of manners. And now at last, after all this intercourse, what two languages can be more unlike? Can this radical dissimilitude be called only a difference in dialect? During the rude ages prior to history, before the Britons or Germans were invaded by other nations, or had adopted any foreign refinements, while both people were under the uninterrupted influence of their original institutions, customs, and manners, no reason can be assigned why their language should undergo any material alterations. A savage people, wholly occupied by their present animal wants, aim at no mental or moral improvements, and are subject to no considerable changes. In this state, their language being affected by none of the causes that commonly introduce very great innovations, will continue for many ages nearly the same. The great causes that introduce the most considerable changes in language, are invasions of foreigners, violent alterations in religion and laws, great improvements in literature, or refinements in manners. None of these, so far as we know, had happened either to the Germans or Britons before the time of Cæsar, and yet even then there appeared no resemblance between the languages of these two people. On the other hand, all these causes have been operating with combined force ever since, and yet no considerable resemblance has obtained between the languages of England and Wales; nor has the radical affinity between those of England and Germany been effaced or destroyed. Upon what grounds then can it be pretended. that the ancient languages of Gaul and Germany flowed from one common source? Or who will believe so improbable a fact? M. Pelloutier tells us, that "it having been pretended that the ancient Celtic is preserved to this day in the languages of Wales and Brittany in France, he had looked into a few glossaries of the Welsh and Armoric tongues †, and *Hist. des Celtes, vol. i. p. 155. The Armoric language, now spoken in Brittany in France, is a dialect of the Welsh; that province being peopled with a colony from Britain in the fourth century; and though the two people have been separated so many ages, and have been subject to two nations so different in their laws, religion, and manners, still the two languages contain so strong a resemblance, that in our late conquest of Belleisle, such of our soldiers as came out of Wales were easily understood by the country people, and with their Welsh language, served for interpreters to the other soldiers who only spoke Eng had indeed discovered "that several words of the ancient Celtic were, in effect, preserved in those tongues." hints, that he could not consider the bulk of the language as But he plainly there perpetuated; and, indeed, considering how thick a film the prejudice of system had drawn over his eyes, it is a wonder he could discover any Celtic words at all; for he, taking it for granted that the High Dutch language was the genuine Celtic, only looked for such words as bore any resemblance to that tongue; and there being, as indeed there are, very few that have any similitude, no wonder that he found so few Celtic words in a genuine Celtic language *. I shall now proceed to lay before the reader specimens of the Teutonic and Celtic languages, properly classed †, which, lish. This is a fact related to me by a person who was there. Perhaps, upon comparing the specimens subjoined, the two dialects may appear to the eye more remote from each other than the above relation supposes; but, it may be observed, that their orthography not having been settled in concert, the same sound may have been expressed by very different combinations of letters, and the other differences may be only those of idiom; so that the two languages, when spoken, may have a much greater resemblance than appears upon paper to a person ignorant of them both. To give one instance; the Welsh word Drug, and the Armoric Drouc (Eng. Evil), though so differently written, are in sound no further distant than Droog and Drook, the vowels in both being pronounced exactly alike. * It is much to be lamented that a writer of so much learning, sagacity, and diligence, as Mons. Pelloutier, should have spoiled, by one unfortunate hypothesis, so excellent a work as his History of the Celts,' after all, certainly is. Had he not been drawn into this fundamental error, which infects his whole book; but on the contrary, had been apprised of the radical distinction between the Gothic and Celtic antiquities; had he assigned to each people the several descriptions which occur of them in ancient history; had he pointed out the distinct features of their respective characters, and shown in what particulars they both agreed, and wherein they differed; had he endeavoured to ascertain the limits of each people in ancient Europe, and shown by which of them the several countries were formerly inhabited, and from which of them the modern nations are chiefly descended; he would then have performed a noble task, and have deserved equally well of the past and future ages; his book, instead of being a perpetual source of mistake and confusion, would then have served as a clue to guide us through the labyrinth of ancient history, and he would have raised a noble monument to the memory alike of the Celts and Goths, from one or other of which ancient people so many great nations are descended. + Specimens of these languages, taken from more correct sources than were available in Bishop Percy's time, and classed in conformity with the present state of the science of glossology, will be given after the remarks we shall have to make on the learned Bishop's admirable preface.-ED. it is apprehended, will decide this question better than any conjectural or moral reasoning. The great and uniform similitude, discoverable at first sight between all the specimens of the Gothic or Teutonic languages, must indeed be very striking, even to foreigners unacquainted with these tongues. But to those that know them intimately the affinity must appear much nearer and stronger, because many words that were originally the same are disguised by the variations of pronunciation and orthography, as well as by the difference of idiom: thus, the German Geheiliget, and the English Hallowed, are both equally derived from the Teutonic Helig, Holy. It may further be observed, that time has introduced a change, not only in the form, but in the meaning of many words, so that, though they are equally preserved in the different dialects, they no longer retain the same uniform appearance, nor can be used with propriety to express the same exact meaning. Thus, the Latin word Panis is translated in the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Hlaf, or Hlaif, which word is still current among us in its derivative Loaf, but with a variation of sense that made it less proper to be used in the Paternoster than the other Teutonic word Bread, which is preserved in all the other dialects, but in a great variety of forms. Thus in the old Frankic, Brot; German, Brod; Dutch, Brood; Old Norse, Braud; Swedish and Danish, Bröd. Again, it is possible that in many of these languages there was more than one word to express the same idea; and if there was a variety, then the different translators, by using some of them one word, and the rest another, have introduced a greater difference into their versions than really subsisted in their several languages. Of this kind I esteem the word Atta (Pater), used by Ulphilas, whose countrymen had probably another word of the same origin as Fader or Father, as well as all the other Gothic nations. So again, the AngloSaxons (besides their word Hlaf) had probably another term, whence we derived our present word Bread. As the strong resemblance of the several Teutonic specimens to each other, so their radical dissimilitude to those of Celtic origin, must appear decisive of the great question discussed in the foregoing preface, not but here and there a word may have been accidentally caught up on either side: viz., borrowed by the Goths from the Celtic language, and vice versá; or perhaps adopted by each of them from some third language radically different from them both. Thus, from the Welsh Tád, our vulgar have got the common English word Dad and Daddy. And, from the French Delivre, are derived both the English Deliver, and the Armoric Diluir, whence the Cornish Dilver. Before I conclude these slight remarks, I must beg leave to observe, that as the great subject of this present book is Gothic antiquities, which I apprehend to be totally distinct from the Celtic, I do not take upon me to decide on any of the points which relate either to the Celtic antiquities or Celtic tongues. For this reason I avoid entering into the dispute, which has of late so much interested our countrymen in North Britain: viz. whether the Erse language was first spoken in Scotland or Ireland. Before the inquisitive reader adopts either opinion, he would do well to consider many curious hints, which are scattered up and down in Lluyd's most excellent Archæologia Britannica, 1707, fol., and especially in his Welsh and Irish prefaces, translated in the appendix to Nicholson's Irish Historical Library, &c., 1736, folio. In reply to those who contend that the true name of the Erse language is Gaelic or Galic, and that this word is the same with Gallic, the name of the ancient language of Gaul, I will merely observe, without deciding the question as to the origin of the Erse language itself, that the ancient name of Gallic does not seem to have been used by the natives of Gaul themselves, but to have been given them by foreigners. They called themselves Celta, and their language Celtic * in like manner as the inhabitants of Wales, though called Welsh by us, term themselves Cymru, and their own language Cymraeg; who at the same time call us Saissons, and our tongue Saissonaeg, thus reminding us of our Saxon origin. * Qui ipsorum lingua Celta, nostra Galli appellantur. Cæsar de Bell. Gal. L1.- "Celtæ, the Gauls, Cædil, Cadil, or Keill, and in the plural, according to our dialect, Keiliet, or Keilt, (now Guidhelod) Irishmen. The word Keilt could not be otherwise written by the Romans, than Ceilte or Celta." See Lluyd's Irish Preface, p. 107, in Nicholson's Irish Historian. In the same place the reader will find many of the ancient names of offices, persons, &c., mentioned by Cæsar as prevailing in Gaul, explained from the modern Irish language, as, Allobrox, Divitiacus, Vercingetorix, Vergasillaunus, Vergobretus, &c. 22 REMARKS ON BISHOP PERCY'S PREFACE. BY THE EDITOR. PROFESSOR RASK, in the Introduction to his Icelandic Grammar*, observes that, "after Bishop Percy's most excellent Preface to Mallet's Northern Antiquities, the Teutonic and Celtic languages can no longer be confounded, nor comprised under the vague and unmeaning appellation of Scythian, Sarmatian," &c. Since the publication of the learned Danish Professor's work thirty-five years have elapsed, during which period the study of glossology, or comparative philology, has made as rapid a progress as that of biology, or comparative anatomy and physiology. By the latter we have become acquainted with the organization and affinities of animals; by the former, with the construction and relationship of languages. At the present day a zoologist, by the mere inspection of a few fossil bones, will seldom be at a loss in ascertaining to what description of animal they belonged, and, if the animal be of an unknown species, what place he ought to assign it in the reticulated chain of organic existence. A glossologist, in like manner, by subjecting to a critical examination the few literary remains of some ancient idiom, which a lucky accident may have preserved from oblivion, will not fail to reconstruct them into a language more or less perfect in all its parts, and point out its near or remote affinity to well-known cognate tongues. When a writer of the 17th or 18th century attempted to do any thing of the kind, he was sure to be led astray by some vague theory or other which we should now deem unworthy of serious consideration, or, like a person threading the mazes of a sylvan labyrinth, would frequently turn aside when on the point of entering the right path and wind * Fublished at Copenhagen in 1811. |