nischen, Litthauischen, Altslavischen,
Gothischen, und Deutschen_. How carefully this work was matured may be
gathered from the series of monographs printed in the _Transactions of
the Berlin Academy_ (1824 to 1831), by which it was preceded. They bear
the general title, _Vergleichende Zergliederung des Sanskrits und der
mit ihm verwandten Sprachen_. Two other essays (on the "Numerals," 1835)
followed the publication of the first part of the _Comparative Grammar_.
The Old-Slavonian began to take its stand among the languages compared
from the second part onwards. The work was translated into English by
E.B. Eastwick in 1845. A second German edition, thoroughly revised
(1856-1861), comprised also the Old-Armenian. From this edition an
excellent French translation was made by Professor Michel Breal in 1866.
The task which Bopp endeavoured to carry out in his _Comparative
Grammar_ was threefold,--to give a description of the original
grammatical structure of the languages as deduced from their
intercomparison, to trace their phonetic laws, and to investigate the
origin of their grammatical forms. The first and second points were
subservient to the third. As Bopp's researches were based on the best
available sources, and incorporated every new item of information that
came to light, so they continued to widen and deepen in their progress.
Witness his monographs on the vowel system in the Teutonic languages
(1836), on the Celtic languages (1839), on the Old-Prussian (1853) and
Albanian languages (1854), on the accent in Sanskrit and Greek (1854),
on the relationship of the Malayo-Polynesian with the Indo-European
languages (1840), and on the Caucasian languages (1846). In the two last
mentioned the impetus of his genius led him on a wrong track. Bopp has
been charged with neglecting the study of the native Sanskrit grammars,
but in those early days of Sanskrit studies the requisite materials were
not accessible in the great libraries of Europe; and if they had been,
they would have absorbed his exclusive attention for years, while such
grammars as those of Wilkins and Colebrooke, from which his grammatical
knowledge was derived, were all based on native grammars. The further
charge that Bopp, in his _Comparative Grammar_, gave undue prominence to
Sanskrit may be disproved by his own words; for, as early as the year
1820, he gave it as his opinion that frequently the cognate languages
serve to elucidate grammatical forms lost i