DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0021
INTRODUCTION xix
part of the nineteenth century, was waged ever strenuously
and not infrequently with much brilliance; occasionally,
however, it was not awanting in the undesirable elements
of personal feeling and national antipathy. But, happily,
we appear to have reached a time when this fascinating
and important problem can be considered dispassionately
in the proper scientific spirit, and without experiencing that
unnecessary dread of having to abandon decided opinions
which may have been formed when the accumulated
data had less variety and bulk than that which is now
available. This change has been brought about by the
extended study of comparative religion and the wonderful
and engaging results which have attended modern-day
methods of ethnic and archasological research.
The Aryan controversy had its origin at the close of
the eighteenth century, when that distinguished Oriental
scholar Sir William Jones, who acted for a period as a
judge of the Supreme Court in Bengal, drew attention to
the remarkable resemblances between the Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin, German, and Celtic languages. In 1808, Schlegel
published his Language and Wisdom of the Hindus, and
urged the theory that India was the home of an ancestral
race and a group of languages that were progenitors of
various European ones. Other scholars subsequently
favoured Zend, the language of Persia, and transferred
the "racial beehive" to that country; rival claims were
afterwards set up for Asia Minor and the Iranian plateau.
The science of Comparative Philology was a direct
product of these early controversies; it was established
in the " thirties " when Bopp published his Comparative
Grammar in which a new term, having a racial significance,
was invented: he grouped all European languages, except
Basque, Magyar, Turkish, andFinnish, as "Indo-Germanic".
After the study of Sanskrit literature revealed, however,
part of the nineteenth century, was waged ever strenuously
and not infrequently with much brilliance; occasionally,
however, it was not awanting in the undesirable elements
of personal feeling and national antipathy. But, happily,
we appear to have reached a time when this fascinating
and important problem can be considered dispassionately
in the proper scientific spirit, and without experiencing that
unnecessary dread of having to abandon decided opinions
which may have been formed when the accumulated
data had less variety and bulk than that which is now
available. This change has been brought about by the
extended study of comparative religion and the wonderful
and engaging results which have attended modern-day
methods of ethnic and archasological research.
The Aryan controversy had its origin at the close of
the eighteenth century, when that distinguished Oriental
scholar Sir William Jones, who acted for a period as a
judge of the Supreme Court in Bengal, drew attention to
the remarkable resemblances between the Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin, German, and Celtic languages. In 1808, Schlegel
published his Language and Wisdom of the Hindus, and
urged the theory that India was the home of an ancestral
race and a group of languages that were progenitors of
various European ones. Other scholars subsequently
favoured Zend, the language of Persia, and transferred
the "racial beehive" to that country; rival claims were
afterwards set up for Asia Minor and the Iranian plateau.
The science of Comparative Philology was a direct
product of these early controversies; it was established
in the " thirties " when Bopp published his Comparative
Grammar in which a new term, having a racial significance,
was invented: he grouped all European languages, except
Basque, Magyar, Turkish, andFinnish, as "Indo-Germanic".
After the study of Sanskrit literature revealed, however,