Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/289

Rh y A N S A N 269 crown dates from 1842 ; in 1853 it obtained the constitution under which (in a modified form) it now exists as a sovereign state. General Barrios, having in 1858 obliged the president Santin del Castillo to abdicate, secured his own permanent appointment to the office in 1860 ; but in 1863-4 ho failed in his endeavour to defend his capital against the Guatemalans, and when he returned in 1864 to attack Duenas, the Guatemalan protege, he was defeated and put to death. " Pronunciamientos " have since been the too general pre- liminaries of presidential elections ; but there has been no serious war, and the finances of the republic have usually a balance on the right side. See Scherzer, Travels in Central America (1857); Sonnenstern, Description del estado del Salvador (New York, 1859, with a good map reproduced in Berlin Zeitsch. fur Geographic, 1860) ; Dollfns and Montserrat, Voy. geologique dans les republiques de Guatemala et de Salvador (1868) ; Blairet, Le Salvador (1872); Fruntzius's translation of De Palacio, <Sa Salvador and Honduras in 1576 (1873); Guzman, Apuntamientos iobre la geogr.Jisica de la rep. del Salvador, 1883. ' SANSANDING, or SANSANDIG, a town in the interior of Western Africa, on the north bank of the Niger, in 13 40' N. lat. and 6 25' W. long., and included in the " empire " of Segu. It was visited by Mungo Park in 1796, and in 1865 by Mage and Quintin, who witnessed the stand it made against a siege by Ahmedu, sultan of Segu, from whom it had revolted. The population is esti- mated at 30,000 to 40,000. SAN SEBASTIAN, a seaport of Spain, capital of the province of Guipuzcoa, 42 miles north-north-west of Pamplona, and 402 miles by rail from Madrid. It occupies a narrow isthmus, terminated towards the north by a lofty conical rock called Urgull or Orgullo, and flanked on its eastern side by the river Urumea, here crossed by a "bridge, and on the other by a bay (La Concha), which forms the harbour. The summit of the hill is crowned by a fort (Castillo de la Mota), and the landward side of the town was formerly defended by solid ramparts. The houses are almost all modern, built uniformly in straight streets and regular squares, so as to present an appearance quite unlike most Spanish towns. There are two large churches, a court-house, a theatre, hospitals, barracks, &c. The manufactures of the place are insigni- ficant ; and the harbour is small, and not easily accessible, though well protected by a mole and small island. There is a considerable trade in English and French goods, corn and other articles being exported. During summer the town is much frequented, especially by the wealthier inhabitants of Madrid, for sea-bathing, and tent-like huts are set up for the purpose on the shore of the bay. From its position and strength San Sebastian has been long a place of much importance, and has sustained several sieges. The most memorable of these was in August 1813, when the British, under Wellington, took it by storm. The population within the municipal boundaries was 21,355 in 1877. SAN SEVERO, a city of Italy, in the province of Foggia, and at one time the chief town of the Capitanata, lies at the foot of the spurs of Monte Gargano, and has a station on the railway to Brindisi, 36 miles south-east of Termoli and 17 north of Foggia. It is the see of a bishop (since 1580), and has a handsome cathedral and some re- mains of its old fortifications. In 1880 the population was 19,756 (20,382 in commune). San Severe dates from the Middle Ages. It was laid in ruins by Frederick II., and in 1053 was the scene of a victory by Robert Guiscard over the papal troops under Leo IX. The overlordship was held in succession by the Benedictines of Torre Maggiore abbey, the Knights Templars, the crown of Naples, and the Sangro family (commendatories of Torre Maggiore). In 1627, and again in 1828 and 1851, the town suffered from earthquakes. SANSKEIT LANGUAGE AND LITEKATUEE PAET I SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. SANSKRIT is the name applied by Hindu scholars to the ancient literary language of India. The word samskrita is the past participle of the verb kar, " to make " (cognate with Latin creo), with the preposition sam, "together" (cog. apa, 6/x.o'?, Eng. "same"), and has probably to be taken here in the sense of " completely formed" or "accurately made, polished," some noun meaning "speech" (esp. bhds/id) being either expressed or understood with it. The term was, doubtless, origin- ally adopted by native grammarians to distinguish the literary language of the educated classes from the uncul- tivated popular dialects the forerunners of the modern vernaculars of northern India which had, from an early period, developed side by side with it, and which were called (from the same root kar, but with different preposi- tions) Prdkrita, 'i.e., either "derived" or "natural, common" forms of speech. But this designation of the literary idiom, being evidently intended to imply a language regulated by conventional rules, also involves a distinction between the grammatically fixed language of Brahmanical India and an earlier, less settled, phase of the same language exhibited in the Vedic writings. For greater convenience the Vedic language is, however, usually included in the term, and scholars generally distinguish between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language, with its old and modern descendants, represents the easternmost branch of the great Indo- Germanic, or Aryan, stock of speech. Philological research has clearly established the fact that the Indo- Aryans must originally have immigrated into India from the north-west. In the oldest literary documents handed down by them their gradual advance can indeed be traced from the slopes of eastern Kabulistan down to the land of the five rivers (Punjab), and thence to the plains of the Yamuna (Jumna) and GangS, (Ganges). Numerous special coincidences, both of language and mythology, be- tween the Vedic Aryans and the peoples of Iran also show that these two members of the Indo-Germanic family must have remained in close connexion for some considerable period after the others had separated from them. The origin of comparative philology dates from the time when European scholars became accurately acquainted with the ancient language of India. Before that time classical scholars had been unable, through centuries of learned research, to determine the true relations between the then known languages of our stock. This fact alone shows the importance of Sanskrit for comparative re- search. Though its value in this respect has perhaps at times been overrated, it may still be considered as the eldest daughter of the old mother-tongue. Indeed, so far as direct documentary evidence goes, it may rather be said to be the only surviving daughter ; for none of the other six principal members of the family have left any literary monuments, and their original features have to be reproduced, as best they can, from the materials supplied by their own daughter languages : such is the case as regards the Iranic, Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, and Letto-Slavic languages. To the Sanskrit the antiquity and extent of its literary documents, the transparency of its grammatical structure, the comparatively primitive state of its accent system, and the thorough grammatical treatment it has early received at the hand of native scholars must ever secure the foremost place in the com- parative study of Indo-Germanic speech.