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ART. II.-Spanish Language and Literature.

Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas anteriores al Siglo XV. Por D. Thomas Antonio Sanchez. IV. Tom. Madrid. 1779-1790. A Collection of Castilian Poems anterior to the XVth Century.

These volumes embrace the oldest Castilian poetry of authentic date. They contain the writings of four authors ;the anonymous poem of the Cid;-the works of Gonzalo de Berceo; Lorenzo de Astorga's poem of Alexander, and the poems of Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita. All these were written between the middle of the twelfth century and the close of the fourteenth. Of course they are important documents in the early history of the Spanish, or Castilian Language; and as such we have placed the title of the work in which they are collected together at the head of this article, in which we shall offer a rapid sketch of the origin and progress of the Castilian language, with some remarks upon the other less important dialects of Spain.

Much doubt and uncertainty rests upon the question, What was the primitive language of Spain? Some maintain that it was the Chaldean; others the Greek; others the Teutonic; others the Basque, or lengua Vascongada; and others the ancient Latin. From all that has been written upon the subject, however, it appears pretty evident, that various languages, and not one alone, were spoken in the Spanish Peninsula before the Roman conquest. Among these doubtless was the Vascongada.

The Lengua Vizca, Viscaina, Vascuence, Vascongada or Euscara, as it is indifferently called, or in other words the Basque language, has, we believe, undisputed claims to the title of a primitive tongue,-so far at least as the origin of languages can be traced back. From the specimens given in the preface to the English translation of Mallet's Introduction à l'Histoire de

*Aldrete. Del Origen i principie de la Lengua Castellana. Lib. II. Cap. x.

† Aldrete. Lib. II. Cap. x. Mayans i Siscar. Origenes de la Lengua Española. Tom. I. Sect. 14. et seq.

Dannemarc,' there seems to be no affinity between it and any dialect either of the Gothic or Celtic stems. This opinion is confirmed by an Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language,' by Mr. Vallençay, in which the Basque and Irish languages are collated. Still farther confirmation is given by the ample vocabularies in a small tract by Goldmann, comparing together the Basque, the Cimbric and the Gælic.‡ Juan Bautista de Erro, a Spanish writer of the present century, maintains that the Basque language is a perfect idiom, and consequently could not have been invented by man, but must have been inspired by the Creator. According to his theory, it was brought to Spain by the first emigrants from the plains of Senaar. It would, however, be foreign to our purpose to enter into any discussion upon these points.

The Basque is still a living language. It is spoken in the provinces of Navarra, Guipuscoa, Alaba, and Biscay, generally called the Provincias Vascongadas. It is also spoken in the cantons of Labour, Soula and Basse-Navarre in the south of France. Of course it is not uniform throughout these provinces, but diversified by numerous dialects.

The following is the Lord's Prayer in the lengua Vascongada, as spoken in the province of Biscay.

Aita gurea, Sseruetan sagosana,

Ssantificadubedi sure Isena;

Betor gugana sure Erreinua ;

Eginbedi sure Borondatea, nola Sseruan, alan Lurrean;

Egun igusu gure egunean eguneango Ogià ;

Eta pareatueigusu gure Sorvac, gue gure Sordunai parcaetandeustegusarra leges;

Eta itsoni esseigusu Tentassinjoan chausten;

Baya libradu gagisus Gaitsetic. Amen.

*Northern Antiquities. Translated from 'L'Introduction á l'Histoire de Dannemarc.' Vol. I. The Translator's Preface, pp. 18,

et seq.

+ In the Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vol. II. pp. 232 et seq. ‡ G. A. F. Goldmann, Commentatio quâ trinarum linguarum Vasconium, Belgarum et Celtarum, quarum reliquiæ in linguis Vasconica, Cymry et Galic supersunt, discrimen et diversa cujusque indoles do

cetur.

§ See the Alphabet of the Primitive Language of Spain. An extract from the works of Juan Bautista de Erro. Translated by Geo. W. Erving. Part II. Chap. 2-Part I. Chap. 3.

Adelung, from whose work this extract is taken, gives also specimens of the language in the dialects of Guipuscoa and Labour.*

Whatever may have been the languages spoken in Spain before the Roman conquest, there is abundant proof to show, that after that event, the Latin became the general language of the country. Nor is it wonderful, that during the six centuries of the Roman sway,-from the year 216 before Christ, when the first Roman army entered Spain, till the year 416 after Christ, at which time the first Gothic army crossed the Pyrenees, the Latin language should have swept away almost every vestige of more ancient tongues. We say almost, for the Basque still maintains its dominion in the more solitary and mountainous provinces of the North, and even as late as the eight century, when the Romance had already exhibited its first forms, some wrecks of the ancient languages of the Peninsula seem to have been preserved. When the Northern nations overran the south of Europe, Spain suffered the fate of the other Roman colonies. The conquerors became in turn the conquered. Their language, like their empire, was dismembered. The Goths, the Suevi, the Alani, and the Vandals possessed the soil, from the Tomb of the Scipios to the Pillars of Hercules, and during their dominion of three centuries, the Latin language lost in a great degree its original character, and degenerated to the Romance.

Such, in few words, was the origin of the Spanish Romance, a branch of the Roman Rustic, which took the place of the Latin throughout the South and West of Europe. The name of Roman or Romance is not an arbitrary one, but indicates its origin from the Latin. It is used by some of the earliest

* See Mithridates. Zweyter Theil. pp. 24. 28.

† Aldrete, Lib. I. Cap. XIV. XV. and XX. Mayans i Siscar. T. I. sect. 34, and the authors there cited.

The historian Luitprand, as cited by Raynouard, T. I. xiij. speaking of the year 728, says, 'At that time there were in Spain ten languages, as under Augustus and Tiberius.

1. The ancient Spanish; 2. the Cantabrian; 3. the Greek; 4. the Latin; 5. the Arabic; 6. the Chaldean; 7. the Hebrew; 8. the Celtiberian; 9. the Valencian; and 10. the Catalan.'

The expression, 'as under Augustus and Tiberius,' renders this passage obscure. The Valencian and the Catalan were the Romance.

writers in the Spanish language, when speaking of the tongue in which they wrote. Thus Gonzalo de Berceo says,

Quiero fer una prosa en roman paladino

En qual suela el pueblo fablar á su vecino.*

As early as the commencement of the eighth century, three different dialects of the Romance were spoken in Spain. In the eastern provinces of Catalonia, Arragon and Valencia, the Lémosin prevailed, a form or dialect of the Provençal or Langue d' Oc of France ;-in the centre, that is, in the provinces of Castile and Leon, and thence southward, the Castilian, from which the modern Spanish originated;-and in Galicia and the provinces bordering on the Atlantic, the Gallego, from which sprang the Portuguese. Then came from the South another wave of the fluctuating tide of empire, the invasion of the Moors. These invaders extended their power over all Spain, with the exception of Leon, the mountains of Asturias, and some strong-holds in Arragon and Catalonia. In all the south of Spain, the Arabic supplanted the rude and imperfect Romance; but the inhabitants of the unconquered provinces, and those from the South who fled thither for safety, preserved, amid the rocks and forests of the North, their religion, their laws and their language. Again, as the land was reconquered by the swords of the Infante Pelayo, Juan de Alarés, Garci Ximenes, the Cid, and the other ancient champions of Spain, the Spanish Romance reclaimed its own. It followed the progress of the Christian arms, and at length spread itself through all the provinces of Spain. In this, however, the dialect of Castile bore the palm from its sister dialects of Catalonia and Galicia, probably because, of all the Spanish provinces, that were leagued in recovering the enslaved territory of the South, Castile and Leon, in whose borders the Castilian Romance was spoken, were the most powerful, and the most active in their exertions. Their armies were constantly in the field; and wherever their conquering banners waved, there their language was spread among the people. At the present day, the three dialects of the Spanish Romance thus divide the country the Gallego maintains its solitary province in the north-west; the Catalonian prevails in Catalonia, and, with slight variations, in Valencia; and the Castilian is spoken

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in Castile, Leon, Arragon, a part of Navarre, La Mancha, Estramadura, and upper and lower Andalusia.

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The Moorish dominion of nearly seven centuries left its traces in the language of Spain, as well as its ruins and alcazars. And this name albogues,' says Don Quixote in one of his conversations with his Squire, 'is Moorish, as are all those in our native Castilian tongue, which begin in al; as for example, almohaza, almorzar, alhambra, alguacil, alhuzema, almacen, alcancéa, and the like;-but there are only three Moorish words in the language without the prefix al, which end in í, and these are borcegui, zaquizami, and maravedi; the words alheli and alfaqui are known as Arabic, both by their commencement in al and their termination in i.'* The nature of most of the Arabic words preserved in the Spanish language would be a proof, were proof wanting, of the intimate relations which existed between the Moors in Spain and their Christian subjects, or Mozarabes, as they were denominated. Such are the words Ataud, a coffin, from the Arabic atud;Azaleja, now obsolete, a towel, from azulet, wiping ;-Bellota, an acorn, from bellut ;—Borzegué, a buskin, from borzeghé; -Taza, a cup, from tas;-Usted, Sir,-not, as generally supposed, contracted from Vuestra Merced, (your grace), but derived from the Arabic Usted, master; Zumbar, to buz, from zumbour, a bee, etc.†

We now proceed to a more particular consideration of the three divisions of the old Romance, as spoken in Spain. 1. the Castilian; 2. the Lemosin; 3. the Gallego, or Galician.

I. THE CASTILIAN. As the Castilian is the principal language of Spain, and the depository of all her classic literature, we shall devote much more space to its history, than to that of its sister dialects, and trace its progress from the fountainhead with some minuteness of detail. This at once carries us back to the twelfth century.

The earliest literary production of the Lengua Castellana, which has reached our day, is the Poem of the Cid, el Poema del Cid. The name of its author is unknown, and the date

* Don Quixote. Part II. Cap. 47.

Remains of Arabic in the Spanish and Portuguese Languages. By Stephen Weston.

This poem is published in the first volume of the work before us.

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