^[282] 

 THE COPTIC ELEMENT 



IN LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 



BY THE REV. JOHN CAMPBELL, M.A., TORONTO. 



Read before the Canadian Institute, February lOih, 1872. 



Professor Max Miiller wisely holds that the classification of races 

 and of languages should be quite independent of each other''. By 

 this he means that the science of language in its classificatory stage 

 and that of ethnology in the same should not be mixed up together 

 by the student of both. He does not, and cannot, mean that we are 

 not to expect to find intimate and important relations subsisting be- 

 tween the two classifications. If it be true that there are clearly 

 defined species of mankind, it is exceedingly probable that there are 

 corresponding clearly defined families of laiiguage. A multiplicity 

 of protoplasts must, of necessity, imply various beginnings of speech. 

 If again we favour the development theory in connection with the 

 origin of the human race, we are almost compelled to adopt a similar 

 theory in regard to the origin of language; and the classification, 

 which proceeds upon subsequent development, will be as applicable 

 to the one as to the other. Finally, supposing that theory to be the 

 true one which finds in the human race no well mai-ked species, but 

 a number of varieties shading into one another by almost impercep- 

 tible difi"erences, and defying anything like a scientific classification, 

 may we not lawfully look for something of the same kind in the do- 

 main of that purely human faculty — speech"? Professor Max Mtiller 

 is a firm believer in the common origin of mankind, and has demon- 

 strated the possibility of a common origin of language ; yet he is 

 disposed to draw very distinct lines between groups of languages, and 

 to throw very far back into the past the time of their relative diver- 

 gence from the simplest form of articulate speech. 



Various attempts have been made to form a general classification 

 of languages. Friedrich Schlegel divided them into two classes ; the 

 first of which " denotes the secondary intentions of meaning by an 

 internal alteration of the sound of the root by inflection," and com- 

 prises the languages of the Indo-European family. The second, in- 



1 Lectures on the Science of Language ; series 1, lecture viii. 



