Physical geography. By Mary Somerville ...

474 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAP. XXXIII.
partake of the gentle and pastoral character of the country; while
Celtic verse s and even the spoken language of the Highlander, are
full of poetical images of war and stern mountain scenery. This is
particularly to be observed in the noble strains of Homer, and in
the heroic poems of the early HindLus which reflect the lofty and
sublime character of eastern scenery.' As civilization advances' and
mLa- becomes more intellectual, language keeps pace in the progress.
New words and new expressions are added, as new ideas occur and
new things are invented, till at last language itself becomes a study,
is refined and perfected by the introduction of general terms. The
improvement in language and the development of the mind have
been the same in all nations which have arrived at any degree of
refinement, and shows the identity of human nature in every country
and climate. The art of printing perpetuates a tongue, and great
authors immortalize it; yet language is ever changing to a certain
degree, though it never loses traces of its origin. Chaucer and
Spenser have become obscure; Shakspeare requires a glossary for
the modern reader; and in the few years that the United States of
America have existed as an independent nation, the colloquial language has deviated from the mother tongue. When a nation degenerates, it is split by jealousy and war into tribes, each of which
in process of time acquires a peculiar idiom, and thus the number
of dialects is increased, though they still retain a similarity; whereas
when masses of mankind are united into great political bodies, their
languages by degrees assimilate to one common tongue, which retains traces of all to the latest ages. The form of the dialects now
spoken by some savage tribes, as the N orth American Indians, bears
the marks of a once higher state of civilization.
More than 2000 languages are spoken, but few are independent;
some are connected by words having the same meaning, some by
grammatical structure, others by both; indeed the permanency of
language is so great, that neither ages of conquest, nor mixing with
other nations, have obliterated the native idiom of a people. The
French, Spanish, and German retain traces of the common language
spoken before the Roman conquest, and the Celtic tongue still exists
in the British Islands.
By a comparison of their dialects, nations far apart, and differing
in every other respect, are discovered to have sprung from a common, though remote origin. Thus all the numerous languages
spoken by the American Indians, or red men, are similar in grammatical structure: an intimate analogy exists in the languages of the
Esquimaux nations who inhabit the arctic regions of both continents.
Valmiki, the Hindu poet, is supposed to have been contemporary with
Homer, if not his predecessor: his great work is the' Ramayana,' an heroic poem of the highest order, four cantos of which have been translated
by Gaspare Corresio, an Italian, in 1843.