ON THE COMPARISON OF ASIATIC LANGUAGES. 205 
paper is confined to the discussion of the main historic groups 
—Mongolic, Aryan, and Semitic—but it is generally admitted 
that the South Turanian dialects, and the Japanese, are 
ultimately connected with the Mongolic (or, as it is otherwise 
called, the Altaic), although the absence of early civilisation 
has resulted in the growth of so many dialects, that, in China 
alone they number nearly 400 in all, that which is generally 
called Chinese being radically the speech of the Mongolic 
immigrants from the West. 
The races among whom the earliest civilisation is found 
—the Akkadians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians— 
possessed the art of writing so early that the disintegration 
of language proceeded among them much more slowly than 
among illiterate savages. The commonest words of daily 
life, which were no doubt at once the most ancient and the 
most widely used, were also, fortunately, the least subject to 
changes—from their simplicity and constant use. The 
language of the Akkadians can be traced to, at least, 
2500 B.C., while monumental examples of Egyptian are 
equally ancient. The Aryans are the last to appear on the 
historic scene ; yet, in Asia Minor, our knowledge is carried 
back to 800 B.c., in the case of Phrygian, and to 500 B.c., in 
Persia, while the oldest hymns of the Vedas are referred, by 
Max Miiller, to 1500 B.c. Comparative study of later 
historic languages is thus, in the case of those under con- 
sideration, checked and assisted by the existence of monu- 
mental texts, of an antiquity which is equal to that of most 
of the prehistoric remains found in other parts of the world. 
Each of the three great Asiatic groups is very distinct, 
and well separated by grammar, by pronunciation, and by 
vocabulary. Each has been, and still must be, separately 
studied, and internal comparisons instituted among its 
members, without reference tc tne study of the other groups. 
But the question now to be raised is whether we are not 
already able to perceive that a yet wider comparison, if 
based on safe principles, is possible bew,een the ultimace 
part of the Asiatic continent, and distinguished from those of Australia 
and Tasmania, which are said to compare with African speech. Mr. C, 
Bertin connects the Bushmen with the Egyptian race. As regards the 
Dravidian and Kolarian languages of India, they are classed by Professor 
Lacouperie as Himalaic-Turanian, and he even places the Andaman and 
Australian in the same group. The Thibeto-Burmese forms one family 
of the Kiienlunic group to which he refers the Chinese aml Anamese, 
being the next to the Turkic as a Turanian group. This practically 
exhausts the list of human languages all connected ultimately with Asia. 
pg 
E 
