Holland, &c., the Maso-Gothic, Swedish, Danish, AngloSaxon, English, &c.; 5. The Slavonic, comprising the Illyrian, Russian, Cheskian, Polish, Lithuanian, &c.; 6. The Ouralian, comprising the Finnish, Lapland, Cheremisse, Permian, Magyar or Hungarian.

II. Asiatic, subdivided into seven families: 1. The Semitic, comprising the Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, &c.; 2. The Caucasian, comprising the Georgian, Armenian, &c.; 3. The Persian, comprising the Zend, Parsee, modern Persian, &c.; 4. The Indian, comprising the Sanscrit, with the Pali and Hindostanee, and the Malabar or Maleyalam, with the Tamul, Telinga, &c.; 5. The Transgangetic Indian, comprising the Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, Lass-Siamite, Anamite, and Rukheng-Barma; 6. The Tartar, comprising the Tongouse, Mandchou, Tartar or Mongul, Kalmuc, Turkey, Yakoute, &c.; 7. The Siberian, comprising the Samoied, Yenesei, Koriak, Kamtskadale, Kourilian, &c.

III. African, subdivided into five families: 1. The Egyptian, comprising the Coptic and other languages spoken along the course of the Nile, the Nubian, the Troglodytic, the Bisharian, &c.; 2. The Atlantean, comprising the Amazique, Ertana, Tibboo, Guanche, &c.; 3. The Maritime Nigritian, comprising the Mandigo with the Soosoo, &c. ; the Ashantee with the Intor, &c.; the Ardrajidah with the Benin, the Foulah, Woloff, Serere, &c.; 4. The South African, comprising the Congo, Loango, Kaffer, Beshuana, Hottentot, Saab, Monomotapa, Maeonas, Galla, Somauli, Hurrur, &c.; 5. The Inland Nigritian, comprising the Haoussan, Bornouan, Timbuctoo, Maniana, Kallogi, Baghermeh, &c.

IV. American, subdivided into eleven families: 1. Esquimaux; 2. Northwestern regions; 3. The region of the Alleganies and the Lakes; 4. The regions of the Missouri and Mississippi; 5. The central plateau; 6. Anahuac or Mexican; 7. Guatemala; 8. The region of the Orinoco and Amazon; 9. Guarani-Brazilian; 10. Peruvian; 11. Southern regions of South America, Araucana, Patagonia.

V. Oceanic, subdivided into two families: 1. The Malaysian, comprising the Grand Oceanic, Vulgar Javan, BasaKrama, Malay, Acheen, Birna, Bugi, Macassar, Tagalog, Bis

sayo, Mindinao, Chamorie Radak, New Zealand, Tonga, Tahitian, Sandwich, Sidea Madecasse, &c.; 2. The Oceanic Negroes, the Tembora, Sidney, Dory, Tana, Pelew, &c.

Of these languages, fifteen are spoken or understood by a great number of persons, or, rather, extend their domain over a great number of countries. Of these general languages six are Asiatic, viz.: Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Sanscrit; eight European, viz.: German, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, Latin; one, the fifteenth, belongs to Oceanica.

It has been found that the average number of persons speaking the same language is greatest in the most civilized of the divisions, thus indicating a tendency in civilization toward a unity of language. This tendency is strongly manifested in the most civilized nations of Europe, the English, the French, the Germanic nations, inasmuch as science, travel, and commerce produce intercourse with each other. The ancient tendency was to diversity, the modern is to unity of language.

SCHLEGEL'S CLASSIFICATION.

§ 9. The following classification, proposed by A. W. von Schlegel, and adopted by Bopp, is in a high degree logical and satisfactory: I. Languages with monosyllabic roots, but in capable of composition, and therefore without grammar or or ganization. To this class belong the Chinese, in which we have nothing but naked roots, and the predicates and other relations of the subject are determined merely by the position of words in the sentence. II. Languages with monosyllabic roots, which are susceptible of composition, and of which the grammar and organization depend entirely on this. In this class the leading principle of the formation of words lies in the connection of verbal and pronominal roots, which in combination form the body and the soul of the language. To this belongs the Sanscrit family and all other languages not included under I. and III., and preserved in such a state that the forms of the words may still be resolved into their simplest elements. III. Languages which consist of dissyllabic verbal roots, and require three consonants as the vehi

cles of their fundamental signification. This class contains the Shemitic languages only; its grammatical forms are produced not merely by composition, as is the case with the second, but also by means of a simple modification of roots.

THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES.

§ 10. The Shemitic languages have by philologists been long classed together as one tribe or family, because there is a diversity between them and other languages. Spoken by the descendants of Shem, from which circumstance they derive their name, they were native in Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, from the Mediterranean to the Tigris, and from the Armenian Mountains to the south coast of Arabia. The Shemitic class of languages consists of three principal divisions. 1. The Arabic; to this belongs the Ethiopic, as a branch of the southern Arabic; 2. The Aramean, in the north and northeast. It is called Syriac in the form in which it appears in the Christian Aramean, but Chaldee as it appears in the Aramean writings of the Jews. To the Chaldee is closely allied the Samaritan, both exhibiting frequent admixture of Hebrew forms; 3. The Hebrew, with which the Canaanitish and Phoenician stand in connection. Conant's Hebrew Grammar. With the ancient Egyptian, from which the Coptic is derived, the Shemitic came in many ways into contact in very early times. The Coptic, therefore, has much in common with the Shemitic.

Some of the peculiarities of the Shemitic class are: 1. Most of the radical words consist of three consonants. 2. The verb has only two tenses, the preterite and the future. 3. The noun has only two genders. 4. Scarcely any compounds appear in verbs or nouns except proper names. 5. Only the consonants were given in the line as real letters. Of the vowels, only the longer ones, and even these not always, were represented by certain consonants. 6. These languages, with the exception of the Ethiopic, are always written from right to left. The Shemitic languages are adapted to narration, to poetry, to the description of objective realities, but not to the exhibition of subjective experience, the deductions of logic, or the truths of philosophy.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN OR JAPHETIC LANGUAGES.

§ 11. The principal Indo-European languages are the Sanscrit, the Zend, the Latin, the Greek, the Celtic, the Gothic, the Slavonic, and the Lithuanic.

In comparison with the Shemitic, the family bond which embraces this race of languages is not less universal, but in most of its bearings of a quality infinitely more refined. "The members of this race inherited, from the period of their earliest youth, endowments of exceeding richness, and with a system of unlimited composition and agglutination. Possessing much, they are able to bear the loss of much, and yet to retain their local life."-Bopp's Comparative Grammar. The received opinion is that these languages took their common origin from a language spoken somewhere in the central or southern part of Asia, and that they spread from thence into Europe. Hence the term Indo-European. The members of this family are descended from a common parent, namely, a language spoken by a race occupying a region in Central or Southern Asia, not far from the birth-place of man.

1. The Sanscrit stock. This is the ancient language derived from that common parent, and is itself the mother of the languages of India. The name is from sam, "altogether," and krita, "done," "completely done," "perfected." This very name points to an antecedent state of the tongue, before it had become settled, and not entitled to the appellation "completely formed." It has five vowels, twenty-three consonants, and an alphabet of fifty characters. It has three numbers, three genders, eight cases; namely, the nominative, vocative, dative, accusative, ablative, locative, instrumental, and genitive. It has two voices; one of which, the active, has two forms, one of them being reflective, corresponding to the middle voice in Greek. It has ten conjugations, five modes, six tenses, all formed by inflection. Its Syntax is logical and simple. It is itself a dead language, and is studied in India as the Latin and the Greek are with us. It is regarded as the most composite, flexible, and complete language known. It was spoken only by the

privileged classes, while the common people spoke the Pacrit, the spontaneous" tongue. The Vedas, the Laws of Menu, the Sacontala, are among the works extant in this language.

2. The Zend or Iranian stock. This is the ancient language of Persia, the sacred idiom of the Magi and of Zoroaster. Coming from the same source as the Sanscrit, it spread itself among the worshipers of the Sun, and is the parent of the several dialects now spoken in Persia. It was in this language that the Zendavesta was composed by Zoroaster, fragments of which still remain.

3. The Latin and Greek, or the classical stock. These, called the classical languages, were spoken by those whose ancestors, at some remote period, came from Asia, and spread themselves in successive waves along the northern shores and islands of the Mediterranean, from the regions east of Greece to the west of Italy. The Latin is the mother tongue of the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, the Wallachian, Provençal; the Greek, of the modern Greek (or Romaic).

4. The Celtic stock of languages. These languages were spoken by the Celts, who are supposed to have migrated from Asia at some early period, and to have been impelled onward by successive emigrations until they found their way to Gaul and Great Britain.

5. The Gothic stock. The Gothic tribes followed the Celts as early as 680 B.C. The language which their descendants spoke was divided into, first, the Teutonic, spoken in Germany; secondly, the Scandinavian, spoken in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

6. The Slavonic stock. These languages were spoken by those immigrating tribes which came out of Asia about 450 B.C., and who were the ancestors of the Russians, Poles, and Bohemians.

7. The Lithuanic stock of languages. This contains the Lithuanic of Lithuania, the old Prussian of Prussia, and the Littish or Livonic of Courland and Livonia.

§ 12. The real origin of the English language is on the Continent of Europe, and its real affinities are with languages there spoken. The native country of the English