to support their views by evidence, derived from a comparative study of languages; and it was natural also, that, in their impatience to generalise, they should have anticipated results, where all was still conjectural, or taken for granted whatever in different works on Comparative Philology seemed best to suit their own theories. These great questions, however, must wait for their final solution, until the principal languages shall have all passed through the ordeal of Comparative Grammar. The results of Comparative Philology have always been progressive. Different scholars beginning with a diligent study of the organism of one or two languages, have gone on successively to compare them together, and to point out their essential differences or their radical resemblance. Families of languages have thus been established, and the members belonging to one or the other have continually increased in number. The families which have been traced out in this manner, comprise already most of the principal nations of the world; and an admirable statement of the results, arrived at by the combined labours of English and Continental scholars, may be seen in a paper of the late Dr. Prichard On the various Methods of Research which contribute to the Advancement of Ethnology, and on the Relations of that Science to other Branches of Knowledge.' This article, which is incorporated in the Report of the British Association for 1848, is the last word which its lamented author has left on the classification of languages and the varieties of man; and it is remarkable, not only for the vastness and accuracy of its learning, but also for that noble spirit of truthfulness and fairness which pervades all the works of Dr. Prichard. After having enumerated the different languages, belonging to what he calls the Indo-European (Arian), the Ugro-Tatarian* (Turanian), the Chinese, and Syro-Arabian (Semitic) families, he candidly admits that in several cases the inter-connexion rests on unsatisfactory grounds. This applies in particular to the languages of Africa and America, and to several branches of the Ugro-Tatarian family, under which the Chinese and the Indo-Chinese are ranged by some authors. In fact, as before stated, wherever comparative grammar is least advanced, we find the most vague and changeful ethnological con 6 * It is high time that the false spelling of Tartar, instead of Tatar, which is found not only in Dr. Latham's Varieties of Man,' but even in Dr. Prichard's works, should be given up. The Tatars have nothing to do with Tartarus and the Titans, but they are called Tata (and Tatan) from a Turanian root, which means to stretch, to draw the bow, to pitch tents, ri being the plural termination in the Tungusian languages. 1851. Common Origin of Languages. 309 clusions, while languages, whose connexion rests on the firm basis of a grammatical comparison, place the ethnological relation of the nations, by whom they were spoken, beyond all contradiction. Although great progress has been made in a comparative analysis of the Arian or Indo-European, the Polynesian, the Semitic, and some branches of the Ugro-Tatarian family, yet the time for approaching the great problem of the common origin of languages is not yet come. No conclusions on this subject can be drawn from casual points of coincidence or difference, between single members of each family, but only from an inter-comparison of all families, and it will require the labour of centuries before this 'comparison of comparative grammars' can be carried out. In the mean time, it is worthy of remark, that the scholars, who are best competent to give an opinion as to the final results of Comparative Philology, believe, that all researches are tending more and more to the establishment of the common origin of language. Dr. Prichard concludes his paper, alluded to before, with the following words: I may venture to remark that with the in'crease of knowledge in every direction, we find continually 'less and less reason for believing that the diversified races of 'men are separated from each other by insurmountable barriers.' He remarks, that the same is the ultimate conviction of the great author of Kosmos;' and in the course of his paper he points out himself, that some of the barriers, by which families of languages seemed to be insurmountably separated, are already beginning to give way. In connexion with this subject, he alludes to a work by Professor Keyser of Christiania, in which its author endeavours to prove the wide extension of the Iberian people through Western Europe în remote times, and connects them with the Lapponic aborigines of Scandinavia. Nay, Dr. Prichard maintains further, that there are phenomena both in language and history which tend to favour the conjecture, that the Celtic nations (whose connexion with the Indo-European family he was himself the first to point out) were in part of Finnish or Lappish descent, and sprang from a mixture of this race with a tribe of Indo-European origin. And lastly, he refers to Egypt, where, as he says, 'it was reserved to a distin'guished scholar of the present day (the Chevalier Bunsen), to erect the edifice of the most ancient history of the world, a 'monument of the intelligence of modern Europe more exalted 'than the royal pomp of the pyramids.' Now Chevalier Bunsen's great discovery, stated in his own words, is, that the Egyptian, and perhaps the African man in general, is a scion of the Asiatic stock, which gradually degenerated into the 'African type. The Egyptian language attests a unity of blood 6 'with the great Aramaic tribes of Asia, whose languages have 'been comprised under the general expression of Semitic, or the language of the family of Shem; and it is equally con'nected by identity of origin with those still more numerous and illustrious tribes which occupy now the greatest part of Europe, and may perhaps, alone, or with other families, have a right to be called the family of Japhet (the Indo-European languages). According to his view, Egypt is a colony which started from the central plains of Asia, before mankind was divided into the families of Shem and Japhet: the language, therefore, contains the undeveloped type of the Semitic and the Indo-European. This theory (the completion of which we may expect in the last volume of the Egypt') evidently implies the common origin of the Semitic and Indo-European languages, and would show, that the Egyptologic discoveries give a con'siderable support to the hypothesis of the original unity of mankind, and of a common origin of all languages on the globe.' We are most willing to accept these prospective views. But we must, nevertheless, insist on this, that if the method of Comparative Grammar is the only means by which the connexion of languages can be safely and firmly established, we are still very far from a scientific and complete solution of this problem; and that, in its present state, Comparative Philology can neither shake our belief in the unity of mankind, nor, on the other hand, materially confirm it. We must therefore allow, that, like many other sciences, Comparative Philology is still incomplete, and that its final success will depend on further researches. And as such are being carried on at the present moment with great zeal in different quarters, there is good hope of their finally issuing in a favourable result. In our remaining space we shall restrict ourselves to that branch of Comparative Philology, which has been brought to a certain degree of completeness and perfection, and where we have before us definite results, which are no longer exposed to the fluctuations of new discoveries,-we mean the languages of the Indo-European or Arian family. This branch is of by far the greatest interest, since it comprises the languages most familiar to ourselves, the principal tongues of Europe, together with those of Asia-Minor, Persia, and India. Out of a large number of works which have been written on this family of languages, particularly in Germany, we have selected, for the present article, Professor F. Bopp's Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Languages, because it is univer 1851. Arian Family of Languages. 311 sally considered as the classical work on this branch of Comparative Philology. We have to thank the Earl of Ellesmere, the noble President of the Royal Asiatic Society, for the translation of this important work. It is with him that the design originated. He has borne a share in its execution, and taken a warm and liberal interest in its completion. The main part of the translation devolved on Lieutenant Eastwick, now Professor of Urdu in the East India College at Haileybury; and in the name of Professor H. H. Wilson, who has conducted it through the press, we have the further guarantee, that nothing has been neglected to make it a faithful reproduction of the original. Anybody as yet unacquainted with the nature and principles of Comparative Grammar, and who connects with the latter word certain unpleasant recollections of tiresome hours spent in acquiring the declensions and conjugations of a foreign language, will certainly be rather astonished to hear, that there is such a thing as a grammar of eight languages. We have been told that at one of the London bookshops, Bopp's New Grammar, by which eight languages might be learnt at once, has been asked for, together with such happy compendiums as, French com'paratively in no time,' German made easy,' 'Italian without 'a master. There is no doubt, however, that the purchaser must have been severely disappointed in his expectations. Comparative Grammar presupposes a knowledge of language, and, so far from giving us a new idiom, it rather teaches us, that we must return to the nursery of knowledge, and endeavour to gain a new acquaintance with our own mother-tongue. Our former instances were taken from the French, but we might just as well have chosen them from our own language. Everybody knows the difference between I love' and I loved:' but, who could explain, how this change of feeling, which it requires three volumes of a novel, or five acts of a tragedy, to describe, could be expressed by the small and insignificant letter d! We know also the very essential difference between a rich man and a richer man, between pound and pounds. But, how a mere er should have the power of making a rich man richer, an s, of changing a pound into pounds, is a question which probably few have put to themselves, still fewer have answered. Yet, on the whole, the Grammar of the English Language is not a difficult one, nay, we are frequently told, that it has no grammar at all. Our Future, for instance, I shall love' is much more distinct and intelligible, in its origin and meaning, than the French jaimerai. But the French j'aimerai, is again much easier than the Latin ama-bo. And although every schoolboy is able to conjugate amare through all its tenses, moods, and persons, yet there are few classical scholars who could account for the origin and meaning of those mysterious syllables, which have been the fate and the fortune of so many Abelards. Now we have already seen, how the formation of the French language may be explained by a reference to the other Romance languages; and a perusal of Diez's Comparative Grammar will show, that, by a careful analytical comparison, the historical growth of each of these Latin dialects can be explained in all its detail. It will also show, that, in cases where the Latin does not furnish the clue, the older vernaculars, particularly the Provençal, are the most instructive, because they have preserved the growing language in a more transparent and intelligible form. The same applies to the old languages. Forms and words, which are difficult to explain in Latin, find frequently a more intelligible analogue in Greek, and vice versa. In other cases the Lithuanian, Gothic, the old Sclavonic dialects, the Persian, and most of all, the Sanskrit, will come in, and throw light on the complicated ramifications of the Arian languages, so much so that in the work before us Professor Bopp could treat eight languages under the form of one grammatical organisation. Before attempting to follow the learned grammarian into some of his ingenious deductions, we must request the patience of our readers, whilst we give a short outline of the component members of the great Arian family. The first is the Sanskrit, with all the different dialects, which have sprung from it in the course of nearly four thousand years. We find the Sanskrit as a fully developed language in the hymns of the Veda, at the time when the first Arian settlers immigrated into the north of India. We find it changed already in the laws of Manu, and in the epical poems of the Mahábhárata and Rámáyana. We see it again, under a different form, in the popular dialects, at the time of the Buddhistic reformation, in the edicts of As'oka, carved on the rocks of Kapurdigiri, Dhauli, and Girnár, and in the soft and melodious Prakrit idioms, spoken by the heroines and the inferior characters of the Indian drama. Even in the dialects now spoken all over India, with the exception of the Dekkan, we still recognise the same original language, though deprived of its former richness in form and expression, and depraved by the admixture of foreign elements. The second branch of the Arian family is the Persian language, which may equally be followed, in its historical growth and decay, through different periods of literature. The language of the Zendavesta, most intimately connected as it is with the language of the Veda, the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and |