the East is once more carried on through the Mediterranean as it
was in ancient times and the middle ages. The great shortening of
the sea-route in this trade at such ports as Marseilles, Triest, Venice
and Genoa, indicated by the figures below, goes far to counterbalance
the extra cost even of railway transport across the mountains.
Distance in Nautical Miles from Port Said.
London
3215
Bremen
3502
Hamburg
3520
Stettin
3749
St Petersburg
4300
Marseilles
1506
Genoa
1426
Venice
1330
Brindisi
930
Odessa
1130
An enormous amount of investigation with regard to European
ethnology has been carried on in recent years. These labours
have chiefly consisted in the study of the physical type
of different countries or districts, but it is not necessary
Ethnology.
to consider in detail the results arrived at. It should, however,
be pointed out that the idea of an Aryan race may be regarded
as definitely abandoned. One cannot even speak with assurance
of the diffusion of an Aryan civilization. It is at least not certain
that the civilization that was spread by the migration of peoples
speaking Aryan tongues originated amongst and remained for a
time peculiar to such peoples. The utmost that can be said
is that the Aryan languages must in their earliest forms have
spread from some geographical centre. That centre, however,
is no longer sought for in Asia, but in some part of Europe, so
that we can no longer speak of any detachment of Aryan-speaking
peoples entering Europe.
The most important works, summarizing the labours of a host
of specialists on the races of Europe, are those of Ripley and
Deniker.[1] Founding upon a great multitude of data that have
been collected with regard to the form of the head, face and nose,
height, and colour of the hair and eyes, most of the leading
anthropologists seem to have come to the conclusion that there
are three great racial types variously and intricately intermingled
in Europe. As described and named by Ripley, these are: (1)
the Teutonic, characterized by long head and face and narrow
aquiline nose, high stature, very light hair and blue eyes;
(2) the Alpine, characterized by round head, broad face, variable
rather broad heavy nose, medium height and “stocky” frame,
light chestnut hair and hazel grey eyes; and (3) the Mediterranean,
characterized by long head and face, rather broad nose,
medium stature and slender build, dark brown or black hair
and dark eyes. The Teutonic race is entirely confined to north-western
Europe, and embraces some groups speaking Celtic
languages. It is believed by Ripley to have been differentiated
in this continent, and to have originally been one with the other
long-headed race, sometimes known as the Iberian, and to the
Italians as the Ligurian race, which “prevails everywhere
south of the Pyrenees, along the southern coast of France, and
in southern Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia,” and which
extends beyond the confines of Europe into Africa. The Alpine
race is geographically intermediate between these two, having
its centre in the Alps, while in western Europe it is spread most
widely over the more elevated regions, and in eastern Europe
“becomes less pure in proportion as we go east from the Carpathians
across the great plains of European Russia.” This last
race, which is most persistently characterized by the shape of
the head, is regarded by Ripley as an intrusive Asiatic element
which once advanced as a wedge amongst the earlier long-headed
population as far as Brittany, where it still survives in relative
purity, and even into Great Britain, though not Ireland, but
afterwards retired and contracted its area before an advance of
the long-headed races. Deniker, basing his classification on
essentially the same data as Ripley and others, while agreeing
with them almost entirely with regard to the distribution of the
three main traits (cephalic index, colour of hair and eyes, and
stature) on which anthropologists rely, yet proceeds further in the
subdivision of the races of Europe. He recognizes six principal
and four secondary races. The six principal races are the Nordic
(answering approximately to the Teutonic of Ripley), the Littoral
or Atlanto-Mediterranean, the Ibero-Insular, the Oriental, the
Adriatic or Dinaric and the Occidental or Cevenole.
Although language is no test of race, it is the best evidence
for present or past community of social or political life; and
nothing is better fitted to give a true impression of the
position and relative importance of the peoples of
Language.
Europe than a survey of their linguistic differences and affinities.[2]
The following table contains the names of the various languages
which are still spoken on the continent, as well as of those which,
though now extinct, can be clearly traced in other forms. Two
asterisks are employed to mark those which are emphatically
dead languages, while one indicates those which have a kind of
artificial life in ecclesiastical or literary usage.
I.
INDO-EUROPEAN.
1. Indic branch, represented by
Gipsy dialects.
2. Iranic branch, represented by
(a)
Ossetian.
(b)
Armenian.
3. Hellenic branch, represented by
*(a)
Greek.
(b)
Romaic.
(c)
Neo-Hellenic.
4. Italic branch, represented by
*(a)
Latin.
**(b)
Oscan.
**(c)
Umbrian, &c.
Neo-Latin
(d)
French.
(e)
Walloon.
(f)
Provençal.
(g)
Italian.
(h)
Ladin (Rumonsh, Rumansh, Rheto-Romance).
(i)
Spanish.
(j)
Portuguese.
(k)
Rumanian.
5. Celtic branch, represented by
(a)
Irish.
(b)
Erse or Gaelic.
(c)
Manx.
(d)
Welsh.
**(e)
Cornish.
(f)
Low Breton.
6. Teutonic branch, represented by
**(a)
Gothic.
Scandinavian
**(b)
Norse or Old Norse.
(c)
Icelandic and Faeroese.
(d)
Norwegian.
(e)
Swedish.
(f)
Danish.
Low German
**(g)
Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, or First English.
(h)
English.
**(i)
Old Saxon.
(j)
Platt-Deutsch or Low German.
(k)
Flemish Netherlandish.
(l)
Dutch
(m)
Frisic.
High German
**(n)
Old High German.
(o)
Middle High German.
(p)
New High or Literary German
7. Slavonic branch, represented by
*(a)
Church Slavonic.
South-Eastern
(b)
Russian.
(c)
Ruthenian, Rusniak, or Little-Russian.
(d)
White Russian or Bielo-Russian.
(e)
Bulgarian.
(f)
Servo-Croatian.
(g)
Slovenian.
Western
(h)
Czech (Bohemian).
(i)
Slovakish.
(j)
Polish.
(k)
Sorbian (Wendic, Lusatian).
*(l)
Polabian.
8. Lettic branch, represented by
**(a)
Old Prussian
(b)
Lettish.
(c)
Lithuanian.
9. Unattached
**?(a)
Old Dacian.
(b)
Albanian.
II.
SEMITIC.
1. Canaanitic branch, represented by
*(a)
Hebrew.
**(b)
Phoenician or Punic.
2. Arabic branch, represented by
**(a)
Arabic.
**(b)
Mozarabic.
(c)
Maltese.
III.
FINNO-TATARIC (Turanian, Ural-Altaic, &c.).
1. Finno-Ugric languages
(a)
Samoyede.
(b)
Finnish or Suomi.
(c)
Esthonian, Livonian, Vepsish, Votish.
(d)
Lappish.
(e)
Cheremissian.
(f)
Mordvinian.
(g)
Ziryenian and Permian.
(h)
Votiak.
(i)
Magyar.
2. Tatar-Turkish languages
(a)
Turkish.
(b)
Kazan Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Bashkir, Kirghiz.
(c)
Chuvash.
3. Mongolian languages
Kalmuk.
4. Unattached
Basque.
From this conspectus it appears that there are still about 60
distinct languages spoken in Europe, without including Latin,
Greek, Old Slavonic and Hebrew, which are still used in literature
