LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 287 



has just prepared a -work on Cliinese philology, the aim of which is 

 to prove the common origin of Asiatic and European languages. 



In the above somewhat lengthy preface it has been my endeavour 

 to show that, while important differences of grammatical structure 

 do exist between certain groups of languages, these groups themselves 

 cannot be clearly defined; and that even where points of similarity in 

 grammatical structure are almost or entirely wanting, a community 

 of roots may still attest true relationship. It is on these grounds, 

 as well as on the ground of my belief already stated in a previous 

 paper," that Egypt was the cradle of the race, that I am emboldened 

 to present, under the title of this essay, the result of some recent 

 studies in comparative philology — studies which, I may state, were 

 commenced and carried on in perfect independence of any theory. 



The language in which I profess to have found a link or links 

 binding together the Aryan and Semitic families, is the old Egyptian. 

 The researches of M. Quatremere de Quincy first revealed the fact 

 that this ancient language survived in the Coptic, which was used in 

 Egypt as late as the twelfth century of the Christian era. After 

 many foreign elements have been rejected from the Coptic, it is found 

 to consist mainly of monosyllabic roots, many of them formed with 

 only one consonant, and these apparently the radicals of Semitic 

 words of similar signification. In the earliest stages of this language 

 there does not appear to have been • any well-marked distinction be- 

 tween the parts of speech, although, at a later period, a construction 

 similar to that of the Semitic languages, especially in the case of the 

 verb, manifests itself.'^ Professor Max Miiller will hardly allow 

 that the Coptio and Berber languages of North Africa are of a well- 

 defijied Semitic character; neither will he erect them into a separate 

 family.^* These languages, together with the Ethiopic, Nubian, 

 Abyssinian and similar East African tongues, down to the old Mala- 

 gasy, have been formed into a group called the Nilotic or Nilo-Hamitic, 

 which Bunsen and others looked upon as sprung from the same stock 

 as the Semitic, and as forming with them a single family. Sir Gardner 

 Wilkinson makes the following interesting statements in regard to 

 the old Coptic. " The Egyptian language might, from its gi-ammar, 

 appear to claim a Semitic origin, but it is not really one of that 



11 The Birthplace of Ancient Religions and Civilization. — Canadian Journal, August, 1871. 



12 Benfey, iiber das Verhiiltuisz der agyptischen_Sprache zum semitischen Sprachstainm. 

 Leipzig, 1844. 



1* Science of Language ; series i ; lecture viii. 



