The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3

by Sir Thomas Browne

But shut up in Angles and inaccessible corners, divided by Laws and Manners, they often continue long with little mixture, which hath afforded that lasting life unto the Cantabrian and British Tongue, wherein the Britanes are remarkable, who, having lived four hundred years together with the Romans, retained so much of the British as it may be esteemed a Language; which either they resolutely maintained in their cohabitation with them in Britane, or retiring after in the time of the Saxons into Countries and parts less civiliz’d and conversant with the Romans, they found the People distinct, the Language more intire, and so fell into it again.

But surely no Languages have been so straitly lock’d up as not to admit of commixture. The Irish, although they retain a kind of a Saxon Character, yet have admitted many words of Latin and English. In the Welch are found many words from Latin, some from Greek and Saxon. In what parity and incommixture the Language of that People stood which were casually discovered in the heart of Spain, between the Mountains of Castile, no longer ago than in the time of Duke D’ Alva, we have not met with a good account any farther than that their words were Basquish or Cantabrian: but the present Basquensa one of the minor Mother Tongues of Europe, is not without commixture of Latin and Castilian, while we meet with Santifica, tentationeten, Glaria, puissanea, and four more in the short Form of the Lord’s Prayer, set down by Paulus Merula: but although in this brief Form we may find such commixture, yet the bulk of their Language seems more distinct, consisting of words of no affinity unto others, of numerals totally different, of differing Grammatical Rule, as may be observed in the Dictionary and short Basquensa Grammar, composed by Raphael Nicoleta, a Priest of Bilboa.

And if they use the auxiliary Verbs of Equin and Ysan, answerable unto Hazer and Ser, to Have, and Be, in the Spanish, which Forms came in with the Northern Nations into the Italian, Spanish and French, and if that Form were used by them before, and crept not in from imitation of their neighbours, it may shew some ancienter traduction from Northern Nations, or else must seem very strange; since the Southern Nations had it not of old, and I know not whether any such mode be found in the Languages of any part of America.

The Romans, who made the great commixture and alteration of Languages in the World, effected the same, not onely by their proper Language, but those also of their military Forces, employed in several Provinces, as holding a standing Militia in all Countries, and commonly of strange Nations; so while the cohorts and Forces of the Britanes were quartered in Ægypt, Armenia, Spain, Illyria, etc. the Stablæsians and Dalmatians here, the Gauls, Spaniards and Germans in other Countries, and other Nations in theirs, they could not but leave many words behind them, and carry away many with them, which might make that in many words of very distinct Nations some may still remain of very unknown and doubtfull Genealogy.

And if, as the learned Buxhornius contendeth, the Scythian Language as the Mother Tongue runs through the Nations of Europe, and even as far as Persia, the community in many words between so many Nations, hath a more reasonable original traduction, and were rather derivable from the common Tongue diffused through them all, than from any particular Nation, which hath also borrowed and holdeth but at second hand.

The Saxons settling over all England, maintained an uniform Language, onely diversified in Dialect, Idioms, and minor differences, according to their different Nations which came in to the common Conquest, which may yet be a cause of the variation in the speech and words of several parts of England, where different Nations most abode or settled, and having expelled the Britanes, their Wars were chiefly among themselves, with little action with foreign Nations untill the union of the Heptarchy under Egbert; after which time although the Danes infested this Land and scarce left any part free, yet their incursions made more havock in Buildings, Churches and Cities, than the Language of the Country, because their Language was in effect the same, and such as whereby they might easily understand one another.

And if the Normans, which came into Neustria or Normandy with Rollo the Dane, had preserved their Language in their new acquists, the succeeding Conquest of England, by Duke William of his race, had not begot among us such notable alterations; but having lost their Language in their abode in Normandy before they adventured upon England, they confounded the English with their French, and made the grand mutation, which was successively encreased by our possessions in Normandy, Guien and Aquitain, by our long Wars in France, by frequent resort of the French, who to the number of some thousands came over with Isabel Queen to Edward the Second, and the several Matches of England with the Daughters of France before and since that time.

But this commixture, though sufficient to confuse, proved not of ability to abolish the Saxon words; for from the French we have borrowed many Substantives, Adjectives and some Verbs, but the great Body of Numerals, auxiliary Verbs, Articles, Pronouns, Adverbs, Conjunctions and Prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting part of a Language, remain with us from the Saxon, which, having suffered no great alteration for many hundred years, may probably still remain, though the English swell with the inmates of Italian, French and Latin. An Example whereof may be observ’d in this following.

English I.

The first and formost step to all good Works is the dread and fear of the Lord of Heaven and Earth, which thorough the Holy Ghost enlightneth the blindness of our sinfull hearts to tread the ways of wisedom, and leads our feet into the Land of Blessing.