FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. "IT is owing to the coming of William," says Dr. Freeman, in his History of the Norman Conquest, “that we can not trace the history of our native speech, that we can not raise our wail for its corruption without borrowing largely from the store of foreign words which, but for his coming, would never have crossed the sea. So strong a hold have the intruders taken on our soil that we can not tell the tale of their coming without their help." This language is strong, but true nevertheless; and though there is hardly occasion, it would seem, to dwell so despondingly on the corruption of an idiom from which English literature has derived but little if any value, and which, after its so-called "corruption," has given to the world a Chaucer, a Spencer, a Shakespeare, a Milton— "each in his own field as great as the mightiest that ever wielded a pen," it is not the less certain that the changes which transformed the original speech of England into modern English are greatly due to the influence named, "which began," as Dr. Freeman further observes, "in the eleventh century, and has never been stopped." If, then, we would account for the real nature of this influence, something more is necessary than a mere acquaintance with modern French, which, much as it may assist the student in apprehending the original meaning of many English words, can do so only to a limited extent, unless he be acquainted also with the sources from which such words have been derived. In this respect etymological dictionaries, even when correct, are of little or no avail. Nothing, indeed, is gained by learning that certain English words are derived from either French or Latin; nor is the distinction itself of any value to the student, unless he knows both idioms, and by a previous ac quaintance with the causes and circumstances of their transformation, and a correct knowledge of the rules which govern the change of forms which words assume in passing from one language into another, he has acquired the habit of generalizing so as to recognize at a glance the inherent meaning of each word in the foreign text, independently of the many transformations through which it may have gone, and by which its original stamp is often much disguised. The number of French words that once were Latin and have found their way into the English vocabulary being quite extensive, a clear understanding of this important part of the national language may require some special assistance, which the student who has gone thus far through this volume will undoubtedly be pleased to find in the following brief chapters on the origin and for. mation of the French language. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. As far back as evidence can be traced we find the soil of France occupied by two distinct races-the Gauls, by far the most numerous and occupying almost the entire country, and the Iberians who, under the name of Aquitanians, inhabited the southwestern parts comprised between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. At a later, though also very remote, epoch, other Iberians, called Ligurians, coming from Spain, invaded Gaul, and spread along the Mediterranean. Later still, about six hundred years before our era, some Greek colonies, in order to escape the Persian yoke, left their country, and settled among these very Ligurians in the southeast of Gaul, where, near the mouths of the Rhone, they founded the city of Massilia, now called Marseilles. All we know of the Gauls and their early history is through their enemies the Romans, by whom they are described as a wandering people and of constant annoyance to them, either attacking them with overwhelming forces, as in the case of Brennus, or uniting with hostile neighbors, as the Etruscans and Samnites. Later on they were found in almost every war against the Romans. Hannibal made them his allies, and in the battles of Cannes and Trasimene they formed a large part of his army. About 283 B. C. a body of Gauls under Brennus settled in Asia Minor, where they became known as the Galatians, to whose very descendants the Apostle Paul addressed his Epistle. Wherever they went, we find them always described as keeping exclusively to their own manners and their own language.1 1 Galatas, excepto sermone græco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur, propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros; nec referre, si aliqua exinde corruperint, cum et Afri phoeniciam linguam nonnulla ex parte maturint, et ipsa latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore.-Saint Jerome, Comon. Epist. ad Galatas, lib. ii, Proam. There are many Celtic names in Galatia and the neighboring parts of Bithynia and Magnesia; such as the rivers Æsius, Æsyros, and Æson, which apparently contain the root es, water. Abr-os-tola |