Page:Tamil studies.djvu/199

172 morphologically connected. The roots of each are different; so are their grammatical elements. The explanation for this difference lies in the fact that the Aryan languages—Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Keltic, &c-separated at an epoch when their structure was already perfect. On the other hand, the so called Turanian or Scythian languages seem to have parted when their structure was in an imperfect condition ; and so each of them was obliged to depend on its own resources or on borrowed elements available at hand to complete its inner structure. It has also been observed that in the course of formation and growth some of the languages of the Uralo-Altaic group made use of incorporation—a feature peculiar to the American languages. In the case of the Dravidian languages, their development and approach towards the incorporating stage must have been arrested at a very early period by their literary culture, which was no doubt due to the Aryan influence. The position assigned to the Dravidian languages by M. Hovelacque in the linguistic systems seems to us quite appropriate. He says,—‘they must be comprised among the first in the ascending order, that is among those immediately following the isolating system, and anterior to Turkish, Magyar, Basque and the American languages.'

So much for the origin of Tamil and its place in the linguistic systems of the world. Coming now to the history of the Tamil language, it may conveniently be divided into three periods, namely, (1) the