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

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION. XXIX
manifestum cum orieiitialibus habere congruentiam ot affinitateiii ;" and a
iMuIt of a mure accurate and minute analysis has been to confirm this
opinion in tlie most complete manner possible.
The connexion of" tlie Solavonian, German, and Pelasgian races with
the ancient Asiatic nations, may be established by historical proof.
But the language of these races and the Celtic, although differing from
each other, and constituting the four principal classes of dialects which
prevail in Europe, are nevertheless so far allied in their radical ele-
ments, that they may with certainty be considered as branches of the
same original stock. Remarkable, indeed, is tlie resemblance observ-
able in the general structure of speech, and in those parts of the voca-
bulary which must be supposed to be the most ancient, as, for instance,
in words descriptive of common objects and feelings, for which expres-
sive terms existed in the primitive ages of society. In fact, the rela-
tion between the languages above mentioned and the Celtic is such as
not merely to establish the affinity of the respective nations, but like-
wise to throw light upon the structure of the Indo-European lan-
guages in general ; and particularly to illustrate some points which
had been previously involved in obscurity. This is clearly demonstrat-
ed by Dr Prichard's ample and satisfactory analysis, which embraces
almost every thing that can possibly enter into an inquiry of this
nature.
In examining that permutation of letters in composition and construc-
tion wliich is common to many of the Indo-European languages,
according to rules founded originally on euphony or on the facility
of utterance, a circumstance from which has arisen t-he great capability
which these languages possess, of forming compound words, Dr Prichard
adduces the substitution of consonants of particular orders for their cog-
nates in the composition or formation of Greek compound words as an
example of the peculiarity noticed. But the mutation of consonants in
Greek, in Latin, and in the German dialects, is not general ; it is con-
fined to words brought together under very peculiar circumstances, as
chiefly when they enter into the formation of compound terras, and it
is scarcely observed in words which still remain distinct, and are merely
constituent parts of sentences. To account for the immutability of
simple terms, the learned author supposes that either the attention to
euphony and the facility of utterance has not extended so far, or that
the purpose was attained by a choice of collocation, the words them-
selves remaining unaltered. In the Sanscrit language, however, words
merely in sequence influence each other in the change of terminations,
and sometimes of initial letters, on the principle before alluded to.
Thus, as Dr Prichard notices, instead oi atishtat manvjah, stabat horao,
tlie man stood, the words are written atishtun mnnnjah, the final t of the
verb atishtat, stabat, being altered into n, on account of the liquid con-
sonant with which the next word begins. The Sanscrit grammarians
and the rules,
l( nil this change in distinct words Sand/ii, conjunction ;