the American languages are found in the systems of verbal conjugation, which are so various and elaborate, as to have induced M. Du Ponceau to give to the whole class of American languages the epithet of "Polysynthetic." These traits are common to the American languages. In the old world they have only been discovered in the Euskarian. Some additional circumstances of resemblance have been observed by Humboldt: "The comparison," says this writer, "which Vater has instituted, is in the highest degree striking and interesting. It admits of an extension beyond what relates to the conjugation of verbs, the point to which Vater had principally adverted, and displays itself in particulars which appear more arbitrary. For example, the sound of f is wanting in most of the American languages, as it is in the Basque, and in both there prevails a strong dislike to the immediate junction of the mute and liquid consonants. But these analogies are by no means sufficient to justify us in assuming an immediate connexion between the respective races of men, or in deriving one from the other; and those who persist in deducing such an inference, must at least go back to the most remote period of dark antiquity, beyond the reach of historical tradition, and in which the distribution of seas and lands was very different from the present. The differences between the Euskarian and the American languages appeared to M. du Ponceau to be almost as striking as their analogies. This great philologer says, that he once with Professor Vater believed the forms of the American verbs to be similar to those of the Basque, but that he modified that opinion when he became better acquainted with a language which has no parallel in all the rest of the world. "This language," he observes, "preserved in a corner of Europe, by

Such an hypothesis has been maintained in a work published in America, and as yet little known in Europe. This work is entitled Researches on America, being an attempt to settle some points relative to the Aborigines of America, by J. H. Macculloh, Junr. M. D., Baltimore, 1817. The author maintains that there were formerly lands scattered through the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which, torn and separated by the deluge, were yet sufficiently continuous to aid the passage of men and animals from different parts of the old to the new continent.- Humboldt's Untersuchungen.

a few thousand mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of, perhaps, a hundred dialects, constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were universally spoken at a remote period in that quarter of the world. Like the bones of the mammoth, and the relics of unknown races which have perished, it remains a monument of the destruction produced by a succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its kind, surrounded by idioms whose modern construction bears no kind of analogy to it. It is a singular language; like those of the American races,- highly artificial in its forms, and so compounded as to express many ideas at the same time; but when its forms are compared with those of the American languages, it is impossible not to perceive an immense difference which exists between them." The most striking difference pointed out by M. du Ponceau and M. de Humboldt, between the Euskarian and the American languages, consists in the fact, that the latter are entirely deficient in auxiliary verbs. "There are no words," says M. du Ponceau," that I know, in any American idioms, expressing, abstractedly, the ideas signified by these two verbs. They have the verb sto, I am, in a particular situation or place, but not the verb sum; the verbs possideo, teneo, but not habeo, in the vague sense that we affix to it. On the contrary, in the conjugation of the Basque verbs, these two auxiliaries are every thing; it is on them that is lavished all that profusion of forms, which enables them to express together the relative ideas connected with the verb; while the principal action or passion is expressed separately and by itself, by means of a participle. For instance, I love him, is a transitive verb, and is rendered in the Basque by maitetuba dot, which literally means amatum illum habeo ego. Maitetuba is the word which expresses the participial form amatum: the three other words are comprised in the monosyllable dot, the first letter of which, d, stands for illum; o is the root of the auxiliary verb habeo, and t represents the personal pronoun ego. It may be said, indeed, that these forms are complicated, like those of the Indian verbs, and that like them, they serve to express complex ideas; at the same time the difference in their arrangement is so great, that it

cannot be said that these languages are connected with or derived from each other.

It must be admitted that there are many American idioms of which the structure is as yet entirely unknown, and that although the remarkable analogy prevailing among those yet examined, gives expectation that this uniformity of system will be discovered in the remainder, exceptions may yet be found, and that in some instances the characteristic differences here pointed out may not exist. But we have no ground for assuming that this will be the fact. We must at present acquiesce in the conclusion of M. de Humboldt, that the Iberian is, of all the idioms of Europe, that which has preserved with the least change its original character. "In this," he continues, "we recognise a confirmation of an opinion deduced from other grounds, viz., that the Iberians belong to the very earliest stock of European nations. Their history manifestly reaches back beyond the periods of languages which we regard as ancient, namely, those of the Greeks and Romans, and if we seek a point of comparison, can only be placed on a line with the Pro-hellenic idiom of the old Pelasgi.

SECTION. III.-Domains of the Euskaldunes and of the Celtici in Spain, investigated.

That the Euskarian is identical with the language of the ancient Iberi, or its genuine descendant, and that the Euskaldunes are the offspring of the aborigines of the Spanish peninsula, are points which M. de Humboldt has undertaken in his work to establish. The Iberia of the early Greek writers was a part of the coast of the Mediterranean, reaching westward from the mouth of the Rhone. In this sense the term is used by Herodotus; and Humboldt has proved that the Iberia of Polybius, and even of Diodorus, did not comprehend the whole of Spain, in which there may have been many other races of people besides the Iberians and the

• Untersuchungen, p. 177.

Celts. Strabo, indeed, speaks of the ancient Spaniards in terms which seem to imply that he regarded them as one race, with whom he says that the Aquitani, in Gaul, agreed in language and manners. But the fact that the entire peninsula, as well as the southern parts of Gaul, was occupied by people who, with the exception of some Celtic tribes, were of one race, and that from that race the Euskaldunes are descended, admitted of no other method of satisfactory proof than that which has been adopted by M. de Humboldt, namely, a careful collection and analysis of local names throughout the peninsula, as well as in the countries beyond its limits, which are said to have been tenanted by people of the same stock with the Iberi. By this writer it has been clearly proved that a very great proportion of the ancient names of places, cities, or towns, and districts, both within the countries where the Basque is spoken, and beyond them, in parts of Spain and Aquitaine which it is probable that the Iberians formerly inhabited, are certainly of Euskarian origin, since they bear a clearly significant and appropriate meaning, and may be interpreted with ease and probability, by means of words actually in use among the Biscayan or Basque people. The following instances will exemplify the proofs of this fact.

1. ASTA, meaning a rock, appears as the etymon of many local names. These occur in Biscay, Asta, Asteguieta, Astigarraga, Astobiza, Astorga, Astulez, Asturia. Asta is mentioned by Pliny in the Turdetanian, Astigi and Astapa by the same writer and by Livy, in Bætica, and the latter name, as its meaning indicates, is still appropriated in Biscay to places situated at the feet of rocks. Asturis, Asturia, and the name of the river Astura, are derived from Asta, rock, and Ura, the Euskarian term for water.

2. Not less evident is the Euskarian origin of local names beginning or ending with IRIA, written also URIA, and frequently ULIA, or ILIA, which in the Basque language means city, town, place. Examples are Iria Flavia, Urium, Ulia, Ilia, Ilipa, Graccuris, Calaguris, Lacuris, Ilarcuris, and many other similar names, mentioned by Pliny, Ptolemy and Livy, in different parts of Spain.

3. From URA water, comes a variety of names, as Asturia,

compounded with Asta; Iluria, Uria, Verurium; from ura, and bi, two, Urbiaca, Urbina, Ilurbida, and many others.

4. From ITURRIA, fountain, source, we find Iturissa, Turas, Turiaso, Turuca, Turdetani, Turduli. Turiga, that is, destitute of springs, was a place, which according to Pliny, had another denomination, namely, Ucultuniacum. This town was in the country occupied in part by Celtic tribes of Bæturia.

Ucultuniacum appears to be a Celtic name, and may be rendered a lofty hill-town, which agrees well with the Iberian designation of Turiga.*

Other etymons existing in the Basque language may be traced very extensively among the names of places in the peninsula. Terminations of local names, derived from the old Iberian idiom, and frequent in various parts of Spain, are those in "uris, pa, tani, tania, gis, ula, ippo."+ The initial syllables of similar names are very commonly "al, ar, as, bae, bi, bar, ber, gal, cal, car, men, man, ner, or, sal, zal, si, tai, tu." Some of these words are clearly significant in the present Basque, and applicable as such to the etymology of the names of places to which they belong; the meaning of others is lost, but they are known to be of Iberian origin from their frequent concurrence with the former, within the same districts of Spain. Even the structure of Euskarian names bears with it a character which can be recognised; the form of syllables, and the orthography of these words is peculiar and easy to be recognised in the great aggregate of original Spanish names.

The prevalence of topographical names significant in the Euskarian language, and evidently derived from it, being thus clearly established through nearly the whole peninsula, it be

Pliny remarks on Ucultuniacum, " quæ et Turiga nunc est." (Hist. Nat. i. 139. 17.) Uchel-dun, is Old Welsh; a dialectic difference, or, a different pronunciation might produce Uxellodunum.

+ This last termination is derived by Gesenius with, perhaps, greater probability, from the Phoenician. Besippo he derives from Ð' N’3. It is the more likely

to be a Phoenician ending, since it occurs in Africa. A few other Spanish names of places are also derived by Gesenius from the Phoenician or Hebrew, as Hispalis, Castalo, &c. See Gesenius, Scripturæ Linguæque Phoeniceæ Monumenta, i. p. 340.