﻿^3 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE : 



If the Tartars in general, as we have every reason 

 to believe, had no written memorials, it cannot be 

 thought wonderful that their languages, like those of 

 America, should have been in perpetual fluctuation, 

 and that more than fifty dialects, as Hyde had been 

 credibly informed, should be spoken between Moscow 

 and China, by the many kindred tribes or their seve- 

 ral branches, which are enumerated by Abulghazi. 

 What those dialects are, and whether they really sprang 

 from a common stock, we shall probably learn from 

 Mr. Pallas, and other indefatigable men employed by 

 the Russian court; and it is from the Russians tlut we 

 must expect the most accurate information concerning 

 their Asiatic subjects : [ persuade myself that, if their 

 enquiries be judiciously made, and faithfully reporred, 

 the result of them will prove that all the languages 

 properly Tartarian, arose from one common source ; 

 excepting always the jargons of such wanderers or 

 mountaineers as, having long been divided from the 

 main body of the nation, must, in a course of ages, 

 have framed separate idioms for themselves. The 

 only Tartarian language of which I have any know- 

 ledge, is the Turkish of Constantinople, which is how- 

 ever so copious, that whoever shall know it perfectly, 

 will easily understand, as we are assured by intelligent 

 authors, the dialects of Tataristan ; and we may col- 

 lect from Abulghazi, that he would find little diffi- 

 culty in the Calmac and the Mogul. I will not offend 

 your ears by a dry catalogue of similar words in those 

 different languages; but a careful investigation has 

 convinced me that, as the Indian and Arabian tongues 

 are severally descended from a common parent, so 

 those of Tartary might be traced to one ancient 

 stem essentially diffenng from the two others. It 

 appears, indeed, from a story told by Abulghazi, that 

 the Virats and the Mongols could not understand each 

 other; but no more can the Danes and the English, 

 yet their dialects, beyond a doubt, are branches of 



