THE PRIMITIVE HOME OF THE ARYAT^S.* 



By Prof. A. H. Sayce. 



In my address to the Anthropological Section of the British Asso- 

 ciation in 1887, 1 stated that in common with many other authopologists 

 and comparative philologists, I had come to the conclusion that the 

 primitive home of the Aryans was to be sought in northeastern Europe. 

 The announcement excited a flutter in the newspapers, many of whose 

 readers had probably never heard of the Aryans before, while others 

 of them had the vaguest possible idea of what was meant by the name. 

 Unfortunately it is a name which, unless carefully defined, is likely 

 to mislead or confuse. It was first introduced by Prof. Max Miiller 

 and applied by him in a purely linguistic sense. The "discovery" of 

 Sanskrit and the researches of the pioneers of comparative philolog'y 

 had shown that a great family of speech existed, comprising Sanskrit 

 and Persian, Greek and Latin, Teutonic and Slav, all of them, sister- 

 languages descended from a common parent, of which however no 

 literary monuments survived. lu place of the defective or cumber- 

 some titles of Indo-Clerman, Indo-European, and the like, which had 

 been suggested for it, Prof. Max Miiller proposed to call it Aryan— a 

 title derived from the Sanskrit Irya, interpreted " noble" in later Sans- 

 krit, but used as a national name in the hymns of the Rig- Veda. 



It is much to be regretted that the name has not been generally 

 adopted. Such is the case however, and it is to day like a soul seek- 

 ing a body in which to find a habitation. But the name is an excellent 

 one, though the philologists of Germany, who govern us in such mat- 

 ters, have refused to accept it in the sense proposed by its author ; and 

 we are therefore at liberty to discover for it a new abode and to give 

 to it a new scientific meaning. 



In the enthusiasm kindled by the sight of the fresh world that was 

 opening out before them the first disciples of the science of comparative 

 philology believed that they had found the key to all the secrets of 

 man's origin and earlier history. The parent speech of the Indo-Euro- 

 pean languages was entitled the Ursprache, or ^' Primeval Language," 

 and its analysis, it was imagined, would disclose the elements of articu- 



* From The Contemporary lievieiv, Jnly, 1889, vol. lvi, pp. 106-119. 



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