326 Dv Prichard on the Belations of Ethnology 



eludes a great many of the principal idioms of Europe and 

 Asia. It may be divided into several different groups. The 

 first group, or the Classical (as it may be termed, for the sake 

 of distinction), includes those languages in which are the chief 

 remains of ancient literature ; and these are more perfectly 

 inflected, and have a more complete grammatical construc- 

 tion than the rest. They are three, viz., the Sanskrit, Greek, 

 and Latin, w^hich perhaps resemble each other nearly in an 

 equal degree. The second group in this first class consists 

 of languages very nearly allied to the Sanskrit, viz., the an- 

 cient languages of Persia and Media. They are, 1. The idiom 

 in vi^hich the Persepolitan and other Persian cuneiform in- 

 scriptions are written, so nearly approaching the Sanskrit, 

 that the meaning has been made out through this resem- 

 blance. 2. The Zend, in which the Zendavesta, or the Scrip- 

 tures of the Fire-worshippers or followers of Zoroaster were 

 written, is another language of this group, to which we may 

 add the modern Persian. 3. The next branch, reckoning by 

 the degrees of af&nity, to the Sanskrit, is the Old Prussian 

 family, including the Lettish and Lithuanian. The Lettish 

 and Lithuanian are said to resemble the Sanskrit more near- 

 ly than any other European dialect ; and Von Bohlen, who 

 has written a work on this subject, assures us that he could 

 compose whole sentences in Sanskrit, which would be intel- 

 ligible to the peasants of Lithuania. 4. The Germanic fa- 

 mily constitutes a fourth group. 5. The Slavic or Slavonic, 

 or Sarmatian languages, are a fifth section. They compre- 

 hend the languages of the eastern parts of Europe, the Rus- 

 sian, Polish, Bohemian, and the dialects of a great part of 

 the countries in Europe subject to the Turkish empire. 



I shall now stop to inquire what inferences can be drawn 

 from these philological facts. 



We know from history, that the nations above mentioned 

 have been spread, from a remote age, over the regions which 

 they now inhabit. The Teutonic and Scandinavian tribes 

 of the German race were known to Pytheas, on the shores of 

 the Baltic, in the time of Aristotle, and the Brahmans who 

 spoke Sanskrit, to Megasthenes at the court of Palibothra, 

 supposed to be Patna, soon after the same period. All an- 



