THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 61 



that the pre-historic period of the life of 

 speech must have been a much longer 

 one than that which falls within the 

 limits of historical record. Of course we 

 have no knowledge of any language be- 

 fore the time that the people who spoke 

 it committed its forms to writing. We 

 must therefore suppose myriads of years, 

 or at any rate a very long period, which 

 witnessed the disappearance of organisms 

 of speech and the breaking up of original 

 relationship.* It is very possible that 

 many more species of speech perished 

 during the course of that time than the 

 number of those which have prolonged 

 their existence up to the present day. 

 This explains the possibility of so great 

 an extension as for instance that of the 

 Indo-Germanic, the Finnic, the j\Ialay and 



* CoQip. Deutsohe Sprache, S. 41, etc.— A. 



