to this great family, have much that is Common with the
Median or the Germanic branch, yet we cannot, withoutibesiv
tation, set them down as strictly belonging to. this division.
Of the two great Celtic idioms, one, namely, the Erse or
Gaelic, approaches in some particulars to the southern or
classical department o f this.groupe of languages. The same
remark may be applied to.the Slavic idioms, and, perhaps,
still more obviously to the Lettish and Lithuanian7which of
all extant European dialectsappear most nearly, to. resemble
the Sanskrit. These observations are of manifestimpp.rtanceto^
ethnography; but we must not draw inferences from them
without adverting to an observable fact, that each member
of the Indo-European class of languages bears, individually,
traits of particular affinity* or a t least, of peculiar resemblance,
to nearly every other member. Thus the Celtic and the
Greek have some words in common, which are wanting to all
the other languages; and a similar remark applies., to the
Laturand the Sanskrit. Such facts are_difficult. o(f explanation,
hut, perhaps, the greatest difficulty connected, with the history
of the Iranian languages, relates to the origin^of/he barbaric
or foreign element which they severally Captain, but which, in
some instances, j s in much greater proportion than it is in
others.
Paragraph 4— Of the AllophyHan Races.
When we inquire more particularly into, the history of the
Indo-European races, many traits present themselves ..by
which they are brought into contrast with all the nations who
are aliens to their stock and,lineage. For all these tribes of
foreign blood we want a term which may serve to designate
them collectively, and at the same time to distinguish them
from nations of the Iranian family. Some late writers have
termed all these tribes in the aggregate, Scythians, maintaining
th a t they all belong, not less than the Iranian nations, to a
particular race. As this opinion rests, as yet at least, on no
sufficient evidence^ I shall avoid using the term suggested by
it, and for the present I shall distinguish the whole'collective
body of nations who are distinct from the Indo-European
family, by the term Allophylian races, which is of obvious
meaning, and can admit: of no mistake.
The Allophylian races are spread through all the remotest
regions of the iold continent, to the northward, eastward,
and westward of the Iranian nations, whom they seem everywhere,
to have preceded, .so th a t they appear, in comparison
with the Indo-European colonies* in the light of aboriginal
ofï natives inhabitants, vanquished and often driven into re*
mote and mountainous tracts, by more powerful invading
tribesU; The latter seiem to have'bpen everywhere superior to
them in mental endowments. Some of the Indo-European
nations, indeed, retained or acquired many characteristics of
barbarism and ferocity, but with „these they nil joined undoubted
marks of an early intellectual developement, particularly
a higher culture of language, as %n instrument .of thought
as well as of human intercourse.* I f we inquire as to the
degree.^ of -social improvement which Jthe Iranian nations had
attained a t the era of. their dispersion from their primitive
abodes or. /from the common! centre -of; „the whole stock, an
investigation ,!ofi their languages will be- our principal guide *
but in order that we. might, in, a, satisfactory manner, avail
oü$selv$s of this. reipnTGe,* sufficient materia^bave not yet
bèens çojlected and arranged. Some general remarks on the
suh jec^T th is inquiryL are all that I shall venture to offer,
and these, indeed, I shall lay. before, my readers merely
as conjectures! and probable generalizations, rather than as
ipf^rences. deduced from a d eq u a te research. If we compare
the grammatical forms and vocabularies of the Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Zend, German, Lithuanian, Slavic, and Celtic languages,*
wè discover, besides analogies in the laws of construction
or in the mechanism >pf^speech, which is’ offall marks
of affinity the most important, a palpable resemblance in
many of those, words which represent the ideas of a people
in the most simple state , ©f-^existenoevs ?Such a re terms expressive
of family'relations^,, father, mother; brother, sister,
daughter ; names for the most striking objects of the material
universe; terms distinguishing different parts of the body, as
head, feet, eyes, ears ; nouns of number up to five, teü, or