On The Origin And Ramifications Of The English Language Preceded By An Inquiry Into The Primitive Seats, Early Migrations And Final Settlements Of The Principal European Nations (1845)

PREFACE. THERE are two circumstances which have misled all modem philologists, as well English as German, and which, until they are put on a proper footing, will continue to mislead all future inquirers, which may be stated as follows - 1. That the barbarous nations which overthrew the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and which are denominated by the historians of the middle ages the Northern Hive, came from Scandinavia, a, nd that Scandinavia was situated in the north of Europe, and limited to the modern kingdoms of weden, Norway, and Denmark. 2. That the people first mentioned by Herodotus, and denominated by him Celtz and Cynete, were a perfectly distinct race, and spoke a language radically different from the other great race, denominated by him Scythians or Thracians, who are still regarded as the sole progenitors of the Gothic or Teutonic race. It is almost certain that Celttl and Scythz were merely different names of the same people, or, at any rate, that they stand in the relation to each other of a part to the whole, and that they have been regarded as perfectly distinct merely from the circumstance that Herodotus mentions the former as the inhabitants of the extreme west of Europe, and the latter of the extreme north, that is, of the countries to the north of the Danube, for his knowledge of Europe extended very little further while DIAnville, following other ancient historians and geographers, says expressly that the name of Celtica in the earliest antiquity was extended to all the northern part of Europe. S The first error originated partly from the ignorance of two leading authorities of the middle ages, Jornandes and Procopius, and partly from subsequent vritersmisunderstanding them, and supposing them to refer to the Baltic, when they clearly intended to refer to the Euxine and as if this were not enough, much of what they have written has been industriously perverted by Grotius their editor, in his anxiety to compliment and pay his PREFACE. V court to Christina of Sweden, by exaggerating the antiquity and importance of the northern kingdoms. Grotius misled Montesquieu and Gibbon, and since their time the subject has excited very little attention. The second emr, if it did not originate with, has at any rate had currency given to it in England by, Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, the translator of Mallets Northern Antiquities, who has exerted all his efforts to prove that the Celtic and the Teutonic are radically different languages. No one doubts the difference between Irish, and Welsh, and German, or English but that proves nothing with respect to the Celtae and Scythians in the age of Herodotus, or even of Jornandes a thousand years later. The most considerable advance in a right direction that has been made. for many years past appears to me to have been, by. a very distinguished living author, Dr. Prichard, in his learned and admirable little work, entitled The Eastern Origin 1 of the Celtic Nations proved by a comparison of their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic Languages, which in great measure gave birth to the following inquiry, which may be A 3 Vi PREFACE. regarded to a considerable extent as a continuation of the subject...