Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race

by Arthur James Johnes

Section IV.

On the Scandinavian Languages. Resemblances between the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon. Recent Origin and extensive Nature of the Differences among the Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian Tongues. Approximation of the Ancient Specimens of the Scandinavian and Teutonic Languages.

The Island of Iceland abounds in diversified features of interest; and its Language, early History, and Institutions, will be found replete with instruction, in connexion with the inquiry pursued in this volume.

As has been previously stated, the Gothic Class of languages are naturally divisible into two great subordinate branches: the Teutonic or German, including the dialects of Germany, the Low Countries, and of Great Britain—and the Scandinavian, including those of the two Scandinavian Peninsulas and Iceland. These two great Divisions of the Languages of the Gothic race are radically the same, but they are supposed to display certain specific differences by which they are distinguished from each other.

Of the Teutonic—one of the most venerable specimens is the Anglo-Saxon, the primitive tongue of the Ancestors of the modern English. More ancient specimens of some of the other Gothic dialects have been preserved, but as these are for the most part mere fragments—while of the Anglo-Saxon literature and language we possess copious Remains—it has been inferred by eminent Scholars that it is in these Remains—to Englishmen so interesting for other reasons—that we may on the whole, perhaps, hope to find the nearest approach to a transcript of the early language of the Teutonic [pg 042] tribes.[41] Of all the Scandinavian Languages, on the other hand, the Icelandic—by the general concurrence of the scholars of the North—appears to be the most primitive.

Now in relation to these two Languages, a very interesting proposition has been established by Scandinavian scholars—and though they widely differ as to the cause of the results they discuss—they seem to be agreed with respect to the proposition itself. The Icelandic, they have shown, closely approaches to the Anglo-Saxon in numerous features in which it differs from the languages of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Moreover it has been pointed out by the writers who first noticed these resemblances, that—in their Literary and Bardic Institutions, as well as in their Language—the Icelanders approach to the Anglo-Saxons. In explanation of these facts, they propose the theory—that in the early ages of their history the Icelanders must have benefited by direct communication and instruction from the Anglo-Saxons.

These views have been fully discussed by Professor Rask, in a Preface prefixed to his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, which contains a valuable body of facts that serve to throw a new light on the history of the Scandinavian Tongues.[42] He does not deny the existence of these important common features in the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon Languages and Remains; nor the absence of the same features as regards the Modern specimens of the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian; but he maintains, nevertheless, that all these characteristics may be retraced in detail, either in the Ancient or in the Provincial specimens of those three Languages. In the present day the Icelandic differs widely from the Languages of the Mainland of Scandinavia, and those Languages also differ widely among themselves. But originally, he maintains, one [pg 043] common Speech, the ancient Scandinavian, (“Danska Tunge,”) was spoken from the coasts of Greenland to those of Finland, from the Frozen Ocean to the Eider.[43] As we ascend into the remoter periods of history we find the languages of Scandinavia gradually approximate to each other, and finally blend into one.[44] During the ninth century, and the period immediately succeeding, these tongues were perfectly identical.

Professor Rask's proofs of this proposition may be said to consist of a reunion of the “Disjecta Membra” of the “Danska Tunge,” as found dispersed in the various kingdoms and provinces of the Scandinavian Mainland. Of these proofs I shall offer a few examples.

After observing that the Danish and Norwegian have from various causes become very much alike, he adds that a comparison of the Danish with the Swedish would, for that reason, be more instructive.

“The Swedish has almost from the introduction of Christianity, even during the Calmar union, a.d. 1397, and in the time of Gustavus I., been a distinct tongue; a comparison, therefore, with the Swedish is more to the present purpose.”