I Allude To The Celtic Origin
Of This Tongue, And Its Close Connexion With The Most Cultivated Of
All The Celtic Dialects, The Irish.
People who pretend to be well
conversant with the subject, have even gone so far as to assert,
that
So little difference exists between the Basque and Irish
tongues, that individuals of the two nations, when they meet
together, find no difficulty in understanding each other, with no
other means of communication than their respective languages; in a
word, that there is scarcely a greater difference between the two
than between the French and the Spanish Basque. Such similarity,
however, though so strongly insisted upon, by no means exists in
fact, and perhaps in the whole of Europe it would be difficult to
discover two languages which exhibit fewer points of mutual
resemblance than the Basque and Irish.
The Irish, like most other European languages, is a dialect of the
Sanskrit, a REMOTE one, as may well be supposed. The corner of the
western world in which it is still preserved being, of all
countries in Europe, the most distant from the proper home of the
parent tongue. It is still, however, a dialect of that venerable
and most original speech, not so closely resembling it, it is true,
as the English, Danish, and those which belong to what is called
the Gothic family, and far less than those of the Sclavonian; for,
the nearer we approach to the East, in equal degree the
assimilation of languages to this parent stock becomes more clear
and distinct; but still a dialect, agreeing with the Sanskrit in
structure, in the arrangement of words, and in many instances in
the words themselves, which, however modified, may still be
recognized as Sanskrit. But what is the Basque, and to what family
does it properly pertain?
To two great Asiatic languages, all the dialects spoken at present
in Europe may be traced. These two, if not now spoken, still exist
in books, and are, moreover, the languages of two of the principal
religions of the East. I allude to the Tibetian and Sanskrit - the
sacred languages of the followers of Buddh and Bramah. These
tongues, though they possess many words in common, which is easily
to be accounted for by their close proximity, are properly
distinct, being widely different in structure. In what this
difference consists, I have neither time nor inclination to state;
suffice it to say that the Celtic, Gothic, and Sclavonian dialects
in Europe belong to the Sanskrit family, even as in the East the
Persian, and to a less degree the Arabic, Hebrew, etc.; whilst to
the Tibetian or Tartar family in Asia pertain the Mandchou and
Mongolian, the Calmuc and the Turkish of the Caspian Sea; and in
Europe, the Hungarian and the Basque PARTIALLY.
Indeed this latter language is a strange anomaly, so that upon the
whole it is less difficult to say what it is not, than what it is.
It abounds with Sanskrit words to such a degree that its surface
seems strewn with them.
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