EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



Caspian, was certainly neither Indian nor Eu- 

 ropean in any sense. It seems to me much bet- 

 ter, and more in conformity to the general style 

 of philologists, to call this ancestral language 

 " Old Aryan," just as we say " Old Norse " 

 for the primitive form of Danish, Swedish, and 

 Norwegian. 



As we now proceed to take a brief survey of 

 the Aryan domain, I think we shall realize the 

 advantage of having a word that is independent 

 of geographical limits. The Aryana of the pre- 

 sent day is much more than an Indo-European 

 region. Its eastern boundaries have altered but 

 little for many centuries ; but on the west it has 

 extended to the Pacific coast of America, and on 

 the other side of the world it has begun to annex 

 territory in South Africa and Australia. Indeed, 

 if we are to judge from what has been going on 

 since the times of Drake and Frobisher, it 

 seems in every way likely that men of English 

 speech will by and by have seized upon every 

 part of the earth's surface not already covered 

 by a well-established civilization, and will have 

 converted them all into Aryan countries. But 

 our linguistic term Aryan is independent of such 

 changes. Since prehistoric times eight principal 

 divisions of Aryan speech have existed, but 

 these groups of languages have had very differ- 

 ent careers, and some of them are rapidly be- 

 coming extinct. The first great separation of 

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