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venience of double letters ng, st, ae, ea, eo, oe, for sounds wliicli 
the older systera would have expressed by single ones was 
tolerated, these two resumed and maintained their ground 
until long after the jSTorman conquest. This phenomenon is 
now recognized as evidence that the system to which they 
belong was one which our forefathers possessed, before they 
became acquainted with Latin writing and learning ; and if 
it be so, one of exactly the same kind indicates the existence 
of futhorcs amongst other Teutonic nations in Continental 
Europe. 
Born, A.D. 318, in the land of the Goths (trans Danubium), 
of Cappadocian parents (carried captive thither), sent on an 
embassy to Constantinople, and consecrated bishop a.d. 348, 
Wulfila devoted himself to the conversion of that people, 
and, as a means thereto, translated the sacred Scriptures into 
their language. There does not seem to be a reasonable 
doubt that his version is preserved to us, in part at least, 
in the Codex Argenteus, at Upsala, and the Wolfenbuttel 
and Milan palimpsests, although these are supposed to have 
been written at least a century later than his death, and in 
Italy. However this may be, it is certain that the writing 
of the Codex Argenteus was formed upon a Greek model, 
and the alphabet is proved, by the numerical values of the 
characters, to have followed the order of the Greek, rather 
than that of the Latin. I give for comparison (PI. I. & o.), 
a Greek alphabet taken from a MS. of the 5th century, and 
the Gothic alphabet from the Codex Argenteus. The 
characters for 90 and 900, as in Greek, are used only as 
numerals, so that the alphabet really consists of twenty-five 
characters. Of these 
B, G, E, Z, I, K, L, M, N, P, T, CH, have forms similar 
to the Greek, and the same values. 
A, D, TH, R, S, F, O, have the same values as the Greek, 
but different forms. 
