REVIEW OF PHILOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL RESEARCHES. 533 
allowed that nations, whose idioms have this sort of affinity, are 
allied in origin. Groups of idioms thus related are termed 
families of languages. 
“ One strongly marked family of languages consists of the 
dialects termed collectively the Semitic. To this belong the 
Hebrew^, the Chaldee, the Aramean or Syriac, and the Geez or 
Ethiopic. 
“ Another family of languages is the Indo-European, in which 
are included various idioms both of Europe and Asia, whose 
near affinity has been thought to prove a kindred origin in 
nations long ago separated from each other. It has been chiefly 
during the last twenty years that the near affinity of this class 
of languages has been discovered. They form a most extensive 
group, including, 1st, the Sanskrit and all its dialects in India; 
2nd, the ancient Zend or Medo-Fersian language, and all the 
idioms now spoken in Persia and Armenia; 3rd, the Greek and 
Latin languages, and all the dialects sprung from them; 4th, 
the Sclavonic, the origin of the Russian, Polish, and Bohemian 
languages ; 5th, the Teutonic languages; 6th, the Celtic dia¬ 
lects, which belong, if I am not mistaken, to the same family, 
though on this subject there is some dispute. 
“ We have next to consider analogy between languages. Many 
idioms wdiich are entirely distinct from each other, being com¬ 
pletely different in their vocabularies, and having few r or per¬ 
haps no words in common, are yet found to bear to each other 
a striking resemblance in their grammatical structure. This 
resemblance is such as to admit of no other term than that of 
analogy, and such languages cannot be said to belong to the 
same family; they constitute particular classes of languages. 
I shall mention some examples of this relation. 
“ 1. A strongly marked class of languages are those termed 
Monosyllabic, the words belonging to which are monosyllables, 
uttered without any inflection of termination, and wdth merely 
a sort of intonation to express the relations of wrnrds to each 
other. Idioms of this description are spoken by the Chinese, 
Tibetans, Burmans, Cochin-Chinese, Siamese, and nearly all 
the nations of the further Indian Peninsula. The particular 
languages I have now mentioned are quite distinct from each 
other; even their numerals and their most familiar and com¬ 
mon elements of speech are different. 
“ Another class of languages are those termed Polysynthetic, 
consisting in long polysyllabic words, and abounding in modes 
of inflection, refined and elaborate, admitting almost infinite 
varieties of termination and changes of structure ; such varieties 
of structure and termination expressing numerous modifica¬ 
tions in the original ideas which the w'ords were intended tp 
