TRACT VIII. OF LANGUAGES, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE SAXON SIR, TONGUE. 1 THE last discourse we had of the Saxon tongue recalled to my mind some forgotten considerations. Though the earth were widely peopled before the flood, (as many learned men conceive) yet whether, after a large dispersion, and the space of sixteen hundred years, men maintained so uniform a language in all parts, as to be strictly of one tongue, and readily to understand each other, may very well be doubted. For though the world preserved in the family of Noah before the confusion of tongues might be said to be of one lip, yet even permitted to themselves their humours, inventions, necessities, and new objects (without the miracle of confusion at first), in so long a tract of time, there had probably been a Babel. For whether America were first peopled by one or several nations, yet cannot that number of different planting nations answer the multiplicity of their present different languages, of no affinity unto each other, and even in their northern nations and incommunicating angles, their languages are widely differing. A native interpreter brought from California proved of no use3 unto the Spaniards upon the neighbour shore. From Chiapa to Guatemala, S. Salvador, Honduras, there are at least eighteen several languages; and so numerous are they both in the Peruvian and Mexican regions, that the great princes are fain to have one common language, which, besides their vernaculous and mother tongues, may serve for commerce between them. And since the confusion of tongues at first fell only upon those which were present in Sinaar at the work of Babel, 1 forgotten considerations.] "Both of that and other languages."-MS. Sloan. 2 angles.] "Where they may be best conceived to have most single originals." 3 of no use.] "Of little use." -MS. Sloan. whether the primitive language from Noah were only preserved in the family of Heber, and not also in divers others, which might be absent at the same, whether all came away, and many might not be left behind in their first plantations about the foot of the hills, whereabout the ark rested, and Noah became an husbandman,* is not absurdly doubted. For so the primitive tongue might in time branch out into several parts of Europe and Asia, and thereby the first or Hebrew tongue, which seems to be ingredient into so many languages, might have larger originals and grounds of its communication and traduction than from the family of Abraham, the country of Canaan, and words contained in the Bible, which come short of the full of that language. And this would become more probable from the Septuagint or Greek Chronology strenuously asserted by Vossius; for making five hundred years between the deluge and the days of Peleg, there ariseth a large latitude of multiplication and dispersion of people into several parts, before the descent of that body which followed Nimrod unto Sinaar from the east. They who derive the bulk of European tongues from the Scythian and the Greek, though they may speak probably in many points, yet must needs allow vast difference or corruptions from so few originals, which, however, might be tolerably made out in the old Saxon, yet hath time much confounded the clearer derivations. And as the knowledge thereof now stands in reference unto ourselves, I find many words totally lost, divers of harsh sound disused or refined in the pronunciation, and many words we have also in common use not to be found in that tongue, or venially derivable from any other from whence we have largely borrowed, and yet so much still remaineth with us that it maketh the gross of our language. The religious obligation unto the Hebrew language hath so notably continued the same, that it might still be under husbandman.] MS. Sloan. 1827, adds here the following clause; "whether in that space of 150 years, according to common compute, before the conduct of Nimrod, many might not expatriate northward, eastward, or southward, and many of the posterity of Noah might not disperse themselves before the great migration unto Sinaar, and many also afterwards; is not, &c." stood by Abraham, whereas by the Mazorite points and Chaldee character the old letter stands so transformed, that if Moses were alive again, he must be taught to read his own law.5 The Chinese, who live at the bounds of the earth, who have admitted little communication, and suffered successive incursions from one nation, may possibly give account of a very ancient language: but, consisting of many nations and tongues, confusion, admixtion, and corruption in length of time might probably so have crept in, as, without the virtue of a common character and lasting letter of things, they could never probably make out those strange memorials which they pretend, while they still make use of the works of their great Confucius many hundred years before Christ, and in a series ascend as high as Poncuus, who is conceived our Noah. The present Welch, and remnant of the old Britons, hold so much of that ancient language, that they make a shift to understand the poems of Merlin, Enerin, Telesin, a thousand years ago, whereas the Herulian Pater Noster, set down by Wolfgangus Lazius, is not without much criticism made out, and but in some words; and the present Parisians can hardly hack out those few lines of the league between Charles and Lewis, the sons of Ludovicus Pius, yet remaining in old French. The Spaniards in their corruptive traduction and romance, have so happily retained the terminations from the Latin, that, notwithstanding the Gothic and Moorish intrusion of words, they are able to make a discourse completely consist law.] In MS. Sloan. 1827, the following additional paragraph occurs;"Though this language be duly magnified, and always of high esteem, yet if, with Geropius Becanus, we admit that tongue to be most perfect which is most copious or expressive, most delucid and clear unto the understanding, most short, or soon delivered, and best pronounced with most ease unto the organs of speech, the Hebrew now known unto us will hardly obtain the place; since it consisteth of fewer words than many others, and its words begin not with vowels, since it is so full of homonymies, and words which signify many things, and so am biguous, that translations so little agree; and since, though the radices consist but of three letters, yet they make two syllables in speaking; and since the pronunciation is such, as St. Jerome, who was born in a barbarous country, thought the words anhelent, strident, and of very harsh sound. 6 they are able.] "This will appear very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and Howel, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages, declares, that after many essays he never could effect it."-Dr. Johnson. > ing of grammatical Latin and Spanish, wherein the Italians and French will be very much to seek.7 The learned Casaubon conceiveth that a dialogue might be composed in Saxon, only of such words as are derivable from the Greek, which surely might be effected, and so as the learned might not uneasily find it out. Verstegan made no doubt that he could contrive a letter which might be understood by the English, Dutch, and East Frislander, which, as the present confusion standeth, might have proved no very clear piece, and hardly to be hammered out: yet so much of the Saxon still remaineth in our English, as may admit an orderly discourse and series of good sense, such as not only the present English, but Ælfric, Bede, and Alfred might understand after so many hundred years. 8 Nations that live promiscuously under the power and laws of conquest, do seldom escape the loss of their language with their liberties; wherein the Romans were so strict, that the Grecians were fain to conform in their judicial processes; ' which made the Jews lose more in seventy years dispersion in the provinces of Babylon, than in many hundred in their distinct habitation in Egypt; and the English which dwelt dispersedly to lose their language in Ireland, whereas more tolerable reliques there are thereof in Fingall, where they were closely and almost solely planted; and the Moors which were most huddled together and united about 7 seek.] "The many mother tongues spoke in consent and study of all ages since, it had found the same fate, and been swallowed like other languages; since, in its ancient state, one age could scarce understand another, and that of some generations before must be read by a dictionary by a few successions after; as, beside the famous pillar of Quillius, may be illustrated in these few lines, Eundo omnibus honestitudo præterbitunda nemo escit. Quianam itaque istuc effexis hauscio, temperi et toppertutemet tam hibus insegne, quod ningribus potestur aut ruspare nevolt. Sapsam saperdæ seneciones sardare nequinunt cuoi siemps et socienum quissis sperit?'" Granada have yet left their Arvirage among the Granadian Spaniards. But shut up in angles and inaccessible corners, divided by laws and manners, they often continue long with little mixture, which hath afforded that lasting life unto the Cantabrian and British tongues, wherein the Britons are remarkable, who having lived four hundred years together with the Romans, retained so much of the British as it may be esteemed a language; which either they resolutely maintained in their cohabitation with them in Britain, or 'retiring after in the time of the Saxons into countries and parts less civilized and conversant with the Romans, they found the people distinct, the language more entire, and so fell into it again. But surely no languages have been so straitly locked up as not to admit of commixture. The Irish, although they retain a kind of a Saxon character,1 yet have admitted many words of Latin and English. In the Welch are found many words from Latin, some from Greek and Saxon. In what parity and incommixture the language of that people stood, which were casually discovered in the heart of Spain, between the mountains of Castile, no longer ago than in the time of Duke D'Alva, we have not met with a good account; any farther than that their words were Basquish or Cantabrian: but the present Basquensa, one of the minor mother tongues of Europe, is not without commixture of Latin and Castilian, while we meet with santifica, tentationeten, gloria, puissanea, and four more [words] in the short form of the Lord's prayer, set down by Paulus Merula: but although in this brief form we may find such commixture, yet the bulk of their language seems more distinct, consisting of words of no affinity unto others, of numerals totally different, of differing grammatical rules, as may be observed in the Dictionary and short Basquensa Grammar, composed by Raphael Nicoleta, a priest of Bilboa. And if they use the auxiliary verbs of equin and ysan, 9 into countries, &c.] "Into Wales, and countries, &c."-MS. Sloan. 1 The Irish, although they, &c.] The Irish using the same characters with the Anglo-Saxons, does not prove any affi- |
