11.0 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



of the Samoan emigrants can still understand with little difficulty 

 the language spoken in the mother-country. 



3rdly. The changes caused by mere lapse of time or by emigration, 

 unaiFected by foreign influences, are usually governed by definite 

 rules, and rarely lead to irregularities and distortions, either in pho- 

 nology or in grammar. 



4thly. The changes which are thus ])roduced are invariably in the 

 direction of greater simplicity. A. vocal element or a grammatical 

 inflection may be lost or modified, or exchanged for another ; but no 

 new element or inflection is ever introduced. The inti-oduction of a 

 new vocal element, like the Ai-abic guttural in Spanish, and the 

 Hottentot " click " in the Zulu sijeech, is a sure mark of foreign 

 influence. 



The conclusions to which we have thus been brought as to the 

 widely difierent efiects produced on speech by conquest accompanied 

 by mixture of languages, and by mere migration, not attended with 

 such mixture, lead to very interesting results when applied to histori- 

 cal and ethnological questions. Amon^ the most important of these 

 questions is certainly that of the early peopling of Europe. 



If the Aryan emigrants, who, in prehistoric times, overran Europe 

 in successive waves of migration, had found their new abodes wholly 

 unoccupied, there is no reason for supposing that the languages which 

 their descem ants now speak would differ much more from one another 

 in grammar or vocabulary than the Polynesian languages now diflfer 

 among themselves. The actual diSerences, however, are immensely 

 greater, and are of such a nature as to leave no doubt that they have 

 been caused by the attrition of diffei'ent idioms and habits of utter- 

 ance, brought together in forcible collision. 



Recent researches have shown that Europe, or the greater portion 

 of it, was occupied in early times by a non- Aryan population, belong- 

 ing perhaps to more than one race. Scholars are agreed in recognizing 

 in the Euscarians, or Basques, the survivors of at least one section of 

 this primitive population ; and most archaeologists identify them with 

 the Iberians, who in the earliest historical period still held large por- 

 tions of France and Spain, and of whom Tacitus discovei-ed traces in 

 Great Britain. The language of the Basques belongs to the polysyn- 

 thetic class, and, like all languages of that class, is exceedingly diffi- 



