common tongue of those two branches before they parted, and
descending from a period anterior to their separation. It may, or it
may not, be the very tongue itself, but it certainly is not further
removed than a few steps. The speech of the emigrants to the west
rapidly changed with the changing circumstances and various fortune
of each of its waves, and in their intercourse with the aboriginal
population they often adopted foreign elements into their language.
One of these waves, it is probable, passing by way of Persia and Asia
Minor, crossed the Hellespont, and following the coast, threw off a
mighty rill, known in after times as Greeks; while the main stream,
striking through Macedonia, either crossed the Adriatic, or, still
hugging the coast, came down on Italy, to be known as Latins.
Another, passing between the Caspian and the Black Sea, filled the
steppes round the Crimea, and; passing on over the Balkan and the
Carpathians towards the west, became that great Teutonic nationality
which, under various names, but all closely akin, filled, when we
first hear of them in historical times, the space between the Black
Sea and the Baltic, and was then slowly but surely driving before
them the great wave of the Celts which had preceded them in their
wandering, and which had probably followed the same line of march as
the ancestors of the Greeks and Latins. A movement which lasted until
all that was left of Celtic nationality was either absorbed by the
intruders, or forced aside and driven to take refuge in mountain
fastnesses and outlying islands. Besides all these, there was still
another wave, which is supposed to have passed between the Sea of
Aral and the Caspian, and, keeping still further to the north and
east, to have passed between its kindred Teutons and the Mongolian
tribes, and so to have lain in the background until we find them
appearing as Slavonians on the scene of history. Into so many great
stocks did the Western Aryans pass, each possessing strongly-marked