484 THE PRIMITIVE HOME OF THE ARYANS. 



clear and iudubitable, it is that up to the closing days of the Assyrian 

 monarchy no Indo-European languages were spoken in the vast tract of 

 civilized country which lay between Kurdistan and Western Asia Minor. 

 South of the Caucasus they were unknown until the irruption of the 

 Phrygians into Armenia. Among the multitudinous names of persons 

 and localities belonging to this region which are recorded in the Assy- 

 rian inscriptions during a space of several centuries there is only one 

 which bears upon it the Indo-European stamp. This is the name of the 

 leader of the Kimmerians, a nomad tribe from the northeast which de- 

 scended upon the frontiers of Assyria in the reign of Esor-haddon, 

 and was driven by him into Asia Minor. The fact is made the more 

 striking by the further fact that as soon as we clear the Kurdish ranges 

 and enter Median territory, names of Indo-European origin meet us 

 thick and fast. We can draw but one conclusion from these facts. 

 Whether the Indo European languages of Europe migrated from Asia, 

 or whether the converse were the case, the line of march must have been 

 northward of the Caspian, through the inhospitable steppes of Tartary 

 and over the snow-covered heights of the Ural Mountains. 



An ingenious argument has lately been put forward, which at first 

 sight seems to tell in favor of the Asiatic origin of Indo-European 

 speech. Dr. Penka has drawn attention to the fact that several of the 

 European languages agree in possessing the same word for " eel," and 

 that whereas the eel abounds in the rivers and lakes of Scandinavia, it 

 is unknown in those cold regions of Western Asia where, as we have 

 seen, it has been proposed to place the cradle of the Indo-European 

 family. But it is a curious fact that in Greek and Latin, and apparently 

 also in Lithuanian, the word for "eel" is a diminutive derived from a 

 word which denotes a snake or snake like creature. This, it has been 

 urged, may be interpreted to mean that the primeval habitat of the Indo- 

 European languages was one where the snake was known, but the eel 

 was not. The argument however cannot be x^ressed. We all agree 

 that the first speakers of the Indo Enroi)ean languages lived on the land, 

 not on the water, and that they were herdsman rather than fishermen. 

 Naturally therefore they would become acquainted with the snake be- 

 fore they became accpiainted with the eel, however much it might abound 

 in the rivers near them, and its resemblance to the snake would lend to 

 it its name. In Keltic the eel is called a " water-snake," and to this 

 day a prejudice against eating it on the ground that is a snake exists in 

 Keltic districts. All we can infer from the diminutives anpuilla, ey-/^^^^ 

 is that the Italians and Greeks in the first instance gave the name to 

 the fresh-water eel, and not to the huge conger. 



I can not now enter fully into the reasons which have led me grad- 

 ually to give u[) my old belief in the Asiatic origin of the Indo European 

 tongues, and to subscribe to the views of those who would refer them 

 to a northern European birth-place. The argument is a complicated 

 one, and is necessarily of a cumulative character. The individual links 



