The daily intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.]) 1876-1881, 1878-02-22

During ths thirteenth century. French
WAS spoken all over Europe. and even
In the East. 1t became the privileged
and recognized language of the courts,
and l perfectly remember, though q
boy at the time (hslf century back
when Mr.. Canning. then foreign minis
ter to George ", astonished Europe
by declaring that henceforth when En-
gland had TO communicate, diplonati-
caliy. with France, it would be done in
the English, and not the French Ian
guage.
1t Is not necessary here to trace the
course OF French literature, my design
being chiefly to show how largely most
OF the present European languages are
derived from the Roman. IL may here
DC stated, however, that some works
we'll known to English- speaking people,
through translation from the French,
are early compositions.
Sir John Froissaft, Q soldier author,
whose Chronicle 10 the very romance Of
war, wrote it in the year 1898, and
Monstrelet, born in the same century,
continued it from l400. PHILIPPE de
Confines, successfully in the service of
the rdlers Of Burgundy and France, and
who died in 1909, composed some ad-
mirable historical memoirs.
More than any other writers. Mon.
tsigne and Malherbe improved the
French language The first in his charm.
ing Essays, published in 1880, which
Shakespeare is believed to have con-
stantly read; the latter, with bis lyric
poems, published somewhat later. In
the seventeenth century. the French
preachers - Fenelon, Bossuet. and
many others-wrote French with great
purity.
There are now five European langua.
ges. The Celtic tongue is yet used,
rather spoken than written. in Wales
Ireland and Scotland Next are the
tongues founded upon the Latin spoken
by the old Romans, and known a.
French. Provencal, Italian, Spanish
Portuguese, English and Roumanic.
know not how the modern Greek is to
be classed.
Then there are what have been vsri.
ousiy designated the Germanic. Teuton-
ic. or Gothic languages, originally
spoken by the barbarian hordes who
overran and overthrow the Roman EN-
plre OF the West in the fifth and sixth
centuries. Fourthly, there are the Sla-
vonic tongnes. of which the Russian
and Polish are the most distinguished.
Filthy, there are the Tschudic
tongues, spoken In Finland aud Lap
land. This enumeration leaves out
the language still preserved by the
French ard Spanish Biscaysns. and
known as the Basque-those who speak
it call 1t the Euskarian 1t seems to
stand alone among the languages, not
only n Europe but of the world, and 10
supposed to be . remnant Of the old
Iberian or original language Of Spain
and Portugal. The modern language
is dialect of the Latin.
From Asia or the East came these
languages. in this order-the Celtic,
the Latin. the Gothic, the Slavonian,
and the Tschudic, pressing upon and
urging forward each other like so many
waves.
Their geographical position is this
the Celtic in the West. the Latin
generally in the South, the S,avonic in
the East, the Tschudic in the North
and the Gothic..over the whole of the
central region. The exception is that
one Tschudic tongue-the Magyar-is
spoken in Hungary. at the southern ex-
tremity of Europe