OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



Aryan tribes was the separation between the 

 invaders of Indo-Persia and the invaders of 

 Europe. We have already observed how the 

 language of the Indo-Persians became divided 

 in twain. In the Indie class of languages, com- 

 prising the classical Sanskrit, the Prakrit of later 

 dramatic writers, the Pali, or sacred language of 

 the Buddhists in Ceylon, and some twenty mod- 

 ern dialects spoken chiefly in the northern half 

 of Hindustan, we have the first grand division of 

 Aryan speech. The second or Iranic class com- 

 prehends the Zend, the ancient Persian of the 

 cuneiform inscriptions, the Parsi of Bombay, the 

 Pushtu of Afghanistan, modern Persian, Ar- 

 menian, Kurdish, and the Ossetian spoken in the 

 Caucasus. Concerning these two grand divi- 

 sions, we need only observe that the extremely 

 close resemblance between Sanskrit and Zend 

 would seem to indicate that the separation of 

 the two occurred at a comparatively late date, 

 though it would perhaps be difficult to suppose 

 it later than two thousand years before Christ. 

 It may have been a little before this that the 

 western tribes of Aryans crossed the Volga and 

 began the conquest of Europe. First appear to 

 have come the Kelts, whose languages consti- 

 tute the third great division. These languages 

 diverge considerably from the common type, 

 and were the latest to be recognized as Aryan 

 in character, a fact which is quite in harmony 



