THE PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. WE present this book to students, teachers, and the literary public generally, as one which, for both its subject-matter and its style of composition, will be found to be full of enchanting interest. As for our part, we have spared no expense in respect to typography, paper, and mechanical execution, to make it in a.ppearance equal to its own inward merits in fact. While it abounds in learning, it is also written in a spirited con amore style. It is the result of the author's enthusiastic devotion for years, to a new and great science; which one of the first linguists of the country has justly said, " may almost be called the science of the age." It has been prepared on the basis of several articles published at different times in The Bibliotheca Sacra, at Andover, and The New Englander, at New Haven; which have since been re-written and greatly enlarged and improved, and are accompanied with philological maps and tabular views of great interest. In their original although abbreviated form they attracted great attention in many directions, not only for the scholarship and research displayed in them, but also for the beauty of their style of composition, which has been lavishly commended by many of our best scholars and writers as " clear and vigorous,"'" earnest and spirited," " beautiful," " attractive," " elegant," " fascinating," and "brilliant,'" and placing Mr. Dwight, in the language of still another, "c among the most eminent writers of the day." We believe that no book has appeared from the press in our country for a long timle that will command in itself a larger and more eager reception than this. It supplies a great desideratum 1 to the students of language among us, young and old; as, with the other works that are to follow it from the author's pen, it will make the study of the science of Philology not only feasible but also delightful to scholars; and will give to multitudes of our literary men especially, who know enough of the discoveries of modern Philology to desire to know more, the opportunity to gratify that desire upon a scale that they will greatly value. The book is likewise fitted not only for general reading, but also for study and recitation, in schools and colleges, like any of our best school histories, and will be held in high account for historical, philosophical, linguistic and even rhetorical purposes alike, wherever it is so used. Its preparation has been hailed, and indeed solicited in advance by several leading teachers in different States, from the felt want of such a help to a higher style of linguistic study, than hitherto. We subjoin a few of the notices taken of the original articles as they appeared from time to time, which have incidentally come to hand. " We have read Mr. Dwight's essay on' The Indo-European Languages,' in the Bibliotheca Sacra, with great pleasure: the style giving attractiveness to the instruction of a subject removed from the ordinary line of thought. We commend it not only to classical scholars, who will hail new light in comparative grammar, lexicography, and ethnology, but to ministers generally and the still larger community of general scholars who abound in our country."' -Independent. "This is an article (the same) of great value, showing careful and scholarly investigation." —Evangelist. " This is an able and instructive discussion."-The Intelligencer. " This admirable essay (' The Science of Etymology') is to appear, as we understand, together with other kindred articles written by Mr. Dwight for the Bibliotheca Sacra, in a published volume; and we believe we speak the sentiments of those who are conversant with this important but recondite subject, when we say that the forthcoming book will be a valuable and honorable addition to American literature." —New York Observer. (By Dr. John J. Owen, Professor in the Free Academy.) iii " The History of Modern Philology.-The science of philology is assuming so much importance in its relations to historical questions and to the great problem of the unity of the race, that the general scholar must at least comprehend its principles, and keep pace with its results. The sketch of the history of Philology in the New Englander, from the competent and practised hand of Mr. Dwight, will be of much service to readers not versed in the science itself."-Independent. " I have read with much pleasure Mr. Dwight's articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra. I am also informed that he has a work in preparation on philology. If suited to my purposes I would be glad to use it as a text-book in my higher classes."-C. W. Smythe, Catawba College, North Carolina. "I have examined with great interest Mr. Dwight's essays on Philology, in reference to using them in our seminary; and I am convinced that they will be invaluable to our students, not only for their views, of the historical unity and principles of climatic change in language, but for their philosophic generalizations. I therefore earnestly hope that they will be published in a form adapted to our classes."-Mrs. Sarah L. Willard, Principal of the Troy Female Seminary. "Mr. Dwight's views show such rare and extensive research, the results of such discrimination and analysis, of such historical, ethnological, and philosophical acquaintance with words, languages, roots, branches, themes and their logical and comprehensive classifications, ancient, very ancient, and modern, European and Asiatic, that we have been feasted as well as strengthened and enlightened with their consecutive display, and congratulate the public as well as ourselves, in prospect of their gathered riches being permanently communicated from the press, in a practical form for general use, in all our learned institutions."-Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox, Ingham University. "I did not know who in this country could have written the article in the New Englander, on Modern Philology, without hashing it up from other authors. It would seem to be quite within the range of Mr. Dwight. How he can do so much an invalid like me can hardly see."-Professor Francis A. March, Lafayette College, Penn. "' I am delighted to learn that Mr. Dwight intends to bring out all his articles on philology together in one work. I shall look for it with great eagerness." —Edward P. Crowell, Professor of Latin, Amherst College. iv'I have read several articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra, by Mr. Dwight, and am greatly pleased with the earnest and spirited manner in which they are written, as well as with the thorough research which they display. He owes it to the cause of education to collect and enlarge them somewhat, and prepare them for publication in a book. They would form, I think, a text-book in many schools, and be welcomed by hundreds of private readers and learners. Such a work would really supply a desideratum. I feel exceedingly gratified that he has turned his attention and devoted so much labor to this important branch of science, which indeed may be almost regarded as the science of the acre. He must let the world have the benefit of his labors."-Asahel C. Kendrick, D. D., Professor of Greek, Rochester University. "The articles published by Mr. Dwight, I have enjoyed much. They show a wide range of study, and a fine appreciation of the great laws and principles of language. The republication of them in a separate form will be a valuable service to the cause of philology."-Salmuel H. Taylor, LL. D., Principalof Phillips' Academy, Andover, Mass. A. S. BARNES & BURR, 51 & 53 JOHNs STREET, NEW YORE. DWIGHT'S MODERN PHILOLOGY. MODERN PHILOLOGY: HISTORY AND INFLUENCE, WITH MAPS, TABULAR VIEWS, AND AN INDEX. BY BENJAMIN W. DWIGHT, AUTHOR OF " TIIE HIGHIER CHRISTIAN EDUCATION." NEW YORK: A. S. BARNES & BURR, 51 & 53 JOHN STREET. 1859. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by A. S. BARNES & BURR, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. PAGE. Introduction, with List of Authors consulted......... 5-10 Philosophic Divisions of Languages...................... 14 Peculiarities of Chinese Languages....................... 15 The Agglutinative Languages........................... 16-180 The Inflected Languages................................. 18-190 Other Possible Classifications............................ 19-20 The Semitic Languages................................. 20-28 Connection of Hebrew and Phoenician Languages.......... 20-22 Contrasts of the Semitic and Indo-European............... 22-25 Influence of Judaism on Indo-Europeanism................ 25-27 Climatic Influences..................................... 27 Area of Indo-European Development..................... 28 Classification of Indo-European Languages................ 29 I. The Arian Family-pair........................... 29-48 Arian Migrations................................ 31 Arian Climatology.............................. 32 1st. The Indian Family.................... 32-45 (1) The Sanskrit........................ 32-42 VYdic Sanskrit and Vedas............. 33-40 Devanagari Alphabet................. 36-40 Pali and Prakrit Dialects............. 41-43 (2) The Gypsy Language................. 43-45 Gypsy Correspondences............... 44 2d. The Iranian Family......................... 45 (1) Zend, Zend Avesta, &c............... 45-47 (2) Old Persian, (3) Pehlevi, (4) Pazend, (5) New Persian....................... 47 3d. The Ossetian; 4th. The Armenian........... 48 CONTENTS. PAGE. II. Grmco-Italic Family-pair..... 48-112 1st. The Greek Family......................... 49-68 False Theory of Connections of Greek and Latin 49 Dialectic Developments of the Greek......... 50 Greek and Latin Correspondences............ 52 The Pelasgic or Pioneer Period.............. 53-54 The Hellenic or Classic Period.............. 54-6) Value of an Early History of Asia Minor..... 56 Language as a Mass of Ethnologic Records.... 57 Zend, Welsh, and Greek Correspondences..... 58 Area of Greek Development.................. 60 Philological Value of Homeric Poems......... 61 Giese's Sketch of Pre-Hellenic Period........ 62-63 The Romaic or Modern Greek.............. 64 The Albanian Language.................. 65 Albanian Correspondences............... 66 Schleicher's Historical Epochs of the Greek... 67 Greek Climatology......................... 68 2d. The Italic Family.......................... 70-112 (1) lapygians, (2) Etruscans.............. 70-74 (3) Italians.........74................. 74-97 Italic Home-growth.................. 74-75 (a) Umbro-Samnite Dialects....... 75-79 (b) Latin.....,........7..... 79-112 Latin Climatology............... 80-82 Peculiarities of Roman Mind...... 82 ~ 1. Historical View of Latin Language and Literature................. 83-96 Classical Latin................... 83-85 Middle Latin.................... 85-87 Romanic Dialects........8... 87-112 Germanic Influences on Romanic Languages.................... 83-93 Specimens of Ante-Mediaeval Latin... 94 Do. Graeco-Romanic Elements 95 Do. Germano-Romanic do. 95 ~ 2. The Romanic Languages....... 97-112 (1) The Italian and its Literature.......... 97-99 (2) The Wallachian do........... 99-100 (3) The Spanish do........... 100-105 (4) The Portuguese do........... 105-107 (5) The Provenal do........... 107-108 (6) The French do........... 108-111 Correspondences in Romanic Languages. 112 CONTENTS. iii PAGE. III. The Lettic Family.............................. 113-117 1st. The Lithuanian and its Peculiarities.......... 113-115 2d. The Old Prussian......................... 116 3d. The Lettish.............................. 116 IV. The Slavic Family.................... 117-130 Historical Eras of this Family..................... 117 Their Internal Connections....................... 118 Their Different Alphabets: Cyrillic, Roman, Hieronymic..................................... 119 First. South-Eastern Slavic............................. 120 1st. The Russian and its Literature.............. 121-3 2d. The Bulgarian do............... 123-4 3d. The Servian do............... 125 Second. Western Slavic................................. 126-130 Slavonic Correspondences...................... 126 1st. The Lechish: Poland and the Polish........ 127-128 2d.' The Tschechish, 3d. the Sorbish, 4th. the Polabish................................. 128 The Area of Slavisin and its Neighborhood.... 129 V. The Gothic or Germanic Family................... 130-150 The First Historical Appearance of the Goths....... 130-131 1st. The Low German......................... 132-145 (1) The Norse Languages, Old and New.... 132-133 (2) The Anglo-Saxon.................... 133-143 History of the Anglo-Saxons.......... 134 Elements of the English Language..... 134-138 Its Greatest of Authors: Sllhakspeare... 136 Tts Comparison with German......... 137 Its Correspondences with Sanskrit..... 138-9 Its Orthoepical and Orthographical Peculiarities... 140 American Provincialisms.............. 140-3 (3) The Frisic, (4) the Low Dutch......... 144-146 2d. The High German......................... 145-151 Etymology of the Word German...... 146 Peculiarities of the German................. 147 Different Eras of its Development........ 147 Luther's Influence upon it............. 148 Its Comparison ivith the English............. 149 VI. The Celtic. Prichard's, Jones', and Bunsen's Views............ 151 Early Westward Movements of the Celts.......... 152 Celtic Poetry: Ossian, &c........................ 153 iV CONTENTS. PAGE. Present Remains of Celtic........................ 154 Present Geographical Position of Celts......... 155 Celtic Correspondences.......................... 156 1st. The Kymric Languages.................... 156 —158 2d. The Gadhelic do..................... 157-159 Comparison of Welsh and Irish Numerals..... 159 Celtic and Sanskrit Correspondences.......... 160 Inferences: 1st. Unity of the Race........... 161 2d. Power of Physical Influences................ 163 3d. Smallness of Mian's Inventiveness............ 164-176 Origin of Language as Divine................ 168 Development-Theory of Word-germs......... 168-174 Max Miiller's Theory of its Human Origin..... 173-175 Bunsen's Theory of Millennial Periods........ 176 4th. Each Language to be Studied in its Connections 177-179 Value of Scientific Etymology............... 177 Sanskrit Philology in the University-Course.. 178 Tabular Views........................... 181-190 II. HIISTORY OF' MODERN PHILOLOGY. Philology: its Meaning and Different Phases.............. 192 Grammar and the Alexandrian Grammarians.............. 194 Influence of the Reformation on Modern Scholarship........ 195 State of Linguistic Culture in the 18th Century............ 197 Infidel Attempts to Pervert Philology.................... 193 Leibnitz the Early Prophet of Philology................... 199 Efforts of Catharine II. of Russia......................... 199 Formation of Asiatic Society............................ 200 Adelung's Mithridates.................................. 200 Indo-Europeanism versus Indo-Germanism................ 201 Sanskrit Literature: its Character, &c..................... 202 East India Company: Halhed, Jones..................... 203 First English Translations of Sanskrit.................... 204 Colebrooke, H. II. Wilson.............................. 205 Frederic Schlegel: the Man and his Services............... 206-9 Augustus W. Schlegel, his Brother.....'.................. 910-2 Bopp's First Philological Work.......................... 212 Rask: his Travels and Researches........................ 212-215 Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Grammar....................... 215 His Scale of Correspondences............................ 216-218 CONTENTS. V PAGE. His Present Labors..................................... 218-219 Francis Bopp: his Great Learning and Great Deeds.... 219-225 A. F. Pott, as a Philologist......................... 225 William Humboldt......................... 226 Burnouf and Eichhoff'in France, 1836)............. 227 -230 Albert Giese's Z.Eolischer Dialekt................ 230 Benary and Hofer....................... 231-232 Ahrens on the Conjugation in —....................... 233 D intzer and Kaltschmidt.................... 234 Diefenbach and Schleicher.............................. 235 George Curtius and Diez.............................. 236-237 Diez's View of Philology................................ 238 Present Condition of Philology in Germany................ 239 Ernst Curtius and Theodore Mommsen................. 240 Zeitschrift fuir Vergleich. Sprachforschun........... 241 Aufrecht, Kirchhoff, and Benfey......................... 241 Heyse, Kuhn, and Weber............................... 242-243 Rapp's Grammar and Phonography....................... 244-5 Rapp and Diez Compared............................. 246 Fritsch on Particles.................................... 247 Sanskrit Philology in England........................ 248 Prichard and Rosen.................................... 249 Donaldson: his Learning, Labors; and Vanity.250-2 Winning's Comparative Philology..................... 252-4 Richard Garnett's Articles....................... 255 Max Mailler's Survey of Languages................... 255 Bunsen's Phil. Universal History........................ 256 English Writers on Teutonic Elements in English........ 256-257 State of Philology in America......................... 257 Philological Authors Compared together.................. 258 Philology Arranged according to Subjects................. 258-259 Relative State of Philology in Different Countries of Europe 260 Classical Philology, as such............................. 260-263 Iteyne, Buttmann, Doderlein............................ 261-262 Inferences: 1st. The Charms of Linguistic Study.......... 264 2d. Resolution of' Grammatical Difficulties........ 266-268 3d. The Relative Imperishableness of Language... 268 4th. The Scope of Analory in Language.......... 269 5th. The Mutual Connection of Languages..... 269 6th Thie Light Shed by Philology on Ethnography 270 Weber's Sketch of Primeval Arian HIistory........... 272-274 Vi CONTENTS III. SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. PAGE. T. The General Proportions and Relations of the Subject 278-287 English Etymology Dependent on Classical......... 278 The Real Connections of all Languages............. 279-281 The Peculiar Philological Relations of the Latin..... 282 The Great Breadth of English Etymology.......... 284 Our Present Languages but Linguistic HIerbariumns.. 285 II. The History of Etymology....................... 287-311 1st. Its Popular Empirical Treatment............ 287-289 Ancient Legends and Mythology............ 288 False Etymologies of a Recent Sort.......... 289 2d. Its Literary Empirical Treatment.......... 290-306 The Theory of the Derivation of Latin from Greek................................ 291 L. Ross's Recent Attempts to Revive it....... 292 History of Lexicography, (Latin, Greek, and English).............................. 292-311 Freund's Latin Dictionary.................. 293-297 Schwenck's and Valpy's Dictionary....... 297 Jikel and Nork's Ideas of Latin, &c..... 297 Klotz's New Latin Dictionary............... 299 Passow, Pape, and Kaltschmidt in Greek Lexicography............................. 300-301'Webster's English Dictionary............... 302-906 3d. Its Exact Scientific Treatment............... 306-311 The Grimms' Great German Dictionary...... 306-308 Indo-Europeanism Essential to all Etymology. 309 Etymology an Inductive Science............. 311 III. The Constituent Elements of Etymology as a Science 311-331 1st. Those of Comparative Etymology........... 312-327 (1) Comparative Phonology............... 312-322 (2) Comparative Lexicography............ 3252-32 (3) Comparative Grammar................ 325-327 Criteria of Relative Antiquity of Languages........................... 326-3 27 2d. Those of Specific Etymology................ 328-331 (1) The Originals of Words............... 328 (2) Comparative Forms............... 328 (3) Derived Forms...................... 329 (4) Interior Logical Etymology........... 329 CONTENTS. Vii PAGE. IV. Determinate Tests of Etymology.................. 331-337 1st. Of Comparative Etymology.............. 332-333 (1) Correspondence in BRse or Theme...... 332 (2) Minute Mutual Resemblances......... 332 (3) Euphonic Laws of Definite Scope....... 332 (4) Certain Specific Axioms............... 333 2d. Of Specific Etymology..................... 333-337 (1) The Genius of the Language........... 333-334 (2) Naturalness of Derivation............. 335 (3) Determinate Archaic Forms........... 335 (4) Double Forms....................... 335-336 (5) Dialectic Changes and Differences...... 337 V. Advantages of the Study of Etymology............ 337-347 1st. The High Pleasure of it................. 338-341 2d. Its Advancement of the Higher Mental Discipline.................... 341-344 3d. Its Value in Acquiring Power of Speech...... 344-347 INTRODUCTION. IT has been the Author's pastime for several years, to employ himself in the study of Comparative Philology. When wearied by the many toils of his profession, as a teacher, he has found constant refreshment or exhilaration rather, day by day, in devoting his attention to the history, literature, researches and results of this new Science. No study is more pleasing or profitable to a classical scholar, or even to a general student of an earnest type, than that of Modern Philology: so multiform are its relations, so surprising its, discoveries, and so splendid the train of its attending influences. The excitement of perpetual effort to find its hidden wonders, keeps ever growing unto the end. The Author has written what he has, because he 2 6 INTRODUCTION. must: necessity has been upon him: the fire kindled within his heart has found its own vent: he could not keep to himself the pleasure that he constantly experienced, in his pathway of investigation. And if his papers had all perished by accident, after the careful preparation of years, the pleasure of the everpresent intention cherished and executed with patient, hopeful, happy toil so long, to participate with as many as possible the bliss that had welled-up, all the time, in his own silent heart unknown to others, would have still glowed on undimmed, as a great permanent fact to him in his life-work: illuminating not only the whole conscious past, as it was transpiring, but also the memory of it when gone forever from the view. He would have still testified to his own ear, if not to others, that verily it is more blessed to give than to receive. If the student finds but a moiety of the gratification, in the results here reached or announced, which the author himself has experienced; and surely it can be but a moiety of his, in either time or degree: he will enjoy still another pleasure in his philological labors, which will crown all those received before with its own added light and beauty. No one, who has not undertaken such a work, can have any just conception of the amount of thought and INTRODUCTION. 7 time, requisite to pass in thorough critical review the great number of facts, principles and relations, pertaining to the many topics connected with the science of comparative philology; and the processes of close, se' vere analysis, discrimination, comparison and judgment, to, be repeated over and over again, from every possible angle of observation, in order to come to a clear. and stable decision of matters having so many elements of separate and connected interest. But the joy has all the time more than equalled the toil. Should any think, that the rhetorical element is allowed, perchance, too free play to any degree in affairs of such high science, the plea is offered in self-defence, that, whatever there may be of it, came spontaneously from the depths of the subject itself; which is full to the brim of its own lively appeals both to the reason and the imagination. Nor does the Author think, in introducing this new stu4y, so favorite in Germany, to the regards of the great community of general scholars here, who are just beginning to open their eyes upon its charms, that he should ruthlessly strip it of all its blossoming fulness of beauty, in order to show in more sharp and unclothed outline, to eyes that relish dissected rather than living forms, the mere unadorned framework of its branches. Nor could he think of inviting, 8 INTRODUCTION. exclusively, mere technical scholars in philology to the literary banquet which he would fain provide for them: fit audience, indeed, if small; because of the very limited number who have as yet acquired, in this country, any complete special knowledge of its facts and principles. His purpose has been, on the contrary, to do what he could to attract the greatest possible number of eyes to the glory of the New Philology. The articles composing the present volume were published: the first and third, at different times, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, and the second in the New Englander; and were much compressed in their details, in order to adapt their length to the limits of those valuable Quarterlies. They have been all since carefully rewritten and enlarged, and particularly the first, which is now of more than twice its previous dimensions and value. The maps and tabular views of the different languages and index of contents will aid much, it is believed, in the comprehension of the whole subject. The Author loves to look hopefully, upon the sure and speedy progress of American scholarship to heights of attainment almost unthought of now. We are not to be always spoken of lightly as mere borrowers of others, and as accomplishing at the best only superficial results. There is, in the qualities of activity, enter INTRODUCTION. 9 prise, ingenuity and endurance, that distinguish us as a people, a substantial preparation for the highest scientific and artistic development of the American mind and character, in all the varied departments of scholarly acquisition. So many of our finest minds are ere long not to be led, as now, like oxen garlanded for sacrifice, to the altars of Mammon; and American scholarship, like American literature, which has hitherto surpassed it in the signals of its growth and greatness that it has waved exulting before the nations, is to stand up in the highest proportions, attained among any people, for breadth and strength and beauty of aspect, in the sight of an admiring world. If this humble effort may suffice to kindle any new enthusiasm among the younger scholars of the land, who are just lighting their torches at the fires, which other hands, now growing feeble from age, have kindled: to God alone, who has given all the strength, resources and opportunities for doing so, be the glory and the praise. DWIGHT'S RURAL HIGH SCHOOL, Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., July 1, 1859. AMONG the Authors consulted in the preparation of the first article, are the following: Grote's History of Greece; Smith's do.; Niebuhr's History of Rome;.Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancient History; Brown's History of Greek Classical Literature; Brown's Roman Classical Literature; Donaldson's New Cratylus; Donaldson's Varronianus.; Taylor's Ancient History; Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History; Bopp's Comparative Grammar, by Eastwick; Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik (Neue Auflage); Rapp's do.; EichhofPs Vergleichung der. Sprachen; Grimm's Geschichte'der Deutschen Sprache; Diefenbach's Gothisches W6rterbuch; Giese's Aeolischer Dialekt; Mommsen's Romische Geschichte; Schleicher's Geschichte der Sprachen Europa's; Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft; Diez' Grammatik der Roman. Sprachen; Ahrens' De Lingure Gr,-ece Dialectis; Aufrecht's Umbrischen Sprachdenkmailer; Lersch's Sprachphilosophie; Winning's Comparative Philology; Garnett's Philological Essays; Monier Williams' Sanskrit Grammar; Kuhn's Beitrage zur Sprachforschung; Gesenii Monumenta; MIax Miiller's Survey of Languages; Asiatic Researches; Frederic Schlegel's tEsthetical Works; Prichard's Natural History of Man; Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations; Journal of American Oriental Society; Du Cange's Glossarium; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Gieseler's Ch. HIist.; Buckle's Hist. Of Civilization in England; Blair's Chronology; etc., etc. I. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. MODERN PHILOLOGY. I. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. THE design of the following essay, is not to enter into the details of ethnography, as such, except so far as they may subserve directly the one object, of better unfolding the connection and growth of different languages; or, to give any distinct history of the literature of each language, but to adhere closely to the text furnished in its title. For the same reason, neither chronology nor geography occupy any very conspicuous position. While it has required, at times, as much effort in the selection of materials, to determine what to reject as what to employ; it will be found, it is hoped, that the golden mean has been attained, between too great diffuseness on the one hand and too much condensation on the other. It is not an easy task for curious minds to learn, to leave dark what is dark, and to state supposed facts ^14 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF with no more assurance, than the actual evidence of their existence, according to the most careful measurement of its dimensions, justifies. Almost all earnest writers, accordingly, on the early history of nations and of languages, have undertaken to be luminous amid obscure data, and to interpret the past in the same style of self-confident certainty, in which the interpreters of prophecy usually open the scroll of revelation for the future. The great Niebuhr, and more recently the lesser Donaldson, strikingly exemplify this tendency. But it is still more' difficult for a generous mind, to conceal within itself some new light that serves greatly,to illuminate and cheer its own vision; and: from weak, unmanly over-caution, to understate truths that deserve a large and bold utterance. The terms of comparison between different languages are limited, of course, to that mere moiety of.words which is preserved to us in books. Could that other large portion of each language, when in its:fullest state of expansion, which is now lost to us, be recovered, many of the results that are gained by philological analysis would receive an assurance and an amplification, which would be grand in both their proportions and their benefits. The different languages of the world may be arranged philosophically, in three great classes: 1. Those, consisting of mere separate, unvaried monosyllables, like the Chinese. There are no lan THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 15 guages of this kind, but the Chinese and a few IndoChinese languages in its neighborhood, as the Brahman, Siamese, &c., which were originally without doubt identical with it. In exact antipodes to the monosyllabism of this class of languages, stands the polysyllabism of the North American languages, with their wonderful tendencies to concatenated formations: for which reason they have sometimes been called the polysynthetic languages; and yet, in their interior grammatical constitution, both of these classes of languages are of the same general grade of character. The words composing the Chinese language are all so many distinct monads unrelated to each other, and without any organization that adapts them for mutual affiliation, There is, accordingly, an utter absence of all scientific forms and principles of grammar, in a language thus composed of a mere congeries of separate units. Each word therefore exists, in a close, sharply defined, p.ermanent status of its own; and that play of light and shade, which words, containing each so many different senses, possess in other languages, is here lost. Some fifty thousand characters are accordingly employed in the Chinese tongue, to express the wants of speech. These are some of them simply pictorial still; while others are idiographic now in their form, although many, if not most, of this class are probably but abbreviations of original pictorial representations of the object described. That class of theorists, who 16 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF account for the origin of language, as others do of nature, by what is termed the development-theory, love to represent language as having been at the first in the same crude inorganic state, in which we now find the Chinese: conceiving of it, as they do, as a mere human invention or rather incident, a sort of wild indigenous product of the social state. Language as such, on the contrary is, it is believed, a beautiful piece of Divine mechanism: contrived by Him who made man, and who made him to speak both to Himself and to his fellows; and therefore the nearer to its first beginnings that we ascend in our investigations, the more full and complete we find it in its forms. 2. Those formed by agglutination. This is an advance on the preceding in style of construction, as here words do show some appetency and affinity for each other, although in the simplest of all modes of combination: mere cohesion. Such are the Tatar, Finnish, Lappish, Hungarian and Caucasian languages: sometimes called the Nomadic or Turanian languages. Words in these languages combine, without any elective affinity, in but a mere mechanical way. They have not toward each other, either any of the active, or any of the sensitive receptive,capabilities of living organisms. Prepositions are joined in them to substantives, and pronouns to verbs, as if flexion-endings; but never so as to make a new form of the original word, as in the inflective languages. The words thus placed in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 17 juxtaposition, still retain each of them their own personal identity unimpaired. These languages are thus classified in one group, almost exclusively on the ground of correspondence in their grammatical structure, rather than of any additional lexical agreement. Rask, Castren and Gabelentz, the great investigators of the Turanian languages, all unite in testifying that they are bound together by ties of far less strength than the Indo-European; while they also maintain with equal firmness, that they all belong fundamentally to one race. This race has, from the first, occupied more of the surface of the earth, than either of the others; as, in nature hitherto, the aggregate extent of wilderness has always been greater than that of the gardens of the world. Like the Chinese language, the Tatar family of languages reigns over an immense territory in Asia; and covers with its folds the Mantchoos, Mongols, and the whole wide-spread Turkish race in the east, and in the west the Finnish, Lappish and Magyar tribes of men: stretching westward, from the shores of the Japan Sea to the neighborhood of Vienna; and southward, from the northern Arctic Ocean to Affghanistan and the southern coasts of Asia Minor. The Caucasian languages lie spread out between the Black and Caspian seas; and are historically too insignificant to deserve much attention. One of these, the Abchasic, is said to be the lowest of all this class of languages, in its grammatical constitu 18 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF tion: having no flexion of the noun, and no distinction of number or person in the verb. The agglutinative languages have some special peculiarities that are quite remarkable. One, is the arrangement of governed words before those governing them; so that even prepositions are placed after, instead of before, the nouns in regimen with them, and are properly therefore postpositional in their character. Another, is the law of vowel-harmony, by which added syllables are made to correspond, as being hard, middle or soft, with the vowels of the radical syllables. 3. The inflected languages. These are all of a complete interior organization: complicated with many mutual relations and adaptations, and thoroughly systematized in all their parts. There is all the difference, between this class and the monosyllabic, that there is between organic and inorganic forms of matter; as also the difference between them and the agglutinative languages is like that ii nature between mineral accretions and vegetable growths. In their history lies embosomed that of the civilized portions of the world. The boundaries of this class of languages are the boundaries of cultivated humanity. The languages of Africa, which have been but recently revealed to European eyes by missionary zeal, are, especially the Congo and Bechuana families of them, deserving to a considerable degree of the title of inflected languages, but only in limited forms and directions. Words are linked together in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 19 continued discourse by a few prefixes, suffixes and inserted syllables of a simple sort.: the same suffix being duplicated on the connecting as well as on the connected word; so that the style of inflection is one which would seem to a cultivated, logical, artistic grammarian of the Grecian and Latin school, to be in many cases but a piece of tawdry syntactical patchwork. The'classification which we have presented -of the various languages of the world, is based on their outward, differences of form. In reference to their inward structural differences, they might be divided into two great families: 1. The ungrammatical, as the Chinese and North American. 2. The grammatical or organic languages, namely, the Semitic, the Indo-European and the Turanian. The great basis of identity in each of these classes' of languages lies in the fact, that they are inflected in the same way respectively, or, which is the same thing, that the grammar of each class is identical in all the families of the class. In respect to their phenomenal or historical differences, they are capable of still another arrangement: 1. Those which have utterly perished, and they must have been many. 2. Those called "dead;" or those that, like the Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Gothic, are no more used in the daily commerce of.men's thoughts and wants, but are yet preserved in books in all their ancient strength and beauty. 3. The living languages of the world. Two great races, speaking inflected languages, have 20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF shared between them the peopling of the historic portions of the earth: the Semitic and the Indo-European. On this account their languages have sometimes been called the political or state-languages of the world, in contrast with the appellation of the Turanian as Nomadic. In each of the three great classes of languages: the monosyllabic, the agglutinated and the inflected, there may be found isolated instances of forms that occur in characteristic abundance in the others. Thus, both monosyllabic and agglutinated forms occur in the inflected languages; and yet the distinctions described separate the different classes, in the mass, quite absolutely from each other. The Semitic family of languages consists of three principal divisions: the Hebrew, the Aramaean and the Arabic.* With the Hebrew, the leading ancient language of the Semitic family, the Canaanitish or Phoenician language stands in the most intimate relation. Canaan was the primitive home of the Hebrew tongue. It was a spoken language in Judea from the days of Moses (B. C. 1500) to those of Nehemiah (B. c. 450). It was essentially the language of the Phoenician race, by whom Palestine was inhabited before * To the Arabic belongs also the Ethiopic, as a branch of the Southern Arabic. The Aramsean is called Syriac in the form in which it appears in the Christian Aramsean literature; but Chaldee, as it exists in the Aramaean writings of the Jews; and this is still spoken by some tribes near Damascus and by the Nestorian Koords. To the Chaldee is closely allied the.Samaritan. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 21 the immigration of Abraham's posterity. It became the adopted language of his descendants, and was transferred with them to Egypt and brought back to Canaan. Whatever variations there may have been in the speech of those dwelling in Tyre and Sidon, comnpared with that of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they were very slight. Even the language of Numidia is supposed by Gesenius, to have been pure, or nearly pure Hebrew.* The remaining fragments, accordingly, of the Phcenician and Punic languages agree with the Hebrew.. The Semitic languages were native in the countries lying between the Mediterranean, the Armenian mountains, the Tigris and the southern coast of Arabia; or, in other words, in South-western Asia. The Arabic is the only present living language, of any great importance, belonging to this family. Since the conquest of Syria and Palestine, in the middle of the seventh century, it has swept from its presence, as with a * Augustine, himself a native Carthaginian, said in his day,, that "the Hebrew and Carthaginian languages differ but little.. The Hebrew, Carthaginian and Phcenician languages, are of one origin and character." So Hieronymus:' The Carthaginian language is, to a great extent, allied with the Hebrew; and is said, indeed, to flow forth from the fountains of the Hebrew." Gesenius himself adds, that " this is to be thoroughly maintained, that the Phcenician language, in the main, and indeed as to almost every thing, agrees with the Hebrew, whether you consider their roots or the mode of forming and inflecting their words: a point which it is superfluous to illustrate with examples." Gesenii Monumenta, ~ 3. Chap.:' Lingume Phoenicime indoles et cum Hebrvea necessitudo." 3 22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF breath of flame, the Hebrew and the Syriac in their own native dwelling-place. This language now covers, with its mantle of Oriental beauty, a large part of Western Asia and Northern Africa. It exhibits also in the Maltese, which is but a dialect of the Arabic, a solitary representative of itself in Europe. Like the German in the western world in so many other respects, this Eastern language is like it also in this, that it has diffused its elements wonderfully among the constituents of many surrounding languages: as the Turkish, the New Persian and Syriac; while, in Europe also, it has left its impress ineffaceably on the Spanish language, upon whose features, as well as upon the face of whose literature, the Moorish tint is unmistakable. In its grammatical system or inward constitution, it affords, at the same time, both the most normal and the most improved style of structure of all the Semitic languages. The Hebrew, when compared with it in respect to either its grammar or its lexical resources, is decidedly inferior. The Semitic languages differ widely from the IndoEuropean, in reference to their grammar, vocabulary and idioms. The consonantal system, for example, of all the Semitic languages is singular in the fact, that every root consists of three letters; while, in the other great families of languages, they may be of one, two, or three, and are indeed seldom of three. And yet, although the Semitic and Indo-European families do THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 23 not stand in any close relationship to each other, a remote connection between them cannot be denied. So far as yet traced, the Semitic seems to be the elder family of the two, but its limits and its functions have ever been of a far narrower range. The old Egyptian, one of this family, is the most ancient language now known. It was a form of speech that seems to have had force enough in itself, to rise, like the sun emerging from a bank of mist, just out of a state of mere monosyllabic development. Every thing, indeed, Egyptian was from the first strangely unique, and was petrified by physical or moral causes, when but half complete, beyond the power of further change. We have been also recently informed of other ante-historical branches of the Semitic family, beside the old Egyptian, as of the old Assyrian and Babylonian. Clay tablets have been found by thousands at Nineveh, containing treatises on almost every subject, and also grammars, dictionaries, histories and works on geography, astronomy and painting: "rpresenting," as Rawlinson, one of its explorers, remarks, " a perfect cyclopedia of Assyrian science." So also the characters found on the bricks in the disentombed palaces at Babylon have been clearly proved to be Semitic. These antique languages lived and died, in the darkness of an otherwise utterly unmemorialized past. Indo-European literature, although not of so high antiquity as the Semitic, far surpasses it in variety, 24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF flexibility, beauty, strength and luxuriance. The ultimate roots of the Semitic tongues are few in number; and the formation of words by prefixes and affixes is simple, and in most cases similar; while, in the IndoEuropean, we have a range and style of words and inflections adapted to the truest and finest possible expression of thought of whatever height or depth, or of whatever scope or bearing. The Semitic languages might justly be called, on a general scale of comparison, the metaphorical languages, on account of the great preponderance in them of the pictorial element; and the Indo-European, the philosophical languages, as descriptive of the prevailing style of their higher literature. The two living languages of these two great families that most resemble each other, in combining, to a high degree, both the philosophical and pictorial element in their natural constitution and literature, are the Arabic and the German. The Semitic nations have had either a stronger love of place and of home than the Indo-European, or a greater aversion to effort and adventure; since, with the exception of the Arabians, whose spirit of conquest, like -that of the Turks of the Turanian family, must be ascribed to the fierce propagandist influence of Mohammedism, they have ever dwelt within close narrow bounds, while in them, however, they have often manifested intense energy. In hieroglyphs, the Semitic mind first recorded its thoughts and wants and achievements, in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 25 ancient Egypt; and afterwards another branch of the same family, the Ploenicians, foremost in their day in commerce and the arts, invented alphabetic letters of which all the world has since made use. The Semitic nations also first ripened in arts and arms; but, like precocious children, early failed to yield the fruit that they had promised. The Semitic and Indo-European families are complementary to each other in their characteristics; and almost as strongly so as are the masculine and feminine constitution of mind, respectively, to each other. What influence the Semitic family, especially the religionized Judaic portion of it, has had directly or indirectly on the development of any or all of the IndoEuropean family, it would be a matter of capital interest, were there sufficient data for such an examination, to investigate and decide. There are a few streaks of light, at any rate, upon this subject, visible in the horizon of history. Babylonia was greatly influenced by Judaic commerce, religion and literature, as early as the days of Solomon (B. c. 1000). Phoenicia also, over which reigned contemporaneously with him King Hiram, the grandfather of Dido, who founded Carthage, was, both by its proximity and the sameness of its language, brought powerfully under Hebrew influence. Persia was filled with Jews, as we know, in the days of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Queen Esther, in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries before Christ. What 26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF quickening influences and what new ideas were thus set in motion, throughout these various countries, and indeed throughout also India in the East, Egypt and Arabia on the South, and even Greece in the West, who can say? They must, indeed, have been many and great. Judea was designed, like all the rest of God's works, to have the chief ends and uses of her existence outside of herself. While Judaism was not essentially, like Christianity, a Missionary Institute, but, owing to the stern necessities of the times, was built for defensive rather than offensive operations; still, it was thus fenced in with privileges and illuminated with light from above, that it might be seen over all the earth, that God who made the earth and heavens, He is Lord; and that blessed is that people whose God is the Lord. The Holy Land was made the garden of the Lord, that the leaves of its trees might be for the healing of the nations. Phcenicia and Egypt were the countries that were specially brought into full and long contact with the truths and influences, that made Jerusalem glorious for beauty. The Phoenicians and Hebrews were as intimate for that day in commerce and friendship, as the English and Americans in our times. And, as for the Egyptians, not only were the Israelites tabernacled by God among them for more than four hundred years; but ever afterwards they were held together by ties of intercourse and commerce more or less firm: as, Solomon married his wife in Egypt, and thither, a thousand THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 27 years afterward, Joseph and Mary fled with the infant Jesus from the face of Herod. But Phoenicia and Egypt exerted, in their turn, a very great influence on the early progress of the European world. From Phoenicia came the alphabet to Greece; and from them both came stores of wisdom and influences intellectual and moral, which, by their very essential invisibility, hid themselves, even in the time of their greatest power, from observation. Is it not pleasant to think that the Jewish theocracy, erected like a tower of light by our great Father above among the people of the old world, was set up in love, not only for those who dwelt under its immediate effulgence, but also for the other nations that looked on it from afar, for whose good his heart yearned as tenderly as it does for that of all men now. The Semitic nations have lived with remarkable uniformity on vast open plains; or wandered over wide and dreary deserts, by which the negative side of their character has been more cultivated than the positive. The lot, on the contrary, of the Indo-European nations, has been ever, with as remarkable uniformity, cast by a favoring Providence amid rivers, mountains, vales and gorges; where they might gaze upon an ever-changing sky, and breathe a vigorous ever-changing'air; and where they would be required to accoutre themselves, continually, for new enterprises and endeavors. The Indo-European nations and languages have 28 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF spread themselves, in the eastern hemisphere, over the vast area from the mouth of the Ganges, to the British Islands and the northern, extremities of Scandinavia. They comprise the Sanskrit, Zend, Old Persian, Greek, Latin, Lettic, Slavonic, German and Celtic families of tongues; and these languages compare quite as closely, one with another, in both their lexical and grammatical elements, as do the Romanic languages: the Italian, Wallachian, Spanish, Portuguese and French, with each other. As we go eastward geographically and backward, historically, we find, as a general fact, a greater and greater approximation constantly to the pure IndoEuropean types of words, as found in the Sanskrit; and, as we go westward, less and less; until, in the Celtic, the most western European language, we find the fewest traces left of the common original mothertongue. It is indeed but a recent discovery, made by the late distinguished Prichard, that the Celtic actually belongs to the same great parent stock of languages. Still more recently, by the discovery of the Old Egyptian language and the comparison of the Celtic languages with it, the conviction is reached, as Bunsen claims,.that the original Celtic is more ancient, not only than the Teutonic branch of languages, but even than the Sanskrit itself: forming a sort of connecting link between the Old Egyptian and the Sanskrit, in the stages of lingual development. If this view of the Celtic shall be, at any time hereafter, really substan THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 29 tiated, then to the Celtic must be conceded the honor, now given to the Sanskrit and otherwise to be given to it still, of retaining in itself more fully than any other one of the sister-languages still preserved to us, that ancient mother-tongue, now lost in its pure primal form from the eyes of men; from which yet all the subsequent languages of the civilized world have been derived. The real connection also of the Celtic and the Sanskrit, as belonging to the same family, will remain unchanged; while the order of sequence between the two will be directly alternated. The most ancient languages of the Indo-European stock may be grouped in two family-pairs: the Arian family-pair and the Grweco-Italic or Pelasgian familypair. The whole series of families is as follows: I. The Arian family-pair. II. The Graeco-Italic, or Pelasgic family-pair. III. The Lettic family. IV. The Slavic family. V. The Gothic family. VI. The Celtic family. The Celtic is placed last, because it is yet least explored, and its full definite relations have been least ascertained. I. The Arian family-pair. This comprises, as the title indicates, two leading families: 1st. The Indian family. 2d. The Iranian family 30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF The word Arian (Sanskrit Arya, Zend Airya) signi: fies noble, well-born: a name applied by the Ancient Hinduis to themselves, in contradistinction to the rest of the world, whom they considered base-born and contemptible. This is the oldest known name of the entire Indo-European family. With this name all chance to trace the pedigree of the family back to the early dawn of time ends. From what circumstances of social contrast in their favor, they came to apply this self-flattering title to themselves it is impossible to say. As the words "Slavonic" and "Irish" (from Airya) contain the same utterance of national pride in them, the name is probably but another evidence of mens' disposition in all ages, not to esteem others as themselves. So the Greeks called the rest of the world " barbarians;" and the Jews termed the Gentiles " dogs." Arii was the ancient name of the Medes: a name afterward preserved in the Aria and Ariana of the Greek geographers. Aryavarta, the country lying between the Himalaya and the Vindhya mountains, the primeval abode of their fathers, is now regarded as their " holy land" by the Brahmins. There, in that high table-land of central Asia, two thousand years and more before Christ, our Hindfi ancestors had their early national home. So also to Bactria near the Indus, the earliest traditions of the Persians point as the ancient and romantic seat of their race. Iran then, a country bounded on the north by the Caspian, on the south by THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 31 the Indian Ocean, on the east by the Indus, and on the west by the Euphrates, is the spot to which all the languages of the civilized world, ancient and modern, now unite in pointing as the place of their origin. The absolutely primeval home of the original Arians cannot now be determined. In tracing any of the great currents of Arian migration back from whatever direction to their central source, we soon find ourselves, here as on every other topic of ultimate inquiry, groping in irremediable darkness. There have been historically two great streams of Arian overflow: the one southern, including the Brahmanic Arians of India and the Persian followers of Zarathustra (Zoroaster): the other northern at the outset but western in the end, embracing the great families of nations in north-western Asia and in Europe. But for this great western Arian manifestation of intellect, enterprise and character, the history of the world hitherto would have had but little significance: as, all of the present and most of the past civilized nations of the world belong to this branch of humanity; and as, for some reason or for many, all the early Semitic tendencies to high and broad enlargement were of very short duration and circumscribed influence. Like trees, at first loaded with blossoms but subsequently shorn of their riches by killing frosts, they gave a larger promise than they afterward realized in the result. The southern Arian migrations stagnated in the valleys which they occupied; as in them they were walled in from all 32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF danger of invasion from the restless nations in the west, by the snow-towers of the Himalaya on the north, the expanse of the Indian Ocean on the south and the deserts of Bactria on the west. There, in the rich valleys of the Indus and its many streams, with no motive to labor from poverty of soil and no need of self-protection against aggressive assaults upon their life of ease, the common mass sank, like the other nations of the earth that have not been constantly goaded by the sharp spur of necessity, into a life of base inglorious inactivity. The more studious and thoughtful, the natural quality of whose minds forbade voluntary torpidity of intellect, wasted their powers in roaming about aimlessly in the regions of dreamy mystic subjectivity. The western nations have been forced by circumstances into a more objective life; and, under the stimulus of physical influences better fitted to test and temper the character and by constant friction one upon the other, have been brought into a state of individual and social activity and progress; the products of which seem as marvellous to an Oriental mind, as can any of the gorgeous fancies of eastern fable to a youthffil reader among us. 1. The Indian family. Of this the Sanskrit is the most remarkable; standing farthest east and at the farthest distance of time, full-orbed in its brightness, casting splendor on every language around it and on every language to be found in the long procession of different tongues related THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 33 to it from that day to this. In the Vedas, it has come down to us from the borders of the primitive world, on the margin of which the Genius of history never planted its foot. The Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language in India, as late probably as 1500 years before Christ, or five hundred years before the days of Homer and Solomon, who were contemporaries. The original Veda the Hinduis believe to have been revealed by Brahma; and to have been preserved by tradition, until it was arranged in its present order by a sage, who thence obtained the name of Vyasa or Vedavyasa or compiler of the Vedas. These Indian Scriptures, which are all lyrical in their form, he divided into four parts, named Rich, Yajush, Saman and Atharvarna: each with the common denomination Veda,* which means primarily knowledge or science, and is now used to denote the whole mass of Hinde sacred literature. The fourth of these Vedas is undoubtedly more modern than the first three, and like in this respect the Itihasa and Puranas, which together constitute a fifth and still more recent Veda. In the Vedas themselves they have a fabulous origin ascribed to them: " the Rigveda from fire,t the Yajurveda from air, and the Samaveda from the sun." Some Indian commentators ascribe the * Lat, video, Gr. oS3a for Fo7Sa: Germ. Wissen: Eng. wit, wist, viz.:-vide, vision, etc. t Asiatic Researches. Art. by IH. T. Colebrooke, vol. viii. (year 1808.) 34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF fable to the fact that the Rigveda opens with a hymn to fire, and the Yajurveda with one in which air is mentioned; but others see in it a transcendental philosophy of the primeval order of things in the universe. The Vedas are properly a compilation of prayers, called Mantras when spoken of by themselves, and Brahmanas or precepts- and maxims. In the three principal Vedas,* prayers employed at solemn public rites, called Yajnyas, are found: those in metre being called Rich, those in prose Yajush, and those designed to be chanted Saman. The prayers of the fourth or Atharvarna Veda, were used on different occasions and for different purposes from the preceding; as for imprecations on enemies. And, as in all other parts of the world where thinking men have lived, as in the different schools of philosophy in Greece and Rome, the different sects of Christendom and even the different monastic orders of popery; which yet makes boast of possessing a permanent leaden uniformity of character, as if it were meritorious to be in a state of utter metaphysical and moral stagnation: so in India, the minds of men have separated and scattered the pure white light, as they deemed it, received from their Vedas, into many distinct sects and schools of theology, of every varied hue of thought. * In former days learned priests took their titles from the number of V6das with which they were conversant. Thus, one who had studied two Vedas was called Dwivedi: one, who had studied three, Trivedi and one who had studied four, Chaturvedi. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 35 It has been stated that each Veda consists of two parts: the Mantras or prayers and the Brahmanas or precepts, under which term are included also explanatory maxims and theological arguments. The RigvedaE means literally the Veda of verses, from rich, to praise; and consists of somewhat more than a thousand hymns of praise, called Slktas, to the Deity, of various length from one to fifty verses. The religious literature of the Hind~t-s consists of such works, beside the VCdas themselves, as the Upanishads, which are theological tracts containing the argumentative portion called Vedanta, of the Indian Scriptures, and also some detached essays of a kindred sort, but of what origin is not known. On the Upanishads the whole of their * In the study of the Vedas, which is enjoined upon all priests, the student is always required to note distinctly the author, subject, metre, and purpose of each prayer, more than to understand the prayer itself; and thus most of what is taught in the Vedas has now become obsolete. So strong is the tendency everywhere in human nature to put the gloss of mere formal respect on every thing ancient, and to satisfy its religious instincts, by carefully preserving religious truths and principles, as if a mere cabinet of elegant curiosities. The Veda is accordingly the Hindu's book of education for his child, whom he requires to learn it at an early age: as a precious mass of holy words, without any thought or care about its holy sense. And, as the Tatars, according to Huc, construct multitudes of little water-mills covered with scraps of prayers, and set them along the courses of their streams, that, by their revolution day and night they may keep up a constant round of prayer for them, whether awake or asleep; so the superstitious Indians abound in vain repetitions of chance-portions of the Vedas, repeating them forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, in idle emptiness of thought, in order to benefit their souls, if possible, in some way by such foolish mummiery. 36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF theology is professedly founded. Their remaining literature which is abundant, spreads over the varied fields of grammar, accentuation, prosody, interpretation, lexicography, language, logic, philosophy, ethics, astronomy, &c. The dialect of the Vedas, especially of the first three, is very ancient and very difficult; but, as the earlier.form of the polished Sanskrit, it possesses great interest, as it does also even still more from the fact of the resemblance of the Graeco-Latin stock of words very largely to its primeval forms, rather than to those of the proper Sanskrit itself; much of which seems to have been developed, as a distinct home-growth by itself, after the departure of the Pelasgian emigration from its borders. The Sanskrit is then the learned language of the Hindfs: sustaining the same relation to their present dialects, that the Latin sustains to the modern Romanic tongues. While it is written in various Indian characters, it has an alphabet peculiarly its own, called the Deva-nagari, literally "that of the divine or royal city." The remotest date to which its existence Can be traced, is the third century before Christ; but at this period, its forms had only the rudimentary features of the shape, which they have since come to possess in all Sanskrit writings, and which, for convenience sake, are called modern in distinction from the original imperfect alphabet of symbols which preceded THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 37 it. The "modern" Devanagari is the most complete and philosophical in its construction, of all known alphabets. The "ancient" occurs only in antique inscriptions, found on pillars and high rock-walls throughout India; and the dialect in which these characters appear, is not the Sanskrit or "classical" language of the literary class; but the PrAkrit, a " natural " or " uncultivated'" idiom of it, adopted in accommodation to the people, for whose eyes they were thus carved in imperishable stone: since they prove to be but royal commands to them, to obey the priests and to practise various social virtues. There are good historical data for referring them to the time immediately succeeding Alexander's invasion of the East. The true or "modern" Devanagari was, like the literature enclosed as in a casket in it, kept out of sight from the people by the proud Brahmins of ancient times as now, who delighted in fencing off others from their selfish seclusion of false dignity, by withholding from them as many privileges as possible. The word Sanskrit or "classical" had an icy coldness of meaning in it, even then, to those shut out from its favored pale: as, occasionally in modern times, some standing under the very canopy of- divine revelation affect to make it, and together with it all the beauty of mental and moral culture denoted by it, appear to imply to the uninitiated. Indeed, as Milton's Eve, when bending over the river's bank in Eden saw as in a mirror her own image and 4 38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF was astonished; so, we may gaze from the verge of the present upon the wondrous stream of the past, in the ancient Indian home of our race, and see with amazement not only our own outward selves all imaged there, but also the most inward and subtle features of our hearts. In the sixth century before Christ, when Buddhism, well styled the ancient Protestant religion of India, rose into full view, the Sanskrit was no longer a spoken language. As the most ancient of all literary documents of the Arian race upon the earth, the RigVedas possess quite a special interest of their own. They were all probably written before the days of Solomon. The grammar and lexicography of the Vedas are now being laboriously studied in Germany and Russia and by Prof. Whitney in this country; and much progress has been made in the great work of accurately deciphering their contents. The relation of the Vedic dialect to the classical Sanskrit is peculiar. "Phonetically they are almost exactly the same: grammatically they are nearly the same; while lexically they are very different." There are grammatical treatises in manuscript appended to the different Vedas called Pratisakhyas. In these the science of phonetics, called Siksha', is reduced to a very perfect system: far more so than in any other language since; and yet these grammars date back as far as to the fifth century before Christ. They have not yet been * Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 39 published, but philologists now are returning to the same classification of vowels and consonants that occurs in them, as the result of their own independent research. The Sanskrit is both read and written by the learned in India, up to the present day; but, since the days of Panini, their great grammarian, who lived in the fourth century before Christ, the Sanskrit has remained in a state of cold and glazed unchangeableness; like some of the fossil elephants found nowadays in the icy realms of Siberia, as perfect even to the short thin hair of their hides, as when they walked in pomp upon the Pre-Adamic earth. Beside the Vedas and Upanishads, two great epic poems called the MahlTbairatah and R1nlayana are very celebrated, as also the so-called laws of Menu. These were probably written in the fourth century before Christ. It was in the Vedic period of Sanskrit literature that the Southern Arian mind, or what became afterward the proper Hindul mind, was at its highest point of culmination: exhibiting the most and the strongest signs of its original individuality. After that period it seems to have lost its first vigor; although ever worshipping, under the name of Brahma, Force or Propulsive Will as the all-presiding Deity of the Universe. Between the Vedic dialect and the Zend striking resemblances are found to exist. "The Sanskrit is," in the language of Eichhoff, "the richest of all lanoguages in the world, in its combi 40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF nations. Its words melt and run continually together, in harmony of sound* and sense; and their full splendor is but faintly imaged to the view even by the beautiful and pictorial language of Greece; while the coarser and sterner Latin represents in its features still less of this high characteristic of its elder sister, the Sanskrit. * The words of Lepsius also are worth quoting here (Standard Alphabet, p. 15):-" No language has a system of sounds more rich and regularly developed than the Sanskrit, or expresses them so perfectly by its alphabet. The old grammarians of India did not indeed invent the Devnagari characters; but they brought them to that state of perfection which they now possess. With an acumen worthy of all admiration, with physiological and linguistic views more accurate than those of any other people, these grammarians penetrated so deeply into the relations of sounds in their own language, that we at this day may gain instruction from them, for the better understanding of the sounds of our own languages. On this account no language and no alphabet are better suited to serve, not indeed as an absolute rule but as a starting-point, for the construction of an universal linguistic alphabet, than that of ancient India. Hence it is that the late progress in the solution of the alphabet problem has been associated in Europe, as formerly in India, with Sanskrit studies." " The alphabet problem" of which he speaks, is that of establishing an uniform orthography for writing foreign languages in European characters, or a standard alphabet for all unwritten languages and foreign graphic systems. The Devanagari is adapted to the expression of almost every known gradation of sound; and every letter has a fixed and invariable pronunciaticn. There are fourteen vowels and thirty-three simple consonants: to which may be added the nasal symbol called Anuswara and the symbol for a final aspirate called Visarga. The vowels are a, i, i, i, u, u, ri, ri, lri, lri, e, ai, o, au. The consonants are: the gutturals k, kh, g, gh, n: the palatals ch, chh, j, jh, n: the cerebrals t, th, d, dh, n: the dentals t, th, d, dh, n: the labials p, ph, b, bh, m: the semi-vowels y, r, 1, v: the sibilants s, sh, s; and the aspirate h. The compound or conjunct consonants may be multiplied, to the extent of four or five hundred. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 41 It must however be remembered, in connection with this statement, that in respect to the artistic elaboration of language, in variety and exactness of form, as well as in outward phonetic beauty and effect, the Greek far surpassed not only the Sanskrit, but also every other language ancient or modern. Of the Sanskrit also it must be said, that in many particulars it has experienced, in the type in which it has reached our eyes, alterations of its original elements and characteristics: so much so, that not unfrequently some of the other families of languages present to us the primal theme of a word, in a much purer form than even the Sanskrit itself, as is often especially true of the Lithuanian. No one of the sister languages of the Indo-European family has as clear and transparent a style of flexional organism as the Sanskrit. In remote times other languages as dialects sprang up from the Sanskrit, which ere long supplanted it on its own soil: leaving it to maintain its existence at last, only as the language of the sacred books of India and of its learned men. These dialects are denominated the Pali and the Prhkrit, and are now found as dead languages, by the side of their Sanskrit mother in northern Hindistan. Dialects are the result of mixtures of the stable element of the original tongue in which they occur, with a new variable element introduced from without, sometimes by conquest, and sometimes by commerce or other modes of social contact and influ 42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ence. The Pali grew up, as the offspring of the Sanskrit, in the province of Bahar, and is to this day the sacred language of all the nations that cherish Buddhism in Ceylon and farther India; since, among those that speak this dialect, that singular democratic form of heathenism originated. The Prakrit languages (for they are many: the idea is plural) include numerous low depraved dialects, which grew up as parasites on the decaying trunk of the original Sanskrit tree. The word Sanskrit is derived from the preposition sam, with (Gr. vrv, Latin cum) and krita, made; and like the Lat. confectus means "carefully constructed," " complete," " classical: " that of Pr~ikrit is " natural," "uncultivated;" while Pali means "ancient." The Pali and Pr'akrit dialects represent the middle age of the Sanskrit. The Pali was at the height of its excellence full 500 years before Christ; while the Prakrit was not fully developed until one or two centuries later. The present languages of Hind(lstan, some twenty or thirty in all, represent the Sanskrit in its most degenerate state: having swerved very greatly from their original model. Most of the languages now spoken in Upper India are immediately derived from the Prkrit. Distinctions of caste have long prevailed in India and are founded, there as everywhere, in the distinction of conquering and conquered races: this being hitherto the history of the treatment that inferior races have always received from superior when in mutual contact. THE INDO-EUROPEA-N LANGUAGES. 43 Hindui nationality is therefore now, partly of Arian origin and partly of either Semitic or Turanian, probably the latter: one language in its various dialects embracing them all, but not one wide fraternal spirit. Beside the Sanskrit, there is also another member of the Indian family, a vagrant language, whose geographical home like that of those who speak it is everywhere. Only two people, while preserving their national distinctness in all times and places, have spread themselves as such over all the earth: one belonging to the Semitic family, the Jews; and the other to the Indo-European, the Gypsies. Their law of extension from age to age has not been orbital but cometary. They claim the wide world as their domain. The Jew preserves- his language as a sacred relic, and prizes it for the fathers' sake. It contains in it a Divine deposit, the law and the testimony; and is beautiful for its antiquity and the honor that it has received from above; but it is a living language no more and has lost all function in the present. But how different is it with the Gypsy! His language is everywhere the same intact cherished old mother-tongue: as distinct and separate from the other languages among which it is found, as are the people from those over whose territories they wander. Their language and their roving habits of life are all that constitute their- national identity. Their names are quite various: as Gypsy* from * The Finns, like the English, give them a name of their own devising, and call them Mustalainen or dark people. 44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF their supposed home in Egypt: Zigeuner, their name in Germany, a word of doubtful meaning: Sinte, the name by which they call themselves, perhaps from Saindhawa, "inhabitants of Sindhu or the Indus;" and also Roem meaning man and Kala " of dark skin" from Sanskrit Kala "dark." They first appeared in Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Their language,* in its great and manifold resemblances to the Sanskrit, nullifies absolutely before the court of classical and historical criticism the so common conception of their Egyptian origin; and shows that CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GYPSY LANGUAGE. Various Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gypsy. Lithuan. Languages. Geruman. English. (Russian) 1. aksha (s) cKOS oculus ak akis oko auge eye the eye yakcha yak (Old (perhaps) Slavonic.) 2. agni (s) d-yXj ignis yavk ugnis ogny fire fire angara, angar a coal a coal (Illyrian) 3. nava (s) ve'OS novus nevo naujas nov nen new new for veFos 4. vid, ei'aELv videre bedar (Zend) wissen wit to see: for to teach vid to know wise vind to FeiLeLv weisen viz discover. causative to show -vide vedaya lauJLI visere vedemi -vise (causative) I teach to teach (Lettisli) 5. bhratar ppap'jp frater bral brolis brglis bruder brother brother THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 45 they came from Northern India. This however is not the first or greatest ethnological fallacy, that has originated in a popular empirical style of etymological guessing. The ancients especially were very fond of weaving legendary history, out of such dubious materials. 2. The Iranian family. The name Iran is derived from Arya; and includes those people, whose languages were originally allied closely with those of the Indian family, but yet by certain definite laws of sound separated from them, such as these: (1.) The change of a dental into s before t, as in Zend basta from Sanskrit baddha, bound. (2.) The Sanskrit sv changed into a guttural, as in Sansk. svasr, sister: New Persian chhher. (3.) A radical s changed into h, as in Sansk. saptan, Zend hapta and Sansk. sam, with: Old Persian ham. (4.) The frequent substitution of the dental sibilant z for the guttural aspirate h, as in Sansk. aham, I, and mih,* to urinate: Zend azem and miz. The two chief languages of this class are the Zend and the Old Persian. The Zend is the language of the most ancient cuneiform inscriptions, made in the 6th century before Christ, which are Persian inscriptions carved in the Assyrian character; and also of the holy books of the Parsees, the Zend Avesta. The Avesta is a collection of sacred books, containing their early traditions and the religious and * Gr. OtgLLXE.v: Lat. mingere and meiere. 46 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ethical system of Zarathustra, commonly called Zoroaster, their great legislator; as well as a liturgy which is used to this day by some of the modern Persians in the oasis of Yezd, who still worship the element of fire. It seems to have been preserved in the world for many centuries, like the Iliad which may almost be called the Bible of the early Greeks, by mere oral transmission. It can be traced back in written records, and no farther in such a form, than, to the dynasty of the Sassanides (A. D. 226.) The Zend was the original vernacular of the Medes and Bactrians. So closely does it resemble the Sanskrit, that in very many words, by merely changing the Zend letters into their Sanskrit equivalents, you obtain at once precisely the same identical word. Very striking also in particular is the correspondence between Persia and India, in the elements of their religion and mythology. It is not indeed too mnuch to say, that all the Indo-European nations have a common fundamental basis for their mythology, in their common sense of natural phenomena: with such variations in the myths, contrived by their sensuous imaginations for the ideal embodiment of their conceptions among different nations, as the greater or less luxuriance of the poetic faculty in different climates sufficed to suggest. Still there were gods worshipped under the same names in Sanlskrit and Zend, of which the other Indo-European nations seem to have had no idea. In many points the Zend compares with the THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 47 Vedic or primitive natural Sanskrit, better than with the subsequent cultivated or classical Sanskrit. It is a fact also worthy of remembrance in this connection, that the Zend is found to be throughout wonderfully congruous and correlated with the German languages. The Old Persian is the language of many, now perfectly deciphered, arrow-headed inscriptions of the Achaemenidian kings. The intermediate forms of the Persian were the Pehlevi, the language of the Sassanians (A. D. 226-651); and the Pazend, the mother of the new Persian, witlh which also the Pushtu spoken in Affghanistan is connected. The Pehlevi, which was the language of western Persia, had in it a strong admixture of Aramaic words; while the Pazend, that of eastern Persia, was but the Old Persian greatly commingled with Arabic. The New Persian also has been much altered in flowing down from its original sources by the influence of the Arabic, through the long reign of Mohammedism over that region of the world. The greatest literary work in the New Persian is an immense epic poem, called the Shah Nameh or Book of Kings, written by Ferdousi, about the middle of the 10th century. It is a traditionary history so mingled with fiction andl metamorphosed by it, as to be rather an Oriental Romance than a splendid structure of real and connected facts. This was the classic age of the New Persian. But there are other languages of this stock, of 48 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF much smaller philological value than those already mentioned: the Ossetian and Armenian. In the midst of the Caucasus, alone by itself though surrounded by men of other tongues, like the solitary nest of a wild bird in the mountains, is the home of the Ossetian* tongue. The people still call themselves by the old family name, Iron. They are but rude highlanders, without a literature or a history. The Armenian language, on the contrary, has a rich historical literature, but of no older date than the 4th century of our era. The alphabet is peculiar, being immediately modelled after the Greek. Although the language is of an original Iranian constitution, its form and features have been much altered by contact with surrounding languages, especially the Turkish. The Ancient Armenian was a living language down to the 12th century; since which time the present dialect has grown up into full individual stature. The skirts of the Armenian language, and of the busy trafficking people that speak it, are found now resting, in Europe, in Southern Russia around the Sea of Azof, and in Turkey, Galicia and Hungary. II. The Graeco-Italic or Pelasgic family-pair. But a little while ago Latin etymology was univer* Correspondences of the Ossetian Language: Sanskrit. Ossetian. Gothic. Latin. pitar, father fid fadar pater panchan, five fonz fimf quinque pasu(s), a flock fos faihu pecu kas, who kha hvas quis THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 49 sally constructed: as it still is by many who are entirely ignorant of its true foundations, although fancying themselves to be on the pathway of high classical scholarship: on altogether a Greek basis. The Latin such writers have derived immediately from the Greek: accounting for the differences of form and structure, by all sorts of empirical explanations; whose chief merit has consisted in their being an ingenious dodge of difficulties, that could not be solved. Such works as Valpy's Etymol. Latin Dictionary, Mair's Tyro, Diderlein's various works, and Schwenck's Etymologisches Wirterbuch, illustrate this era and style of Latin etymology. These works still have a value, and that often considerable, in exhibiting correspondences in the two languages and suggesting hints for farther research. But they are no guide-books, as they profess to be, in either philological or historical research. The fundamental conception which they undertake to unfold is false and ridiculous. In very remote ages there existed evidently a Grmeco-Italic race, to which the progenitors of both the Latin and Greek nations, as they came afterwards to be and to be called, belonged ill common; and from which they afterwards branched off into a separate manifestation. The time, when they thus parted into two distinct individualities, was many centuries before either Romulus lived or Homer sang. 1st. The Greek race, remaining nearer geographically 50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF and in closer contact, commercially and socially, with that Oriental world, amid whose abounding and inspiring luxuriance God Himself prepared the first home of the human family, came in every respect to a higher and nobler style of growth and greatness, than the Latin. The people and their language spread out themselves, in different periods and localities, into a vigorous fourfold demonstration: as expressed in the _fEolic, Doric, Ionic and Attic dialects; which mark indeed but so many stages or epochs of the same language. The Doric is but a variety of the AEolic; and these two dialects may, without impropriety, be said to mark the earlier and later aspects of the Pelasgic period. The Ionic, as a subsequent development of the same language,.took on its separate form, under the influence of national progress, as a distinct homeproduct; and, " so far," as K. O. Midller well observes, "as it differs in any word, in respect to either its vowels or its consonants, from the iAolic; it differs also from the original type of the word." The Italic race parted from the common GraecoItalic stock, by a more western migration; where, in another climate and under other influences, they matured into a well-defined development of their own. They ere long separated into an eastern and western branch; and the eastern subsequently divided itself into the Umbrian and Oscan. The causes, titmes and THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 51 modes of these different migrations and separations lie out of the field of exact historic vision. As agriculture is the basis of all stable social organization, we are compelled to believe that the original Graeco-Italic race were given to the culture of grain,oil and wine; instead of leading that wandering shepherd-life, to which Orientals have ever been so much addicted, and which was undoubtedly therefore a leading feature at the first of Indo-European life in the East. The very names given to the first inhabitants of Italy declare this historic fact; as (Enotria (froni olvog wine) from which the title (Enotrians; and so Opsci and Osci, laborers (ops) and Siculi and Sicani (secare to cut), reapers. The Greek and Latin languages have then a common origin, and possess a comnmon substantive being. The mould and model of the Latin are the more antique in their forms of the two. In the AEolic dialect, in which we have the remains, in general, of the Greek as it wras in its primeval state, it resembles the Latin much more than in its later dialects. In this dialect, the Grmco-Italic or Pelasgic element that forms the common stock of the Greek and Latin languages is found most abundantly, and with the fewest adulterations and additions. The words most distinctly common to the Greek and Latin, are those that thereby show themselves to characterize that period, in which they had a blended life in one common stock. These words relate 52 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF to the domestic animals, the soil, the phenomena of nature, objects of worship, articles of subsistence and implements of industry; or, in other words, to the elements and experiences * of every-day life. In the Attic * Specimens of the correspondence alluded to in the Greek and Latin as well as in Sanskrit. Their sense in Sanskrit. Latin. Greek. English. gaus bos Pfo3s ox avis ovis bi' sheep hansas anser X4v goose asvas equus'ir7ros horse AEol. YKKOS pasu pecu,rov flock sthuras taurus Traupos bull akshas axis &6ov axis a wheel &t/-ata axle saras sal a'xs salt varahas porcus 7r~pKcor pig verres. sukaras sus ous and vs sow svan canis KV'D dog mash mus puis mouse atis anas,i~oa for duck rajata argentum ap'yVpteO silver arbhas orbus bpoavJs orphan damas domus 8dtzos house devas deus OEls& God ajra, from aj ager a&ypds field arv, to divide or arare apov, to plough break up aratrum &poTpo, a plough garhan hortus XYpros garden vinum oelsos wine 1i, to melt oliva kAafa olive oleum ckalov oil lancea Ao'yX77 lance naus (gen. navas) navis vaDT ship remus OpErCOs oar THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 53 dialect, or classic Greek, it departs farthest from the original elements of its common parentage and character. It is in the Greek that we find most of the altered and secondary sounds and forms; while in the Latin they maintain more generally their primitive aspect. At the remotest period, of which we have any historical records concerning the Greek, it had already undergone great changes from its primitive state. In that dark unwritten era, as in " the womb of the morning," the Greek * and Latin dwelt together in their Sanskrit. Latin. Greek. English. pu, to purify poena ro v' punishment (tam, to divide templum.T'/eVor temple prob. root.) from tam-Alas, a knife. TEjVO -- puls 7ro'X'o pulse pish, to bruise pinso 7rr'icOw to bruise or grind mal, to break in mola iuuA7 mill pieces k6kilas cuculus KOKKV~ cuckoo karavas corvus KOp CvP crow ahis anguis'XtS snake ~arabhas carabus Kdpa,80O crab makshiktis musca JAvta gnat grus ypoavos crane --- vespa o7-p wasp fera 77p a wild animal ~karkatas cancer KapKISOS crab aranea a&paXY7 spider * The name Greece was given by the Romans: the vernacular name for the country being HI-ellas and for the people Htellenes. So the Germans, as we call them, are named by the French Les Allemands and by themselves Deutsch. The old Etrusci or Tusci, as they were called by the Romans, denominated themselves Rasena and the Wallachians call themselves Romani: while the Gypsies' name for themselves is 5 54 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF embryo state, yet to be developed into a separate life and activity. This is its Graeco-Latin, Pelasgic, or Archaic period. So much of that great common primitive Grweco-Italic race, as, in overflowing the plains of Greece rested permanently upon them as its abode, soon came, under local influences, to assume a corresponding definite character: determined by their climate, sky, landscape and soil and the habits of life that these necessitated and suggested. The next period of Grecian development was the Hellenic or Classic: covering all the more enlarged and cultivated conditions of Grecian character and society. As the terms, Pelasgic and Hellenic, are commonly used to denote different elementary races; it must be ever borne in mind, that, contrarily, they are used here, to denote only different eras of historic development in the sane identical race. The term Pelasgic accordingly determines the epoch of the first Groeco-Italic emigrations into Greece, and, so, that of its first permanent settlement and of the establishment of its primitive institutions. The term Hellenic separates from this first epoch that subsequent era marked, on the one hand, by the later emigrations of the same Graeco-Italic race from their trans-iEgean homes in Western Asia, when in a more cultivated conditi6n; and also especially by a Sinte. So in southern Africa, as Livingstone informs us, "most of the tribes are known by names applied to them by strangers only, as the Caffres, Hottentots and Bushmen." THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 55 fuller and higher home-development, on the other hand, within the bounds of Hellas itself. By these agencies combined, and by the latter more than the former, the original institutions, habits, ideas and langua.ge 6f primitive Greece were greatly modified and improved. In this second and advanced period of the Greeks, they came to possess a much higher cast of character and style of speech, than ever before. The four dialects, the Aolic, Doric, Ionic and Attic, like the four moons revolving in the sky of Jupiter, appeared also, at this time,.in full view together above the horizon of Greek literature. The iEolic * and Doric dialects, whlich are essentially identical, had their distinct sphere of manifestation in the Pelasgic period; while the Ionic and Attic, which are also, identical in nature, and but different stages and phases of the same improved state of the original Greek language, found their proper native element in the Hellenic period. In the IEolic and Doric dialects, accordingly, the Greek appears in a more plain and homely garb; while in the Ionic and Attic it comes forth in full costume, wearing a robe wrought by many hands into its most artistic and perfect shape. By its own finished excellence the Attic came in the end to be admired, throughout all Greece, as "the perfection of beauty," and to become dominant in the * The LEolic and Doric were far purer in their forms,y in the Pelasgic period, when no Grecian literature existed, than found now to be, in the remains left of them in the Greek writers; all of whom lived in the Hellenic period. 56 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF whole domain of speech, whether uttered or written. By this dialect, as a standard, the deviations of the other dialects, as such, were measured. While the Ionians did not dislike a concurrence of vowels, they rejected the harsh consonantal combinations abounding in the early types of the language; and the Athenians carried the improvement of original forms still farther, by contracting all proximate vowels which would produce an hiatus into one. Could the early history of Asia Minor, in its westernmost borders, be fully written, especially that of Phrygia, Caria and Lydia; we should doubtless find there, in great abundance, the first swelling buds of Grecian growth and greatness. Cyrus found at Sardis (B. C. 550) Croesus dwelling in'great magnificence and in all the luxury of a court, whose power had already culminated after ages of slow national growth, and was indeed beginning to yield to that inevitable law of decay, which all things human, when having reached the acme of their elevation, have hitherto obeyed: the law of inward dissolution: thereby preparing the elements of its own strength to be incorporated anew into the frame of a more vigorous and useful successor. In the GraecoItalic period of European history, the character and condition of those, who, as the primitive inhabitants of Europe, planted the germs of all its subsequent enlargement, are revealed to us. In them and in the armies of Teutonic emigrants that followed them. of the same THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 57 blood and of the same primeval language, we behold our own early ancestors when first entering on the great world-stage of life. For, thanks to philology, we can not only trace our ancestors to England, Germany, France and Rome, but, beyond the boundaries of man's recorded memory where the torch of history fails to cast its light, throughout the long wastes of space and~ time that stretch through Asia, to their first homes in Media and India. Their social life and spirit, their migrations, their victories and defeats are all drawn in living lines and painted in imperishable colors, on the tablets of their different languages. These even Time's effacing fingers have spared to modern eyes. Nowhere are "stubborn facts " more stubborn, than in the department of linguistic ethnography. The IndoEuropean nations generally are, indeed, but a series of colonies of the Arian race, which, in an age long preceding any known dates, spread out itself from its common centre, north and west. The colonies, which formed the northern nations of Europe, probably traversed the regions lying northward of the Caspian; while the nations of southern Europe went through Asia Minor and across the Hellespont or the Bosphorus. Emigration and colonization have ever been marked peculiarities, in the history of this family of nations: emigration in masses from a period beyond the reach of documentary history, down to the present hour. Westward, ever westward for thousands of years, has flowed the living 58 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF tide. In the Hellenic period, whatever the actual amount of immigration was, the tide of colonization set immediately from Ionia in Asia Minor, and, if swelled perhaps to some extent at the same time, incidentally, by kindred elements from Persia, those elements were certainly few and small; while, in the earlier Pelasgic period, the overflow seems to have spread directly from the regions of Media. The only plausible argument, in favor of the supposed influence of Persian elements directly or indirectly, on the form and features of the Hellenic period, is found in the fact of the special resemblance of the classic Greek, in some things, to the Persian both ancient and modern: a resemblance, which its Latin sister, of a more homogeneous Pelasgic constitution, does not at all possess. The resemblances between the Persian and Greek are owing, probably, to phonetic principles common to them both, under similar climatic influences. The Welsh, although a Celtic language, agrees with the Persian phonetically, as much or nearly so at least as does the classic Greek. How often is what is plausible proved to have been only so by wider research. The chief point of correspondence between the Persian and Greek, as also the Welsh, is the general substitution of e h, for s in the Sanskrit, Sanscrit. Zend. Greek. Welsh. sa, she hA ~ hi saptan, seven hapta ET7ra sara, salt aNT halen svar, the sun hvare ~AXos heol sam, with ham 6ua evo THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 59 especially in initial syllables. The induction therefore of facts, in this direction, is not yet sufficiently wide and clear, to make a proper foundation for the statement, that there is any absolute connection between them. On any supposition, the Hellenic development must have been, in all its higher aspects, a matter of home-growth. Its characteristics are all indigenous. Persia had not, until the time of Cyrus (B. c. 560), any high or even distinct character of its own. Under himn the Persians came, by contact with the cultivated nations that he conquered and with the men and institutions of Judea, to receive impressions that awakened in them the consciousness of new wants and the impulse to new activity and enterprise. Donaldson therefore and some few others speak too decisively, of Persian influence upon Grecian progress. As the present German, technically called the New High German, was gradually advanced under the slow action of centuries, by Luther's time, from the original Gothic, as found existing in Ulfilas' translation of the Scriptures (A. D. 380); and is so different from its first beginnings, that a native himself cannot unravel them, without as much close study as if upon a foreign tongue: so, Hellenic Greek was slowly moulded, under the pressure of individual energy, character and experience, by many hands in successive ages, into the grand and elegant proportions, in which it has ever since stood high and firm, as the most finished artistic structure of the elements of 60 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF language, that the world has ever seen. Says Niebuhr: " The Hellenes and Pelasgians were kindred nations; identity of religion and similarity of language connected them with each other. Here we find a fundamental difference and a fundamental relationship, bound together by an inexplicable law." On his theory of a difference of races, the combination is an enigma; but not at all on our theory, that the difference between them was merely a difference in the stages of growth of the same race. Let it then be remembered carefully that the terms Pelasgic and Hellenic simply describe different historic eras of the same people, and not differences at all of national origin. The domain of the Greek language was coextensive with the colonies and conquests of that ever-busy moving people. The term Graecia was applied in fact to two countries: Grwecia Antiqua or Greece Proper, and Grwecia Magna or the south-eastern portion of Italy. For, at a very early day, colonies from Greece crossed the Adriatic, and spread themselves over Lucania, Apulia and Calabria, and covered up ere long in their overflow all traces of the original population and the dialects that they had spoken. But, while the colonists of Magna Graecia contributed largely to the development of Greek literature, the mother-country always wore the crown of intellectual supremacy. Her colonies filled the islands of the AEgean Sea and belted its stores, on both the European and Asiatic coasts, and THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 61 spread even northwards, around the upper and under sides of the Baltic. By the victorious arms also of Alexander, Greek ideas, influences, institutions and minds were planted.over all the East, from Macedonia to the Incus and arouhd about the coast of the Mediterranean to Alexandria in Egypt. To the Greeks the world is indebted for literature, grammar, philosophy and art, beyond any other nation. With the abounding information of scholars concerning Greek literature, and the facile helps at hand everywhere for obtaining it; it is not necessary, of course, to mention in detail the splendid structures of thought, that, with such amazing skill and zeal, they reared for the advantage and admiration alike of all ages. In the Pelasgic period, the Greeks, as was natural in their weakness and amid the rude beginnings of pioneer life, when every thing lay new and unclaimed by others before them, were peaceful and laborious; but, in the Hellenic or more cultivated period, the arts of war sprang up, and commerce and conquest extended the power of Greece in all directions. In the Homeric poems, the oldest monument of the Greek tongue, we see the three leading dialects, the Aiolic, Ionic and Attic, all variously appearing together on the stage. The language was then still, to a great degree, in a transition-state, casting off its old skin and taking on a new one. Homer is as dear to the philologist, as to the poet, presenting a rich array of curiosities and treasures to his delighted gaze; and, all the more, as 62 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF his two great poems stand, not only nearest the first beginnings of Greek nationality, but also by themselves, in solitary sublime splendor in that far-off position. Nor are they ruins: every column of these magnificent structures remains in its place, as whefi set up by his hands, and every line of grace and beauty is as freshly carved and as distinct, as if the artist's spirit were still lingering, responsive to our gaze, within his work. Giese, in his AIEolische Dialekt, draws incidentally a picture of the pre-Hellenic period, in somewhat the same spirit, or style at least, in which geologists describe the pre-Adamite earth, too graphic and interesting to'be lost. In that archaic unhistoric period he says, for substance: "No opposition had grown up, as afterwards, against the consonant F or Digamma, imported from Phoenicia, and the Sibilant S. The half vowel y (Latin i), afterwards wanting, was then in vogue. The vowel-hues of words were not multiplied, as afterwards. The vowel a was the common vowelsound, as in Sanskrit, used in the utterance of all consonantal sounds; which afterward scame to be changed, ill so many cases, into its weaker or stronger cognates *, a, o; and the diphthongs ccat,,t, oz, were but of infrequent occurrence. Consonantal changes were few. The aspirate was not in existence or, if so, only as a consonant. Euphonic mutations were few, being guided by only simple natural principles, of convenience or pleasure; and not, as afterwards, brought to a state of scientific TIE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 63 and artistic elaboration. The rejection of consonants, when final, had not yet grown into extensive use; nor had the principle of assimilation yet become strong. The aspirating influence of a 6 or X on a smooth mute preceding or following it had hardly yet shown itself. So also vowel-contractions, the result of active businesshabits of life and speech and so an after-growth, had not yet occurred to any great extent. The whole subject of case-development was still, in a simple uncomplicated state. Prepositions had not yet come into much use, as helps and additions to case-endings; and, when used, were employed to a great extent adverbially. The demonstrative pronoun had not yet taken on also the aspect of the definite article. The signification of words in ibhis primitive state of the language was, in reference to some classes of them, more specific and, in reference to others, more general than afterwards, when, by the increase of ideas and the multiplication of wants, the same words came to have many more shades of meaning." Secondary meanings and multiform senses of the same words keep ever growing up in any living language, however stable, as the people, who use them as the mediuim of exchange in the world of thought, expand perpetually over a wider area of activity and enlargement. In the description furnished above, of the contrasts that existed in the Pelasgyic and Hellenic periods, though general and brief, the student will find an accurate outline of the style of changes wrought 64 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF in the Greek language, as it became more and more moulded into its final classic form. The Modern living representative of the Greek is the Romnaic or Modern Greek, into which the Ancient Greek has at last dropped, from its Byzantine corruptions; but which much more resembles its progenitor, than the Romanic languages do the Latin. The Modern Greek reigns over substantially the same region, as did the Ancient. It has however so changed from its first form and features, while still remaining as a Guardian Angel in the home of its early splendor, watching the precious relics of the past: that, could the men of elder times rise from the dust to gaze upon its face and figure, they would stand wondering long at its strange appearance. And yet its changes are chiefly those in its mere outward aspect. The old visage soon reveals itself again, to an eye that keeps looking inquiringly after it. It is Greek still, that the dwellers of the Peloponnesus and Hellas and Epirus and Thessaly and Macedonia and Thrace, although called now by other names, yet speak. The peculiarities of Modern Greek are various. The tendency of the ancient Greek, to exalt the deep u-sound of other languages to the high i-sound, as in the French u and German ue, has not only been kept in Modern Greek, but extended also to other vowels as yj, -t, and or: /8 is pronounced nearly as our v and y like y, except before a and o where it is sounded as gh, and be THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 65 fore ce, e and t where it is pronounced as y: a is sounded nearly like dh and; like our z. In the Albanian, the probable representative of a more primitive Illyrian, spoken along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, we have a language, which seems to resemble both it and the Latin in combination, and to have grown up, as a seedling, in that primitive GraecoItalic period, in which neither the Greek nor Latin had any distinct, separate existence: a living specimen of the primeval language of Southern Europe, retaining still its first identity unimpaired. It resembles of course the Latin much more than the Hellenic Greek. It contains also a few Gothic words, as a memorial of the incursions made upon their fathers by that fierce tribe of warriors, who, under Alaric, swooped down in the fifth century upon them from the North, and devoured them and all their resources throughout northern Epirus. And, so, also in succeeding centuries (the seventh, eighth and ninth), Slavonian tribes, the Bulgarians and Servians, made irruptions upon them: as human wolves have, in all ages, delighted to prey upon weak defenceless lambs; and they have left many proofs, in the names of places as well as in the ordinary staple elements of the language itself, that they came not in vain out of their forest-lairs: while yet the evidence is equally clear, in the relatively small impression that they made upon the language, as a whole, that they found the Epirotes a brave people, who knew well how to 66 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF cover, by their arms, their altars and their fires from the approach of invaders. So, also, while the Albanian tongue contains in itself many signs of commercial contact, at different times and to different degrees, with various people, as the Germans, Swedes, Danes, English, Turks and others, yet, in respect to this class of disturbing influences, the great staple substratum of its words' remains still homogeneous and unique. The Albanians'4 call themselves Skipetars, or mountaineers. There are different dialects of the Albanian, which is also called the Arnautic; as of every other language that has stretched over much space or over much time: the two principal ones, the Geghian or Northern and the Toskian or Southern, prevailing, the former in the regions of northern Illyria, and the latter in Epirus. Every thing new pertaining to the Albanians, as to the Celts, is hailed with special delight by philologists, on account of their connection, genetically, with the old Illyrian stock of the earliest settlers of Greece. * A view of some Albanian correspondences with the Greek: Albanian. Greek. Albanian. Greek. 1. viL 1. es7 for Zv; 1. r6ps rpc6ro; 2. Al 2. dRo 2. dire cEt67po; 3. rpi 3. TrpEE 3. rpres rpirog 4. Kdrep 4. r'rrapc; 4. Karzp7c rcrrapro; 5. 7reae 5. 7rEvre 5. rTa[re 7rpT1rro; So compare also Albanian, Greek. Latin. arirep, over. Vnr7,7 super. KivrT a hundred. fzarl', centum. 7rag, afterwards. 07rtaOr, post. TIHE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 67 Schleicher's fivefold division of the historical epochs of the Greek language, deserves a record and notice here: I. The Classic period; and this in two portions. 1st. That of the contemporaneous flowering forth of the different dialects in full vigor: from Homer to Pindar. 2d. That of the Attic dialect, when fully triumphant. II. The Alexandrine period, in which " the Common Greek" became evolved out of the Attic. III. The Roman period. IV. The Byzantine, after the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, at which time its forms were much bruised and broken. As Byzantium was called New Rome, the New Greek cane to be denoninated the Romaic, as it is often termed now. V. The strictly and fully New Greek period since 1453. The primitive ancestors of the Indo-European nations, whether in their original eastern home or their subsequent western one, were evidently but little advanced in the arts of life. They were probably, as says Prichard, " ignorant of the use of iron and other metals, since the terms used to denote them are fundamentally different in their various languages; and must therefore, it would seem, have been adopted subsequently to the era of the individual languages de 68 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF rived from the parent stock. What could be more unlike, than Xov6S, aurum and gold or c6voos, ferrum and iron." The use of letters was also entirely unknown to the Arian nations, to those at least which passed into Europe; and it was introduced among them, in long after ages, by the Phoenicians. The physical aspects of Greece and of Hindfistan were widely various; and great indeed was the contrast of their influence, as well as of that of their different climates, upon the generations of men that were brought, from age to age, into inevitable connection with them. Within the Arian horizon of the IndoEuropean mind, were immense mountains, mighty rivers, impassable forests, inextricable jungles and boundless deserts, with all the fervors of a tropical climate, its tempests, its wild beasts and its pestilences. Under such a constant series of lessons about the natural impotence of man, with such awe-inspiring and terrific shadows ever resting on his bosom, from the gigantic forms of nature by which he was surrounded, is it strange that, in the barren feeble state of heathenism, the Indo-European mind succumbed, in India, to the force of surrounding influences, and lay prostrate in conscious weakness at the feet of Fate. How different a realm for the growth of that divinely-gifted style of mind, was Greece! Its coasts furnished abundant points of departure for all the world beside: its rivers were short and narrow; its mountains, though many, THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 69 were small: large enough to stand like closed gates in the way of hurricanes from the sea and of pestilences from abroad, as well as to furnish many a secret home for Liberty, sweet Mountain-Nymph; but not large enough to for ever remind men of their littleness and baffle all their aspirations of enterprise and hope. In India the lesson ever thundered in a heathen's ear by Nature so misinterpreted by him, was fear, despondency, helplessness; while, in Greece, the lesson read was hope, courage, effort. Whenever Christianity shall have the opportunity, to interpret rightly the great lessons of Nature in India: Christianity,'with her eye of faith and voice of prayer and songs of praise even in the night: -Nature will be found there as everywhere, to be man's helper on earth and his guide to Heaven. In some parts of the earth, the deep and solemn base of her wondrous diapason is struck; while in others only the lighter notes are heard; but all unite, each in its proper way, in grand chorus in the universal Hymn of " Glory to God in the highest." If G-od be left out of the human heart or nature is thought of as unoccupied by Him, discord is introduced at once into the vision of His works, and their influence, as felt upon the heart in such a way, is only perverted and evil. The advocates of intensely materialistic views of human history, like Buckle, forget in their great over-estimate of the normal action of nature upon man, that national development everywhere but in Europe, where it has 6 70 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF been most free in its spirit and most grand in its proportions, has occurred only in circumstances where not only no preparation was made within, in the states and forces of the mind, for its real greatness or goodness, but, on the contrary, every possible energy was framed and set in motion, to prevent a divine result. 2d. The Italic Family. Three distinct races originally peopled Italy, namely: the Iapygian, Etruscan and Italian. In later times Carthaginian arms, ideas and influences swept over Sicily, where Greek colonies had previously planted the institutions and customs of their native land, as also over all southern Italy; while in northern Italy on either side of the Po, in Cisalpine Gaul, men of Celtic blood were rioting on the abundance of what was then, and has been ever since, the garden of Italy. In Magna Graecia, at the lower end of Italy, the Greek was spoken, as, in Gallia Cisalpina at the upper end, a Gallic idiom was spoken; but, in the north especially, no such foreign idiom was cherished with hereditary interest and perseverance, as a badge of national distinction or affection. In the extreme part of southeastern Italy, a considerable number of inscriptions has been found, whose language is essentially different from that of all the other dialects of the land. It possesses, like the Greek, the aspirated consonants. Its genitive forms aihi and ihi answer to the Sanskrit asya and Greek o0o, and indicate its origin, although not yet THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 71 itself deciphered, to be quite certainly Indo-European. These inscriptions are regarded as Iapygian; and the race that spoke it are believed also'to have prevailed at an early date in Apulia. As the emigrations of masses are, at the first, always landward; since seaward movements presuppose too great a knowledge of navigation, for the first barbarous periods of history; and as the Iapygians occupied the outermost verge of the peninsula, it is natural to suppose that they constituted the first race, that ever came from the East into Italy. Like the Celts, dwelling at last on the flanks of Western Europe, they were pushed farther and farther from their first resting-place, by each successive tide of emigration behind them, until they became lodged in the wilds and fastnesses of Messapia and Calabria, to be driven from these their last homes, rocky and ocean-bound, no more. As to the Etruscans, it is a question of much doubt among scholars, what was the origin of this ancient and interesting tribe. Donaldson* has a theory on the sub* All praise to Donaldson, who is both learned and ingenious, for his efforts to unveil to English eyes the charms of the new and delightful science of classical philology. But since, in the absence of higher and truer standards in this department of study in our language, many are disposed to look, with false confidence and even admiration, to him f6r light; it seems well to caution alike the novice and the general student of language, to remember that whatever in Donaldson is general, and so lies within the field of this science at large, deserves acceptance from him as it would at the hands of any other good compiler or system-maker; but that whatever is distinctly Donaldsonian is of rather suspicious value. 72 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ject, which he utters, like every thing else of his own invention, with great assurance. He regards the Etruscan languagd as in part a Pelasgian idiom, more or less corrupted by the Umbrian, and in part a relic of the oldest Low-German or Scandinavian dialects. They were composed, accordingly, in his view, of two main elements as a people, namely: Tyrrheno-Pelasgians, more or less intermixed with Umbrians and Raetians or Low-Germans: the former prevailing in the South, and the latter, in the north-western parts of Etruria. But the origin of the Tuscans, notwithstanding this bold analysis of their elementary constitution as a people, still remains an unresolved enigma. The alphabet of the Etruscan language is an archaic form of the Hellenic. While its grammatical structure, so far as yet ascertained, is manifestly Indo-European, there are so many and so great variations in the types of its words, as to have quite baffled all attempts hitherto at an accurate lexical analysis of their nature. The mystery will undoubtedly be unravelled in future years, as new discoveries shall be made of ancient inscriptions not yet disclosed to our view. It is certainly one of the many marvels of our day, that so much of the minute full history of the past has been recovered to modern eyes, from records buried for safe keeping under ground too deeply to be found and clawed up by any of the vengeful conquerors of the past, whose vulture-hearts would eagerly have pounced upon such THE INDOJEUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 73 prey. The East is full of such unopened piles of the treasured past; and so is Southern Italy. But as grammatical correspondence is the great test of relationship between languages, we are safe, whatever discoveries may be hereafter made concerning it, in assigning definitely to the Etruscan a place, although not one of high honor on account of its mixed and barbarous style of structure, in the Indo-European family. In respect to the heterogeneousness of its lexical elements, it is worth remarking that some languages mix much more evenly together than others; and that the style of modern lingual development, generally, is very much more mixed than in ancient days, as the nations of the worlcld themselves mingle in peaceful intercourse more widely with each other. Whatever language it was that entered into combination with the original staple elements of the Etruscan, it must have been of a wild uncultivated sort, as the resulting product is at best but an unsightly hybrid. The stock of words incorporated from the Etruscan into the Latin tongue, was exceedingly small: not more numerous than the supply of Chinese words in English. They are such as balteus* a girdle, cassis a helmet, lituus an augur's staff, and Lart a household god: all but the last names of special instruments. * English belt. t Scotch laird, and English lord or lady, in respect to which last compare, for form, dame and darn, (French, dame) with domina and dominus. 74 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Some peculiarities serving to identify and isolate their language, as a separate branch of the Indo-European family, are these: 1. They had none of the medial mutes (b, g, d.) Hence they substituted the smooth mutes for them, in their equivalent forms of the Greek words in which they occurred, as in Tute for Tv'6v;, Utuze for 306vdvz;s, Melakre for MeJ&ayo;. 2. They frequently changed smooth mutes into rough, as in Atresthe and Thethis, Tuscan forms of "'%ACearo; and Ortg. The Italian race occupied the central part of Italy. From this race that large peninsula obtained its name and character. They were at the outset its great leading race, and became ere long the conquerors of Italy and subsequently of, the world. In them we see the great Western home-growth, in a separate form, of the same Grmco-Italic people which swarmed in the Pelasgic period from the East into Europe: a large fragment of which remained behind in Greece, and became so greatly enlarged, refined and beautified in the Hellenic period, by the aid also of successive emigrations, from the more cultivated regions of the eastern coast of the AEgean. These successive emigrations none of them reached Italy, to overlay the broad and rugged proportions of her pioneer colonization, as in Greece, with richer and deeper elements of national advancement. The home-growth of the Greek off-shoot of the common original GrTeco-Italic stock, was maintained THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 75 constantly under the powerful ministry of the most quickening and enlarging influences ever flowing in upon it, in both its nascent and formative state. The home-growth, on the contrary, of the twin Italic offshoot of the same parent stock, was perfected entirely by itself and with none of the overflow of a higher civilization, from age to age, upon it serving to enrich the soil upon which it was planted. The two principal branches of the Italic race, when defined by a distinct growth of their own into fixed proportions, were the Latin and the Umbrian, which last includes also the Marsi and the Samnites or Oscans. The more deeply investigators penetrate into the different dialects of this race, the more closely do they find them to be connected with the Latin. While the remains of the Umbrian are very scanty, those of the Samnite or Oscan dialects are more abundant. Samnium, the home of the Oscans, is but a contraction of Sabiniumn, the land of the Sabines. The vowel-system of the Oscan dialect, as is evident from many inscriptions, was preserved much more intact than that of the Latin or Umbrian. Final consonants also were less mutilated. The locative case maintained its position, while the ablative kept its original d final; and the dative and accusative adhered much more closely to their primitive type, than in the other dialects. The Latin itself is, contrary to the once prevailing idea of its composite character, a simple, unmixed language like 76 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF the Greek: as they are also each a distinct and strongly individualized demonstration under different influences, of the same original common tongue. In the Oscan and Umbrian dialects we see what the Latin must have originally been, before taking on any separate laws of development of its own. Of the Volscian and Marsian dialects we have hardly sufficient traces, to be able to classify them with certainty. Of the Sabine, here and there a solitary ray shines glimmering in provincial Latin. The Latin stands, related to all this Umbro-Samnite class of special dialects, as in Greek the Ionic to the Doric dialect; while the differences of the Oscan and Umbrian and their allied dialects may be compared with those of the Doric dialect, as found in the two regions of Sicily and Sparta. These different Italic dialects all point to their original union in one parent stem, in possessing as they do not only many roots in common, but also many exactly identical words; while their flexional forms also agree in the mode of their structure. The peculiarities which individualize this whole family of dialects, as a distinct branch of the Indo-European stock of languages, are worthy of notice. They are such as these: Aspirates were not originally favorite with themn, while with the Greeks and Etrrscans they were. The finer breath-sounds, s, v, y, which the Greeks dclisliked,'they cherished. Sibilants, indeed, constitute a markled feature of the old Italian languages. THIE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 77 Consonants they maintained at the end of a word with firmness. By the retrogressive tendency of their principles of accentuation in inflected and compound words, end-syllables were weakened and shortened in Latin, much more than in Greek. Vowels,* accordingly, at the end of words, except in flexion-endings where they form diphthongs or represent contracted forms, are short. The ingenious and compact mechanism of the Greek, in the preparation of the different tense-forms by prefixes, suffixes, vowel-substitutions and various consonantal changes, was unknown to them. The different tensestems were formed, by compounding with the tleme of the verb the auxiliary roots —es t and-fu. The dual + number, both in the noun and verb, was rejected as superfluous. The ablative which was lost in Greek, was here retained; while the sense of the original Sanskrit locative was also engrafted on it frequently, and * Hence the rules of prosody, that a and e final are short; while i final in the second declension (being contracted from Sanskrit sya in the genitive and in the plural nom. from Sansk. as) and also u final in the ablative (contracted from -ud, the original Latin ablative suffix) are long. t Es, as in sum (for esumi); Greek Eo-, as in ELtIO (for E'cr-L); Sanskrit as. as in asmi, I am: is the base of one of the two verb-forms signifying to be, which run through the whole range of the IndoEuropean languages; while the other is in Latin fu; in Greek, rSv (as in q5co), and in Sanskrit, bhu; English, be; Anglo-Saxon, beo; German, bin. + Mommsen describes this in a quaint way. He says, literally translated, that: the strong logic of the Italians seems to have found no reason for splitting the idea of moreness into twoness and muchness." 78 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF so preserved with much more distinctness as a case than in Greek. The substantive-development also of the verb in the gerund, was peculiar to the Latin. The Latin and Umbrian have been spoken of, as being closely related to each other. They are indeed; and yet they are quite distinct from each other in many of their forms. The most important remains, now left of the Umbrian, are the seven Eugubine bronzed tablets discovered in ancient Iguvium, now called Gubbio, whence their name. The greater part of them is written in an old native alphabet from right to left, and was probably prepared about 400 B. C.; while the rest appears in the Roman alphabet, and is of a date, as is supposed, of about 200 years afterwards. The phonetic value of the same letters was greatly changed, during so short a period in the language. The ancient Latin and old Umbrian mutually explain many of each other's differences and difficulties. In the Umbrian the Latin q appears as p, as in pis * for quis who, and nep for neque nor. In the Samnite the genitive of words in us, is-eis, in the Umbrian —es, and in Latin-i f for -is In the Umbrian r and h are of much more fre* Cf, for a similar interchange of the labial and guttural, E'roatc and tLrrrog AEol.'KKO), with sequor and equus (pronounced originally as if sekor and ekus); also Ionic KOlOV and Kdrepor with the Attic wroor and ro-repos and Latin quinque (pronounced by the Latins kinke) with 7revre, fire. In quispiam for quisquam, and nempe for namque, we have specimens of Umbrianized Latin. t Dominus, gen. domini was originally domino-s, gen. domino-is; dat. domino-i, &c. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 79 quent occurrence than in Latin. R is used, not only in the conjugation and declension of the verb as in Latin, but also in the declensions of nouns in different cases; while in Latin, except in nouns whose root ends in r, it is found only in the genitive plural. The Umbrians did not like 1 and b: never using 1 at the beginning of a word or b at the end. Terminations also in the Umbrian were greatly mutilated or destroyed. But in the retention of the locative and of the genitive suffix-s in the different declensions, the Umbrian presents itself before us, as having some resemblances to the older members of the Indo-European family, that are more antique than even those of the Latin. The Umbrians occupied in ancient times the northern half of Italy, from the Tiber to the Po; and spread southerly in their course, along the Apennines upon their eastern slope. The Latin race extended in the same direction, along the western borders of Italy. The Romans called their own language Latin. Its designation as Roman, is not found in any author earlier than Pliny, and in him but once in a poem in his " Natural History." The Latins early covered the ground from the Tiber to the Volscian mountains; and from the names of places already existing there, they seem to have occupied Campania before the Samnite or Hellenic irruption into it. Latium proper occupied but a small district between the Tiber, the Apennines, Mount Alba and the sea, and was situated on a broad 80 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF plain, as the name itself (latus) seems to indicate. This plain is surrounded on every side by mountains, except where it is bounded by the Tiber and the sea. It is level on an extended view; but,when surveyed in detail, it is found to be broken up into many unevennesses filled with innumerable little pools, which, from want of a sufficient watershed for drainage, breed in summer now as in ages past a fatal malaria, which overhangs its plains for months together, breeding disease and death, And yet on this narrow plain, with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other: such surroundings as environed also the Grecian mind: was to appear a race which should conquer the world by arms, as the Hellenes had by arts; and long after it had lost its civil power, should yet hold in its iron grasp the souls of men over all the earth: a race that in one form or another was destined to leave its impress on every people and every individual, every hamlet and every institution, in the civilized world. In this narrow space as their native home, the Roman eagles nestled and grew to greatness for almost a thousand years; and when those eagles ceased to appear in all the earth, there came forth in their stead from that same breeding-place of wonders, where it still lives and riots in its work of ruin, a scarlet-colored beast having seven heads and ten horns, bearing a woman drunk with the blood of saints and trampling upon the necks of prostrate kings and princes. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 81 The climate of Latium is fitted to arouse the physical energies, and to induce an active busy restless style of life. It traverses a wide range of temperature throughout the year, and frequently in either direction through every point of the scale from the highest to the lowest degree, as in our North American atmosphere, in a few hours. The heats in summer are intense by day and at sunset are exchanged, as in our northern States, for a dewy and chilled state of the atmosphere that keeps rapidly cooling down for some hours. In the true season for out-door life, every thing around and above seems bright and exhilarating. Ethnology and philology thus maintain, in all countries, the closest possible connections with climatology. Indeed, as, on the bosom of a quiet summer stream, all the trees and herbage of the bank are seen mirrored in clear corresponding perspective, so, in the poetry and not in this only but also in the very history, character and language of each people, the skies and seas, the hills and dales, the flora and fauna, the mists and shades, the lights and heats and airs of surrounding nature are reflected. Man is deeply and tenderly receptive of her influence; and at the basis of all just interpretations of different national developments, viewed as historical problems, lies rightly understood a true,philosophic, divinely ordained materialism. It is, in other words, amid different types of nature that God 82 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF casts, as in a mould, the different mental types of mankind. Rome itself was situated on the Tiber, chiefly on its eastern bank. Down to the times of the Emperor Aurelian, it was built on seven hills; and from his time to the present it has extended over ten. It was, like the other great cities of ancient times, built for the sake of safety from invasion by water, at a little distance from the sea. To the Romans the world is indebted, beyond any other nation, for the principles of law and order and for the whole frame-work of organized social life. The Roman mind as instinctively tended towards mechanism in every thing, as a salt under appropriate chemical influences does to crystallization. The syntactical structure, accordingly, of the Latin, is as sharp, definite and uniform in its angles, as the laws of crystallogeny themselves would demand a given crystal always to be. The language itself is of a harder nmaterial, than the Greek. Its characteristics are gravity, solidity and energy; while those of the Greek are a wonderful vitality, elasticity, individuality and permanency. The Latin, by the greater contact of its people with other men, as they penetrated with their victories and their laws among them, while giving out everywhere its own light and heat to all parts of the conquered world, received in return an impress which was never left upon the more mobile Greek, from the THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 83 other languages whose tides of influence it encountered. The Greek had several beautiful dialects of its own, which blossomed in strong native luxuriance on its shores in the days.of its power, like so many differently colored flowers on one parent stem; while in modern times it appears only in a single variety of the original stock, the modern Greek. Not so however with the Latin, which at the first stood alone in its own simple majesty without division or diversification, but has since, under the combined action of many influences, burst forth into an almost wild variety of forms, in the different languages of modern times. The Latin language, as we have it, is far more unaltered and ancient in its features than the classic or Hellenic Greek; yet it must not be forgotten, that while the ultimate roots remained the same the forms themselves of the original words* were so altered in the Augustan age, that is, in the classic or golden age * It will interest the classical reader to see a specimen or two of old Latin: 1. From the laws of Numa (700 B. c.): Sei qui hemonem lmbesum dolo sciens mortei duit, pariceidas estod. This is in classical Latin: Si quis hominem liberum dolo sciens morti dederit parricida esto. 2. A Tribunitian law (493 B. c.): Sei qui aliuta faxit, ipsos Iovei sacer estod, et sei qui im, quei eo plebi scito sacer siet ocisit, pariceidas ne estod. That is: Si quis aliter fecerit ipse lovi sacer esto; et si quis eum qui eo plebis scito sacer sit occiderit, parricide ne sit. 3. An inscription on L. Scipio's tomb (20G B. c.): Hone oinom ploirume consentiont Romanei duonorum optimom fuise virom. That 84 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF of Roman literature, as to require, for the right comprehension even of the scholars of that day, special helps and explanations. The oldest specimens of Latin literature that we have do not date farther back than 200 years before Christ; and in the 6th century after Christ, the Latin became extinct as the vernacular of the people of Italy. Even English as it was 300 years ago, or in the times of Shakspeare 250 years since, is very much of it unintelligible without a glossary; and this, with all the power of types and of the press to hold fast thecz,u ro(oEvr-c of modern speech. Even in the time of its highest culmination in the Augustan age, the Latin of the provinces was different fronm that of Rome itself; as that of the rural districts also was from that of the provincial municipalities. Indeed the Latin spoken by the masses was essentially a different idiom from that of the written classical Latin of the polished literary circles of Rome. The Latin was brought under the power of grammatical and critical culture, at a much later period than the Greek. In the progress of its growth it absorbed, in the south of Italy, some G-reek idioms and in the north some Celtic: resolving them into the elements of its own greater enlargement. The triumph of Roman arms was followed always by the march of the Roman language, literature, is: Hune unum plurimi consentiunt Romani bonorum optimum fuisse virum. So we find in the old Latin loidus for ludus, oiti for uti and quoius for cujus. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 85 laws and institutions in their train. Like a stream of lava the flood of living influences pressed with irresistible force, sweeping every thing before it, into France and Spain and even into the fastnesses of Germany, and as far as to the distant shores of England and Scandinavia on the north, and the wilds of Sarmatia on the east: dissolving every thing in its way, or, at least leaving the signs of its fiery force on the crisped and altered forms of things, wherever it went. And yet the receptive, susceptible or passive side of Roman character, was almost as remarkable as its aggressive. The hard and stern elements of its genius and language were slow to receive impressions from without; but they were also equally slow, when having received, to relinquish them. The Latin accordingly not only degenerated at an early period in the provinces from its pure form, but also ere long settled down everywhere, even as the language of the learned in matters of State, Science and the Church, into what is called the Middle Latin. This phrase, like that of the Middle Ages covering substantially the same interval of time, is used to mark that transition-period in which the spoken Latin, wavering in form between its original pure state and- the several dialectic aspects which it subsequently assumed in the different Romanic languages, possessed the elements of both the old and the new in combination, without the determinate preference which was afterwards given to the new. This degenerate form of 7 86 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF the spoken Latin never became popularized, on the one hand; nor was it ever wrought into artistic shape, on the other, by scholars, but remained a heterogeneous compound of Latin, Gracco-Roman and Germano-Roman elements. In schools, and especially cloisters, classical Latin was still cherished as a dear favorite of the past, whose voice seemed to them, like that of a sweet bird, flying down through the ages and singing as it flew. It found, like the sparrow, a nest for itself among the altars of God's house; and in the twelfth century, its song was heard again everywhere in the open air, in the sacred church-hymns of the times, as of a bird uncaged and at home once more in its native element, full of freedom and of joy. It was in the tenth and eleventh centuries that the Latin was, as a spoken language, in the greatest possible state of ruin; and it was the energetic pressure of the German mind from the north, that most of all broke the weak ties which then held its elements together. Modern civilization is the combined result of the ideas, institutions and influences, contained in four great providential manifestations of national life and character: the Jewish, Greek, Roman and German; in which category although the German be last it is far from least. It is impossible to comprehend either the history of the past or the philosophy of the present, without a full acquaintance with German history which, strange to say, has been more neglected in this THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 87 country hitherto than any other history. But the marks of German might and mind lie deep and strong over all the languages of southern, as well as of northern Europe. When from the chaos of the Middle Ages the upheaval of modern society commenced, and the present nations of Europe began to exhibit in growing outline the general proportions, which they have since so distinctively assumed; the different Romanic languages, under the combined action of various local influences with the ever present influence of Rome, came to be severally enucleated. These afterwards grew up under the same influences in which they germinated, into separate well-defined forms, each beautiful in its kind, to cover with their different degrees of upward and outward expansion, as with a friendly shadow, the ruined greatness of their parent Latin stock, when it fell to lie forever prostrate under the hand of Time. Each of the five Romanic dialects, the Italian, Wallachian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, presents a different resemblance to its mother language, according to the quantity and quality of the alloy with which the Latin element in each is mingled. Each of them has specially preserved some separate cardinal characteristic of the old native stock, which it has kept with jealous care, as a precious proof of its original parentage. The Italian has still in possession its fulness of form and sweetness of tone: the Spanish has appropriated to it 88 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF self its majesty and dignity, and the Portuguese its soft and tender strokes and touches: the French, on the contrary, best exhibits its elements of vivacity and its practical business-qualities, and therefore like it abounds in abbreviations and contractions, and is full of martial fire and energy; while the Wallachian has kept most of the old national disposition, to appropriate and assimilate extraneous influences and elements to itself. Each of these different languages has its different spoken dialects; although only the standard one in each ever shows its front, in the sacred precincts of literature. Our modern languages are all, except the German, full of the most various mixtures. These mixtures in the European languages are of course all between those of the same Arian origin; and usually indeed languages of the same immediate family coalesce more readily, than those which are unrelated or but distantly related; as fruits may be made to grow most readily, when grafted on trees that are homogeneous in the style of their seeds. In the Modern Persian, indeed, we have a mixture of Iranian (the Old Persian) and Semitic (the Arabic); while, in the Turkish, there is a mixture of the Persian and Arabic with the original stock of the language itself, involving (and it is the only specimen of the kind in the whole circle of the languages) a combination of Indo-European, Semitic and Turanian elements in one. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 89 A general view of the introduction of Germanic influences and elements into the Romanic languages is desirable, for a proper comprehension of their real constitution, and will, it is believed, be more satisfactory in such a form than if broken up into separate details, under the treatment of each different language by itself. The German conquest of the Roman provinces occurred in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, except that of Wallachia, where Gothic arms had long before made their power felt. In Italy, in the middle of the fifth century (A. D. 476-493), the brief supremacy of the Heruli passed, like a swift thunder-cloud, over the country, leaving only a temporary desolation in its track. Then came the Ostrogoths, who for 66 years (A. D. 494-560) ruled Italy with a rod of iron; and afterwards for 200 years (A. D. 568-774) the Lombards. The Lombardic dialect was, as is manifest from some of its relics, Old High German in the type of its consonantal structure. The Lombards began their wanderings in the course of the fourth century, from the northern shores of Germany and from Scandinavia, and, after many various adventures with the Bulgarians, Heruli, Gepidae, Huns and Goths, settled quietly down in Pannonia, whence afterwards, under Alboin the 11th of their kings (A. D. 568),. they marched into Italy and founded a kingdom, which endured, until overthrown by the Franks under Charle 90 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF magne, and left behind an enduring memorial of itself, in the name Lombardy, still given to the richest portion of northern Italy.* In the beginning therefore of the sixth century a Gothic kingdom was established in Italy, as also in Spain; and in Spain the succession of Gothic kings became (A. D. 531) elective. As Spain had been in earlier days traversed and scourged and conquered in different parts of her territory, by so many various races, as the Celts, Carthaginians and Romans: so, in connection with the great invasion of southern Europe from the north, race after race from the ever-swarming hive of G-ermany swept over the face of this then fair land, eager for the pleasures and prizes of conquest. In the beginning of the fifth century, we find the Suevi in full possession of Modern Gallicia, Asturia,Leon and a part of Lusitania, as well as the region formerly held on the east by Carthaginian arms; while in the south are the Vandals resting for a little while, only to gather strength for a still more vigorous movement onwards, conquering every thing before them as they spread beyond over the regions of northern Africa. In the north-east of Spain lay at the same time the Visigoths; hovering like a dark cloud, which, though appearing to the rest of the land at the time as but a little fleck of darkness in the distant horizon, was destined ere long to envelop the whole peninsula in its folds of gloom and terror. * Grimm's Geschichte, pp. 473-485. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 91 The German irruption into Gaul bore away every thing like an overflowing flood, then upon the soil, except the Latin language; so firmly established at that time over the people after so many centuries of Roman conquest and jurisdiction, and in itself so superior as the language of civilization, even in the eyes of the fierce northern conquerors as well as of the conquered; and which therefore maintained itself both in Church and State, as a beacon-light upon a high firm rock, unshaken amid all the swell of military commotions, in its place. And, as here in our own age the great peaceful German immigration, which is ever flowing in upon us, is constantly absorbed and assimilated to our common English type of language and of customs; so, in France slowly but surely the prevailing numbers and institutions of the country brought about, together with the advantages of a comparatively high civilization even in the hands of a conquered race, the final absorption of the new German element although an invasive one, into the grand all-comprehending unity of Roman life and law and language. The Roman type of social fixtures and usages was such, that its moulds were firm enough without, to receive any amount of fiery martial overflow into them, without breaking under the pressure, and sharp enough within, to make the cooling mass distinctively of its own pattern. By the year 486 the Franks had become masters of the greater part of Gaul. The first of the German tribes who were con 92 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF verted to the Christianity of the Catholic Church, was the Franks; and it was by this similarity of faith, that these German conquerors were most of all amalgamated with the older inhabitants of the land; as the development indeed of the new European nations, generally, was effected everywhere in the same way.* In the beginning of the fifth century, the south-western part of Gaul was in the possession of the Visigoths: the southeastern part, of the Burgundians and the northern of the Franks: all Germanic tribes. Over the slow deliquescence of the German from its new home on Gallic soil and its final disappearance there, a veil of historic darkness rests, which has at least the advantage of hiding from modern eyes the offensive process of its dissolution. But "the position is not too bold," says Diez,t " that the German continued to be used in France, up to the division of the Carolingian kingdom (A. D. 840); and in the north, taking the song of victory of King Louis III. over the Normans (881) as a voucher, up to the end of the ninth century: which would make the time of its duration in Gaul from four to five hundred years. Long'after the German conquest the Byzantine armies tramped, fromn time to time, over lower Italy and Sicily and southern Spain; and yet no considerable mixture of people of different blood occurred in such a way. * Gieseler's Ecc. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 131 —3. t Diez' Grammatik, p. 63. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 93 The composition accordingly of the Romanic tongues is one, formed in the main of these staple elements: Classical or Pure Latin, Middle Latin, Graeco-Romanic and Germano-Romanic words. The Middle or corrupted Latin is, like the original or proper Latin itself, a very large element of all the Romanic languages. This was the common spoken dialect or patois, out of whose elements as their bases, those forms which arose in the times of Charlemagne and afterwards were generated. The great mass also of common unclassical Latin, existing in the language before the age of the Middle Latin, has a representation of itself, and that not inconsiderable, among these languages. Many of the forms also ranked under the Middle Latin, were but mere contractions of fuller classical or Greek forms of words: as cosinus (French and English cousin) of consobrinus; and colpus (Ital. colpo, French coup) of x6)~clpo; while not a few of the remainder were simply Latinized forms of words adopted from other languages, or forced into the speech of the Romanic races, by the busy or rough contact of the surrounding nations with them. Great care is needed, in tracing Byzantine-Greek originals in the Middle Latin. Appearances of resemblance occur, at times, which are but appearances and entirely fortuitous; and as Latin and Greek were primarily of one immediate united origin, words even at so late a period may seem many of them to have been 04 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF borrowed, which yet are as much vernacular to the one, as to the other. Like the principles of the common law, living of themselves unwatched and growing fresh and strong, without any of the trellises of statutory regulation or recognition to support them, beneath and around all the formalities of special legislation: so these words, never having shown themselves before on the high points of literary demonstration, may have yet kept, on the plane of thought and feeling lying below it, a fresh green life perpetually of their own. It is as true in etymological and ethnographic relations, as in other things, that "fools rush in where angels dare not tread."* * Specimens of the different classes of elements to be found in the Romanic languages besides pure Latin: I. Of ante-mediceval unclassical Latin. Latin. Italian. Spanish. French. English. badius, brown bajo bayo bai bay Bassus, Prop. name, Cf. basso bas base 8aOic, Comp. Baoac-ov. beber, for fiber bevero bibaro bievre beaver r cavalry cavalier caballus, a nag cavallo caballo cheval i chvalier } chevalier chivalry capulum, a rope cappio cable cable cable camisia, a shirt camicia camisa chemise chemise cambiare, to exchange cangiare cambiar changer change confortare (con-fortis) confortare conhortar conforter comfort carricare, to load carcare cargar charger cargo cargo gabalum, a cross gable gable grossus, thick grosso grueso gros gross pretiare, to put a price on prezzare preciar priser prize Sapius, wise, for Sapiens saggio sabio sage sage THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 95 struppus, a band stroppolo estrovo etrope strap unio (from unus) unione oignon onion vidulus, a knapsack valigia valise valise II. Of Greeco-Romanic elements: Greek. Latin. Italian. Spanish. French. English. Baanp/Eirev biasimare blAmer blame (bourse a ski tbursa bors bolsa bourse (disburse purse 7rvpyos burgus borgo burgo bourg burgh ~ v y~ lonza onza once ounce Ka/nI7, j gamba amba be jamb a flexure amon am ham KAaoes colaphus. and copo golpe coup 7riga Ietium pezzo pieza piece piece (spatha, a broad tspataol or sword..spada espada ep6e spade a-0~ i tool or sword. j spathula, shoulsth oder blade. 3spalla espalda epaule epaulet (parable rapaoa3,i parabola parola palabra. parle palaver parler 1 parole L parlance avplul emery smeriglio esmeril emeri emery rpvdav, to bore trapan trepanar trepaner trepan rioos, smoke tufo tufo to suffocaer } tufa trica anr tresses opit, hair terza, plait- treccia tresse trick ed hair. III. Of Germano-Romanic elements: German. Middle Latin. Italian. Spanish. French. English. bauen, to build. bosky Old German boscus a bosco bosque bois bush Buisc, build- wood bush ing material. J ambush brennen, to burn brown,lit. bruno bronce brun bronze - ( brunus scorched.run brow Harinc, a cor-) ruption of Lat. - aringa arenque hareng herring halec. Hring and ring,) ari a circle for aringa tarenga harangue harangue fighting. ) 96 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Of Germano-Romanic elements in these languages, there are two kinds of quite different chronological features. The first of these, as they were imported into these languages at the time of the first German immigration into the Provinces, are marked by the greater prevalence of the original a and i vowels in their forms, instead of the later introduced e, and the diphthong ai instead of ei, as well as the consonants p, t, and d for f, z and t. The second class of Germano-Romanic elements has on it the special mark, which the Germans call Lautverschiebun g,, or a mutation of the radical consonant or consonants; which is one of the great peculiarities of the Gothic languages, and which first became an established fact in them in the sixth century: so that this class of words must have been introduced into the Romanic languages after this time. In the French a third class also, German words, called Danish by the writers of the day, came in from the Normans in the north-western part of France. They readily amalgamated with the people of the land, and, so, gradually relinquished their own language for theirs, although depositing in it also many of their own words, especially those pertaining to maritime life. German influence was felt, only on the lexical * and not at all on the grammatical features, of the Romanic * Diez finds in the different Romanic languages about 930 pure German roots, some still alive in them, and some obsolete, independently of unnumbered derivatives and compounds; of which 450 occur in French; 140, not occurring elsewhere, in Italian; and somewhat THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 97 languages, which are of a firm, unimpaired Latin structure. But each of the Romanic languages requires a separate consideration. (1.) The Italian. By far the great majority of all its words, to at least nine parts out of ten, are Latin. Of the Greek elements, which constitute a considerable portion of its remaining vocabulary, many must have doubtless come into it through the Latin. In the Sicilian and Sardinian dialects, where words of this nature most abound, it would seem probable that many of them must be the remains of that early contact with Greece, that grew out of their original colonial relations to that land. The Italian since the second half of the twelfth century, when it first became enthroned in a permanent literature of its own, has changed but little; far less indeed than any of its sister languages. It is altogether in itself the purest specimen of the old common stock, and has spread out its boughs beyond the limits of its own native sphere, into the Tyrol and even into Illyria. It was at first called common Latin, afterward Sicilian and then Tuscan, and seems to have come into use by the cultivated classes in its present distinct form by the end of the tenth century. Its phonetic phe. nomena are remarkable, as are those even of the differmore than 50 each, in the Provencal Spanish and Portuguese languages; while in the Wallachian there are less than anywhere else. 98 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ent dialects compared with each other. The department of phonology is in fact quite as full of wonders, in the modern languages as in the ancient. Italian literature is of broad and high dimensions. In it are hung up as in a temple, the votive offerings of many poets, philosophers and scholars: offerings, which, though made in the midst of smoking incense and of holy water, have but few of them any of that fragrance of holy feeling and purpose, with which so much of English and American literature is sweet-scented. In respect to the different dialects of the Italian, the Lombard, the Genoese, the Florentine, whose form of speech constitutes the standard of taste, the Neapolitan, the Sicilian, the Sardinian and the Corsican, each carries a distinct badge of his nativity upon him, in the different tone or form or spirit of his speech. Language is too impressible to all the influences of every kind which separate men not only into various nations, but, also on every extended area, into different sections of the same nation,and which mark off the historic life of the same community into successive periods of growth, maturity and decline; to preserve for any great length of time or space, one unaltered, petrified, Egyptian style of form or features. It can no more be cribbed and confined in any one direction, however free and full, than humanity itself, whose utterance it is and which is ever swelling with vital forces, struggling for a newer and larger expression of themselves. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 99 (2.) The Wallachian. This descendant of the old Latin has been, almost wholly, made known to European scholars since the recent war at Sebastopol. The people call themselves Romani and their language Romania. The region over which it spreads, consists of Wallachia, Moldavia and parts of Hungary, Transylvania and Thrace, or, in other words, both banks of the lower part of the Danube; and it is spoken by more than three millions of people. It is in its grammatical constitution more like the Italian than any of the sister languages. It is accordingly easy of acquisition in this direction; but, in respect to its lexical elements, it is not so readily mastered; as it contains large mixtures of Slavonic elements, forced into it by the pressure of so many languages of this class lying around it on every side. They have also adopted from them the Cyrillic alphabet. The Wallachians proper number now not far from a million souls. Like the Albanians and Bulgarians, they put the article after the noun. They use also, like the French, in the formation of different tenses, auxiliary verbs much more than did the Latin. The old Illyrian appears often also in broken fragments, in the Wallachian, and only in such a form; as it does likewise in the Albanian. The Danube divides the Wallachian into two principal dialects, northern and southern or Daco-Roman and Macedo-Roman. The northern is more pure, although having more Slavonic mixtures with it; and 100 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF it is more cultivated than the southern, which has been overlaid with much foreign material, especially Albanian and Grecian. Many words also from various languages have, under the pressure of past conflicts as well as social and commercial contact with neighboring nations, become incorporated into the fabric of the language, so as to form a permanent part of its tissue; and many are the Slavic, Albanian, Greek, German, Hungarian and Turkish words that, like strange birds, sit and sing now in this language, in boughs out of which they have driven forever the native inhabitants of the wood. The Wallachian took its rise, as one of the Romanlc dialects, definitively in the Roman colonies sent into Dacia by Trajan, who made Dacia (107 B. c.) a Roman province. The original population of Dacia was of Thracian origin: the inhabitants of eastern Dacia being Getae and those of the West being Dacians proper. In the Wallachian the Latin greatly preponderates, while the old Illyrian still preserves a foothold in it, reminding us in these modern times that there it once dwelt; although its fires are now all quenched and its ancient walls destroyed. Wallachian, or Daco-Romanic literature began its distinct career in the year 1580; and, since that day, poetical and scientific works have appeared from time to time, although not in great abundance. The mass of its literature is of a religious kind. (3.) The Spanish. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 101 The original inhabitants of Spain were Iberians, probably a very early offshoot of the ancient Celtic population of Europe. Pictet* regards Iberia, and with.good reason, as like Hibernia a compound of Ibh the land and Er, of the Erins or Arii; on which supposition, two marked instances occur in the West of the continued retention of the old family-name of this great class of languages. When afterwards subsequent generations of Celts came, in their separate historic character, as such, to be commingled with the descendants' of those first settlers, they received from the Romans the name of Celtiberians. Phoenicians and Carthaginians very early settled on the coast, and, by ever fresh additions of men and resources, obtained ere long the supremacy of the land. After dispossessing them and conquering the fierce obstinacy of the natives, the Romans seized upon Spain as their own possession (133 B. c.), and held it as such for 600 years, until the Vandals and the Huns wrested it from the grasp of their effeminate descendants; who themselves also afterwards were compelled to give up this same tempting prize into the hands of the Moors. The Vandal or German invasion occurred in the beginning'of the 5th century; and in the beginning of the 8th the Arabic; while, during the interval between them, the authority of Byzantium was acknowledged throughout the line of its seaward coast in the South. * Kuhn's Beitr/ige zur Sprachforschung, pp. 94-5. 8 102 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF And what a mixture of elements, for growth and greatness, is here! So much more energetic however was the influence of the Latin element than that of the others, that, except in phonetic and logical relations, it moulded the whole language into conformity with its own spirit and type. The structure of the language and its accentuation are thoroughly Romanic, as is also the larger part of its lexical elements. In the north of Spain there still lives, like a wild bird that has wandered away from the rest of its species; undisturbed among the recesses of the mountains, a strange language, the Basque, that has come down from an elder age and remained unmixed with the dialects that surround it. This Humboldt regards as the remains of the original tongue of Spain, which, chased away from the open fields and streams of the land by Phcenician and Roman arms, found at last a safe retreat for itself in fastnesses too deep and high to tempt their pursuit. Its present home embraces the provinces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, Alava and a part of Navarra. Among the sisterhood of the Spanish dialects,* the Castilian sits queen, and has its local habitation in the very centre of Spain embracing the provinces of Leon, Estramadura, Andalusia, Aragon, most of Na* Diez quotes Sarmiento's analysis of the constituent elements of Spanish to be as follows: Six-tenths Latin: one-tenth ecclesiastical and Greek: one-tenth northern or German: one-tenth Oriental and one-tenth made up of American, modern German, French and Italian. -Diez' Gramrnatik, 2d ed., p. 95. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 103 varra, Rioja and Murcia. The Catalonian and Galician dialects which are next in value, are intermixed largely with elements serving to alloy their purity: the former with those of the dialect of Provence in France, and the latter with the neighboring Portuguese. In its forms of declension, the Spanish is more like the Latin than is the Italian; but less like it in the sound or sense of its derivatives. It was about the middle of the twelfth century, that Spanish literature began its distinct career, and with it that the Spanish language assumed a fixed form: although it was not until three centuries afterwards, that scholars began to elaborate the language as such. Its vocabulary is very largely interspersed with foreign elements, especially Arabic. By her very position, so near to northern Africa, where Phoenician Carthage dwelt of old in the pride of her power and delighted to make her a prey, and whence afterwards the Moor trampled with furious energy upon all her growing greatness: Spain was through all the formative part of her history held in subjection to the influence of Semitic", arms, languages * The stock of the present population of North Africa is well described by Barth, vol. i., p. 195. "They all;" he says, "appear to have been originally a race of the Semitic stock; but, by intermarriage with tribes which came from Egypt or by way of it, to have received a certain admixture. Ihence came several distinct tribes designated anciently as Libyans, Moors, Numidians, Libyphcenicians, Getulians and others, and traced by the native historians to two different families, the Beranes and the Abtar, who however diverge from one common source, 3Iazigh or MAadaghs. This native wide-spread African race, 104 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF and institutions, beyond any other nation in Europe. The two languages, with which it thus came into close mechanical, if not chemical, combination for centuries, were the Phoenician or Hebrew, the noblest of the ancient tongues of that family, and the Arabic the noblest of the new. Its technical terminology is particularly rich in words of Arabic. origin. Spanish literature is specially distinguished by two marked features: first the general ballad form of its poetry, and secondly the abounding prevalence of tales of chivalry and knight errantry. If ever the Iyric Muse had a home that she specially loved, next after Jerusalem when David filled it with the music of his harp, whose echoes have ever since filled the world beside, and Lesbos, where Sappho sang in her heathen home of earthly loves, like a songster that had wandered from her native skies and lost her tune though not her voice; it was in old Castile. Her strains were at first simple, tender and melting, but, after Arabic blood had mingled its fire with the Spanish, she became more bold and brilliant in her eye and mien. Under the influence of Moorish energy and daring it was, that the romantic literature of Spain sprang into being. In no other language of Europe, except the German which is full of the balm and bloom of the luxuriant East, is there such either from the name of their supposed ancestor Ber, which we recognize in the name Afer, or, in consequence of the Roman name barbari, has been generally called Berber, and in some regions Shawi and Shelluh." THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 105 an Oriental richness of coloring, as in the Spanish. In the language of Sclllegel, " Castilian poetry incorporated into itself foreign forms and borrowed charms, combining the most various Romantic dialects, until its glowing and fanciful creations at length expanded, like flowers of perfect brilliancy clad in every hue." In the fifth century the Vandals poured like a torrent through its rich valleys: in the sixth and seventh, Byzantium stretched its sway over its southern borders; and in the eighth the Arab held Spain, like an eagle, gasping for life in his talons. It was in the middle of the twelfth century that the great national Epic of the Cid appeared. (4.) The Portuguese. This language is in its structure of great beauty. It was modified from the simple Latin original, much more than either of the other Romanic languages, by the Provengal dialect; and is regarded by those acquainted with it as the flower of all those dialects: combining, as it does, in a most wonderful manner, both simplicity and sweetness with high artistic finish of construction. And here let us listen again to Schlegel's glowing words: "In its power of expressing tender feeling, it surpasses every other language. It is also singularly rich in appropriate words, the very tone of which, independently of their beautiful signification, seems to melt at once into the soul. Even the soft Italian appears rough in comparison with the Portu 106 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF guese; and the Spanish stern and northern. It is by far the most simple of all the Provencal and Romantic dialects, yet inferior to none in highly artistic construction. The prose is simple, rich and laconic, yet without the slightest constraint; indeed, in every kind of style, ease and grace appear to be with that nation natural qualities." Unfortunately we are as ignorant of its literature, as of that of Holland: having scarcely one author within our reach, except the noble Camoens; in whose Lusiad, a great national epic poem, we find ourselves equally lost in joy and sorrow, as we converse in it with the poet and with Portugal: in joy at the splendor of his genius, and in sorrow that this beautiful production, like the last song of the dying Swan, though almost too sweet for earth, was but the prelude to the downfall of his country in the loss of India. Suddenly, like a star deserting all at once the bright sisterhood of planets in which it had before moved and shone, it wandered away from its place among the leading nations of the world; and is now remembered, only as having once had a lustre which it possesses no more. Such phonetic discordances occur in the vowel and diphthongal combinations and derivations of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, as quite place them in respect to many points, at antipodes to each other. The Portuguese has far less Basque in it, than the Spanish; and has adhered much more constantly to its own orig THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 107 inal antique modes and degrees of development. It is accordingly an independent shoot of itself from the roots of that vigorous old mother-tongue of Rome, which succeeded in spreading itself over all Western Europe; and which, wherever it spread, was sure to exclude every thing that it could not assimilate to itself from the soil. It has in its composition a manifest mixture of French elements, brought in by Henry, Count of Burgundy and his numerous Court-retinue. (5.) The dialect of Provence. This was the language of the old Troubadours, and occupied a sort of middle ground between the other dialects, and was greatly modified and moulded by them all. Those poetical musicians of the Middle Ages spent their time in wandering about from court to court in France and on the continent; and, having no one place in which they might congregate and build up a lasting literature for themselves and for the world, they left behind them no written records of their own. Fortunately the airy spirit of this language, supposed but a little while ago to have been for ever exhaled from this world, has recently been found,e* lingering spell-bound, although unvisited and unknown for many long centu*-It is announced also by F. Diimmler, of Berlin, that he has published of late 300 Troubadour poems in the Provenqal dialect, edited by Dr. C. A. F. Mahn; gathered, most of them for the first time, out of seven ancient manuscripts from the Royal Library at Paris, and four old English ones, which by a conjunction of fortunate circumstances have just come to light and into his hands. i08 HISTORICAL SKETCH' OF ties in the very words and letters, which those old minstrels used and loved. As for itself it spread out like a vine of strong growth, throughout the southern part of France and beyond its native French limits, into all the neighboring parts of Italy and Spain. It was in the eleventh century, that the Troubadour poetry reached the acme of its excellence, scattering its fragrance for many years afterwards over all Europe. And even if the language had been obliterated from the records of the past, as was once supposed, its name and its influence would still have survived, having passed by a true transmigration in the style and name of that department of literature, called Romance, into all the languages of the civilized world. The Provenqal dialect spread, in France, over Gascony; Provence, Limousin, Auvergne and Viennois, and in the regions of Northern Italy over Savoy and a small part of Switzerland, as Lausanne and the Southern part of Valais. Specimens of the Provencal dialect are found of as ancient a date as the year 960; but they are only single sentences occurring in old Latin records. The song of Boethius, a fragment of more than two hundred stanzas, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, although written probably half a century before, is to be found among Reynouard's collections with some smaller pieces of the same date. (6.) The French language. This is in many respects the finest reproduction THE INIO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 109 of the original Latin, that we find among the modern languages. It has a much smaller mixture of other elements in it than the Spanish, and much more than the Italian. The French character is not indeed as strongly representative as is the language, in its spirit, of its Roman original. The French mind has naturally, the love of martial activity and pomp, as well as the instinct for organization and centralization, that characterized the Roman; but it has, with these tendencies also, under its more favorable atmosphere, and surrounded by its more enchanting* landscapes, an inclination to art and a sense of the beautiful, as well as an elastic vivacious style of social character, that are rather Grecian than Roman in their type. Gaul, originally settled by the Celts, afterwards conquered by the Romans, fell in the end into the hands of the Franks,t a tribe of Germans; and was continuously Romanized, from the time of Caesar who first'conquered it, all along the track of the successive dynasties of Rome or for Rome, civil and spiritual, that held their sway over it. The southern part of it, occupied * In the language of Ruskin: " Of all countries for educating an artist to the perception of grace, France bears the bell; in even those districts of which country, that are regarded as most uninteresting, there is not a single valley, but is full of the most lively pictures."Modern Painters, Vol. i., p. 126. t In their very name Franks, we see that they were distinguished by their love of freedom and the openness of their character and conduct, as a strong conquering race conscious of their own power and virtue, from the feeble Celts and degenerate Romans whom they had overcome. i10 HISTORICAL SKETCH' OF at first by the Basques, still retains its memorial of that fact in the very name Gascony* applied to it, which means literally the land of the Basques. In this region, and that of Low Brittany, the influence of Rome was least felt upon the people and their language. The original dialects of the French were many. In those of Southern France, bordering on Italy, the old Latin vowel-sounds were preserved full and pure. In Northern France they were changed like the consonants, and rejected to such a degree as to depart far from, their first Latin type. Compared with the Spanish and Italian, the French has in it less Latin and more German. The determinate amount of all its elements, it is difficult to decide. Of the Gallic words preserved to us as such in the old classical authors, a large number are still found clearly preserved in either the new or old French. The Old French, of which we have but few remains, is chiefly allied to the Gothic, but less in its vowel-system than its consonantal, which is much akin to the Old Saxon, although after the Carolingian t period it inclined more towards the High German. Having * The interchange of g, in both Low and Middle Latin and the French, with b, v and w in German and English, is worthy of notice, as in Latin, Gulielmus; French, Guillaume; German, Wilhelm; English, William. So compare also French garder and English guard and ward, guardian and warden; also Latin vastare, French ga'ter (for original gaster), English waste, vast and devastate, as also French guerre and English war. t Or, Carlovingian. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 111 no monuments left now of those early Germanic dialects, the Lombardian, Burgundian and Suevian, and scarcely any of the French, it is hard to trace with distinctness the action or presence, to any high degree, of each or any of the Germano-Romanic elements that came into the French behind the Gothic, or even in parallel streams with it.* There are in French some four hundred and fifty root-words, with many derivatives and compound words, some now living in the language and some obsolete, of direct German origin. The southern part of France not being overrun by the Norman invasion, lost all that class of words introduced into the north, and was therefore less Germanized. It has spread out its boughs beyond its own limits, over Belgium and a considerable part of Switzerland; while, in connection with the Norman Conquest, it has much modified the English, both by its great effect upon the Latin elements of our language itself, and also by the direct introduction into it of many of its own words. It is now also the universal language of social commerce * The following are specimens of Gallic and Old French: G. alauda, a lark. 0. F. aloe. "sagum. a military clock. " saie. " marga, manure. " marie. " bulga, leather-bag. " boge. " bracee, breeches. F. braie.: betula, birch. " boule. " leuca, mile. " lieue. a beccus, beak. " bec. 112 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF throughout civilized Europe. The oldest specimen of antique French in existence occurs in the oath of Charles the Bald against Lothaire (A. D. 842), at Strasburg. The old French literature was at its height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Before turning away from the Romanic family of languages it deserves to be remarked, that by a comparison of them each with the other, the existence of the Latin, if wholly extinct, could be definitively ascertained from them, as an absolute foregone necessity. And, just as from the multiplied analogies of these modern dialects of the Latin, we revert infallibly to their union in a common parentage, so, the analogies of the different Indo-European families declare with the same certainty, that once there existed somewhere an unknown mother of them all, who is yet now revealed to us as having herself had high character and honor, only by the innate beauty and energy of her illustrious progeny.* * A comparison of the numerals in the different Romanic languages: Latin. Italian. Wallachian. Spanish. Portuguese. French. 1. unus uno unu uno hum un 2. duo due doi dos dois deux 3. tres tre trei tres tres trois 4. quatuor quattro patru quatro quatro quatre 5. quinque cinque quinque cinco cinco cinq 6. sex sei sese seis seis six 7. septem sette septe siete sete sept 8. octo otto optu ocho oito huit 9. novem nove nove nueve nove neuf 10. decem dieci dece diez dez dix THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 113 III. The Lettic family. Under this title are included the Lithuanian, the old Prussian and the Lettish. 1st. The Lithuanian. This is a language of very great value to the philologist. It is the most antique in its forms, of all the living languages of the world, and most akin in its substance and spirit to the primeval Sanskrit. It is also at the same time so much like the Latin and the Greek, as to occupy to the ear of the etymologist, in a multitude of words not otherwise understood, the place of an interpreter: with its face fixed on the Latin and its hand pointing backwards to the Sanskrit. It has preserved its identity wonderfully with the Sanskrit, in respect generally to its radical, and, in the case of the noun, also its flexional forms. It has seven of the eight cases found in the Sanskrit: the ablative being wanting, which in Latin indeed is preserved, while two cases, the locative and instrumental, have been lost in a distinct form: the Greek has lost the three cases, which have disappeared variously from both the Lithuanian and Latin; while the German has lost still another, the vocative, and the English one more even, the dative: retaining only the nominative, genitive (or possessive) and accusative, or rather the possessive only: the nominative and objective not being cases in English in their form. The Lithuanian has also, like the Greek and Gothic, but unlike the Latin, the dual number. 114 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF The Lithuanians, living as they do on the southern shore of the Baltic sea, have been from the first, as much as even the Icelanders themselves, out of the path of the successive tides of emigration, that so much crushed and bore away the forms of other languages. Their language, accordingly, on account of the primeval regularity of its roots and structure, stands related to the various branches of the Indo-European family, especially to those of a modern date whose forms have been much mutilated, as a general exponent of their agreements and differences, or a sort of general solvent for the etymologist, of a multitude of otherwise unresolvable difficulties. It is like an universal interpreter, seeming to have the gift of tongues, since its tongue is so greatly like all the rest in preserving the pure primal model, from which they are all corrupted derivatives, as to seem in whatever language you hear the chime of its words, very much like an old-fashioned brogue of that language, ringing down loud and clear from ancient times. Its literature possesses neither height nor breadth, and is limited to a moderate number of popular songs, fables and proverbs. In respect to the flexion of the verb, it has departed -more widely from its original than in any thing else; having lost the principles of reduplication and augment, and of the change of the radical vowel in different tenses to indicate the several variations of time. The passive is formed by the aid of the substantive verb. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 115 It has a middle voice formed by the use of s, si, which is a reflexive pronoun of the third person used in all the persons; as also in Latin the middle sense was formed originally, and derivatively from it the passive, by attaching this same reflexive s (i. e. se, the third person pronoun), euphonically changed to r, to the forms of the active* voice. The phonetic constitution of the languayge like that of its radical forms, has been wonderfully preserved by the fortunate isolation of the people from the great movements of the nations around them, unimpaired in its leading elements. The Lithuanian is now under the pressure of Russian institutions, influences and ideas, fast becoming mongrelized with that language. The Lithuanians number in both Russia and Prussia, 1,500,000 people: not quite 200,000 living in Prussia. That their language should at last be found undergoing serious changes, who can wonder; for what can resist the onset of modern innovation, or rather the tendency of Modern Christianity to "make," and of Modern Humanity to receive,'" all things new." "Behold," saith Christ, "I make all things new! " The world is destined to be in the end, for God hath spoken it, one great brotherhood; and, though, in some cli* Thus the passive forms, amor, amaris or amare, &c., restored to their original crude state, would be amo-se, lit. I love myself, amasse, amatse, &c. So the Germans use to a striking degree the reflexive forms, in our passive sense, as in sich schtmen, (lit. to shame one's self,) &c.; and in French similar forms occur, as in ii se vend cher. (lit. it sells itself dear,) it is sold high. 116 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF mates and in some races, the process of fusion goes on nmore slowly than in others, yet it is still everywhere, with the same certainty, at work towards the final issue. Perpetual changes in detail, but perpetual progress on the whole: these are the two great primordial laws of human progress. 2d. The Old Prussian. This sister-language of the Lettic family perished, about two hundred years ago. The only memorial, now left of it, is a Catechism prepared by Albert of Brandenburgh. While not so ancient and pure in its forms, it was still much less corrupted than the Lettish. It had not so many cases as the Lithuanian and possessed no dual. It was spoken on the northern coast of Prussia, east of the. Vistula. 3. The Lettish. This is the popular language of Courland and of much of Livonia. It is properly but a derivative from the Lithuanian, like the Italian from the Latin. Its points of difference from it are, besides a general corruption of its forms, the following:(1.) It has the article as the Lithuanian had not. (2.) It has opened a wide door to foreign words, particularly to those of German and Russian origin. (3.) It has special euphonic laws of its own which it carefully follows. (4.) Its grammar is much more modern in its type than that of the Lithuanian. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 117 (5.) Its phonetic system has been much modified by Slavonic influences. IV. The Slavic or Slavonic family. The area covered by this class of languages in Europe is very large, extending from the Arctic Ocean on the north, to the Black and Adriatic Seas on the south; and from the Dwina on the east, to the Hartz Mountains on the west. It extends itself, also, in scattered districts through Asia, into the upper regions of North America. The name, Slavic, comes from the root, slu, Sanskrit, sru, (Greek zxiv, as in zveo, and xivrzo; Latin, inclytus; Old High German, hl1), meaning to hear, and to hear one's self called, or to be named, to be celebrated. Its meaning is therefore* " renowned," " distinguished." The different stages of growth and strength in the Slavonic languages are well described by Schleicher, in his t" Geschichte der Slavischen Sprache," as being marked by five distinct periods: (1.) The Slavic, in its primeval embryo state, among the elements of the unknown primeval IndoEuropean mother-tongue. * And yet this is the very word from which, as in the French esclave and German sklave, comes our English word slave. So those great names, Ctesar and Pompey, are now the common names of dogs and slaves. f This is a brief article, but quite valuable, of some 27 pages only published since his " Sprachen Europa's," in " The Oriental Journal of Literature and Art," and recently gathered with other brief philological essays, by Kuhn, into a sort of periodical collection, entitled, "' Beitrhge zur Sprachforschung," three parts of which have now been published. 9 118 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF (2.) The Slavic, as Slavo-German. (3.) The Slavic, as Letto-Slavic. (4.) The Slavic, as an individual independent language. (5.) The Slavic, as itself the mother of different dialects. The Slavonic languages are very intimately affiliated one with the other. With any one of their various dialects, except the Bulgarian, which has degenerated most of all, it is quite easy to make one's self intelligible in conversation with those speaking the others. There are religious manuscripts in the Slavonic language dating back as far as the eleventh century; and by a comparison of the present forms with those of that date, they are' found to have been remarkably stable. The changes that have taken place have occurred chiefly under the influence of the vowels, especially the i and j sounds, on the consonants preceding them. By their influence many mutes have been changed into sibilants, or assibilated to those in juxta-position with them; and hence the superabundance of sibilants in those languages. The double consonants that occur so frequently in them, particularly in the Polish, while double to the eye, are like several similar combinations in English,* but single to the tongue. The Slavic languages are rich in grammatical forms. * As in English, know, knee, knife, gnash, gnat, pneumonia, &c. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 119' They have the same number of case-endings with'the Sanskrit, but do not use the article with the noun, or the pronoun with the verb. In common with the Lithuanian and German languages, they have a double form, the definite and indefinite, for each adjective. The alphabetic characters of this family of languages are of two different kinds. The Slavonians of the Greek faith have what is called the Cyrillic alphabet, first introduced by St. Cyril: and it is used in the ecclesiastical Slavic now. Cyril was a Greek.monk, who went from Constantinople (A. D., 862), to preach the gospel to the Slavonians. The characters of his alphabet are chiefly Greek, although considerably modified; and new signs also are introduced, to represent sounds not found in the Greek. The Russians themselves also used the Cyrillic alphabet up to the time of Peter the Great, who boldly rejected nine of its characters, and then cut and carved what remained unsparingly into a more tasteful form. Not only the Russian, but also the kindred Servian alphabets, are formed with some alterations from this alphabet, and are of recent origin. The style of orthography used by the other Slavonians, as the Croats, Bohemians, Lusitanians, Illyrians and Poles, is of the Roman order like our own, although somewhat dialectic in each case. There is also a secondary form of the EcclesiasticoSlavonic to be found occasionally, called the Hieronymic, from the idea that it was invented by Hieronymus. 120 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF It is however quite doubtful, when and by whom it was invented, and for what special purpose. The Slavic family of languages consists, properly, of two leading branches: 1. The South-eastern Slavic. 2. The Western Slavic. Some of the general points of difference existing between these two branches, although marked with many exceptions, are such as these: (1.) An euphonic insertion of d before 1, in those of the second division, but not in those of the first. (2.) The letters d and t before 1 and n, are rejected in those of the first, but not in those of the second. (3.) The labials v, b, p, m, when followed by j, take in the first an 1 between them, but not in the second. i. The South-eastern Slavic branch: 1st. The Russian. 2d. The Bulgarian. 3d. The Illyrian. Ist. The Russian language. It was 300 years ago, that Russia succeeded in throwing off the Mongol yoke, which had for about two centuries, well nigh crushed out its very life; and, since the first full discovery then made of her own real inward strength, she has been marching forward in a lofty style of effort and of honor, in arts and arms, in learning and social improvement, and in every thing but religion. The same evil genius of hierarchical priest THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 121 craft stands in organized terror by her side, to poison continually the cup of all her sweets, that has drugged for so many centuries the papal nations of Christendom with its sorceries. Although Russian orthography has been greatly modified by the influence of ecclesiasticoSlavic elements; the pronunciation of Russian words has remained true to their early forms, so that it almost embraces in fact two languages in itself: one to the eye and another to the ear. The Russian language, like the Russian empire, spreads over. a very wide domain. It is with the Servian, the most harmonious of all the Slavonic tongues. Consonantal combinations which would otherwise be harsh, it often improves by the special insertion of vowels. While the modern Slavonic languages agree wonderfully with both the Latin and Greek, the resemblance of the Russian, especially, to the Latin is very striking. Donaldson quotes with approval a mnodern traveller, as saying that the founders of Rome spoke the Russian language. In the implication made, however, by such a quotation, that so unclassical a surmise is to be received as a literal historical truth, he shows the same credulity and the same tendency to philological -marvellousness, that elsewhere often characterize his speculations. Such tendencies indeed are among the customary weaknesses of that class of skeptical minds, whether in natural, theological, historical, linguistic, or other science which he represents. 122 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Already Russian literature, like Russian arms and Russian enterprise, has begun to show some of those gigantic proportions in which it is destined to lift up itself in full view, when, under a general equal evangelical system of social life, its people shall come to appreciate and undertake their true work among the nations. The Russian contains three separate dialects. (1.) The Great Russian. A special form of this dialect, the Muscovite, is the standard, in respect to both orthography and orthoepy, for all the dialects. The Great Russian is spoken from the Peipus Sea to the Sea of Azof. (2.) The Little Russian. This is spoken in the southern part of Russia, as in Galicia, and shows'many traces of foreign influences upon it. It has been but very little used as a written dialect, and that chiefly of late, although it is easily recognized in ecclesiastico-Slavonic as far back as the 11th century. (3.) The White Russian. This is spoken in different parts of Lithuania, especially in Wilna, Grodno, Bielostok, &c., and in White Russia. It is a new dialect, and has grown up since the union of the Lithuanians with the Poles, and is full of Polonisms. The limits of its sway are much narrower than those of either of the other dialects, and it has made no throne for itself in books; nor has it THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 123 constituted its products a part of the high commerce, that prevails in the world of thought.: 2d. The Bulgarian. This language spreads over the large and fruitful space, bounded on the north by the mouth of the Danube, on the east by the Euxine in part, on the south by a line running from Salonica to Ochrida, and on the west by the Pruth, or rather a line a little beyond its western bank. The Bulgarians have a solid deep earnest character, beyond the races that surround them, which must erelong bring them and their language, and all its archkeology, into bolder relief than hitherto upon the page of history. The ecclesiastical Slavonic or, as it is sometimes called, the Cyrillic dialect, which is but the old Bulgarian modified, although no longer a living language, is yet used by them at the present time, in common with both the Russians and the Servians, as the language of the Scriptures and of their religious books; so that, although in the ordinary business of life it is dead to the tongue, it is still alive to the heart. In all nations, old languages and old forms of language find their last hiding-place in the.temples and services of religion, and there claim forever the right of sanctuary. Nothing but Time, which wears out all things, or the Spirit of Evangelical Reform, which can remove any obstacle, has ever sufficed to dislodge them from these cherished retreats. 124 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF It is in the old Bulgarian, that the most ancient religious writings of the Slavonians are found: the manuscript of the oldest date being a collection of the four gospels, prepared for Prince Ostromir in the year 1056. There are also old manuscripts of the language, probably older than this, in the Glago-litic alphabet without date, which, though of the same origin with the Cyrillic, is yet different in its graphic symbols. Schafarik regards them as the most ancient of all Bulgarian records; and Schleicher proposes to call the Bulgarian written in this alphabet, the Old ChurchSlavic: as distinguished from the Bulgarian found in the Cyrillic alphabet, which he denominates ChurchSlavic. Not that the writings in the Glago-litic alphabet were all made necessarily before Cyril's day, but that what were not so written were put in this old character from a sort of traditionary pride in its antique aspect. The present Bulgarian is far inferior as a language, in the richness of its forms and the completeness of its structure, to the ecclesiastical Slavonic, and remains in its present state as it was three centuries ago. Its contour is plainly defined, as separate from all the other Slavic languages, by certain euphonic* principles and tendencies, which prevail in it. ~ These are as quoted by Schleicher (Sprachen Europas, p. 207,) from Schafarik, the great historian of the Slavonic literature: (1.) The insertion of an s before t, when softened by an i or j placed after it, as in noszt for notj, night. (2.) The insertion of z (English zh), before a THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 125 3d. The Servian or Illyrian. When written in the Cyrillic character, as by those of the Greek Church, it is called Servian; but when in the Latin alphabet, as by the Roman Catholics, it is, called Illyrian: so much do men like names and fight for mere words. Under this general title are included in one the Servian, Croatian and Slowenic dialects, which themselves also in turn might be resolved into still other dialects. Uniformity is not found to be a law of human development, in the department of speech, any more than in any other direction secular, or religious, practical or intellectual. The Servian dialect is very rich in vowels and so exceedingly musical to the ear. With the perfect sacrifice indeed of all scholastic instincts, and with none of that love of archetypal etymology so characteristic of the Greeks, who, while always at work artistically upon the forms of language to improve them, yet always left carefully on each new form some mark, that should forever in-urn the remembrance of the one that they had destroyed; the Servians, like the old Iconoclasts, break down old words and parts of words, and break them off with eager pleasure, if they can only thereby get a fuller, finer, sweeter sound. Thus consonants have been driven softened d or instead of it, as in mezda for medja, limits. (3.) A peculiar adjective ending, in-ago. (4.) The use of the personal pronouns ti, si, instead of the attributions moj my; tvoj thy and svoi his, as in carstvo mi, my kingdom. 126 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF everywhere through the language, out of words where they had nestled for centuries. The Croatian and Slowenic dialects have no historical importance. The Slowenic is spoken by the people of Carinthia, Steiermark and Carniola. The oldest monument of the language dates back to the tenth century.* II. The Western Slavic family. This includes four special dialects, which, on account of the historical insignificance of most of those who have spoken them, we can dismiss rapidly. * SLAVONIC CORRESPONDENCES. Sanskrit. Zend. Greek. Latin. Lithuanian Slavonic. Gothic. English. vrikas, a vehrkas X6sKo lupus vilkas vluku vulfs wolf wolf aham, I azem!y' eCgo asz |az ik I bhli~~ratar,~ a br."Itbratr bliratar, a brhta t5pirTro frater brolis and bruother brother brother. brat bbka book (German,) buche, (p yogs fagus buku r beech beech buch, L book.) German, yuvan, yavan6 juvenis jaunas jun jung youth youth, ganda, tllhe y ) chganda, t y Oos gena zandas szczeka kinnus chil chectk or chin In the following Slavonic words, who can fail to see the resemblance to familiar classical words, especially Latin: moryo, the sea: voda, water: kosti, a bone: volya, will: gosti, a guest: syny, a son: domy, a house: mator, a mother. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 127 1. The Lechish. 2. The Tschechish or Bohemian. 3. The Sorbenwendish. 4. The Polabish. The Lechish is so called, from the once powerful Lechs; and its domain was formerly much wider than now. The Polish and the Kashubish, a dialect of the Polish, are its present representatives.. In this language sibilants abound; and as they are quite varied, the differences between them are often difficult of discovery except to a native's ear. Besides also being full of lisping and hissing utterances, it contains many nasal sounds; and is distinguished by a double vocalization of the letter 1 as either a palatal or a guttural, which is peculiar. Poland lost her place among the nations, by the selfish internecine strife of her princes and great men with each other; and though in the days of Knight Errantry her sons exhibited as energetic, manly, martial qualities, as those of any other people; yet, having been once laid prostrate by parricidal hands, she has never under the tyranny of her spiritual conquerors at Rome, or of her civil conquerors at St. Petersburgh, been allowed the privilege of a resurrection. She has never therefore figured as she might have done, upon the stage of history.; and her language awakens no pleasant memories of travel and discovery, of research and spoil or of pleasure and profit, in the hearts of the lovers of learning. The fountains of 128 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF knowledge and thought and truth and all beauty have been opened for them on other shores, and by other hands; and Poland is spoken of only with sadness. A Russian and a Pole have so many grammatical and lexical forms in their two languages alike, although belonging to the two separate Slavic families, that they can each read the other's language about as readily as a Spaniard can the Italian. A Russian also, it is said, can comprehend easily the ancient Bulgarian. It has indeed been claimed by some writers, that all the various Slavonic dialects differ no more from each other, than did the various dialects of Greece one from the other. The Tschechish is the speech of the Slavonic inhabitants of Bohemia, Moravia and north-western Hungary, and occurs sporadically throughout almost all Hungary. In respect to both of its two leading' dialects, the Bohemian and Slowakish, but especially the former, it can boast of an historical organic identity, that dates back half way at least, towards the beginning of the Christian Era. The Sorbenwendish, or Sorbish as it is called by the Germans, or Wendish as the Lusatians name it, prevails in limited parts of Upper and Lower Lusatia The Polabish, as the word indicates (po along and Labe the Elbe), was spoken more or less, anciently, by those living on both sides of the Elbe. It disappeared, as a vernacular language, about two centuries ago; al THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 129 though some few families in that region still keep it alive among themselves. The domain of the Slavonic languages has been always,with singular uniformity, on the middle ground between barbarism and civilization. Their literature also has been almost always borrowed from other nations: a habit, which, when pursued continuously by any people whether with willing enthusiasm or blind thoughtlessness, is sure to spread a blighting mildew over all the germinating tendencies and forces of native genius. Like all other people also, whether viewed individually or socially, who have lacked principles of self-reliance and earnest self-development, in a world so full on every hand of unequal and unjust rivalry, they have been jostled aside and dashed down by stronger races rushing against them, in their strife for the prizes of this world. There are found in the interior of Germany at the present day, some Slavonic names of cities and rivers, even as far west as the Elbe: the only monuments now left of their ancient occupation of the regions lying westward of their present home in Europe. But as, on the one hand, they have succumbed to the influence of the more civilized and powerful races on their western borders, so, on the other, have the races less civilized at the east yielded to them; and Slavonic ideas and institutions, Slavonic law and order 130 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF now rule over the whole northern part of the continent of Asia. As the Greeks and Latins were originally blended in full combination with each other, as one primitive race; so, the Slavonians and Germans, although never historically one, have yet been from the first in long contact with each other in large masses, and must have come into Europe, at a nearly contemporaneous period. V. The Gothic, or Germanic family. In the Gothic version of the Scriptures made by Ulphilas (A. D. 388) are all the remains that the world now possesses of that noble old tongue, the queenmother of so many princely languages. The Goths were living at that time on the lower side of the Danube, around its mouth. In Herodotus they are called the rtzcza,* and in Tacitus the Getae, and are * In Menander's comedies, a rFros or Aaov is introduced as the standing representative of a slave. and as being brought from Thrace into Greece. The rEros was a Goth and the /aor (Latin Davus for Dacvus, the fuller form of Dacus) a Dacian. Compare with Aaos for AhFoV, also v'os for vfFo. Lat. novus and c(iv for &crFv Lat. ovum. Strabo expressly states, that avKot and Aadot are the same. When the Getae and Daci are represented as occupying separate regions, the division is always this: that the Getae live in the north-eastern part of the region, about the mouth of the Danube, and the Daci in the southwestern. As, from the title Getae, came Gothi, Getini, Gothoni, or Gothones, as they were variously called by Latin authors, so, from Daci came Dacini. afterwards Dani and the modern Danes represent the ancient Daci. In the middle ages indeed we find writers using Dacus for Danus and Dacia for Dania or Denmark. In Russia, also, a Dane is called a Datschanin: and in Lapland a Dazh. —Grimm's G'eschichte der D)eutschen Sprackhe p. 132. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 131 described as living in those times in the northern part of Thrace, between the Haemus and the Danube. In later times they divided into two portions: the Ostrogoths or eastern Goths, and the Visigoths or western Goths, the former settling in Italy and the latter in Spain. Their language however did not take root successfully in either country. A few Gothic memorials were left behind in Italy; and in Spain, besides a few hereditary baptismal names and the garnered: pride of a few old noble families of Gothic blood, all records of their ancient dominion there are obliterated. The Gothic stands related to the Germanic languages generally, very much as the Sanskrit to the Indo-European family. From want of any knowledge of the languages preceding them of the same class, they each have the historic aspect of a mother of that class; but strict philological analysis places them each, rather in the position of an elder sister standing so far apart in age and character from the younger sisters, as to fulfil in form the offices of a parent. An interval of four centuries separates the Gothic Scriptures, from any literary documents now extant of the other Germanic tribes. The phonetical constitution of the Germanic languages appears in its most simple normal elements in the Gothic, out of which spread all the rest, as branches from one common stem. In the Gothic languages are included: 132 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF 1. The Low German. 2. The High German. I. The Low German embraces: (1.) The Norse, or Scandinavian languages. (2.) The Anglo-Saxon. (3.) The Frisic. (4.) The Low Dutch. 1. The Norse languages include three Special dialects: the Icelandic, Swedish and Danish. The Icelandic or Old Norse dialect is of a high antiquity. It was originally translated from Norway to Iceland, and has there wonderfully retained to the present time, its early characteristics. The Edda is the chief national epic of the old Norse, written, as is supposed, in the tenth century or about midway between our day and the beginning of the Christian era. Its heroes are all heathen. The Swedish and Danish may be properly called the new Norse languages. These are greatly changed from their first estate, in every way. The Swedish is the purest Norse of the two. The Danish has been greatly affected by the contact of the German, and changed its old full a-sound in many words to e. The Norwegian dialect has been so entirely overtopped and overgrown by the neighboring Danish, that it has shrunk down into perfect insignificance, and deserves no separate place in history. The Danish prevails also in the Faroe, Shetland and Orkney Islands. As the Gothic THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 133 family has had its home between the Celtic and Slavic families, its different languages show many signs of their influence upon them: the Norse languages exhibiting.the most proof of Celtic influence and the German of Slavic. The Norse family exhibits as such two remarkable characteristics: (a) The suffixing of the definite article (hinn, hin, hit) to the substantive, as if a part of it, as in sveininn (m) the young lman; eignin (f) the possession; and skeipit (f) the ship. (b) A peculiar passive flexion. An original reflexive pronoun is appended immediately to the verb, giving it not as would be natural a reflexive sense, but a passive one. In this respect however these languages agree with the Latin, although in the latter the fact is more disguised. Thus brenni, "I burn" is in the passive brennist "I am burned; and brennum "we burn" becomes brennumst, "we are burned." The singular and plural forms are the same for the other persons respectively as for the first; and these are distinguished, only by the different personal pronouns prefixed to them. (2.) The Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons first went to England, in the middle of the fifth century. In the place of its nativity, their language as such has disappeared. What relics remain of it on the continent are to be found, only 10 134 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF as membra disjecta, in some few Low-German dialects. The English language however, which, for all the ends and wants of human speech, has never been surpassed by any language upon earth, is ribbed with its oaken strength. While it has large admixtures of words derived from the Celtic aborigines of England, and still more of Latin origin received from its Roman and Norman, invaders, its predominant type is yet Anglo-Saxon. The original Britons were Celts, who were in the end attacked and repulsed by the Saxons or Teutons (A. D. 450-780), who themselves also afterwards succumbed to the Normans (A. D. 1066). These great historic facts are all clearly treasured up in the imperishable monuments of the language itself. The lexical elements of our language, however, are but its mere outside body; while its inward life and spirit are to be determined by its grammar, or the forms and rules by which its elements are combined together. Its grammatical constitution is Teutonic; and, taking our point of view here, we are able to see in reference to its lexicography, what is the natural or stable element in it, and what are the incidental or superadded elements. In every part of the language its inward chemical and vital agencies are all Teutonic. A very small portion of its vocabulary is Celtic; and of Latin it absorbed far less than any of the other provinces of Rome, although it imbibed so much: so that its lexical elements are chiefly Anglo-Saxon.* * Harrison (on the English language, p. 55, 2d American Edit., THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 135 It was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that it took on its full features as a noble independent language by itself, among the other languages of the world. The speech, in which such an author as Shakspeare could find his native air and element, while honored by the great genius who enrobed himself in it, is yet proved thereby to possess adaptations to all the varied phases of human life and all the multiplied complexities of human thought and feeling, which raise it as a whole to a height above that of any other human tongue. Who would expect to see Shakspeare, when translated into Latin, French or Spanish or even German, appear with his own immortal beauty unimpaired? The same lustrous face would shine upon us, but only through a mist. Schlegel's translation of Shakspeare is indeed Phila.) estimates the proportion of Anglo-Saxon terms in English, to be fifteen-tweltieths of its entire bulk; which seems to the writer quite too high an estimate. It will amuse any true etymological scholar to hear an enthusiast for Anglo-Saxonism enumerate what he calls words strictly of that class, in which he will include by the score, because so short and pithy, multitudes of Latin-English words, like much (multus); very (verus); sort (sors); rest (re-sto); ay! (ilo); air (aer); day (dies); sex (secus); enter (intro); chief (caput); crutch (crux); pay (pacare); pray (precari); brace (brachium); pair (par); stick (crrn%, in-stigo); axe (d(,Lv7); time (tempus); soap (SapO). strap (stroppus); cost (consto); rule (regula); other (alter, French autre); old (altus); race (racemus); space (spatium); new (novus) part (pars); sweet (suavis); stand. stay, state. estate, stable, stall stallion, constant, distant, instant, &c., all from sto, stare, to stand; and so safe, save, salve, salver from salvus, and have, behave, habit, inhabit, able, &c., from habeo. 136 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF justly celebrated; hbut the Shakspeare that he introduces to his countrymen is a German Shakspeare, and not the Shakspeare that we know and love as our own. As well might one attempt to deliver from some stringed instrument, tones that can resound only from the loud swelling organ; as to hope to express his utterances truly and in a style as if vernacular, in any other language than his own. In no language has a pyramid of literature so high, so broad, so deep, so wondrous, been erected, as in the English. In no other language are there such storied memories of the past. No other nation has wrestled, like the English, with Man and Truth and Time and every thing great and difficult; and no language accordingly is so full of all experiences and utterances, human and divine.'Like that great world-book, the Bible, which has done so much to ennoble and purify it, it has an equipment for its special office, as the bearer of that book to all nations, grand and beautiful, in its adaptations to the wants of universal humanity. Few of the scholars and educators of our land, to their shame be it spoken, seem, although standing within the sphere of its beauties and under the glowing firmament of its literature, to appreciate in any worthy manner the glory of their mother tongue; which yet other nations, looking on it from without, admire so greatly; and which, in the eyes of future ages will appear in the far-off distance, radiant with heavenly beauty. While to the fiations of Europe, whether approaching it on the Ro THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 137 manic or the Teutonic side, of which two languages chiefly, as of two distinct hemispheres forming one glorious orb, it is composed, it is more difficult than any modern if not also than any ancient language to be thoroughly mastered; to us, who first learned it in our mother's arms, it seems itself as natural a portion as any other of our own spontaneous vitality. Before it, as before the ideas which it bears like a flaming sword against all forms of despotism, the world everywhere bends in submission; and it is fast stamping its own enduring impress and enforcing its laws of personal and social life, on every part of the world civilized and savage. It has not indeed, like the German and other modern languages, the tendency or the capacity to enlarge its fabric, by new combinations and developments of its own materials. The German is, like the orangetree, loaded at the same time with fruits and full-blown blossoms and nascent buds; while the English, like some thrifty fruit-tree in the temperate zone, is in one predominant state only at a time, and that has been one for more than two hundred years of full and golden fruitage. But, unlike languages possessing inward elements of self-enlargement, it has a wondrous faculty for appropriating to its own use and growth all the strength and beauty of all other tongues. The three great languages of the world selected in the providence of God for the conveyance of His word and will to mankind, deserve from that fact a distinct 138 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF enumeration and association with each other: the Phoenician or Hebrew, the language in which the Old Covenant was published; the Greek, that of the New; and the English, the language of modern civilization, religion and human progress beyond all others, and in whose words and by whose people the truths of the Bible are brought home to the business and bosoms of all nations. Like the angel seen standing in the sun, the English mind enlightened and sanctified stands bright and beautiful on the margin of modem times, holding up God's messages of light and love on high before the eyes of all men. In ground-forms and the whole element of flexion and the details of a ramified syntax, the English, * when compared with the ancient languages, is poor indeed. Our words also are much mutilated, especially in the mode of their pronunciation. They appear everywhere * It is certainly quite an interesting not to say surprising fact, that the English should in many of its forms, be more like the primeval Sanskrit, than the intermediate languages. Thus compare: Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. German English. bad, to wash one's self BaXaeauov balneum bade {bath and ]bathe bhu, to be.sELv fui bin be bhratar, a brother oparitp frater bruder brother bhar, to bear oipriv ferre bdren bear bbrus, the brow dqpso frons braune* brow bhuj, to flee?e0YEtv fugere budge duhitri, a daughter Ovydrr7p tochter daughter gA, to go, and a venire gehen go gam, to come ) come go, a cow 8io0 bos gen. gavas gen. &o6d bovis kuh cow * As in Augenbraune, the eyebrows: occurring only in composition. T HE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 139 throughout the language, to the eye of a scientific etymologist, bruised and broken in their aspect. Even our large stock of Anglo-Saxon words, which as a class are short and compact, are often condensed from an Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. German. English. jalas, cold gelu kalt gelid hard, and Kaa and cor(d) hertz heart hrid, the heart Kpc begierde greed gridh, to desire. gier and gierig greedy kut, to cover, Ks0Ctv hiten coat crow kAravah, a crow K6puv corvus krache and raven laghus, light?aXa6 levis leicht light, iaXav lih, to lick E iXstv lingere lecken lick lu, to separate ouv fsolvere tlsen loose libet and lubh, to desire X[lrre Oat lubet and lieben love madhu, honey P,XL mel meth mead mah, to prepare p7;Xavio'Oat machinari machen make naman, a name'vopa nomen name name patha, a way 7rTroS passus pfad path su, to scatter about aeetLv serere saen sow siv, toTasten together Kaaeltv' suere sew smi, to laugh pcLEv for ayilJav smile stri, to strew aropgvvvvat sternere strenen strew svid, to sweat IEdpogv (for sudare schweissen sweat svadus, sweet dus(for uFrtRs) suavis siisz sweet'-rs/ielv 1 stipare stapfen staff and step stabh and stubh, to rn-pflnCv stampfen stop press together. to stamp on or t stamp stambh, to support, down stump and stambhas, a stem ri'o;or stipes steif stubb a stem, a situmpf stubble Lstump J stipulus stem vash, to wish edxecOar wiinschen wish yuyam, you v/ES vos euch you * Kactr1o=Kard++- 7Snv. 140 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF original dissyllabic form into one monosyllabic in English. In consequence of the composite character of our language, its orthography and orthoepy are found at frequent variance from each other; while there are almost as many silent letters, not only in the middle and end of words but also when occurring initially, as in French; and the pronunciation of the same letters* * The following letters are sometimes found silent: (1) In the beginning of words: b, as in bdellium: g, as in gnat: h, as in humble: k, as in knee: m, as in mnemonics: p, as in psalm. (2) In the middle of words: c, as in slack: g, as in daughter: 1, as in balm. (3) In the end of words: b, as in dumb and lamb: h, as in ah: n. as in condemn: y, as in say compared with ay: wo, as in low. Some consonants also have double sounds as c, which is sounded as k in cat and as s in city: g, hard in gun and soft, (asj) in gentle: ch, like k in Christian, like tch in chance and like sh in chemise: x, like ks in axe and like z in Xenophon; and gh as in though, laugh, hough. Along also what a scale of variations does each of the vowels run, as: a, in man, mate, many, father, water, caboose. e, in mete, met, they, there, behold, inter, linen. i, in pine, pin, lepine, bird. o, in on, throne, attorney, move, lost. u, in gun, astute, mute, full, busy. How various too is the sound of the different diphthongs, as: ai, in aisle, straight. air, again, complaisant. au, in slaughter, laughter, hautboy. ea, in lean, yea, meant, hearse, swear. ee, in seen, been, committee. ei, in sleight, feign, foreign, heifer, either, their. ie, in die, believe, friend. oo, in moon, soon, floor, flood. ou, in bound, through, though, should, hough, cough, enough, THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 141 especially vowels, both singly and in diphthongal combinations, is exceedingly varied. The pronunciation of each word agreed doubtless, at some time in the history of the language, with its spelling: a fact which will serve well to show what great changes have occurred, within the very essential elements of its structure. In this country especially, our people, language and institutions have been borne through such an unsettled pioneer experience, that a strange unscholarlike, if not indeed almost universal, indifference prevails among even our educated men, to exactness and elegance in the niceties of language. The noble old English tongue has assumed, in some large districts of our country, not only in its orthoepy* but also in its orthography, a distinct American type, and that not for the better but for the worse. It is not claimed indeed that in language, any more than in laws, usages and institutions, we should be servile copyists of those in the old home across the waters, who certainly have no better right, and as we are apt to think no better * Witness the double pronunciation in England and America of such words, as desultory, leisure, detail, azure, isolate, demonstrate, and those words, in which a occurs in the same syllable before 1, m. and st as in balm, calm, last, past, and also national, patriot, evangelical, courteous, fealty, either and neither, therefore, fearful, &c. As for changes in orthography all know, on what an extensive systematic scale Webster has undertaken to force them upon the language. Happily, the resistance to such innovations by him proved too great; and they are gradually losing, most of them, the little ground, which under his influential name they had begun to acquire. 142 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF capacity, to act well for themselves, than we for ourselves. Nor do we suppose that language can be compressed, either here or there, within fixed arbitrary modes of manifestation. Much less can it be maintained that language should cease its growth; as it seems to be an universal law of all growths in this world, that their stoppage is the beginning of their decay, which, stated more philosophically, is the beginning of their disappearance from the field of view, in order to prepare the way for something better in their place. America has the right and let her take it, for she surely will, to impress her own genius on the English tongue. To undertake to stop it, would be to fight the whirlwind. But let not provincialisms be accepted, for they are unnecessary, and in whatever language they appear, are abnormal within and unsightly without. Let not etymological principles, that is, grammatical, radical and phonetic analogies, which are not merely the ornaments of a language, but also its ve-ry essence and substance, be smitten and hammered down, by any rude barbarian zeal for squaring the forms of speech into phonographic correspondence with their pronunciation. As well attack the forms of sculptured life, fresh from the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles, and undertake to drive back the Spirit of beauty, now radiant in every feature, within the cold recesses of the marble where it had slept unwaked before, like Echo, sweet nymph of forest dells, slum THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 143 bering unthought of in her leafy bower, until some friendly voice arouses her to answering words again. Whatever symbols of her greatness America carves upon the tablets of the English tongue, let them be no grotesque specimens of careless haste, or proofs of vulgar sensibility to forms of low life, in the world of speech. Let her signatures rather be here as elsewhere royal in their aspect: so that any who shall survey the vestiges of her influence, in whatever age or from whatever point of observation, shall be compelled.to say with reverence and affection, Incedis Regina! There are those however who undertake to justify many and great abuses in this hemisphere, to the original, pure, historical Transatlantic English, which we have brought with us to our new home. The influence also of similar ideas and habits has run up, to a lamentable degree, into the whole style of our higher classical education, as it is generally conducted. Prosody, except in its rudest outlines, is openly disregarded and pronounced by teachers, who themselves are ignorant of its nice details, an useless appendage of classical study. Greek accentuation, similarly, is ridiculed by the same professional novices, who have not mastered it themselves; and who declare that it cannot be understood, or, that, if by long close study it should be comprehended by any one, the fruit would not pay for the labor bestowed upon its cultivation. But no men, more than educated Englishmen and Americans, owe 144 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF it to themselves and their age and their mothertongue, to preserve in its sacred beauty, unbroken and unspotted through all time, the temple of their literature and their language. (3.) The Frisic. This is kindred to the Anglo-Saxon and the Old Norse, and yet separate from them both. It was once spoken on the Elbe, and along the northern coast of Germany. It is found now as a living language, only in a few scattered districts in the Netherlands; and it is alive there only in the lips of men and not in their books, and so finds shelter only among the rude uneducated masses. The Dutch has entirely displaced its words, as current coin, by its own as having a far higher value. (4.) The Low Dutch. (a) The Netherlandish. These include the Flemish and Dutch languages. The native home of the Flemish language is Belgium. As the French is the court-language of Belgium, and contains in itself great elements of vitality and wonderful tendencies to diffusion, wherever it once obtains a permanent lodgment, the Flemish is in such unfavorable contact with it rapidly waning away, and will probably ere long retain only the name of having been once cherished, as a household treasure, by its own people. Happily however, for dead languages like depopulated countries are full of mournful asso THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 145 ciations, the Flemish language is a separate language from the Dutch, almost wholly in its orthography alone. As, therefore, they are in their real substantive essence alike and the words of the two languages are themselves the same, its spirit will still survive, when it, has resigned its breath, in that fine rich Dutch language, of whose literature and of whose genius, as well as of the history of whose people although so strongly connected with our own, it is no praise to us, that we are so profoundly ignorant. (b) The Saxon. This is a modern title of convenience, for describing the staple or material of several kindred dialects, or rather different forms or stages of the same dialect, called the old Saxon, the Middle Low German and the flat or vulgar German (Plattdeutsch). The old Saxon was formerly spoken in the north of Germany. The Heliand, a poem written in the ninth century, is the only relic now left of it, possessing any value. It is a harmony of the gospels in mere* alliterative metre. The different dialects included under the old Saxon, receive in their bare enumeration all the honor that they deserve. They contain in them nothing that speaks of an heroic past or of a vitalized present. 2. The High German. The etymology of the word, German, a name given * A brief but good specimen of it may be found in Latham, on the English Language, pp. 26-7. Third edition. 146 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF to the people who bear it, by other nations and not by themselves, is yet a mooted question. Numerous have been the guesses made concerning it. Some have derived it from Kerman in Persia, now Caramania. But whatever affinities the German may have with the Persian, it is yet true that the Germans did not call themselves by this name, and so could not have carried it with them, from the place of their origin. Others have derived it from the Latin germanus (Eng. germain) kindred or cognate: a mere accidental resemblance in form, with no historical connection in sense; while others maintain that it originated in gher (French guerre, Spanish guerra) war, and mann, man; and others still find it in the vernacular Irman or Erman. It is, on the contrary, in all probability a Celtic word, as Leo has recently suggested, derived from gairmean a shout or war-cry, formed from gair to cry.* The name Deutsch, by which the Germans denominate themselves, andl to which also the name Teutones is allied, is derived from the Gothic thiudisko (Gr. &9vtxc3g), from thiuda (i',voz) a nation, and answers therefore to our word Gentile. Like the Latin, the German languages supply the want of separate tense-suffixes, by auxiliary verbs. The only tenses formed on the simple verb-stem, are' the present and imperfect. The Gothic retained the dual * So in IIomer a great warrior is often described as rdya3os Bo3'v, good in shouting; which is an essential part of war with a savage. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 147 and had also reduplicated forms; but these are so mutilated in the modern Germanic tongues, as not to be discoverable except by comparison. Grimm states four points of discrimination, by which the German family of languages is individualized by itself: (1.) The ablaut, or change of the radical vowel, in the conjugation-forms of the verb. (2.) The lautverschiebung, or change of sounds and letters from one point to another on the same scale. (3.) The weak conjugation of the verb. (4.) The strong conjugation. The High German has had three eras of periodic growth, in respect to the styles of its forms. 1. That of the Old High German, prevailing from the seventh to the eleventh century. 2. That of the Middle High German, from the eleventh century to Luther's day. The Niebelungen, the great German epic of ancient times, was prepared in the form in which we find it, somewhere about the year 1200. It contains however scraps of poetry, that probably date back as far as Charlemagne, two hundred years earlier (1000 A. D.). This is the Iliad of the Germanic tribes, written in the days of chivalry. Its heroes are those of the fifth and sixth centuries, and of a Christian type; and it is full of old traditions and marvels. 3. The New High German, or what we call the present classic German, born 148 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF in its full complete state at the Reformation, and of it. Luther was its foster-father. Its words took their fixed and final form in his earnest, glowing, scholarly mind, and by his pen were "engraven in the rock forever." [n his noble translation of the Scriptures, he not only scattered everywhere the seeds of divine truth but popularized also the usage of his mother tongue, in richer, deeper, stronger forms, than ever before; and by that translation, still recognized with national pride as the standard version of the Scriptures, as well as by the sweet hymnology that has flowered forth from its prolific stem around the walls of the sanctuary, the language has been preserved in the state in which he found and used it, with sacred care. Throughout all the stages of its historic development, the High German has been full of treasures, which the world has not been willing to forget. It is now, for both aesthetical and philosophical uses, more akin in its inward and subtle affinities to the Greek, than any other living language. It has a sort of divine aura around and within it. And if to one, not born in its presence or brought up under its power, who looks upon it from without with cool, critical survey, its charms seem so exquisite, even when compared with those of the other great languages of the world; how inspiring must be its influence on those, who from childhood have been taught to love it as their mother tongue: all whose thoughts and feelings, all whose wonder, joy and sorrow and all whose THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 149 loves and hopes and longings, for this world and the next, have been breathed from the first through its living chords! In original, constant productiveness and the capacity for an ever-enlarging home-growth of its own, and that of the most homogeneous character, no modern language equals it; and in this respect as in so many others, some of them more easily felt than described, it resembles the Greek. There is no modern tongue, which a mind thoroughly English in its type and tone, can so profitably receive into all its elements of thought and growth, as the German. It has great capacity for expressing nice discriminations and poetical conceptions; and to us of other nations, whose languages are the mere alluvial deposits of those of elder days: having none of the interior principles of spontaneous organic growth, that the German like the Greek possesses, taking on new forms and combinations as used by each new age and even by each new mind that assumes to itself the privilege of making them, as the right is universally conceded: it seems delightful indeed to come within the atmosphere and aroma of its fresh blossoming fulness of life. The mind feels, when surrounded everywhere by the living stir of its agencies and energies, joyously and strangely elastic in its moods: it has an instinct to climb and vault and shake off every sense of weakness, as when, in tender sympathy with nature, it stands and gazes on the first full outburst of new life and beauty in the spring. The heart 11 150 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF is moved amid the splendors of its poetry, as it sometimes is under the power of some wild witching melody, which makes the soul feel, as if deep within itself there were another self, to which few things in this world had the power to make themselves heard or seen. In many-sidedness the German is not at all equal to the English. Its connections with the Latin are far less numerous: the Greek element does not prevail so extensively in it; nor have the modern languages impressed their form and influence upon it, as upon the English. The German has indeed, throughout, fewer admixtures of other languages in it, than any other European tongue, while the English has more than any other. While therefore in English almost all words have been first distilled through the alembic of the Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, French, Italian or Spanish mind; in German, with few exceptions, they all claim one common origin and bear in them the mark of a distinct national individuality. German literature is full of strength and beauty, to a degree even of almost Asiatic luxuriance. The more recent tvpe, however, of the German mind is that of profound scholarship. The Germans are the self-chosen and world-accepted miners of the realms of science, and obtain the pure ore of knowledge, by willing, patient delving after it; which other nations convert into all the forms of intellectual commerce for the world's good. Instead of the sense of nationality, which other nations cherish so warmly THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 151 and of which their poets sing in songs of their fatherland, as only those can sing who have lost a once dear treasure: a sense, which, by their minute division into kingdoms and duchies, has been destroyed among them: they possess a broad cosmopolitan taste and consciousness, and have accordingly undertaken to be the stewards of the world's intellectual riches, and purveyors to its mental wants. VI. The Celtic. This class of languages has not been appreciated until very recently, as having the connections, which it really does possess, with the great Indo-European family. To Dr. Prichard, that fine English investigator into the natural history of man and into ethnology, is due the honor of having first discovered their true connection with it. It was ingeniously guessed at the outset by Sir William Jones, to be one of the IndoEuropean family. But, as guesses are as likely to be false as true and have as such no science or substance in them, the merit of the discovery is as great, as if no such surmise had been previously made; since, in Prichard's day, it had lost all its qualities of value, whether authoritative or suggestive. Bunsen claims, as has been stated, that the place for the Celtic, in the history of languages, lies midway between the Old Egyptian, which he regards as the most primeval language yet discovered, and the Sanskrit: "The Celtic," as he claims, "never having had the Sanskrit 152 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF development; so that, while it exhibits a systematic affinity with it in some respects, it shows also in others a manifest estrangement from it." The Old Egyptian, it is conceded, exhibits many inward resemblances to it in several respects; and on any and every view, the Old Egyptian of the Semitic family, and the Sanskrit and Celtic not of that family, point in many of their common characteristics to a possible unity, at least, in one ultimate origin; and it is not at present absolutely certain, in what way we should state the true relative order of their sequence. It is manifest that the Celts led the van of occidental emigration through the wilderness of primeval Europe,? and spread over Gaul, Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Britain. The greater part of Europe indeed was inhabited in its earliest historic period, by different tribes of Celts. They were found however by the races that followed in their train, most numerously in Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain; while traces were found of them also even in Greece, Illyria and Italy. They had no letters and in fact despised them, as unworthy of a warlike people; and therefore had no way of preserving their laws or history or scanty literature, except to deposit them in the archives of their own hearts. Hence they undertook to hand them down, from one generation to another by song. Their poets they called bards: a profession that included all who felt moved by any strange wild THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 153 impulse within them, to an earnest utterance of themselves to others; and its ideal was best realized in a sort of native spontaneous combination of the poet, the musical composer and the practical singer, in one and the same person. Many such poets there were among them, in the course of those long centuries so voiceless now to us; and their poems were sweet, like the carols of summer birds, to the hearts of those wandering tribes. The ancient Druids, the instructors of Celtic youth, sometimes devoted many years to teaching theamthose wild native songs; and the primitive Celts were justly distinguished, as having been addicted beyond most rude early races to poetry; and bards were held in high honor, both among the primitive Gauls and Britons. The chief monument of ancient Celtic verse, still left standing on the earth, is that of Ossian; which is now generally allowed by those best acquainted with Gaelic literature, to be genuine. He was indeed, as he is commonly called, "the prince of Scottish bards." Certainly, if Macpherson could himself write such a poem, so noble in itself and so wonderfully set, in respect'to its ideas and all their surroundings of men and manners, in the age to which it pretended to belong, he would have no reason to be ashamed of acknowledging its authorship, and no motive to bestow the honor gratuitously upon another of whom nothing was known but his name. To one of the'Wolfe-school 154 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF of doubters, who can make himself believe that Homer is a name for a class of giant-geniuses, instead of one alone, and so that the Iliad is a fortuitous concourse of many poems from several authors, no evidence could probably ever suffice to assure him of its genuineness. But to one who feels an argument, the proof seems sufficient for the reasonable conviction, that Ossian really made the poem, which Macpherson only translated. The Celtic possesses now but a sporadic existence. Its present remains are the Kymric or Welsh, and the Gaelic, the native tongue of the Scotch I-Iighlanders, and the Erse or native Irish; in which, especially the last, we have modern specimens of the most ancient type of languages of this stock. The Celtic departs most in the style of its poems, of all the languages hitherto enumerated, from the primeval aspects of words as found in the Sanskrit. The institutions that the Celts founded and the very vocabulary that they used, were early overborne by Roman conquests, ideas and influences. They nowhere maintained a firm foothold, against the influx of the races that succeeded them, except at the most advanced outposts of the continent: whence there was no region beyond into which' they could be driven except the sea. That German element also in modern society, which has so largely modified all the aspects of the civilized world, came in ere long upon them with all its force, and overlaid them with THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 155 its own peculiar character. And yet the Celtic has left at the same time its manifest impress upon the German; which, having existed geographically midway between the Celtic and Slavonic nations, has also partaken of their characteristics mutually but much more of the Celtic than of the Slavonic. In the Teutonic languages generally, there is found a greater mixture of Celtic words, than in any other class of languages. The Teutonic races followed more exactly in the track of the Celts receding before them, than any others. The German and Celtic languages have likewise, aside from their common inheritance of the same great original staple of Indo-European words, many words that they have directly borrowed each of them from the other. It is not therefore always easy: so changed are words often in passing from one language to another, whether passing early or late in their history: to say, whether the correspondences which are found are in some cases original or derived. The Celtic is spoken still, in the central and southern parts of Ireland, in the north-western parts of Scotland, in the Hebrides and the islands between England and Ireland and also in Wales, and on the continent in Brittany. The Celts are all now under the British yoke, except those living in Brittany over whom France rules. And, as they form in their geographical and historical position alike, the advanced guard of all the nations of Europe, it is both natural and logical to conclude that if of Arian origin, as is 1t56 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF probable, and not of an antecedent date, they constitute the first cleavage from the great primary elemental mass of Indo-European mind. Not only does the Celtic differ more from the Sanskrit, than any of the other languages of the Arian family, but it is also the least complete and mature of them all, in its own individual features. The Celts never invented any alphabet for themselves, and never borrowed one for their own separate use, as did the Greeks from the Phoenicians, from any other people. The Celtic * family includes, 1st. The Kymric.t * This is Diefenbach's classification of them. He is one of the most recent investigators in this field, and is one of the highest of all authorities in philology: like Bopp, Pott, and the Brothers Grimm among the elder lights in this field, and Schleicher, Kuhn, Curtius and Aufrecht among its younger leaders. t CELTIC CORRESPONDENCES. Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gothic. Celtic. English. Welsh' bhu, to be ~S; fui (Ang.Sax.) bu beo Irish bi J ofovs dens danta(s), stem stem tunthu dant tooth a tooth oPorr dent hanu(s), ) the jaw. ygvvs gena kinnus genau chin cf. ganda sara, salt ) Irsh a and salan, a; sal Welsh salt water halen J halen pada(s), pes a stem stem fotu ped foot a foot'IT ped horse, equIs W elsh laight s5nox noLeap nisa, light prt nox nochd night THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 157 2d. The Gadhelic. 1st. Under the Kymric are included (1) The Welsh. (2) The Cornish, which was confined to Cornwall, and ceased to be a living language about sixty years ago. (3) The Low-Breton or Armorican, which prevails in French Brittany. This whole class of Kymric languages is separated very distinctly from the kindred Gadhelic; and they are sometimes denominated also the Britannic dialects. 2d. Under the Gadhelic are included also various dialects. Gadhelic is formed, as Pictet thinks, from gaedel and gaodheal, meaning hero, from gaodaim to rob, or plunder: a hero and a robber being among lawless men synonymous. This derivation is preferable to that of Charles Meyer, who regards Gadhel, Gael and Gallus, as all derived from the old Celtic root gwydh to follow, and so pointing to the nomadic habits of the primitive Celts, or their great perpetual tendency to clanships. (1) The Gaelic proper, or High Scotch. (2) The Irish or Erse. In the words Eirinn,* Erin and Ireland Pictet t The flexion of the word Eirinn is in Irish as follows: Nom. Eire also Ere. Gen. Eireann, Eirenn and Erenn. Dat. Eirinn. Erinn and Eiren. Acc. Eire. The classical forms of the name as'IEpvrs,'Iepvlr, Iovepvia, Hibernia 158 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF claims, notwithstanding Pott's hasty laughter at previous etymologists for having broached such an idea, that we see the old family name Iran or Arii, still flying on the flagstaff of one great branch of the Celts, who first left their common home. The Irish language possesses, beyond any other of the Celtic languages, the most ancient forms of words. What the Germans call the umlaut,* prevails here abundantly. (3) The Manx, or that spoken in the isle of Man. In the Celtic declension of the verb, the three persons are expressed sometimes by the personal pronouns, combined as suffixes with the verb-stem, as in the Sanskrit and also in mutilated forms in the other IndoEuropean languages; and sometimes, as in English, by the separate use of the pronouns before the verb. A declension of the noun cannot be said to exist at all, in some of the languages of this family, as the Welsh and Low Breton. The relations of words to others in a sentence, are expressed by changes in their initial &c. are composite. Thus Hibernia, Pictet regards as compounded of Ibh the land, and Erna of the Erins; and so in the Greek form 7IovepvLa, the syllable ov is a softening of the Irish bh, or Latin b in Hibernia; and the form'IFvp7 is for'IFWpvIr. The stern ibh may be connected. he thinks, with the Sanskrit ibhya wealthy, opulent, cf. Gr.'btlor strong, mighty: so that the stem of the word Iren or Irish would mean the good, the brave. Pictet's article is interesting, and may be found in Kuhn's Beitr/ige zur Sprachforschung, pp. 81-99. * This means a softening of a radical vowel of a word, into an e sound, to denote a difference of person in a noun, or of tense in a verb; as in our words brother and brethren, foot and feet, tooth and teeth, was and were. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 159 parts, and those changes are phonetically adapted to the terminal characteristics of the words preceding them: the direction taken by the law of assimilation in this family of languages, being exactly opposite to that, taken in the other branches of the Indo-European family. In the Celtic languages, constant modifications are made by words placed in combination, one of the other, like those denominated Sandhi in Sanskrit. Consonantal mutations are much more varied in Welsh than in the Irish; and words beginning with vowels are subject also in Welsh to changes, similar to those made by Guna in Sanskrit. A comparison of the Numerals in Welsh and Irish with those in Sanskrit is worthy of attention. Welsh. Irish. Sanskrit. 1. un aen aika 2. dau and da dwi dwy do dwau 3. tri and tair tri tri 4. pedw'ar and keathair chatur pedair 5. pump kuig panchan 6. chwech se shash 7. saith secht saptan 8. wyth ocht ashtau 9. naw noi nawan 10. deg. deich dasan The Welsh and AEolic Greek make nearly the samle kind of consonantal substitutions: as p (aw) for Sanskrit ch as in zvCra, A3ol., /u,e, Welsh pump, Sansk. 160 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF panchan; and the gutturals c, g, k for sh and s as tcfza; Welsh deg; Sansk. dasan; and eizoct: Welsh ugain: Sansk. vinsati. Similarly the Latin and the Erse are quite alike in their consonantal phenomena. They neither of them adopt the p of the Welsh and zEolic Greek, but have c or q instead of it, as in Latin quatuor, Erse keathair, four: Sansk. chatur: Welsh pedwar: Gr. zrrzaeq, IEol. dcizvo; and so quinque (pronounced originally kinke): Erse kuig, compared with the Greek and Welsh -as above. The Teutonic dialects agree generally more with the Welsh and Azolic Greek, than with the Latin and Erse. A few specimens of Erse and Welsh correspondents with the Sanskrit equivalent will make their differences still more apparent. Sanskrit. Erse. Welsh. jani, a woman gean, virah, a hero fear matri, a mother mathair nabhah, aether neav nev dhara, earth daiar ukshan, an ox agh yeh druh, a tree dair derw danta(s), a tooth dant dvar, a door d6r mri, to dib marbh marw vid, to know fis (knowledge) wydha (to learn) We have now passed in review the different families of the historical languages of the world, in as rapid a manner, as justice to their several degrees of excel THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 161 lence and honor would allow. The original Indo-European language, so called from its many Asiatic and European descendants, whose names, for want of one more apposite, are united in it; by whatever name it was called by those who spoke it, before they called themselves Arians, and wherever they lived under the power of those energetic influences, which the history of the languages descended from it shows it to have possessed, must have been one of great splendor within and without. And, as the reflex influence of a kingly language is one of the strongest of all stimulating influences that a nation can ever feel, in the mode of its development, wondrous indeed must have been its adaptations, for the purposes of an ever-growing mental life and commerce among men. In it were the germs of most of the many great languages, that have since come and gone upon the face of the earth. Whatever words have been really added to the original stock, except in the way of new combinations of words already belonging to it, must have been wholly or chiefly onomatopoetic; in which, as in the words hiss, crash, splash, murmur, men have simply uttered from their own tongues, by way of imitation, the same sounds which they- had already heard in nature. It is worth the while, in conclusion, to consider even though in a brief manner, the lessons which are taught us by historical philology. They are these: 1. The Unity of the race. 162 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Nations and tribes that have no features physical, intellectual or spiritual in common, are yet found, by a comparison of their languages, to be bound closely together in the bonds of a common primeval brotherhood. Every new discovery in philology reveals new and wider connections between them, and harmonizes the voice of history with that of the Scriptures: just as in geology each new advance of the science serves to prove still more fully, that the genesis of nature was exactly the same as the Genesis of Revelation. 2. The greatly determining influence in man's history of the material, passive and receptive side of his nature. Human language wonderfully exhibits the play of physical influences upon us, in respect to our speech and our ideas, our experience and our employment, our pleasure and pain, our social state and our social progress. It almost says, that man is the sport of circumstances. This it would say absolutely, were it not for the counteractive power of that gentle but ever-active providence of God, which, while not disturbing at all the working of the most delicate, minute, unguarded elements of free agency in our nature, yet always broods over each individual, to influence him to -the best possible improvement of his nature; and to combine the actual results of his untrammelled choice and action, in harmony with that of every other one, in the production of the greatest possible amount of good to all. There is thus a true materialism which phi THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 163 losophy must recognize, as one of the fundamental bases of all her theories of man, whether viewed individually or collectively. Not more truly is man himself a compound being, composed of body and soul, or the body itself a duality in the details of its structure, than human experience and human development are twosided, active and passive, material and spiritual. Without doubt, as men come to be more and more under the constant action of mental and moral forces, by the allpenetrating and widely-diffused power of Christianity, the sphere of climatic influences will be greatly abridged and their potency much impaired. Similarity of religion and of education will induce, in very different latitudes, similarity of views, feelings and habits. The mind was made to rule the body and to have dominion, not only over its activities and energies, but also over its everchanging states and moods. An intellect and a heart set on fire of Heaven and glowing with a spirit of high service to God and man, are adequate to any triumphs over the infirmities of the flesh, or the power of matter and of time. And yet, in that golden age of the future, in which Heaven and Earth are to be wedded to each other in one prolonged and happy union, each zone will still have its different air and sky as now, its different fields and floods, its different advantages and defects, and all its wide variety of sights by day and of voices by night. And, when we remember how much more God undertakes to educate the mass of men, by 164 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF the beauty of nature than by any other appliance even revelation itself, except the overflowing bounty of his providence, it is natural to believe, that in no coming Age of the world will objective influences cease to mould, iery greatly, the growths and manifestations of human character and of human society. In the past, however, most nations, even those of the highest development, have used, and indeed possessed but to a very limited degree in their culture, the full power of the light that Christianity contains in itself for the illumination of mankind, or of its heat to warm their sluggish natures into that generous divine growth of which they are capable. In the wild neglected state of Heathen life, in which as the very word itself implies, human society is one vast moral heath, physical influences are all-powerful, if not always upon the heart yet upon the temperament, as also upon the experience, employment and character, of those who have no elements of thought, feeling or purpose competent to resist the force of external agencies upon them, much less any transforming power within, that can make all things minister to their joy and work together for their good. 3. The low degree of man's inventive power. The very word inventive indicates in its etymology, that he stumbles by chance upon his discoveries. The history of the arts of life, as well as that of the natural sciences, each wonderfully illustrates this fact, but neither of them more strikingly than that of language. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 165 All the new forms to be found in any language are but new combinations of elements in previous existence, and but slightly and in the most accidental manner generally, modified to a new use or to a new form of expression for an old use. No new language is ever made, or was ever made, out of original underived materials by man; for the reason, that he is not only incapable of such a work, but also that, from the very sense of his incapacity for it, he is, as any man may know by appealing to his own consciousness for a verdict, immovably averse both to the effort and to the very thought of it. How amazing, accordingly, seems the stupefied atheistic wonder of some sceptical German philologists, at the fact, so incomprehensible to them and to any one else who does not see in language the handiwork of God, that the earlier languages of the world were so much more complete in their forms, than those of modem times! We do not pretend indeed to solve all the mysteries of language. We walk in every science, and when in the pursuit of any truth, in but a narrow zone of day, whether using the torch of reason or the upper lights of revelation. Is it asked: whence, if language be of divine origin, comes the order of successive relation in different languages to each other, the monosyllabic, agglutinated and inflected? To this question several answers may be given. We might, for example, rest quietly in the admission and even the plea of human 12 166 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ignorance. Questions about the internal connections of things are more easily asked in every field of inquiiy, than answered. Man, although having lived for six thousand years upon the earth, yet knows, to this day, nothing of its deep interior, save for the shallow distance of one mile; and, amid all the wonderful results of chemical analysis, no one can possibly tell in what life or light or electricity consist. We accept any thrust at human ignorance in general, and return it also with as good will as it is given upon the objector. But, so far as the divine origin of language is concerned, it is as easy to conceive of God's having created different types and orders of languages, as of his having made by distinct ordaining fiats, as he evidently has, so many different species of animals of the same genus. That Great Being, whose creative impulses have in them a royal measure of vitality: who gives to every zone its own distinct flora, in such unmeasured abundance, to every animal all his varied elements of activity and enjoyment, and to every man the whole vast complicated apparatus of his faculties, resources, opportunities and blessings: multiplying, on every hand, variety in species as well as in genera, unfolding one order of life within another, and joying at all times in the infinite overflow of His power and skill and love in all things: surely He may find a pleasure, in erecting different stages for the manifestation of man as a social being, that is too subtle for our penetration, and too high for THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 167 us to undertake to climb up into the secret chambers of his plans. Suppose moreover that the agglutinated and inflected languages were conceded to be of a derived nature, and, in their special forms, of absolute human construction, yet the divine origin of language itself could be asserted and vindicated. The developmenttheory of the origin of language claims as such, not merely a successive manifestation of related and improved forms, but also that this is the whole theory of their first origination, as well as of their consequent progress. Unfortunately for the advocates of the development-theory, in respect to the different forms of vegetable and animal life, there is no such commingling of types, as there should be, on such a view, in nature; but each type, on the contrary, stands by itself, a bold distinctive token of a separate creation: so that hybrids are monsters, which, like the Gorgon and Chimaera dire, can easily be dreamed about but nowhere found. So, in the realm of language, the different classes of families stand apart by themselves, in large well-defined groups: no one of them losing itself in another, or being unitrue in its growth to its own normal type of manifestation. But is all language to be regarded, as having been in its first state a mere mass of wordgerms: a huge pile of fortuitous, unconnected, crude syllabications? If any are pleased with such a philosophical analysis of the different styles of human speech, 168 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF can they persuade themselves to alight, with confidence in their speculations, upon such a theory, as a matter of historical verity. If the Chinese system of mere separate monosyllables thus represents the first period of its manifestation, how happens it, that in four thousand years there has been no advance in that part of the world on such a supposition, as in all other parts, beyond its first beginnings? Nothing else has remained stationary in that strange land, unless it be the kindred art of painting. The Chinese have arrived surely at as high a point in enterprise, literature and the arts of life generally in the aggregate, if not in some single particulars, as any heathen nation before them. Whence then such a long-continued petrified state of the language remaining, like a rock, still unchanged in its original simplicity, amid a sea of changes around it? On the theory, that every language was not only a mass at first of monosyllabic germs, so that the organism of all speech must have commenced, like the reproductive processes of vegetation, in a sort of monadic cell-life; but also that man himself has been, in each case, the creator of those germs: where, we ask, and when, lived that wonderful generation of men, who had the superhuman genius to evolve such a world of prolific germs out of nothing? The mystery of the creation of language, if of human origin, is by such an hypothesis only thrown farther back in time. It is also rather increased than diminished, by such THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 169 a fancied duplication of the modes and elements of its formation: first by germs of man's construction, and secondly by their multiform evolution in so many languages, in such a wonderful abundance of complicated word-growths. To create the germ of a tree is even a greater miracle, than to create a tree itself: since, not only the future existence of the tree is thereby determined, but also all the agencies, principles and processes fitted to secure it, are compacted together in so small a space and harmonized in their adaptations, to the wide array of circumstances and influences, by which it is surrounded. A botanist, who, after analyzing the elements of a plant into its ash or unorganized base on the one hand, and its organific elements on the other, should tell us, that these each came forth, in spontaneous succession, from the bosom of nature to their proper place and work, without any designing or ordaining hand to guide them, would receive for his recompense our pity, if not our contempt. But is not a theorist very much like him in his positions who contends, that the bases of words as such were made by men themselves, and that afterwards the organific principles, which form the constitution of the inflected languages, were also created in the same way, and combined with them in such a beautiful union: the more beautiful in clearness and completeness, the farther back that we go towards the dawn of creation? Men have nowhere shown, within any historic 170 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF period, such amazing skill. The contributions made by any one generation in modern times to the stock of language, are exceedingly narrow, except in the single direction of scientific terminology; for which the constant progress of the sciences, all of them so new in their origin or in their present style of effective demonstration, is ever making new demands. And such' additions are not new words in themselves, but only importations directly from the Greek and Latin, into English or some other modern tongue. And yet we of our day, and not they who lived before us in times of less experience and progress, are the old men of the world; and what we, in the manhood of historic humanity, are unable to do, they certainly, who were so much younger in their attainments, had not power to accomplish. The history of language also is always, as it floats down the stream of time, a history of abrasion and curtailment, in respect to its structural elements. To suppose that Adam was made by his great loving Maker but an adult infant, to develope language, his first social and mental necessity, by slow gradations from unmeaning inarticulate cries in the first place, mere syllabicated whines and hiccoughs, is a theory, that neither honors man in its statement, as it respects his real wants, or God, as it respects his disposition to provide for them. That same benignant Father of mankind, who always works a miracle when it is demanded, for the same reason that He refrains THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 171 from working one, when it is not: who confounded the speech of those who were building the tower of Babel: who wrote with his own finger on the tables of stone: who inspired prophets and apostles to speak unto all men the things that they received from Him; and who gave the gift of tongues to the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, for the purpose of better spreading the truth, as it is in Christ:. he surely would not leave Adam at the outset to himself, as a poor, ignorant, helpless being, to grope from one unavoidable mistake into another, in respect to the very simplicities of life, and, when accompanied by his mate made for high companionship and discourse with him, to eke out by slow degrees, in a few unformed and broken syllables, a poor and pitiable intercourse, but little better than the mute association of two animals together. While Adam was yet alone, God is represented as bringing before him "every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." Surely here is a being, who is no infant in knowledge or in speech, but who is treated rather by God himself, as one who knows well the scope and power of words. And, as God looked upon His works, at the end of each of the great days of creation to see that they were all very good; so, in the record here furnished he seems to call upon Adam to use the speech which He had taught him; as if look 172 - HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ing on, to enjoy the pleasing result of Hlis own contriving skill. As a matter of plain undeniable fact also, each successive generation, in all times and places, has learned its language from the one immediately preceding it; and, as we run backwards with this rule of analysis to the first man and find him standing alone in the garden of Eden hearing God's commands, not to touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and giving names at His summons to every beast of the field, are we not forced, both by logic and fact, to ascribe the authorship of language as such to God? He moreover, who made man for intercourse with Himself, and therefore walked with him in open vision in the garden, would surely give him language, to use for the purpose; and He, who afterwards made a coat for him, when having no implements yet prepared himself, with which to conceal his nakedness, would give him words, with similar love and care, with which to clothe his thoughts and feelings. It is no reply to this general course of argument to say, that children now-a-days learn language, by first of all uttering monosyllables, and, from such feeble initial attempts, grow up into the full use of all the mysteries of speech. For children learn even such simple monosyllables, by imitating sounds that they hear, and that too under the constant effort of their parents and others, to lead them forward step by step in their progress. In mutes accordingly, as all know, the ear THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 173 is at fault and not the tongue or larynx: they are dumb, only because they are deaf; or, which is the same thing, they cannot speak, because they have never heard others speak. Language is accordingly, one of the imitative arts of life. There are but three possible theories, concerning the origin of language: the development-theory, which we have attacked and, as we believe, overthrown; the theory of its divine origin which we hold, with both intellectual and moral satisfaction; and still another, which seems utterly preposterous in itself, but which yet no less a scholar than Max Miiller soberly advocates: its origination, as an unique complete product by itself of a single human mind, especially in reference to each of the two great families of inflected languages. Hear his singular words: "In the grammatical features of the Arian and Semitic dialects we can discover the stamp of one powerful mind, once impressed on the floating materials of human speech, and never to be obliterated again in the course of centuries. Like mighty empires founded by the genius of one man, in which his will is perpetuated as law through generations to come; the Semitic and Arian languages exhibit in all ages and countries a strict historical continuity, which makes the idioms of Moses and Mohammed, of Homer and Shakspeare, appear but slightly altered impressions of one original type. Most words and grammatical forms, in these two families, seem to 174 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF have been thrown out but once, by the creative power of an individual mind; and the differences of the various Semitic and Arian languages, whether ancient or modern, were produced not so much by losses and new creations, as by changes and corruptions which defaced in various ways, the original design of these most primitive works of human art." Does it not seem strange, that such a scholar can seriously maintain a view so singular as this: that, from one man's mind alone the great primal language, now lost in itself but represented in various proportions by the several members of the Indo-European family, came, at a full and sudden birth, into existence; and that too, with such inward and outward characteristics, that subsequent ages have been able to add nothing to them or subtract nothing of value from them; and thlat, from another superhuman mind of equally gigantic proportions the original mother-language of all the Semitic dialects came, with equally grand and fixed, although so diverse elements and energies, into being. Hear him still again in the same strain. He says, in an article furnished for Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History,* "on all the Arian languages, from Sanskrit to English, there is one colmrnon stamp, a stamp of definite individuality, inexplicable, if viewed as a product of nature, and intelligible only, as the work of one creative genius." All this he utters, while having * Vol. I. p. 475. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 175 present to his thoughts, at the very time, such a conception of these languages as he thus expresses: "no new root has been added, no new grammatical form been produced in any of the Arian provinces or dependencies, of which the elements were not present at the first foundation of this mighty empire of speech." He views accordingly the Semitic and Arian languages, as "the manifestations and works of two individuals, which it is impossible to derive from one another." And what a divine intellect must such an one have possessed and what an age, fortunate beyond all others, must that have been that had two such giants in it, debarred by mutual ignorance and the wide interval that separated them from any communication with each other, yet each employed in the magnificent work of conceiving for himself the form and substance of a language, which was to be ever afterwards the supplying fountain, each in a separate sphere of relations, of a long procession of kingly languages, that should draw all their life and strength from its fulness. Is not the supposition as monstrous, as that of the ancients, in supposing Atlas to bear upon his shoulders this solid globe on which we dwell? There is indeed a wonderfully scientific and artistic unity of plan, in the structure of the Indo-European type of language, as also in that of the Semitic: and the argument is conclusive from the unity of analogies here, as in nature, to unity of authorship, and that 176 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF authorship divine. The work of originating language is too high, for man's weak faculties. The hypothesis that language is of any other than divine origin, necessitates at once the farther supposition, that immense periods of time have existed, for the development of the great leading languages of the world, especially those of a high and finished organization, as the families of the inflected languages. This Bunsen sees and boldly accepts, as logically he must upon his theory. He says " a concurrence of facts and of traditions demand for the Noachian period about ten millennia before our era, and, for the beginning of our race, another ten thousand years or very little more." We find little or. no difficulty in supposing, with him and others, the deluge to have been local, although vast and overwhelming, where it prevailed, in Northwestern Asia. Just principles of interpretation, at any rate, seem to allow the possibility of such a theory; but not so with the history of our race, as given in the Bible, where a formal record is made of the successive generations of the race, step by step and name by name, with the birth and death and age of each representative of his own period in the series. A signal proof of the smallness of mlan's inventive powers in the department of language occurs in the fact, that even our low vulgar words, which never creep into a dictionary or upon any page, that has light and THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 177 beauty enough in it to deserve a day's continuance in any place of honor; words, which, at first thought, one would suppose must be the slimy product of English depravity: are yet thousands of years old. They are found, with but little change of form in Greek and Latin, preserved, together with other specimens of an. cient corruption, amid the altars of Heathen worship or the bowers of Heathen Song. Like the so ancient sports of boyhood, as the outdoor game of ball and the indoor game of chess, which were played in Babylon, Athens and Rome, just as they are now among us, they make us feel that after all there is nothing new beneath the sun. 4. The necessity, for the proper comprehension of any one language, of a thorough survey and analysis of its connections with other and older languages. Comparative philology is a science, of even more interest, than comparative anatomy. In its three chief departments: comparative grammar, comparative lexicography and comparative phonology, it reveals wonderful resemblances between the older and newer languages, one and all of them, even in the most minute details. Etymology, taught and studied on thoroughly scientific and philological principles, is, not only one of the most engaging, but also, one of the most profitable of all studies. The time is near at hand, and may it come soon, when, in our universities and high 178 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF schools, the languages can no more be taught, in a narrow, mechanical and profitless manner; and when mere verbal accuracy in translation, and the careful skimming off of a few facts and principles of syntax, form the surface of the lesson, shall not be deemed adequate results to be gained, in so high a department of study. A professorship of Sanskrit, embracing the whole field of comparative philology, is, as a part of the true ideal of classical instruction, an absolute necessity in every college; and it must ere long be recognized as such, in every institution that aspires to the character, of doing honestly and earnestly its true work in the world. There is surely no one department of instruction, in the collegiate course, that, in respect to all the elements and uses of a liberal education, can compare, in- importance, with that of the languages. And to be found ignorant, amid all the lights of modern philology, of the multiplied connections of Greek and Latin one with the other, as well as of their connection with the Sanskrit before them and with the modern languages behind them: to make no use or but little use of these great facts, enlightening and inspiring as they are in the work of instruction, should entitle him, who thus dishonors his high calling, to exchange at once his false position, as a professed guide to others, for the true one of a learner for himself, in respect to its first principles. With the educated men THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 179 of the country, are lodged its fortune and its fate. And republicanism of the highest form claims, as one of its chief supports, a broad and columnar style of scholarship among them. TABULAR VIEWS. I. OF THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD, IN GENERAL. II. OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE, IN GENERAL. III. OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMIL-Y, IN PARTICULAR. IV. OF THE SPORADIC LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE. 13 TABULAR VIEWS. I.-GENERAL TABULAR VIEW OF THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD. First. Those of the Unhistorical Continents: Africa and the Americas. I. The African. Ist. The Berber Languages: Native in Fezzan, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, &c.: Semitic in their origin. 2d. The Caffre Languages. (1) The Congo: spoken in Lower Guinea. (2) The Sichuana: the language of the Bechuanlas. (3) The Hottentot. 3d. The Languages of Soudan. (1) The Nubian. (2) The Galla. (3) The Senegambian. II. The Aboriginal American. These never have been, and probably never will be, classified into any thorough scientific system. They are polysyllabic and polysynthetic to a high degree; and so, exactly antipodal to the monosyllabic languages. Second. Those of the hIistorical Continents: Asia and Europe. I. The Monosyllabic. II. The Agglutinative. III. The Inflected. IV. The Sporadic. 184 TABULAR VIEWS. II.-TABULAR VIEW OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE. First. The Monosyllabic, or Family-Languages. I. The Chinese. II. The Indo-Chinese. The Brahman, Siamese, &c. Second. The Agglutinative or, Nomadic Languages. I. Those distinctly Agglutinative. 1st. The Tataric Family. [(1) The Tungusi- languages; spoken fiom ( China, northward to Siberia and the eD | River Tunguska. (2) The Mongolic: The Eastern; Western; =~ gS j and Baikal dialects. (3) The Tulkic: Dialects, the Osmanli; Karatschai; Nogai; Kumfickish, &c. - (4) The Samoiedic. Z (5) The Finnic, or Tschudic: Dialects, Ug-?- 1 ric; Permic; Bulgaric; Lappie; Finnic. 1 r (6) The Tamulic. o. _ (7) The Bhotiya: Gangetic and Lohitic.: PEAL [(8) The Taic. El L (9) The Malaic. II. Those not so distinctly but yet essentially of the same rude style of mechanism. 2d. The Caucasian Family. (1) Iberian: Georgian; Colchian; Suanian. (2) Abehasic. (3) Lesgic. (4) MIizshe-ic. Third. The Inflected or State-Languages. I. Semitic. II. The Indo European. TABULAR VIEWS. 185 The Semitic Languages. I. The Egyptian or Khamitic. 1st. The Old, or Hieroglyphical, or Ante-historical Egyptian. 2d. The Later Egyptian. (1) Hieratic. (2) Demotic. 3d. The latest Egyptian, or Coptic. II. The Old Assyrian or Babylonian: differing as suchi only in their orthography. III. The Berber dialects of Africa. IV. The Canaanitic. 1st. Phoenician. 2d. Hebrew. (1) Ancient Hebrew. (2) Rabbinical Hebrew 3d. Punic. V. The Arammean. 1st. Chaldee. 2d. Syriac. 3d. Samaritan. VI. The Arabic. 1st. Athiopic, or Abyssinian. (Arabic, mixed with African elements,) 2d. Maltese. (Arabic, mixed with Italian.) 186 TABULAR VIEWS. III.-TABULAR VIEW OF THE ARIAN OR INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. First. The Arian Family-pair. I. The Indian. 1st. Sanskrit. (1) Ancient. a The Veda-dialect. b Classical Sanskrit. (2) Later. c Pali. d Prakrit. (3) Modern. e HindAstanee. f Bengalee. 2d. Gipsy. IT. The Iranian. ist. The Persian Languages. (1) Old Persian. (2) Zend. (3) Pehlevi. (4) Pazend or Parsi. (5) New Persian. 2d. The Kurdish. 3d. The Ossetian. (Geographically a Caucasian language.) 4th. The Armenian. (1) Old Armenian. (2) New Armenian. Second. The Grmeco-Italic or Latino-Greek Family-pair. I. Greek. 1st. The forming. or Dialectic period. (1) }Eolic. (2) Doric. (3) Ionic. (4) Attic. TABULAR VIEWS. 187 2d. The full-grown, or Hellenic period. 3d. The Alexandrine period. 4th. The Roman period. 5th. The Byzantine period. 6th. The Modern Greek or Romaic period. II. The Italic Family. 1st. The Iapygian. 2d. The Etruscan. 3d. The Italian. (1) The Umbro-Samnite Dialects: Umbrian; Samnite or Oscan; Volscian; Marsian. (2) The Latin. ~ I. Its own different phases. 1st. Literary Latin. (1) Anteclassical. (2) Classical (3) Postclassical. 2d. Middle Latin. 3d. Common Latin: (afterwards Italian.) ~ II. The Modern Languages derived from the Latin. 1st. Italian: (Dialects, Lombard; Genoese; Florentine; Neapolitan, Sicilian; Corsican; Sardinian, &c.) 2d. Wallachian. (1.) Daco-Romanic. (2) Macedo-Romanic. 3d. Spanish: (Dialects: Castilian; Catalonian; Galician.) 4th. Portuguese. 5th. ProvenCal. 6th. French. 7th. Rhaeto-Romanic. (An uncultivated patois of Italian elements mixed with German, found in the Canton of the Grisons in Switzerland.) 188 TABULAR VIEWS. Third. The Lettic Family. I. The Lithuanian. II. Old Prussian. III. Lettish. Fourth. The Slavic Family. I. South-eastern Slavic. 1st. Russian. (1) The Great Russian. (2) The Little Russian. (3) The White Russian. 2d. Bulgarian. 3d. Illyrian. (1) Servian. (2) Croatian. (3) Slowenic. I1. Western Slavic. 1st. Lechish or Polish. 2d. Tshechish. (1) Bohemian or Moravian. (2) Slowakish. 3d. Sorbenwendish. (1) Upper Lusatian. (2) Lower Lusatian. 4th. Polabish. Fifth. The Gothic, Teutonic or Germanic Family. I. The Low German. 1st. The Norse, or Scandinavian. (1) Icelandic, or Old Norse. (2) Swedish. (3) Danish-Norwegian. 2d. The Anglo-Saxon (English.) 3d. The Frisic. (1) Netherlandish. (2) Saxon. TABULAR VIEWS. 189 II. The High German. 1st. Old High German. 2d. Middle High German. 3d. New Iigh German. Sixth. The Celtic Family. I. The Kymric. 1st. Welsh. 2d. Cornish. 3d. Low Breton, or Armorican. II. Gadhelic. 1st. Gaelic Proper, or High Scotch. 2d. Irish or Erse. 3d. Manx. 190 TABULAR VIEWS. IV. TABULAR VIEW OF THE SPORADIC LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE. First. Of Asia. I. The Caucasian Languages. (See Division II. of Agglutinated Languages.) II. The Thibetan: A hybrid between the Chinese which it resembles in its roots and the Tatar family, which it resembles more in its structure. III. The Japanese: Somewhat mingled with Chinese; but in its grammatical constitution more Tataric than Chinese. Second. Of Europe. I. The Basque: In the Pyrenees-the remains of the Old Iberian. II. The Albanian or Arnautic: A seedling of the original Greco-Latin stock: Dialects, the Geghian and Toskian. II. THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. II. THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. PHILOLOGY* is that science which treats of the origin, history and structure of the words composing the classical languages and those connected with them, whether cognate or derived. It comprehends what is usually included in the separate departments of etymology and grammar, as well as both the history and the philosophy of language. The present state of philological research, vast as are its results, is xather that of splendid preparation for a complete scientific construction of its elements, than any such absolute construction itself. Its * The following Articles on the history of philology, although incomplete, are yet interesting and worthy of perusal: Wiseman's Lectures on Science and Religion, Nos. 2 and 3: Edinburgh Review, Vol. 94, (1851,) pp. 297-339: Bunsen's Philosophy of History, Vol. 1, pp..44-64: Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol. 2, p. 142; Donaldson's New Cratylus, pp. 21-54: Winning's Comparative Philology, pp. 16-32: Weber's Tndische Skizzen, pp. 1 —38. In the preparation of this article the author has been careful to go as far as possible to first sources, and to form his judgment from personal examination, and on an independent basis; and for the analyses and criticisms made of the works of the various writers quoted, he alone is responsible. 194 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. discoveries are too new and too disconnected, to be put as yet into a perfect edifice of worthy proportions; while the opportunity also for making fresh acquisitions is still too great, to be favorable for that high repose of thought in which science loves to dwell, and to gaze with deep, calm survey upon the wide circumference of things. Philology, like her elder sister Philosophy, has had for centuries a name among scholars; but like her, also, while honored with this formal remembrance, she has herself remained unknown, until standing within the horizon of our own day. From what beginnings, in what ways, and by what men, she has been conducted to her present seat of exaltation, it will be pleasant and profitable to learn.' The various senses of the word philology (cptLoaoyc/) at different times, exhibit in a general, though faint outline, the chief phases of its history. In old classical usage, it meant the love of literature; afterwards the scholastic mastery and exposition of language; more recently a sort of general amateur study of language, as a matter of mere pleasant curiosity; and last of all, the scientific exploration and comprehension of its interior mechanism, in relation both to its original elements, and also to their varied transformations, through a wide range of comparative analysis. Grammar, that great central determinative basis of all true philology, Grecian scholars at Alexandria, in HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 195 Egypt, were the first to construct into any distinct scientific form. With both synthetic and analytic thoroughness, they collected and compacted together the materials furnished them by their mother tongue, which they so much idolized; and defined with clearness the actual inward structure of their own language, as an independent mechanism by itself. This new science the Latins afterwards borrowed; but they early lost it, as having any controlling influence over their educational discipline, and even over their own speech; for in each one of the modern Romanic languages, which are but the Latin moulded with a few commingling elements into forms better adapted to express the wants and tastes of later generations, like old garments refashioned for new uses, we find an almost perfect obliteration of the many-angled and complicated syntax of the original Latin. It was in the cloisters of the middle ages, as in a conservatory, that the Latin was carefully sheltered from the rude storms without, and cultivated in all its native beauty. Here scholarly eyes watched with jealous care, by day and night, over its preservation. Here ancient words were kept as precious coins. Here Grammar, on whose wide and firm supports all the drapery of language rests, as a rich vine with its clusters of fruits and flowers upon the strong frame beneath it, was valued rightly for its many high uses, and from hand to hand and heart to heart, with heroic earnestness, this 196 HISTORY OF AMODERN PHILOLOGY. sacred relic of the elder times was carefully borne down from one age to another for the behoof of those who should live in the better days that were to come. And come they did, and that with observation. At the Reformation, the deep, slow heat, which for ages had been spreading as in a subterranean mine through all the scholarship of the world, burst forth with its long accumulation of energy. The leaders of this great awakening in modern society, as of the next greatest event since that day, the exodus of the Puritan Church to these shores, were the leading classical scholars of the times. The new era, accordingly, of moderml linguistic scholarship in its open and progressive manifestations, like that of modern social piety, is to be found in one and the same eventful period. Luther and Melanethon, not to speak of others, were themselves fine classical scholars; but, under the pressure of the times upon their consciences, they rather used the scholarship that they had previously acquired, for immediate desired results in other directions, than devoted their strength to its greater enlargement. But Reuchlin in Germany, Erasmus in Holland, anud Budaeus in France, each in his own land, held high the banner of classical study before the eyes of many followers. They were succeeded by some others who surpassed them, as each generation should its predecessor, if not HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 197 in the quality of their scholarship, yet in its vastness; as Muretus, Scaliger, Casaubon, Salmasius, Bentley, Porson and others, whose names will never be forgotten for their great attainments as measured by the opportunities of their age, and much more for the deep enthusiasm out of which they grew. High aims always deserve and secure respect. They are, indeed, the only title to it; and no standard for measuring a man could be more false, in multitudes of instances, than the common one of success or failure. But the scholarship of those days either contented itself with its own conscious pleasure, or was almost wholly occupied in disentombing old authors, whom time had buried in oblivion, or in filing away excrescences and corruptions from the text, as first obtained, by a more careful collation of manu-. scripts. Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, and especially the latter half of it, the linguisstof Europe, like the votaries of science who had been long searching for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, were eager to discover the one mother-tongue of all the languages of the world; and whilst scholars decided variously, according to the different amount of their research, or the different quality of their mental constitutions, the majority believed that it was the Hebrew, as that contained the oldest literature of any language which they knew, as well as the earliest records of our race. Others however thought, with equally good reason, that it was rather the Armenian, as that 14 198 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. was the language of the people living around Mount Ararat, where, from the times of Noah's ark, their ancestors had lived in unbroken succession. To one who would see the trail of these ideas extending down even to our own times, it will be worth the while to examine, in connection one with another, Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, Nork's Latin, and Webster's English Dictionaries. The Hebrew is represented in them all as moving like a king in a grand triumphal march, with the other languages walking humbly in its train. In another direction, also, much effort and learning were expended by scholars in that century, as by geologists fifty years ago who were everywhere seeking to find traces of the deluge, in the attempt to discover sure proofs of the confusion of tongues and of peoples, by the dispersion at Babel. As infidels also have sought to make each one of the natural sciences in their turn, when they first began to make any clear utterances of their own, bring in their testimony against the Scriptures, so too in philology they hoped to find a victorious enemy to Christianity. But Chronology, Ethnography and Etymology have all been tortured in vain, to make them contradict the Mosaic account of the early history of man. During the last century great interest was felt throughout Europe in comparing as many different languages as possible, though only on a narrow scale HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 199 of words, one with another. Leibnitz, who died an old man in 1716, that great philosopher, or rather universal genius, entitled by his contemporaries on account of his large learning a living dictionary, was very zealous in the study of Ethnography, and carefully collected all lists of words that he could obtain in different languages, for the purpose of comparing them together. IHe founded the present Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the home of modern philology, for the purpose of promoting the study of language, on broad philosophic' principles, by tracing out with care their analogies, and through them also the genealogy of mankind. His place in the history of philology is that of its early prophet, foreseeing in dim outline the wonders of this new continent' in the world of letters, but which, in his distance from it, he could picture to his eye only as a beautiful far-off dream-land. But with what sacred fervor did he, standing within the shadows of his own unilluminated age, wave his hand to the generations following him, in the direction of his ecstatic though faint vision of the future. Catherine II. also, Empress of Russia, ordered a special list of many of the most common Russian words to be prepared, and to be carefully collated with their equivalents in as many languages as possible; and, after undertaking herself to draw up formal tables of comparison in different languages, she transferred the long labor to Pallas, an eminent naturalist, who, as the result, published 200 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. in 1787 and 1789 a work entitled "A Comparison of the Vocabularies of all the Languages of the World." But in 1784 an event occurred, which made at the time but little show, and yet drew after it the most surprising consequences: the formation of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta by Sir William Jones, who had gone to Calcutta a vear before, as a great admirer and connoisseur of Oriental poetry, in order to perfect his knowledge of Indian literature. Before his day, the term " oriental languages " had included only the Semitic dialects. Under the auspices of the Asiatic Society, the Chinese language and literature were thoroughly studied by the best French scholars, and the languages and literature of India by those of England. Those earnest students of the Sanskrit, however, we must leave for a time at their work, and look at the developments meanwhile of European scholarship at home. In 1806, Adelung's Mithridates appeared, or at least the first volume of it: the second being issued in consequence of his death by Vater, in 1809, under whose auspices and those of the younger Adelung a third and a fourth volume appeared in 1816 and 1817. The languages of the world are here classified and described; and all helps for their acquisition then known are stated. Copies also of the Lord's prayer are presented in a great variety of languages for examination; but no scientific basis for a comparative study of them is indicated or conceived. These collections form, there HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 201 fore, but a mere unarranged mass of curiosities, no higher in character than in mineralogy would be a collection of stones from different lands, divided into classes according to their mere resemblances of color or of shape. Neither Adelung nor Vater were anlly thing more than good linguists; and Vater, indeed, was not in any high sense entitled even to such a name. Gradually, and in the form of many successive details, the true light was now beginning everywhere to dawn upon those that were seeking for it. The instinct and the effort to seek more light are always the needful preparation for obtaining it. In the study of the Persian, wonderful resemblances were found to both the Greek and German: the Latin and German also were compared together lexically, and found to possess many. surprising points of connection; and the feeling began to be common among scholars, that, in the pursuit of mutual analogies in different languages, was to be found a path to much sure spoil. Amid such investigations and under the combined action of many minds, throughout Europe and Asia, the new and true philology slowly but steadily rose into being, at the beginning of the present century. German scholars claim that it should be called Indo-German, instead of Indo-European, and thus bear on its very front perpetual praise to those great Germans, who have brought its wonders into view. But it is to English enterprise and scholarship in the first place, that the world owes the dis 202 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. covery of the elementary facts, which German industry and skill have since so fully developed and woven into such a web of manifold and marvellous beauty to a linguist's eye, On any view, however, the title used for these new etymological developments should be one descriptive of the breadth of their relations and results, rather than of the genius of those who have made them known. "Great is Truth," whether seen resting tranquilly on her shield upon the page of history, or moving in majesty along the pathway of human advancement; and everywhere let her be honored, for she is divine, while it matters little whether any man or any set of men either stand or walk, in a vain show by her side. And what now of those busy explorers of the Sanskrit, for many silent years in India! Much, in, every way. Sanskrit literature is voluminous, in the form of poems, plays, fables, systems of philosophy, and works on astronomy and medicine. No one of the other Indo-European languages has ever possessed metres so varied and so complicated as the Sanskrit. The hymns of the Vedas especially, written at the period when the Arian tribes first began to traverse the fields of Northern India, have an interest altogether their own: as we not only stand in them on the farthest outermost position in the whole realm of profane literature, facing the very dawn of the post-diluvian world; but we also see there primeval humanity unfold in simple, careless earnestness, its hopes and fears for this life, its pleasures HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 203 and pains and all its anxious doubts and surmises about the future. These, as the result of the conquest of India and the transplantation of English minds to its soil, some of the best scholars of the latter part of the last century studied critically, under thorough native scholars. It was in 1765 that the East India Company obtained, by the treaty at Allahabad, their first sovereignty of Bengal; in the management of which they determined to rule the people in conformity with their own laws. Warren Hastings accordingly, then Governor General, caused a Digest to be made of their most important books of laws l y eleven Brahmin Scholars, which was first translated into Persian and afterwards into English, and published in London in 1776 under the title, Code of Gentoo Law, in the preface of which Halhed, the editor, first spoke of the Sanskrit to European ears as being the original language of these ancient books; but without anly knowledge of his own at the time of its character. Foremost among the first students of Sanskrit were Sir William Jones, a man of great learning and high cultivation, Mr. H. T. Colebrooke, author of a Sanskrit grammar, and Sir Charles Wilkins, also the author of a Sanskrit grammar, and the first to print Sanskrit in Europe. In searching the recesses of Sanskrit literature, like travellers rummaging the pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Nineveh, to see what they could find, how were they amazed and delighted to discover at every step the most strange and 204 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. beautiful correspondences, not only with the Latin and the Greek, but also with their own mother-tongue, and indeed with almost every language of which they had sufficient knowledge to make it a term of comparison. As early as in 1778, six years before the formation of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, Halhed expressed his " astonishment " in his Bengal grammar, " at the similitude of Sanskrit words with Persian, Arabic, Latin and Greek, throughout the whole groundwork of the language." But Sir William Jones was the first to announce to the European world the connection of the Arian languages one with another, saying, that "no philologer could examine the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, without believing them to have sprung fromn some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic had the same origin with the Sanskrit. The old Persian may be added to the same family." This surely is a very bold, clear statement made at the outset, partly as a matter of ascertained fact, and partly as a matter of well-conceived theory, of what has since been so fully discovered and verified by so many scholars, with such brilliant success. The first direct translation made from the Sanskrit itself into English, was that of the Bhagavadgita, a philosophic episode in the great Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, furnished by a young merchant, named J. Wilkins, in 1785; and was followed by another two HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY 205 years later, of a book of fables called Hitopadesa. In 1789 Jones published a translation of the Sakuntala, a great drama full of tender and sweet thoughts; whose gems, when spread before occidental eyes, created a new and wide-spread interest in a literature so ancient and foreign, which possessed such riches. Sir William Jones died in 1794 letting his mantle fall, as he passed away, upon Colebrooke, a man remarkable both for his intellectual force and his unwearied industry. Colebrooke early published a translation of the chief one of the Sanskrit Koshas, called the Amara Kosha, "the most celebrated," says Wilson, "in all India, and having the widest circulation." This was but a vocabulary, made by an author named Amara Sinha, and not a dictionary; being arranged in separate sections and chap; ters, according to the topics in the text that it accompanied. Colebrooke is called by A. Schlegel, "a man who had shown himself a tasteful connoisseur of poetry, in the ancient~ and modern Asiatic and European languages," and no one to this day has exhibited a better appreciation than he, of the genius of the Sanskrit tongue. Several of his best articles have been grouped together, from "The Asiatic Researches" and "The Transactions of the Asiatic Society," into a volume, entitled " Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindtls," a new edition of which has recently appeared. Horace H. Wilson, still living, then assistant secretary to the Asiatic Society ill Calcutta, published in 1819 a 206 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Sanskrit and English dictionary in London, translated and improved from one originally prepared by learned natives, for the College of Fort William in India, almost immediately after its foundation, as one of its first necessities, having been begun in 1800, and finished in 1809. This translation, which has since reached a third edition, was hailed with joy by Schlegel, " as one," to use his language in his Indische Bibliothek, "by which we are at once brought forward to an immeasurably advanced position." And how was the spark of the new light, thus brought from India by English hands, kindled in Germany? For there only has it been fanned into a broad all-illuminating flame. It was Frederic Schlegel, whose zeal for linguistic progress, during a brief visit to England in 1803, made him the depositary of the sacred treasure in behalf of his countrymen. From Mr. Alexander Hamilton, then recently returned from Calcutta, he obtained a slight knowledge of the Sanskrit, which he afterwards increased somewhat by farther study at Paris. Although the knowledge thus gained was slender, yet it was put to a noble use by him on his return to Germany, both in his own intentions, and in its final results, by his production of "An Essay on the Language and Philosophy of the Indians," which he published in 1808, and which first aroused his countrymen to this new and great study. And, although all the facts that he gave them were what a HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 207 philological novice could carry home as a single sheaf in his hand, and the subsequent discoveries of his successors have made whatever was new in his statements, appear meagre and antiquated enough; yet the impulse that he gave to his generation has been spreading with ever widening force, from that day to our own. The highest and brightest path of modern scholarship now, is that on which he then started alone with a strong adventurous foot. As for his essay itself, it was a tissue almost equally of fancy and fact; and, judged by the light of our times, its scientific aspects are almost contemptible. But yet that great fundamental principle, which he was the first to state with distinctness, that correspondence in tMe grammatical structure of different lanygages proves their identity, beyond an, otler kind of resemblance, remains still intact, and will ever remain the basis of all real scientific philology. He also pointed out clearly the general fact that there is such a science as the comparative anatomy of language, in reference especially to the Sanskrit, Persian, Geeek, Roman and Teutonic languages. His services can never be forgotten by the lovers of comparative etymology, as he it was who first summoned his own people, a nation of scholars, into this new field of research where so much intellectual effort has since been so well rewarded; and whose earnest, joyous spirit in entering upon it seems to have been transfused into all his successors. His half poetical and 208 HISTORY OF *MODERN PHILOLOGY. half philosophical "Essay " was exactly adapted to do the work, which was needed at that period of German scholarship: to summon its energies, then just beginning to unfold themselves with power in other directions, in an earnest, enthusiastic manner into this new, wide-opening, enchanting field of intellectual toil and discovery. And that we may know all the better the man, to whom the world owes so much, let us pause for a moment and listen in silence to his words, as he stands before our thoughts, venerable, not only for his own greatness, but also for the wonderful issue of his life. "It had been," he says, " my intention to publish an Indian Chrestomathy, in the original character and in Latin, which should contain, besides the elementary principles of the language, a selection Qf extracts from the most important Indian works, with a Latin translation, notes, and a glossary. Every thing was prepared for this publication, and, besides the grammar and the two vocabularies, I had also copied in the original character and prepared for insertion a more than sufficient number of such pieces. I endeavored, by carefully copying the finest manuscripts both in the Devanagari and Bengalese character, to attain such perfection as would enable me to furnish in writing, very good models for the use of the type-cutter. But I found, notwithstanding, that the preparation of the types would require far more efficient assistance, than it was in my power to procure. The sacrifice of per HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 209 sonal predilections, for the sake of any particular scientific object, brings its reward with it; but it is vexatious, to be compelled to pause midway, in attaining the desired goal, from the want of extraneous assistance. I must therefore be content, in my present experiments, to restrict myself to the furnishing of an additional proof of the fertility of Indian literature, and of the rich hidden treasures which will reward our diligent study of it: to kindle in Germany a love for, or at least a prepossession in favor of, that study; and to lay a firm foundation on which our structure may, at some future period, be raised with greater security and certainty." Such were the aims, such the spirit, and such the labors of this first leader in philology. And to this hour no men put forth so much effort with so glad'a heart, as the votaries of comparative philology. Pictures in still life do not appeal to many eyes, as do those of martial fire and fury; and so the steady long continued heroism and patient benevolence of a student's heart, earnestly and lovingly at work for many years by day and night, to give the world the benefit of its best thoughts and discoveries in new and untried fields of research, are among the specimens of human nobility, which may be often little prized or noticed here, but which are held in high account in heaven. It is In the silent depths of such hearts, brooding over things before unknown, that the ideas which afterwards 210 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. rule the world are born. It is he who works, as well as he who prays, in secret, that the Great Father above rewards openly. The roots of all upward growths are out of sight under ground. His brother A. W.* Schlegel made, after him, deeper and more thorough researches than he. From 1819 to 1830, he published at Bonn his "Indische Bibliothek," (Indian Library,) which was a sort of private bulletin, issued occasionally by an enthusiastic scholar as he could get sufficient materials for a number, of the last results obtained from time to time in Sanskrit research. And well do its contents show,* with what versatile talent and high gratification, he undertook to spread the light of his new discoveries through his native land. In 1825, he set up a press for printing the Ramnayana, a great Sanskrit work. He * Vols. I. If. III. contain among other articles the following: 1st. The present state of Indian philology. 2d. Indian poems. (1.) Introductory remarks on Indian epic rhythm and German hexameter. (2.) The orthography and pronunciation of Indian names. (3.) Two poems on the genealogy of the goddess Ganga. (4.) Notes and observations. 3d. The issue of Sanskrit works. 4th. The history of the Elephant. 5th. The Indian Sphinx. 6th. Etymological study. 7th. An extended notice of Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary. 8th. A fall notice of the transactions of the Asiatic Society in respect to Geography, Botany,Ethnography, Antiquities, &c. 9th. Two articles by Humboldt on the Sanskrit gerunds. 10th. A general review (in 182-4) of the whole field of Indian philology. 11th. The correspondence of It. H. Wilson, from Calcutta, containing brief notices of some Hindu dramas. 12th. Indian tales. 13th. The Indian Sphinx. 14th. Two long articles by Humboldt, on the Bhagavad Gitca. 15th. Review by Lassen of Bopp's Sanskrit Grammar. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 211 went at this time to France and afterwards to England, in order to perfect himself in his oriental studies; and, on his return to Berlin in 1827, devoted his energies with renewed effect to their advancement among his countrymen. He and his brother Frederic were the founders of the modern Romantic school of German literature. He was himself a very voluminous and at the same time valuable writer on art, history, and language. These brothers were both of a warm, poetic, mental constitution; and in such hearts, when cultivated, philology is always a welcome guest. A man of dry nature, all whose instincts and aptitudes are only mathematical or logical, may manipulate well the forms of words; he may analyze with thoroughness their syntactical combinations; he may be able to state, with the accuracy of an exact statistician, the antiquities of a language, and map out with precision its various geographical details. All that'can be done mechanically he can do; as one without a soul for music, or an ear to know its discords from its concords, may yet play skilfully upon an instrument, so that its harmonies shall warble in every heart but his own. He may thus be a cold and skilful anatomist of language; but he is no artist. He lacks that divine enthusiasm which the ancients, in the very word itself, described as " God in us; " and that inner sense of the beautiful, without which science, nature, art, and even thoughts and treasures from above wear but a dull and leaden aspect, compared with their en 212 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. chanting loveliness to him, whose heart knows how to revel, like a bee in the bosom of a rose, in their inward charms. But to one of a true ethereal temper, whose eye is open and purified to see God everywhere and " good in every thing," and whose soul thirsts for beauty as a child does for love, language like every thing else that God has made for man's use in his outward and upward efforts on the way to the land that is above, is full within and without of His manifest wisdom and love. As the sea mirrors the sky, so to such an one every thing earthly reflects the heavenly. The inner beauties of things shine through all their outside forms to such hearts, as to spirit-eyes. Francis Bopp made his first appearance as a philologist, in 1816, in a work of high merit, entitled " The Conjugation-system of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German Languages." It was this production that first effectually opened the new era of comparative philology. But as his great work, the Comparative Grammar, which constitutes properly the foundation of the new science of philology, in its present form and dimensions, was not published until many years afterwards; the demands of both chronology and history will be best met, if we turn away from him for a time while brooding over his precious toil, and consider the character and labors of other leading scholars who began now to appear upon the stage. Rasmus Rask of Denmark, was a man of.splendid HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 213 capacities by nature,. and of large attainments for his years as a scholar. His star rose brightly now above the horizon, but unfortunately soon sank again from sight. He had a strong taste for philological research and criticism; and this he had stimulated and strengthened by the careful comparative study of the Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon and Frisian languages. His principal work is entitled "The Origin of the old Norse or Icelandic Languages," which was prepared in 1814. He discovered also and showed the close relationship between the Germanic and classical languages. He set out (in 1816) from Petersburgh with great zeal, on a tour of general philological exploration, and, arriving at last in Persia and India, investigated thoroughly the Zend, and prepared the first grammar of that ancient. language of Persia; while he also brought home with him some of the best manuscripts of the Zend Avesta. He made besides some interesting but incomplete efforts, to delineate the comparative features of German, Greek, Latin and Lithuanian grammar. Rask did not know Sanskrit, and so built his arch of comparative philology without its true keystone. Bopp, however, acknowledges his genius in classifying, as he did before, him, (in 1819,) the Indian, Median, Lithuanian, Sla-. vonic, Gothic and Celtic languages, as all belonging to the Arian family. Rask also clearly defined the place of the Zend as a sister language of the Sanskrit, instead of being, as some had begun to think, a corrupt 15 214 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. patois of it; while he showed at the same time the derivation of the modern Persian from it, as of the Italian from the Latin. Like the great Buttmann, Rask was endowed by his Maker with linguistic sensibilities and capacities equal to those of the best scholars of any age; and, as Buttmann* on the one hand lived, for the world's misfortune, before the time most open and appropriate to so exalted a genius in the study of language, so Rask on the other remained but long enough on the stage of life, to show mankind what a bright light was extinguished upon the earth, by his departure from it. But Rask is worthy of distinct remembrance also for his zeal, in exploring the Turanian as well as the Arian languages; and he was the first to do so with any enthusiasm or effect. These he regarded as all restiig on a wide-spread original Scythian base. Professor Castren afterwards, who was a sort of earlier edition of Lieut. Kane, in respect, on the one hand, to his personal qualities: as the boldness of his enterprise, the firmness of his will, and the delicacy of his health; and on the other to the outward mode and sphere of his labors: travelling alone as he did in the frozen north in his own sledge, over the snows of Siberia and along the borders of the Arctic Ocean: published in various volumes, between 1844 and 1850, the results * Could Buttmann but have had the lever of the Sanskrit in his hands, what marvels would he not have raised up, out of the hard long trodden pathway of Greek grammar and Greek philology, over which so many had heedlessly tramped in their ignorance, before him. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 215 of his wide and long research in this branch of languages; and they confirmed for the most part the learned convictions and statements of Rask. The Teutonic researches of Rask, though ended at a very imperfect stage in their accomplishment, have been since so well completed by Grimm, as to leave little for years to come to be expected farther in this direction. In 1819, Jacob Grimm commenced publishing his magnificent work, a Teutonic Grammar, embracing the Scandinavian as well as the German languages, and drawing his authorities from the whole wide, long range of German authorship, from Ulfilas' translation of the Scriptures, (A. D. 388,) the only relic in existence of the old Gothic, down to his own day; and finished his great labor in 1837. The scholarship of the work is. wonderful, for its breadth, accuracy and ingenuity. It is not too much to say, that the world has never exhibited a finer specimen of the true scholar, according to the highest and fullest ideal, than he is. His " scale," or law of correspondences of sound in the different Indo-European languages, is one of the highest triumphs of inductive analysis that have been ever furnished in any science. Bopp's first incidental suggestions in this direction he perfected into full ripe science; and, in constructing his "scale," made it with such nicety, as to its own characteristics and all its gradations, that, while the sphere of its use has been much extended since, no improvement has been made upon 216 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. it at any time, in respect to its own essential nature. He has thus in effect given not only definiteness and certainty but also breadth and power, to the science of comparative etymology. The laws of analogy he has shown to pervade as truly human language as nature herself. The style of these discoveries, as of the mind that made them, is altogether Newtonian. While the finite mind cannot create analogies, it reveals itself in one of its highest forms of disciplined strength, in being able to trace them with clearness, in the demonstrations which the Infinite Mind has made of Itself in their ap. pointment. But behold the Scale and the interpretation of it! GRIMM'S SCALE.* Labials. Gutturals. Dentals, Greek, B. P. PH. G. K. CH. D. T. TH. Gothic, P. PH. B. K. CH. G. T. TH. D. Old High German, PH. B. P CH. G. K. TH. D. T. For the Latin the scale runs as follows: Latin, B. P. F. G. C. H. D. T. (F). Gothic, P. F. B. K. H. G. T. TH. D. Old High German, PH. F. P. CH. H. K. Z. D. T. The interpretation of the scale is this: that the several letters corresponding perpendicularly displace each other, or are substituted for each other, in the equivalent forms of the different languages respectively especially when initial. Thus the Gothic and the Lower German dialects substitute, in relation to the * Grimm's Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, p. 276. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 217 Greek and Latin, and measurably also to the Sanskrit and the Zend, aspirates for original tenues, (as, h for k, th for t, and f for p) tenues for medials, (as, t for d, p for b, and k for g); and medials for aspirates (as, g for ch, d for th, and b for f.) It must not be supposed that these interchanges are observed in every case, with absolute uniformity. To what law, except that of love in things moral, and of attraction in things physical, are there not exceptions allowed and even constituted? But such are the general principles that prevail in respect to the mutual interchanges of letters, in these several languages. EXAMPLES. Old High Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gothic. German. English. aham, for agham iyci ego, ik ih I dyso6 ager akrs achar acre svan, a dog canis hunths hunt hound dasan, ten dlEa decem taihun zehan ltihe danta(s), tooth 03ois dens tunthus zand tooth trayas, three TpEsZ tres threis dri three ( lacryma ) - drKpivma archaic tagr zahar tear Kpva tt dacrima;Ag.rsv linquere leiban lipu leave v6, to weave for vitis wda with ~~~~Firi~~~a ~wither ad, to eat E'dLV edere itan ezan eat d d ycLtv mulgere miluks miluh milk pada(s), foot 7ro4S pes fotus fuoz foot pula (s), much r6Xvs plus filu filo full upari, above wicp super ufar ubar over sad, to sit SecaOac sedere sitan sizan sit 218 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Such analogies, found in hundreds of instances, cannot be accidental. Thus Grimm virtually founded a new and widely influential department of linguistic science, which he denominated Lautlehre or the doctrine of sounds, or phonetic correspondences and substitutions. Besides his Teutonic grammar, he has published a work entitled " Mythology and Researches into German Antiquities." He has also written a very interesting history of the German language, as seen from the stand-point of philology, which he published in two volumes, at Leipsic, in 1853. This work is held in high honor in Germany, and yet the regret felt is universal, that his vast labors as a student and author have prevented him from perfecting the work, in fulness of form and finish of detail, more nearly according to the model of his own thoughts. On whatever subjects his mind is employed, it makes close research over a wide range of inquiry. He spares neither time nor pains, in making coast-surveys of German litera. ture, and taking soundings in all its seas, and mapping out carefully all the discoveries which he makes, for the world's good. He is now, with his brother William, preparing a comprehensive dictionary of his vernacular tongue, beyond both for height and breadth the plan of any dictionary prepared or conceived for preparation, in any language: a work of Herculean toil, which none but an intellectual giant could for a moment feel himself adequate to achieve. Slowly but HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 219 surely the vast work rises under their hands. May they live to put on its topmost stone! And yet so broad are the foundations laid, and so huge is the structure that is to rest upon them, that one could hardly expect that they would live, were they men in middle life, to see its consummation. Jacob Grimm, though still full of the fire of his youth, is a septuagenarian. How sublime is German scholarship, in both its patience under present labor and its trust in the future for the cherished result! and neither the changes of life nor its shortness frighten it back from any efforts, however long or hard, which seem worthy to be made. What an interval of many years often stretches between the first and last volume of a standard German work! and how many, who have eagerly seized upon the first, have through many long years kept continually looking for its successor, and died without the sight! The one man, however, who by his wide research and vast learning and wonderful insight and ingenuity, is entitled beyond all others, to the name of being the founder of modern philology as a science, is Francis Bopp: not so old a man as Grimm, yet perhaps hardly so full of his native strength. The one work, in which Bopp has specially developed the wonderful proportions and relations of this new science, is his " Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, old Slavonic, Gothic and German," which he began to publish in 1833 and finished in 1849. Lit 220 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. tie did Bopp dream in his earlier works, what a mine of inexhaustible riches he had struck, and what a sensation he was ere long to produce among the scholarly minds of his age. It was in these works that he came at the very outset upon the vein of phonetic correspondences in different languages, from which afterwards both himself and others deduced such vast results. Like other great discoveries, it was stumbled upon! This is the very meaning of the word invent: they came upon ii, as a traveller upon a prize by the roadside.. A few similar cases of transformations, substitutions and interchanges in consonants and vowels, sufficed to suggest inquiry and comparison upon a wide scale to those earnest students: as the result of which they found a vast mass of natural hieroglyphs treasured on the walls of each language that they investigated; the hidden alphabet of which they also discovered, preserved in the very characters themselves. Bopp is now preparing, with many improvements, a new edition of his grammar, and has published three parts of it already, since August 1857. Others have made great achievements in separate fields of research, but Bopp was the first, and has ever been foremost, in developing the comparative features of the old and new languages of the civilized world, Asiatic and European; and that on no partial or fanciful basis, but by an astonishingly wide and satisfactory scale of comparisons. He analyzes the whole grammatical structure HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 221 of the Indo-European languages; separating words everywhere into their roots, their formative and derivative suffixes, their case-terminations and person-endings: opening into view in each language its whole interior frame-work, and showing them all to be, both generally and specially, alike in their organism; and the student feels on the one hand, that he stands on terra firma, while surveying the scene of strange and multiform correspondences of all languages around him, and on the other that he is gazing everywhere on unmistakable realities, both old and new. To their difference of form he applied, with magic effect, the phonetic principles which he practically developed, but never scientifically methodized. He was also the first to strike out that new and valuable idea in philology, that the organific principle of language is to be found in its' prononminal elements; so that these contain the whole material of flexion, whether in the verb or in the noun both substantive and adjective. Bopp is one of the few men whose lives form eras in the progress of humanity. The study of his comparative grammar is like a constant festival to an inquisitive, scientific, scholarly mind. He travels, like one voyaging on the Rhine or the Nile or passing through a series of lovely landscapes in "la belle France," through scenery that at every point is full of beauty or of wonder. Bopp has become in effect the founder of a wholly new order of classical literature. Language has been 222 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. constructed, under his guidance and influence, into a science having a definite area and horizon. Its territories have been explored with care; and where its riches lie, and what they are, is well known. Like Bacon in philosophy, he has brought in philology the reign of theory without facts to a perpetual end. Up to his day, the streams of etymology were the favorite resort of all sorts of fishers after whims and fancies, and the most fantastic absurdities were treated as scientific verities. But, by his long and earnest pursuit of facts, the most surprising affinities have been found to exist between the Sanskrit and all the other members of the Indo-European family. And the Sanskrit itself is found to be not their parent, but rather their elder-born sister, although so much older and of such a different bearing as to have well-nigh the mien and place and care of a parent among her younger sisters; for the Sanskrit also gives decided proof of a derived existence, at a far earlier date, from the same common stock. And the Sanskrit, now treasured in books, is found to be the Sanskrit of a later date than that to which the affiliated Indo-European languages bear such strangely full and minute resemblance: so that sometimes the Latin itself is more faithful to the archaic radical type of the word, as careful phonological analysis shows, than the Sanskrit itself in its present form. It has been quite impossible to get a copy of Bopp until within a short time: almost fabulous prices having HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 223 been given for a stray copy that could be picked up in any part of the world. An advertisement of such a copy for sale would attract at once as eager a host of buyers, as would the sight of a chamois left dead in the mountains, of hungry eagles. A single broken volume of a copy was snatched after, wherever found, at any price. For those unacquainted with German, an English translation by Eastwick (2d edition, London, 1854) can be obtained at a cost of $16, and though very dear it is well worth the purchase. In 1834 Bopp published his Sanskrit grammar, and in 1845 a second edition of it, and it is still the best Sanskrit grammar to be had. In 1836 appeared his "Vocalismus, oder sprachvergleichende Kritiken," &c., or philological criticisms on Grimm's German grammar, and in 1847 his " Glossarium Sanskritum" or " Sanskrit Dictionary; in which all the Roots and most common Sanskrit Words are unfolded and compared with Greek, Latin, German, Lithuanian, Slavonic and Celtic Words." His last new work is the "Vergleichendes Accentuationssystem," published in 1854. It is a comparative view of the system of accentuation in Sanskrit and Greek, and, like all his works, full of evidences of acuteness and ability. It was immediately followed by an ingenious work, published by Professors Henri Weil and Louis Benloew, in French, at variance in many of its leading positions with Bopp's, entitled "Theorie generale de l'accentua. tion Latine." Bopp has been, however, most success 224 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. fully controverted in some of his views by Prof. Whit. ney, of Yale College, in a paper read before the American Oriental Society, and published in their Journal, Vol. v. pp. 195 if., as well as also in Germany in Kuhn's Zeitschrift. Bopp's services therefore as a linguist have had, as we have shown, two great directions: the thorough advancement of Sanskrit scholarship as such, and the establishment of the science of Comparative Grammar; which not only rose at the outset almost spontaneously as if a fairy castle, out of the elements of Sanskrit study, as soon as they were thoroughly mastered, but has ever since rested on them for its foundations, as there it must forever rest. A. W. Schlegel and his admirers, like Lassen, have confined themselves to the investigation of Indian literature and antiquities and the issue of critical texts of Sanskrit works; while Bopp and Grimm have gone with the torch of analytic philosophy into the depths of the Sanskrit language itself, as well as into those of all the related languages, in order to find their hidden riches. Wherever Bopp's discoveries are known, language will be studied and taught on entirely different princi-.ples and with very different results from what have been ever before witnessed. Each language must now be studied, not only as it is in itself, but also in its various relations; and he who studies but one language must stand on the outside of the gate of even that, and HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 225 only dream, but never see, what is within its walls; what of beauty! what of vastness! what Qf life! Something, indeed, far different from the mere mastery of a few authors in a given language, is to be comprehended in the idea of studying not only language in general but any language in particular. Augustus F. Pott, now Professor at Halle, should ever, both for his contemporaneousness and his merit as a writer in philology, be associated with Bopp and Grimm. They form, indeed, by themselves, a splendid constellation in the firmament of this science. His great work was published in two volumes, in 1833 and 1836, at Lemgo, entitled "Etymologische Forschungen," &c., or'' Etymological Investigations in the Field of the Indo.Germanic Languages, with special Reference to the Changes of Sound in the Sanskrit, Greelg, Latin, Lithuanian, and Gothic Languages:" the first volume of a new edition of which, much enlarged and improved, has recently appeared. Pott has the honor of first entering the department of Lexical Etymology, on any broad scale, with the torch of Indo-European analogy; and yet neither he nor any European writer has ever attempted to this day, to determine its principles, or group its facts into the form of a high and noble science. When, accordingly, Etymology is spoken of in this essay as a science, it is so denominated from deference to its own inward claims to such a designation; and not as a recognition of any attempt, ever 226 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. made by German philologists to construct its elements into a distinct system. In 1846 Pott published a work of much merit on the language of the Gypsies, clearly establishing its membership in the great IndoEuropean family of languages. He has recently (1856) published an additional work of considerable interest on the Etymology of surnames, entitled " Personennamen und Familiennamen." Pott is a man of great erudition in philology, and a critic of the first class; while being also an original investigator, like Bopp and Grimm, although not on so large a scale. William Humboldt in 1835 wrote a learned and philosophical treatise on " The different Modes of forming Human Speech," in which he presented, with clearness and effect, a true comparative estimate of different languages; representing the Chinese or monosyllabic, and the Indo-European and Semitic or inflected languages, as the two contrary poles of linguistic development, and holding up to honor the most thorough critical method of philological analysis as the only mode of studying language, deserving of the name. All such early utterances of a high sort in this department of study we hail with delight, as they show at least the quality of the men who made them; their genius, their philosophy, their scholarship, and the ideals which they set up before their own minds. And in the kingdom of mind, not as in that of commerce and in common life, where men are estimated according to their suc HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 227 cesses, but as in the kingdom of God, they are to be judged to their honor or their shame, according to their aims and their efforts." But while in Germany the science of philology was thus rising to a conspicuous height before all eyes, in France also a few earnest devotees to its interests began now to appear. Two especially deserve distinct mention, Burnouf and Eichhoff. Eugene Burnouf published, in 1835, some of the results of his acute researches in the Zend, as compared with the Sanskrit, and established by careful induction the scale of correspondences between them: showing that the Zend is more like the Sanskrit than any other language, and that very often, by merely changing the Zend letters into their fixed Sanskrit equivalents, you may obtain the same precise word as in Sanskrit. He extended accordingly Grimm's: law of substitutions and equivalents, so as to embrace the Zendwith the Sanskrit. He also gave himself with much earnestness to the work of editing various publications of the Zend, restoring in each case the manuscripts with critical care; and prepared a Zend grammar, and was indeed strictly the founder of all true Zend philology. F. G. Eichhoff published at Paris, in 1836, a work entitled, "Parallele des Langues de l'Europe et de l'Inde," or "A Comparative view of the Languages of Europe and of India." This was afterwards translated into German by Kaltschmidt, who greatly admires his views, and who published also in 228 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 1845, a second edition of it. Eichhoff's work is designed to present a comparative view of the Indo-European languages, both grammatically and verbally, and to be at the same time as comprehensive and condensed as possible. But, while being well deserving of possession, it is very unequal in its merits in the department of verbal etymology: at times rising to the highest point of excellence, and at others sinking below the average level of philological accuracy and skill. He is so charmed with the love of new discoveries, and even of suppositions that look like discoveries, that his etymnologies are of too mixed a character to be of uniform value. To one, however, who will use Eichhoff with true discrimination, he will furnish real help in the study of philology. Since Burnouf and Eichhoff stand together in solitary grandeur, as leaders in this new science in France, it will please the reader perhaps to let Eichhoff come forward and speak of his plans in his own person. Says he, "'Who does not love etymologies? The imagination of what scholar would not involuntarily wander from one enterprise to another, out of one century into another, in order to find the remains of a perished language; remains which are the fragments of the people's history.' * These words," (says Eichhoff,) " of one of our first scholars and most ingenious critics, strikingly indicate the plan of this work, which proceeds from the double point of view * Le Clerc, the dean of Philosophy at Paris. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 229 afforded by philology and history. These two philosophies march forward in the world with equal steps and mutual support. The life of a nation reveals itself in its language: the true picture of their changing fortunes; and, where the history of a people is silent, where the thread of tradition is broken, there the ancient genealogy of language gives us light, which outlives the wreck of empires, and eternizes the origin of a people and their memory. Language, the living organ of so many extinguished races, suffices to solve many enigmas, which, without it could not be resolved; so soon as one, after obtaining a thorough knowledge of the special speech of each single nation, procures some common measure of comparison, which makes them all comprehensible at a glance. Deeply buried in the East, after having ceased to be a living speech for more than three thousand years, and being equally long forgotten in Europe, a language has been found, which, in its inward spirit, in the completeness of its forms, in its riches, and especially in its agreement throughout with our European tongues, is full of wonder. A true com — prehension of the languages of the world, is one of the necessities of our century; and it is no profitless task to aid in affording it. Following accordingly the dictionary and the grammar, in the leading languages of our system, (the Indo-European,) I have brought them together into one view, and developed them, sometimes singly and sometimes comparatively, and arranged to16 230 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. gether their component parts, in a comprehensive and complete synopsis." He dedicates his work to " Chezy, the founder of Sanskrit study in France, and Merian, the promoter of comparative philology," as being in a sense the authors and guides of his own thoughts in this direction. It is pleasant surely to look through even such a loop-hole into the developments of French scholarship at that time, and find there the same ardor in pursuit, and the same joy in discovery, which have ever characterized the German students of philology, and indeed the students of'philology generally throughout the world. There is in fact so much of poetic material in this science, and so much of its inspiration in those who pursue it, that they might well be called the prose-poets of the world. But to return to Germany again: Albert Giese published in 1834 a work upon the AEolic dialect, of great interest. It is in this dialect that the Greek retains most of its primitive character and manifests its common heritage with the Latin, in all the elements of their equal Graeco-Latin or Pelasgic parentage. Giese lived only to publish himself the first volume of his work, the second being published by his friends, from preparations for it that he left behind him. In 1837 Albert A. Benary gave to the world, as the result of his critical studies, a work entitled "Die rdmische Lautlehre sprachvergleichend dargestellt," or the phonetic principles of the Latinlanguage philologically HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 231 viewed. Beside the intrinsic merits of this production as a fine specimen of thorough scholarly research, it has also the honor of being the first distinct work of modern times on phonetics, not only relatively to the Latin, but also absolutely in itself. In -modern times I have said, for in ancient days phonology was well understood by Sanskrit scholars. He dwells on two main points particularly of the phonetic system of the Latin: diphthongation and aspiration. The whole phonetic system of the Latin he regards as consisting of five principal features: lst. Its disinclination to diphthongs. 2d. The small range of aspiration. 3d. The limited use of consonantal combinations in initial and medial syllables. 4th. The reciprocal influence of vowels and consonants upon each other, by their very nature and constitution 5th. The weakening of end-syllables under the influence of consonants, as also under that of vowels. The first two of the above elements he discusses in this work, so far as yet published. In treating of Latin diphthongs he shows that being in their very construction binary, they are composed always of a fixed radical element, and of a movable one attached to it; and then divides them all into two classes: those formed by-contraction and those formed by Guna.* Here he unfolds in full philosophic form the principles, sug* Guna means, in Sanskrit grammar, the lengthening and strengthening of an i- or u- sound by a prefixed short a- sound, by which they become respectively ai and au. 232 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. gested and confirmed by a wide and full survey of the facts of the language, illustrating each step by full examples. Under the head of aspiration also, he is very minute and clear and interesting. Any fuller analysis of his work would not be consistent with the general design and scope of this essay. There is a good deal of valuable etymological material, strown incidentally throughout Benary-s work. No Latin scholar can study it without real profit, in the way of enlarging his conscious grasp of the analytic constitution of the language. Albert Hoefer published in 1839 a volume entitled, "Beitrige zur Etymologie und vergleichende Grammatik der Hauptsprachen des Indo-Germanischen Stammes," or considerations on the etymology and comparative grammar, of the principal Indo-German languages. It is an able original work in the special field which it traverses. The whole vast scope of philology embraces a wide range of many related topics, and touches language, phonetics, ethnography, chronology and climatology, at so many points and in so many ways, as to afford room for an almost unlimited variety of special investigations and results. Hoefer's work differs from Benary's in this, that while Benary treats of the special phonetic system of the Latin, he spreads his inquiries with philosophic exactness over the whole field of phonetics. The two main topics that he discusses are, 1. The philosophy of vowels, HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 233 with an investigation of the principles of Guna and Vriddhi,* and the declension-forms of the Sanskrit. 2. The history of liquids in their relation to vowels and to consonants. To most readers doubtless there will seem to be, in the announcement of two such topics of investigation, nothing suggestive of either light or joy. It is not he who, never having climbed a mountain, stands beneath and looks up at its bold, bare peaks, that knows what food the glad spectator can there find who has ascended to the heights above heights, where the clouds thunder and roll and break at his feet, and who gazes down, like one of the watchers of the upper air, upon the world of his own former home below. Besides the writers of whom we have hitherto spoken, a few other names are deserving of special mention, though with varying degrees of merit in this immediate connection. H. L. Ahrens wrote in 1838 on "the conjugation in /ut, in the Homeric dialect." In 1839 he published his first volume on the dialects of the Greek, which is his principal work, following it with the second in 1843. The two volumes embrace the Acolic and Doric dialects, which are discussed with remarkable ingenuity and research, and not without reference to the principles of Indo-European philology. Diintzer also appeared at this time. His principal t Vriddhi consists in prefixing a long a to i or u. 234 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. works are "The Philosophy of Latin Etymology" and "The Declension of the Indo-Germanic Languages." Dfintzer is clear and ingenious, but, like most of the other writers already enumerated, except the first three that stand so high above the rest, Bopp and Pott and Grimm, has been so surpassed by subsequent writers as to wear now quite an antiquated aspect. Twenty years in fact serve generally to make scholarship in any direction appear as old in Germany and as well nigh useless, except historically, as they do most of our periodical literature at home. Kaltschmidt, the satellite of Eichhoff, published in 1839 a Greek Etymological dictionary of some merit: more, however, in respect to the amount of personal labor expended than in respect to the benefit to be reaped from it by the public; for in the department of -Etymology, on which it was specially intended to throw a high light, it is very deficient, being quite as full of fanciful characteristics as of those of real scholarship. Kaltschmidt has less of the standard characteristics of a real authority in philology, than any other name mentioned in this earliest group of the immediate followers of the first leaders in philology. Their writings had been sown broadcast over the land, and the precious seed had germinated in many minds. A new generation of scholars has now come upon the stage; men who had the advantage of starting in HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 235 their studies where their predecessors had ended; men who are, at this very time, in the full vigor of their early manhood. Among these no name is more conspicuous than that of Lorenz Diefenbach, the former pupil of both Bopp and Pott. He is a philologist of the first class. His chief works are his "Celtica" and his "Vergleichendes Wbrterbuch der Gothischen Sprache," or comparative dictionary of the Gothic language, published in two volumes, at Frankfort, in 1851, which is a standard contribution, not only to the Gothic language, but also to comparative philology. It is a vast cabinet of rare linguistic curiosities: the most extensive museLum of comparative etymologies to be found in the world, not excepting in its present state that magnificent German dictionary of the Grimms; which, however, when completed, will stand by itself, as a vast pyramid of learning and labor, overshadowing all other human productions in the amplitude of its scholarship. Diefenbach is a noble follower of noble guides. Bopp does the most justice of them all to the Sanskrit front of this great argument: Pott to the Latin and Greek side of it; while Grimm and Diefenbach bring up the rear in splendid array with the Gothic and the Celtic. August Schleicher stands also in the first rank of the more recent philologisfs. His principal works are "Philological Investigations," published in 1848:' The Languages of Europe in a Systematic View," a 236 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. work of much scholarship and interest, published in 1850; and also " Litauische Grammatik,'' or "A Lithuanian Grammar and Chrestomathy," published in 1856, which, like Diefenbach's Gothic dictionary, and Zeuss' Celtic grammar, is a splendid contribution of thorough original investigations to the science of philology. He is now at work, and has been for a long time, (as he announces in a note to a brief article, on the history of the Slavic languages, in Kuhn's "Beitrige zur Sprachforschung,") on a history of the languages of the Gothic or Germanic family. George Curtius' name also deserves honorable mention here. He published in 1842 a dissertation on the "Formation of Greek Nouns," which was followed in 1846 by an admirable work on "The Formation of the Tenses and Modes in Greek and Latin," containing many fine specimens of philological analysis and argumentation. Beside contributing several articles of much interest to philological journals, he is the author of a "Griechische Schulgrammatik,'' published in 1852, (third edition, 1857.) His most interesting work, however, is his last, (1858,) entitled " Grundztige der Griechischen Etymologie," the first part of which only is yet published. Here, after a fine introduction on some interesting points connected with the range and limits of etymology as'such, the danger of false analyses and of a careless use of the Sanskrit in solving etymological difficulties, euphonic mutations, etc., HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 237 a scholarly view of more than six hundred Greek roots is presented, with their Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic or other correspondences, with brief notices of the views of other leading philologists confirmatory or adverse. When this work, which has just arrived in this country, is finished and translated into English, as it surely will be, American scholars will have the means at hand of a thorough exploration and mastery of "the elements of Greek etymology." Friedrich Diez is the author of a " Grammar of the Romanic Languages," which is the standard, supplanting all others in this study. The second edition of it, enlarged and improved, is now passing through the press. He is an original and thorough investigator in a great field of research. No writer has explored as he has the lingual riches of the Italian, Spanish and French languages. His etymological dictionary also of the Romanic languages, published in 1853, is a noble structure, standing by itself in solitary majesty on the field that it occupies. A quotation from the preface to this dictionary, will best show his style of mind and of scholarship. "The object of etymology is," he says, "to trace back a given word to its origin. The method adopted for the accomplishment of this object is not always the same. There is, as it is easy to see, a critical and an uncritical method. The uncritical draws its explanations, as a matter of good luck, out of a mere external resemblance of form, or forces them, 238 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. where there is little resemblance and even entire variance, through a mass of elements specially contrived for the purpose. Such a faulty mode of procedure, by which, notwithstanding, where wit and genius have not been wanting, a happy hit has been sometimes made, has brought the whole science of etymology into discredit with some; while it has commended itself to others by the ease of its applications: since any one without preparation for it can enter upon such a work. The former err in their aversion, and the latter in their inclination to it. In contrariety to the uncritical method, the critical acts in subordination to the well-discovered principles and rules of phonology, so as not to swerve a foot's breadth from them, unless plain, actual exceptions shall justify it., It strives to follow the genius of the language itself, and to draw out from its bosom its own secrets. It takes a careful gauge of each letter, and seeks to discover the value that attaches to it in each position. And yet how little often can it accomplish! How doubtful are its results! The highest point reached by the etymologist, is the consciousness of having acted scientifically. For the attainment of absolute certainty he has no security. Some insignificant new thing may hurl down from him under his feet, to his mortification, a result previously gained with great labor. This will happen to him in every extended investigation: it is indeed among the daily experiences of the etymologist, from which even the most keen HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 239 eyed are not free. Therefore, modesty! even when every fact seems to support our theories." Hlere is presented in full view a self-drawn picture of the patient, scholarly, earnest spirit of the scientific etymologist. How different from that of the ancient empirical dealers in words as cheap, frivolous wares! It is when studying such works as his and Bopp's, Grimm's, Pott's and Diefenbach's, that one stands on the summits of modern philology, where the whole field of its wonders lies spread out before him. Germany is at the present moment full of earnest investigators, in every part of the whole wide field of philology. In every university there is, as there ought to be, a provision for instruction in comparative philology. This new science is not only giving law to grammar, lexicography, classical study and linguistic research, but also to history and ethnography. Under its light the history of Rome has been rewritten with new clearness and beauty by Theodore Mommsen, as has that of Greece by Ernst Curtius; and under its infl.uence must our own histories of the classical past be written still again for the proper illumination of English and American scholarship. -Ernst Curtius is, like George Curtius, a philologist of high attainments. He resided for four years in Greece, for the purpose of better pursuing his researches into the history of Greece. He was a pupil of 0. Miiller, and has been the private Tutor of Prince Frederic Wil 240 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. hlam. He is one of the finest living writers of Germany. He endeavors, both scientifically and studiously, to open the myths of the legendary periods of ancient history, and to extract the hidden kernel of their real truth; while Mommsen rejects them altogether, and falls back on the mere historic guidance to be obtained from the disentombed remains of language, in the archaic periods of the past. For ourselves; we must say, that we sympathize rather with Curtius than with Monmmsen, in his conceptions of the intrinsic value of the early legends of Greece and Rome. The great investigators, who have most opened the wonders of philology to the eyes of their admiring countrymen, are still living, to marvel at the effect of their labors upon their age: beholding changes quite as great in the community of scholars to which they belong, as the pioneers of the west have seen, in the brief but brilliant history of our new settlements. Three works especially of those already mentioned, made a distinct epoch by their great influence each by itself on the public mind of Germany: Frederic Schlegel's Essay on the Speech and Philosophy of the Indians; Grimm's Teutonic Grammar, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar. Most of the great philologists of Germany appear more or less frequently as the authors of occasional papers, in the " Zeitschrift ftir vergleichende Sprachforschung," &c., or " Journal of comparative Philology in the Department of the German, Greek, and Latin Languages," HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 241 now in its seventh year; edited at first by Theodore Aufrecht and Adalbert Kuhn, but now by Kuhn alone, and published every two months at Berlin. In this journal, the last and best results of the most recent investigations appear, in a condensed form. Here the delighted reader meets with frequency with such men, in high discourse, as Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Aufrecht, Kuhn, Kirchhoff, Benary, Curtius, Schleicher, Ebel, Ahrens, Benfey, F6rstemann a Danish scholar, and many others of the same spirit, if not yet of the same reputation.' This journal will be welcomed, as a friend whose face is full of light, by every earnest student of its contents. Aufrecht and Kirchhoff have recently prepared in combination a work of high critical qualities, entitled " Die umbrisehe Sprachdenkmaler," or "The Remains of the Umbrian Language," published in 1851, by which much light is thrown on the early Latin. It consists of an explanation of the Eugubine tables, and of the various remains of the Umbrian still to be found, which are treated in the most careful elaborate way. Benfey is learned and often exceedingly ingenious, and, like all such minds in other fields, exceedingly venturesome also at times, and so, quite unsafe as a guide to a novice. HIe has published a Greek Etymological Dictionary, and also a Sanskrit grammar not 242 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. equal to Bopp's though succeeding it, which still re. mains the standard in this study. Heyse has written a work on "The Philosophy of Language," well deserving perusal: it is thoroughly philological in its type. For a compendious scientific survey of the facts and principles of philology, in its broad general relations historically, phonologically, grammatically and lexically, it is, for so brief a work, one of great worth to the student; and not only quite superior to Rapp, but unequalled yet by any other in the same field. From him and Schleicher, if he can obtain no more helps to philological information, the young student in this charming field of investigation can procure a very good outfit of facts and principles, for wider and higher attainments, whenever means or opportunity can be secured. Heyse is the author also of a German dictionary, which, for ordinary use, not only for purposes of exegesis, but also of etymology, is of high value. Grimm says indeed of it, in the introduction to his own great national dictionary, what he does also of all others in the same field, that he has brought little if any thing new to the previous stock of knowledge possessed by the learned. But, while this is true, it is also true that he has thoroughly gathered together and methodized the various results of the most advanced scholarship of his day; and, while the honor is not so great to him, for brilliancy of intellect, as that of being a new discoverer, the advantage is very great HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 243 to others, who obtain at his hands what they would have otherwise to search long and hard to obtain from many sources. The philological acumen and attainments of Adalbert Kuhn, although of the highest sort, have been exhibited thus far chiefly in brief but sterling articles, a large number of which have appeared in the "Zeitschrift" which he edits. He seems to be quite objective in his aims and full of a spirit of usefulness. He does not wait for great occasions, or feel that when he acts he must move in state, and either do some great deed or do none at all. He appears on the contrary always intent on filling up that which is behind, and ever scattering the new light to others that has greeted his own vision. Albrecht Weber, Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Berlin, is one of the first Sanskrit scholars in Germany. He is the conductor of a periodical called" Indische Studien," now numbering four volumes, containing various interesting articles on Indian literature of value particularly to Sanskrit scholars as such. He is also the author of a collection of brief articles, entitled "Indische Skizzen," consisting of a sketch of " the recent investigations on ancient India," an article " on Buddhism," another on "the connections of India with the lands in the west;" and a fourth on " the Semitic origin of the Sanskrit alphabet." Weber ranks for character with Curtius, Kuhn and Schleicher. 244 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Rapp, professor at Tiibingen, has published recently in three parts a work which he entitles "Grundriss der Grammatik," or "An Outline of the Grammar of the Indo-European Family of Languages." IHe is ingenious and learned. One of the main defects of this book is his adoption of phonographic equivalents for both simple and compound vowel-sounds in different languages: turning every language to the eye into the same form that it has to the ear, so that not one of the many languages compared appears in its own homedress. and with its own native mien; but they are all, with their different stature, complexion, airs and motions, exhibited in one uniform, homely phonetic garb. It seems strange to think by what arbitrary laws of taste or criticism, a scholar could have persuaded himself to undertake such a system of wholesale violence to those old familiar languages, on whose faces, as on that of the moon at night, so many loving eyes have looked with admiration, in all ages. In no way could he have made himself more unintelligible to a beginner, or more distasteful to one who had passed through his novitiate in philology. Two classes of minds relish phonography: those who, being satisfied with only incidental superficial views and general outlines instead of minute details, delight in saving all the labor of thought that they can; and those that have such an intense love of the beauty of abstract order, that, for the sake of its gratification, they are willing to see the ancient, HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 245 well known, beloved forms of words broken to pieces, in order that they may be. reduced to their simple, ultimate, radical type. Many, indeed, would greatly rejoice to possess a grand scientific dictionary, composed of the elementary themes of- words, with a synoptical view of the variations more or less from them in different languages, arranged in true philological order; and doubtless, when philology has attained its full development, such a dictionary will be prepared. But even then phonography will not furnish the torch, that shall illuminate to the scholar's eyes the pages that will contain the record. In the same spirit of unholy freedom with which Rapp has thus handled the sacred forms of words that have come down to us, unscathed by tinle or human conflict, from the far-off past, he has also undertaken to build up a sort of Cyclopean structure of his own fancies, far back in that unknown, ante-historic period, when the Sanskrit itself had not. yet appeared upon the earth. From a comparison of kindred forms of the same radical in different languages, he finds among them what he deems a preponderance of authority for a given elementary constitution of the word, and from such data makes the majority absolute witnesses, over a stifled minority, about the formative necessary stem of the word, in that original mother-tongue. Indeed, his whole aim terminates in a vain effort to constitute his own guesses, by the aid of as many phonographic correspondents as possible, 17 246 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. into the framework of the first language of the world. In the realms of science how absurd are such structures, built up.of mere empty suppositions! nor are they relieved of their unsatisfactoriness by the prefatory remark with which he introduces them, that they are the results of many years of devoted study. Presumptions, of even-many years' quarrying, are not the stones of which to build any part of the temple of science. Rapp and Diez represent in many things two opposite poles of scholarly character: the one bestowing too much honor on mere fancies for their novelty or beauty, and the other rejecting them at once, with sharp logical precision amounting almost to critical vengeance. Rapp is pithy and often witty, and, like most wits, greatly pleased with a new conceit. As one incidental specimen of this trait of his character, among many, consider his classification* of diphthongs. * "There are," he says, " two classes of them. I call it a genuine'diphthong when the movement is from the central a towards the circumference, and indeed in the first place in the direction from a to i. Here lie the diphthongs a, el, commonly written ei, ai and the nasal am; on the way from a towards u, ao iu (commonly written ou), au and the nasal ao; and on the middle line from a to ii, ab, ift, aiu and the nasal ao. A special kind of genuine diphthongs consists of those which make a lateral movement from the negative to the positive side as ae, oe, ai, oi, lii, ofil ui and the nasal oe. The second principal kind make a backward movement, from the circumference towards the centre; and are called illegitimate or deceitful diphthongs, and are somewhat inflexible and the first sound is somewhat prolonged, so that they incline towards a triphthong, &c., &c. To some undoubtedly all this will appear very clear and beautiful; but to the apprehension of the author that light is HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, 247 Ernst August Fritsch wrote in 1833, on the oblique cases and prepositions in Greek, and afterwards several treatises on different grammatical points, as the formnation of tenses, modes and oblique cases, but his work of chief merit is his last: "A Comparative Treatment of Latin and Greek Particles," the first part published in 1856, and the second in 1858. In this he discusses the etymology of the adverbs, conjunctions and suffixes of these languages. It is the best treatise to be found upon this subject, and much excels Diintier in this same field.. This part of Bopp's grammar also is one of its most interesting parts, as, indeed, it is of the new philology generally; since its testimony is so minute and unequivocal to the truth of its great leading positions. In all the principal works of philology, that appear now from time to time, the department of phonetics claims a distinct and full representation. The authors, who have treated it most fully in a separate form, are Benary and Hoefer. In the new edition of Bopp's grammar, special attention is devoted to it at the outset, as is also in Rapp's. It will indeed force itself into notice everywhere, in all true philology; for its connections are vital with it in every part of its framework. To present a still longer catalogue of names in thit most desirable on all subjects, that serves best to reveal them as they are, instead of bedizening the eye with its own marvellous brilliancy. 248 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. connection would be tedious, as it would be without profit; for in those already detailed, the elements of philological study have been sufficiently indicated, as well as both the modes in which and the men by whom it has been brought to its present advanced stage. The history of Indo-European philology in England is very briefly written. A few names describe the narrow orbit of its development. Beside the first scholars already mentioned as so earnest in making the Sanskrit known to their countrymen, as Sir William Jones, Wilkins, Colebrooke and Wilson, the list of more recent authors in modern philology is equally limited in number. They are all told, but these few: Prichard, Rosen, Donaldson, Garnett, Winning, Max Mi-iller and Bunsen, the last two of whom are Germans, though writing in England and in the English language, as was also Rosen. James C. Prichard, M. D., a practising English physician, was a man of good natural endowments, and earnestly devoted to thorough philosophical and philological research. His one great idea was to establish, if possible, the unity of the race. He published accordingly an essay (in 1808) on the varieties of mankind, in which he first made himself favorably known as a philosophical writer. This he enlarged from time to time in successive editions, until in the last (18361847) it had swollen into the five large volumes entitled "Researches into the Physical History of Man HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 249 kind." The one work, on which his fame specially rests among scholars, is that denominated "The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations proved by a Comparison of their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic Languages;" which was published in 1831 as a supplement to "The Researches" abovementioned. He is minute and thorough in this work, in the comparison of Celtic, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek themes and flexion-endings, both formally and euphonically, and his labors in this direction have a high scholarly value. Like Rask and Burnouf, Prichard was removed prematurely from his labors on earth; but his memory, like theirs, will not perish. Dr. F. Rosen, a pupil of Bopp, was for many years Professor of Sanskrit in the University of London. The round of his labors and services seems to have been filled up with practical instructions in philology to his pupils, brief articles in the Penny Cyclopaedia of London, and the translation of the first eighth part of the Rigveda, which was published in 1838, and formed a new epoch in Sanskrit studies throughout the world. Previous translations of Indian literature had represented only the later and somewhat degenerate periods of Sanskrit development; but now the mine of. Vedic thought, as well as that of its distinct dialectic forms, was struck; and all Europe has been ever since ablaze with interest in this new direction. Donaldson has carefully studied grammar, language, 250 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. and history, in the light of Indo-European philology; and has felt, like every one else who has so studied them, an almost irresistible impulse to communicate the pleasure experienced by himself, as widely as possible, unto others. Such a fire cannot easily be kept shut up within one's bones. He has accordingly written a book entitled "Varronianus," on the history and structure of the Latin language, and another of similar nature upon the Greek, entitled the " New Cratylus," and both a Latin and Greek grammar for schools, of which the latter is decidedly the better, being built up more fully in its ground-forms on the basis of thorough philological principles. Donaldson is both learned and ingenious, but at the same time often fanciful. He has indeed fulfilled no mean office, in acting as an usher, to introduce the new philology to the acquaintance of so many English and American minds. He has added little, however, to the world's general knowledge of either its facts or principles: while he is, on the contrary, chargeable with the fault of needlessly leaving many parts of this great science in a state of very learned obscurity. It is doubtful whether any one who does not rise in his scholarship above the horizon of his works, so as to be able to look down critically upon them from a higher point of view, can fail to feel, as the priest of ancient Egypt made the crowd that stood wondering without feel, in their day, that there must be a veil over the truths on which they HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 251 most long to gaze with clear, full vision. To those who adore mystery for its inherent beauty, this may be acceptable; but not to those who believe that truth is the proper aliment of the human mind, and that, then, it is most adapted to make it grow to all nobleness of stature and of strength, when it is most unmixed with other elements. And Donaldson seems to see the reflection of his own image from his works, through the same haze in which he has invested many of the treasures of philology to the eyes of his readers. He is guilty of the sin, deemed so unpardonable in an author, of public self-praise. A single extract or two will exhibit it in all its fulness, especially to one who realizes, from the small number of English scholars in this field, how absolutely his language must be understood as referring to himself. In speaking of the progress of philology in England, he says: "We can point to conceptions more original, and to results more important than any which have signalized the efforts of the learned elsewhere. It is not to be denied that we had great advantages at starting, and that it would have been very disgraceful if we had not learned to profit by them."* So also (on page 39 of the same work) he says, "Our apprenticeship to German philology has ended in producing a number of original workmen, at least equal to a majority of those in whose school they had been trained." In connection with the above ex* New Cratylus, 2d Edit. p. 45. 2152 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. tracts, the reader should peruse at the same time his exquisite tirade (pp. 35, 6, 7.) upon the Germans, which he concludes with this remark, "that German scholars limit their chances of improvement by the narrow boundary of their own nationality; and that consequently they are not more favorably situated than ooir English scholars were, some forty years since." Was ever a wholesale slaughter of a whole nation of scholars committed in such cool blood and with such self-gratulatory satisfaction? Instead of making fresh inductions and generalizations for himself, like Bopp and Grimm and Diefenbach, he has merely acted the part of a theorist, in weaving out of the materials furnished him by others the web of his own philosophy; while working on it at times also.figures of the most unreal and fantastic shape, Winning, although somewhat praised by Donaldson, from want of other compeers in this great study, was but a writer of the third class for merit, as Donaldson himself is but of the second. He directly contradicts, in the latter part of his work, (published in 1838,) the positions which he formally took and defended in the first part; and while we praise him for his straightforwardness, in openly declaring the change that had really occurred in his views, this is all which we can possibly admire. He should have rewritten it at once, so as to make it throughout harmonious with itself. No true scholar will thus pilfer the time and HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 253 comfort of his reader, to whom such treachery is the same, as to a traveller would be that of a guide, who should lead him for a long time in a direction exactly opposite to that in which he ought to go, and at last, after many a weary hour, suddenly inform him that all his toil and patience hitherto had been expended but in vain. And now hear him honestly stultify himself. He says, (p. 160,) after having, through the long track of nearly one hundred pages, maintained the contrary, "Although I now attach not the slightest historical importance to the division of the European languages into Median* and Persian, yet it is still evident that there * It will amuse the philological reader to see his "table of languages." Behold it. IRANIAN. Sanskrit, Zend, Persian. I. IRANO-INDIAN. Sanskrit, Hindustanee, Bengalee. II. IRANO-EUROPEAN. Zend, Persian, Slavonian, Lithuanian, German, Celtic. 1. SLAVONIAN. Russian, Servian, Croatian, Wendish. 2. LITHUANIAN. Lithuanian, Lettish, Old Prussian, Latin (!). 3. GERMAN. (1.) LOWER GERMAN. Gothic, Scandinavian, Dutch, English, &c. (2.) UPPER GERMAN. Old, Middle and New High German, Greek (!). 4. CELTIC. Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, Bas Breton, Basque. Of these he considered the Slavonian, Lithuanian, and Lower German as of Median origin, and the Upper German as of Pcrsian; while, as to the Celtic, he regarded the Erse, Gnwlic and Manx as MedoCeltic; but the Welsh, Cornish and Bas Breton, as Perso-Celtic. 254 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. were three original Iranian dialects, viz.: Sanskrit, Zend, and some third language to which the name of Persian seems not appropriate." In a subsequent part of his work he undertakes to show learnedly from various Rabbinical surmises and statements, from Kimnchi and others, that the original Tuscans were but a set of emigrant Edomites. " The summary of these statements is," he says, " that a people speaking a Semitic idiom came by sea, and landed on the south-west coast of Italy; that they became powerful there, and proceeding northward took possession of Rome, which first attained to greatness under their dominion. It is impossible not to be struck with the close coincidence of this statement with the native Roman account, &c." (p. 198.) This extract occurs in a chapter entitled "The Origin and Prophetic Destiny of the Tuscans," to which sixty pages of learned nonsense are devoted; and to any one who wishes to walk up and down in the fog that the interpreters of prophecy have such special skill in spreading about them, here is an opportunity such as is seldom offered. In another chapter he resolves the Pelasgians into an Egyptian or Hamite race, as, in the chapter on the Tuscans, he also classifies them and the Romans and Corinthians under the same description. But enough of such philological drivel. The reader will forgive so many extracts, if he remembers that the object in quoting them is only to show the actual state of real philological science within the bounds of English authorship. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 255 Garnett has written several articles of merit for the London Philological Society, which have been recently grouped together in a volume by his son. They are interesting; but relate chiefly to the Teutonic elements and aspects of our language. Amidst such meagre demonstrations of English scholarship in the department of Indo-European Philology, it is pleasant to be able to add the name of one, in England though not of it, Max MiUller, professor of European languages and literature at Oxford, who is at once an original investigator of its wonders, and able to set forth what others have done and to make the results of their labors available to the public. His leading work is entitled "The Languages of the Seat of War in the East with a Survey of the three Families of Languages, Semitic, Arian, and Turanian;" a second and much improved edition of which was published in 1855. It was prepared in answer to a formal request by an officer of the English Government in 1854, in connection with the siege of Sebastopol, "that he would prepare at once a treatise on the languages spoken in the East; their general character and structure, their alphabets, the classes of people by whom they were spoken, and the family to which they belong." His treatise, though brief, is one of great interest. Chevalier Bunsen is himself but little of a philologist; but in his " Philosophy of History," he has devoted a large part of the first volume to treatises on 256 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. the last results of philological research, by Max Muiller, and Aufrecht, who has been for some years in Oxford. Bunsen is an earnest religious thinker, and has busied himself with the progress of theology, rather as a general scholar, than as one of special earnestness in this one direction. In the present low state of philological learning in England, he seems determined to obtain the best light that he can; and then to hold it up, high and bright, with all eagerness in the face of the age.* * There is a group of a few celebrated English writers on language, grammar, etymology and words, that ought to be mentioned here, both by way of honor for their merit, and for the sake of being clearly discriminated as a class, from those spoken of in the text. They are Harris, Horne Tooke. Kemble, Bosworth, Richardson, Turner, Latham, and Trench. John Harris published in 1751 a book of much learning and talent, entitled, "HIermes," pertaining to matters of grammatical philosophy, which had great influence and estimation in its day, as its basis and bearings were classical. Horne Tooke, whose views were opposite to those of Harris, presented in his "Diversions of Purley," amid a good many mere speculations, whose only value was their ingenuity, some very important facts and principles, concerning the Teutonic features of English etymology. He never came for a moment, however, into the neighborhood of the idea of a scientific comparison of languages one with the other. Kemble, Richardson, Bosworth and Turner, have all wrought and written well on the English, as a great Anglo-Saxon structure: the first two as general writers on the language and the last two as lexicographers. Latham has, in his latest edition of " The English language," both supplemented and supplanted most previous authors hitherto on the Teutonic features and philosophy of our language. Rev. Richard C. Trench, Professor of King's College, London, has made himself more known in this country than any other one as a writer on "the study of words." Many of our common words he opens to view, and shows them to contain poetical, ethical and historical elements of great interest. His work is, however, as it was designed HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 257 And what can we say of our own land, great in every thing but scholarship, but to be as great at some near day in this high element of power as in every other. Alas! one little upper chamber, how small! would hold the few elect spirits that have seen this new fire blazing on German altars, and snatched one spark from it to kindle the same glowing flame in their own hearts. Not only are very few works relating to general philology produced on our soil, but the number even of those imported from abroad is exceedingly scanty. We have in all the colleges of our country, only one professor of Sanskrit; and he, though a philologist of widely acknowledged eminence,.finds but few pupils to avail themselves of his instructions. In the outline above furnished of the steps by which philology has reached its present development, a sufficient view has been furnished, it is believed, of the literature that it has led in its train, to give the reader a true acquaintance with the men and the modes by which it has been advanced to its present position. Behold now the most important of the different names that we have mentioned, grouped in classes according to their merit. by him to be, entertaining rather than scientific: a book of suggestions and of a few mere outline-sketches, adapted to the popular reader, and not one of deep scholarly investigations of his own or of scholarly guidance unto others. He coasts only around about a few of the AngloSaxon, Norman and Latin elements of our language, and speaks of Latin in old style as "a compound of Grecian and un-Grecian derivatives." 258 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 1. Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Diefenbach, Benary, Schleicher, The two Curtius, Kuhn, Diez, Mommsen, Aufrecht, and Weber. 2. Eichhoff, Ahrens, Giese, Hoefer, Heyse, Benfey, Donaldson. 3. Kaltsclhmidt, Rapp and Winning. These writers may also be advantageously divided, for the reader's information, into different classes, according to the subjects that they have investigated. I. LANGUAGE. 1st, The Indo-European languages generally: Schleicher (Sprachen Europa's); Max Miiller (Survey of Languages, 2d edition); Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft, pp. 174-208; Eichhoff's Vergleichung der Sprachen, pp. 20-36. 2d. Specially, (1.) The G-raeco-Italic: Schleicher (Sprachen, &c.); Mommsen (Romische Geschichte ); E. Curtius (Griechische Gesch.); Aufrecht and Kirchhoff (Umbrische Sprachdenkmaler); Diez (Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen). (2.) The Lettic: Schleicher (Sprachen &c.). (3.) The Gothic: Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik and Geschichte); Schleicher; Diefenbach (Gothisclhes Wijrterbuch). (4.) Slavonic: Schafarik; Schleicher; Miklosich. (5.) Celtic: Diefenbach (Celtica); Pictet; Charles Meyer; Zeuss (Grammatica Celtica); Ebel (Zeitschrift &c.); Prichard (Celtic Nations). HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 259 II. PHONETICS. Beriary; Hoefer; Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik and Geschichte); Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.); Diez (Grammatik, &c.); Corssen (Lateinische Vokalismus); Heyse's System, &c.; Zeitschrift fiir vergleich. Sprachforschung; Arts. by Ebel, Benary, Kuhn & Fdrstemann. III. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. Becker's various works-on Grammar, &c.; Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft; Lersch's Sprachphilosophie; Humboldt's different essays on language; Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i. IV. ETYMOLOGY. Pott's Etymologische Forschungen, new edition. Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.); Schleicher (Litauische Grammatik); G. Curtius (Griechische Gramm., and especially Griechische Etymologie); Diez (Grammatik); Diez (Lexicon Etymologicum); Fritsch. A beginner in the study of philology who desires, at, the least outlay of money and time, to put himself as soon as possible into the possession of the main facts and principles of the science, will find the following few works admirably answer the purpose: Schleicher's Sprachen Europa's. Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft. Diez' Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen. Max Mtiller's Survey of Languages. In Germany by far the greatest attention has been paid from spontaneous impulse, to the claims of com 260 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. parative philology; while in Russia the GovernmenL has as far exceeded all other governments, in its patronage of this delightful study, and of those who are devoted to it. This is one of the chief legacies left by the Empress Catherine, in her own zealous example, to her successors on the throne; and in accepting it they have not forgotten to put it to good usury. The government publishes, at its own expense, the grammars, dictionaries and treatises, prepared by the best scholars; and sustains travellers at its own expense, in making exploring tours for philological purposes in the East. Vienna, however, is the most prolific; of all single cities in the world, in oriental publications. In France, Prussia and Denmark also, much more zeal is shown in this captivating class of studies, than in either England or America. The Sanskrit has been indeed as long taught in England as in Germany, and even longer; but not for classical and philological purposes: for commercial reasons rather, under the patronage of the East India Company, at the College of Haileybury. But justice to the great dead, who distinguished themselves in classical philology, immediately before the dawn of comparative Indo-European philology, demands their distinct remembrance here; and all the more, as some of their followers have endeavored, by voluntarily shutting their eyes to such light as their predecessors never saw but would have hailed with eagerness, to limit themselves and others to the mere HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 261 paths which they trod, although with a far different spirit, and while moving in the van of their age instead of behind it. Heyne was the first to awaken high interest in classical philology, as a special distinct study, in Germany, and was followed in his noble efforts by such men as Buttmann, Hermann and Passow: all men of splendid genius and scholarship, according to the highest ideals of their age. It is pleasant to pause at any time, and gaze at the dimensions of their scholarship, which rise before us like huge colossal structures, for their times, high and clear against the sky. No one of them had finer tastes and larger powers than Dr. Philip Buttmann: a native philologist and a noble Greek scholar, unsurpassed alike in philosophical insight and scholarly enthusiasm by any student in any land. His Greek Grammar and his Lexilogus are his principal works, and exhibit the best possible qualities of linguistic investigation. The advocates of mere classical philology now, are like an army that was once victorious, but has lost all its great leaders. Dbderlein, one of the best representatives in Germany of the remnants of this school, still lives to look around him, with the loneliness of a man deserted by a generation that had no pride of its own to gratify in walking with him, and could not afford to gratify his pride in standing still and gazing with admiration upon hlim, while he walked majestically s18 262 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. by himself. He has persistently refused to improve the light of the new philology, and has thereby exiled himself as a scholar from the generation with which he yet lives as a man. Ile has indeed furnished in his various works, in the mere isolated connections of Greek with Latin, a good deal of valuable material, which may be worked with care by other hands into a useful shape, by being re-adjusted and harmonized with the elements of a true and comprehensive etymology. His first great fault is the very fundamental conception of his whole plan, that of deriving the Latin immediately from the Greek, and his next great fault is his practical adoption of the Aristotelian system of squaring facts, with all possible ingenuity, to preconceived theories, instead of the Baconian system of first finding the facts and conforming his theory to them; so that he constantly bends whatever is opposed to his views in the Greek, by force, into his service. But surely and steadily the false light of a separate classical philology is fast waning away, under the brighter light of comparative philology. Classical philology, in its true form, and of its true dimensions, when built on the foundations of comparative philology, is a science of vast and beautiful proportions, in which as in a mansion of light the highest minds can tarry with joy and wonder; but, built on any separate, exclusive basis of its own, its dimensions are all contracted, and its uses are meagre and pitiful. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 263 In its philosophical aspects, comparative philology bears a most commanding mien. Its generalizations, like those of the great philosophies, are unbounded in their scope, covering the whole field of human language. It has, like Christianity, out of whose hand it has flown forth among the nations, and like the great elements of nature and of life, the mark of its divine origin, in its adaptation to all times and ages, all languages and words. Comparative philology divides languages into two great classes, the old or primary, and the new or secondary. The primary are all arranged in a few family-groups, as the Indian, Graeco-Latin, Lettic, Slavonic, Gothic and Celtic; while the secondary are the more recent languages derived from them, and usually with many admixtures. Constant commingling, and thereby constant renovation, is the law of Providence, in respect to tribes and races on the one hand, and correspondingly, by necessary result on the other, the law of language also; which is but a vast panorama, in word-scenery, of the winding stream of a nation's history. The established limitations to the working of any contrary law are remarkable. Commerce seems to be an absolute necessity to the world's progress, not only in business, but also in ideas and language, and even in blood. The secondary languages are classified according to their grammatical, instead of their lexical, resemblances. Thus, the English, though 264 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. so largely Romianic in its constituent verbal elements, is yet, in its grammatical character, German. So, the New Persian, although full of Arabic words, is yet justly called Iranian and not Semitic, because of its inward Iranian structure. The amount of investigation made in comparative philology is, when contrasted with none at all, very large; but, when contrasted with the whole area of all languages, it is yet small. The languages of the civilized world are those that have been most explored, and those only in their main outlines, rather than in all their vast fulness of details. Each year is adding new discoveries to this recent, though great science; and, though but partially developed, it is yet of gigantic proportions. The mighty intellects at work upon it, have made its foundations very large; and yet at the same time, they have carried up its walls already to an unexpected height of grandeur. The principal results obtained by comparative philology are the following: 1st. To invest the study of language with new charms. Language is now seen to be a vast store-house, full of treasures; and many new and wide avenues to research are open within it. The study of language is not only made a higher study than ever before, but also entirely different: a study worthy of the greatest efforts of the greatest minds: the study of its inward structure HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 265 as an organic whole, and also of the origin, history, growth and elementary constitution of its separate words. The grammar and dictionary have now a new and high use: such an use as to an artistic eye, delighting in the logic of inward mutual adaptations, a steam engine has, as a piece of wondrous mechanism, compared with its uses to the unthinking traveller, for the mere object of locomotion. To the ignorant reader a dictionary seems but a vast mass of word-lumber; but to a mind that knows the inward essences of things, it is an immense museum of the most interesting antiquities and curiosities. Iere are historical memorials without number, and the coins of thought and love, that have passed current in myriad hands from one generation to another. And how is the silent past of language made, under the reviving touch of philology, all vocal of itself again. As from a vast seed-plot, once covered by many generations of plants and trees, but now long barren, from want of the necessary outward conditions of growth: there has been from every language, on which the light and heat of comparative philology have been poured, a wondrous, universal outburst of its ancient, inward, long-concealed vitality. The monuments left by any nation, are indeed very scanty relics of the whole round orb of its active life; but no monuments have been left in any part of the world, so determinate of their character, so full of their spirit, and so enduring in contin 266 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. uance, as hose of language. Language is in itself an impressible, elastic, ever yielding medium of social intercourse;