Excerpt from The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe: And More Especially of the English and Lowland Scotch and of Their Slang, Cant, and Colloquial Dialects Though the Britains [britons] or W'elsh were the first possessors of this island, whose names are recorded, and are therefore in civil history always considered as the predecessors of the present inhabitants yet the deduction of the English language from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge to its present state, requires no mention of them for we have so few words which can with any probability be referred to British roots, that we justly regard the Saxons and Welsh as nations totally distinct. It has been conjectured that when the Saxons seized this country, they suffered the Britons to live among them in a state of vassalage, employed in the culture of the ground and other laborious and ignoble services. But it is scarcely possible that a nation, however depressed, 'should have been mixed with another in considerable numbers, without some communication of their tongue and therefore it may, with great reason. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.