AUTHOR OF "THE WORLD'S STORY,"
"A NURSERY HISTORY
OF ENGLAND," ETC.

Nearly all children must remember times when a word they know quite well and use often has suddenly
seemed very strange to them. Perhaps they began repeating the word half to themselves again and again, and
wondered why they had never noticed before what a queer word it is. Then generally they have forgotten all
about it, and the next time they have used the word it has not seemed strange at all.

But as a matter of fact wordsare very strange things. Every word we use has its own story, and has changed,
sometimes many times since some man or woman or child first used it. Some words are very old and some are
quite new, for every living language\u2014that is, every language used regularly by some nation\ue000is always
growing, and having new words added to it. The only languages which do not grow in this way are the "dead"
languages[8] which were spoken long ago by nations which are dead too.

Latin is a "dead" language. When it was spoken by the old Romans it was, of course, a living language, and grew and changed; but though it is a very beautiful language, it is no longer used as the regular speech of a nation, and so does not change any more.

But it is quite different with a living language. Just as a baby when it begins to speak uses only a few words, and learns more and more as it grows older, so nations use more words as they grow older and become more and more civilized. Savages use only a few words, not many more, perhaps, than a baby, and not as many as a child belonging to a civilized nation. But the people of great civilizations like England and France use many thousands of words, and the more educated a person is the more words he is able to choose from to express his thoughts.

We do not know how the first words which men and women spoke were made. People who study the history
of languages, and who are calledPhilologists, or "Lovers of Words," say that words may have come to be
used in any one of three different ways; but of course this is only guessing, for though we know a great deal
about the way words and languages grow, we do not really know how they first began. Some people used to
think that the earliest men had a language all ready-made for them, but[9] this could not be. We know at least
that the millions of words in use in the world to-day have grown out of quite a few simple sounds or "root"
words. Every word we use contains a story about some man or woman or child of the past or the present. In
this chapter we shall see how some common English words can tell us stories of the past.

In reading British history we learn how different peoples have at different times owned the land: how the
Britons were conquered by the English; how the Danes tried to conquer the English in their turn, and how
great numbers of them settled down in theDanelaw, in the east of England; how, later on, the Norman duke
and his followers overcame Harold, and became the rulers of England, and so on. But suppose we knew
nothing at all about British history, and had to guess what had happened in the past, we might guess a great
deal of British history from the words used by English people to-day. For the English language has itself been
growing, and borrowing words from other languages all through British history. Scholars who have studied
many languages can easily pick out these borrowed words and say from which language they were taken.

Of course these scholars know a great deal about British history; but let us imagine one who does not. He
would notice in the English language some words (though not many) which must have come from the
language which the Britons spoke. He[10] would know, too, that the nameWelsh, which was given to the
Britons who were driven into the western parts of England, comes from an Old English word,wealh, which
meant "slave." He might then guess that, besides the Britons who were driven away into the west of the
country, there were others whom the English conquered and made to work as slaves. From the namewealh, or
"slave," given to these, all the Britons who remained came to be known asWelsh.

Yet though the English conquered the Britons, the two peoples could not have mixed much or married very often with each other; for if they had done so, many more British words would have been borrowed by the English language. To the English the Britons were strangers and "slaves."

We could, too, guess some of the things which these old English conquerors of Britain did and believed from
examining some common English words. If we think of the days of the week besidesSunday, or the "Sun's
day," andMonday, the "Moon's day," we findTuesday, "Tew's day,"Wednesday, "Woden's day,"Thursday,
"Thor's day,"Friday, "Freya's day,"Saturday, "Saturn's day," and it would not be hard to guess that most of
the days are called after gods or goddesses whom the English worshipped while they were still heathen, Tew
was in the old English religion the bravest of all the gods, for he gave up his own arm to save the other gods.
Woden, the wisest of the gods,[11] had given up not an arm but an eye, which he had sold for the waters of
wisdom. Thor was the fierce god of thunder, who hurled lightning at the giants. Freya was a beautiful goddess
who wore a magic necklace which had the power to make men love. We might then guess from the way in
which our old English forefathers named the days of the week what sort of gods they worshipped, and what
kind of men they were\ue001great fighters, admiring courage and strength above all things, but poetical, too,
loving grace and beauty.

But, as everybody knows, the English people soon changed their religion and became Christians; and any
student of the English language would soon guess this, even if he knew nothing of English history. He would
be able to guess, too, that the English got their Christianity from a people who spoke Latin, for so many of the
English words connected with religion come from the Latin language. It was, of course, the Roman monk St.
Augustine who brought the Christian religion to the English. Latin was the language of the Romans. The word

Even, again, if a student of the English language knew nothing about the invasions of England by the fierce Danes, he might guess something about them from the fact that there are many Danish words in the English language, and especially the names of places. Such common words ashusband,knife,root,skin, came into English from the Danish.