VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1317 



sitional grades between them, it is believed 

 that all existing languages may be referred. 

 It is remarkable that the development of a 

 language should not by any means correspond 

 to the advance of civilisation, so far, at least, 

 as this is manifested by progress in the arts of 

 life. The Chinese, for instance, of all known 

 languages, most completely preserves, in a 

 fixed or stereotyped condition, that earliest 

 phase in the development of speech, in which 

 every word corresponded to, or represented, 

 a substantial object in the outward world ; 

 and it cannot be denied that a considerable 

 amount of intellectual development is to be 

 found amidst that people. And from what is 

 known of the ancient Egyptian language, this 

 appears to have been nearly in the same con- 

 dition. On the other hand, there are many 

 languages of comparatively barbarous nations, 

 even belonging to the same group with the 

 Chinese, which possess much greater flexi- 

 bility. The highest development of language 

 however, is undoubtedly to be found coinci- 

 dent with the highest intellectual cultivation ; 

 since this pre-eminently shows itself in the 

 Indo-European tongues, of which the Sanscrit 

 may be taken as the type, the Hellenic pre- 

 senting its highest development in the amalga- 

 mate form, and the English in the anaptotic. 

 In both these do we find that the general 

 plan of construction tends to give to every 

 single word a fixed and definite meaning, and 

 at the same time, to render it subservient to 

 the general idea that the sentence is to unfold, 

 which is obviously the great end and aim of 

 language; whilst in the Chinese, every spoken 

 word has an immense variety of meanings, and 

 its import being determined, partly by its 

 place in the sentence, partly by the tones or 

 accents with which it is pronounced, and in 

 the written language by an immense number 

 of conventional signs derived from figurative 

 sources, which are destined, not to express 

 sounds, but to suggest ideas, and thus to 

 assist the reader in guessing the meaning of 

 the word. 



Now the most positive evidence which 

 philology is able to afford, in regard to the 

 affinities of two languages, is undoubtedly that 

 which is derived from their conformity both 

 in vocabulary and in grammar. But it fre- 

 quently happens that one of these kinds of 

 evidence is deficient ; and the degree of reli- 

 ance that can be placed upon the other, taken 

 alone, must depend greatly upon the circum- 

 stances of the individual case. Thus, if there 

 be evidence that the vocabulary of one of 

 these languages is in a state of continual 

 change, an entire difference of vocabularies is 

 no obstacle to the idea of the affinity between 

 two languages, when this is decidedly indi- 

 cated by a striking conformity in their systems 

 of construction. On the other hand, when 

 two languages or groups of languages differ 

 greatly in their construction, but present a 

 certain degree of verbal correspondence, full 

 weight may be attached to that correspond- 

 ence, if it can be proved that it has not been 

 the result of intercourse subsequently to the 



divergence of the stock, and if it can be shown 

 to be probable that their separation took 

 place at a period when as yet the grammatical 

 development of both languages was in its in- 

 fancy. The first appears to be true of the 

 American languages, which seem, as a whole, 

 to be legitimately referable to a common 

 stock, notwithstanding their complete verbal 

 diversity. The second is the aspect under 

 which it appears likely that the Indo-European 

 or Japetic, and the Syro- Arabian or Semitic 

 groups of languages will come to present 

 themselves ; the results of the recent labours 

 of Rawlinson, Layard, Botta and others, on 

 Eastern Archaeology, tending decidedly in 

 this direction. 



Philological inquiry, then, must be looked 

 to as the chief means of determining the 

 question of radiation from a single centre or 

 from multiple centres ; and although, in the 

 present state of this department of science it 

 would be unsafe to venture on a positive con- 

 clusion, yet the following may be considered 

 as the principal groups under which the 

 various languages hitherto studied may be 

 arranged. 



1. The Indo-European, sometimes termed 

 Indo-German, frequently Japetic, and by late 

 writers Arian, or Iranian. This group com- 

 prehends nearly all the existing languages of 

 Europe, and those of a portion of South- 

 Western Asia. 



2. The Syro- Arabian, often termed Semitic ; 

 which are spoken by a large part of the popu- 

 lation of Syria, Arabia, and Northern and 

 Eastern Africa. 



3. The Turanian, or Ugro-Tartarianj which 

 are spoken by the (Mongolian) people of 

 High Asia and of certain parts of Northern 

 Europe. 



4. The Seriform, or Indo-Chinese ; which 

 are spoken by the people of South-Eastern 

 Asia. 



5. The African ; which are spoken by the 

 people of Central and Southern Africa. 



6. The Malayo- Polynesian ; which are 

 spoken by the inhabitants of the numerous 

 islands and island-continents of Oceania. 



7. The American ; which are spoken by the 

 inhabitants of the New World, from the 



Arctic Sea to Cape Horn. 



i 



Now it is not a little curious that the 

 linguistic affinity should often be strongest, 

 where the conformity in physical characters is 

 slightest, and weakest when this is strongest. 

 Thus among the Malayo-Polynesian and the 

 American races, as already remarked, there 

 are very striking differences in conformation, 

 features, complexion, c. ; and yet the lin- 

 guistic affinity of the great mass of tribes 

 forming each group is not now doubted by 

 any philologist, though a doubt may still hang 

 over some particular cases. On the other 

 hand, the hiatus between the Turanian and 

 the Seriform languages is very wide ; but the 

 physical conformity is so strong between the 

 Chinese and the typical Mongolian nations, 

 that no ethnologist has ever thought of as- 



4 R 2 



