Page:TASJ-1-1-2.djvu/390



A Regular Meeting of the Society was held on the 17th of June, at 8.30 —the President in the Chair. After the passing of the minutes the names of the following new members were announced: Dr. S. Wells Williams (Honorary) and Mr. W. F. S. Mayers, of Peking; Dr. Thos. Antisell, Captain Leon Descharmes, Professor W. E. Grigsby, Dr. D. B. McCartee, Mr. Benj. Smith Lyman and Baron D’Anethan, of Yedo; Rev. E. R. Miller and Messrs. John Carey Hall, John Rickett, Jr., N. J. Stone and E. De San. The following donations were announced: from C. G. Wilson, Esq. a specimen of Petrefaction from the Great Salt Mines of Cracow; from E. M. Satow, Esq., a Copy of his Japanese Chronological Tables.

Mr. Aston read his paper on the question “Has Japanese any Affinity with Aryan Languages?”

The President returned the thanks of the Society to Mr. Aston for his suggestive paper, and remarked that he had not given any special attention to the philology of the Japanese language, but from his general knowledge of the subject, he was of the opinion it belonged to the so called Turanian family. He thought that the occasional resemblances to be traced between the words of different languages were not to be regarded as evidence of their affiliation; he considered resemblance in grammatical structure as a much surer evidence from which to infer such a relation. He knew a gentleman, a very good Japanese and Hebrew scholar, who had been led, from the frequent resemblances he found between Japanese and Hebrew words, to think that these languages might belong to the same family. No philologist as yet, however, regarded them as having this relationship.

Mr. Goodwin, while tendering his thanks to Mr. Aston for the attempt to throw some light upon the linguistic affinities of the mysterious Japanese language, professed himself unconvinced that a relation had been shown between it and the languages of the Aryan family. The fact of apparently identical roots existing in different languages was not sufficient to prove a close connexion. Probably all the languages in the world could be shown on examination to have some common roots. If this proved anything it would only be that all the nations of the earth were parts of one great family. But it was necessary to consider not only the apparent resemblances, but the differences which existed, in structure and organization and development, and it was admitted that the Japanese in its grammatical character differed as far as possible from the languages of Aryan stock. In tracing the affinities of the Japanese, the first step would be to find out those languages with which it had really some community in structure, and thus to bridge over the immense gap by which, as we see it at present, it appears to be divided from the Aryan and other families. A samilarsimilar [sic] attempt had been made by Mr. Edkins to establish a connexion between the Chinese, and the Aryan and Semitic families. Although a great many of the instances of common