became a national name, distinguishing the people that adopted it from the Turanian, or nomad, tribes. The Turkish, the Magyar of Hungary, the Lapp, the Finnic, the Esthonian and the Basque, are not included in the Indo-European or Aryan family. 4. The dialects of the Slavonic, or Windic, stock are spoken throughout Eastern Europe, in Russia, Poland, Gallicia, Slavonia, Illyria, Servia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and parts of Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, Transylvania, and Hungary. The Lettic, or Lithuanic, is a subdivision of this stock: Lettish is spoken in Kurland and Livonia; Lithuanian, in the province of Lithuania. As the three other stocks are, more or less, closely connected with the history of the English language, it is necessary to consider them more in detail. 5. The Keltic stock is divided into two branches, the Kymric or Cambrian, and the Gadhelic or Gaelic. To the former belong the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Breton of Brittany in France. ་་... ‧; To the latter belong the Irish Gaelic, or Erse; the Scotch Gaelic; and the Manx, or Gaelic of the Isle of Man. Dialects of this stock were spoken at a very early period throughout Great Britain and Ireland. They have been gradually displaced by immigrants of another race, and at present exist side by side with modern English in certain parts of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Man. 6. The Classical stock is divided into two branches, the Hellenic and the Italian. It includes what are commonly called the Classical languages, Greek and Latin, and hence the name by which the stock is usually known. The Italian branch also includes the following dialects:-ancient Umbrian and Oscan; the Rouman, spoken in Wallachia, Moldavia, and parts of Hungary, Transylvania and Bessarabia; the Walloon, in the Belgian province of Liege; the Catalonian and Gallician, in Spain; the Chur-Wälsch, in the Swiss canton of Grisons; the Provençal, Limousin, or Langue d'Oc, in the south of France; and the old northern French or Langue d'Oyl. Albanian is the modern form of an old Hellenic dialect. 7. The Teutonic stock is divided into two branches : (1) the Scandinavian, including the languages spoken in the district anciently called Scandinavia; and (2) the Gothic. This latter branch is subdivided into High and Low German; i.e. the dialects spoken in the upland districts of the south, and in the lowlands of the north of Germany. 8. The people commonly known as Saxons, who formed so large a proportion of the German invaders of Britain, were so named by their neighbours and enemies the Franks, the Britons, and the Romans. They were probably Angles, and they certainly called their new country Angle-land (England), and their language English. The name Saxon was subsequently adopted by the Southern Angles of Britain. The language spoken by these Anglian settlers is the mothertongue of the present English: it is commonly known as Anglo-Saxon. The term Old Saxon has been applied to a dialect formerly spoken in Westphalia, and closely allied to the ancient English. The old Friesians occupied the districts extending from the mouth of the Rhine to the frontier of Jutland. They were the ancient inhabitants of Friesland, Oldenburg, Lower Hanover, and part of Holstein. The Angles and their kinsmen the so-called Saxons, probably inhabited the territory now known as Hanover and Westphalia 9. Ancient Teutonic tribes were settled in the south-east of Britain, before the Christian era. Fresh settlements were effected in the middle of the third century, and towards the end of the fourth century we find a large population of Saxons, or Angles, combined with Friesians, extending from Portsmouth to the Wash. This district was officially termed by the Roman government the "Saxon shore." The southern invaders having adopted the name of Saxons, extended their settlements to Devonshire, and thus occupied Essex, Middlesex, Sussex, and Wessex. 10. The Scandinavians, who are often called Norsemen and Danes, had, under the name of Picts, early occupied the coast of Scotland and the adjacent islands. They gradually extended their settlements into England; and, at the close of the ninth century, the eastern coast as far south as the Wash was held by a population of Scandinavian conquerors. 11. As the Anglian invaders were at various times in contact with Keltic, Scandinavian and Romanised inhabitants of Britain, their language admitted and retained many words of Keltic, Scandinavian, and Classical origin. 12. The Keltic element in the English language embraces four classes of words: (1) geographical names; (2) words retained in old English literature; (3) words existing in the dialects of counties bordering on the Keltic districts; (4) words surviving in the current language; with a few of recent introduction. 13. (1) Geographical names: Rivers: Don, Dee, Thames, Avon, Stour, Severn, Trent, Ouse. Islands: Wight, Man, Arran, Bute, Mull, &c. Counties: Kent, Devon, Glamorgan, Dor-set, Dur-ham, Wilt-s, &c. (2) Words existing in old English literature: cam, crooked; pele, a castle; capull, a horse; grise, a step; imp, engraft; kern, a Gaelic soldier; crowd, a fiddle; crowder, a fiddler; braket, spiced ale; kecks, a reedy plant; bug, a ghost; cuts, lots; &c. (3) Provincial words: kephyll, a horse (Crav.); berr, force (Lanc.); bree, to fear (Lanc.); brat, an apron (Lanc.); crap, money (Lanc.); brause, brambles (Lanc.); cob, beat (North.); cocker, fondle (Lanc.); croo, a cattle-crib (Lanc.); flasget, a basket (Lanc.), &c.* (5) Words of recent introduction: clan, flannel, kilt, pibroch, plaid, reel, tartan. 14. Scandinavian words are found chiefly-(1) in the names of places in the counties north of the Wash and the Mersey; (2) in the provincial dialects of those counties; (3) sparingly in old English literature; (4) in the current language. * Trans. Phil. Soc. 1855, p. 210. |