A second offshoot was the Illyrians, who peopled the northern and eastern shores of the Adriatic, the ancestors of the modern Albanians.
A third was the Hellenic people, organized later than the Latins, and imbued with elements quite foreign to these.
The northern stream was the Letto-Slavic, whose primitive home was on the shores of the German Ocean north of the mouth of the Rhine, and in the region which extends thence to the Gulf of Finland. Its members presented the physical traits of the Libyo-Teutonic type, contrasting in this to the traits of the central and southern stream, who were of the dark type of the race. The Cymric type seems to have been a mingling of the two, and was found at or near the boundaries between them.
At a comparatively late period—certainly after the beginning of the bronze age, as we know from their languages—the Teutonic tribes separated from the Letto-Slavs, and moved into Central and South Germany, where they remained. Numerous Slavonic hordes, however, pushed eastward, some passing to the north of the Black and Caspian Seas, where they formed the ancient Sarmatians, others approaching the Hellespont, where they mingled with Celtic and other elements to make the Thracian and other peoples.
Passing into Asia across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, or along the coast in their vessels, or pursuing the shores of the Caspian, numerous Aryac colonies from the vanguard of the eastern emigrants wandered into Asia. The Indo-Eranians that is, the ancient Persians and Sanscrit speaking tribes, entered first and progressed farthest, settling in Iran, and occupying the land between the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Later came the Phrygians and Armenians, who had formerly lived in Thrace, crossing the Bosphorus and establishing themselves in Asia Minor.
The dates of these occurrences can be fixed only approximately. The Armenian migration was later than 700 B. C., as previous to that date the Vans, a people of non-Aryac speech, occupied the region later known as Armenia. The Brahmans crossed the Hindu-Kusch into India, about 1500-2000 B. C., and the Persians possessed themselves of Iran at least a thousand years earlier.
Scheme of Aryac Migration.
| European. | Asian. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Primitive Aryans. (Western Europe.) | Northern Peoples (Blondes). | Letto-Lithuanians. | |
| Teutons. | |||
| Phrygians. | |||
| Slavonians. | Cappadocians. | ||
| Thracians. | Armenians. | ||
| Southern Peoples. (Brunettes). | Dacians. | Medes. | |
| Hellenes. | Iranians. | ||
| Indians. | |||
| Illyrians. | |||
| Italians. | |||
| Celts. |
We must not suppose that the languages of these peoples developed one out of the other. That is not the way languages grow. It was by contact in various centres with various dialects and wholly different linguistic stocks that the speech of these nomads was altered. They did not journey always in one direction, but to and fro, now rapidly advancing, now retreating, now long stationary, ever through war, commerce and marriage adding new elements to their speech, each tribe developing its dialect with independent material and on different grammatical principles.