‘134 Mr. planta’s Account of 
from the names of feveral places and families which are 
evidently of Roman derivation (p). 
The inhabitants thefe emigrants found in that place 
of refuge* could not but be a mixture of the Tufcans and 
original Lepontii: and the two languages which met 
upon this occalion muft, at the very firft, have had fome 
affinity ; as the Tufcan, which derived immediately from 
the Greek, is known to have had a. great ffiare in the for- 
mation of the Roman. But as it is generally obferved, 
that the more polifhed people introduce their native 
tongue wherever they go to refide in any confiderable 
numbers, the arrival of thefe fucceffive colonies muft gra- 
dually have produced a confiderable change in the lan- 
guage of the country in which they fettled (i); and this 
change gave rife to the dialed: fince called Ladin, proba- 
bly from the name of the mother country of its princi- 
pal authors fD. 
Although the name of Romanfh , which the whole 
language bears, feem to be a badge of Roman fervitude, 
yet the conqueft of that nation, if ever effeded, could 
not have produced a great alteration in a language which 
muft already have been fo ftmilar to their own ; and its 
general name may as well be attributed to the pacific as 
(p) Lavin (Lavinium), Sus (Sufa), Z ernetz (Cerneto), Ardetz (Ardea), &c. 
(q) SPRECII. p. io. 
(r) A parallel inftance of the formation of a language by Roman colonics 
•is the idiom of Moldavia; which, according to Prince cantemir’s account of 
■that country, has ftill many traces of its Latin origin, and which, though en- 
grafted upon the Dacian, and lincc upon the Sclavonian dialefts of the Celtic, 
may ftill be conftdcrcd as a lifter language to that I am here treating of. 
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