Gents Mag 1858 part 1 p.423
|
|
|
|
|
introduction | ||
|
|
list, 3rd qtr 19th century | ||
|
Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.423
|
|||
|
book review Cumberland and Westmorland, Ancient and Modern |
|||
|
Cumberland and Westmorland,
Ancient and Modern
HISTORICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS REVIEWS. Cumberland and Westmorland, Ancient and Modern. By J. SULLIVAN. 8vo., 171pp. (Whitaker & Co.) - "Through the names of places, the oldest and most enduring monuments," remarked William Von Humboldt, "a nation long passed away relates as it were, its own destiny; and the only question is, whether we yet understand its voice." The interpretation of these names is often biassed by the peculiar studies and views of the writer. Referring to Mr. Ferguson's "Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland," we have, says Mr. Sullivan, Norse against all England; whilst he is perhaps scarcely aware of his own tendency to seek for derivations too exclusively in the Irish branch of the Celtic language. This field has, however, been rarely trodden of late, at least in England, for our cousins the Germans have lately produced a very valuable Celtic work, Zeuss' Grammatica Celtica. With this exception, Mr. Sullivan has given due prominence to the claims of each of the immigrant nations, and he brings to bear on the examination of his subject an acquaintance with no ordinary range of languages, Eastern and European. Indeed, we consider this as a most suggestive and interesting book. It is to be lamented that we know nothing of Celtic, as formerly spoken in England, some remnants of Cornish excepted; and that we can only form conjectures concerning it from the kindred dialects of Brittany, Wales, and Ireland, for it is by no means certain that Welch was spoken throughout England. Mr. Sullivan considers that the earliest immigrants of Europe came in two streams, - the Tatars along the large rivers and islands of the north, whose descendants were the Finns, Lapps, Esthonians, and Livonians; and the other, consisting of the Iberians, the Etruscans, and the Illyrians, by the coasts of the Mediterranean. The Tatars probably migrated from the north of Asia; the Celts, who came in contact with the Iberians, and the Latins, who followed the Etruscans, belong to the great Indo-European family, whose home was between the northern slope of the Himalayas and the Caspian. Of this family there were four great divisions - the Celtic, the Greek-Latin, the Gothic, and the Slavic. Probably the Caspian divided them, and gave them different directions. Our author supposes that the first immigrants to Britain were some of the Tatar tribes of the stone period, who spread along the north coast of Denmark until they could get no further (north), and then took to the sea. The date he places at about five centuries before the Christian era. We give Mr. Sullivan's reasons for this opinion in his own words:- "Every consonant in standard Irish is capable of two pronunciations, a broad and a narrow; the eastern dialect still preserves the distinction clearly audible. The vowels are divided into broad and narrow; a, o, u being of the former kind, e, i of the latter. If there be no other overruling cause, the consonant takes its sound from the following vowel; and according to a practice now ancient, the kind of the medial or final consonant is indicated, if necessary, by a preceeding vowel. Thus the a vowel in cean only shews the broad sound of the n. Some of the Celtic dialects, and many of the European languages that received this influence, did not preserve its original condition; its existence is now, therefore, at least traced in its effects, which form many of the most striking changes in modern dialects. Traces of this organic peculiarity are strong and general in Russian, partial in Danish and Latin, scarcely to be found in the Welch, and non-existent in German. Its effects are sufficiently ample in the Romance languages, in Anglo-Saxon orthography, and in the pronunciation of modern English. That this influence belongs to the North is tolerably evident; and seeing it is almost prefect in Magyar, and more or less traceable in all the langauges of the same stock, we may concude that it has come to us through the Tatar peoples."The immigrants probably arrived in Aberdeenshire: that they first reached Scotland infers from the name of the whole island, and the present name of Scotland in the Irish language - Albion and Alba, the hill-country. (Compare the old Italian Alba Longa, the long hill, Albanus, &c.) But foreseeing a difficulty as to the arrival of these tribes in canoes hollowed out by fire, (or even, we suppose, in skin-covered coracles,) he presumes that they must have arrived in company with the Celtic tribes. It is certain, we may ask, that the cromlech-builders had no tools of metal, or was it a point of their |
|||
|
|
next page | ||
|
gazetteer links
|
|||
|
|
-- Cumberland | ||
|
|
|||
Lakes Guides menu.