The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-01-05
Ths Anelens Langaaye 81 India.

i Every Shitd4 Gov, learns at school S,at
| English is an Aryan or Indo-E European
Language; that it belongs to the Teptonic
branch, and that this branch, together
with the Italic, Greek, Celtic, Slavonic,
iFranic and Indie brand eS 6ili spring
irpm the same stock, and form together
ths great Aryah Of Ini6 Eueopean fam
ily Of 1peerh. Rnt this, Adpgh it is
| taught now IN our elementary schools.
was really, but fifty years ago. like the
| opening Of 8 new horizon OF the world
OF the Intellect, and-the extension of o
feeling of closest fraternity that made
US feel at home where before we had
been strangers, and changed millions Of
so-calIed 6arbarians into our own kith
and kin. To speak the same language
constitutes acloser union than TO have
| drunk the same milk, and Sanskrit, the
ancient language Of India. is substan-
TALLY the same language as Greek, Latin
and Anglo-Saxon. This is q lesson
which we should never have learned but
from study of Indian language and
literature; and if India had taught US
nothing else, it would have taught US
more than almost any other languages
ever did,,
1t is quite amusing, though instructive
also, to read what was written by schol-
ars and philosophers when this new light
first dawned On the world. They would
not havs it, they would not believe that
there could be any community of origin
between the people of Athens and Rome
and the so-called Niggers of India. The
classical scholars secuted the idea, and
myself still remember the time, when l
was a student at Leipzig and began to
study Sanskrit, with iwhat contempt any
remarks on Sanskrit or Comparative
grammar were treated by my teachers,
men such as Gottfried Hermann, Haupt.
Westermann, Stallbaum, and others. No
one for time ever was so completely
laughed down as -Prof, Bopp. when he
first published his Comparative Gram
mar Of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin and
Gothic.n All hands were against him;
and if in comparing Greek and Latin
with Sanskrit, Gothic, Celtic, Slavonic.
or Persian, he happened to have placed
one single accent wrong, the shouts of
those who knew nothing but Greek and
Latin. and probably looked in their
Greek dictionariesjto be quite sure of
their accents. would never end. DugaId
Stewart, rather than admit relation
ship between, Hindus and Scots, would
rather believe that the whole Sanskrit
language and the whole of Sanskrit lit
erature- q literature extending
over three thousand years, and larger
than the ancient literature of either
Greece or Rome-was forgery of those
willy priests, the Brahmans. I 'remem-
Der. too how. when 4 was at school at
Leipzig (and averysgood school it was.
with such masters as Noble, Forbiger,
Funkhaenel and Palm-an old school.
too, which could boast of Leibnitz
among its former pupils)-I remember.
l say, one of our, masters (Dr. Klee)
telling US some afternoon. when it was
too hot to do any serious work, that
there was language spoken in India
which was much the same as Greek and
Latin, nay, as German and Russian. At
first we thought it was joke, but when
one saw the parallel columns OF nnmer-
ais, pronouns and verbs in Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin written on the black
board, one felt in the presence of facts,
before which one had to bow. All ones
ideas osAdan aild Eve, and the Para
disc. and the tower of Babel, and, Shem.
Ham and Japhet, with Homer aud
--Eaeas and Virgil. too. seemed to be
-whirling round and round, till at last
one picked up the fragments and tried to
build up. a new world. and to live with
new historical consciousness Conten,-
porary RerielU. u: ,zf q ,,...s p, -, ''