rieties of human speech. They only distinguished between Greek on
one side, and all other languages on the other, comprehended under the
convenient name of "Barbarous." They succeeded, indeed, in classifying
four of their own dialects with tolerable correctness,(105) but they
applied the term "barbarous" so promiscuously to the other more distant
relatives of Greek, (the dialects of the Pelasgians, Carians, Macedonians,
Thracians, and Illyrians,) that, for the purposes of scientific
classification, it is almost impossible to make any use of the statements
of ancient writers about these so-called barbarous idioms.(106)

Plato, indeed, in his Cratylus (c. 36), throws out a hint that the Greeks
might have received their own words from the barbarians, the barbarians
being older than the Greeks. But he was not able to see the full bearing
of this remark. He only points out that some words, such as the names of
_fire_, _water_, and _dog_, were the same in Phrygian and Greek; and he
supposes that the Greeks borrowed them from the Phrygians (c. 26). The
idea that the Greek language and that of the barbarians could have had a
common source never entered his mind. It is strange that even so
comprehensive a mind as that of Aristotle should have failed to perceive
in languages some of that law and order which he tried to discover in
every realm of nature. As Aristotle, however, did not attempt this, we
need not wonder that it was not attempted by any one else for the next two
thousand years. The Romans, in all scientific matters, were merely the
parrots of the Greeks. Having themselves been called barbarians, they soon
learnt to apply the same name to all other nations, except, of course, to
their masters, the Greeks. Now _barbarian_ is one of those lazy
expressions which seem to say everything but in reality say nothing. It
was applied as recklessly as the word _heretic_ during the Middle Ages. If
the Romans had not received this convenient name of barbarian ready made
for them, they would have treated their neighbors, the Celts and Germans,
with more respect and sympathy: they would, at all events, have looked at
them with a more discriminating eye. And, if they had done so, they would
have discovered, in spite of outward differences, that these barbarians
were, after all, not very distant cousins. There was as much similarity
between the language of Caesar and the barbarians against whom he fought in
Gaul and Germany as there was