OF LANGUAGES. 



105 



To Ca 1 belong (a) such American languages, as the Dakota, 

 Salish and Eskimo dialects ; (b) the Polynesian languages, 

 as Hawaian, Tahitian, Tongan, Fijian, Maori, &c. ; (c) very 

 likely many Australian, and (d) the Basque languages. 



Ca 2 includes some American and Australian languages. 



C/3 1 contains the Malayan, many African and Asiatic 

 languages. 



C0 2 is represented by the Mongolian and Tungusian 

 languages. 



C/3 3 includes Chinese, Japanese, the Finnish, Turkish, Dra- 



vidian, and other languages. 

 A a is represented by Old Egyptian, Coptic, the Berber and 



the Semitic languages. 

 Aft contains the Aryan languages. 



This classification, which is based on the peculiar internal 

 disposition of languages, must be supplemented by that other 

 classification, which employs the external peculiarities as a 

 criterion of arrangement. 



Both together, the internal and the external character- 

 istics, will, when rightly understood and faithfully expressed, 

 present a true description of the nature of a language. 



According to their outward appearance the most distinct 

 division appears to be that into monosyllabic and polysyllabic 

 languages, yet as the roots of words in many polysyllabic 

 languages can be retraced to a monosyllabic state, and as poly- 

 syllabism is common to nearly all languages, the latter does not 

 recommend itself as a principle of classification. In its stead 

 languages are generally arranged in two other groups, the 

 one is called agglutinative and the other inflectional. No 

 doubt the introduction of these three stages — monosyllabic, 

 agglutinative andinflectional^-is very ingenious and commends 

 itself to logical reasoning, but except the first stage, which is 

 clearly defined, the other two — and more especially the agglu- 

 tinative stage — are open to the objection that they are too 



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