When we speak of the disappearance, the
passing away, of ancient Babylon or Nineveh, and of ancient Rome, we
are using the same terms to describe totally different phenomena.
The anthropologist and historian of to-day realize much more clearly
than their predecessors of a couple of generations back how artificial
most great nationalities are, and how loose is the terminology usually
employed to describe them. There is an element of unconscious and
rather pathetic humor in the simplicity of half a century ago which
spoke of the Aryan and the Teuton with reverential admiration, as if
the words denoted, not merely something definite, but something
ethnologically sacred; the writers having much the same pride and
faith in their own and their fellow-countrymen's purity of descent
from these imaginary Aryan or Teutonic ancestors that was felt a few
generations earlier by the various noble families who traced their
lineage direct to Odin, AEneas, or Noah. Nowadays, of course, all
students recognize that there may not be, and often is not, the
slightest connection between kinship in blood and kinship in tongue.
In America we find three races, white, red, and black, and three
tongues, English, French, and Spanish, mingled in such a way that the
lines of cleavage of race continually run at right angles to the lines
of cleavage of speech; there being communities practically of pure
blood of each race found speaking each language.
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