But these assertions rest
merely upon historical evidence; for as to the _Cialover_, all that it
may have retained of the Tuscan or Roman, is so much disfigured by an
uncouth pronunciation and a vague orthography, that all etymological
inquiries are thereby rendered intricate and unsatisfactory. And as to
the _Ladin_, although its derivation be more manifest, yet we are
equally at a loss from what period or branch of the Latin tongue to
trace its real origin; for I have found, after many tedious experiments,
that even the vocabulary, in which the resemblance is most evident,
differs equally from the classical purity of Tully, Caesar, and Sallust,
as it does from the primitive Latin of the twelve tables, of Ennius, and
the _columna rostralis_ of Duillius, which has generally been thought
the parent of the Gallic Romance; as also from the trivial language of
Varro, Vegetius, and Columella. May we not from this circumstance infer,
that, as is the case in all vernacular tongues, the vulgar dialect of
the Romans, the _sermo usualis, rusticus, pedestris_,[AG] of which there
are no monuments extant, differed very widely both in pronunciation and
construction from that which has at any time been used either in writing
or in the senate?
The grammatical variations, the syntax, and the genius of the language,
must in this, as well as in several other modern European tongues, have
been derived from the Celtic; it being well known, that the frequent use
of articles, the distinction of cases by prepositions, the application
of two auxiliaries in the conjugations, do by no means agree with the
Latin turn of expression; although a late French academician[AH] who has
taken great pains to prove that the Gallic Romance was solely derived
from the Roman, quotes several instances in which even the most
classical writers have in this respect offended the purity of that
refined language.
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