race, who are more or less connected with the Tchudes; the second consists of the people called Samoiedes, and various scattered tribes, who claim a common origin with them; in the third are placed several nations, whose history has not been investigated, and who speak languages quite unconnected. As these nations are very little known, we shall extract some of the most interesting of our author's observations concerning them.

1. The seven nations called Permians, Vogules, Ostiacs of the Oby, Tcheremisses, Votiacs, Mordouines, and Teptjerais, have been represented by Pallas, Gmelin, and others, as so many tribes of Finns, and their languages are generally said to be Tchudic dialects. Adelung shows that this affinity has been very much exaggerated. Of 200 Permian vocables, which Müller the Russian historian has collected, 17 are of Finnish origin: he found only eight in the same number of Vogulian words, 16 in the Tcheremissic, and 22 in the Votiac vocabularies. In several of these there is a considerable mixture of Tartar words, which may well be accounted for from the long dominion of that people. The great mass of vocables in their language is apparently distinct, and of separate origin in each.

The Permians now inhabit the governments of Archangel and Kasan. In the middle ages they seem to have possessed all the country between the White Sea and the Ural Mountains. Ohthere, the celebrated voyager and friend of Alfred, represents the Biarmahs as a very populous nation, and says they spoke the same language as the Finns. The Icelandic traditions tell us, that this region was formerly enriched by the commerce of Persia and the Indies. It is difficult to imagine what was the foundation of this

rumour.

2. The Samoiedes are the most destitute wretches of the whole human race. They procure a miserable subsistence by fishing along the shores of the Icy sea, and extend from the neighbourhood of Archangel to the Lena. They probably inhabited formerly a more hospitable climate, and were driven to the northern coasts by the Tartars and Mongoles; some tribes of the same kindred are dispersed around the shores of Lake Baikal and the borders of Mongolia. The tribes who wander through these wide regions have such a diversity of dialect, that it is difficult to recognise their mutual resemblance; yet a careful examination discovers enough to identify the race. Perhaps in a few ages these traces will be lost.

3. Between the Lena and Béhring's Straits are found several hunting or fishing tribes, who are for the most part addicted to the Shaman paganism. The Jeniscan Ostiacs, the Tchuktschi, and the Kamtschadales, are those whose names are best known in Europe. As far as we can judge by the vocabularies which have

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been collected of their languages, no affinity can be discovered between them, or any resemblance with the idioms of nations better known, with one remarkable exception, which we shall hereafter notice.

Such is the result of Mr. Adelung's observations on these remote tribes, and their languages. We may remark, however, that in his anxiety to avoid the common error of philologists, he approaches the opposite extreme, and scarcely allows their due weight to real coincidences. A few vocables common to two distant nations do not, indeed, authorise our classing their languages together; but if such a coincidence cannot be referred to accident, it proves a connection more or less remote between the nations in whose dialects it occurs. Traces are to be met with in the idioms of many remote nations in northern Asia, which point out this sort of affinity between them and the southern races.

The mountainous tract between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, which has received the name of Caucasus, affords a dwelling to a multitude of independent tribes, the remains, perhaps, of different nations, who have traversed this region in remote ages, in their way from Southern Asia to the North. Adelung has derived all his acquaintance with them from Güldenstadt and Reineggs, who are inferior in accuracy and extent of information to Klaproth, who was sent by the Russian government, at a more recent period, to survey the Caucasus, and whose travels are the subject of our preceding article. In several particulars he has corrected the statements of his predecessors.

The Caucasian nations are distributed into five principal branches, distinguished from each other in languages and in origin. 1. The Abassians inhabit the north western tract: they are probably the nation who, in the time of Strabo, practised piracy on the shores of the Euxine: they are now wild mountaineers, and as much distinguished from their neighbours by their features as by their languages, which have no affinity with any other. 2. The Circassians, or more properly Kasaeks, possess the northern declivities of Caucasus and the neighbouring plains. A tribe of this race, intermixed with Russians, gave origin to the Cossacs of the Don. The Circassian bards retain among them the tradition of the Amazons, a nation of women, who, as they say, settled in the territory of the Nogay Tartars, and intermarried with that people. This is exactly the story of Herodotus: he says the Amazons came into the country of the Scythians, who appear, from a variety of circumstances, to have been the ancestors of the proper Tartars. 3. The Ossetes, on the high mountains above the Circassians, are, according to Klaproth, of Medo-Sarmatian race. He gives some reasons for believing them to be the remains of the celebrated Alani. 4. The Ingushi are a wild

people, dwelling near the sources of the Terek. 5. The Lesgi are divided into many tribes, or rather, the name includes various hordes, who have little or no affinity.

The languages of all these nations are said to be essentially distinct.

The more fertile and level countries, which border on the Caucasus to the southward, are called by Europeans Georgia, but more properly Gurgisthan, from the river Kur, the Cyrus of the Greeks. This country is the seat of a nation well known to antiquity, under the names of Iberians and Colchians, who carried on commerce on the Caspian and Euxine seas. According to Klaproth they have ancient writings in a peculiar character which record the invasion of Asia by the Cimmerii of Herodotus. It is agreed by all writers that their language has no affinity with any other known idiom.

The Armenians are a remarkable nation of western Asia, whose language has been preserved from the beginning of the fifth century by the use of letters. The idiom of that time differed however widely from the modern dialect, as we learn from a translation of the Bible executed by Miesrob, whose pupil was the historian Moses of Chorene. The Armenian language differs widely from all others, even in those vocables which are necessary to the rudest nations; yet its grammatical structure, which has an affinity with that of the Greek and Sanscrit, induces a suspicion that this diversity has been the effect of a gradual fluctuation.

The high mountainous ridge of Asia, which rises from the north of the Caspian, and stretches across to the Eastern Ocean, has been from the remotest periods of history, the abode of seve ral barbarous nations, who have poured themselves down from time to time on the more polished nations of the south, and have every where rendered their name terrible to future ages. The nomadic hordes of this elevated plain belong to three great races equally illustrious in deeds of blood.

1. The native region of the Turks or Tartars is the western declivity of this steppe towards the Caspian sea, and the banks of the Volga. This immense nation is divided into a number of departments, whose names and affiliations our limits will not permit us to pursue. There is sufficient evidence of their belonging to one stock, though their languages are infinitely diversified. The Scythians of the Greeks, in the definite sense of that name, were this same nation, and it is remarkable that the Nogay Tartars, as Klaproth informs us from local observations, have still that distemper prevalent among them, to which Herodotus ascrites so curious an origin.

The language of the Ottomans is better known than the dialects of other Tartar hordes. The modern Turkish is mixed with

Arabic and Persic, but its Tartarian basis is easily distinguishable from these additions, and contains such a number of German vocables, as prove a remote connexion between the Tartar and German races. We may observe that the Sauromata, who spoke the Scythian language in the time of Herodotus, are certainly connected with the Slavonian family. The features of the Tartar nations are European.

2. The mountains of Altai are the cradle of the Mongolian race, whose features distinguish them as widely as those of the Negro from the rest of mankind. Three great nations belong to this stock: the Kalmucks, the Burattes, and the proper Mongoles. These people are probably the Argippæi of Herodotus, and the Seres of the later Greeks: they are doubtless the Hiong-nu of the Chinese historians, and the Hunns who laid waste Europe.

Their language, which is better known than many others, is polysyllabic, but formed in the structure of the monosyllabic dialects; yet it is not without some traces of resemblance to the European languages. A number of words contained in the vocabulary given by Strahlenburg exist, as Vallancey has remarked, in the modern Irish; Mr. Townsend has copied them in his remarks on the Gaelic language.

3. The eastern region of the Asiatic steppe is the seat of the Mantshurian, or Mant-shoo race, the conquerors of China. The Tungusians, divided into the Rein-deer, Horse, and Dog-Tungusians, and the Fishing Tungusians, who wander from the river fenisay to the limits of Daouria, are a branch of this family.

They have a distinct language of peculiar structure. Yet, divided as they are from all connexion with European history, they have a number of words which are found in several of our dialects. Mr. Adelung has given a list of them, a part of which we extract.

“Ura; Gr. ¿vpa; Kalpin; Gr. xbλños; Chop; Germ, schopf, Eng. top; Non; Germ. nonne (girl); Heren; Germ. heer; Eng. array; Kisun (word), kisureme (to talk); Germ. kosen, Fr. causer; Hife; Germ. hafe; avena, Lat. (pipe); Fahala (black); Germ. fahl; Farshe; pars, part; Morin; Eng. mare; Singui, sanguis; furu, furor; fury; Mala; malleus, hammer; Ania, annus, year, &c."

Beyond Mantchuria, to the eastward, the Peninsula of Corea contains a number of states, formerly independent, but now united under one sovereign, who is tributary to China. The Chinese pretend that this subjection took place 2188 years before Christ. The Jesuits who went from Pekin to Corea found that the nations neither understood the Chinese nor the Mantchurian language. Their dialect seems to be of the monosyllabic class.

In the island of Sagalien, the longest in the world, the inhabi tants change their name and language in every village.

The people of the Kuriles, who are said to be covered with hair on their backs, speak a peculiar language. The Japanese suppose themselves to be descended from the Chinese. Their language however gives no support to this opinion. It is polysyllabic, and totally different from the Chinese, and, as far as we know, from all other languages. The same remark may be made of the idiom of Formosa.

The extensive traces of one language scattered over the islands of the Indian Seas and Pacific Ocean is a very curious phenome non. Adelung is very imperfectly informed concerning the his tory of these islanders, which has been solely investigated by our countrymen, particularly by Leyden, Marsden, and the compa nions of Cook. An opinion long prevailed that all these tribes were colonies from Malacca, although many striking facts opposed themselves to such a conclusion. Marsden however has shown that the Malays themselves are a colony from the islands, which settled at some remote period on the main land. The inhabitants of all this region, which has been termed Polynesia, may be distributed into three classes, according to the different states of society in which they are found.

1. The Negro races, who are every where savages, inhabit the larger islands, and the interior of some others, of which they appear to be the oldest inhabitants. Their languages are very various, and often radically different in adjoining islands; the dialects however of some of their tribes resemble those of the second class. 2dly. The Tattowed tribes, to whom belong the Battas of Sumatra, the Pintados of the Philippines, and the natives of the remote isles in the Pacific. Their languages resemble the Otaheitean. 3dly. The Menangkabow race is settled in many of the Indian islands, and on the Malayan coast.

We regret that the great length to which our paper has already extended forbids us from following Mr. Adelung and his successor, Professor Vater, through their history of the dialects of the African and American savages. Their remarks on the latter particularly, which are comprised in the last part of the Mithri dates, and appeared at a later period than the rest of the work, are very interesting. The most striking fact which presents itself is the endless diversity of the idioms, which prevail among these wild nations. Their languages are so numerous that Mr. Jeffer son, from this circumstance, fancied that the population of America must be more ancient than that of the Eastern continent.

We shall conclude our observations on the history of languages by some remarks on the Hebrew, which we have purposely reserved for this place.

We have had frequent occasion to remark, that the dialects of barbarous nations are infinitely diversified. Among the savage