The Portland daily press., 1895-06-08

\ ---N
Basque, his Finnish, his Keltic, his
French patois, his Italian dialect studies,
ETC., had an idea that he must be only a
specialist in the one each knew about.
The British government, recognizing
the great services he had rendered to Brit
lsh philology, gave him a literary pension,
and the deposed Empress, who was still
arich woman, made him small allow
ance
In prosperity or adversity our frugal
philology had used all his available means
IN the pursuit of the great ambition of
his life, the collection of the most perfect
pathological library in the world He in :
tended eventually to embrace the earth,
but life was all too short span.
Although in the collection there is no
mean amount of Asiatic, American
African and Polynesian tongues, it is
essentially a library of European philolo-
gy, and as such is as complete as things
human can every be.
SOME OF THE TONGUES REPRE-
SENTED.
To give some notion of the Babel of
human tongues, yet reduced to some
ORDER needs only to glance over brief
list of the classes of works in this Bona
parte collection. Here is an abbreviated
list, omitting most of the groups of Ian
guages which if particularized would
more than double the classes: Chinese,
Thibetan, Hottentot, Bushman, Hawsa,
Eve, Bantu, Kaffir, Australian, Melane-
sian, Polynesian, Malay, Japanese,
Tamil Malaylam, Canarese, Kudegu,
Tunda, Samoyedic, Suomi, Karelian,
Chudic, Livonian, Krewinian, Esthonian,
Iapponic, Siryneian, Permian, Wotyak,
Mordyinian, Cheremissian, Magyaric,
Wogulic, Ostyac, Uiguic, Turkish,
Chuvac Mandcho, Tungusian Mongolian,
Biscayen, Guipuzcoan, Labourdin, Ma
varrais, Souletin Iberian, Algonquin,
Dakotah, Appalache, Aztec, Maya, Bra
lillian, Quichua, Chukchik, Aino, Eski-
mo, Caucasian, Aware, Kasia- Kumuk,
Akusha, Ude, Tush, Circassian, Lazian,
Chaldee, Syriac, Assyrian, Hebrew,
Phenician, Arabic, Maltese, Himyaritic,
Amharic, Hamitic, Coptic, Berber,
Kabyle, Ethiopian, Sanskrit, Prakrit
Hindustani, Gypsy, Zend, Persian, Ar
menian, Huzyaresh, Ossetian, Hellenic
Greek, Latin, Umbrian, Volscian Oscan,
Sabellian, French, old French and over
seventy five French dialects, all classified
and some sixty italian dialects classified,
Rumansh, Castellano, Gallego Astuiriano
| Andoluz, Aragon.
OF course, of the $50 in the above list
several are merely dialects of others, but
the distinction between a dialect and a
language is purely arbitrary, all tongues
| SO shade off each other. There comes a
point when the difference between two
dialects is so marked that the philologist
| decides that new language has been
| formed
WHAT THE PRINCE HOPED TO DO
| 1t was the ambition of Prince Louis
Lucien's life to have given to the world a
work showing the whole network of the
languages and dialects of the world, their
connections and their differences, where
they blend and where they separate. The
Prince intended to use his own matchless
library to illustrate his work Unfoltu-
nately for the world his death at Fano in
1891 came all too, suddenly. Although
over ~ years of age the Prince was in the
fullest activity and strength of his mental
faculties, and had reason to expect quite
a number of years more of working life.
| About a year ago Mr. Victor Collins is
sued can Attempt of Catalog of the
Library of the Late Prince Lois Lucien
Bonaparte " This is quarto of 73O
pages.
In the pages of this Attempt of a
Catalog'' can be found plenty Of food for
reflection, even for those who pursue the
subject no further. We feel what Won
derfuil world it is, this earth, with it's
countless tribes, divided and subdivided
and .infinitum. We find devoted alone to
that most mysterious of linguistic
| enigmas, Basque, no less than thirty four
pages enumerating over 200 different
works Yet the various Basque tongues
are SO divergent that the uninitiated
| hardly can recognize them as a kin. This
Basque collection is itself so superb it
makes any other existing possession of
libraries, either public or private, quite
insignificant. The Basque portion of the
Bonaparte collection would be alone
worth good portion of the price asked
for the whole. Yet Basque is quite ov er-
shadowed in the great mass.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TREASURES.
The most striking separate works are
found among the Low German dialects.
There are no less than nine Bibles and
two Psalters printed between 1880 and
1921, five of them before luther was
heard of or from.
The two earliest, printed at COLOGNE in
1880, are two of the most valuable biblic.
graphical treasures in existence. latin
or Vulgate Bibles of that date are NOT Sc
very rare but those which are ssunder.
standed Of the common people, Command
fabulous prices We're an English one tC
turn up we would hesitate to guess what
hitherto unprecedented sum it would be
priced at OF course no such work eve1
existed. These German Bibles are LITTLE
known, it being the popular superstition
that Luther first gave the German people
a taste of the sacred text One of these
Cologne Bibles is not in the French
library, while the British Museum only
possesses a fragment of the other
Thora oro covara1 af tho othar J2;J,1 ~