2 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION 



European languages, an impulse was given to these investiga- 

 tions. 3 But this scientific movement, once started, did not 

 confine itself to the so-called Aryan languages, for a fresh 

 stimulus was applied to the study of the Semitic group of 

 languages, which, though it had previously nearly monopo- 

 lized the attention of linguists, needed new ideas and asso- 

 ciations to be pursued with the required success. 



Our century has witnessed many intellectual feats in the 

 vast region of science and art, and among these we must 

 surely reckon the deciphering of inscriptions of bygone 

 times which reveal to us the otherwise sealed history of 

 Egypt, of Babylon, and of Assyria, and make us acquainted 

 with a rich literature in hieroglyphics and cuneiform 

 characters, part of which was written at a time when neither 

 the Pentateuch nor the Yedas had been composed. 



These cuneiform inscriptions and hieroglyphics contain 

 no doubt the earliest records of mankind, and their value 

 is heightened by the circumstance that they occasionally 

 give evidence of, and throw light on, the construction of 

 languages still living. In this era of critical research the 

 languages spoken throughout this globe have been and are 

 still being subjected, as far as possible, to careful exami- 

 nation, so that the higher the veil which shrouds the secret 

 origin of languages is lifted up, the more will be known of 

 the history and construction of the various idioms which 

 unite and divide the several nations and races. 



The differences in construction and syntactical arrange- 

 ment of the various languages have been frequently com- 



(3) European missionaries became acquainted with Sanskrit and studied it 

 thoroughly already in the seventeenth century, as Roberto de Nobili, Heinrich 

 Roth, Pere Cceurdoux and others. A Sanskrit Grammar was even published at 

 Rome in 1790 by Johann Philip Wesdin (Paulinus a Santo Bartholomseo) ; 

 but the real merit of having introduced Sanskrit into Europe remains to such 

 men as Sir William Jones, William Carey, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Sir 

 Charles Wilkins, and others of their contemporaries. 



