PART I. (continued 10)
Reading edition
If so, it is easily identified with either the ancient Illyrian, or the ancient Epirote; and, as it is by no means certain that these two languages were essentially different, it is possible that the Albanian may represent both. Hence, it would certainly be spoken by a portion of the soldiers of Pyrrhus, and, most probably, by the whole army of Teuta and Gentius. At present, however, it is enough to insist upon its independent character as a separate substantive language.
ALBANIANS.
Native Name.—Skipetar=Mountaineer.
Turkish.—Arnaout.
Locality.—The ancient Illyria and Epirus. Albanian settlers in Greece, Turkey, and Calabria.
Conterminous with the Greek, Turk, Slavonic, and Italian languages; and containing numerous words borrowed from each of them.
Religion.—Imperfect Christianity and Mahometanism.
Social Constitution.—Division and sub-division into tribes and families.
EXTINCT STOCKS.
Is there reason to believe that any definite stock, or division of our species has become either wholly extinct, or so incorporated as to be virtually beyond the recognition and analysis of the investigator? With the vast majority of the so-called extinct stocks this is not the case—e. g. it is not the case with the old Gauls of Gallia; who, though no longer extant, have extant congeners—the Welsh and Gaels.
To an extinction of this kind amongst the better-known historical nations of Europe and Asia—for in America such extinction, or the tendency towards it, is the normal condition of the majority of the aboriginal populations—the nearest approach is to be found in the history of—
1. THE PELASGI.
Æra.—In the time of Herodotus, known only in two—
Localities.—Chreston and Plakiæ.
Area.—As then known, discontinuous.
Language.—Unintelligible to an Hellenic Greek.
I follow Mr. Grote, in his masterly separation of the wheat of contemporary evidence from the chaff of tradition in respect to the Pelasgi; but do not follow him in the inference from the dissimilarity between their language and that of the Hellenes. The two sections might still be as closely allied as the Greek and Roman. On the other hand, the difference might be as great as that of the Hebrew and English.
The point of most importance is the nature of their two unconnected points of occupancy at the time of Herodotus.
1. If these represented parts of the original area, the intermediate portions whereof had been overlaid by a permanent invasion, the evidence would be in favour of the Pelasgi having been in the same category with the Thracians; and, as such, perhaps Slavonic.
2. On the other hand—if they represented two separate colonizations such a distribution would indicate an origin in a. Asia Minor; b. the Ægean Islands; or c. Continental Greece.
A sanguine scholar may, perhaps, hope that an investigation of the present dialects of the two Herodotean localities may reward the minute analyst with some Pelasgic glosses.—Optandum magis quam sperandum.
2. THE ETRUSCANS.
Æra of their maximum development.—The earlier centuries of the Roman Republic. Veii taken 360 A.U.C.
Historical Influences.—Upon early Rome.
Social Development.—Agricultural, architectural, religious, commercial, artistic. Partially self-developed. Probably, chiefly of Greek origin.
Alphabet.—Derived from the Greek.
Language.—Extant, only in hitherto untranslated (or imperfectly translated) fragments. Considered, by Lipsius, as Indo-Germanic.
The reason in favour of the descent of the Etruscans from the Rhætian Alps has not been put, even by Niebuhr, so strongly as it might have been.
What we find in Livy is something more than an opinion to that effect. It is an express statement that the Rhætian and Etrurian languages were alike.
If so, we have a discontinuous area; an area which—considering that the Cisalpine Kelts were preeminently the tribes of an encroaching frontier—was, most likely, originally continuous.
I believe, then, that the Etrurians represented the maximum civilization, and the Rhætian mountaineers the maximum rudeness of one and the same stock—a stock originally indigenous to Northern Italy, but subsequently broken-up by Keltic and other permanent invasions. Such, at least, is the ethnological view of the question—based upon the general phænomena of ethnological distribution.
3. POPULATIONS OF ASIA MINOR.
How numerous these may once have been is difficult to determine. Thus much, however, may safely be assumed;—
1. That the languages represented by the western dialects of the Georgian had some extension beyond their present frontier—possibly as far as Bithynia.
2. That the languages represented by the Lycian of the Lycian inscriptions had some extension beyond Lycia—possibly (though there are several difficulties to be reconciled) as far as the Hellespont.
3. That on some portion of the coast, a language intelligible to some portion of the Thracians on the one hand, and the Armenians on the other, was spoken.
Such are a few of the details of an important section of our subject.—They are given, however, more for illustrating the nature of the difficult question of Descent than for exhausting the subject.
The same applies to the complex subject of—
HYBRIDISM (EXTREME INTERMIXTURE).
Of this just enough will be said to illustrate the form which the present classification of the primary divisions of mankind renders necessary.
I. IAPETIDÆ AND MONGOLIDÆ.
A. Kelts with Mongolidæ.—The infusion of Keltic blood takes place when the Welsh, Irish, or Scotch of England, like the—
B. Goths with Mongolidæ, come as 1. English or Americans, in contact with—a, Chinese; b, Malays; c, Polynesians; d, Australians; e, Eskimo; f, American Indians; g, East Indians.
2. High-Germans with—a, American Indians; b, Finns.
3. Dutch with—a, Chinese; b, Malays; c, East Indians; d, South Americans (Guiana).
4. Scandinavians with—a, Eskimo; b, Ugrians.
C. Slavonians with Mongolidæ—chiefly Russians with—a, Siberians; b, Eskimo; c, North-east Americans; d, Turanians; e, Dioscurians.
D. Mediterranean Indo-Germans with Mongolidæ—chiefly with—
1. French with—a, North Americans; b, South Americans (Guiana).
2. Spaniards with—a, Malays (the Philippines); b, North Americans (Mexico, &c.); c, South Americans (Peru, Buenos Ayres, Guiana, Venezuela, &c.)
3. Portuguese with—a, Chinese; b, East Indians; c, Brazilian Americans.
II. IAPETIDÆ AND ATLANTIDÆ.
A. Kelts with Atlantidæ.—Under the same conditions as English Goths.
B. Goths with Atlantidæ.
1. English and Americans with Africans.
2. Dutch with Hottentots—Griquas.
C. Mediterranean Indo-Germans with Atlantidæ. Spanish and Portuguese with Africans.
III. ATLANTIDÆ AND MONGOLIDÆ.
1. North American Negroes with Native Indians—Zambos.
2. South American Negroes with Native Indians—Mamelucos.
It is only when two extreme sections of two of the primary divisions meet that there is true Hybridism. With intermediate and transitional forms, such as the Arab and Indian, and others, there is merely—
SIMPLE INTERMIXTURE.
This is a point of minute ethnology. To take a few of the European populations as instances, it attempts to determine the amount of foreign elements in—
1. The English.—These being Keltic, Roman, Danish, Anglo-Norman, &c., anterior to, or engrafted on, a Saxon foundation.
2. The French.—Foundation, Roman; other elements, Keltic, German, &c.
3. The Spanish.—Foundation, Roman; other elements, Iberic, Goth, Arab.
4. The Germans.—Foundation, Gothic; other elements, Slavonic, Keltic.
5. The Slavonians.—Non-Slavonic elements, Ugrian, Turk, Mongol, Dioscurian, &c.
6. The Hungarians.—Non-Majiar elements; Roman, Turk, Mongol, Slavonic, German.
And so on throughout most countries of the world.
Intermediate between simple and extreme intermixture (or Hybridism), but at points where it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation, are such half-breeds as those of the Turk and Mongol, Turk and Persian, Turk and Georgian, Persian and Georgian, &c.—the difference between the parent stocks lying within a small compass.