Note 188 — Chapter XXXIII

Valmiki, the Hindu poet, is supposed to have been contemporary with Homer, if not his predecessor: his great work is the “Ramayana,” an heroic poem of the highest order, four cantos of which have been translated by Gaspare Gorresco, an Italian. According to Dr. Pritchard, the four great dynasties of languages in the old continent are—the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic, now called the Arian or Iranian languages; the Turanian or Ugro-Tartarian, the language of high Asia; the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, or Monosyllabic; and the Syro-Arabian or Semitic languages. The three first are common to Europe and Asia; the fourth, common to Africa and some parts of Asia near Africa. The Arians are the ancient Medes and Persian; the Ugrians are the Fins, Laplanders, Hungarians, and many Siberian nations.