THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 49 



we are almost entirely unprepared for that. 

 Something however is to be arrived at with 

 regard to the question raised, from the 

 observation of such languages as we are 

 sufficiently acquainted with. 



Above all, the varieties of those special 

 families of speech, which have been care- 

 fully examined, are so great and of such a 

 nature, as to render it impossible for any 

 unbiassed mind to believe in a common 

 origin. Nobody, for example, is able to 

 imagine a language that could have given 

 birth, let us say, to Indo-Germanic and 

 Chinese, to Semitic and Hottentot;* nay, 

 even if we take the primitive forms of more 



* I think it hardly fair to put a whole family in juxta- 

 position with single offshoots, especially when morphologically 

 belonging to different orders or stages of the species. I un- 

 reservedly admit that the Arian and Semitic are two clearly 

 distinct systems of grammar, but does that touch the radical 

 elements of the languages based upon either ? — T. 



