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name for that number. But, in this numeration, there is a very remarkable conformity betwixt the word in Shanscrit expressing twenty or twice ten, and the words in Greek and Latin expressing the same number; for in none of the three languages has the word any relation to the number two, which, by multiplying ten, makes twenty; such as the words expressing the numbers thirty, forty, &c., have to the words expressing three or four; for in Greek the word is eikosi, which expresses no relation to the number two; nor does the Latin viginti, but which appears to have more resemblance to the Shanscrit word veensatee. And thus it appears that in the anomalies of the two languages of Greek and Latin, there appears to be some conformity with the Shanscrit."

Lord Monboddo compares the Sanskrit pada with the Greek pous, podos; the Sanskrit nâsa with the Latin nasus; the Sanskrit deva, god, with the Greek Theos and Latin deus; the Sanskrit ap, water, with the Latin aqua; the Sanskrit vidhavâ with the Latin vidua, widow. Sanskrit words such as gonia, for angle, kentra, for centre, hora, for hour, he points out as clearly of Greek origin, and imported into Sanskrit. He then proceeds to show the grammatical coincidences between Sanskrit and the classical languages. He dwells on compounds such as tripada, from tri, three, and pada, foot-a tripod; he remarks on the extraordinary fact that Sanskrit, like Greek, changes a positive into a negative adjective by the addition of the a privative; and he then produces what he seems to consider as the most valuable present that Mr. Wilkins could have given him, namely, the Sanskrit forms, asmi, I am; asi,

thou art; asti, he is; santi, they are; forms clearly of the same origin as the corresponding forms esmi, eis, esti, in Greek, and sunt in Latin.

Another Scotch philosopher, Dugald Stewart, was much less inclined to yield such ready submission. No doubt it must have required a considerable effort for a man brought up in the belief that Greek and Latin were either aboriginal languages, or modifications of Hebrew, to bring himself to acquiese in the revolutionary doctrine that the classical languages were intimately related to a jargon of mere savages; for such all the subjects of the Great Mogul were then supposed to be. However, if the facts about Sanskrit were true, Dugald Steward was too wise not to see that the conclusions drawn from them were inevitable. He therefore denied the reality of such a language as Sanskrit altogether, and wrote his famous essay to prove that Sanskrit had been put together, after the model of Greek and Latin, by those arch-forgers and liars the Brahmans, and that the whole of Sanskrit literature was an imposition. I mention this fact, because it shows, better than anything else, how violent a shock was given by the discovery of Sanskrit to prejudices most deeply engrained in the mind of every educated man. The most absurd arguments found favour for a time, if they could only furnish a loophole by which to escape from the unpleasant conclusion that Greek and Latin were of the same kith and kin as the language of the black inhabitants of India. The first who dared boldly to face both the facts and the conclusions of Sanskrit scholarship was the German poet, Frederick Schlegel. He had been in England during the peace of Amiens (1801-1802), and had

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learned a smattering of Sanskrit from Mr. Alexander Hamilton. After carrying on his studies for some time at Paris, he published, in 1808, his work, "On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians." This work became the foundation of the science of language. Though published only two years after the first volume of Adelung's "Mithridates," it is separated from that work by the same distance which separates the Copernican from the Ptolemæan system. Schlegel was not a great scholar. Many of his statements have proved erroneous; and nothing would be easier than to dissect his essay and hold it up to ridicule. But Schlegel was a man of genius; and when a new science is to be created, the imagination of the poet is wanted, even more than the accuracy of the scholar. It surely required somewhat of poetic vision to embrace with one glance the languages of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Germany, and to rivet them together by the simple name of Indo-Germanic. This was Schlegel's work; and in the history of the intellect, it has truly been called "the discovery of a new world."

We shall see, in our next lecture, how Schlegel's idea was taken up in Germany, and how it led almost immediately to a genealogical classification of the principal languages of mankind.

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LECTURE V.

GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES.

ore.

WE traced, in our last Lecture, the history of the various attempts at a classification of languages to the year 1808, the year in which Frederick Schlegel published his little work on "The Language and Wisdom of the Indians." This work was like the wand of a magician. It pointed out the place where a mine should be opened; and it was not long before some of the most distinguished scholars of the day began to sink their shafts, and raise the For a time, everybody who wished to learn Sanskrit had to come to England. Bopp, Schlegel, Lassen, Rosen, Burnouf, all spent some time in this country, copying manuscripts at the East-India House, and receiving assistance from Wilkins, Colebrooke, Wilson, and other distinguished members of the old Indian Civil Service. The first minute and scholar-like comparison of the grammar of Sanskrit with that of Greek and Latin, Persian, and German, was made by Francis Bopp, in 1816.* Other essays of his followed; and in 1833 appeared the first volume of his "Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Slavonic, Gothic, and German." This work was not finished till

* Conjugationssystem: Frankfurt, 1816.

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nearly twenty years later, in 1852*; but it will form for ever the safe and solid foundation of comparative philology. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, the brother of Frederick Schlegel, used the influence which he had acquired as a German poet, to popularise the study of Sanskrit in Germany. His "Indische Bibliothek" was published from 1819 to 1830, and though chiefly intended for Sanskrit literature, it likewise contained several articles on Comparative Philology. This new science soon found a still more powerful patron in William von Humboldt, the worthy brother of Alexander von Humboldt, and at that time one of the leading statesmen in Prussia. His essays, chiefly on the philosophy of language, attracted general attention during his lifetime; and he left a lasting monument of his studies in his great work on the Kawi language, which was published after his death, in 1836. Another scholar who must be reckoned among the founders of Comparative Philology is Professor. Pott, whose "Etymological Researches" appeared first in 1833 and 1836. More special in its purpose, but based on the same general principles, was Grimm's "Teutonic Grammar," a work which has truly been called colossal. Its publication occupied nearly twenty years, from 1819 to 1837. We ought, likewise, to mention here the name of Erasmus Rask, a Dane, who devoted himself to the study of the northern languages of Europe. He started, in 1816, for Persia and India, and was the first to acquire a knowledge of

New edition in 1856, much improved.

† Second edition, 1859. Pott's work on the Language of the Gipsies, 1846; his work on Proper Names, 1856.

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