60 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



CHATTER V. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEMITIC FAMILY. 



Arabic System — Illustrations of its method — Nearly identical with the Celtic— Druse and Maronite — Agrees with 

 the Arabic — Hebrew System — Restoration of its Details difficult^Illustrations of its Method — Agrees with 

 the Arabic — Neo-Syriac or Nestorian — Illustrations of its Method — Agrees with the Arabic — System presump- 

 tively follows the Language — Comparison of Aryan and Semitic Systems — Identical iu their Radical Charac- 

 teristics — Originally Descriptive iu Form — Probable Inferences from this Identity. 



TuE Semitic language, in its three principal branches, is represented in the 

 Table, with the system of consanguinity and affinity peculiar to each. First, the 

 Arabic, by the Arabic and Druse and Maronite ; second, the Hebraic, by the 

 Hebrew; and third, the Aramaic, by the Neo-Syriac or Nestorian. Since the 

 Arabic and Nestorian are spoken languages, and their systems of relationship are in 

 daily use, and as the Hebrew exhibits the Jewish form as it prevailed when this 

 language ceased to be spoken, the schedules in the Table present, Avithout doubt, 

 the ancient plan of consanguinity of tbat remarkable family Avhich has exercised 

 such a decisive influence upon the destiny of mankind. Although the influence of 

 the Semitic family has been declining for centuries, before the overmastering 

 strength of the Aryan civilization, the family itself will ever occupy a conspicuous 

 position in human history. These schedules are the more interesting because they 

 reveal, with so much of certainty, not only the present but also the ancient system 

 which prevailed in the Semitic kingdoms of Babylon, Nineveh and Jerusalem, and 

 in the Commonwealth of Carthage. They are likewise important for comparison 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the nature and ethnic boundaries of the descriptive 

 form of consanguinity, and its relations to the forms in other families of mankind. 



The two distinguishing characteristics of the system of the Aryan family are 

 present in the Semitic. In the flrst place, it is substantially descriptive in form, 

 with the same tendency to a limited number of generalizations to relieve the bur- 

 densomeness of this method ; and in the second, it maintains the several collateral 

 lines distinct from each other and divergent from the lineal line. In other words, 

 it follows the streams of the blood, as they must necessarily flow where marriage 

 exists between single pairs. 



Whilst the Semitic system separates the family by a distinct and well defined 

 line from the Asiatic nations beyond the Indus, it places it side by side with the 

 Aryan and Uralian. So far as the descriptive system of relationship can deliver 

 any testimony through identity of radical forms, which is worthy of acceptance, it 

 tends to show, that while there is no traceable affinity from this source between the 

 Semitic and Turanian families, there is a positive convergence of the Aryan, Semitic 



