SEO ENGLISCE SPR^C. 



13 



tianity was illustrated by a reference to the old Saxon poem, The 

 Heliand," as well as to Otfried's Krist." 



The Anglo-Saxon language, containing High German, Scandi- 

 navian, Celtic, and even Slavonic elements, is less precise and 

 uniform than either the Moeso-Gothic or the Icelandic; yet it 

 belongs, on the whole, to the Low Qerman division. It differs 

 from English both in respect of its vocabulary and its grammar. 

 In the first place, its vocabulary is more homogeneous than that of 

 modern English. This may be illustrated by a reference to the 

 Anglo-Saxon Gospels, where we find "scribe" is translated 

 "bocere;" "centurion," "hundred-man;" "disciple," "leorning- 

 cniht;" and so on. In respect to its grammar, the Anglo-Saxon 

 is more inflexional than English, having three genders and four 

 cases; so that while the English word " good" has only one form, 

 the corresponding Anglo-Saxon adjective "god" had ten. The 

 verb, too, had many inflexions that are now lost. Special attention 

 was called to the existence of an ablative first discovered by 

 Grimm, as in thy (the), the Latin eo, as well as in hwy (why). 



After reading a few quotations illustrative of Anglo-Saxon litera- 

 ture from Beowulf, Caedmon, and King Alfred's translation of 

 Orosius, the lecturer called attention to the three (so-called) Anglo- 

 Saxon dialects — the West Saxon, the Northumbrian, and the 

 Mercian. It is in the West Saxon, which may be called the 

 classical form of the language, that the great body of Anglo-Saxon 

 literature has come down to us. The Northumbrian division once 

 had an extensive and flourishing literature of its own ; but only a 

 few fragments have escaped the general wreck produced by foreign 

 invasion. It is characterized by the form of the definite article, 

 and the omission of -n both in the plural of nouns and the infini- 

 tive of verbs. Of the Mercian forms of speech in a definite and 

 certain form very little is known. 



The lecturer observed with satisfaction a general tendency in 

 the present day to revive obsolete Anglo-Saxon and old English 

 elements, as likely to enrich our vocabulary, and especially to add 

 melody to verse. The fourteenth century saw the introduction of 

 a large number of foreign words from the French, and the sixteenth 

 from the Latin; the nineteenth enjoys the honour of having re- 

 cognized the superior force and fitness of a Saxon phraseology as a 

 medium of literary eff'ort. 



