ledge, we shall not always be aware of this. Such cases, nevertheless, will be quite exceptive, if the colliding languages differed in something more than dialect; and in many instances we may judge almost by inspection whether a word is imported or not. That rex is native Latin, we discern from its connection with rego; a verb which has the senses, (1.) to point or guide; as regio and dirigo prove; (2.) to rule; and unless all are native, the whole family has been transplanted and acclimated with deceptive success. Hence, though the Erse has righ, and the Sanscrit rāja, we are not hereby tempted to doubt that rex is native. On the contrary, Backsù has no sources in Greek, and does not appear likely to be itself a root; finding, then, a SyroArabian verb, mashal, (to rule,) we are led to believe that the Hellenes, during their residence in Asia, before they reached Greece, picked up this and many other words from some people who spoke a Syro-Arabian dialect. We may apply such principles unskilfully; but the principles are sound. There are ways of discriminating words certainly native, and words probably imported; and, upon applying such methods to the Latin tongue, we find a great mass of words of which no account can be given. When they are un-Greek, they are not forthwith "barbarian," or intrusive; indeed, on comparing rex and ẞaosus, we must judge the Greeks to have talked barbarously; though, as opéɣw stands for rego, perhaps we may believe that they have still kept the congener of rex, under the form oρxauos. But, if we find in Latin two or three words which bear a certain similarity of sound, but none of sense, or if their forms stray from all laws of the language, while, in sense, they are connected,-if, on the contrary, in some other tongue, we see the representatives of these words connected by closer links of sound and sense,—or if, in the one language, we find a well-developed family, in the other an isolated word,-we have a pretty sure mark in what direction the current of language set. Sometimes the mere circumstance, that one tongue has merely the secondary sense of a word, another has both the primary and the secondary, will indicate that the former has borrowed from the latter. If a Chinese were informed what abstraction means in Latin and in English, he would be able (without any other knowledge of either language,) to form a probable opinion, that the English have borrowed from the Latin, and not conversely. These principles are well known; the difficulty is to practise them. Etymo logy is a quagmire, where a careless walker is easily swallowed up; but it has firm ground for those who know how to pick it. To return; if we use the word Siculian in an extended sense, we may say that Latin is made up of Siculian, Greek, and Sabine, overlapping as well as combining. But, under the word Siculian, is concealed, not merely everything that the Siculians may have picked up in Italy itself, from Umbrians, Enotrians, or Oscans, but possibly other heterogeneous material. For the similarities of language force us to believe that these tribes migrated from the far east, where they once lived in close company® with the progenitors of Persians and Bengalees. If the Siculian stream of migration passed along the continent to the north of Greece, there is a great à priori probability that they were often in close contact with northern peoples, Celts, Scandinavians, Teutons, or even Albanians, Lithuanians, Slavonians. If stray words are found in Latin which seem to belong to any of these, we need not be surprised; much less ought we to adduce them as a reductio ad absurdum of the argument which alleged an Italian corruption of Latin. To summon a tribe of Slavonians so far south is unnecessary to account for Slavonian words, if clear cases of such are found. The communication may have taken place on the banks of the Danube, or elsewhere. It has for some years been recognized, at least by several English scholars, that there is a remarkable similarity between the CELTIC languages and Latin. In the case of Welsh, it was, I believe, at first supposed that the words must have been introduced by the Roman dominion in Britain; but when the likeness was found to exist in the Erse, and that the Erse was even more like to Latin (as regards the consonants) than the Welsh is, this idea, of course, fell to the ground. The scholar and physiologist who first pressed into notice the strong similarities of the Celtic to the Indo-European languages, and claim In reasoning thus, we are not seeking to determine "the original" home, or to mount up at a single stride to the very beginning of mankind, as Niebuhr seems to think, (vol. 1. pp. 53, 54, 4th Eng. Ed.) Languages cannot have grown up on the soil, and have such likenesses and such unlikenesses as we now see. If any reasoning at all on these subjects is trustworthy, the likeness of Gothic and Latin to Sanscrit proves locomotive transmission of language from common points, and this can only have been by migrations. 7 Welsh and Irish scholars have, I believe, long declared that the first population of Italy must have been Celtic. But their principles of reasoning were so incautious, that their inferences passed for nothing. ed a place for Celtic within that group,-Dr. Prichard,—has naturally fixed his attention with so much strength on the primitive relations of all these tongues as to be jealous and suspicious of an argument, which alleges that one has borrowed from the other. Some ten years ago, by his favour, I read a M.S. of a vocabulary, (the composition of Dr. Stratton, formerly of Aberdeen,) which compared the Gaelic with the Latin tongue in alphabetical order, without comment or development. From this vocabulary, Prichard gives an extract in his chapter on the Italian nations, and finds it entirely to confirm his views, that the Roman language has not suffered any large admixture by a foreign action. What is or was Dr. Stratton's opinion, I never heard. His vocabulary first suggested to me the value of this inquiry, but that is all. Having now been led to a fuller examination of the Welsh and Gaelic dictionaries, I find not only a far greater abundance of material (especially in the Welsh) than I could have imagined, but also that, by grouping the words aright, conclusions result such as I had not expected, and adverse to those of Dr. Prichard. It may be imagined that the Welsh is certain to have received a large stock of words from the Romans, even if it be allowed that the Erse and Gaelic can have admitted few except ecclesiastical ones. But in order to remove any incredulity as to the value of Welsh to us when it stands alone, a few examples shall be first produced of a special kind :— from Italy; but, for that very reason, Ffynetr is likely to be native; and when we see its sense, and the whole family of words, there is no longer doubt of it. Ffynetr is formed regularly from the root Ffun, (the Welsh representative of πvéш,) and means an air-hole of a certain kind, viz. a chimney. Fe nestra has no derivation in Latin. It is probable that the Latins imported Fenetr (with Fons) from a Celtic people, and (slightly modifying its sound) changed its sense from an air-hole or chimney to mean a window. Afterwards, Fenestra was perhaps carried back to the Celts, with its new sense adhering to it. As for Fons, the gushing of a spring is not unnaturally called a breathing forth; and the relation of Ffynnon to Ffen and Ffyned seems unquestionable. No one could have guessed this of Fons and Fenestra. Surely the Welsh preserves for us here an earlier and a less fractured state of the language. Space will not allow to comment as fully on other similarities. [Welsh ƒ is often found for Latin m.] Ferrum, iron. Firmus, stout. Frigus, cold. Fores, doors, (Foris, abroad.) Furca, a fork. Forma, shape. Fas, lawful and right. Fascis, a bundle. Fasciculus, do. Ffer, strong, rigid : a great cold. iron. Ffyrf, Fferf, stout, firm. Ffwr, divergency: Off! away! Ffwrch, (mas.) an angle of divergency. Fforch, (fem.) a fork. Fford, a way or passage. Ffas, a band, ligature.8 These illustrations have been all taken from the letter Ff, by opening the dictionary at random: yet I can hardly hope that they are every where as abundant. It will be observed, that Cf. German Fassen, to hold or clasp, English Fasten, Fast. Our word Fast combines two roots; 1. Welsh Ffêst, quick, from Ffes, subtlety, power of pene trating; 2. Welsh Ffas, to tie and fasten, whence also the idea of withholding from food. no one can guess in Latin, that Fas and Fascis are connected : but we now see reason to think that (from the idea of binding and loosing in morals,) Fas means that which is bound or sanctioned. Thus at any rate we learn the importance of Celtic to Latin etymology; even if it be maintained that such a Latin family is native, though mutilated. In entering upon a more general comparison of the existing Celtic with the Latin, we must remember at how great disadvantage we are, from the certainty, that no Italian Celtic (supposing such to have existed in the days of Numa Pompilius,) could now be understood by any living person. Even the Welsh and the Irish are utter barbarians to one another; and by combining all that is native in their tongues, we shall be far from reproducing a language 2500 years old. And here it may be well to obviate an objection. It will be said,-The Romans knew the Gauls so well, that if any people in Italy with whom the Romans were in close contact had spoken a Celtic tongue, we should certainly have been informed of this: hence, no historical Italian people can be imagined as Celts. If any one reasons thus, he forgets that the very idea of "Celtic" tongue is a modern generalization far beyond the reach of antiquity. Sir William Betham has written a book to deny that Welsh and Irish ought to be included in one family of languages; and though he has not raised his reputation by it, he is undoubtedly an accomplished lexiloger in comparison with the ablest scholars of Greece and Rome; not one of whom, if they had known any thing of the Irish, would have dreamed of calling their language Celtic. Now, if two tongues of the same class may be so unlike to the popular apprehension, while fundamentally so similar, there may have been a third or Italian Celtic equally unlike to either: nay, for any thing ever yet proved, the formation of its verb may have been analogous to the Oscan, but its vocabulary to the Erse. This would not be more strange than many familiar facts of language: but, be this as it may, it will presently appear, that although the Welsh tongue furnishes us with the greatest number of similarities, the Gaelic forms of the The Irish or Erse has been a written language ever since St. Patrick. As those who wrote it were ecclesiastics, more or less skilled in Latin, it might seem possible that they have in a mea sure Latinized it. The Gaelic has been written only in recent times: for this reason, it may seem that more dependence is to be placed on it in our present argument, than on the Erse. |