The Beginning of Comparative Linguistics
In 1786 Sir William Jones delivered his third discourse, in which he laid the foundation for modern comparative linguistics by suggesting a close relationship between Sanskrit and the classical languages of Europe.
The Sanskcrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskcrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.
Source: Lord Teignmouth, ed. (1807) The Collected Works of Sir William Jones. Volumes I to XIII. London: John Stockdale and John Walker, vol. III: 34–35.
This complete Indo-European Languages contains 185 words. This
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