[17] As a general rule, I believe that the combination -_ing_, represents a German, the combination -_ign_ a Slavonic, word. [18] In v. _Jutæ_. [19] See Chapter ix. CHAPTER IX. THE SAXONS--OF UPPER SAXONY--OF LOWER OR OLD SAXONY.-- NORDALBINGIANS.--SAXONS OF PTOLEMY.--PRESENT AND ANCIENT POPULATIONS OF SLESWICK-HOLSTEIN.--NORTH-FRISIANS.--PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE NAME SAXON.--THE LITTUS SAXONICUM.--SAXONES BAJOCASSINI. The ethnologist of England has to deal with a specific section of those numerous Germans, who, in different degrees of relationship to each other, have been known, at different times, under the name of _Saxon_; a name which has by no means a uniform signification, a name which has been borne by every single division and subdivision of the Teutonic family, the Proper Goths alone excepted. At present, however, he only knows that the counties of Es-_sex_, Sus-_sex_, and Middle-_sex_ are the localities of the East-_Saxons_, the South-_Saxons_, and the Middle-_Saxons_, respectively; that in the sixth and seventh centuries there was a Kingdom of Wes-_sex_, or the West-_Saxons_; that _Angle_ and _Saxon_ were nearly convertible terms; and that Anglo-_Saxon_ is the name of the English Language in its oldest known stage. How these names came to be so nearly synonymous, or how certain south-eastern counties of England and a German Kingdom on the frontier of Bohemia, bear names so much alike as Sus-_sex_ and _Sax_-ony, are questions which he has yet to solve. The German Kingdom of Saxony may be disposed of first. It is chiefly in name that it has any relation to the Saxon parts of England. In language and blood there are numerous points of difference. The original population was Slavonic, which began to be displaced by Germans from the left bank of the Saale as early as the seventh century; possibly earlier. The language of these Slavonians was spoken in the neighbourhood of Leipsic as late as the fourteenth century, and at the present time two populations in Silesia and Lusatia still retain it--the Srbie, and Srskie. Sorabi, Milcieni, Siusli, and Lusicii, are the designations of these populations in the time of Charlemagne; and, earlier still, they were included in the great name of Semnones. It is only because they were conquered from that part of Germany which was called _Saxonia_ or _Saxenland_, or else because numerous colonies of the previously reduced Saxons of the Lower Weser were planted on their territory, that their present name became attached to them. Slavonic in blood, and High German in language, the Saxons of the Upper Elbe, or the Saxons of Upper Saxony, are but remotely connected with the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons of Britain. In Upper Saxony, at least, the name is not native.