The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada — John Shaqi
The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal CanadaLeacock, Stephen
History
The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada
Leacock, Stephen
America -- Discovery and exploration; Indians of North America -- Canada
Nevertheless, it appears to be impossible to say whether or not an
early branch of the human race ever 'migrated' to America. Conceivably
the race may have originated there. Some authorities suppose that the
evolution of mankind occurred at the same time and in the same fashion
in two or more distinct quarters of the globe. Others again think that
mankind evolved and spread over the surface of the world just as did
the various kinds of plants and animals. Of course, the higher
endowment of men enabled them to move with greater ease from place to
place than could beings of lesser faculties. Most writers of to-day,
however, consider this unlikely, and think it more probable that man
originated first in some one region, and spread from it throughout the
earth. But where this region was, they cannot tell. We always think of
the races of Europe as having come westward from some original home in
Asia. This is, of course, perfectly true, since nearly all the peoples
of Europe can be traced by descent from the original stock of the Aryan
family, which certainly made such a migration. But we know also that
races of men were dwelling in Europe ages before the Aryan migration.
What particular part of the globe was the first home of mankind is a
question on which we can only speculate.
Of one thing we may be certain. If there was a migration, there must
have been long ages of separation between mankind in America and
mankind in the Old World; otherwise we should still find some trace of
kinship in language which would join the natives of America to the
great racial families of Europe, Asia, and Africa. But not the
slightest vestige of such kinship has yet been found. Everybody knows
in a general way how the prehistoric relationships among the peoples of
Europe and Asia are still to be seen in the languages of to-day. The
French and Italian languages are so alike that, if we did not know it
already, we could easily guess for them a common origin. We speak of
these languages, along with others, as Romance languages, to show that
they are derived from Latin, in contrast with the closely related
tongues of the English, Dutch, and German peoples, which came from
another common stock, the Teutonic. But even the Teutonic and the
Romance languages are not entirely different. The similarity in both
groups of old root words, like the numbers from one to ten, point again
to a common origin still more remote. In this way we may trace a whole
family of languages, and with it a kinship of descent, from Hindustan
to Ireland. Similarly, another great group of tongues--Arabic, Hebrew,
etc.--shows a branch of the human family spread out from Palestine and
Egypt to Morocco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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