Note 1270 — Chapter XV

That is, the languages whose affirmatives were the Latin pronouns hoc illud (oil) and hoc (oc), the former being more contracted, the latter more expanded, as we see in the very names of the respective Northern and Southern bards: Trouvères and Troubadours. It was customary in medieval times to name languages in this way, Dante, for instance, calling Italian la lingua del si, "the language of yes"; and, strange to say, the same usage prevails largely amongst the Australian aborigines, who, however, use both the affirmative and the negative particles, so that we have here no- as well as yes-tribes.