North, on the contrary, metathesis of r has taken place before ht in frohtian, fryhtu, etc. (Sievers, 179, 2).  In addition to these a large number of words appear in Old and Middle Sco. differing from literary English with regard to metathesis, sometimes showing metathesis where Eng. does not.  A list of words will illustrate this difference:  thyrldom, “thraldom”; thirl, “to enthrall”; fryst, “first”; brest, “to burst”; thretty, “thirty”; thrid, “third”; thirl, “to pierce thirl”; gyrs, “grass”; krul, “curl”; drit, “dirt”; warsill, “to wrestle”; scart, “to scratch”; cruddled, “curdled”; birde, O.E. brid, “offspring.”  The result is that many of these words are more like the corresponding O.N. words than the Anglo-Saxon (cp.  O.N. fristr, brenna, Norse tretti, tredie, etc.), hence they have in many cases been considered loanwords.  Sco. braist and landbrest, “breakers,” (cp.  O.N. bresta, landbrest), are not from the Norse but from the corresponding O. Nhb. words. Cors which occurs in Gau may be a similar case and like Eng. cross derived from O. Fr. crois, but Gau otherwise shows considerable Danish influence and Gau’s form may be due to that.  Eng. curl and dirt (from O.Du. krul and O.N. drit) have undergone metathesis.  The Sco. words have not.

  11.  THE QUESTION OF PALATALIZATION IN O. Nhb.

Just to what extent g, c, sc were palatalized in O. Nhb. is not definitely known.  Until this has been ascertained the origin of a number of dialect words in the North will remain uncertain.  The palatal character of g, c, sc in O.E. was frequently represented by inserting a palatal vowel, generally e, before the following guttural vowel.  Kluge shows (in Litteraturblatt fuer germ, und rom.  Philologie, 1887, 113-114) that the Middle English pronunciation of crin[vg]en, sin[vg]en, proves early palatalization, which was, however, not indicated in the writing of the O.E. words cringan, singan.  And in the same way palatalization existed in a great many words where it was not graphically represented.  Initial sc was always palatalized (Kluge, 114 above).  In the MSS. k seems to represent a guttural, c a palatal sound of older c (Sievers, 207, 2).  Palatalization of c is quite general. K became palatalized to c in primitive Eng. initially before front vowels, also before Gmc. e and eu (Kluge, P.G.(2)I, 991).  Kluge accepts gutturalizing of a palatal c before a consonant where this position is the result of syncopation of a palatal vowel.  In the South palatal c became a fricative ch.  According to Kluge it never developed to ch in Northern England and Scotland, but either remained