Skipetars.--A hopeless mixture.


In Chapter II it was pointed out that almost all the peoples of
Europe were related, in one big family of tribes. It is likely that
the forefathers of the Celts, the Latins, the Germans, the Greeks, and
the Slavs belonged to one big tribe which had its home back in the
highlands of Central Asia. As a general rule, the relationship of
peoples to each other can be told by the languages which they speak.
If two tribes are related because their forefathers once belonged to
the same tribe, it is almost certain that they will show this
relationship in their languages.

The language of England a thousand years ago was very much like the
language of the Germans, for the English were originally German
tribes. Even today, it is easy to see that English is a Germanic
language. Take the English words house, father, mother, brother,
water, here, is, etc. The German words which mean the same are haus,
vater, mutter, bruder, wasser, hier, ist. It is very plain that the
two languages must have come from the same source.

There are professors in European colleges who have spent their whole
lives studying this relationship of languages. These men have proved
not only that almost all the languages of Europe are related, but that
the language of the Persians, and that of some of the old tribes in
Hindustan also belong to one great family of tongues. Let us take the
word for mother. In one of the ancient languages of Hindustan it was
matr; in the Greek, it was mātār; in the Latin mater (mätār); in
the Bohemian matka; in the German mu̠tter; in the Spanish mädre;
in the Norwegian mōder, etc. This great family of languages is called