The word kutrus ‘witness’ is represented also in the secondary formations kutruwatar The giving of evidence’, kutruwā(i)~ To cause witnesses to testify’(?), and the preterite form kutruwahhun ‘made (one) a witness.’ Abstracts in -tar (gen. -nnas < *-tnas) are frequently formed in Hittite from nominal stems, e.g. parkuwatar ‘height’ : parkus ‘high’, irmatar ‘illness’: irmas ‘ill’, antuhsatar ‘virtus’: antuhsas ‘man.’ Examples of denominative verbs in -ā(i) are: hu(w)es(u)wā(i)- ‘be alive’: hu(w)esus ‘alive’, dammeshā(i)- ‘harm, punish’: dam(m)eshas ‘harm, punishment’, happarā(i)- ‘give out, sell’: happar ‘business transaction.’

In a previous article (Language 7.194-9) U. T. Holmes sought to establish the probability of German influence on the syntax of late Latin as spoken in northern Gaul. He also suggested a method for determining those Germanic constructions which differed most from popular Latin; and, where these German constructions are present in OFrench syntax he assumed that an interconnection was quite possible. Willem L. Graff has observed recently that ‘it is not yet possible to formulate the general laws that are thought to rule the drift of syntactical features.’ This may be true, in part, but it is safe to argue that every language has inherent tendencies which work themselves through to an expected conclusion, once the restrictions of artificial grammar become lax. It is possible to foresee much of late vulgar Latin in primitive and early Latin. The drift is continuous—no radical departures of syntactical construction are apt to develop without a rude shock from without, and, as was argued on good authority in the earlier article, the most vigorous shock which Gallo-Latin had to bear was from the horde of Germanic speakers who eventually took political possession of northern France. Furthermore, whatever we may say of the phonology and spelling of Saint Jerome's Vulgate Bible, its syntax (particularly before the revision by Alcuin) shows the popular concept of the phrase and sentence as held in the fourth century A.D. By confronting the Vulgate text with painfully literal translations made from it into OHG it is not difficult to discover those Germanisms which were essentially different from the late Latin drift. At the same time no construction must be labelled Germanic, even by this careful comparison, until a check has established that it is not present, or only slightly so, in the other Romance tongues. Italian and Provençal suffered less Germanic influence than French; Spanish had still less, and Roumanian almost none at all.

Æðele ‘fame, glory, high repute; might, power; honour’ etc. OE æðelu (indecl. in Sing.; constantly used in PL and declined as a Strong Neuter) ‘nobility of birth, high lineage, origin’; in spiritual sense, ‘virtue, noble qualities of mind and character’. Cp. the speech of Hrothgar's messenger to Beowulf:—Eow het secgan sige-drihten min, / aldor East-Dena, þæt he eower æþelu can Beow. 391-2; and again that of Ælfwine in the Battle of Maldon 216-7:—Ic wylle mine æþelo eallum gecyþan, / þæt ic wæs on Myrcon miccles cynnes, etc. The spiritual force of this word is well exhibited in a passage from Boethius quoted by Bosworth-Toller:—Ryht æþelo biþ on þam mode, næs on þam flæsce. Æðelu has the sense of ‘standing, rank, status, rights’ in him on leodsceare / frumbearnes riht freobroþer oþþah (= oþtēah ‘took away‘?) / ead and æðelo Exodus 337-9. The word is used in Beowulf of qualities of mind and character, conceived of perhaps as naturally betokening illustrious birth: —Gecyste þa cyning æþelum god, / þeoden Scyldinga, þegne betstan Beow. 1870-1, in the account of Hrothgar's taking farewell of Beowulf.

The language of the Chitimacha Indians of southern Louisiana is now practically extinct. Although there may still be as many as a hundred Chitimacha Indians living in Saint Mary's Parish, Louisiana, practically all of these now speak French or English or both and only two individuals remember the old language. These are Chief Benjamin Paul, aged 65, and Delphine du Cloux, aged 59. With the aid of these two, especially the former, I studied the language last summer, continuing the work begun by the late Dr. Albert S. Gatchet and carried forward by Dr. John R. Swanton of the Bureau of American Ethnology.