14 PHILOSOPHICAL TEANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1776. 



a small code of the laws of the country in the Cialover dialect, and an epitome 

 of Sprecher's Chronicle, by Da Porta, in the Ladin. 



The language spoken in Gaul, from the 5th to the 12th centuries, being evi- 

 dently a mixture of the same Roman and Celtic ingredients, and partaking of the 

 same name with those of the Grisons, Mr. P. enters into a few particulars con- 

 cerning it, as it seems to have been an essential part, or rather the trunk, of the 

 language under consideration. One of the many instances of how little the la- 

 boured researches of philologists, into the origin of languages, are to be de- 

 pended on, is the variety of opinions entertained by French authors concerning 

 the formation of the Gallic Romance. A learned Benedictine first starts the 

 conjecture, and then maintains it against the attacks of an anonymous writer, 

 that the vulgar Latin became the universal language of Gaul immediately after 

 Caesar's conquest, and that its corruption, with very little mixture of the original 

 language of the country, gradually produced the Romance towards the 8th cen- 

 tury. Bonamy, on tlie other hand, is of opinion, that soon after that con- 

 quest, a corruption of vulgar Latin by the Celtic formed the Romance, which 

 he takes to be the language always meant by authors when they speak of the 

 Lingua Romana used in Gaul. The author of the Celtic Dictionary tells us, 

 that the Romance is derived from the Latin, the Celtic, which he more fre- 

 quently calls Gallic, and the Teutonic ; in admitting of which latter he deviates 

 from most other authors, who deny that the Teutonic had any share in the com- 

 position of the Romance, since the Franks found it already established when 

 they entered Gaul, and were long before they could prevail on their new subjects 

 to adopt any part of their own mother tongue, which however appears to have 

 been afterwards instrumental in the formation of the modern French. Duclos, 

 guided perhaps by Du Cange, whose opinion appears to be the most sober and 

 best authenticated, maintains that the vulgar Latin was undoubtedly the founda- 

 sion of the Romance; but that much of the Celtic gradually insinuated itself in 

 spite of the policy of the Romans, who never failed to use all their endeavours 

 to establish tlieir language wherever they spread their arms. Among this variety 

 of conjectures and acute controversies, it is however agreed on all hands, that 

 the vocabulary of the Roman, and the idiom of the Celtic have chiefly contri- 

 buted to the formation of the Gallic Romance, which is sufficient to prove that 

 it partakes of a common origin with that of the Grisons. 



There are incontestible proofs that this language was once universal all over 

 France ; and that this, and not immediately the Latin, has been the parent ot 

 the Provencjal, and afterwards of the modern French, the Italian, and the 

 Spanish. The oath taken by Lewis the Germanic, in the year 84'2, in confirm- 

 ation of an alliance between him and Charles the Bald, his brother, is a decisive 

 jjroof of the general use of the Romance by the whole French nation at that 



