July 19, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



41 



languages were spoken in the vast tract of civilized country which 

 lay between Kurdistan and western Asia Minor. South of the 

 Caucasus they were unknown until the irruption of the Phrygians 

 into Armenia. Among the multitudinous names of persons and 

 localities belonging to this region which are recorded in the As- 

 syrian inscriptions during a space of several centuries, there is only 

 one which bears upon it the Indo-European stamp. This is the 

 name of the leader of the Cimmerians, — a' nomad tribe from the 

 north-east which descended upon the frontiers of Assyria in the 

 reign of Esar-haddon, and was driven by him into Asia Minor. 

 The fact is made the more striking by the further fact, that, as 

 soon as we clear the Kurdish ranges and enter Median territory, 

 names of Indo-European origin meet us thick and fast. We can 

 draw but one conclusion from these facts. Whether the Indo- 

 European languages of Europe migrated from Asia, or whether the 

 converse were the case, the line of march must have been north- 

 ward of the Caspian, through the inhospitable steppes of Tartary 

 and over the snow-covered heights of the Ural Mountains. 



An ingenious argument has lately been put forward, which at first 

 sight seems to tell in favor of the Asiatic origin of Indo-European 

 speech. Dr. Penka has drawn attention to the fact that several 

 of the European languages agree in possessing the same word for 

 " eel ; " and that, whereas the eel abounds in the rivers and lakes 

 of Scandinavia, it is unknown in those cold regions of western 

 Asia where, as we have seen, it has been proposed to place the 

 cradle of the Indo-European family. But it is a curious fact that 

 in Greek and Latin, and apparently also in Lithuanian, the word 

 for " eel " is a diminutive derived from a word which denotes a 

 ^ snake or snake-Hke creature. This, it has been urged, may be in- 

 terpreted to mean that the primeval habitat of the Indo-European 

 languages was one where the snake was known but the eel was 

 not. The argument, however, cannot be pressed. We all agree 

 that the first speakers of the Indo-European languages lived on the 

 land, not on the water, and that they were herdsmen rather than 

 fishermen. Naturally, therefore, they would become acquainted 

 with the snake before they became acquainted with the eel, how- 

 ever much it might abound in the rivers near them, and its resem- 

 blance to the snake would lend to it its name. In Celtic the eel is 

 called " a water-snake," and to this day a prejudice against eating 

 it on the ground that it is a snake exists in Celtic districts. All we 

 can infer from the diminutives atigicilla, eyxe^v^, is that the 

 Italians and Greeks in the first instance gave the name to the 

 fresh-water eel, and not to the huge conger. 



I cannot now enter fully into the reasons which have led me 

 gradually to give up my old belief in the Asiatic origin of the Indo- 

 European tongues, and to subscribe to the views of those who 

 would refer them to a northern European birthplace. The argu- 

 ment is a complicated one, and is necessarily of a cumulative char- 

 acter. The individual links in the chain may not be strong, but 

 collectively they afford that amount of probability which is all we 

 can hope to attain in historical research. Those who wish to study 

 them may do so in Dr. Penka's work on the " Herkunft der Arier," 

 published in 1886. His hypothesis that southern Scandinavia was 

 the primitive "Aryan home " seems to me to have more in its favor 

 than any other hypothesis on the subject which has as yet been 

 put forward. It needs verification, it is true ; but if it is sound, the 

 verification will not be long in coming. A more profound examina- 

 tion of Teutonic and Celtic mythology, a more exact knowledge of 

 the v/ords in the several Indo-European languages which are not 

 of Indo-European origin, and the progress of archseological dis- 

 cover}', will furnish the verification we need. 



Meanwhile it must be allowed that the hypothesis has the coun- 

 tenance of history. Scandinavia, even before the sixth century, 

 was characterized as " the manufactory of nations ; " ' and the 

 voyages and settlements of the Norse vikings offer an historical il- 

 lustration of what the prehistoric migrations and settlements of the 

 speakers of the Indo-European languages must have been. They 

 differed from the latter only in being conducted by sea, whereas 

 the prehistoric migrations followed the valleys of the great rivers. 

 It was not until the age of the Roman Empire that the northern 

 nations became acquainted with the sailing-boat ; our English 



' Quasi officina gentiui 

 :ive Gothoruw origin 



I aut certe velut v: 

 , ed. Cioss, C. 4. 



," — Jordanes, Dc Geta- 



" sail " is the Latin sagiihun (" the little cloak of the soldier ") bor- 

 rowed by the Teutons along with its name, and used to propel their 

 boats in imitation of the sails of the Roman vessels. The intro- 

 duction of the sail allowed the inhabitants of the Scandinavian 

 " hive " to push boldly out to sea, and ushered in the era of Saxon 

 pirates and Danish invasions. 



Dr. Penka's arguments are partly anthropological, partly archse- 

 ological. He shows that the Celts and Teutons of Roman an- 

 tiquity were the tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, dolichocephalic race 

 which is now being fast absorbed in Celtic lands by the older 

 inhabitants of them. The typical Frenchman of to-day has but 

 little in common with the typical Gaul of the age of Csesar. The 

 typical Gaul was, in fact, as much a conqueror in Gallia as he was 

 in Galatia, or, as modern researches have shown, as the typical 

 Celt was in Ireland. It seems to have been the same in Greece. 

 Here, too, the golden-haired hero of art and song was a representa- 

 tive of the ruling class, of that military aristocracy which over- 

 threw the early culture of the Peloponnese, and of whom tradition 

 averred that it had come from the bleak North. Little trace of it 

 now remains : it is rarely that the traveller can discover any longer 

 the modern kinsfolk of the golden-haired Apollo or the blue-eyed 

 Athene. 



If we would still find the ancient blonde race of northern Europe 

 in its purity, we must go to Scandinavia. Here the prevailing type 

 of the population is still that of the broad-shouldered, long-headed 

 blondes who served as models for the Dying Gladiator. And it is 

 in southern Scandinavia alone that the prehistoric tumuli and 

 burying-grounds yield hardly any other skeletons than those of the 

 same tall dolichocephalic race which still inhabits the country. 

 Elsewhere such skeletons are either wanting or else mixed with the 

 remains of other races. It is therefore reasonable to conclude 

 that it was from southern Scandinavia that those bands of hardy 

 vi^arriors originally emerged who made their way southward and 

 westward, and even eastward ; the Celts of Galatia penetrating, 

 like the Phrygians before them, into the heart of Asia Minor. The 

 Norse migrations in later times were even more extensive, and 

 what the Norse vikings were able to achieve could have been 

 achieved by their ancestors centuries before. 



Now, the Celts and Teutons of the Roman age spoke Indo- 

 European languages. It is more probable that the subject popula- 

 tions should have been compelled to learn the language of their 

 conquerors than that the conquerors should have taken the trouble 

 to learn the language of their serfs. We know, at any rate, that it 

 was so in Ireland. Here the old " Ivernian " population adopted 

 the language of the small band of Celtic invaders that settled in its 

 midst. It is only where the conquered possess a higher civilization 

 than the conquerors, above all, where they have a literature and an 

 organized form of religion, that Franks will adapt their tongues to 

 Latin speech, or Manchus learn to speak Chinese. Moreover, in 

 southern Scandinavia, where we have archaological evidence that 

 the tall blonde race was scarcely at any time in close contact with 

 other races, it is hardly possible for it to have borrowed its lan- 

 guage from some other people. The Indo-European languages 

 still spoken in the country must, it would seem, be descended from 

 languages spoken there from the earliest period to which the evi- 

 dence of human occupation reaches back. The conclusion is ob- 

 vious : southern Scandinavia and the adjacent districts must be the 

 first home and starting-point of the western branch of the Indo- 

 European family. 



If we turn to the eastern branch, we find that the farther east we 

 go, the fainter become the traces of the tall blonde race, and the 

 greater is the resemblance between the speakers of Indo-European 

 languages and the native tribes. In the highlands of Persia, tall, 

 long-headed blondes with blue eyes can still be met with ; but, as 

 we approach the hot plains of India, the type grows rarer and 

 rarer until it ceases altogether. An Indo-European dialect must 

 be spoken in India by a dark-skinned people before it can endure 

 to the third and fourth generation. As we leave the frontiers of 

 Europe behind us, we lose sight of the race with which Dr. Penka's 

 arguments would tend to connect the parent-speech of the Indo- 

 European family. 



I cannot now follow him in the interesting comparison he draws 

 between the social condition of the southern Scandinavians as dis- 



