called the port; and a stubborn person is dour (Fr. dur, from Lat. durus); while a gentle and amiable person is douce (Fr. douce, Lat. dulcis).

7. German Words.—It must not be forgotten that English is a Low-German dialect, while the German of books is New HighGerman. We have never borrowed directly from High-German, because we have never needed to borrow. Those modern German words that have come into our language in recent times are chiefly the names of minerals, with a few striking exceptions, such as loafer, which came to us from the German immigrants to the United States, and plunder, which seems to have been brought from Germany by English soldiers who had served under Gustavus Adolphus. The following are the German words which we have received in recent times :

8. Hebrew Words.-These, with very few exceptions, have come to us from the translation of the Bible, which is now in use in our homes and churches. Abbot and abbey come from the Hebrew word abba, father; and such words as cabal and Talmud, though not found in the Old Testament, have been contributed by Jewish literature. The following is a tolerably complete list :

9. Other Foreign Words.-The English have always been the greatest travellers in the world; and our sailors always the most daring, intelligent, and enterprising. There is hardly a port or a country in the world into which an English ship has not penetrated; and our commerce has now been maintained for centuries with every people on the face of the globe. We exchange goods with almost every nation and tribe under the

sun. When we import articles or produce from abroad, we in general import the native name along with the thing. Hence it is that we have guano, maize, and tomato from the two Americas; coffee, cotton, and tamarind from Arabia; tea, congou, and nankeen from China; calico, chintz, and rupee from Hindostan; bamboo, gamboge, and sago from the Malay Peninsula; lemon, musk, and orange from Persia; boomerang and kangaroo from Australia; chibouk, ottoman, and tulip from Turkey. The following are lists of these foreign words; and they are worth examining with the greatest minuteness :

(The word al means the. Thus alcohol the spirit.)

10. Scientific Terms.-A very large number of discoveries in science have been made in this century; and a large number of inventions have introduced these discoveries to the people, and made them useful in daily life. Thus we have telegraph and telegram; photograph; telephone and even photophone. The word dynamite is also modern; and the unhappy employment of it has made it too widely known. Then passing fashions have given us such words as athlete and aesthete. In general, it may be said that, when we wish to give a name to a new thing a new discovery, invention, or fashion-we have recourse not to our own stores of English, but to the vocabu laries of the Latin and Greek languages.

LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

1. The Beowulf, an old English epic, "written on the mainland" 2. Christianity introduced by St Augustine (and with it many Latin and a few Greek words)

3. Caedmon-'Paraphrase of the Scriptures,'-first English poem 4. Baeda-"The Venerable Bede "-translated into English part of St John's Gospel.

5. King Alfred translated several Latin works into English, among others, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation'.

6. Aelfric, Archbishop of York, turned into English most of the historical books of the Old Testament

7. The Norman Conquest, which introduced Norman French words

A.D.

450

597

670

735

(851) 901

1000

1066

1160

1154

8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, said to have been begun by King
Alfred, and brought to a close in
9. Orm or Orrmin's Ormulum, a poem written in the East Mid-
land dialect, about
10. Normandy lost under King John. Norman-English now have
their only home in England, and use our English speech

1204

1205

11. Layamon translates the 'Brut' from the French of Robert Wace. This is the first English book (written in Southern English) after the stoppage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 12. The Ancren Riwle ("Rules for Anchorites") written in the Dorsetshire dialect. "It is the forerunner of a wondrous change in our speech." "It swarms with French words " 13. First Royal Proclamation in English, issued by Henry III.. 14. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (swarms with foreign terms) 1297

1220

1258