Excerpt from A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language: Containing the Accentuation, the Grammatical Inflections, the Irregular Words Referred to Their Themes, the Parallel Terms From the Other Gothic Languages, the Meaning of the Anglo-Saxon in English and Latin, Etc

I intimated that the languages or people, among whom such similarities prevailed, however disparted and divergent they had been, or now were, must have had some ancient and primeval consanguinity. - In meditating on this subject, it occurred to me, that if the mind were not pursuing an illusory idea, the same facts and the same intimation would appear as strikingly in some other words, as they were visible in the numerals. This impression, and the desire neither to mislead, nor to be misled, have induced me to observe, whether the words that are used in the different languages of the world to express the first, the dearest, the most universal, and the most lasting relations of life, Father and Mother, would be found to confirm, or. Overthrow the principles suggested. The words were arranged into Classes, according to their primitive or more Simple elements. These classes demonstrate that the common use of sounds to express the same ideas, must have had some common origin, and are evidences of a common and early affinity. While each class proves a similarity or an identity, the numerous classes indicate great diversity. Identity without diversity would have proved only a common derivation, and diversity without identities would disprove community of origin. But so much partial identity and resemblance remaining, at this advanced period Of the world, visible amid so much striking and general disparity, exactly coin cides with the Hebrew statement of an anterior unity, and of a subsequent confusion, abruption, and dispersion.

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