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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

As well as several words in Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit, some unusual characters are used in this book. These will display on this device as ? ? ?

The ? symbol was used extensively to indicate that more information could be found in the Appendix. However, as the publisher notes at the end of the book, the Appendix was not in fact included in this volume. A second volume was planned but was never published.

The initials of a contributor of an entry, when present, have been consistently placed at the end of the entry text. They were sometimes right-aligned or placed on a separate line in the original book. A list of the names of the contributors can be found on page 302 at the end of this book.

The pointer ? to the Appendix, when present, has been consistently placed at the end of the entry. It was almost always right-aligned or placed on a separate line in the original book.

Some changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

The Treasury of Languages.

RUDIMENTARY DICTIONARY

UNIVERSAL PHILOLOGY.

DANIEL iii. 4.

????? ???? ??????

HALL AND Co., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following compilation presents the mere skeleton outline of a great subject; and, in submitting it to public notice, acknowledgment is most justly due to Messrs. BAGSTER AND SONS, for permission to use the literary matter of their interesting and instructive volume, the "Bible in Every Land;" and to Messrs. LONGMANS & CO., for a like favour with regard to Dr. Latham's "Elements of Comparative Philology," a laborious, learned, and useful book, without which the present volume could not have been produced.

The compiler readily apologises for any defects in his matter and manner; and takes this opportunity to thank his respected contributors, hereby exonerating them from any responsibility except for their own signed articles.

A list of signatures and writers will be found in the Appendix.

INTRODUCTION

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGES,

AMERICAN.--The primary division is that between North and South. In North America the connection with Asia is decided. Through the Aleutian dialect of the Eskimo and the Kamtschatkan it is direct; through the Yukahiri and other tongues it is indirect. The Eskimo is a definite class; the Athabascan is also a definite class when compared with the Algonkin. The Chemmesyan, Hailtsa, Wakash, and Chinook are connected. The Jakon and Kallapuiah lead to the languages of the Sahaptin and Shoshoni class, among the congeners of which the sound of "tl" appears. In the Mexican it becomes prominent. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific the Algonkin appears to have spread from West to East, and the result has told most on the Iroquois family. The South Oregon languages graduate into the Californian, the Californian into those of the Paduca class and those of Sonora, till we come to two great divisions, the Mexican and the Maya. In South America there is a reappearance of the phenomena of the North: what the Athabascan and Algonkin are in the one peninsula, the Quichua, the Carib, and, above all, the Guarani are in the other. With any South American vocabulary of adequate length, some North American root presents itself; some even from the extreme North, viz., the Eskimo area, which, along with the phenomena of transition, is the chief argument in favour of the fundamental unity of the two classes. The student from Peru finds Quichua words in every vocabulary he lights upon, whilst the student from Brazil finds Guarani words.

ASIAN.--Asia and Europe, though different quarters of the globe, form but a single continent, and as such have characteristics of their own. One great class of languages is absolutely common to the two--the great Ugrian or Fin family. We miss, no doubt, in Europe such districts as those of Caucasus, and the parts to the North of the Burmese Empire, where numerous mutually unintelligible languages are pressed together within a small area. Again, the inflected languages have their seat in Europe; the monosyllabic in Asia. On the other hand, it is only in the great central continent that Language can be studied in all its stages: the Monosyllabic stage in the South-East of Asia, and the Inflectional in Western and Southern Europe. This makes Asia and Europe the only region in which the whole history of Language can be studied. Besides this, in Europe and Asia we have a history. We can see how languages like the English and Russian are extending themselves; how the German has extended itself; how the Latin had previously extended itself. We can see how languages like the Keltic, the Lithuanic, and the Fin recede. The Western division is the one with which we are most familiar; it includes Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Valley of the Danube, and Greece; allowance being made for the Turk and Hungarian, which are intrusive. The great Northern area is in Russia conterminous with the Western, which means, roughly speaking, Northern Asia with a large part of Europe; the chief displacements having been effected by the great spread of the Turk language. The South-Eastern area begins with the North frontier of China, and includes Thibet, Nipal, the Transgangetic peninsula, Assam, Siam, Pegu, Cambogia, Cochin-China, and China. The South-Western area contains India, Persia, and the Caucasus; here the displacing languages are Indian, Persian, and Arabic, which last is treated as African.

OCEANIC.--The first thing which commands attention is its thorough insular or oceanic character; subordinate to this is the remarkable distribution of its members. In one great division, viz., the Polynesian, the diffusion has been decidedly recent. The first primary division contains the Malay; the second has been called Micronesian; the third division is Polynesia proper. The second group is called Kelenonesian or Melanesian, including Papuan, Australian, and Tasmanian . Australian languages are all upon the same general grammatical construction. Mr. Moorhouse says that "not one-twentieth part of the words agree in root, and yet there is evidence sufficient to satisfy any one that they belong to the same family." All have suffixes to show relation; a dual in substantives, adjectives, and pronouns; no sibilant sounds, no auxiliary verb, no passive voice, no "h," they abound in the pleonastic, and distinguish genders by postfixes. The only point of agreement is in the first personal pronoun, "I"; this is "nga-nga" on the Swan River; "nga-toa" in New South Wales; "nga-ti," Adelaide; "ngai-tyo," Mount Barker; "gni," Murchison River; "nga-pe," Encounter Bay; "ngai," Port Lincoln; "nga-ppo," Murray River; "naddo," Murrumbidgee River; "nga-pe," Lower Murray; "noga-toa," Hunter River. At the same time, the Malayan is "nga-n"; the Sumba, "nga-nga"; the Thibetian, "nga"; the Corean, "nai"; and the Burmese, "ngai." Yet Dr. Latham finds no Australian dialects resemble those of the Asiatic Isles. Mr. Norris first detected similarity of the grammar between the Australian and the South Dravidian languages of India, spoken before the Aryan migration to the Ganges. Mr. J. R. Logan, of Singapore, thinks the Australian the most ancient of the Indo-Australian tongues. He says they are "a remnant of the Proto-Scythic era of the harmonic development, and between Chinese and American." He regards them, with the other kindred dialects of South-Eastern Asia, as in existence "before the expansion of the numerals one, two, and three into higher binary and ternary terms." According to him, "the pronominal roots are compounded with definitives, singular and plural, with the numeral two to form duals, with masculine and feminine definitives in the third person, and in all the three persons with each other; thus producing not only absolute and relative plurals of the first person, but several other complex plurals."

J. B.

DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGES.

? For Additions see Appendix. ?

AACHEN.

A sub-dialect of low-German or PLATT-DEUTSCH, vernacular at Aix-la-Chapelle, Lower Rhine. See M?ller and Weitz's "Idiomatikon," Leipsig, 1836.

? A division of the BEJA, BEJAWI, or BISHARI family; they are the most northerly members of this class, which occupies the desert between the Nile and Red Sea from Cosseir to Suakim. R. G. L.

ABADJA.

African: a sub-dialect of the OTAM.

ABAK.

A dialect of the Philippine Islands, closely allied to BISSAYAN and TAGALA. See J?lg's "Vater," p. 1.

ABANTES.

ABBEVILLE.

A sub-dialect of FRENCH, vernacular in Picardy. See De Soilly's "Idiome Picard," Abbeville, 1833.

ABBITIBBE.

American: dialect of the Christinos or Cree Indians; classed as ALGONKIN. See J?lg's "Vater," p. 204.

A dialect of the ALGONKIN race of N. American Indians, spoken in Lower Canada and the State of Maine. The tribe once occupied the valley of the R. Kennebeck; but the name also includes the Etchemins, Micmacs, and others. See Rasles. Dict., 1833; Vocabulary in Amer. Ethnol. Trans, ii., p. 109.

ABIPONIAN.

A name given by the early Spaniards to the language spoken on the western bank of the Parana in S. America; although on the borders of the Gran Chaco it differs considerably from the dialects spoken in that district. See Dobrizhoffer's "Geschichte," 3 vols., 8vo, Vienna, 1784. D. F.

ABOR.

A name for the ancient ABASCI, now represented by Abascia or Abgah , a country of Asiatic Russia, lying between the Caspian and Black Seas. The modern word ABSN? is called Abkhazi by the Georgians; with the terminal "eti" for "land," it is Abkhazeti, and extends from Soukum-kale to Jenikale. The affinities of the Absn? language are very uncertain; a large number of its words are similar to Circassian, but a larger proportion apparently not so. See Vocabularies in G?ldenst?dt's "Reisen;" Klaproth's "Reise;" "Asia Polyglotta," &c. H. H. H.

ACADIAN.

American: That division of the ALGONKIN family containing the languages of Lower Canada and Nova Scotia.

ACAXE.

American: a doubtful name for a probable dialect of the TUBAR.

ACCAD.

ACCAWAY.

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