Page 312 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

READING LESSONS. 311
Scotland, upon the Norman conquest, and upon other occasions, introduced into that country their own language, which afterwards, by the mutual in­ tercourse of the two nations, prevailed over the Celtic, are uncertain and contested p,oints.
4. From what has been said, it appears that the Teutonic dialect is the basis of our present speech. I has been imported among us in three di erent rms, the Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman ; all which have mingled together in our language. A very great number of our words, too, are plainly derived om the Latin. These we had not directly om the Latin, but most of them, it is probable, en­ tered into our tongue through the channel of that Norman French, which vVilliam the Conqueror in­ troduced. For, as the Romans had long been in possession of Gaul, the language spoken in that country, ,vhen it was invaded by the Franks and Normans, was a sort of corrupted Latin, mingled with Celtic, to which was given the name of Ro­ mance; and as the Franks and Normans did not, like the Saxons in England, expel the inhabitants, but, a er their victories, mingled ,vith them; the language became a compound of the Teutonic dialect imported by these conquerors, and of the rmer cor­ rupted Latin. Hence, the rench language has al­ ways continued to have a very considerable a nity with the Latin; and hence, a great number of words of Latin origin, which were in. use among the Nor­ mans in France, were introduced into our tongue at the conquest; to which, indeed, many have since been added directly om the Latin, in consequence of the great di usion of Roman literature throughout all Europe.
BLAIR.