sky, and the late professor Rask, have been, next to Klaproth, the most noted of modern writers, who have applied themselves to an examination of the languages spoken among the Allophylian tribes. Their investigation has been hasty and superficial, and the conclusions which they have drawn appear to be, in many instances, premature, and in some evidently erroneous. I shall, however, lay before my readers a brief abstract of their opinions, in order to have an opportunity of pointing out the present state of this department of ethnography.

Both Dobrowsky and Rask refer nearly all the nations of Europe and Asia, who are excluded from the Indo-European family, to one race, which Dobrowsky termed Czudo-Iugorian, and Rask, Scythian. Rudiger and Dobrowsky maintained that one family of languages may be traced from Lapland over all the countries lying to the northward of the Caspian sea, to the mouth of the Indus; and the latter of these writers has attempted to point out some common features by which all these idioms are associated among themselves, and may be distinguished from all others. The following are the most remarkable of these common characters.

1. "Nouns substantive admit of no variations of gender." Dobrowsky might have added, that many of these languages have no distinction of number, and can only express a plural on particular occasions, by appending a noun or adverb of multitude. Nouns are, in fact, destitute of all inflection, a trait indicative, as it should seem, of great rudeness or barbarism.

2. " They admit of no prepositions before nouns." This observation may be generalized by remarking, that not only those particles which are used instead of the prepositions of other languages, but likewise all such auxiliaries to composition as are necessary for denoting any circumstance or affection of the principal words of a sentence, are suffixed, or placed after the words of which they modify the meaning. This observation extends to words answering the place of possessive and even of relative pronouns.*

Dobrowsky intended to include under these observations

• Thus the phrase, "that which is mine," is expressed in the Mongolian by a sort

not only all the idioms of Siberia, but likewise the languages of Great Tartary, and even those of the Esquimaux, and some tribes in North America.*

Professor Rask was well prepared, by his intimate acquaintance with the Finnish and Lapponic dialects, for researches into the more extensive affinities of the Scythian languages, or of the great mother-tongues of Northern Asia, and he was led to anticipate conclusions on this subject at which some recent philologers have arrived after a more elaborate investigation of particulars. He expressed a conviction that those writers were mistaken who separate entirely the Finnish dialects from the Tartar or Turkish stem of languages. "On the present occasion," he observes, "I cannot advance adequate proofs of my opinion, but I will remark, that a striking resemblance is to be found between the Turkish and Finnish languages, not only in particular words, but even in the most peculiar fundamental laws of construction."+ An example is given in the harmony of sounds, or the law according to which all the vowels of a word correspond with that of its termination. "I remark," he says, "that Leontiev, in his Letters to M. Langlès, on the Literature of the Mandchoos, in speaking of the Tartar, Mongolian, and Tungusian races, has assumed that these three great classes of people in Central Asia are distinct families of nations; and I am aware that Klaproth and the best-informed writers have maintained the same opinion. A careful study of the languages of these races has convinced me that this notion is erroneous, as the

of compound word "miningge," which means "mine that being," equivalent to " das meinige." See the section on the languages of Great Tartary below.

It is certain that the peculiarities of grammatical structure above noticed, belong to most of the languages of Northern and Eastern Asia. We have lately obtained, by the publication of M. Lütke's voyage, some knowledge of the idiom of Ounalashka and the Kurilian Isles, with a grammatical analysis, composed by a missionary of the Russian church. In this language the peculiar laws noted by Dobrowsky are found. Dobrowsky gives the following specimen of affinity in words between several idioms. Egg is, in the Indo-European languages, oi, or ou, as olov, ovum, auf, ägg, Swedish, ey, German, jaice, waice, Slavonian. In the Scythian languages are the following: Hungarian mony, Lappish monne, Finnish, Tscheremiss, Vogoul, Samoiede, muna, on the western coast of America manik. Dobrowsky, Literärische Nachrichten, s. 99.

† R. Rask über das Alter und die Echtheit der Zend-Sprache. Beilage, s. 74.

same study will, I am sure, convince any one who is prepared for the investigation, by an adequate previous acquaintance with the Finnish and Lappish dialects. A great number of words are common to these languages, or are very similar in several of them, and these are words such as are essential to every human idiom. Numerous terminations also coincide, and this is perceptible, notwithstanding the fact, that nobody has yet investigated the permutations to which the elements of speech are in these dialects regularly subjected." I shall have occasion to observe hereafter, that subsequent researches into this last-mentioned subject have afforded confirmation to Rask's opinion, by showing that a great number of roots are thus to be traced in several of the Turanian languages, the resemblance having been disguised by certain permutations of consonants, of which the rules have been but lately ascertained.*

This writer afterwards gives some further reasons for concluding that the Finnish and Turkish languages, with all their branches, are referrible to one stock; and expresses an opinion that the ancients were correct in comprehending under one name, that of Scythians, all the nations of Northern and Central Asia, and the northern parts of Europe. He extends still more widely the domain of this Scythian race, by adopting the notion of Arndt, who supposed that he found proofs of affinity between the ancient Iberians of Spain and the Finns and Samoiedes. He even asserted that indications of the same affinity were partially discoverable in the Celtic dialects, and that the Celta might be partly Finns. He cites the observation of Klaproth, that the various languages spoken in Caucasus, or in the great mountainous region between the Euxine and Caspian seas, are, with the exception of the Ossete and Dugorian, which last are Indo-European dialects, related to the Samoiede and other languages of the north of Asia. With the same groupe Rask connects the Georgian language. With still greater licence of conjecture he admits the idioms of the Greenlanders and the Polar Americans into the same class. He professes to rest all these opinions on philological proofs, and on similar grounds ventures to bring

Principally by Dr. Schott. Versuch über die Tatarischen Sprachen.

within the pale of his great Scythian family, the aboriginal nations of the Indian peninsula, who are now generally admitted to be a distinct race from the Hindoos, and who speak the Tamil, Malayalam, Karnátaca, and Telúgu languages.

The conjectures of such writers as Professor Rask are worthy of consideration. We shall have further occasion in the sequel to examine the foundation of his opinions, and we shall find that many of them are supported on firmer grounds than those persons who have not investigated the subject would suppose. For the present we must take leave of this topic, after briefly enumerating the principal groupes of nations belonging to that department of the human family which we have termed the Allophylian races.

1. In the West, as aborigines of Western Europe, we have the Euskaldunes, or ancient Iberians, whose language was the Euskarian speech. They are supposed to have inhabited Spain, Gaul, and Italy.

2. Separated from the Euskaldunes by the whole country occupied and, perhaps, wrested from them by the Celtic and German races before the beginning of history, are the Jotune or Ugorian race, the remains, as it should seem, of the aborigines of the North of Europe and Asia, over which they appear to have been spread from the Danish Isles to the river Obi. This groupe of nations includes the Finnish and Lappish tribes, the Tschudes, the Vogules of the Uralian mountains, the Ostiaks of Siberia, and the Magyars or Hungarians.

3. Beyond the Jotuns, towards the north and east, are the Khasova, a race termed by the Russians Samoiedes. They are spread along the northern coast of Europe and Asia, from the White Sea to the mouth of the Lena. Other tribes of the same race are found on the confines of the Chinese and Russian empires, in the high region of Central Asia.

4. Beyond the Samoiedes several fishing and hunting tribes occupy the country which reaches from the Lena to Behring's Straits and the Pacific Ocean. As they speak several distinct languages, they must be accounted different races. There is also some diversity in their physical charac

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ters. All these nations will be described under the collective term of Paralian races.

The Paralian groupe of nations includes the Yenisean Ostiaks, the Yukagiri, the Koriaks and Tchaúkthús, the Namollos, the Kamtschatkans, and the Aino or Kurilians.

5. The high regions of Central Asia are divided between three great pastoral races, the Turkish, the Mongolian, and the Tungusian. With the exception of some few scattered tribes, they are all nations of roving and warlike nomades. One of these races has overturned the khalifat, and the eastern empire; a second, under Tschinghis and his followers, were the greatest conquerors recorded in the history of mankind; the third still holds under its sway China and the half of Eastern Asia.

There are some grounds for believing that these three races of people sprang originally from one stock, and that the Jotuns are allied to them by an ancient and remote affinity. We shall examine the arguments which occur upon these questions.

6. The native races of the Caucasus, consisting of several apparently distinct nations, subdivided into numerous

tribes.

7. The Tibetans and the Chinese, together with the Koreans and the Japanese, form a remarkable groupe of nations. Although not referrible by proofs to one race, they bear a great mutual resemblance, and their history will be comprised in the same chapter.

8. The Indo-Chinese nations, or the native tribes of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, or India beyond the Ganges. Most of these nations bear a considerable resemblance to the Chinese in physical characters, and, like them, speak languages of the class termed monosyllabic.

9. The aboriginal races of the Dekhan and of Ceylon, who differ from the Hindoos of Indo-European origin, in language and physical characters.

The Malayans and other races of the Malayan peninsula might be reckoned as another family of Asiatic nations, but