514 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



another, even though it be in close ties of friendship; whilst there is 

 still less tendency when national hostility intervenes. Secondly, the 

 adoption of the language of the conqueror by the conquered, except 

 under the most favorable circumstances, is not common, and only takes 

 place by a very gradual process, as is seen in the case of Ireland. 

 Thirdly, there is a strong tendency for the conqueror to adopt the 

 language of the conquered, as was done by the Normans in England, 

 In Ireland, in Sicily and in Italy; by the Cromwellian settlers in Tip- 

 perary, by the Bulgari in Bulgaria, by the Franks in Gaul, by the 

 Lombards in Italy and by the Visigoths in Spain. There is thus an 

 inevitable tendency for the children to speak their mothers' tongue, and 

 indeed the phrase " mother-tongue " is based on the fact observed 

 through long ages that the child learns its first words from its mother 

 and thus takes after her in speech. This law, which still holds good in 

 modern days and in civilized communities, must have been far stronger 

 in earlier times in countries where the tie of marriage hardly existed and 

 the child belonged to its mother's and not its father's tribe, as is still 

 the case in many parts of the world. 



In view of these facts we can not accept Sir John Ehys's hypothesis 

 that when a few bodies of invaders, whom he terms Celticans, passed 

 into Ireland the indigenous supposed non-Aryan race within two cen- 

 turies completely abandoned its own language, taking over in its 

 entirety the Aryan tense system as well as the Aryan vocabulary of its 

 conquerors. 



Now let us turn to Greece, Italy and Spain. It is admitted that 

 neither Arcadia nor Attica was ever conquered by Acheans or Dorians, 

 yet in both these areas the Greek language existed through all historical 

 time, and in Attica especially the Aryan tense system is found in its 

 highest perfection. The dialect of Arcadia can not have been taken 

 over from Acheans or Dorians, because it is the same as that of the 

 Cypriotes from Arcadia who settled in Cyprus at least 1100 B.C. It is 

 also very close to the dialect of Pelasgiotis in Thessaly, the home of 

 the aboriginal Pelasgian population, whilst it comes closest of all Greek 

 dialects to that of the ancient Epic. There can, therefore, be no doubt 

 that Arcadian is no mere bastard lingo, half non-Aryan, half Aryan, 

 but is the genuine speech of the oldest and most unmixed population of 

 Greece, who were undoubtedly a melanochrous race, and who also most 

 certainly had occupied Greece from the Stone age. 



The Ligurians, who formed from the Stone age the bottom stratum 

 in all upper and central Italy, are now admitted to have spoken an 

 Aryan language, and I have recently given some reasons for believing 

 that the Latin language is simply the native tongue of the aboriginal 

 Ligurian population of Latium with some admixtures derived from the 

 Italic tribes of Siculi and Sabines. I have also shown that the ancient 



