The explanation given by de Jubainville, and based by him on various philological considerations, is that the Germans were a subject people, comparable to those “un-free tribes” who existed in Gaul and in ancient Ireland. They lived under the Celtic dominion, and had no independent political existence. De Jubainville finds that all the words connected with law and government and war which are common both to the Celtic and Teutonic languages were borrowed by the latter from the former. Chief among them are the words represented by the modern German _Reich_, empire, _Amt_, office, and the Gothic _reiks_, a king, all of which are of unquestioned Celtic origin. De Jubainville also numbers among loan words from Celtic the words _Bann_, an order; _Frei_, free; _Geisel_, a hostage; _Erbe_, an inheritance; _Werth_, value; _Weih_, sacred; _Magus_, a slave (Gothic); _Wini_, a wife (Old High German); _Skalks, Schalk_, a slave (Gothic); _Hathu_, battle (Old German); _Helith, Held_, a hero, from the same root as the word Celt; _Heer_, an army (Celtic _choris_); _Sieg_, victory; _Beute_, booty; _Burg_, a castle; and many others. The etymological history of some of these words is interesting. _Amt_, for instance, that word of so much significance in modern German administration, goes back to an ancient Celtic _ambhactos_, which is compounded of the words _ambi_, about, and _actos_, a past participle derived from the Celtic root _AG_, meaning to act. Now _ambi_ descends from the primitive Indo-European _mbhi_, where the initial _m_ is a kind of vowel, afterwards represented in Sanscrit by _a_. This _m_ vowel became _n_ in those Germanic words which derive directly from the primitive Indo-European tongue. But the word which is now represented by _amt_ appears in its earliest Germanic form as _ambaht_, thus making plain its descent from the Celtic _ambhactos_. Again, the word _frei_ is found in its earliest Germanic form as _frijo-s,_ which comes from the primitive Indo-European _prijo-s_. The word here does not, however, mean free; it means beloved (Sanscrit _priya-s_). In the Celtic language, however, we find _prijos_ dropping its initial _p_—a difficulty in pronouncing this letter was a marked feature in ancient Celtic; it changed _j_, according to a regular rule, into _dd_, and appears in modern Welsh as _rhydd_=free. The Indo-European meaning persists in the Germanic languages in the name of the love-goddess, _Freia_, and in the word _Freund_, friend, _Friede_, peace. The sense borne by the word in the sphere of civil right is traceable to a Celtic origin, and in that sense appears to have been a loan from Celtic.