Brussels
Friday <1>
My dear Henry
To begin with the outside of your letter I could not comprehend what Spanish correspondent I had suddenly got – for your letter reached me covered with red & black scrawls as if it had past thro many an office, tho the only legible postmark was Vigo (Lane as I afterwards discovered being all but obliterated) & to proceed to the inside I wish you would begin at the top of the page for as you seem determined never to exceed one bit of paper great or small, you are not able to finish the subjects you begin upon – I want particularly to know more of Klaproths <2> Work, his reputation is that of a man of talent knowing a great deal, but of a disposition to hazard always a little beyond what he knows – & of a temper so irritable, as to make him worthy of little trust even in literary matters, wherever, as has often been the case, his opinions have led him into controversy with other Savans.
While I was at the Hague I picked up a little Dutch, enough to see that with all its resemblance to English it is infinitely more like German, of which the dialect called Platt Deutsch spoken throughout Westphalia Oldenburg Hanover & Lower Saxony, connects it with the Danish &c – it resembles the English in splitting the German z – retaining the t & discarding the s – & in some few words – but the pronunciation is wholly different from both languages & the syntax quite German in character, tho not exactly the same as that of the standard written German – in short if it was not an acknowledged national language it would have been the most barbarous dialect of German – In the Austrian Tyrolese Swiss Rhenish & I think (for it is a long time since I saw the specimens) the Silesian German there are many resemblances to the English in points where the Platt Deutsch &c – differ from us, others exist in the Scandinavian dialects which remain in none of the German – & there are some things nearer to us even in the standard German than I have seen in any of its dialects spoken at this day – The old German that I have seen gives curious indications by its system of spelling what the pronunciations may have been formerly, If you go to Abbotsbury <3> look up Herberstein’s <4> Embassy to Muscovy in 15[illegible] where you will see specimens of old Austrian – I have seen old German books in which theuer is spelt Tewr – books more likely to have been in the then Austrian than any other & shewing that eu was not always ey – & that our anomalous pronunciation of ew had its origin in German – the only connexion I know between Austrian & Dutch (the two extremes of Teutonicism) is in that very sound & even word dear in Dutch being called dür (how to spell it in the Dutch way I don’t at this minute recollect.) – there is too another The Dutch, retaining the t of the sound ts or z – rejects it in st – & like the Lower Austrian, says is for ist in which both have got precisely the English – It always struck me as singular that the Baltic Germans from Prussia up to Petersburg – remains of colonies of Teutonic knights – settled by Low Dutch Germans at a time when all Germany was Catholic are now famous for speaking remarkably Good German of the common standard – & are protestants – tho nearly surrounded by Greeks & cut off from Protestant Germany by Catholic Poles & a large district of still Catholic Prussians I have seen perfect Plattdeutsch written in Livonia about the 15th century – if not later – there may be a class there who speak it still, but even the middle class speak pure German. The peasants you know are Fins & speak a dialects of that beautiful language perhaps corrupted with a little Sclavonic – At Abbotsbury you will see something about all this in Brays Hist: de Livonie <5> vol. 3. The Finnish of Carelia about 150 miles north of Petersburg is the softest & most beautiful language to the ear I ever heard – I know no Italian to compare to it – & all its dialects have the same character – it is a strange language – in order to save prepositions – (which combined with the Rectus, <6> compose the oblique cases of a Noun Substantive as essentially as participles with the Verb Substantive compose the Verb Adjective) the sense of them is expressed by inflexions of one or more syllables – so every noun has 16 cases. The Laplanders I believe speak a mixed tongue of Fin & Samoyede their Physique belonging entirely to the latter – or Eskimaux class. The Fins being white & red beyond even what remains of the Gothic type. As different from them on the other hand are the Hungarians whose language, tho mixed, has been said over & over again to resemble the Fin – & I have been told by Arkhangel people, particularly the Lap: Fin. Now if it is true that the Samoyede roots have been found in the South of Asia or that Babel Caucasus, I should think it might be the case that in the Hungarians we have the case or mixture of the European Laplanders repeated in another place & on a larger scale. I wish you had written to me about it 4 or 5 years ago I knew more of it then – at least it was fresher.
The upper class of Walloons are more completely French than any other subjects of the Netherlands – but they say the Liègeois is a curious mixture – The Flemish, Brabantisch, & Friesche or Frieslandisch are distinguished as separate dialects – Both here & within the French frontier we have those terminations so comon [sic] in Norfolk &c & in Sweden – inghen – Eppighem Uppingham – in Sweden I think there is Framlinghem & in Suffolk – W is as common a beginning at this end of France as Ker– (or Caer) in Bretany [sic] –
In Scandinavia Torp – & in Dutch Dorp – are still nearer thorp than Dorf – p & f – pf – seem to have gone together in old German like t & z – & we & the north tribes keep only the p. We split pfeif into pipe & fife – by is supposed by some to be from vicus as wick vig – &c must be – it is common to our East & midland counties with Sweden as Karleby &c. Barrow may be Berg, but bury & borough must be Burg still applied to a citadel or castle independent of a town Observe the different style of name in Austria & on the Rhine Saxony & Westphalia – Also between Calabria & Tuscany or Piémont between the South & North of France between Devon Dorset & Cumberland – I think combe is hardly found North of Gloucestersh or E. of Wilts. Worthy is peculiar to Devon – thwaite to the Lakes – wardine to the Marches of Wales –
Yr Aff
W T H F S
Sherborne, Jany Twenty Seven 1825 Ilchester –
Henry Talbot Esq –H. Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. 21 January 1825. Date on address panel 27 Jan 1825 [a Thursday] when address was added after the letter’s arrival in Britain.
2. Heinrich Julius Klaproth (1783–1835), orientalist, ethnographer and linguist. Published Asia polyglotta (Paris: 1823), a classification of the languages of the Russian Empire.
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Siegmund von Herberstein (1486–1566), an Austrian envoy.
5. François Gabriel, Comte de Bray (1765–1832), Essai critique sur l’histoire de la Livonie suive d’un tableau de l'état actuel de cette province, (Dorpat: J. C. Schünmann, 1817).
6. The nominative case.