IXTEnvOCALIC " X " AND " L " IX OLD POKTUGUESE. 427 



We could speak also of Paul C'hofliat, Silva Telles and others 

 Avlio have devoted their attention to this subject of true scientific 

 interest. However, this is not the object of our study. 



Nothing is more difficult than to speak of the Portuguese race. 

 Are we " meridionals " ? Do we belong to that type of the Homo 

 meditcrrcmeus, dark-complexioned, lively, intelligent, artistic, 

 adventurous and warlike? We do not believe so. 



In pre-historic ages, we have suffered various Nordic inva- 

 sions, not to mention the Celts. Later on, the coastal parts 

 and the banks of rivers, known as the richest regions, were in 

 the hands of the Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians. The 

 Eomans conquered them. The influence of the barbarians, with 

 the exception of the Wisegoths, who inhabited the country during 

 a long period, did not leave any impress upon us. When the 

 Arabs M-ere compelled to abandon the north of the Peninsula, 

 they settled for some time in the south, where a good many 

 ethnical traces have been left by them. 



Our first kings peopled manj' parts of the coimtry with 

 Normans, a race which already existed in the north, being 

 renmants of the incursions of the pirates attacking the French 

 and the English coasts. They used to come as far as the Penin- 

 sula, and, attracted by the beautiful climate, most of them 

 remained. 



Diego Barnardes, a writer of the sixteenth centur}', truly 

 said that " our land had the magic wand which made people 

 forget their homes, their fatherlands, far away . . ." 



Connections of a commercial character and conquests in 

 other parts of the world brought new blood to our race. After 

 all, that quadrilateral to which Reclus refers is no more than a 

 great crucible from which there rises a choice racial product, 

 with its own characteristics, although it may present physically 

 that great variety of aspects and that complete scale which 

 ranges from the purest golden to the Berber type darkened by 

 the African sun. 



Political unity is the natural result of the two factors : 

 territory and race. Language ought naturally to accompany this 

 evolution hy creating philological laws altogether different from 

 those of the other Romance languages. 



When the Portuguese nationality was constituted, a formid- 

 able linguistic work was being performed in the whole Piomance 

 world in connection with the formation and separation from each 

 other of the Neo-Latin languages and dialects. We can count 

 several of them in the Peninsula: — The Portuguese, the 

 Castilian, the Catalonian, etc. There are prehistoric traces of 

 the Portuguese language.* in documents belonging to the period 

 before the twelfth century, when the first writings in Portuguese 

 appeared. As an instance we may mention the " Testamentos 



* Words from the Portuguese lexicon with a Latin-like termination frequently 

 used in documents written in Barbaric Latin of about the 12th centurv. 



