Professor Rasx’s Remarks on the Zend Language. 525 
I must confess that the first hypothesis, although far from being proved 
by AnqueTIL, upon the whole, appears to me the most easy and natural ; 
and the other, although supported by many sagacious and interesting 
observations, seems still involved in the most inextricable difficulties. 
First, it is remarkable that other learned men (amongst whom is Sir Wm. 
Jones) have supposed, on the contrary, that Sanscrit was introduced as a 
foreign language into India from Iran; and one cannot help thinking this 
much more likely, supposing that the great conquest or migration which 
spread Sanscrit all over the northern, and by far the most extensive part of 
India, had taken place before the beginning of history ; for it is evident that 
all the modern dialects of Hindustan, as well as the Guzerati and Mahratta, 
are chiefly derived from Sanscrit, and that consequently this must have been 
introduced into India before they originated; just as Latin must have 
existed in Spain and Gaul long before the modern Spanish, Portuguese, and 
French were formed: but seeing that the grammatical structure of the 
Telugu, Tamil, Carnataca, and Malayal’ma agrees exactly with the Finnish 
and Tartar dialects in Northern and Central Asia, I imagine that one great 
race of men, which may be stiled the Scythian, in the most ancient times, 
extended from the Frozen Sea to the Indian Ocean, until the chain was 
broken by a great inundation of people of our own race, which, for want of 
a more convenient name, I shall venture to call the Japhetic, issuing from 
Eastern Persia, and taking possession of somewhat more than Hindustan. 
Observing on the map how the above-mentioned Indian aborigines of Mala- 
yalam, of Carnata, of Sholen, of Telingana, &c. are now situated in the southern 
extremity and along the eastern coast of the country, it appears most likely 
that they were driven into that situation by the torrent of a warlike people 
from the west. Another circumstance tends to corroborate this hypothesis : 
although the northern dialects in India are all derived from the Sanscrit, yet 
they contain a number of words of uncertain origin; for instance, in Hindus- 
tani, wy bread, es hat, \.3\ thus, so many, &c.; most of these words will be 
found in the Tamil and other dialects of the south, and therefore seem to be 
remnants of the aborigines, who were not altogether exterminated or 
expelled, although greatly overpowered, just as one might find some Gaelic 
words in modern French, which properly belong to Welsh or Erse. 
But, to return to Persia: that the Zend is not mentioned in the preface 
to the Farhang Jehdngirt among the other dialects of Jrdn, a circumstance 
on which Mr. Ersxrne lays peculiar stress, seems to me of much less 
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