Whilst the Sclavonic idioms, and in particular the Lithuanian family,
have preserved, almost without alteration, the mould of which Sanscrit
yields us the most ancient product, the Celtic languages, driven
away to the West, remind us only in a sufficiently-remote manner of
the mother-tongue; and, for a long time, it was thought that they
constituted a group apart.
This distribution of languages in Europe, co-relative in their affinity
with the antique idioms once spoken from the shores of the Caspian
Sea to the banks of the Ganges, is an incontestable index’to the
Asiatic origin of the-peoples who speak them. One cannot here suppose
a fortuitous circumstance. It is clearly seen that these tribes
issuing from Asia had impinged one against another; and the Celts,
as the most ancient immigrants on the European continent, have
ended by becoming its most occidental inhabitants.
We have been saying that the European languages of Indo-Ger-
manic stock are referred to four families. We have already enumerated
the Celtic, the Indo-Germanic, and the Shlavic tongues. The
fourth family, which maybe called Pelasgic, comprehends the Greek,
the Latin, and all the languages that have issued from them. Let
us examine separately the characteristics of these linguistic families,
whose destinies, posteriorly to the populations which spoke them,
have exercised such influence upon those of humanity.
The Greco-Latin group has received the name of Pelasgic, Greece
and Italy having been peopled originally by a common race, the Pe-
lasgi, whose idiom may be considered as the (souche) source of the
Greek and the Latin. The first of these tongues is not, in fact, as
had been formerly imagined, the “mother ” of the other. They are
simply two sisters: and if a different-age is to be assigned to them,
the Latin possesses claims to be regarded as the-elder. Indeed, this
language presents a more archaic character than the, classical Greek.
The most ancient dialect of the Hellenic idiom, that of the -¡Eolians,
resembles the Latin much more than the later dialects of Greek.
Whilst, in this last tongue, the presence of the article announces the
secondary period, at the same time that contractions are already numerous,
the synthetical character is more pronounced in Latin; its
grammatical elements have not yet been separated into so many different
words; and the phraseology, as well as the conjugation and the
most ancient forms of declensions, possess a striking resemblance
to that which we encounter in the Sanscrit. The Latin vocabulary
contains, over and above, a multitude of words whose archaic
form is altogether Sanscrit. This language has moreover passed, in
its grammatical forms and its syntax, through a series of transformations
that we can follow from the most ancient epigraphic and poeti-
, eal monuments back to the authors of the IVth and Vth century before
our era. Latin itself was nothing more than one of the branches of
the ancient family of Italic tongues, and which comprehended three-
branches,—the *7apygian, the Etruscan, and the Italiot. These again,
in their turn, subdivide themselves into two branches: the first constituting
the Latin proper, and the second comprising the dialects of
the Ombrians, the Marses, the Volsciaus, and the Samnites.
We are acquainted with the Japygian tongue solely through some
inscriptions found in Calabria, and belonging to the Messaprine dialect.
Their decipherment is as yet little,advanced; notwithstanding
the labors that comparative philology has undertaken in these latter
days:7 but, what of it is understood suffices to exhibit to us an Indo-
European tongue, which becomes recognizable in a much more certain
manner in the inscriptions of the Italiot languages; that is to say, of
tongues somewhat-closely allied to the Latin, and whose forms
approximate already, in sundry respects, more to the Sanscrit.
The comparison of these last idioms to their Asiatic prototype permits
us not merely to seize the relationship of the tribes that spoke
them. It enables us to judge, also, of the degree of civilization which
they had attained when they penetrated into Europe. In fact, as has
been remarked by one of the most accomplished philologues of Germany,
M . T h . M om m sen , those words that we discover at once with the
same signification, in the different Indo-European tongues,—except,
be it well understood, the modifications which became elaborated according
to the inherent genius and the pronunciation of each of these
languages-—give us the measure of the social state of the emigrant
race at the moment of its departure. How, all the names of cattle,
of domestic animals, for ox, sheep, horse, dog, goose,8 are the same
in Sanscrit, in Latin, in Greek, and in German. Hence, the Indo-
European population knew, upon entering Europe, how to rear cattle.
We see also that they understood the art of constructing carts, yokes,
and fixed habitations;9 that the use. of salt10 was common with them;
7 See on this subject the learned works of F. G. Grotefend, entitled,—Rudimenta lingua
Umbricce ex inscriptionibus antiquis enodata (Hanover, 1835);—of S. Th. Aufrecht, and A.
Kirchhoff, Die Umblischen Sprachdenkmäler (Berlin, 1839);—and of Th . Mommsen, Die Un-
teritalischeti Dialecte (Leipzig, 1850).
8 Sanscrit gaus, Latin bos, Greek ßovq, French bceuf, English beef:—Sanscrit avis, Latin
ovis, Greek ois, English sheep:—Sanscrit cevas, Latin equus, Greek fan os, English horse. The
mutation of P into Q is again met with in passing from the Umbrian and the Sanscrit into
Latin; for example, pis for quis ; Sanscrit hansas, Latin anser, Greek ; and the same for
pecus, taurus, canis, &c.
9 Sanscrit jug am, Latin jugum, Greek tfyov, French joug, English yoke:—Sanscrit akshas,
Latin axis, Greek äfav whence ana^a, French char, English car:—Sanscrit damas, Latin
domus, Greek Sdpos:—Sanscrit vtcas, Latin vicus, Greek ¿ikos ; English house.
10 Sanscrit saras, Latin sal, Greek &\as, French sei, English salt.