The Rashīdī History 8.5.3

8.5.3

but we need hardly go far from home to find a telling example of the same thing. From Earle's Philology of the English Tongue, we learn, with regard to the Cymraeg, or British language now spoken in Wales, that "the Anglo-Saxons called it Wylsc, and the people who spoke it they called Wealas, which we have modernised into Wales and Welsh. So the Germans of the Continent called the Italians and their language Wälsch. The word simply means foreign or strange. At various points on the frontiers of our race we find them affixing the name on the conterminous Romance-speaking people .... The French .... in the reign of Edward the Confessor, are called, by the contemporary [Anglo-Saxon] annalist, tha Waelisce men, by which was meant 'the foreigners.'" Thus, the evidence on this subject (apart from that of nicknames or terms of contempt) points to three distinct conclusions. The first is that, in reading the histories of Musulman authors, the tribal names they use must not always be taken to have a racial significance; or, in other words, it is necessary in every case where either the term Turk or Tatar occurs, to see whether the writer is applying it in its general and sociological acceptation, or in a specific and discriminating ethnic sense.