The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) / Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

ABORIGENES.

This word is explained in every dictionary, English, Latin, or French, as a general name for the indigenous inhabitants of a country; when in reality it is the proper name of a peculiar people of Italy, who were not indigenous, but supposed to have been a colony of Arcadians. The error has been founded chiefly on the supposed derivation of the word from ab origine. Never (except in Swift’s ludicrous work) was a more eccentric etymology—a preposition, with its governed case, made plural by the modern final s! The university of Oxford, some years ago, added to this solecism by a public prize poem on the Aboriginal Britons.

The most rational etymology of the word seems to be a compound of the Greek words απο, ορος, and γενος, a race of mountaineers. So Virgil calls them,

“—Genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis.”

It seems more probable, that the name of the oldest settlers in Italy should have a Greek than a Latin derivation.

The preceding remarks are by a late poet-laureate, Mr. Pye, who concludes by inquiring, what should we say of the etymologist who were to deduce the name of an ancient British tribe from the modern English?

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