The problem of the extinct Ligurian language must be considered in this connection. It seems to have been Anaryan, but we do not know whether it was the speech originally of Alpines or of Mediterraneans either of whom could be reasonably considered as a claimant.
Other than the Basque language there are in western Europe but few remains of Pre-Aryan speech, and these are found chiefly in place names and in a few obscure words.
Remnants of Anaryan speech exist here and there throughout European Russia, but many of them can be traced to historic invasions. Until we reach the main body of Ural-Altaic speech in the east of Russia, the Esthonians, with kindred tribes of Livonians and Tchouds, and the Finns are the only peoples who speak Non-Aryan tongues, but the physical type with the exception of the skull shape of all these tribes is distinctly Nordic. In this connection the Lapps and related groups in the far north can be disregarded.
The problem of the Finns is a difficult one. The coast of Finland, of course, is purely Swedish, but the great bulk of the population in the interior is brachycephalic, though otherwise thoroughly Nordic in type.
The Anaryan Finnish, Esthonian and Livonian languages were probably introduced at the same time as were round skulls into Finland. The shores of the Gulf of Finland were originally inhabited by Nordics and the intrusion of round skulled Finns probably came soon after the Christian era. This immigration and that of the Livonians and Esthonians may possibly have been part of the same movement which brought the Alpine Wends into eastern Germany. The earliest references to the Finns that we have locate them in central Russia.
The most important Anaryan language in Europe is the Magyar of Hungary, but this we know was introduced from the eastward at the end of the ninth century, as was the earlier but now extinct Avar.
In the Balkans the language of the Turks has never been a vernacular as it is in Asia Minor. In Europe it was spoken only by the soldiers and the civil administrators and by very sparse colonies of Turkish settlers. The mania of the Turks for white women, which is said to have been one of the motives that led to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, has unconsciously resulted in the obliteration of the Mongoloid type of the original Asiatic invaders. Persistent crossing with Circassian and Georgian women, as well as with slaves of every race in Asia Minor and in Europe with whom they came in contact, has made the European Turk of to-day indistinguishable in physical characters from his Christian neighbors. At the same time, polygamy has greatly strengthened the hold of the dominant Turk. In fact, among the upper classes of the higher races monogamy and the resultant limitation in number of offspring has been a source of weakness from the viewpoint of race expansion. The Turks of Seljukian and Osmanli origin were never numerous and the Sultan’s armies were largely composed of Islamized Anatolians and Europeans.
In Persia and India, also, the Aryan languages were introduced from the north at known periods, so in view of all these facts the Mediterranean race cannot claim the honor of either the invention or dissemination of the synthetic languages.
The chief claim of the Alpine race of central Europe and western Asia to the invention and introduction into Europe of the Proto-Aryan form of speech rests on the fact that nearly all the members of this race in Europe speak well developed Aryan languages, chiefly in some form of Slavic. This fact taken by itself may have no more significance than the fact that the Mediterranean race in Spain, Italy and France speaks Romance languages, but it is, nevertheless, an argument of some weight.
Outside of Europe the Armenians and other Armenoid brachycephalic peoples of Asia Minor and the Iranian Highlands, all of Alpine race, together with a few isolated tribes of the Caucasus, speak Aryan languages and these peoples lie on the highroad along which knowledge of the metals and other cultural developments entered Europe.