THE KHITAN LANGUAGES. 283 



assert that grammatical construction is the only test of linguistic 

 affinity, as if no great changes had taken place in such construction, 

 soul of language though it be, even within the period of modern 

 history. Putting aside such extreme views, or perhaps, as it would 

 be more just to term them, extreme statements, and asking the 

 philologist to suggest some valid criterion of relationship among 

 languages which we deem to be connected and whose grammatical 

 systems are, to say the least, not discordant, he will probably invite 

 us to discover among them such a process of phonetic change as has 

 been illustrated in the case of the Indo-European languages by the 

 well-known Grimm's law. Now it is precisely such a law, or a 

 portion of such a law, that I profess to have found, after a somewhat 

 laborious and careful examination of those New and Old World 

 languages which may constitute provisionally the Khitan family. 



The name requires explanation. About the middle of the tenth 

 century, a foreign horde, whom the Chinese annals know as the 

 Khitan, descending from the north, took possession of Mantchuria, 

 and extended their sway over the whole of Northern China. For 

 two centuries they maintained themselves as the rulers of that 

 empire, being recognized in Chinese history as the Liao Dynasty, 

 and were then expelled to the north-east by the Nyuche, a supposed 

 Mantchu tribe, who ruled in their place as the Dynasty of Kin. It 

 was these Khitas or Khitan, for the final n is the Khita mark of the 

 plural, who gave to the Celestial Empire its mediaeval name Cathay. 

 Some of the Chinese historians derive the Khitan from the desert of 

 Kobi, but, farther to the north about the sources of the Yenisei, and 

 throughout Southern Siberia according to Tartar tradition, their 

 remains are found. These are tumuli, similar to the mounds of this 

 continent, containing arms and ornaments, and sculptured inscrip- 

 tions upon adjoining rocks in an unknown hieroglyphic character. 

 The Tartars call the tumuli Li Katei, or the tombs of the Cathayans. 

 Tumuli of the same character as those of Siberia, accompanied in 

 many cases by cup shaped and other rude sculptures agreeing in out- 

 line with those found in many parts of this continent, appear in 

 India, where they are regarded as the work of a Turanian people, 

 the Indo-Scyths of history. These must have been none other than 

 the Kathaei of Arrian and Sti-abo, whom Alexander the Great 

 encountered at Sangala in the Punjaub. The very name Sangala is 

 Khitan, for from the Songari River the Khitan are said to have 



