fpkas fmmral of ifitotee 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES. 



A Contribution to Comparative Philology* 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 When Jakob Grimm 1 made known to the scientific 

 world the results of his observations regarding the external 

 modifications which the same roots are found to undergo 

 in different Aryan languages, and reduced his ingenious 

 discoveries about the modulation of sounds to certain laws 

 founded on facts and proved beyond any doubt by the 

 interchange of letters, these laws became the foundation-stone 

 of a new science known as comparative philology, which the 

 talent and the learning of Franz Bopp 2 soon emancipated 

 from the thraldom of classical philology and placed on its 

 proper footing. With the discovery of Sanskrit by European 

 scholars and with the application of this language to the 

 explanation of words occurring in the most important 



(1) Jakob Grimm's book " Ueber den altdeutschen Meistergesang " was 

 published in 1811, while his famous work on German grammar appeared in 

 1819. 



(2) Franz Bopp's " Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Grie- 

 chischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslavischen, Gothischen und Deut- 

 schen" was commenced in 1833. 



