occasionally using the word in a rather wider sense than that. Within the "Scythian" family he held that it was possible to define the position of Dravidian even more closely, by attaching it to the Finno-ugrian group in particular.¹ The evidence which Caldwell offered in support of this theory consisted partly of grammatical features which he held to be common to the languages concerned, and partly of comparisons of vocabulary. The former are to be found scattered through the body of his work, and the latter are collected together in an appendix entitled "Glossarial Affinities".² In presenting this theory Caldwell was quite modest in his claims; he admitted the possibility of being misled by accidental assonances, and claimed rather to have pointed the way to the possibilities of future research than to have demonstrated the relationship with any finality.

Caldwell was not alone in propounding this theory. Similar conclusions were reached by Max Müller, who used the term "Turanian" in the sense Caldwell used "Scythian".³ Among others who came out in support of this theory mention may be made of C. Schoebel, who defended it at the First International Congress of Orientalists in a paper entitled "Affinités des langues Dravidienneset des langues Ouralo-alta…ques".⁴

Though enjoying considerable popularity for a time, Caldwell's doctrine was eventually either ignored or rejected by philologists. It is worth while examining the reasons advanced at the time for this rejection. They are to be found most lucidly and ably expressed in a paper read by P. Hunfalvy at the Second International Congress of Orientalists entitled "On the Study of the Turanian Languages".⁵ His main criticism is against the vagueness of the methods used, particularly by Max Müller in classifying the "Turanian" languages. He objects with justice to the latter's statement that "the very absence of family likeness constitutes one of the distinguishing features of the Turanian dialects",⁶ and proceeds to show that in the case of the Finno-ugrian languages at any rate

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¹ Caldwell,³ p. 68. "The Scythian family to which, on the whole, the Dravidian languages may be regarded as most nearly allied, is the Finnish or Urian....',

²Ibid., pp. 610-624.

³Letter on the Classification of the Turanian Languages, published in Bunsen's Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i, pp. 263-521. London, 1854. Caldwell's first edition was published in 1856, but his work was independent of Max Müller's and vice versa.

⁴Compte rendu de la premiére session, ii, pp. 348 ff. Par…s, 1873.

⁵Transactions of the Second Session of the International Congress of Orientalists, pp. 64-97, London, 1874.

⁶ Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, i, p. 334.