106 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION 



vague. Moreover the inflectional stage may "be regarded as 

 a variety merely of the agglutinative stage. 



I believe it is necessary to enlarge the system of external 

 classification. Even when retaining the three stages of isola- 

 tion, agglutination and amalgamation, it should not be forgot- 

 ten, that we know nothing about the manner in which the 

 various languages which we admit to these stages, reached 

 them. More certain information is required to decide the 

 question of the external development of languages. For the 

 present it suffices to point out as many species of languages 

 as are actually existing according to the differences in their 

 external formation. 



To future investigations is reserved the task of studying 

 the external characteristics of the various languages to such 

 an extent, that their external formation can be exactly 

 specified and each language assigned to its proper place. 



I restrict myself in mentioning a few prominent, well known 

 characteristics, in order to illustrate the system proposed here. 



If we represent the terms indicative of the external con- 

 struction of languages by Eoman figures, then 



Monosyllabic languages will be expressed by I 



Incorporative do. 



do. 



do. 



. . II 



Euphonic (North African Negro) 



do. 



.. Ill 



Alliteral (South African) 



do. 



do. 



.. IV 



Agglutinative 



do. 



do. 



.. V 



Agglutinative inflectional 



do. 



do. 



.. VI 



Dissyllabic inflectional 



do. 



do. 



.. VII 



Inflectional synthetical 



do. 



do. 



. . VIII 



Inflectional analytical 



do. 



do. 



. . IX 



This scheme is only provisional, as it is by no means 

 complete. Many languages have not been described, but it 

 will be possible after sufficient information to assign a proper 

 place to each language. 



