Chapter IV. On The Original Identity Of The English, Welsh, Hindoos, And Other Nations Classed As Indo-European With The Jews, Arabians, Etc.
Section I.
Sir William Jones's Opinion that the Languages and Religions of these two Classes of Nations are quite distinct. The Names of the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India significant in the Hebrew. Arts brought by the Ancestors of the European Nations from the East. Names of Fermented Liquors. Arts of the Pastoral State. Words for Butter, &c. Close Connexion of the Hebrew with the English. No specific difference between the Semetic and Indo-European Tongues.
Among Orientalists, both in Germany and in this country, an opinion prevails that there is a specific connexion among certain Asiatic and European Nations, which they have accordingly classed together as members of what they term the Indo-European race. The principal Nations included in this class are the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Russians, and other Sclavonic Nations; the English, Germans, and other Gothic Nations; the Irish and Welsh, and other Celtic Nations, have more recently been ranged under the same appellation, in consequence of the researches of Dr. Prichard, M. Pictet, and Dr. Karl Meyer. The advocates [pg 113] of a distinct Indo-European race assume either that there is no connexion, or a comparatively slight one, between the various languages of that race and those of the ancient inhabitants of Judea, Arabia, and other contiguous nations. This theory may be viewed as a modification of a conclusion expressed by Sir William Jones in his Discourse on the Origin and Families of Nations.
“That the first race of Persians and Indians, to whom we may add the Romans and Greeks, the Goths, and the old Egyptians or Ethiops, originally spoke the same language and professed the same popular faith, is capable, in my humble opinion, of incontestible proof; that the Jews and Arabs, the Assyrians or second Persian race, the people who spoke Syriack, and a numerous tribe of Abyssinians, used one primitive dialect wholly distinct from the idiom just mentioned, is, I believe, undisputed, and, I am sure, indisputable.”[94]
While one class of writers have adopted the views of Sir William Jones, another class have maintained a very opposite opinion, viz. that the Hebrew is connected, not merely as a sister but as a parent, with all the other languages of the globe. The unreasonableness of this opinion, which is totally unsupported by authority, sacred or profane, has been forcibly pointed out by Adelung, who observes, “Of all the Semetic languages the Hebrew is the youngest; the Hebrew nation still slumbered in the loins of their patriarch Abraham at a time when the whole south-west of Asia, even including the eastern banks of the Tigris, was already filled with Semetic[95] nations and tongues.”
The proofs of affinity between the Hebrew and other tongues which have been adduced by the writers last referred to, are in many instances perfectly sound and legitimate. But owing to the untenable nature of the proposition with which they are associated, they have had no influence in opposition to the opinions of those celebrated men who have denied the existence of any such affinity between the Hebrew and the Indo-European tongues.
Truth in this, as in many other inquiries, has been lost in the collision of opposite errors! The Hebrew, it is true, is not the Parent Tongue, but on the other hand, notwithstanding the weight that must necessarily be attached to the memorable passage quoted above, and also to the views of recent Orientalists, it can be shown, by evidence too clear and simple to be neutralized by any authority however eminent, that the languages termed Indo-European are as closely connected with the Hebrew as they are among themselves. To these languages, the relation which it bears is that of an ancient collateral, exhibiting many of the features of a parent in consequence of the antiquity of its earliest remains, which contain specimens of Language near to its source. This relation, except as regards the Sanscrit, is strikingly analogous to that which specimens of the Scandinavian dialects near to their common source have been shown to bear to the modern languages of Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland. (See Proposition 6, p. 46.)