Chapter IX: Preface (9)

This Turanian family is of great importance in the science of languages. Some scholars would deny it the name of a family; and if family is only applicable to dialects so closely connected among themselves as the Aryan or Semitic, it would no doubt be preferable to speak of the Turanian as a class or group, and not as a family of languages. But this concession must not be understood as an admission that the members of this class start from different sources, and that they are held together, not by genealogical affinity, but by morphological similarity only.

These languages share elements in common which they must have borrowed from the same source, and their formal coincidences, though of a different character from those of the Aryan and Semitic families, are such that it would be impossible to ascribe them to mere accident.

The name Turanian is used in opposition to Aryan, and is applied to the nomadic races of Asia as opposed to the agricultural or Aryan races.

The Turanian family or class consists of two great divisions, the _Northern_ and the _Southern_.

The Northern is sometimes called the _Ural-Altaic_ or _Ugro-Tataric_, and it is divided into five sections, the _Tungusic_, _Mongolic_, _Turkic_, _Finnic_, and _Samoyedic_.

The Southern, which occupies the south of Asia, is divided into four classes, the _Tamulic_, or the languages of the Dekhan; the _Bhotîya_, or the dialects of Tibet and Bhotan; the _Taïc_, or the dialects of Siam, and the _Malaic_, or the Malay and Polynesian dialects.

No doubt if we expected to find in this immense number of languages the same family likeness which holds the Semitic or Aryan languages together, we should be disappointed. But the very absence of that family likeness constitutes one of the distinguishing features of the Turanian dialects. They are _Nomad_ languages, as contrasted with the Aryan, and Semitic languages.(301) In the latter most words and grammatical forms were thrown out but once by the creative power of one generation, and they were not lightly parted with, even though their original distinctness had been blurred by phonetic corruption. To hand down a language in this manner is possible only among people whose history runs on in one main stream; and where religion, law, and poetry supply well-defined borders which hem in on every side the current of language. Among the Turanian nomads no such nucleus of a political, social, or literary character has ever been formed. Empires were no sooner founded than they were scattered again like the sand-clouds of the desert; no laws, no songs, no stories outlived the age of their authors. How quickly language can change, if thus left to itself without any literary standard, we saw in a former Lecture, when treating of the growth of dialects. The most necessary substantives, such as father, mother, daughter, son, have frequently been lost and replaced by synonymes in the different dialects of Turanian speech, and the grammatical terminations have been treated with the same freedom. Nevertheless, some of the Turanian numerals and pronouns, and many Turanian roots, point to a single original source; and the common words and common roots, which have been discovered in the most distant branches of the Turanian stock, warrant the admission of a real, though very distant, genealogical relationship of all Turanian speech.

The most characteristic feature of the Turanian languages is what has been called _Agglutination_, or “gluing together.”(302) This means not only that, in their grammar, pronouns are _glued_ to the verbs in order to form the conjugation, or prepositions to substantives in order to form declension. _That_ would not be a distinguishing characteristic of the Turanian or nomad languages; for in Hebrew as well as in Sanskrit, conjugation and declension were originally formed on the same principle. What distinguishes the Turanian languages is, that in them the conjugation and declension can still be taken to pieces; and although the terminations have by no means always retained their significative power as independent words, they are felt as modificatory syllables, and as distinct from the roots to which they are appended.

In the Aryan languages the modifications of words, comprised under declension and conjugation, were likewise originally expressed by agglutination. But the component parts began soon to coalesce, so as to form one integral word, liable in its turn to phonetic corruption to such an extent that it became impossible after a time to decide which was the root and which the modificatory element. The difference between an Aryan and a Turanian language is somewhat the same as between good and bad mosaic. The Aryan words seem made of one piece, the Turanian words clearly show the sutures and fissures where the small stones are cemented together.

There was a very good reason why the Turanian languages should have remained in this second or agglutinative stage. It was felt essential that the radical portion of each word should stand out in distinct relief, and never be obscured or absorbed, as happens in the third or inflectional stage.

The French _âge_, for instance, has lost its whole material body, and is nothing but termination. _Age_ in old French was _eage_ and _edage_. _Edage_ is a corruption of the Latin _œtaticum_; _œtaticum_ is a derivative of _œtas_; _œtas_ an abbreviation of _œvitas_; _œvitas_ is derived from _œvum_, and in _œvum_, _œ_ only is the radical or predicative element, the Sanskrit _ây_ in _ây-us_, life, which contains the germ from which these various words derive their life and meaning. From _œvum_ the Romans derived _œviternus_, contracted into _œternus_, so that _age_ and _eternity_ flow from the same source. What trace of _œ_ or _œvum_, or even _œvitas_ and _œtas_, remains in _âge_? Turanian languages cannot afford such words as _âge_ in their dictionaries. It is an indispensable requirement in a nomadic language that it should be intelligible to many, though their intercourse be but scanty. It requires tradition, society, and literature, to maintain words and forms which can no longer be analyzed at once. Such words would seldom spring up in nomadic languages, or if they did, they would die away with each generation.

The Aryan verb contains many forms in which the personal pronoun is no longer felt distinctly. And yet tradition, custom, and law preserve the life of these veterans, and make us feel unwilling to part with them. But in the ever-shifting state of a nomadic society no debased coin can be tolerated in language, no obscure legend accepted on trust. The metal must be pure, and the legend distinct; that the one may be weighed, and the other, if not deciphered, at least recognized as a well-known guarantee. Hence the small proportion of irregular forms in all agglutinative languages.(303)

A Turanian might tolerate the Sanskrit,

as-mi, a-si, as-ti, ’s-mas, ’s-tha, ’s-anti, I am, thou art, he is, we are, you are, they are;

or even the Latin,

’s-um, e-s, es-t, ’su-mus, es-tis, ’sunt.

In these instances, with a few exceptions, root and affix are as distinguishable as, for instance, in Turkish:

bakar-im, bakar-sin, bakar, I regard, thou regardest, he regards.

bakar-iz, bakar-siniz, bakar-lar we regard, you regard, they regard.

But a conjugation like the Hindustání, which is a modern Aryan dialect,

hun, hai, hai, hain, ho, hain,

would not be compatible with the genius of the Turanian languages, because it would not answer the requirements of a nomadic life. Turanian dialects exhibit either no terminational distinctions at all, as in Mandshu, which is a Tungusic dialect; or a complete and intelligible system of affixes, as in the spoken dialect of Nyertchinsk, equally of Tungusic descent. But a state of conjugation in which, through phonetic corruption, the suffix of the first person singular and plural, and of the third person plural are the same, where there is no distinction between the second and third persons singular, and between the first and third persons plural, would necessarily lead, in a Turanian dialect, to the adoption of new and more expressive forms. New pronouns would have to be used to mark the persons, or some other expedient be resorted to for the same purpose.

And this will make it still more clear why the Turanian languages, or in fact all languages in this second or agglutinative stage, though protected against phonetic corruption more than the Aryan and Semitic languages, are so much exposed to the changes produced by dialectical regeneration. A Turanian retains, as it were, the consciousness of his language and grammar. The idea, for instance, which he connects with a plural is that of a noun followed by a syllable indicative of plurality; a passive with him is a verb followed by a syllable expressive of suffering, or eating, or going.(304) Now these determinative ideas may be expressed in various ways, and though in one and the same clan, and during one period of time, a certain number of terminations would become stationary, and be assigned to the expression of certain grammatical categories, such as the plural, the passive, the genitive, different hordes, as they separated, would still feel themselves at liberty to repeat the process of grammatical composition, and defy the comparative grammarian to prove the identity of the terminations, even in dialects so closely allied as Finnish and Hungarian, or Tamil and Telugu.

It must not be supposed, however, that Turanian or agglutinative languages are forever passing through this process of grammatical regeneration. Where nomadic tribes approach to a political organization, their language, though Turanian, may approach to the system of political or traditional languages, such as Sanskrit or Hebrew. This is indeed the case with the most advanced members of the Turanian family, the Hungarian, the Finnish, the Tamil, Telugu, &c. Many of their grammatical terminations have suffered by phonetic corruption, but they have not been replaced by new and more expressive words. The termination of the plural is _lu_ in Telugu, and this is probably a mere corruption of _gaḷ._, the termination of the plural in Tamil. The only characteristic Turanian feature which always remains is this: the root is never obscured. Besides this, the determining or modifying syllables are generally placed at the end, and the vowels do not become so absolutely fixed for each syllable as in Sanskrit or Hebrew. On the contrary, there is what is called the Law of Harmony, according to which the vowels of each word may be changed and modulated so as to harmonize with the key-note struck by its chief vowel. The vowels in Turkish, for instance, are divided into two classes, _sharp_ and _flat_. If a verb contains a sharp vowel in its radical portion, the vowels of the terminations are all sharp, while the same terminations, if following a root with a flat vowel, modulate their own vowels into the flat key. Thus we have _sev-mek_, to love, but _bak-mak_, to regard, _mek_ or _mak_ being the termination of the infinitive. Thus we say, _ev-ler_, the houses, but _at-lar_, the horses, _ler_ or _lar_ being the termination of the plural.

No Aryan or Semitic language has preserved a similar freedom in the harmonic arrangement of its vowels, while traces of it have been found among the most distant members of the Turanian family, as in Hungarian, Mongolian, Turkish, the Yakut, spoken in the north of Siberia, and in dialects spoken on the eastern frontiers of India.

For completeness’ sake I add a short account of the Turanian family, chiefly taken from my Survey of Languages, published 1855:—

_Tungusic Class._

The _Tungusic_ branch extends from China northward to Siberia and westward to 113°, where the river Tunguska partly marks its frontier. The Tungusic tribes in Siberia are under Russian sway. Other Tungusic tribes belong to the Chinese empire, and are known by the name of Mandshu, a name taken after they had conquered China in 1644, and founded the present imperial dynasty.

_Mongolic Class._

The original seats of the people who speak Mongolic dialects lie near the Lake Baikal and in the eastern parts of Siberia, where we find them as early as the ninth century after Christ. They were divided into three classes, the _Mongols_ proper, the _Buriäts_, and the _Ölöts_ or _Kalmüks_. Chingis-khán (1227) united them into a nation and founded the Mongolian empire, which included, however, not only Mongolic, but Tungusic and Turkic, commonly called Tataric, tribes.

The name of Tatar soon became the terror of Asia and Europe, and it was applied promiscuously to all the nomadic warriors whom Asia then poured forth over Europe. Originally Tatar was a name of the Mongolic races, but through their political ascendency in Asia after Chingis-khán, it became usual to call all the tribes which were under Mongolian sway by the name of Tatar. In linguistic works Tataric is now used in two several senses. Following the example of writers of the Middle Ages, Tataric, like Scythian in Greek, has been fixed upon as the general term comprising _all_ languages spoken by the nomadic tribes of Asia. Hence it is used sometimes in the same sense in which we use Turanian. Secondly, Tataric has become the name of that class of Turanian languages of which the Turkish is the most prominent member. While the Mongolic class—that which in fact has the greatest claims to the name of Tataric—is never so called, it has become an almost universal custom to apply this name to the third or Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic division; and the races belonging to this branch have in many instances themselves adopted the name. These Turkish, or as they are more commonly called, Tataric races, were settled on the northern side of the Caspian Sea, and on the Black Sea, and were known as Komanes, Pechenegs, and Bulgars, when conquered by the Mongolic army of the son of Chingis-khán, who founded the Kapchakian empire, extending from the Dniestr to the Yemba and the Kirgisian steppes. Russia for two centuries was under the sway of these Kháns, known as the Khans of the Golden Horde. This empire was dissolved towards the end of the fifteenth century, and several smaller kingdoms rose out of its ruins. Among these Krim, Kasan, and Astrachan, were the most important. The princes of these kingdoms still gloried in their descent from Chingis-khán, and had hence a right to the name of Mongols or Tatars. But their armies and subjects also, who were of Turkish blood, received the name of their princes; and their languages continued to be called Tataric, even after the tribes by whom they were spoken had been brought under the Russian sceptre, and were no longer governed by khans of Mongolic or Tataric origin. It would perhaps be desirable to use Turkic instead of Tataric, when speaking of the third branch of the northern division of the Turanian family, did not a change of terminology generally produce as much confusion as it remedies. The recollection of their non-Tataric, _i.e._ non-Mongolic origin, remains, it appears, among the so-called Tatars of Kasan and Astrachan. If asked whether they are Tatars, they reply no; and they call their language Turki or Turuk, but not Tatari. Nay, they consider Tatar as a term of abuse, synonymous with robber, evidently from a recollection that their ancestors had once been conquered and enslaved by Mongolic, that is, Tataric, tribes. All this rests on the authority of Klaproth, who during his stay in Russia had great opportunities of studying the languages spoken on the frontiers of this half-Asiatic empire.

The conquests of the Mongols or the descendants of Chingis-khán were not confined, however, to these Turkish tribes. They conquered China in the east, where they founded the Mongolic dynasty of Yuan, and in the west, after subduing the khalifs of Bagdad, and the Sultans of Iconium, they conquered Moscow, and devastated the greater part of Russia. In 1240 they invaded Poland, in 1241 Silesia. Here they recoiled before the united armies of Germany, Poland, and Silesia. They retired into Moravia, and having exhausted that country, occupied Hungary. At that time they had to choose a new khan, which could only be done at Karakorum, the old capital of their empire. Thither they withdrew to elect an emperor to govern an empire which then extended from China to Poland, from India to Siberia. But a realm of such vast proportions could not be long held together, and towards the end of the thirteenth century it broke up into several independent states, all under Mongolian princes, but no longer under one khan of khans. Thus new independent Mongolic empires arose in China, Turkestan, Siberia, Southern Russia, and Persia. In 1360, the Mongolian dynasty was driven out of China; in the fifteenth century they lost their hold on Russia. In Central Asia they rallied once more under Timur (1369), whose sway was again acknowledged from Karakorum to Persia and Anatolia. But in 1468, this empire also fell by its own weight, and for want of powerful rulers like Chingis-khán or Timur. In Jagatai alone, the country extending from the Aral Lake to the Hindu-kush, between the rivers Oxus and Yaxartes (Jihon and Sihon), and once governed by Jagatai, the son of Chingis-khán—the Mongolian dynasty maintained itself, and thence it was that Baber, a descendant of Timur, conquered India, and founded there a Mongolian dynasty, surviving up to our own times in the Great Moguls of Delhi. Most Mongolic tribes are now under the sway of the nations whom they once had conquered, the Tungusic sovereigns of China, the Russian czars, and the Turkish sultans.

The Mongolic language, although spoken (but not continuously) from China as far as the Volga, has given rise to but few dialects. Next to Tungusic, the Mongolic is the poorest language of the Turanian family, and the scantiness of grammatical terminations accounts for the fact that, as a language, it has remained very much unchanged. There is, however, a distinction between the language as spoken by the Eastern, Western, and Northern tribes, and incipient traces of grammatical life have lately been discovered by Castrén, the great Swedish traveller and Turanian philologist, in the spoken dialect of the Buriäts. In it the persons of the verb are distinguished by affixes, while, according to the rules of Mongolic grammar, no other dialect distinguishes in the verb between am_o_, am_as_, am_at_.

The Mongols who live in Europe have fixed their tents on each side of the Volga and along the coast of the Caspian Sea near Astrachan. Another colony is found south-east of Sembirsk. They belong to the Western branch, and are Ölöts or Kalmüks, who left their seats on the Koko-nur, and entered Europe in 1662. They proceeded from the clans Dürbet and Torgod, but most of the Torgods returned again in 1770, and their descendants are now scattered over the Kirgisian steppes.

_Turkic Class_.

Much more important are the languages belonging to the third branch of the Turanian family, most prominent among which is the Turkish or Osmanli of Constantinople. The number of the Turkish inhabitants of European Turkey is indeed small. It is generally stated at 2,000,000; but Shafarik estimates the number of genuine Turks at not more than 700,000, who rule over fifteen millions of people. The different Turkic dialects of which the Osmanli is one, occupy one of the largest linguistic areas, extending from the Lena and the Polar Sea, down to the Adriatic.

The most ancient name by which the Turkic tribes of Central Asia were known to the Chinese was Hiung-nu. These Hiung-nu founded an empire (206 B. C.) comprising a large portion of Asia, west of China. Engaged in frequent wars with the Chinese, they were defeated at last in the middle of the first century after Christ. Thereupon they divided into a northern and southern empire; and, after the southern Hiung-nu had become subjects of China, they attacked the northern Hiung-nu, together with the Chinese, and, driving them out of their seats between the rivers Amur and Selenga, and the Altai mountains, westward, they are supposed to have given the first impulse to the inroads of the barbarians into Europe. In the beginning of the third century, the Mongolic and Tungusic tribes, who had filled the seats of the northern Hiung-nu, had grown so powerful as to attack the southern Hiung-nu and drive them from their territories. This occasioned a second migration of Asiatic tribes towards the west.

Another name by which the Chinese designate these Hiung-nu or Turkish tribes is Tu-kiu. This Tu-kiu is supposed to be identical with Turk, and, although the tribe to which this name was given was originally but small, it began to spread in the sixth century from the Altai to the Caspian, and it was probably to them that in 569 the Emperor Justinian sent an ambassador in the person of Semarchos. The empire of the Tu-kiu was destroyed in the eighth century, by the ’Hui-’he (Chinese Kao-che). This tribe, equally of Turkish origin, maintained itself for about a century, and was then conquered by the Chinese and driven back from the northern borders of China. Part of the ’Hui-’he occupied Tangut, and, after a second defeat by the Mongolians in 1257, the remnant proceeded still further west, and joined the Uigurs, whose tents were pitched near the towns of Turfan, ’Kashgar, ’Hamil, and Aksu.

These facts, gleaned chiefly from Chinese historians, show from the very earliest times the westward tendency of the Turkish nations. In 568 Turkish tribes occupied the country between the Volga and the sea of Azov, and numerous reinforcements have since strengthened their position in those parts.

The northern part of Persia, west of the Caspian Sea, Armenia, the south of Georgia, Shirwan, and Dagestan, harbor a Turkic population, known by the general name of Turkman or Kisil-bash (Red-caps). They are nomadic robbers, and their arrival in these countries dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

East of the Caspian Sea the Turkman tribes are under command of the Usbek-Khans of Khiva, Fergana, and Bukhára. They call themselves, however, not subjects but guests of these Khans. Still more to the east the Turkmans are under Chinese sovereignty, and in the south-west they reach as far as Khorasan and other provinces of Persia.

The Usbeks, descendants of the ’Huy-’he and Uigurs, and originally settled in the neighborhood of the towns of ’Hoten, Kashgar, Turfan, and ’Hamil, crossed the Yaxartes in the sixteenth century, and after several successful campaigns gained possession of Balkh, Kharism (Khiva), Bukhára, and Ferganah. In the latter country and in Balkh they have become agricultural; but generally their life is nomadic, and too warlike to be called pastoral.

Another Turkish tribe are the Nogái, west of the Caspian, and also north of the Black Sea. To the beginning of the seventeenth century they lived north-east of the Caspian, and the steppes on the left of the Irtish bore their name. Pressed by the Kalmüks, a Mongolic tribe, the Nogáis advanced westward as far as Astrachan. Peter I. transferred them thence to the north of the Caucasian mountains, where they still graze their flocks on the shores of the Kuban and the Kuma. One horde, that of Kundur, remained on the Volga, subject to the Kalmüks.

Another tribe of Turkish origin in the Caucasus are the Bazianes. They now live near the sources of the Kuban, but before the fifteenth century within the town Majari, on the Kuma.

A third Turkish tribe in the Caucasus are the Kumüks on the rivers Sunja, Aksai, and Koisu: now subjects of Russia, though under native princes.

The southern portion of the Altaic mountains has long been inhabited by the Bashkirs, a race considerably mixed with Mongolic blood, savage and ignorant, subjects of Russia, and Mohammedans by faith. Their land is divided into four Roads, called the Roads of Siberia, of Kasan, of Nogai, and of Osa, a place on the Kama. Among the Bashkirs, and in villages near Ufa, is now settled a Turkish tribe, the Mescheräks who formerly lived near the Volga.

The tribes near the Lake of Aral are called Kara-Kalpak. They are subject partly to Russia, partly to the Khans of Khiva.

The Turks of Siberia, commonly called Tatars, are partly original settlers, who crossed the Ural, and founded the Khanat of Sibir, partly later colonists. Their chief towns are Tobolsk, Yeniseisk, and Tomsk. Separate tribes are the Uran’hat on the Chulym, and the Barabas in the steppes between the Irtish and the Ob.

The dialects of these Siberian Turks are considerably intermingled with foreign words, taken from Mongolic, Samoyedic, or Russian sources. Still they resemble one another closely in all that belongs to the original stock of the language.

In the north-east of Asia, on both sides of the river Lena, the _Yakuts_ form the most remote link in the Turkic chain of languages. Their male population has lately risen to 100,000, while in 1795 it amounted only to 50,066. The Russians became first acquainted with them in 1620. They call themselves Sakha, and are mostly heathen, though Christianity is gaining ground among them. According to their traditions, their ancestors lived for a long time in company with Mongolic tribes, and traces of this can still be discovered in their language. Attacked by their neighbors, they built rafts and floated down the river Lena, where they settled in the neighborhood of what is now Yakutzk. Their original seats seem to have been north-west of Lake Baikal. Their language has preserved the Turkic type more completely than any other Turco-Tataric dialect. Separated from the common stock at an early time, and removed from the disturbing influences to which the other dialects were exposed, whether in war or in peace, the Yakutian has preserved so many primitive features of Tataric grammar, that even now it may be used as a key to the grammatical forms of the Osmanli and other more cultivated Turkic dialects.

Southern Siberia is the mother country of the Kirgis, one of the most numerous tribes of Turco-Tataric origin. The Kirgis lived originally between the Ob and Yenisei, where Mongolic tribes settled among them. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Russians became acquainted with the Eastern Kirgis, then living along the Yenisei. In 1606 they had become tributary to Russia, and after several wars with two neighboring tribes, they were driven more and more south-westward, till they left Siberia altogether at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They now live at Burut, in Chinese Turkestan, together with the Kirgis of the “Great Horde,” near the town of Kashgar, north as far as the Irtish.

Another tribe is that of the Western Kirgis, or Kirgis-Kasak, who are partly independent, partly tributary to Russia and China.

Of what are called the three Kirgis Hordes, from the Caspian Sea east as far as Lake Tenghiz, the Small Horde is fixed in the west, between the rivers Yemba and Ural; the Great Horde in the east; while the most powerful occupies the centre between the Sarasu and Yemba, and is called the Middle Horde. Since 1819, the Great Horde has been subject to Russia. Other Kirgis tribes, though nominally subject to Russia, are really her most dangerous enemies.

The Turks of Asia Minor and Syria came from Khorasan and Eastern Persia, and are Turkmans, or remnants of the Seljuks, the rulers of Persia during the Middle Ages. The Osmanli, whom we are accustomed to call Turks _par excellence_, and who form the ruling portion of the Turkish empire, must be traced to the same source. They are now scattered over the whole Turkish empire in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and their number amounts to between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000. They form the landed gentry, the aristocracy, and bureaucracy of Turkey; and their language, the Osmanli, is spoken by persons of rank and education, and by all government authorities in Syria, in Egypt, at Tunis, and at Tripoli. In the southern provinces of Asiatic Russia, along the borders of the Caspian, and through the whole of Turkestan, it is the language of the people. It is heard even at the court of Teheran, and is understood by official personages in Persia.

The rise of this powerful tribe of Osman, and the spreading of that Turkish dialect which is now emphatically called the Turkish, are matters of historical notoriety. We need not search for evidence in Chinese annals, or try to discover analogies between names that a Greek or an Arabic writer may by chance have heard and handed down to us, and which some of these tribes have preserved to the present day. The ancestors of the Osman Turks are men as well known to European historians as Charlemagne or Alfred. It was in the year 1224 that Soliman-shah and his tribe, pressed by Mongolians, left Khorasan and pushed westward into Syria, Armenia, and Asia Minor. Soliman’s son, Ertoghrul, took service under Aladdin, the Seljuk Sultan of Iconium (Nicæa), and after several successful campaigns against Greeks and Mongolians, received part of Phrygia as his own, and there founded what was afterwards to become the basis of the Osmanic empire. During the last years of the thirteenth century the Sultans of Iconium lost their power, and their former vassals became independent sovereigns. Osman, after taking his share of the spoil in Asia, advanced through the Olympic passes into Bithynia and was successful against the armies of the Emperors of Byzantium. Osman became henceforth the national name of his people. His son, Orkhan, whose capital was Prusa (Bursa), after conquering Nicomedia (1327) and Nicæa (1330), threatened the Hellespont. He took the title of Padishah, and his court was called the “High Porte.” His son, Soliman, crossed the Hellespont (1357), and took possession of Gallipoli and Sestos. He thus became master of the Dardanelles. Murad I. took Adrianople (1362), made it his capital, conquered Macedonia, and, after a severe struggle, overthrew the united forces of the Slavonic races south of the Danube, the Bulgarians, Servians, and Kroatians, in the battle of Kossova-polye (1389). He fell himself, but his successor Bayazeth, followed his course, took Thessaly, passed Thermopylæ, and devastated the Peloponnesus. The Emperor of Germany, Sigismund, who advanced at the head of an army composed of French, German, and Slavonic soldiers, was defeated by Bayazeth on the Danube in the battle of Nicopolis, 1399. Bayazeth took Bosnia, and would have taken Constantinople, had not the same Mongolians, who in 1244 drove the first Turkish tribes westward into Persia, threatened again their newly acquired possessions. Timur had grasped the reins fallen from the hands of Chingis-khán: Bayazeth was compelled to meet him, and suffered defeat (1402) in the battle of Angora (Ankyra) in Galatia.

Europe now had respite, but not long; Timur died, and with him his empire fell to pieces, while the Osmanic army rallied again under Mahomet I. (1413), and re-attained its former power under Murad II. (1421). Successful in Asia, Murad sent his armies back to the Danube, and after long-continued campaigns, and powerful resistance from the Hungarians and Slaves under Hunyad, he at last gained two decisive victories; Varna in 1444, and Kossova in 1448. Constantinople could no longer be held, and the Pope endeavored in vain to rouse the chivalry of Western Europe to a crusade against the Turks. Mahomet II. succeeded in 1451, and on the 26th of May, 1453, Constantinople, after a valiant resistance, fell, and became the capital of the Turkish empire.

It is a real pleasure to read a Turkish grammar, even though one may have no wish to acquire it practically. The ingenious manner in which the numerous grammatical forms are brought out, the regularity which pervades the system of declension and conjugation, the transparency and intelligibility of the whole structure, must strike all who have a sense of that wonderful power of the human mind which has displayed itself in language. Given so small a number of graphic and demonstrative roots as would hardly suffice to express the commonest wants of human beings, to produce an instrument that shall render the faintest shades of feeling and thought;—given a vague infinitive or a stern imperative, to derive from it such moods as an optative or subjunctive, and tenses as an aorist or paulo-post future;—given incoherent utterances, to arrange them into a system where all is uniform and regular, all combined and harmonious;—such is the work of the human mind which we see realized in “language.” But in most languages nothing of this early process remains visible. They stand before us like solid rocks, and the microscope of the philologist alone can reveal the remains of organic life with which they are built up.

In the grammar of the Turkic languages, on the contrary, we have before us a language of perfectly transparent structure, and a grammar the inner workings of which we can study, as if watching the building of cells in a crystal bee-hive. An eminent orientalist remarked “we might imagine Turkish to be the result of the deliberations of some eminent society of learned men;” but no such society could have devised what the mind of man produced, left to itself in the steppes of Tatary, and guided only by its innate laws, or by an instinctive power as wonderful as any within the realm of nature.

Let us examine a few forms. “To love,” in the most general sense of the word, or love, as a root, is in Turkish _sev_. This does not yet mean “to love,” which is _sevmek_, or “love” as a substantive, which is _sevgu_ or _sevi_; but it only expresses the general idea of loving in the abstract. This root, as we remarked before, can never be touched. Whatever syllables may be added for the modification of its meaning, the root itself must stand out in full prominence like a pearl set in diamonds. It must never be changed or broken, assimilated or modified, as in the English I fall, I fell, I take, I took, I think, I thought, and similar forms. With this one restriction, however, we are free to treat it at pleasure.

Let us suppose we possessed nothing like our conjugation, but had to express such ideas as I love, thou lovest, and the rest, for the first time. Nothing would seem more natural now than to form an adjective or a participle, meaning “loving,” and then add the different pronouns, as I loving, thou loving, &c. Exactly this the Turks have done. We need not inquire at present how they produced what we call a participle. It was a task, however, by no means so facile as we now conceive it. In Turkish, one participle is formed by _er_. _Sev_+_er_ would, therefore, mean lov+er or lov+ing. Thou, in Turkish, is _sen_, and as all modificatory syllables are placed at the end of the root, we get _sev-er-sen_, thou lovest. You in Turkish is _siz_; hence _sev-er-siz_, you love. In these cases the pronouns and the terminations of the verb coincide exactly. In other persons the coincidences are less complete, because the pronominal terminations have sometimes been modified, or, as in the third person singular, _sever_, dropped altogether as unnecessary. A reference to other cognate languages, however, where either the terminations or the pronouns themselves have maintained a more primitive form, enables us to say that in the original Turkish verb, all persons of the present were formed by means of pronouns appended to this participle _sever_. Instead of “I love, thou lovest, he loves,” the Turkish grammarian says, “lover-I, lover-thou, lover.”

But these personal terminations are not the same in the imperfect as in the present.

PRESENT. IMPERFECT. Sever-im, I love, sever-di-m, I loved. Sever-sen, sever-di-ñ. Sever, sever-di. Sever-iz, sever-di-k (miz). Sever-siz, sever-di-ñiz. Sever-ler, sever-di-ler.

We need not inquire as yet into the origin of the _di_, added to form the imperfect; but it should be stated that in the first person plural of the imperfect a various reading occurs in other Tataric dialects, and that _miz_ is used there instead of _k_. Now, looking at these terminations _m_, _ñ_, _i_, _miz_, _ñiz_, and _ler_, we find that they are exactly the same as the possessive pronouns used after nouns. As the Italian says _fratelmo_, my brother, and as in Hebrew we say, _El-i_, God (of) I, _i.e._ my God, the Tataric languages form the phrases “my house, thy house, his house,” by possessive pronouns appended to substantives. A Turk says,—

Bâbâ, father, bâbâ-m, my father. Aghâ, lord, aghâ-ñ, thy lord. El, hand, el-i, his hand. Oghlu, son, oghlu-muz, our son. Anâ, mother, anâ-ñiz, your mother. Kitâb, book, kitâb-leri, their book.

We may hence infer that in the imperfect these pronominal terminations were originally taken in a possessive sense, and that, therefore, what remains after the personal terminations are removed, _sever-di_, was never an adjective or a participle, but must have been originally a substantive capable of receiving terminal possessive pronouns; that is, the idea originally expressed by the imperfect could not have been “loving-I,” but “love of me.”

How then, could this convey the idea of a past tense as contrasted with the present? Let us look to our own language. If desirous to express the perfect, we say, I have loved, _j’ai aimé_. This “I have,” meant originally, I possess, and in Latin “amicus quem amatum habeo,” signified in fact a friend whom I hold dear,—not as yet, whom I _have_ loved. In the course of time, however, these phrases, “I have said, I have loved,” took the sense of the perfect, and of time past—and not unnaturally, inasmuch as what I _hold_, or _have_ done, _is_ done;—done, as we say, and past. In place of an auxiliary possessive verb, the Turkish language uses an auxiliary possessive pronoun to the same effect. “Paying belonging to me,” equals “I have paid;” in either case a phrase originally possessive, took a temporal signification, and became a past or perfect tense. This, however, is the very anatomy of grammar, and when a Turk says “severdim” he is, of course, as unconscious of its literal force, “loving belonging to me,” as of the circulation of his blood.

The most ingenious part of Turkish is undoubtedly the verb. Like Greek and Sanskrit, it exhibits a variety of moods and tenses, sufficient to express the nicest shades of doubt, of surmise, of hope, and supposition. In all these forms the root remains intact, and sounds like a key-note through all the various modulations produced by the changes of person, number, mood, and time. But there is one feature so peculiar to the Turkish verb, that no analogy can be found in any of the Aryan languages—the power of producing new verbal bases by the mere addition of certain letters, which give to every verb a negative, or causative, or reflexive, or reciprocal meaning.

_Sev-mek_, for instance, as a simple root, means to love. By adding _in_, we obtain a reflexive verb, _sev-in-mek_, which means to love oneself, or rather, to rejoice, to be happy. This may now be conjugated through all moods and tenses, _sevin_ being in every respect equal to a new root. By adding _ish_ we form a reciprocal verb, _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another.

To each of these three forms a causative sense may be imparted by the addition of the syllable _dir_. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause to
love.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to
cause to rejoice.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes VI.
_sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause one to love one another.

Each of these six forms may again be turned into a passive by the addition of _il_. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes VII. _sev-il-mek_, to be loved.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes VIII. _sev-in-il-mek_, to be
rejoiced at.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes IX.
_sev-ish-il-mek_, not translatable.

IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause one to love, becomes X.
_sev-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love.

V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to cause to rejoice, becomes XI.
_sev-in-dir-il-mek_, to be made to rejoice.

VI. _sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause them to love one another, becomes
XII. _sev-ish-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love one another.

This, however, is by no means the whole verbal contingent at the command of a Turkish grammarian. Every one of these twelve secondary or tertiary roots may again be turned into a negative by the mere addition of _me_. Thus, _sev-mek_, to love, becomes _sev-me-mek_, not to love. And if it is necessary to express the impossibility of loving, the Turk has a new root at hand to convey even that idea. Thus while _sev-me-mek_ denies only the fact of loving, _sev-eme-mek_, denies its possibility, and means not to be able to love. By the addition of these two modificatory syllables, the numbers of derivative roots is at once raised to thirty-six. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes XIII. _sev-me-mek_, not to love.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes XIV. _sev-in-me-mek_, not to
rejoice.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes XV.
_sev-ish-me-mek_, not to love one another.

IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause to love, becomes XVI.
_sev-dir-me-mek_, not to cause one to love.

V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to cause to rejoice, becomes XVII.
_sev-in-dir-me-mek_, not to cause one to rejoice.

VI. _sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause them to love one another, becomes
XVIII. _sev-ish-dir-me-mek_, not to cause them to love one
another.

VII. _sev-il-mek_, to be loved, becomes XIX. _sev-il-me-mek_, not
to be loved.

VIII. _sev-in-il-mek_, to be rejoiced at, becomes XX.
_sev-in-il-me-mek_, not to be the object of rejoicing.

IX. _sev-ish-il-mek_, if it was used, would become XXI.
_sev-ish-il-me-mek_; neither form being translatable.

X. _sev-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love, becomes XXII.
_sev-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be brought to love.

XI. _sev-in-dir-il-mek_, to be made to rejoice, becomes XXIII.
_sev-in-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be made to rejoice.

XII. _sev-ish-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love one another,
becomes XXIV. _sev-ish-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be brought to love
one another.

Some of these forms are of course of rare occurrence, and with many verbs these derivative roots, though possible grammatically, would be logically impossible. Even a verb like “to love,” perhaps the most pliant of all, resists some of the modifications to which a Turkish grammarian is fain to subject it. It is clear, however, that wherever a negation can be formed, the idea of impossibility also can be superadded, so that by substituting _eme_ for _me_, we should raise the number of derivative roots to thirty-six. The very last of these, XXXVI. _sev-ish-dir-il-eme-mek_ would be perfectly intelligible, and might be used, for instance, if, in speaking of the Sultan and the Czar, we wished to say, that it was impossible that they should be brought to love one another.

_Finnic Class._

It is generally supposed that the original seat of the Finnic tribes was in the Ural mountains, and their languages have been therefore called _Uralic_. From this centre they spread east and west; and southward in ancient times, even to the Black Sea, where Finnic tribes, together with Mongolic and Turkic, were probably known to the Greeks under the comprehensive and convenient name of Scythians. As we possess no literary documents of any of these nomadic nations, it is impossible to say, even where Greek writers have preserved their barbarous names, to what branch of the vast Turanian family they belonged. Their habits were probably identical before the Christian era, during the Middle Ages, and at the present day. One tribe takes possession of a tract and retains it perhaps for several generations, and gives its name to the meadows where it tends its flocks, and to the rivers where the horses are watered. If the country be fertile, it will attract the eye of other tribes; wars begin, and if resistance be hopeless, hundreds of families fly from their paternal pastures, to migrate perhaps for generations,—for migration they find a more natural life than permanent habitation,—and after a time we may rediscover their names a thousand miles distant. Or two tribes will carry on their warfare for ages, till with reduced numbers both have perhaps to make common cause against some new enemy.

During these continued struggles their languages lose as many words as men are killed on the field of battle. Some words (we might say) go over, others are made prisoners, and exchanged again during times of peace. Besides, there are parleys and challenges, and at last a dialect is produced which may very properly be called a language of the camp, (Urdu-zebán, camp-language, is the proper name of Hindustání, formed in the armies of the Mogul emperors,) but where it is difficult for the philologist to arrange the living and to number the slain, unless some salient points of grammar have been preserved throughout the medley. We saw how a number of tribes may be at times suddenly gathered by the command of a Chingis-khán or Timur, like billows heaving and swelling at the call of a thunder-storm. One such wave rolling on from Karakorum to Liegnitz may sweep away all the sheepfolds and landmarks of centuries, and when the storm is over, a thin crust will, as after a flood, remain, concealing the underlying stratum of people and languages.

On the evidence of language, the Finnic stock is divided into four branches,

The Chudic, The Bulgaric, The Permic, The Ugric.

The Chudic branch comprises the Finnic of the Baltic coasts. The name is derived from Chud (Tchud) originally applied by the Russians to the Finnic nations in the north-west of Russia. Afterwards it took a more general sense, and was used almost synonymously with Scythian for all the tribes of Central and Northern Asia. The Finns, properly so called, or as they call themselves Suomalainen, _i.e._ inhabitants of fens, are settled in the provinces of Finland (formerly belonging to Sweden, but since 1809 annexed to Russia), and in parts of the governments of Archangel and Olonetz. Their number is stated at 1,521,515. The Finns are the most advanced of their whole family, and are, the Magyars excepted, the only Finnic race that can claim a station among the civilized and civilizing nations of the world. Their literature and, above all, their popular poetry bear witness to a high intellectual development in times which we may call mythical, and in places more favorable to the glow of poetical feelings than their present abode, the last refuge Europe could afford them. The epic songs still live among the poorest, recorded by oral tradition alone, and preserving all the features of a perfect metre and of a more ancient language. A national feeling has lately arisen amongst the Finns, despite of Russian supremacy, and the labors of Sjögern, Lönnrot, Castrén, and Kellgren, receiving hence a powerful impulse, have produced results truly surprising. From the mouths of the aged an epic poem has been collected equalling the Iliad in length and completeness, nay, if we can forget for a moment all that _we_ in our youth learned to call beautiful, not less beautiful. A Finn is not a Greek, and Wainamoinen was not a Homer. But if the poet may take his colors from that nature by which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives, “Kalewala” possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Iliad, and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side by side with the Ionian songs, with the Mahábhárata, the Shahnámeh, and the Nibelunge. This early literary cultivation has not been without a powerful influence on the language. It has imparted permanency to its forms and a traditional character to its words, so that at first sight we might almost doubt whether the grammar of this language had not left the agglutinative stage, and entered into the current of inflection with Greek or Sanskrit. The agglutinative type, however, yet remains, and its grammar shows a luxuriance of grammatical combination second only to Turkish and Hungarian. Like Turkish it observes the “harmony of vowels,” a feature peculiar to Turanian languages, as explained before.

Karelian and Tavastian are dialectical varieties of Finnish.

The Esths or Esthonians, neighbors to the Finns, speak a language closely allied to the Finnish. It is divided into the dialects of Dorpat (in Livonia) and Reval. Except some popular songs it is almost without literature. Esthonia, together with Livonia and Kurland, forms the three Baltic provinces of Russia. The population on the islands of the Gulf of Finland is mostly Esthonian. In the higher ranks of society Esthonian is hardly understood, and never spoken.

Besides the Finns and Esthonians, the Livonians and the Lapps must be reckoned also amongst the same family. Their number, however, is small. The population of Livonia consists chiefly of Esths, Letts, Russians, and Germans. The number of Livonians speaking their own dialect is not more than 5000.

The Lapps, or Laplanders, inhabit the most northern part of Europe. They belong to Sweden and Russia. Their number is estimated at 28,000. Their language has lately attracted much attention, and Castrén’s travels give a description of their manners most interesting from its simplicity and faithfulness.

The Bulgaria branch comprises the Tcheremissians and Mordvinians, scattered in disconnected colonies along the Volga, and surrounded by Russian and Tataric dialects. Both languages are extremely artificial in their grammar, and allow an accumulation of pronominal affixes at the end of verbs, surpassed only by the Bask, the Caucasian, and those American dialects that have been called Polysynthetic.

The general name given to these tribes, Bulgaric, is not borrowed from Bulgaria, on the Danube; Bulgaria, on the contrary, received its name (replacing Moesia) from the Finnic armies by whom it was conquered in the seventh century. Bulgarian tribes advanced from the Volga to the Don, and after remaining for a time under the sovereignty of the Avars on the Don and Dnieper, they advanced to the Danube in 635, and founded the Bulgarian kingdom. This has retained its name to the present day, though the Finnic Bulgarians have long been absorbed by Slavonic inhabitants, and both brought under Turkish sway since 1392.

The third, or Permic branch, comprises the idioms of the Votiakes, the Sirianes, and the Permians, three dialects of one language. _Perm_ was the ancient name for the country between 61°-76° E. lon. and 55°-65° N. lat. The Permic tribes were driven westward by their eastern neighbors, the Voguls, and thus pressed upon their western neighbors, the Bulgars of the Volga. The Votiakes are found between the rivers Vyatka and Kama. Northwards follow the Sirianes, inhabiting the country on the Upper Kâma, while the eastern portion is held by the Permians. These are surrounded on the south by the Tatars of Orenburg and the Bashkirs; on the north by the Samoyedes, and on the east by Voguls, who pressed on them from the Ural.

These Voguls, together with Hungarians and Ostiakes, form the fourth and last branch of the Finnic family, the Ugric. It was in 462, after the dismemberment of Attila’s Hunnic empire that these Ugric tribes approached Europe. They were then called Onagurs, Saragurs, and Urogs; and in later times they occur in Russian chronicles as Ugry. They are the ancestors of the Hungarians, and should not be confounded with the Uigurs, an ancient Turkic tribe mentioned before.

The similarity between the Hungarian language and dialects of Finnic origin, spoken east of the Volga, is not a new discovery. In 1253, Wilhelm Ruysbroeck, a priest who travelled beyond the Volga, remarked that a race called Pascatir, who live on the Yaïk, spoke the same language as the Hungarians. They were then settled east of the old Bulgarian kingdom, the capital of which, the ancient Bolgari, on the left of the Volga, may still be traced in the ruins of Spask. If these Pascatir—the portion of the Ugric tribes that remained east of the Volga—are identical with the Bashkir, as Klaproth supposes, it would follow that, in later times, they gave up their language, for the present Bashkir no longer speak a Hungarian, but a Turkic, dialect. The affinity of the Hungarian and the Ugro-Finnic dialects was first proved philologically by Gyarmathi in 1799.

A few instances may suffice to show this connection:—

Hungarian. Tcheremissian. English. Atya-m atya-m my father. Atya-d atya-t thy father. Atya atya-se his father. Atya-nk atya-ne our father. Atya-tok atya-da your father. Aty-ok atya-st their father.

DECLENSION.

Hungarian. Esthonian. English. Nom. vér werri blood. Gen. véré werre of blood. Dat vérnek werrele to blood. Acc. vért werd blood. Abl. vérestöl werrist from blood.

CONJUGATION.

Hungarian. Esthonian. English. Lelem leian I find. Leled leiad thou findest. Leli leiab he finds. Leljük leiame we find. Lelitek leiate you find. Lelik leiawad they find.

A Comparative Table of the NUMERALS of each of the Four Branches of the FINNIC CLASS, showing the degree of their relationship.

1 2 3 4 Chudic, Finnish yksi kaksi kolme neljä Chudic, Esthonian iits kats kolm nelli Bulgaric, Tcheremissian ik kok kum nil Bulgaric, Mordvinian vaike kavto kolmo nile Permic, Sirianian ötik kyk kujim ujoli Ugric, Ostiakian it kat chudem njeda Ugric, Hungarian egy ket harom negy

5 6 7 Chudic, Finnish viisi kuusi seitsemän Chudic, Esthonian wiis kuas seitse Bulgaric, Tcheremissian vis kut sim Bulgaric, Mordvinian väte kóto sisem Permic, Sirianian vit kvait sizim Ugric, Ostiakian vet chut tabet Ugric, Hungarian öt hat het

8 9 10 Chudic, Finnish kahdeksan yhdeksan kymmenen Chudic, Esthonian kattesa üttesa kümme Bulgaric, Tcheremissian kändäxe endexe lu Bulgaric, Mordvinian kavsko väikse kämen Permic, Sirianian kökjâmys ökmys das Ugric, Ostiakian nida arjong jong Ugric, Hungarian njolcz kilencz tiz

We have thus examined the four chief classes of the Turanian family, the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, and Finnic. The Tungusic branch stands lowest; its grammar is not much richer than Chinese, and in its structure there is an absence of that architectonic order which in Chinese makes the Cyclopean stones of language hold together without cement. This applies, however, principally to the Mandshu; other Tungusic dialects spoken, not in China, but in the original seats of the Mandshus, are even now beginning to develop grammatical forms.