TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 897 



period so remote that we cannot expect to find any marked identity in their 

 vocahulary. The words common to the Aryan and Finnic tongues are, for the 

 most part, loan words. But the words denoting the primary relations of life, the 

 names for father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and sister, can hardly be loan 

 words, and these are substantially identical in the Finnic and Aryan languages. 

 The same is the case with a few of the numerals, the pronouns, and the names for 

 acme of the primary necessities of life, such as tlie words denoting salt, shelter, 

 food, and the rudest implements. But when we go back to the verbal roots which 

 constitute the very basis of language, we find a remarkable identity between the 

 Aryan and Finnic tongues. Thus the eighteen triliteral roots beginning with k, 

 given in Skeats' ' Etymological Dictionary,' are all found in Finnic with the same 

 fundamental signification. It is quite incredible that this identity in the ultimate 

 roots can be accidental. Both in Aryan and Finnic these verbal roots are combined 

 with formative suffixes to form nominal stems. We have the same formatives with 

 the same significations. The conjugation of the verb is also effected in the same 

 way by the addition of identical pronominal suffixes to the verbal roots. The 

 accusative, the ablative, and the genitive, which appear to be the three original 

 cases, are formed in similar fashion by the addition of identical post-positions. The 

 only fundamental diflerences between Aryan and Finnic grammar lie in the absence 

 of gender in the Finnic languages, and in the wholly different formations of the 

 plural. But Professor Sayce has shown reasons for believing that the proto-Aryan 

 speech possessed no gender, thus agreeing with its Finnic prototype ; and he also 

 believes that it possessed only the dual, the plural being a later development. But 

 the dual is formed in precisely the same manner in the Aryan and Finnic languages, 

 while the comparatively recent origin of the Finnic plural is proved by the fact 

 that in the Finnic and the allied Turkic languages the plural is diversely formed. 



Hence the proto-Finnic speech agrees in every respect, both as to the grammar 

 and the roots, with the proto-Aryan speech, and there is therefore no difficulty in 

 the supposition that the one represents an archaic stage out of which the other 

 was developed. 



These considerations modify considerably our conceptions as to the way in 

 which we may conjecture that the Aryan race originated. Instead of supposing a 

 single Aryan tribe in Central Asia, which sent off" successive swarms to the west 

 and south, we may rather conceive of the whole of Northern Europe, from the 

 Rhine to the Vistula, as occupied by a Finnic race, whose southern and western 

 members gradually developed ethnic and linguistic peculiarities of that higher type 

 which we associate vAih. the Aryan name. The Baltic Finns are survivals of this 

 race. The Celts, owing to their remoteness, diverged at an early time from the 

 eastern type, while the Lithuanians and the Hindus preserved many archaic 

 features both of grammar and vocabulary. The Slaves must be regarded mainly as 

 Ugrians, and the South Europeans as Iberians, who acquired an Aryan speech from 

 Aryan conquerors. The time of the separation of the Aryan from the Finnic stock 

 must be placed at the least 5,000, or perhaps even 10,000 years ago. At that time 

 the linguistic evidence shows that the united peoples possessed only the rudiments 

 of civilisation. Of the metals they possibly knew gold and copper, but their tools 

 were mainly of stone or horn. They sheltered themselves in rude huts, they knew 

 how to kindle fire, they could count up to ten, and family relations and marriage 

 were recognised. Tliey were acquainted with the sea, they used salt, and they 

 caught salmon ; but it is doiibtful whether they were acquainted with the rudiments 

 of agriculture, though they gathered herbs for food and collected honey. They 

 possessed herds of domesticated animals, consisting probably of oxen and swine, 

 and perhaps of reindeer, but the sheep seems to have been unknown. 



If this hypothesis as to the primitive identity of the Aryan and Finnic races 

 be established, a world of light is thrown upon many difficulties as to the primitive 

 significances of many Aryan roots and the nature of the primitive Aryan grammar. 

 We are furnished, in fact, with a new and powerful instrument of philological 

 investigation, which can hardly fail to yield important results. Comparative 

 Aryan philology must henceforward take account of the Finnic languages as 

 affording the oldest materials which are available for comparison. 



1887. 3 M 



