Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men .. . een their descendants and theArabians of the regions bordering onthe Red sea are sufficiently marked. Throughout the whole of SouthernArabia, especially toward the south-western termination of the Himyaritic writ-peninsula, are found lin- j^^!3guistic traces of this ancient auction,people. A class of primitive writings,called Himyaritic Inscriptions, testify un-mistakably of the presence of a peculiarpeople in the
Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men .. . een their descendants and theArabians of the regions bordering onthe Red sea are sufficiently marked. Throughout the whole of SouthernArabia, especially toward the south-western termination of the Himyaritic writ-peninsula, are found lin- j^^!3guistic traces of this ancient auction,people. A class of primitive writings,called Himyaritic Inscriptions, testify un-mistakably of the presence of a peculiarpeople in the regions where they arefound. These writings, generally en-graved on stone, have been one of themost interesting and puzzling studiespresented to modern students of lan-guage, and there has been great diver-sity of views in regard to classifying theoriginal speech to which these writingsbelong. Many most eminent linguistshave regarded them as of a Semiticorigin. Another plausible view is thatof Renan, who holds that the inscriptionsin question differ too widely from Arabicand cognate varieties of Semitic speechto be classified therewith. These facts open a question of much mm. %19A 452 GREAT RACES OF MANKIND. importance respecting the affinities ofthe Hamitic and Semitic languages. Itappears that the linguistic separation ofAffinities and these two races was never connection of . . Hamitic and so complete as the divisionKSei!lan of either of them from theAryan families of the north. It is likelythat in manners, institutions, language,and laws the primitive Hamitic tribesheld together with their Semitic kins-men until common linguistic forms hadbeen in a considerable measure fixed ineach, from which circumstance consider-able similarity would appear in the sub-sequent development of the respectivelanguages. On the whole, it is safer toclassify the. Himyaritic inscriptions withthe other Semitic dialects, and to admitthe influence of the Hamitic Arabs ingiving particular features
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