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her body lying on this hill or bank, slain by a wolf, and the ravenous beast in the very act of tearing it to pieces, till frightened by the dogs. In the first transports of his grief, the first words the sorrowful husband uttered, were "Woe to this bank!" since vulgarly called Wotobank.

An invention of a still higher kind is furnished by the name of Dunmaile Raise. King Edmund of England and the king of South Wales, we are informed, united their forces for the subjugation of King Dunmaile (a hill) of Cumbria. This potentate, though certainly posted on his own ground, sustained a most decisive defeat, being attacked, it appears, at once in front and rear; and as the poet has it, himself and "those of all his power," were "slain here in a disastrous hour." But he was honourably buried on the field of battle, and the hill called after his name. The age of this tradition is attested by the fact that it has found its way into Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, that is, about two centuries after the supposed event.

PART II.

THE DIALECT.

"WILLST du die Menscheit und ihre Vernunft kennen lernen, so studire die Menschensprachen, und diese werden dir von manchem Kunde geben, was in keiner Seelenlehre und in keinem Geschichtsbuche steht."

Dr. F. A. POTT.

Would you wish to get a knowledge of mankind and human reason, then study languages, and these will inform you of many things not written in history, and not to be found in any psychology.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

By the aid of analysis languages have been traced back to a certain common stage, beyond which, in the present state of linguistic science, we cannot reach. In this very early period are found to have existed radically different languages, and on these distinctions is based the division of mankind into stems or stocks. Several stocks of people have been named as once existing in Europe; and any earlier state of language or people than this, is founded on assumption.

The languages thus found to have existed, divide themselves, as we learn from history, into branches, which in course of time differ apparently as much from each other as the parent languages. One important distinction must be remarked,―philologists can pierce the disguise of the one, but not of the other. Branch languages subdivide into dialects, which finally become almost innumerable. Coincident with this phenomenon is that of nationality, the principle of popular unity,-a feeling without which man could never have accomplished the migrations of primitive times. Every dialect may be said to be the expression of this feeling of nationality. It is the fate of unwritten language, thus to divide and subdivide itself into dialects.

Written language comes in as a check to this disruption, but not until every district-it might almost be said, every townpossesses its own dialect. It is obvious, therefore, that whatever dialect first receives the literary impulse, must form the nucleus of the written language. In Greece several distinct impulses were

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