Sanscrit Writino; and Language. 117 



supposing that they bent their steps back towards the dreary north ; while on the 

 other hand, the traces of a North-European language found in India render it 

 likely that they may have invaded and conquered part of that widely extended 

 country. But whether it be to them or to some earlier horde of intruders that 

 those traces are to be attributed, the lingual phenomenon In question renders it 

 certain that, at some very remote period, a large colony of people speaking 

 a dialect of close affinity to the German tongue, settled In HIndoostan ; and the 

 analogies of history show very clearly how the event may have occurred. 



Two very grave objections which beset the opinion hitherto most generally 

 received, having been removed by the mode now proposed of considering the 

 subject, it remains to be inquired. In the third place, whether the rest of our way 

 to a consistent account of the origin of the Sanscrit language can be cleared of 

 difficulties. The cause of the infusion of German Into this language has been 

 just ascertained : but the admixture with it of Greek and Latin cannot be 

 explained In the same manner, as no extensive settlement of either Greeks or 

 Romans was ever established in India. Some other source must, therefore, be 

 sought for the South-European part of the compound In question ; and here the 

 old connexion which has been already proved to have subsisted between the 

 Egyptians and Indians, naturally presents Itself. One of the most remarkable of 

 the Institutions of the former people was that of a sacred dialect, the principle of 

 the formation of which (as, from the scanty remains of It preserved by Josephus, 

 has, I trust, been made apparent in the part of my work already published) was 

 the agreeing upon meanings for Egyptian words quite different from their com- 

 mon or ordinary acceptations ; whereby the priests were enabled, as long as they 

 kept their secret, to converse among themselves in a species of gibberish that was 

 to the people at large an unknown tongue. Now why may not the Brahmans 

 of early times have taken a lesson from their Egyptian instructors in this, as well 

 as they certainly did in other respects ? The Introduction, Indeed, into their 

 sacred language of South-European ingredients was a mode of rendering It unintel- 

 ligible to the vulgar, which was a great improvement on the model they had to 

 follow ; but the end of the formation of both dialects appears to have been just 

 the same. And In like manner, as I conceive, it was the desire of having a 

 species of writing which the Indian public could not read, — till they were 

 specially taught its nature, and which most probably for ages they were not 



