5. The original meaning being of, or belonging to, the people, or of, or belonging to, the nation, secondary meanings grew out of it.
6. Of these the most remarkable are a) the power given to the word in Ulphilas (heathen), illustrated by the similarly secondary power of the Greek ἔθνικος; b) the meaning vernacular, provincial or vulgar given to it as applied to language.
7. This latter power was probably given to it about the ninth century.
8. That it was not given much before, is inferred from negative evidence. The word theotisca is not found in the Latin writers of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, although there are plenty of passages where it might well have been used had it existed. The terms really used are either patrius sermo, sermo barbaricus, sermo vulgaricus, lingua rustica; or else the names of particular tribes, as lingua Anglorum, Alamannorum.
9. That it was current in the ninth century is evident from a variety of quotations:—Ut quilibet episcopus homilias aperte transferre studeat in rusticam Romanam linguam, aut þeotiscam, quo tandem cuncti possint intelligere quæ dicantur.—Synodus Turonensis. Quod in lingua Thiudisca scaftlegi, id est armorum depositio, vocatur.—Capit. Wormatiense. De collectis quas Theudisca lingua heriszuph appellat.—Conventus Silvacensis. Si barbara, quam Teutiscam dicunt, lingua loqueretur.—Vita Adalhardi, &c.—D.G., i. p. 14, Introduction.
10. That its present national sense is wholly secondary and derivative, and that originally it was no more the name of a people or a language than the word vulgate in the expression the vulgate translation of the Scriptures is the name of a people or a language.
[§ 100]. Teutonic.—About the tenth century the Latin writers upon German affairs began to use not only the words Theotiscus and Theotiscé, but also the words Teutonicus and Teutonicé. Upon this, Grimm remarks that the latter term sounded more learned; since Teutonicus was a classical word, an adjective derived from the Gentile name of the Teutones conquered by Manus. Be it so. It then follows that the connexion between Teutonicus and Theotiscus is a mere accident, the origin
of the two words being different. The worthlessness of all evidence concerning the Germanic origin of the Teutonic tribes conquered by Marius, based upon the connexion between the word Teuton and Dutch, has been pointed out by the present writer in the 17th number of the Philological Transactions.[[10]] All that is proved is this, viz., that out of the confusion between the two words arose a confusion between the two nations. These last may or may not have been of the same race.
[§ 101]. Anglo-Saxon—In the ninth century the language of England was Angle, or English. The lingua Anglorum of Bede is translated by Alfred on englisce. The term Saxon was in use also at an early (perhaps an equally early) date—fures quos Saxonice dicimus vergeld þeóvas. The compound term Anglo-Saxon is later.—Grimm, Introduction to the third edition of D.G., p. 2.