If the question were settled by a reference to authorities, the answer would be that the Bengali was essentially Sanskrit.[154]

It would be the same if we took only the primâ facie view of the matter.

Yet the answer is traversed by two facts.

1. In making the per-centage of Sanskrit words it has been assumed that, whenever the modern and ancient tongues have any words in common, the former has always taken them from the latter,—an undue assumption, since the Sanskrit may easily have adopted native words.

2. The grammatical inflections are so far from being as Sanskritic as the vocables, that they are either non-existent altogether, unequivocally Tamul, or else controverted Sanskrit.

Here I pause,—giving, at present, no opinion upon the merits of the two views. The reader has seen the complications of the case; and is prepared for hearing that, though most of the highest authorities consider the languages of northern India to be related to the Sanskrit, just as the English is to the Anglo-Saxon, and the Italian to the Latin; others deny such a connexion, affirming that as the real relations of the Sanskrit are those of the Norman-French to our own tongue, and of the Arabic to the Spanish, there is no such thing throughout the whole length and breadth of Hindostan as a dialect descended from the Sanskrit, or a spot whereon that famous tongue can be shown to have existed as a spoken and indigenous language.[155]

But, perhaps, we may find in Persia what we lack in India; and as the modern Persian is descended from the Zend, and as the Zend is a sister to the Sanskrit, Persia may, perhaps, supply such a locality. The same doubts apply here.

Such are the doubts that apply to an important question in Asiatic ethnology. I am not, at present, going beyond the simple fact of their existence. Rightly or wrongly, there is an opinion that the Sanskrit never was indigenous to any part of India, not even the most north-western; and there is an extension of this opinion which—rightly or wrongly—similarly excludes it from Persia. So much doubt should be relieved by the exhibition of some universally admitted fact as a set-off.

Such a contrast shall be supplied, in the shape of a comment on the following tables.[41] It is one of Dr. Trithem's.

ENGLISH.LITHUANIC.RUSSIAN.SANSKRIT.
Fathertewasotetspitr.
Mothermotinamat'mātr.
Sonsunaisuinsūnu.
Brotherbrolisbratbhratr.
Sistersessusestrasvasr.
Daughter-in-law—snokhasnushā.[42]
Father-in-law—svekor[43]śvasúra.
Mother-in-law—svekrov'[44]śvas ru.[156]
Brother-in-law—dever'[45]devr.
Onewienasodineka.
Twodudvadvā.
Threetrystritri.
Fourketurichetuirechatvārah.
Fivepenkipiat'pancha.
Sixszessishest'shash.
Sevenseptynisedm'saptan.
Eightasstuoniosm'ashtan.
Ninedewynideviat'navan.
Tendessimtisdesiat'dasá.