102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



•words, and the consequence is that they differ from one another to a 

 degree of whicli the Aryan schoUir has no idea, and whicli makes it 

 impossible to compare them in the very loose way Prof Campbell has 

 attempted. Tlie basis of the classification of the Tnranian languages 

 has hitherto been according to the employment of pronominal affixes, 

 but this is an unsatisfactory and very meagre mode of arriving at a 

 classification. Max Mtiller says : " To maintain a word and not to 

 allow it to be replaced by a new expression was'joossible in the Ai-yan, 

 that is in a social state of the language, not among nomad tribes, who, 

 living only for the present, were little concerned about the past or 

 future, without history, without ambition ; and thus we find that the 

 number of common words is very small." Schott says : " We ought 

 not to despair about the affinity of these languages, the Turanian, 

 altliough the words for the most necessary ideas in them are so essen- 

 tially different. To Prof. Campbell, however, the Turanian languages 

 pi'esent no difficulty whatever, and he proves their affinity with one 

 another by long lists of words, which he says are identical in Basque 

 and Etruscan, in Japanese and Circassian, in Hittite and Chocktaw, 

 in Iroquois and Aztec. We trust Prof. Campbell will pardon us if 

 we prefer the judgment of Mtiller and Schott, and of a score of other 

 Turanian scholars to his judgment, and if we express a very strong 

 doubt as to the value of his researches and his very remarkable con- 

 clusions. 



And now a few words regarding the Etruscan alphabet, its origin, 

 some of its peculiarities, and the extent of country over which it pre- 

 vailed, and a short statement of what is generally I'eceived concerning 

 the origin of the Etruscans. The town of Chalcis in Eubo^a was one 

 of the oldest of the Phoenician colonies, and received from Phoenicia 

 the alphabet, which it adopted with very little change. When Chalcis 

 became an Ionic possession it still retained its alphabet, which is 

 more closely connected with the old Phoenician than any other of the 

 Greek alphabets. Shortly after Chalcis became Ionic it entered into 

 rivalry with Miletus for commercial and colonial supremacy. Miletus 

 acquired a supremacy in Eastern Europe, in the ^gean, and the 

 Euxine ; while Chalcis turned to Italy and the West. Cumae was 

 founded by a colony from Chalcis, and became a centre from which 

 Greek leai-ning, Greek culture, and the Greek Chalcidian alphabet 

 were communicated to the rest of Italy. Etruria early received its 

 alphabet from this soui'ce and an examination of the Etruscan letters 



