Excerpt from Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages The study of comparative grammar in the nineteenth century brought about the general recognition that languages can be grouped in families whose members bear such definite relationship one to another that we are compelled to regard them as descended from a common stock. It was frequently assumed, quite erroneously, that these language families were conterminous with racial groups, and so the Semitic languages were treated as the speech of a Semitic race. It is now recognized that the transmission of language, racial descent, and culture drift are three distinct things. Race depends on physical descent; language and culture are transmitted by education, conquest, imitation and other means; they are learned either in childhood or maturity and not passed from parent to child as a matter of heredity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.