Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

34 HISTORY OF THE
they liad among them, from the most remote antiquity, an
order of Literati named Druids, to whom the Greeks and
Romans ascribe a degree of philosophical celebrity inferior
to none of the sages of antiquity.
" Nothing has perplexed philologists so much as the affinity,
or, as it is more commonly called, the intermixture of lan-
guages. The fact is, the primary language of Asia, or in
other words, the language of Babel, is the ground-work of the
whole ; and all of them retain stronger or fainter marks of
affinity in proportion as they are primary, intermediate, or
more remote branches of this pritnary root.
" Of all the phenomena of language, the most remarkable
is the affinity of the Ce/izrand Sanscrit — two languages which
cannot possibly have come in contact for more than three
thousand years, and must, therefore, owe their similarity to
the radical tincture of the primary language of Asia.
" That the Celtic is a dialect of the primary language of
Asia, has received the sanction of that celebrated philologist,
the late Professor Murray, in his prospectus to the Philosophy
of Language. That the Celts were the aborigines of Europe
and their language the aboriginal one, even Pinkerton himself
is obliged to admit.
" It is a point on all hands conceded, that neither colonies
nor conquerors can annihilate the aboriginal language of a
country. So true is this, that even at the present day, the
Celtic names, still existing over the greater part of Europe,
and even in Asia itself, afford sufficient data whereby to
determine the prevalence of the Celtic language, the wide
extent of their ancient territories, and their progress from
east to west.
" The Roman language unquestionably derives its affinity
to the Sanscrit, through the medium of the Celtic ; and to
any one who pays minute attention to the subject, it
will appear self-evident that the Doric dialect of the Greek,
founded on the Celtic, laid the foundation of the language of