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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Suppose that fifty or sixty years ago the idea had taken root in these United States that we ought to have a national American language; that as a free people, with a destiny of our own to carve out, we ought not to depend on a foren nation for the most important of all the instruments of civilization. Suppose, further, that some more or less competent scholar, by way of providing an American language, had carefully investigated a number of our local dialects and had made a sort of composit grammar and dictionary of them, standardizing the spelling on historical principles. Imagine, finally, a powerful and persistent effort to bring this language into use by means of legislation. Making all these suppositions, one has a rough analogy to what is now going on in the little rock-ribbed kingdom of Norway.
page 367 note 1 A report read to the Germanic Club of Columbia University, Jan. 18, 1910.
page 369 note 1 Landsmaal is the name given to a more or less ideal language based on the country dialects.
Note.—If any reader is curious to know how great the difference is between Landsmaal and literary Norse, he may get, a little dim light from a comparison of the following versions of a part oî Macbeth's letter to his wife (Macbeth, Act I, scene 5):
They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who all-hailed me “Thane of Cawdor”; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming-on of time, with “Hail, king that shalt be!”
(Landsmaal, from a recent school reader). Dei m⊘tte meg paa sigerdagen; og fullgod visse hev eg for at dei veit meir enn menneskje. Daa eg brann av hug etter aa spyrja deim meir, gjorde dei seg til luft, og i lufti kvarv dei. Med' eg stod klumsa og undrast paa dette, kom de bodberarar fraa kongen; dei helsa meg “Thegn av Cawdor.” Med den tignardomen hadde volvesystrane alt helsa meg, og tala um framtidi med dei ordi, “Heil deg, som heretter skal verte konung!”
(Literary Norse). De m⊘dte mig paa seirens dag; og jeg har fuld vished for, at de ved mere end d⊘delige mennesker. Da jeg brændte af begjærlighed efter at sp⊘rge dem videre ud, skabte de sig til luft og forsvandt i luften. Medens jeg stod fortabt og undrede mig over dette, kom der udsendinger fraa kongen, som hilste mig som “Thegn af Cawdor”; samme titel som hexes⊘strene tidligere hilste mig med, og hentydede til hvad fremtiden vilde bringe mig, i de ord, “Hil dig, du som skal blive konge!”