PHILOLOGY 



is usually taken to mean the study 

 of the Indo-European family of 

 languages, although it might 

 equally well be applied to any 

 other group, such as the Semitic 

 languages. Its object is to collate 

 and explain varieties in form, and 

 to discover the principles which 

 govern them. With this is also con- 

 nected the comparative study of 

 the syntax of the different lan- 

 guages. 



Morphologically (according to 

 the structure of the words) lan- 

 guages are divided into three 

 classes. ( 1 ) Isolating, monosyllabic, 

 or radical, distinguished by the 

 absence of grammatical inflexions, 

 the relations of words being shown 

 by the position of the radical or a 

 difference of tone in pronunciation. 

 To this class belong Chinese, Bur- 

 mese, and kindred dialects. (2) 

 Agglutinative (glued together). In 

 these, words are formed by the 

 combination of a root-word with 

 suffixes and prefixes, easily sep- 

 arable from the root-word, which 

 remains intact and uncorrupted. 

 To this class belong the languages 

 of southern India, of the Turks and 

 Hungarians. For example.in Turk- 

 ish, from sev-mek(to love) are formed 

 sev-il-mek (to be loved), sev-me-mek 

 (not to love), sev-e-me-mek (not to 

 be able to love), sev-dir-mek (to 

 cause to love), etc. (3) Inflexional. 

 In these the formative part of the 

 word loses its individual character, 

 and is used merely for expressing 

 grammatical relation. Inflexional 

 languages are further subdivided 

 into synthetic, in which different 

 elements unite to form a compound, 

 and analytic, in which the com- 

 pound is separated into its con- 

 stituent elements. Greek and Latin 

 are synthetic ; English, Persian, 

 and many of the languages of 

 modern Europe, analytic. The 

 place of the inflexions of a synthetic 

 language is taken by pronouns, 

 prepositions, and auxiliary verbs. 

 Thus, in Latin, ama-mus (we love), 

 the suffix mus expresses the first 

 person plural ; amabo (I shall love), 

 equal to amare habeo (I have 

 to love), appears in French as aim- 

 erai, preceded by f (je) for the 

 first person singular ; the dative 

 magistro requires three words in 

 English (to the master). It is to the 

 inflexional class of languages that 

 the Indo-European family belongs. 

 It is divided into nine groups. 

 Hindu Sacred Literature 



(1) Indian, the most valuable 

 member of which is Sanskrit. The 

 Rig-Vedas, a collection of hymns 

 from the sacred literature of the 

 Hindus, are no doubt of greater 

 antiquity than any other Indo- 

 Europoan literature. Bengali, 

 Hindi, Gypsy, and Prakrit and 



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Pali, belong to this group. (2) 

 Iranian (Persian), including Zend 

 (Old Bactrian), the language of 

 the Zend-Avesta, the sacred books 

 of the fire-worshipping Zoroas- 

 trians, found also in the cunei- 

 form inscriptions celebrating the 

 exploits of the Persian kings 

 Darius and Xerxes. The literature 

 of modern Persia begins about 

 A.D. 1000. (3) Armenian, supposed 

 to be of Phrygian origin. (4) Greek, 

 with its various dialects (Attic, 

 Aeolic, Doric, Ionic), and modern 

 Greek or Romaic. (5) Albanian. 



(6) Italic, including Latin, Oscan, 

 Umbrian, and the cognate dialects 

 of ancient Italy. Vulgar Latin was 

 the origin of the Romance lan- 

 guages : French, Italian, Spanish, 

 Portuguese, Rumansch or Rhaeto- 

 Romanic (spoken in East Switzer- 

 land), Rumanian, and Provencal. 



(7) Celtic, including Cymric, still 

 spoken in Wales and Brittany 

 (Breton, Armorican), and extinct 

 in Cornwall : Gadhaelic (Goidelic), 

 of which the three forms are Irish, 

 Manx in the Isle of Man, and Gaelic 

 in the highlands of Scotland. 



Germanic and Slavonic Groups 

 (8) Teutonic, to which group 

 English belongs. It includes (a) 

 Gothic, spoken in the Roman 

 province of Dacia, preserved in 

 fragments containing the greater 

 part of a translation of the New 

 Testament by Ulphilas (q.v.), the 

 oldest record of a Teutonic lan- 

 guage ; (b) Western Germanic, 

 subdivided into Old High German, 

 the ancestor of modern German ; 

 Old Low German, represented in 

 modern times by Low Saxon, 

 spoken in a considerable area of 

 northern Germany ; Anglo-Frisian, 

 from which modern Frisian, spoken 

 in the north of Holland and in 

 Slesvig, and English, are de- 

 scended ; Old or Low Franconian, 

 the origin of Dutch and Flemish ; 

 (c) Eastern Germanic or Scandin- 

 avian, including Danish, Swedish, 

 Norwegian, and Icelandic, the 

 earliest remains of which are the 

 Runic inscriptions. (9) Letto- 

 Slavonic. (a) Lettic (Baltic), in- 

 cluding the extinct Old Prussian, 

 and Lithuanian ; (b) Slavonic, 

 comprising Czech (Bohemian), 

 Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, 

 modern Bulgarian, and Slovenian. 

 Of these Old Bulgarian or Ecclesi- 

 astical Slavonic, the language of 

 the earliest Christian writings of 

 the Slavs, is the most interesting. 

 Considering the wide area over 

 which the Indo-European family 

 of languages is spoken, divergencies 

 in the vocabulary, grammar, and 

 syntax of its different members 

 would naturally be expected. 

 But English, in spite of the numer- 

 ous Latin words introduced into it 



PHILOLOGY 



through the medium of French, is 

 nevertheless shown by its inflex- 

 ional remains, scanty though they 

 are, to be undoubtedly a Teutonic 

 language. Similarly, the identity, 

 though obscured by the alterations 

 due to phonetic laws and other in- 

 fluences, of groups of words in con- 

 stant use in the ordinary relations 

 of life pronouns, numerals, and 

 words, such as father, mother, 

 brother, sister, and a general cor- 

 respondence in the formation of 

 words from roots and in their 

 inflexional system, undoubtedly 

 points to the existence of an older 

 language, the parent of all the 

 Indo-European languages. In fact, 

 it is possible to a certain extent to 

 reconstruct it. It does not, how- 

 ever, follow that all those who 

 spoke the different Indo-European 

 languages, which in the form in 

 which we know them are dialectal 

 varieties, were of the same race. 

 This is sufficiently shown in the 

 case of England, where, with some 

 local exceptions, one language is 

 spoken, although those who speak 

 it are the descendants of a number 

 of different peoples. 



Indo-European Civilization 

 Neither the question of the 

 original home of the Indo-Europ- 

 eans, nor of the degree of civili- 

 zation to which they had attained 

 before they separated into differ- 

 ent branches, has been satisfactor- 

 ily answered. Older authorities 

 placed them in Central Asia, but 

 modern philologists favour a lo- 

 cality farther west the borders of 

 Europe and Asia, or even Europe 

 itself, to the N. of the Carpathians. 

 The relationship of the different 

 languages belonging to the Indo- 

 European group is proved by the 

 identity of some of the commonest 

 words denoting action, existence, 

 and similar notions. Take the 

 present tense of the verb to be : 

 Sanskrit, asmi, asi, a-sti, smas, stha, 

 santi ; Latin, sum, es, est, sumus, 

 estis, sunt ; French, suis, es, est, 

 sommes, etes, sont ; brother in Sans- 

 skrit is bhrata, Greek phrater, Lat. 

 frater, Celtic brathair, Russian brat, 

 German bruder, English brother. 

 The first three numerals are : Sans- 

 krit, ekas (eka-), dvau (dua-), 

 trayas (tri-) ; Gr. heis, duo, treis ; 

 _ Lat. unus, duo, tres ; Celtic u n, 

 dau, tri ; Russian adeen, dva, tri ; 

 German em, zwei, drei ; English one, 

 two, three. A number of words 

 pointing to a certain degree of 

 civilization were also common 

 property. These show that the 

 parent family was acquainted with 

 the use of domestic animals such 

 as the horse and cow, and tended 

 sheep and herds ; they lived in 

 houses or huts with doors, not in 

 caves ; used rowing boats, made 



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