The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-07-28

Ion o. that tdlth N the Puritan. TWO sup
Elemental chapters ere devoted to the Eng
lish SPEECH and to English literature
The author point Oh; in a preliminary
chapter tina; there are. Of course, families
ri races. a. there are antilles within races.
Among the many and diverse denizans Of
tho earth are to be found certain races
which resemble each other more than they
resemble the other races OF mankind, GER
tain likencsses of form. OF features. of conf
plexion. Of speech Of mental and spiritual
evolution, and perhaps OF tracsable race
history Because q; these special resem-
blances we infer, and are sometimes able to
demonstrates, the common ancestry back
Of them, and thus We come To speak Of them
a. a distinct family amo1g races. A We
speak, for example, OF the negroid or black
peoples; OF the family Of the yellow peoples;
or the emitic peoples; SO may We also
speak Of the family Of the Aryan peoples.
Within this Aryan family we ordinarily
class a. of kin to one another, because they
Possess in common many of the tokens OF
kinship Just mentioned. the Brahmins of
India. the Medo-Persians of Iran. the
era co-Iatins. the Celts, the Slavs and the
Tcutons. Within these again are snbdi-
VISIONS into yet smaller groups
How did we come to adopt the name
Aryan "a The distinctive collective appella-
tion Of this group or family of races? Mr..
Midnoy recalls that the rame comes 70 rs
through the IA nskrit, the oldest OF the
written tongues Of the ATyan peoples. In
the NeGaS the Brahmins speak OF their
ancestors ~ The ARA and OF the older home
lard "a Arya Avarta. thai is, the homeland
OF the Arya. In the Zend. the Iranic branch
oi the Older Aryan speech. the word is lrya.
In both the Sanskrit and the Zend. however.
the word is only "A derivative. The root
form goes hack 20 even an older speech
than that of the Brahminic Vedas. or the
lranic AveStas, and is found in other Aryan
ges no less than in tho two lust named.
In Latin IL ia found in drdre: in Greek.
uroun; in Slavonic. or1ti; in Gothic, drJun :;
in Welsh. drdd; in Old English. erien. The
meaning of all theee terms is to plough or
Till. Back Of the verbal forms. moreover.
can he traced a substantive form meaning
earth. A. is to be found in our modern
English word earth: in the German, erde.
In the Danish, ddrde: in Latin, drrum in
the Greek, era. In all these tongues the
root ar enters into many secondary forms
and combinations; but back Of all, difficult
il may he to trace, but still there. is the
older idea of the earth. These resem-
blances point back TO n common speech
which was mother alike TO Sanskrit, Zend,
Greek. Latin and the Slavic, Celtic and
Teutonic tongues. To that primitive
grandmother tongue, a tongue long since
unspoken, and known only through its chill
dren orchildren's children, the name Proto-
Aryan has been given. Wien the compare
lively early Aryans. who spoke Sanskrit.
called themselves Arya, our author sug-
gests that the thought back OF the term
was probably the same which is to be found
among many Of the primitive peoples OF
the world: the belief that they were au-
tochthonous, children of the soil. the print
tive earthborn folk.
The fact that the Sanskrit and the Zend,
the Oldest Of the written Aryan tongues.
made Use Of this term Arya as d~esignative
OF the people and their ancestry. coupled
with the other fact that the root OF the name
In 80 widespread among the Aryan peoples,
and bolstered with the additional fact that
nowhere else among the primitive peoples
do we find even two branches of a family
uniting upon a common race designation,
seems to make Aryan the fittest OF all names
to represent the whole stock. The name
has the additional recommendation of being
free from all entanglements with conflict
ing theories as to race origin and race migra-
tons, while it is 30 broad in character as TO
embrace all possible branches of the family.
The tern lndo-Ciermanic, on the contrary,
Is used by German ethnologists, is here
pronounced inadmissible. for the reason
that not only is it pre-committed to a theory
and q bias. but il is also too narrow at each
end. The Brahmin OF India was only one
of the Eastern Aryans; while the German
on his part is only one OF the subdivisions
Of ono branch OF the Western Aryans. The
term Indo-European is somewhat wider,
vet this also ia defective. az we have seen,
upon the eastern end failing to include the
.hanic Aryans), while the world extensive
bpread of the Aryan westward makes the
term European no longer appropriate. Thus
has il come TO pass that the term Aryan. as
the family rame Of Aryan peoples, has sup
Hsnted every other.
Mr. Widncy ia fully alive to the fact that
Ia all tra.tu1s Of ~ - rala fippSbinS MN nonat