18. =THE FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH.=--These have come into our language chiefly because the English people have come so much into contact with other peoples and tribes and nations. They came over to this island in the fifth century, and found Kelts here; and from them they took some Keltic words. About the end of the eighth century, the Danes came to them; and a number of Danish words entered the language. Then another set of Danes or Scandinavians--called Normans--came to them, conquered them, and gave them many hundred Norman-French words. Then, with the Revival of Letters, many scholars came over here, taught the English people to read Greek and Latin books; and these books gave the language several thousand words. Then the English people have always been the greatest travellers in the world. They have gone to China and brought home Chinese words (as well as things); they have long held India, which has given us Hindu words; they have imported names and terms from North and from South and Central America; they have borrowed from Spaniards and Italians; they have taken words, nearer home, from the Dutch and from the Germans; they have gone to the farthest east and to the farthest west, and there is hardly a language on the face of the globe from which they have not imported some words that live and make themselves useful in our language. 19. =WELSH.=--When the English settled in this island, they found a people who were called Britons, and who spoke a language called =British= or =Kymric=. It is a language very different from English; and at first the English warriors and the British people did not understand one single word of what each other said. The Old English word for _foreigners_ was _Wealhas_--or, as we call it now, _Welsh_; and the English fighting men who came over called the British people, not by the name which they themselves used, but simply the _foreigners_--the _Welsh_. In the same way, a German to this day calls an Italian or a Frenchman a _Welshman_; and he calls France or Italy _Welshland_. The language spoken by the Welsh belongs to the =Keltic group= of languages. This group contains also =Erse=, which is spoken in the west of Ireland; =Manx=, which is spoken in the Isle of Man; =Gaelic=, which is spoken in the Highlands of Scotland; and =Breton=, which is spoken in Brittany--a mountainous and rugged peninsula in the north-west of France. It at one time embraced also =Cornish=--the language spoken in Cornwall, which was also called _West Wales_. But that language died out in 1778; and it is not now spoken by any one. The following is a table of the Keltic group: