114 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



age in accordance with that already assigned to the Sanscrit alphabet ; for Euro- 

 peans themselves cannot be said to have arrived at even the rudest notion of a 

 dictionary till that of Hesychius was written ; that is, till about the fifth century. 

 In connexion with this subject it may also be here observed, that, if the Hindoo 

 grammars were near as old as is pretended, they must have been composed imme- 

 diately after the introduction of the Sanscrit writing (they could not sooner) ; 

 and this consideration alone, independently of the internal evidence they afford 

 to the same effect, would be sufficient to establish their European origin. 



In the second place, the actual ingredients, as well as the grammatical subtilty 

 of the Sanscrit language, make very decisively against its imagined antiquity. 

 That German, Greek, and Latin enter into the composition of this language, 

 and contribute, not merely to its materials, but even, if I may so express myself, 

 to the very frame-woi'k of its construction, is now so generally admitted, that 

 there is no occasion for my detaining the reader with any illustration of the 

 point,* and I shall, therefore, proceed at once to show how incompatible with 

 this acknowledged property of it are the received notions as to its prodigious age. 

 In order to bear out such age, it is necessary to imagine the Indian tongue to be 

 in a certain degree the parent stock of the European ones just mentioned; and, 

 consequently, to suppose that, at some very remote period, a large body of the 

 Indians advanced to the cold and barren plains of the Scythians,f and thence cut 



* I here refer with pleasure to a brief, but very able and interesting treatise on the above subject, 

 by Dr. Prichard of Bristol, which forms a supplement to his Researches into the Physical History of 

 Mankind. The author, by introducing the Celtic dialects into the field of this investigation (in which 

 part of his plan he has been lately followed by M. Adolphe Pictet, in a work which has received the 

 approbation of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Bellos-Lettres) has thrown great additional 

 light upon the matter, and has clearly established the connexion between nearly all the more ancient 

 North-European languages and the Sanscrit ; I differ from him only as to the cause of that 

 connexion. 



t To place this theory in the point of view that is least objectionable, I have described the 

 Indians as proceeding first to the north and then to the west ; in order to avoid the supposition of 

 their crossing the sea in times when it is utterly improbable that there was shipping, upon a great 

 scale, in any part of the world. Yet a very distinguished supporter of the theory in question does not 

 shrink from adding even this to the other improbabilities of the case. Baron Cuvier, in reference to 

 the Greek portion of the Sanscrit language, writes thus : " The Pelasgi were originally from India, of 

 which the Sanscrit roots that occur abundantly in their language do not permit us to doubt. It is 

 probable that by crossing the mountains of Persia they penetrated as far as the Caucasus ; and that 



