From the common Central Asian home, colonies of warlike Aryans gradually dispersed14 themselves, still in the pre-historic period, under pressure of population or hostile invasion, over many districts of Europe and Asia. Some of them moved southward, across the passes of Afghanistan, and occupied the fertile plains of the Indus and the Ganges, where they became the ancestors of the Brahmans and other modern high-caste Hindoos. The language which they took with them to their new settlements beyond the Himalayas was the Sanskrit, which still remains15 to this day the nearest of all dialects that we now possess to the primitive Aryan speech. From it are derived16 the chief modern tongues of northern India, from the Vindhyas to the Hindu Kush. Other Aryan tribes settled in the mountain districts west of Hindustan; and yet others found themselves a home in the hills of Iran or Persia, where they still preserve an allied17 dialect of the ancient mother tongue.
But the mass of the emigrants18 from the Central Asian fatherland moved further westward19 in successive waves, and occupied, one after another, the midland plains and mountainous peninsulas of Europe. First of all, apparently20, came the Celts, who spread slowly across the South of Russia and Germany, and who are found at the dawn of authentic21 history extending over the entire western coasts and islands of the continent, from Spain to Scotland. Mingled22 in many places with the still earlier non-Aryan aborigines—perhaps Iberians and Euskarians, a short and swarthy race, armed only with weapons of polished stone, and represented at the present day by the Basques of the Pyrenees and the Asturias—the Celts held rule in Spain, Gaul, and Britain, up to the date of the several Roman conquests. A second great wave of Aryan immigration, that of the Hellenic and Italian races, broke over the shores of the ?gean and the Adriatic, where their cognate23 languages have become familiar to us in the two extreme and typical forms of the classical Greek and Latin. A third wave was that of the Teutonic or German people, who followed and drove out the Celts over a large part of central and western Europe; while a fourth and final swarm24 was that of the Slavonic tribes, which still inhabit only the extreme eastern portion of the continent.
With the Slavonians we shall have nothing to do in this enquiry; and with the Greek and Italian races we need only deal very incidentally. But the Celts, whom the English invaders25 found in possession of all Britain when they began their settlements in the island, form the subject of another volume in this series, and will necessarily call for some small portion of our attention here also; while it is to the Germanic race that the English stock itself actually belongs, so that we must examine somewhat more closely the course of Germanic immigration through Europe, and the nature of the primitive Teutonic civilisation.
The Germanic family of peoples consisted of a race which early split up into two great hordes26 or stocks, speaking dialects which differed slightly from one another through the action of the various circumstances to which they were each exposed. These two stocks are the High German and the Low German (with which last may be included the Gothic and the Scandinavian). Moving across Europe from east to west, they slowly drove out the Celts from Germany and the central plains, and took possession of the whole district between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Baltic, which formed their limits at the period when they first came into contact with the Roman power. The Goths, living in closest proximity27 to the empire, fell upon it during the decline and decay of Rome, settled in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and becoming absorbed in the mass of the native population, disappear altogether from history as a distinguishable nationality. But the High and Low Germans retain to the present day their distinctive28 language and features; and the latter branch, to which the English people belong, still lives for the most part in the same lands which it has held ever since the date of the early Germanic immigration.
The Low Germans, in the third century after Christ, occupied in the main the belt of flat country between the Baltic and the mouths of the Rhine. Between them and the old High German Swabians lay a race intermediate in tongue and blood, the Franks. The Low Germans were divided, like most other barbaric races, into several fluctuating and ill-marked tribes, whose names are loosely and perhaps interchangeably used by the few authorities which remain to us. We must not expect to find among them the definiteness of modern civilised nations, but rather such a vagueness as that which characterised the loose confederacies of North American Indians or the various shifting peoples of South Africa. But there are three of their tribes which stand fairly well marked off from one another in early history, and which bore, at least, the chief share in the colonisation of Britain. These three tribes are the Jutes, the English, and the Saxons. Closely connected with them, but less strictly29 bound in the same family tie, were the Frisians.
The Jutes, the northernmost of the three divisions, lived in the marshy30 forests and along the winding31 fjords of Jutland, the extreme peninsula of Denmark, which still preserves their name in our own day. The English dwelt just to the south, in the heath-clad neck of the peninsula, which we now call Sleswick. And the Saxons, a much larger tribe, occupied the flat continental32 shore, from the mouth of the Oder to that of the Rhine. At the period when history lifts the curtain upon the future Germanic colonists33 of Britain, we thus discover them as the inhabitants of the low-lying lands around the Baltic and the North Sea, and closely connected with other tribes on either side, such as the Frisians and the Danes, who still speak very cognate Low German and Scandinavian languages.
But we have not yet fully34 grasped the extent of the relationship between the first Teutonic settlers in Britain and their continental brethren. Not only are the true Englishmen of modern England distantly connected with the Franks, who never to our knowledge took part in the colonisation of the island at all; and more closely connected with the Frisians, some of whom probably accompanied the earliest piratical hordes; as well as with the Danes, who settled at a later date in all the northern counties: but they are also most closely connected of all with those members of the colonising tribes who did not themselves bear a share in the settlement, and whose descendants are still living in Denmark and in various parts of Germany. The English proper, it is true, seem to have deserted35 their old home in Sleswick in a body; so that, according to B?da, the Christian36 historian of Northumberland, in his time this oldest England by the shores of the Baltic lay waste and unpeopled, through the completeness of the exodus37. But the Jutes appear to have migrated in small numbers, while the larger part of the tribe remained at home in their native marshland; and of the more numerous Saxons, though a great swarm went out to conquer southern Britain, a vast body was still left behind in Germany, where it continued independent and pagan till the time of Karl the Great, long after the Teutonic colonists of Britain had grown into peaceable and civilised Christians38. It is from the statements of later historians with regard to these continental Saxons that our knowledge of the early English customs and institutions, during the continental period of English history, must be mainly inferred. We gather our picture of the English and Saxons who first came to this country from the picture drawn39 for us of those among their brethren whom they left behind in the primitive English home.
These three tribes, the Jutes, the English, and the Saxons, had not yet, apparently, advanced far enough in the idea of national unity7 to possess a separate general name, distinguishing them altogether from the other tribes of the Germanic stock. Most probably they did not regard themselves at this period as a single nation at all, or even as more closely bound to one another than to the surrounding and kindred tribes. They may have united at times for purposes of a special war; but their union was merely analogous40 to that of two North American peoples, or two modern European nations, pursuing a common policy for awhile. At a later date, in Britain, the three tribes learned to call themselves collectively by the name of that one among them which earliest rose to supremacy—the English; and the whole southern half of the island came to be known by their name as England. Even from the first it seems probable that their language was spoken of as English only, and comparatively little as Saxon. But since it would be inconvenient41 to use the name of one dominant42 tribe alone, the English, as equivalent to those of the three, and since it is desirable to have a common title for all the Germanic colonists of Britain, whenever it is necessary to speak of them together, we shall employ the late and, strictly speaking, incorrect form of "Anglo-Saxons" for this purpose. Similarly, in order to distinguish the earliest pure form of the English language from its later modern form, now largely enriched and altered by the addition of Romance or Latin words and the disuse of native ones, we shall always speak of it, where distinction is necessary, as Anglo-Saxon. The term is now too deeply rooted in our language to be again uprooted43; and it has, besides, the merit of supplying a want. At the same time, it should be remembered that the expression Anglo-Saxon is purely44 artificial, and was never used by the people themselves in describing their fellows or their tongue. When they did not speak of themselves as Jutes, English, and Saxons respectively, they spoke of themselves as English alone.
[1] Professor Boyd Dawkins has shown that the Continental Celts were still in their stone age when they invaded Europe; whence we must conclude that the original Aryans were unacquainted with the use of bronze.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
aboriginal
|
|
| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
savagery
|
|
| n.野性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
primitive
|
|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
civilisation
|
|
| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
warriors
|
|
| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
partially
|
|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
nomad
|
|
| n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
implements
|
|
| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
idyllic
|
|
| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
Mediterranean
|
|
| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
dispersed
|
|
| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
derived
|
|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
allied
|
|
| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
emigrants
|
|
| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
westward
|
|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
authentic
|
|
| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
cognate
|
|
| adj.同类的，同源的，同族的；n.同家族的人，同源词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
swarm
|
|
| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
invaders
|
|
| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
hordes
|
|
| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
proximity
|
|
| n.接近，邻近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
distinctive
|
|
| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
marshy
|
|
| adj.沼泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
colonists
|
|
| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
exodus
|
|
| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
Christians
|
|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
analogous
|
|
| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
inconvenient
|
|
| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
dominant
|
|
| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
uprooted
|
|
| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |