DIFFERENCES OF LANGUAGE. 405 



the people of Thibet, China, and the ncighbourino- southern 

 countries, go on speaking as they learned some thousands 

 of years ago, in tlie cradle of the species. There is no 

 separation of ideas into certain classes, such as produce the 

 distinction of the parts of speech in more perfectly-formed 

 languages. One and the same sound signifies joyful, joy, 

 and to rejoice; and that through all persons, numbers, and 

 tenses. No attempt is made, by affixing sounds expressive 

 of relations or accessory notions to the simple monosyllabic 

 root, to give richness, clearness, and harmony to the poor 

 language. On the contrary, the mere radical ideas are set 

 down together, and the hearer must guess at the connecting 

 links. As there are no inflexions, the cases and numbers 

 are either noted, or they are marked, under urgent circum- 

 stances, by circumlocution. They form plurals as children 

 do, either by repetition, as tree tree, or by adding the words 

 much or other ; as tree much, tree other. I much, or / other, 

 means we. Be heaven I other Father who, is the mode of 

 expressing " Our Father which art in heaven * ! That 

 languages of such poverty, which merely place together the 

 most essential ideas without connecting them, must open a 

 wide field for ambiguity and obscurity in civil life, and be 

 totally inapplicable to the purposes of science, is imme- 

 diately apparent. Hence tlie people who speak them must 

 ever remain children in understanding. However the 

 Chinese may exert themselves, so long as they are impeded 

 by this imperfect language, they must be unable to appro- 

 priate to themselves the sciences and arts of Europe f.^' 



We are again surprised at discovering that this peculiar lan- 

 guage is not connected with the peculiar organization of that 

 variety, (the Mongolian) to which the people enumerated 

 above, belong. The tribes immediately adjoining the latter on 

 the north — for example, the proper Mongols, the Calmucks, 

 and the Burats — although they have at all times occupied 

 the regions close to Thibet, and have obviously derived 

 their language from this quarter, are no longer confined 



» Adej^ung ; Mithridatcs, v> i. p. IS. f Ibid. p. 2S. 



