We may well take this warning to heart, and remember that the first and most noticeable, if not the one essential, characteristic of the Aryans was their language. For the sake of convenience and clearness, and of avoiding misunderstanding or prejudice, we will use the word Indo-European for the whole group of languages to which Müller applied the word Aryan. These languages fall into two great divisions or branches: (1) the Indian and Iranian (Persian), which we will call Aryan; and (2) the European branch, including Greek, Latin, German, Slavic, and others. Our first question is: what inferences can we safely draw from a study and comparison of these different European and Asiatic languages? Evidently they have all sprung from a parent language no longer adequately represented by any one of them. They have all been considerably or greatly modified during the lapse of time. They, and others whose names we have omitted, are all sister languages descended or developed from a parent language which must once have been spoken by a people, very probably representing a mixture of races, having a definite local habitation, cradle, or home. Here the language originated as the expression of a certain culture or civilization, and from this region, large or small, it spread into Persia and India and throughout Europe. The wide spread of the language testifies to the superiority in some important respects of either language, culture, people, or all three. We may well recognize two homes, the first, original cradle of the language and culture, and the second homeland, far more extensive, over which the original language, probably with well-marked dialects, was used just before the final separation and dispersal. In its distribution from India to western Europe it must often have wandered far from its original home. Its introducers must often have been few compared with the large and dense populations among which they came. The Aryans could have been hardly more than a handful among the peoples of India. Something similar may be said of its introduction into Europe about the close of the Neolithic period. Middle Europe was at this time fairly well populated, at least in its more fertile regions. The bearers of the new language must have represented a ruling, conquering, or otherwise very influential class, else it would never have been accepted by the mass of the people.