April 1, 1887.] 



SCIEJ^CE. 



327 



long to a single stock, and not to be allied either 

 to the Malayan or the Dravidian tongues, to which 

 some authorities have sought to refer them. The 

 languages of the * hyperborean races,' extending 

 along the arctic coasts, from the Yeniseean tribes 

 to the Chukchi and the Eskimo, lead naturally to 

 the proper American idioms. The discussion of 

 these idioms must be deemed the least satisfactory 

 portion of the work, not from any failure in the 

 author's research or accuracy, but from the im- 

 possibility of condensing his materials into the 

 limited space allowed for them. The linguistic 

 stocks of this continent are at least twice as 

 numerous as those of all the rest of the world. 

 Their grammatical characteristics vary widely, 

 and are of the highest interest. As Prof, Max 

 Miiller has well pointed out, these languages 

 " can tell us quite as much of the growth of the 

 human mind as Chinese, or Hebrew, or Sanscrit.'' 

 Some of the stocks or families — as, for example, 

 the Algonkin, the Dakota, and the Maya — com- 

 prise many distinct languages, which have been 

 carefully studied and compared by some of the 

 ablest philologists of Europe and America. In 

 purely scientific value, apart from merely extrane- 

 ous grounds of interest, the Algonkin family far 

 surpasses the Hamito-Semitic stock. Yet while 

 the latter occupies two hundred pages, the former 

 is restricted to thirteen. It is as though, in a 

 treatise on zoology, eighteen pages were given to 

 the horse, as being a biblical animal, and only one 

 page to the elephant. It must be admitted that in 

 the present condition of linguistic science this dis- 

 crepancy could not well have been avoided with- 

 out making the work unwieldy and unsalable ; 

 and it is fair to add that the descriptions of the 

 American languages, so far as they extend, are 

 for the most part remarkable exhibitions of ana- 

 lytic skill. 



A most admirable account is given of the great 

 Malaisian family, which occupies, with the ex- 

 ception of the Australian and some Papuan 

 tongues, the vast island world from Madagascar 

 to Hawaii. This is followed by the languages of 

 the ' North Asiatic ' or Mongolian race, extending 

 from Lapland and Hungary to Japan and the 

 Indo-Chinese peninsula. The Nubian or smooth- 

 haired African race succeeds, followed by the 

 primitive languages of Hindostan, composing the 

 Dravidian family. The greater portion of the 

 third volume is occupied with the languages of 

 the so-called ' Mediterranean race,' This is a 

 purely geographical designation, including popu- 

 lations so widely distinct in physical traits and in 

 language as the Indo-Europeans, the Hamito- 

 Semitic nations, the Caucasian tribes, and the 

 Basques. To these languages, which were the first 



to attract the attention of philologists, the author 

 has devoted special care. The perplexing variety 

 of Caucasian tongues is reduced by him to two, 

 or at the most three, families. The curious and 

 elaborate inflections of the Basque are analyzed 

 and set forth with remarkable clearness. Those 

 students of language who are accustomed — as 

 too many are — to regard the whole of philological 

 science as summed up in the two families of the 

 Indo-European and the Hamito-Semitic stocks, 

 will here find an example of an indefatigable and 

 large-minded scholar, who can equal if not sur- 

 pass them in their special studies, while his 

 wider view embraces, as that of every thorough 

 philologist should do, a knowledge of the chief 

 characteristics of all the other families. 



The work lacks an index, which will doubtless 

 be furnished with the supplementary volumes. 

 There is another and a much more important defi- 

 ciency, which we may hope will be supplied in 

 this forthcoming portion. In his survey of lan- 

 guages, the author has restricted himself almost 

 entirely to idioms of whose grammar something 

 is known. Those tongues of which we possess 

 merely vocabularies are to him as though they 

 did not exist. He does not even condescend to 

 name them. In his view, the life of a language 

 is in its grammatical forms; and only by the com- 

 parison of such forms can we be made certain that 

 two languages are, or are not, akin. The first of 

 these propositions is unquestionably true ; the other 

 is opposed to much evidence and to the author's 

 own example. Gallatin's great work, the ' Synop- 

 sis of Indian languages,' owes most of its value 

 to its comparative vocabularies ; and his classifica- 

 tion, based mainly on these vocabularies, has 

 proved substantially correct. It is purely by lexi- 

 cal comparison that Dr. Miiller has been able to 

 establish the unity of origin of all the Australian 

 tongues. No doubt this method has been greatly 

 abused by incompetent writers. It needs to be 

 applied, like all other tests, with scientific knowl- 

 edge and caution ; but, when so applied, it will be 

 found entirely conclusive. Employing this method, 

 the author will be able to give us, for the first 

 time in the history of philological science, a nearly 

 complete list of linguistic stocks, which, instead 

 of the 'one hundred' mentioned in his introduc- 

 tion (p. 77), will probably be found to number 

 nearly three hundred ; and he will thus at length 

 place this science on a truly philosophical basis. 

 If to this he would add a series of language-maps, 

 similar to those of which Mr. Cust, in his volume 

 on the ' Modern languages of the East Indies,' has 

 given us admirable examples, his work would be 

 completed in a manner which would leave little 

 to be desired. Even without these additions, the 



