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Show 576 TilE MONOGENIS'l'S AND three distinct languages, th rcby become more or loss intorblencl d. Again, in course of time, some cl menta of a fourth, a. :fifth, or ov n of more, languages, originating in other centres, may be lntlltrat d. into, or superimposed upon, this tripartite basis at c rtain points~ Now, to analyze tho component parts of this mass, nnd to cal'l'y back each organically-diverse tongue to its pristine centre, is tho true ofri.co of antiqt1arian philology; and her in consists tho most glorious application of this science, regarded as tho handmaiden, not tho mistress, of "ELhnology," which term ou"'ht to reproscut tho judicious union of all sciences bearing upon the study of Man. By way of exompl ifying tbat such fusions have really tnl en place amOJJg languages, I would instance the Constantiuopolitan Turkish, or present Osmanlco dialect. Originally Altu1c in gcoo·mphical dol'iYation, tho Turkish typo, barred by tho liimalayan ra1Jgo ii·om much hlilucnce over llindost~l.n, and (save in the desperate altomativo of flight or oxtermiuation undergone by what remains ofTmkish amo11g tho hybrid Yalcuts) shrinking from that Siberian colU. which constitutes the mundane happiness of the Arctic-men (Samoyods, Tcllutchis, Eskimaux, &c.), radiated towards China on tho cast aud Media on tho west. Driven away fi·om tho flowery empire afL r pr lon"'od onslaughts, the Turkish hordes- bringing with thorn, as their only trppl1ios, a few Chinese words in their vocabulal'y, and some Cbinoso women in their harems-struggled for many aaos in oil.orts to crosA tho Arlan, or Persian, barrier, which arrested. their march towards ICuropo. At such epochs was it that, in Porsic history, tho' 1'Ul'ks were flrst called .A.niranians, and latterly Tw·anians; during all those periods of encampment, never failing to add Mongolian, Scythic, and Arian, £ males to tho Chinese thai already gamish d their tented 1:1oraglios. They absorbed abundant P rsian vocabl s into their speech .in tho interim; and, through amalgamation ·with higher typos (essentially Caucasian), their homely :C atur s began to acquire European propor.tion. Fi~1ally, as .osmanlcos, we find tl1om making Istambool their torrostnal parad1so-tho fu.irost of Arabia's, ireneRia's, ~nd llollas's dan~ht?rs becoming their "spolia opima" fot· four ccntuncs; thereby pobslung tho Turkish form to such dc"'roe that oven tl:o BostanJ'ees (gardeners); and OayilcJees (boatm n), of m~dorn Byzantmm now froquolltly rival Alcibiados 1n personal beauty. By way, however, of polygamic re-vindication, the politics of 1854-G gun.mntee, at least for the next generation, further improvements at Galata and cutari; only, this time, tho manly cohorts of Britain l!"ra~1co, ~ud Sardinia, by reversing tho gender, have secured Ottoma1~ rnohomtLOn through tho female line; and sculpture looks forward. hopefully to a liberal supply fl'Om Turkey of to1·si for Apollol'!. TilE POLYGENISTS. 677 "Pari pass~" wi~h T~rkish improvements in tho physique, owing to amalgamatiOn Wtth h1ghcr races, has run tho history of their languaO'o, Of yore in Asia as barbarous and limited in vocabula1·y as an Eskimo's, tho Osmanlco speech has b come in ouphOJlY rnoHt boautif~l; and th:ough its inherent capacity of expansion, aided hy absorpt1on of foro1gn 1'0ots, unbounded; be ·au so upon a given mo11 o~ yllablo, stolen ?o matter whence, tho 'l'mkish verb can agglutinate JUst what sense 1t pleases. Thus, supposing that recent contact with English hospitals should have impressed upon tho Ottoman car tl10 syllable "sick," as r lie of the valetudinarian's phmse "I am sick," the ~urk can immediately, through tho form sick-melc, by adding i811, obtam a reciprocal verb siak-ish-melc, "to be sick with one another;" or extend it oven to siclc-islt-dir-il-melc, "to be brought to bo sick with ono another;" and so on through thirty-six forms of c njugation ;''09 in which tho alien monosyllable "sick" will henceforward continue to play as groat a part, while 'l'urks enduro, as if it bad boon native Turanian. Tho Ottomans, therefore, exhibit in their present speech an the historical radiations from their AJta1c centro. At first exclusively Turanian, their language contracted some inic peculiarities; and then so many Arian (Persian) vocables and inil.oxions,-iollowcd, after their conversion to Islamism, by such an abundance of Semitic (Arabic) roots-tl1at the more a polite speaker introduces Persian and Arabic into his discourse, tho highot· is an OsmanJoo diplomatiHt's estimation of such person's culturc.500 Tho modem Porsianlang1wgc, presents a similar superposition of Turanian and Semitic forms upon an Arian tongue. This principle of primitive centres of speech has been victoriously proved for Semitic languages by Ronan, and for Malayan by Crawfurd; and it is oven exompli..ficd iu our bastard English tougue, although its chief absoq tioos arc Indo-Germanic, except in foreign substantives imported by commercial int t·courso from other centres all over the world; as may be seen in Do Vcre's 001 capital book. Another method, not altogether now and somowbat defective in technical illustrntio11, has just been proposed by Dr. David JT. Woinland (b ioro tho Am ricau Association for tho advancement of Sci- 400 MAx 111 iir.r.F;H, op. cit .. pp. 111-4; ond lioLDlatMAN!\'s Grammail·s Turque, Coustantinoplc, 1730, pp. 26-8. 600 Itccollcction of 13na·on do 'l'ott's work, rond when I begrm n slight study of 'furkiMh nt Cniro, 1832-4, su~ltest~ rofct·onoe to some very hnppy illustrations of this mixture of throe tongues given by ~im; but I no lougor possess, nor know whore to lind, his book for citation. OOl Outlines of Compar rtive Pltilology. Now York, 1863. 37 |