April 15. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



357 



gious 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. New- 

 man 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 con- 

 querors." — 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 ex- 

 pected 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 inha- 

 bitants adopted with avidity the Roman dress, language, 

 and literature. That language must therefore be sup- 

 posed 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 provin- 

 cials. 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 simi- 

 larity alone of the languages of the two races, the con- 

 quered 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.* 



This eminent scholar supplies sixty-two, with 

 explanatory notes, and subjoins a list of sixty- 

 three. Under the example " Occo, occare, to har- 

 roiv" he observes : 



" Persons who wish to draw subtle inferences say 

 that all the terms of the Romans connected with agri- 

 culture 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 Ca;sar'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 a peculiarly extensive agreement 

 with the Hellenic." 



When your correspondent T. H. T. says — 



" Professor Newman, in his Regal Rome, has drawn 

 attention to the subject ; but his induction does not 

 appear sufficiently extensive to warrant any decisive 

 conclusion respecting the position the Celtic holds as 

 an element of the Latin," — 



he could not have known that the same writer has, 

 in the sixth volume of the Classical Museum, con- 

 tinued the comparison at great length ; and as 

 that work falls into the hands of but few, I shall 

 transcribe some passages which may throw light 

 on the subject : 



" It has for some years been recognised, at least by 

 several English scholars, that there is a remarkable 

 similarity between the Celtic languages and Latin. 

 In the case of Welsh it was, I believe, at first sup- 

 posed that the words must have been introduced by 

 the Roman dominion in Britain ; but when the like- 

 ness was found to exist in the Erse, and that the Erse 

 was even more like to Latin (as regards the con- 

 sonants) than the Welsh is, this idea of course fell to 



* In Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 vol. xiii. 



