OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



Keltic seems to have been Iver, which is the 

 same as the Sanskrit avara, " western." It ap- 

 pears in the Latin Avernus, a famous lake on 

 the west coast of Italy, as well as in Ivernia y or 

 Hibernia, the western island. This old word 

 Iver has been shortened to Ir or Er, and out 

 of this, by putting on their own terminations, 

 the English have made Ire-land, the home of 

 the Ir-ish, or " Westerners." But in spite of 

 the fact that we find no certain traces of the 

 name Aryan in the European languages, I be- 

 lieve that the modern use of the word, as de- 

 scriptive of the whole family, is likely to prevail. 

 It is a much less cumbrous term than " Indo- 

 European," and, while it is advantageously free 

 from geographical restrictions, it emphasizes, at 

 the same time, the fundamental fact that the 

 Aryana Vaejo, or prehistoric starting-point of 

 the eastern members of the family, was also the 

 starting-point of the western members. It im- 

 plies what every one admits to be true that 

 the dominant race in Europe came from central 

 Asia. And, still further, it serves admirably as 

 a name for the extinct mother tongue from 

 which all the Indo-European languages have 

 descended. By many scholars this primitive 

 tongue is itself called Indo-European ; but I 

 am unable to see any propriety in giving such 

 a name to a language which, as being confess- 

 edly spoken north of the Oxus and east of the 

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