The original seat of the Indo-European race was on the plateau of Central Asia, probably to the westward of the Bolor and Mustagh ranges. The Indian branch can be traced back to the slopes of Himalaya by the geographical allusions in the Vedic hymns (Midler, Lect- iires, p. 201); in confirmation of which we may adduce the circumstance that the sole tree for which the In- dians have an appellation in common with the western nations is one which in India is found only on the southern slope of that range (Pott, Etym. Foisch. i, 1 10). The westward progress of the Iranian tribes is a matter of history, and though we cannot trace this progress back to its fountain-head, the locality above mentioned best accords with the traditional belief of the Asiatic Aryans and with the physical and geographical require- ments of the case (Renan, Hist. Gen. i, 481).
The routes bv which the various western branches
TONGUES, CONFUSION OF 477 TONGUES, CONFUSION OF
reached their respective localities can only be conject- ured. We may suppose them to have successively crossed the plateau of Iran until they reached Armenia, whence they might follow either a northerly course across Caucasus, and by the shore of the Black Sea, or a direct westerly one along the plateau of Asia INIiiior, which seems destined by nature to be the bridge be- tween the two continents of Europe and Asia. A third route has been surmised for a portion of the Celtic stock, viz. along the north coast of Africa, and across the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain (Bunsen, riiil. of Hist, i, 148) ; but we see little contirraation of this opinion be- yond the fact of the early presence of the Celt» in that peninsula, which is certainly difficult to account for.
The a^ras of the several migrations are again very much a matter of conjecture. The original movements belong, for the most part, to the ante-historical age, and we can do no more than note the period at which we first encounter the several nations. That the Indian Aryans had reached the mouth of the Indus at all events before B.C. 1000 appears from the Sanscrit names of the articles which Solomon imported from that country. See India. The presence of Aryans on the Shemitic frontier is as old as the composition of the Mosaic table ; and, according to some authorities, is proved by tlie names of the confederate kings in the age of Abraliam (Gen. xiv, 1 ; Kenan, Hist. Gen. i, 61). The Aryan Medes are mentioned in the Ass3'rian annals about B.C. 900. The Greeks were settled on the peninsula named after them, as well as on the islands of the ^Egean, long before the tiawn of history, and the Italians had reach- ed their quarters at a yet earlier period. The Celtse had reached the west of Europe at all events before, probably very long before, the age of Hecatteus (B.C. 500) ; the latest branch of this stock arrived there about that period, according to Bunsen's conjecture {Phil, of Hist, i, 152). The Teutonic migration followed at a long interval after the Celtic : Pytheas found them ahead}- seated on the shores of the Baltic in the age of Alexan- der the Great (Pliny, xxxvii, 11), and the terra <jlesum itself, by which amber was described in that district, belongs to them (Diefeubach, Grig. Europ. p. 359). The earliest historical notice of them depends on the view taken of the nationality of the Teutones, who accom- panied the Cimbri on their southern expedition in B.C. 113-102. If these were Celtic, as is not unconimonlv thought, then we must look to Cajsar and Tacitus for the earliest definite notices of the Teutonic tribes. The Slavonian immigration was nearly contemporaneous with the Teutonic (Banset), Phil, of JJist. i, 72) : this stock can be traced back to the Venefi or Venedie of Northern Germany, first mentioned by Tacitus (Germ. 46), from whom the name Wend is probably descended. The designation of Slavi or Sclavi is of comparatively late date, and applied specially to the western brancii of the Slavonian stock. The Lithuanians are probably represented bj' the Galindte and Sudeni of Ptolemy (iii, 5, 21), the names of which tribes have been preserved in all ages in the Lithuanian district (Diefenbach, p. 202). They are frequently identified with the yEstiii, and it is not impossible that thej' may have adopted the title, which was a geographical one ( = the east men) : the /Estui of Tacitus, however, were Germans. In the above statements we have omitted the problematical identifications of the Northern stocks with the earlier nations of history: we may here mention that the Sla- vonians are not unfrequently regarded as the represent- atives of the Scythians (Skolots) and the Sarmatians (Knobel, Volkert. p. 69). The writer whom we have just cited also endeavors to connect the Lithuanians with the Agathyrisi (p. 130). So, again, Grimm traced the Teutonic stock to the Gets, whom he identified with the Goths (Gesch. d. deutsch. Spr. i, 178).
It may be asked whether the Aryan race were the first-comers in the lands which they occupied in histori- cal times, or whether they superseded an earlier popu- lation. With regard to the Indian branch this ques-
tion can be answered decisively : the vestiges of an aboriginal population, which once covered the plains of Hindostan, still exist in the southern extremity of the peninsula, as well as in isolated localities elsewhere, as instanced in the case of the Brahus of the North. Not only this, but the Indian class of languages possesses a peculiarity of sound (the lingual or cerebral consonants) which is supposed to have been derived from this popu- lation and to betoken a fusion of the conquerors and the conquered ( Schleicher, Compend. i, 141 ). The lan- guages of this early population are classed as Turani- an (Mliller, Lect. p. 399). We are unable to find de- cided traces of Turanians on the plateau of Iran. The Saca;, of whom we have alreadj^ spoken, were Scythi- ans, and so were the Parthians, both by reputed descent (Justin, xli, 1) and by habits of life (Strabo, xi, 515); but we cannot positively assert that they were Turani- ans, inasmuch as the term Scythian was also applied, as in the case of the Skolots, to Indo-Europeans. In the Caucasian district the Iberians and others may have been Turanian in early as in later times; but it is dif- ficult to unravel the entanglement of races and lan- guages in that district. In Europe there exists in the present day an undoubted Turanian population east- ward of the Baltic, viz. the Finns, who have been located there certainly since the time of Tacitus (Germ. 46), and who probably at an earlier period had spread more to the southward, but had been gradually thrust back by the advance of the Teutonic and Slavonian rations (Diefenbach, Grig. Europ. p. 209). There exists, again, in the South a population whose language (the Basque, or, as it is entitled in its own land, the Enskara) presents numerous points of affinity to the Fimiish in grammar, though its vocabulary is wholly distinct. We cannot consider the Turanian character of this language as fully established, and we are therefore unable to divine the ethnic affinities of the early Iberians, who are gen- erally regarded as the progenitors of the Basques. We have already adverted to the theory that the Finns in the North and the Basques in the South are the surviv- ing monuments of a Turanian population which over- spread the whole of Europe before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. This is a mere theory which can neither be proved nor disproved.