Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/34

22 colonization of the Romans, that the original inhabitants of the country seem to have been soon completely absorbed in the communities of their conquerors. Thus, then, their language seems soon to have become obliterated, so that, even in the earlier periods of the empire, Latin had entirely superseded it. But still some traces of that ancient language are yet to be found in modern Spanish, — words such as garzon, a boy, nada, nothing; casaca, a coat, and a few others, which, having no affinities in Latin, Basque, or Cymric, are purely Gaelic. In like manner other traces are to be found in the pronunciation of a still larger class of words, which appear to have first come to the Latin also from the Gaelic. Thus a thief is not latro, but ladron, which is Gaelic and Cymric; and the wall of a house, in like manner, is pared, not paries. Terra becomes tierra, from the Gaelic tir; planus is llano, pronounced liano, Gaelic, leana; plenus is lleno, pronounced liano, Gaelic lianum; mel is miel, Gaelic mil; ferrum is hierro, Gaelic iarrun, with many others.

Several words, said to have been taken from the ancient Spanish language, have been handed down to us; but they are not easy to be identified with any living language: briga, a town; buteo, a bird of rapine; cetra, a shield; cusculia, a kind of oak; dureta, a seat in a bath; falarica, a kind of spear; gurdus, stolidus; lancia, a lance; necy, a name for the god Mars, and perhaps a few others. Of these lancia and cetra appear to be certainly Gaelic; dureta, from dwr or dur, may be Gaelic and Cymric; gurdus is the same as the Cymric gordew, the others I cannot trace satisfactorily to myself in either of those languages, nor yet in Basque. Perhaps further researches may afford some explication of them, or the statements made respecting them may have been made erroneously, or the words themselves may have become lost in the languages as now remaining.

In conclusion, we have it still left us to consider the question whether the singular language now generally known as the Basque or Biscayan, can be supposed to have been the prevalent language of Spain in the time of Cæsar or Strabo. William Humboldt and many other writers have held that the people speaking it were the original inhabitants of Spain prior to the arrival of the Celts, and that they had probably come from Africa. The modern Basques have also some traditions or belief to the same effect, maintaining that their ancestors had come direct from the plains of Shinar, at the time of the dispersion under Tubal Cain. In this absurdity they have persuaded several others of the