Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/250

Rh V.—FARTHER  AFIELD.

Of the two items here presented, that on French words in Lowland Scots calls for no apology. The old connection between Scotland and France is one of the few links with Mediaevalism that might be considered popular. This popularity could hardly be said to be the fruit of any extensive acquaintance with Scottish history. It would seem to owe much of its persistence to the genius of Sir Walter Scott in his "Quentin Durward."

The list, though probably not exhaustive, has the merit of showing a series of borrowings extending over many centuries. Arranged in chronological order, as far as possible, these borrowings show contemporary usage. Not a few of Scoto-French words must have got into the stream through well-known literary tradition from Chaucer and the alliterative poets onwards, but the contemporary usage, which the evidence here presented illustrates, stands outside of the convention of books and independent of any influence exercised by English. "While the great mass of the words cannot fail to appeal to the reader familiar with the Scots vernacular, a large proportion must have speedily dropped out of use. They are much in the position of those borrowings which we still owe to the war correspondent or the adventurous traveller in remote and little- known lands. They vanish with the conditions which led to their importation.

The second item, Primitive Aryan Civilisation, would seem, on a superficial view, to have only a remote connection with Lowland Scots. Closer study, however, will show it to be complementary to the opening article of the volume. That article aimed at linking on the vernacular to that primitive Teutonic influence which supplanted the prehistoric Celtic in the Lowlands. The present is an excursus into the wider field of