الإنجليزية 1445

The startling discoveries in the Ancient East and the great progress made in the study of the prehistoric civilizations of Europe, and especially of Greece, necessitated a fresh survey of the fascinating question as to the origin and diffusion of those languages to which we, in, common with the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hindus are heirs. Most of the languages of Europe, America and India today belong to one linguistic family generally called the Indo-European. To whatever physical race or races they belonged, they must have possessed a certain spiritual unity. To their linguistic heirs they bequeathed, if not skull type or bodily characteristics, at least something of this more subtle and precious spiritual identity. The first great world religions which addressed their appeal to all men, irrespective of race or nationality were Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, were the works of Aryans, propa-gated in Aryan speech. Philologists to-day recognize eleven groups of languages descended from the Aryan root.