18S TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoJ.. II. 



Europe speak of the study of the Romance tongues ; these and the 

 archaic forms in which old charters, eld laws, old poems are written.* 



REPORT ON THE CONGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY. 



The Congress of Roman (or Romance) Philology was called to order 

 in the principal lecture room of the Faculty of Arts in the university 

 buildings and was attended by delegates from the Universities of 

 Bologna, Fribourg, Copenhagen, Helsingfors, Groningen and Upsala ; 

 also by numerous savants from universities in France, by the Bishop of 

 Montpellier, the general in command of the division, the member for 

 the constituency, a good delegation of the professors and students of the 

 University of Montpellier, and the members of the Council of the 

 Society for the Study of the Romance Languages. Mr. F. Castets, the 

 president of the society, the doyeti of the Faculty of Arts, took the chair ; 

 Mr. E. D. Grand, professor of diplomathy and paloeography, was elected 

 secretary. Professors Chabaneau and Revillout were chosen vice- 

 presidents. In due time I presented my credentials, and the congress 

 was pleased to honor this institute by inviting me to act as one of its 

 vice-presidents. I afterwards presented to the congress a copy of Abbe 



* While preparing this paper, two considerations have been brought back to my notice with 

 greater force than formerly. The first is that spelling is often a hindrance to the recognition of 

 linguistic affinity, especially to an Englishman, whose vowels and consonants are sounded 

 differently to those ,of any other language. I will instance the Greek iiidq. We know the 

 ordinary English pronunciation of it — Hwhyos. The Latin filius we sound like file, a 

 rasper, and so miss the connection. But with the soft i and the 1 mouille, the identity of the two 

 is manifest — vi6q — films. And the further analogies of fils, fille, Fitz, Figlio, become clear. The 

 Pyrenean and Bordeaux dialects now use / for the initial / The second which is cognate is that 

 when we say English comes from French and German we are hardly correct ; it comes from 

 German or whatever else you like to call the Saxons' tongue and from Romance, for Romance 

 was the language of William the Conqueror and his Knights — Romance was the court language 

 of England until France was lost to the English Crown. We found many traces of English 

 arms as far as we went in France. We passed Carcassonne, a remarkable specimen of a medieval 

 town; its battlements and other defences as they were in the 13th and 14th centuries, kept at 

 an annual expense of 20,000 francs by the French Government. Carcassonne we were told was a 

 maiden fortress until Simon de Montfort took it, but I see it was taken by Edward the Black 

 Prince, and have not had the opportunity to examine the other statement critically, and no one 

 prevailed against it after him ; there is a Count de Montfort who has estates in the neighbourhood 

 still. And at Beziers is preserved the book beginning " Aysso es lo libre de memorias, Lo quel 

 Jacme Mascaro * * a fach e hordenat." * * Here is an extract: — " L'an dessus dig — 

 MCCCLVL @ VHL del mes de septembres, fouc pres nostre senhor lo rey de Fransa, que aire 

 nom mosseuhor Johan. Et aisso davan la viela de Peyties, don ne fouc tot le rialme en tristor. 

 Et pres lo en batalha rengada lo princep de Galas, filh del rey d'Anglaterra, et pueys menet lou 

 en Anglaterra." So long as France and Englantl were bound together, the Romance languages 

 were used by the commanders on both sides, and many of the English soldiery must have become 

 versed in the same. To understand English then it is very necessary to know Romance both in 

 its grammar and pronunciation. 



