

 Norse " with its suggestion of the Primitive Teutonic language. It is 

 true that in the oldest Runic inscriptions Old Norse appears in a more 

 ancient form than in the regular literary language, and the difference 

 in age may amount to several centuries. Yet it is hardly probable that 

 the language of the oldest inscriptions can be claimed to be as a whole 

 more ancient than, e. g. Old High German. The language of the 

 inscriptions points to a period when the Norse languages were no 

 longer in contact with Gothic, but were undergoing or rather had 

 undergone the same phonetic and inflectional alterations which we 

 are accustomed to designate as "West Germanic." We find, e. g. that 

 Goth, i and u have been changed before a following a (in accordance 

 with Holtzmann's rule) to e and o, and that the diphthongs au and ai 

 have been contracted to e and o respectively. 



The majority of the alleged pre-Gothic vowels in "Primitive 

 Norse " can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, we have 

 the vowels which appear before the final R of the nominative, and 

 which are claimed as old thematic vowels. It seems to me that these 



1 The more important ones of these inscriptions are given with references 

 in the Appendix of Ad. Noreen's Altisldndische u. Altnorwegische Grammatik, 2d 

 edition, Halle, 1892. Compare also the articles by Moebius, Zur Kenntniss der 

 altesten Runen, in the Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf. vol. xviu (1869), and xix (1870), 

 and F. Burg, Die altesten nordischen Runeninschriften, Berlin, 1885. 



