ABSTRACT
It might at first sight appear as if language, apart, that is, from literature and books, and where these did not exist, would prove the frailest, the most untrustworthy, of all the vehicles of knowledge, and that most likely to betray its charge. Anyone with skill to analyse the language might re-create for himself the history of the people speaking that language, might come to appreciate the diverse elements out of which that people was composed and in what proportion these were mingled. While the statelier superstructure of the language, almost all articles of luxury, all that has to do with the chase, with chivalry, with personal adornment, is Norman throughout; with the broad basis of the language, and therefore of the life, it is otherwise. There are vast harvests of historic lore garnered often in single words; and there are continually great facts of history which they at once declare and preserve.
