The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

DURING
Chapter XII
THE ARYAN CRADLE
the middle half of the nineteenth century the minds of many
European savants were focussed upon what was termed the Aryan hypothesis,
which was investigated with more enthusiasm than discretion by comparative
philologists in England and France, and with still greater vigour in Germany. Since
then the general conclusions of these mid-nineteenth century speculations have
been current among pohticians and journahsts, who talk glibly about Teutons and
Celts and Slavs, and that medley of races and peoples, who still continue to use in a
modified form the speech imposed upon them by their Roman conquerors, and are
therefore called the Latin race. Such terms, meaningless though they are as applied
to nations, have become popular during the last half century, with disastrous results,
since they have been used to emphasise certain divisions which were growing up
among European peoples, and which in their turn did much to give rise to the European
war, and are stiU retarding the Peace for which everyone is longing.
The idea was first put forward in 1786, when Sir William Jones,' in a
communication to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, pointed out the similarities
between the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German and Celtic languages, but Httle progress
was made until in^i833-5 Bopp* published his comparative grammar. For the next
fifty years the hypothesis grew at a great pace. The world was anxious for a scientific
classification of its peoples, especially of the peoples of Europe. Men were also
enquiring what had happened in this continent before early Greek legend and literature
began to lift the veil. The sciences of anthropology and prehistoric archaeology were
in their infancy, and unable to provide answers to these questions, and the comparative
' Jones (1788). 1 Bopp (1833), (1845-50), (1866-74).
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