Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/31

19 ON THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES OF FRANCE AND SPAIN. 19 names, must remain a conjecture merely, for the explication of which we have no clue ; as that given by Pliny, evidently from the Latin aquce, seems to me altogether unsatisfactory. Of the language of the Aquitani I know of only one word left us, that given by Suetonius, who says that at Tolosa Bee signifies the beak of a bird: "Cui Tolosse nato cogno- men in pueriti^ Becco fuerat; id valet gallinacei rostrum" (lib. viii. § 18). This word is Gaelic, not Cymric, where the equivalents are pig, gylfin, gylfant; nor is it Basque, in which language the equivalent is ontzia. This is unfortunately only one word to guide us. But even if we could adduce a number of words, the conclusion would be little conformable with the views we have main- tained, as we have observed that the Gaelic and Cymric vocabularies have many equivalents in common, while the framework of the two languages proves them to be essen- tially distinct. Thus, in the modern languages of France and England, their vocabularies might be made to show them to be essentially the same, while the grammars would prove them to be of entirely different origin. Such conclu- sions, then, are very unphilosophical, as often leading to er- ror; though still, in the absence of fuller proofs, we may take them as evidences in our favour, so far as they are worth it, to support our assumption, even if they are not considered sufficient to prove them. This assumption is, that the Gaelic tribes having come at different periods from Spain into Ireland, whence a colony of them afterwards went into North Britain under the name of Scots, the lan- guage now spoken in Ireland and Scotland, and known as Gaelic, is the representative of that formerly spoken in Aqui- tania and Spain. The accurate and judicious Strabo has taken care twice to inform us explicitly, that the Aquitani resembled more the Iberi, or people of Spain, than they did the other Gauls ; not in language only, but also in personal appearance: Tovg (lEV AxviravLOvg tslscag s^7]lXay[i£vovg ov xri y^.tarvr] ^ovov alia xai toig GcafiaOiv sficpeQeig I^rjQOb [lalXov rj ralaxaig (lib. iv. § 1). And again, Aulas yaQ snteiv ot Axvutavoi oia(pEQOv0i xov TaXatixov cpvXov aaxa rs tag tav aoj^arav xazaGKSvag y,ai xata zrjv ylattijv soixaSi Ss (lallov ipr]Q0iv • {lb. § 2). This being our guide, the next question arising for consideration is, to inquire what was the language of Spain at that period. In the passage first above cited, Strabo further gives us to understand, that among the Gauls, distinct from the Aqui- tani, there were several dialects, or slight differences of lan- 2*