PREFACE. xiii
newly-opened field. My observations, derived from the original texts edited by Burnouf in Paris, and by Olshausen in Hamburgh, already extend themselves, in these publications, over all parts of the Zend Grammar; and nothing therefore has remained for me here, but further to establish, to complete, and to adjust the particulars in such a manner that the reader may be conducted on a course parallel with that of the known languages, with the greatest facility towards an acquaintance with the newly-discovered sister tongue. In order to obviate the difficulty and the labour which attend the introduction of the learner to the Zend and Sanskrit—difficulty sufficient to deter many, and to harass any one—I have appended to the original characters the pronunciation, laid down on a consistent method, or in places where, for reasons of space, one character alone is given, it is the Roman. This method is also perhaps the best for the gradual introduction of the reader to the knowledge of the original characters.
As in this work the languages it embraces are treated for their own sakes, i.e. as objects and not means of knowledge, and as I aim rather at giving a physiology of them than an introduction to their practical use, it has been in my power to omit many particulars which contribute nothing to the character of the whole; and I have gained thereby more space for the discussion of matters more important, and more intimately incorporated with the vital spirit of the language. By this process, and by the strict observance of a method which brings under one view all points mutually dependent and mutually explanatory, I have, as I flatter myself, succeeded in assembling under one group, and in a reasonable space, the leading incidents of many richly-endowed languages or grand dialects of an extinct original stock. Special care has been bestowed throughout on the German. This care was indispensable to one who, following Grimm’s admirable work, aimed at applying to it the correction and adjustment that had become necessary in his theory of relations, the discovery of new affinities, or the more precise definition of those discovered, and to catch, with greater truth, at every step of grammatical progress, the
