(Vol. viii., pp. 174. 280. 353.; Vol. ix., p. 14.)
"Professor F. W. Newman, in his little work entitled _Regal Rome_,
maintains that the old languages of Italy, especially the Umbrian and
Sabine, contained a striking predominance of Celtic ingredients, and he
wishes to show that this is still evident even in the Latin of Cicero.
His proof rests on vocabularies (pp. 19--26.), especially in regard to
the military, political, and {357} religious words which he supposes
the Romans derived from the Sabines (p. 61.). With regard to these
lists, I have to observe, that while all that is valid in the
comparison merely gives the Indo-Germanic of the Celtic languages--a
fact beyond dispute--Mr. Newman takes no pains to discriminate between
the marks of an original identity of root, and those words which the
Celts of Britain derived from their Roman conquerors."--Donaldson's
_Varronianus_, p. 64.
"It is to be remarked, that almost _all the words_ of the British
tongue agree either with the Greek or Latin. It is this strong
similarity of features between their own language and those of Greece
and Italy, that has induced so many of my countrymen to claim for it
the honour of being the mother-tongue of all, and to scorn all
examination which did not commence with this confession. Even the late
learned Dr. Owen Pugh has, in his _Dictionary_, by arbitrarily
selecting certain syllables as the roots of all Cumrian words, done
much to foster this overweening conceit. The system was carried to its
extreme point of absurdity by the Rev. Edward Davies, who by the help
of such syllables expected to unravel the mysteries of all languages.
This failure has I hope paved the way for the more sober consideration
of the question, which, if worked out fairly, will in my opinion
establish the claim of the Cumrian tongue, if not to be the mother of
all tongues, at least to be a valuable branch of the Caucasian tree of
languages. Now, had the two races, the Roman and Cumrian, remained
always separate, a comparative etymology would have been an easy task;
for no more would be necessary than to put the similar roots, having
the same meaning, side by side. But, unfortunately for the scholar who
undertakes to prove the question, the Romans were in this island four
hundred years, colonised it partly, and partly gave it their own form
of civilisation. As before mentioned, the inhabitants adopted with
avidity the Roman dress, language, and literature. That language must
therefore be supposed to have entered deeply into the composition of
the present Cumrian tongue. The sceptical examiner may therefore
reasonably object, that any similarity between the two languages might
have originated in the adoption of that of Rome by the British
provincials. In answer to this I refer in the first place to Lloyd's
reasoning, quoted in the note," viz. that the same similarity exists
between the Latin and the Erse [see Newman, in the _Classical Museum_,
vol. vi.]. "In the second place to the fact, that Wales and Cornwall do
not appear to have been occupied, like the rest of England, by the
Romans."... "Still, however, the long residence of the Romans in the
island, with the known influence always produced by such a state of
things, renders every statement grounded on the similarity alone of the
languages of the two races, the conquered and the conquerors, liable to
suspicion. I have therefore been compelled to enter upon an exceedingly
difficult investigation, which, if successful, must prove the radical
identity of the Latin and Cumrian tongues. The proof is this: If there
are derivative words in the Latin, of which we must seek the primitives
in the Cumrian, and if these primitives be shown to furnish an
explanation of many words before inexplicable on etymological
principles. For example, if the word 'to tread' under various forms be
found, with the meaning 'to trample with the feet,' in most of the
western languages of Europe, and have no noun to base itself upon in
these languages, and yet the noun 'traed the feet' be found in one of
them, the inference is irresistible that the verb in all its forms was
derived from this root. To deny this would be equivalent to a denial
that the Latin verb _calcare_ came from _calx_, 'the heel.' In the
following list, such words alone, with a few exceptions for the sake of
etymological illustration, have been introduced. It might have been
indefinitely extended, but the difficulty was to confine the examples
within moderate limits."--Williams on _One Source of the Non-Hellenic
Portion of the Latin Language_.[2]
This eminent scholar supplies sixty-two, with explanatory notes, and
subjoins a list of sixty-three. Under the example "Occo, occare, _to
harrow_," he observes:
"Persons who wish to draw subtle inferences say that all the terms of
the Romans connected with agriculture may be referred to a Greek
source, while the terms expressive of war and hunting are non-Hellenic.
The induction fails completely in both parts, as might easily be shown.
When Caesar landed in Britain, the natives were agriculturists, densely
planted. And Halley proved, that the harvest which Caesar's soldiers
reaped had ripened at the average period of a Kentish harvest in his
days. Assuredly then the Britons had not the agricultural names to
learn from the Romans of an after age."
"I begin," says Newman, "with the country and domestic animals, which
will show how very far from the truth Niebuhr was, when he imagined
that in words connected with 'the gentler pursuits of life' the Roman
language has peculiarly extensive agreement with the Hellenic."