A PRIMEVAL MOTHER TONGUE 



Arabia and Palestine and the adjacent civilized 

 nations of Assyria, Babylonia, and Phoenicia to 

 prevent any very wide divergence of speech. 

 The differences between Hebrew, Syriac, and 

 Assyrian are not greater than the differences 

 between French, Spanish, and Italian. 



So, too, in the direct line of our own ancestry, 

 we find that the primitive Aryans were a race 

 partly agricultural and partly pastoral in pur- 

 suits, living in durable houses, grouped together 

 into large villages, surrounded by defensible 

 walls. The structure of the family was some- 

 what cruder than among the patriarchal Arabs 

 and Hebrews; the social and political system 

 may have been in some respects such as we see 

 vestiges of to-day in the village communities 

 of Russia and Hindustan. Preeminent among 

 all early races in the rearing of flocks and 

 herds, the old Aryans required immense grazing 

 grounds, and would seem to have occupied all 

 the wide grassy plains which lie between the 

 mountains of central Tartary and the southern 

 slopes of European Russia. At the same time 

 their agricultural pursuits and their durable vil- 

 lages imply a considerable amount of political 

 stability, and there is good evidence that for a 

 long time a common language was spoken 

 throughout this vast territory. As we follow 

 these Aryan tribes in their great career of per- 

 manent conquest and settlement, one branch 



