EELICS OF THE COENISH LANGUAGE, 



By Rev. W. S. LACH-SZTRMA, Member. 



Among our many antiquities in Cornwall, our menhirion, 

 our cromleclis, our earns, and barrows, our dolmens, our Cornish 

 crosses, and plan-an-guares, and mediseval churclies, there is 

 one class of antiquities purely Cornish, and yet which is too often 

 forgotten by visitors and even by natives, i.e., the relics of 

 our ancient Cornu-British language. 



This language is of more importance from a scientific 

 stand point than many folks imagine. It is one of the meshes 

 (so to speak) of the vast net of the Aryan tongues, which have 

 spread over nearly all Europe and most of India and Persia, and 

 the total loss of it for scientific purposes would have been 

 serious ; it is probably a tradition of the ancient languages of 

 the tribes of old Britain, south of the Thames, prior to Caesar's 

 conquest ; it thus is the oldest tongue of the most important 

 parts of southern England, and may, though that is not certain, 

 have been very like the tongues of the ancient Britons who 

 fought against Julius Caesar in his two invasions. It is, more- 

 over, the last deceased of the great Aryan family of languages, 

 and the one in which, as I think, the laws of decay affecting a 

 language in civilized Europe may be best traced. It is also in 

 some sense a literary language, more so, indeed, than several of 

 the minor languages now existing on the European continent, 

 than for instance the Wendish or Eomansch. 



The deep fascination that gathers around everything that 

 can illustrate the early history of the ancient Britons, can be 

 best realized by us as we read Dr. Guest's interesting suggestive 

 work, Origines Gelticce. 



Every shred of evidence is useful, nay, is precious, for all 

 the evidence which is really trustworthy about Britain anterior 

 to the Roman conquest is very slender. T^inguistic evidence 

 has, however, great importance now, both from an historical 

 and an ethnographical standpoint, on account of the modern 

 theory, that language is a test of race, and that nations may be 

 classified according to their languages. 



