French. In this way we must account for the different nature of the present languages in France and England, in which countries one common dialect, the Welsh or PersoCeltic, had originally prevailed.

Upper German.-As Sanskrit and Zend are but recent discoveries when compared with our early knowledge of Persian, this latter would of course be the first to afford us the means of instituting a comparison between the idioms of the east and west. The similarity between Persian and German was noticed (as I have before remarked) in the sixteenth century; and a more careful study soon brought to light the interesting fact, that not only numerous words were alike in these widely distant languages, but that there was a family resemblance in their structure and general character. This circumstance could not fail to bring to mind the statement of Herodotus (i. 125), that one of the most considerable Persian tribes was called Пepμavio (Germanii); and to suggest the idea, that, as Europe must have been peopled from Asia, the remote forefathers of the great German family might have come from that particular quarter of the East.

Although most of the philological remarks which have been made on these two particular idioms, refer to the general affinity of the whole Indo-European class, yet some of the observations apply to the German race in a limited sense, and more especially to the Upper German division of it. Adelung states that the occurrence of so much German in Persian has excited much wonder and even astonishment: the fact is undeniable, and the common portion consists not only of a considerable number of radical words, but also of formative syllables and grammatical

inflexions (Mithridates, vol. i. p. 277). As instances of the use of prefixes in Persian, we find a-bru, o-ppvs; a-rugh, ructus; a-michten, to mix; and the Persian forms girif-ten, saz-den, approach much nearer to the Old High German greifan, sezan, than to the older words, Skr. grab' (in the Vedas), Goth. gripan; Skr. sad, Goth. sitan. The affinity existing between the idioms in question, and the express mention of Persian Germans by Herodotus, are facts which favour the opinion that the primitive High Germans of Europe and the Germans of Asia were descended from a common stock; and which induce us to believe that the difference between Zend and the original Persian was as great as that which we observe between the Lower and Upper dialects of German. On the side of German, we possess much ampler means of judging of the ancient state of the language, than in the case of Persian. From the time that Cyrus the Great succeeded to the combined empire of the Medes and Persians, the Persian or southern language must have begun to be corrupted by the introduction of Zend or Medo-European forms; and we possess no compositions in it until long after the period of its farther corruption by the Arabian conquerors.

German writers, in tracing the history and genealogy of their native language, have found that it possesses more intimate relations with Greek than with any other idiom of Europe. Salmasius had very early pointed out the curious fact, that many German words were common to Greek and Persian; and Arndt asserts that the structure and character of the German language is quite Grecian, whilst the Russian very closely resembles the Latin. This is the more singular, as German has always been cultivated after Roman models, and the people been trained under the

Roman law and the Latin ritual; on the contrary, the Russians were attached to the Greek church, and never adopted the Latin language either for civil or ecclesiastical purposes; yet, notwithstanding these opposing circumstances, the two languages still retain respectively the distinctive character of their origin. This distinction is most broadly marked in the use or rejection of the article. In Russian and Latin it is never placed before nouns; in Gothic, also, it is very sparingly used; but it is indispensable to Greek and German, and is constantly recurring: also the Perso-Grecian and Perso-German dialects equally stand aloof from the Medo-European languages in the use of their medials.

Modern or New High German is indebted entirely to the Reformation for its present extensive circulation: it is the idiom of no particular district, but forms the language of literature and good society throughout Germany. It is generally considered, as the name implies, the most recent of three stages in the Perso-German language,— Old, Middle, and New High German. But this view will hardly account for the Medo-German forms that occur in it: braue for Old High German prawa; nebel for nepal, &c. The opinion of Arndt, therefore, seems more probable, that it arose from the ingrafting of an Upper German dialect upon a Lower German stock, and in the course of its development designedly received a greater degree of softness and polish from this source; and this view would account for the anomalies I have mentioned. The dialect, however, of Upper Saxony, from which it was principally derived, is said to hold a kind of intermediate place between the two great classes of the German idioms: in the form of the words it resembles the Upper German, and the Lower

in the softness of its pronunciation. The writings of the Saxon Luther, and his translation of the Bible, made this High German dialect the ecclesiastical language of his country, and it became every where current for all higher purposes. Luther has the credit of creating a common language for all his countrymen, and of giving rise to the present literature of Europe.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE CELTIC LANGUAGES.

THE Celtic races, when first noticed in history, occupied the western extremities of Europe; they are, therefore, supposed to have been among the earliest tribes who migrated from Asia. Like some of the families which we have already considered, the Celtic dialects form two clearly distinct classes: the Medo-Celtic, containing the Erse, Gaelic, and Manx; and the Perso-Celtic, comprising the Welsh, Cornish, and Bas Breton in France. Besides these, the Basque of the Pyrenees is referred to the same family: it contains many words in common with the other Celtic dialects, as also with the Albanian or Skype in Epirus; and, from the number of Basque words which occur in Spanish and Portuguese, it is supposed to have been the same as the Old Iberian, which was the prevailing language of these countries before the arrival of the Romans (Arndt, p. 19).

Besides the general affinity which the Celtic dialects