ON PROBLEMS IN INDO-GERMAN PHILOLOGY. 151 



guages (1, 1i I \), and as r and « ( ^J ) are similarly related in Arabic, we 

 find in the cuneiform alphabet that r and s are represented by the same cha- 

 racter turned in different directions (for r is ^j and s is T^). With 

 these indications of contrivance and design, it becomes important to note that 

 a lateral mark only distinguishes s J^ from v T^ . For as Col. Rawlinson 

 has shown that the character which he calls u \vi has an inherent aspi- 

 ration, and as hit is, in the passage from Sanscrit to Zend, the representative 

 of sv, we find thus in the very contrivances of the alphabet an explanation 

 of that transition from the sibilant to the breathing, and from the labio-dental 

 to the vowel u, which is the main characteristic of the Persian as distin- 

 guished from the Median, and of the Gra3C0-German as contrasted with the 

 Pelasgo-Sclayonian idioms. Compare, for example, the transitions of sound 

 in the Sanscrit gvan, Median gpaka, Russian sabac, Greek kvuv, German 

 hund ; in the Russian svera, Lettish svehrs, Latin fera, Greek Q))p, English 

 deer ; Sanscrit svapna, Greek virvos, and so forth. 



Putting all these circumstances together, there cannot, I conceive, be any 

 doubt that the Sclavono-Median language furnishes us with the point of de- 

 parture and line of demarcation between the Indo-German and Semitic 

 families. With the most pronounced ditferences of subsequent condition, 

 the Semitic and Sclavonic idioms exhibit those marks of internal resemblance 

 which could only spring from contact and intermixture at a very early period, 

 and this contact and intermixture are preserved in all that we can learn re- 

 specting their geographical settlements respectively. And it is as easy to 

 explain the differences as it is to account for the resemblances. The Scla- 

 vonian languages are the most full in etymology and the most meagre in 

 syntax of all varieties of Indo-German speech, because the race has remained 

 pure, and because it did not till a late period adopt alphabetical writing or 

 encourage the development of a national literature. The Semitic idioms, 

 on the contrary, are the most completely fossilized in etymology and the 

 most distinctly syntactical of all languages, because the races which spoke 

 them were constantly exposed to fusion and intermixture, and because they 

 were the first to adopt alphabetical writing and the earliest possessors of 

 literary records. The efiiects, which an admixture of different races, whe- 

 ther proceeding from migration or conquest, produces upon the inflexions of 

 a language, have long been recognised, and the familiar illustration furnished 

 by the modern English language, as the result of a combination of the 

 Norman with the Anglo-Saxon, has often been adduced. But perhaps I 

 shall not make my meaning as clear as I could wish without adding a few 

 remarks on the influences of alphabetical writing and literary cultivation; 

 for sufficient attention has not been paid to the fact that these influences are 

 most decisive and permanent when their first operation is contemporaneous. 



Alphabetical writing was not invented by one effort. It is the last result 

 of a series of successive improvements. The first step is a system of picture- 

 writing or significant signs, which is the usual concomitant of an application 

 of art to the service of idolatry. The constant use of an ideographic picture 

 in connexion with the name of a particular object leads to its employment 

 as a determinative initial for all names which begin with the same or a similar 

 sound. Hence we have phonetic signs intermixed with emblems or pictures. 

 A further step in advance takes us to combinations of phonetic signs alone, 

 and a greater use of writing naturally leads to abbreviations and cursive forms 

 of them, which are first syllabic and then literal. This is the origin of al- 

 phabetic writing. Whether there has been more than one invention of the 

 art, or whether all existing alphabets may be traced back to a common 



