Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>:
>
> Unfortunately, all that survives from the earliest period of Old
> West Low Franconian, beyond a great deal of onomastic material in
> Latin texts, is the following remarkable West Flemish sentence of
> the eleventh century, found in England in the binding of a Latin
> manuscript:
>
> hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hi(c) (e)nda thu
> w(at) (u)nbidan (w)e nu
>
> Brian
>

Do the parentheses indicate that the letters are present but nearly
illegible, or that the letters are completely illegible or absent (and
hence that they could be any other letters)?

Andrew