ABSTRACT
DESCRIPTIVE AND mSTORICAL LINGUISTICS 81 in older stages, and a flood of light has been thrown over very much that had hitherto been veiled in obscurity. This is true not only of historical linguistics in the stricter sense, but also of comparative linguistics, which is only another branch of the same science, supplementing by analogous methods the evidence that is accessible to us in historical sources, by connecting languages whose common " ancestor" is lost to tradition.
