· LANGUAGE.

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES.*

The languages of the world are classified as follows:

I. THE Chinese stock, spoken principally in China (see p. 13). Of this stock we remark that,

(1.) Every written character is an entire word.

(2.) Every written character is the symbol of an idea, rather than the representative of a sound.†

(3.) The languages are monosyllabic.

II. The Shemitic stock, consisting principally of,

(1.) The Arabic, including the Ethiopic,

(2.) The Aramean, including the Syriac and the Chaldaic,

(3.) The Hebrew, connected with which are the Canaanitish and the Phoenician.

Of the Shemitic stock it is remarked, that, as a rule,

(1.) Each root is dissyllabic and contains three consonants.
(2.) All the Shemitic languages, except the Ethiopic, are writ-
ten from right to left.

III. The Indo-European stock.

IV. The African stock, not including the Ethiopic. The Coptic, spoken by the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, has much in common with the Shemitic.

V. The American stock, comprising the tongues of the aboriginal inhabitants.

VI. The Oceanic or Polynesian stock.

THE INDO-EUROPEAN STOCK.

This is sometimes called the Japhetic, as the languages of Africa are called Hamitic, and those of Southwestern Asia, Shemitic; but the name Indo-European is more generally adopted. The Indo-European stock comprises the following divisions:

Let the student consult his atlas as he studies this subject.

† Like an algebraic sign.

The Koran is in this language.

1. Sanskrit, the language of the ancient Hindoos, and the parent of the languages now spoken in Hindostan; viz., the Hindostanee, the Bengalee, the Pali-Mahratta, etc. The most ancient type of Sanskrit is found in the hymns of the Vedas. The word Sanskrit means perfect, polished, or classical.

2. Persian or Iranian, the language of ancient Persia or Iran. It was the sacred idiom of the Magi. In it Zoroaster, the founder of the sect of fire-worshipers called Ghebers, wrote the Zend-Avesta? The Old Persian, or language of the Achæmenian cuneiform (wedgeshaped) inscriptions, was a dialect of this language. It is the mother of the languages now spoken in Persia.

3. Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. It is supposed to be more ancient than the Greek, and is the parent of the Italian, French, Provençal, Spanish, Portuguese, and Wallachian.

4. Greek, the language of ancient Greece, and the parent of the Romaic, or modern Greek.

5. Celtic, the language of the ancient Celts, who overspread the whole of western Europe. From the ancient Celtic are derived two modern families. One is called Medo-Celtic or Gaelic; comprising the Gaelic proper, or Highland Scotch; the Erse, or Irish; and the Manx, or dialect spoken by the inhabitants of the Isle of Man. The Manx is fast becoming extinct. The second family is called Perso-Celtic, Cambrian, or Cymric, including the Welsh and the Armoric (spoken in Brittany). The Cornish, or language of Cornwall, belonged to this family, but it became extinct about a hundred years ago.

6. Gothic, the language of the ancient Goths, who, later than the Celts, migrated to Western Europe. They occupied especially the island of Gothland and the southern shores of the Baltic; but early in the Christian era a large number of them quit the north of Europe, and established themselves on the coasts of the Black Sea. A portion of these were permitted by the Roman emperor Valens, in the fourth century, to settle in Mœsia, a very extensive country stretching four or five hundred miles west from the shores of the Black Sea, and bounded north by the river Danube. Those near the Black Sea were called Ostrogoths (East Goths); those further west were called Visigoths (West Goths). The Goths of Scandinavia are some times called Suio-Goths.

Of the Gothic division there are two important branches:
(1.) The Scandinavian; including the Icelandic or Old Norse,
the Danish, the Swedish, the Norwegian, and the
language of the Faroe islands.

(2.) The Teutonic, comprising three families; the Mœso-
Gothic (which is the oldest preserved type of the
Gothic), the High German, and the Low German.

7. Slavonic, the language of the Russians, Bulgarians, Servians, Croats, Poles, and Bohemians. It closely resembles its mother tongue, the ancient Sanskrit.

8. Lithuanian, the language of the peasantry in Lithuania. Of all the European languages it approximates nearest to the Sanskrit.

THE LOW GERMAN OR SAXON FAMILY.

This family includes the following dialects:

(1.) The Frisian or Friesic; formerly prevailing in Friesland, north-east of the Zuyder Zee, but now on the eve of extinction.

(2.) The Dutch; spoken in Holland, and remarkable for the facility with which it forms compound words. The oldest literary specimen is

from about the year 1280.

(3.) The Platt Deutsch (i. e., Low German); spoken in northern Germany by the common people, the descendants of the Old Saxons. The oldest specimen is Heliand (i. e., Saviour), a poem written in the eighth or ninth century.

(4.) The Anglo-Saxon; a dialect mixed of the idiom of the Angles and that of the Saxons. The oldest poetical specimen extant is probably the beginning of the Scripture paraphrase, by Cadmon, of the seventh century.

The Anglo-Saxon is the mother of the English, and, as such, is deserving of further attention from us.

GENEALOGY.

From what has been stated, the genealogy of the English language will be traced as follows: It is the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon dialect, of the Low Germanic family, of the Teutonic branch, of the Gothic division, of the Indo-European stock. The following diagram exhibits this relationship:

THE INTRODUCTION OF DIFFERENT ELEMENTS.

England had been for nearly four hundred years in the possession of the Romans, who, under Julius Cæsar, had partially wrested it from the Celts; but, about the middle of the fifth century of our era, the critical condition of affairs in Italy made it necessary to withdraw the Roman armies from Britain. Thereupon the Picts and Scots, fierce barbarians from the north part of the island, poured down upon the helpless people of the south, enfeebled and unwarlike from long subjection to their military masters. In their distress the sufferers invoked the aid of the Teutonic pirates of the lower Elbe.

"Then, sad relief, from the bleak coast that hears

The German ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong,
And yellow-haired, the blue-eyed Saxon came."

These auxiliaries, who first arrived A. D. 451, finally turned their arms against the feeble Celts whom they came to protect. Multitudes of the Britons fled for refuge to the mountains of Wales: others crossed the English Channel to the north-west corner of France, called Brittany or Bretagne.

The home of these Saxons (so called from seax, a short crooked sword carried under their loose garments) was a wide-spread territory south and southwest of Denmark. In the year 491 of the Christian era they established themselves in Sussex (i. e., South-Saxons), England; in 519, in Hampshire (formerly called Wessex; i. e., West-Saxons); and in 527, in Essex (i. e., East-Saxons).

The home of the Angles (from angle, a hook, or angulus, a corner) was probably Anglen, in Sleswick. In 527 they established themselves in Norfolk (i. e., North-folks); in 559, in Yorkshire and Northumberland.

The constant influx of Angles and Saxons filled England (i. e., Angleland), and their blended language became established, to the exclusion of the old Celtic. To this statement one important exception should be made: a multitude of Celtic geographical names were retained in England, precisely as the old Indian names of rivers, lakes, districts, and mountains, have been preserved in America.

About the year 787, the Northmen, including Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, began their aggressions upon England. Their inroads continued at intervals for nearly three centuries, and finally, in the year 1014, the Danish king, Sweyn, got complete possession of the country. In 1041 the Danish dynasty ceased, and the Anglo-Saxon rule was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor.

In 1066, William the Norman came to England at the head of sixty thousand men. The great battle of Hastings seated him upon the English throne. For two or three hundred years persistent efforts were made by the Norman French to substitute their language, a mixture of the Latin, the Celtic, and the Scandinavian, for the Anglo-Saxon. To only a limited extent was the attempt successful, about four-fifths of the words in actual use in England at this day being of Anglo-Saxon origin. Perhaps one-tenth of the words in common use are from the Norman French.

The different stages of the language of England may be thus designated by chronological periods:

(1.) Celtic, to the conquest of England by the Angles and Saxons in the sixth and seventh centuries; then,

(2.) Anglo-Saxon, five or six hundred years, to about the year 1150.
(3.) Semi-Saxon, one hundred years, from 1150 to 1250.

(4.) Old English, one hundred years, from 1250 to 1350.
(5.) Middle English, two hundred years, from 1350 to 1550.
(6.) Modern English, from 1550 to the present time.

In every hundred words, counting those which are repeated, but omitting proper names, Chaucer and Shakespeare employ, of Anglo-Saxon words, about ninety; Tennyson and Longfellow, about eighty-seven; Spenser, Milton, Addison, and Pope, about eighty-five; Macaulay, Everett, and Webster, about seventy-five.

NOTE 1.--For an admirable statement of the development of the English language, see Professor Hadley's Brief History of the English Language, prefixed to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Probably there is nothing of the kind superior to it. See Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language, Whitney on Language and the Study of Language, English Lessons for English People, by Abbott and Seeley; Teutonic Etymology, by Prof. J. W. Gibbs, Gibbs's Philological Studies, Trench's English, Past and Present, Trench's The Study of Words; Studies in English, by Prof. M. Schele de Vere. See also the treatises of Blair, Quack. enbos, Day, Campbell, Hart, and others, on Rhetoric; those of Craik, Arnold, Taine, and others, on English Literature; Fowler's English Grammar (Revised edition), Goold Brown's Grammar of Grammars, etc.

NOTE 2.-Besides the six great stocks of languages named on page 9, many philologists recognize a seventh, which they variously term Altaic, Ural-Altaic, Turanian, Mongolian, Tartaric, and Scythian. The last name is most favored. According to these authorities, the Scythian stock covers the whole of the northern portion of the eastern continent, and the greater part of central Asia. It includes the languages of the Laplanders, the Finns, the Magyars of Hungary, the Samoyed tribes, the Turks, the Mongols, and the Manchus. Some scholars would add to this list the tribes that inhabit the Dekhan, and the Japanese. The distinguishing characteristic of these languages is that they are agglutinative; that is, they "attach their formative elements somewhat loosely to a root which is not liable to variation." See Whitney on Language and the Study of Language.

Let the student write an essay on each of these stocks; on the Latin division, the Greek, the Celtic, the Gothic; on the Teutonic branch; on the Low Germanic family; on the Anglo-Saxon dialect; on England under the Romans, under the Saxons, under the Danes, under the Normans. Let him write an essay confirming or disproving any of the statements made in this chapter.