Welsh Journals

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■"■-'■ TftE CAMBKO = BRITON, JANUARY, 1820. NULLI QUIDEM MIHI SATIS ERUDITI VIDENTTJR, QUIBUS NOSTRA IGNOTA SUNT. Cicero de Legibus. WELSH LANGUAGE, ELEMENTARY ANALYSIS. JT now becomes necessary to enter upon that analytical illus¬ tration of the Welsh language, to which allusion was made at the close of the last Essay *. And, in undertaking this task, novel as it is in its nature, it is impossible for the writer not to be aware of the disadvantages, to which he is exposed on the one hand, and of the danger, which may beset him upon the other. The disadvantages, which await him, arise from the general ignorance of the peculiar character of the Welsh tongue. Even of those, who are most conversant with it, but a very few enter¬ tain any accurate notion of its elementary principles. And, with respect to all those (and how vast is the number), to whom our language is wholly unknown, it is hardly possible for them to conceive any just idea of those characteristics, which no other modern tongue possesses in any material degree. It is to be feared, therefore, that prejudice will generally, with these, supply the place of information, and thus deter them from the examina¬ tion of those principles, of which they cannot previously have formed any accurate notion. While the writer has thus to con¬ tend against undue prepossessions from without, it must not be disguised, that he has also some danger to apprehend from His own predilections. ■k * Cambro-Briton, No. 3. pt 85. To justify the importance of this in¬ quiry it may be allowed again to have recourse to the authority of M. De Gebelin, who, in his work before cited, observes, that " it is the analysis of languages, and its relation to nature, that can alone inform us of the ties, by which they are connected, whether the first language still exists ir* them or not, and whether they are or are net descended from it." VOL. I. Y