Relation of the Italians to the Greeks


These examples selected from a great abundance of analogous phenomena
suffice to establish the individuality of the Italian stock as
distinguished from the other members of the Indo-Germanic family,
and at the same time show it to be linguistically the nearest
relative, as it is geographically the next neighbour, of the Greek.
The Greek and the Italian are brothers; the Celt, the German, and
the Slavonian are their cousins. The essential unity of all the
Italian as of all the Greek dialects and stocks must have dawned
early and clearly on the consciousness of the two great nations
themselves; for we find in the Roman language a very ancient word
of enigmatical origin, -Graius-or -Graicus-, which is applied to
every Greek, and in like manner amongst the Greeks the analogous
appellation --Opikos-- which is applied to all the Latin and
Samnite stocks known to the Greeks in earlier times, but never to
the Iapygians or Etruscans.


Relation of the Latins to the Umbro-Samnites


Among the languages of the Italian stock, again, the Latin stands
in marked contrast with the Umbro-Samnite dialects. It is true
that of these only two, the Umbrian and the Samnite or Oscan, are
in some degree known to us, and these even in a manner extremely
defective and uncertain. Of the rest some, such as the Marsian