The English Language Part 21

Li empereres reguardet la reine sa muillers.

Ele fut ben corunee al plus bel e as meuz.

Il la prist par le poin desuz un oliver, De sa pleine parole la prist a reisuner: "Dame, veistes unkes humc nul de desuz ceil Tant ben seist espee ne la corone el chef?

Uncore cunquerrei-jo citez ot mun espeez."

Cele ne fud pas sage, folement respondeit: {92} "Emperere," dist-ele, trop vus poez preiser.

"Uncore en sa-jo on ki plus se fait leger, Quant il porte corune entre ses chevalers; Kaunt il met sur sa teste, plus belement lui set."

In the northern French we must recognise not only a Celtic and a Cla.s.sical, but also a Gothic element: since Clovis and Charlemagne were no Frenchmen, but Germans; their language being _High_-Germanic. The High-Germanic element in French has still to be determined.

In the northern French of _Normandy_ there is a second Gothic element, _viz._, a Scandinavian element. By this the proper northern French underwent a further modification.

Until the time of the Scandinavians or Northmen, the present province of Normandy was called Neustria. A generation before the Norman Conquest, a Norwegian captain, named in his own country _Rolf_, and in France _Rollo_, or _Rou_, settled upon the coast of Normandy. What Hengist and the Germans are supposed to have been in Britain, Rollo and his Scandinavians were in France. The province took from them its name of Normandy. The _Norwegian_ element in the Norman-French has yet to be determined. Respecting it, however, the following statements may, even in the present state of the question, be made:--

1. That a Norse dialect was spoken in Normandy at Bayeux, some time after the battle of Hastings.

2. That William the Conqueror understood the Norse language.

3. That the names Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney are as truly Norse names as Orkney and Shetland.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE POSITION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS INDO-EUROPEAN.

-- 145. In each of the three preceding chapters a separate stock of languages has been considered; and it has been shown, in some degree, how far languages of the same stock differ from, or agree with, each other.

Furthermore, in each stock there has been some particular language that especially ill.u.s.trates the English.

In the Gothic stock there has been the Anglo-Saxon; in the Celtic the Welsh; and in the Cla.s.sical the Anglo-Norman.

Nevertheless, the importance of the languages of these three divisions is by no means equal. The Gothic tongues supply the basis of our investigations. The Celtic afford a few remnants of that language which the Anglo-Saxon superseded. The Anglo-Norman language exhibits certain superadded elements.

-- 146. Over and above the Gothic, Celtic, and Cla.s.sical languages, there are others that ill.u.s.trate the English; and some of our commonest grammatical inflections can be but half understood unless we go beyond the groups already enumerated.

The Gothic, Celtic (?),[20] and Cla.s.sical stocks are but subordinate divisions of a wider cla.s.s. Each has a sufficient amount of mutual affinities to be ill.u.s.trative of each other, and each is contained, along with two other groups of equal value, under a higher denomination in philology.

What is the nature of that affinity which connects languages so different as the Gothic, Celtic (?), and Cla.s.sical stocks? or what is the amount of likeness between, _e.g._, the {94} German and Portuguese, the Greek and Islandic, the Latin and Swedish, the Anglo-Saxon and Italian? And what other languages are so connected?

What other philological groups are connected with each other, and with the languages already noticed, by the same affinities which connect the Gothic, Celtic (?), and Cla.s.sical stocks? Whatever these languages may be, it is nearly certain that they will be necessary, on some point or other, for the full ill.u.s.tration of the English.

As both these questions are points of general, rather than of English, philology, and as a partial answer may be got to the first from attention to the degree in which the body of the present work exhibits ill.u.s.trations drawn from widely different languages, the following statements are considered sufficient.

-- 147. The philological denomination of the cla.s.s which contains the Gothic, Celtic (?), and Cla.s.sical divisions, and, along with the languages contained therein, all others similarly allied, is _Indo-European_; so that the Gothic, Celtic (?), Cla.s.sical and certain other languages are Indo-European.

All Indo-European languages ill.u.s.trate each other.

The other divisions of the great Indo-European group of languages are as follows:--

1. The Iranian stock of languages.--This contains the proper Persian languages of Persia (Iran) in all their stages, the Kurd language, and all the languages of Asia (whatever they may be) derived from the Zend or Sanskrit.

2. The Sarmatian stock of languages.--This contains the languages of Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and of the Slavonian tribes in general. It contains also the Lithuanic languages, _i.e._, the Lithuanic of Lithuania, the old Prussian of Prussia (now extinct), and the Lettish or Livonic of Courland and Livonia.

3, 4, 5. The Cla.s.sical, Gothic, and Celtic (?) stocks complete the catalogue of languages undoubtedly Indo-European, and at the same time they explain the import of the term. Indo-European is the name of a cla.s.s which embraces the majority of the languages of _Europe_, and is extended over {95} Asia as far as _India._ Until the Celtic was shown by Dr. Prichard to have certain affinities with the Latin, Greek, Slavonic, Lithuanic, Gothic, Sanskrit, and Zend, as those tongues had with each other, the cla.s.s in question was called Indo-_Germanic_; since, up to that time, the Germanic languages had formed its western limit.

-- 148. _Meaning of the note of interrogation (?) after the word Celtic._--In a paper read before the Ethnological Society, February 28th, 1849, and published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, the present writer has given reasons for considering the claims of the Celtic to be Indo-European as somewhat doubtful; at the same time he admits, and highly values, all the facts in favour of its being so, which are to be found in Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations.

He believes, however, that the Celtic can only be brought in the same group with the Gothic, Slavonic, &c., by _extending_ the value of the cla.s.s.

"To draw an ill.u.s.tration from the common ties of relations.h.i.+p, as between man and man, it is clear that a family may be enlarged in two ways.

"_a._ A brother, or a cousin, may be discovered, of which the existence was previously unknown. Herein the family is enlarged, or increased, by the _real_ addition of a new member, in a recognised degree of relations.h.i.+p.

"_b._ A degree of relations.h.i.+p previously unrecognised may be recognised, _i.e._, a family wherein it was previously considered that a second-cousins.h.i.+p was as much as could be admitted within its pale, may incorporate third, fourth, or fifth cousins. Here the family is enlarged, or increased, by a _verbal_ extension of the term.

"Now it is believed that the distinction between increase by the way of real addition, and increase by the way of verbal extension, has not been sufficiently attended to. Yet, that it should be more closely attended to, is evident; since, in mistaking a verbal increase for a real one, the whole end and aim of cla.s.sification is overlooked. The publication of Dr.

Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, in 1831, {96} supplied philologists with the most definite addition that has perhaps, yet been made to ethnographical philology.

"Ever since then the Celtic has been considered to be Indo-European. Indeed its position in the same group with the Iranian, Cla.s.sical, Slavono-Lithuanic, and Gothic tongues, supplied the reason for subst.i.tuting the term Indo-_European_ for the previous one Indo-_Germanic_.

"On the other hand, it seems necessary to admit that _languages are allied just in proportion as they were separated from the mother-tongue in the same stage of its development_.

"If so, the Celtic became detached anterior _to the evolution of the declension of nouns_, whereas the Gothic, Slavonic, Cla.s.sical and Iranian languages all separated _subsequent to that stage_."[21]

This, along with other reasons indicated elsewhere,[22] induces the present writer to admit an affinity between the Celtic and the other so-called Indo-European tongues, but to deny that it is the same affinity which connects the Iranian, Cla.s.sical, Gothic and Slavonic groups.

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PART II.

HISTORY AND a.n.a.lYSIS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL AND LOGICAL ELEMENTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

-- 149. The Celtic elements of the present English fall into five cla.s.ses.

1. Those that are of late introduction, and cannot be called original and const.i.tuent parts of the language. Such are (amongst others) the words _flannel_, _crowd_ (a fiddle), from the Cambrian; and _kerne_ (an Irish foot-soldier), _galore_ (enough), _tartan_, _plaid_, &c., from the Gaelic branch.