On the evidence afforded by a searching grammatical analysis, the languages of the greater part of Europe and Asia have been divided into three great families, whose grammatical forms are perfectly clear and distinct. They have been named Indo-European or Arian, Semitic, and Turanian.
(A) The Indo-European or Arian family of languages extends from the mouth of the Ganges to the British Isles and the Northern extremity of Scandinavia. The term Arian is derived from Arya, the original name of this family. It signifies honourable, or of a good family. In Asia we find two great branches of this family:
I. The Indian. This branch includes the Sanskrit (the language of the Vedas, the first literary monument of the Arian world), with its living representatives, the Hindustani, Mahratti, Bengali, Guzerati, Singhalese, &c.; the Prakrit and Pali idioms; the Siah-Posh (Kafir dialect), and the language of the Gipsies.
II. The Iranian or Persian. To this branch belong the Zend or Old Persian (the language of the Zendavesta), with its representatives; the language of the Achaemenians, written in the Cuneiform character; the speech of Huzvaresh or Pehlevi; the Pazend or Parsi; and the modern Persian. The following dialects, though not very important in a philological view, belong to this class:—the Afghan, Bokhara, Kurdian, Armenian, and Ossetian.
In Europe there are no less than six branches of the Arian family:
I. The Celtic. Though the Celts seem to have been the first inhabitants of Europe, very few of their dialects are now spoken, having been superseded by the Teutonic idioms.
Modern Celtic dialects are divided into two classes; (a) the Gallic or Ancient British, including the Welsh (Cymric), Cornish, and Armorican of Brittany; (b) the Galic, Gadhelic, or Erse, including the Irish (Fenic), the Highland Scottish (Gaelic), and Manx, the dialect of the Isle of Man.
II. The Teutonic. This branch is divided into three dialects; (a) the High German, including the Old High German, the Middle High German, and the Modern High German; (b) the Low German, including the Gothic, the Anglo-Saxon and English, the Old Saxon and Platt-Deutsch, the Frisic, the Dutch and Flemish; (c) the Scandinavian, including the Old Norsk, the Icelandic, the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish.
III. The Italic. To this class belong the Oscan, Umbrian, and Latin dialects; the Old Provençal, and the Romance languages (Provençal and French, Italian and Wallachian, Spanish and Portuguese) formed during the decay of the Latin.
IV. The Hellenic. This branch includes the Greek and its dialects, the Aeolic, Ionic, Doric, and Attic.