Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/241

SECT. VI.] INDIAN LANGUAGES. 205 same modes of communicating ideas were in use among very different nations, at the most early times of which we have any knowledge. A further proof of the very early use of inflected forms is afforded by the fact, that we find them amongst all those nations, from the Ganges to the Atlantic ocean, which indubitably belong to the same stock. They must therefore have had their origin at an epoch prior to the separation of those nations, and which ascends much higher than the invention of writing, or historical times. Though not belonging to our Indians, it may be observed, that the invention of the substantive verb, and its use as an auxiliary verb, are also of great antiquity, since they are common to all those nations. The infinitive to be, in the Latin and Sla- vonian, and, as I am informed, in the Sanscrit, means also to eat. In the Delaware language, the verb pommauchsin means ' to walk ' and ' to live.' Amongst those nations, there are two, which do not appear to have ever been subdued, since they occupied their present seats, and whose languages, apparently unmixed with any other, must have been the result of their own natural progress. The transient dominion of Charlemagne and of his successors was that of a Teutonic, over another kindred tribe ; and the Latin did not penetrate beyond the Rhine. The variations along the eastern boundary of Germany, which divides it from the Slavonic nations, have only affected particular districts in its immediate vicinity. The heart of Germany and the adjacent kindred northern nations have been and remained Teutonic, without any foreign mixture, from the most remote antiquity to the present time. Although the Tartars had imposed a tribute on Russia, they made no permanent settlement in the country ; and their language cannot have had any marked influence on the Slavonian. The Gothic translation of the Gospels by Ulphilas was made in the fourth century, and is the oldest specimen we have of the Teutonic languages. I have seen no other specimen of it than " Our Lord's Prayer," in the " Mithridates " ; but, if I am correctly informed, the language of that translation exhibits the same, and even a greater variety of inflections and of grammati- cal forms, than are found in the modern German, or in any of the other languages of the same family. The grammars of the ancient Anglo-Saxon corroborate the fact. All that relates to