On the Approaches to the English Language [pp. 434-456]

1874.] ON THE APPROACHES TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
does not contain an i, while four of the six monosyllabic oblique
cases are umlauted. The difficulty will be overcome if we decline bec as a Gothic noun of the second strong declension, viz.
in i:
N. b6ks, pl. b6keis,
G. b6kais, bbk6,
D. bokai, b6kim,
A. b6k, bOkins.
It will be observed that in every instance, except one, the
dat. pl., where the Gothic inflectional syllable contains an i in
one shape or another, the Anglo-Saxon stem-vowel has been umlauted. It should be stated, however, that, in point of fact, the
word bbka is declined in Gothic according to the a declension,
and not the i. But this very discrepancy serves to show how,
on the one hand, Anglo-Saxon is not derived from Gothic, but
that each has borrowed from a common source and develops
after its own fashion, and how, on the other hand, a knowledge
of Gothic is essential to the right understanding of Anglo-Saxon.
To one who has not mastered the simple vowels of Gothic, the
broken, dimmed, obscured vowels of Anglo-Saxon are unintelligible; he may learn them by dint of application, but he will not
-have a true insight into them, such as a philologist should have.
Few English or American scholars seem to appreciate fully
the merits of Gothic. It is almost impossible to exaggerate its
importance to us. At a time when Germany was, so to speak,
a howling wilderness, and the German tribes were spending
their time in breaking each others' heads and harrying each
others' lands, UJlfilas-in Gothic, Vulfilas (Little Wolf)-a Goth
by birth and a Greek by education, the bishop of his nation, was
moved, we may well say, by the Divine Spirit, to undertake the
translation of the Scriptures into his mother-tongue, for the edi fication and further conversion of his brethren. The work was
done about the year 360, and it was done nobly. We of the
English-speaking race are proud of our version, the Germans
are proud of their Lutheran Bible, but neither English nor Ger mans can boast of much superiority over the Goths. The work
of Ulfilas has not been preserved entire. The Old Testament
has perished, except a few verses from the books of Ezra and Ne hemiah. Of the New Testament, Matthew is imperfect, the other
gospels are almost complete, the book of Acts is missing, the Epis
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