VIIL] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 175 



Frangais." But they have adopted the language of 

 one set of invaders, and the name of another ; their 

 original names and languages having almost disappeared. 

 Suppose that the French language remained as the sole 

 evidence of the existence of the population of Gaul, 

 would the keenest philologer arrive at any other con- 

 clusion than that this population was essentially and 

 fundamentally a " Latin " race, which had had some 

 communication with Celts and Teutons ? Would he so 

 much as suspect the former existence of the Aquitani ? 



Community of language testifies to close contact 

 between the people who speak the language, but to 

 nothing else ; philology has absolutely nothing to do 

 with ethnology, except so far as it suggests the existence 

 or the absence of such contact. The contrary assump- 

 tion, that language is a test of race, has introduced the 

 utmost confusion into ethnological speculation, and has 

 nowhere worked greater scientific and practical mischief 

 than in the ethnology of the British Islands. 



What is known, for certain, about the languages 

 spoken in these islands and their affinities may, I believe, 

 be summed up as follows : 



I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language, 

 the Celtic, under two principal dialectical divisions, the 

 Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoken throughout the British 

 Islands. Cymric was spoken in Britain, Gaelic in 

 Ireland. 



If a language allied to Basque had in earlier times 

 been spoken in the British Islands, there is no evidence 

 that any Euskarian-speaking people remained at the 

 time of the Roman conquest. The dark and the fair 

 population of Britain alike spoke Celtic tongues, and 

 therefore the name "Celt" is as applicable to the one 

 as to the other. 



What was spoken in Ireland can only be surmised by 



