The Romans of Britain (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1878. Excerpt: ... were Keltic. Their language, therefore, must have been Teutonic, and in fact it was that form of the Platt-Deutsch which has been erroneously called Anglo-Saxon. Those who hold the opinion that the so-called AngloSaxon language was that which the Anglo-Saxon spoke on his advent, and imposed upon his new subjects to the suppression of their own Keltic and Latin, are hopelessly refuted by the nature and character of the language itself, as I shall hereafter more particularly show; and it is a most decisive circumstance in regard to this fact, that we find no statement or intimation anywhere in the records which have come down to us, that during the historic period of the Anglo-Saxon rule, after the speaking of Latin was discontinued,1 that there was any other than a common language--that which is familiar to us under the erroneous name of Anglo-Saxon. Of this common language we have specimens in all its dialects. These linguistically are four only--West Saxon, Mercian, East Anglian and Northumbrian. The first, the dialect of the entire kingdom of the West Saxons, was also the language of Kent, Sussex and Essex. Of this language, the oldest examples transmitted to us belong to Kent. I allude to the laws of JEthelbert, and the boundaries stated vernacularly in a charter of that king.2 There is no reason to suppose that the laws are modernized, the more particularly as in their present appearance they present archaicisms. Now the language of these documents is a pure and rich Teutonic, closely allied to the Frisian and to the Platt-Deutsch of the continent. 1 Seepost. 1 Kemble, vol. 1, p. 1, Charter dated April 18, A.d. 604. There is probably a still older specimen of the Kentish dialect in existence. A well-known collection of laws attributes itself in its own proem to the Kentish kings...