class contains the Semitic languages only; its grammatical forms are produced not merely by composition, as is the case with the second, but also by means of a simple modification of the roots.

More recently, it has been thought convenient to divide the known languages of man into five different groups or dynasties. (1) The Indo-Germanic, corresponding to the second family in the above classification. (2) The Syro-Arabian, corresponding to the third family. (3) The Turanian, or Ugro - Tartarian. (4) The Chinese and Indo-Chinese, corresponding to the first family. (5) The languages of Central and Southern Africa. We still prefer a tripartite division, which in effect is capable of further arrangement in two groups of languages; and we think that the following is the simplest nomenclature. The two groups may be called (A) the central, and (B) the sporadic. Group (A) contains (1) the Iranian languages, corresponding to the Indo-Germanic, or Sanscrit family; and (2) the Aramaic languages, corresponding to the Semitic or Syro-Arabian family. Group (B), or the sporadic family, includes (3) the Turanian, the Chinese, and all those other languages which were scattered over the globe by the first and farthest wanderers from the birth-place of our race. According to this arrangement, the first two families are classed together as constituting one group of languages closely related in their material elements, and differing only in the state or degree of their grammatical development. The third family stands by itself, as comprising all the disintegrated or ungrammatical idioms. By the researches of Dr. Prichard and others, approximations have been already made to the establishment of family affinities between the different members of this sporadic group of languages. At present, however, they must be regarded as belonging to a region of phenomena not yet completely explored by science, and surrounding like a cloud the clearly-developed and central mass of Aramaic and Iranian idioms.

According to a mode of classification which we have elsewhere introduced*, these central languages differ rather in regard to their state or condition than in regard to the materials

*Maskil le Sopher, pp. 3, 4. Above, §. 49.

of which they are composed. By the state or condition of a language we mean, as we have already explained the term, the degree of detriment which the cultivation of syntax has caused to its etymological structure. The old languages of the Iranian or Indo-Germanic family belong to the first and second classes mentioned above. The Aramaic, Semitic or Syro-Arabian idioms all belong to the third class.

70 The relations between the two great branches of the central mass of languages may be established by a theory resting on scientific inductions*; and the result is in close accordance with the ethnographical pedigree given in the tenth chapter of Genesis. That ancient record divides the nations then known to the Israelites into three classes, derived respectively from the three sons of Noah,-namely,-Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But although the subdivision is formally tripartite, the slightest examination of the document will convince us that a more intimate affinity is presumed between the descendants of Shem and Ham, than between either family and the tribes which claimed a descent from Japheth. For example, the Arab tribes designated as Havilah and Sheba are derived from Shem as well as from Ham. In fact, as we have elsewhere said, the relationship between the Shemitic and Hamite nations is fully recognised, but the latter are described as the previous occupants of the different countries into which the Aramean tribes afterwards forced their way. To repeat what we have stated on former occasions, the diffusion of the Aramaic race seems to have been according to the following stages. After the aborigines of Armenia had extended their territory into Asia Minor, and while the

* On the Sclavonians, as forming the point of contact between the Semitic and Indo-Germanic races, see our essay On two unsolved Problems in Indo-Germanic Philology, Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1851, p. 138. And compare Mr. W. K. Sullivan's paper On the Influences of Physical Causes on Languages, &c., Atlantis, Jan. 1850, p. 121.

Rénan maintains (Histoire des Langues Sémitiques, p. 38) that the x th chapter of Genesis groups the different tribes not by race but by climate; that its basis is geographical and not ethnographical; that Japhet, Shem, and Cham represent three zones, the northern, the intermediate, and the southern; and that no one of these names can designate a race in the scientific signification which we give to that word. + Quarterly Review, No. xLv. p. 173; Maskil le Sopher, p. 35.

population of Irân was beginning its development, two streams of population descended from the mountains; and, leaving the desert between them, founded, in Mesopotamia to the left and in Palestine to the right, wealthy and civilized communities, which cultivated at an early period all the arts of city-life and practised not a few of its attendant vices. From the left-hand colony, which included the empire of Nineveh, and subsequently that of Babylon, a further stream proceeded Southwards; and having on its way established the rich kingdoms of Havilah and Sheba in Arabia Felix, it ultimately carried its traditionary religion and social culture into Upper Egypt, where it came in contact with a kindred empire founded in Lower Egypt by those who had taken the right-hand course. All these great diffusers of sensual comfort and irreligious civilization are classed together in the Old Testament as Hamites, or descendants from Noah's godless son, and are opposed to the Shemites, that is, to the Hebrews, Assyrians, Syrians, and Arabians, who subsequently descended from the mountains of Aram. But there is every reason to believe that all these nations spoke languages which exhibited the same peculiarities, and differed only as dialects of the same idiom; and, as we have elsewhere shown*, their apparent trigrammatism, their etymological disintegration, and the tertiary condition in which their oldest remains are found, must be referred to the constant intermixtures, re-unions, and confusions produced by the emigrations and conquests of the different sections of this important family.

By means of a scientific analysis it is possible to point out the existence of monosyllabic roots in Hebrew and in the other Syro-Arabian languages no less than in the members of the Iranian or Indo-Germanic family ($209). But though we must not neglect the various contacts and affinities of the two branches of our first and central group, the present is not the proper occasion for a full discussion of the Semitic idioms; and we must content ourselves with a survey of the branch to which the Greek language belongs.

71 In describing the spread of the descendants of Japheth the Book of Genesis enumerates only those tribes whose settle

*Maskil le Sopher, p. 36.

ments were in Asia Minor, in the South-eastern parts of Europe, and on the Mediterranean. The immediate offspring of Japheth, in other words, the main divisions in this family of nations, are the Cimmerians (Gômer), Scythians (Mâgôg), Medes (Mâdai), Ionians (Jârân), Tibareni (Tubal), Moschi (Meshek), and Thracians (Tiráç). Besides these, the Bithynians (Ashkenaz), Sarmatians (Riphath), and Armenians (Tôgarmah), are mentioned as sons of Gomer, or offshoots of the Cimmerii; and not only Hellas ('Helishah), but other places in the Mediterranean, with which the Phoenicians trafficked, even the distant Tartessus in Spain, are said to be peopled by sons of Jârân, or Ionians. This of course is a one-sided survey of the spread of this great family, though very valuable as far as it goes; and we must take a much more comprehensive view of the population of Europe, if we wish to understand the relation subsisting between the Greek language and the other members of the class to which it belongs.

This great class of languages, extending from India to the British Isles, has been called the Japhetic, Arian, Iranian, Sancrit, Indo-European or Indo-Germanic family. We shall adopt the last of these names, because it points at once to the two most important branches of the family, the Indian and Teutonic languages, and is free from the vagueness which attaches to the term Indo-European; for there are languages in Europe which have no established affinity with this family. Besides, we believe that all the members of the family are deducible from two great branches corresponding to these, and the rigorous examination to which they, in particular, have been subjected, places them in a prominent position in regard to the other idioms, which are not only less important, but also less known.

72 If we consider the elements of the population of Europe, according to the order in which they were successively added to the first sprinkling of scattered Turanian tribes which they drove before them to the mountainous extremities of the continent, we can hardly fail to arrive at the following results. The first emigrants from Asia were sons of Gomer,-Celts and Cimmerians,-who entered this continent from the steppes of the Caucasus, and passing round the northern coasts of the Black

Sea, not only spread over the whole of Europe, specially to the South and West, but also recrossed into Asia by the Hellespont, and conquered or colonized the countries bordering on the South of the Euxine. The next invaders were the sons of Magog,-Scythians, Sarmatians, or Sclavonians,—who are generally found by the side of the Celts in their earliest settlements. They more fully occupied the East of Europe, but though they contributed largely to the population of Greece and Italy, they do not appear to have spread beyond the Oder in the North, or to have established themselves permanently in the Alps, or in the Middle-highlands of Germany. The final settlement of Iranians in Europe was that of the Teutonic races, consisting first of the Low Germans, who, starting from the regions between the Oxus and the Jaxartus, burst through the Sclavonians, and formally settled themselves in the Nord-west of Europe; and secondly of the High Germans, who subsequently occupied the higher central regions, having also contributed an important, and perhaps the most characteristic, element to the population of Hellas. In considering these tribes separately, we shall travel back to their original abodes in Asia, in an order the reverse of this, and shall take as our starting-point those who entered Europe last, and travelled farthest.

73 We begin, then, with the German languages, which are of the highest interest to us, because our own language in its fundamental element, and the oldest part of the Greek, to the elucidation of which our present efforts are mainly directed, belong to the oldest branch of this set. The German languages are divided into two great branches, usually known as Low German and High German. The former, which is the older, was spoken in the low countries to the north of Europe; the latter was the language of the more mountainous districts of the South: whence their distinctive names. There is every reason to conclude that the Low Germans entered Europe from Asia long before the High Germans, and that they were driven onwards to the north and east by the overwhelming stream of the subsequent invasion: this appears not only from their geographical position, but also from the internal evidences of relative antiquity, furnished by the languages themselves.