134 PROGRESS Ol' LANG LACE. 



sack being found in so many languages, upon the ingenious ground, 

 tliut no one at Babel would have forgotten his wallet, whatever else he 

 might leave behind. 



The great object aimed at, by the friends of revelation, was to show, 

 that the various languages of the earth were similar in their essential 

 features, and that these resemblances lead necessarily to the conclusion, 

 that they have a common origin. The important question thus arises, 

 what evidence is there of a common origin ^ It will be impossible to 

 present all the evidence on this subject within the compass of one or 

 of several essavs. Neither indeed is it necessary. If I exhibit tlie mode 

 of procedure, and some of the results, it will be sufficient. The reader 

 will be able to examine authorities for himself, if he desires to pursue 

 the subject farther. The affinities, which formerly had been but vaguely 

 seen, between languages separated in their origin by history and geog- 

 raphy, now began to appear deliaite and certain, by comparing lan- 

 guages with each other. Languages were found to be connected to- 

 gether in large groups, by new and important relations. It was found 

 that the Teutonic dialects received important light from the language of 

 Persia ; that Latin, in many respects, resembled Russian, and that the 

 theory of the Greek verbs in ft.! could not well be understood without 

 recourse to their parallels in Sanskrit or Indian grammar. Thus it was 

 clearly shown, that one speech pervaded a considerable portion of Eu- 

 rope and Asia, and, stretching across from Ceylon to Iceland in one 

 broad sweep, united in a bond of union nations professing the most 

 irreconcileable religions, possessing the most dissimilar institutions, and 

 bearing but a slight resemblance to each other in physiognomy and 

 color. This is what is called a family of languages, or one language, 

 and has received the name Indo-Germanic or Indo-European. Tiie 

 principal members of this family are the Sanskrit, or sacred language of 

 India, the Persian, the Teutonic, with its various dialects, Sclavonian, 

 Greek, Latin, and Celtic. Now these languages are traceable to what 

 might be called the Japhetic stock, i. e. the descendants of Japheth after 

 their separation from the descendants of Shcm. They moved westward 

 in the course of their migrations, and occupied the countries in Asia 

 Minor and along the coasts of the Mediterranean sea, the whole of Eu- 

 rope, except the Biscayan and Finnish family. Many works have been 

 written, and tables of words have been formed, to show the similarity 

 between these languages : one exhibits 900 words coiumon to the Sans- 

 krit and other languages. Rev. .Jos. Wolf informed us that amongst the 

 Turkomans, by whom he had been made a prisoner, he discovered 

 many hundred words similar to the Gcrnian. The following words you 



