j. _The Albanian_, spoken in Albania and parts of Greece, Italy, and
Sicily. This is most nearly related to the Balto-Slavic group, and is
characterized by the very large proportion of words borrowed from Latin,
Turkish, Greek, and Slavic. Its literature does not begin till the
seventeenth century.

2. Home of the Indo-European Family.--Despite the many outward differences
of the various languages of the foregoing groups, a careful examination of
their structure and vocabulary demonstrates their intimate relationship and
proves overwhelmingly their descent from a common parent. We must believe,
therefore, that at one time there existed a homogeneous clan or tribe of
people speaking a language from which all the above enumerated languages
are descended. The precise location of the home of this ancient tribe
cannot be determined. For a long time it was assumed that it was in central
Asia north of the Himalaya Mountains, but this view has long been rejected
as untenable. It arose from the exaggerated importance attached for a long
while to Sanskrit. The great antiquity of the earliest literary remains of
the Sanskrit (the Vedic Hymns) suggested that the inhabitants of India were
geographically close to the original seat of the Indo-European Family.
Hence the home was sought in the elevated plateau to the north. To-day it
is thought that central or southeastern Europe is much more likely to have
been the cradle of the Indo-European parent-speech, though anything like a
logical demonstration of so difficult a problem can hardly be expected.

As to the size and extent of the original tribe whence the Indo-European
languages have sprung, we can only speculate. It probably was not large,
and very likely formed a compact racial and linguistic unit for centuries,
possibly for thousands of years.

The time at which Indo-European unity ceased and the various individual