The River-Names of Europe

This latter principle is indeed only in accordance with the general tendency of language towards what Max Mueller terms "phonetic decay"--a principle which seems less active in the rude than in the cultivated stages of society. It would appear as if civilization sought to compensate itself for the increased requirements of its expression, by the simplification of its forms, and the rejection of its superfluous sounds.

Upon the whole then I think that as the general rule these endings have been given in the first instance, and that they have but rarely accrued in after times. Such being the case, though in one point of view they may