Copy 1, Volume 1

A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans / by James Browne ... ; illustrated by a series of portraits and other illustrative engravings.

  • James Browne
Date:
1836-1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans / by James Browne ... ; illustrated by a series of portraits and other illustrative engravings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/552 page 14
    of ancient Germany, who were neighbours of the Daci or Gete. Dr Prichard considers it as doubtful whether these divisions of Pliny were founded on the history and genealogy of the people, or were simply geographical arrangements. * In the opinion of the author of the Mithridates, the whole Germanic na> tion has, from the earliest times, been divided into two great races, whose descendants may be easily distinguished from each other by the differ- ence of language, or rather of dialect, which distinguishes the Teutonic idioms. The Upper German dialect is .that harsh and deeply-toned language abounding in gutturals and imperfectly articulated consonants, and in deep diphthongal sounds which stand in the place of the softer dentals and palatines, and of the open vowels of the Lower German languages. The classical German or High Dutch, though a softened and refined idiom, so far partakes of the character of the Upper Ger- man, as to be still one of the harshest languages of Europe. This dif- ference of dialect, it has been observed, is so general and so strongly marked, that it cannot be supposed to have originated in Germany, but argues a very ancient separation of the two races before they quitted their abodes in Upper Asia. The Suevi, and the tribes allied to them, who inhabited the north- eastern region of ancient Germany, Bohemia, Prussia, and part of Poland, (which countries they have since abandoned to nations of the Slavonic race,) spoke the Upper German dialect, as did the tribes comprehended among the Vandali by Tacitus and Pliny, and a part of the Ingevones. The relative positions of the different branches of the Teutonic race underwent a considerable change, however, by a great _ movement at an early period. Long before the Christian era they, along with the Cimbri, began to migrate towards Gaul and Italy. Another movement took place during the second century, and they made many dis- tant conquests. The Allemanni fixed themselves in the south of Ger- many, where they have preserved in Swabia the ancient name of the Suevic race, and from whom are descended the present inhabitants of Swit- zerland, Alsace, Swabia, the Upper and Middle Rhine. From the Lon- gobardi, who obtained possession of the eastern parts of Germany, came the Bavarians, all the Teutonic people of the Austrian States, and the re- mains of the Old Lombards in the Vicentine and Veronese. All the . tribes in the western parts of ancient Germany belong to the lower or western German race, of which stock the old Franks, the Saxons, and the Frisians, were the three most celebrated. The old Franks have lost their German speech, and have acquired that of the conquered Neustrian Gauls. The descendants of the Saxons, mixed with Angles and Jutes, speak English in the British isles, and in Germany the Lower Saxon, or Platt-Deutsch. The Low Countries and the Seven United Provinces were peopled by the Frisian stock. The first inhabitants of Scandinavia * Researches, vol. ii, p. 154. t Ibid. p. 155.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3