Area.—From Kamskatka to Norway, and from the Arctic Ocean to the frontiers of Tibet and Persia—nearly but not wholly continuous.
Countries included.—The northern parts of the Chinese empire, greater part of Siberia, Mongolia, Tartary, Eastern Turkestan, Asia Minor, Turkey, Hungary, Finland, Esthonia, Lapland.
DIVISIONS.
- 1. The Mongolian Branch.
- 2. The Tungusian Branch.
- 3. The Turk Branch.
- 4. The Ugrian Branch.
The reader is now asked to prepare himself for the transition from languages of a monosyllabic type, to languages other than monosyllabic; and from aptotic tongues to tongues where the inflections are numerous.
He is also asked to prepare himself for a transition, in the way of physical conformation, from a structure approaching the Mongol type, to one essentially and typically Mongol.
In the former case the change is greater than in the latter.
Why is this? Why do not the changes go pari passu, so that the two tests should coincide, and so that it should be a matter of indifference which of the two we started with?
We get at the answer to this by remembering that physical changes and philological changes, may go on at different rates.