the case in his time, when Friesland was so great that Oxlef lay within it. This is now otherwise; for the German has got the upperhand, and so the Frisian cannot remain pure. I think that the best Frisian, now-adays, is spoken at Bottendik, or at Daagebull, or, perhaps, on some of the small islands (Hallige) of the people of Föhr and Sylt. I will not speak, I cannot understand them when they will talk with me. PSALM CXXXIX.* 1. Hiere, dö forshest me ütt, an kännst me. 2. Ick sátt untig stäujn áp, sö wiest dö 't; dö forstōnst min tögte fòn fierense. 3. Ick gong untig ládd, sö bäst dö ám me, an sjögst all mín wége. 4. Dánn sieh, dirr ás nijn urd àw mán tung, wát dö, Hiere, ài ālles wiest. 5. Dö shafest't, wát ick faar untig herréften duhg, an halst din häujnn auwer me. 6. Dat tó forstäunnen as me altó wunnerbaur, an āltó huch; ick kōn't ai begrìppe. 7. Wirr shall ick hànegonge faar dán Geist? an wirr sháll ick hàneflijn faar dín onláss? 8. Faur ick ápaujn'e Hám met, sö bást dö dirr; māget ík mín Bêdd äujn'e 'e Hêlle, lauck, sö bást dö oik dirr. The Wooer from Holstein. Diar Kam en skep bi Sudher Sjöe Me krük en bekker ön di jen hundh, En wildh höm nimmer muar mest. There came a ship by the South Sea, That was Peter Rothgrun. Crock and beaker in one hand, And never would miss him more. For the nearest congener of the English, the Frisian, as exhibited in the foregoing specimens, is anything but easy reading to an Englishman. It may, also, be added, From Bendsen's Die Nordfriesische Sprache, p. 450. * that the Saterland sample is all but the ordinary Platt Deutsch. It is certainly Germanized. On the other hand, the relation of the modern forms of speech to the Old Frisian (which is that of the provincial dialects of England to the Anglo-Saxon) is clear: and clear and close is that between the Old Frisian itself and the AngloSaxon. § 52. It is easy to see that the Frisian, as it now stands, gives us but the fragments of a language. The dialects of the islands are, of course, isolated: inasmuch as the sea separates them. The isolation of the districts of the main land is in a different predicament. It suggests the notion of an original continuity. If such were actually the case, the northern boundaries of the Frisian must be sought on the Hvidaa, the Southern on the Rhine. The more we go into detail, the more we find this to have been the case. East Friesland was what its name suggests; whilst a part, at least, of Oldenburgh was East Frisian also. The parts, however, between the Weser and the Elbe show few signs of Frisian occupancy. No wonder. They lie between the two old and important towns of Bremen and Hamburgh, which, from the tenth century downwards, have been centres from which the German has diffused itself. On the north of the Elbe comes Ditmarsh; of which only thus much can be said, viz., that if the language were ever Frisian, it had become obsolete before A.D. 1452. Eydersted, on the other hand, though now German, was not only originally Frisian, but can be shown to have been so. Jacob Sax, A.D. 1610, writes that "the inhabitants, besides the Saxon, use their own extraordinary natural speech, which is the same as the East and West Frisian." Again, in 1752 and 1765 we have notices of its existence. Whether traces of it can now be found is uncertain. Schröder speaks of them as existing in 1837. Of the islands, Nordstrand and Pelvorm are the least Frisianif they be so at all. In the former a great inundation, A.D. 1610, was followed by the introduction of a colony of Germans. As late, however, as 1639, at least, Frisian was spoken in Nordstrand. In 1452, the following inscription was found on a font at Büsum, which the natives of Ditmarsh, who carried it off, were unable to translate. It ran thus: Original. Disse hirren döpe de have wi thön ewigen ohnthonken mage lete, da schollen osse berrne in kressent warde. Translated by Clemens, into the present Frisian of Amröm. Thas hirr döp di ha wi tun iwagen unthonken mage leat, thiar skell üs biarner un krassent wurd. In English. This here dip (font) have we as an everlasting remembrance let be made, there shall our bairns be christened in it. North of Pelvorm, the Frisian is the rule rather than the exception. There is less of it in Amrom than in Föhr. Of Föhr there is less on the western than the eastern half. Sylt is Frisian except at its north extremity. In Sylt, however, the Frisian ceases. § 53. The Frisian has been encroached on by two languages-the German and the Danish: in Pelvorm, Nordstrand, Eydersted, and the parts about Husum by the former, in the parts about Leck, Stadum, and Töndern by the latter. The exact details of its original extension are obscure. To the north of its present boundary it was spoken in Rodenæs, Nykerk, and Aventoft; to the west of it in Leck, Enge, Hjoldelund, Fjolde, Ollerup, and Swesing. Roughly speaking, we may say that it stretched over about a third of the southern half of Sleswick. § 54. I believe that the North Frisians are the descendants and representatives of some of the Nordalbingian Saxons; who (if such were the case) were slightly different from both the Old Saxons of Westphalia and the Angles —only, however, slightly. I believe this because I find, on North-Frisian ground, no trace of any older German population. Why, then, were these North Frisians called Saxons? Has it not been said that, at the present moment, they call themselves Friese? And may it not be added, that both the Danes and the Germans of their frontier call them Friese also? It may. The sources, however, from which we get the term Nordalbingian Saxon are neither Frisian nor Danish. They are Frank; and although the Franks generally (though not always) distinguished Frisia Proper (i. e. East and West Friesland) from Saxony, they may easily have treated such an outlying tract as North Friesland as part of it. This I believe them to have done. CHAPTER IX. GERMAN ORIGIN, ETC.-PARTS OF GERMANY, ETC.-IN- LANGUAGE. 55. As a general rule, the names on a map of England are British or English. A few, like Etruria, are new. A few, like East-ville, Tower-le-Moors, are, more or less, French. A few, like Weston-super-mare are, more or less, Latin. Not a few are Danish. As a general rule, however, the names that we find at the present moment are names that, with a slight modification of form, may have belonged to either the British or the Anglo-Saxon period, more especially to the latter. Many, very many, of these are compounds; compounds wherein the element of the wider and more general signification comes last; e. g. Stántún, or Sandwic, is the town characterized by stones, or the wic characterized by sand. § 56. The following elements in the names of places deserve notice: = Bæc, A. S. beck brook. The High German bach. It has (somewhat hastily) been considered a Danish, rather than an Angle, element. = Botl, A. S. bottle-as in Har-bottle dwelling-place, building. Common in the western half of the Duchy of Holstein. Brúc, A. S.-brook-Spell-brook, &c. = Dic, A. S. dike, ditch-Fos-dyke, Dyke, &c. Ig, A. S. = Feld, A. S. island; as in Ceortes-ig Cherts-ey. Form for form, this is the English field. In A. S., however, it meant an open tract of land rather than an enclosure. Fen, A. S.=fen. Fleot, A. S.=fleet, as in the Fleet Ditch, or the river Fleet. Ford, A. S.=ford. Word for word, it is the same as the Danish Fiord. The Danish (Norse) f-rd, however, means an arm of the sea. Ham, A. S.= home. The -ham in words like Nottingham, Threeking-ham, &c. Hangra, A. S.; -anger, English, as in Birch-anger, Pensh-anger a meadow. Hlaw, A. S. a rising ground. The -law so frequent in Scotland, as applied to hills, e. g. Berwick-law, &c. Holt, A. S. holt = = wood; as in North-holt. corner, angle. Danish as well as Saxon, and, from being found in the more Danish parts of Britain, has passed for an exclusively Danish word—which it is not. Hyrst, A. S. = hurst = copse or wood. One of the most characteristic words of the list, as may be seen from the comparison of any map of Northern Germany, with one of Kent or Bedfordshire. |