Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/814

 778 PHILOLOGY either in an individual or in a community ; it i.s only a probable indication of race, in the absence of more authori tative opposing indications ; it is one evidence, to be com bined with others, in the approach towards a solution of the confessedly insoluble problems of human history. But we must notice, as a most important circumstance, that its degree of probability is greatest where its aid is most needed, in prehistoric periods and among uncultivated races ; since it is mainly civilization that gives to language a propagative force disproportionate to the number of its speakers. On the whole, the contributions of language to ethnology are practically far greater in amount and more distinct than those derived from any other source. assifi- The genetical classification of languages, then, is to be tion. taken for just what it attempts to be, and no more : prim arily as a classification of languages only ; but secondarily as casting light, in varying manner and degree, on move ments of community, which in their turn depend more or less upon movements of races. It is what the fates of men have left to represent the tongues of men a record im perfect even to fragmentariness. Many a family once as important as some of those here set down has perhaps been wiped out of existence, or is left only in an incon spicuous fragment ; one and another has perhaps been extended far beyond the limits of the race that shaped it, which, we can never tell to our satisfaction. We begin with the families of highest importance and nearest to ourselves. yan. 1- Aryan (Indo-European, Indo Germanic) Family. To this family belongs incontestably the first place, and for many reasons : the historical position of the peoples speaking its dialects, who have now long been the leaders in the world s history ; the abundance and variety and merit of its literatures, ancient and modern, which, especially the modern, are wholly unapproached by those of any other division of mankind ; the period covered by its records, hardly exceeded in duration by any other ; and, most of all, the great variety and richness of its development. These advantages make of it an illustration of the history of human speech with which no other family can bear a moment s comparison as to value, however important various other families may be in their bearing on one and another point or department of history, and however necessary the combination of the testimony of all to a solution of the problems involved in speech. These advantages have made Aryan language the training-ground of comparative philology, and its study will always remain the leading branch of that science. Many matters of importance in its history have been brought up and used as illus trations in the preceding discussion ; but as its constitution and ascertained development call for a fuller and more systematic exposi tion than they have found here, a special section is devoted to the subject (see p. 781 sq. below). mitic. 2. Semitic Family. This family also is beyond all question the second in importance, on account of the part which its peoples (Hebrews, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Syrians, Arabs, Abyssinians, &c. ) have played in history, and of the rank of its literatures. For a special treatment of it see SEMITIC. Some of the peculiarities of the language have been alluded to above ; in the monotony and rigidity of its triliteral roots, and in the extended use which it makes of internal vowel-change (&quot; inflexion &quot; in the special sense of that term) for the purposes of grammatical distinction, it is more peculiar and unlike all the other known families of language than these are unlike one another. There are, and perhaps will always be, those to whom the peculiarities just mentioned will seem original ; but if the views of language and its history taken above are in the main true, then that opinion is untenable ; Semitic language must have grown into its present forms out of beginnings accordant in kind, if not identical in substance, with those of other families ; and the only question remaining to be solved is, through what processes and under what governing tendencies Semitic speech should have arrived at its present state. And with this solution is most obviously and incontestably bound up that of the other interesting and much discussed question, whether the Semitic family can be shown to be related with other families, especially with our own Aryan. To some the possession in common of grammatical gender, or of the classification of objects in general as masculine and feminine, is of itself enough to prove such relation ship ; but, though the fact is a striking one, and of no small importance as an indication, this degree of value can by no means be attributed to it in the present state of our knowledge any more than to any other single item of structure among the infinite variety of such, distributed among the multitude of human tongues. Many otiiers compare the Semitic and Aryan &quot;roots&quot; with one another, and believe themselves to find there numerous indications of identity of material and signification ; but these also must pass for insufficient, until it shall prove possible by their aid to work out an acceptable theory of now Semitic structure should have grown out of such radical elements as underlie Aryan structure, or out of the accordant initial products of a structural growth that after wards diverged into two so discordant forms. To show that, both the material and the method have been hitherto wanting, and any confident decision is at least premature ; but present probabilities are strongly against the solubility of the question. While many general considerations favour the ultimate unity of these two great civilized and civilizing white races of neighbouring homes, and no discordance of speech (as was shown above) can ever be made to prove their diversity of origin, it seems in a high degree unlikely that the evidence of speech will ever be made to prove them one. As regards the often -claimed relationship of Semitic with Hamitic language, see the following section. 3. Hamitic Familij. The prominent importance of this family Hamitic. is dne to a single one of its members, the Egyptian ; in all other respects it is quite insignificant. It occupies the north-eastern corner of Africa, with the border-lands of that continent stretching westward along the whole shore of the Mediterranean, and south ward to beyond the equator. It falls into three principal divisions : (1) the ancient Egyptian, with its descendant, the more modern Coptic (itself now for some centuries extinct ; see EUVFT, Corrs) ; (2) the Libyan or Berber languages of northern Africa ; (3) the Ethiopia languages of eastern Africa. Its situation thus plainly suggests the theory of its intrusion from Asia, across the isthmus of Suez, and its gradual spread from that point ; and the theory is strongly favoured by the physical character of the Hamites, and the historical position especially of the Egyptians, so strikingly different from that of the African races in general. Linguistic evidences of the relationship of Ilamite with Semite have also been sought, and by many believed to be found ; but the mainte nance of the two families in their separateness is an indication that those evidences have not yet been accepted as satisfactory ; and such is indeed the case. The Egyptian is a language of extreme simplicity of structure, almost of no structure at all. Its radical words are partly monosyllabic, partly of more than one syllable, but not in the latter case any more than in the former showing traceable signs of extension by formative processes from simpler elements. It has no derivative apparatus by which noun-stems are made from roots ; the root is the stem likewise ; there is nothing that can be properly called either declension or conjugation ; and the same pronominal particles or suffixes have now a subjective value, indicating use as a verb, and now a possessive, indicating use as a noun. There is no method known to linguistic science by which the relationship of such a tongue as this with the highly and peculiarly inflective Semitic can be shown, short of a thorough working out of the history of development of each family taken by itself, and a retracing in some measure of the steps by which each should have arrived at its present position from a common starting- point ; and this has by no means been done. In short, the problem of the relation of Semitic with Hamitic, not less than with Aryan, depends upon that of Semitic growth, and the two must be solved together. There are striking correspondences between the pro nouns of the two families, such as, if supported by evidences from other parts of their material, would be taken as signs of relation ship ; but, in the absence of such support, they are not to be relied upon, not till it can be shown to be possible that two languages could grow to be so different in all other respects as arc Egyptian and Hebrew, and yet retain by inheritance corresponding pronouns. And the possession of grammatical gender by Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic speech, and by them almost alone, among all human languages, though an extremely noteworthy fact, is (as was pointed out above) in the present condition of linguistic science quite too weak a basis for a belief in the original identity of the three families. Egyptian is limited to the delta and valley of the Nile, and is the only Hamitic language which has ancient records ; of the others the existing forms alone are known. The Libyan or Berber division of the family occupies the inhabit able part of northern Africa, so far as it has not been displaced by intrusive tongues of other connexion in later times the Arabic, which since the Mohammedan conquest has been the cultivated tongue of the Mediterranean coast, while the earlier Vandal, Latin, and Punic have disappeared, except in the traces they may have left in Berber dialectic speech. The principal dialects are the Kabyle, tlw Shilha, and the Tuarek or Tamashek, corresponding nearly to the ancient Numidinn, Mauretanian, and Gaetulian respectively. Some authorities add the Haussa, from farther south, while by others this is considered a Semitic, and by yet others a negro tongue. The third or Ethiopic division includes as its chief members the Beja or Bi sharin, the Saho, the Dankali, the Somali, and the more