The little that we know of the tongues of the scattered North Asiatic tribes justifies us in regarding them as related to the Mongolian (Yenisei Ostyak, according to Castren ; Yukagir, according to Schiefner); yet they stand farther from time Altaic idioms than the Japanese. We find the vowel-harmony at least suggested; there are the same syntax, the negative verb, the predicate suffixes, and much else to correspond; but here we have prefixing also—e. g. father," "your father," also dideleng, "I work," kztgcleng, "you work," dujaleng, works" (Yenisei Ostyak, Castren); and in the Yenisei Ostyak the verb is con structed asymmetrically, and likewise there are traces of a kind of inflec tional gender and an agreement between subject and predicate which are highly remarkable.
Finally, we can judge of the Caucasian languages. First, let us say that the chief divisions of time population of the Caucasus, the inhabit ants of Daghestan, the Circassians, those of the upper mountain-valleys, those of Georgia and Lazistan, speak related tongues. An exact compar ison of the accessible material (see Uslar, Sehiefner, Rosen, etc.) shows this, for we find everywhere the same structure of language with its fre quently surprising features; we often find the same suffixes and particles used in corresponding application; finally, we find in all these tongues much lexical matter in common. Such extensive identity in the meaning and development of words cannot be owing to time process of borrow ing. Of course this relationship often conceals itself in anomalous and more or less complex forms; but an exact comparative study will disclose positive relations between the different tongues, as well as a system of transitions of sounds by means of which these relations are to be rec ognized.
In the second place, the structure of the Caucasian idioms shows nothing that is inconsistent with the Mongolian tongues. The system of sounds is similar; the harmony of the vowels reappears in the Caucasian; the negative verb, the affixed particles, the predicate suffixes, and also the Mongolian rules for the position of the word, although the latter are not found everywhere in the Caucasus, but only in the least cultivated dialects.
In the others this feature is altered in many ways; but here also similar foundations may be easily recognized. It is also noteworthy how in the different tongues different parts are developed; no one is just like another. This arose from their history, as they have mostly developed themselves in isolated localities.
That we find numerous prefixes in them will not surprise us, since this is not unknown among the Mongolian idioms; but it is remarkable that many of the tongues of the Caucasus, northerly and southerly, possess a sort of gender which shows itself in the adjective, in the (interrogative) pronoun, and still more in the verb, whose first sound can be altered to masculine or feminine in the two first persons. This is a lately-developed feature, wanting in some of the tongues. Critically examined, the verb is devoid of inflections, and frequently what in our tongue is the subject appears in an oblique case—ablative, etc.
The letters denoting the gender were originally prefixes, which later united with the root; and in some tongues a personal pronoun is inserted between them and the root, as in the American languages; in others this affix of gender partakes of the meaning of the personal pronoun (at least of the first and second), and thus corresponds entirely with the peculiar first sound of the Yenisei Ostyak, which distinguishes the different persons.
It is worthy of notice also that many suffixes and pronouns seem to agree as to sound in the Caucasian and Mongolian tongues; and also that a number of Mongolian suffixes (c. g. Turkish) are adopted by the Caucasian idioms with the greatest ease.
These facts appear to establish a relationship between the Caucasian and Mongolian stocks, more distant indeed than that between the Altaic and the Yukagir, but about equal to that between the Altaic tongues and those of Farther India. •