many: how much more to the small duchy of
Schleswig-Holstein, in which we have been told so often that nothing is
spoken but Danish and some vulgar dialects of Low-German!

Well, even those vulgar dialects of Low-German, and the poems and novels
that have been written in them by true Schleswig-Holsteiners, are well
worth a moment's consideration. In looking at their language, an
Englishman at once discovers a number of old acquaintances: words which we
would look for in vain in Schiller or Goethe. We shall mention a few.

_Black_ means black; in High-German it would be _schwarz_. _De black_ is
the black horse; _black up wit_ is black on white; _gif mek kil un blak_,
give me quill and ink. _Blid_ is _blithe_, instead of the High-German
_mild_. _Bottervogel_, or _botterhahn_, or _botterhex, is __butterfly__,
instead of __schmetterling__. It is a common superstition in_ the North of
Germany, that one ought to mark the first butterfly one sees in spring. A
white one betokens mourning, a yellow one a christening, a variegated one
a wedding. _Bregen_ or _brehm_ is used instead of the High-German
_gehirn_; it is the English _brain_. People say of a very foolish person,
that his brain is frozen, _de brehm is em verfrorn_. The peculiar English
but, which has given so much trouble to grammarians and etymologists,
exists in the Holstein _buten_, literally outside, the Dutch _buiten_, the
Old-Saxon _bi-utan_. _Buten_ in German is a regular contraction, just as
_binnen_, which means inside, within, during. _Heben_ is the English
heaven, while the common German name is _Himmel_. _Hueckup_ is a sigh, and
no doubt the English _hiccough_. _Duesig_ is dizzy; _talkig_ is talkative.

There are some curious words which, though they have a Low-German look,
are not to be found in English or Anglo-Saxon. Thus _plitsch_, which is
used in Holstein in the sense of clever, turns out to be a corruption of
_politisch_, _i.e._ political. _Kruedsch_ means particular or over nice; it
is a corruption of _kritisch_, critical. _Katolsch_ means angry, mad, and
is a corruption of _catholic_, _i.e._ Roman Catholic. _Kraensch_ means
plucky, and stands for _courageux_. _Fraenksch_, _i.e._ Frankish, means
strange; _Flaemsch_, _i.e._ Flemish, means sulky, and is used to form
superlatives; _Polsch_, _i.e._ Polish, means wild. _Forsch_ means strong
and strength, and comes from the French _force_. _Kluer_ is a corruption of
_couleur_, and _Kunkelfusen_ stands for c