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things agree with the theory of this ingenious writer , I must acknowledge , ( though I had not seen this book at the time , ) it clearly shews not only the possibility , but the probability , and , indeed , the certainty , that there are at least Sanscrit words in the Welsh language . Mr . Higgins produces a passage of pure Sanscrit from the Greek , and the British
must have had an affinity with the Greek as being of the same Celtic origin . And as ( to borrow the words of Mr . Higgins ) it " retained some of the ancient pronunciation longer than any other nation , so might it retain some of its language . "
The learned Dr . Davies , * who was so well acquainted with the genius of his own language , and had compared it with the oriental forms , speaks thus of it generally : Ausim affirmare , Linguam Britannicam tarn vocibus , quam phrasibiis , et orationis contextn , tarn literarum pronunciation ^ manifestam cum orientalibus habere congruentiam et affinitatem .
As to a whole passage from the Sanscrit , I was obliged , I own , to call in the assistance of a little fancy : thus , I recollected that Abaris and Anacharsis , two Scythian princes and philosophers , found their way to Athens in quest of knowledge ; that Bladud , an ancient Welsh king , with others , journeyed also to Athens for the same
purpose , according to Herodotus and Diogenes Laertius ; and that prince Madoc , in the twelfth century , is said to have led out a colony to America . Might not Taliesin , or any other Welsh bard , ( the ancient bards were proverbially a roving race , ) have been conveyed by some means to the land of the Brahmins , and come back to Britain , the happy white isle , accompanied by a few Brahmins ? Thus I got possessed of a few fragments of
Sanscrit poetry . For though the ancient Sanscrit was , in some sense , a sacred , it was not so much a secret , language as some have thought . But I was thinking of a pqet ' s expedition , and I was not to be put out of my course by improbabilities and impossibilities . It might at least be shewn from ancient authors , that Britain was visited from the east at very remote periods , and that the British Druids visited ancient Greece .
These facts anp * fancies , however , with a few others , proceeding on the supposed testimony of two learned Sanscrit » cholars , that the lines in our first letter were JPrcfat . ad Lingua ) Britannicw Rudimenta .
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really Sanscrit , on a more clear testimony that they really are not , are now all put to flight , " velut aegri somnia vana . " II . So I proceed to the second point under consideration , viz . the portion of Welsh which may be supposed to be in the above-said passage .
As to corrupt Welsh , I think it has already appeared , that there is a little of something like Welsh in the lines said to be Taliesin ' s : and I use the word corrupt in preference to obsolete , aware that certain Welsh critics are backward to admit that the Welsh language has undergoue any material change , it being an original , primitive language : but , Mortalia facta peribuut , Nedum sermonum stet honos , et gratia
. HORAT . With respect to languages they must all of necessity change , increase , or diminish : thus the Greek was derived from the Phoenicians , and , like the Eastern languages , was read from right to left ( as now from left to right ) , in what is called the Bsg-poSrihy way :
then there was the most ancient , called the Pelasgic , and the Ionic Greek . Again , the latter divides into three principal dialects , of which one ( the Doric ) is often so different from the others , that Theocritus frequently seems to be written in a different language from Homer and Xenophon , to say nothing of the poetical dialects and of the accentual marks
of modern invention . The Latin is a dialect of the Greek , or , more properly , both are derived from the same stock ; in Cicero ' s time it had advanced to its most perfect state ; yet Latin inscriptions might be produced , written only three hundred years before , which would be hardly read as Latin . In like manner all the modem languages derived
from the Latin—the Italian , Spanish , and Portuguese , have undergone similar changes . The French language has been characterized by the different kings ' reigns about whose times its different changes were introduced ; and from what was hinted in a former letter ,, the English language might be distributed in nearly a similar manner .
But it is said by some , and among others , by , Cfunden , that the Welsh language was exempted by its locality , from this common liability to change . Dr . Davits nnds in it a stronger resemblance to , the Hebrew , no less in its simplicity ! purity * . and originality ^ than in the forms of its grammatical construction and the
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Occasional Correspondence . 131
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 131, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/59/
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