Irish _tuath_, in ancient Celtic it must have been _teuta_, _touta_, of
which we actually have the adjective _toutius_ in the Gaulish inscription
of Nismes. In Oscan we have it as _turta_, _tuta_, its adjective being
handed down in Livy’s _meddix tuticus_, the mayor or chief magistrate of
the _tuta_. In the Umbrian inscriptions it is _tota_. In Lithuanian
_tauta_, the country opposed to the town, and in old Prussian _tauta_,
the country generally, _en Prusiskan tautan_, _im Land zu Preussen_.’
{68} Lord Strangford observes here:—‘The original forms of Gael should
be mentioned—Gaedil, Goidil: in modern Gaelic orthography Gaoidheal where
the _dh_ is not realised in pronunciation. There is nothing impossible
in the connection of the root of this with that of Scot, _if_ the _s_ of
the latter be merely prosthetic. But the whole thing is _in nubibus_,
and given as a guess only.’
{69} ‘The name of Erin,’ says Lord Strangford, ‘is treated at length in
a masterly note by Whitley Stokes in the 1st series of Max Müller’s
lectures (4th ed.) p. 255, where its earliest _tangible_ form is shown to
have been Iverio. Pictet’s connection with Arya is quite baseless.’
{82} It is to be remembered that the above was written before the recent
war between Prussia and Austria.
{84} The etymology is Monsieur Henri Martin’s, but Lord Strangford
says—‘Whatever _gai_ may be, it is assuredly not Celtic. Is there any
authority for this word _gair_, to laugh, or rather “laughter,” beyond
O’Reilly? O’Reilly is no authority at all except in so far as tested and
passed by the new school. It is hard to give up _gavisus_. But Diez,
chief authority in Romanic matters, is content to accept Muratori’s
reference to an old High-German _gâhi_, modern _jähe_, sharp, quick,
sudden, brisk, and so to the sense of lively, animated, high in spirits.’
{85} Monsieur Henri Martin, whose chapters on the Celts, in his
_Histoire de France_, are full of information and interest.
{97} The above is really a sentence taken from the _Cologne Gazette_.
Lord Strangford’s comment here is as follows:—‘Modern Germanism, in a
general estimate of Germanism, should not be taken, absolutely and
necessarily, as the constant, whereof we are the variant. The Low-Dutch
of Holland, anyhow, are indisputably as genuine Dutch as the High-Dutch
of Germany Proper. But do they write sentences like this one—_informe_,
_ingens_, _cui lumen ademptum_? If not, the question must be asked, not
how we have come to deviate, but how the Germans have come to deviate.
Our modern English prose in plain matters is often all just the same as
the prose of _King Alfred_ and the _Chronicle_. Ohthere’s _North Sea
Voyage_ and Wulfstan’s _Baltic Voyage_ is the sort of thing which is sent
in every day, one may say, to the Geographical or Ethnological Society,
in the whole style and turn of phrase and thought.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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