[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The earlier loans are perhaps of chief interest, since they sometimes preserve words, orforms, or meanings that have long ceased to exist in English.For instance hongian "hang,dangle', cusan 'a kiss', bettws 'chapel (subordinate church)' and also' a secluded spot', derivedfrom OE hongian, cyssan, (ge)bedhks.The Englishman will note that the long-lost -an and -ian of Old English infinitives once struck the ears of Welshmen long ago; but he will besurprised perhaps to find that -ian became a loan-element in itself, and was added to variousother verbs, even developing a special form ial.27 He cannot therefore, alas, at once assumethat such words as tincian 'tinkle' or mwmlian 'mumble' are evidence for the existence in OldEnglish (*tincian, *mumelian) of words first actually recorded in Middle English.Even the basest and most recent loans have, however, their interest.In their exaggeratedreflection of the corruptions and reductions of careless speech, they remind one of thedivergence between Latin and the 'Vulgar' or 'Spoken Latin' that we deduce from Welsh orFrench.Potatoes has produced tatws; and in recent loans submit >smit-io, and cement>sment.But this is a large subject with numerous problems, and I am not competent to domore than point out to the English that it is one worthy of their attention.For myself, as aWest-Midlander, the constant reflection, in the Welsh borrowings of older date, of the formsof West-Midland English is an added attraction.But no language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes.It will in fact betterserve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.It is recorded in the tale of Lludd a Llefelys that King Lludd had the island measured in itslength and its breadth, and in Oxford (very justly) he found the point of centre.But none theless the centre of the study of Welsh for its own sake is now in Wales; though it shouldflourish here, where we have not only a chair of Celtic graced by its occupant, but in JesusCollege a society of Welsh connexions by foundation and tradition, the possessor amongother things of one of the treasures of Medieval Welsh: The Red Book of Hergest.28 Formyself I would say that more than the interest and uses of the study of Welsh as an adminicleof English philology, more than the practical linguist's desire to acquire a knowledge ofWelsh for the enlargement of his experience, more even than the interest and worth of theliterature, older and newer, that is preserved in it, these two things seem important: Welsh isof this soil, this island, the senior language of the men of Britain; and Welsh is beautiful.I will not attempt to say now what I mean by calling a language as a whole 'beautiful , norin what ways Welsh seems to me beautiful; for the mere recording of a personal and if youwill subjective perception of strong aesthetic pleasure in contact with Welsh, heard or read, 29is sufficient for my conclusion.The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns,and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms withmeanings, is of fundamental importance.This pleasure is quite distinct from the practicalknowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure.It issimpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature.Though itmay be allied to some of the elements in the appreciation of verse, it does not need any poets,other than the nameless artists who composed the language.It can be strongly felt in thesimple contemplation of a vocabulary, or even in a string of names.If I were to say ' Language is related to our total psycho-physical make-up', I might seemto announce a truism in a priggish modern jargon.I will at any rate say that language andmore so as expression than as communication is a natural product of our humanity.But it istherefore also a product of our individuality.We each have our own personal linguisticpotential: we each have a native language.But that is not the language that we speak, ourcradle-tongue, the first-learned
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
