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PREFACE. 5Ihtm retain stronger or fainter marks of affinity, in proportionas they are primary, intermediate, or more remote branches ofthis primary root. Of all the phanomena of language, the mostremarkable is the affinity of the Celtic 'dud Sanscrit, which cannotpossibly have come in contact for more than three thousand years,and must, therefore, owe their similarity to the radical tinctureof the primary language of Asia. The Braminical tenets, relig5>.ous rites, knowledge of astronomy, and severity of discipline,so much resemble the Druidical, as hardly to leave a doubt oftheir having been originally the same.That the Celtic is a dialect of the primary language of Asia,has received the sanction of that celebrated philologist the lateProfessor Murray, in his Prospectus to the philosophy of language.That the Celts were the aborigines of Europe, and theirlanguage tlie aboriginal one, even Pinkarton himself is obligedto admit. It is a point, on all hands conceded, that neither coloniesnor conquerors can annihilate the aboriginal language ofa country. So true is this, that, ev^n at the present day, theCeltic names still existing over the greater part of Europe, andeven in Asia itself, afford sufficient data whereby to determine?the prevalence of the Celtic language, the wide extent of theirjincient territories, and their progress from east to west. TheP».oman language unquestionably derives its affinity to the San.scrlt through the medium of the Celtic ; and to any one who paysminute attention to the subject, it Avill appear Self-evident thatthe Doric dialect of the Greek, founded on the Celtic, laid thefoundation of the language of Rome. The Gothic, over tliewhole extent of Germany, and the greater part of Britain an