Jura, a long Mountainous ridge in ancient Gaul. Jura, a long Mountainous Island (Scotland). “Jur-jura,” an important chain of Mountains in the North of Africa. Gora (_Russian_), Ghiri (_Sanscrit_), a Mountain.
In the foregoing examples Celtic words having an affinity to the Latin frequently occur, employed in a manner that shows they could not have been borrowed by the Celts from the Romans. Thus we have the names Ar-_mor_-ici, Ebro-lacum, names in which terms like the Latin “Mare” and “Lacus” are naturally blended with other Celtic words which are quite unlike the Latin!
I conceive the evidence adduced in the previous pages must serve to place beyond all doubt the truth of the propositions illustrated in this Section, viz., that the language of the primitive Celts of Europe and the British Isles originally consisted of a combination of the Welsh and Irish, and other living Celtic dialects, united with many words and forms preserved in none of those dialects, but traceable in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the languages of other ancient and distant nations.
The uniformity that presents itself in the ancient local nomenclature of all the Celtic countries is a very remarkable and instructive feature, of which an adequate conception can be formed only by an examination of the Roman Maps. The identity of names, for example, is found to be as complete when the Roman Maps of Gaul and Britain are compared, as we meet with in examining the Maps of two English Counties! To this rule Ireland, as far as we can judge from the imperfect nature of the information transmitted to us, formed no exception. These facts lead to the inference that the Celts must have diffused themselves, within a comparatively short interval of time, over all the regions of Europe of which the Romans found them in possession! Had the process of diffusion occupied a great many ages, there must have been a commensurate change in the Celtic language, which would have displayed itself in the local names of the more distant regions. But no such difference occurs, the local nomenclature of Britain, for instance, being identical with that of Switzerland and Spain!
_Summary of the Results deducible from the previous Sections. The Changes which have occurred in the English, Scandinavian, and Celtic Languages, sufficient to account for the Differences among all Human Tongues. Causes which give rise to the Abandonment and specific Appropriation of Synonymes. Total Differences of Grammatical Forms no Proof of a fundamental Difference of Language. The Relation which the Languages of one Continent, viewed in the aggregate, bear to the individual Languages of such Continent, the same as that which the ancient Scandinavian bears to its derivative Dialects, &c. Incipient Changes in the Language of Australia._