The English Language Part 5

_Danish._

Og nu var det engang om Sommeren, at Sigmund sagde til Th.o.r.er: "Hvad mon der vel kan flyde af, om vi end gaae hen i den Skov, som ligger her nordenfor Gaarden?" "Det er jeg ikken nysgjerrig efter at vide,"

svarede Th.o.r.er. "Ei gaar det mig saa," sagde Sigmund, "og derud maa jeg." "Du kommer da til at raade," sagde Th.o.r.er, "men da overtraede, vi vor Fosterfaders Bud." De gik nu, og Sigmund havde en Vedoxe i Haanden; de kom ind i Skoven, og strax derpaa saae de en meget stor og grum Bjorn, en drabelig Skovejorn, ulvegraa af Farve. De lob da tilbage ad den samme Sti, ad hvilken de vare komne derhen. Stien var smal og trang; og Th.o.r.er lob forrest, men Sigmund bagerst. Dyret lob nu efter dem paa Stien, og Stien blev trang for det, og Traeerne brodes i dets.

Lob Sigmund dreiede da nu hurtig ud af Stien, og stillede sig imellem Traeerne, og stod der indtil Dyret kom frem lige for ham. Da fattede han oxen med begge Haender, og hug lige imellem orerne paa Dyret, saa at oxen sank i, og Dyret styrtede fremad, og var dodt paa Stedet.

_English._

And now is it a time about the summer, that Sigmund spake to Thorir: "What would become, even if we two go into the wood (shaw), which here is north from the house?" Thorir answers, "Thereto there is to me no curiosity," says he. "So is it not with me," says Sigmund, "and thither shall I go." "Thou mayst counsel," says Thorir, "but we two break the bidding-word of foster-father mine." Now go they, and Sigmund had a wood-axe in his hands; they come into the wood, and into a fair place; and as they had not been there long, they hear a bear, big, fierce, and grim. It was a wood-bear, big, wolf-grey in hue. They run (leap) now back (after) to the path, by which they had gone thither. The path was narrow and strait; and Thorir runs first, and Sigmund after. The beast runs now after them on the path, and the path becomes strait, and broken oaks before it. Sigmund turns then short out of the path among the trees, and bides there till the beast comes even with him. Then cuts he even in between {31} the ears of the beast with his two hands, so that the axe sinks, and the beast falls forward, and is dead.

-- 70. The Teutonic branch falls into three divisions:--

1. The Moeso-Gothic.

2. The High Germanic.

3. The Low Germanic.

-- 71. It is in the Moeso-Gothic that the most ancient specimen of any Gothic tongue has been preserved. It is also the Moeso-Gothic that was spoken by the conquerors of ancient Rome; by the subjects of Hermanic, Alaric, Theodoric, Genseric (?), Euric, Athanaric, and Totila.

This history of this language, and the meaning of the term by which it is designated, is best explained by the following pa.s.sages:--

_a._ A.D. 482. "Trocondo et Severino consulibus--Theodoricus cognomento Valamer utramque Macedoniam, Thessaliamque depopulatus est, Larissam quoque metropolim depredatus, Fausto solo consule (A.D. 485)--Idem Theodoricus rex Gothorum Zenonis Augusti munificentia pene pacatus, magisterque praesentis militiae factus, consul quoque designatus, _creditam sibi Ripensis Daciae partem_ Moesiaeque _inferioris, c.u.m suis satellitibus pro tempore tenuit_."--Marcellini Comitis Chronicon, D.N.

_b._ "Frederichus ad Theodoric.u.m regem, qui tunc apud Novam Civitatem provinciae Moesiae morabatur, profectus est."--Vita S. Severini, D.N.

_c._ "Zeno misit ad Civitatem Novam, in qua erat Theodoricus dux Gothorum, filius Valameris, et eum invitavit in solatium sibi adversus Basilisc.u.m."--Anon. Valesii, p. 663, D.N.

d. _Civitas Nova_ is Nicopolis on the Danube; and the nation thus spoken of is the Gothic nation in the time of Zeno. At this time they are settled in the Lower Moesia, or Bulgaria.

How they got here from the _northern_ side of the Danube we find in the history of the reign of Valens. When pressed by intestine wars, and by the movements of the Huns, they were a.s.sisted by that emperor, and settled in the parts in question. {32}

Furthermore, they were converted to Christianity; and the Bible was translated into their language by their Bishop Ulphilas.

Fragments of this translation, chiefly from the Gospels, have come down to the present time; and the Bible translation of the Arian Bishop Ulphilas, in the language of the Goths of Moesia, during the reign of Valens, exhibits the earliest sample of any Gothic tongue.

-- 72. How Gothic tribes reached the Lower Danube is a point upon which there is a variety of opinion. The following facts, however, may serve as the basis of our reasoning.

A.D. 249-251--The Goths are found about equidistant from the Euxine Sea, and the eastern portion of the range of Mount Haemus, in the Lower Moesia, and at Marcianopolis. Here they gain a great battle against the Romans, in which the Emperor Decius is killed.

His successor, Gallus, purchases a peace.

Valerian defends himself against them.

During the reign of Gallienus they appear as _maritime_ warriors, and ravage Asia Minor, Greece, and Illyria.

A.D. 269--Are conquered at Naissus, on the western boundary of Moesia _Superior_ by Claudius.

A.D. 282--Are defeated by Carus.

A.D. 321--Ravage Moesia (Inferior?) and Thrace.

A.D. 336--Attacked by Constantine in Dacia--_north_ of the Danube.

A.D. 373--In the reign of Valens (as already stated), they were admitted to settle within the limits of the empire.

-- 73. Now, although all this explains, how a Gothic language was spoken in Bulgaria, and how remnants of it have been preserved until the nineteenth century, the manner in which the tribe who spoke it reached Marcianopolis, so as to conquer the Emperor Decius, in A.D. 249, is unexplained.

Concerning this there are three opinions--

_A._ _The Baltic doctrine._ According to this the Goths migrated from the Baltic to the Maeotis, from the Maeotis to the Euxine, and from the Euxine to the Danube, along which river they moved from _east to west_. {33}

_B._ _The Getic doctrine._--Here the Goths are made out to be the aborigines of the Lower Danube, of Dacia, Moesia, and even Thrace; in which case their movement was, also, from _east to west_.

_C._ _The German doctrine._--Here the migration is from west to east, along the course of the Danube, from some part of south-eastern Germany, as its starting-point, to Asia Minor as its extreme point, and to Bulgaria (_Moesia Inferior_) as its point of settlement.

-- 74. Respecting the first of these views the most that can be said in its favour is, that it is laid down by Jornandes, who wrote in the fifth century, and founded his history upon the earlier writings of Ablavius and Dexippus, Gothic historians, who, in their turn took their account from the old legends of the Goths themselves--_in priscis eorum carminibus, paene historico ritu_. On the other hand, the evidence is, at best, traditional, the fact improbable, and the likelihood of some such genealogy being concocted after the relationship between the Goths of the Euxine, and Germans of the Baltic had been ascertained exceedingly great.

-- 75. The second is supported by no less an authority than Grimm, in his latest work, the History of the German Language;--and the fact of so learned and comprehensive an investigator having admitted it, is, in the mind of the present writer, the only circ.u.mstance in its favour. Over and above the arguments that may be founded on a fact which will soon be noticed, the chief reasons are deduced from a list of Dacian or Getic plants in Dioscorides, which are considered to bear names significant in the German. Whether or not, the details of this line of criticism will satisfy the reader who refers to them, it is certain that they are not likely to take a more cogent form than they take in the hands of the _Deutsche Grammatik_.

-- 76. The third opinion is the likeliest; and if it were not for a single difficulty would, probably, never have been demurred to. The fact in question is the similarity between the words _Getae_ and _Gothi_.

The fact that a tribe called G-O-T-H-I should, when they first peopled the Moesogothic country, have hit upon the {34} country of a people with a name so like their own as G-E-T-ae, by mere accident, is strange. English or American colonies might be sent to some thousand places before one would be found with a name so like that of the mother-country as _Get_ is to _Got_.

The chances, therefore, are that the similarity of name is _not_ accidental, but that there is some historical, ethnological, or geographical grounds to account for it. Grimm's view has been noticed. He recognises the difficulty, and accounts for it by making the _Goths_ indigenous to the land of Getae.

To a writer who (at one and the same time) finds difficulty in believing that this similarity is accidental and is dissatisfied with Grimm's reasoning, there seems to be no other alternative but to consider that the Goths of the Lower Danube had no existence at all in Germany _under that name_, that they left their country under a different[5] one, and that they took the one by which they were known to the Romans (and through them to us), on reaching the land of the _Getae_--as, in England, the Saxons of _Ess.e.x_ and _Wess.e.x_ did _not_ (since they brought their name with them), but as the East and West _Kent-ings_[6] did.

This doctrine, of course, falls to the ground directly it can be shown that the Goths of Moesia were either called _Goths_ in Germany, or any where else, anterior to their settlement in the _Geta_-land.

Be this, however, as it may, the first division of the Teutonic branch of languages is the Moeso-Gothic of the Goths of the Lower Danube, in the fourth century, as preserved in the translation of Ulphilas, and in other less important fragments.

SPECIMEN.

LUKE i. 46-56.

Jah qua Mariam. Mikileid saivala meina Fan, jah svegneid ahma meins du Goa nasjand meinamma. Unte insahu du hnaivenai iujos seinaizos: {35} sai allis fram himma nu audagjand mik alla kunja. Unte gatavida mis mikilein sa mahteiga, jah veih namo is. Jah armahairtei is in aldins alde aim ogandam ina. Gatavida svinthein in arma seinamma; distahida mikiluhtans gahugdai hairtins seinis; gadrausida mahteigans af stolam, jah ushauhida gahnaividans; gredigans gasoida iue, jah gabignandans insandida lausans; hleibida Israela iumagu seinamma, gamundans armahairteins, sva sve rodida du attam unsaraim Abrahaima jah fraiv is und aiv.

-- 77. The Old High German, called also Francic and Alemannic, was spoken in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, in Suabia, Bavaria, and Franconia. It is in the Old High German that the Krist of Otfrid, the Psalms of Notker, the Canticle of Willeram, the Glosses of Kero, the Vita Annonis, &c., are composed.

SPECIMEN.

KRIST, i. 12. (Edit. Graff.)

Tho uuarun thar in lante hirta haltente; Thes fehes datun uuarta uuidar fianta.

Zi in quam boto sconi, engil scinenti; Joh uuurtun sie inliuhte fon himilisgen liohte.

Forahtun sie in tho gahun so sinan anasahun; Joh hintarquamun harto thes Gotes boten uuorto.

Sprah ther Gotes boto sar. "Ih scal iu sagen uuuntar.

Ju scal sin fon Gote heil; nales forahta nihein.

Ih scal iu sagen imbot, gibot ther himilisgo Got; Ouh nist ther er gihorti so fronisg arunti.