CELTIC AND LATIN LANGUAGES.
(Vol. viii., pp. 174. 280. 353.; Vol. ix., p. 14.)
"Professor F. W. Newman, in his little work entitled Regal Rome, maintains that the old languages of Italy, especially the Umbrian and Sabine, contained a striking predominance of Celtic ingredients, and he wishes to show that this is still evident even in the Latin of Cicero. His proof rests on vocabularies (pp. 19—26.), especially in regard to the military, political, and religious words which he supposes the Romans derived from the Sabines (p. 61.). With regard to these lists, I have to observe, that while all that is valid in the comparison merely gives the Indo-Germanic of the Celtic languages—a fact beyond dispute—Mr. Newman takes no pains to discriminate between the marks of an original identity of root, and those words which the Celts of Britain derived from their Roman conquerors."—Donaldson's Varronianus, p. 64.
"It is to be remarked, that almost all the words of the British tongue agree either with the Greek or Latin. It is this strong similarity of features between their own language and those of Greece and Italy, that has induced so many of my countrymen to claim for it the honour of being the mother-tongue of all, and to scorn all examination which did not commence with this confession. Even the late learned Dr. Owen Pugh has, in his Dictionary, by arbitrarily selecting certain syllables as the roots of all Cumrian words, done much to foster this overweening conceit. The system was carried to its extreme point of absurdity by the Rev. Edward Davies, who by the help of such syllables expected to unravel the mysteries of all languages. This failure has I hope paved the way for the more sober consideration of the question, which, if worked out fairly, will in my opinion establish the claim of the Cumrian tongue, if not to be the mother of all tongues, at least to be a valuable branch of the Caucasian tree of languages. Now, had the two races, the Roman and Cumrian, remained always separate, a comparative etymology would have been an easy task; for no more would be necessary than to put the similar roots, having the same meaning, side by side. But, unfortunately for the scholar who undertakes to prove the question, the Romans were in this island four hundred years, colonised it partly, and partly gave it their own form of civilisation. As before mentioned, the inhabitants adopted with avidity the Roman dress, language, and literature. That language must therefore be supposed to have entered deeply into the composition of the present Cumrian tongue. The sceptical examiner may therefore reasonably object, that any similarity between the two languages might have originated in the adoption of that of Rome by the British provincials. In answer to this I refer in the first place to Lloyd's reasoning, quoted in the note," viz. that the same similarity exists between the Latin and the Erse [see Newman, in the Classical Museum, vol. vi.]. "In the second place to the fact, that Wales and Cornwall do not appear to have been occupied, like the rest of England, by the Romans."... "Still, however, the long residence of the Romans in the island, with the known influence always produced by such a state of things, renders every statement grounded on the similarity alone of the languages of the two races, the conquered and the conquerors, liable to suspicion. I have therefore been compelled to enter upon an exceedingly difficult investigation, which, if successful, must prove the radical identity of the Latin and Cumrian tongues. The proof is this: If there are derivative words in the Latin, of which we must seek the primitives in the Cumrian, and if these primitives be shown to furnish an explanation of many words before inexplicable on etymological principles. For example, if the word 'to tread' under various forms be found, with the meaning 'to trample with the feet,' in most of the western languages of Europe, and have no noun to base itself upon in these languages, and yet the noun 'traed the feet' be found in one of them, the inference is irresistible that the verb in all its forms was derived from this root. To deny this would be equivalent to a denial that the Latin verb calcare came from calx, 'the heel.' In the following list, such words alone, with a few exceptions for the sake of etymological illustration, have been introduced. It might have been indefinitely extended, but the difficulty was to confine the examples within moderate limits."—Williams on One Source of the Non-Hellenic Portion of the Latin Language.[[2]]
This eminent scholar supplies sixty-two, with explanatory notes, and subjoins a list of sixty-three. Under the example "Occo, occare, to harrow," he observes:
"Persons who wish to draw subtle inferences say that all the terms of the Romans connected with agriculture may be referred to a Greek source, while the terms expressive of war and hunting are non-Hellenic. The induction fails completely in both parts, as might easily be shown. When Cæsar landed in Britain, the natives were agriculturists, densely planted. And Halley proved, that the harvest which Cæsar's soldiers reaped had ripened at the average period of a Kentish harvest in his days. Assuredly then the Britons had not the agricultural names to learn from the Romans of an after age."
"I begin," says Newman, "with the country and domestic animals, which will show how very far from the truth Niebuhr was, when he imagined that in words connected with 'the gentler pursuits of life' the Roman language has peculiarly extensive agreement with the Hellenic."
When your correspondent T. H. T. says—
"Professor Newman, in his Regal Rome, has drawn attention to the subject; but his induction does not appear sufficiently extensive to warrant any decisive conclusion respecting the position the Celtic holds as an element of the Latin,"—
he could not have known that the same writer has, in the sixth volume of the Classical Museum, continued the comparison at great length; and as that work falls into the hands of but few, I shall transcribe some passages which may throw light on the subject:
"It has for some years been recognised, 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 pressed into notice the strong similarities of the Celtic to the European languages, and claimed 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 the one has borrowed from the other. Some ten years ago, by his favour, I read a MS. 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 larger 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, and 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 words aright, conclusions result such as I had not expected, and adverse to those of Dr. Prichard."
Professor Newman, as T. H. T. has observed, confined himself to a tabular view of Celtic and Latin words; but the grammatical structure and formal development of the two languages have not been overlooked in the philological literature of England. These interesting inquiries have been pursued by Dr. Prichard, in his elaborate treatise on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, and the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, (in his Theological Lectures delivered in Bristol College in 1831-33) has shown that it is by thus analysing the grammatical structure, which forms the very skeleton of languages, rather than by confining our attention to mere vocabularies, that we may best detect their true affinities, and has illustrated this doctrine by a few Welsh examples. In the West of England Archæological Journal is exhibited (I believe by the same author) the identity of verbal forms in the Welsh and Latin languages.
Nevertheless, Archdeacon Williams maintains that two languages may have a common vocabulary, but different grammars[[3]]:
"The Latin language, whether from Pelasgic or Achæan influence, adopted at an early period the Hellenic grammar; and, under the skilful hands of the bilingual Ennius, became that polished interpreter of thought, which yields in regularity and majesty to the Greek alone. The Cumri either retained, which is more probable, a still more ancient, or invented a grammar, now peculiar to themselves. This, although it be simple and scientific in the highest degree, is so completely at variance with all the other grammars of the civilised world, that scholars who have to acquire it late in life feel the strongest repugnance to its forms and principles, and are tempted to regard a language more fixed and unchangeable in its principles than any other existing, as more slippery and grasp-escaping than the Proteus of the Grecian mythology."
Since I wrote these extracts, I have been much gratified by the perusal of Archdeacon Williams's Gomer, which I recommend to all interested in this inquiry.
Bibliothecar. Chetham.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
In Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xiii.
In his Gomer he shows that the Latin and Cymraeg display great similarity in the tenses of the substantive verb.