ESSAY

1

ON THE

ANTIQUITY OF THE WELSH TONGUE*.

Ad linguam quod attinet præcipua honoris et dignitatis palma, de quâ inter se linguæ decertare solent, vetustas est.-DR. DAVIES.

AMONG the many subjects which fall naturally within the scope and purpose of this Institution, there is none, perhaps, which offers stronger claims on its attention than the peculiar and remarkable characteristics of our native tongue. In all countries we have ever found a desire to prevail amongst the learned to investigate, with partial anxiety, the distinguishing properties of their respective languages: even with reference to such as are, comparatively, of modern origin, and have no extraordinary merit to recommend them, we have seen this natural propensity to exist. Can it then be a matter of surprise, that the learned of our own country, who, during the last two hundred and fifty years, have combined their powerful aid to examine and to illustrate the particular excellencies of the Welsh tongue, should have dwelt, with a fond enthusiasm, on those peculiarities by which it is signalized among the languages now spoken in Europe? From the time of the celebrated Dr. J. D. Rhys, down to the present, no author that has treated, either expressly or incidentally, of the Language of Wales, has failed to speak, with becoming praise, of some or other of its singular qualities. And we owe it to their elaborate and ingenious, researches, that we are now able to discriminate, with an accurate eye, the simplicity of its basis, the beautiful uniformity of its superstructure, and, above all, those venerable marks of antiquity, by which it avowedly stands unrivalled among the languages of this western world.

It is on this last-mentioned characteristic that I propose, on the

This ESSAY is here reprinted from the "REPORT of the CYMMRODORION," already alluded to, and was written for the purpose of being read at the First Anniversary of the Society, May 22, 1821.-ED. TR.

present occasion, to offer some observations; not that I hope, within the necessary limits of this Essay, to exhaust a subject, abounding, as this does, with food for the most interesting speculation: all that I aim at is, to take a summary view of the most remarkable proofs, by which the high antiquity of the Welsh tongue is established.

Before I enter, however, on this inquiry, I feel it necessary to premise a few remarks, which the nature of the subject appears particularly to demand, with reference to an hypothesis that has hitherto gained considerable currency, and seems to have tended, in no small degree, to encumber the researches of philologists, and, consequently, to have had an injurious influence on their inquiries into the particular characteristics of the Welsh tongue.

The hypothesis, to which I allude, is the notion that language was originally communicated, in a full and perfect state, by the Deity to man; an opinion which has been supported by so many learned and pious writers, and with so bold a confidence, that one is almost led to believe the assertion to be sanctioned by divine revelation. It happens, however, unfortunately for their position, that the sacred volume not only gives no countenance to it, but seems even to favour an opposite conclusion in the only passage which can reasonably be adapted to the occasion. This occurs at the 19th and 20th Verses of the 2d Chapter of Genesis, which are as follow: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” This is the first occasion on which the sacred penman ascribes to the first man the use of his oral faculties; and, if we consider the words in their plain and obvious import, as in all such cases is, perhaps, the wisest and safest mode, there appear to be two circumstances particularly worthy of our attention.

The first of these is, that Adam was thus invited to give names to the creatures that were brought to him before the creation of Eve, and, consequently, before there could have been any intercourse of sentiment, any tacit connivance, as to the use of the organs of speech, in the adaptation of their sounds to surrounding objects. Man was alone in the world as far as concerned human society; and, therefore, whatever language he uttered must have been a language suggested by nature itself, without any adscititious influence from other causes. And a brief consideration of the next point that occurs will prove, I think, that this language was not the effect of an immediate revelation from heaven, but the result of a natural aptitude in the organs of speech to utter certain determinate articulations, according to the impulse of man's internal emotions. God," says the sacred text, " brought these creatures to Adam, to see what he would call them." Now, if

Adam had before been gifted with a systematic and accomplished language, as we may presume one of divine origin would have been, it is not probable that the sacred historian would have described the Deity as desirous of knowing what names Adamo would bestow on the animals brought to him. On the contrary, the obvious sense of the passage seems to be, that God was anxious to know (to speak in human language) in what way the first man would employ his natural powers of articulation with respect to the objects assembled before him. “His Maker,” as the author of the Celtic Researches has justly observed on this very point*, " had implanted certain principles in him, which the occasion called forth into action, as his own feelings prompted, or as his judgement prescribed." And, from the experience of numerous travellers amongst newly-discovered nations, upon the first sight of any strange objects, we are justified in inferring, that the names, given by the first man on the occasion under consideration, must have corresponded with the feelings excited in him by the shape, voice, and other characteristic qualities, of the respective. animals submitted to his view, as the several passions of fear, love, or astonishment may have operated on his inexperienced mind.

From the foregoing brief examination of this scriptural passage, I think it will be evident to those, who are disposed to view the subject with candour and impartiality, that the sacred volume supplies no argument in favour of an original divine language, but that, on the other hand, it appears even to sanction the very reverse of the hypothesis: and, indeed, there can be nothing more reasonable than the conclusion, that language was, in its infancy, composed of the most simple elements, which, although in themselves incapable of expressing the various ideas that subsequently thronged into the human mind, formed the simple, yet solid, basis upon which the grand superstructure of human speech, in all its splendid and majestic varieties, was progressively reared. It was the combination of these primitive elements, the natural articulations of the human organs, that served to describe the increasing wants of mankind, as the advancement of experience created fresh avenues for the admission of ideas: for, it would be absurd, in the last degree, to imagine, that a finished scheme of speech was either bestowed upon man or invented by him, before there existed a necessity for its use; or (to put the case still more forcibly) that words, which are the representatives of things, existed before the things represented; or that, in the grand march of the human intellect, the shadow preceded the substance.

The hypothesis, therefore, of an original divine language, complete in all its parts, is not to be defended by any arguments drawn from Scripture or reason: and, although it has found many learned advocates, its fallacy has been sufficiently exposed by other eminent writers, who have, also, traced human speech to its genuine source —those natural elementary sounds, with their simplest combina

See CELT. RES. page 375.

tions, which the voice of man was at first capable of expressing. On this point M. de Gebelin, a celebrated French writer, in his Monde Primitif, a work abounding with the most luminous views of the origin and progress of language, has the following apposite illustrations* :-"Man," says he, "finds in nature the elements of every thing in which he is engaged; music is founded upon its octave, which has never been dependent on the mere ear; painting upon certain primitive colours, which art cannot create; geometry upon the unchangeable relations and proportions of bodies; and the art of medicine upon certain physical properties." And Dr. Priestley, in his Lectures on the Theory of Language, although he does not seem to have viewed the subject in its most comprehensive bearings, has, notwithstanding, the following judicious remarks :-" The imperfection of all languages," he observes, "the Hebrew by no means excepted, seems to argue them not to have been the product of divine skill, but the result of such a concurrence of accident and gradual improvement, as all human arts, and what we call inventions, owe their birth to." And upon another occasion he remarks, that "the primitive language, or that which was spoken by the first man, must have been very scanty and insufficient for the purposes of their descendants in their growing acquaintance with the world;" an observation from which we may infer, that the learned writer considered the progress of language to be in proportion with the augmentation of human necessities.

'

Among the writers who have discussed this subject with reference to the Welsh Tongue, Mr. Owen Pughe, in his Dictionary, and on several other occasions, and Mr. Davies, in his Celtic Researches, deserve particularly to be mentioned, for the successful manner in which they have investigated our native tongue, with reference to this main proof of its antiquity: for if, as may be satisfactorily shown, a great proportion of primitive elementary sounds exist in Welsh as representative of the most natural and familiar ideas, it will, perhaps, be conceded, upon the general principles already adverted to, that the language, as possessing such a feature, must retain in itself some remnant of that tongue which was once common to the world, and, by a necessary consequence, that its origin must be referred to an early period of human society.

It would, as may readily be imagined, swell this Essay to an inconvenient bulk, if I were to enter into a minute examination of this prominent feature of the Welsh tongue: and, after what has already been done by others in this respect, I feel the less reluctance in circumscribing my own humble labours within the limits to which I am now confined. Some few examples, however, I feel it necessary to adduce, even at the risk of submitting what may not be entirely new, in elucidation of a quality which carries with it so strong an evidence of antiquity.

*MONDE PRIMITIF, tom iii. p. 72.

There are few simple sounds, among the many which the human voice is capable of uttering, that are not in Welsh, as already observed, indicative of some ideas, general or particular. Thus the syllable Aw implies a principle of fluidity, and was, accordingly, of old used as a term for water. By the same rule, it enters into the construction of several words, that are, physically or morally, descriptive of this quality. Such are awdl, a flowing of the imagination, or an ode; awel, a gale, or a current of air; awen, poetical genius; awon, a flowing of waters; awyr, the air; alaw, instrumental music; anaw, vocal music; cawad, a shower; and iawd, a season. Upon the same principle, the simple element cw denotes rotundity or concavity, and, accordingly, forms part of several words to which this idea belongs; us cwb, a concavity, a hut, or cote; cwch, any round vessel, a boat; cwm, a hollow, a dingle; cur, a limit or border; and cwt, a roundness, a hovel, or cot. The primitive syllable TA, again, denotes the faculty of extension or expansion; and from this we have tab, a surface; taen, a spread or layer, as taen toniar, the spread of the wave; tail, the surface of the soil, manure; tal, a front, the forehead; and tân, fire, than which there is nothing more strongly indicative of an expanding power. In the same way, there is hardly a simple sound within the compass of the human voice, that may not be traced in the Welsh tongue through its various analogies, thus preserving, in its particular application, a reference to the same general idea, in a manner that must be allowed to mark the primitive origin of the system*.

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Another feature of the Welsh language, which serves as a testimony to its ancient descent, is its scheme of initial mutations. The natural tendency of certain sounds to harmonize with others, coming in contact with them, is a principle of which proofs may be found, more or less, to pervade all languages. Accordingly, several philological writers have taken considerable pains to collect what may be regarded as the scattered relics of this primitive system, without being aware that the system itself was, at the time, in full operation in the Welsh language. Vossius, in particular, in his Etymologicon, has brought together a multitude of such words as have undergone this metamorphosis; but his researches seem to have been confined to the Latin and Greek tongues. A more extended investigation would have presented to his view the most satisfactory testimonies to the ancient existence of the principle, in its practical influence on human speech. And there can be little doubt, from the wreck of it still to be traced, that it was originally of a far more comprehensive nature than we even now find it in Welsh, and its kindred dialects, the Breton and Irish, wherein it has a partial existence, as it also had in the Cornish.

The system in question, as preserved in the Welsh language,

* A fuller illustration of this remarkable quality of the Welsh tongue, which is noticed only incidentally here, may be seen in the first volume of the CAMBROBRITON, p. 161, &c.