Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown the earth’s languages into a kind of classification: a number bearing a considerable resemblance to each other, and in general geographically near, are styled a _group_ or _sub-family_; several groups, again, are associated as a _family_, with regard to more general features of resemblance. Six families are spoken of. The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geographical limits with those which have been assigned to that variety of mankind which generally shews a fair complexion, called the Caucasian variety. It may be said to commence in India, and thence to stretch through Persia into Europe, the whole of which it occupies, excepting Hungary, the Basque provinces of Spain, and Finland. Its sub-families are the Sanskrit, or ancient language of India, the Persian, the Slavonic, Celtic, Gothic, and Pelasgian. The Slavonic includes the modern languages of Russia and Poland. Under the Gothic, are (1) the Scandinavian tongues, the Norske, Swedish, and Danish; and (2) the Teutonic, to which belong the modern German, the Dutch, and our own Anglo-Saxon. I give the name of Pelasgian to the group scattered along the north shores of the Mediterranean, the Greek and Latin, including the modifications of the latter under the names of Italian, Spanish, &c. The Celtic was from two to three thousand years ago, the speech of a considerable tribe dwelling in Western Europe; but these have since been driven before superior nations into a few corners, and are now only to be found in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and certain parts of France. The Gaelic of Scotland, Erse of Ireland, and the Welsh, are the only living branches of this sub-family of languages.