Note 90 — IV. SKRÆLINGS

The most that can be said is that the ‘lld’ sound occurring in three of the four words was probably characteristic of the language. Mr. Thalbitzer permits himself an unrestricted range through the Eskimo vocabulary for words resembling in sound those cited in the saga. This obviously leaves room for a considerable chance of merely accidental resemblance. Mr. Thalbitzer’s equivalents for ‘Vætilldi’ and ‘Uvægi’ are ‘uwätille’ and ‘uwätje’, meaning ‘wait a little, please’ and ‘wait a little’. The ‘ll’ we are told is strongly aspirated, and may be represented by ‘tl’. By a curious coincidence, which shows the danger of arguing on these lines, these Eskimo words have almost the same sound as their English rendering—‘you wait a little’, ‘you wait’.