78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



In his preface to his Dictionnaire de la Langne Bretonne, Le Pel- 

 letier, who expended twenty-five years on the study of that language, 

 remarks " that it is perhaps the most ancient language among those 

 that are spoken to day in the world." With the patriotic enthusiasm 

 for which he was i-emai-kable, Le Gonidec, who may appropriately 

 be designated the Eugene O'Curry of Breton Literature, avers " that 

 the greatest proof of the antiquity of the Breton language is that up 

 to the present time no learned man has been able to make us re- 

 ascend to its origin, and to show us its first steps and progressive 

 march. It appears incontestable that the Breton language has had 

 Asia for its cradle, and that from Asia it spread into Europe with 

 the nations which have peopled this part of the world." It is stated 

 on the authority of Heraclides that the person who cai-ried intelli- 

 gence to Athens of the destruction of Rome by the Gauls, related 

 that Rome had been taken by a great host of Hyperboreans — a 

 people who came over the icy mountains from the unknown regions 

 of the north. Whether the B)'etons belonged to those Hyperboreans 

 or not, there can be no question that they and their language have 

 the hoar and the honour of a remote antiquity on their side. 



The physical configui'ation and the comparative remoteness of 

 Brittany fi-om the thoroughfare of human connections and migra. 

 tions lead us to expect that the Celts of Brittany have been allowed 

 to occupy their homes without much molestation. As it is prwia 

 facie probable, if not altogether likely, that the first Celtic occupants 

 of Great Britain must have crossed at the Straits of Dover, and as 

 there is abundant evidence that Celts at one time possessed the 

 whole of France as well as the south-west of Europe, there is nothing 

 unreasonable in the conjectui'e that the Bretons of to-day are the 

 descendaiats of the earliest Celts that had their home in the western 

 part of Europe. 



In his tour through Brittany the famous Welsh scholar, Carnhu- 

 anaux the Rev. Thomas Price, thus writes : " If I were asked what 

 language I was chieflly reminded of, by hearing the Breton spoken 

 by the natives in conversation, I should say certainly not so much 

 the Welsh as the Gaelic; and this from the frequent occurrence in the 

 Breton, of a cei'tain nasal pronunciation very much resembling that 

 so frequently beard in the Highlands of Scotland." 



Mr. Price remarks that Druidical remains can be found in gi'eater 

 profusion in Brittany, than perhaps in any other country whatever. 



