What Halhed and Jones put forth as strong probability was ere long found, was clearly proved, to be the truth. Persian, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and of course all languages derived from them, were discovered to be identical in origin with Sanskrit. Now, what was this Sanskrit, this wonderful language which so suddenly and so surely unlocked the mystery of the world’s speech, and revealed the source of all the languages of civilized Europe, and some of those of Asia? Sanskrit, (the name means worked-together, elaborated, highly finished,) is the sacred language of the Brahmans, in which was preserved the religious teachings and legends of the people of India, whom we call Hindoos. It is quite four thousand years old in its existing form. For a very long time it was unwritten, the Brahmans having no letters; and the sacred books (so we must call them) were transmitted orally, but with such veneration not only for their doctrine and their story, but their phraseology in its minutest particulars, that among the Brahmans grammar became a religion, and the slightest variation from the text of the Vedas—this was the name of the sacred books—was regarded as a sin. Punctilio in this respect was carried so far that when letters were borrowed from the West, and an alphabet was formed, and the Vedas were written, it was protested against by the conservatives as a sacrilege. Common sense and convenience, however, carried the day. Sanskrit is the most elaborate, the most minutely divided, the most elaborately inflected speech known to man. The sight of a Sanskrit grammar is appalling to the common sense of our day. There are ten conjugations of verbs; and a verb has ten tenses; and each one of these tenses has three numbers, singular, dual and plural; and each tense has two sets of terminations. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are singular, dual and plural, and have eight cases. Inflections of all words are distracting for multitude and intricacy. Yet this elaborately intricate language was spoken in what we think of as the wilds of Asia long before the history of the human race is known; at least four thousand years ago.