ETRWOLOOT OF THE INDO-FACirrC ISLANDS. 



103 



tloiibtless been brouglifc nhont in particular cases tlirougli lite 

 onut tial influence of vocabukries tiiat have been brought in contact 

 hy otlmtc movements, although originally ^ide!y separated from 

 oach other. But iho connection is too intimate mid too miivei'^fll 

 to admit of such an expUiniition as a general one. It ia more pro- 

 bablo that tlie comparatively barbai-oim and outlying tribes of the 

 worhl, as the Kotteutots and tho Austi*aliaii3, carried their cog- 

 iinito Asiatic basis vocabulary from a primilire seat in the vioiuity 

 f»F tho parent Asiatic tnbea to their present locations, than that 

 it wiia brought to them there by alien tribes that spread from an 

 Asiatic centre to the extremitiea of Africa and Asoneaia after 

 these were inhabited. Wo may indeed imagine a succession of 

 such all-embracing movemcnta, but tho sourco of the common 

 vocables must ultimately be found in one centre, and there ia a 

 considerable and fundaitiantal claaa which appears to be equally 

 archaic in all the families and must be referred to the earUest 

 ethnic movements. Wliether there were origiuaUy one or several 

 htnguages, it ia evident that the mother tongues of all that aro 

 now preserved existed >t one period as closely coimected and 

 mutually influenced dialects, and this condition of tldugs could 

 only have arisen from the tribes who spoke them occupying a 

 very circumscribed portion of the habitable world. We can clearly 

 trace tho influence of several dominant and widely diffused voca- 

 bularies, but after allowing for tho common vocables thus dissemi- 

 nated in various directions, there is a large residumu of identical 

 roots, forms of roots, duplicated and compound roots, and com- 

 jiounda of definitives and roots ; the presence of which in all tho 

 outlying langimges of the Old World can only be expkined hy 

 each having inherited them aa a portion of the priniary vocabularly 

 which its mother tongue brought from some ethnically eentnii 

 region. 



It does not seem possible to go beyond this conclusion. Whe- 

 ther tlie eariiest central languages were of indeperident or of 

 common origin cannot he delermincd, because while proximity 

 and mutual contact would result in an ituerchange and comnnmify 

 of roots between originally different language?, a single language 

 wlien isohited would separate into dirt'crenl dialects which would 

 ultimaloly vary as much in their aii[dicatiou3 of ihe common 



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