OLD ARYAN WORDS 



vocabulary has already been thus obtained, as 

 we may see in the three goodly octavos of Kick's 

 great dictionary, in which a primitive Aryan 

 warrior if we could first resuscitate him and 

 then teach him to read would no doubt find 

 himself more or less at home. 1 



In no respect do these philological inquiries 

 appear more interesting than in the light which 

 they throw upon the prehistoric civilization of 

 our Aryan-speaking forefathers. No historic 

 record, not even a vague tradition, is preserved 

 of the time when the blue-eyed ancestors of 

 Kelt, Greek, Roman, and Teuton dwelt in a 

 single community with the ancestors of Persian 

 and Hindu. We have no clue even to the date 

 of this epoch of common Aryanism, though we 

 may very fairly allow for it perhaps three or 

 four thousand years before the Christian era. 

 Even the oldest Aryan legends, as those of the 

 Vendidad, preserve only a dim reference to a 

 time when the Indo-Persian branch of the 

 family had not yet become divided. Yet con- 

 cerning the degree of culture reached in those 

 remote times, so far antedating all conscious 

 historic tradition, the unconscious record of 

 language has given us some trustworthy infor- 

 mation. From the seemingly dry study of con- 

 sonants and vowels an easy process of inference 



1 Pick, Vergkichendes Worterbuch der Indogermanischen 

 Sprachen. 3d edition, Goettingen, 1874-76. 3 vols. 8vo. 



"3 



