THE PRIMITIVE HOME OF THE ARYANS. 483 



the number of languages be has to compare the sounder will be bis 

 inductions; but the primacy wbicb was once supposed to reside in Asia 

 has been taken from ber. It is Greek, and not Sanskrit, wbicb bas 

 taugbt us what was tbe primitive vowel of tbe reduplicated syllable of 

 the perfect and tbe augment of tbe aorist, and bas tbus narrowed tbe 

 discussion into tbe origin of botb. 



Until quite recently bowever tbe advocates of tbe Asiatic bome of 

 the Indo-European languages found a support in tbe position of tbe 

 Armenian langnage. Armenian stands midway, as it were, between 

 Persia and Europe, and it was imagined to have very close relations 

 with the old language of Persia. Bnt we now know that its Persian 

 affinities are illusory, and that it must really be grouped with tbe lan- 

 guages of Europe. What is more, tbe decipherment of the cuneiform 

 inscriptions of Van bas cast a strong light on tbe date of its introduc- 

 tion into Armenia. These inscriptions are the records of kings whose 

 capital was at Van, and who marched their armies in all directions dur- 

 ing tbe ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries before our era. Tbe latest 

 date that can as yet be assigned to any of them is b. c. G40. At this 

 time there were still no speakers of an Indo-European language in Ar- 

 menia. The language of the inscriptions has no connection with those 

 of the ludo-European family, and the personal and local names occur- 

 ring in tbe countries immediately surrounding the dominions of the Van- 

 nic kings, and so abundantly mentioned in their texts, are of tbe same 

 linguistic character as tbe Vannic names themselves. 



The evidence of classical writers fully bears out tbe conclusions to be 

 derived from the decipherment of the Vannic inscriptions. Herodotus 

 (VII. 73) tells us that the Armenians were colonists from Phrygia, tbe 

 Phrygians themselves having been a Thrakian tribe wbicb bad migrated 

 into Asia. Tbe same testimony was borne by Eudoxos,* who further 

 averred that tbe Armenian and Phrygian languages resembled one 

 another. The tradition must have been recent in tbe time of Herodotus, 

 and we shall probably not go far wrong if we assign the occnpation of 

 Armenia by the Phrygian tribes to tbe age of upheaval in Western Asia 

 which was ushered in by the fall of tbe Assyrian Empire. Professor 

 Pick bas shown that the scant}' fragments of tbe Phrygian language that 

 havesurvived to us belong totbeEnropean branch of tbe Indo-European 

 family, and tbus find their place by the side of Armenian, 



Instead therefore of forming a bridge between Orient and Occident, 

 Armenian represents tbe furthermost flow of Indo-European speech 

 from West to East. And this flow belongs to a relatively late period. 

 Apart from Armenian we cau discover no traces of Indo European 

 occupation between Media and tbe Halys until the days when Iranian 

 Ossetes settled in tbe Caucasus and the mountaineers of Kurdistan 

 adopted Iranian dialects. I must re iterate here what I have said many 

 years ago: if there is one fact which tbe Assyrian monuments make 



"According to Enstathios {in Dion, v. 694). 



