speech from which these dynasties originally
sprang, and by which alone they are supported.

Here, however, lies the difficulty. How are we to trace the history of
dialects? In the ancient history of language, literary dialects alone
supply us with materials, whereas the very existence of spoken dialects is
hardly noticed by ancient writers.

We are told, indeed, by Pliny,(41) that in Colchis there were more than
three hundred tribes speaking different dialects; and that the Romans, in
order to carry on any intercourse with the natives, had to employ a
hundred and thirty interpreters. This is probably an exaggeration; but we
have no reason to doubt the statement of Strabo,(42) who speaks of seventy
tribes living together in that country, which, even now, is called "the
mountain of languages." In modern times, again, when missionaries have
devoted themselves to the study of the languages of savage and illiterate
tribes, they have seldom been able to do more than to acquire one out of
many dialects; and, when their exertions have been at all successful, that
dialect which they had reduced to writing, and made the medium of their
civilizing influence, soon assumed a kind of literary supremacy, so as to
leave the rest behind as barbarous jargons. Yet, whatever is known of the
dialects of savage tribes is chiefly or entirely due to missionaries; and
it is much to be desired that their attention should again and again be
directed to this interesting problem of the dialectical life of language
which they alone have the means of elucidating. Gabriel Sagard, who was
sent as a missionary to the Hurons in 1626, and published his "Grand
Voyage du pays des Hurons," at Paris, in 1631, states that among these
North American tribes hardly one village speaks the same language as
another; nay, that two families of the same village do not speak exactly
the same language. And he adds what is important, that their language is
changing every day, and is already so much changed that the ancient Huron
language is almost entirely different from the present. During the last
two hundred years, on the contrary, the languages of the Hurons and
Iroquois are said not to have changed at all.(43) We read of
missionaries(44) in Central America who attempted to write down the
language of savage tribes, and who compiled with great care a dictionary
of all the words they could lay hold of. Returning to the same tribe after
the lapse of only ten years, the