Blair Collection > Kelt or Gael

6 The Kelt or Gael.
older than the distinctions of language, . . . Not
only the very words but the very forms of
grammar are still used by the Bedouin of Central
Arabia that were employed by the Semitic
Babylonians 5000 years ago. At that early date
the Semitic family of speech already existed with
all its peculiarities, which have survived with but
little alteration up to the present day. And
when it is remembered that old Egyptian, which
comes before us as a literary and decaying
language a thousand years earlier, was probably
a sister of the parent Semitic speech, the period to
which we must assign the formation and develop-
ment of the latter cannot fall much short of
10,000 years before the Christian era."
I think the estimate is exceedingly moderate.
Whether language is a racial characteristic or not,
It measures the intellectual development, and
perhaps the order in time of the persons who use
it for the moment ; and enables us to guage the
progress of lapsed races, and to connect existing
ones by some, even if a frail, bond of union ; and
so the philologist proceeds to group it from time
to time. The latest grouping seems to be In the
order of the relative Importance of the groups as
it strikes the grouper.
Linguistic First, comes the Aryan group, sometimes called
" inflective," and which comprises Sanskrit,
Persian, Greek, Latin, Keltic, German, and
Slav.
Second, the Semitic, described as " exflectlve,"
groups.