THE KHITAN LANGUAGES. 283 
assert that grammatical construction is the only test of linguistic 
affinity, as if no great changes had taken place in such construction, 
soul of language though it be, even within the period of modern 
history. Putting aside such extreme views, or perhaps, as it would 
be more just to term them, extreme statements, and asking the 
philologist to suggest some valid criterion of relationship among 
languages which we deem to be connected and whose grammatical 
systems are, to say the least, not discordant, he will probably invite 
us to discover among them such a process of phonetic change as has 
been illustrated in the case of the Indo-European languages by the 
well-known Grimm’s law. Now it is precisely such a law, or a 
portion of such a law, that I profess to have found, after a somewhat 
laborious and careful examination of those New and Old World 
languages which may constitute provisionally the Khitan family. 
The name requires explanation. About the middle of the tenth 
century, a foreign horde, whom the Chinese annals know as the 
Khitan, descending from the north, took possession of Mantchuria, 
and extended their sway over the whole of Northern China. For 
two centuries they maintained themselves as the rulers of that 
empire, being recognized in Chinese history as the Liao Dynasty, 
and were then expelled to the north-east by the Nyuche, a supposed 
Mantchu tribe, who ruled in their place as the Dynasty of Kin. It 
was these Khitas or Khitan, for the final is the Khita mark of the 
plural, who gave to the Celestial Empire its medieval name Cathay. 
Some of the Chinese historians derive the Khitan from the desert of 
Kobi, but, farther to the north about the sources of the Yenisei, and 
throughout Southern Siberia according to Tartar tradition, their 
remains are found. These are tumuli, similar to the mounds of this 
continent, containing arms and ornaments, and sculptured inscrip- 
tions upon adjoining rocks in an unknown hieroglyphic character. 
The Tartars call the tumuli Li Kavet, or the tombs of the Cathayans. 
Tumuli of the same character as those of Siberia, accompanied in 
many cases by cup shaped and other rude sculptures agreeing in out- 
line with those found in many parts of this continent, appear in 
India, where they are regarded as the work of a Turanian people, 
the Indo-Scyths of history. These must have been none other than 
the Kathaei of Arrian and Strabo, whom Alexander the Great 
encountered at Sangala in the Punjaub. The very name Sangala is 
Khitan, for from the Songari River the Khitan are said to have 
