Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

AND, first, there will appear a deviation of fenfe, or ideal difference, in the fame word, or in its different fyllabications; but still retaining an affinity of meaning, and manifefting the same origin: and this will fometimes occur in the Cornish and Armoric, from the Gomerian; as well as in this, and the Magogian languages, from one another; a few examples between the two latter, will be fufficient. to prove this obfervation; and I fhall obferve the fame: method with the following.

[blocks in formation]

Thus the acceptation of English words has deviated, in time, and fo of every other language, without absolutely departing from the original meaning.

BESIDES, there is, in the Magogian, a vast number of words, which, in the vocabularies, are noted as obfolete, or much difufed; which are ftill retained, and, for the most part, in common ufe in the Gomerian tongue: and, on the other hand, many words, in common use in the Magogian language to this day, have been long difused in the Gomerian, which were once common to both. The examples of thefe circumftances will occur in the general lift of words, where they are all inferted in their proper order; being as valuable proofs of the former fameness, as thofe words which are now in ufe, and of the fame fignification, in both.

ANOTHER alteration confifts of the tranfpofition of letters, or fyllables; and this proceeds from two causes; thefe are either accidental, or intended: the accidental are occafioned by the careleffness of fuch as ought to know better, in writing or fpeaking, or from want of learning in others. There are innumerable inftances of this in every language, and they abound in our own. But the intended tranfpofition of letters, or fyllables, is a matter of fcience; it is done to polifh and adorn a language, and render many words, which would be uncouth and harsh, not to fay difficult to pronounce, more smooth and harmonious. The Gomerian, for example, has, Mengad, Kadvan; Idrys, Rhyfdyd; Tydvyl, Ilhtyd; Ynbuck, Hykan; and the like. So, in the Greek, many words are tranfpofed, efpecially in the names of perfons: as, Cratippus,

Hippocrates; Archippus, Hipparchus; Anaxippus, Hipponax; Damafippus, Hippodamus; Cleander, Androcles; Nicoftratus, Stratonicus; Dofitheus, Theodofius; and numbers of others. See Lloyd's Archeologia.

OTHER alterations arife in words, which have the fame root, or meaning, from the addition of initial letters, whether confonants or vowels; or of middle vowels, or gutturals, to words in one language, which have them not in the original. And this is what every tongue in Europe is fubject to, except the Magogian or Irish; for it is well known, that the Irish have preserved their letters, and orthography, intirely the fame that it ever was, without any change, to this day, in their manufcripts of the most ancient, as well as the most modern times. And hence it is, that their written language feems to differ greatly from what they speak; because they foften, or abridge, the greatest part of it, in the course of converfation. This makes the ftudy of their manuscripts certain; whereas, in most, if not all the others, they vary fo much, that a perfon, well enough verfed in a modern book, would be puzzled to make out the fame language, in an author who wrote two or three centuries paft; English, French, Italian and Spanish fhew this, and fo does every one of the Teutonic dialects. This was alfo the cafe in the Greek and Latin, while they continued living languages; they were fubject to the fame changes, that I have mentioned to be the causes of the mutilation of words; and, with the Greeks, it is fo now, where it is yet a national tongue: but, with us, both Greck and Latin remain pure, because we are taught them, as a part of education, in their purity,

from

CHAP. IX. from their fineft writers; and will ever remain fo, while we acquire them in this manner, and do not use them as our common tongue.

THE additions, and omiffions of labial letters, palatials, vowels, mutes, liquids, variations of initial fyllables, changes of termination, changes of vowels, changes of labial and of palatial letters, as well as of linguals, although they make fuch differences as would feem fufficient to caufe a total alienation of the relation and fenfe of words, in both these original languages; yet their affinity to each other, and their being the parents of others, in various tongues, ftill are manifeft to every impartial and judicious reader, in the midst of such feeming difficulties.

As to the terminations of words, every language, as it was gradually formed, affumed terminations proportioned to its nature, and the arbitrary rules laid down by its learned men; which proceeded from fancy and whim, for there were pedants of old as well as now; or, in some cases, from neceffity: and so it is in the different pronunciation of the vowels, in the feveral European tongues. But these variations do not alter the specific root, nor the sense of the word; and the etymology is as easily discerned in the one, as in the other. Thus, when the Greek language was rifing out of the Gomerian tongue, and the addition of the Phoenician and Egyptian, as spoken by the issue of Shem and Ham, their grammarians gave to their nouns the terminations os, ou, on, &c. as the cafes required; and, in like manner, when the Latin began to rife out of the Gomerian, then called Celtic, as spoken by the Aborigines, who were the first Pelafgians that paffed from the isles of

Elifba into Italy, and were diftinguished by authors, in their feveral fettlements, by the names of Umbri, Ofci, Aufonii, Oenotrii, &c. they imitated the Greeks, in altering the terminations of their nouns, though fomething different from them; as, for os, us, for on, um, and the like, and nearly followed the fame method of declenfion and conjugation; which fhews, that a colony of the first Greeks, (by which, I mean the mixed people hinted before, that made their encroachments upon the Pelafgians, according to the appellation of the Greeks, or the Ionians, Elifbans, &c. Gomer's fons, according to Scripture, and there formed the Greek tongue), had settled in Italy about the time of Deucalion's fon, or grandson, and, by degrees, contributed to shape the Latin out of the altered dialects of the Gomerian (now Celtic) and their own, which they brought with them; for the Latin is now, for the most part, Gomerian and Greek.

A FEW examples, in this place, will make all these affertions very manifeft; let us take fome words, each of which has the fame fignification in every one of the European tongues, and we shall fee, at one view, the alterations they have gone through; and also, that, notwithstanding such changes, or deviations, they must be owned to have been originally the fame word.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »