A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION. XXVIl
guages, are ol the same race with the Indians and Asiatics, to whom a
similar observation may be applied ; and that all are the descendants of
Bome original nation or people, who spoke the primitive language, to
which all the Indo-European forms of speech may be referred as a common
source.
In the application of the principles above stated to the languages
of Africa and America, as compared with those of Asia and Europe,
philologists have been sadly puzzled. In the old continent, they have
sought in vain for a nation from whose speech the diversified idioms of
America may with any degree of probability be derived ; but an exami-
nation of the American languages themselves, has led to some interesting
results. The native races of North America, by a classification of their
dialects, which are very numerous, may be reduced to a few great divi-
sions, several of which extend as radii issuing from a common centre in
the north-western part of the continent which is divided from Asia by
Behring's Straits. A chain of nations whose languages, particularly
those of the Ugalyachmatzi, and Koluschians, bear a curious analogy to
that of the Aztecs, and Tlaxcallans, has been discovered extending
from New Mexico, to Mount St Ellas, in the neighbourhood of the
Esquimaux Tschugazzi. The Karalit or Esquimaux, another series of
nations connected by affinities of dialect, has been traced from the set-
tlements of the Tschuktzschi in Asia, along the polar zone to Acadia
and Greenland. In a similar manner, light has been thrown on the his-
tory of the Lenni, Lenape, and the great kindred family of Algonquin
nations, on that of the Iroquois, and likewise of the Florida and other
races of North America, by comparing their national traditions with
the indications discovered in their dialects. It is a remarkable circum-
stance, that although there are, according to Lopez—a missionary well
versed in the languages of South and North America—about fifteen hun-
dred idioms in America, there is a singular congruity in the structure
between all the American languages, from the northern to the southern
extremity of that vast continent. These facts have been fully developed
by the researches of Barlow, Hewas, Humboldt, Heckewelder, Dupon-
ceau, and others*
But a more immediate subject of inquiry is, whether the Celtic dia-
lects belong to the class or family of languages spoken by the Indo-
European nations ; and the question is the more interesting as it bears
directly on the origin of the nations of western Europe, including the
British islands, as well as on the more extensive one relating to the phy-
sical history of mankind. Many persons have supposed the Celts to be
of Oriental origin, but, for the most part, upon grounds which are either
altogether fanciful, or at least insufficient to warrant such a conclu-
eion. The compilers of the Universal History, for instance, gravely
fell ufi, that the Celts were descended from Gomer, the eldest son of
• I'ricjaivl, p, 5, R, 7.