From Hyde Clarke 5 January 1878
32 St. George’s Square | S.W.
5 Jany 1878
My dear Sir,
There is fortunately no “if” in the case.1
It is fortunately easy for you or any one to test most of the main facts.
There is a book published by the Church Missionary Society called the Polyglotta Africana by the Revd Mr Kœlle, which received the Volney Prize.2
This is an Atlas of words in 200 African languages.
If you take the similar books for the Indian languages by Dr W W Hunter, Sir George Campbell or Genl Dalton, you can compare from the left hand column of Hunter from the groups of Garo &c, Naga, & Kolarian with the African & you will get most of your words, even if an unskilled observer sets himself to the task.3
As another test take the Hidatsa or any of the grammars published by Dr Hayden & the US Geological Survey, & you may follow Hidatsa almost word for word in the Polyglotta, & very closely in Hunter, & then this will bring you into the Subhimalayan languages.4
This is a simple scientific & natural history test, & I trust it will be acceptable to you.
Your’s faithfully | Hyde Clarke
Charles Darwin Esq DLL5 FRS
Footnotes
Bibliography
Clarke, Hyde. 1875. Researches in prehistoric and protohistoric comparative philology, mythology, and archæology, in connection with the origin of culture in America and the Accad or Sumerian families. London: N. Trübner & Co.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Dalton, Edward Tuite. 1872. The descriptive ethnology of Bengal. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
Hunter, William Wilson. 1868. A comparative dictionary of the languages of India and High Asia. London: Trübner and Co.
Koelle, Sigismund Wilhelm. 1854. Polyglotta africana; or, A comparative vocabulary of nearly three hundred words and phrases, in more than one hundred distinct African languages. London: Church Missionary House.
Matthews, Washington. 1877. Ethnography and philology of the Hidatsa Indians. United States Geological and Geographical Survey, miscellaneous publication no. 7. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Summary
Cites language books; a comparison of them shows unity of language.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11312
- From
- Henry Hyde (Hyde) Clarke
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, St George’s Square, 32
- Source of text
- DAR 161: 162
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11312,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11312.xml