Among these emigrants were Teutonic, Lithuanian, and Slavonian hordes, who pushed to the northwest, and became the ancestors of the Scandinavian and German nations, the Letts, Russians, and Poles. The Celts and Græco-Italic tribes, probably passing between the Caspian Sea and the Black, made their way by different routes into the fertile regions of southern and southwestern Europe. The Slavs, Teutons, and Celts, appear to have dispossessed an indigenous population of supposed Turanian origin.[2] Of the Aryans who migrated to the northwest, Max Müller says that they “have been the prominent actors in the great drama of history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of active life with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected society and morals. They have become, after struggles with Semitic and Turanian races, the rulers of history; and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civilization, commerce, and religion.” [Illustration: ORIGINAL HOME of the ARYAN TRIBES with their ROUTES OF MIGRATION.] After the last emigration of Aryans to the west, the parent community extended its settlements southward into the Tableland of Iran (_érahn_) (modern Persia, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan; see Map), and finally, in consequence of a religious difference, separated into two great branches. One remained on the Iranian plateau, and was ultimately known in history as the Medes and Persians. The other made its way through the mountain-passes, crossed the upper Indus (at some uncertain date, between 2000 and 1400 B.C.), and in time effected the conquest of the rich peninsula of Hindostan. The invaders were the “fair-complexioned” Indo-Aryans, who spoke the polished Sanscrit, and among whom sprung up the institution of caste and many gross superstitions. =Aryan Languages.=—Similarity in the words and grammatical structure of their languages proves that the Hindoos, the Persians, the Greeks and Romans, the Celtic races, the Slavonian and Teutonic nations,—all had a common origin; that the frozen Icelander and Indian fire-worshipper, the outcast Gypsy and the plaided Highlander, the English master and his Cooley servant, are brothers of the same stock. Their tongues have been derived from the same parent—a language full of poetic grandeur, older than Greek or Sanscrit, and containing the germs of both—a language which has perished. Spoken as we have seen from India to the west of Europe, these tongues have been called INDO-EUROPEAN. They embrace the dialects of India and Persia; the Welsh, and the Celtic of Scotland and Ireland; the Latin and its derivatives, the Romance languages, viz., Italian, Spanish, French, etc.; Greek; Russian and Polish; English, German, Danish, and Swedish (see diagram preceding the title-page).