ON ETHNOLOGY. 
279 
same level with the Gothic of the fourth century. Again, if wo compare that 
work with the remarkable historical compositions of the hiatoriaii Snorro 
Sturleson, of the thirteenth century, and with the writings of the last cen¬ 
turies, we find in rapid progress the gradual extinction above referred to of 
the grammatical forms of the language. Still, if from the Icelandic of this 
day we look back to its native country, w« find mnong the descendants of 
the same stock two modern idioms formed out of the old No^^o, the Swedish 
Slid Danish, neither intelligible to the other wiiliout some practice, and each 
as unintelligible to the Icelander, as liLs tongue, ami still more his Edda, is, 
a^d has been for the last four hundred years at least, to the Dane and 
Swede; whereas the Icelander of 18W) can understand with a little practice 
the Norse of more than a thousand years ago. Tims their evulsion from 
die stem, and their subsequent isolation, preserved among the Icelanders 
the ancient heirloom of their fathers so long and so successfully, that the 
colonial language and that of the inotlier-countiy became for ever distinct, 
the first being even now scarcely anything but the language of Scandinavia, 
suddenly fixed in the ninth century, and since that time shorn only of some 
fit Its luxuriant forms. We have already observed that every new language 
^ produced by what we have called the secondary forumtioo. Such a secon¬ 
dary formation is scarcely traceable in Icelandic, while it is niacU more visi¬ 
ble in the Swedish and Danish. In the new Icelandic we cati only quote the 
of uew abstract words; all other diflbrcnces consist simply in 
he loss of ancient forms. As to the old Icelandic, a comparison with the 
oiLic aud some isolated formations of a very primitive nature show that 
ie new formation by which the Scandinavian branch oblaitied a distinct 
C ‘aweter, was equally marked as will by loss of forms as by the prominent 
forking out of elements which in the old united stock were less developed, 
at stood there by the side of collateral forms dropped iu the Scandinavian. 
0 ^ Norse article Ae««, /linna, hit, has been supplanted by the new 
|i^'’^*oavian article, and has transformed itself into a suiHx appended to 
c noun. It has lost consequently its whole declension, and of the three 
coi tho auciont urticlo one, two have survived in that suffix; one 
niascnliiiG and fcuiinine, and one for the neuter. 
^ be Dutch itself, which is nothing Imt a scion of the great Saxon or Low 
r rinan dialect, individualized and fixed by the national separation and in- 
changed less than that dialect has done in the mother- 
r ‘onexions, n compared with the anterior state 01 the language, ic- 
^y.die Gothic of Ulphilas, which must be considered as collateral 
Gp "’^•nh tile Saxons, Ilengist and Horsa, brought with tliem from 
But it is no less decidedly nearer to that preceding period than 
liavf rlialoct in German allow us to suptH«ae this to 
Enni- 1 P^^riod. Finally, according to good authorities, the 
ofiV* sixteenth century has become fixed in some English 
Cn„ ^ pronunciation; and iu the same manner the Frenc in 
no* • li'fi iaugimgo of Umts XIV. Before three centum^ clape a 
rtca will be supplied by the dift'enmee bettveco t!ie English of mc- 
that of Europe. To the critical observer this ditfcrcoce is a ready 
retention of forms and protmneiafious of the scien - 
1^"’ hy new AmoricanUms in formation and signification, 
sular*^”,'** phraseology more open to European inflneiiec* than 
of the mother country. , . , 
"e have therefore undoubted instances of the fact, that a colonial trans- 
