Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/821

 LANGUAGES.] PHILOLOGY 785 7. The Celtic Family, once covering a large part of western Europe, but now reduced to comparatively scanty remnants in the north-west of France and in the British islands. Among its extinct members the language of the Galatians in Asia Minor may be mentioned, of which little more is known than that it was Celtic. The earliest docu ments of Celtic speech we possess are some inscriptions in the idiom of the Gallic inhabitants of France and northern Italy. The surviving branches of Celtic show a clear division into two groups : the Northern or Gaelic group, formed by Irish, Gaelic or Scotch, and Manx, and a Southern or Britannic group, consisting of Welsh or Cymric, Cornish (extinct since 1778), and Armorican or Bas Breton in Brittany. The fundamental authority for the comparative study of Celtic grammar is Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, 1853 (2d ed. by H. Ebel, 1871). After Zeuss, Stokes and Rhys in England, Ascoli in Italy, Ebel, Windisch, and Zimmer in Germany, and D Arbois de Jubainville and H. Gaidoz in France have been the chief contributors to this field of research. The last-named is also the editor of a periodical especially devoted to Celtic studies, the Revue Cdtique (Paris, from 1S70). 1 8. The Germanic or Teutonic Family. This well-de veloped family is divided into two main groups, which are now commonly denoted Eastern and Western Germanic. The members of the former are Gothic (see GOTHIC LANGUAGE, vol. x. p. 852 sq.) and Scandinavian, with an eastern and a western subdivision, the former compris ing Swedish and Danish, the latter Norse and Icelandic. Western Germanic, on the other hand, consists of English, Frisian (these two seem to form a separate branch), Saxon or Low German, Frankish (including Dutch), and Upper German (see article GERMAN LANGUAGE). The dialects of the numerous other Teutonic tribes not mentioned here have died out without leaving sufficient materials for linguistic classification. 9. The Baltic Family, comprising three distinct idioms Prussian, Lithuanian, and Lettish. Prussian became extinct in the 16th century. The few specimens of this highly interesting language which have been preserved are collected by Nesselmann, Die Sprache der alien Preussen (Konigsberg, 1845), and Ein deutschpreussisches Vocabul- arium (ibid., 1868). The same author has also published a dictionary, Thesaurus linguse Prussicse (Berlin, 1873). Amongst other contributions to Prussian grammar, Bopp s essay, Ueber die Sprache der Altpreussen (Berlin, 1853), is especially noteworthy. Of the two other branches, Lithu anian is the more important for comparative philology. The chief grammars are those by Schleicher (Handbuch der litauischen Sprache, 2 vols., Prague, 1856-57) and Kurschat (Litauische Grammatik, Halle, 1876) ; the best dictionary is by Kurschat ( Worterbuch der lit. Sprache, 2 vols., Halle, 1878-83). Some of the oldest texts are now being re printed by Bezzenberger. 2 For Lettish, Bielenstein s grammar (Die lettische Sprache, 2 vols., Berlin, 1863-64) and Ulmann s dictionary (Lettisches Worterbuch, Riga, 1872) are the first books to be consulted. 10. The Slavonic Family. There are two main branches of Slavonic. The so-called Southern or South -Eastern branch embraces Russian, Ruthenian (in Galicia), Bul garian, Servian, Croatian, and Slovenian. The second branch is generally designated by the name of Western Slavonic. It is chiefly represented by Cechish or Bohemian and Polish. With the former the Serbian dialects spoken 1 For further particulars see article CELTIC LITERATURE, and the very exhaustive critical and bibliographical study by Windisch, &quot; Kelt- ische Sprachen,&quot; in Ersch and Gruber s EncyTdopadie. 2 Litauische und Lettische Drucke des 16ten Jahrhunderts, Got- tingen, 1878 sq. ; cp. also Beitrdge zur Geschichte der lit. Sprache, Guttingen, 1877, by the same author. in Lusatia are very closely connected. Polish, again, is sub divided into Eastern Polish or Polish Proper and Western Polish, a few remnants of which now survive in the Kas- subian dialects of Prussia. About the extinct members of this last group, which are generally comprehended under the name of Polabian dialects, Schleicher s Laut- und For- menlehre der polabischen Sprache (St Petersburg, 1871) and an article by Leskien in Im neuen Reich, ii. p. 325, may be consulted. The oldest Slavonic texts, some of which go as far back as the 10th century, are a number of books destined for the use of the church. From this circum stance the peculiar dialect in which they are written is often called Church Slavonic. Schleicher and others identify this dialect with Old Bulgarian, while Miklosich thinks it should be classed as Old Slovenian. For com parative purposes as well as for Slavonic philology this idiom is the most important. The chief grammars are Schleicher, Formenlehre der kirchenslavischen Sprache (Bonn, 1852) ; Miklosich, Laut- und Formenlehre der altsloven- ischen Sprache (Vienna, 1 850) ; and Leskien, Handbuch der altbulgarischen Sprache (Vienna, 1871). The fundamental works on comparative Slavonic philology are Miklosich, Vergleichende Grammatik der slavischen Sprachen (4 vols., Vienna, 1852-68; 2d ed. of vol. i., Lautlehre, 1879), and Lexicon Palceoslovenico-Greeco-Latinum (Vienna, 1862-65). A large number of special contributions are collected in Jagic, Archiv fur slavische Pldlologie (Berlin, from 1876). The mutual relationship of these ten families may be shortly characterized by saying that they are dialects of the primitive Aryan parent -speech, which at an early period of its existence must have formed a linguistic unity, but subsequently became dissolved into these subdivi sions. This fundamental view now seems to be universally admitted to be correct. But it is extremely difficult to go beyond it in attempts to trace out the history of the process of dissolution. One problem offering itself at the very outset of such an attempt (although more of an ethnological than philological character) must at once be dismissed as insoluble, the question of the original home of our Aryan forefathers and the directions of the wander ings that brought the single members of the great original tribe to the seats occupied in historical times by the several Aryan nations. There exist indeed no means for deciding whether they came from the north-eastern part of the Iranian plateau near the Hindu-Kush Mountains, as was once generally assumed, or whether Europe may boast of being the mother of the Aryan nationality, as some authors are now inclined to believe. 3 The chief philological diffi culty lies in the fact that some of these ten families stand in closer relationship with certain others than with the rest, so that they seem to form separate independent groups, and yet these groups cannot be severed from the rest without overlooking important linguistic facts which seem to speak for the existence of a closer connexion between single members of one group and single members or the whole of another. Before attention was drawn to this latter point it was easy enough to account for the origin of the grouping alluded to. If everything that is Genea- common to all Aryan languages must have originated in lo g ica l the common parent-speech and the correctness of this groupin assumption can hardly be doubted then everything that is common to all the families of one particular group, but strange to the others, must be assigned to a period when these families formed a unity by themselves and were dis connected with the other stock. The fact, for instance, that all the European languages possess the three vowels a, e, o, where the Indian and Iranian group show the uniform a, which was then believed to be the primitive 3 On this much vexed question see especially 0. Schrader, Sprach- vergleichung und Urgeschichte, Jena, 1883, passim. XVIII. 99