1:7 



ROMANCE LANGUAGE. 



ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. 



163 



considerable affinity to the modern Romance dialects of Soxithern 

 France, and we have heard it stated that natives of Langnedoc can 

 understand those of Piedmont with ease. Dr. Pipino published a 

 Piedmontese grammar, Turin, 1783; and Ponza published, in 1S27-S, 

 a Dictionary, Piedmontese and Italian. The language of Nice is also a 

 corrupt dialect of the Langue d'Oc. 



With regard to the other North Italian or Lombard dialects, they 

 differ more or lees from the old Romance language, though they had a 

 common and perhaps coeval origin with it, and resemble it more than 

 the Italian or Tuscan. The Langue d'Oc, having been formed chiefly 

 from a corrupt and provincial Latin, as well as the dialects of Italy, 

 reduced its materials to a regular form sooner than they ; and having 

 become a polished and literary language, the Italians in their turn 

 borrowed at second-hand from it. Raynouard, in his 'Grammaire 

 Comparee,' observes that the dialect of Ferrara is one of those which 

 has retained more completely the forms of the Romance with the least 

 admixture. That of Bergamo comes perhaps the next in affinity : it 

 often changes the t into o; for example, instead of el, del (Romance), 

 it hag made <J. dul. The dialects of Bologna and Mantua abound with 

 contractions and aphajreses, which render them very harsh ; they have 

 taken away the t of the Romance terminations in at, it, vt. The 

 Milanese has a broad pronunciation, and many double vowels, changing 

 into aa, ii, and uu, the Romance terminations in at, it, and lit ; reritaa, 

 kc. ; it also changes re into tr : niater, tepoicher, for the 

 ice noitrr, stpalfhre. The dialects of the Venetian territory, 

 with the exception of thnt of Friuli, are more remote from the 

 Romance in tin ir formation, as are likewise still more so the dialects 

 b Apennines, or of Southern Italy. We cannot here 

 enlarge upon the multifarious subject of the Italian dialects, but must 

 refer the inquisitive reader to their grammar*, vocabularies, and other 

 -. 



The dialecU of Western Switzerland. V.uid, NeuchAtcl, Geneva, part 



of Freybur?, and Lower Valais, and also of Savoy, have retained t.. 



this day the name of patois Romand, or Langue Romande. Western 



Switzerland, as far as the Aar, was occupied in the decline of the 



Roman empire by the Burgundians, a less rude tribe than the 



Alemanni, who settled in Eastern Switzerland. The llurgundians 



the land with the native population of R.,man, Helvetian, or 



Allobrogic race; they applied themselves to agriculture, and soon 



constituted themaelTe* into a well regulated and orderly monarchy. 



They gradually adopted the provincial Latin which they found in use 



in the country, and from the corruption of which several Romance 



dialect* were formed, which resembled those of the south of France 



that were formed through a similar process. Some of the dialects of 



Western Switzerland approximate in their inflexions to the Northern 



French, or Langue d'Oil, whilst others, like that of Gruyere in the 



canton of Freyburg, bear more affinity to the Romance of the south, 



isequently to the Italian. Specimens of both are contained in 



'\ uektologie/ and also in the collection of Ranz des Vachcs, 



Mian and Romance, 'Sammlung von Schweizcr Kuhreibcn 



Ikaliedern,' Bern, 1813. To this day, Switzerland is divided, 



by language, noes, and habiU, into German and Romande, and the 



Germans call the latter by the general name of Wal*chland. 



In the country of the Orisons, or ancient Rha-ti, one half of the 

 people speak a language called Rumonach, which is an Italian dialect 

 of very ancient formation, supposed by some to be derived from the 

 language of the Etruscans, who emigrated to those valleys al> 

 years B.C. ; but this is a mere conjecture. The Rumonach is a written 

 language, and book* have been j.ubli l-d in it. MSS. eight or nine 

 : ies old existed at the end of the last century, and perhaps some 

 \:it in the convent of Disentis. The dialect of the Engadina, or 

 valley of the Inn, is called I-vlin : it has still greater affinity to the 

 Italian or Ix>mbard dialect*. Specimens of Rumonach and Ladin are 

 in the Appendix to Vieusseuz's ' History of Switzerland,' pub- 

 lished by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Ray- 

 nouard observe* that the Rumonnch has the affixes and other essential 

 forms of the Romance language, though it is disfigured by an admix- 

 ture of Northern or Teutonic orthography and pronunciation. It 

 often adds a g to the end of word* ; Jilg, roly, haig, tutamaiwj, for the 



ince jH, rrj, hai, lotamext. 



If we take the appellation of Romance language in it* most extended 

 MOM, all the languages and dialects of Western Europe, that is to say, 

 of Italy, Western Switzerland, the Orison*, France, and S|in, may be 

 called Romance, being derived essentially from the Roman or Latin, 

 and I * formed after the fall of the Western Empire. The 



Basque and the Armorican or language of Lower Britanny belong to a 

 diluent family. The Walloon of Lege and the Valachian are also 

 l*"*"*""* language*. The Valachian resemble* the others, though less 

 perhaps in ite grammatical forms than in the etymology of the words. 

 kaynoiiard ahows the analogy existing between them all in tlieir gram- 

 nsrtiral construction and etymology in hi* ' Grammairc Comparee des 

 I. .-.:- ! i. i i ...'. ti... IB 



more restricted seme, a* having been especially applied to the language 

 adours, or Langue d'Oc, we must con -id.-r it as confined to 

 the south of France, and the eastern provinces of Spain as far a* 

 Murcia ; and it is there tliat we find its legitimate offspring in tlie 

 Isnginfl** of f'tltrni*, Valencia, and Majorca, and in the Languedocian . 

 Provencal, and Yaklense* dialect*. 



Raynouard at the conclusion of his ' Grammaire Conipare'e ' of the 

 languages of Latin or Roman Europe, enumerates twenty-three special 

 characteristics in the construction of the Romance language, most of 

 which occur also in the other languages and dialects of Western and 

 Southern Europe, which he styles ' Neo-Latin.' 1. The use of articles 

 to determine the cases, instead of their being designated by the termi- 

 nation of the word as in Latin. This characteristic is found in all the 

 modern languages derived from the Latin. 2 and 3. Relate to the 

 terminations of words, especially nouns, of which Raynouard gives com- 

 parative tables in the various languages. 4. Is peculiar to the old Ro- 

 mance, but existed also in the Northern French till the 14th century. 

 It consists in placing an s at the end of substantives in the singular, 

 when they stand as subjects ; the absence of the s shows they were used 

 in the objective case. In the plural it was the reverse, the absence of 

 the s designated the nominative. The Northern French dropped the 

 * generally in the singular, and gave it to the plural without distinc- 

 tion. 5. Refers to other terminations employed by the old Romance, 

 especially in proper names, to distinguish the subject from the object. 

 6. Concerns the gender of the adjectives. 7. Concerns the degrees of 

 comparison. 8. Is on the Romance affixes representing personal pro- 

 nouns, out, os, m, .r, which are also met with in the old French and old 

 Spanish, and also in some rustic dialects of France, in the Catalonian, 

 and in some north Italian dialects. 9. The pronoun aUre is an ex- 

 pletive added to the personal pronoun. This has been adopted by all 

 the Neo-Latin languages of Europe ; rmu autres, ros otros, rot outrof, 

 fii nllri, &c. 10. Relative pronouns OBI, quc, to qual. 11. The indefi- 

 nite pronoun om, derived from the Latin homo, which the French has 

 retained in o;i. The Spanish and Portuguese, which formerly employed 

 ome in the same sense, have since substituted . ;m<l the Italians ii. 

 12. Concerns the use in the conjugations of the auxiliary verbs arer, 

 etter, and ettar, which have been adopted, with some modifications, by 

 all the other Romance languages. 13 and 14. Concern the formation 

 of the future and the conditional. 15. Concerns the participles in tit, 

 of which the French has made it. 16. Concerns the double formation 

 of participles of the same verb, such as rot and rum/nil, dtfet and rft 1 - 

 //( ami tlfijlt, ic. 17. The compound passive formed of the 

 auxiliary etter and the participle past, which has been substituted in 

 all cases for the Latin simple passive form. IS. Concerns the verbs 

 used impersonally. 19. The infinitive with the negative, used as on 

 imperative. The Italian has retained it : " Non parlare : " speak not. 

 J'|. The various uses of the conjunction '/-. 21. Formation of adverbs 

 from the feminine adjective by adding the affix in at, which has been 

 adopted by all the other languages derived from the Latin. 22. The 

 expletives pas, mica, gaire, &c,, added to the negative particle to give 

 it greater emphasis. This form is retained by toe French in JMK, and 

 by the Italians in mica and gaar' .".-cms the appellations 



Romcau, Romance, Koumtnch, Aonxnua, which were used by the old 

 French, Italian. Spanish, and 1'ortu^u .-, writers to designate their 

 respective idioms ; on appellation which serves to show their common 

 origin. Tho most recent general dictionary of the Romance language 

 i* the ' Lexicon Etymologicum linguarimi Rouianarum, Italics, 

 Hi*i>ania>, Gallic.u, ic ,' of F. Die/, Bonn, 1853. 



IKiMANESi^fE ARCHITECTURE is that style of round-arched 

 architecture which (with local or national peculiarities) prevailed 

 through a large part of Europe during the 11 th ami 1 '2th centuries. 

 Under Iiv/>. im.iTriu:, it was pointed out how the archi- 



tecture of thu .-men nt Roman* diverged in the hands of their barbaric 

 successors into a two fold form : the older becoming moulded, in the 

 Eastern Empire, into that known as the Byzantine style, and which 

 was the parent of the subsequent ecclesiastical architecture of the east 

 of Europe ; and the later, that which in the Western Empire became 

 in the hands of the ecclesiastical architects what is now known as 

 Romanesque, and which, as was shown under GOTHIC AitCiiiTixTl'iu:, 

 became in ita ultimate development, Pointed Gothic. Romanesque 

 architecture then, both in time and place, stands between the classic 

 Roman and the Pointed Gothic ; and is, in fact, the link which con- 

 nect* the one with the other. 



Until the final separation of the Western from the Eastern Empire, 

 the Byzantine type was in the ascendant ; but in the West such archi- 

 tecture as existed was rather . than an independent 

 or derived style. Yet traces of the Romane 



paratively early date. Its germ was certainly vi<il>lu in the Oth or 7th 

 century; but this w.n followed by a long interval of quiescence. Some 

 have fancied that the revival is due to the Lombard kings, and have 

 consequently termed the style itself Lombardic. But the revivifies- 

 architecture does not seem to be really traceable farther back 

 than the 10th century; the development of the style belongs to the 

 llth century, and its highest jicrfection to tho 12th, when its obvious 

 insufli' -t the growing requirements of the age Ifid to the 



introduction of the feature which caused it to merge into what is 

 usually regarded aa a totally different ntyl' , e have intimated, 



can it be e*]M.'ciaIly assigned to any |<aiticnlar locality Lombardy 

 may have been the cradle of the actual Romanecque, but It soon 

 through other parts of Italy; along the Rhine, in ( In-many and Swit/er- 

 laml ; throughout France, and by way of Normandy to England. Tho 

 styles of these countries are indeed frequently treated as though not 

 only different but unconnected, but in principle they are essentially 

 the same ; the differences confuting of those local and national features 



