Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter VIII
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
SCANDINAVIAN BASIS OF ENGLISH. 141
commodity they bring into the market is the best in
existence.
This matter was discussed on board with considerable
earnestness, and then came the question whether,
assuming that Englishmen require to learn some other
language as the basis of their own, this should be Latin
or old Norsk. The matter settled down into a
convivial wager of a bottle of claret; the proposition
asserted 011 the one side being, that, taking the vocabulary
of Norsk words in Murray’s Handbook, above
one-third should prove to have common English words
obviously derived from them. On examination, it was
found that this was the case with about half the words,
and of course the affirmer of the proposition won the
wager. The loser, and some of the umpires, thought
it probable that the words in that vocabulary might be
selected on account of their similarity to English, and
another similar wager was made upon the affirmation
that if the Danish dictionary be opened at random sixty
times, and the first root-word in the page be taken,
above twenty of these root-words should have common
English words so obviously derived from them as to bo
admissible by all the umpires: all technical terms and
words derived from Latin or French being excluded.
This wager wTas also decided in favour of the affirmative,
though it was much closer run than the former. These
experiments, easily repeated, show how nearly our
language is allied to the Scandinavian; especially if
attention be paid to the kind of words we get from
this source. They are our common vulgar words: those
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
