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Show 46 ON TilE DISTRillUTION AND the name of tho invisible blacksmith underwent changes, and imagination embroidered upon tho common web some particular dotaHs. Wieland, who is also named" Goinkonsohmid," is associated in certain localities, with a bull; which recalls to mind that one manufactured by Dredalus, to satisfy the immodest passion of Pasiphae, the "all-illumining" spouse of Minos -whom IIollonic tradition makes a king of Crete, but who is encountered both amidst the Ariana and the Germans. Among the Aryas he bears the name of Manou,, or rather of Manus. IIe is a legislator-king; having for his brother Yarna, the god of the dead; just as Minos's brother was Rhadamanthus (Rhada-rnan-thus). This last, as well as Yama, is repro ontcd with a wand in his hand, and judging in the infernal regions. Among the Germans, Manus is called Mannus. IIe is also (a rnan and) an ancient king, who, like the Indian Manus, is an ADAM, tho first author of mankind. I must refer to the learned work of M. A. KuHN those who wish to penetrate deeper into these curious comparisons. The glimpse I have just given, shows how much of authority they add to those analogies that the comparative study of languages has furnished us. Our German philologists have felt this, inasmuch as they insert, in the same periodical repertory, mythological researches of this kind, purely linguistic. I would add, that such comparative examinations enable us to comprehend better the nature and the history of the IIellenic religion in particular, and the religions of antiquity in general. This method yields us the key to a multitude of myths which we could not decipher did we not mount up to their Asiatic origines. Allow me yet again to offer a short example. According to the Grecian fable, Acmon was the father of Ouranos. The motive for this filiation. had not until now been pierced through. Why should the most an01ent of the gods, their supreme father h. av~ h a d. an " a~Vl' l" £o r h1' s own father? such being the Greek' s1gmficatwn of this worQ.. Sanscrit can alone tell us,- as M. R. RoTII, one of the most ingenious and skilful Orientalists of Germany has remarked.. T.he Sanscrit . form of this Greek name is Ayman: and the word s1gmfi.es, at one and the same time, "anvil" and "sky" (or heaven). 'l'he myth becomes intoJJigible. Here, as in innumerable. other cases, the god receives for his progenitor another personificatLOn, from the same part of nature that he represents. And, in the same manner that Rltea has engendered .Demeter -that is to say ~he. "mot~er-earth," because Rltea (as the meani~g of her nam~ mdlCates) IS a personification of the Earth. so likoWI'se as TT z· ( h h . ' ' , .ue ws t. e sun) ad for his father Ilyperion, that is to .say, again the sun,- did Ouranos (the sky) receive birth from .A.cmon,-whoae name CLASSIFICATION OF TONGUES. 47 has the same acceptation. But, whilst tho word Acmon passed into Greek with the sense of" hammer,"-against which that of" anvil" was easily interchangeable-it lost, among the llollenos, the moaning of "sky," and thus the myth, transported into Europe, ceased to possess signiftcanco any more. In the presence of analogies and connections so conclusive, it is impossible to suppose simply that a population of the same race, and with the same fundamental stock of language, was spread from India and Persia to Britain and Erin: we must necessarily suppose that the peoples coming from Asia had imported into Europe their idiom and their traditions. Must it hence be admitted that this portion of the earth had not then been already populated; and that those Asiatic tribes, which took the leadership of this long defile of conquerors, found nothing before them but solitudes? It is again the study of languages that will furnish us with the reply. I have stated that all the idioms of Europe belong to tho IndoEuropean stem; throe groups (or if you will, throe languages), forming the only exception; without speaking, be it well understood, of the Turkish, scarcely implanted on this side of tho Bosphorus, and whoso introduction datos but from a few centuries; nor comprising, either, the Maltese,-solitary vestige of Saracenic dominion in Italian lands. 'l'ho first group is roprer:1ontod by the Basque tongue, or tho Eislcari, which embraces but two dialects. The second is tho Finnish group, comprising the Lapponic, tho Finnic or Suomi, and the Estlwnian spoken in the northern part of Livonia, as also at the islands of CEsil and Dago. Lastly, tho third group reduces itself to the Magyar, or IInngarian, which links itself to tho Finnish group through an indirect relationship. We know how the Magyar introduced itself into Europe. It is the tongue of the ancient lluns, who, mingling with the populations of Dacia and Pannonia, gave birth to tho Hungarians; but we are loss advanced as regards what concerns the history of tho Finnish and tho Basque languages. W1LTIELM VON lluMBOLDT, who devoted himself to researches of groat interest upon the Basque tongue, has shown that this language had of yore a much more extensive domain than tho little corner of land by which it is now confined. N amos of places belonging to tho whole of southern France, and even to Liguria, prove that a population of Euscarian idiom was anciently spread from the Alps to the occidental extremity of Spain. Th se people wore the Iberes, Iberians, yonde1·ers; and tho Basque is tho last relic of their tongue. |