tEESDALE PLACE-NAMES. 181 



ancestors, it is supposed, had emigrated to England) are in the 

 constant habit of dropping, indeed it is natural to them to drop, 

 not only their 7i's, but from the definite article the^ the two last 

 letters, and to say for the water, f toater or fwatter, for the rain, 

 frain, &c. Similarly in Holland, the Dutch, instead of het, their 

 definite article, write and speak the letter t only, as f woord, 

 the word, f dier, the animal, both people coming to the same 

 practical conclusion, by rejecting the same two letters; the 

 Dutch leaving out the first two letters of their het, and the 

 Durham and Yorkshire English dropping the last two letters of 

 their the. 



The possession of the th is peculiar to the Celtic, Icelandic, 

 Anglo-Saxon, and English, among the western European lan- 

 guages, in common with Greek, whilst the Danes, Swedes, I^or- 

 wegians, Germans, Dutch, Elemish, Erench, Italians, Spaniards, 

 and Portuguese cannot pronounce the th, which in Anglo-Saxon 

 had both a hard and soft sound, each having its own distinctive 

 letter. 



The Anglo-Saxons adopting the Celtic name of this river may 

 have called thd ise, or uise, or uisffe ; but the Scandinavian in- 

 vaders would probably drop the hd of the article, and call the 

 river T' ise, and it would be afterwards written Tise, or one of 

 the above forms, and their mixed Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian 

 successors in Teesdale have continued to use the name to the 

 present day; others, not "natives, or to the manner born," when 

 talking of this river are obliged to use another definite article, 

 and in addition to t'ise, i.e. the river, say the river Tees, i.e. the 

 river the river, or the river the water ! ■ 



" Mr. Mumford (p. 201) derives the name of the IN'orfolk river 

 Tas from Celtic Tas, Taes, Taus, Tav, — water in general. He 

 says Tas is now modernized into Tees." E. G. 



There must, I fear, be something wrong with Spurrell's 

 "\7elsh and McAlpine's Gaelic Dictionaries, as I cannot find these 

 four words, either with or without the T in them, having the 

 signification of water or rain. 



