SPECIAL CREATION OR DERIVATION? 



less. If after Sanskrit we put in Prakrit and 

 Pali, Urdu and Bengali, and a dozen other de- 

 rivatives, we must then jump back to Latin, for 

 instance, and after following along through 

 Italian, Spanish, French, and their sister dia- 

 lects, jump back again to some ancient language. 

 Obviously this is violating all the requirements 

 of proper classification, which consists in putting 

 nearest together those objects which are nearest 

 alike. 



In view of these and other kindred difficulties, 

 philologists have long since agreed to arrange the 

 Aryan family of languages in divergent and re- 

 divergent groups and sub-groups, along lines 

 which ramify like the branches, branchlets, and 

 twigs of a tree. Let us trace the pedigree of 

 the French and English languages according 

 to this principle of classification as elaborated 

 by Schleicher, remembering that while other 

 philologists have objected to some of the details 

 of the classification, 1 all agree, and must agree, 

 in the fundamental principle. Starting, then, 

 from the Aryan mother-tongue, we first en- 

 counter two diverging lines of development, 

 represented by two extinct phases of language, 



i Indeed, it is possible that the primary division should be 

 into Eastern and Western, or European and Asiatic, rather 

 than Northern and Southern Aryan. But the future decision 

 of this question will not alter the principle upon which the 

 classification is founded and which it is here cited to exemplify. 



381 



