e relationship of the group. As for likeness of roots,
here is a specimen: _gyordunus_ is the Turkish for the Finnish
_naikke._--So here you see a degree of kinship much more
remote than that you find in the Aryan. Where, say, Dutch
and Gaelic are brothers--at least near relations and bosom
friends,--Turkish and Mongol are about fifteenth cousins by
marriage twice removed, and hardly even nod to each other in
passing. And yet Turks and Mongols both claim descent from the
sons of a common father: according to legends of both peoples,
the ancestor of the Turks was the brother of the ancestor of the
Mongols. (Always remember that in speaking of Turks thus
scientifically, one does not mean the Ottomans, who inherit
their language, but are almost purely Caucasian or even Aryan,
in blood.)

Now take the Monosyllabic or South-Eastern Asiatic Group:
Chinese, Burmese, Siamese, Annamese, and Tibetan. Here there
are only negatives, you might say, to prove a relationship.
They do not meet on the street; they pass by on the other side,
noses high in the air; each sublimely unaware of the other's
existence. They suppose they are akin--through Adam; but whould
tell you that much has happened since then. Their kinship
consists in this: the words are each are billiard-balls--and
yet, if you will allow the paradox, of quite different shapes.
Thus I should call a Tibetan name like _nGamri-srong-btsan_ a
good jagged angular sort of billiard-ball; and a Chinese one
like _T'ang Tai-tsong_ a perfectly round smooth one of the kind
we know.--The languages are akin, because each say, where we
should say 'the horse kicked the man,' _horse agent man kicking
completion,_ or words to that effect,--dapped out nearly in
spherical or angular disconnected monosyllables. But the words
for _horse_ and _man,_ in Chinese and Tibetan, have respectively
as much phonetic likeness as _geegee_ and _equus,_ and _Smith_
and _Jones._ As to the value and possibilities of such
languages, I will quote you two pronouncements, both from writers
in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica._ One says: "Chinese has the
greatest capacity of any language ever invented"; the other,
"The Chinese tongue is of unsurpass jejuneness."

In the whole language there are only about four or five hundred
sounds you could differentiate by spelling, as to say, _shih,_
pronounced like the first three letters in the word _shirt_ in
English. That vocable may mean: _history,_ or _t