EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 217 



countries to the west and south of the Mediterranean. Beyond 

 them, again, is the African family, which, as far as research 

 has gone, seems to be in like manner marked by common 

 features, both verbal and grammatical. The fourth is the 

 Polynesian family, extending from Madagascar on the west, 

 through the Indian Archipelago, besides taking in the 

 Malayan dialect from the continent of India, and compre- 

 hending Australia and the islands of the western portion of 

 the Pacific. This family, however, bears such an affinity 

 to that next to be described, that Dr. Leyden and some 

 others do not give it a distinct place as a family of lan- 

 guages. 



The fifth family is the Chinese, embracing a large part of 

 China, and most of the regions of Central and Northern 

 Asia. The leading features of the Chinese language are, its 

 consisting altogether of monosyllables, and being destitute of 

 all grammatical forms, except certain arrangements and 

 accentuations, which vary the sense of particular words. It 

 is also deficient in some of the consonants most conspicuous 

 in other languages, b, d, r, v, and z ; so that this people can 

 scarcely pronounce our speech in such a way as to be intelli- 

 gible : for example, the word Christus they call Kulias-ut-oo- 

 suh. The Chinese, strange to say, though they early attained 

 to a remarkable degree of civilization, and have preceded the 

 Europeans in many of the most important inventions, have a 

 language which resembles that of children, or deaf and dumb 

 people. The sentence of short, simple, unconnected words, 

 in which an infant amongst us attempts to express some of 

 its wants and its ideas the equally broken and difficult terms 

 which the deaf and dumb express by signs, as the following 

 passage of the Lord's Prayer ! " Our Father, heaven in, 

 wish your name respect, wish your soul's kingdom providence 

 arrive, wish your will do heaven earth equality," &c. these 

 are like the discourse of the refined people of the so-called 

 Celestial Empire. An attempt was made by the Abbe 

 Sicard to teach the deaf and dumb grammatical signs ; but 

 they persisted in restricting themselves to the simple signs of 



