Accidence—The Table Manners of Language 109

all the Indo-European languages had dual forms of the pronouns. The
ensuing table shows the Icelandic and Old English alternatives. At an
early date the hard Germanic g of English softened to y> as in many
Swedish words. The pronunciation ofgtt an.dge becameyit and ye. The
latter was stdl the plural pronoun of address in Mayflower English,

ICELANDIC
ANGLO-AMERICAN
OLD ENGLISH

Dual Plural
Vl3
vjer
we (two) we (all)
wit
we

Dual Plural
okkur
OSS
us (both) us (all)
uncit us

Dual
okkar
ours
uncer

Plural
vor
ours
ure

Dual Plural
J>id frer
you (two) you (all)
git ge

Dual Plural
ykkur yOur
you (both) you (all)
mat eow

Dual Plural
ykkar y£>ai
yours yours
mcer eower

Dual forms of the pronoun are widely distributed among earlier
representatives of different language families and among Irving dialects
of a few backward communities So it is not surprising that distinctive
dual personal flexions of the verb occur also,, e.g. in Sanskrit, early
Greek^ Gothic Though we meet them both in the old Aryan languages>
dual forms of the noun and of the adjective which goes with it are less
widely spread than those of the pronoun. Dual forms of one sort or the
other now survive only in technically backward or isolated communi-
ties. They disappeared in Greek in the fourth century B.C., and no
distinctive dual forms are found in the earliest Latin. They have per-
sisted in Lithuanian dialects of the western Aryan group, in the Amhanc
of Abyssinia within the Semitic family, and in two remote dialects of
the Fmno-Ugrian (p. 197) clan.
Separate dual and plural forms ot the pronoun may go back to a
time when many human beings lived in scattered and isolated house-
holds made up of two adults and of then: progeny. At this primitive level
of culture the stock in trade of words is small, and a relatively consider-
able proportion would refer to things which go m pairs> e g horns, eyes,
ears, hands, fecty arms, legs, breasts. If so the distinction may have in-
fected other parts of speech by analogical extension The fate ot the
two pronoun classes throws light on the fact that the family likeness