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CONTENTS.
| LECT. | PAGE |
|---|---|
| fluences conservative of linguistic identity. Causes producing dialects; causes maintaining, producing, or extending homogeneity of speech. Illustrations: history of the German language; of the Latin; of the English. The English language in America. | 136 |
| V. Erroneous views of the relations of dialects. Dialectic variety implies original unity. Effect of cultivation on a language. Grouping of languages by relationship. Nearer and remoter relations of the English. Constitution of the Indo-European family. Proof of its unity. Impossibility of determining the place and time of its founders; their culture and customs, inferred from their restored vocabulary. | 176 |
| VI. Languages and literatures of the Germanic, Slavonic, Lithuanic, Celtic, Italic, Greek, Iranian, and Indian branches of Indo-European speech. Interest of the family and its study; historical importance of the Indo-European races; their languages the basis of linguistic science. Method of linguistic research. Comparative philology. Errors of linguistic method or its application. | 209 |
| VII. Beginnings of Indo-European language. Actuality of linguistic analysis. Roots, pronominal and verbal; their character as the historical germs of our language; development of inflective speech from them. Production of declensional, conjugational, and derivative apparatus, and of the parts of speech. Relation of synthetic and analytic forms. General character and course of inflective development. | 249 |
| VIII. Families of languages, how established. Characteristic features of Indo-European language. Semitic family: its constitution, historic value, literatures, and linguistic character. Relation of Semitic to Indo-European language. Scythian or Altaic family: its five branches: their history, literatures, and character. Unity of the family somewhat doubtful. | 288 |
| IX. Uncertainties of genetic classification of languages. "Turanian" family. Dravidian group. North-eastern Asiatic. Monosyllabic tongues: Chinese, Farther Indian, Tibetan, etc. Malay-Polynesian and Melanesian families. Egyptian language and its asserted kindred: Hamitic family. Languages of southern and central Africa. Languages of America: problem of derivation of American races. Isolated tongues: Basque, Caucasian, etc. | 322 |
