316 ANALYTIC ORTHOGRAPHY. 
had to pass through the Anglish hyd, hid. Hide is newer than haut, but not derived from 
it, as represented in dictionaries; nor is bownd derived from bind. 
261. A'V becomes awe in English, by metallaxis (§237) varied by recession from the 
O point. Chaw has therefore not arisen from chew, but from a form like the German 
kauen. The Saxon (Lower Saxon) Aluven precedes the Anglish clavian (clawian) and 
this the English to claw. 
262. A'V cannot occur before labials in English, as it can in German. Hence, old high 
German bom (tree, pole,) became dawn in German by anallaxis, and boom, beam, in 
English. German forms like the following are unknown in English, nor are they the 
antecedents of the English equivalents, although often quoted as such. 
haufe heap saum seam laub (leaf’) haupt head 
laufen leap saufen sup auf up raum room. 
263. A'V cannot occur before gutturals in English; hence, there never were such English 
words as bough, plough, with a guttural following a diphthong, for the moment the diph- 
thong appeared, the guttural disappeared. If the guttural was transmuted into f, as in 
rough, there could still be no diphthong before a labial. Richardson quotes Robert of 
Gloucester’s plowstaf as his earliest citation for ‘plough; and for bough, a line of Piers 
Ploughman (1362.) 
Theer som bowes bereth leves, and some bereth none. - 
In the same work douwte is used; Robert of Brunne (1330) has douted; and Robert of 
Gloucester used doutless about the year 1297.* From these and the French doute, the 
modern doubt is strictly derived, diphthongs being newer than vowels, and as the diph- 
thong could not be formed without first rejecting the b, the subsequent representation of 
this rejected consonant was a mere literary blunder. 
COMMUTATION. 
264. Commutation is a grammatic interchange of elements, as in the Celtic languages. 
Thus, in the Gaelic, in writing mor (great) and bén (mountain) to indicate a great moun- 
tain, the b becomes English v, giving (in English spelling) more-vane instead of more-bane. 
In Irish, mo (my) and mac (son,) the a as in what, become, when used together, mo mac, 
the dotted m being English v. Welsh eu Brawd (their brother,) dy Frawd (thy brother,) 
fy Mrawd (my brother.) Here, as in Chinese, the affinity between nasal and pure (m, 6,) 
is acknowledged and used in language. 
* Shakespeare alludes to a dialect or pedantism in which doobé for doute was used, and from which the } was 
disappearing. See Love’s Labor Lost, Act 5, Sc. 1, 1631—“‘He draweth out the thred of his verbofitie, finer 
than the ftaple of his argument. I abhor fuch phanaticall phantafims. . . fuch rackers of ortagraphie, as to 
fpeake dout fine, when he fhould fay doubt; det, when he fhould pronounce debt; deb t, not det; he clepeth a 
calf, caufe; halfe, haufe: neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abreviated ne:” 
