Indigenous Races of the Earth

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40 ON TilE DISTRIBUTION AND that they all divided the year into lunar months, and counted regu­larly up to more than 100,n according to the decimal system; and that they professed a worship similar to that depicted for us in tho Rig-veda. Bnt, as a countcr-proof,-tho words that we simply encounter both in Greek and Latin, but which do not exist in tbo Sanscrit in their proper sense, and of which only a remote etymological radical can be eli cover d, become witnesses, in their own turn, for tho progres­sions that had been accomplished in Europe. They unfold to us what had been the acquirements in common, which the Pelasgi pos­sessed prior to their complete separation into IIellenic and into Ita.lic popnlations.12 We thence learn how it is that from this Pc­lasgic epoch datos the establishment of regular agriculture, -the cultivation of tho cereals, of tho vine and the olive. Finally, those words posRcssod by tho Latin alone, but which the Greek has not yet acqnir d, di~:~play the progress accomplished by tho Italic popula­tions after they had penetrated into tho Peninsula. For instance, tho word expressing the idea of "boat" (navis, Sanscrit niius), and which was subsequently applied to a "ship" (French navire, and by us prcRcrvcd in navy, &c.), belongs to tho throe languages as well as that wl1ich renders tho idea of "oar." The Pelasgi had, therefore, imported with them from Asia, acquaintance with transportations by water; but tho words for sail, mast, and ya1·d, are e.'clusivcly Latin. It was, consequently, the Italic people who invented (for thorns lvos) navigation by sails; and this circumstance completes tho demonstration, that it was through the north of the Italian pcnimmla that tho Pclasgi must have penetrated into it.13 W c arc, unfortunately, still perplexed as to what was the precise idiom of these Pclasgi. It is, perhaps, in tho living tongue of the Albanians, or Slcippetars, that the least adulterated descendant of 11 'fhe names of numbers are tho same up to a hundred, and the numero.l system is iden­tical. 12 [My oollengue, M. MAURY, writes me that his IIistoire des Religions de la Grace A ntigue (2 vols. 8vo., publishing by Ladrange, Paris), is on tho point of issue-Feb. 1857. It is the fruit of long years of research, and cannot fail to throw great light upon anto-Hollcnio ovonts. In another oqually-intoreating fiold, the Mnanges Iliatorigues of our friend M ERNEST RENAN (now in prose) will explore many points of contact, or of disunion, between Sansoritic and Semitic languages and history.- G. R. G.] lB [This interesting method of resuscitating facts long entombed in the ashes of ante­history, confirms the accuracy of Dn. DAVID F. WEINLAND's views, "On tho names of animals with reference to Ethnology," in a paper road boforo tho American Association for tbo Advancement of Soionco, last August. llut I know of it only through a very condensed report (New York Ilcrald, Aug. 26, 1850).- G. R. G.] CLASSIFICATION OF TONGUES. 4.1 this idiom must be sought for. 14 Notwithstanding the quantity suf­ficiently noteworthy of Greek and hlavic words that has penetrated into the Albanian, a grammatical system, ncm·cr to Sanscrit than the Greek afl:ords, is encountered in it. Such, for example, is the de­clension of the determinate adjective through a pronominal appendix, -which is observed likewise in Sclavonic tongnes, so approximate, on the other hand, to Sauscrit. Tho conjugation o.ftho verb is very distinct fi.,om that in Greek, and denotes a system of .flexion less developed. I shall say nothing about the neo-Latin tongues, born from the decomposition of Latin, and which lost little by little the synthetical character and the flexions of their mother. I wi.ll but remark, that it is very curious to e tablish how the languages issued from this stock that have been spoken by populations whoso national life is very slightly developed, arc those which present an analyti al con­stitution the least pronounced, and wherein the flexions have not became so greatly impoverished. r:rhe Valaq or Roumanic, the RlLeto-Romain or dialect of the country of the Grisons, arc certainly more synthetic, and grammatically loss impoverished than French or Sp[mish. But, at the same time that these tongues have preserved their more complex character, they have become still more altered in respect to their vocabulary; and one feels in them very strongly the inflnence which intermixture of races exerts upon languages; otherwise called, tho mingliug of difrercnt tongues. 'l'ho verb in the Rhcto-Romnin, for instance, is conjugated now-a-days in tho future tense and in the passive form li.ke a German verb. The Sclavonic, or Letto-Sltlave, tongues decompose themselves into several groups that corrc pond to different degrees of linguistic development. 'l'ho Lett'islt group, or Lithuanian (which comprehends tho Lithuanian, properly so called, the Bo1·ussian or ancient I rus­sian, and the Lettie or Livonian), answers to a period less advanced than the Shlavic branch; for example, the Lithuanian substantive has hut two genders, whilst tho Sb lave recognizes three. The Lithu­anian conjugation docs not distinguish the third persons of the singular, of tho dual and the I lural. 'l'he Shlavic conjuo-ation, on the contrn.ry, clearly distinguishes seven persons in the plural and in the singular. But, by way of amends, the Lithuanian keeps in its declension the seven cases and tho dual, so characteristic in Sanscrit. u Soe on this suhjoct the Etudes Alha11ai8es of M. J. VON I!ArrN published 11t Vienna in 1854. M. A. F. ro·rr has mndo the observation, tht1t tbe Valuq iuiom prosorvos probably some voHtiges of this antiquo lt1nguago of Illyria; tho uso of tlto dofiulto .article, notably, seems in Wallachian to prooood from sow·cos foreign to Latin.