For several decades there had been no doubt as to what languages were Aryan, and the relation to it even of Albanian and Armenian had now been settled. But the loth century has brought the discovery of new languages be longing at any rate peripherically to the Aryan family, namely Tokharian (really two different languages) and one of the Hittite languages. These present several features not paralleled in the other Aryan languages and not yet sufficiently cleared up in spite of the keen interest and labours of several scholars. Attempts have also been made to demonstrate a more remote affinity between the Aryan and two other great families of languages : that with the Finno-Ugric family seems highly probable.
A most interesting attempt has recently been made to prove a primitive relationship between Aryan and Sumerian (C. Autran, Sumerien et Indo-European, Paris, 1925). Some of the similarities adduced are very striking, but there are so many difficulties in the grammatical structure of the two languages that the kinship must at present be considered an open question.
Outside the Aryan languages much excellent work has been done, especially since the methods developed in Aryan philology have penetrated into the other domains. In many of them his torical research is made impossible by the fact that we have only recent texts and descriptions ; but sometimes the co-existence of several related languages permit us to some extent to draw conclusions backwards to a state in which the now separate lan guages formed one whole : thus with regard to primitive Bantu ("Ur-Bantu"). Some languages found in old inscriptions have baffled all attempts at comprehension, among them Etruscan.
While most of those who have dealt with the general problems of the nature of lan guage, and its development have started, as was natural, from the European languages and the great family of languages to which they belong, there have been other scholars whose en deavours have been especially directed towards the understanding of the psychology of language and who have therefore to a great extent gone outside the languages spoken by civilized nations to ascertain relations between the language of a race and its cul ture and mental characteristics. A pioneer in that direction was Wilhelm v. Humboldt, whose great work on the Kawi language was prefaced by a profound investigation into the differences in structure of the various human languages and their influence on the mental development of man (1836-40). His chief disciple was H. Steinthal, who in numerous works treated of the relation between language, logic and psychology. His best work, Charak
teristik der hauptsuchlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues (186o), was completely remodelled in 1893 by F. Misteli and in this shape is still a most useful survey of the grammatical structure of some of the most outstanding languages with psychological in terpretation. Excellent work was done in the same direction by H. C. von der Gabelentz and his son Georg, both of them pos sessing wide linguistic knowledge and psychological acumen. A small, but very valuable work is F. N. Finck, Die Haupttypen des Sprachbaus (Leipzig, 191o), with its analysis of eight select lin guistic structures on the basis of one text from each language. In 190o the well-known German philosopher W. Wundt, em ploying the whole apparaus of modern psychologists and part of that of linguists, made an attempt to present a consistent com prehensive survey of linguistic phenomena (V olkerpsychologie, I. Die Sprache), but his views met with little acceptance on the part either of philologists (De1bl-tick, Slitterlin) or of philoso phers (Marty). A recent school in Germany, headed by K. Voss ler, tries to connect grammar with the state of civilization in general and of literature in particular, interpreting linguistic developments and grammatical peculiarities in terms of national psychology.
The psychological aspect and the emotional importance of language in general has been studied recently with great ardour. Among those who have lately contributed to this side of philology are : F. Mauthner, A. Marty, Ch. Bally, E. Cassirer, J. van Gin neken and H. Delacroix.
research has very often been invoked to assist in settling historical questions. Important results have been arrived at through investigation of place-names (q.v.). The history of a nation's culture can be illustrated through a study of successive strata of loan-words. (See LANGUAGE.) The question of the Scandinavian origin of the Russian empire has been definitely settled through the names in the oldest sources. It is now possible to speak of linguistic archaeology as a separate branch of science, see especially such important works as V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen and Haustiere (6th ed., Berlin, 1894) ; 0. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung and Urgeschichte (3rd ed., Jena, 1906) ; 0. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertums kunde (2nd ed. 1917) ; J. Hoops, Waldbeiume und Kulturpflanzen im germanischen Altertum (Strasbourg, 1905) ; S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen (1913).