1854.] Literary Intelligence. 499 



Not only are all the Tartars from America to Oceania (both 

 inclusive) demonstrated to form one family, with a clearness 

 equal to that brought by our Bopps and Grimms to demonstrate 

 the full scope of Indo-European affinities, but that great law of 

 language expounded by Spinosa and Koerber in relation to Hebrew, 

 and by Tooke in reference to English, is shown to have an universal 

 character by its thorough and palpable bearing upon the Tartar 

 tongues, wherein moreover it may be grasped and held fast, not as 

 an induction but as a clear extant fact, owing to the so long retarded 

 and yet very imperfect cultivation these tongues have obtained. 

 And, again, the alleged grand distinction of monosyllabism and 

 polysyllabism upon which the inunity of the Tartars has been so 

 confidently rested, is shown to be valueless ; the so-called mono- 

 syllabism being not really such, and the so called polysyllabism being 

 mere repetition of the same or of synonymous syllables, roots and 

 words : in other words it is syntheticism. 



" So that America is linked to Tartary by the greatest and most 

 essential characteristic of her languages. In order to reach such 

 results, I have had to weigh every syllable and every letter of each 

 word, and to trace each to a root, demonstrated to be such by its 

 standing alone as a word. In the vast majority of words, I have 

 obtained one or more samples of the pure monosyllabic form of the 

 vocable, and I have thence proceeded to the polysyllables, still seeking 

 for the radical monosyllable of every syllable of even the longest 

 words. My media of investigation and of test have been: 1st, Com- 

 parison of the differing synonymies of a given tongue. 2nd, Com- 

 parison of the written and spoken forms of such tongues as have 

 both. 3rd. Comparison of the ancient and modern words of given 

 cultivated tongues, where available, as happily is the case, for me, in 

 regard to the Deccani languages. 4th. Comparison of the dialects 

 of a confessedly single tongue, rich in such varieties, as the JNTaga 

 and Garo for instance. 5th, Comparison of the languages of the 

 old broken and of the recent dominant tribes. 6th, Comparison of 

 given words standing apart and of those words as they occur in 

 composition — a medium of proof which, by the way, alone suffices 

 to show the emptiness of the monosyllabic dogma. Happily for the 

 furtherance of my researches, I obtained, after my return from Europe, 



3 it 2 



