The Ethnology of EuropeLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
History
The Ethnology of Europe
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Ethnology -- Europe
Of these, the number of warriors was 110,000, the rest being old men,
women, and children.
But as the historian of these movements is the conqueror of Gaul, we
must expect, ere long, the reduction of Helvetia to a Roman province. It
takes place as a matter of course. It is Cæsar who effects it; and the
process of Romanizing begins. The Roman language, however, I think,
extends itself into Switzerland from three points; from Gaul, from
Italy, and from the Tyrol. Such, at least, is the inference from the
present dialects; since in Tessino and the Valteline we have the
Italian; in Geneva and the Valais, the French; and in the Grisons, the
Romance.
This last requires notice. If we follow the Rhine from the Lake of
Constance, we are carried up into the narrow valley in which it rises,
and here the dialect is neither French nor Italian, but a separate
substantive tongue which, like them, is derived from the Latin, and
accordingly, it is known as the _Romance_ or _Rumonsch_ of the Grisons
or Graubünten. The Inn must then be traced upwards in like manner, when
in the valley of its head-waters, and the water-shed between it and the
Rhine, the Romance will be found again. It is reduced to writing and
spoken in several dialects and subdialects; so as to have all the
appearance of a language of long standing.
Now this, I imagine, represents the Latin of Rhætia--_i.e._, of the
Tyrol and Vorarlberg--rather than that of Gaul, and it was from the
Tyrol and Vorarlberg, conquered in the reign of Augustus by Tiberius and
Drusus, that it was introduced.
In few countries reduced by Rome must the blood on the mother’s side
have been more aboriginal than in Helvetia, and in few countries is the
extent to which the speech is Latin less a measure of the Latinity of
the descent.
Until the fifth century Switzerland was Keltic and Latin, even as France
was; and then mixture set in, partially. The Germans of Suabia and
Franconia, Germans of the High-German division, Germans by whom Alsatia,
Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemburg, Burgundy, and Franche-Comté, were
Germanized--some perfectly, some partially--extended their conquests to
the present cantons of Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, and the other cantons
of the German language; the populations of which are Keltic, Roman, and
_German_, those of the rest of Switzerland being simply Keltic and
Roman.
Switzerland, then, is the third country in which the basis is Keltic,
and the superadded elements Roman and German.
CHAPTER IV.
ITALY.--LIGURIANS.--ETRUSCANS.--VENETIANS AND
LIBURNIANS.--UMBRIANS.--AUSONIANS.--LATINS.--EARLIEST POPULATIONS
OF NORTH-EASTERN ITALY.--SOUTH ITALIANS.--ITALIAN ORIGIN OF THE
GREEKS.--SICILIANS.--ELEMENTS OF
ADMIXTURE.--HERULIAN.--GOTHIC.--LOMBARD.--ARAB.--NORMAN.--ANALYTICAL
SKETCH OF THE POPULATION OF MODERN ITALY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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