146 



An Essay on the Relationship of 



[Jan. 



The English th is mostly d in German ;* e. g. the is in German die 

 (der, die, das) ; — this is dieser, diese, dieses; than is dann ; and vice 

 versd, do is time in German ; — door is in German both thiir (door) and 

 thoor (a gate). 



T in German is invariably changed into d in Nether Saxony, and 

 mostly also in English; e. g. saat is seed; blut is blood. 



S and 55 in German is regularly t in the Nether Saxon dialect, and in 

 English ; e. g. wasser is water ; gross is great, and in low Saxon, 

 groot ; wasis what ; das and dass is that ; zu wissen(to know) is inEng- 

 lish, to wit; er weiss, er wusste is he wot; weiss is, white. 



Tz changes likewise invariably into t\ — hitze is Aea£ ; sitz, seat; 

 witz is wit. 



Sch in German (pronounced sh) is mostly, if not always, sk in low 

 Saxon, but seldom changed in English ; e. g.fisch in German, fish in 

 Englishes pisk in low Saxon ; thus schiff = ship, is sHp in low Saxon, 



14. — All the gutturals y, g, k, h (or the German and Scotch ch), inter- 

 change with the simple aspirate h frequently, as well as amongst them- 

 selves. G (according to the Romanizing system always pronounced 

 like g in •. give) is pronounced in many German dialects, either like 

 k or like h, softer and harsher ; and that h is always pronounced, in 

 Nether Saxony, and mostly also in England, like k, is well known. 



15. — In other languages and dialects other changes of the conso- 

 nants are observed with equal regularity. Grimm in his German gram- 

 mar gives a specimen, and remarks that, if an]? word is found in these 

 three German dialects, not changed in conformity with this specimen, 

 it is certain that such a word is an intruder and not originally be- 

 longing to that dialect (See Edinburgh Quarterly Review, No. xcix. 

 Oct. 1833). 



Greek and Latin. Gothic. Old High German. 



piscis 

 frater 

 rpeis, tres 



©C>8S, oBoVTO? 



%o/)to?, hortus 



Gothic. 

 fotius 

 fisks 

 brother 

 threis 

 tunthus 

 kuni 

 gards 



vuoz 



visk 



pruoder 



dri 



zand 



chunni 



karto 



Modern German* 

 fuss. 



fisch (pron, fish)» 



bruder. 



drei. 



zahn. 



garten. 



16. — To show what great changes vowels and consonants undergo in 

 a language, I cannot but transcribe two specimens of valuable remains 

 of the old Saxon dialect preserved in the archives of Goslar, and which 

 will prove particularly interesting to the English reader. 



* For brevity's sake I use in this treatise, the word German for the classical, commonly 

 received, polite dialect of Germany, which usually is called high German. 



