As the reader may be impatient with these linguistic investigations, we will point ont how much has been gained by them. We expected from the assertion that the structure of the Basque language was like the Ameri can to find a real incorporative process in it; but on an unprejudiced investigation we have found that in structure it is not distinct from the Indo-Germanic languages, or at least that it is more closely related to them than to any other, and also that it is not separated from them by sound.
The following are the fundamental traits of the Indo-Germanic lan guages: The monosyllabic roots may have at the same time both nominal and verbal significations, but the pronominal roots are entirely distinct, and have had, since the most ancient times, only a pronominal significa tion and hardly any other than pronominal development. The noun and the verb are of distinct formation, even in the earliest derivatives of the root; the verbal sterns are strictly distinguished, according as they are nouns or verbs, by the manner of their inflexion; declension, or the inflex ion of the noun, is attained by formative syllables derived from the demon strative pronouns, while conjugation, or the inflexion of the verb, is formed only by suffixes derived from the personal pronouns.
The distinction of genders is perfectly developed in the noun and pro noun, but is almost entirely absent in the verb. The individual parts of speech agree perfectly in gender, person, number, and case, while in the Basque of course they can agree only in number and case. All words are independently developed, and the annexing of a determining suffix to the last word, such as we have seen in the Basque ur garbia, occurs only in rare cases (for example, Goethe says: In der gross und Heinen IVe16.
The development of the nominal relative form is limited: there are about seven cases, and the accusative often (for instance, in the neuter) agrees with the nominative. The development of the verb is remarkable:
it is almost always attained by suffixes, rarely by inserted formative ele ments or infixes, and still more rarely by prefixes; but in the Basque infixes sometimes form the tenses and moods, and a prefix determines the case. In the Indo-Germanic the designation of the personal pronoun is always at the end of these suffixes, or, as in the modern languages (for example, "I go"), at the beginning.
The verb has different forms of time (tenses), different moods, and different voices (active, middle, passive), and hence an extraordinarily rich and consistent syntax has been attained in the most highly developed Indo-Germanic idioms; which signifies that the linguistic form most accurately expresses the logical relation of the individual thoughts and their parts, and that the construction of sentences is first really developed to true artistic proportion.
We of ,course do not claim any authentic connection between the Euskara and the Indo-Germanic languages; still less do we think of any uniformity of vocabulary; but we do assert that even linguistically noth ing- hinders our classing the Basques with the Indo-European race. We believe that in very remote ages, when the Indo-Germanic language had just begun to develop its characteristic peculiarities, the forefathers of the Basques separated from the original stock of the Indo-Germans, and that consequently they are ethnologically most closely related to that race; that is, they separated from them later than from the original stock of mankind. The similarity in the structure of the language which we have pointed out indicates such an ethnological relationship.
Where the Etruscans belong is as yet an open question; we merely mention them without attempting to classify them.