Welsh Journals

THE €AMBRO-BKITOE November, 1819. NULLI QUIDEM MIHI SATIS ERUDITl VIDENTUR, QUIBUS NOSTRA IGNOTA SUNT. Cicero de Legibus. WELSH LANGUAGE. ITS ELEMENTARY CHARACTER*. IT has already been premised, that the language, spoken by the primeval race of mankind, must have been of a more simple and more fixed character than any now known to the world. It is probable, that it consisted, at first, only of a few elementary sounds, spontaneously flowing from certain natural principles, and capable of being multiplied, by the same unerring rule, in pro- portion with the encreasing demands for their use f. For it would be preposterous to imagine, with some theorists, that a perfect language was formed by man before there existed a.ne- * The Writer feels it his duty here to mention, tha[t he is indebted for the suggestions, on which this Essay is founded, to the excellent author of the Welsh Dictionary, of whom it may so truly be said, with reference to his illustration of our language and literature, that " nil molitur inepte.'* The new light thus thrown on the question has almost, if not. entirely, removed those doubts respecting the Origin of language, which the Writer expressed at the commencement of his former Essay. At least Mr. Pugbe's theory is the most rational of any he has seen : and it may be hoped, that the world will sooner or later receive from his own pen that ample illustration of it, with reference to the Welsh tongue, which it so well de¬ serves. T M. De Gebelin, in his admirable Treatise on the Origin of Language and Writing, has the following appropriate remark on this subject, " Les motsde la langue primitive etoient necessairement ties bornes : ils " exprimoient uniquement les sensations et les besoins jouraaliers, les. " objets les plus familiers, les actions les plus communes. Quelque ex- " tension, qu'on donne au recueil de ces mots, il sera encore si peu etendu, " que les monosyllables, en les sons etles intonations, dontest susceptible *' l'instrument vocal, suffiront pour le remplir." Monde Primitif, torn, in, p. 270. VOL. I. M