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PART IV.

HISTORY AND DERIVATION.

HISTORY.

435. The Aryans.-Many, many centuries ago, long before history began to be written, a nation whom we call the Aryans lived in Central Asia. After they had lived together for a very great while, bands of them began to wander away from the old home. One band pressed to the south-east and settled in the countries now named Persia and India. Other bands spread westward and occupied nearly all the countries of Europe. A troop which divided at the north of the Adriatic Sea settled in Greece and Italy. Another troop, the Kelts, occupied the British Islands, Gaul, and part of Spain. From them are descended the Welsh, the Highlanders of Scotland, the Irish and the Bretons of to-day. The Kelts were followed, and in some cases conquered, by the Teutons, from whom come the English, the Germans, and the Scandinavians. The Teutons were followed by the Slaves,1 from whom are descended the Russians, the Poles, and some of the other inhabitants of Eastern Europe.

436. The Aryan Languages.--We get our knowledge of the parent stock by comparing the languages of the nations which have sprung from it. Learned men, on examining the Aryan (or Indo-European 2) tongues, have discovered that there are certain words found in all or nearly all of them. These words must therefore have been in use before the dispersion, and the things which they name and the actions which they denote must have been familiar to the original people. Their language con

The word Slaves does not here mean bondmen.

2 Called Indo-European because spoken in India and Europe.

...

tained words for all the common relations of life-father, mother, brother, sister, son, and daughter. . . . The connections by marriage had their terms; there was a name for the daughterin-law," she who belonged to the son," for the father-in-law, and for the brother-in-law. . . . The house existed, not the cave or hole in the rock; and it had doors, not the half-underground passage of the Siberians. The people had sheep and herds, the tendance of which was their main employment; and of agriculture we see the beginnings-the knowledge of some one grain, perhaps barley. They had horses to drive (not to ride), and goats, dogs, and bees; from the honey they made a sweet drink; they made clothing of the wool of the sheep and the skins of beasts. They had to guard against the wolf, the bear, and the snake. They dressed their food at the fire, and they were acquainted with soup. They also knew and could work with three metals-gold, silver, and copper. They used in battle the sword and the bow. They made boats, but they knew not the sea. They could reckon up to a hundred, and they divided their time by months according to the moon. In religion they

had no clear term for God, but seem to have personified the sky as the Heaven-father, the source of light and life. Certainly such a race as this differed widely from the infinite number of savage races which even now occupy the world.' 1

437. Grimm's Law.-Though, as we have seen, there are many words common to the various Aryan languages, we must not expect to find them in exactly the same form in all the languages in which they occur. Differences of climate and of surroundings have, in the course of ages, caused differences in speech. The inhabitants of a warm country, for example, are disinclined to take trouble, and gradually drop the harsh sounds which require an effort to make. This will explain why Italian is more liquid than German. Dr. Jacob Grimm it was who first stated clearly what sound in one Aryan language corresponded to any given sound in another Aryan language-in other words, it was he who laid down Grimm's Law. A few examples will show the correspondence of sounds spoken of.

1 PEILE, Philology, p. 66.

On examining the first set of words it will be seen

(1) That (ph) in Greek corresponds to ƒ in Latin, and to b in English, German, and Irish. [These are all sounds made with the lips.]

(2) That 7 (t) in Greek corresponds to t in Latin, to th in English and Irish, and to d in German. [These are all sounds made with the teeth.]

An examination of the other sets of words will show similar results.

438. The English.-When we first hear of the English (who, it will be remembered, belong to the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family), they were living together in the north-west of Germany. They were of the same blood and spoke the same language as a great many other tribes that inhabited the lands north of the Rhine, and from the tribes that stayed on the continent are descended the Germans of to-day.

439. The Kelts.-When we first hear of Britain it was peopled by Kelts. The Romans conquered the southern part of the island and held it for three centuries, much as we now hold India. When they withdrew, the unprotected country was invaded by band after band of the English, and each band settled down in the lands which it had won. Thus in the course of about a hundred and fifty years the whole of the eastern half of south Britain came under English rule, the older inhabitants being killed or driven westward.

440. Saxon' and 'Anglo-Saxon.'-The Saxons were the first of the English tribes to invade Britain, and the Britons therefore called all the invaders Saxons: the Welsh even to this day call the English Saeson. The common name for Angles, Saxons and Jutes was English; we should therefore be careful not to call them all Saxons, that being

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the name of only one tribe. To call all the English Saxons is like calling all the Jews Levites. Sometimes our forefathers are called AngloSaxons, and that is not always wrong, but the right use of the term is hard to learn, and there is no advantage in using it. There is, on the other hand, a distinct advantage in applying the term to the language of the invaders. That language was English as much as our own; in fact our English is to the English of the invaders as the oak of to-day is to the sapling of centuries ago. It, however, saves time to call the earliest English known to us Anglo-Saxon, but it should always be remembered that when we speak of Anglo-Saxon we do not mean a different language from our own, but only the oldest form of our own.1

441. Inflected and Un-inflected Languages.-When a language like Latin is compared with a language like English, some striking differences are seen. Take, for example, the Noun dominus, a lord, and the Adjective bonus, good. When these are declined we have :

Bon-us domin-us, a good lord [Subject].

Bon-i domin-i, a good lord's.

Bon-o domin-o, to or for a good lord.

Bon-um domin-um, a good lord [Object].

Bon-e domin-e, O good lord.

Bon-o domin-o, by, with or from a good lord.
Bon-i domin-i, good lords.

Bon-orum domin-orum, good lords'.

Take again the comparison of an Adjective:-
Difficil-is, difficult.

Difficil-ior, more difficult.

Difficil-limus, most difficult.

Take again the conjugation of a Verb :

Am-abam, I was loving.

Am-abas, thou wast loving.

Am-abat, he was loving.

Am-abamus, we were loving.
Am-abatis, you were loving.

Am-abant, they were loving.

1 Welsh means foreigner. That was the name given by the invaders to the Britons. The Germans of to-day similarly call Italy Welsch-land, the land of the Welsh. The name by which the Welsh call themselves is Cymru (pronounced Kimree), a word seen in Cambria and Cumber-land,

These examples will show that in Latin different relations of the same word are shown by terminations or inflexions added to the root, or fixed part of the word, whereas in English different relations are generally shown by the addition of separate words. Latin is therefore said to be an inflected language, but the English of the present day is to a large extent uninflected.

442. Anglo-Saxon inflected.-Anglo-Saxon (as for convenience we call the oldest form of English) was an inflected language. The Noun dæg, day, for example, was declined thus:

dæg, a day [Subject].

dæg-es, day's.

dæg-ê, to or for a day.

dæg, a day [Object].
dæg-ê, by or with a day.
dag-a, days.
dag-a, days', &c.

443. Dead and Living Languages.-Languages which are no longer spoken are said to be dead. Greek, as we find it in the Iliad, is dead, though there is a modern form of Greek called Romaic. Similarly Latin, as we find it in the Eneid, is dead, though Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese are little more than modern forms of Latin.

All living things undergo constant change. No living flower, tree, horse, or man will be exactly the same to-morrow as today. Like other living things, languages, too, undergo constant change. Old words drop out of use, new words are introduced, some words alter in meaning, and inflexions are ever wearing away.

444. Examples of Changes in Languages. To show how a language changes in course of time, a few verses of the Gospel of John are here given, first in Latin and then in Italian and French, which (as has already been said) are modern forms of Latin.