and by Johann Meyer, in his _Ditmarscher Gedichte:_-- "Vaderhus un Modersprak! Lat mi't nöm'n un lat mi't rop'n; Vaderhus, du belli Sted, Modersprak, da frame Red, Schönres klingt der Nix tohopen," it may be that _modersprak_ is not entirely a word of Low German origin; beautiful though it is, this dialect, so closely akin to our own English, did not directly give it birth. Nor do the corresponding terms in the other Teutonic dialects,--Dutch _moederspraak, moedertaal_, Swedish _modersmål_, etc.,--seem more original. The Romance languages, however, offer a clue. In French, _langue mère_ is a purely scientific term of recent origin, denoting the root-language of a number of dialects, or of a "family of speech," and does not appear as the equivalent of _Muttersprache_. The equivalents of the latter are: French, _langue maternelle_; Spanish, _lengua materna_; Italian, _lingua materna_, etc., all of which are modifications or imitations of a Low Latin _lingua materna_, or _lingua maternalis_. The Latin of the classic period seems not to have possessed this term, the locutions in use being _sermo noster, patrius sermo_, etc. The Greek had [Greek: _ae egchorios glossa ae idia glossa,_] etc. Direct translations are met with in the _moderlike sprake_ of Daniel von Soest, of Westphalia (sixteenth century), and the _muoterliche spraach_ of Maaler (1561). It is from an Italian- Latin source that Dr. Lübben supposes that the German prototypes of _modersprak_ and _Muttersprache_ arose. In the _Bôk der Byen_, a semi-Low German translation (fifteenth century) of the _Liber Apium_ of Thomas of Chantimpré, occurs the word _modertale_ in the passage "Christus sede to er [the Samaritan woman] mit sachte stemme in erre modertale." A municipal book of Treuenbrietzen informs us that in the year 1361 it was resolved to write in the _ydeoma maternale_--what the equivalent of this was in the common speech is not stated--and in the _Relatio_ of Hesso, we find the term _materna lingua_ (105 a). The various dialects have some variants of _Muttersprache_, and in Göttingen we meet with _moimen spraken_, where _moime_ (cognate with Modern High German _Muhme_, "aunt"), signifies "mother," and is a child-word. From the _mother-tongue_ to the _mother-land_ is but a step. As the speech she taught her babe bears the mother's name, so does also the land her toil won from the wilderness. _Mother-Land._ As we say in English most commonly "native city," so also we say "native land." Even Byron sings:-- "Adieu, adieu I my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue; * * * * * My native land--good night!" and Fitz-Greene Halleck, in his patriotic poem "Marco Bozzaris," bids strike "For God, and your native land." Scott's far-famed lines:-- "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land!"