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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



separated into two great divisions, on the evidence afforded by 

 language. It is almost certain that the Mongolians must 

 be similarly treated, for there are great distinctions among the 

 tongues which they speak. As a first step to understanding 

 the matter, it is necessary to explain the fundamental 

 principles on which languages have been classified. Eeaders 

 comprehend what is meant by calling a word a root. The 

 import is that it is a simple word, like love, head, sun,* which 

 cannot apparently be resolved into any more primitive one 

 from which it may be supposed to have sprung. Roots in 

 language remind us of the simple substances in Nature, such as 

 iron, silicon, or potassium, which chemists have not yet suc- 

 ceeded in proving to be made up of two others. Professor 

 Max Miiller affirms that in all languages the roots are mono- 

 syllabic. He divides them into two classes, predicative roots, 

 that is, those which assert something or other as eye, star, 

 cold ; and demonstrative roots, meant to point something out, 

 as there, who, what, thus, that, thou, he. It is believed that 

 in every language the roots were at first separate from each 

 other. No two had coalesced, but all stood out in absolute 

 isolation. The Chinese is notably in this predicament still. 

 "It is a language," says Professor Muller, "in which no 

 coalescence of roots has taken place ; every word is a root, and 

 every root is a word. It is, in fact, the most primitive stage in 

 which we can imagine human language to have existed " (pp. 

 259, 260 of " Lectures on the Science of Language." London : 

 Longman, Green, and Co., 1861). Language in this "radical 

 stage," that is, this root-stage, he calls monosyllabic, or isolating. 

 The isolation in which the roots stand to each other explains the 

 latter of these two terms, while the fact, already mentioned, 

 that all real roots are monosyllables, accounts for the former. 

 Many languages have, however, gone beyond the radical, and 

 reached the " tcrminational stage." In their case two or more 

 roots have coalesced to form a word. Of these, however, one 

 has invariably lost its original independence, and sunk into a 

 mere termination. In the English term, " breastwork," there are 

 the two roots, breast and work, not, as in Chinese, standing apart 

 from each other, but one (work) figuring as the termination of 

 the other (In-east). This kind of union is called agglutinative, 

 from the Latin word gluten, glue, as if two separate roots were 

 glued together. With the exception of the Aryan, the Semitic, 

 and the Chinese, with its cognate dialects, all the languages 

 of Asia belong to the agglutinative division. The next and 

 highest stage of all the "inflectional" one, is that in 

 which the two roots in conjunction have thoroughly coalesced, 

 both having lost their substantive independence, so that they 

 cannot now be easily dissevered. In the English word is, for 

 instance, there must be two roots, the one (predicative) assert- 

 ing the existence of a person or thing ; and the second (demon- 

 strative) indicating that the entity pointed at is not in the first 

 or the second, but in the third person. Languages of this 

 character are called organic, or amalgamating. Those which 

 answer to the description now given are the forms of speech 

 used by the Aryan and Semitic races. 



To confine cur attention now to the Mongolians. Language 

 cannot render us so much service here as it did in the case of 

 the inflectional class, in which similarity of inflection, it will be 

 remembered, was deemed a better proof than resemblance in 

 roots that tongues now distinct had formerly been identical. 

 But in most of the Asiatic languages there are no proper inflec- 

 tions, and it is an extremely vague character to say that some 

 Mongolian nations speak monosyllabic and others agglutinate 

 languages. It appears to us that this classifies them rather 

 according to the degree of linguistic development which they 

 have reached, than according to their ethnological affinities. 

 How many families like the Aryan and Semitic Caucasians will 

 ultimately be made out of the vast Mongolian chaos, it were 

 difficult at present to say. We should suppose several, especially 

 if the Americans and the Malays of Blumenbach are regarded as 

 simply more or less modified Mongolians. All that can at present 

 be done, however, is to follow existent lights, and separate the 

 Asiatics belonging to the comprehensive division of mankind 

 now under review into two sections, those speaking monosyl- 

 labic, and those using agglutinate tongues. 



* It was needful for clearness that we should give some specimens of 

 roots ; but we would carefully abstain from asserting that those actually 

 selected may not yet be curtailed or otherwise simplified by future 

 analysis 



The Chinese, as already stated, stand as the most typical 

 specimens of the first division. Thus, where in Latin the expres- 

 sion would be used, baculo, "with a stick," the Chinese say y cang t 

 meaning " employ stick." The physical appearance of this inte- 

 resting people is well known, though some pictures exaggerate 

 rather than correctly represent its peculiarities. The Chinese 

 have the Mongolian eye more manifest in them than in the 

 tribes and nations around, that is, they have eyes linear in 

 form and situated obliquely, so that the outer extremity is 

 turned up. The beard is scanty. The population of the 

 Chinese empire is supposed to amount to 400,000,000, about 

 a third of the human family. The vast majority of these are 

 of the genuine Chinese race. If we mistake not, this great 

 nationality is destined to affect the world more powerfully 

 in the future than it has done in the past. Its isolation is 

 giving way, and emigrants, whom the pressure of population 

 drives from its shores, are beginning to pour in thousands into 

 other lands. Many of them return home, the main reason 

 being that their wives are not allowed to accompany them to 

 foreign countries. When this barrier to settlement abroad is 

 removed, then the stream of emigration, even at present of 

 respectable dimensions, will become a flood overflowing many 

 territories. The dominant religion in China is Buddhism, a, 

 faith which originated with an Aryan prince in India. 



We pass next to the remaining divisions of the Mongolian 

 race. After Max Muller has disposed of the Chinese and its 

 cognate dialects, he divides all the other languages spoken by 

 Mongolians, at least of the eastern hemisphere, into two great 

 sections the northern and the southern divisions of the great 

 Turanian family of tongues. Ages have elapsed since the 

 name Turan was first opposed to Arya, or rather Aria, the 

 former being used to designate the wandering Mongols, while 

 the latter stood for the more settled Brahmans and Iranians, 

 who were believed to be of superior race. All the languages 

 now mentioned are held by Muller to be agglutinate, though 

 some of them, such as the Thibetan, the Karen, the tongues of 

 Siam, Laos, and Cambodia, are transferred by Farrar, as indeed 

 had been done by Latham and others previously, to the mono- 

 syllabic class. To turn now to the Northern Turanians. 



From time immemorial the great table-land of Central Asia, 

 from the confines of Europe to the borders of China, has been 

 traversed by wandering shepherds, vaguely described by the 

 ancients as Scythians, and by medieval Europeans as Tartars. 

 Occupying the very latitudes which in another continent 

 developed the powers of the conquering Teutons, perpetually 

 out in the open air, and preserved by their mode of life from 

 the enervating vices of cities, they became admirably adapted 

 for military service, and whenever they obtained a leader of 

 genius to heal their petty feuds, and force them for a time to 

 act in common, they had it in their power to overturn old 

 empires and establish barbarous sovereignties of their own 

 amid the ruins they had made. Thus did Attila and Jenghis 

 Khan and Tamerlane and others, one and all of them of tht 

 North Turanian or Tartar race. The word " Tartar," it is said, 

 should be Tatar, the r being inserted during the Middle Ages to 

 give colour to the charitable statement or conjecture that the 

 dark and ugly Asiatics who battled so hard against the warriors 

 of Europe, had come from Tartarus. 



The North Turanian forms of speech are five in number the 

 Tungusic, the Mongolia, the Turkic, the Samoyedic, and the 

 Finnic (Uralic) tongues. An interest attaches to each of the 

 five. From the Tungusic branch of the Turanians came the 

 Mandshoo Tartars, who in the seventeenth century conquered 

 China, and still retain supreme authority in that great land. 

 The Tai-ping revolt was a rise in arms of the native Chinese 

 against their Tartar rulers. It was nominally the Mongolians 

 proper, though really a medley of Turanian tribes, among 

 whom, however, the Mongolians were the most prominent, 

 who under Jenghis Khan conqiiered a great part of ^Asia, 

 while his successors carried their arms into Europe itself. 

 All are familiar with the title " the Great Mogul," as applied to 

 the Delhi emperors, and one section of the Indian Mahome- 

 tans are still called Moguls ; but the Turks were really more 

 prominent than the proper Mongols in that conquest of India 

 which led to the establishment of the Delhi-Mogul throne. 



The Turks follow next in order. They are associated in most 

 minds simply with the Sultan and his dominions, but in reality 

 they are widely spread throughout all Western and Central 



