“ It is the richest, the most flexible, and most exact of all the Semitic tongues, and its grammar the most subtle and perfect, probably, of all known languages. The dialect of the tribe of Koreisch, adopted by Mahomet in the Koran, has been, since the seventh century, the classical language of large parts of Asia and Africa, and has greatly influenced the Turkish, Maltese, Persian, Hindi, and other tongues, owing to the wide range of Arabian conquest. Classical Arabic must be distinguished from Arabic as actually spoken. ”

“ The town of Boston, U.S., now stands on the land of the Massachusett Indians. I find that Natik or Nadick is rather a synonym for Massachusetts than the name of a separate form of speech, whether language or dialect; on the coast, the name changed, and the language also, which is Narraganset. The two forms are closely allied, but Massachusetts means the parts about Boston, Narraganset the language of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The greatest work in any American language is, undoubtedly, the translation of the Bible by Eliot ”

“ Besides the common or so-called cosmopolitan Malay, it is spoken in a peculiar dialect, called the Menangkabau Malay, in the interior of Sumatra.
Malay in a very corrupt form, disfigured by ignorance of the character of the language, and the arbitrary intermixture of foreign words, has become the ordinary means of intercourse between Europeans and the natives of the Indian Archipelago. This is called Low-Malay, and differs in almost every locality.
Malay is written with the Arabic character. Through the contact with Europeans the use of the Roman alphabet is gaining ground. ”

“ The principal Aryan dialects at present are Bengali, Hindi, and Mahratta, all of them lineal descendants of the Devanagari or Sanskrit, which is no longer a spoken language. Hindustani, though mainly Aryan in its vocabulary, and wholly so in its structure, is rather the language of general communication than a distinct dialect. ”

“ Gothic.
An extinct idiom of Teutonic, classed as Low-German. The Goths formed that large body of people who, under the names of “ostro,” i.e. Eastern, and “visi,” i.e. Western Goths, harassed the latter centuries of imperial Rome. The most permanent record of their tongue is found in the “Codex Argenteus,” or “Silver Book,” an imperfect version of the four Gospels, now preserved at Upsala in Sweden; it has frequently been printed, and represents the dialect of the Mœso-Goths, who were settled in ancient Mœsia, S. of the Danube, under the Emperor Valens. ”

“ The influence of the Hindoo colonists on this part of Java has been very limited: hence both the people and their language are less civilised than those of middle Java. The language, though equally belonging to the Malayan family, differs considerably from the Javanese, and seems to be more nearly akin to the Batta and Malay of Sumatra. There is some difference between the high and low language as in Javanese—the former being called Basa-Menak, the latter Basa-Kuring. The number, however, of distinct Menak words is not considerable, and most of them are derived from Javanese. ”

“ The language is spoken chiefly in the highlands of Mount Atlas, towards Algiers, especially in the province of Constantine. There is little doubt that it represents to us the ancient Numidian, and one branch of the Gætulian. Brosselard’s Dictionary, “Français-Berbère,” whatever its value to a traveller, disappoints a philologer; for by far the greater part of it is Arabic in disguise. Hanoteau’s “Grammaire Kabyle,” gives a large mass of pure words: he has selected the Zouave dialect by preference. ”

“ The vernacular tongue of modern Albania, a maritime province of European Turkey, which answers to the ancient Epirus; the inhabitants are a mixed race, including Arnauts, who are probably descended from the ancient Illyrians, Greeks, and Turks. The ancient language, called old Illyrian, and closely allied to Greek, has become mingled with Slavonic, written in Greek characters. The native name of the Albanian dialect is Skipetar. Both terms mean “mountaineers.” The modern language is sub-divided into the Ghegh and the Toski. ”

“ The student from Peru finds Quichua words in every vocabulary he lights upon, whilst the student from Brazil finds Guarani words.
Asian.—Asia and Europe, though different quarters of the globe, form but a single continent, and as such have characteristics of their own. One great class of languages is absolutely common to the two—the great Ugrian or Fin family. We miss, no doubt, in Europe such districts as those of Caucasus, and the parts to the North of the Burmese Empire, where numerous mutually unintelligible languages are pressed together within a small area. ”

“ See Libyan. Baron de Slane first published the pronouns of this language, which differ so much from the other Libyan languages that it must be unintelligible to those who know only the others; yet it is small and unimportant. H. Duveyrier (1857) places the tribes near to the Hhallûla Lake, and says that they have adopted Arab manners, an Arabic name, and an immensity of the Arabic language. He gives an extremely limited vocabulary. He thinks that it and the dialect called that of the Benî Mezâb, is a branch of the Zenatia dialect, and is connected with that spoken in the oasis of Touât. ”

“ This language has become known to us within the last twenty years, through inscriptions disinterred from the buried cities of this region. The form of speech is found to be Semitic, akin to Arabic, Syriac, Chaldee, Phœnician, and especially to Hebrew. It is written, however, unlike most Semitic tongues, from left to right. The characters are very numerous and complicated; they are of the class called “cuneiform” or “arrow-headed,” being formed out of combinations of wedges. The best account of the Assyrian alphabet will be found in the “Expédition Scientifique en Mésapotamie” of M. Oppert. ”

“ American: a dialect of Carib.
Iranic or Iranian.
Class name for the Persian branch of the Aryan family of languages. It includes Bactrian or Zend, ancient Persian, Pehlevi, Pazend, and modern Persian. The word “Iranian” is from “Arya.” See under Aryan.
Ireland, New, under N.
Irish or Erse (Fenic) .
Celtic: the native dialect of Ireland, and closely allied to Gaelic. In writing it an alphabet is still in use, formed from the Latin, and closely resembling the old Anglo-Saxon characters, which were in fact borrowed from it. See Dicty. by O’Reilly, Dublin, 1864 ”

“ American: Quichua, dialect of Lima.
Chinese.
(1.) The most important and purest of all monosyllabic languages, vernacular in the empire of China. It has several sub-dialects, and resembles some idioms of Central Asia. The mode of writing is considered to have originated from drawings of actual objects, somewhat analogous to the hieroglyphics of Egypt, or the picture writing of Mexico. The word “chin,” in Chinese, means “man,” “men,” i.e. the inhabitants of that part of Asia. ”

“ For the philological geography of Africa it will be found useful to divide the continent into the following sections, regions, or areas: (1) The first division as North-Eastern until it approaches the Equator, and the parts between it and the Red Sea—in geography, Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, in philology the Coptic, Beja, Nubian, and (in its geographical sense) the Abyssinian regions. (2) The Barbary States and Canary Islands. (3) The Desert, divided into the Western or Great (the Sahara) , and the Eastern (or Libyan) Desert. (4) Senegambia, or the drainages of the Senegal and Gambia. ”

“ They were a people who in their habits more especially used the sea-coast, banks of lakes, rivers, &c.; the mountaineer is the country Indian, solely engaged in hunting spoils for trade and subsistence. The E. States have still a sprinkling of mongrel races, so intermixed as to leave but a slight trace of the old N. American sons of the forest. The Red Indian of Newfoundland was cannibal in his habits, and the race is utterly extinct. I have not met, on the Labrador, any mixture between the Esquimaux and the mountaineer and Mic-mac tribes, but frequently children of English and Esquimaux. ”

“ American.—The primary division is that between North and South. (1) In North America the connection with Asia is decided. Through the Aleutian dialect of the Eskimo and the Kamtschatkan it is direct; through the Yukahiri and other tongues it is indirect. The Eskimo is a definite class; the Athabascan is also a definite class when compared with the Algonkin. The Chemmesyan, Hailtsa, Wakash, and Chinook are connected. The Jakon and Kallapuiah lead to the languages of the Sahaptin and Shoshoni class, among the congeners of which the sound of “tl” appears. In the Mexican it becomes prominent. ”

“ There is a Grammar in Italian by Garzoni, Rome, 1787. H. C.
(2) Old Kurdish has been regarded as a dialect of Chaldee. See “Forschungen,” by Lerch, 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1857.
Kurg, see under C.
Kurilian.
Also called Aino, the native language of the Kurile Is., also spoken by the aborigines of Yesso or Yezo, one of the Japanese group, and allied to Kamskadal and Koriak. The Ainos are a hairy race, easily distinguished from the smoother Mongols.
Kuring.
“Kuring” in Sundanese means a “serf,” a person of low origin. Hence the Low Sundanese is called “Basa-Kuring.” P. J. V. See Sundanese. ”

“ The great Northern area is in Russia conterminous with the Western, which means, roughly speaking, Northern Asia with a large part of Europe; the chief displacements having been effected by the great spread of the Turk language. (3) The South-Eastern area begins with the North frontier of China, and includes Thibet, Nipal, the Transgangetic peninsula, Assam, Siam, Pegu, Cambogia, Cochin-China, and China. (4) The South-Western area contains India, Persia, and the Caucasus; here the displacing languages are Indian, Persian, and Arabic, which last is treated as African. ”

“ American: old dialect of Algonkin, spoken by Ogibways of New Sweden, now New Jersey.
Sansanding, see Sunghai.
Sanscrit, Sanskrit.
Indo-European: typical dialect of Indian, and parent of Bengali, Hindi, Gujeratti, Hindustani, Mahratti, Oriya, Punjabi, and Sindhi; it is closely allied to Zend and other languages of the Iranic branch, and though no longer vernacular, is preserved in the Vedas and other sacred writings of the Brahmins. The word Sanskrit means “polished, refined,” der.: sam, “together,” krita, “made perfect” = Samskrita, “made euphonic.” ”

“ A name for Canarese.
Kanaka.
Native name for “man” in New Zealand, and applied to natives of the Sandwich Is.; but Tangata is the word more general in all other islands. Compare the African word “Kanyika,” and the American “Kenneka.” The language of the Sandwich Is. is closely allied to the Maori. See Hawaian.
Kanam, Kanem.
African: a district of Bornui, having the Kanuri and Tibbu in its area.
Kanawari, see Kunawari.
Kanchi, Kasnas.
American: sub-dialects of the Aymara.
Kandokov, Kondakov.
Turkish, classed as a sub-dialect of Koibal. ”

“ Pehlvi or Pehlevi.
Iranic: extinct dialect of Old Persian, belonging to the Pahlav district of Western Iran or Media, but with large Semitic infusion. It is the language of the Sassanian coins, of several inscriptions of early Sassanian kings, and of the earliest comments on the Avesta, closely allied to the Zend and Old Persic; it is also called Huzvaresh, a suggestion of Spiegel’s. See Spiegel’s “Grammatik der Huzvareschen Sprache;” Haug’s Old Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary, by Asa, Bombay, 1870.
Pehuenche.
American: tribes of Araucans. ”

“ The South Oregon languages graduate into the Californian, the Californian into those of the Paduca class and those of Sonora, till we come to two great divisions, the Mexican and the Maya. (2) In South America there is a reappearance of the phenomena of the North: what the Athabascan and Algonkin are in the one peninsula, the Quichua, the Carib, and, above all, the Guarani are in the other. With any South American vocabulary of adequate length, some North American root presents itself ”