96 Essay Introductory to the Archaeology of the West of England. 



If we take a survey of Spain, France, French Switzerland, Belgium, and 

 the British isles, we shall find, with certain limited exceptions, the lan- 

 guages spoken by their inhabitants, to bear more or less evidence of two 

 common sources, the Latin and the Teutonic. Of these the former, the 

 most southern, chiefly prevails over France, western Switzerland, and 

 Spain ; the latter, the northern, over the rest of Switzerland, Flanders, 

 and the British isles. History tells us that these two languages were not 

 originally those of the country, but that the former was first introduced by 

 the Romans in the century preceding the Christian aera; and the latter by 

 the Teutones or Germans from beyond the Rhine, in the fifth century of 

 that eeraj and this testimony is corroborated by existing evidence. 



M. Fr^ret has observed, and the observation is generally considered to 

 be a just one, that the oldest inhabitants of any land are to be sought for 

 in its remote and least accessible parts ; now there are found, in the se- 

 cluded and mountainous regions of the above-mentioned countries, the 

 remains of tribes who still employ languages, differing in some respects 

 among each other, and differing still more from the Latinized and Teutonic 

 dialects of the plain country ; and tlie habits, customs, traditions, and 

 character of these mountaineers are equally dissimilar. 



Upon comparing the languages of these tribes, with the general geogra- 

 phical nomenclature of the country, the names, otherwise unintelligible, 

 become in them applicable and significant ; a convincing proof of the an- 

 tiquity of those languages, since, as was well observed by the noble president 

 of the late Eistedfodd, the names of the great physical features of a country 

 aie always those conferred upon them by its earliest inhabitants, being 

 very rarely found to undergo a change.* 



The countries in which these earlier languages are still prevalent, are 

 those around the Pyrenees, Brittany, the western coasts and islands of 

 England, the principality of Wales, southern Ireland, and the Highlands 

 and islands of Scotland. 



The languages in question are reducible' to two only, of which one is the 

 Basque, the other the Celtic, of much greater extent, and containing two 

 principal dialects ; 1. the Cambro-Celtic, including the subordinate dialects 

 of Welsh, Cornish, and Armorican ; and 2. the Erse, including the Irish, 

 Highland Scottishj or Gaelic, and the Manks. 



Spain was anciently called Iberia, from the Iberus or Ebro, the principal 



* An analysis of the list (a very limited one) ajjpended by D'Anville to his Geo- 

 graphy, gives, out of thirty-three terminations 'vaMayus, twenty- five in Gaul; out of 

 twenty-eight in Briga, twenty-five in the Spanish peninsula; of twenty-five in 

 Dunum, fifteen in Gaul and six in Britain. Venta was a common name for a capital 

 city; it is the Latinized " gwent or went," the Celtic for the "open country." 

 Uunum, dinum, donuni, seem all to be Latinized forms of the Celtic " dun," a fortified 

 place. Isca, water ; dur, water ; abon, or avon, a stream ; are common names of rivers 

 both in Gaul and Britain. 



