The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history

229 : 22. Fleure and James, p. 146, say: “In the folk tales, it is true, the people are called fairies but colouring is mentioned only in one case—that is of a trader from the sea who is said to be fair; i. e., fair hair is treated as something worthy of special mention. The fairy children (changelings) are always described in such a way as to suggest that they were dark, and that they were the children of the Upland-folk of our hypothesis—i. e., mostly of Mediterranean race. In the romances the princes and princesses are said to be fair, as though that were exceptional. Our friend, Mr. J. H. Shaxby, draws our attention to the probability that the word fair in ‘fair’ or ‘fair-folk’ does not refer to physical traits, but is an adulatory term such as men so generally use in describing beings about whom their superstitions gather.”

230 : 5. Pope Gregory, about 578 A. D.

230 : 9. For evidence as to the blond characters of Christ and the indications of His descent, see Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe, chap. XVII.

Every now and then some reference to this question is noted in the daily papers. Not long ago, in one of the large New York dailies, there appeared a short paragraph concerning the letter of Lentulus. All mention of the extremely doubtful authenticity of this letter was omitted. The Catholic Cyclopædia, vol. IX, discusses the matter as follows:

Publius Lentulus, A fictitious person said to have been the governor of Judea before Pontius Pilate and to have written the following letter to the Roman Senate: “Lentulus, the Governor of the Jerusalemites, to the Roman Senate and People, greetings. There has appeared in our times and there still lives, a man of great power (virtue), called Jesus Christ. The people call him prophet of truth; his disciples son of God. He raises the dead, and heals infirmities. He is a man of medium size (statura procerus, mediocris et spectabilis); he has a venerable aspect, and his beholders can both fear and love him. His hair is of the color of the ripe hazel nut, straight down to the ears, but below the ears wavy and curled, with a bluish and bright reflection flowing over his shoulders. It is parted in two on the top of the head, after the pattern of the Nazarenes. His brow is smooth and very cheerful, with a face without a wrinkle or spot, embellished by a slightly ruddy complexion. His nose and mouth are faultless. His beard is abundant, of the color of his hair, not long, but divided at the chin. His aspect is simple and mature, his eyes are changeable and bright. He is terrible in his reprimands, sweet and amiable in his admonitions, cheerful without loss of gravity. He was never known to laugh, but often to weep. His stature is straight, his hands and arms beautiful to behold. His conversation is grave, infrequent and modest. He is the most beautiful among the children of men.” The letter was first printed in The Life of Christ, by Ludolph the Carthusian, at Cologne, 1474. According to the manuscript of Jena, a certain Giacomo Colonna found the letter in an ancient Roman document sent to Rome from Constantinople. It must be of Greek origin and have been translated into Latin during the thirteenth or fourteenth century, though it received its present form at the hands of a humanist of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

The description agrees with the so-called Abgar picture of Our Lord. It also agrees with the portrait of Jesus Christ drawn by Nicephorus, St. John Damascene, and the Book of Painters (of Mt. Athos). Munter, (Die Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der alten Christen, Altona, 1825, p. 9), believes he can trace the letter down to the time of Diocletian, but this is not generally admitted. The Letter of Lentulus is certainly apocryphal; there never was a governor of Jerusalem; no procurator of Judea is known to have been called Lentulus; a Roman governor would not have addressed the Senate, but the Emperor; a Roman writer would not have employed the expressions, “prophet of truth,” “sons of men,” “Jesus Christ.” The former two are Hebrew idioms, the third is taken from the New Testament. The letter, therefore, shows us a description of Our Lord such as Christian piety conceived him.

There is considerable literature touching on this letter, for which see the Catholic Cyclopædia. Although we cannot credit the letter as genuine, it is interesting, as the article indicated, in showing the popular attitude to the traits in question, and in attributing these Nordic characters to Christ, as are the occasional efforts to bring the matter up again in the journals of to-day.

233 : 4. Synthetic. See the note on languages, p. 242 : 5.

233 : 13. Tenney Frank, 2, pp. 1, 2, and the authorities quoted at the end of the chapter. Also Peake, 2, pp. 154–173; Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 44–45.

233 : 20. See the note to p. 99 : 27.

233 : 24. Ridgeway, 1; Conway, 1; Peake, 2; and numerous other authorities.

234 : 2. The Messapians, according to Ridgeway, 1, p. 347, were the remnants of the primitive Ligurians, who once occupied central Italy but who migrated, under the pressure of the Umbrians, toward the south. There some of them survived under the name Iapyges or Messapians, in the heel of the peninsula. “The name Iapyges seems identical with that of the Iapodes, that Illyrian tribe which dwelt on the other side of the Adriatic, largely contaminated with the Celts (Nordics) who had flowed down over them. That the Umbrians had a deadly hatred of a people of the same name, who had survived in their coast area, is proved by the Iguvine Tables, where the Iapuzkum numen is heartily cursed along with the Etruscans and the men of Nar.”

See also Giuffrida-Ruggeri.

234 : 3 seq. See the notes to pp. 157 : 10 and 157 : 14.

234 : 7. See the note to p. 192 : 1–4.

234 : 12. See pp. 174, 199 and 247 of this book.

234 : 13 seq. Non-Aryan traces in central Europe. Deniker, 2, pp. 317, 334; D’Arbois de Jubainville, 3, pp. 153 seq., gives Ligurian place names. See also 4, t. II. It all depends on whether one considers the Ligurians as Non-Aryan. D’Arbois de Jubainville is inclined to class them as Aryans. Burke, History of Spain, says, in his footnote to p. 2, that Basque place names are found all over Spain. For survivals in the British Isles see the notes to pp. 204 : 5 and 204 : 19, and for the general question, Taylor, Words and Places.

234 : 18. Finnic dialects. Zaborowski, 3, pp. 174–175, says there are very ancient traces of Germanic elements in the Finnic languages of the Baltic. Prior to the fourth century they had a Gothic character.

234 : 24 seq. Agglutinative language. See the note to p. 242 : 5. For the physical characters of the Basques, Collignon, 3, p. 13; and Ripley, pp. 190 seq., who bases himself upon Collignon. On the language see Pruner-Bey, 1; Feist, 5, pp. 362–363, and Ripley, pp. 20, 183–185. There are of course other writers on the Basque language. As a result of the epoch-making study of Keltic by Professor J. Morris Jones, of the University College, Bangor, Wales, which appears as Appendix B, in Rhys and Jones, The Welsh People, pp. 616–641, the assertion is made that Basque is apparently allied to Berber, and that other problems hitherto unsolved may be unravelled. It has not been possible to learn if any very recent progress has been the result of this new method.

235 : 1 seq. Pseudo-brachycephaly of the Basques. A. C. Haddon, correspondence, says: “The Basque skull is long, but with a broadening in the temporal region, in the French Basques, which forms a spurious kind of brachycephaly.”

235 : 11. See the notes above, to p. 234 : 24.

235 : 17. Liguria and the Ligurian language. Sergi, 4; Ripley, chap. X. The modern Liguria comprises virtually the coast lands of Italy around the Gulf of Genoa as far south as Pisa. For ancient Liguria, which once extended into Gaul, see Déchellette, Manuel d’archéologie, t. II, pp. 6–25. D’Arbois de Jubainville treats of the Ligurians at length in several of his works mentioned, but Déchellette shows his wrong reasoning, rather convincingly it seems to the author. The opinions of Jullian, as given in his Histoire de la Gaule, are also discussed by Déchellette. A full discussion in English, of all the authorities on ancient Liguria, the Ligurians and their language is given in Rice Holmes, Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul, pp. 277–287. The language is treated on pp. 281–284, and 318, and by Peet, The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy, pp. 164 seq.; see also D’Arbois de Jubainville, 3, pp. 152 seq. Feist, 5, p. 369, says that the Ligurians were Mediterraneans. A number of others agree with him. The evidence points rather to their having been an early Alpine people, somewhat less brachycephalic than those who came later, and this is the opinion held by Ratzel, vol. III, p. 561. The name Ligurian in this book designates a Pre-Nordic race of Alpine affinities, with a Pre-Aryan language.

The peculiar and discontinuous distribution of Alpine peoples with names which are variations of the term Veneti, a condition rather analogous to the scattered groups of Pelasgians as noted by various authors of antiquity, may indicate the last traces of a once widely distributed race. It is possible that the Ligurians displaced these “Veneti” in southern Europe, and later became confined to a part of Gaul and northern Italy.

235 : 23. Deniker, 2, p. 317, and the note to p. 234 : 13 of this book.

235 : 27–236 : 6. See the note to p. 234 : 17.

236 : 9. Feist, 1 and 5; G. Retzius, 2, 3; Ripley, p. 351; Nordenskiöld.

236 : 14. Livs and Livonians. Ripley, pp. 358 seq.; Abercromby, The Pre- and Proto-Finns; Peake, 2, p. 150.

236 : 17 seq. Ripley, pp. 365–367. Feist, 5, p. 55, says the Finnish language was once agglutinative but is now inflectional. See also another reference to it on p. 231, and our note to languages, p. 242 : 5 of this book.

236 : 26. Magyar language. The most authoritative books on Finnish, Ugrian, and Hungarian speech are those of Szinnyei. See also Feist, pp. 394 seq., and Deniker, 2, pp. 349–351.

237 : 1. Ripley, p. 415, says: “Turkish is the westernmost representative of a great group of languages, best known, perhaps, as the Ural-Altaic family. This comprises all those of northern Asia, even to the Pacific Ocean, together with that of the Finns in Russian Europe.... According to Chantre the word Turk seems quite aptly to be derived from a native root meaning Brigand.” Also see pp. 404–405 and 419 in Ripley.

237 : 13. Ripley, p. 418, and Von Luschan, op. cit.

237 : 21. Gibbon, chap. LVII, on the “Seljukian Turks.” On the Osmanli Turks see Ripley, pp. 415 seq. On Turks in general see Von Luschan.

237 : 25. See the notes to p. 173 : 11 and to pp. 253–261.

238 : 12. G. Elliot Smith, Ancient Egyptians, pp. 134 seq.; Zaborowski, 1, and the table of languages in the note to p. 242 : 5. Practically any book dealing with Aryans gives this information.

238 : 24. Ripley, p. 415; Von Luschan.

239 : 1. See the notes to pp. 158 and 253.

239 : 2. Hittites and the Hittite Empire. See S. J. Garstang, The Land of the Hittites; L. Messerschmidt, Die Hetiter (Der Alte Orient, IV, 1); Feist, 5, pp. 406 seq., and the Hittite Inscriptions, Cornell Expedition of 1911. The history of the Hittite Empire has been brought to light by the research and investigations of Professor Sayce. See his Hittites. There are a number of short general descriptions in practically all of the histories of ancient peoples, and in those of the Near East. See for instance, Bury, History of Greece, pp. 45, 64; Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, pp. 200, 334 seq.; Myres, Dawn of History, pp. 118 seq., 152 seq. and 199 seq.; Myers, Ancient History, pp. 91–93; Feist, Kultur, pp. 406 seq.; Von Luschan, pp. 242–243; and Zaborowski, 1, pp. 121, 134, 138 and 160, deal more with the physical characters of the Hittites.

According to some of the most recent authorities, the Hittites were an extraordinarily powerful nation and held Syria from about 3700 B. C. to 700 B. C., when the Assyrians overcame them. They had some contact with Babylon and probably their development was influenced thereby. They seem to have been the Kheta or Khatti of the Ancient Egyptians. “About 1280 B. C.,” according to Von Luschan, “when Khattusil made his peace with Rameses II, there existed a large empire, not much smaller than Germany, reaching from the Ægean Sea to Mesopotamia and from Kadesh on the Orontes to the Black Sea. We do not know at present if this Hittite Empire ever had a really homogeneous population, but we have a good many Hittite reliefs and all these, without one single exception, show us the high and short heads, or the characteristic noses of our modern brachycephalic groups, (Armenoids).”

As to their language, J. D. Prince, correspondence, says that it was not Aryan, in spite of all conjectures to the contrary. “Friedrich Delitzsch analyzed some of the only syllabized material we have of this language, and I analyzed it still further in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. XXII, ‘Hittite Material in the Cuneiform Inscriptions,’ reaching the conclusion as to the Non-Aryan character of this idiom. The so-called ‘Hittite Inscriptions’ are in hieroglyphs and give us no clue as to the pronunciation and hence none to the character of the language.” Von Luschan, p. 242, says: “Orientalists are unanimous in assuming that the Hittite language was not Semitic.” A very recent communication from Fr. Cumont, in L’Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres for April 20, 1917, says that the tongue is proved to have been Aryan.

As to their physical characters, all are agreed that the Hittites had short, brachycephalic heads, and thick, prominent noses. Myres, p. 44, remarks that the earliest portraits, which he dates about 1285 B. C., have been thought by some to be Mongoloid, but the evidence is still scanty and inconclusive. Surely if the older likenesses were Mongoloid, they bear no resemblance to the later types. On the monuments bearded figures are frequent and the type is Armenoid. See Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East, p. 334, for a criticism of the Mongol theory.

239 : 10. Sumer. J. D. Prince, in his article on the Sumerians in the Encyclopædia Britannica, classes the Sumerian language as agglutinative. The language of Susiana is also known as Anzanite, Susian or Elamite. The Anzanite may have been a dialect of Susian. Schiel’s work with de Morgan’s mission shows that Elamite was agglutinative and that inflections found in derived words are due to the influence of another language. The locality of Anzan is not known exactly, but is believed to have been in the plain south or southeast of Susa. See also Zaborowski, 1, pp. 149–150, and Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East. Hall agrees with Prince that Sumerian is agglutinative (p. 171). He also states that Elamite was agglutinative, but not otherwise like Sumerian. See his chap. V for the relationships of Sumerians and Elamites.

For Media see the notes to p. 254 : 13.

239 : 12. Assyria and Palestine. Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 173 and Fig. 112; Hall, History of the Near East; Myres, Dawn of History, pp. 114–116, 140; and other histories of the Near East.

239 : 13. Kassites. See Hall, pp. 198–200. Very little is known about the Kassites. Hall declares that there is very little doubt but that they were Indo-European; Prince, from the same information, says this could not possibly be the case. They are supposed to have been an Elamite tribe who were living in the northwestern mountains of Elam, immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib attacked them in 702 B. C. They attacked Babylonia in the ninth year of Samsu-iluma, the son of Khammurabi, overran it and founded a dynasty there in 1780 B. C., which lasted 576 years. They became absorbed into the Babylonian population; the kings adopted Semitic names and married into the royal family of Assyria. Like the other languages of the Non-Semitic tribes of Elam, according to Prince, that of the Kassites was agglutinative. That the Kassites had been in contact with the horse-using nomads of the northern steppes, is indicated by the fact that they first introduced the horse into Mesopotamian lands, whence its use for riding and drawing chariots spread into Egypt in 1700 B. C. See Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 138.

239 : 16. Mitanni. Very little is known of the Mitanni. Von Luschan, p. 230, dates them around the fourteenth century B. C. In 1380 they called themselves Harri, from Harri-ya, an old form of the word Aryan. Myres, Dawn of History, says: “The conquest of Syria in 1500 B. C. brought Egypt face to face with a homogeneous state called Mitanni, occupying the whole foothill country east of the Euphrates.... The Egyptian conquest came just in time to relieve the kingdom of Mitanni from severe pressure exerted simultaneously and probably in collusion, by its neighbors in the foothills,—Assyria on the east, and the Hittites west of the Euphrates. Egypt made friends with Mitanni and more than one marriage was arranged between the royal houses. Soon after the treaty between Egypt and Mitanni, Subiluliuma, king of the Hittites of Cappadocia, whom Egyptian scribes conveniently abbreviate as Saplel, was overlord apparently of a number of outpost baronies in north Syria. Assured of their help, and watching his opportunity, he flung his whole force, about 1400 upon Mitanni.... This closed the career of Mitanni.”

The racial affinities of Mitanni are doubtful. Prince, correspondence, says the language of Mitanni was certainly not Aryan. It has been thoroughly analyzed by Ferdinand Bork, in his Die Mitanni Sprache, who compares it with the Georgian or Imeretian branch of the Caucasic linguistic groups. The Mitanni are not to be confused with the Ossetes, who speak a highly archaic, real Aryan language. Mitanni, in structure, is like the polysynthetic North American groups. Feist, 1, p. 14, says the Mitanni were Nordics and inhabited the western mountains of Iran, in Zagros. In 5, p. 406, he places them on the north of the Euphrates during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries B. C. See also Hall, p. 200, the following note and that to p. 213 : 1–23 of this book. Hall also considers them Nordics.

239 : 16 seq. Von Luschan, p. 230, asks: “Can it be mere accident that a few miles north of the actual frontier of modern Kurdish languages there is Boghaz-Köi, the old metropolis of the Hittite Empire, where Hugo Winckler in 1908 found tablets with two political treaties of King Subiluliuma with Mattiuaza, son of Tušrata, king of Mitanni, and in both of these treaties Aryan divinities, Mithra, Varuna, Indra and Nasatya are invoked, together with Hittite divinities, as witnesses and protectors? And in the same inscriptions, which date from about 1380 B. C., the king of Mitanni and his people are called Harri, just as nine centuries later in the Achæmenidian inscriptions Xerxes and Darius call themselves Har-ri-ya, ‘Aryans of Aryan stock.’ So the Kurds,” concludes Von Luschan, “are the descendants of Aryan invaders and have maintained their type and their language for more than 3300 years.”

See also the notes to p. 173 : 11.

239 : 29. See pp. 128 and 137 of this book.

240 : 4 seq. See the notes to p. 173.

240 : 15 seq. See the notes to p. 242 : 5.

242 : 5. The following notes on languages were taken mostly from the History of Language, by Henry Sweet, and were supplemented by the writings of W. D. Whitney, and an article on “Indo-European Languages,” by Peter Giles.

All languages may be roughly divided into two great groups, isolating and agglutinative.

The isolating languages are constructed on the principle of single, distinct words for each idea, and do not employ forms which add or drop syllables, or letters, in order to obtain variety of expression, tense, mode, person, number, etc. However, the element of intonation frequently plays a large part in multiplying the number of possible forms, and therefore of ideas, in isolating languages, by imparting to otherwise identical words different meanings through pitch, rising or falling inflection or accent.

To the isolating languages belong most of those of southeastern Asia,—Chinese, Burmese, Siamese, Thibetan, Annamite, Cochin-Chinese, Malayan, etc. The term isolating does not necessarily imply words of one syllable, although there is a tendency in this direction since the roots are stripped of all incumbrances of a modifying nature so common in agglutinative or synthetic languages. The Chinese, Burmese, Siamese and Annamite are classed as monosyllabic, the Thibetan as half-monosyllabic, while the Malay is polysyllabic.

Because languages are isolating in structure does not mean that they necessarily all belong to one family. They merely have this structural principle in common. To establish family relationships it is necessary to investigate the sets of phonetics used, the root forms, the types of ideas expressed, the composition of the sentence and various other important points included under the psychology of habit and growth forms of speech. No one of these alone is ordinarily sufficient to prove that two languages are of one common stock, since extensive borrowing of all kinds has occurred since time immemorial.

Nevertheless, in point of fact, taking languages as they now exist, only those have been shown related which possess a common structure, or have together grown out of the more primitive radical stage, since structure proves itself a more constant and reliable evidence than vocabulary. But, on the other hand, since all structure is the result of growth, and any degree of difference of structure, as well as of difference of material, may be explained as the result of discordant growth from identical beginnings, it is equally inadmissible to claim that the diversities of languages prove them to have had different beginnings.

In isolating languages, word order is very important, but here again the peculiar character of any tongue of this type depends upon the order selected, or the relative importance of ideas (general, specific, etc.). The employment of particles makes possible a freer word order.

The agglutinative languages are those which combine roots or parts of words or elements into new wholes to express other related ideas than those imparted by the single forms, or else entirely new concepts. Frequently these combinations are still separable on occasion into their original elements, or, if inseparable in their secondary meanings, their original parts with their derivations are still recognizable as such. Again, the component parts are no longer independent, but form a firmly knit whole.

In some languages certain classes of elements have arisen which may be added in a perfectly formal manner to other fixed roots or elements, with or without slight phonetic modifications of either or both parts. Since this occurs in conformity with fairly fixed rules, the meanings of the resultant combinations are, according to the class of the attached elements used, fairly analogous. Thus in English many verb roots obtain the present participle by the addition of the formal element ing, in itself now meaningless, but once, no doubt, a separate root.

The process of agglutination may be accomplished in many different ways, any of which may be characteristic of whole groups of unrelated languages. These may be roughly divided first into mono- or oligo-synthetic and polysynthetic. The former very nearly approach the isolating languages, since usually only one element may be added at a time, but the process of addition may be accomplished in any of the ways possible to agglutination.

Agglutination includes prefixing, suffixing and infixing in all degrees of complexity and fixity. Thus languages may be spoken of as agglutinative only in a relative sense. Some are much more so than others, both in point of the number of elements which it is possible to add, and their dependence upon one another and the root, denoting a higher or lower degree of inextricability in blending.

Many languages are only loosely agglutinative and the component parts of the compounds readily resolve. In others, as in the inflecting languages, the combination is inextricable.

Thus under the head of agglutinative we have the merely agglutinative or synthetic, readily resolvable combinations, which are often hardly distinguishable from isolating languages, and the less easily divisible inflectional and incorporating types. Any or all of the three processes of infixing, prefixing and suffixing may be employed in simple agglutinative combinations.

In inflectional languages the root is attended by prefixes or suffixes which form inseparable modifiers. At times phonetic changes occur which render the complex unlike the simple joining of its component parts.

As Mr. Sweet says: “If we define inflection as ‘agglutination run mad’ we may regard incorporation as inflection run madder still, for it is the result of attempting to develop a verb into a complete sentence.” In some languages, such as the incorporating, a verb is sufficiently distinct in its meaning not to require an independent pronoun. French and Spanish, though not belonging to this category, contain words with the incorporating idea, as in Spanish hablo, I speak, and French, pluit, it rains. Where polysynthesism is the prevailing character, the verb may be sufficiently comprehensive to include the objective pronoun as well as the subjective, so that it is possible to find in one word a transitive, as well as in others an intransitive, sentence. But this is only rudimentary incorporation, and borders on inflection. Some American Indian languages carry it to a very high degree, appending to or inserting into this simple complex not only nouns which may stand in apposition to the implied or actual pronouns, but particles and modifiers of every description. (See the Handbook of American Indian Languages, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology at Washington.) Frequently during this process various parts undergo phonetic changes in accordance with fixed laws, so that the final complex may not at all resemble a string of the original elements, but becomes a new, inseparable and fixed word containing a whole sentence of ideas. This sentence, in some languages, may carry throughout certain modifiers for all noun elements—for instance, as to whether the objects under discussion are visible or invisible. These modifiers bear definite relationships to the nouns, and the “sentence word” in each of its parts must then be conjugated as a verb in an even more complicated manner. This is agglutination par excellence, and is frequently so complex as to be utterly bewildering to the Indo-European mind, even though the Indo-European languages themselves employ agglutination to a limited degree and of certain varieties, particularly of the inflectional order.

Compared to the most complicated Indian tongues, English is in the position of Chinese to Indo-European languages in its structural simplicity, though of course in Chinese we have an added complexity in the use of pitch, etc.

There are certain types of speech which secure changes (plurals, etc.) by internal vowel modification. English itself makes use of this device, but it is the outstanding feature of Semitic tongues.

Sweet says: “There are many other minor criteria of morphological classification. The most important of these is perhaps that of the agglutinative or inflectional elements before or after the word or stem [modified]. In Turkish and in other Altaic languages, as also in Finnish, these are always post-positions, so that every word begins with the root which always has chief stress. The Bantu languages of South Africa, on the other hand, favor prefixes.... The Semitic languages favor prefixes and post-positions about equally. The Aryan languages are mainly post-positional, with occasional use of prefixes, most of which, however, are of later origin.”

It must not be supposed that languages fall into absolutely distinct categories because of their structure. No language to-day is purely of one type or another. There have been too many centuries of borrowing and change for that condition to now be possible for any language, nor are there any longer what might be called primitive tongues. They have all long since outgrown that state, whatever it may have been, even the Botocudo of Brazil, which is generally ranked as the most primitive.

Languages may now be classified only according to their prevailing tendencies. Thus, modern English is in part isolating, in part inflectional and in part agglutinative, as that term is generally applied. Basque is an incorporating language, far removed geographically and linguistically from any other of that character. The Indo-European family may be considered as inflectional, because that process is a prominent feature, but it is by no means the only one present, nor is it exclusively typical of that family.

There is no doubt that all languages pass through certain stages in their development, but it is not at all true that they all have eventually the same or even similar histories. There are endless possibilities of growth and decay, and this fact alone excludes any set evolutionary scheme. Nor are the isolating languages the most primitive. On the contrary, they are as complex in their way as the most agglutinative North American tongues, and as expressive, for some psychological categories.

There is little doubt that all languages have begun on an isolating principle of simple roots for single ideas, from which they have diverged in endless variety. Probably all inflectional languages had an isolating and agglutinative stage, although this is by no means proved. The Chinese seems to have undergone an agglutinative past of some sort, but to have resolved again into simple roots, with only traces of fuller forms, but with the added complexity of tone, accent, and order, to give, as Sweet puts it, “that extreme of elliptical conciseness and concentrated force of expression, which excites our admiration.”

English has become analytical, for many older inflected words have now been worked over into combinations of independent words, but this is far from a complete or consistent process. Probably it will never become like the Chinese, for to do away now with its inflectional system entirely would necessitate a complete upheaval of structure which is not likely to happen in the course of normal inner development, particularly with a vast literature to assist in stabilizing present forms.

As regards polysynthesism, or amount of agglutination, the Aryan tongues are intermediate; they allow affixes, but only within certain limits.

Languages undoubtedly differ from one another in their richness and power of expression, but may not be used as a test of the intellectual capacity of those who now speak them. In fact, men of any race can learn any language, unless abnormal. To account for the great and striking difference of structure among human languages is beyond the power of the linguistic student, and will doubtless always continue so. We are not likely to be able even to demonstrate a correlation of capacities, saying that a race which has done this and that in other departments might have been expected to form such and such a language. Every tongue represents the general outcome of the capacity of a race as exerted in this particular direction, under the influence of historical circumstances which we can have no hope of tracing, but there are striking anomalies to be noted.

“The Chinese and the Egyptians have shown themselves to be among the most gifted races the earth has known; but the Chinese tongue is of unsurpassed jejuneness, and the Egyptian, in point of structure, little better, while among the wild tribes of Africa and America we find tongues of every grade up to a high one or the highest. This shows clearly enough that mental power is not measured by language structure. On the whole the value and rank of a language are determined by what its users have made it do—a poor tool in skilful hands can do vastly better work than the best tool in unskilful hands, even as the ancient Egyptians, without steel or steam, turned out products which, both for colossal grandeur and for exquisite finish, are the despair of modern engineers and artists.” In other words, we must not underestimate the important part played by habit or inertia. “The formation of habit is slow, and once formed it exercises a constraining as well as a guiding influence.”

The Indo-European language is one of the most highly organized families of tongues that exist, and its greatest power lies (in modern English, etc.) in its mixed structural and material character. So to the Indo-European family belongs incontestably the first place, and for many reasons,—the historical position of the peoples speaking its dialects, who have now long been the leaders in world history, the abundance, variety and merit of its literatures ancient and modern and, most of all, the great variety and richness of its development. These have made it an illustration of the history of human speech, which is extremely valuable and the training ground of comparative philology.

W. D. Whitney gives the following linguistic groups in order of their importance from a literary standpoint:

 

1. Indo-European (Indo-Germanic). 2. Semitic. 3. Hamitic. 4. Monosyllabic or Southeastern Asiatic. 5. Ural-Altaic (Scythian, Turanian). 6. Dravidian or South Indian. 7. Malay-Polynesian. 8. Oceanic— a. Australian and Tasmanian. b. Papuan and Negrito, etc. 9. Caucasian— a. Circassian. b. Mitsjeghian. c. Lesghian, Georgian. 10. European Remnants— Basque. Etruscan? Lydian? 11. South African, Bantu. 12. Central African. 13. American.

The first ten groups are families. So little is or was known about the last three groups that the author of the article classed together what are now known to be vast agglomerations of families. For instance, the American languages include several hundred distinct stocks, of which fifty are found in California alone. These are all, according to our present knowledge, utterly unrelated. It is known that the central African tongues belong to a different group than the southern, and it would be advisable to consult Sir Harry Johnston’s recent large work on the Bantu languages.

The subdivision of the Indo-European family into cognate languages is given here to show the great diversity of tongues that may spring from one ancestor. Not all the dialects, nor even languages, have been included, but only those best known:

242 : 16. Cf. S. Feist, 2, p. 250. On the archaic character of Lithuanian, see Taylor, 1, p. 15, and the authorities he quotes. Also Schrader, Jevons translation.

242 : 20–243 : 4. Deniker, 2, p. 320, sums up Hirt’s position on this question in the footnote: “According to Hirt the home of dispersion of the primitive Aryan language would be found to the north of the Carpathians, in the Letto-Lithuanian region. From this point two linguistic streams would start flowing around the mountains to the west and east; the western stream, after spreading over Germany (Teutonic languages), left behind the Celtic languages in the upper valley of the Danube, and filtered through on the one side into Italy (Latin languages), on the other side into Illyria, Albania, and Greece (Helleno-Illyrian languages). The eastern stream formed the Slav languages in the plains traversed by the Dnieper, then spread by way of the Caucasus into Asia (Iranian languages and Sanscrit). In this way we can account, on the one hand, for the less and less marked relationship between the Aryan languages of the present day and the common primitive dialect, and on the other hand, for the diversity between the two groups of Aryan languages, western and eastern.”

If this were so, Sanskrit should more closely resemble the Slavic than the western languages. As it is, the old Vedic speech, the earliest form of Sanskrit, is said to show more affiliations with Greek than with any other of the Aryan tongues (see Taylor, 1, p. 21, and authorities quoted), a fact which merely adds another proof to our hypothesis that sometime between 2000 and 1500 B. C. the Nordics filtered down the Balkan peninsula in their earliest wave and about the same time other branches found their way into northwestern India. The Sanskrit alphabet is more closely related to the Phœnician than to any other. At the time of the first Nordic expansion their language was not reduced to writing. The alphabet used for early Sanskrit, was, according to Professor Bühler, probably introduced into India by traders from Mesopotamia about 800 B. C. Another authority on the relations of Greek and Sanskrit is Johannes Schmidt, Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Indo-germanischen Sprachen, Weimar, 1872.

243 : 4. Prof. J. D. Prince, correspondence, in discussing the kinship of prehistoric Ugrian to Aryan says that, although it is a temptation to believe in it, there is insufficient data for proving it. As careful a scholar as Szinnyei, in his Vergleichende Grammatik der Ugrischen Sprache, is careful not to commit himself. But see Zaborowski, 3; also the notes to p. 236 : 26; and Deniker, 2, pp. 349–351.

243 : 12. Deniker, 2, p. 320 and the authorities he quotes.

243 : 20. See the notes to pp. 158 : 21 and 159.

243 : 25. See p. 158 and also the notes on languages to p. 242 : 5.

244 : 1. See p. 157 and the notes.

244 : 6. Latin derivatives. Zaborowski, 1, p. 2. See table of languages, in the note to p. 242 : 5 of this book.

244 : 12–28. Ripley, pp. 423–424; Freeman, 2, p. 217; Obédénare, p. 350; Ratzel, vol. III, p. 564; and the articles on the Balkans and Hungary in the Geographical Review, by Cvijič and Wallis. Cf. G. Poisson, The Latin Origin of the Rumanians.

244 : 29–245 : 3. Freeman, 1, p. 439.

245 : 3. Jordanes, History of the Goths; Procopius, The History of the Wars; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chaps. I and XI; Freeman, The Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 70–71; also the notes to pp. 143 and 156 : 10.

245 : 12. Sarmatians. See the note to p. 143 : 21. The same for the Venethi. Under the Roman dominion Latin speech appears to have spread from the Adriatic coast eastward over the Balkans replacing the native dialects except along the shores of the Ægean and in the large cities.

246 : 9. Freeman, 1, pp. 440–441.

246 : 15. Ripley, p. 425.

246 : 24. See the note to p. 173 of this book.

246 : 27. Rhys and Jones, The Welsh People, pp. 12, 13.

247 : 3. See the note to p. 174; Oman, 2, pp. 13, 14; Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 409–410; 2, pp. 319–320; Rhys and Jones, pp. 1, 2.

247 : 9. Goidels. Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 227, 291 and 455–456.

247 : 16. Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 229, 456; Oman, 2, p. 16. See also p. 174 of this book.

247 : 23. Ripley, p. 127; Feist, 4, p. 14; Ridgeway, 1, p. 373; and pp. 195 and 212 of this book.

247 : 27. See the note to p. 247 : 3.

248 : 3. Fleure and James, pp. 146, 148; D’Arbois de Jubainville, 2, p. 88.

248 : 6. Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 319–321; Taylor, 2, pp. 138, 167–168; Beddoe, 4, p. 20.

248 : 12. Neo-Celtic. D’Arbois de Jubainville, 2, p. 88; Fleure and James, p. 143.

248 : 14. Rice Holmes, 2, p. 12.

248 : 29–249 : 4. See the notes to pp. 177–178 of this book.

249 : 16. Beddoe, 4, p. 223.

249 : 20. The same, pp. 241–242; Ripley’s maps, pp. 23 and 313; but consult Beddoe, 4, p. 66, for criticisms of evidence derived from place names; Taylor, 2, p. 119.

249 : 27–250 : 1. Beddoe, 4, pp. 139, 241–242.

250 : 1 seq. Taylor, 2, p. 173; Palgrave, vol. I of The English Commonwealth; Oman, 2, pp. 158 seq.

250 : 6. Taylor, 2, pp. 170–171.

250 : 14. Ripley, p. 22; Taylor, 2, pp. 137–138.

250 : 20. Jordanes, XXXVI; Gibbon and others.

250 : 24. Ripley, pp. 531–533.

250 : 28 seq. Cf. Ripley, pp. 101, 151 seq.

251 : 7 seq. Cf. Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 309–314.

251 : 18. See the note to p. 182 of this book.

251 : 26. Since the Belgæ were the last wave of the Celts, and Cymric was the later Celtic, this deduction is inevitable, even if there were no facts, such as place names, history, etc., to prove it. See the note to p. 248 : 6.

251 : 28–252 : 2. Beddoe, 4, p. 35; Ripley, pp. 101, 152; Taylor, 2, pp. 95, 98.

252 : 5. See the note to p. 196 : 7.

CHAPTER XIV. THE ARYAN LANGUAGE IN ASIA

253 : 1. See p. 158 and note. Also Peake, 2, p. 165; Breasted, 1, p. 176; Von Luschan, pp. 241–243; Zaborowski, 1, p. 112; DeLapouge, 1, p. 252, says: “Aryans were in India about 1500 B. C.”

253 : 10. See Peake, 2; also pp. 170–171 and 213 of this book.

253 : 13. See the note to p. 225 : 11.

253 : 13–15. Eduard Meyer, Zur ältesten Geschichte der Iranier.

253 : 16 seq. See the note to p. 239 : 16 seq.

253 : 19. Zaborowski, 1, pp. 137 and 214.

254 : 1. See pp. 173 and 225 of this book.

254 : 3 seq. For Sacæ see the note to p. 259 : 21. Cahun, Histoire de l’Asie, says on p. 35: “The Sacæ and the Ephtalites and Massagetæ were from the Kiptchak.” See also Zaborowski, 1, pp. 94, 100–101, 215 seq.

254 : 6. Massagetæ. See the note to p. 259 : 21.

254 : 8. Ephtalites, or White Huns. Cahun, Histoire de l’Asie, pp. 43–55: “The Turks destroyed in the first half of the seventh century a powerful nation, the Ephtalites of Soghdiana, north of Persia. They were called Ephtalites, or White Huns or Tie-le-urn Turks.” See also the notes to pp. 119 : 15 and 224 : 3 of this book, and chap. XXVI in Gibbon on the Huns in general.

Procopius, vol. I, says in speaking of the Ephtalite Huns and describing their war with the Persians about 450 A. D.: “The White Huns are of the stock of the Huns in fact as well as in name, living in the territory north of Persia, and are settlers on the land in contrast to the Nomadic Huns who live at a distance.... They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and countenances that are not ugly and they are far more civilized than are the other Huns.” The general impression gained from Procopius is that they were not true Huns. “Massagetæ” is used as another name for Huns by Procopius. He describes them as mounted bowmen. It is clear that in using this name he refers to Huns only.

254 : 13. Medes. The name Medes is variously applied by different authorities; by many the Medes are regarded as a branch of the Persians, one of two kindred tribes of Nordics. The author follows Zaborowski in applying the name to the round skulled population which was conquered by the Persians. See Zaborowski, 1, chaps. V and VI, especially part II and p. 125. Also Herodotus in the references given for Persia. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, p. 459, gives an interesting bit of their story.

254 : 15. Persians. The Persians were a branch of Nordics who invaded the territory of the round skulled Medes, and gradually imposed their language and much of their culture on the subjugated populations. See Herodotus, book I, especially 55, 71, 72, 74, 91, 95, 101, 107, 125, 129, 135, 136; and book VI, 19, where he discusses both Medes and Persians. For modern commentary the author follows Zaborowski, 1, pp. 138–139, 153 seq., chap. VI, and also pp. 212–214.

Von Luschan, pp. 233–234, describes the present day Persians, showing that there has been a resurgence of types and that the Nordic elements have been largely absorbed by the original inhabitants. He adds, however, on p. 234, that while he never saw Persians with light hair and blue eyes, he was told that in some noble families fair types were not very rare.

254 : 19. See the note on the Medes, and Zaborowski, p. 156, on the Magi.

254 : 26. Darius. Zaborowski, 1, p. 12. Herodotus, I, 209, says: “Now Hystaspes the son of Arsames was of the race of the Achæmenidæ and his eldest son Darius was at that time twenty years old.” Another name for Hystaspes was Vashtaspa, whose father was Arsames (Arsháma). He traced his descent through four ancestors to Achæmenes (Hakhámamish).

Von Luschan, p. 241, says: “Nothing is known of the Achæmenides who called themselves ‘Aryans of Aryan stock’ and who brought the Aryan language to Persia. About 1500 B. C. or earlier, there seems to have begun a migration of northern men to Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Egypt and India. Indeed we can now connect even Further India with the Mitanni of central Asia Minor.”

See Zaborowski in regard to the Behistun tablet, etc., although practically any writers on Persia and Mesopotamia discuss this great monument.

255 : 2. Zaborowski, 1, pp. 116–117.

255 : 6. See the note on the Medic language, 255 : 13. Also Zaborowski, 1, pp. 34, 182–184.

255 : 7 seq. Zaborowski, 1, pp. 180–184; Feist, 5, p. 423.

255 : 13. Bactria and Zendic. See the notes to pp. 119 : 15 and 257 : 12.

255 : 13. Zendic or the Medic language. See Zaborowski, 1, chap. VI. According to the Census of India, vol. I, pp. 291 seq., both Persian and Medic tongues belong to the Aryan stock. They are divided in the following table: