|
Page vi:-
the stories of Joseph and Bellerophon, of Jeptha and
Idomeneus. The funeral howl has been raised in almost every
quarter of the earth, and human superstition has always had
its fausti and nefausti [nefasti] dies. Many English words,
with their native meaning attached to them, have migrated
into Calabria and Apulia; yet we know not whether they were
introduced along with English sheep, or at some other time.
These things, without doubt, and many more that might be
instanced, originate from causes which have not been of
sufficient importance for the notice of general history; or
they have crept on in a silent progression; or have been
transported by casualties, the authentic story of which is
either lost or obscured by time: yet some of them furnish
powerful arguments for the existence of obsolete
arrangements, and unrecorded intercourse. It is here that
local attempts to supply the void in general history take
place, and present resemblances, which may stimulate
curiosity to investigate, if possible, their causes.
|
|
IV. That languages radically the same, even in the latter
stages of the world, should assume altered tones and idioms,
far alienated from their original ones, does not seem
wonderful, when one recollects the number of promiscuous
tongues with which force and other contingence have blended
them; it seems to me rather more wonderful, that modern
refinement, and the laboured improvements of grammarians,
have almost erazed every trace of affinity. A language, when
once settled with classic precision, will of course leave
out such a number of the current phrases, and words of
particular districts, as are proportional to the difference
between the dialects of those districts and the men who
compiled the standard tongue: some, besides, will be lost by
forgetfulness, and others overlooked on account of their
vulgarity. In process of time these excluded words and
phrases grow more and more estranged, become at last a
barbarism, and are forgotten. Yet it is not perhaps unworthy
of a thinking mind to observe, how other tongues of the same
stock still retain, in their purest state, many of those
things which are exiled into the more barbarous and remote
dialects of another; or in what manner expressions, though
occasionally changed in termination, &c. mingle
familiarly with the current of one mode of speech, when they
have lost all connection with each other. There are few
dialects which have not something distinct and peculiar to
themselves; either in single words, particular phrases, or
the general structure of their sentences; and when such a
dialect as one of these has no standard of its own, that is,
before civilization and learning have given it uniformity,
every one that writes will write the words he is accustomed
to, and in the stile which use has taught him. Again: Where
there is no great seminary to produce scholars, who may
dignify and fix their native idiom by their writings; and
idiom, formed on some more fashionable plans, and
established by some eminent performances, will be sought; it
will become the language of scholars, and learning in time
must not deviate from it. Yet as every county in England,
though the radicals of its language be common, and its
speech in general conformable to that of the rest, uses many
phrases notwithstanding which are peculiar to itself; we may
naturally infer, from the variety of nations who have
inhabited this island, that it was always so; and that the
standard tongue, which is a sort of mixture of the whole,
left out many words as needless,, because supplied by other
dialects, and rejected many more on account of their
vulgarity. Therefore, if any particular place has, by its
cultivation of letters, or by its authority, established the
superiority of its own dialect; that dialect, as it advances
in refinement, will gradually become fastidious, and reject
or forget many of its own homely phrases which it had in
common with others of the same stock, and assume those of
languages which circumstances have rendered still more
learned and fashionable. Few will hesitate in calling this
an emendation; yet such emendation will make the distinction
still more obvious, as it must of course leave out many of
those expressions which it once used in common with its
kindred dialects, and which rusticity and solitude have in
the mean time secured from any material alteration: for from
whatever cause languages originate, without books as a fixed
point to which they may recur, they will always in general
intercourse be vague and fluctuating.
|
Lakes Guides menu.
