Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/347

337 On Oc and Oyl. 33y for it is often, especially in ancient times, found written with the aspirate, only however by natives of northern France: those of Languedoc protest against this way of spelling it, and with reason, since they pronounce the ch as in Spanish and English, otch. But according to them the word does not even admit the softer French sound of the ch ; they call their country Lengado (^/^n^a signifying tongue), and in speaking French they never say iin Languedochien^ but Languedocien. Per- haps however the final ch was not intended to suggest a different mode of pronunciation, but to be sounded, as in the name of S. Roch, and many other words, like the simple c. Does then the name of the province really come from the affirmative in use there? — I had believed, long before I found that others had asserted the same thing, that langiie iToc was a corruption of langue de Goth^ or langue Goth, So says old Rabelais, who was not deficient in learning, in the first half of the l6th century : Pantagruel, livr. 3. ch. 4, (ed. Le-Duchat i. SS^y. Dante, as we have seen, terms the people who say oc^ Spaniards. But Spain, properly so called, probably never used that particle. On the other hand every body knows that Spain was occupied by the Goths : the name of Catalonia is derived from Gothalonia : but the Ca- talan language is the Provencal, and this is the langue d'oc. The Goths were dominant in Provence itself, and in Lan- guedoc : the capital of the latter country, Toulouse, was the residence of their Kings. In short we find Goths in the very tracts, the language of which we are here discussing. How easily may it have derived its peculiarities from them, or at least have borne their name ! Even in the later Spanish historians we find Languedoc called la Fraricia Gothica (an instance from Scolano is given by Eichhorn in his Einleitungs- Geschichte der Kitltiir i. p. 6l.). — The word Goth has been frequently mutilated and curtailed, so as to be no longer recognized: for instance in the Spanish title hidalgo^ which, as has long been agreed among critics of the highest authority, means, not son of something (Jiijo dilgo)^ but Goth''s son (hud'al-go). This derivation has been proved by German writers: the Spanish etymologists, I am told, know nothing of it. I may therefore be permitted to take this opportunity