viii.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 179 



I have been unable to meet with any answers to these 

 questions. 



V. The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are members 

 of the same great Aryan family of languages ; but there 

 is evidence to show that a non- Aryan language was at- 

 one time spoken over a large extent of the area occupied 

 by Melanochroi in Europe. 



The non- Aryan laDguage here referred to is the Euska- 

 rian, now spoken only by the Basques, but which seems 

 in earlier times to have been the language of the Aqui- 

 tanians and Spaniards, and may possibly have extended 

 much further to the East. Whether it has any connec- 

 tion with the Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions 

 upon which, of course, I do not presume to offer any 

 opinion. But it is important to remark that it is a 

 language the area of which has gradually diminished 

 without any corresponding extirpation of the people 

 who primitively spoke it ; so that the people of Spain 

 and of Aquitaine at the present day must be largely 

 "Euskarian" by descent in just the same sense as the 

 Cornish men are " Celtic " by descent. 



Such seem to me to be the main facts respecting the 

 ethnology of the British islands and of Western Europe, 

 which may be said to be fairly established. The hypo- 

 thesis by which I think (with De Belloguet and Thurnam) 

 the facts may best be explained is this : In very remote 

 times Western Europe and the British islands were 

 inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, alone, 

 and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the 

 Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading over the great 

 Eurasiatic plains westward, and speaking Aryan dialects, 

 gradually invaded the territories of the Melanochroi. 

 The Xanthochroi, who thus came into contact with the 

 Western Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic language ; and that 

 Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic, spread over 



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