compared with the Discoveries of the Modern Sciences. 269 
marked differences in their languages. As the consequence of this state 
of things, the interior of Africa, or the unexplored regions of Australia, 
would contain a greater number of races than the whole of Europe or 
Asia. The same thing would hold true of America, where, however, it 
appears to be demonstrated, that the numerous languages of the natives 
are derived from a common stock, these having been subjected to the laws 
of other families of spoken languages. 
The most recent researches on the construction of different idioms, 
seem to have rendered it probable, that, after the violent separation of 
the human species, they formed themselves into groups, or, if the term be 
preferred, into families. These groups daily tend to approach each other, 
and thus more and more indicate their paternity and mutual affinities, 
They thus present the best proof of their first and single point of de- 
parture ; they divide the human species into certain great characteristic 
families, the subsequent divisions of which come within the domain of 
history. These analogies and relations will become more and more ap- 
parent, in proportion as the philosophical study of nations, and the know- 
ledge of their diverse idioms, acquire greater certainty and fuller develop- 
ment. 
The languages which form the Semitic branch, in which may be in- 
cluded Hebrew, Chaldee, Phenician, Syriac, Abyssinian, and Arabian, 
have been long recognised as haying a common origin, and composing a 
great family. 
The same thing may be said of the Chinese and Indo-Chinese lan- 
guages, which compose a single group, in which all the monosyllabic lan- 
guages of the east may be included, 
With regard to the idioms known under the name of Indo-European, 
they compose a great family, including the Sanscrit or ancient and 
sacred language of India; the ancient and modern Persian, which was 
at first considered to be a Tartar dialect ; the Teutonic, with its diverse 
dialects, such as the Slavonic, Greek, and Latin, with its numerous deriva- 
tives. The Celtic dialects, which, according to Prichard, have the closest 
relation to the Indo-European languages, must be arranged in this group. 
Although the Sanscrit may appear, at first sight, to be a mother lan- 
guage, and to have only remote analogies with those which are some- 
what modern, we arrive at another conclusion when we compare, with 
some attention, the Sanscrit and the Greek, for example. This examination 
is found to prove that numerous relations exist between these two idioms, 
which would at first appear to have nothing in common. Some curious 
details on this point will be found in a notice placed at the head of Bur- 
nouf’s Greek Grammar.* Similar analogies are observable between the 
Sanscrit, the Persian, and all the old and new dialects of the north; as is 
also found to be the case between the first of these languages and the 
Hebrew. We shall find the proof of this assertion in the excellent 
German work published by Bopp. ‘This skilful philologist has there 
compared all these languages with the Sanscrit. Now, as the Greek also 
appears to be derived frou it, judging from the great number of words 
common to the two idioms, it will follow, that all are derived from one 
and the same language, 
* See page 10 of the 37th Edition. Paris, 1842. 
