EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



either one of two reasons. Such languages are 

 spoken either by descendants of the aboriginal 

 tribes, whom the invading Aryans overcame, o- 

 by descendants of non- Aryan invaders, who hav* 

 pushed in at a later date, and secured for them- 

 selves a lodgment upon Aryan soil. Of the first 

 class we find a few sporadic instances. The lan- 

 guage variously called the Bask, Euskarian, or 

 Iberian, now spoken in the Asturias and about 

 the Pyrenees, has no similarity whatever to the 

 Aryan languages. It is spoken by the scanty 

 remnant of a people who in immemorial anti- 

 quity seem to have been spread all over western 

 Europe, but who were for the most part con- 

 quered and absorbed by the Keltic van of the 

 Aryan invasion. The case may have been simi- 

 lar with the lapygian and Etruskan, which were 

 long ago trampled out in Italy by the Latin ; 

 but on this obscure point I would hardly ven- 

 ture an opinion. In northern Europe, Finnish, 

 Esthonian, and Lappish are still spoken by races 

 pushed into the corner by Teutons and Slavs. 

 A perfect Babel of aboriginal dialects still exists 

 in the inaccessible fastnesses of the Caucasus ; 

 and many of the highlands of India similarly 

 shelter primitive non-Aryan tribes, whose fore- 

 fathers refused to submit to Brahmanic oppres- 

 sion. It is a characteristic of such remnants of 

 conquered speech to subsist only in out of the 

 way or undesirable corners. On the other hand, 

 88 



