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Page xxvi:-
pale; and blake in these dialects is that pale yellow
colour which corn assumes when it first begins to ripen.
Deilen, to divide, gives birth to that rustic phrase
deal or dyal, for a distribution to the poor at a
funeral. Snell, signifying swift or sharp, is now
amongst our vulgar applied to a piercing wind. Sneb,
a beak, or the tip of the nose, is now called neb,
and sometimes applied to a point of land. Shorpen, is
to shrivel leather or any thing else by fire, &c.; it
has lost its Dutch termination, but still retains its
ancient meaning. Again, in the Dutch and the Northern
dialects the word long is pronounced lang,
&c. To smother also is in Dutch smooren,
and here smoor. Prune is pruyn, and pryun.
Loom is slow, at present applied to a deep place in a
river where the course of the water is retarded.
Snippen is to nip, with us called snip, and generally
applied to the nipping of another person in matters of
property. Swipe is a word now unused in the English
language, and seems to have sunk into sweep; which however
does not convey an accurate idea of the meaning, nor do I
know of a single word that can: an instrument for lightening
the labour of churning, and bears this name, is the best
explanation. Again: Pronken is with us to brank or
prunk, that is, to look proud and haughty; probably from the
effect of the wooden capistrum or head-stool, which bears
that name upon horses. Rys, with us rice, is the name
of brush-wood; and heel, with us hell, to
incline a vessel as is done in pouring out its contents,
seems to be lost, except in the language of seamen. Indeed
numberless are the words still used in the Dutch which have
ceased and become obsolete in the English tongue, remembered
only amidst the vulgarity and solitude of some of its
dialects.
There might also be produced a pretty large number of French
relicks, but one or two may serve for a specimen. To
fash, amongst these dialects is to trouble or
disquiet; and the French use facher in a similar
sense. The word bat, for a stroke, is as much a-kin
to their verb batter, as the common words battle,
battalia, battery, &c. The broad ey or
eigh, and ya of the North (signifying
yes,) are as near as aye to their oui.
But the arbitrary interposition of consonants between open
vowels merely (which one would hardly suspect,) Euphoniis
Gratia is the greatest resemblance, having few circumstances
in the real English similar to it, except the use of the
particles a and an; improvement indeed has
been give it in the French rules and limits, which are not
to be expected here.
It might however have been expected, that the Latin Tongue
would have left more numerous traces of itself, amidst the
barbarisms of the Northern dialects, than are now to be
found; especially if we consider that two thirds of the
forces which the Romans employed in Britain were generally
lodged on the Borders. However, the same cause which then
detained the Romans upon the present boundaries of the two
kingdoms, afterwards effaced almost every vestige of them;
for the nations whom they had long resisted, afterwards
rushing in, swept away every mark of them in a civil
respect, and left nothing almost but the ruins of their
fortifications and of their rampire. The word whinny,
however, for the neigh of a horse, strongly resembles their
hinnio. To scribe is still to write;
and the flocci of the Latins is still flocks.
However, there is, especially if we consider the almost
unparalleled desolation which reigned in these parts for
many hundred of years, no more reason for considering these
as directly retained from the Romans, than there is for
supposing the Greek name of floccii, viz.
Κναφαλον
and its verb
Κναωτω to be
immediately descended to us; because the nap of
cloth, called in Cumberland knap, and the verb
knap, signifying the action of cutting off the
flocks, or, still more absolutely, the noise of the sheers,
are still retained, along with several of their derivatives.
Of the old British Tongue still less remains, and probably
from the same causes acting for a longer time. The word
Gock (Gowk) is indeed still the name of a cuckow; and
a few more of that kind may yet be found. Some author has
observed that the names of mountains and rivers seldom
change in the fluctuation of languages; this is amply
verified in these parts by the many British names which they
still retain: We may
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