Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1889-05-11
THE HOME OF THE ARYANs..
Conjecture as to Their Being of
European Origin.

Conjecture as to Their Being of
European Origin.
When it was discovered that most
European nations spoke languages of
the Aryan Cor Indo Persian) stock, the
conclusion was at once drawn that
these European Aryans must look for
their ancestral home in the East AS
no one doubted that all the nations OF
this stock had sprung from one source,
it was natural to inquire in what place
the primitive Aryan tribe had its orig
inal seat. 1t was natural also to adopt
the view that this seat was TO be found
somewhere in that portion of central
Asia to which the traditions embodied,
however vaguely, In the earliest COM
positions of Aryan origin. the Vedas
and the lend Avesta, seemed to point.
This region, which comprehends
ancient Persia and Bactria, has, from
the earliest times of which we have
any knowledge, been the home of Ar
yam communities. The reasons for ac-
cepting it as the peculiar seat Of the
race seemed conclusive to ethnologists
until very recent date. or late years
SoAt4C Va cCl1OldIb Va EE1uhg UOkL4 1l1
Germany and in England, have been led
to adopt the suggestion, first made by
the late eminent English philologist,
DIR. Latham, that the Aryans may
have been of European origin. Their
arguments were well summed up in the
interesting address delivered last year
before the Section of Anthropology in
the British Association by the presi-
dent OF thesection, Professor Sayce.
They have since been fully considered
anddiscussed by Professor Max Muller
in his recent work. Biographies of
Words, and the Home of the Aryans. =
His decision is that to which the great
majority Of ethnologists have long
since given their assent, namely, that
the preponderant weight of argument
points TO an Asiatic home for the race
Some of the grounds for this conclusion
will presently be shown, but, in the
first instance, it becomes necessary to
fix the locality of this primitive seat
somewhat more definitely than it is
placed in Professor Max Muller's essay.
He finds that the Aryan home must
have been somewhere in ASIA but
declines to say more. This conclusion,
| it is evident, is too indefinite for
science; nor does it seem likely that
the learned author, If he had cared to
be more precise. would have had any
difficulty in drawing much narrower
limit. The method Of elimination is
easily sufficient for this end. From the
whole of Asia we strike out at once, by
the common consent OF ethnoiogists, its
eastern third, comprising China, Japan
and Thibet. and along with it. by like
consent, the three great southern
peninsulas, the Indo Chinese. the
1 Indian, and the Arabian. With Arabia
| the rest of the ancient Semitic
countries, Mesopotamia. Syria and
Phmnicia, will be erased from the
problem. The immense expanse of
Siberia will also disappear; for, though
one bold Spectator has sought a frigid
home for the early Aryans in that
region, he has. as might be supposed,
/ gained no adherents to his theory. No
one proposes Asia Minor; and Armenia
and the Caucasus seem put out of the
| question by the fact that our earliest
historical knowledge of those regions
shows them inhabited mainly by
non Aryan tribes. Popular Science
Monthly.