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LECTURE X.

Classification of languages. Morphological classifications; their defects. Schleicher's morphological notation. Classification by general rank. Superior value of genetic division. Bearing of linguistic science on ethnology. Comparative advantages and disadvantages of linguistic and physical evidence of race. Indo-European language and race mainly coincident. Difficulty of the ethnological problem. Inability of language to prove either unity or variety of human species. Accidental correspondences; futility of root comparisons.

Our inquiries into the history and relations of` human languages have last brought us to a review and brief examination of their groupings into families, so far as yet accomplished by the labours of linguistic students. The families may be briefly recapitulated as follows. First in rank and importance is the Indo-European, filling nearly the whole of central and southern Europe, together with no inconsiderable portion of south-western Asia, and with colonies in every quarter of the globe; it includes the languages of nearly all the modern, and of some of the most important of the ancient, civilized and civilizing races. Next is the Semitic, of prominence in the world's history second only to the Indo-European, having its station in Arabia and the neighbouring regions of Asia and Africa. Then follows the loosely aggregated family of the Scythian dialects, as we chose to term them, ranging from Norway almost to Behring's Straits, and occupying a good part of central Asia also, with outliers in southern Europe (Hungary and Turkey), and possibly in southernmost Asia (the Dekhan, or peninsula of India). Further, the south-eastern Asiatic or