The Scottish Celtic review

Place of Celtic in the Indo-Euro^iean family of Lavguages. 3and domini) is another striking instance of this agreement.Ebel, on the other hand, in his papers on the position of Celtic,published in Kuhn's Beitrcige zur Vergleichenden Sprachforschung,ii. 137, holds that it is most closely allied to the Teutoniclanguages. This theory is based on the agreement of theCeltic diphthongs, ai, oi, au, iu, with the Teutonic diphthongs,ai, ei, au, iu, and on other grounds to which it is unnecessary torefer in these introductory remarks. The conclusion to which anexamination of the arguments adduced on both sides of this controversyseems to lead is, that, whilst Celtic is undoubtedlyclosely allied to the Teutonic languages, it stands in the closestrelationship to Greek and Latin, but especially to Latin.In judging of the affinity of language.?, grammar furnishes themost reliable criterion. The English language, for example, isderived from many sources, it being estimated that less than onethird of its vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon ; but, nevertheless, itsgrammatical inflexions and other features show that it is essentiallya Teutonic language.This remark on the importance of grammar, as a criterion ofrelationship, applies with special force to the Celtic tongues, inwhich it is often difficult, and sometimes even impossible, todistinguish between genuine Celtic words and loan-words, whichhave for centuries borne the stamp and discharged the functionsof words of native growth.In judging, therefore, of the affinityof Celtic to the other branches of the Indo-European family, and,more especially, in determining its place in the family, philologistshave based their conclusions chiefly on evidence furnished by acompai'ative examination of the grammatical forms, which Celticand the other languages of the family possess in common. Thisevidence will be considered in future papers.The other principal source from which the evidence of thisaffinity is derived, is a comparative examination of the vocabulariesof the languages, the mutual relationship of which is to beascertained. This evidence, although less definite and conclusivethan that furnished by comparative grammar, is, nevertheles.s, ofgreat value, when the examination is rightly conducted. A comparison,for example, of the Celtic, Latin, and Gothic vocabulariesmay be sufficient to establish the fact, that these languages havesprung from a common source, although itmay not enable us toascertain the pi-ecise degree of their relationship to one another.To render this comparative examination, however, of any real