LANOUAOES OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS so» 



he has always been compelled, even in Europe and Asia, to call in the 

 aid of language, and sometimes with the most fruitful results. 



Starting, for instance, with our own language, English, the tongues 

 nearest of kin to it are Dutch, German and Scandinavian. Next in 

 closeness of relationship are the various Romance languages, evolved 

 from the decay of ancient Latin — such as French, Italian and Spanish. 

 Still more different, but yet with suflBcient similarities to make rela- 

 tionship and ultimate common origin absolutely certain, are Russian 

 and the other Slavic languages, Greek, Armenian, Persian and the 

 various Hindu dialects. The Englishmen who first heard Hindu speech 

 certainly did not suspect that the languages of these dusky people were 

 similar to their own, and that a direct connection or community of 

 origin must at one time have existed between the Englishman and the 

 Hindu. Yet philology has shown such to be a fact, which is now a 

 matter of common knowledge, the entire group of languages spoken 

 from England to India being known as the Indo-European family or 

 Aryan stock. 



When a student of Hebrew examines Arabic, it is very quickly evi- 

 dent that the languages have much in common. The speech of the an- 

 cient Phoenicians, Syrians and Babylonians, and of the modern Abys- 

 sinians, is also similar. This group of languages constitutes what is 

 called the Semitic family. Every dialect within the family possesses 

 obvious similarities to every other Semitic dialect, just as all Aryan 

 languages possess certain words and features among themselves. But 

 no Aryan language has any resemblance to or connection with any 

 Semitic language. It is therefore clear that the ancestors of all the 

 Semitic-speaking nations must have had, at some far distant time, a 

 single common origin, and that at this period they were entirely sepa- 

 rate and distinct from the progenitors of the peoples that belong to the 

 Aryan family. 



The Turkish language is entirely unconnected with either Aryan 

 or Semitic and belongs to a stock of its own. We know from history 

 that the Turks are recent immigrants in Europe and that they came not 

 very long ago, as the historian reckons, from central Asia. But if the 

 Turkish migrations and invasions had taken place 2,000 years earlier 

 than was the case, we should in all likelihood have had no historical 

 record of the fact, and the historian would erroneously classify the 

 Turks as related to the neighboring Aryan nations — ^unless he called 

 upon philology to aid him. 



It has often been asserted that languages are readily learned and 

 unlearned, and that races put them on and off as a man dons or doffs 

 a garment. But in reality there is probably nothing, not even physical 

 type, that is as permanent as a people's speech. 



Thus, even to-day Breton, a pure Celtic speech, maintains itself in 



