5 MARCH 1864, Page 18

WORDS AND PLACES.*

PERHAPS the most expressive prefatory statement to be made in treating of Mr. Taylor's book is that it is the result of twelve years' study of something like four hundred works bearing directly or incidentally on its subject, of which a list is given, and that of the thousands of more or less authentic derivations which fill his pages there is scarcely one in the discussion of which explicit reference is not made to numerous authorities for and against in ample foot-notes. Our readers will, therefore, readily understand that the main difficulty with which Mr. Taylor has manifestly had to contend is one not over frequently met with in the present day—that of an overwhelming glut of material in every branch of his subject. This manifests itself in every one of the five hundred pages of the volume, and although we do not say that he has exactly hit the juste milieu between accumulation of data and philosophic generalization therefrom which forms the first attribute of perfection in a work of the kind, we must thank him for an exhaustive and well arranged series of what he concisely and expressively calls " etymological illustrations of history, ethnology, and geography." As a rule, his speculations on ethnological and linguistic matters are sound and cautious, and if occasionally far from convincing, they are still always worthy of the fullest consideration. The marked moderation and fairness in discussion of rival theories can be easily and most satisfactorily accounted for. His knowledge of his subject is so thorough that he can well afford to dispense with the violence of assertion and bigotry of opinion with which more superficial writers on kindred matters are so prone to cover their want of solid qualifications.

Mr. Taylor's first chapter, on geographical names of recent origin, though naturally thrown into the shade by other branches of his subject, is far from devoid of interest. One may trace the dominant religious influences which actuated the Spanish con- quistadores and discoverers, and covered the map of South America with the names of Santa Cruz or Vera Cruz,—names which tell us how the first thought of the wanderers was to take possession by the holy symbol of the land they had reached in .1 Words owl Places; or, Etymological Illustrations of History, Etymology, and Geography. By the Rev. Isaac Taylor, MLA. London and Cambridge; Macmillan and Co. 1864.

the name of Christianity. Religious mysticism, too, led Colum- bus to bestow its name upon the island from which rise the three mountain peaks of La Trinidad. Florida was discovered on Easter Sunday, "Pascua Florida ;" while Dominica, Ascension, St. Helena, and Janeiro, perpetuate in their names the day of the ecclesiastical calendar on which they were first sighted by the conquistadores or buccaneers of four centuries ago. Very differ- ent, both in cause and character, was the phase of religious feel- ing which resulted in the foundation of towns like Salem, Provi- dence, Concord, and Philadelphia, in the northern continent; while there is a never-to-be-broken link between America and England in the town of Plymouth—so named by the exiles of the Mayflower, in memory of the last spot on the shore of their coun- try that had passed away beneath the horizon from their gaze. The story. end progress of British colonization and French settle- ment throughout North America can be read almost as plainly in names as in volumes. We fear that whoever corresponds in the other hemisphere to Macaulay's New Zealander will not b3 able to say the same of Yankee times, as he meditates amidst the ruins of Snooksville, or Maryannapolis, or other places in the names of which developed Yankee individuality delights to assert itself.

But it is as ethnological evidence of a nature most reliable, just when all other evidence fails, that the study of local names assumes its greatest value. Modern research can now point out with approximate accuracy the very limits of each wave of eastern immigration which has passed over Europe, the very route which it followed, the bypaths and corners into which it over- flowed, and the mountain fastnesses into which each of the earlier races was in turn driven by still more numerous or aggressive hordes who pressed on their rear. Careful comparison between the most ancient Celtic names of the Continent and those of Scotland brings almost demonstrative evidence to show that the lowlands were originally peopled by the Cymry, while the Gael pure occupied only the highlands, and thus explains the vexata quastio of the Picts and Scots. Sclavonic nomenclature in Bavaria in the south, and Hanover in the north, amongst un- mixed German populations, tells us of an extensive Sclavonic re- coil at a date subsequent to their thorough settlement. Wales and Cornwall will announce to all time the story of a race driven for refuge to the security of their hills, and the mountains of Switzerland and northern Italy can be shown by similar evidence to have afforded a shelter to the debris of every successive race that penetrated within reach. In Hungary, the history of the Magyar invasion and the retreat of the Sclaves to the hills can be read in local names ; the Sclavonic descent into the Pelopon- nesus can be definitively traced, unmistakeable names of Pyrenean villages point out the last refuge of the Euskarian or Basque fragment of the Turanians, and these names alone attest their affinity to the Finn and Lapp branches of the same race which entered Europe by the more circuitous route of northern Asia.

Primitive names of countries and people form a most interesting branch of Mr. Taylor's subject. The former, often arising from actual geographical locality, are frequently to be traced to their relative position with regard to other nations, and thus convey a distinct record of thepeople with whom they were first brought into contact.' Thus Sutherland, the most northerly portion of Britain, can only have been approached from the north by Norwegian settlers from the Orkneys. "Japan," meaning "the source of day," must have been coined by the Chinese, who approached the island from the west. Anatolia, the Levant, and, according to one derivation, Europe, are all instances of a similar origin, and the meaning of the Dekkan—" the right hand," that is, to races which worshipped the rising atm, " the south "—at once throws light on the source and religion of the race which first peopled it. The original names of races seem to have been de- termined by widely differing circumstances. The great majority are naturally external, applied by other races with reference to some physical or accidental peculiarity of the new-comers. Many of the oldest national names, such as Moor, Edomite, Negro, are simply descriptive of complexion, just as the Red Indians know Europeans as " palefaces." Peculiarities, habits, dress, or weapons are possibly recorded in their names of the Cossacks, " the mounted warriors," the Tartars who " drew the bow," the Goths who dressed their hair in the form of a half-moon—" gata," and, according to the popular belief, the Saxons were so called from their use of the sear, the Lombards from that of a long bard or halberd, and the Franks from that of the franca or javelin. All these derivations are, however, extremely problematical, and bear a suspicious aspect of having been framed to account for a previously existing name. It is but fair, however, to their supporters to adduce the Red Indian designation of the early settlers as "coat- men " and " sword-men." There is little doubt that by far the greater number of national names, as permanently adopted, were originally either attempts to violently twist the indigenous name into something having a meaning in the tongue of their neigh- bours, or a rude imitation of what seemed to the latter a mere dis- cordant jargon. Onomatopoeia was the object of the Greeks in calling all whose language they could not understand gapgapta, and the researches of comparative philology are constantly trac- ing the same and similar roots in hitherto unaccountable national names. Both Scythian and Tartar possess an alternative ety- mology in the attempts made by one " barbarous" tribe to imi- tate the speech of another, Tschwd and Ta-ta being the respec- tive equivalents of the Russian and Chinese for gapgapo‘, and both are undoubtedly onomatopteian. A similar explanation of Hottentot is plausible, but more doubtful. We have no space to enter into the interminable labyrinth of theories as to the word Welsh, but Mr. Taylor supports, with great show of reason, his belief in its ultimate onomatopteian origin.

The information to be gained from the study of words and names in our own country and language is much leas speculative and more historically useful than these theoretical controversies. The accumulated results of labourers in this field throw a light upon the Saxon and Scandinavian periods of English history which would have appeared miraculous to Hume, iu his lofty contempt for chronicling the "battles of kites and crows." From the constant recurrence of the patronymic suffix " in g " in Saxon names we can identify the various clans of the original invaders, and wherever the Teutones have passed in Europe the same root iu other combinations tells us of distant cousins of the founder of some quiet English parish. The primary meaning of the terminations "ham," " ton," " worth," all more or less con- veying the notion of an inclosure, or private property, with the additional idea of our "home," indicates traits in the Saxon cha- racter which endure in the English to this day. The fierce Scandinavian invaders fouuded settlements by the hun- dred ; but in almost every instance the chieftain of the band who had gained the village named it simply after his own name compounded with some suffix indicating a dwel- ling, and there is never a trace in a Scandinavian village name of the strong influence among the Saxons of family ties. Another marked difference in the habits of the two nations shows itself in their widely different use of their respective form of two roots common to both languages. " Ford," from faran, to go, means a passage in both languages, but the Saxon applied it to a passage across a river ; the Dane to a passage for his ships—a creek. So " wick," a station, meant to the Saxon a village, while the Dane, who lived "upon the foaming wave," only looked for a station in some sheltered bay, whence afterwards arose a curious perversion of its true meaning. Salt being obtained in early days only by evaporation from sea-water, the Danish suffix " wick" came to be regarded as synonymous with salt works, and hence the subsequent appearances inland of names such as Droitwich or Nantwich. We are even enabled to make a fair approximation to the population of England under the Saxons, by careful study of village names, of the relative pro- portion in each district between those in which the termination indicating inclosure and cultivation, or the existence of forest or uniuclosed tracts of country, The devastation spread over Hampshire in the establishment of the New Forest is silently recorded by names imbedded within it signifying cultivation and habitation.

We regret that we must close Mr. Taylor's book without doing more than merely indicating the nature of the greater part of it, and without transferring to our columns some of the exces- sively ingenious derivations for miscellaneous words and phrases which fill the concluding portion. The twelve years spent by him in the compilation of this volume have been years spent with a worthy object, and with a result worthy of his labours.