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 our ancestors, we believe, were living in what is now known as southern Russia. They and their associated tribes were the progenitors of nearly all the great peoples that have made history during the past 2,500 years. All these tribes perhaps spoke a similar tongue; and they were united by the bonds of a common culture. Their civilization is called Aryan; and their language was the mother of the Indo-European tongues.

When these tribes broke up, left the steppes country, and migrated to other parts of the world some to the eastward, some to the westward, and others to the southward—their civilization became modified. The group-characteristics of tongue and culture became intensified through isolation from the others and by the pressure of a new environment. These were the ancestors of the Persians and the Hindoos, the Greeks and the Celts, the Teutons and the Slavs, the Romans and the Gauls.

Through the West Teutonic division of