Europa Celtica and its language in Philippus Cluverius' Germania antiqua

21 Pages·2014·0.54 MB·English

by  Toon Van Hal

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One continent, one language? Europa
Celtica and its language in Philippus
Cluverius' Germania antiqua (1616) and
beyond
Toon Van Hala
a Center for the Historiography of Linguistics, KU Leuven, Belgium
Published online: 28 Nov 2014.
Click for updates
To cite this article: Toon Van Hal (2014) One continent, one language? Europa Celtica and its
language in Philippus Cluverius' Germania antiqua (1616) and beyond, European Review of History:
Revue européenne d'histoire, 21:6, 889-907, DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2014.960817
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2014.960817
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EuropeanReviewofHistory—Revueeurope´enned’histoire,2014
Vol.21,No.6,889–907,http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2014.960817
One continent, one language? Europa Celtica and its language in
Philippus Cluverius’ Germania antiqua (1616) and beyond
Toon Van Hal*
CenterfortheHistoriographyofLinguistics,KULeuven,Belgium
(Received24April2014;accepted1July2014)
Today’sEuropeanUnioniskeentopointoutthatoneofEurope’smaincharacteristics
5 isitslinguisticdiversity.Someearly-modernscholars,however,emphasisedthenotion
1
0 ofEuropeanmonolingualism,eventhoughEurope’slinguisticdiversitywasasobvious
2
y inthesixteenththrougheighteenthcenturiesasitistoday.Thesescholarsadvancedthe
r
a argumentthat,inadistantpast,Europeanshadspokenonesinglelanguage.Thisarticle
u
n focusesonthefirstscholartoreallysubstantiatethisidea.InhisvoluminousGermania
a
5 J antiqua (1616), the Leiden founder of historical geography, Philippus Cluverius, set
1 outtoprovethatEuropehadoncelargelybeenpopulatedbypeoplewhosharedone
4
4 singlelanguageandasetofdistinctivecustoms.AfteranalysingCluverius’argument
7: andhislinguisticimageofEurope,thearticlewilloutlinetheintellectualbackground
0
at behind his claims and map his work’s impact on later representations of Europe in
] termsoflanguage.Evenwhenmostearly-modernscholarsadmittedlyrejectedtheidea
y
r ofEuropeasahistoricallinguisticunity,thepaperwillshowthatthenotionofEurope
a
br wasacrucialpointofreferenceinthelinguisticscholarshipoftheearly-modernperiod.
Li
y Keywords:PhilippusCluverius;ideaofEurope;monolingualism;language;Celts
sit
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ni Introduction
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n In2008aconcisebookletentitledTraveltheUniverseofGreaterEuropewasissuedunder
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v theauspicesoftheCouncilofEurope.Itwaspresentedasanadventurebookforchildren
u
Le between the ages of six and 10.1 The young readers are taken on a journey through the
U European galaxy, during which they gradually come to grips with Europe’s
K
[ multifariousness. ‘Identity through diversity’ is the chief lesson to be learnt: ‘All in all,
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b iftherewasn’tamultitudeofcontrastsinEurope,itwouldn’tbeEurope!’2Thequestion
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e ‘DoyouspeakEuropean?’isanswered:‘Europeanisnotalanguage.Europeisatreasure
d
oa trove of over 200 languages.’3 This is why readers are encouraged to learn several
nl
w languagesfromtheEuropeanmemberstates.Theexampleilluminatesthattoday,Europe’s
Do multilingualism is considered to be at the very heart of European distinctiveness, even
thoughsomescholarswonderifthislanguagepolicymaybe‘side-linedorevenremoved
fromthepoliticalagendainthemidstoffinancialturmoiloccasionedbytheEurozonedebt
crisis’.4NorfromagenealogicalperspectivecouldEuropebeconsideredalinguisticunity.
Today we know that the languages spoken in Europe have not sprung from a common
source.AlthoughavastnumberbelongstotheIndo-Europeanlanguagefamily,Basque(an
isolate language) and Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian (‘Finno-Ugrian languages’) are
some odd ones out. Nor is the Indo-European language group, as the name indicates,
confined to what we would call ‘Europe’ today. In other words, Europe, today proudly
multilingual,hasneverbeenahomogenouscontinentfromalinguisticpointofview.
*Email:[email protected]
q2014Taylor&Francis
890 T. VanHal
AquickglanceatFigure1revealsthat,unliketheauthorsofthechildren’sbook,early-
modern scholars have not always been that eager to pay tribute to Europe’s
multilingualism.AbrahamOrtelius’remarkablehistoricalmapofEuropeindeedsuggests,
as we will see, that the entire area of Europe had been populated by Celts, basically
speakingoneandthesamelanguage.Itistheaimofthepresentarticletoexaminetowhat
extentearly-modernauthorshaverepresentedancientEuropeasaprincipallymonolingual
continent.Itsfocuswillbeonanexceptionalscholar,whopartiallyfollowedinOrtelius’
footsteps.UnlikeOrteliusontheversoofhismap,CluveriusinhisvoluminousGermania
antiqua (‘Ancient Germany’) (1616) went into detail to defend the idea of Western
Europe’s historical linguistic unity. Before assessing to what extent Cluverius’
representation of Europe was characteristic of his age, his representation of Europe will
first be analysed with particular attention to the question of how he used linguistic
15 arguments tosubstantiate his views.
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5 PhilippusCluverius(Klu¨ver)ledacolourfullife,aboutwhichwearemainlyinformedby
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4 Daniel Heinsius’ 1623 obituary speech.6 Born in Danzig in 1580, Cluverius swiftly
4
7: became a man of the world. Focusing on his exceptional linguistic commands, Heinsius
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at states: ‘Next to the scholarly languages, he mastered Dutch, Czech, Polish, Italian,
] Hungarian, English and French. This is why he seemed to be a foreigner nowhere and a
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Figure1. Europam,siveCelticamveteremsicdescribereconabarAbrah.Ortelius.Themapwas
firstprintedintheParergonofAbrahamOrtelius,Theatrumorbisterrarum(Antwerp,1595).Source
ofthisuncolouredandisolatedmap:Bibliothe`quenationaledeFrance,CPLGEDD-2987(9721)
(viaEuropeanaandGallica,PublicDomain)
European Review ofHistory—Revue europe´enne d’histoire 891
native everywhere.’7 Cluverius himself recalled how he enjoyed the company of some
cultivated Florentines and a scholar from Bologna on his way through Italy: ‘While I
intensivelydiscussedwiththeFlorentinesaboutItalianaffairsinItalian,thedoctorfrom
Bolognadidnotsufficientlygrasptheirdialectandhenceaskedmetimeandagainwhaton
earththeyweretalkingabout.Iresponded,notwithoutlaughing,thatitwasnotfairthathe
was making an appeal to me, a foreigner, for interpreting Italian while himself being
Italian.’8 If true, this anecdote illustrates that Cluverius was anything but an armchair
scholar. All the same, he had enjoyed rigorous academic training at the University of
Leiden,whichwasstillastrongpoleofattractionforGermanProtestantstudents.Afterhis
matriculation in 1601 he studied with the renowned scholar Josephus Justus Scaliger
(1540–1609), who had advised him to break off his studies in law and to conduct
pioneering studies inhistorical geographyinstead.
15 Travelling through England, France and Italy, Cluverius practised science ‘by
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2 walking’,thusmeasuringthestoriesofancienthistoriansandgeographersagainsthisown
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r observations: a rather unique match of classical text-based learning and empirical
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n fieldwork. Hence, he did not shrink from radically questioning the authority of both
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5 J classicalandcontemporaryauthors.Yetheregardedassacrosanctandinviolablethetext
1 of the Bible. In 1616, Cluverius was appointed Geographus academicus or ‘academic
4
4 geographer’, a paid ad hoc position at Leiden University. In the same year his book
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0 Germania antiqua was published9, followed by Sicilia antiqua ‘Ancient Sicily’ in 1619.
] at He was not able to enjoy the enormous success of Italia antiqua ‘Ancient Italy’ and
y
r Introductio in universam geographiam ‘Introduction to Universal Geography’, both
a
br published in1624 with various reprints, ashe died on the very last dayof 1622.
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y The starting point of Cluverius’ Germania antiqua is a synoptic edition of Tacitus’
sit Germania,therediscoveryofwhichhadsparkedlong-lastingexcitementamongscholars
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e inWesternandNorthernEuropethankstothepositiveassessmentoftheGermans’moral
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ni standards it contained.10 Facing Justus Lipsius’ (1546–1606) authoritative edition
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n CluveriuspresentedhisowneditionofTacitus,whoisconsequentlystyledauctornoster
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v (‘our author’) throughout the remainder of the book. Very systematically structured
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Le (judgedbyhumaniststandardsatleast),itoffersaninterpretationofTacitus’workaswell
U asareconstructionofthesocioculturalworldoftheGermans.Withrespecttotheoriginal
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[ Germanic religious system, ‘Tacitus has employed a few lines’, Edward Gibbon wittily
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b remarked, ‘and Cluverius one hundred and twenty-four pages.’11 Along with, and partly
ed thanks to, the inspiring illustrations12, Cluverius’ work impacted greatly on the
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oa conceptualisationsof prehistoricEurope.13
nl Language played a key role in Cluverius’ idea of history. He himself explained this
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o linguistic concern. Analysing and comparing languages, Cluverius argued, directly
D
contributes to the study of the remote history of the earliest migrations of ethnic tribes:
‘Thesetofprinciplesandevidencerelyingonwhichonecandiscernwhethertwoormore
nations(nationes)areofthesamekindandoriginischieflyoftwofoldnature.Thefirstis
languageortongue,thesecondcustomsandwayofliving.’14Cluveriusthuscontinuedina
fairlyrecentresearchtraditionthatwasmostprobablyinitiatedbyJeanBodin(1530–96)
and later famously elaborated on by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716).15
InordertounderstandCluverius’representationofEuropeasanoriginallinguisticunity,
the following will attempt to structure his views on the origin and interdependence of
languages asexpressed inhis book.
Cluverius posits one original language that was universally spoken in the earliest
history of mankind.16 Whereas most of his contemporary colleagues, in line with the
Augustiniantradition,wereconvincedthatthisoriginallanguagewasHebrew,Cluverius
892 T. VanHal
argued that the primeval language had vanished in the disaster of Babel. In doing so,
Cluverius initiated a relatively new theory in the early-modern respublica litterarum
(RepublicofLetters).Thisstance,however,wasnotentirelynew,formostEarlyChristian
Greekauthorshadbeenreluctanttomakefirmclaimsontheprimevallanguage – thefew
indications in the Biblical text in this respect are vague and open to a wide range of
interpretations. Nevertheless, a widely held consensus on Hebrew as the protolanguage
emergedintheexegeticalscholarshipofEarlyChristianLatinauthors,whichhadgained
firm authority ever since.17
Cluverius, however, nonconformistically rejected the idea that his own Germano-
Celtic language, along with the other languages of the world, was to be derived from
Hebrew.Inhisopinion,theveryfactthatthenamesfoundintheoldestbooksoftheOld
Testament (e.g. Abraham, Isaac, etc.) are Hebrew didnotconvincingly demonstratethat
15 this was also to be considered the primeval language. Either the Hebrews had translated
0
2 these names into their new language, or they had made use of some remains of the
ry primeval language.18 This demonstrates that Cluverius, by adhering to the literal text of
a
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n theBible,emphaticallydismissedseveraldoctrinesthathadlateronbeendeveloped,such
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5 J asHebrew being the originallanguage.
1 Allthesame,thenatureoftheprimevallanguagewouldnotremainunknownforever.
4
4 Cluveriusarguedthiswasthecasefortworeasons.First,theoriginallanguagewouldbe
7:
0 reintroduced to mankind upon the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Second, God had not
] at createdentirelynew languages at Babel. He just had confused and scattered the original
ry languageintovariousidiomsanddialects.19Thisconfusion(orfragmentation)resultedin
a
br the emergence (or reconstitution) of 69 languages allotted to Noah’s grandsons, all of
Li
y whom had preserved some remains of the Adamic language and had undergone some
sit additional changes andfragmentationthroughout time.
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e In view of this basically monogenetic model – ‘no one would easily deny that all
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ni languages oftheworldsimultaneously havesprungfromonesingleoriginandfromone
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n and the same stock’20 – Cluverius was not surprised to find that the most diverse
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v languagesspokenonearth,includingtheAmerindianlanguages,didshareasetofwords
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Le havingboth asimilarformandmeaning.21So,forinstance,heequated Greek pouswith
U Lat.pesandGerm.fuus.LatinoculusiscomparedwithGermanAugeandSlavonicoko.
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[ ButCluveriusalsoinvolvedlanguagessuchasEgyptian,Hebrew,ArabicandChinesein
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b hiscomparisons.Implicitly,Cluveriussuggestedthatinparticulartheonyms,ornamesfor
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e gods,hadbeenpreservedinmostoftheworld’slanguages.AfterexaminingtheGermanic
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oa equivalents of the word ‘sun’ in a large number of other languages, he noticed that all
nl languagesdiscussedmadeuseofapre-BabelicworddenotingGod.22Inviewofthelarge
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o numberofcorrespondencesdetectedbetweentheworld’slanguages,itwouldnotbefairto
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accountfortheseparallelsbyinvokingcoincidence,Cluveriusargued.23Nordiditappear
plausible that one of these languages had been derived from another.24 Each of these
peoples/languages, originated at Babel, had populated a specific part of the world.
InGermaniaantiqua,CluveriusfocusesespeciallyontheCelts,whoareconsideredtobe
the pedigree ofAshkenaz, Japhet’sgrandson (see Figure 2).25
ItwasCluverius’firmconvictionthatEuropewastoalargeextenthomogenousfrom
both an ethnic and a linguistic point ofview:
Our people (gens nostra) does not owe its first origin to Greece, Persia, or another place
numerouscenturiesafterthefloodandthedivisionoflanguages.Onthecontrary,immediately
after the very division of languages and the dispersion of peoples as a consequence of the
building ofthe city ofBabylon, our people was ledbyAshkenaz, Noach’s great-grandson,
alongwithanewlanguagetothatpartofEuropethatwaslatercalled‘Celtica’.26
European Review ofHistory—Revue europe´enne d’histoire 893
Noah
Japhet Sem Ham
Gomer Magog Madai Javan Tubal Meshech Tiras
Ashkenaz
Riphath
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nu Figure2. PartialgenealogicaltableofthedescendantsofNoahafterGen.10.
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4 1 Besides‘Celtic’,thislanguageanditspeoplewerealsocalledTeutsch.27Astheauthor
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7: attached utmost importance to precise definitions and demarcations, we do learn exactly
0
at whatheunderstoodbyEuropa.Whereasthesouthern,westernandnorthernboundariesof
] the continent are unambiguous through the presence of the Mediterranean, Atlantic and
y
ar Arctic Ocean respectively28, Cluverius takes his time to determine precisely Europe’s
r
Lib easternborder.After11pages,heconcludesthatthisborderfollowstheAegeanSea(‘mare
y Aegaeum’),theSeaofMarmara(‘Propontis’,viatheHellespont),theBlackSea(‘Pontus
sit Euxinus’,viatheBosphorus),theSeaofAzov(‘palusMaeotis’,viatheStraitofKerch),the
r
e
v River Don (‘Tanais’), the River Wolga (via ‘Perowlok’, an older name for the region
ni
U betweenpresent-day Kalach-na-Donuand Volgograd,see Figure3),the Ural Mountains
n (‘Rhymnicimontes’),andtheriverObviaTyumen(‘Tumen’,seeFigure3).‘Thisborder’,
e
uv headds,‘alsocloselycomplieswiththedescriptionoftheclassicalauthors.’29
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L An impressive part of Europe was inhabited by people originally speaking Celtic.
U
K Apart from the vast regions where this language was still in use (Germania and
y [ Britannia)30, Ashkenaz’offspring originallycontrolled Gaul andIllyrium,aswell asthe
d b Iberic peninsula, where it had meanwhile sunk into oblivion.31 In Cluverius’ eyes this
de sharedlanguagewasaverystrongandvalidargumentinfavourofthemono-ethnicityof
a
o this spacious Europa Celtica.32 But how did he substantiate his claim that the Celtic
nl
w language was almost omnipresent in Europe? Cluverius proceeded in his usual, very
o
D systematic, fashion, stating:
By ordering my arguments into five parts, I will now show that the five before-mentioned
nations share the same language, being mutually distinct only in terms of dialect. First we
havetestimoniesbyancientauthorsconfirmingmythesis.Thesecondpartreliesonthenames
ofthetribesbelongingtothesenations,whereasthethirdpartisbasedonpropernamesof
individuals. The fourth section deals with names denoting cities and villages. The fifth
concentratesonotherwordsdesignatingdiversemattersusedbythebefore-mentionednations
andnowstillinvogueinthelanguageoftheGermans.33
Besidesinvestigatingandconfrontingthevariousviewsexpressedbyclassicalauthors
on the languages spoken in Europe, Cluverius devoted many a page to the analysis of
ethnonyms, geonyms and common nouns documented in ancient texts.34 Cluverius
forcefully refused to walk in the footsteps of many of his peers, who more than once
attemptedtodemonstratethattwotribeswereinfactoneandthesame,onlybecausetheir
894 T. VanHal
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U Figure 3. Detail from the map: Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio. Anthony Jenkinson,
K 1562. The map was printed in Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1570. Source of this
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y isolated map: Lithuania, Vilniaus Universiteto Biblioteka, VUB01_282417 (via Europeana and
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d manuscriptorium,PublicDomain).
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nl namessoundedsimilar(e.g.GotesandGetes).35Accordingtohim,therewas,however,a
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o more sound etymology that should be followed. By segmenting names into recurrent
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particula(basicelementssuchas-man-,-dun-,-mar-),Cluveriusclaimedtohavefoundan
extensive set of distinctive components that were inherent to the Celtic language, yet
absentinotherlanguages.36
Although Celtica comprised a vast area, it did not encompass the entire territory of
Europe as defined by Cluverius. We have already seen that he explained the lexical
similarities between Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Germanic by regarding these words as
remnantsoftheoriginalpre-Babeliclanguage.ThisimpliesthathedidnotconsiderGreek,
Latin and Slavonic as languages belonging to the original lingua Celtica. While not
thoroughlydiscussinglanguagesotherthan‘Celtic’37,Cluveriusdidactuallyunderlinethe
distinctive character ofthe Slavonic language38:
ThelanguagesoftheMuscovites,RussiansaswellasofthePoles,Bohemians[viz.Czechs],
Croats,Bulgarians,Serbs,andalsooftheWendishpeople(astheyarecalledbytheGermans)
European Review ofHistory—Revue europe´enne d’histoire 895
aremutuallydistincttothepointthattheyhardlyunderstandeachother.Thisdoesnotalterthe
fact that all these nations belong to the same species, generally styled ‘Slavic’. Their
language,Slavic,beingoneandthesame,isonlydifferentanddissimilarintermsofdialect.39
TheapparentdissimilaritiesbetweenthetonguesbelongingtothelinguaCelticawere
also explained in terms of dialectal differences. In so doing, Cluverius succeeded in
demonstratingthattheWelshdialect,despiteitsratherdifferentvocabulary,didtakepart
inthelinguaCeltica.HearguedthatunliketheotherCelticdialects,thisparticularonehad
preservedmanywordsoftheoriginallinguaCeltica.40Asamatteroffact,Cluveriustook
it for granted that ‘dialects of all languages do undergo changes as a result of change in
bothplaceandtime.’41HethussuggestedthatIrishandBasquewerealsomembersofthe
lingua Celtica, although he did not present any evidence to support this.42 It seems that
Cluverius also included the Finnish people in the Celts.43 In sum, Cluverius sketched a
15 largely monolingual map of Europe.
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5 J AllthisamountstothequestionofhowinnovativeorrepresentativeCluverius’viewson
1 the widespread or Europe-wide lingua Celtica were. What role did ‘Europe’ play in
4
4 contemporarylinguisticwork?AndhowdidCluveriusrelatetotheseworks?Muchtohis
7:
0 colleagues’ dismay, Cluverius was sparing in citing contemporary work. This is not
] at tantamounttosaying,however,thathewasunfamiliarwithongoingtheoriesonthehistory
ry oflanguages.44
a
br The sole scholar who is refuted at length is Jean Bodin. Cluverius devoted an entire
Li
y chapter to challenging the ideas of Bodin, whose influential Methodus ad facilem
sit historiarum cognitionem ‘Method for the Easy Comprehension of History’ had been
r
e published exactly 50 years before Germania antiqua. In a fairly complicated line of
v
ni reasoning,BodinhadstronglyopposedtheideathatcontemporaryGermanwastheheirto
U
n theancientGaulishlanguage.45Instead,hehadadvancedastrongconnectionbetweenthe
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v ancient Celtic language, Greek, and contemporary French. Today it might be extremely
u
Le hazardoustomakesuchanetymologicalconnection.Allthesame,itisimportanttorecall
U thatinthesixteenthandseventeenthcenturieshardlyanythingwasknownaboutwhatis
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[ now known as the Celtic language group. Specimens of Irish and Welsh were barely
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b available on the continent. And besides a few words mentioned by classical authors, the
d
e ancient language of Gaul remained a complete mystery. However, as argued by Joep
d
oa Leerssen, preciselythislackofinformationwas turned into ‘a force inits own right’.46
nl From the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards we see that, by assiduously
w
o searching for a distinguished origin, many a scholar will present himself as a combative
D
championofhisownlanguagearea.InviewofthesignificantroletheCeltshadplayedin
ancient history, both Germanic-speaking and French-speaking scholars were eager to
claimthemysteriousCelticlegacysoastoglorifythehistoryoftheirownlanguageandits
speakers.Hence,onecansafelysaythatbyequatingtheCeltswiththeGermansCluverius
had entered into a heated and ideologically charged controversy. He suggested that
Bodin’s ideas originated from patriotic love rather than from rational discernment.47
Needlesstosay,humanistsweregenerallybetteratunmaskingsuchpatriotictendenciesin
thebooksofcolleaguesthanintheirownwork.Althoughmoresubtlethanintheworkof
many of his contemporaries, Cluverius’ patriotism was, as we will see, anything but
absent.48 He was also far from the first Germanic-speaking author who asserted that the
ancientCelticlanguageonlydifferedfromGermanicintermsofdialect.Norwouldhebe
the last. His originality, however, lies in spreading this Celto-Germanic language over a
896 T. VanHal
vastareacomprisingtheentirecontinentofEuropewiththeexclusionofsomeperipheral
areassuchasItaly,GreeceandtheterritoryinhabitedbythespeakersofSlavic.Apartfrom
somesharedremnantsoftheoriginalAdamiclanguage,thisCelticlanguagehadnothing
in common with the other languages of the world. Cluverius thus turned Europe into a
homogenous and distinctive entity in terms of its original language. And this original
Celtic language, meanwhile lost in France and Spain due to the spread of Latin, was
preservedbestamongtheGermans,sometimesstyled‘myGermans’.49Onecanstatethat
inCluverius’viewpreciselythevastdiffusionoftheprehistoricCelticlanguagedirectly
contributed tothe present-day gloryof the Germanic language.50
Cluverius’ geographical demarcation strongly recalls a fascinating historical map,
entitled Europam sive Celticam veterem (‘Europe or Old Celtica’, see Figure 1),
published for the first time by Abraham Ortelius (1527–98), the renowned inventor of
15 atlantography(Theatrumorbisterrarum,‘TheateroftheWorld’,firstedition:1570),in
0
2 the enlarged 1595 edition of the so-called Parergon Theatri (first edition: 1579), a
ry supplement to the Theatrum presenting historical maps.51 Much less studied than
a
nu Ortelius’ maps themselves are the accompanying texts on verso52, in which Ortelius
a
5 J showsthatCelticisequaltoGermanic,albeitwithoutofferingfurtherdetails.Cluverius’
1 ardent eulogy on the atlas-maker shows that there is no reason to doubt his familiarity
4
4 withOrtelius’work.53Nevertheless,thescopeofOrtelius’EuropaCelticawasnotably
7:
0 moreextensivestillthaninCluverius’work,whereItaly,GreeceandtheSlavicareahad
] at been excluded. The reason for this presumably is that Cluverius concluded that the
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r languages spoken in these regions were fundamentally different from Celto-Germanic.
a
br Inaddition,however,theexclusionofRomeandGreecefromEuropaCelticawasalso
Li
y attractivefromanideologicalpointofviewsinceCluveriuscouldthuscreatetheimage
sit of, in Daniel Droixhe’s words, ‘a “white-warlike-winning-European” freed from the
er Mediterranean and classical ascendancy’.54
v
ni ItisperhapssurprisingtofindthatthisdistinctivelyEuropeandimensionwaslacking
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n inmostofthelanguageschemesoutlinedbyCluverius’colleaguesworkinginGermanyor
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v in the Low Countries. On the one hand, a number of scholars designed genealogical
u
Le models in which their native language played a main role on a global scale. The most
U notorious example of this kind was developed by the Antwerpian physician Johannes
K
[ Goropius Becanus (1519–73), who figures among the small number of names explicitly
y
b mentionedbyCluverius,albeititinadisparagingway.55GoropiusclaimedthatDutchhad
d
e preservedallqualitiesascribedtotheAdamic language.Bydowngrading Hebrew, Latin
d
oa and Greek as second-hand derivations of Dutch, he can be seen as the exponent of
nl countless other authors eager to derive all of the world’s languages from a single one,
w
o almost always the author’s native tongue or Hebrew. On the other hand, some scholars
D
stressed the considerable differences between the languages spoken in ancient Europe.
A fine example of this tendency might well be Paul[l]us Merula’s (1558–1607)
voluminous Cosmographia generalis (‘General Cosmography’, 1605), since this work
has, as its subtitle makes clear, a special focus on Europe (which in Merula’s view
deservedtobestyledCeltica).56Inaninterestingchapterdevotedtothelanguagespoken
by the contemporary as well as by the earlier Gauls (‘Gallorum, cum qui olim, tum qui
hodie,lingua’,419–33),thisLeidenprofessorcautiouslyassumedthatinthethreepartsof
Gaul as distinguished by Caesar three entirely different languages had been spoken, viz.
Welsh, Germanic and Basque respectively. By dividing the Celtic linguistic legacy into
threeparts,Merulaexpressedhiswishtocontributetoarrivingatacompromisebetween
thequarrellingparties (althoughitislessclearhowhis solutionwouldhaveleft French-
speakingscholarssatisfied).