A Few Amongst Them, However, Who Affect Some Degree Of
Learning, Contend, That It Is Neither More Nor Less Than A Dialect
Of The Phoenician, And, That The Basques Are The Descendants Of A
Phoenician Colony, Established At The Foot Of The Pyrenees At A
Very Remote Period.
Of this theory, or rather conjecture, as it is
unsubstantiated by the slightest proof, it is needless to take
Further notice than to observe that, provided the Phoenician
language, as many of the TRULY LEARNED have supposed and almost
proved, was a dialect of the Hebrew, or closely allied to it, it
were as unreasonable to suppose that the Basque is derived from it,
as that the Kamschatdale and Cherokee are dialects of the Greek or
Latin.
There is, however, another opinion with respect to the Basque which
deserves more especial notice, from the circumstance of its being
extensively entertained amongst the literati of various countries
of Europe, more especially England. I allude to the Celtic origin
of this tongue, and its close connexion with the most cultivated of
all the Celtic dialects, the Irish. People who pretend to be well
conversant with the subject, have even gone so far as to assert,
that so little difference exists between the Basque and Irish
tongues, that individuals of the two nations, when they meet
together, find no difficulty in understanding each other, with no
other means of communication than their respective languages; in a
word, that there is scarcely a greater difference between the two
than between the French and the Spanish Basque.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 532 of 809
Words from 146189 to 146448
of 222596
