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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 in-
terest. As for our part, we have spared no expense in respect to
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pearance equal to its own inward merits in fact. While it
abounds in learning, it is also written iu a spirited con amore
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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 Englauder, at New Haven ; whieli have since been
re-written and greatly enlarged and improved, and are accom-
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In their original although abbreviated form they attracted great
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1

to the students of language among us, young and old ; as, with
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*' This admirable essay (' The Science of Etymology') is to ap-
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sant with this important but recondite subject, when we say that
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" The History of Modern Philology. — The science of philol-
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and practised hand of 3Ir. Dwight, -wiil be of much service to read-
ers not versed in the science itself" — Independent.

" I have read with much pleasure Mr. Dwight's articles jn the
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" I have examined with great interest Mr. Dwight's essays on
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only for their views of the historical unity and principles of
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pal of the Troy Female Seminary.

'■ Mr. Dwight's views show such rare and extensive research,
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guages, roots, branches, themes and their logical and comprehen-
sive 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
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Samuel H. Cox, Ingham University.

" I did not know who in this country could have written the
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invalid like nie can hardly see." — Professor Francis A. March,
Lafayette College, Penn.

" I am delighted to learn that jMr. Dwight intends to bring
out all his articles on philology together in one work. I shall
look for it with great eagerness." — Edward P. Crowcll, Professor
of Latin, Amherst College.

' I have read several articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra, by
Mr. Dwight, and am greatly pleased with the earnest and spirited
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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 ivould ideally supply a desideratum.
I feel exceedingly gratified that he has turned his attention and
devoted so mucli labor to this important branch of science, which
indeed may be almost regarded as the science of the age. 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 stud}", and a fine appreciation
of the great laws and j)rinciples of language. The republication
of them in a separate form will be a valuable service to the
cause of philology." — Samuel H.Taylor, LL. D., Principal of
Phillips' Academy, Andover, Mass.

A. S. BAIINP:S & BURR,

51 & 53 John Strkkt, New York.

DWIGHT'S
MODERN PHILOLOGY.

; MODERN PHILOLOGY:

|te giscobcrics

HISTORY AND INFLUENCE,

MAPS, TABULAR VIEWS, AND AN INDEX.

BENJAMIN W. myiGRT,

AUTHOR OF " THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN EDUCATION."

NEW YORK :

A. S. BARNES & BURR, 51 & 53 JOPIN STREET.

1859.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
A. S. BAENES & BUER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York. «

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

HISTORICAL SKETCU 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 Intlected Languages 18-190

Other Possible Classifications 19-20

The Semitia Languages 20-28

Connection of Hebrew and Phosnician 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

Vedic Sanskrit and Vedas 33-40

Devanagari Alphabet 36-40

Pali and Prukrit 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) Pchlevi, (4) Pazend, (5)

New Persian 47

3d. The Ossetian ; 4th. The Armenian 48

U CONTENTS.

PAGE.

II. Gr^co-Italic Family-pair 48-112

Ist. The Greek Family 49-6«

False Theory of Connections of Greek and Latin 49

Dialectic Developments of the Greek 50

Gi'eek 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 74-97

Italic Home-growth 74—75

(«) Umbro-Samnite Dialects 75-79

(6) Latin 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 87-112

Germanic Influences on Romanic

Languages 83-93

Specimens of Ante-Media3val Latin. . . 94

Do. Grseco-Romanic Elements 95

Do. Germano-Romanic do. 95

§ 2. The Romanic Tjanguages 97-112

(1) The Italian and its Literature 97-99

(2) The Vrallachian do 99-100

(3) The Spanish do 100-105

(4) The Portuguese do 105-107

(5) The Provengal do 107-108

(6) The French do 108-111

Correspondences in Romanic Languages. 112

CONTENTS. Ill

PACK.

III. The Lcttic Family 113-117

1st. The Lithuanian and its Peculiarities •113-115

2d. The Old Prussian IIG

3d. The Lettish IIG

IV. The Slavic Family 117-130

Historical Eras of this Famil}^ 117

Their Internal Connections 118

Their Different Alphabets : Cyrillic, Roman, Ilie-

ronymic 119

First. South-Easteru Slavic 120

1st. The Russian and its Literature 121-3

2d. The Bulgarian do. 1 23-4

3d. The Servian do. 125

Second. Western Slavic 120-130

Slavonic Correspondences 120

1st. The Lechish : Poland and the Polish 127-128

2d. The Tschechish, 3(1. the Sorbish, 4th. the Po-

labish 128

The Area of Slavism 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 Autliors : Shakspeare. . . 130

Its Comparison with German 137

Its Correspondences with Sanskrit 138-9

Its Orthoepical and Orthographical Pe-
culiarities 140

American Provincialisms 140-3

(3) The Frisic, (4) the Low Dutch 144-146

2d. The High German 145-151

Et3-mology of the Word German 146

Peculiarities of the German 147

Different Eras of its Development 147

Luther's Influence upon it 148

Its Comparison with tlie English 149

VL The Celtic

Prichard's, Jones', and Bunsen's Views 151

Early Westward Movements of the Celts 152

Celtic Poetry : Os.sian, &c 153

IV CONTENTS.

PAQB.

Present Remains of Celtic ' 154

Present Cieographical 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 Ph3'sical Influences 163

3d. Smallness of Man's Inventiveness 164—176

Origin of Language as Divine 168

Development-Theory of Word-germs 168-174

, Max Mi'iller'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.

IIISTOEY 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 IMithridates 200

Indo-Europeanism rersvs Indo-Germanism 201

Sanskrit Literature : its Character, &c 202

East India Company : Ilalhed, Jones 203

First English Translations of Sanskrit 204

Colebrooke, H. 11. Wilson 205

Frederic Schlegel : the INIan and his Sei"vices 206-9

Augustus W. Schlegel, his Brother 210-2

Bopp's First Philological Work 212

Rask : his Travels and Researches 212-215

Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Grammar 215

Ilis Scale of Correspondences 216-218

CONTENTS. V

FAGB.

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 Eichhofif in France, 183C) 227 -230

Albert'Giese's ^olischer Dialekt 230

Senary and Hofer .. . 231-232

Ahrens on the Conjugation in — jxi . 233

Diintzer and Kaltschmidt , . . 234

Diefenbach and Schleicher 235

George Curtius and Diez 23G-237

Diez's View of Philology. 238

Present Condition of Philology in Germany 239

Ernst Curtius and Theodore IMomrasen 240

Zeitschrift filr Vergleich. Spracliforschung 241

Aufrecht, Kirchhoft' and Benfey 241

Heyse, Kuhn, and Weber 242-243

Eapp'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 Mailer's Survej' of Languages 255

Bunsen's Phil. Universal History 256

English Writers on Teutonic Elements in English 25G-257

State of Philology in America 257

Philological Authors C.ompared 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

Heyne, Buttmann, Diiderlein 261-262

Inferences: 1st. The Charms of Linguistic Stud}' 264

2d. Resolution of Grammatical Difficulties 266-268

3d. The Relative Imperishablcness of Language. . . .268

4th. The Scope of Analogy in Language 269

5th. The Mutual Connection of Languages 269

6th The Light Shed by Philology on Ethnography 270

Weber's Sketch of Primeval Arian Ilistor}- 272-274

VJ CONTENTS

III.

SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

PAGE.

T. The General Proportions and Relations of the Subject 278-287

English Etymology Dependent on Classical 278

The Ileal 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 Herbariums. . 285

IT. 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

Jiikel and Nork's Ideas of Latin. &c 297

Klotz's New Latin Dictionary 299

Passow, Pape, and Kaltschmidt in Greek Lexi-
cography 300-301

Web.ster's English Dictionary 302-30G

3d. Its Exact Scientific Treatment 3CG-311

The Grimms' Great German Dictionary 30G-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 322-32-5

(3) Comparative Grammar 325-327

Criteria of Relative Antiquity of Lan-
guages 320-327

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. Vll

PAGE.

IV. Determinate Tests of Etymology 331-337

1st. Of Comparative Etymology 332-333

(1) Correspondence in Base 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 333-3-34

(2) Naturalness of Derivation 835

(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 Dis-
cipline 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 Phi-
lology. When wearied by the many toils of his pro-
fession, 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 pleas-
ing 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 at-
tending influences. The excitement of perpetual eff'ort
to find its hidden wonders, keeps ever growing unto
the end.

The Author has written what he has, because he

6 INTRODUCTION.

must : necessity has been iipon him : the fire kindled
within his heart has found its own vent : he coukl not
keep to himself the pleasure that he constantly ex-
perienced, in his pathway of investigation. And if
his papers had all perished by accident, after the care-
ful preparation of years, the pleasure of the ever-
present 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, woidd 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 Avill enjoy still another pleasure in his philological
labors, which w^ill 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, pertain-
ing to the many topics connected Avitli 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 al-
lowed, 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 intro-
ducing this new study, 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 dissect-
ed rather than living forms, the mere unadorned frame-
work 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 lim-
ited number who have as yet acquired, in this country,
any complete special knowledge of its facts and princi-
ples. His purpose has been, on the contrary, to do
what he could to attract the greatest possible number
of eyes to the gloiy 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 Eng-
lander ; and were much compressed in their details, in
order to adapt their length to the limits of those valu-
able 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. »

prise, ingenuity and endurance, that distinguish us as
a people, a substantial preparation for the highest scien-
tific 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 aije just lighting their torches at the fires, which
other hands, now growing feeble from age, have kin-
dled : to God alone, who has given all the strength, re-
sources and opportmiities for doing so, be the glory
and the praise.

Dwight's Rural High School, )

Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., July 1, 1859. j

Among the Autliors consulted in the preparation of
the first article, are the following : —

Grote's History of Greece ; Smith's do. ; Niebuhr's His-
tory of Rome ; Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancieut History ;
Brown's History of Greek Classical Literatm'e ; Brown's Ro-
man Classical Literature ; Donaldson's New Cratylus ; Don-
aldson's Varronianus ; Taylor's Ancient History ; Bunsen's
Philosophy of Universal History; Bopp's Comparative Gram-
mar, by Eastwick ; Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik (Neue
Auflage) ; Rapjj's do. ; Eichhoffs Vergleichung der Sprachen;
Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache ; Diefenbach's
Gothisches Worterbuch ; Giese's Aeolischer Dialekt ; Momm-
sen's Romische Geschichte ; Schleicher's Geschichte der
Sprachen Europa's ; Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft ;
Diez' Grammatik der Roman. Sprachen ; Ahrens' De Lin-
gua3 Greece Dialectis ; Aufrecht's Umbrischen Sprachdenk-
maler ; Lersch's Sprachphilosophie ; Winning's Comparative
Philology ; Garnett's Philological Essays ; Monier Williams'
Sanskrit Grammar ; Kuhn's Beitrage zur Sprachforschung ;
Gesenii Monumenta ; Max MuUer's Survey of Languages
Asiatic Researches; Frederic Schlegel's ^sthetical Works
Prichard's Natural History of Man ; Prichard's Eastern
Origin of the Celtic Nations ; Journal of American Oriental
Society ; Du Gauge's Glossarium ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire ; Gieseler's Ch. Hist. ; Buckle's Hist,
of Civilization in England ; Blair's Chronology ; etc., etc.

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN
LANGUAGES.

MODEEN PHILOLOGY.

AN HISTORICAL SI^TCH 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 lan-
guages ; 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 measure-
ment 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 interpret-
ers 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 difiicult 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 desen^e
a large and bold utterance.

The terms of comparison between different lan-
guages 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 ar-
ranged philosophically, in three great classes :

1. Those, consisting of mere separate, unvaried
monosyllables, like the Chinese. There are no Ian-

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 1*5

guages of this kind, but the Chinese and a few Indo-
Chinese languages in its neighborhood, as the Brahman,
Siamese, &c., which were originally without doubt
identical with it. In exact antipodes to the monosyl-
labism of this class of languages, stands the polysyl-
labism 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 w^ord therefore exists, in a close, sharply
defined, permanent 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 theii* 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, w^ho

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 w^hich 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 Hiin 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 fidl 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,
Einnish, 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 tliem tlieir own
personal identity unimpaired. These languages are
thus classified in one group, almost exclusively on the
ground of correspondence in their grammatical struc-
ture, 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 wdth its folds the
Mantchoos, Mongols, and the whole wide-spread
Turkish race in the east, and in the west the Pinnish,
Lappish and Magyar tribes of men : stretching west-
ward, from the shores of the Japan Sea to the neigh-
borhood 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 HISTOllICAL SKETCH OF

tion : having no flexion of the noun, and no distinction
of number or person in the- verb.

The aggUitinative languages have some special pe-
culiarities that are quite remarkable. One, is the ar-
rangement 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 aU of a
complete interior organization : complicated with many
mutual relations and adaptations, and thoroughly sys-
tematized in all their parts. There is all the diflerence
between this class and the monosyllabic, that there is
between organic and inorganic forms of matter ; as also
the diff'erence between them and the agglutinative lan-
guages is like that in nature between mineral accretions
and vegetable growths. In their history lies embosomed
that of the civilized portions of the world. The boun-
daries of this class of languages are the boundaries of
cultivated humanitv. The lansfuaGfes 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

continuecl discourse by a few prefixes, sufRxes 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 gram-
marian 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 structu-
ral differences, they might be divided into two great fam-
ilies : 1 . The ungrammatical, as the Chinese and North
American. 2. The grammatical or organic languages,
namely, the Semitic, the Indo-European and the Tura-
nian. 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 peophng of the historic por-
tions 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 No-
madic. 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 cliaracteristic abundance in the others. Thus,
both monosyllabic and agglutinated forms occm' in the
inflected languages ; and yet the distinctions described
separate the different classes, in the mass, quite abso-
lutely 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 rela-
tion. 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 Phoe-
nician race, by whom Palestine was inhabited before

* To the Arabic belongs also the Ethiopic, as a branch of the
Southern Arabic. The Aramaean is called Syriac in the form in which
it appears in the Christian Aramgean 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, com-
pared 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 Phoenician and Punic languages agree with the
Hebrew. The Semitic languages were native in the
countries lying between the Mediterranean, the Arme-
nian 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 con-
quest of Syria and Palestine, in the middle of the sev-
enth century, it has swept from its presence, as with a

* Augustine, himself a native Carthaginian, said in his day, that
"the Hebrevr and Carthaginian languages differ but little. The
Hebrew, Carthrfginian and Phoenician 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 Phoenician 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 inflect-
ing their words : a point which it is superfluous to illustrate with ex-
amples." Gesenii Monumenta, § 3. Chap. ■' Linguae Phoeniciaj mdoles
et cum Hebraja necessitudo."
3

22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

breath of flame, the Hebrew and the Syriac in their
own native dwelhng-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 soli-
tary representative of itself in Europe. Like the Ger-
man in the w^estern world in so many other respects,
this Eastern language is like it also in this, that it has
diff'used its elements wonderfully among the constitu-
ents of many suiTounding languages : as the Turkish,
the New Persian and Syriac ; while, in Europe also, it
has left its impress ineffaceably on the Spanish lan-
guage, upon whose features, as well as upon the face of
whose Hterature, 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 wdth it in respect to
either its grammar or its lexical resources, is decidedly
inferior.

The Semitic languages differ widely from the Indo-
Em'opean, 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 famihes of languages, they may be of one, two,
or tlnree, 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 re-
mote 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 noAV
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 phys-
ical or moral causes, when but half complete, beyond
the power of further change. We have been also re-
cently 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, histo-
ries and works on geography, astronomy and painting :
"presenting," as Rawlinson, one of its explorers, re-
marks, " a perfect cyclopaedia of Assyrian science." So
also the characters found on the bricks in the disen-
tombed palaces at Babylon have been clearly proved to
be Semitic. These antique languages lived and died,
in the darkness of an otherwise utterly unmemoriahzed
past.

Indo-European literatiu-e, although not of so high
antiquity as the Semitic, far surpasses it in variety,

24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

flexibility, beauty, strength and luxuriance. The ulti-
mate 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 Indo-
European, we have a range and style of words and in-
flections adapted to the truest and finest possible ex-
pression 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 philo-
sophical 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 re-
corded its thoughts and wants and achievements, in

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 25

ancient Egypt ; and afterwards another branch of the
same family, the Phoenicians, 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, hke
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 char-
acteristics ; and almost as strongly so as are the mascu-
line 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 in-
duectly on the development of any or all of the Indo-
European family, it would be a matter of capital in-
terest, 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 hori-
zon of history. Babylonia was greatly influenced by
Judaic commerce, religion and literatiu-e, 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 lan-
guage, 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, hke 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 defen-
sive rather than offensive operations ; stiU, 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. Phoenicia 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 in-
timate 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, Solo-
mon 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 Phcenicia and
Egypt exerted, in their turn, a very great influence on
the early progress of the European world. Erom
Phoenicia came the alphabet to Greece; and from
them both came stores of wisdom and influences intel-
lectual and moral, which, by their very essential invisi-
bility, 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 Eather 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 mde
and dreary deserts, by which the negative side of their
character has been more cultivated than the positive.
The lot, on the contraiy, 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 Prench, with each
other. As we go eastward geographically and back-
ward historically, we find, as a general fact, a greater
and greater approximation constantly to the pure Indo-
European types of words, as found in the Sanskrit;
and, as w^e go westward, less and less ; until, in the
Celtic, the most western European language, we find
the fewest traces left of the common original mother-
tongue. 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 Egyp-
tian language and the comparison of the Celtic lan-
guages 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 Imgual 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 sub-
sequent languages of the civilized world have been de-
rived. 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 dii'ectly alternated.

The most ancient languages of the Indo-European
stock may be grouped in two family -pairs : the Arian
family -pail" and the Grseco-Italic or Pelasgian family-
pair. The whole series of families is as follows :

I. The Arian family-pair.

n. The Grseco-Italic, or Pelasgic family-pair.

m. 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 ex-
plored, 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.
2cl. 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
Hindus to themselves, in contradistinction to the rest
of the world, whom they considered base-born and con-
temptible. 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. Prom what circumstances of social con-
trast in their favor, they came to apply this self-flatter-
ing 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 afterAvard pre-
served in the Aria and Ariana of the Greek geogra-
phers. Aryavarta, the country lying between the Him-
alaya 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 Hindu 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 Indns, and on the
west by the Euphrates, is the spot to wliich all the lan-
guages of the civilized world, ancient and modern, now
unite in pointing as tlie 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 direc-
tion to their central source, we soon find om'selves, here
as on every other topic of ultimate inquiry, groping iri
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 na-
tions 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 veiy
short durgftion 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 south-
ern Arian migrations stagnated in the valleys which
they occupied ; as in them they were walled in from all

32 HISTORICAL SKETCH 0¥

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 val-
leys of the Indus and its many streams, with no motive
to labor from poverty of soil and no need of self-protec-
tion 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
spm' 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 youthfid 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 phmted
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 Hindus 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 then* form, he divided into four
parts, named Rich, Yajush, Saman and Atharvarna :
each with the common denomination Veda,* wdiich
means primarily knowledge or science, and is now used
to denote the whole mass of Hindu sacred literature.
The fourth of these Vedas is undoubtedly more modem
than the first three, and like in this respect the Itihasa
and Puranas, which together constitute a fifth and stiU
more recent Veda. In the Vedas themselves they have
a fabulous origin ascribed to them : " the Rigveda from
fire,f the Yajurveda from air, and the Samaveda from
the sun." Some Indian commentators ascribe the

* Lat. video, Gr. oJ8a for FoTSa : Germ. "Wissen : Eng. wit. wist
viz. : — vide, vision, etc.

t Asiatic Researches. Art. by H. T. Colebrooke, vol. viii. (year
1808.)

34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

fable to the fact that the Rigveda opens Avith a hymn
to fire, and the Yajurveda Avith one in which air is
mentioned; but others see in it a transcendental
phOosophy of the primeval order of things in the
miiverse. 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 im-
precations 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 dif-
ferent 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 daj'S learned priests took their titles from the number
of Vedas with which they were conversant. Thus, one who had studied
two Vedas was called Dwivedi : one, who had studied three, Ti'ivedi
and one who had studied four, Cbaturvedi.

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 explana-
tory maxims and theological arguments. The Rig-
veda* means literally the Veda of verses, from rich, to
praise ; and consists of somewhat more than a thousand
hymns of praise, called Suktas, to the Deity, of various
length from one to fifty verses. The religious litera-
ture of the Hindus consists of such works, beside the
Vedas 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 praj-er
itself; and thus most of what is taught in the Vedas has now become'
obsolete. So strong is the tendencj^ everywliere in human nature to
put the gloss of mere formal respect on every thing ancient, and to
satisfy its religious instincts, by carefullj^ 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 re-
quires 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 Ta-
tars, according to Hue, 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 super-
stitious Indians abound in vain i-epetitions of chance-portions of the
Vedas, repeating them forwards and backwards, backwards and for-
wards, in idle emptiness of thought, in order to benefit their souls, if
possible, in some way by such foolish mummery.

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, as-
tronomy, &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
Hindus : sustaining the same relation to their present
dialects, that the Latin sustains to the modern Romanic
tongues. While it is written in various Indian char-
acters, 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 thu'd 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 conve-
nience 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 in-
scriptions, found on pillars and high rock-walls through-
out 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 " un-
cultivated" idiom of it, adopted in accommodation to
the people, for whose eyes they were thus carved in im-
perishable 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 " mod-
ern " 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 de-
lighted in fencing off others from their selfish seclusion
of false dignity, by withholding from them as many
privileges as possible. The word Sanskrit or " clas-
sical " 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 de-
noted by it, appear to imply to the uninitiated. In-
deed, as Milton's Eve, when bending over the river's
bank in Eden saw as in a mirror her own image and

38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

was astonished ; so, we may gaze from tlie verge of the
present npon the wondrous stream of the past, in the
ancient Indian home of our race, and see with amaze-
ment not only our o^^n outward selves all imaged there,
but also the most inward and subtle features of our
hearts. In the sixth centiu-y 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 Rig-
Yedas 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. Wliitney in this country ; and
much progress lias been made in the great work of ac-
curately deciphering their contents.

The relation of the Ye die 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

publislied, but pliilologists now are returning to the
same classification of vowels and consonants that oc-
curs 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 unchangeable-
ness ; hke some of the fossil elephants found nowa-
days 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
Mahabaratah and Ramayana 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 after-
ward the proper Hindu 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 vio;or : althouo'h ever wor-
shipping, under the name of Brahma, Porce or Propul-
sive Will as the all-presiding Deity of the Universe.

Between the Vedic dialect and tlie Zend strikiuGr
resemblances are found to exist.

" The Sanskrit is," in the lanojuas^e of EichhofF
" the richest of all languages 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 per-
fectly 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 lang-uage, 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 alpha-
bet, 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 alpha-
bet 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 pronun-
ciation. There are fourteen vowels and thirty-three simple consonants :
to which may be added the nasal symbol called Anuswara and tlic
symbol for a final aspirate called Visarga. The vowels are a, a, i, i, u.
u, ri, ri, Iri, Iri, 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 elabo-
ration of language, in variety and exactness of form, as
well as m outward phonetic beauty and effect, the
Greek far surpassed not only the Sanskrit, !)ut also every
other language ancient or modem. 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 character-
istics : 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 piu-er form than even the
Sanskrit itself, as is often especially true of the Lithua-
nian. No one of the sister languages of the Indo-Eu-
ropean family has as clear and transparent a style of
flexional orsjanism 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 Prakrit, and are now found as dead languages,
by the side of their Sanskrit mother in northern Hin-
dustan. 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 inilu-

42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

ence. The Pali grew up, as the offspring of the San-
skrit, ill 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 plm'al) 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. ovv, Latin cum) and krita, made; and like
the Lat. confectus .means " carefully constructed,"
" complete," " classical : " that of Prakrit is " natural,"
"uncultivated;" while Pali means "ancient." The
Pali and Prakrit dialects represent the middle age of
the Sanskrit. The Pali was at the height of its excel-
lence full 500 years before Christ ; while the Prakrit
was not fully developed until one or tAvo centuries later.
The present languages of Hindustan, some twenty or
thirty in all, represent the Sanskrit in its most degen-
erate state: having swerved very greatly from their
original model. Most of the languages now spoken in
Upper India are immediately derived from the Prakrit.
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 al-
ways received from superior when in mutual contact.

THE INDO-EUROPEATNT LANGUAGES. 43

Hindii nationality is therefore now, partly of Arian
origin and partly of either Semitic or Turanian, prob-
-ably 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 geo-
graphical 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 belono^ina:
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 de-
posit, 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 wliicli it
is found, as are the people from those over whose ter-
ritories they wander. Their language and their roving
habits of life are all that constitute their national iden -
tity. 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.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

their supposed home in Egypt : Zigeiiner, 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 centm*y.

Their language,* in its great and manifold resem-
blances to the Sanskrit, nullifies absolutely before the
court of classical and historical criticism the so common
conception of their Egyptian origin ; and shows that

* COEEESPONDENCES OF THE GYPSY LAIfGTJAGE.

Varions

Sanskrit.

Greek.

Latin.

Gypsy.

Lithuan.

Languages.

German.

English:

1. aksha (s)

OKOS

oculus

akis

(Russian)
olco

auge

eye

the eye

(perhaps)

yakcha
yak

(OM

Slavonic.)

2. agni (s)
fire

aiyXri

ignis

yak
fire

ngnis

ogny

angara,

angar

a coal

(Illyrian)

3. nava (s)

re'os

novus

nevo

naujas

nov

neu

new

for

i. vid,

ftSeiv

videre

bedar

(Zend)

wissen

wit

to see :

for

to teach

vid

to know

wise

vind to

Yeibfiv

weisen

viz

discover.

causative

to show

-vide

vedaya

iffflfxi

visere

vedeml

-vise

(causative)

I teach

to teach

5. bhratar

(ppaT-np

frater

bnil

brolis

(L.ttisl)
bralis

bruder

brother

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 45

they came from Northern India. This liowcver is not
the first or greatest ethnological fallacy, that has origi-
nated in a popnlar empirical style of etymological
guessing. The ancients especially were very fond of
weaving legendary history, out of such dubious mate-
rials.

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 cer-
tain 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 chaher. (3.) A radical
s changed into h, as in Sansk. saptan, Zend hapta and
Sansk. sam, with : Old Persian ham. (4.) The fre-
quent substitution of the dental sibilant z for the gut-
tural aspirate h, as in Sansk. aham, I, and mih,* to uri-
nate : 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 inscrip-
tions, 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. ofil^cv: Lat. mingere and meiere.

46 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

ethical system of Zarutluistra, commonly called Zo-
roaster, 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. 2:26.) The Zend was the original vernacular
of the Medes and Bactrians. So closely does it resem-
ble the Sanskrit, that in very many words, by merely
changing the Zend letters into their Sanskrit equiva-
lents, you obtain at once precisely the same identical
word. Very striking also in particular is the corre-
spondence between Persia and India, in the elements
of their religion and mythology. It is not indeed too
much 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 concep-
tions 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 Sanskrit and Zend, of which
the other Indo-European nations seem to have had no
idea. In many points tlie 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, aiTow-headed inscriptions of the
Achsemenidian kings. The intermediate forms of the
Persian were the Pehlevi, the language of the Sassanians
(a. D. 226-G51) ; and the Pazend, the mother of the neAV
Persian, with which also the Pushtu spoken in Affghan-
istan is connected. The Pehlevi, which was the lan-
guage of western Persia, had in it a strong admixtm-e of
Aramaic words ; while the Pazend, that of eastern Persia,
was but the Old Persian greatly commingled with Ara-
bic. 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,
cafled 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 and
metamorphosed by it, as to be rather an Oriental
Romance than a splendid structure of real and con-
nected 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 higlilanders,
without a literature or a history. The Armenian lan-
guage, 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. Althouo-h the lansfuaore is of an
original Iranian constitution, its form and features
have been much altered by contact with surrounding
languages, especially the Tm-kish. The Ancient Ar-
menian was a living language down to the 12th cen-
tury ; since wdiich time the present dialect has grow'U
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 Em'ope, in
Southern Russia around the Sea of Azof, and in Tur-
key, Galicia and Hungary.

II. The Grseco-Italic or Pelasgic family-pair.

But a little while ago Latin etymology was univer-

* Correspondences of the Ossetian Language :

Sanckrit Ossetian. Gothic Latin,

pilar, father fid fadar pater

panchan, five fonz fimf quinqne

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 diificidties, that could not be solved. Such
works as Valpy's Etymol. Latin Dictionary, Mair's
Tyro, Doderlein's various works, and Schwenck's Ety-
mologisches Worterbuch, illustrate this era and style
of Latin etymology. These works still have a value,
and that often considerable, in exhibiting correspond-
ences 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
Graeco-Italic race, to which the progenitors of both the
Latin and Greek nations, as they came afterwards to
be and to be called, belonged in common ; and from
which they afterwards branched off into a separate man-
ifestation. 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 in-
spiring 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
^olic, 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 zEolic ;
and these two dialects may, without impropriety, be
said to mark the earlier and later aspects of the Pelas-
gic 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 home-
product ; and, " so far," as K. O. MiiUer well observes,
"as it differs in any word, in respect to either its
vowels or its consonants, from the iEolic ; it differs
also from the original type of the word."

The Italic race parted from the common Grasco-
Italic stock, by a more western migration ; where, in
another climate and under other influences, they ma-
tured 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, times and

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 51

modes of these difFcrcnt niigrations and separations lie
out of tlie field of exact historic vision.

As agriculture is the basis of all stable social or-
ganization, we are compelled to believe that the origi-
nal Grseco-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 inhabit-
ants of Italy declare this historic fact; as (Enotria
(from olvog wine) from Avhich 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 com-
mon origin, and possess a common substantive being.
The mould and model of the Latin are the more antique
in their forms of the two. In the MoYic dialect, in
which we have the remains, in general, of the Greek as
it was in its primeval state, it resembles the Latin much
more than in its later dialects. In this dialect, the
Graeco-Italic or PelasQ-ic element that forms the common
stock of the Greek and Latin languages is found most
abundantl}'^, and Avith the fewest adulterations and ad-
ditions. The words most distinctly common to the
Greek and Latin, are those that thereby show them-
selves to characterize that period, in which they had a
blended life in one common stock. These words relate

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

to the domestic animals, the soil, the phenomena of na-
ture, objects of worship, articles of subsistence and im-
plements of industry ; or, in other words, to the ele-
ments 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.

Sanskrit.

Latin.

Greek.

Tlieir sense in
English.

gaus

bos

fiovs

avis

ovis

oi'y

sheep

hansas

anser

X^"

goose

asvas

equus

'IttttoS

JEol.

'tKKOS

horse

pasu

pecu

iraiv

flock

sthuras

taurus

ravpos

bull

akshas

axis

a^aip

axis

a wheel

afx-a^a

axle

saras

sal

a,\s

salt

varahas

porcus
verres

TTOpKOS

pig

sukaras

sus

(TVS and vs

sow-

s'van

canis

KVttlV

dog

mush

mus

fj-vs

mouse

4tis

anas

VTJdcra, for
avr)(r<Ta.

duck

raj at a

argentum

apyvpisv

silver

arbhas

orbus

op(pav6s

orphan

damas

domus

hoixos

house

devas

deus

eds

God

ajra, from aj

ager

aypos

field

arv, to divide or

arare

apovv

to plough

break up

aratrum

apoTpov

a plough

garhan

hortus

Xopros

garden

—

vinum

oivos

wine

li, to melt

oliva

4\aia

olive

oleum

ihaiov

oil

—

lancea

\6yxT}

lance

naus (gen. navas)

navis

yavs

ship

remus

epeT/jLos

oar

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

dialect, or classic Greek, it departs farthest from the
original elements of its common parentage and charac-
ter. It is in the Greek that we find most of the al-
tered and secondary sounds and forms ; while in the
Latin they maintain more generally their primitive as-
pect. 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 unwTitten era, as in " the womb of the morn-
ing," the Greek * and Latin dwelt together in theij'

Sanskrit.

Latin.

Greek.

English.

pu, to purify

poena

iro'tvr]

punishment

(tam, to divide
prob. root.)
tam-alas, a knife.

templum

Tfnevos
from

TtflVW

temple

—

puis

iro\Tos

pulse

pish, to bruise

pinso

iTTtVirw

to bruise or grind

mal, to break in

mola

fxvKr]

miU

pieces

kokilas

cuculus

KOKKV^

cuckoo

karavas

corvus

KOpblVr\

crow

ahis

anguis

€XIS

snake

^arabhas

carabus

Kapa^os

crab

makshikas

musca

fivla

gnat

—

grus

yipavos

crane

—

vespa

ffcpri^

•wasp

—

fera

e-np

a wild animal

karkatas

cancer

KapKlVOS

crab

—

aranea

apdxyri

spider

* The name Greece was given by the Romans : the vernacular name
for the country being TTellas and for the people Hellenes. So the Ger-
mans, 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 prim-
itive Giseco-Italic race, as, in overflowing the plains
of Greece rested permanently upon them as its abode,
soon came, under local influences, to assume a corre-
sponding definite character : determined by their cli-
mate, 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 tenns, 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 same identical race. The term Pelasgic accordingly
determines the epoch of the first Graeco-Italic emigra-
tions into Greece, and, so, that of its first permanent
settlement and of the establishment of- its primitive in-
stitutions. 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-^Egean homes in Western Asia, when
in a more cultivated condition ; 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 language of prim-
itive 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 stjle of speech, than ever before. The four dia-
lects, the tEoHc, 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,
which 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 saipe improved state
of the original Greek language, found their proper native
element in the Hellenic period. In the ^olic 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 iEolic and Doric were far purer in their forms, in the Pe-
lasgic period, when no Grecian hterature 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 lonians
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 con-
tracting all proximate vowels which would produce an
hiatus into one.

Could the early history of Asia Minor, in its west-
eramost borders, be fully written, especially that of Phry-
gia, 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 culmi-
nated after ages of slow national groA\i;h, and was in-
deed 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 in-
ward dissolution : thereby preparing the elements of its
own strength to be incoi-porated anew into the frame
of a more vigorous and usefid successor. In the Graeco-
Italic period of European history, the character and con-
dition of those, who, as the primitive inhabitants of
Europe, planted the germs of all its subsequent enlarge-
ment, 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, Ger-
many, 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 tlu'ough 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 modem eyes.
Nowhere are " stubborn facts " more stubborn, than in
the department of linguistic ethnography. The Indo-
European nations generally are, indeed, but a series of
colonies of the Arian race, which, in an age long preced-
ing any known dates, spread out itseK fi-om 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 na-
tions of southern Europe went through Asia Minor
and across the Hellespont or the Bosphorus. Emigra-
tion and colonization have ever been marked peculiari-
ties, in the history of this family of nations : emigration
in masses fi-om a period beyond the reach of document-
ary history, down to the present hoiu*. Westward, ever
westward for thousands of years, has flowed the livmg

58 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

tide. In the lielleiiic period, whatever the actual amount
of immigration was, the tide of colonization set imme-
diately from Ionia in Asia Minor, and, if swelled per-
haps to some extent at the same time, incidentally, by
kindred elements from Persia, those elements were cer-
tainly feAV and small ; while, in tlie earlier Pelasgic pe-
riod, tlie 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 re-
semblance 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 consti-
tution, does not at all possess. The resemblances be-
tween the Persian and Greek are owing, probably, to
phonetic principles common to them both, under simi-
lar 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 * h, for s in the Sanskrit,

Sanscrit.

Zend.

Greek.

Welsh.

sa, she

saptan, seven

hapta

eVra

sara, salt

a\i

halen

svar, the sua

hvare

T^KtOS

heol

sam, with

ham

Sua

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 state-
ment, 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 him
the Persians came, by contact with the cultivated na-
tions that he conquered and with the men and institu-
tions of Judea, to receive impressions that awakened in
them the consciousness of new wants and the iuipulse
to new activity and enterprise. Donaldson therefore
and some few others speak too decisively, of Persian in-
fluence upon Grecian progress. As the present Ger-
man, 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 slow^ly moulded, under the pressure of indi-
vidual energy, character and experience, by many hands
in su(!cessive ages, into the grand and elegant propor-
tions, in which it has ever since stood high and firm, as
the most finished artistic structm^e of the elements of

60 HISTORICAL SKETCH OP

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 to-
gether 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 care-
fully that the terms Pelasgic and Hellenic simply de-
scribe different historic eras of the same people, and
not differences at all of national origin.

The domain of the Greek language was coexten-
sive with the colonies and conquests of that ever-busy
moving people. The term Gr^cia was apphed in fact
to two countries : Graecia Antiqua or Greece Proper,
and Graecia Magna or the south-eastern portion of Italy.
Por, 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 Grascia contributed largely to the develop-
ment of Greek literature, the mother-country always
wore the crown of intellectual supremacy. Her colo-
nies filled the islands of the jEgean Sea and belted its
shores, on both the European and Asiatic coasts, and

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 01

spread even northwards, around the upper and under
sides of the Baltic, By the victorious arms also of Al-
exander, Greek ideas, influences, institutions and minds
were planted over all the East, from Macedonia to the
Indus and around 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 infor-
mation 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 splen-
did 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 be-
ginnings of pioneer life, when every thing lay new and
unclaimed by others before them, were peaceful and la-
borious ; 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 /Eolic,
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

liis 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
structui'cs remains in its place, as when set up by his
hands, and every line of grace and beauty is as freshly
caiTed and as distinct, as if the artist's spirit were still
lingering, responsive to our gaze, within his w^ork.

Giese, in his TEolische Dialekt, draws incidentally
a picture of the pre-Hellenic period, in somewhat the
same spirit, or style at least, in which geologists de-
scribe the pre-Adamite earth, too graphic and inter-
esting 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, im-
ported from Phoenicia, and the Sibilant S. The half
vowel y (Latin i), afterwards wanting, was then in
vogue. The vow^el-hues of w^ords w^re not multiplied,
as afterwards. The vowel a was the common vowel-
sound, as in Sanskrit, used in. the utterance of all con-
sonantal sounds ; w^hich afterward scame to be changed,
in so many cases, into its weaker or stronger cognates
i, t], o \ and the diphthongs ai, tc, ol, were but of in-
frequent occurrence. Consonantal changes were few.
The aspirate was not in existence or, if so, only as a conso-
nant. 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

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. C3

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 c? or ;t on a smooth mute
preceding or following it had hardly yet shoAvn itself.
So also vowel-contractions, the result of active business-
habits of life and speech and so an after-growth, had
not yet occurred to any great extent. The whole sub-
ject of case-development was still, in a simple uncom-
plicated 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 this 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 niultiform senses
of the same w^ords keep ever growing up in any living
language, however stable, as the people, who use them
as the medium of exchange in the world of thought,
expand perpetually over a wider area of activity and en-
largement. In the description furnished above, of the
contrasts that existed in the Pelasgic and Hellenic pe-
riods, 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
Romaic 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 An-
cient. 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 rel-
ics 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 out-
ward 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 ;/, tt, and
0L\ /8 is pronounced nearly as our v and / like y, ex-
cept before a and o where it is sounded as gh, and be-

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 65

fore at, i and i where it is pronounced as y : ^ 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 re-
semble both it and the Latin in combination, and to
have grown up, as a seedling, in that primitive Graeco-
Italic 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 Epi-
rus. 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 defence-
less lambs ; and they have left many proofs, in the
names of places as weM as in the ordinary staple ele-
ments 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

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

cover, by their arms, their altars and their iires from
the approach of invaders. So, also, Avhile the Albanian
tongue contains in itself many signs of commercial con-
tact, at different times and to different degrees, with
various people, as the Germans, Swedes, Danes, Eng-
lish, Turks and others, yet, in respect to this class of
distm'bing influences, the great staple substratum of its
words remains still homogeneous and unique. The
Albanians" 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
Ill3rrian stock of the earliest settlers of Greece.

* A view of some Albanian correspondences with the Greek:

Iban

ian.

Greek.

Albanian.

Greek.

1. el; for 'ifS

irape

-poJTos

2. cio

Sire

icVTCpOi

rpl

3. Tor'i

Tpife

Tpiros

KOLTCp

4. rirrupa

KOLTlpTC

TCTTaOTOS

mae

0. 1T£VTC

TTtaCTC

irifizros

compare also

Albanian,

Greek.

Latin.

aiTTtp, over.

inif,

super.

KivT, a hundred.

Iwarci,

centum.

vas, afterwards

OTTtcOf,

post.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 07

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 : fi'om Homer to
Pindar.

2d. That of the Attic dialect, when fully tri-
umphant.

II. The Alexandrine period, in which " the Com-
mon 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 NcAV Rome, the New Greek came to be denomi-
nated the Romaic, as it is often termed now.

V. The strictly and fuUy New Greek period since
1453.

The primitive ancestors of the Indo-European na-
tions, whether in their original eastern home or their
subsequent western one, were evidently but httle ad-
vanced 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 fun-
damentally different in their various languages ; and
must therefore, it would seem, have been adopted sub-
sequently to the era of the individual languages de-

68 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

rived from the parent stock. What coiild be more
unhke, than ;/qvo6^, am'um and gold or oid/]Qog, fer-
rum 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 Hindustan
were widely various ; and great indeed was the con-
trast of their influence, as well as of that of their dif-
ferent climates, upon the generations of men that were
brought, from age to age, into inevitable connection
with them. Within the Arian horizon of the Indo-
European mind, were immense mountains, mighty
rivers, impassable forests, inextricable jungles and
boundless deserts, with all the fervors of a tropical cli-
mate, its tempests, its wild beasts and its pestilences.
Under such a constant series of lessons about the natu-
ral impotence of man, with such awe-inspiring and ter-
rific 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 smTounding influences, and lay prostrate in
conscious weakness at the feet of Eate. 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 nan-ow ; its mountains, though many.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 69

were small : large enough to stand like closed gates
in the way of huiTicanes 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
enoudi to for ever remind men of then* 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, despond-
ency, helplessness; while, in Greece, the lesson read
was hope, courage, effort. Whenever Christianity shall
have the opportunity, to interpret rightly the great les-
sons of Nature in India : Christianity, A^dth her eye of
faith and voice of prayer and songs of praise even in
the night : Nature wiU 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 God be left out of
the human heart or nature is thought of as unoccupied
by Him, chscord 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 his-
tory, hke 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

70 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

been most free in its spirit and most grand in its pro-
portions, lias occuiTed only in circumstances where not
only no preparation was made mthin, in tlie 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 lapygian, 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 abmidance of what was then,
and has been ever since, the garden of Italy. In
Magna Grsecia, at the lower end of Italy, the Greek
was spoken, as, in Gallia Cisalpina at the upper end, a
GaUic idiom was spoken ; but, in the north especially,
no such foreign idiom was cherished with hereditary
interest and perseverance, as a badge of national dis-
tinction or affection. In the extreme part of south-
eastern 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 aspu'ated consonants. Its genitive
forms aihi and ihi answer to the Sanskiit asya and
Greek oto, 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 lapygian ; 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 sea-
ward movements presuppose too great a knowledge of
navigation, for the first barbarous periods of history ;
and as the lapygians occupied the outermost verge of
the peninsula, it is natural to suppose that they con-
stituted 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 Ca-
labria, to be di'iven 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 elForts to unveil to English ej^es the charms of the new and de-
lightful science of classical philology. But since, in the absence of
higher and truer standards in this department of study in our lan-
guage, many are disposed to look, with false confidence and even ad-
miration, to him for 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, whicli he utters, like every thing else of his own
invention, with great assurance. He regards the
Etruscan language 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 : Tyn'heno-Pelas-
gians, more or less intermixed with Umbrians and
Rsetians 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, notwithstand-
ing 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 t)'pes of its
words, as to have quite bafHed all attempts hitherto at
an accurate lexical analysis of their nature. The mys-
tery will undoubtedly be unravelled in futm'e 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 bm'ied for safe keeping un-
der ground too deeply to be found and clawed up by
any of the vengeful conquerors of the past, whose vul-
ture-hearts would eagerly have pounced upon such

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 73

prey. The East is fiill of such unopened piles of the
treasured past ; and so is Southern Italy. But as
grammatical correspondence is the great test of relation-
ship between languages, we are safe, whatever discov-
eries 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
world 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 exceed-
ingly 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
Larf 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 dam, (French, dame) with domina and
dominus.

74 HISTORICAL SKETCH OY

Some peculiarities serving to identify and isolate
their language, as a separate branch of the Indo-Euro-
pean family, are these : 1 . They had none of the me-
dial 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
Tvdtvg, Utuze for 'Oduaaavg, Melakre for MslsayQog.
2. They frequently changed smooth mutes into rough,
as in Atresthe and Thethis, Tuscan forms of "AdQaOrog
and OtTCQ.

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 lead-
ing 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 Grseco-Italic people which swarmed in the Pe-
lasgic period from the East into Europe : a large frag-
ment of which remained behind in Greece, and became
so greatly enlarged, refined and beautified in the Hel-
lenic period, by the aid also of successive emigrations,
from the more cultivated regions of the eastern coast
of the JEgean. 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 advance-
ment. The home-growth of the Greek ofF-shoot of the
common original Graeco-Italic stock, was maintained

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 75

constantly nnder 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 off-
shoot of the same parent stock, was perfected entirely
by itself and with none of the overflow of a higher civ-
ilization, 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 chstinct 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 differ-
ent dialects of this race, the more closely do they find
them to be connected with the Latin. While the re-
mains of the Umbrian are very scanty, those of the
Samnite or Oscan dialects are more abmidant. Sam-
nium, the home of the Oscans, is but a contraction of
Sabinium, the land of the Sabines. The vowel-system
of the Oscan dialect, as is evident from many inscrip-
tions, was preserved much more intact than that of the
Latin or Umbrian. Einal 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 itseff is, contrary to the once prevailing idea of its
composite character, a simple, unmixed language hke

76 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

the Greek : as they are also each a disthict 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 ex-
actly identical words ; while their flexional forms also
agree in the mode of their stnicture.

The peculiarities which individualize this whole
family of dialects, as a distinct branch of the Indo-Eu-
ropean stock of languages, are worthy of notice. They
are such as these : Aspirates were not originally favorite
with them, while with the Greeks and Etruscans they
were. The finer breath-sounds, s, v, y, which the
Greeks disliked, they cherished. Sibilants, indeed,
constitute a marked feature of the old Italian languages.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 77

Consonants they maintained at the end of a word with
firmness. By the retrogressive tendency of their prin-
ciples of accentnation 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 inflexion-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 tense-
stems were formed, by compounding with the theme of
the verb the auxiliary roots — es f and — fu. The dual j
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 San-
skrit 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 sja
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 ea, as in elfii (for fV/i/) ; San-
skrit 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 Indo-
European languages ; while the other is in Latin fu ; in Greek, ^i; (as
in (pvco), and in Sanskrit, bhu ; English, ie; Anglo-Saxon, bcoj Ger-
man, bin.

I I\Iommsen describes this in a quaint wny. 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 much-
ness."

78 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

SO preserved witli 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 ^vrit-
ten in an old native alphabet from right to left, and was
probably prepared about 400 b. c. ; while the rest ap-
pears 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, inop.ai and
Irnros j3Eo1. t/c/cos-, with sequor and equus (pronounced originally as if
sekor and ekus) ; also Tonic koIos and /co'repos ■with the Attic ttoIos- and
TTOTipos and Latin quinque (pronounced by the Latins kinke) ■vrith
iiivTf, 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. domiuo-i, &c.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 79

quent occurrence than in Latin. R is nsed, 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 Um-
brians did not like 1 and b : never using 1 at the begin-
ning 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 pre-
sents 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 north-
ern 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 (latiis) seems to indicate.
This plain is smi*ounded on every side by mountains,
except where it is bomided 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 uneven-
nesses filled with innumerable little pools, which, from
want of a sufficient Avatershed for drainage, breed in
summer now as in ages past a fatal malaria, which
overhangs its plains for months together, breeding dis-
ease 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 im-
press 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 thou-
sand 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 physi-
cal 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 atmos-
phere, in a few hours. The heats in summer are in-
tense 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 chmatology. In-
deed, 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 difl'erent 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, tlie different mental types of
mankind.

Rome itself was situated on tlie Tiber, cliiefly 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 syn-
tactical 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 ma-
terial, than the Greek. Its characteristics are gravity,
solidity and energy ; while those of the Greek are a
wonderful vitality, elasticity, individuality and per-
manency. The Latin, by the greater contact of its
people with other men, as they penetrated with their
victories and th^ir 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 encoun-
tered.

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 tlie 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, m the differ-
ent languages of modern times.

The Latin language, as we have it, is far more un-
altered 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 loebe-
sum dole 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 lovei
sacer estod, et sei qui im, quei eo plcbi scito sacer siet ocisit, pari-
ceidas ne estod. That is : Si quis alitor feccrit ipse lovi sacer esto ; et
si quis cum qui eo plcbis scito sacer sit occiderit, parricida ne sit.

3. An inscription on L. Scipio's tomb (2G0 b. c.) : Hone oinom
ploirume consentient Komanei duonorum optimom fuise virom. That

84 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

of Roman literature, as to require, for the right com-
prehension 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 aU the power of types and of the press to
hold fast the tTiba nTtqotvra of modern speech. Even
in the time of its highest culmination in the Augustan
age, the Latin of the provinces was different from 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 Uterary 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 Greek idioms and in the north some Celtic : re-
solving them into the elements of its own greater en-
largement. The triumph of Roman arms was followed
always by the march of the Roman language, literature,

is : Ilunc unum plurimi consentiunt Romani bonorum optimum fuisse
virum.

So we find in the old Latin loidus for Indus, 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 irresist-
ible force, sweeping every thing before it, into Trance
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 Avilds 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
rehnquish them. The Latin accordingly not only
degenerated at an early period in the provinces from its
pm'e 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 combina-
tion, without the determinate preference which was
afterwards ffiven to the new. This degenerate form of

86 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

the spoken Ivatin 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, Grseco-Roman and Germano-Ro-
man 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 centmies that the
Latin was, as a spoken language, in the greatest pos-
sible 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 to-
gether. 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 Gennan 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 he deep and strong
over all the languao'es of southern, as well as of north-
ern Europe.

When from the chaos of the Middle Ages the up-
heaval of modern society commenced, and the present
nations of Europe began to exhibit in growing outline
the general proportions, which they have since so dis-
tinctively 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 grcAv up under
the same influences in which they germinated, into
separate weU-defined forms, each beautiful in its kind,
to cover with their different degrees of upward and out-
ward expansion, as with a friendly shadow, the ruined
greatness of their parent Latin stock, wdien it fell to lie
forever prostrate under the hand of Time. Each of
the five Romanic dialects, the Italian, WaUachian,
Erench, 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 spe-
cially preserved some separate cardiiKil 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 Trench, 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 as-
similate 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 ^ame immediate family coalesce more readily,
than those which are imrelated 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 orisjinal stock of the
language itself, involving (and it is the only specimen
of the kind in the whole circle of the languages) a com-
bination of Indo-Em'opean, Semitic and Turanian ele-
ments 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 con-
stitution, 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 it-
self.

The German conquest of the Roman provinces oc-
curred in the coiu-se 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 su-
premacy 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, r>. 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 Scandi-
navia, 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
m.arched into Italy and founded a kingdom, which en-
dured, mitil 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 por-
tion of northern Italy.* In the beginning therefore
of the sixth centm:"y 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 Germany swept over the
face of this then -fair land, eager for the pleasm^es and
prizes of conquest. In the beginning of the fifth cen-
tury, 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
httle 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 Afiica. ' 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 Hke an overflowing flood, then upon the soil, ex-
cept 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, un-
shaken 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 absorp-
tion 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 Avithout, to receive any amount of fiery martial
overflow into them, without breaking under the pres-
sure, and sharp enough within, to make the cooling
mass distinctively of its o^vn 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 Chnstiaiiity of the Cathohc Church, was
the Franks ; and it was by this simikuity of faith, that
these German conquerors were most of all amalgamated
with the older inhabitants of the land ; as tlie develop-
ment indeed of the new European nations, generally, was
effected everywhere in the same way.* In the begin-
ning of the fifth centuiy, the south-western part of
Gaul was in the possession of the Visigoths : the south-
eastern part, of the Bm-gundians and the northern of
the Franks : aU Germanic tribes. Over the slow deli-
quescence 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 disso-
lution. But " the position is hot 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 dm'ation in Gaul from four to five hundred
years."

Long after the German conquest the Byzantine
armies tramped, from time to time, over lower Italy
and Sicily and southern Spain ; and yet no consider-
able mixture of people of different blood occurred in
such a way.

* Gieseler's Ecc. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 131 — 3.
t Diez' Grammatik, p. 03.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 93

The composition accordingly of the Romanic tongues
is one, formed in the main of these staple elements :
Classical or Pm.'e 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 Latm, existing in the language
before the age of the IMiddle Latin, has a representa-
tion 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 xolacfoq, ; 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 resem-
blance occur, at times, which are but appearances and
entirely fortuitous ; and as Latin and Greek were pri-
marily of one immediate united origin, words even at
so late a period may seem many of them to have been

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

borrowed, wliicli yet are as nmcli 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 hterary demonstration, may have yet
kept, on the plane of thought and feeling lying be-
low 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-mediasval unci

assical Lat;

in.

Latin.

Italian.

Spanish.

French.

English.

badius, brown

bajo

bayo

bai

bay

Bassus, Prop, name,

Of.
3aOC?, Comp. Patrauv.

[• basso

bas

base

beber, for fiber

bevero

bibaro

bi&vre

beaver
' cavalry

cabaUus, a nag
capulum, a rope

cavallo
cappio

caballo
cable

cheval
c4ble

cavalier
j chevalier
(^chivalry

cable

camisia, a shirt

camicia

camisa

chemise

cambiare, to exchange

cangiare

cambiar

changer

change

confortare (con-fortis)

confortare

conhortar

conforter

comfort

carricare, to load

carcarc

cargar

charger

( charge
I cargo

gabalum, a cross

gable

grossus, thick

grosso

grueso

gros

gross

pretiare, to put a price on prezzare

preciar

priser

prize

Sapius, wise, for Sapiens

saggio

sabio

sage

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

Btruppus, a band
unio (fro)n unus)
vidulus, a knapsack

stroppolo

unione

vulioria

estrovo

etropo strap

oignon onion

valise valise

II. Of Grseco-Eomanic elements ;

Greek. Latin.

Italian. Spanish,
biasimare

Pvpaa,
a skin

rrvpyos

a flexure

> bursa

burgus

bolsa

burero

bors

borgo
lonza

, ( lamba )

ffamba A-i ]■

° ( jamon )

,, ^ ( colaplius and ) ,

petium pezzo

{spatlia, a broad ) ,
tool or sword. J ' "
spathula, shoul- ) ,,
der blade. f ^P''^^''

golpe
pieza
espada
espalda

rapaPoh'i parabola

(Tiivpi;, emery
Tpv(pav, to bore

rS^of, smoke

f trica and
9pi^, hair ■< terza, plait-
( edhair.

parola palabra

French.
bUmer

bourse

bourg

once

jambe

coup

piSce
epee
epaule

j parole
( parler

English,
blame

^bourse
■< dis 6 wrse
(purse

( burgh
/ burgess

( jamb
I ham

piece

spade

epaulet

r parable
I palaver
I parole
(^ parlance

smeriglio
trapan

tufo
treccia

German,
bauen, to build.
Old German,
Buisc, build-
ing material.

brennen, to burn

Harinc, a cor-~>
ruption of Lat, >•
halec. )

Hriiig and ring,")
a circle for >
fighting. )

III. Of Germano-Komanic

Italian.

Middle Latin.

! boscus, a ) ,

r ^r^^.i f hosco

wood

esmeril
trepanar

tufo
tresse

elements ;

Spanish.

bosque

emeri

trepaner

etoufFer
to suffocate

j etoufFer )
l to suffocate f

emery-
trepan

tufa

(tresses
(trick

brunus ")
brown, lit. > br
scorched. )

uno bronce

annga arenque

( aringo
(aringa

French,
bois

brun
hareno-

English.

! bosky
bush
am6us^ *■

I brown
I bronze

herrino;

harangue harangue

96 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

Of Germane-Romanic elements in these languages,
•there are two kinds of quite different chronological fea-
tures. The first of these, as they were imported into
these languages at the time of the first German immi-
gration 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 ele-
ments has on it the special mark, which the Germans
call Lautverschiebung, or a mutation of the radical con-
sonant or consonants ; which is one of the great peculiari-
ties 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 Erench 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 Prance. They readily amalgamated
with the people of the land, and, so, gradually relin-
quished their own language for theirs, although depos-
iting 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, independ-
ently 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 struc-
ture.

But each of the Komanic languages requires a sep-
arate consideration.

(1.) The Itahan.

By far the great majority of all its words, to at least
nine parts out of ten, are Latin. Of the Greek ele-
ments, which constitute a considerable portion of its
remaining vocabulary, many must have doubtless come
into it throuQ-h the Latin. Li the Sicilian and Sardin-
ian dialects, where words of this natm^e most abound,
it would seem probable that many of them must be the
remains of that early contact with Greece, that grew
out of theu original colonial relations to that land.

The Italian since the second half of the twelfth
century, when it first became enthroned in a perma-
nent literature of its own, has changed but little ; far
less indeed than any of its sister languages. It is alto-
gether 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 centmy. Its phonetic phe-
nomena are remarkable, as are those even of the differ-
more than 50 each, in the Provencal Spanish and Portuguese lan-
guages ; while in the Wallachian there are less than anywhere else.

98 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

ent dialects compared with eacli other. The depart-
ment 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, vdth which so much of
Enoflish and American literatm^e 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 Neapoli-
tan, 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. Lan-
guage 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 fuU, than humanity itself, whose utterance it is and
which is ever sweUing with vital forces, strugghng for a
newer and larger expression of themselves.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 99

(2.) The WaUachian.

This descendant of the ohl Latin has been, almost
wholly, made known to European scholars since the re-
cent 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 Ital-
ian 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 Wal-
lachians 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 nuich more than did the Latin. The old lUyrian ap-
pears often also in broken fragments, in the Wallachian,
and only in such a form ; as it does likewise in the Al-
banian. The Danube divides the Wallachian into two
principal dialects, northern and southern or Daco-Ro-
man and Macedo-Roman. The northern is more pm'e,
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 Alba-
nian and Grecian. Many words also from various lan-
guages have, under the pressure of past conflicts as well
as social and commercial contact with neighboring na-
tions, become incorporated into the fabric of the lan-
guage, so as to form a penuanent 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 Romanic
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, remind-
ing 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 litera-
ture began its distinct career in the year 1580 ; and,
since that day, poetical and scientific works have ap-
peared from time to time, although not in great abun-
dance. The mass of its literature is of a rehgious 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 sub-
sequent generations of Celts came, in their separate
historic character, as such, to be commingled Avith 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 dispossess-
ing 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 them-
selves also afterwards were compelled to give up this
same tempting prize into the hands of the ]\Ioors.
The Vandal or German invasion occurred in the begin-
ning 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 Beitriige 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 rela-
tions, it moulded the whole language into conformity
with its own spirit and type. The structure of the
language and its accentuation are thorouglily Roman-
ic, 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 spe-
cies, 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 dia-
lects 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
Phoenician and Roman arms, found at last a safe re-
treat for itself in fastnesses too deep and high to tempt
their pursuit. Its present home embraces the prov-
inces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, Alava and a part of Na-
varra. 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 Sarniiento's analysis of the constituent elements of
Spanish to be as follows : Six-tenths Latin : one-tenth ecclesiastical
and Greek: one-tenth npri;hern or German : one-tenth Oriental and
one-tenth made up of American, modern German, French and Italian.
— Die^ Grammatilc, 2d ed., p. 95.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 103

varra, Rioja and Murcia. The Catalonian and Gali-
cian dialects which are next in vakie, are intermixed
largely with elements serving to alloy their pnrity : the
former with those of the dialect of Provence in France,
and the latter with the neighboring Portugnese.

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 de-
scribed by Barth, vol. i., p. 195. "They all." he says, '"aiipcar to
have been originally a race of the Semitic stock ; but, by intermai-riage
with tribes which came from Egypt or by way of it, to have received a
certain admixture. Hence came several distinct tribes designated an-
ciently as Libj'ans, IMoors, Numidians, Libyphocnieians, Getulians and
others, and traced by the native historians to two different families,
the Berimes and the Abtar, who however diverge from one common
source, ^lazigh or ]\Iadaghs. 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 par-
ticularly rich in words of Arabic origin. Spanish lit-
erature is specially distinguished by two marked fea-
tures : first the general ballad form of its poetry, and
secondly the abounding prevalence of tales of chivalry
and knight errantry. If ever the Ijyric 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 lan-
guage of Europe, except the German which is full of
the balm and bloom of the luxuriant East, is there such

cither from the name of their supposed ancestor Ber, which we recog-
nize in the name Afer, or, in consequence of the Roman name barbari,
has been generally called Berbei-, 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 Schlegel, " Castilian poetry incorporated
into itself foreign forms and borrowed charms, combin-
ing 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 w^as in the middle of the twelfth
century that the great national Epic of the Cid ap-
peared.

(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 Provencal dialect ; and is regarded by those ac-
quainted Avith it as the flower of all those dialects : com-
bining, as it does, in a most w^onderful manner, both
simplicity and sweetness with high artistic finish of con-
struction. And here let us listen ao-ain to SchleQ-el'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 beautifid signification,
seems to melt at once into the soul. Even the soft
Italian appears rough in comparison mth 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 construc-
tion. The prose is simple, rich and laconic, yet with-
out 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 beauti-
ful 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 lead-
ing 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 Span-
ish 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 slioot 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 it-
self from the soil. It has in its composition a mani-
fest 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. Fortu-
nately 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,* lingering spell-bound,
although unvisited and unknown for many long centu-

* It is announced also by F. Diimmler, of Berlin, that he has pub-
lished of late oOO Troubadour poems in the Provencal 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, wliich by a conjunction of fortunate circumstances
have just come to light and into his hands.

108 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

lies in tlie very words and letters, wliicli those old min-
strels' 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 Troubadoiu: poetry
reached the acme of its excellence, scattering its fra-
grance 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 sui'vived, having
passed by a true transmigration in the style and name
of that department of literature, called Romance, into
aU the languages of the civilized world.

The Provencal dialect spread, in France, over Gas-
cony, 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 hun-
dred stanzas, preseiTcd in a manuscript of the eleventh
centmy, although written probably half a century be-
fore, is to be foimd among lleynouard's collections
with some smaller pieces of the same date.

(G.) The French language.

This is in many respects the finest reproduction

THE INDO-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 nuicli more tlian
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 charac-
terized the Roman ; but it has, with these tendencies
also, under its more favorable atmosphere, and sur-
rounded by its more enchanting" landscapes, an in-
clination 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,! a tribe of Germans ; and was continuously
Romanized, from the time of Caesar who first con-
quered 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, Fi'ance beai"s the bell ; in even those
districts of which country, that are rcgai'ded 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 con-
duct, as a strong conquering race conscious of their own power and
virtue, from the feeble Celts and degenerate Romans whom they had
overcome.

110 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 con-
sonants, 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 Carohngian f 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, Gulielmusj French, Guillaume; German, Wilhelm ; Eng-
lish, William. So compare also French garder and English guard and
ward, guardian and warden; also Latin vastare, French gater (for
original gaster), English waste, vast and devastate, as also French
guerre and English war.

\ Or, Carlovingiau.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. Ill

no monuments left now of those early Germanic
dialects, the Lomhardian, 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 ele-
ments that came into the French behind the Gothic,
or even in parallel streams with it.*

There are in Trench 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 OAvn 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 ele-
ments 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.

" sale.

" marga, manure.

" marie.

" bulga, Icathei'-bag.

" boge.

" braccae, breeches.

F. braie.

" betula, birch.

" boule.

" leuca, mile.

" lieue.

* beccus, beak.

« bee.

112

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

throughout civihzed 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 com-
parison of them each with the other, the existence of
the Latin, if wholly extinct, could be definitively ascer-
tained from them, as an absolute foregone necessity.
And, just as from the midtiplied 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 un-
known mother of them all, who is yet noAv 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 lan^

guages :

Latin.

Italian.

Wallachian.

Spanish.

Toi-tnguese.

French.

1. unus

uno

unu

uno

hum

2. duo

due

doi

dos

dois

deux

3. tres

tre

trei

tres

trois

4. quatuor

quattro

patru

quatro

quatre

5. quinque

cinque

quinque

cinco

cinq

6. sex

sei

sese

seis

six

7. septem

sette

septe

siete

sete

sept

8. octo

otto

optu

ocho

oito

huit

9. novem

nove

nueve

nove

neuf

10. decern

dicci

dece

diez

dez

dix

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 113

III. The Lcttic 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 philo-
logist. It is the most antique in its forms, of all the
living languages of the world, and most akin in its sub-
stance and spiiit 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 multi-
tude 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 pre-
served its identity wonderfully with the Sanskrit, in re-
spect 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 dis-
tinct 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 vo-
cative, and the English one more even, the dative : re-
taining only the nominative, genitive (or possessive) and
accusative, or rather the possessive only : the nomina-
tive 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, es-
pecially to those of a modern date whose forms have
been much mutilated, as a general exponent of their
agreements and difierences, or a sort of general solvent
for the etymologist, of a multitude of otherwise unre-
solvable 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 pri-
mal' model, from which they are all corrupted deriva-
tives, as to seem in whatever language you hear the
chime of its words, very much like an old-fashioned
brogue of that language, ringing do^vvn loud and clear
from ancient times. Its literatui-e possesses neither
height nor breadth, and is limited to a moderate num-
ber 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 lias a middle voice forined 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 per-
son pronoun), euphonically changed to r, to the forms
of the active* voice. The phonetic constitution of the
language like that of its radical forms, has been won-
derfully preserved by the fortunate isolation of the peo-
ple from the great movements of the nations around
them, unimpaired in its leading elements. The Lithu-
anian is now under the pressiu-e of Russian institutions,
influences and ideas, fast becoming mongrelized with
that language.

The Lithuanians number in both Russia and Prus-
sia, 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 Plumanity to receive, " all things new." " Be-
hold," 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
then- original crude state, would be amo-se, lit. I love mj-self, amasse,
amatse, &c. So the Germans use to a striking degree the reflexive
forms, in our passive sense, as in sich schiimen, (lit. to shame one's
self,) tScc. ; and in French similar forms occur, as in il 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
more slowly than in others, yet it is still everywhere,
with the same certainty, at work towards the final issue.
Pei-petual 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 Let-
tish. 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 Com'land 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 xXv, as in xXvco, and
xXvtoq; Latin, inclytm ; Old High German, hlo),
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 Sclileicher, in his f " Geschichte der Slav-
ischen Sprache," as being marked by five distinct
periods :

(1.) The Slavic, in its primeval embryo state,
among the elements of the unknown primeval Indo-
European mother-tongue.

* And yet this is the very word from which, as in the French
esclavc and German sklave, comes our English word slave. So those
great names. Caesar and Pompey, are now the common names of dogs
and slaves.

t 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, "Beitriige
zur Sprachforschung," three parts of which have now been published-

118 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

(2.) The Slavic, as Slavo- German.

(3.) The Slavic, as Letto-Slavic.

(4.) The Slavic, as an individual independent lan-
guage.

(5.) The Slavic, as itself the mother of different
dialects.

The Slavonic languages are veiy intimately affiliated
one Yi^ith the other. AVith any one of their various
dialects, except the Bulgarian, which has degenerated
most of all, it is quite easy to make one's self intel-
ligible in conversation with those speaking the others.
There are religious manuscripts in the Slavonic lan-
guage dating back as far as the eleventh centuiy ; 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 pre-
ceding them. By their influence many mutes have
been changed into sibilants, or assibilated to those
in juxta-position with them; and hence the super-
abundance of sibilants in those languages. The
double consonants that occm* 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 tlie verb. In common witli the
Lithuanian and German hmguages, they have a double
form, the definite and indefinite, for each adjective.

The alphabetic characters of this family of lan-
guages are of two different kinds. The Slavonians of
the Greek faith have what is called the Cyrilhc
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 rep-
resent 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
misparingly 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, Lusi-
tanians, 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 Ecclesiastico-
Slavonic to be found occasionally, called the Hierony-
mic, 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 pm*pose.

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 Eussian.
2d. The Bulgarian.
3d. The Illyrian.

1st. 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 fife; and,
since the first full discovery then made of her own real
inward streno;th, she has been marchins; forward in a
lofty style of effort and of honor, in arts and arms, in
learning and social improvement, and in every thing but
rehgion. 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 ecclesiastico-
Slavic 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 Ser-
vian, 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 re-
semblance of the Russian, especially, to the Latin is
very striking. Donaldson quotes with approval a mod-
em traveller, as saying that the founders of Rome spoke
the Russian language. In the implication made, how-
ever, 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 philolo-
gical 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, lin-
guistic, or other science which he reoresents.

122 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

Ali'eady 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 evan-
gelical 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 diiferent parts of Lithuania, espe-
cially in Wilna, Grodno, Bielostok, &c., and in Wliite
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 Dan-
ube, 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 sohd deep
earnest character, beyond the races that surround them,
which must erelong bring them and theu' language,
and all its archaeology, into bolder rehef than hitherto
upon the page of history. .

Tlie ecclesiastical Slavonic or, as it is sometimes
called, the Cyrillic dialect, which is but the old Bul-
garian 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 lan-
guage 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 sanc-
tuary. 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 man-
uscript 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, Avhich, though of the same origin with
the Cyrilhc, is yet difierent in its graphic symbols.
Schafarik reo-ards them as the most ancient of all Bui-
garian records ; and Schleicher proposes to call the
Bulgarian v/ritten in this alphabet, the Old Church-
Slavic : as distinguished from the Bulgarian found in
the Cyrillic alphabet, which he denominates Church-
Slavic. Not that the writings in the Glago-litic alpha-
bet 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 an-
tique 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 (Spraclien Europas. p. 207,)
from Schafarik, the groat 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 Illyriaii.

When written m the CyrilHc 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 them-
selves also in turn might be resolved into still other dia-
lects. Unifomiity is not found to be a law of hu-
man 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 in-
stincts, and with none of that love of archetypal ety-
mology 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-um the remem-
brance of the one that they had destroyed ; the Ser-
vians, 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 mezdafor medja, limits. (3.) A pecu-
liar 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

everjAvliere tlirougli 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, Steier-
mark and Carniola. The oldest monument of the
language dates back to the tenth century.*

11. The Western Slavic family.

This includes four special dialects, which, on ac-
count of the historical insignificance of most of those
who have spoken them, we can dismiss rapidly.

* Slavonic Correspondences.

Sanskrit.

Zend.

Greek.

Latin.

vrikas, a
■wolf

vehrkas

\6.oi

lupus

aham, I

azem

eyo'j

ego

bhratar, a
brother.

brata

<f^p(lTi';rj

frater

(l>r,y6i

fagus

Tuvan,
youtli,

yavauo

juvenis

ganda, the
cheek or
chiu

yvaOii
ytvvi

■ gena

Litliuanian: Slavonic.

vilkas vluku

bratr 1

brolis -l I and S
brat 3

jaunas

zandas

buku

jun

szczeka

Gothic.

vulfs

bruother

b6ka
(Gei'man,

buche,
beech ;

buch,
book.)

Geiinan,
jing

kinnus

Enslish.

wolf

brother
book

>■ beech

youth

chiu

In the following Slavonic words, who can fail to see the resemblance
to familiar classical words, especially Latin : moryo, the sea : voda,
■water : Icosti, a bone : volya, will : gosti, a guest : syny, a son : domy,
a hoiLsc : mator, a mother.

THF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 127

1. The Lechish.

2. The Tschechish or Bohemian,

3. The Sorbenwendish.

4. The Polabish.

The Lecliish 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
Pohsh, are its present representatives. In this lan-
guage sibilants abound ; and as they are quite varied,
the differences between them are often difficult of dis-
covery except to a native's ear. Besides also being
full of Usping and hissing utterances, it contains many
nasal sounds ; and is distinguished by a double vocaU-
zation 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 ener-
getic, manly, martial qualities, as those of any other
people ; yet, having been once laid prostrate by parri-
cidal hands, she has never under the tyranny of her
spiritual conquerors at Rome, or of her civil conquerors
at St. Petersburg!!, been aUowed the privilege of a resur-
rection. She has never therefore figm'ed 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 pleasm^e 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 va-
rious 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 in-
habitants of Bohemia, Moravia and north-western Hun-
gary, and occurs sporadically throughout almost aU
Hungary. In respect to both of its two leading dia-
lects, 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 begin-
ninof 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 famiUes in that region §till keep it
ahve 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 otlier 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 civihzed 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 fi'om 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 queen-
mother 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 FtTcci,^ and in Tacitus the Getae, and are

* In Menander's comedies, a Te'roj or Aaos is introduced as the
standing representative of a slave, and as being brought from Thrace
into Greece. The Tiros was a Goth and the Aao'<r (Latin Davus for
Dacvus, the fuller form of Dacus) a Dacian. Compare with ^aos for
AaFoy, also vtos for j/eFos- Lat. novus and wuv for ui-pov Lat. ovum.
Strabo expressly states, that AaKot and Aaoi are the same. When the
Getae and Daci ai'e represented as occupying separate regions, the divi-
sion 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 south-
western. 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 Paissia,.also, a Dane
is called a Datschanin, and in Lapland a Dazh. — Grimni's GescJdchte
der Deiitsclien Sprachc. p. 132.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 131

described as living in those times in the northern part
of Thrace, between the Haemus and tlie Danube. In
later times they divided into two portions : the Ostro-
goths or eastern Goths, and the Visigoths or western
Goths, the former setthng 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 lan-
guages generally, very much as the Sanski'it to the
Indo-Eiu-opean 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 lan-
guages 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.) TheFrisic.

(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 sup-
posed, 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 ex-
hibiting 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 sweminn
(m) the young man; eignm (f) the possession; and
skeipzV (f ) the ship.

(b) A peculiar passive flexion. An original re-
flexive 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
bum" 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 dis-
tinguished, only by the different personal pronouns pre-
fixed to them.

(2.) The Anglo-Saxon.

The Anglo-Saxons first went to England, in the
middle of the fifth centuiy. 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

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 sm'passed
by any language upon earth, is ribbed with its oaken
strength. While it has large admixtures of words de-
rived from the Celtic aborigines of England, and stUl
more of Latin origin received from its Roman and Nor-
man 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 monu-
ments 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 ele-
ments are combined together. Its grammatical consti-
tution is Teutonic ; and, taking om' 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 (ou 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 lan-
guage 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 hu-
man thought and feehng, 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 lus-
trous face woidd 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-twentieths 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 ! (uto) ;
air (aer) ; day (dies) ; sex (secus) ; enter (intro) ; chief (caput) ;
crutch (crux) ; pay (pacare) ; pray (precari) • brace (brachium) ; paii
(par) ; stick (or/fo', m-stigo) ; axe {a^ivrj) ; time (tempus) ; soap (sapo)
strap (stroppus) ; cost (consto) ; rule (regula) ; other (alter, Frenclt
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 ; but the Shakspeare that he intro-
duces 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 hterature 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. Eew
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 finnament of its
literature, to appreciate in any worthy manner the glory
of their mother tongue ; which yet other nations, look-
ing on it from without, admire so greatly ; and Avhicli,
in the eyes of future ages will appear in the far-off dis-
tance, radiant with heavenly beauty. While to the
nations 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 glo-
rious orb, it is composed, it is more difficult than any
modern if not also than any ancient language to he thor-
oughly 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 en-
large its fabric, by new combinations and developments
of its own materials. The German is, like the orange-
tree, 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, nnlike languages possessing inward ele-
ments 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 Phoe-
nician or Hebrew, the language in which the Okl Cov-
enant was pubhshed ; the Greek, that of the New ; and
the Enghsh, the language of modern civilization, reli-
gion 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 Enghsh mind enlightened and sanctified stands
bright and beautiful on the margin of modem times,
holding up God's messages of hght 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.

b3,d, to wash cue's self Pa\avcXov

bhu, to be

bhratar, a brother

bhur, to bear

blirus, the brow

bhuj, to flee

duhitri, a daughter

gi, to go, and)
gam, to come )

go, a cow
geu. gavas

(pveiv

(pparfip

(pipciv

d<ppvf

(ptvyciv

Bxiyarrip

fiaive.lv
gen. So6i

Latin,
balneum

fui

fratcr

ferre

froDS
fuffcre

bos
bovis

German
bade

bin

bruder
bareu
brauue*

English,
(bath and
(bathe

brother

bear

brow

budge

daughter

go
come

* As in Augenbraune, the eyebrows : occu'^'"

tochter
gehen

kuh cow

-"^■^ in composition,

THE INDO-EUKOPEAN LANGUAGES.

139

througliout the language, to the eye of a scientific ety-
mologist, 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

hard, and
hrid, the heart

gridh, to desire

gelu
.aoJ.-aand ),^.

Klip ) "■ '

kalt -

hertz

( begierde
-^gier
( gierig

chill
gelid

heart

greed

and

greedy

kilt, to cover,

KciOeiv

hiiten

coat

karavah, a crow

Kopv^

corvns

kriiche

crow

and

raven

laghus, light

i\a<pp6i

■ levis

leicht

light

lib, to lick

\d-)(tiv

lingere

leckea

Hck

In, to separate

\ovciv

(■ solvere
((se + lucre)

>■ losen

loose

lubh, to desire

\ir;TzaQai

Clibet and
(lubet

• lieben

love

madhu, honey

fiiKi

mel

meth

mead

mah, to prepare

jinxiivaaQai

machinari

machen

make

naman, a name

Sifoua

nomen

name

patha, a way

tt'itu;

passns

pfad

path

su, to scatter about

act CIV

serere

saen

sow-

siv, to fasten together

Kaaavciv *

suere

sew

smi, to laugh

^ciSin for aftei63ii

smile

strr, to strew

(XTopivvvvai

steriiere

streuen

strew

svid, to sweat

ISpovv (for
cFiSpovi')

sudare

schweissen

sweat

svadus, sweet

))ivi (for (tF'?^vs)

suavis

siisz

sweet

stabh and stubh, to

press together,
stambh, to support, "
and stambhas, a stem

oTs'iffciv
and

(jTijjtPetv
to stamp on or
down

a stem, a
stump J

stipare

stipes
stipulus

stapfeu
stampfen

steif
stumpf

''staff
step
stop
stamp
stump
stubb
stubble
stem

vash, to wish

cv^cadat

wiinscheu

wish

yuyam, you

ifie ti

vos

euch

you

* Kaaavcii

= *aru-|-!7l'£i»'.

140 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

original dissyllabic form into one monosyllabic in Eng-
lish. In consequence of the composite character of our
language, its orthography and orthoepy are found at
frequent variance from each other ; while there are al-
most 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: &, as in bdellium: g.&s in gnat:
h, as in humble : 7c, 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 : Z, as
in balm.

(3) In the end of words: &, as in dumb and lamb : h, as in ah :
n. as in condemn : y, as in say compared with ay : w, as in low.

Some consonants also have double sounds as e, which is sounded as
iin cat and as s in city : g, hard in gun and soft, (as_;) in gentle : ch,
like Jc in Christian, like tch in chance and like sh in chemise : x, like
I'S 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.

0, 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.

o«, 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.

00, 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 diphtliongal combi-
nations, is exceedingly varied. The pronunciation of
each word agreed doubtless, at some time in the his-
tory 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, om^ 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 pionunciation 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 bahn, calm, last, past, and also national, patriot, evangelical, cour-
teous, fealty, either and neither, therefore, fearful. &c. As for changes
in orthography all know, on what an extensive systematic scale W^eb-
ster has undertaken to force them ujion the language. Happilj', the
resistance to such innovations by him proved too great ; and they are
gradually losing, most of them, the little ground, which under his in-
fluential name they had begun to acquire.

142 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

capacity, to act well for themselves, than we for our-
selves. Nor do we suppose that language can be com-
pressed, either here or there, within fixed arbitrary
modes of manifestation. Much less can it be main-
tained 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 begin-
ning 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 wiU, to impress her o\vn 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 un-
sightly without. Let not etymological principles, that
is, grammatical, radical and phonetic analogies, which
are not merely the ornaments of a language, but also
its very essence and substance, be smitten and ham-
mered 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 un waked
before, hke Echo, sweet nymph of forest dells, slum-

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 143

bering untliouglit of in her leafy bovver, 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 else-
where 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 ori-
ginal, 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 lament-
able 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 pro-
nounced by teachers, wiio 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 them-^
selves ; and who declare that it cannot be understood,
or, that, if by long close study it should be compre-
hended 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 mother-
tongue, to preserve in its sacred beauty, unbroken and
unspotted through all time, the temple of their liter-
ature 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 un-
educated 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-lano;ua2;e of Belorium,
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 OAvn people. Happily however, for dead languages
like depopulated countries are full of mournful asso-

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 145

ciations, the Memisli 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 lan-
guage, 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. 2G — 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, wdth no historical connection in sense; while
others maintain that it originated in gher (French
guerre, Spanish gueiTa) 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 gairraean
a shout or war-cry, formed from gair to cry.* The
name Deutsch, by which the Gennans denominate
themselves, and to which also the name Teutones is
aUied, is derived from the Gothic thiudisko (Gr.
edviyico^), from thiuda {tO-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 Homer a great warrior is often described as aya&os 0or)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 mu-
tilated in the modern Germanic tongues, as not to be
discoverable except by comparison.

Grimm states four pomts of discrimination, by which
the German family of languages is individuahzed by it-
self:

(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
Gennan, from the eleventh centmy 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 how-
ever 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 Hi2:h Ger-
man, or what we call the present classic German, born

148 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

in its full complete state at the Reformation, and of it.
liUtlier 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 pop-
ularized 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 pro-
Ufic stem around the walls of the sanctuary, the lan-
guage 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 sesthetical 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 channs 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 feel-
ings, aU whose wonder, joy and sorrow and aU 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 de-
scribed, 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 poeti-
cal conceptions ; and to us of other nations, whose lan-
guages are the mere alluvial deposits of those of elder
days : having none of the interior principles of sponta-
neous 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 dehghtful indeed
to come within the atmosphere and aroma of its fresh
blossoming fulness of life. The mind feels, when sur-
rounded 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 out-
burst of new life and beauty in the spring. The heart

150 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

is moved amid the splendors of its poetry, as it some-
times is mider 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 ex-
tensively in it; nor have the modern languages im-
pressed their form and influence upon it, as upon the
English. The German has indeed, throughout, fewer
admixtiu-es of other languages in it, than any other
European tongue, while the EngHsh has more than any
other. While therefore in English almost all words
have been first distilled through the alembic of the
Greek, Latin, Gothic, Gemian, Erench, Italian or Span-
ish 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 type, 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 whicli their poets sing in songs of their father-
land, as only those can sing who have lost a once dear
treasure : a sense, vrhich, 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 pur-
veyors to its mental wants.

VI. The Cehic.

This class of languages has not been appreciated
until very recently, as having the connections, which
it really does possess, with the great Indo-Em'opean
family. To Dr. Prichard, that fine EngHsh investiga-
tor into the natui'al 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 Indo-
European 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 siu-mise 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 lan-
guage yet discovered, and the Sanskrit : " The Cel-
tic," as he claims, "never havinc^ had the Sanskrit

152 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

development; so that, while it exhibits a systematic
affinity with it in some respects, it shows also iu 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 occi-
dental emigration through the wilderness of primeval
Europe, and spread over Gaul, Switzerland, Germany,
Spain and Britain. The greater part of Europe in-
deed 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 numer-
ously in Germany, Erance, 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 preseiTing their laws or his-
tory or scanty Hterature, 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 witliin them, to an earnest utterance of them-
selves 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 them those wild native songs ; and the primi-
tive 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 primi-
tive 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 re-
spect to its ideas and all their surroundings of men
and manners, in the age to which it pretended to be-
long, he would have no reason to be ashamed of ac-
knowledging 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 beUeve 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 gen-
uineness. 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
Gaehc, the native tongue of the Scotch Highlanders, 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 in-
fluences. 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
aU 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 owTi peculiar character. And yet the Celtic lias
left at the same time its manifest impress upon the
German; which, having existed geographically mid-
way 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 Teu-
tonic languages generally, there is found a greater mix-
tm'e of Celtic words, than in any other class of lan-
guages. The Teutonic races followed more exactly in
the track of the Celts receding before them, than any
others. The German and Celtic languages have like-
wise, aside from their connnon 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 his-
tory : to say, whether the correspondences which are
found are in some cases original or derived.

The Celtic is spoken still, in the central and south-
ern 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 aU now under
the British yoke, except those living in Brittany over
whom Erance rules. And, as they form in their geo-
graphical 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

156 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

probable, and not of an antecedent date, tliey consti-
tute the first cleavage from the great primary elemental
mass of Indo-Ehiropean 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 OAvn in-
dividual features. The Celts never invented any alpha-
bet for themselves, and never borrowed one for their
own separate use, as did the Greeks from the Phceni-
cians, from any other people.

The Celtic * family includes,

1st. The Kymric.f

* 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 author-
ities 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. Gotliic. Celtic. English.

rWelsh "^
bhu,tobe ,C. fui it°-'^^-)]S3, [be

Lbi J

i , , s ( oSov; dens J

^".f^fi'' \ stem stem >• tunthu dant tooth

^*°°"^ /o^.^^ dent )

hanu(s),

the ja-R

cf. ganda

sara,
md
water

anu(s), ) ^

the jaw. > yim" gena kinnus genau chin

f. ganda )

r Irish ~]

andsalan, VuAf sal ^ ix^^^°, Isalt

a, salt J
i salan, J-uAi
ater )

] Welsh
(_ halen

padafs) (""'^ P^^ )

afoot -;Stem stem V fotu ped foot

(-00 ped 3

l^eap
nis'a, night iC^ nox nochd nif^ht

THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 157

2d. The Gadlielic.

1st. Under tlie Kymric are included

(1) The Welsh.

(2) The Cornish, which v/as 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 lan-
guages 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 prefer-
able 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 hab-
its of the primitive Celts, or their great perpetual ten-
dency 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.
Ace. Eire.
The classical forms of the name as 'ifpf/r, 'ifpi/jj, HovfpuUi, Hibernia

158 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

claims, notwithstanding JPott's hasty laughter at pre-
vious etymologists for having broached such an idea,
that we see the old family name Iran or Arii, still fly-
ing 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 per-
sons are expressed sometimes by the personal pronouns,
combined as suflixes with the verb-stem, as in the
Sanskrit and also in mutilated forms in the other Indo-
European 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 hovepvla,
the syllable ov is a softening of the Irish bh, or Latin b in Hibernia ;
and the form hevpfj is for 'lFepi'17. The stem ibh may be connected, he
thinks, with the Sanskrit ibhj-a wealthy, opulent, cf. Gr. 'icfuos 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 Beitrilge zur Sprachforschnng, 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 Avords placed in combination, one of the other,
like those denominated Sandhi in Sanskrit. Conso-
nantal 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 Nmiierals
in Welsh and Irish with those in Sanskrit is worthy of
attention.

Welsh.

Irish.

Sanskrit.

aen

aika

dau and )

^ dwi
} dwau

dwy ]

tri and tair

tri

pedwar and
pedair

keathair

chatur

pump

kuig

panchan

chwech

shash

saitli

secht

saptan

wyth

ocht

aslitau

naw

noi

navan

[0.

dee.

deich

dasan

The Welsh and ^olic Greek make nearly the same
kind of consonantal substitutions : as p (.t) for San-
skrit ch as in Tiavrt, Mo\. ntf-irct, Welsh pump, Sansk.

160 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

panclian ; and the gutturals c, g, k for sh and s as
<56;^«; Welsh deg; Sansk. dasan; and kixooi: Welsh
ugain : Sansk. vins'ati.

Snuilarly the Latin and the Erse are quite alike
in their consonantal phenomena. They neither of them
adopt the p of the Welsh and jiEolic Greek, but have c
or q instead of it, as in Latin quatuor, Erse keathair,
four : Sansk, cliatur : Welsh pedwar : Gr. r&TraQtg,
Mo[. TviouQtQ ; 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 vEolic Greek, than with the
Latin and Erse. A few specimens of Erse and Welsh
correspondents with the Sanskrit equivalent will make
their diflPerences still more apparent.

Sanskrit.

Erse.

Welsh.

jani, a woman

gean,

virah, a hero

fear

matri, a mother

mathair

nabhah, aether

neav

n^v

dhara, earth

daiar

ukshan, an ox

agh

yeh

druh, a tree

dair

derw

danta(s), a tooth

dant

dvar, a door

dor

mri, to die

marbh

marw

vid, to know

fis (knowledge)

wydha (to learn)

We have now passed in review the different fam-
ilies of the historical languages of the world, ii^ 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-Eu-
ropean 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 in-
fluences 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 men-
tal 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. What-
ever 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 ono-
matopoetic; 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 HISTOllICAL 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 to-
gether in the bonds of a common primeval brotherhood.
Every new discovery in philology reveals new aild
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 his-
tory 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 aixl our ideas, om- experience and our employ-
ment, 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, Avere
it not for the counteractive power of that gentle but
ever-active providence of God, which, while not distm'b-
ing at all the working of the most delicate, minute, un-
guarded 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. 103

losophy must recognize, as one of the fundamental
bases of all her theories of man, whether viewed indi-
vidually 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 two-
sided, active and passive, material and spiritual. With-
out doubt, as men come to be more and more under the
constant action of mental and moral forces, by the aU-
penetrating and widely-diffused power of Christianity,
the sphere of chmatic 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 ever-
changing 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 fu-
ture, in which Heaven and Earth are to be wedded to
each other in one prolonged and happy union, each
zone wiU 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 apphance 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,
/ery 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 cultm-e, the full power of the light that
Christianity contains in itself for the illumination of
mankind, or of its heat to Avann their sluggish natures
into that generous divine growth of which they are ca-
pable. In the wild neglected state of Heathen hfe, in
which as the very word itself implies, hmnan society is
one vast moral heath, physical influences are all-power-
ful, if not always upon the heart yet upon the tempera-
ment, 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 ex-
ternal 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 ma-
terials by man ; for the reason, that he is not only in-
capable 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 ver-
dict, 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 modern 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, ag-
glutinated 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

IGG HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

ignorance. Questions about tlie internal connections
of things are more easily asked in every field of inquiry,
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 dis-
tance 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 en-
joyment, and to every man the whole vast comphcated
apparatus of his faculties, resources, opportunities and
blessings : multiplying, on every hand, variety in spe-
cies 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 in-
flected languages were conceded to be of a derived na-
ture, and, in their special forms, of absolute human
construction, yet the divine origin of language itself
could be asserted and vindicated. The development-
theory of the origin of language claims as such, not
merely a successive manifestation of related and im-
proved forms, but also that this is the whole theoiy of
their first origination, as well as of their consequent
progress. Unfortunately for the advocates of the de-
velopment-theory, in respect to the diff'erent 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 Chim.Tera
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 untrue in its growth to its own normal type of
manifestation. But is all language to be regarded, as
havin'g been in its first state a mere mass of word-
germs : a huge pile of fortuitous, unconnected, crude
syllabications? If any are pleased with such a philo-
sophical analysis of the different styles of human speech,

168 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

can they persuade themselves to ahght, 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 thou-
sand 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 re-
mained 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-hfe ; 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 com-
plicated word-growths. To create the germ of a tree
is even a greater miracle, than to create a tree itself :
since, not only the futiu*e 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 un-
organized 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 HiSTOmCAL SKETCH OF

period, sncli 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 con-
stant 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 lan-
guage, 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 dis-
position 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 Avere 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, help-
less 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 com-
panionship 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 tAvo animals together.

Wliile 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
w^as 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 Ilis own con-
triving skill. As a matter of plain undeniable fact
also, eacli successive generation, in all times and places,
has learned its language from the one immediately pre-
ceding 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 mono-
syllables, 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 : tliey 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, w^hich
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 ad-
vocates : 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 fea-
tures of the Arian and Semitic dialects we can discover
the stamp of one powerfid 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 gene-
rations to come; the Semitic and Arian languages
exhibit in all ages and countries a strict historical con-
tinuity, which makes the idioms of Moses and Moham-
med, of Ilomer 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 mdividual 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
that, from another su.perhumaii 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 conmion stamp, a stamp of
definite indi^-iduality, inexplicable, if viewed as a pro-
duct 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 tmie, such a con-
ception 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 de-
pendencies, 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

autliorsliip divine. Tlie 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 sup-
position, 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 organ-
ization, 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 North-
western 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 rep-
resentative of his own period in the series.

A signal proof of the smallness of man'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 Eng-
lish 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 languao-es.
Comparative philology is a science, of even more in-
terest, than comparative anatomy. In its three chief
departments : comparative grammar, comparative lexi-
cography and comparative phonology, it reveals won-
derful resemblances between the older and newer lan-
guages, 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 prof-
itable of all studies. The time is near at hand, and
may it come soon, when, in our universities and high

178 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

scliools, the languages can no more be taiiglit, in a nar-
row, 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 sm*face 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 ne-
cessity in every college ; and it must ere long be recog-
nized 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 mod-
ern philology, of the multiplied connections of Greek
and Latin one with the other, as weU as of their con-
nection mth the Sanskrit before them and with the
modern languages behind them : to make no use or
but little use of these great facts, enhghtening and in-
spiring as they are in the work of instruction, should
entitle him, who thus dishonors his hio-h callino;, to ex-
change 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 prmciples. 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. Op the Different Languages of the World, in

GENERAL.

11. Of the Languages of Asia and Europe, in gen-
eral.

ITL Op the Indo-European Famidy, in particular.

IV. Of the Sporadic Languages of Asia and Europe.

TABULAR VIEWS.

I.— GENERAL TABULAE VIEW OF THE DIFFERENT
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD.

First. Those of the Unhistorical Continents : Africa and the
Americas.

I. The African.

1st. The Berber Languages: Native in Fezzan,
Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, &c. : Semitic
in their origin.

2(]. The Caffre Languages.

(1) The Congo : spoken in Lower Guinea.

(2) The Sichuana : the language of the

Bechuanas.

(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 pol3'synthetic to a high
degree ; and so, exactly antipodal to the monosyl-
labic languages.

Second. Those of the Historical Continents : Asia and Europe.

I. The Monosyllabic.
IT. 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.
n. The Indo-Chinese.

The Brahman, Siamese, &c.

Second. The Agglutinative or. Nomadic Languages.
I. Those distinctly Agglutinative.

1st. The Tataric Family.

C-H_ =

H = L

(1) The Tungusic languages ; spoken from

China, northward to Siberia and the
River Tunguska.

(2) The Mongolic : The Eastern ; Western :

and Baikal dialects.

(3) The Turkic: Dialects, the Osmanli 5

Karatschai ; Nogai ; Kumiickish, Sec.

(4) The Samoiedic.

(5) The Finnic, or Tschudic : Dialects, Ug-

ric ; Permic ; Bulgaric ; Lappic ; Finnic.
(G) The Tamulic.

(7) The Bhotiya: Gangetic and Lohitic.

(8) The Taic.

(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) Abchasic.

(3) Lesgic.

(4) Mizshegic.

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.

IL The Old Assyrian or Babylonian : differing as such, 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 Aramaean.

1st. Chaldee.
2d. Syriac.
3d. Samaritan.

VI. The Arabic.

1st. .^thiopic, 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.
h Classical Sanskrit.

(2) Later.

c Pali.
cl Prakrit.

(3) Modern.

e Hindt-stanee.
y Bengalee.

2d. Gipsy.

II. The Iranian.

1st. The Persian Languages.

(1) Old Persian.

(2) Zend.

(3) Pehlevi.

(4) Pazend or Parsi.

(5) New Persian.

2a. The Kurdish.
3d. The Ossetian.

(Geographically a Caucasian language.)
4th. The Armenian.

(1) Old Armenian.

(2) New Armenian.

Second. The Grteco-Italic or Latino-Greek Family-pair.
I. Greek.

1st. The forming, or Dialectic period.

(1) iEolic.

(2) Doric.

(3) Tonic.

(4) Attic.

TABULAR VIEWS. 187

2d. The full-grown, or Hellenic period.

3d. The Alexandrine period.
4th. The Roman period.
5th. The Byzantine period.
Gth. The Modern Greek or Romaic period.

II. The Italic Family.
1st. The lapygian.
2d. The Etruscan.
3d. The Italian.

(1) The Umbro-Samnite Dialects : Umbrian ;

Samnite or Oscan ; Vols(;ian ; 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 ; Ge-
noese ; Florentine ; Neapolitan,
Sicilian; Corsican ; Sardinian,
&c.)

2d. Wallachian.

(1.) Daco-Romanic.
(2) ^lacedo-Romanic.

3d. Spanish: (Dialects: Oastilian ;

Catalonian ; Galician.)
4th. Portuguese.
5th. Provencal.
Gtli. French.
7th. Rht«to-Romanic.

(An uncultivated patois of Ital-
ian elements mixed with Ger-
man, found in the Caiitcn of
the Grisons in SvvitzerlaTid.)

188 TABULAR VIEWS.

Third. The Lettic Family.

I. The Lithuanian.
II. Old Prussian.
IIL 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. lUyrian.

(1) Servian.

(2) Croatian.

(3) Slowenic.

II. 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 High 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.)

IL The Thibetan:

A hybrid between the Chinese which it resembles
in its roots and the Tatar family, which it re-
sembles more in its structure.

III. The Japanese:

Somewhat mingled with Chinese ; but in its gram-
matical 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 Gra3C0-Latin stock :
Dialects, the Geghian and Toskian.

II.

THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

II.

THE HISTORY OF MODERX PHILOLOGY.

Philology* is that science which treats of the origin,
history and structure of the words composing the clas-
sical languages and those connected with them, whether
cognate or derived. It comprehends what is usually
included in the sepjirate 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 rather that of splendid prepa-
ration for a complete scientific construction of its ele-
ments, 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 — 04: Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol. 2. p. 142 ; Donaldson's New
Cratylus, pp. 21 — 54 : "Winning's Comparative Philologj', pp. 16 — 32 :
"Weber's Indische 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 hke her, also,
while honored with this formal remembrance, she has
herself remained imknown, until standing within the
horizon of our own day. Prom 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 {(fLloloy'ia) at different times, exhibit in a
general, though faint outline, the chief phases of its his-
tory. In old classical usage, it meant the love of litera-
ture ; afterwards the scholastic mastery and exposition
of language; more recently a sort of general amateur
study of language, as a matter of mere pleasant cu-
riosity ; 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 or 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 clear-
ness 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 com-
mingling elements into forms better adapted to express
the wants and tastes of later generations, like old gar-
ments refashioned for new uses, we find an almost per-
fect 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. Llere 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 MODERN 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 Ref-
ormation, 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 accu-
mulation of energy.

The leaders of this great awakening in modem so-
ciety, 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 modern linguistic scholarship in its open
and progressive manifestations, like that of modem so-
cial piety, is to be found in one and the same eventful
period.

Luther and Melancthon, 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,
and Budgeus in Erance, 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 tlieir scholarship, yet in its vastness ;
as Muretus, Scaliger, Casaubon, Salmasius, Bentlcy,
Porson and others, whose names will never be forgotten
for their great attainments as measured by the oppor-
tunities of their age, and much more for the deep en-
thusiasm 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 com-
mon one of success or failure. But the scholarship of
those days either contented itself with its own conscious
pleasm^e, 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 cen-
tury, and especially the latter half of it, the linguists of
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 de*
cided variously, according to the different amount of
their research, or the different quality of their mental
constitutions, the majority believed that it was the He-
brew, as that contained the oldest literature of any lan-
guage which they knew, as well as the earHest records
of our race. Others however thought, with equally
good reason, that it was rather the Armenian, as that

198 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

was the language of the people living around ]\Iount
Ararat, where, from the times of Noah's ark, their an-
cestors 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 Diction-
aries. 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 sm'e
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 be-
gan to make any clear utterances of their own, bring in
their testimony against the Scriptures, so too in philol-
ogy they hoped to find a victorious enemy to Chris-
tianity. But Chronology, Ethnography and Etymo-
logy 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 uni-
versal genius, entitled by his contemporaries on account
of his large learning a living dictionary, was very zeal-
ous in the study of Ethnography, and carefully col-
lected all lists of words that he could obtain in differ-
ent languages, for the piupose of comparing them to-
gether. He founded the present Academy of Sciences
at Berlin, the home of modern philology, for the pur-
pose 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 won-
ders 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 ec-
static 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 dif-
ferent languages, she transferred the long labor to Pal-
las, 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 occiu'red, which made at the
time but little show, and yet drew after it the most sur-
prising consequences: the formation of the Asiatic So-
ciety at Calcutta by Sir William Jones, who had gone
to Calcutta a year before, as a great admirer and con-
noisseur of Oriental poetry, in order to perfect his
knowledge of Indian literature. Before his day, the
term " oriental languages " had included only the Sem-
itic dialects. Under the auspices of the Asiatic Society,
the Chinese language and literature were thoroughly
studied by the best Erench 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 develop-
ments 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 lang-uages of the world are here classified and de-
scribed ; and all helps for their acquisition then known
are stated. Copies also of the Lord's prayer are pre-
sented in a great variety of languages for examination ;
biit 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 imarrangecl mass of cmiosities, no
higher in character than in mineralogy would ^e a col-
lection of stones from different lands, divided into classes
accordinsr to their mere resemblances of color or of
shape. Neither Adelung nor Vater were any thing
more than good hnguists ; and Vater, indeed, was not
in any high sense entitled even to such a name.

Gradually, and in the form of many successive de-
tails, 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 Per-
sian, wonderful resemblances were found to both the
Greek and German : the Latin and German also were
compared together lexically, and found to possess many
sm-prising points of connection ; and the feeling began
to be common among scholars, that, in the pm'suit 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, through-
out Em'ope and Asia, the new and true philology
slowly but steadily rose into being, at the beginning of
the present centmy. German scholars claim that it
should be called Indo- German, instead of Indo-Em'o-
pean, 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 scholar-
ship in the first place, that the world owes the dis-

202 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

covery of the elementary facts, which Gennan industry
and skill have since so fully developed and woven into
such a web of manifold and marvellous beauty to a lin-
guist's eye» On any view, however, the title used for
these new etymological developments should be one de-
scriptive 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 tran-
quilly 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 Sans-
krit, for many silent years in India ! Much, in every
way. Sanskrit literatm'e is voluminous, in the form of
poems, plays, fables, systems of philosophy, and works
on astronomy and medicine. No one of the other In-
do-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 North-
em India, have an interest altogether their own : as we
not only stand in them on the farthest outermost posi-
tion 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 ear-
nestness, 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 In-
dia 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 schol-
ars. It was in 17C5 that the East India Company ob-
tained, by the treaty at Allahabad, their first sover-
eignty of Bengal ; in the management of which they de-
termined to rule the people in conformity with then
own laws. Warren Hastings accordingly, then Gover-
nor General, caused a Digest to be made of their most
important books of laws by 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 Euro-
pean ears as being the original language of these an-
cient books ; but without any knowledge of his own at
the time of its character. Eoremost among the first
students of Sanskrit were Sir William Jones, a man of
great learning and high cultivation, Mr. H. T. Cole-
brooke, 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 re-
cesses 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 de-
Ughted 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 simil-
itude 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 Avorld the connection of the
Arian languages one with another, saying, that "no
philologer could examine the Sanskrit, Greek and Lat-
in, without believing them to have sprung from some
common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There
is a similar reason, though not c^uite 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 sm-ely is a very bold,
clear statement made at the outset, parlly as a matter
of ascertained fact, and partly as a matter of well-con-
ceived 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 Bhagavad-
gita, 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. Cole-
brooke 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 hav-
ing the widest circulation." This w^as but a vocabulary,
made by an author named Amara Sinha, and not a dic-
tionary ; being arranged in separate sections and chap-
ters, according to the topics in the text that it accom-
panied. 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 lan-
guages," 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, en-
titled " Essays on the Rehgion and Philosophy of the
Hindus," a new edition of which has recently appeared.
Horace H. Wilson, still living, then assistant secretary
to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, published in 1819 a

20G

HISTORY or 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 ne-
cessities, 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 immeasur-
ably advanced position."

And how was the spark of the new light, thus
brought from India by English hands, kindled in Ger-
many ? Eor 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 Eng-
land in 1803, made him the depositary of the sacred
treasure in behalf of his countiymen. From Mr. Alex-
ander 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 slen-
der, yet it was put to a noble use by him on his re-
turn 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 pubhshed in 1808, and which first aroused his
countrymen to this new and great study. And, al-
though all the facts that he gave them were what a

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 207

pliilological novice could carry home as a single slieaf
in his hand, and the subsequent discoveries of his suc-
cessors 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 om' 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 tis-
sue 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 princi-
ple, which he was the first to state with distinctness,
that corresponde7ice in the grammatical structure of
different languages proves their identity, beyond any
other Mnd of resemblance, remains stiQ intact, and
will ever remain the basis of all real scientific philolo-
gy. 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, Per-
sian, Geeek, Roman and Teutonic languages. His
services can never be forgotten by the lovers of com-,
parative 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, joy-
ous spirit in entering upon it seems to have been trans-
fused 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 begin-
ning to unfold themselves with power in other direc-
tions, in an earnest, enthusiastic manner into this new,
wide-opening, enchanting field of intellectual toil and
discoveiy. 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 pub-
lish an Indian Chrestomathy, in the original character
and in Latin, which should contain, besides the ele-
mentary principles of the language, a selection of ex-
tracts from the most imoortant Indian works, with a
Latin translation, notes, and a glossary. Every thing
was prepared for this publication, and, besides the gram-
mar 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 T^Titing,
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 scien-
tific object, brings its reward with it ; but it is vexa-
tious, to be compelled to pause midway, in attaining the
desii'ed 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 mil 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 cer-
tainty."

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. Pic-
tures in still life do not appeal to many eyes, as do
those of martial fire and fuiy ; and so the steady long
continued heroism and patient benevolence of a stu-
dent'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 pri-
vate bulletin, issued occasionally by an enthusiastic
scholar as he could get sufficient materials for a num-
ber, 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 Ramayana, a great Sanskrit work. He

* Vols. I. II. Til. contain among other articles the following : 1st.
The present state of Indian philology. 2d. Indian poems. (1.) Intro-
ductory 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 ex-
tended notice of "Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary. 8th. A full notice of
the transactions of the Asiatic Society in respect to Geography,
Botany, Ethnography, Antiquities, &c. 9th. Two articles by Hum-
boldt on the Sanskrit gerunds. 10th. A general review (in 1824) of
the whole field of Indian philology. 11th. The correspondence of II.
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 Gita. 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 liiinself in his oriental studies ; and, on
his return to Berlin in 1827, devoted his energies with
renewed effect to their advancement among his country-
men. 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 constitu-
tion ; 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 combi-
nations ; 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 in-
strument, 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 tlie bosom of a rose, in their inward
charms. But to one of a true ethereal temper, whose
eye is open and pmified 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 muTors 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 spuit-eyes.

Francis Bopp made his first appearance as a philolo-
gist, 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 phi-
lology. But as his great work, the Comparative Gram-
mar, which constitutes properly the foundation of the
new science of philology, in its present form and di-
mensions, was not published until many years after-
wards; 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 lirightly 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 strength-
ened 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 Ice-
landic Languages," which was prepared in 1814. He
discovered also and showed the close relationship be-
tween 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 featm'es 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

214 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

patois of it ; while he showed at the same time the der-
ivation of the modern Persian from it, as of tlie Itahan
from the Latin. Like the great Buttmann, Rask was
endowed by his Maker Avith Hnguistic sensibiUties 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 ex-
tinguished 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 en-
thusiasm or effect. These he regarded as all resting on
a wide-spread original Scythian base. Professor Cas-
tren afterwards, who was a sort of earlier edition of
Lieut. Kane, in respect, on the one hand, to his per-
sonal 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 wjjich
so many bad heedlessly ti-amped in their ignorance, before him.

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 215

of liis wide and long research in tins branch of lan-
guages; 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 ex-
hibited a finer specimen of the true scholar, according
to the highest and fullest ideal, than he is. Plis
" scale," or law of correspondences of sound in the dif-
ferent Indo-European languages, is one of the highest
triumphs of inductive analysis that have been ever fur-
nished in any science. Bopp's first incidental sugges-
tions in this direction he perfected into fall ripe science ;
and, in constructing his " scale," made it with such
nicety, as to its own characteristics and all its grada-
tions, that, while the sphere of its use has been nuich
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 Gei-man, PH. F. P. CH. H. K. Z. D. T.

The intei'pretation 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, asph'ates 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.

Sanskrit.

Greek.

Latin.

Gothic.

Old High
German.

English.

aham, for agham

iyci

ego,

dyp6;

ager

akrs

achar

acre

svan, a dog

canis

hunths

hunt

hound

dasan, ten

6iKa

decern

taihun

zehan

( ten
I tithe

danta(s), tooth

oSoiJs

dens

tunthus

zand

tooth

trajas, three

rpeig

tres

threis

dri

three

Si'ik-pv
SdKpvjjLa

( hicryma
•s archaic
( dacrima

Uagr

zahar

tear

Xeiiretv

linquere

leiban

lipu

leave

ve, to weave

IT ia for

V vitis

wida

( withe
•j with
( wither

ad, to eat

£6eiv

cdere

itan

ezan

eat

li^tXyeiv

mulgerc

miluks

miluh

milk

pada(s), foot

TTOVi

pes

fotus

fuoz

foot

pula (s), much

^6\vi

plus

fihi

filo

full

upari, above

i'-ip

super

ufar

uhar

( upper
] over

sad, to sit

sUaOai

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 doc-
trine of sounds, or phonetic correspondences and sub-
stitutions. Besides his Teutonic grammar, he has pub-
lished a work entitled " Mythology and Researches into
German Antiquities." He has also written a very in-
teresting 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 uni-
versal, that his vast labors as a student and author
have prevented him from perfecting the work, in ful-
ness of form and finish of detail, more nearly accord-
ing to the model of his own thoughts. On whatever
subjects his mind is employed, it makes close research
over a mde 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 Wil-
liam, preparing a comprehensive dictionary of his ver-
nacular 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 coidd for a
moment feel himself adequate to achieve. Slowly but

HISTORY OF MODERN rHILOLOGY. 219

surely the vast work rises under tlieir 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 septuage-
narian. 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 ef-
forts, 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, Lithu-
anian, 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 sen-
sation 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 correspond-
ences 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 upo?i it, as a traveller upon a prize by the road-
side. A few similar cases of transformations, substi-
tutions 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
treasm'ed on the walls of each language that they inves-
tigated ; the hidden alphabet of which they also dis-
covered, 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 Euro-
pean ; and that on no partial or fanciful basis, but by
an astonishingly A^ide and satisfactory scale of compari-
sons. He analyzes the whole grammatical structm-e

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 221

of the Indo-Eiu'opcaii langua|2;es ; se})arating words
everywhere into their roots, their formative and deriva-
tive sufRxes, their case-terminations and person-end-
ings : 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 then-
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
pronominal 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 hu-
manity. 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.

coiistnictecl, under his guidance and influence, into a
science having a definite area and horizon. It^terri-
tories have been explored with care ; and where its riches
he, and what they are, is well known. Like Bacon in
phOosophy, 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 ail 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 sui'prising 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-bom sister,
although so much older and of such a different bearing
as to have weU-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 Sanslo-it
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. ^23

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. Por those unacquainted with German, an Eng-
lish 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 sprachverglei-
chende Kritiken," &c., or philological criticisms on
Grimm's German grammar, and in 1847 his " Glossa-
rium 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 abihty.
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 I'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 Amer-
ican Oriental Society, and published in their Journal,
Vol. V. pp. 195 ff., 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 ad-
vancement of Sanskrit scholarship as such, and the es-
tablishment 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 Avorks ; while Bopp
and Grimm have gone with the torch of analytic phi-
losophy 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
w^ill be studied and taught on entirely different princi-
ples and with very different results from wdiat have
been ever before witnessed. Each language must now
be studied, not only as it is in itself, but also in its va-
rious relations ; and he w^ho studies but one language
must stand on the outside of the gate of even that, and

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 22

only dream, but never see, what is within its walls ;
what of beauty ! what of vastness ! what of life ! Some-
thing, 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 Lem go, entitled " Etymologische Porschun-
gen," &c., or " Etymological Investigations in the Pield
of the Indo-Germanic Languages, with special Refer-
ence to the Changes of Sound in the Sanskrit, Greek,
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 princi-
ples, or group its facts into the form of a high and no-
ble 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 desisrna-
tion; and not as a recognition of any attempt, ever

226 HISTORY OF MODERN rillLOLOGY.

made by German philologists to construct its elements
into a distinct system. In 1846 Pott publislied a
work of miicli merit on the language of the Gypsies,
clearly establishing its membership in the great Indo-
European family of languages. He has recently (1856)
published an additional work of considerable interest on
the Etymology of surnames, entitled " Personennamen
und Eamihennamen." 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, al-
though not on so large a scale.

William Humboldt in 1835 Avrote a learned and
philosophical treatise on " The different Modes of form-
ing Human Speech," in which he presented, with clear-
ness and effect, a true comparative estimate of different
languages ; representing the Chinese or monosyllabic,
and the Indo-European and Semitic or inflected lan-
guages, as the two contrary poles of linguistic develop-
ment, 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 sue-

HISTORY OF . MODERN PHILOLOGY. 227

cesses, but as in the kingdom of Gocl, they arc to he
judged to tlieir 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 men-
tion, 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 estab-
lished 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 Zend with the Sanskrit. He also gave himself with
much earnestness to the work of editing various publi-
cations of the Zend, restoring in each case the manu-
scripts with critical 'care ; and prepared a Zend gram-
mar, and was indeed strictly the founder of all true
Zend philology. E. G. EichhofF published at Paris, in
1836, a work entitled, "Parallele des Langues de
I'Europe et de Tlnde," or " A Comparative view of the
Languages of Europe and of India." This was after-
wards translated into German by Kaltschmidt, who
greatly admires his views, and who published also in

228 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

1 845, a second edition of it. EichhofF's work is designed
to present a comparative view of tlie 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 posses-
sion, 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 ety-
mologies 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 Erance, 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 etymolo-
gies ? The imagination of what scholar would not in-
voluntarily wander from one enterprise to another, out
of one century into another, in order to find the re-
mains 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 Clcrc, the dean of Philosophy at Paris.

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 229

afforded by philology and history. These two philoso-
phies march for\A'ard 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 for-
tunes ; and, where the history of a people is silent, where
the thread of tradition is broken, there the ancient gene-
alogy of language gives us light, which outlives the
^^Teck 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 enig-
mas, 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 for-
gotten 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 dic-
tionary and the grammar, in the leading languages of
our system, (the Indo-Em'opean,) I have brought them
together into one view, and developed them, sometimes
singly and sometimes comparatively, and arranged to-

230 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

getlier tlieir coniponent parts, in a comprehensive and
complete synopsis." He dedicates his work to " Chezy,
the founder of Sanskrit study in France, and IMerian,
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 through-
out the world. There is in fact so much of poetic ma-
terial 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 ^olic dialect, of
great interest. It is in this dialect that the Greek re-
tains most of its primitive character and manifests its
common heritage with the Latin, in all the elements of
their equal Grseco-Latin or Pelasgic parentage, Giese
lived only to pubUsli himself the first volume of his
work, the second being pubhshed 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 ro-
mische Lautlehrc sprachvergleichend dargestellt," or the
phonetic principles of the Latin language philologically

HISTORY OP MODERN PHILOLOGY. 231

viewed. Beside the intrinsic merits of this production
as a fine specimen of thorough schohirly research, it has
also the honor of beinu; 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 par-
ticularly of the phonetic system of the Latin : diph-
thongation and aspiration. The whole phonetic system
of the Latin he regards as consisting of five principal
features: 1st. 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 influ-
ence 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 construc-
tion binary, they are composed always of a fixed radi-
cal 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 gi-aminar, the lengthening and strength-
ening 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 in-
cidentally 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 enti-
tled, " Beitrage zur Etymologic 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 phi-
lology embraces a wide range of many related topics,
and touches language, phonetics, ethnography, chro-
nology and cHmatology, at so many points and in so
many ways, as to aff'ord room for an almost unlimited
variety of special investigations and results. Hoefer' s
work diff'ers 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 moun-
tain, 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 watch-
ers 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
inniiediate connection.

H. L. Ahrens wrote in 1838 on "the conjugation
in i-u, 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 Jj]olic and Doric
dialects, which are discussed with remarkable ingenuity
and research, and not without reference to the princi-
ples 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."
Diintzer 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 pe-
riodical 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 schol-
arship. Kaltschmidt has less of the standard charac-
teristics of a real authority in philology, than any other
name mentioned in this earliest group of the imme-
diate 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 " Verglei-
chendes Worterbuch der Gothischen Sprache," or com-
parative 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 mu-
seum of comparative etymologies to be found in the
world, not excepting in its present state that magnifi-
cent German dictionary of the Grimms ; which, how-
ever, when completed, will stand by itseK, 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 aU 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 philologists. His principal works are
"Philological Investigations," published in 1848:
" The Languages of Em'ope in a Systematic View," a

236 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

work of much scholarship and interest, pubhshed in
1850 ; and also " Litauische Grammatik,'' or " A Lith-
uanian Grammar and Chrestomathy," published in
1856, which, like Diefenbach's Gothic dictionaiy, and
Zeuss' Celtic grammar, is a splendid contribution of
thorough original investigations to the science of phi-
lology. 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 "Beitrage
zur Sprachforschung,") on a history of the languages
of the Gothic or Germanic family.

George Curtius' name also deserves honorable men-
tion 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 argu-
mentation. 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 " Grundziige
der Griechischen Etymologic," 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 solv-
ing 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 coun-
try, 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 ele-
ments of Greek etymology."

Friedrich Diez is the author of a " Grammar of the
Romanic Languages," which is the standard, supplant-
ing aU 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
Erench languages. His etymological dictionary also
of the Romanic languages, published in 1853, is a no-
ble structure, standing by itself in solitary majesty on
the field that it occupies. A quotation from the pref-
ace 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 httle resemblance and even entire vari-
ance, 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 excep-
tions 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 accom-
plish ! How doubtful are its results ! The highest
point reached by the etymologist, is the conscioyisness
of having acted scientifically. For the attainment of
absolute certainty he has no security. Some insignifi-
cant new thing may hurl down froxn him under his
feet, to his mortification, a result previously gained with
great labor. This wiU 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." Here is pre-
sented in full view a self-drawn pictm'e of the patient,
scholarly, earnest spirit of the scientific etymologist.
How diff'erent from that of the ancient empirical dealers
in words as cheap, frivolous wares ! It is when study-
ing 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 phi-
lology. 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 in-
fluence must om' own histories of the classical past be
written still again for the proper illumination of Eng-
lish 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 O. Miiller,
and has been the private Tutor of Prince Erederic Wil-

240 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

liam. He is one of the finest living writers of Ger-
many. 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. Tor ourselves, we must
say, that we sympathize rather with Curtius than with
Mommsen, 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 be-
long, 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 then' great influence each by itself on
the public mind of Germany : Erederic 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 fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung,"
&c., or " Journal of comparative Philology in the De-
partment 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 in-
vestigations appear, in a condensed form. Here tlie
delighted reader meets with frequency with such men,
in high discourse, as Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Aufrecht,
Kuhn, KirchhofF, Benary, Curtius, Schleicher, Ebel,
Ahrens, Benfey, Forstemann a Danish scholar, and
many others of the same spirit, if not yet of the same
reputation. This journal will be welcom.ed, 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 cpialities, entitled
" Die umbrischen 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. He has published a Greek Etymo-
logical Dictionary, and also a Sanskrit grammar not

242 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

equal to Bopp's tliough 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. Tor a compendious scientific
suiTcy 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 stu-
dent in this charming field of investigation can pro-
cure a very good outfit of facts and principles, for wider
and higher attainments, whenever means or opportu-
nity can be secured. Heyse is the author also of a
German dictionary, wdiich, for ordinary use, not only
for purposes of exegesis, but also of etymology, is of
high value. Grimm says indeed of it, in the introduc-
tion 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 knowl-
edge 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 ad-
vanced 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 som'ces.

The philological acumen and attainments of Adal-
bert Kuhn, although of the highest sort, have been ex-
hibited thus far chiefly in brief but sterling articles, a
large munber of which have appeared in the " Zeit-
schrift" which he edits. He seems to be quite objec-
tive 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 Gennany. He is the conductor of a periodi-
cal called " Indische Studien," now numbering four vol-
umes, 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 ar-
ticles, entitled " Indische Skizzen," consisting of a
sketch of " the recent investigations on ancient India,"
an article " on Buddhism," another on " the connec-
tions 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 Tubingen, 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." He is ingeni-
ous 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 lan-
guages: 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 home-
dress and with its own native mien ; but they are all,
with their different stature, complexion, airs and mo-
tions, 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 him-
self 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 himseK more unintelligible to a beginner, or more
distasteful to one who had passed through his novitiate
in philology. Two classes of minds relish phonog-
raphy : those who, being satisfied ^Yith only inci-
dental 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 •walling 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, ulti-
mate, radical type. Many, indeed, would greatly re-
joice 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 dif-
ferent languages, arranged in true philological order ;
and doubtless, when philology has attained its full de-
velopment, such a dictionary will be prepared. But
even then phonography will not furbish the torch, that
shdl illuminate to the scholar's eyes the pages that will
contain the record. In the same spirit of unholy free-
dom with which Rapp has thus handled the sacred;
forms of words that have come down to us, unscathed!
by time or human conflict, from the far-off past, he has
also undertaken to build up a sort of Cyclopean struc-
ture 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 lan-
guages, he finds among them what he deems a prepon-
derance 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 efiPort to constitute his own guesses, by the aid

of as many phonographic correspondents as possible,

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 re-
lieved of their unsatisfactoriness by the prefatory re-
mark 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 charapter: 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 circum-
ference, and indeed in the first place in the direction from a to i. Here
lie the diphthongs te, ei, commonly written ei, ai and the nasal a? ; on
the way from a towards u, ao eu (commonly written ou), au and the
nasal ao ; and on the middle line from a to ii, ao, eli. ail 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, ail, oil. ui and the nasal oe. The second principal kind make a back-
ward 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 forma-
tion 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 Dilntzer 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 pho-
netics claims a distinct and full representation. The
authors, who have treated it most fully in a separate
form, are Benary and lioefer. In the nevv^ edition of
Bopp's grammar, special attention is devoted to it at
the outset, as is also in Rapp's. It will indeed force it-
self 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 thif

most desirable on all subjects, that serves best to reveal them as they
are, instead of bedizening the eye with its own marvellous bril-
liancy.

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 Eng-
land 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 modem philology is equally
limited in number. They are all told, but these few :
Prichard, Rosen, Donaldson, Gamett, Winning, Max
Miiller and Bunsen, the last two of whom are Germans,
though writing in England and in the Enghsh 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 philo-
logical research. His one great idea was to establish,
if possible, the unity of the race. He pubhshed ac-
cordingly an essay (in 1808) on the varieties of man-
kind, in which he first made himself favorably known
as a philosophical wi'iter. This he enlarged from time
to time in successive editions, until in the last (1836-
1847) it had swollen into the five large volumes enti-
tled " 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 East-
ern Origin of the Celtic Nations proved by a Com-
parison of their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin and Teutonic Languages ;" which was published
in 1831 as a supplement to "The Researches" above-
mentioned. He is minute and thorough in this work,
in the comparison of Celtic, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek
themes and flexion-endings, both formally and euphoni-
cally, and his labors in this direction have a high schol-
arly value. Like Rask and Burnouf, Prichard was re-
moved prematurely from his labors on earth ; but his
memory, like theirs, will not perish.

Dr. r. 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 Lon-
don, 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 repre-
sented 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 hght 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 pos-
sible, unto others. Such a fire cannot easily be kept
shut up within one's bones. He has accordingly
written a book entitled " VaiTonianus," on the history
and structiu-e of the Latin language, and another of
similar natui-e 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 ahment 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 re-
flection of his own image from his works, through the
same haze in which he has invested many of the treas-
m-es 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 ex-
hibit 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 re-
ferring to himself. In speaking of the progress of
philology in England, he says : " We can point to con-
ceptions 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.

252 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

tracts, the reader should peruse at the same time his
exquisite tirade (pp. 35, G, 7.) upon the Germans,
which he concludes with this remark, " that German
scholars limit their chances of improvement by the nar-
row boimdary of their own nationality ; and that conse-
quently they are not more favorably situated than our
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-gratu-
latory 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 work-
ing on it at times also figures of the most unreal and
fantastic shape.

Winning, although somewhat praised by Donald-
son, from want of other compeers in this great study,
was but a writer of the third class for merit, as Don-
aldson himself is but of the second. He directly con-
tradicts, in the latter part of his work, (published in
1838,) the positions which he formally took and de-
fended 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 Avith
itself. jS'o 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 im-
portance 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 lan-
guages." Behold it.

Iranian.

Sanskrit, Zend, Persian.

I. Irano-Indian.
Sanskrit, Hindustanee, Bengalee.

II. Irano-Europeax.

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, Ga3lic, Welsh, Bas Breton, Basque.

Of these he considered the Slavonian, Lithuanian, and Lower

German as of Median origin, and the Upper German as of Pcr>ian ;

while, as to the Celtic, he regarded the Erse, Gii^lic and IManx as Medo-

Celticj but the "Welsh, Cornish and Bas Breton, as Perso-Celtic.

254 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

were three oiiginal Iranian dialects, viz. : Sanskiit,
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 Kimchi and others, that the original
Tuscans were but a set of emigrant Edomites. " The
summary of these statements is," he says, " that a peo-
ple 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 posses-
sion 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 non-
sense 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 PHILOLOGT. 255

Garnett lias 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 Phi-
lology, it is pleasant to be able to add tlie name of one,
in England though not of it, Max Miiller, 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 Eamilies 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 ; theu' general character and structure,
their alphabets, the classes of people by whom they
were spoken, and the family to which they belong."
Plis treatise, though brief, is one of great interest.

Chevalier Bunsen is himself but little of a philolo-
gist ; 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 Miiller,
and Aufrecht, who has been for some years in Oxford.
Bimsen 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, Avith 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 dis-
criminated as a class, from those spoken of in the text. They are
Harris, Ilorne Tooke. Kemble, Bosworth, Richardson, Turner, Latham,
and Trench. John Harris published in 1751 a book of much learning
and talent, entitled, " Hermes," pertaining to matters of grammatical
philosophy, which had great influence and estimation in its day, as its
basis and bearings were classical. Home 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 in-
genuity, some very important facts and principles, concerning the Teu-
tonic features of Enghsh 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 lexi-
cographers. Latham has, in his latest edition of " The English lan-
guage," 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 suffi-
cient 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 then' 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 Anglo-
Saxon, Norman and Latin elements of our language, and speaks of
Latin in old style as '• a compound of Grecian and un-Grecian deriv-
atives."

258 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

1. Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Diefenbach, Benary,
Schleicher, The two Curtius, Kuhii, Diez, Mommseii,
Aufrecht, and Weber.

2. EichhofF, Ahi-ens, Giese, Hoefer, Heyse, Benfey,
Donaldson.

3. Kaltschmidt, 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 Sprach-
wissenschaft, pp. 174-208 ; Eichhoff's Vergleichung
der Sprachen, pp. 20-36.

2d. Specially,

(1.) The Graeco-Italic : Schleicher (Sprachen, &c.) ;
Mommsen (Romische Geschichte ); E. Curtius (Griech-
ische 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 (Gothisches
Worterbuch) .

(4.) Slavonic : Schafarik ; Schleicher ; Miklosich.

(5.) Celtic: Diefenbach (Celtica) ; Pictet; Charles
Meyer ; Zeuss (Grammatica Celtica) ; Ebel (Zeitschrift
&c.) ; Prichard (Celtic Nations).

HISTORY OP MODERN PHILOLOGY. 259

II. Phonetics.

Benary ; Hoefer ; Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik
and Geschichte) ; Bopp (Vergleicli. Gramm.) ; Diez
(Grammatik, &c.) ; Corssen (Lateinische Vokalismus) ;
Heyse's System, &c. ; Zeitsohrift fiir vergleicli. Sprach-
forschimg; Arts, by Ebel, Benary, Kuhn&Forstemami.

III. The Philosophy of Language.

Becker's various works on Grammar, &c. ; Heyse's
System cler Spracliwissenscliaft ; Lerscli's Spracliphilo-
sopliie ; Humboldt's different essays on language ;
Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i.

IV. Etymology.

Pott's Etymologische Eorschungen, new edition.

Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.) ; Schleicher (Litauische
Grammatik) ; G. Curtius (Griechische Gramm., and
especially Griechische Etymologic) ; Diez (Grammatik) ;
Diez (Lexicon Etymologicum) ; Eritsch.

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 Sprach^vissenschaft.

Diez' Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen.

Max MiiUer's Survey of Languages.

In Germany by far the greatest attention has been
paid from spontaneous impulse, to the claims of com-

260 HISTOllY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY,

parative philology; while in Russia the Governmem
has as far exceeded all other governments, in its patron-
age 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 gov-
ernment 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 prolifici of all single cities
in the world, in oriental publications. In Erance,
Prussia and Denmark also, much more zeal is shown
in this captivating class of studies, than in either Eng-
land 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 pliilology, immediately before
the dawn of comparative Indo-European philology,
demands their distinct remembrance here ; and all the
more, as some of their foUoAvers 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 Ger-
many, 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 scholar-
ship, 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. Doderlein, one of the best repre-
sentatives in Germany of the remnants of this school,
still lives to look around him, Avith 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 him, while he walked majestically

262 HISTORY or 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. He has indeed fm-nished 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 con-
stantly bends whatever is opposed to his views in the
Greek, by force, into his service. But sm'ely and
steadily the false light of a separate classical philology
is fast waning away, under the brighter light of com-
parative 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 taiTy 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 or MODERN PHILOLOGY. 263

In its philosophical aspects, comparative philology
bears a most commanding mien. Its generalizations,
Uke 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, Sla-
vonic, Gothic and Celtic ; while the secondary are the
more recent languages derived from them, and usu-
ally with many admixtures. Constant commingling,
and thereby constant renovation, is the law of Provi-
dence, 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 pano-
rama, in word-scenery, of the winding stream of a
nation's history. The established limitations to the
working of any contrary law are remarkable. Com-
merce 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 Romanic 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 aU
languages, it is yet small. The languages of the civil-
ized 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 phi-
lology 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 re-
search 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, de-
lighting 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 antiq-
uities and curiosities. Here 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 gener-
ations 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 char-
acter, 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; but under the action of time its elements
rapidly harden into fixed forms : retaining the impress
of every thing stamped upon them, as, in the clear light
of geology, we still find treasured in the rock forever
the footprints of birds that walked centuries ago, on the
yielding sands of the ancient world, and even the patter
of rain-drops that poured their benediction upon the
earth before man was here to receive it. In language,
as in pure amber, the ideas, hopes, mistakes, experi-
ences, follies, joys and sorrows of preceding generations
are preserved, in clear, transparent beauty, for our
constant appreciation and enlightenment. The study
of language rises, under the light of true philology, like
all high philosophy, into the very charms of poetry.

2d. To resolve many supposed grammatical ir-
regularities, in different languages, into really regular
forms.

Thus, for example, we learn that in Latin, the per-
fect tense has normally four different modes of forma-
tion, as 1st. By reduplication, which we find (1) in the
first conjugation, as in steti and dedi, from sto and do ;
(2) in the second, as in momordi and spopondi, from
mordeo and spondeo ; (3) in the third, as in cecidi and
tetendi, from cado and tendo ; and each of these verbs
is entirely regular in the formation of its perfect, as
much as Ivco or yQcccfco in their perfects laXvxa and

HISTORY or MODERN PHILOLOGY. 267

y'syQacfcc. 2d. By the addition of s, as in the Greek
aoi'ist, active and middle : the Latin perfect being in its
use an aorist as well as a perfect. The perfect in s we
find (1) in the second conjugation, as in arsi, auxi,
haesi and risi, from ardeo, augeo, haereo and rideo ;
(2) in the third, as in scripsi and rexi, from scribo and
rego; (3) in the fourth, as in hausi, sanxi, sensi, vinxi,
from haurio, sancio, sentio, vincio ; and these are all
equally regular, although in our manuals of grammar
all called irregular. 3d. By the aid of the auxiliary
verb fui, sometimes hardened into vi, and sometimes
softened into ui. Thus, (1) amavi is for amafui : the
stem of amare being ama and not am, as erroneously
stated in all school-manuals ; (2) so monui is for mone-
fui, (3) In the third conjugation we find this same
auxiliary perfect, as in cupivi, lacessivi, petivi, quaesivi,
trjvi, from cupio, lacesso, peto, quaero, (for quaeso,)
and tero. (4) In the fourth conjugation this is the
prevailing form of the perfect, so that the mode of
forming the perfect by the aid of auxiliaries, is not, as
sometimes stated, a mere modern system of conjuga-
tion. In each, also, of the several conjugations, this
style of perfect is as regular as in every other j and the
perfect of petivi, from petere, is as normal as amavi
from amare. 4th. By contracted forms of the pre-
ceding styles of the perfect : as (I) of reduplicated per-
fects in egi for e-agi, feci for fe-fici, veni for ve-veni,
fugi for fufugi, legi for lelegi : (2) of perfects in s, as fidi

268 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

(pert', of fmdo) for iidsi, and scidi (perf. of sciiido) for
scidsi. Here, indeed, we have irregularities, but of a
very simple, intelligible kind. And so in Greek the
analysis of forms in ao is beautiful, as an euphonic sym-
bol for yi, y.L, /i, TL in various forms : as ruoaco for
TuyiG), /^ccQiiOOa ioiv /jiQitvnu and rjaocov for rjxiMv.

In a similar way supposed exceptions and irregu-
larities in prosody are at once eclaircized by compara-
tive etymology, as regular in fact although not in ap-
pearance.

3d. To show us that, of all the perishable things
of this world, language is the least perishable. Here
is a monument of national life, that not only outlives the
nation itself, but also all its structures of art or enter-
prise. A language may be put to new uses and be
borne to new climes; it may encounter, again and
again, the shock of opposing arms, amid the terrors of
invasion or of conquest ; it may be beaten and bruised
by the changes of time ; and yet, while its surface is
thus broken and worn, like that of a rock which fell
ages ago from the bosom of some cliff into the arms of
old Ocean, and Avhich he has been ever since tossing
about as a plaything, its substance itself remains un-
changed. Its texture and color and hardness gtill indi-
cate its first parentage and place.

4th. To show us, that the great law of analogy,
pervading the whole outward creation, prevails also
throughout the department of language : the law of

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 269

perpetual unity in perpetual variety. All true ideas of
perfection of form and of detail terminate in the con-
ception of a grand unity. God himself may be defined
as Infinite Fulness of all things great and good re-
alized and impersonated in one, grand, glorious Being.

5th. To show us that each language, while specially
endowed for its own wants and uses, has yet the divine
stamp upon it of general utility, and of a large adapta-
tion to relations and harmonies and benefits beyond
itself.

Comparative philology combines all the languages,
which it resolves, into a grand mutually-sustained har-
mony of dependence and service one to the other. It
represents them, not, as each a separate musician play-
ing among others a diff"erent melody in horrible dis-
cord ; but rather, as standing up together like a band
of brothers in full orchestra, with their difi'erent instru-
ments, to join their notes together in one loud-swellhig
universal chorus.

6th. To pour new light on the history of nations.
The migrations of nations into different zones and into
scenes of a different aspect and influence, from time to
time, have their history fully written, in their stature,
figure, features and whole physical conformation : as
every tree contains, in the shape of its boughs and
stems and in the amount of its flowers and fruits, a
record of every breath of wind, and of every drop of
rain, and of every beam of light that ever have visited

270 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

it. Our dull, coarse eyesight, wliicli receives only the
outermost disclosure that things around us make of
themselves, is not able to traverse this multiform record
of the past, in any thing ; but yet every thing contains
it. Each present object vv^ithin our view, is the pro-
duct of millions on millions of minute agencies, ever
active in the past, interlacing each other with their in-
fluence, changing constantly from one form into another,
and terminating in their present use and value, in the
transient demonstration of themselves that they make
at each moment to their casual beholder.

In the languages of the world, however, all its
changes, even those too slight for the pen of history to
sketch or its eye to see, are stamped, according to their
precise value, beyond the danger of erasure. Time it-
self rolls the wheel of centuries, no matter hoAV heavily,
over the faithful record, but in vain. The history of
each civilized nation has been often written and will be
often written again ; and so rapid is the progress of
modern society, that each generation demands a new
history for itself of all the leading nations of the world.
So great have been the improvements made from time
to time, that the model histories of preceding genera-
tions have come to be quite antiquated and to be valued
now, rather for the special style of the philosophic or
religious views expressed in them, or the high rhetorical
beauty of their composition, than for their adequate
representation of the people themselves whom they de-

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, 271

scribe. Historic writing indeed has evinced as nmcli
growth, diuing the preceding century and the present
ahke, not only in pubhc interest but also in its own
triumphs of research and discovery, as any other de-
partment of human genius.

Ethnography cannot be written truly, except in the
light of thorough philological inquiry. Much of our
supposed knowledge of the earlier nations of the world
and of the changes that passed over them, has been le-
gendary : derived it is true from ancient sources, but
of no better value for that reason than title-deeds
wdiich, although they have come down through a suc-
cession of men acting honestly in their transmission,
were yet themselves at the outset invalid and worthless.
A chain that has one imperfect link in it, is no stronger
throughout than in the spot of its greatest weakness.

And, as the history of Nineveh has recently been
disentombed out of the mounds of earth that had before
concealed it from the eyes of the world, and the history
of Egypt has been first opened in our day, with any ful-
ness, from the records hidden within its own monu-
ments ; so, in the hitherto unexplored crypts and
recesses of different languages, lie entombed the memo-
rials of the w^orld's slow marches and solemn changes;
and, as the philologist has the high office of interpret-
ing the voice of God, in the Holy Scriptures, to the
world, so, is it his grand function to interpret man to
himself, and to unroll at his feet the scroll of the past

272 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

as it has actually been rolled up together in the gradual
development of human life and action.

Philology supplies also to some extent the want of
ante-historic records, and that too often with quite pic-
torial effect. Who would not delight to look within
that shadowy dawn of humanity, on which no light
from the hand of man has ever fallen, and to know well
our race, in all the noAV unknown steps of its progress.
But the first life both outw^ardly and inw^ardly of our
original Arian ancestors, is painted to us clearly in
word-colors* still fresh and strong of every varied hue.

* There is in Weber's Indische Skizzen a brief but lively picture,
of the earliest unwritten history of the Indo-European family : drawn
out of their words themselves, like the pictures made by geologists
from the fossil records of the earth, of the flora and fauna of the world
before man entered upon it. " Let us try he says ^pp. 9 — 10), to present
in a few touches a sketch of that primitive period. The common
prevalence of most of the words for relationship, shows that f;imily-life
among our first ancestors, had a very definite position. The same ex-
pressions reappear, not only in reference to parents and children and
brothers and sisters, but also to relatives in law as well as those by
blood, in almost all the Indo-European tongues. The etymology of
roots still living in the Sanskrit, teaches us that father, means a pro-
tector ; mother, one who sets in order ; brother a helper ; sister the
careful one ; and daughter one who milks : in which we sec the most
simple patriarchal relations indicated. The prevailing use of domestic
animals is shown, by the common names of the cow (the slow-march-
ing) of the ox (the producing one) of the bvill, the goat the sheep the
sow (the prolific) the horse, &c. The dog (the swift) defended the
herds : the wolf (tearing to pieces) and the bear (shining, from his fur)
w(!re their terror. Tiie mouse (the thief) stole their provisions ; the
horse-fly buzzed about, the gnat stung, the snake crept. Goose, duck,
dove, woodpecker, cuckoo, finch, chattered and sang, and the cock
crowed. The light hare sprang before them, and the boar rooted in the

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 273

Their deepest thonglits and experiences lie spread out
before us, in the inner sense of their speech, as in a
full bright landscape. It is surely pleasant, to be able
to look back in any way, and see them distinctly in the
distant, dark, historic solitude of their first experiences
of life, and find that they had the same human hearts

dirt. The house was firm, provided with doors. Wagons and boats
served for their passage over fields and floods. The fields were tilled
with the plough : barley and wheat furnished them meal and bread.
Clothes, utensils and arms they had in abundance. Sword, spear, knife
and arrow were all of brass. Intoxicating mead led the way to merry
song, while large shells and reeds served for music. Conflict was a
pleasure, and the sense of race was so strong that the word barbarian
(stammering) was used indeed in that primeval time, to indicate other
people of foreign speech. A subdued enemy was a slave. At the head
of the many stood a ruler, defender or master, the leader in battle and
the judge in peace. The country was mountainous and abounded
in water. The forest furnished refreshing coolness: the oak was
its principal ornament. The winter seems to have been severe;
besides its name returns now still, that of the spring (clothing again).
The sun was worshipped as the principle of life and praises were sung
to the shining dawn of day : the moon served as the measure of time.
The stars were regarded as ray -archers. The great bear whose Greek
name apKTos pi-operly signifies only " the shining one " shone forth
conspicuously among them. Thunder, lightning, storm, rain, cloud and
wind sent terror and fear into the timid heart. The all-embracing
Heaven whose Greek name ovpavos reappears in the Vedic Varuna, was
regarded as the father of all and the earth as the universal mother.
The dark cloud-god, who plundered in his ravines the golden flock of
the stars and sunbeams and the fertilizing rains of Heaven, was pros-
trated by the arrows of the god of lightning : his bands were torn in
pieces and the plundered herd were set free. The mighty incompre-
hensible powers of Natui-e awakened in man, the sense of his weakness ;
and he bowed liis head in recognition of the same, offered to them his
sacrifices and his songs, and represented them to himself in gracious or
in dire terrific forms, as he clothed them in his fancy with the physical

274 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY.

that we have, with the same joys and fears and sorrows
as our own. Thanks to Philology, for the clear tele-
scopic view which it furnishes us, of the otherwise un-
sketched and invisible space, that stretches huge and
dark beyond the misty outline of the first historic eras
of our race.

aspects, that environed him. To this dawn of Time belong the repre-
sentations also of a Manu, the first man and father, and of a great flood
which devastated and devoured every thing, and from which he alone
was saved. Both of these traditions we find also among the Semitic
family; and they are to be regarded, among other lingual facts, as
proof that the Semitic and Indo-European families were at a still
earlier period united in one, from which state they afterwards sepa-
rated, before however the two common languages had arrived at any
grammatical precision of form."

III.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

III.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

The very caption of this Article will astonish some and
amuse others, who have been in the habit of regarding
etymology as a mere mass of vagaries. That it has
any such scope as to deserve the dignified name of a
science, or any such interior frame-work of principles
as to possess its essential nature, is quite beyond the
general estimate of its character. In this country,
indeed, and in England as also in Prance and every-
where but in Germany, both vernacular and classical
etymology are in the same rude, unmethodized state of
first and partial discovery, in which chemistry and
geology existed half a centuiy ago. What facts are
seen and appreciated appear to most even of their
admirers, but as isolated novelties and wonders, and
have none of the charm or power of a splendid combi-
nation, of comprehensive and complicated afiinities and
relations.

Our modern languages are all derived from those
of elder ages ; and these are found when subjected to

278 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

thorough analysis, to have been derived, in their turn,
from those anterior to them ; while on a wide and
critical survey, all the tongues of the civilized world
appear full of multitudinous correspondences and con-
nections.

The object of this Essay will be realized, if the
following topics connected with the science of etymol-
ogy, are presented in sufficient outline :

I. The general proportions and relations of the subject.
II. The history of classical and vernacular etymology.

III. The constituent elements of etymology as a science.

IV. Its determinative princiiDles and tests.

V. Some of the advantages of the study of this science.

I. The general proportions and relations of the
subject.

It has been often said, and truly, that the study of
the Latin has a value in it in its mere relations to our
language, sufficient to authorize for this reason without
reference to many others also, the most zealous attention
to its claims. But how can any deep scholarly insight
into its relations to the English be gained, except in
the light of a broad and complete classical etymology,
which shall present the Latin truly in all its manifold
connections, not only with succeeding languages, but
also with those which were antecedent and contempo-
rary ? This ancient language must be seen in order to
be rightly seen, wliile clothed in its own armor and
bearing its own banners, not only leading other Ian-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 279

guages majestically in its train but also moving in
solemn and sublime raarcli along the highway of ages,
with the great peoples and languages that anticipated
and accompanied its glory and its doom. On account
of the artistic treasures of the Greek language, and the
fine, sesthetical influence of its higher literature upon
those elect spirits who walk familiarly amid its Alpine
wonders : an influence of which most American students
of Greek, who are but dabblers in this tongue of the
giants, have only heard by tradition, having never had
a sensation of it themselves : it has come to be quite
fashionable in the scholastic world, to speak of that
noble language in terms quite disparaging, at the same
time, to the Latin. And our classical students gener-
ally have fallen, under the influence of this sort of per-
petuated pedantry, into an almost universal habit of
placing the Latin in contemptuous contrast with the
Greek. Pew see even that it has any large connection
with the Greek ; and few of those who have grasped
that great fact comprehend, from the want of a wide
philological view of the three classical languages in their
mutual relations, the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, what
that connection is. But while its correspondences with
the Greek cover a vast array of details, and many of
them when disclosed become immediately apparent to
the eye, many more become delightfully clear to one,
who, by applying the chemic tests of phonology, knows
how to reduce at once both simple and comparative

280 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

forms to their original analytical elements. The Latin
and the Greek are cognate languages, being of one
common Pelasgic or Grseco-Latin origin, and as such
greatly illustrative of each other ; while, placed together
like associated mirrors, they reflect with strange exact-
ness and fulness of effect the earlier Sanskrit, which is
itself also a derived language, exhibiting not at all the
ultimate origin of our present languages, but rather the
farthest link backwards yet discovered in the chain of
ascending relations and affinities. That chain of suc-
cessive origination and derivation of all known languages
runs backward from the centuries and countries of
modem times, through one language and people after
another more and more perfect in its texture as it rises,
until it ends ultimately in that lost mother-tongue
which Adam spoke in Eden ; and which, as a matter
of moral evidence, it is absolutely certain that he
learned directly from God himself, since each man and
generation succeeding him has learned to speak only
from those who have preceded them. As in the
material world man creates nothing, and only moulds
and transforms substances and shapes abeady at hand,
so, in the world of language he only re-casts and trans-
mutes the materials furnished liim by an earlier age.
The same race bearing off the same original elements
of speech in divided companies into different climates,
amid diversified scenes and skies and modes of life,
will as certainly change and conform them, though in-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 281

sensibly, to the new atmospheres of their new hfe each
for itself ; as that same race, departing into different
zones, will erelong take on in each a different com-
plexion, stature, and physiognomy, choose different
food, employments, and dress, and adopt also different
dwellings, institutions, and customs.*

Nothing is found in the realms of speech any more
than in those of nature, " without father or mother."
Here, as everywhere else, the maxim is true, " ex
nihilo nihil fit." The languages, therefore, of the
world, like the men who have spoken them, have all
been bound together by a regular series of sequences,
running link by link in luminous beauty from any and
every language now spoken upon earth, to the first
language in which listening angels heard Adam and
Eve discourse to each other ; and from that back to
God himself, the great All-in-all, from whose own gii'dle
the golden chain of human speech divine was dropped
lovingly down to man, in order to bind him to hnnself
and all nations in heavenly sympathy with each other.

As for the Latin, whose connection with the Greek
and Sanskrit has thus suggested and required the
farther and wider statement of the connection of all
languages with each other, it has excellences and

* In Prichard's Natural History of Man, the curious reader will be
interested to trace the different aspects and characteristics of the Jews,
in different parts of the world, and even of Hinddstan alone, although
everywhere living, in vaunted seclusion of blood from other people, as
to their figure, countenance, color and whole physique.

283 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

advantages of its own ; which, while they set the seal
of its peculiar individuality upon it, demonstrate its
capability to supply the varied wants of human speech
to be broad and deep. It will be the quick, decided
testimony of any one who has studied it for many
years, having surveyed its dimensions on every side,
having sounded all its depths and scaled its various
heights, and scanned alike its inward treasures and its
outward relations, that in respect to the history of its
influence as much as to that of its origin, and in respect
to its own iron-like stability and the stability, force and
dignity which it has imparted to the different languages
into whose bosom it has poured the current of its own
living strength, it is full of wonders. Not only is no
one study in the whole current of educational appli-
ances equal to it, for all the purposes of mental and
scholastic drill ; but also, as a matter of actual fact, the
great mass of all the linguistic culture, and of all the
many rich results of the higher classical education of
the whole civilized world, has been obtained from this
source, in all ages. The Latin is thus distinctly dwelt
upon at the outset and at length, because its position
in the science of etymology is very high and altogether
peculiar. And it is one of the first duties as well as
one of the first instincts of an amateur of classical or
vernacular etymology, to vindicate the Latin from the
false ideas and estimates that prevail without thought
concerning it in the community. The Latin is central

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 283

in its position and bearings, between the first known
languages and those now existing. In it they find
their mutual bond of connection. No language upon
earth has in it so much of what is old, at the same
time with so much of what is new. But for the Latin
and the Greek, the Sanskrit, that wonderful fossil lan-
guage in whose extinct remains we find the types of all
the subsequent Indo-European languages, would be
well nigh devoid of interest to us ; and but for the
Latin, the modern languages would, all at least but the
Gothic branch and that much more largely than most
suppose, be tangled etymologically in a web of inextri-
cable confusion. As, on Acro-Corinthus the classical
scholar might stand and look down with swimming
eyes upon the Saronic gulf to the eastward, wdiere
Athens still glitters in her beauty, and upon the
Corinthian gulf to the westward, and see beyond its
waters Parnassus, sacred to the Muses, with its snow-
white crown, having the fountain of Castalia in its
bosom and the oracle of Delphi at its feet : so, standing
on the heights of the Latin language, as on a tall isth-
mus rising between two oceans, the far-off Past and the
Present, we can look before us and see the waves of the
elder ages as they bear on their bosom the wonders of
India, Persia, and Greece, roll and break at our feet ;
or, turn and behold behind us the vast expanse of the
future covered with the riches of all nations, retiring in
the far-off horizon from the view, until sky and sea

284 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY,

mingling together conceal it in their own indistinguish-
able confusion. Here is the high, true position for a
complete survey of the facts of comparative etymology.
From it, with a clear glass, the indistinct and mysterious
forms of words are resolved in every direction into well-
defined elements of vision. And as mountain ranges
are precipitous on one side, while on the other, like
weary camels, they couch down gradually into the vales
below, so the farther side of the Latin, its archaic
Sanskrit side, presents a bold, sharp outline from its
summit to its base ; while its hither Romanic side sub-
sides in every variety of slope and sweep and angle and
curve so gently into the modern languages of our
times, that it is almost hard to say where it ceases to
be Latin and where it begins to be something else.

But in no language is the area of etymological re-
search so wide, and covered with such untold riches, as
in our own language. He who would gather up the
treasures of English etymology must make his garners
large; for the harvest spreads over many fields and
many centuries. Not only our own indigenous growths
are in it, but exotics also from every clime and eveiy
age in measureless abundance. As in no nation there
has been such a commingling of all affinities of blood,
so also in no language has there been such a mixture
of all etymologies as in the English ; and as under the
power of ancient Rome all nations soon became Avoven
into one common web with her, of fortune and of fate.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 285

SO, under the absorbing and assimilating energies of the
Enghsh mind and tongue, the wealth of thought and
of speech contributed by all nations has been incorpo-
rated into the greatness of our mother-tongue. The
sentiments, experiences and utterances of every age and
of every zone, belonging to the whole wide circumfer-
ence of the earth and to the whole mountain-range of
human development, from the lowest to the highest
point, are in it and in the very forms in which, at the
time, they burst spontaneously into view. Into the
English, as into the bosom of a great central sea, all
the streams of the past and present have poured and
are still pouring their varied contents.

" Every language," says Richter, " is a dictionary
of faded metaphors." Our languages in their present
state, as known to the inner consciousness of those who
use them, are but herbariums in which lie pressed and
preserved, but unappreciated, the dry forms of words
that once were green with life and beauty, and as now
handled are but the relics of their former selves. As
used by the ancients, to whom they were vernacidar,
the dead languages : as with very ironical propriety
they are often called by those who thus speak of them,
since in all their inner beauties as well as in all their
outward scientific relations, they are so opaque and
dead to them : were full, in whatever light they saw
them, of ever-changing, opaline brilliancy. " Apples
of gold in pictm-es of silver" were those dear old

286 THE SCIENCE OP ETYMOLOGY.

"words fitly spoken," to their interior sense; yea
rather gems which had been dropped to their con-
sciousness from a mother's hand into theirs, and which
seemed in their very brightness to reflect forever that
mother's smile. And to the student now who compre-
hends the power of words, to whom they are transpa-
rent, revealing all their inmost essence to his linger-
ing gaze, their lost light returns again, and language
is evermore living and lovely. Each lettered page is to
him a mass of shining wonders, a tree of Eden, loaded
with blossoms clustering upon blossoms, on boughs
bending and Avaving with the precious weight. Lan-
guage is to his eye one vast redundant flora, fuU of
the glitter of leaves, the scent of flowers, and the lus-
ciousness of celestial fruitage.

Each language, but most of all for our benefit our
own language and those great languages, the Greek and
Latin, with which it is so intimately connected, need
to be elaborated, and to have all their inward treasures
brought forth into clear view : in order that language, as
such, the greatest of all the arts of life, may be truly
comprehended by each succeeding generation of edu-
cated men, and employed by them according to all its
deep, real capabilities, in the divine contact of mind
with mind, and the still diviner labor of mind for mind.
As the body is the temple of the soul and should be full,
as it is, of strange adaptations to the wonderful sensi-
bilities and energies of its innnortal inhabitant ; so, Ian-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 287

guage is the temple of tliouglit and love, the only exer-
cises that ally earth to heaven, and man to God, and is
full of all beauteous adaptations and uses which deserve
to be searched and seen, as the divinely-constructed
organ of communication between finite minds on the
one hand, and also between mankind and the God that
made them, on the other,

11. The history of classical and vernacular ety-
mology.

This fully rendered, would involve a complete his-
tory of classical and comparative philology. But as the
details of such a history have a special character of
their own, and are presented in the preceding essay, it
will be sufficient here to sketch its general philosophical
outline. There have been three different stao-es in its
development :

1. That of its popular empirical treatment,

2. That of its literary empirical treatment,

3. That of its true scientific treatment, under the
exact laws of modern philology.

The etymological instinct is very common in all
nations, among the thinking classes. It is as natural
and pleasant for those who reason at all, to think about
the origin and connection of words, as about relation
and dependence, antecedents and consequents, cause
and effect, in any other direction. There is full scope
here for the play of all those faculties that demand ad-
venture and enjoy invention. The ancients were quite

288 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

addicted to this popular, random style of etymologizing,
as is manifest in mucli of their mythology, their early
traditionary history,* and their poetical legends. Ety-
mology in this period of its development leads of course
but a vagrant life, and neither receives nor deserves

* Thus the names Romulus and Remus from piifirj strength, (Cf.
Roma) and Numa from vofj-os, law, are but beautiful etymological
hieroglyphs, in legendary not exact historj% of the first reign of
physical force in Rome, and of the subsequent establishment of law and
order, among the people. So also the story of the she-wolf suckling
Romulus and Remus, from the name of the nurse Lupa ; that of the
low origin of Servius Tullius, from the resemblance of Servius to Servus ;
that of Brutus (brutus, stupid), reserving himself under a mask of
pretended idiocy, for the crisis that was to come ; that of iMutius
Scaevola (from scaevus, left-handed), calmly burning off his right hand
before Porsena, and that of Valerius Corvus, on whose helmet a crow
lighted, and, flying in the fiice of the opposing Gaul, made him an easy
prey to his sword, from corvus. a crow, with other stories like them
originated merely in an etymological wa3^ So also the conception of
the one-eyed Cyclops, hideous and huge (from kvk\(o, in a circle, and
&^, the ej'e), was born in the brain of some ancient etymologist, as was
that of the Harpies (fem. pi. of afjuvms, and moaning lit. the seizors), a
name used originally to describe violent winds, blowing off the coast
of the Ionian Sea, as their names also show, Podarge (swift-footed),
Aello (whirler) and Ocypete (flying rapidly), daughters of Thaumas
(wonder) and Electra (the lightning) ; and the details of the Greek
theogon}^ were of the same source, as of Uranus, Ge, Chronus, the
Titans, &c. One of the best examples in modern times of this etymo-
logical way of writing history, that yet never actually transpired, occurs
in those writers, and there are several of them, who have from Richard's
title, Coeur de Lion, invented a story that he really slew a lion in
single combat and so recorded a fable of their own devising, as a veri-
table reality. '• The name." says Buckle (Hist. Civilization, England,
vol. i. p. 218), '• gave rise to the storj^ ; the story confirmed the name ;
and another fiction was added to that long series of falsehoods, of which
history mainly consisted during the Jliddle Ages."

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 289

much respect. It may be found in this form now in
many a rural district, making its home at the house of
the town-wit, the country-doctor or the village-peda-
gogue.* Nothing is aimed at in this style of etymolo-
gizing beyond the excitement of others' curiosity, or the
show of a little learning or of a little wit ; and it is
subjectively but the indulgence of some momentary,
frivolous or selfish impulse, out of which nothing great
or good was ever born ; while, objectively, it has no
basis for its support, but mere shadowy empirical coinci-
dences.

* In such a brain etymologies like the following will be spon-
taneously born, and held in high honor as its own children : catch
from cat, ravenous from raven, rat from rapto, fudge from fiigio.
So' similarly such empirics would be sure that Jove comes from Je-
hovah ; German from germanus ; dine (Fr. diner, Lat. dc-coenare) from
Seinveiv ; cover (Fr. couvrir, Lat. cooperire)from the Hebrew -isa kaphar ;
and in German auge, the eye, from Gr. aiyrj, a word certainly very
much like it by accident. The argument for each and all of these
cases is one and the same, and it is this : why not ? In some cases sup-
posed etymologies have sufficed to alter the spelling of words, as in
the word surname (supra-nomen, so called because originally written
directly over the Christian name) which has been altered by many to
sir-name ; and so postumous (Lat. postumus) has been altered by a
false theory to posthumous (as if derived from post-|-humus). In the
phrases "you had better;" '• you had rather," instances of the same
sort occur, involving even a grammatical absurdity. The original
forms " you would better " or " would rather " became shortened in
common parlance into you'd better, or you'd rather, and then v/ere
afterwards, it seems, drawn out, by a foolish and utterly uugram-
matical analysis of the contracted form into " had rather " and " had
better ; " which nearly every even educated man now says, in careful
composition as well as in conversation, although this intrusive verb
" had " can by no possibility be parsed by any one.

290 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

In the second phase of its existence, that of hter-
ary empiricism, its nature is no higher than in the
first, but only its position. It no longer wanders
about unwritten from mouth to mouth, but has a fixed
habitation upon the lettered page. It has -passed witli
favor or indulgence the ordeal of deliberate scrutiny,
and been exalted on account of its supposed worthiness
to an intended seat of high and permanent honor.
Such etymologies, lexicographers and others glean some-
times with great care from standard authors ; but they
are all empirical in their own nature, and worthless.
Science has foundations of its own Avhich are divine, and
its character can neither be made nor unmade by those
who describe it. Truth is still truth, however it is
overlooked, and error cannot be sanctified by being ex-
alted into a high position, or by being worshipped by
a crowd of false admirers. In this meagre, false, em-
jDirical state, classical etymology has wholly existed un-
til of late, and in fact exists almost wholly now. Mere
orthographical or orthoepical resemblances suffice among
empirics, to introduce, without farther philological in-
quiry, any word into their magic circle of approved
guesses and fancies. A radical difference of meaning
in the case is as readily disposed of by them, as was
any antithesis of fact and theor}'' by the ancient
philosophers ; since they are utterly ignorant of that
elementary doctrine of all true philology, that every
word has a fundamental theme or base which deter-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 291

mines absolutely its personal identity ; and since like
phrenologists they have a system of ideas, every one of
which has a double polarity in it, by which it can he
accommodated to any position or motion desired. The
celebrated etymology of " lucus," a grove, " a ?io7i lu-
cendo," from its not having any light, illustrates the
ease with which such minds can weave positive and nega-
tive ideas together, into the meshes of their theories.
The first step taken in classical etymology was of
this simple empirical kind. The second step forward
in Latin etymology was taken so feebly, as to be rather
the manifestation of a desire for progression, though in
quite blind unconsciousness where or how to make it :
that of introducing on a very hmited scale some simple
Greek correspondences, and in a very cautious manner
and one not involving any idea of their mutual relation.
From this advance was realized only the slender ad-
vantage of informing such minds, as had not before ob-
served the wide and wonderful plexus of unities and
analogies covering both languages, that they had had
at some time a blended life ' and a strong, mutually
penetrative influence on each other. The third step was
one entirely false in its whole theory, and in all the re-
sults achieved under it : that of deriving the Latin im-
mediately from the Greek. This was the prevailing
conception of the relation of the two languages at the
beginning of this century, among the best scholars."

* Ludwig Ross, an extensive traveller in Greece and Asia Minor,

292 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

As for lexicography it is in our best Latin, Greek,
and English dictionaries, far behind the present advanced
state of philology. The etymologies to be found, at
this moment, in the leading classical dictionaries- of this

but a far better observer of men than student of words, has undertaken
in a formal treatise entitled, " Italiker und Graken. Sprachen die Rcimer
Sanskrit oder Griechisch," not only to revive the idea of the direct
Greek origin of the Latin, but also to establish it as a fixed fact, upon
an adequate scientific basis. He exhibits a large number, and this is
all, of real correspondences between the two languages, which every San-
skrit philologer is equally eager to make good. Any amount of such
resemblances does not however exclude an equal number, of even
higher value (because so much more remote and, previously, so unan-
ticipated) in the Sanskrit. Many that he quotes as existing between
the Greek and Latin are ridiculous enough, as bellum and noXfuoi :
multus and ttoXvs : frons and (jip^jv : pars and fiepos : vates and ndin-is :
virago and virgo with fxelpa^ : juvenis and dioyevqs-: litera and bicjidepa:
famulus and daXapos : finis and dls: verto and Tpenoi : altus and alnvs :
bonus and evs : pulcher and ptXixpos : caedo and Trai'w : quatio and
KOTTTco : Kpt((x} and rideo.

His chief outlay of feeling against the modern school of philologists,
is directed against Mommsen, whom he represents as '• almost the
Oracle of the younger community (in Germany) whose crowned
opinions are adopted, though unsubstantiated and undemonstrated, by
thousands." He takes indeed his own key-note, from one of ^lommsen's
statements to this effect, that " the old opinion, that the Latin is but a
mixed language composed of Greek and un-Greek elements, is now
abandoned on all sides ; and that, while some still regard it as a mix-
ture of two nearly allied Italian dialects, one must needs ask in vain,
for any philological or historical necessity for such a supposition." But
he complains, " that so profound a philosopher, on the later political and
juridical relations and circumstances of the Romans and their later lan-
guage and literature, should have treated in a way of such unworthy
trifling the ethnographic relations of the Latins and of the people of
Middle and Southern Italy, as shows that he did not consider it worth
the while, to make any earnest investigations on the subject." His

niE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 293

country, are almost wholly those which are self-evident ;
while the small remainder is composed of mere guesses,
derived from no philosophical principles, and suggesting
none. Beyond this narrow range of etymological simpli-
cities and novelties, the rest of the language stretches out
before the lexicographer's eye, and under his influence be-
fore that of the student also, as a broad waste of unknown
land. A true map, indeed, of the present state of classical
etymology, as presented in our best dictionaries, would
be as comical to one at all acquainted with Indo-Eu-
ropean philology, as a Chinese map of the world to one
versed in geography. It would be a map of every
thing as it is not, and of nothing as it is. Preund
represents the best development of Latin lexicography
hitherto accessible to American scholars : Passow, as
improved by Host and others, that of Greek ; and Web-
ster, that of English. These all performed great labors
and achieved great results ; and their names will ever
stand high on the list of man's benefactors. But on
none of them had the splendid orb of modern philology
risen in its strength. It was in 1833 that Bopp began
to pubKsh that great work, his Comparative Grammar,
which in the department of language like Bacon's
Novum Organon in that of physical science, lighted the

own position is that " over all Middle and Southern Italy only one
great family-tongue prevailed, the Greek ; and that Latins and Vol-
seians, Sabines and Oscans, Messapians and lapygians spoke only de-
generate Greek, and that even in the Tuscan there are, at all events,
Greek admixtures.
20

294 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

world on the way to a new era. And yet Preund,
whose eyes actually beheld the rising dawn of compara-
tive philology, the only one of the three lexicographers
mentioned whose feet stood consciously upon the mar-
gin of the new order of linguistic researches and re-
sults, was in the midst of his long labors, at this very
time, and, in January, 1834, wrote in his preface the
following words : " The question of the origin of the
Latin language is beginning to be far more involved
than many are willing to believe. Germanism is op-
posing the Sanskrit with powerful weapons, and urges
its claims to be the origin of Latin. The author there-
fore feels that he would be called overhasty, if he al-
lowed the Sanskrit or the German element to have the
predominance in his work." In the light of the present
hour, how strange even to ridiculousness seems this
language. It is by such strong high waymarks stand-
ing up in the past, that we can best realize how great
progress has been made during the last quarter of a
century, as in every thing else so also in the elements
and processes of classical study. To dress, now, Latin
lexicography in the etymology of Ereund's day, when
such a man as he thought that it was quite as likely as
not that the Latin was but a child of the German that
had been lost in other days, but was now found again,
would be like undertaking to parade a full-grown man
of our times, in the clothes of some petty underling that
lived half a century ago. Our lexical Latin etymology

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 295

wears, therefore, to one whose eye is open to the charms
and claims of Indo-European philology, the most
grotesque Lilliputian dimensions : casting the reproach
of its dwarfishness and deformity upon the whole as-
pect of the lexicography into which it is intnxluced.
In Prcund's day Doderlcin's star was in the ascendant,
in etymology, who published his " Lateinischc Syno-
nyme and Etymologieen" in 1826. He derived the
Latin immediately from the Greek, so far as he could
either find or devise any similarity between them. And
many and great were the tortuosities of his inventive
genius in working its way through such a labyrinthine
experiment. The Latin and the Greek are twin sisters,
the Latin being the more antique in its features and
bearing of the two, and having in its form and face and
character much more resemblance to their elder sister,
the Sanskrit, and so to the common parent of them all,
than the Greek. Of what greater absurdity, therefore,
could an etymologist be guilty, than that of undertaking
to represent the Latin as the daughter of the Greek,
its twin sister ? With nmch labor in so false a direc-
tion, Doderlein has succeeded in building up, in his
various works, a vast pile of learned and ingenious but
false and worthless novelties and blunders ; a remark-
able specimen of a patient, vigorous, enthusiastic scholar,
industriously misspending all his days. There has been
great elaboration in the argument of his life, but it has
been developed, throughout, from entirely wrong prem-

296 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

ises. Through Freund's deference to his false views,
he has been permitted to perpetuate the Wight of his
errors, through this generation and perhaps through
another, upon the scholarship of other lands than his
own, where the light of better minds has sufficed to su-
persede forever the false glare of his philological mis-
conceptions. To Freund* we must give, however, the
credit of having uttered his deep sense of the want of
a true etymology. He says, that " a scientific exhibition
of the genealogy of words is needed, but hithei-to [1833]
has not been formed into a separate department of the
general science of language, as it ought to be. In time
there must and will, without doubt, be found a genealogy
of words, which shall take its place as a science by the side
of lexicography." But in the few correspondences of the
Latin with the Greek which Freund ventured to indi-
cate, how narrow was the prospect that he opened of
their really wide and wonderful relations ! And what
an utter w^ant of any system for its facts, and of any
solution for its difficulties. In this period of well-nigh
universal darkness in philology, but twenty-five years
ago, the field of classical etymology was a favorite

* While Freund is so deficient in all true etymological relations, he
is much to be commended for the simple, clear, critical and condensed
character of most of his researches and statements in other respects,
and yet his ideal was throughout above his attainments. His dis-
crimination of words as ante-classical, classical and post-classical, is
especially one of the highest benefits that could be conferred on young
composers in Latin.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 297

hunting ground for every sort of linguistic vagary, by
all kinds of scliolastic pretenders, who kept ever
doubling again and again upon their own tracks, and
ended all their toils only in making game of themselves
to every intelligent beholder. Many, like Doderlein,
derived the Latin from the Greek. Schwenck pub-
lished in 1827 an Etymological Latin Dictionary in
German, deriving the Latin from the Greek, for the
most part; but sometimes also from the German.
But, while its references to the Greek are somewhat
copious, they have no scientific basis and are all em-
pirical, and many of them far-fetched and false. Valpy
also published in English a Latin Etymological Dic-
tionary, in the same spirit and with the same faults as
Schwenck. " It will be said," he says, " that there are
numerous words which we cannot show to be taken
from the Greek. Doubtless it is so, although the num-
ber of such words is constantly decreasing." Eor
works based on such fundamentally wrong ideas, both
of these dictionaries possess much scholarly merit.

Others, like Jakel, in his " Germanische Ursprung
Der Lateinischen Sprache" (in 1830), undertook, like
one hunting for eggs among ashes, to find the origin of
the Latin in the old Gothic ; others still, like the great
Gesenius, connected it, very largely, with the Hebrew.
Nork, accordingly, prepared a Latin dictionary on this
basis ; and to one whose philological views are broad
enough to enable him to appreciate the real quality of

298 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

tlie book, it is full of all humorous elements. A brief
quotation will show, at once, his position. He says
[1827], " the relationship of the Hebrew with the
Greek and Latin cannot be denied, for the following
reasons, namely : because the Tuscans, like the Cartha-
ginians, claimed derivation from the inhabitants of
Tyre ; and also the Hebrews, the neighbors of the
Phoenicians, like the Greeks, had constructed their lan-
guage out of Egyptian elements, while the Egyptians
themselves, but colonists from Meroe, had been with
the Ethiopians emigrants from India ; and hence their
agreement in language, culture, and philosophy. Hence
it comes that almost all the names of the Greek and
Tuscan gods can be deciphered only through the
Hebrew (as Dido,* Hecate, Minerva, Venus, etc.).
But also other words in those languages have rewarded
the search for their origin, only when made in the
Hebrew, as ^aXxos, brass, from p'^n {chalalc) to divide ;
XQvoo;, gold, from 7"]n {charats),\ to dig out, a name
which, applying to every metal, came to be affixed, j^j^^r
excellence, to gold. So also the root of capio, to take,
is found in P]? {cajpli), the hand ; as of cupio, to desire,
in ri^^ (^guplt), the body, and hence desire," etc. AVhal
a mass of misstatements and misconceptions ! Is it
any wonder, that such a book never saw a second
edition, or that its author warned his readers to be

* Of what god is this the name ?
t Tliis verb means to cut into or on.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 299

careful not to belong to a class who had sworn to any
previous master ? On principles like these one might
derive any language from any other, and change the
order of their sequence one to the other, ad libitum,
forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards,
upside down and downside up, and still always pre-
serve, unimpaired, the same wonderful beauty of con-
nectiorf.

A new Latin Dictionary by Reinhold Klotz, Pro-
fessor of Classical Philology at Leipsic, has just appeared
(1858), which is in decided advance of Preund, in its
critical and historical aspects, and in range of research,
as well as in breadth and copiousness of details. In
respect also to etymologies lying within the specific
boundaries of the Latin language, that is, within the
department of classical philology, as technically discrim-
inated from the wider and richer field of comparative
philology, with which however its connections are, after
all, so vast and vital, he is also superior to Preund.
But alas ! the torch of Sanskrit discovery nowhere
scatters its light here, and the eager philological student
turns away, disappointed, from his pages. When will
the day arrive when in our Latin school- lexicons we
shall no more see the faces of Lobeck and Doderlein,
Wachter and Scaliger, or Pestus, Vossius and Varro,
sitting in state to teach us as authorities the native
origin and sense of Avords ; but when in their places
shall appear, in higher dignity and with purer light,

300 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

the forms of Bopp and Pott and Grimm, Schleicher,
Curtius, Aufrecht, Diefenbach, Ebel and Kuhn.

In Greek lexicography, Passow is of the greatest
merit in every thing, but that inner presence of the
true etymological element, which informs a dictionary
with so much of its higher light and beauty. He lived
and labored, as a lexicographer, earlier still than Preund ;
having published the first edition of his dictioTiary in
different parts, between the years 1818 and 1824.
The new edition of Passow by Rost and others was
begun tAventy years ago ; and, though much enlarged
and improved through this long course of years, was
begun and has been finished without the introduction
of that one savory element of philology, so necessary to
the new and improved taste of the modern scholar.
Pape's Greek lexicon, prepared more recently, comes
under the same condemnation, in reference to its supply
of any etymological stores for meeting the cravings of
those desiring more philological knowledge. Kalt-
schmidt's comparative and etymological Greek diction-
ary, published in 1839, is an approximation in both
spirit and form to what is wanted, but much beloAv in
quality. It is not, like the works of Grimm and Bopp
and Pott and the leaders in the new philology, vast and
profound, but is often fanciful and feeble, and therefore
very generally unreliable ; as unsatisfactory commonly
in its conclusions as Benfey, of whom, in tliis relation,
he constantly reminds an investio-ator ; who, while

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 301

being a fine Sanskrit scholar, is yet quite a visionary
and indifferent etymologist. Eichhoff is Kaltsclimidt's
oracle ; and in so far as he follows Eichhoff he is always
respectable, and in many cases valuable, as a leader ;
but there is so much chaff mingled with the wheat in
his lexicon, that, for a beginner in Greek philology, he
is more dangerous than useful. His dictionary was
probably, in its day, equal to the most advanced schol-
arship of the times ; and, if so, it serves to show in a
striking manner, how much progress has been made in
the short interval betw^een. No adequate work, there-
fore, has yet appeared in Latin or Greek lexicography,
in the department of etymology. The light, in which
our present generation of classical students is walking,
is : like that of the fixed stars, which are so far from us
that the beams which we are now receiving from them,
actually left the orbs themselves Avhole centuries ago :
that, shed from the best scholarship that prevailed a
quarter of a century since, instead of the light of the
foremost minds which are leading the scholarship of
our day. And the wonder is, that, while there is so
much bright beautiful light on the mountain-tops of
the classical world, it creeps down so slowly into the
vast cu'cumference of the vales below.

As for our own vernacular etymology, since our
language is wholly secondary in its origin, and, so,
mixed and modern in its structure, more copious ma-
terials and those for the most part of inherent value.

302 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

have been gatlierecl by Webster and preceding lexicog-
raphers, without the aid of comparative philology, than
could be done in any other language. But, while in
certain directions and on certain sides of the language,
much labor has been well bestowed in making collec-
tions of classical and Teutonic correspondences, as well
as of those in the various Romanic languages, with
English words, here all the effort bestowed or designed
to be has ceased. The facts established, or supposed
to be established, have not been afterwards selected and
arranged and compacted together, within the bonds of
any true comprehensive scientific system. No phonetic
principles have been developed, serving to ascertain or
eclaircise all that large and best class of etymological
facts, which are a little removed from immediate dis-
covery, and so constitute, when found, the satisfying
reward of successful scientific research. It is therefore
but a mere chaos of etymologies that English lexicog-
raphy yet fmiiishes ; a jumble of true things and false,
more like the extended ruins of some huge edifice, than
hke a structure built w^ith jealous care, to stand high
and strong in its appointed place. Under the princely
tread of the new philology, nudtitudes of before valued
resemblances in English etymology are at once trampled
down, as mere stubble. Much of such a romantic
style of etymologizing, as that with which Home Tooke
amused himself and his readers, in his " Diversions of
Purley," disappears at once in the light of modern

THE SCIEN'CE OF ETYMOLOGY. 303

scholarship, as Avoiild mere elegant frost-work Lcforc a
bright sun. The etymological treasures which AVebster
gathered together, with such scholarly industry and
delight, excite our admiration at the breadth of his
research and the luminous accuracy of his judgment,
within the bounds of the narrow classical scholarship of
his day. But the fountains of his learning were not
drawn, since they could not be at first, from the heights
of comparative philology. The salt of the Indo-Euro-
pean element is not in them, and they cannot retain
their virtue. Nothing can make amends for this fatal
deficiency but their perfect renovation. It was in
1828, five years before Bopp began to scatter the light
of his great discoveries over the study of the various
languages of the civilized world, that Webster published
his large dictionary ; and, when in 1840 he issued a
new and last edition improved by himself, the additions
designed to be made, as stated by him, did not embrace
at all the results of the new philology. " The improve-
ments," he says, " consist chiefly in the addition of
several thousand words to the vocabulary, the division
of words into syllables, and the correction of definitions
in several of the sciences ; as well as the introduction
of many phrases from foreign languages, and of many
foreign terms used in books of music." And what of
all tlie wonderful researches and results of the last
quarter of a century, serving to revolutionize all lexi-
cography, all classical study, and the whole science of

304 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

language ? Watchman on the towers of American
philology, what of the night ? We wait for an answer
after twelve years have come and gone, and only echo
answers, w/iat ! The Semitic element, to which, accord-
ing to the fashion of the times, he gave in 1828 such
false prominence in the department of etymology, still
retains its authority or rather its place unimpaired in
1840. And neither at first nor at last was any order
of relation indicated or conceived to exist between the
different correspondences of words, which are strung
together as carelessly as were ever beads by a child
upon a string. Some recent hand has undertaken to
introduce the Sanskrit, somehow,* into this unmethod-

* As a specimen of the utterly unphilological aspect of the Sanskrit
additions made to Webster's dictionary, witness the followinjr facts,
taken at random and only as samples of multitudes of the same sort.
The Sanskrit equivalent is placed sometimes, between the Latin and
Armenian {navy) ; sometimes between the Russian and Hebrew (to
hear) ; and at other times, between the Persian and j\Ialaj^ (name), and
between the Hindu and Pei'sian (new) ; the Swedish and Latin
(stand) ; the Swedish and Persian (state) ; the Irish and Greek (hrotc) ;
the Greek and Zend (mead) ; the Persian and Russian (mother) ; the
Russian and Persian (no) ; the Armenian and Persian (seven) ; the
Greek and Hebrew (six), and between the Danish and Welsh (luclc).
and so on ad infinitum. The Sanskrit, besides being thus thrown in
as a makeweight, among a mere disjointed mass of other etymologies,
is introduced only in a very partial, meagre way, compared with its
real claims ; and it is always placed last or among the last, instead of
first, and here as before in all sorts of laughable combinations ; as, after
the Irish and Slavonic (night) ; the Hebrew and Arabic (mix) ; the
Danish and Russian [nail), etc. Could a more perfect wizard's potion
be prepared with which to steep the thoughts of a young student of
English etymology in " utter forgetfulness " of his work and of its

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 305

ized group of etymologies, 1)iit not in a way to throw
any light upon them, or to draw them together around
any common point of crystallization, or even of central
preparation for it. The new comer from India, instead
of being treated as a prince royal in his own lawful
dominions, is here dishonored actually although not
designedly, in the position assigned to him, as if a mere
bantling, that must be taken care of in some way, and
so is left by the way-side to be taken care of by others.
There is no science or organific law prevailing in the
series of connections and citations exhibited, nor can
there be at any time, without an entire reorganization
of the materials now employed, as well as their very
great enlargement. The structure, therefore, which
Webster built so industriously, must ere long be inevi-
tably razed to the ground, as entirely inadequate to the
more exact and vast scholarship of succeeding genera-
tions ; or, be so built over and around with higher and
better forms of lexical research, as to disappear itself
Avholly from the view. The scholarship of our country,
now so destitute perchance of any strong traces of such

benefits ? IIovv does it remind one of the song of the three witches
about the caldron in Macbeth :

" Black spirits and white
Red spirits and gray,
INIingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may."
Webster is not, and cannot be, accepted as a standard by our best
scholars in orthography, orthoepy or etymology, but only in definitions,
in which he is certainly the foremost of all English lexicographers.

306 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

a fact, will soon become so lofty in its type, so broad in
its demands, and so irradiated with tlie hio-hest \vA\t of
the age, as to require a style of lexicography that shall
embrace in it a full view of all the vast array of scien-
tific results developed by comparative philology. All
honor to the man who shall arise in some future age, a
man of exalted genius and splendid learning, to do this
work ! He will be born ; and we record our hearty
salutations to him in advance, across the stream of
time which separates his day from ours. Let the
motto of our American scholars be, both now and then,
those sublime words of the great Passow in closing his
labors in lexicography : " vorwiirts ! aufwLirts " ! for-
wards ! upwards !

The only lexicography that has yet appeared in any
lansfuao-e constructed after the true model and built

O O

without stint of means, according to the highest
knowledge of the age, throughout every department of
its wide-spread details, is the great national German
Dictionary that the brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wil-
liam) are now laboriously preparing, and of which they
have recently published the first part of the third vol-
ume (1859), extending through a portion of the letter E.
In it is concentrated all the hght contained in the his-
• tory, literature, and constitution of the language itself,
to which is superadded all the light which any and
every other language, when searched through all its
depths, can be made to contribute to its fulness, along

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 307

the whole chain of Indo-European hmguages. Tlie
views and the spirit with which the Grimms undertake
their noble work, will be seen by a brief quotation from
the introduction. " Etymology," they say (page 47),
" is the salt* or spice of a dictionary, without the addi-
tion of which the eating of it would still remain tasteless.
The German language hangs by a chain which unites it
with most of the European languages, and then leads
back into Asia and directly to the Sanskrit, Zend, and
Persian. From this proceeds a fulness of phenomena
and relations, sometimes combined and sometimes sepa-
rated from each other, as distinct peculiarities of differ-
ent languages. Not a few links indeed of the great
chain have fallen out and disappeared, so that many
breaks in it must be skipped over. Every language
possesses also in it an inward recuperative force, which
gradually heals again any injury done, in sundering
its connections. But this it can accomplish only by
various compensations and special appliances, which
afterwards come to be numbered among its individual
peculiarities ; and hence comes the necessity of recog-
nizing the limits where its own specialties cease, and
where it enters again under the prevailing law of the
other languages with which it is allied."

Surely this is a new voice in the realms of lexi-
cography : the voice of one of earth's greatest men,

* •'Etymologie is das Salz, oder die Wiirze des Wurterbuclis, ohne
deren Zuthat seine Speisc noch ungeschinack bliebe," etc.

308 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

coming to cast down the fabrics of the past ; not to re-
joice over their ruin, but to gather their materials care-
fully together in order to build them anew, with other
elements of greater strength and beauty, into an edifice
of grander proportions, and adequate to the wants of
the highest minds of the age.

Hail to the new era of linguistic exploration and
discovery ! The age of empiricism is forever gone in
etymology, except to those still remaining in the dark-
ness of the past generation, and even they can see that
the mountain -heights above them are gilded with an
unwonted brightness. Comparative etymology, like the
solar spectrum, presents in separate order, and in all the
harmony of their mutual connection, the different rays
that combine to form what seems the single and simple
light of each distinct language. That the Sanskrit, in
both its orthoepical and grammatical structure, is most
intimately related to all the languages of Europe, ancient
and modem, is a discovery that constitutes one of the
chief wonders of the nineteenth century. It is one of
the results of the conquest of India : a tribute first
brought back by English scholarship from that far-off,
fabulous land of gems and spices, to its mother country
and the world ; but yet rather announced, than revealed
in all its strange fulness of evidence, by the English.
It w^as reserved for the strong, penetrative, analytic,
persevering German mind, to explore and develop the
untold riches of this new discovery. And what honor

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 309

have they shed upon their age, Bopp and Pott and
Grimm, and a host of others hke them ; for they form
now not so much " a school " as an army : similar for
honor, as adventurers upon these new seas and coasts of
the science of language, to that won by Columbus and
the great navigators who succeeded him, in discovering
new countries and continents, and sailing around the
world.

The absence of the Indo-European element in
Greek, Latin, English, or any other etymology, makes
it like a system of chemistry, in which oxygen, that
universal agent in all heat and moisture, all growth and
decay, and all the processes of life and of death, should
be utterly wanting ; or one of geology, in which no ref-
erence to stratification should occur, and to the agency
of fire and water, separate and combined, in building
up the stage of this world as it is ; or a piece of music,
without any clef; or a structure, erected according to
no order or plan, and but the vast and shapeless ag-
glomeration of the elements of an edifice, but itself no
edifice at all. The Semitic languages have spread over
no such field of development, as the Indo-European.
The Indo-European languages are susceptible, to an al-
most unlimited extent, of changes made by the combina-
tion, composition, and attraction of their elements into
ever-new forms and uses. They have a wonderfully mo-
bile, elastic, and impressible nature, like those human
constitutions of a high organization, that respond so sen-

310 THE SCIENCE Or ETYMOLOGY.

sitively to every influence, however gentle or occasional,
that moves upon the delicate framework of theii' being.
A royal family indeed is the Indo-European family of
languages ! Each of its members is, in the eye of art,
" a study " by itseK. As they pass, in stately review,
before the mind : the Indian, the Grseco-Latin, the
Lettic, the Slavonic, the Gothic, and the Celtic famihes :
each, with its splendid retinue of associated languages,
whose heart does not dilate with admiration at the
pageant ? They are all sons of one ancient mother, and
yet they have taken on such different complexions, in
their different chmates, and acquired such a different
stature, as they have lived on the mountains or the
plains ; and such a softness or rigidity of muscular de-
velopment, as they have toiled or lived in ease ; and
spoken so variously, in figures or with plain speech, as
they have maintained an out-door or an in-door life :
that they have been supposed, and have supposed
themselves, to bear no relationship to each other, and
nave gloried in wars, as races, one against the other, as
if they were natural enemies and not brethren. And
now, after four thousand years, they are found under
the light of that sublime inductive philosophy, which
has opened so many other wonders to modern eyes, to
be aU most intimately allied with each other ; and that, by
the use of a key to this new and strange discovery, that
had lain hidden, for thousands of years, from view, in
India.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 311

Etymology is an inductive science, and rests upon
the same strong foundations, in this respect, as any of
the natural sciences. And very minute and wide and
fuU have been the inductions made, and the comparisons
instituted. The evidence of its facts is found by one
who examines it, to be so various and so duplicated and
reduphcated upon itself, as to rise everywhere, in high
and golden piles around him, towards heaven. They
will bear the closest scrutiny, however often repeated.
Each time that they are sifted, they only appear more
clear and bright, and the force of the most searching
logic brought to bear upon them only serves, like acid
upon gold, not to destroy but to beautify still more their
claims. No wonder if, under the former empirical
treatment of classical etymology, the more self-poised
and stable scholars of the day, hke those thoughtful
ancients called a&tot, not atheists, who rejected the con-
temptible mythology of then* times, should discard the
etymology, falsely so called, that was offered them, as
having in it neither science nor sense. But mockery,
now, of the science of etymology, or even indifference
to its claims, will only rebound on him who indulges
it, as a proof of the shallowness of his knowledge and
the narrowness of his ideas.

III. The constituent elements of etymology as a
science.

It has been shown that neither classical nor vernacu-
lar etymology have risen, by themselves, to the cUgnity

312 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

of a science. They have had only an empirical de-
velopment, when not under the hght of comparative
philology. And it is only, when grafted on the root of
comparative Indo-European etymology, that they pos-
sess, either of them, any true life or value. The proper
discussion of this part of the subject demands, at least,
a brief presentation.

1st. Of the elements of comparative etymology.

2d. Of the principles that prevail, in respect to the
specific etymology of any individual language, under its
influence.

1st. The constituent elements of comparative ety-
mology are threefold :

(1 .) Comparative phonology,

(2.) Comparative lexicography,

(3.) Comparative grammar.

It is not meant that, historically, these different
elements actually developed themselves in this order;
but that, in reference to their mutual connection, this is
the true philosophic order of their arrangement.

(1.) Comparative phonology.

It will not be manifest at first, probably, to every
reader what this word may mean, and yet it has a very
definite and important meaning. Phonology or pho-
netics is, literally, the science of sound, that is, the
science of the mutations and transformations of conso-
nants and vowels, in passing from one language to an-
other. In Sanskrit, words merely joined together in

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 313

simple sequence have an influence upon each other,
such as to cause great euphonic mutations of their con-
sonantal elements. This style of changes is called
Sandhi (conjunction) ; and by its laws the juxtaposi-
tion of consonants of different orders, is forbidden ;
while the law^s of composition themselves, whether in
respect to the inward or outward blending of the ele-
ments which are coinbined are called samasa (coalition).
Bopp was the first to exhibit a wide array of facts upon the
subject of comparative phonology, which, however, being
so intent on ends lying farther beyond, he did not bind
into any system or science. It was Jacob Grimm, as
splendid a scholar as any country or age has ever pro-
duced, who first, by a large and wonderful induction of
kindi^ed forms in Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, Gothic
and High German, developed the law of actual corre-
spondences in these languages, since called Grimm's
law ; according to which, a given letter in one of them
is regularly transformed into a given letter in each
of the others. Succeeding investigators in other lan-
guages, as the Celtic, Slavonic, Zend, and old Persian,
have lengthened out the scale of comparison into them,
and established a general scientific schedule of mutual
equivalents, throughout the whole range of the Indo-
Em'opean languages. Going forth to new researches,
with such a scale of phonetic correspondences, not made
of artificial materials, but found imbedded in these lan-
guages themselves like the diatonic scale in the very

314 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

organs of the voice, philologists have been able, not
only to verify abundantly, over and over again, the
truth of the scale itself, but also by its aid to extend
the area of their discoveries in every direction. Like
the natural sciences, the science of philology is in a
state of constant and rapid growth. It has already
mammoth proportions, and yet what it is to be is but
partially shadowed forth, in what it' now is.

Comparative phonology is therefore the science of
the transformations, substitutions and correspondences
of sounds, in different languages ; a science which had
lain concealed in these languages for thousands of
years, like a bird in a brake, which no foot had ever
entered before : a beautiful many-voiced bird, now fly-
ing abroad everywhere, before the eyes of its admirers,
in the horizon of letters.

The less a language has departed from its archaic
forms, so much the more easily and certainly can the
internal affiliations of its Avords, one with another, be
traced. In the progress of ages, even in the same lan-
guage, and much more as words traverse the domain
of different latitudes and languages, do great changes
in their primitive radical form occur. Eor, as the same
words are put to different uses in the mouths of men,
having different wants, experiences, and developments,
even in the same age, and among the same people, and
imder the same culture ; so, much more, do the shapes
and sounds of words run tlu-ough a wide range of vari-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 315

aliens, amid all the diversities of climate, employment,
and character experienced over wide and varying tracts
of the earth. The influence of climate on national
physiognomy, statm'c, complexion, vigor, and every
personal characteristic, is very apparent and has received
formal recognition in history, geography and the nat-
ural history of man ; but its influence on the organs of
speech, so as to make certain sounds diflicult to one
race or tribe, that to other races in other climates are
easy and natural, has been little appreciated or consid-
ered. As the elements of man's primitive language
have come in contact with all these various currents of
influence in different nations and epochs, they have
undergone great changes, in every direction. In the
modern Romanic languages, the Spanish, Italian, and
French particularly, the greatness of these changes in
forms, once fixed in the Latin as if having a constitu-
tion of iron, is strikingly apparent within a period
covered by the recent nlemory of men. No languages
diff^er more in their phonetic elements from each other
than these, although being of one immediate common
origin.

By the careful analytic study of their variations, as
also by that of the agreements and differences of the
several dialects of Greece, one, who is just beginning to
have some insight into just phonetic solutions of the
problems of comparative etymology, may be greatly

316

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

enlightened and aided."*' In them, accordingly, as
geologists can often witness in changes now going on
in the world the true energy, direction, and mode of
ancient agencies ; we can see the real philosophy ex-
emplified in actual view, of the various phonetic devel-
opments of the ancient languages.

When Cadmus brought the Phoenician alphabet of
sixteen letters to Greece, he found some sounds pre-
vailing there which his syllabarium did not contain, as
the aspirates d-, cp, ;/, the double consonants '^, '^, yj,
and the long vowels rj and co. The digamma F, which
was at first used as the equivalent of the Phoenician
Van, was, in the Hellenic period, entirely dropped from

* The different forms of many of the same Christian names, and the
different pronunciation of the same form to the ej^e, in several of the
modern languages, illustrate well the gi'eatness of phonetic changes in
recent times. Remember that J is pronounced in Spanish as H and in
German as Y.

Greek or Latin. Italian.
'Ukui^os Giacomo

'ItiiawTj;

Gulielmus

Carolus

Edvardus
Joseplms

Giovanni
Giovanna

Gulielmo

Carlo

Carlotta

Cai-olina

Odoardo
Giuseppe

Spanish.

lago and

Santiago
(St. James)

Juan

Juana

Guillermo

Carlos

Carlota

Carolina

Eduardo
Jose

French. German.

Jacques Jacob

Jean
Jeanne

rHans

■} Hannclien
(Jobs

lanna

Guillaume Wilbebn

Cbarles Karl

Charlotte Cbarlotfe

Carolina Karolina

Edouard Eduard

Joseph Joseph

English.

Jacobus

Jacob

James

Jack

John
Jane
Joanna

William

Carlos
Charles
Cbarlotto
1^ Caroline

Edward

Joseph

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 317

the Greek language, as not euplionioiis to the ear ;
while -in the Latin it was retained, in the letter v, Avith
much favor. The breathing h was a great favorite in
Greece, and often substituted for an original s ; while
in Rome, contrarily, h was little and s'"'' was much
fancied. In German, s is disliked in its common
hissing sound, and accordingly is changed to z between
two vowels in pronunciation, and in orthography it is
often softened, by adding an aspirate, into sch. The
guttural ch of that language, and of the Greek, Scotch,
and Irish languages, is rejected by us and the Prench ;
while both the Latin and the French reject our w,
and we are entirely destitute of the sweet soft u sound,
found in French, German, and Greek. So, the Lithu-
"anians have no aspirates. The letter r has a roll in it,
as used by some nations, which is almost drumlike,
compared with its liquid and indeed almost unmeaning
pronunciation in English. Some races, like the Poles,
delight in sibilants ; others, like the Germans, in gut-
tm'als ; some, like the Greeks, in aspirates ; some, like
the French and Portuguese, in nasals ; and others, like
the Italians and the Servians, in vowels and liquids.
How differently is also the same letter pronounced in
different languages. Our j is in German y and in

* The same foct characterizes the Enghsh in that class of words
which we call Latin-English ; while in French, though often occurring
to the eye, it is generally rejected at the end of words and syllables in
pronunciation, and often thrown entirely out of view, as is indicated
by the circumflex accent in such a case.

318

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

Spanish h. Our v is the German f and our w their v ;
ch is pronounced very differently by different nations.

Many correspondences of words, therefore, which a
classical novice would reject at once, as not meeting the
demands of his eye or his ear, are yet beautifully certi-
fied to be true by the wonder-working power of pho-

Sanskrit.
janu, the knee*

vinsati, twenty

s'atam, a hundred

yuj, to hind
yuga, a pair

dvar, a door

asvas, a horse

hard, hrid, and
hridaya, the heart

svan, a dogf
gen. SunOS

pliivaya, to wash

mahat, great, for
maghat

mahiyas, greater
ashtau, eight

Greek.

'fOVV

\ev Karop

\ C^y6v

dvpa

'Iwiro^, jEolic
'Ikko?

(kvp

■< and
(_Kap5la

{ KVOIV )

I gen. Kvvos )

Aoveiv
"(fern. fxfyd\Tf]

fj.€'l(wv
OXTW

Latin.
( genu
I geniculum

1 .

y viijinti

[■ centum

jungere
jugum

j foris

I foras, out of doors

equus
equestris

cor(d)

lavare

[" magnus
! m actus
[ magis
, maoister

Italian.
ginocchio

venti

cento

giungere]
giogo j

fuora

equestre
fcuore
(^coraggio

cane

lavare
masno

major
octo

maggiore
otto

* These correspondences are selected from a list of some five
thousand or more prepared with care by the author, in manuscript,
t Irish cu.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

319

iiology : the cliarm of the discovery being sometimes
found in one language on an extended scale of com-
parison, and sometimes in another. It will interest
the reader to examine the following brief schedule of a
fc"^ correspondences,* such as are established by it, in
great numbers, to be true.

Spanish.

French.

German.

English.

hinojo

genou

knie

knee

veinte

vingt

zwanzig

twenty

cent

(lit. a hundredth)

yugo

j joindre

[joch

join
yoke

fuera

hors

thiir

door

ecuestre

ecuyer

(equestri
(e-squire

corazou

'coeur
courage

hertz

'heart
core
cordial
courage

chien

hund

hound
canine

lavar

laver

\ laben ?
1 lauen

lave

magno

maint

' manch
michel

' raickle

mas

maLs

- macht

miglit

maestro

maitre

mehr

^ meister

master

mister

major

mayor

maii-e

meier

^ mayor

ocho

huit

acht

eight

* Even through the French, as any one may see, English and
Latin words that, placed together, have little if any resemblance to
each other, are yet found to be in origin and sense the same.

320

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

Sanskrit,
dantas, a tooth

vusas, and
vaisas, a house

akshas, the eye

panchan, five *

Greek.

Latin.

uSovs

) dens

gen. uSouTOi

oIkos for
Fo7kos

V vicus

UKOS

oculus

ireVre

quinque

Italian,
dents

VICO

occhio
cinque

pra

TpO

pro

tvam, thou

chatur, and
chatvaras, four

tti

[• Te'(

craapes

/"quatuor
< quadra
(quartus

Latin.

bellus, beautiful, fine

bonus

cadere, to fall, part, cadens

caput, the head

captivus a captive

co-operire

collocare
computare
crispus, wrinkled

debere, to owe

decipere, to deceive

dies
diurnus

domina

fquattro
J quadro
j quarto
l^quadrone

French,
j beau
\ beaute

jbon
|bonte

chance

^chef
I achever

chetif

couvrir

coucher
compter
crepe

devoir, part, du

duper (a)

jour

jdame

\ demoiselle

* Lithuanian penki.
(a) So de le becomes du and duccre, duire, to

English.

> beauty-
boon
bounty

chance

chief
achieve

caitiff

S cover
(cope

couch

count

crape

C devoirs

<due

(duty

dupe

{journal
journey
adjouni
journeyman

f dame

<dam
( damsel

suit.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

321

Spanish.

French.

German.

English.

diente

dent

zabn

tooth

'' — wich
\-illa

villa

ville

— ville
village

ojo

ceil, pi. yeux

auge

eye

cinco

cinq

fiinf *

five
'fore

por

pour

( vor
■ fiir

be/ore
for
forehead

thou
''quart

cuatro

qnatre

quart

quarter

esquadra

escadre

quartier

quadroon
square

esquadron

escadron

squadron

Latin.

French.

English.

{ nuire

nocere

noxa

< nuisance
( noise

nuisance
noise

pagus

pays
paysan

pagan

paganus

peasant

pip

pipire to pipe,

peep,

\ pigeon

peep

pipio (n) a young piping bird

pipe

pigeon

sedere, to sit

sieger -^

siege
besiege

senior, elder

sieur

sir

silva

• sauvage

silvaticus

savage

solidus

\ sold \
\ sold at J

solder

soda

soldier

solidum

tegula, a tile

tuile

tile

vesper, the evening

ouest (a)

west

vision
view

Cvoir

voyage

yidere

< part, vu
( voyager

surt;ey
— vide
— vise

* Gothic fimf. I

visit

(a) Cf. Swedish vester.

322

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

Sanskrit,
kas, who

svapnas, a dream
upari, above

Greek.

{ ^ollC KIS

VTTtp

Latin,
fquis
J quisque
j quisque-unus
[_ aliquis-unus

Italian,
che, and
chi
ciascuno

alcuno

sorantis (for sopnus)
somnium sognio

sognare

super

sur

bhrajj, to fry
hyas, yesterday
hansas, a goose

garban, an enclosure

chut, to pour forth
srat, credit

(ppvynv
XopTOi

J fut. ;)(;eucreij'
1^ poured forth

Xpau to loan
or lend

frigere

j heri, for hesi
[ hesternus

ganta

anser (for hanser)

hortos
cohors

gutta, a drop

coorte
giardino

goccia

C credere

•<; (=srat + dit Sansk. J- credere

( verb, to give)

2. Comparative lexicography.

The component parts of lexicography are various,
such as etymology, exegesis, synonymes, the statistics of
words, and dialectic peculiarities. The exegetical ele-
ment, which concerns itself with the meanings of
words, is indeed the principal element of lexicography,
both in respect to the amount of space that it must
necessarily occupy, and in respect to the supply which
it affords for the wants of the greatest number who use
a dictionary. But in what close connection with it
stands the element of etymology ! It gives a pictorial

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

323

SpaniBh.
que

quien
aljruno

sobre

ayer

ganso

' liuerto
' jardia

gota
grotera

French.

chaque
chacuii

sommeil
sontjer

frire
hier

jars

• cour
jardin

goutte

German,
wer

English.
who

somnific

(iiber
(ober

gestem

gans j gander

( goose

garten * ( garden

•< court
( cohort

giessen fgush

guss I gl^st

vergessen, to -l^ t'orget

I pour away | gutter

[geist [^ ghost

j credit
/ creed

charm to the dictionary, and adds as much zest to the
details of the lexicon as experiments in chemistry would
to a collection of chemicals. And as the true etymology
of a word establishes its original meaning, from which
all its other meanings ramify, the etymological element
forms the basis on which the exegetical element must
logically rest. Any attempt, therefore, to separate it
from lexicography is unnatural and absurd.

No lexicography is of any adequate form or dimen-
sions, that is not comparative. Words hang in clusters ;
* Gothic gards.

324 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

and, as Avell might one attempt to show the strength
or beauty of a vine, by single grapes growing upon it,
as to exhibit the scope or the charms of lexicography
in separate, disconnected words.

AVonders have been accomplished during the past
twenty -five years, in gathering together large collections
of materials for a true lexicography, in each one of the
Indo-European languages ; and the precious pile is
growing larger and larger every day. And, as in
ancient Egypt multitudes were busy in various parts of
the land, for many years, in hewing out and transport-
ing the blocks of stone which were to form their mighty
pyramids ; so now, in different lands, are many hands
at work in many mines to quarry and prepare the
materials, which shall seiTC to complete and to beautify
the vast and splendid structure of comparative philology.
The results already obtained lie scattered through many
books, in diverse forms and connections. The lexicog-
raphers of each language have as open a field for their
researches, and as unlimited opportunities for pursuing
them, as geologists in every country have for theirs.
Like the elements of nature, the benefits of all such
discoveries are open to all, and may be used without
stint or damage by all. The students of another age,
standing under the scholarship of the future, rising over
them in its colossal proportions and its temple-like
beauty, will behold a field of research and pleasure
spreading out before them in classical study, compared

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 325

with which ours, in its best condition, will seem but an
almost barren waste.

3. Comparative grammar.

It is common to limit the application of etymology
to lexicography, and in its narrow sense this is right ;
but, on a broad vieAV, comparative grammar also must
be included, as derived forms are almost all of them,
those at least of a simple uncomposite structure, of a
grammatical origin.

One of the chief peculiarities of the new philology
is, that it rests the comparison of languages so much
on their grammatical correspondences. Not only the
forms of declension and conjugation are found, under
the lens of true analytic and phonological investigation,
to be identical in all the Indo-European languages, but
also all the various parts of speech down to the merest
particles of these languages, and their very prefixes,
suffixes and terminations. A given radical may be
selected, in both its simple and its composite forms, and
its nominal, adjective, adverbial and verbal derivatives
may be compared in difierent languages, form with
form and kind with kind ; and everywhere, both gen-
erally and particularly, in great things and little, the
most intimate union and communion will be found to
exist between them.

Under the light of comparative grammar, the lexi-
cographer's sense of the common origin and unity of
our different languages, is heightened to perfect abso-
22

326 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

luteness. He feels the self-reliance of complete vision.
Our different languages, lie sees, are but so many dif-
ferent dresses of the same essential, radical word, like
the figures with which children amuse themselves, made
to shp in and out of a dozen various styles of dress,
with such ever changing effect that the same theme
may be taken and robed in the flexion-forms of each
several language, and transformed at will into Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Gothic or Slavonic.

It may be well to detail some of the criteria by
which the relative antiquity of different languages, and
so of different words, may be determined.

(1) In reference to their phonetic constitution : the
relative prevalence of the three original vowels, a, i, u,
in their forms generally, and also their relative preser-
vation of their original unmutilated and unmodified
themes, as ascertained by careful analysis and the law^s
of analogy, both in the same language and also in other
languages viewed in connection with it. These facts,
an eye in the habit of tracing correspondences scien-
tifically comes to have a trained sense for perceiving ;
as, in works of taste or matters of composition, a prac-
tised mind possesses, in its own cultivated judgment, a
touchstone for discriminating at once the true from the
false.

(2) In reference to their syllabication : the simpler
and closer the consonantal drapery of each separate
vow^el, the older, as a general fact, is the family of

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 327

languages. In other words : the younger sisters of
the great Indo-European family are much fonder of
consonantal ornamentation, than were the ehler ; as is
quite manifest in the Gothic and Slavic languages,
compared with the Sanskrit and Gracco-Italic ; and in
the later, compared with the earlier dialects of the
Greek itself. Such variations originate in different
climatic influences, different occupations, and different
degrees of intellectual cultui'e. In the history of each
separate family of languages by itself, the tendency is
quite regular in derived branches to greater simplicity
of consonantal structure, especially in terminal syllables.

(3) In reference to roots : the simpler they are in
vocal substance, and the more distinct and fuU their
own individual character, the nearer are they to their
primal state.

(4) In reference to word-forms generally : the more
distinct the analytic elements of their structui^e : the
less of mere arbitrary symbolism, and the more of clear
open significance that they possess, the older is the
form ; and, where such forms aboimd, the older is the
language. Symbols early part with all their inward
life and heat. Time rapidly formalizes, stereotypes and
petrifies, not only the outward institutions, but even
the hereditary ideas of men.

II. The principles that prevail in respect to the
specific etymology of any individual language, under
the influence of comparative etymology.

328 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

They are these :

1. The originals of words in the given language,
and their meaning, must be furnished, whether in the
language or out of it.

The radical element, stem, theme or base, as it is
variously called, should be set forth distinctly by itself,
and in compound forms each component part should
be separately exhibited. The stem contains all that
belongs to the word, as such. Every thing else con-
nected with it is but some incidental affection, and
belongs to the department of the pathology of words.

2. Comparative forms in other kindred languages
must be given, serving to illustrate more fully its place
in the great family to which it belongs.

In all lexicography, whether vernacular or classical,
the histoiy of each word should, so far as possible, be
exhibited on the following scale of equivalents, and in
the order here stated : the Sanskrit, Zend, and Old
Persian, Celtic, Latin, Greek, Lettic, Gothic, and Sla-
vonic* In the etymology of the modem languages,
full parallelisms also should be run between the differ-
ent Romanic tongues, and in the order, for etymological
value, of the Itahan, Wallachian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Prench, and English. A line or two of such etymo-
logical equivalents, standing side by side in mute array
with any word, so significant are these symbols while

* The order, in which they are here placed, is that determined by
their relative historical and geographical position combined.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 329

brief like those of chemistry, contains in itself a volume
of history to the philologist. It is only also, by the
comparisons of words in different languages, that the
normal or abnormal peculiarities of any given language
can become at all apparent.

In introductory chapters, phonetic principles should
be fully discussed and illustrated, by which the various
changes of words derived from the same root may be
comprehended and appreciated.

3. Derived forms in the same language must be
carefully presented.

Even derived forms have, most of them, analo-
gies in the various Indo-European languages ; and a
thorough, comprehensive system of etymology and lexi-
cography demands that such equivalents should also be
exhibited. In all those derivatives, of whatever class
or style, in each language, which have no analogies in
other languages, we can best discover the distinctive
genius of the specific language in which they occur ;
and these are of great value to us, by way of revealing
the inward principles to our view of its own separate
home growth. They are its peculiar characteristics
and the marks of its own individuality.

4. The whole interior logical etymology of each
language, in its separate words, must be carefully
traced by the lexicographer himself, and as cai'efully
set forth in full detail.

The sphere of secondary and derived meanings is

330 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

one ill Avhicli a deep-searching mind can work with
great effect : employing all its powers of comparison,
discrimination, judgment, reasoning, memory, invention
and research, in the fidlest possible manner. Words
are even more arborescent in the variations of their sense
than of their form ; rising up from their elementary
signification into every possible modification of it, by
light and shade, in largeness and littleness and strength
and beauty, of which it is susceptible. The pleasure
of tracing them is like that of an anatomist in dissecting
and exhibiting the delicate net-work of nerves and veins
and vessels in the body, or of a mechanician in compre-
hending and explaining the mysteries enfolded in a
telescope or a steam engine, or of an amateur of nature,
who is able to see and to say what effect each part and
point of a charming landscape contributes to the varied
whole. Greatness, as paradoxical as it may seem, best
shows itself in little things : greatness of character,
greatness of intellect, whether in forecast or in the
adaptation of means to ends in view, and greatness of
scholarship. As our dictionaries are now used by both
scholars and teachers, they are made to answer merely
the purposes of a commentary. Only the specific
meaning of the word in the given connection is sought
for; and that is determined, not by any process of
judgment going forth from the radical etymological
sense of the word, through its various ramifications, to
the proper point of destination, but by merely searching

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 331

after the quotation of the passage in which it occurs,
or of a kindred one under some one of its senses ; and,
if such a quotation be found, its authority is commonly
held to be as conclusive, as would be that of an infal-
lible fiat. Whether the day will ever come, in these
modern times of haste, in which classical sclfcol-lexicons
shall be prepared, on the plan of a thorough philological
and logical development of each word, from its ultimate
root to its topmost branch, in both its form and sense,
without note or comment ; and in which the student
shall be required to select his own meaning in each
case without aid, and to be able to give his reason out
of the very word itself as well as out of the context, for
so rendering it : is quite uncertain, if not altogether
improbable. But if ever the time comes, when such
facilities are provided and used with enthusiasm and
perseverance, there will be a body and substance in the
style of mental discipline secured, far beyond any thing
yet obtained in the whole round of scholastic apph-
ances.

IV. The determinative principles and tests of ety-
mology.

By these are meant certain fixed laws of evidence
and judgment, by which any supposed or alleged focts
are to be ruled in or out of this science, which is, as
has been said, a strictly inductive science. The rela-
tions of cause and effect, therefore, or of antecedence
and sequence, are to be traced here as they would be

332 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

on any other field of investigation, and we must walk
in the light of analogy.

1. The determinative principles and tests of com-
parative etymology.

2. Those pertaining to specific etymology in any
and every language.

1. Those of comparative etymology are the follow-
ing :

(1) Correspondence in the fundamental base or
root.* A real difference of base is of course destructive
of all etymological identity. The base or theme of a
word is its whole substance and essence.

(2) Minute mutual resemblances, through a wide
range of derivatives, and in all the details of prefix and
suffix forms. Each new correspondence in the deriva-
tives of different languages adds much weight, like the
argument from multiplied undesigned coincidences in
the Bible, in favor of the integrity of its writers, to the
force of that probable evidence by which, in this science
we are to determine all its facts and features.

(3) Euphonic laws of definite, ascertained scope
and power.

These often avail to overrule and overthrow ah
conclusions derived from sight or sound, for or against

* Rapp says tersely, in the beginning of his Comparative Grammar :
" a root is the skeleton of a word, the residuum of a logical operation,
the result of grammar, but not its genetic origin," (p. 31), and again,
"grammar must never lose from view that logic is its highest and
absolute sovereign," p. 33.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 333

a given etymology. They are laws which are openly
revealed to us in the language itself; laws which it
observed in its own constant manifestation and growth,
and by observing preserved as such in its own keep-
ing, for its own sure interpretation forever.
(4) Certain specific axioms,

(a) One fact outweighs any and all theories to the
contrary.

(b) No theory is adequate which does not embrace
and explain all known facts.

(c) Of two varying theories equally supported in
other respects, that should always have the preference
which is the most simple.

(d) No etymology can be rightly rejected on gen-
eral principles and modes of reasoning, for adopting
which in receiving other etymologies one would be
condemned. One may be as much of an empiric in
his mode of rejecting an etymology, as he could possibly
judge another to be in receiving it.

2. The authoritative principles pertaining to spe-
cific etymology in any given language.

(1) The genius of the language itself.

The genius of a language in respect to its etymol-
ogy is determined by its general analogies, as discov-
ered by a wide and thorough comparison of its deriva-
tives and secondary forms, just as, by resemblances of
structure and cleavage and essential characteristics,
minerals are classified. Each language has a spirit, a

334 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

mien and a gait of its own ; and, as we know a man's
handwriting with whom we are famiUar, or liis style of
composition, so as to recognise them readily without
his name ; so, to him who knows a language as his
own, under the motion of wdiose thoughts and feelings
its words move, like his limbs, as if a part of his
inward self, that language has a familiar, cherished
look in all its aspects. The true etymologist in any
language does not stand outside of it, and take his
observations of its dimensions and of its structiure as a
stranger to it, wdth ideals and formulas of criticism and
comparison formed out of its atmosphere. His point
of view, on the contrary, is within the bright azure
sphere of the language itself ; where he looks around
upon every thing beautiful and true, with a deep, glad
home-sense, in sympathy with all that he beholds.
Possessed of such feelings and standing at such a point
of observation, a true scholarly critic wdll soon become
able to determine at once, by a sort of instinctive
interior sense, the real or counterfeit value of many
minor and yet significant points of etymology. The
place thus allow^ed for disciplined philosophic insight is
narrow and confined ; but it really has a function and
a sphere for its exercise, and they should be pointed
out. Perfect scholarship Avould seem when at work,
both to him employing it and to those witnessing its
manifestations, like perfect spontaneity in its decisions.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 335

(2) Simplicity and naturalness of derivation, in
respect to both form and sense.

Truth is always simple in its nature, as is also the
mind in its spirit and tastes that seeks to discover and
appropriate it to itself. And every science, as a frag-
ment of the great orb of universal truth, is simple
always in its elements and proportions.

(3) Archaic forms, having a determinate influence.
In the early state of a language, its original forms

are least impaired. Connections that then existed
between words are often covered up afterwards, by the
growth of centmies. Thus, in the light obtained in
such a way, we find that bonus in Latin was originally
duonus (from duo), implying in its very origin, as all
goodness does in fact, the existence of two parties, the
giver and receiver.* So bellum was at first duellum,
as also bis represents dvis, like the Greek 8tg for dJ^/g ;
and thus bis (for dvis) and viginti (for dviginti) twenty,
stand together before the eye even, in close mutual
connection -. facts these, which, if only surmised without
such evidence, would have been treated with ridicule.

(4) Double forms.

These occur in Greek abundantly in Homer. There
is often a third form also exhibited, the second being
in such a case medial between it and the one which

The creation of a receptive intelligent universe, was a neces-
sity to the heart of God, who could not in foot, in the absence of any
objects of His goodness, ever exercise that goodness itself.

836 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

was primitive, as in Dor. xcoqcc, Ionic xovqy], Attic
xoQt]. So also we find in Homer ocptXXco for 6(pbH(o
for original ocpiXico. Compare likewise tEoI. avco:;
(from Sansk. usli to burn) Dor. dco^, Ion. iico;, Attic
k(oi, the morning ; with which also compare //A^o^-
(from same root) Homeric r]bXco^, Dor. abXco^, which
original form was probably as Cm^tius suggests, avObXio^.
So the double forms of the A & O declensions, as
tcXiOLccojv and xXiOlcov, avif^QcoTioto and avdQCOTvou
lay clear parallelisms with the results of recent Sanskrit
research. In such forms also as juioytcu, and Attic fj-ioyri
for Liioytoai, and ^oXiog, and TioXtioQ, Attic :ioXt(oi
and 060; (for aaog), Comp. oaojrtQog, and both
Homeric and Attic ocog, we see other illustrations of
this class of words. Such different stages in forms are
as interesting to a philologist, as specimens of the
influence of time upon language ; as to the geologist
are the different orders of rocks, primary, secondary,
and tertiary, in helping him to determine the mode,
and the length of time, in which this world was fitted
up for its present inhabitants,

(5) Dialectic changes and differences.

The Greek is the only specific language whose dia-
lects are at the same time numerous, and each in
marked advance beyond its predecessor ; while all are
mutually illustrative, in the fullest and strongest philo-
logical relations, of each other.

It is thus quite apparent, that a thoroughly accom-

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 337

plished etymologist must needs be a man of very com-
prehensive learning as well as of large intellectual
capacities ; and these brought under the power of long
and intense discipline.

The supposition or dictum of an ancient himself, as
of Cicero, many of whose etymologies are preserved to
us in his essays, or of Varro, whom Cicero greatly
admired, has no authority as such concerning the origin
or elements of a word. An ancient was just as likely
as a modern, under the influence of fancy or haste, to
go astray ; and, in the classical age of Latin or Greek,
an author was as far removed from the primas rermn
origines, so far as his power to give any testimony
respecting them is concerned, as we are. His opinion
is but a mere opinion, and no evidence. Varro's ety-
mologies, which are not so simple as to be undeserving
of any special notice, as of dux from duco, are, very
many of them, like that of pater from patefacio ; canis
a dog, from canere (signa) to give warning ; and vitis
a vine, from vinuni wine (itself from vis strength).
So Priscian derives verbum from verberare (sc. aer) and
litera (as if for legitera) from lego.

V. Some of the advantages of the study of ety-
mology.

The word etymology {sTVf.ioXoyia), is derived from
tTv^iog, true or real, and loyoz, speech. The Latin
synonym, veriloquimn , expresses the same elementary
idea. So that a person is etymologically ignorant of

338 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

language, who does not, like one seeing sands of gold
through a limpid stream, behold within its forms, as if
transparent, its etymological elements and treasures.

Among the advantages of studying etymology may
be mentioned the following :

1. The high pleasm*e derived from it.

No study is more fascinating. " Diversions," the
investigators into the origin of words, call their labors,
and etymology itself they describe as " fossil poetry."
It is indeed this, and more. It is fossil poetry, philosophy
and history combined. In the treasured words of the
past the very spirits of elder days look out upon us, as
from so many crystalline spheres, with friendly recog-
nition. We see in them the light of their eyes ; we
feel in them the warmth of their hearts. They are
relics, they are tokens, and almost break into life again
at our touch.

The etymologist unites in himself the characteristics
of the traveller, roaming through strange and ftir-off
climes ; the philosopher, prying into the causes and se-
quences of things; the antiquary, filling his cabinet
with ancient curiosities and wonders ; the historio-
grapher, gathering up the records of by-gone men and
ages ; and the artist, studying the beautiful designs in
word-architecture, furnished him by various nations
and especially by that greatest of all nations in all forms
of art, the Greeks, whose language is the most perfect
specimen of organism, for power and for beauty, to be

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 339

found in the world of speech. Shall then the traveller,
the philosopher, the antiquary, the historian and the
artist, find high gratification, each in his exalted em-
ployment, and not he who unites all their occupations
in one and all their pleasures in his own ?

The pursuit of knowledge is always pleasant ; and
the mind engaged in it, walks, runs, flies in its course,
as if born for any and every element ; every limb in-
stinct with motion, and every nerve vital and vivid with
its impulse. The more rich the landscape is in details,
and the more infinite its fulness before the ravished
eye, the greater the pleasure in the survey, and the
greater the consciousness of power in being able to ap-
preciate and interpret such a wide array of beauties and
wonders unto others.

Every language is polyhedral in its structure, and
while for substance it is all of the same material, each
side of it has a difierent face and different adornments
from every other. He therefore who walks around about
the whole castellated and turreted structure of the
Latin, scanning thoroughly all its own inner beauty of
height and breadth and multiform composition, and
surveying, without, each wondrous side of the varied
whole, its Sanskrit side and its Greek, Celtic, Gothic
and Slavonic sides, one after the other, gratifies that
natural love of curiosity, which is so strong an ini])ulse
to travel, research and effort in other things, and which

340 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

nowhere finds a purer gratification, than in the realms
of science and of letters.

As also it is one of the highest exercises of the
mind, to adapt means to ends, the act of doing which
we call skill in matters physical and intellectual, and
wisdom in those which are moral ; so it is one of the
highest intellectual pleasures to trace adaptations, con-
nections, sequences and harmonies, scientific and his-
torical, and to find ourselves on a path of discovery in
which they are perpetually coming into view, when and
where we least expected them. It is specially pleasant
to find analogies, mutually explaining objects before re-
garded as unrelated and isolated, and connecting to-
gether things widely separated and of a diverse aspect
from each other. The formation of comparisons is one
of the chief exercises and pleasures of the imagination.
It is in this employment, that the poetic faculty in our
nature, the natural fountain of youth in the heart, bursts
forth in all its strength of life and joy. So much indeed
are the faculties of invention and comparison stimulated
into action in this study, that the tendency is ever
present, to fly ofi" from the centre of a real logical sta-
bility into the ideal and the fanciful, except in one of
thoroughly scholastic habits ; which indeed, as a cen-
tripetal force, balancing the opposite centrifugal ten-
dency, serve to keep such a mind, though moving on-
ward with delighted energy, yet true to its proper orbit
of revolution.

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 341

2. Its great promotion of the higher mental dis-
ciphne. Human language is the highest of all objective
realms of art among men. The highest absolute realm
of art on earth, as in heaven, is subjective ; in the cul-
ture and perfection of character, in every thing lovely
and heroic, manly and godly, according to the pure and
perfect ideal presented to us, in the abstract, in the
Bible, and, in the concrete, in the beautiful and sub-
lime life of Jesus Christ. The Greeks deemed archi-
tect m'e, as the word shows in its very etymology, " the
principal art " of life. But the art of speech transcends,
in all its uses and relations, not only that of house-
building, but also every other art that can be named
among all the outward employments of men. A dead
language is fuU of all monumental remembrances of the
people who spoke it. Their swords and their shields
are in it ; their faces hang pictured on its walls ; and
their very voices ring still through its recesses. And in a
Uving language you may see, as in a vast panorama, the
whole varied busy activity and experience of a nation's
present condition. Language has not merely, for height,
and breadth, and organic structm'e as the dome of
thought, all the sublime capacities of architecture ; or,
for severe chiselled dignity of form, all the majesty of
sculpture ; or, for wondrous power of imagery, all the
exquisite beauty of painting; or, for sweetness and
ravishment, the magic charms of music ; it contains the
mysteries and energies of all these exalted arts in one.

342 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

In it also, as a garner, are gathered together all the
rich harvests of human genius, from every field which
human thought or effort has essayed to reap. It is the
archives of all man's history, migratory, civil, political,
statutory, literary, scientific, experimental and personal.
Surely on an area of action so wide and so varied, there
must be scope enough for every kind of mental exer-
cise and inquiry ; and prizes, of every possible variety
of value, must await the grasp of him who earnestly
seeks for them.

And in no way, as a matter of general experience
and of general testimony, can all the higher faculties of
the mind be so well trained to lofty, vigorous, sustained
action, as by the study of language ; its analytic, philo-
sophic, artistic, study. Classical discipline is, accord-
ingly, the palaestra in which, throughout Christendom,
the rising generation is everywdiere prepared, and for
ages has been, to wrestle manfully with the difficulties
of after-life in whatever profession or calling. From
Latin and Greek fountains, the living waters have been
drawn, from which the intellectual thirst of great minds
in all nations has been slaked. Those ancient lan-
guages, so often called dead, have ever had a very livin<T
use. But if the mental discipline of the civilized world
has been secured thus far, to such a high degree, from
the very imperfect study of language as hitherto pur-
sued, how much more would be obtained by a deeper,
broader, truer style of familiarization with its structui'e

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 343

and spirit : so deep, and broad, and true as to seem to
the mind swimming buoyantly in its depths, to be its
very native element. By the study of etymology, in
particular, habits of wide research, of patient compari-
son, of logical deduction, and of critical review are
pre-eminently cultivated: all among the highest ele-
ments of mental energy and success. AVlio can speak
too strongly of their necessity and value ? or, of that
insight into the living beauty of language which makes
its words seem, whether standing quietly on the shore
of our own thoughts, or coming and going on errands
of truth and love to others, to be so many white-winged
messengers, radiant themselves with the light that they
bear before them ?

And as the student finds in this path of study the
sweet perpetually mingled with the useful, and, like one
searching for gems in regions where they abound, ob-
tains at every step a rich reward of his efforts, he feels
perpetually freshened to new toil ; and each new effort
prepares the desire and the u'ay for a greater. So
that the spirit of study, instead of being as at first a
matter of mere conscientious or manly resolve, rises
rapidly into enthusiasm, spontaneity, and instinct. For
there is all . the excitement in such a style of classical
study of pleasing travel and, more, of earnest scientific
exploration and even of rare adventure. This, it may
well be assumed, is the only world in which mental
effort is a labor and, at times, a weariness ; and the

344 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

nearer that we approach the point of making real toil
at the same time real joy, the nearer do we bring
earth to heaven and the mortal to the immortal.

3. Its peculiar value in preparing the mind for the
work of communication and communion with other
minds. The chief end of knowledge and education is
never personal. Their true uses are not to be found in
centralization but in distribution ; in participating with
others, as God finds his infinite joy in doing, all one's
full resom'ces. The greatest possible benefaction to all
our fellow-men : this is the true end and aim of all
mental and moral cultm"e. Language, therefore, as the
divinely-constructed vehicle for communicating thought
and feeling between human beings, deserves, in all its
forms and details, the most complete mastery. Shut
up within one's self, thought stagnates and knowledge
decays. The subjective is developed by the objective ;
and the objective by the subjective. The creation is a
great duality. Every thing exists in pairs : males and
females, vegetables and animals, matter and spirit, fire
and water, land and ocean, the sky and sea, light and
shade, birth and death, time and space, substance and
' shadow, the present and future, the world without and
the world within, the finite and the infitiite. When
man most addresses himself, yea, rather, most abandons
himself to all that is without him, he becomes most con-
scious of all that is within him ; and, when he enters
into the pavilion of other minds, to shed the fight of

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY, 345

his love upon them, or to draw the Hght of their spirits
into his own, he knows, he feels, with what a spark of
the Divinity his nature has been lighted from on high.
His whole inward being unfolds at once its native
splendor to his own deeply-awakened consciousness.

The genius and the power of language are best
comprehended, as its words are contemplated, not so
much in their separate individual character, or in
their syntactical combinations, as in their formative,
derivative and mutually correspondent aspects. The
very processes in which they originally crystallized
into their present forms, are almost enacted over again,
in the laboratory of etymology. Etymology is, indeed,
the chemistry of language. But not only is the gefnius
of language, universal language or word-architecture,
best comprehended by the study of etymology ; skill
also in the use of words, so as to be able to employ
them with beautiful aptness in themselves, and with
delicacy, harmony and richness of effect in combina-
tion one with the other, is thus acquired. There is as
wide a difference in the use of words by different writers,
as of paints by poor artists and great ; and as wide a
difference in the effect upon the understanding and
the sensibihties of their readers. And so also, in spoken
words, there is as great a variety of utterance, as in the
whole array of musical instruments, from the most ob-
scure nonsense or empty bombast or wearisome plati-
tudes, up to the deep, pure eloquence of a heart over-

346 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY.

flowing with thought and love, on the bosom of which
every hearer floats with joy, as on a sea of hght and
rapture.

And he who masters etymology, and to whom
words take on again their original aspects of life and
beauty, will become conscious, even in the use of our
language, which is but a grand composite of the best
parts of many other languages, of the primeval pleasure
that men enjoyed who used words when in themselves
they were fresh and new. They will be musical to his
ears, as are the chimes of sweet bells when heard far
off" upon the sea, to those who themselves founded
them, and dissolved their hearts in song with the melt-
ing metal, as its fiery streams ran into the strong mould.
And since each human spirit throws its own hght on
all smTounding objects, and does but see them as they
are reflected in it to its eye, a heart, that finds joy in
the very utterance of its thoughts and feelings, Avill be
sure, like one whose nature revels in the sweet concords
of music, to carol forth perpetually the pent-up melo-
dies that are ever sounding to his inner ear, in the
voiceless depths of his own being, and to excite in other
hearts, while doing so, the same rapture that burns
with divine brightness in his own. Celestial pleasures
are but labors of dehght : eflbrts so true, so high, so
joyous, that they become perpetual pastime ; and he
who imbues, by set purpose at first, and spontaneously

THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 347

afterwards, his own toils on earth with deep inward
gladness, gives wings to his feet in climbing towards
the holy and sublime, and charms those who behold
him into an instinctive imitation of his happy, soaring
flight on high.

INDEX AND MAPS.

INDEX.

Ablaut, in German, 147.

Ach»menidian Kings, 47.

Acro-Corintlius, 2S3.

AdelunK, 200.

^olic Dialect, 50, 51, 55, 62, 233.

African Lan.sua,u;es, IS, 103.

Agglutinative Languages, 16-18.

Agriculture, 51.

Ahrens, 233.

Alaric, 65.

Albanian, 6.5-67, 99.

Allahabad, 203.

Alphabets, 27, 40, 48, 68, 119.

Americanisms, 141-4.

Anglo-Saxon, 188-144.

Arabic, 20, 21-22, 47, SS, 104.

Ar.amajan, 20,

Archaic Forms, 3-35.

Arian, 30-1.

Armenian, 43, 198.

Arnautic, 66.

Aryavarta, 30.

Asiatic Society, 200, 205.

Aspiration, 63, 76, 317.

Attic Dialect. 50, 67.

Aufrecht, 241.

Augustine, 21.

Auxiliary Verbs, 146.

Avesta Zend, 4.5.

Axioms (in Etymology), 33-3.

Babel, 193.

Babylon, 23.

Baltic Sea. 114.

Barth the Traveller, 103.

Basque Language, 102, 106, 110.

Bechuana Languages, 18.

Belgium, 111, 1'44.'

Senary, 230-2, 247.

Benfev, 241.

Benloew, 223.

Bcrbens, 104.

Berlin Academy of Sciences, 199.

Bhagavad Gita, 204.

Boetbius, 103.

Bopp, 212, 219-225, 240, 293, 303.

Brahma, 83, 89.

Brahmanas, 84-5.

Brahmins, 37, 203.

Brittany, 110, 155.

Buckle, 69, 283.

Budaeus, 196.

Buddhism, 38, 42.

Bulgarians, 99, 118 ; their Language, 123.

Bunsen, 28, 151, 174, 255.

Burnouf, 227, 249.

Buttmann, 214, 261.

Byzantium, 67, 9-3, 105.

Byzantine— Greek, 67, 101.

Cadmus, 816.

C«sar, 109, 117.

Camoens, 106.

Carthaginians, 21, 101, 103, 298.

Caste, 42.

Castilian Dialect, 102 : poetry, 105.

Castren, 17, 214.

Catharine IL, 199, 260.

Caucasian Languages, 16, 17.

Celts, 66, 71, 101, 109, 134.

Celtiberians. 101.

Celtic, 28, lol, 161.

Charlemagne, 89, 93.

Chinese Language, 14, 15, 17, 168, 200.

Christian Names, 316.

Christianity, 09.

Cicero, 837. q

Cid, Epic of, 105.

Classical Discipline, 342.

Climatology, 68, 80-31, 162.

Colebrooke, 33, 203, 205, 248.

Columbus, 309.

Congo Languages, 18.

Consonantal System, 22.

Corvus Valerius, 208.

Croesus, 56.

Cyclops. 283.

Cyril St., 119.

Cyrillic Alphabet, 99, 119, 123.

Cyrus, 56, 59.

Curtius, Ernst, 239.

Curtius, George, 236.

352

INDEX.

Dacia, 100, 180.

Danes, 130; their Language, 132.

David, 104.

Derived Forms, 329.

Deutsch, 53, 146.

Devanagari Alphabet, 36, 37, 40, 208.

Development-theory, 16, 167-173.

Dialects, 36, 41, 50, 66, 76, 85, 87-8, 98, 830.

Diefenbach, 156, 234, 236.

Diez, 92, 95, 96, 237, 246, 259.

Digamma, 62, 316,

Diversions of Etymology, 5, 230, 338, 343,

346.
Doderlein, 49, 261, 295, 297, 299.
Donaldson, 14, 59, 71, 121, 249-252.
Doric Dialect, 50, 55, 233.
Druids, 153.
Dual Number, 77.
Duutzer, 234, 247.
Dutch Language, 144.

East India Company, 203, 260.

Edda, 132.

Edomites, 254,

Education, 35.

Egyptian, 23; Old do., 152.

Eichhoff, 89, 228-30,

Emigiations, 47, 71, 74, 91.

Empiricism, 45, 49, 222, 238, 287-290.

English, 134-144.

Erasmus, 196.

Ethnography, 199, 269-272.

Etruscan. (See Tuscan), 70-74.

Etymology : Greek love for it, 125 ; Critical

and Uncritical Methods, 238, ^59 ;

Science of it, &c., 277-347 ; History of

it, 278-311.
Etymologies : Particular ones, 83, 48, 73,

110, 146, 217, 317-822, 835.— False ones,

288-9
Eugubine Tables, 78.
Euphony, 817, 382-3.

Ferdousi, the poet, 47.
Flemish Language, 144.
Franks, 69, 109.

French Language, 108-113, 144.
French People, 109.
Freund, 293-297.
Frisic, 144, 213.
Fritsch, 247.

Uabelentz, 17.

Gadlielic and Gaelic, 157.

Gallic, 110-111.

Garnett, 255.

Gascony, 110.

Genesis, 162.

Germans, 53, 86-7, 150.

German Language, generally, 21, 104, 137.

149; its Influence on Latin, 89-9.1.
German, High, 145-151; Old do., 89, 147.
German Mind, 308.

Gesenius, 21.

Giese, 62, 230.

Glago-litic Alphabet, 124.

Goths, 90.

Gothic Language, 65, 130, 151.

Gnecia Magna, CO.

Gra^co-ltalic race, 48-112.

Grammar, 19, 194; Comparative, 325.

Grammarians, 89, 40.

Grammatical Correspondence, 19, 73.

Grammatical Irregularities Solved, 266-268.

Greek, Ancient, 48-70.

Greek, Modern, 64.

Grimm, 147, 215; his Scale, 216,240,313;

his Dictionary, 307; his Scholarship,

313.
Guna, 231.
Gutturals, 317.
Gypsy Language, 43-45, 53, 226.

Halhed, 203-4.

Hamilton, 206.

Harris, 256.

Harrison, 134.

Hastings, Wavrren, 203.

Heathenism, 68-70.

Hebrew, 20, 22, 26, 104, 138, 197.

Heliand, 145.

Hellas 53

Hellenes, 53 ; Hellenic Greek, 58-64, 7a

Heroism of a Student's life, 209.

Heyne, 261.

Heyse, 242, 259.

Hibernia, 101, 158.

Hieronymus, 119.

Hoefer, 232.

Home-growth of Greeks, 36, 54-63.

Home-growth of Eomans, 74.

Homer, 83, 49, 61-62, 67.

Hue, 35.

Humboldt, William, 102, 226.

lapygian, 70-1.

Iberians, 101.

Icelanders, 114; their Language, 132.

Iliad, 46, 62, 147.

Illyrian, 65.

India : its Climatology, 68-70.

ludische Bibliothek, 210.

Indische Skizzen, 243.

Indische Studien, 243.

Inflection, 16.

Inscriptions, 37, 45-7, 70.

Inventiveness of men small, 164-178.

Ionic Dialect, 50.

Iran, 30, 45, 48, 158.

Iranian, 45-48.

Irish, 157-S.

Italian, 87, 95.

Italic race, 50, 70-112.

Jiikcl, 297.

Jones, Sir Wm., 151, 200, 203-4, 248.

Judaism and its influence, 26, 48, 59, 86,

INDEX.

353

Kaltsclimidt, 234.

Kemble, 25G.

Klotz, 299.

Koshas, 205.

Kuhn, A., 241,243.

Kyinric Lauguages, 154, 156, 157.

Language: Divine Origin of, 16, 164-178;
Impressibility of. So. 98 ; History of,
258; Philosophy of, 259; its ImpLrish-
ableness, 263 ; its Capacities, 341 ; Plea-
sure of studying it philologically, 264-6.

Languages: (1.) Monosyllabic, 15-6, 226;
(2.) Agglutinative, 15"; (3.) Inflected, 18-
200, 226; Dead, 19, 144.

Latham, 256.

Latin: its Characteristics, 82-5; its History,
83-97; Specimens of its different phases,
83, 84, 94; its relations to other lan-
guages, 281-4 ; its relations to the Eng-
lish, 278.

Latinm: its Cllmatolosry. 79-82.

Lautlchre (phonetics), 218.

Lautverschiebung, 94, 96, 147.

Lecbish, 127.

Liebnitz, 199.

Lepslus, 40.

Lettic, 113.

oettish, 116-117.

Lexicography, specific: History of, 292-
311; Comparative do., 822-325.

Lithuiinian, 113-116,317.

Livingstone, 54.

Lobeck, 299.

Locative Case, 77.

Lombards, 89.

Lord's Prayer, 200.

Low-German, 132-145.

Lusiad, 106.

Luther, 147, 196.

Lyrics, 33, 104.

Macbeth, 805.

Maci)herson, 153.

Mahabaratah, 39, 204.

Maltese, 23.

Mantras, 84-35.

Manx, 158.

M.-iterialism, 162. See Climatology.

Mechanical Study, 211.

Meyer, Charles, 157.

Middle Aees, 85-90.

Middle Latin, 85-95.

Moliammedism, 24, 47.

Mommsen, 77, 239, 292.

Monosvllabisni, 14-15, 163-174.

Moors," 103-104.

MuUer, Max, 173-5, 255, 259.

Muretus, 197.

Nature: its power over man, 46.

matology. Materialism, &c.
Niebelungen", 147.

See Cli-

Niebuhr, 14, 60.

Nork, 198.

Normans, 134.

Norse Languages, 132-133.

North American Languages, 15.

Norwegian, 132.

Objectivity, 82.
Orthoepy, 140-142.
Orthography, 140-142.
Oscan, 51, 75-76.
Ossetian, 4S.
Ossian, 152.
Ostrogoths, 89, 131.

Pali Language, 41-42.

Panini, the Grammarian, 89.

Parkhurst's Dictionary, 198.

Passow, 293, 300-301, 306.

Pazend, 47.

Pehlevi, 47.

Pelasgian, 36, 53-64, 73.

Persia, 25.

Persian, 45-6, 88; its influence on Hellonic
Greek. 58-60, 201.

Peter the Great, 119.

Philology: its condition here, 8; a delight-
ful study, 5; its influence on Ethnogra-
phy, 57; its History, 194-280; Classical
Philology, 262.

Philosophy, Schools of, 34.

Phcenieia, 20, 25, 26, 27, 298.

Phonetics, 38, 98, 106, 115, 117, 259. Com-
parative Phonology, 812-822, 326.

Phonographv. 244.

Pictet, 101, 157.

Poland and the Poles, 122, 127-8, 317.

PolysylLibism, 15.

Pompey, 117.

Popery, 34, 80, 121.

Portuguese, 87, 105-107.

Pott, 255.

Prakrit, 37, 41-12.

Pratisakhyas, 38.

Prepositions, 16, IS, 63.

Prichard, 28, 67, 151, 248-9, 231.

Priests, 34, 37.

Prosody : rules of, explainedj 67.

Provence, 107. Provenfal Dialect, 107-8.

Prussian, Old, 116.

Puranas, 33.

Purley, Divereions of, 256, 302,

Pushtu, 47.

R.ipp, 244, 332.

Ramiiyana, 39.

Kask, 17, 212, 215, 249.

Kawlinson, 23.

Kemus, 288.

Reuchlin, 196.

Reynouard, 108.

Richter, 2S5.

Rome : its situation, 79-83.

Romaic Language, 67.

Romanic Languages, 87-112, 294

354

INDEX.

Romance, 47, lOS.
Koman Influence, 83
llomulus, 288,
Roots, 32T, 328, 833.
Uoseii, 249.
Itoss, Ludwig, 292.
I'.uskin, 109.
Russian, 120, 12S.

Balmasias, 197.

Sanilhi, 169.

Sanskrit, 31-43; its Literature, 202, 229.

Sappho, 104.

Sassanides, 47.

Saxon, 145.

Scaligor, 197, 299.

Schlejtel, Augustus, 105, 210-2, 224.

Schlegel, Frederic, 206-9. 240.

Schleicher, 67, 124, 234, 242. 259.

Scholarship (German, 219, 313), 384.

Schwenck, 49, 297.

Scriptures, Indian, 33.

Semitic Languages, 19, 20-27, 43, 309.

Servians, 12.5.

Sibilants, 76, 118.

Shakspeare, 135-6.

Siksha, 38.

Slavonic Languages, 117-131.

Solomon, 25, 83, 38.

Spanish, 87, 100.

State-Languages, 20.

SubjectiTitv, 32.

Swedish, 1.32.

Syllabication, 316, 326.

Tabular Views, lSl-90.

Tatar Lansuages, 16, 17.

Teutonic Grammar, Grimm's, 215, 240.

Tooke, Ilorne, 206, 302.

Traian, 100.

Trench, 256.

Troubadours, 107-8.

Turanian Lauguac;es, 16, 17, 43.

Turkish, 17.

Tuscans, 33, 254, 293.

Ulphilas' Translation, 59, 215.
Umbrians, 75-79,
Umbro-Samuite Dialects, 7C.
Unity of the Race, 162.
Upanishads, 85.

Valpy, 49.
Vandals, 101-105.
Varro, 299, 337.
Vater, 200.
Vedas, 33 39, 202.
Vienna, 260.
Vindhya, 30.
Visisoths, 90, 92, 131.
Vossius, 299.
Vriddhi, 233.

Wachter, 299.

Wallachian, 87, 99-100, 112.

"Weber, 243; Sketch by, 272.

Webster, Noah, 198, 293, 302-306.

Weil, Henri. 22.3.

Welsh. 58-59, 157, 159-161.

Whitnev, Prof., 38, 224.

Wilkins' Charles, 203, 248.

Wilkius, I., 204

Wilson, H. IL, 205-6, 248.

Winning, 253-255.

Yajnyas, 8.

Zeitschrift fur Vergleich, «tc., 240
Zend, 39. 45-46, 213.
Zeuss, 236.
Zoroaster, 81, 46.

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