Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/820

784 PHILOLOGY [ARYAN who in point of fact follow it in their investigations, in spite of the lively theoretical protest which some of them continue to maintain against it, and in spite of the general feeling of hostility and inclination towards mutual distrust often but too clearly visible in recent linguistic publications, from whatever side they may come. 1 From this historical sketch we may now proceed to a short examination of some of the chief results of Aryan comparative philology. The The most prominent achievement of the researches of parent- Bopp and his followers was to prove that the majority of language. ^ Q European languages and dialects, together with a certain number of important languages spoken in Asia, form one great family, that is, that they have sprung from one common source or parent-language. The name now mostly used in England for this community is Aryan languages. American and French scholars generally pre fer to say Indo-European languages, while the name of Indo-Germanic languages is still almost universally used in Germany. It is hard to decide for or against any of these names from a scientific point of view. The word Indo- Germanic was not inappropriately coined by combining the names of the most easterly and westerly members of the family, the Indian and the Germanic or Teutonic group. 2 Indo-European seems to be a less lucky invention, as this combination of geographical names would errone ously point to all the languages of India and Europe as the constituents of our family, while a large number both of Indian and European idioms belong to entirely un related groups of languages. Aryan would no doubt be the best name in itself, for it seems that the primitive forefathers of the Aryan nations used the word Aria as a national name themselves. We find at least the Sanskrit Arya thus used in India, and similarly the Old Persian Ariya (in the cuneiform inscriptions of ^Darius), Zend Airy a in Persia (whence the later Erdn, Iran), and per haps Eriu, gen. Erenn, as the national name for Ireland. 3 But before the word Aryan came to be applied in the sense defined above it had for some time been used, and it is still largely used, in a more restricted sense as the special collective name for the languages of the Indian and Persian or Iranian groups of the Indo- Germanic family. This ambiguity renders the use of the word Aryan less recommendable than it would be had its meaning been properly fixed from the beginning. It seems that outside of England Aryan will hardly gain ground ; some recent attempts to introduce the name into Germany have utterly failed, and in the same way the other nations who share in scientific research in this demesne cling to the older names. Aryan This large Indo-Germanic or Aryan family, then, to re groups. ver t ^0 our principal task, consists of ten groups or sub- 1 The fullest systematical treatment of these questions of method will be found in Paul s Principien der Sprachgeschichtf,, Halle, 1880. See also Osthoff, Das physiologische und psychologische Moment in der spracklichen Formenbildung , Berlin, 1879, and Misteli, " Laut- gesetz und Analogic," in Zeitschrift fur Viilkerpsychologie, xi. p. 365 sq. Of those who on principle stand in theoretical opposition, the several schools of Benfey (now especially represented by Fick), Scherer, and Johannes Schmidt may be mentioned. 2 The word Indo-Germanic, it is true, was invented before the Celtic languages were known to belong to the same family. But even after that discovery it was unnecessary to substitute the name Indo- Celtic as some authors have tried to do ; for certainly the most westerly branch of Indo-Germanic in Europe (disregarding the Aryan colonies in America) is Icelandic, an undoubtedly Germanic language. Other names, such as Japhetic or Sanskritic, have hardly found any use in scientific literature. 3 For particulars see Professor Max Miiller s Led. nn the Science of Liny., lect. vi. (first series), and ARYAN, vol. ii. p. 672 sq. ; for this etymology of Ariu see especially H. Zimrner, " Ariscli," in Bez/en- berger s Beitr. z. Ki/mle der indoycrm. Sprachen, iii. p. 137 ,917. families of languages, three of which are located in Asia, while the rest belong to Europe. 4 1. The Indian Family, in which Sanskrit, especially in its oldest form, preserved in the Yedic texts, stands fore most in rank. Of the older stages of the language Prakrit and PAH may be mentioned here, the former, in its various branches being the mother of the modern Indian dialects of Aryan descent (including also the Gipsy lan guage), the latter (see above, p. 1S3) the idiom of the sacred books of the southern Buddhists. 5 2. The Iranian or Persian Family, represented in the earliest period by Old Persian, scanty remnants of which have come down to us in the Achscmenian cuneiform in scriptions, and Zend, or, as it is also called, Old Bactrian, the language of the Zend-Avesta^ the sacred books of the Zoroastrians. The chief modern representatives of this grpup are Persian, Afghan, Kurdish, and Ossetic. 6 3. The Armenian Family, consisting of the different living dialects of Armenian. Armenian has but recently been proved to be an independent member of the Aryan family. It partakes of many peculiarities of the Iranian group, but at the same time shares several important characteristics of the European languages, so that it cannot be classed as a subdivision of either of these groups. 7 4. The Greek Family, comprising the various old dialects of Greek, and the modern Romaic idioms, which have been developed out of the later KOWI] that had gradually super seded the old dialectal varieties. 8 5. A fifth family, which may once have had a far larger extension, is now only represented by one surviving member, the Albanian language. As we have no old sources for this idiom, and only know it in its modern state of utter decay, it is extremely difficult to obtain definite results concerning its origin and position relatively to the sur rounding languages. Bopp seems to have proved, however, that Albanian actually is an Aryan idiom. 9 It is also certain that it belongs to the European type of Aryan, yet it is not particularly closely allied with Greek, as has often been assumed, but shows some remarkable coincidences with the northern European languages. 10 6. The Italic Family. Its most important representative is Latin, from which the modern Romance languages have sprung. Closely connected with Latin was the Faliscan dialect, which is preserved in a few inscriptions only. A second branch of Italic is formed by L T mbrian and Oscan, both of which soon became extinct through the over powering influence of Latin, like the other less widely diffused idioms once spoken in Italy. 11 4 The fullest, yet now somewhat antiquated, account of all the members of the Aryan family will be found in the article " Tndo-ger- manischer Sprachstamm," by A. F. Pott, in Ersch and Gruber s Kncy- klopadie (Leipsic, 1840). See also especially Th. Benfey, Geschichte der SprachwissenscJuift, pp. 601-683. 5 For further particulars see SANSKRIT. 6 See the articles PAHLAV/ (supra, p. 134 sq.) and PERSIA (supra, p. 653 sq.), and for the linguistic characteristics of this group H. Hiibsch- mann, in Zeitschrift fiir vcrgl. Sprachforschung, xxiv. p. 372 sq. 7 See H. Hiibschmann, " Ueber die Stellung des Armenischen im Kreise der indo-germanischen Sprachen," in Zeitschr. vergl. Spraclif., xxiii. p. 5 sq. , where further references to earlier treatments of this question are given. 8 See GREECE, vol. xi. p. 129 sq. An exhaustive summary of all prior contributions towards linguistic elucidation of Greek is given in Gustav Meyer s excellent Griechische Qrammatik, Leipsic, 1880, which must now be considered the standard book on Greek grammar, together with the well-known works of G. Curtius, quoted at vol. xi. p. 136. 8 Bop]>, " Uebcr das Albanesischo in seinen verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen," Berlin, 1855, in Alhandl. Berl. Akad. 10 See especially G. Meyer, "Die Stellung des Albanesischcn im Kreise der indo-germ. Sprachen," in Bezzenberger s Beitrage,, viii. p. 185 sq. , and Albanesische Studien, Vienna, 1883. For other refer ences, cp. Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, p. 643 sq. n A sketch of the history of Latin is given under LATIN LANGUAGE ; a list of the chief books concerning the other dialects will be found in the appendix to Sayce s Intr. to the Science of Lang., vol. ii.