EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



one, requiring patience and sound judgment, 

 and there is room enough for doubt in many 

 cases. The general relationship of the Aryan 

 languages to their common ancestor is, however, 

 no less clearly manifest than that of the modern 

 Romanic languages to the Latin. After fifty 

 years of such comparative study, in a cautious 

 and prudent way, we have succeeded in making 

 out some few cases of demonstrable genetic kin- 

 ship among groups of languages. Beside the 

 Aryan family, in the study of which such pro- 

 found knowledge has been obtained, we have 

 clearly made out the existence of the Dravidian 

 family in Southern India, and of the Altaic 

 family, to which the Finnish, Hungarian, and 

 Turkish belong, to say nothing of the long- 

 established Semitic family. Other families of 

 speech no doubt exist, and will by and by have 

 their relationships definitely marked out. But 

 the moment we try to compare these families 

 with each other, in order to detect some defin- 

 able link of relationship between them, we are 

 instantly baffled. Any true family of languages 

 will show a community of structure as conspic- 

 uous as that which is seen among vertebrate 

 animals. The next family you study will be as 

 distinctly marked in its characteristics as is the 

 group of articulated insects, spiders, and crusta- 

 ceans. But to compare the two families with 

 each other will prove as futile as to compare a 

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