Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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the latest official figures (1882) giving 685,950 for the province,
exclusive of the Kuldja region. Of these Russians numbered, ac¬
cording to Kostenko, 44,585, 20,640 being Cossacks, who are very
poor as compared with the free Russian emigrants. The majority
of the population are Kirghiz (595,237) ; next come Tarantchis
(36,265), Kalmucks (about 25,000), Mongols and Manchurians
(22,000), and Dungans (19,657), these last two mostly in Kuldja ;
while Tatars and Sarts are each represented by some 3000 or
3500 (all the foregoing figures include those for Kuldja). The
SEMITIC L
HE name “ Semitic languages ” is used to designate a
group of Asiatic and African languages, some living
and some dead, namely, Hebrew and Phoenician, Aramaic,
Assyrian, Arabic, Ethiopic (Geez and Amharic). The name,
which was introduced by Eichhorn,1 is derived from the
fact that most nations which speak or spoke these lan¬
guages are descended, according to Genesis, from Shem,
son of Noah. But the classification of nations in Genesis
x. is founded neither upon linguistic nor upon ethno¬
graphical principles: it is determined rather by geograph¬
ical and political considerations. For this reason Elam
and Lud are also included among the children of Shem;
but neither the Elamites (in Susiana) nor the Lydians
appear to have spoken a language connected with Hebrew.
On the other hand, the Phoenicians (Canaanites), whose
dialect closely resembled that of Israel, are not counted as
children of Shem. Moreover, the compiler of the list in
Genesis x. had no clear conceptions about the peoples of
south Arabia and Ethiopia. Nevertheless it would be
undesirable to give up the universally received terms
“Semites” and “Semitic.” There exist large groups of
languages and peoples which bear no natural collective
appellations, because the peoples grew up unconscious of
their mutual relationship; so science must needs give
them artificial designations, and it would be well if all
such terms were as short and precise as “ Semitic.”
The connexion of the Semitic languages with one
another is somewhat close, in any case closer than that of
the Indo-European languages. The more ancient Semitic
tongues differ from one another scarcely more than do the
various Teutonic dialects. Hence even in the 17th century
such learned Orientalists as Hottinger, Bochart, Castell,
and Ludolf had a tolerably clear notion of the relationship
between the different Semitic languages with which they
were acquainted; indeed the same may be said of some
Jewish scholars who lived many centuries earlier, as, for
instance, Jehuda ben Koraish. It is not difficult to point
out a series of characteristic marks common to these lan¬
guages,—the predominance of triconsonantal roots, or of
roots formed after the analogy of such, similarity in the
formation of nominal and verbal stems, a great resemblance
in the forms of the personal pronouns and in their use for
the purpose of verbal inflexion, the two principal tenses,
the importance attached to the change of vowels in the
interior of words, and lastly considerable agreement with
regard to order and the construction of sentences. Yet
even so ancient a Semitic language as the Assyrian ap¬
pears to lack some of these features, and in certain modern
dialects, such as New Syriac, Mahri, and more particularly
Amharic, many of the characteristics of older Semitic
speech have disappeared. But the resemblance in voca¬
bulary generally diminishes in proportion to the modern¬
ness of the dialects. Still we can trace the connexion
between the modern and the ancient dialects, and show,
at least approximately, how the former were developed
out of the latter. Where a development of this kind can
be proved to have taken place, there a relationship must
1 Einleitung in das A.T., 2d ed., i. 45 (Leipsic, 1787).
641
province is subdivided into five districts ; Yyernyi (18,423 inhabit¬
ants in 1879, of whom 3586 were military), the chief town of the
province, formerly Almaty, is situated at the foot of the Trans-Ilian
Ala-tan, and has a mixed population of Russians, Tatars, Sarts,
Kirghiz, Kalmucks, and Jews ; its trade with Kuldja and Kashgar
is increasing rapidly, and it has now two lyceums, for boys and
girls, and several other schools. The other towns—Kopal (5450
inhabitants), Serghiopol (1045), Tokmak (1770), and Karakol (2780)
—are merely administrative centres.
exist, however much the individual features may have
been effaced. The question here is not of logical categories
but of organic groups.
All these languages are descendants of a primitive Primi-
Semitic stock which has long been extinct. Many of its tive
most important features may be reconstructed with at
least tolerable certainty, but we must beware of attempt- anguabe‘
ing too much in this respect. When the various cognate
languages of a group diverge in essential points, it is
by no means always possible to determine which of them
has retained the more primitive form. The history of the
development of these tongues during the period anterior
to the documents which we possess is often extremely
obscure in its details. Even when several Semitic lan¬
guages agree in important points of grammar we cannot
always be sure that in these particulars we have what is
primitive, since in many cases analogous changes have
taken place independently. To one who should assert the
complete reconstruction of the primitive Semitic language
to be possible, we might put the question, Would the man
who is best acquainted with all the Bomance languages
be in a position to reconstruct their common mother,
Latin, if the knowledge of it were lost ? And yet there
are but few Semitic languages which we can know as
accurately as the Romance languages are known. As far
as the vocabulary is concerned, we may indeed maintain
with certainty that a considerable number of words which
have in various Semitic languages the form proper to each
were a part of primitive Semitic speech. Nevertheless
even then we are apt to be misled by independent but
analogous formations and by words borrowed at a very
remote period.2 Each Semitic language or group of lan¬
guages has, however, many words which we cannot point
out in the others. Of such words a great number no
doubt belonged to primitive Semitic speech, and either
disappeared in some of these languages or else remained
in use, but not so as to be recognizable by us. Yet many
isolated words and roots may in very early times have
been borrowed by the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the Ethiopic,
Ac., perhaps from wholly different languages, of which no
trace is left.
The question which of the known Semitic dialects most
resembles the primitive Semitic language is less important
than one might at first suppose, since the question is
one not of absolute but only of relative priority. After
scholars had given up the notion (which, however, was
not the fruit of scientific research) that all Semitic lan¬
guages, and indeed all the languages in the world, were de¬
scendants of Hebrew or of Aramaic, it was long the fashion
to maintain that Arabic bore a close resemblance to the
primitive Semitic language.3 But, just as it is now recog¬
nized with ever-increasing clearness that Sanskrit is far
from having retained in such a degree as was even lately
supposed the characteristics of primitive Indo-European
2 The more alike two languages are the more difficult it usually is
to detect, as borrowed elements, those words which have passed from
one language into the other.
3 This theory is carried to its extreme limit in Olshausen’s very
valuable Hebrew Grammar (Brunswick, 1861).
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ANGUAGES