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LECTURE VI.
Our consideration of the processes of linguistic growth, and of their effects upon the condition of language and the rise of discordant tongues, was brought to a close in the preceding lecture with a brief discussion of certain erroneous views respecting original dialectic variety, and the influence exerted upon it by literary and grammatical cultivation. We then looked to see how and how far the principles which we had established could be applied to explain the seemingly infinite confusion of tongues now prevailing upon the earth, and to facilitate their classification and reduction to order. This led us to a recognition of our own language as one of a group of nearly related dialects, the Germanic group; and, on inquiring farther, we found that this was itself a member of a wider family, embracing nearly all the tongues of Europe, with a part of those of Asia, and . divided into seven principal branches: namely, the Indian, the Iranian, the Greek, the Latin, the Germanic, the Slavonic (including the Lithuanic, sometimes reckoned as a separate branch), and the Celtic. We called it the Indo-European family. At some place and time, which we were obliged to confess ourselves unable to determine with any
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