This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.

中文翻译：

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James Cowles Prichard 和民族学的语言学基础**

本文考察了英国学者 James Cowles Prichard 在其更广泛的人类自然历史项目中对语言和比较语言学的关注。它揭示了语言证据是 Prichard 调查人类身体多样性的总体科学目标的最重要因素之一，并作为他的民族学的证据基础。他在凯尔特比较语言学方面的工作使他不仅成为最早采用德语比较语法的英国人之一，而且使他成为欧洲地位的比较语言学家。更一般地说，语言证据帮助普里查德保留了他的巨著《人类物理史研究》, 尽可能符合逻辑，因此将民族学变成一门具有全球范围内分析愿望的学科。