A ^_ A o o — ( IE JO 33 8 5 2 4 4 CD O Z J> GO > -< 9 o ^ 8 ^^H rf^5i m: 1 ■':!' P '■ r 1 t r ) * { ' 1 1 1 1 ;-. 1 t i ' ! t r 1 THE PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. We present this book to students, teachers, and the literary public generally, as one which, for both its subject-matter and its style of composition, will be found to be full of enchanting in- terest. As for our part, we have spared no expense in respect to typography, paper, and mechanical execution, to make it in ap- pearance equal to its own inward merits in fact. While it abounds in learning, it is also written iu a spirited con amore style. It is the result of the author's enthusiastic devotion for years, to a new and great science, which one of the first linguists of the country has justly said, " may almost be called the science of the age.^'' It has been prepared on the basis of several articles published at different times in The Bibliotheca Sacra, at Andover, and The New Englauder, at New Haven ; whieli have since been re-written and greatly enlarged and improved, and are accom- panied with philological maps and tabular views of great interest. In their original although abbreviated form they attracted great attention in many directions, not only for the scholarship and re- search displayed in them, but also for the beauty of their style of composition, which has been lavishly commended by many of our best scholars and writers as " clear and vigorous," " earnest and spirited,'' " beautiful," "attractive," "elegant," "fascinat- ing," and "brilliant," and placing Mr. Dwight, in the language of still another, " among the most eminent writers of the day." We believe that no book has appeared from the press iu our country for a long time that will command iu itself a larger and more eager reception than this. It supplies a great desideratum 1 to the students of language among us, young and old ; as, with the other works that are to follow it from the author's pen, it will make the study of the science of Philology not only feasible but also delightful to scholars; and will give to multitudes of our literary men especially, who know enough of the discoveries of modern Philology to desire to know more, the opportunity to gratify that desire upon a scale that they will greatly value. The book is likewise fitted not only for general reading, but also for study and recitation, in schools and colleges, like any of our best school histories, and will be held in high account for historical, philosophical, linguistic and even rhetorical purposes alike, wherever it is so used. Its preparation has been hailed, aud indeed solicited in advance by several leading teachers in different States, from the felt want of such a help to a higher style of linguistic study, than hitherto. We subjoin a few of the notices taken of the original articles as they appeared from time to time, which have incidentally come to hand. " We have read Mr. Dwight's essay on ' The Indo-European Languages,' in the Bibliotheca Sacra, with great pleasure : the style giving attractiveness to the instruction of a subject removed from the ordinary line of thought. We commend it not only to classical scholars, who will hail new light in comparative grammar, lexicography, and ethnology, but to ministers generally and the still lajger community of general scholars who abound in our country. ' ' — In dependent. " This is an article (the same) of great value, showing careful and scholarly investigation." — Evangelist. " This is an able and instructive discussion." — The Intelli- gencer. *' This admirable essay (' The Science of Etymology') is to ap- pear, as we understand, together with other kindred articles written by Mr. Dwight for the Bibliotheca Sacra, in a published volume ; and we believe we speak the sentiments of those who are conver- sant with this important but recondite subject, when we say that the forthcoming hook will be a valuable and honorable addition to American literatin'e.'''' — New York Observer. (By Dr. John J. Owen, Professor in the Free Academy.) lU " The History of Modern Philology. — The science of philol- ogy is assuming so much importance in its relations to histori- cal questions and to the great problem of the unity of the race, that the general scholar must at least comprehend its principles, and keep pace with its results. The sketch of the history of Philology in the New Englandcr, from the competent and practised hand of 3Ir. Dwight, -wiil be of much service to read- ers not versed in the science itself" — Independent. " I have read with much pleasure Mr. Dwight's articles jn the Bibliotheca Sacra. I am also informed that he has a work in preparation on philology. If suited to my purposes I would be glad to use it as a text-book in my higher classes." — C. W. Smythe, Cataivha College, North Carolina. " I have examined with great interest Mr. Dwight's essays on Philology, in reference to using them in our seminary ; and I am convinced that they will be invaluable to our students, not only for their views of the historical unity and principles of climatic change in language, but for their philosophic generaliza- lions. I therefore earnestly hope that they will be published in a form adapted to our classes." — Mrs. Sarah L. Willard, Princi- pal of the Troy Female Seminary. '■ Mr. Dwight's views show such rare and extensive research, the results of such discrimination and analysis, of such historical, ethnological, and philosophical acquaintance with words, lan- guages, roots, branches, themes and their logical and comprehen- sive classifications, ancient, very ancient, and modern, European and Asiatic, that we have been feasted as well as strengthened and enlightened with their consecutive display, and congratulate the public as' well as ourselves, in prospect of their gathered riches being permanently communicated from the press, in a practical form for general use, in all our learned institutions." — Kev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox, Ingham University. " I did not know who in this country could have written the article in the New Englander, on Modern Philology, without hashing it up from other authors. It would seem to be quite within the range of ]Mr. Dwight. How he can do so much an invalid like nie can hardly see." — Professor Francis A. March, Lafayette College, Penn. " I am delighted to learn that jMr. Dwight intends to bring out all his articles on philology together in one work. I shall look for it with great eagerness." — Edward P. Crowcll, Professor of Latin, Amherst College. IV ' I have read several articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra, by Mr. Dwight, and am greatly pleased with the earnest and spirited manner in which they are written, as well as with the thorough research which they display. He owes it to the cause of education to collect and enlarge them somewhat, and prepare them for publication in a book. They would form, I think, a text-book in many schools, and be welcomed by hundreds of private readers and learners. Such a work ivould ideally supply a desideratum. I feel exceedingly gratified that he has turned his attention and devoted so mucli labor to this important branch of science, which indeed may be almost regarded as the science of the age. He must let the world have the benefit of his labors." — Asahel C. Kendrick, D. D., Professor of Greek, Rochester University. " The articles published by Mr. Dwight, I have enjoyed much. They show a wide range of stud}", and a fine appreciation of the great laws and j)rinciples of language. The republication of them in a separate form will be a valuable service to the cause of philology." — Samuel H.Taylor, LL. D., Principal of Phillips' Academy, Andover, Mass. A. S. BAIINP:S & BURR, 51 & 53 John Strkkt, New York. DWIGHT'S MODERN PHILOLOGY. ; MODERN PHILOLOGY: |te giscobcrics HISTORY AND INFLUENCE, MAPS, TABULAR VIEWS, AND AN INDEX. BY BENJAMIN W. myiGRT, AUTHOR OF " THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN EDUCATION." NEW YORK : A. S. BARNES & BURR, 51 & 53 JOPIN STREET. 1859. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by A. S. BAENES & BUER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. « TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. HISTORICAL SKETCU OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. PAGE. Introduction, with List of Authors consulted 5-10 Philosophic Divisions of Languages 14 Peculiarities of Chinese Languages 15 The Agglutinative Languages 16-180 The Intlected Languages 18-190 Other Possible Classifications 19-20 The Semitia Languages 20-28 Connection of Hebrew and Phosnician Languages 20-22 Contrasts of the Semitic and Indo-European 22-25 Influence of Judaism on Indo-Europeanism 25-27 Climatic Influences 27 Area of Indo-European Development 28 Classification of Indo-European Languages 29 I. The Arian Family-pair 29-48 Arian Migrations 31 Arian Climatology 32 1st. The Indian Family 32-45 (1) The Sanskrit 32-42 Vedic Sanskrit and Vedas 33-40 Devanagari Alphabet 36-40 Pali and Prukrit Dialects 41-43 (2) The Gypsy Language 43-45 Gypsy Correspondences 44 2d. The Iranian Family 45 (1) Zend, Zend Avesta, &c 45-47 (2) Old Persian, (3) Pchlevi, (4) Pazend, (5) New Persian 47 3d. The Ossetian ; 4th. The Armenian 48 U CONTENTS. PAGE. II. Gr^co-Italic Family-pair 48-112 Ist. The Greek Family 49-6« False Theory of Connections of Greek and Latin 49 Dialectic Developments of the Greek 50 Gi'eek and Latin Correspondences 52 The Pelasgic or Pioneer Period 53-54 The Hellenic or Classic Period 54-6) Value of an Early History of Asia Minor 56 Language as a Mass of Ethnologic Records .... 57 Zend, Welsh, and Greek Correspondences 58 Area of Greek Development 60 Philological Value of Homeric Poems 61 Giese's Sketch of Pre-Hellenic Period 62-63 The Romaic or Modern Greek 64 The Albanian Language 65 Albanian Correspondences 66 Schleicher's Historical Epochs of the Greek ... 67 Greek Climatology 68 2d. The Italic Family 70-112 (1) lapygians, (2) Etruscans 70-74 (3) Italians 74-97 Italic Home-growth 74—75 («) Umbro-Samnite Dialects 75-79 (6) Latin 79-112 Latin Climatology 80-82 Peculiarities of Roman Mind 82 § 1. Historical View of Latin Language and Literature 83-96 Classical Latin 83-85 Middle Latin 85-87 Romanic Dialects 87-112 Germanic Influences on Romanic Languages 83-93 Specimens of Ante-Media3val Latin. . . 94 Do. Grseco-Romanic Elements 95 Do. Germano-Romanic do. 95 § 2. The Romanic Tjanguages 97-112 (1) The Italian and its Literature 97-99 (2) The Vrallachian do 99-100 (3) The Spanish do 100-105 (4) The Portuguese do 105-107 (5) The Provengal do 107-108 (6) The French do 108-111 Correspondences in Romanic Languages. 112 CONTENTS. Ill PACK. III. The Lcttic Family 113-117 1st. The Lithuanian and its Peculiarities •113-115 2d. The Old Prussian IIG 3d. The Lettish IIG IV. The Slavic Family 117-130 Historical Eras of this Famil}^ 117 Their Internal Connections 118 Their Different Alphabets : Cyrillic, Roman, Ilie- ronymic 119 First. South-Easteru Slavic 120 1st. The Russian and its Literature 121-3 2d. The Bulgarian do. 1 23-4 3d. The Servian do. 125 Second. Western Slavic 120-130 Slavonic Correspondences 120 1st. The Lechish : Poland and the Polish 127-128 2d. The Tschechish, 3(1. the Sorbish, 4th. the Po- labish 128 The Area of Slavism and its Neighborhood 129 V. The Gothic or Germanic Family 130-150 The First Historical Appearance of the Goths. .,.-... 130-131 1st. The Low German 132-145 (1) The Norse Languages, Old and New 132-133 (2) The Anglo-Saxon 133-143 History of the Anglo-Saxons 134 Elements of the English Language 134-138 Its Greatest of Autliors : Shakspeare. . . 130 Its Comparison with German 137 Its Correspondences with Sanskrit 138-9 Its Orthoepical and Orthographical Pe- culiarities 140 American Provincialisms 140-3 (3) The Frisic, (4) the Low Dutch 144-146 2d. The High German 145-151 Et3-mology of the Word German 146 Peculiarities of the German 147 Different Eras of its Development 147 Luther's Influence upon it 148 Its Comparison with tlie English 149 VL The Celtic Prichard's, Jones', and Bunsen's Views 151 Early Westward Movements of the Celts 152 Celtic Poetry : Os.sian, &c 153 IV CONTENTS. PAQB. Present Remains of Celtic ' 154 Present Cieographical Position of Celts 155 Celtic Correspondences 156 1st. The Kymric Languages 156- 158 2d. The Gadhelic do 157-159 Comparison of Welsh and Irish Numerals 159 Celtic and Sanskrit Correspondences 160 Inferences: 1st. Unity of the Race 161 2d. Power of Ph3'sical Influences 163 3d. Smallness of Man's Inventiveness 164—176 Origin of Language as Divine 168 Development-Theory of Word-germs 168-174 , Max Mi'iller's Theory of its Human Origin 173-175 ' Bunsen's Theory of Millennial Periods 176 4th. Each Language to be Studied in its Connections 177-179 Value of Scientific Etymology 177 Sanskrit Philology in the University-Course. . . 178 Tabular Views. ." 181-190 II. IIISTOEY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Philology : its Meaning and Different Phases 192 Grammar and the Alexandrian Grammarians 194 Influence of the Reformation on Modern Scholarship 195 State of Linguistic Culture in the 18th Century 197 Infidel Attempts to Pervert Philology 193 Leibnitz the Early Prophet of Philology 199 Efforts of Catharine II. of Russia 199 Formation of Asiatic Society 200 Adelung's IMithridates 200 Indo-Europeanism rersvs Indo-Germanism 201 Sanskrit Literature : its Character, &c 202 East India Company : Ilalhed, Jones 203 First English Translations of Sanskrit 204 Colebrooke, H. 11. Wilson 205 Frederic Schlegel : the INIan and his Sei"vices 206-9 Augustus W. Schlegel, his Brother 210-2 Bopp's First Philological Work 212 Rask : his Travels and Researches 212-215 Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Grammar 215 Ilis Scale of Correspondences 216-218 CONTENTS. V FAGB. His Present Labors 218-219 Francis Bopp: his Great Learning and Great Deeds. .. .. 219-225 A. F. Pott, as a Philologist ... 225 William Humboldt 226 Burnouf and Eichhofif in France, 183C) 227 -230 Albert'Giese's ^olischer Dialekt 230 Senary and Hofer .. . 231-232 Ahrens on the Conjugation in — jxi . 233 Diintzer and Kaltschmidt , . . 234 Diefenbach and Schleicher 235 George Curtius and Diez 23G-237 Diez's View of Philology. 238 Present Condition of Philology in Germany 239 Ernst Curtius and Theodore IMomrasen 240 Zeitschrift filr Vergleich. Spracliforschung 241 Aufrecht, Kirchhoft' and Benfey 241 Heyse, Kuhn, and Weber 242-243 Eapp's Grammar and Phonography 244-5 Rapp and Diez Compared 246 Fritsch on Particles 247 Sanskrit Philology in England 248 Prichard and Rosen 249 Donaldson : his Learning, Labors, and Vanity 250-2 Winning's Comparative Philology 252-4 Richard Garnett's Articles 255 Max Mailer's Survej' of Languages 255 Bunsen's Phil. Universal History 256 English Writers on Teutonic Elements in English 25G-257 State of Philology in America 257 Philological Authors C.ompared together 258 Philology Arranged according to Subjects 258-259 Relative State of Philology in Different Countries of Europe 260 Classical Philology, as such 260-263 Heyne, Buttmann, Diiderlein 261-262 Inferences: 1st. The Charms of Linguistic Stud}' 264 2d. Resolution of Grammatical Difficulties 266-268 3d. The Relative Imperishablcness of Language. . . .268 4th. The Scope of Analogy in Language 269 5th. The Mutual Connection of Languages 269 6th The Light Shed by Philology on Ethnography 270 Weber's Sketch of Primeval Arian Ilistor}- 272-274 VJ CONTENTS III. SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. PAGE. T. The General Proportions and Relations of the Subject 278-287 English Etymology Dependent on Classical 278 The Ileal Connections of all Languages 279-281 The Peculiar Philological Relations of the Latin 282 The Great Breadth of English Etymology 284 Our Present Languages but Linguistic Herbariums. . 285 IT. The History of Etymology 287-311 1st. Its Popular Empirical Treatment. 287-289 Ancient Legends and Mythology 288 False Etymologies of a Recent Sort 289 2d. Its Literary Empirical Treatment 290-306 The Theory of the Derivation of Latin from Greek 291 L. Ross's Recent Attempts to Revive it 292 History of Lexicography, (Latin, Greek, and English) 292-311 Freund's Latin Dictionary 293-297 Schwenck's and Valpy's Dictionary 297 Jiikel and Nork's Ideas of Latin. &c 297 Klotz's New Latin Dictionary 299 Passow, Pape, and Kaltschmidt in Greek Lexi- cography 300-301 Web.ster's English Dictionary 302-30G 3d. Its Exact Scientific Treatment 3CG-311 The Grimms' Great German Dictionary 30G-308 Indo-Europeanism Essential to all Etymology. 309 Etymology an Inductive Science .*..... 311 III. The Constituent Elements of Etymology as a Science 311-331 1st. Those of Comparative Etymology 312-327 (1) Comparative Phonology 312-322 (2) Comparative Lexicography 322-32-5 (3) Comparative Grammar 325-327 Criteria of Relative Antiquity of Lan- guages 320-327 2d. Those of Specific Etymology 328-331 (1) The Originals of Words 328 (2) Comparative Forms 328 (3) Derived Forms 329 (4) Interior Logical Etymology 329 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE. IV. Determinate Tests of Etymology 331-337 1st. Of Comparative Etymology 332-333 (1) Correspondence in Base or Theme 332 (2) Minute Mutual Resemblances 332 (3) Euphonic Laws of Definite Scope 332 (4) Certain Specific Axioms 333 2d. Of Specific Etymology 333-337 (1) The Genius of the Language 333-3-34 (2) Naturalness of Derivation 835 (3) Determinate Archaic Forms 335 (4) Double Forms 335-336 (5) Dialectic Changes and Differences 337 V. Advantages of the Study of Etymology 337-347 1st, The High Pleasure of it 338-341 2d. Its Advancement of the Higher Mental Dis- cipline 341-344 3d, Its Value in Acquiring Power of Speech 344-347 INTRODUCTION It has been the Author's pastime for several years, to employ himself in the study of Comparative Phi- lology. When wearied by the many toils of his pro- fession, as a teacher, he has found constant refreshment or exhilaration rather, day by day, in devoting his attention to the history, literature, researches and results of this new Science. No study is more pleas- ing or profitable to a classical scholar, or even to a general student of an earnest type, than that of Modern Philology : so multiform are its relations, so surprising its discoveries, and so splendid the train of its at- tending influences. The excitement of perpetual eff'ort to find its hidden wonders, keeps ever growing unto the end. The Author has written what he has, because he 6 INTRODUCTION. must : necessity has been iipon him : the fire kindled within his heart has found its own vent : he coukl not keep to himself the pleasure that he constantly ex- perienced, in his pathway of investigation. And if his papers had all perished by accident, after the care- ful preparation of years, the pleasure of the ever- present intention cherished and executed with patient, hopeful, happy toil so long, to participate with as many as possible the bliss that had welled-up, all the time, in his own silent heart unknown to others, woidd have still glowed on undimmed, as a great permanent fact to him in his life-work : illuminating not only the whole conscious past, as it was transpiring, but also the memory of it when gone forever from the view. He would have still testified to his own ear, if not to others, that verily it is more blessed to give than to receive. If the student finds but a moiety of the gratification, in the results here reached or announced, which the author himself has experienced ; and surely it can be but a moiety of his, in either time or degree : he Avill enjoy still another pleasure in his philological labors, which w^ill crown all those received before with its own added light and beauty. No one, who has not undertaken such a work, can have any just conception of the amount of thought and INTRODUCTION. 7 time, requisite to pass in thorough critical review the great number of facts, principles and relations, pertain- ing to the many topics connected Avitli the science of comparative philology ; and the processes of close, se- vere analysis, discrimination, comparison and judgment, to be repeated over and over again, from every possible angle of observation, in order to come to a clear and stable decision of matters having so many elements of separate and connected interest. But the joy has all the time more than equalled the toil. Should any think, that the rhetorical element is al- lowed, perchance, too free play to any degree in affairs of such high science, the plea is offered in- self-defence, that, whatever there may be of it, came spontaneously from the depths of the subject itself; which is full to the brim of its own lively appeals both to the reason and the imagination. Nor does the Author think, in intro- ducing this new study, so favorite in Germany, to the regards of the great community of general scholars here, who are just beginning to open their eyes upon its charms, that he should ruthlessly strip it of all its blossoming fulness of beauty, in order to show in more sharp and unclothed outline, to eyes that relish dissect- ed rather than living forms, the mere unadorned frame- work of its branches. Nor could he think of inviting, 8 INTRODUCTION. exclusively, mere technical scholars in philology to the literary banquet which he would fain provide for them : fit audience, indeed, if small ; because of the very lim- ited number who have as yet acquired, in this country, any complete special knowledge of its facts and princi- ples. His purpose has been, on the contrary, to do what he could to attract the greatest possible number of eyes to the gloiy of the New Philology. The articles composing the present volume were published : the first and third, at different times, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, and the second in the New Eng- lander ; and were much compressed in their details, in order to adapt their length to the limits of those valu- able Quarterlies. They have been all since carefully rewritten and enlarged, and particularly the first, which is now of more than twice its previous dimensions and value. The maps and tabular views of the different languages and index of contents will aid much, it is believed, in the comprehension of the whole subject. The Author loves to look hopefully, upon the sure and speedy progress of American scholarship to heights of attainment almost unthought of now. We are not to be always spoken of lightly as mere borrowers of others, and as accomplishing at the best only superficial results. There is, in the qualities of activity, enter- INTRODUCTION. » prise, ingenuity and endurance, that distinguish us as a people, a substantial preparation for the highest scien- tific and artistic development of the American mind and character, in all the varied departments of scholarly acquisition. So many of our finest minds are ere long not to be led, as now, like oxen garlanded for sacrifice, to the altars of Mammon ; and American scholarship, like American literature, which has hitherto surpassed it in the signals of its growth and greatness that it has waved exulting before the nations, is to stand up in the highest proportions, attained among any people, for breadth and strength and beauty of aspect, in the sight of an admiring world. If this humble effort may suffice to kindle any new enthusiasm among the younger scholars of the land, who aije just lighting their torches at the fires, which other hands, now growing feeble from age, have kin- dled : to God alone, who has given all the strength, re- sources and opportmiities for doing so, be the glory and the praise. Dwight's Rural High School, ) Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., July 1, 1859. j Among the Autliors consulted in the preparation of the first article, are the following : — Grote's History of Greece ; Smith's do. ; Niebuhr's His- tory of Rome ; Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancieut History ; Brown's History of Greek Classical Literatm'e ; Brown's Ro- man Classical Literature ; Donaldson's New Cratylus ; Don- aldson's Varronianus ; Taylor's Ancient History ; Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History; Bopp's Comparative Gram- mar, by Eastwick ; Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik (Neue Auflage) ; Rapjj's do. ; Eichhoffs Vergleichung der Sprachen; Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache ; Diefenbach's Gothisches Worterbuch ; Giese's Aeolischer Dialekt ; Momm- sen's Romische Geschichte ; Schleicher's Geschichte der Sprachen Europa's ; Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft ; Diez' Grammatik der Roman. Sprachen ; Ahrens' De Lin- gua3 Greece Dialectis ; Aufrecht's Umbrischen Sprachdenk- maler ; Lersch's Sprachphilosophie ; Winning's Comparative Philology ; Garnett's Philological Essays ; Monier Williams' Sanskrit Grammar ; Kuhn's Beitrage zur Sprachforschung ; Gesenii Monumenta ; Max MuUer's Survey of Languages Asiatic Researches; Frederic Schlegel's ^sthetical Works Prichard's Natural History of Man ; Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations ; Journal of American Oriental Society ; Du Gauge's Glossarium ; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; Gieseler's Ch. Hist. ; Buckle's Hist, of Civilization in England ; Blair's Chronology ; etc., etc. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. MODEEN PHILOLOGY. I. AN HISTORICAL SI^TCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. The design of the following essay, is not to enter into the details of ethnography, as such, except so far as they may subserve directly the one object, of better unfolding the connection and growth of different lan- guages ; or, to give any distinct history of the literature of each language, but to adhere closely to the text furnished in its title. For the same reason, neither chronology nor geography occupy any very conspicuous position. While it has required, at times, as much effort in the selection of materials, to determine what to reject as what to employ ; it will be found, it is hoped, that the golden mean has been attained, between too great diffuseness on the one hand and too much condensation on the other. It is not an easy task for curious minds to learn, to leave dark what is dark, and to state supposed facts 14 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF with no more assurance, than the actual evidence of their existence, according to the most careful measure- ment of its dimensions, justifies. Almost all earnest writers, accordingly, on the early history of nations and of languages, have undertaken to be luminous amid obscure data, and to interpret the past in the same style of self-confident certainty, in which the interpret- ers of prophecy usually open the scroll of revelation for the future. The great Niebuhr, and more recently the lesser Donaldson, strikingly exemplify this tendency. But it is still more difiicult for a generous mind, to conceal within itself some new" light that serves greatly to illuminate and cheer its own vision ; and from weak, unmanly over-caution, to understate truths that desen^e a large and bold utterance. The terms of comparison between different lan- guages are limited, of course, to that mere moiety of words which is preserved to us in books. Could that other large portion of each language, when in its fullest state of expansion, which is now lost to us, be recovered, many of ■ the results that are gained by philological analysis would receive an assurance and an amplification, which would be grand in both their proportions and their benefits. The different languages of the world may be ar- ranged philosophically, in three great classes : 1. Those, consisting of mere separate, unvaried monosyllables, like the Chinese. There are no Ian- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 1*5 guages of this kind, but the Chinese and a few Indo- Chinese languages in its neighborhood, as the Brahman, Siamese, &c., which were originally without doubt identical with it. In exact antipodes to the monosyl- labism of this class of languages, stands the polysyl- labism of the North American languages, with their wonderful tendencies to concatenated formations : for which reason they have sometimes been called the polysynthetic languages ; and yet, in their interior grammatical constitution, both of these classes of languages are of the same general grade of character. The words composing the Chinese language are all so many distinct monads unrelated to each other, and without any organization that adapts them for mutual affiliation. There is, accordingly, an utter absence of all scientific forms and principles of grammar, in a language thus composed of a mere congeries of separate units. Each w^ord therefore exists, in a close, sharply defined, permanent status of its own ; and that play of light and shade, which words, containing each so many different senses, possess in other languages, is here lost. Some fifty thousand characters are accordingly employed in the Chinese tongue, to express the wants of speech. These are some of them simply pictorial still ; while others are idiographic now in theii* form, although many,, if not most, of this class are probably but abbreviations of original pictorial representations of the object described. That class of theorists, w^ho 16 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF account for the origin of language, as others do of nature, by what is termed the development-theory, love to represent language as having been at the first in the same crude inorganic state, in w^hich we now find the Chinese : conceiving of it, as they do, as a mere human invention or rather incident, a sort of wild indigenous product of the social state. Language as such, on the contrary is, it is believed, a beautiful piece of Divine mechanism : contrived by Hiin who made man, and who made him to speak both to Himself and to his fellows ; and therefore the nearer to its first beginnings that we ascend in our investigations, the more fidl and complete we find it in its forms. 2. Those formed by agglutination. This is an advance on the preceding in style of construction, as here words do show some appetency and affinity for each other, although in the simplest of all modes of combination : mere cohesion. Such are the Tatar, Einnish, Lappish, Hungarian and Caucasian languages : sometimes called the Nomadic or Turanian languages. Words in these languages combine, without any elective affinity, in but a mere mechanical way. They have not toward each other, either any of the active, or any of the sensitive receptive, capabilities of living organisms. Prepositions are joined in them to substantives, and pronouns to verbs, as if flexion-endings ; but never so as to make a new form of the original word, as in the inflective languages. The words thus placed in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 17 juxtaposition, still retain each of tliem tlieir own personal identity unimpaired. These languages are thus classified in one group, almost exclusively on the ground of correspondence in their grammatical struc- ture, rather than of any additional lexical agreement. Rask, Castren and Gabelentz, the great investigators of the Turanian languages, all unite in testifying that they are bound together by ties of far less strength than the Indo-European ; while they also maintain with equal firmness, that they all belong fundamentally to one race. This race has, from the first, occupied more of the surface of the earth, than either of the others ; as, in nature hitherto, the aggregate extent of wilderness has always been greater than that of the gardens of the world. Like the Chinese language, the Tatar family of languages reigns over an immense territory in Asia • and covers wdth its folds the Mantchoos, Mongols, and the whole wide-spread Turkish race in the east, and in the west the Pinnish, Lappish and Magyar tribes of men : stretching west- ward, from the shores of the Japan Sea to the neigh- borhood of Vienna ; and southward, from the northern Arctic Ocean to Affghanistan and the southern coasts of Asia Minor. The Caucasian languages lie spread out between the Black and Caspian seas ; and are historically too insignificant to deserve much attention. One of these, the Abchasic, is said to be the lowest of all this class of languages, in its grammatical constitu- 18 HISTOllICAL SKETCH OF tion : having no flexion of the noun, and no distinction of number or person in the- verb. The aggUitinative languages have some special pe- culiarities that are quite remarkable. One, is the ar- rangement of governed words before those governing them ; so that even prepositions are placed after, instead of before, the nouns in regimen with them, and are properly therefore postpositional in their character. Another, is the law of vowel-harmony, by which added syllables are made to correspond, as being hard, middle or soft* with the vowels of the radical syllables. 3. The inflected languages. These are aU of a complete interior organization : complicated with many mutual relations and adaptations, and thoroughly sys- tematized in all their parts. There is all the diflerence between this class and the monosyllabic, that there is between organic and inorganic forms of matter ; as also the diff'erence between them and the agglutinative lan- guages is like that in nature between mineral accretions and vegetable growths. In their history lies embosomed that of the civilized portions of the world. The boun- daries of this class of languages are the boundaries of cultivated humanitv. The lansfuaGfes of Africa, which have been but recently revealed to European eyes by missionary zeal, are, especially the Congo and Bechuana families of them, deserving to a considerable degree of the title of inflected languages, but only in limited forms and directions. Words are linked together in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 19 continuecl discourse by a few prefixes, sufRxes and inserted syllables of a simple sort : the same suffix being duplicated on the connecting as well as on the connected word ; so that the style of inflection is one which would seem to a cultivated, logical, artistic gram- marian of the Grecian and Latin school, to be in many cases but a piece of tawdry syntactical patchwork. The classification which we have presented of the various languages of the world, is based on their outward differences of form. In reference to their inward structu- ral differences, they might be divided into two great fam- ilies : 1 . The ungrammatical, as the Chinese and North American. 2. The grammatical or organic languages, namely, the Semitic, the Indo-European and the Tura- nian. The great basis of identity in each of these classes of languages lies in the fact, that they are inflected in the same way respectively, or, which is the same thing, that the grammar of each class is identical in all the families of the class. In respect to their phenomenal or historical differences, they are capable of still another arrangement : 1 . Those which have utterly perished, and they must have been many. 2. Those called " dead ; " or those that, like the Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Gothic, are no more used in the daily commerce of men's thoughts and wants, but are yet preserved in books in all their ancient strength and beauty. 3. The living languages of the world. Two great races, speaking inflected languages, have 20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF shared between them the peophng of the historic por- tions of the earth : the Semitic and the Indo-European. On this account their languages have sometimes been called the political or state-languages of the world, in contrast with the appellation of the Turanian as No- madic. In each of the three great classes of languages : the monosyllabic, the agglutinated and the inflected, there may be found isolated instances of forms that occur in cliaracteristic abundance in the others. Thus, both monosyllabic and agglutinated forms occm' in the inflected languages ; and yet the distinctions described separate the different classes, in the mass, quite abso- lutely from each other. The Semitic family of languages consists of three principal divisions : the Hebrew, the Aramaean and the Arabic* With the Hebrew, the leading ancient language of the Semitic family, the Canaanitish or Phoenician language stands in the most intimate rela- tion. Canaan was the primitive home of the Hebrew tongue. It was a spoken language in Judea from the days of Moses (b. c. 1500) to those of Nehemiah (b. c. 450). It was essentially the language of the Phoe- nician race, by whom Palestine was inhabited before * To the Arabic belongs also the Ethiopic, as a branch of the Southern Arabic. The Aramaean is called Syriac in the form in which it appears in the Christian Aramgean literature ; but Chaldee, as it exists in the Aramaean writings of the Jews; and this is still spoken by some tribes near Damascus and by the Nestorian Koords. To the Chaldee is closely allied the Samaritan. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 21 the immigration of Abraham's posterity. It became the adopted language of his descendants, and was transferred with them to Egypt and brought back to Canaan. Whatever variations there may have been in the speech of those dwelling in Tyre and Sidon, com- pared with that of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they were very slight. Even the language of Numidia is supposed by Gesenius, to have been pure, or nearly pure Hebrew.* The remaining fragments, accordingly, of the Phoenician and Punic languages agree with the Hebrew. The Semitic languages were native in the countries lying between the Mediterranean, the Arme- nian mountains, the Tigris and the southern coast of Arabia ; or, in other words, in South-western Asia. The Arabic is the only present living language, of any great importance, belonging to this family. Since the con- quest of Syria and Palestine, in the middle of the sev- enth century, it has swept from its presence, as with a * Augustine, himself a native Carthaginian, said in his day, that "the Hebrevr and Carthaginian languages differ but little. The Hebrew, Carthrfginian and Phoenician languages, are of one origin and character." So Hieronymus : •' The Carthaginian language is, to a great extent, allied with the Hebrew ; and is said, indeed, to flow forth from the fountains of the Hebrew." Gesenius himself adds, that " this is to be thoroughly maintained, that the Phoenician language, in the main, and indeed as to almost every thing, agrees with the Hebrew, •whether you consider their roots or the mode of forming and inflect- ing their words : a point which it is superfluous to illustrate with ex- amples." Gesenii Monumenta, § 3. Chap. ■' Linguae Phoeniciaj mdoles et cum Hebraja necessitudo." 3 22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF breath of flame, the Hebrew and the Syriac in their own native dwelhng-pLace. This Language now covers, with its mantle of Oriental beauty, a large part of Western Asia and Northern Africa. It exhibits also in the Maltese, which is but a dialect of the Arabic, a soli- tary representative of itself in Europe. Like the Ger- man in the w^estern world in so many other respects, this Eastern language is like it also in this, that it has diff'used its elements wonderfully among the constitu- ents of many suiTounding languages : as the Turkish, the New Persian and Syriac ; while, in Europe also, it has left its impress ineffaceably on the Spanish lan- guage, upon whose features, as well as upon the face of whose Hterature, the Moorish tint is unmistakable. In its grammatical system or inward constitution, it affords, at the same time, both the most normal and the most improved style of structure of all the Semitic languages. The Hebrew, when compared wdth it in respect to either its grammar or its lexical resources, is decidedly inferior. The Semitic languages differ widely from the Indo- Em'opean, in reference to their grammar, vocabulary and idioms. The consonantal system, for example, of all the Semitic languages is singular in the fact, that every root consists of three letters ; while, in the other great famihes of languages, they may be of one, two, or tlnree, and are indeed seldom of three. And yet, although the Semitic and Indo-European families do THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 23 not stand in any close relationship to each other, a re- mote connection between them cannot be denied. So far as yet traced, the Semitic seems to be the elder family of the two, but its limits and its functions have ever been of a far narrower range. The old Egyptian, one of this family, is the most ancient language noAV known. It was a form of speech that seems to have had force enough in itself, to rise, like the sun emerging from a bank of mist, just out of a state of mere monosyllabic development. Every thing, indeed, Egyptian was from the first strangely unique, and was petrified by phys- ical or moral causes, when but half complete, beyond the power of further change. We have been also re- cently informed of other ante-historical branches of the Semitic family, beside the old Egyptian, as of the old Assyrian and Babylonian. Clay tablets have been found by thousands at Nineveh, containing treatises on almost every subject, and also grammars, dictionaries, histo- ries and works on geography, astronomy and painting : "presenting," as Rawlinson, one of its explorers, re- marks, " a perfect cyclopaedia of Assyrian science." So also the characters found on the bricks in the disen- tombed palaces at Babylon have been clearly proved to be Semitic. These antique languages lived and died, in the darkness of an otherwise utterly unmemoriahzed past. Indo-European literatiu-e, although not of so high antiquity as the Semitic, far surpasses it in variety, 24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF flexibility, beauty, strength and luxuriance. The ulti- mate roots of the Semitic tongues are few in number ; and the formation of words by prefixes and affixes is simple, and in most cases similar ; while, in the Indo- European, we have a range and style of words and in- flections adapted to the truest and finest possible ex- pression of thought of whatever height or depth, or of whatever scope or bearing. The Semitic languages might justly be called, on a general scale of comparison, the metaphorical languages, on account of the great preponderance in them of the pictorial element ; and the Indo-European, the philo- sophical languages, as descriptive of the prevailing style of their higher literature. The two living languages of these two great families that most resemble each other, in combining, to a high degree, both the philosophical and pictorial element in their natural constitution and literature, are the Arabic and the German. The Semitic nations have had either a stronger love of place and of home than the Indo-European, or a greater aversion to effort and adventure ; since, with the exception of the Arabians, whose spirit of conquest, like that of the Turks of the Turanian family, must be ascribed to the fierce propagandist influence of Mohammedism, they have ever dwelt within close narrow bounds, while in them, however, they have often manifested intense energy. In hieroglyphs, the Semitic mind first re- corded its thoughts and wants and achievements, in THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 25 ancient Egypt ; and afterwards another branch of the same family, the Phoenicians, foremost in their day in commerce and the arts, invented alphabetic letters of which all the world has since made use. The Semitic nations also first ripened in arts and arms ; but, hke precocious children, early failed to yield the fruit that they had promised. The Semitic and Indo-European families are complementary to each other in their char- acteristics ; and almost as strongly so as are the mascu- line and feminine constitution of mind, respectively, to each other. What influence the Semitic family, especially the religionized Judaic portion of it, has had directly or in- duectly on the development of any or all of the Indo- European family, it would be a matter of capital in- terest, were there sufficient data for such an examination, to investigate and decide. There are a few streaks of light, at any rate, upon this subject, visible in the hori- zon of history. Babylonia was greatly influenced by Judaic commerce, religion and literatiu-e, as early as the days of Solomon (b. c. 1000). Phoenicia also, over which reigned contemporaneously with him King Hiram, the grandfather of Dido, who founded Carthage, was, both by its proximity and the sameness of its lan- guage, brought powerfully under Hebrew influence. Persia was filled with Jews, as we know, in the days of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Queen Esther, in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries before Christ. What 26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF quickening influences and what new ideas were thus set in motion, throughout these various countries, and indeed throughout also India in the East, Egypt and Arabia on the South, and even Greece in the West, who can say ? They must, indeed, have been many and great. Judea was designed, hke all the rest of God's works, to have the chief ends and uses of her existence outside of herself. While Judaism was not essentially, like Christianity, a Missionary Institute, but, owing to the stern necessities of the times, was built for defen- sive rather than offensive operations ; stiU, it was thus fenced in with privileges and illuminated with light from above, that it might be seen over all the earth, that God who made the earth and heavens. He is Lord ; and that blessed is that people whose God is the Lord. The Holy Land was made the garden of the Lord, that the leaves of its trees might be for the healing of the nations. Phoenicia and Egypt were the countries that were specially brought into full and long contact with the truths and influences, that made Jerusalem glorious for beauty. The Phoenicians and Hebrews were as in- timate for that day in commerce and friendship, as the English and Americans in our times. And, as for the Egyptians, not only were the Israelites tabernacled by God among them for more than four hundred years ; but ever afterwards they were held together by ties of intercourse and commerce more or less firm : as, Solo- mon married his wife in Egypt, and thither, a thousand THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 27 years afterward, Joseph and Mary fled with the infant Jesus from the face of Herod. But Phcenicia and Egypt exerted, in their turn, a very great influence on the early progress of the European world. Erom Phoenicia came the alphabet to Greece; and from them both came stores of wisdom and influences intel- lectual and moral, which, by their very essential invisi- bility, hid themselves, even in the time of their greatest power, from observation. Is it not pleasant to think that the Jewish theocracy, erected like a tower of light by our great Eather above among the people of the old world, was set up in love, not only for those who dwelt under its immediate effulgence, but also for the other nations that looked on it from afar, for whose good his heart yearned as tenderly as it does for that of all men now. The Semitic nations have lived with remarkable uniformity on vast open plains ; or wandered over mde and dreary deserts, by which the negative side of their character has been more cultivated than the positive. The lot, on the contraiy, of the Indo-European nations, has been ever, with as remarkable uniformity, cast by a favoring Providence amid rivers, mountains, vales and gorges ; where they might gaze upon an ever-changing sky, and breathe a vigorous ever-changing air; and where they would be required to accoutre themselves, continually, for new enterprises and endeavors. The Indo-European nations and languages have 28 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF spread themselves, in the eastern hemisphere, over the vast area from the mouth of the Ganges, to the British Islands and the northern extremities of Scandinavia. They comprise the Sanskrit, Zend, Old Persian, Greek, Latin, Lettic, Slavonic, German and Celtic families of tongues ; and these languages compare quite as closely, one with another, in both their lexical and grammatical elements, as do the Romanic languages : the Italian, Wallachian, Spanish, Portuguese and Prench, with each other. As we go eastward geographically and back- ward historically, we find, as a general fact, a greater and greater approximation constantly to the pure Indo- European types of words, as found in the Sanskrit; and, as w^e go westward, less and less ; until, in the Celtic, the most western European language, we find the fewest traces left of the common original mother- tongue. It is indeed but a recent discovery, made by the late distinguished Prichard, that the Celtic actually belongs to the same great parent stock of languages. Still more recently, by the discovery of the Old Egyp- tian language and the comparison of the Celtic lan- guages with it, the conviction is reached, as Bunsen claims, that the original Celtic is more ancient, not only than the Teutonic branch of languages, but even than the Sanskrit itself: forming a sort of connecting link between the Old Egyptian and the Sanskrit, in the stages of Imgual development. If this view of the Celtic shall be, at any time hereafter, really substan- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 29 tiated, then to the Celtic must be conceded the honor, now given to the Sanskrit and otherwise to be given to it still, of retaining in itself more fully than any other one of the sister-languages still preserved to us, that ancient mother-tongue, now lost in its pure primal form from the eyes of men ; from which yet all the sub- sequent languages of the civilized world have been de- rived. The real connection also of the Celtic and the Sanskrit, as belonging to the same family, will remain unchanged ; while the order of sequence between the two will be dii'ectly alternated. The most ancient languages of the Indo-European stock may be grouped in two family -pairs : the Arian family -pail" and the Grseco-Italic or Pelasgian family- pair. The whole series of families is as follows : I. The Arian family-pair. n. The Grseco-Italic, or Pelasgic family-pair. m. The Lettic family. IV. The Slavic family. V. The Gothic family. VI. The Celtic family. The Celtic is placed last, because it is yet least ex- plored, and its full definite relations have been least ascertained. I. The Arian family-pair. This comprises, as the title indicates, two leading families : 1st. The Indian family. 2cl. The Iranian family 30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF The word Arian (Sanskrit Arya, Zend Airya) signi fies noble, well-born : a name applied by the Ancient Hindus to themselves, in contradistinction to the rest of the world, whom they considered base-born and con- temptible. This is the oldest known name of the entire Indo-European family. With this name all chance to trace the pedigree of the family back to the early dawn of time ends. Prom what circumstances of social con- trast in their favor, they came to apply this self-flatter- ing title to themselves it is impossible to say. As the words " Slavonic " and "Irish" (from Airya) contain the same utterance of national pride in them, the name is probably but another evidence of mens' disposition in all ages, not to esteem others as themselves. So the Greeks called the rest of the world " barbarians ;" and the Jews termed the Gentiles " dogs." Arii was the ancient name of the Medes : a name afterAvard pre- served in the Aria and Ariana of the Greek geogra- phers. Aryavarta, the country lying between the Him- alaya and the Vindhya mountains, the primeval abode of their fathers, is now regarded as their " holy land " by the Brahmins. There, in that high table-land of central Asia, two thousand years and more before Christ, our Hindu ancestors had their early national home. So also to Bactria near the Indus, the earliest traditions of the Persians point as the ancient and romantic seat of their race. Iran then, a country bounded on the north by the Caspian, on the south by THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 31 the Indian Ocean, on the east by the Indns, and on the west by the Euphrates, is the spot to wliich all the lan- guages of the civilized world, ancient and modern, now unite in pointing as tlie place of their origin. The absolutely primeval home of the original Arians cannot now be determined. In tracing any of the great currents of Arian migration back from whatever direc- tion to their central source, we soon find om'selves, here as on every other topic of ultimate inquiry, groping iri irremediable darkness. There have been historically two great streams of Arian overflow : the one southern, including the Brahmanic Arians of India and the Persian followers of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) : the other northern at the outset but western in the end, embracing the great families of nations in north-western Asia and in Europe. But for this great western Arian manifestation of intellect, enterprise and character, the history of the world hitherto would have had but little significance : as, all of the present and most of the past civilized na- tions of the world belong to this branch of humanity ; and as, for some reason or for many, all the early Semitic tendencies to high and broad enlargement were of veiy short durgftion and circumscribed influence. Like trees, at first loaded with blossoms but subsequently shorn of their riches by killing frosts, they gave a larger promise than they afterward realized in the result. The south- ern Arian migrations stagnated in the valleys which they occupied ; as in them they were walled in from all 32 HISTORICAL SKETCH 0¥ danger of invasion from the restless nations in the west, by the snow-towers of the Himalaya on the north, the expanse of the Indian Ocean on the south and the deserts of Bactria on the west. There, in the rich val- leys of the Indus and its many streams, with no motive to labor from poverty of soil and no need of self-protec- tion against aggressive assaults upon their life of ease, the common mass sank, like the other nations of the earth that have not been constantly goaded by the sharp spm' of necessity, into a life of base inglorious inactivity. The more studious and thoughtful, the natural quality of whose minds forbade voluntary torpidity of intellect, wasted their powers in roaming about aimlessly in the regions of dreamy mystic subjectivity. The western nations have been forced by circumstances into a more objective life ; and, under the stimulus of physical influences better fitted to test and temper the character and by constant friction one upon the other, have been brought into a state of individual and social activity and progress ; the products of which seem as marvellous to an Oriental mind, as can any of the gorgeous fancies of eastern fable to a youthfid reader among us. 1. The Indian family. Of this the Sanskrit is the most remarkable .- standing farthest east and at the farthest distance of time, full-orbed in its brightness, casting splendor on every language around it and on every language to be found in the long procession of different tongues related THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 33 to it from that day to this. In the Vedas, it has come down to us from the borders of the primitive world, on the margin of which the Genius of history never phmted its foot. The Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language in India, as late probably as 1500 years before Christ, or five hundred years before the days of Homer and Solomon, who were contemporaries. The original Veda the Hindus believe to have been revealed by Brahma ; and to have been preserved by tradition, until it was arranged in its present order by a sage, who thence obtained the name of Vyasa or Vedavyasa or compiler of the Vedas. These Indian Scriptures, which are all lyrical in then* form, he divided into four parts, named Rich, Yajush, Saman and Atharvarna : each with the common denomination Veda,* wdiich means primarily knowledge or science, and is now used to denote the whole mass of Hindu sacred literature. The fourth of these Vedas is undoubtedly more modem than the first three, and like in this respect the Itihasa and Puranas, which together constitute a fifth and stiU more recent Veda. In the Vedas themselves they have a fabulous origin ascribed to them : " the Rigveda from fire,f the Yajurveda from air, and the Samaveda from the sun." Some Indian commentators ascribe the * Lat. video, Gr. oJ8a for FoTSa : Germ. "Wissen : Eng. wit. wist viz. : — vide, vision, etc. t Asiatic Researches. Art. by H. T. Colebrooke, vol. viii. (year 1808.) 34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF fable to the fact that the Rigveda opens Avith a hymn to fire, and the Yajurveda Avith one in which air is mentioned; but others see in it a transcendental phOosophy of the primeval order of things in the miiverse. The Vedas are properly a compilation of prayers, called Mantras when spoken of by themselves, and Brahmanas or precepts and maxims. In the three principal Vedas,* prayers employed at solemn public rites, called Yajnyas, are found : those in metre being called Rich, those in prose Yajush, and those designed to be chanted Saman. The prayers of the fourth or Atharvarna Veda, were used on different occasions and for different purposes from the preceding ; as for im- precations on enemies. And, as in all other parts of the world where thinking men have lived, as in the different schools of philosophy in Greece and Rome, the different sects of Christendom and even the dif- ferent monastic orders of popery ; which yet makes boast of possessing a permanent leaden uniformity of character, as if it were meritorious to be in a state of utter metaphysical and moral stagnation : so in India, the minds of men have separated and scattered the pure white light, as they deemed it, received from their Vedas, into many distinct sects and schools of theology, of every varied hue of thought. * In former daj'S learned priests took their titles from the number of Vedas with which they were conversant. Thus, one who had studied two Vedas was called Dwivedi : one, who had studied three, Ti'ivedi and one who had studied four, Cbaturvedi. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 35 It has been stated that each Veda consists of two parts : the Mantras or prayers and the Brahmanas or precepts, under which term are included also explana- tory maxims and theological arguments. The Rig- veda* means literally the Veda of verses, from rich, to praise ; and consists of somewhat more than a thousand hymns of praise, called Suktas, to the Deity, of various length from one to fifty verses. The religious litera- ture of the Hindus consists of such works, beside the Vedas themselves, as the Upanishads, which are theological tracts containing the argumentative portion called Vedanta, of the Indian Scriptures, and also some detached essays of a kindred sort, but of what origin is not known. On the Upanishads the whole of their * In the study of the Vedas, which is enjoined upon all priests, the student is always required to note distinctly the author, subject, metre, and purpose of each prayer, more than to understand the praj-er itself; and thus most of what is taught in the Vedas has now become' obsolete. So strong is the tendencj^ everywliere in human nature to put the gloss of mere formal respect on every thing ancient, and to satisfy its religious instincts, by carefullj^ preserving religious truths and principles, as if a mere cabinet of elegant curiosities. The Veda is accordingly the Hindu's book of education for his child, whom he re- quires to learn it at an early age : as a precious mass of holy words, without any thought or care about its holy sense. And, as the Ta- tars, according to Hue, construct multitudes of little water-mills covered with scraps of prayers, and set them along the courses of their streams, that, by their revolution day and night they may keep up a constant round of prayer for them, whether awake or asleep ; so the super- stitious Indians abound in vain i-epetitions of chance-portions of the Vedas, repeating them forwards and backwards, backwards and for- wards, in idle emptiness of thought, in order to benefit their souls, if possible, in some way by such foolish mummery. 36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF theology is professedly founded. Their remaining literature which is abundant, spreads over the varied fields of grammar, accentuation, prosody, interpretation, lexicography, language, logic, philosophy, ethics, as- tronomy, &c. The dialect of the Vedas, especially of the first three, is very ancient and very difficult ; but, as the earlier form of the polished Sanskrit, it possesses great interest, as it does also even still more from the fact of the resemblance of the Graeco-Latin stock of words very largely to its primeval forms, rather than to those of the proper Sanskrit itself; much of which seems to have been developed, as a distinct home-growth by itself, after the departure of the Pelasgian emigration from its borders. The Sanskrit is then the learned language of the Hindus : sustaining the same relation to their present dialects, that the Latin sustains to the modern Romanic tongues. While it is written in various Indian char- acters, it has an alphabet peculiarly its own, called the Deva-nagari, literally "that of the divine or royal city." The remotest date to which its existence can be traced, is the thu'd century before Christ ; but at this period, its forms had only the rudimentary features of the shape, which they have since come to possess in all Sanskrit writings, and which, for conve- nience sake, are called modern in distinction from the original imperfect alphabet of symbols which preceded THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 37 it. The " modern" Devanagari is the most complete and philosophical in its construction, of all known alphabets. The " ancient " occurs only in antique in- scriptions, found on pillars and high rock-walls through- out India ; and the dialect in which these characters appear, is not the Sanskrit or " classical " language of the literary class ; but the Prakrit, a " natural " or " un- cultivated" idiom of it, adopted in accommodation to the people, for whose eyes they were thus carved in im- perishable stone : since they prove to be but royal commands to them, to obey the priests and to practise various social virtues. There are good historical data for referring them to the time immediately succeeding Alexander's invasion of the East. The true or " mod- ern " Devanagari was, like the literature enclosed as in a casket in it, kept out of sight from the people by the proud Brahmins of ancient times as now, who de- lighted in fencing off others from their selfish seclusion of false dignity, by withholding from them as many privileges as possible. The word Sanskrit or " clas- sical " had an icy coldness of meaning in it, even then, to those shut out from its favored pale : as, occasionally in modern times, some standing under the very canopy of divine revelation affect to make it, and together with it all the beauty of mental and moral culture de- noted by it, appear to imply to the uninitiated. In- deed, as Milton's Eve, when bending over the river's bank in Eden saw as in a mirror her own image and 4 38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF was astonished ; so, we may gaze from tlie verge of the present npon the wondrous stream of the past, in the ancient Indian home of our race, and see with amaze- ment not only our o^^n outward selves all imaged there, but also the most inward and subtle features of our hearts. In the sixth centiu-y before Christ, when Buddhism, well styled the ancient Protestant religion of India, rose into full view, the Sanskrit was no longer a spoken language. As the most ancient of all literary documents of the Arian race upon the earth, the Rig- Yedas possess quite a special interest of their own. They were all probably written before the days of Solomon. The grammar and lexicography of the Vedas are now being laboriously studied in Germany and Russia and by Prof. Wliitney in this country ; and much progress lias been made in the great work of ac- curately deciphering their contents. The relation of the Ye die dialect to the classical Sanskrit is peculiar. " Phonetically they are almost exactly the same :* grammatically they are nearly the same ; while lexically they are very different." There are grammatical treatises in manuscript appended to the different Vedas called Pratisakhyas. In these the science of phonetics, called Siksha, is reduced to a very perfect system : far more so than in any other language since ; and yet these grammars date back as far as to the fifth century before Christ. They have not yet been * Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 39 publislied, but pliilologists now are returning to the same classification of vowels and consonants that oc- curs in them, as the result of their own independent research. The Sanskrit is both read and written by the learned in India, up to the present day ; but, since the days of Panini, their great grammarian, who lived in the fourth century before Christ, the Sanskrit has remained in a state of cold and glazed unchangeable- ness ; hke some of the fossil elephants found nowa- days in the icy realms of Siberia, as perfect even to the short thin hair of their hides, as when they walked in pomp upon the Pre-Adamic earth. Beside the Vedas and Upanishads, two great epic poems called the Mahabaratah and Ramayana are very celebrated, as also the so-called laws of Menu. These were probably written in the fourth century before Christ. It was in the Vedic period of Sanskrit literature that the Southern Arian mind, or what became after- ward the proper Hindu mind, was at its highest point of culmination : exhibiting the most and the strongest signs of its original individuality. After that period it seems to have lost its first vio;or : althouo'h ever wor- shipping, under the name of Brahma, Porce or Propul- sive Will as the all-presiding Deity of the Universe. Between the Vedic dialect and tlie Zend strikiuGr resemblances are found to exist. " The Sanskrit is," in the lanojuas^e of EichhofF " the richest of all languages in the world, in its combi- 40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF nations. Its words melt and run continually together, in harmony of sound* and sense ; and their full splendor is but faintly imaged to the view even by the beautiful and pictorial language of Greece ; while the coarser and sterner Latin represents in its features still less of this high characteristic of its elder sister, the Sanskrit. * The words of Lepsius also are worth quoting here (Standard Alphabet, p. 15) : — -'No language has a system of sounds more rich and regularly developed than the Sanskrit, or expresses them so per- fectly by its alphabet. The old grammarians of India did not indeed invent the Devnagari characters ; but they brought them to that state of perfection which they now possess. With an acumen worthy of all admiration, with physiological and linguistic views more accurate than those of any other people, these grammarians penetrated so deeply into the relations of sounds in their own lang-uage, that we at this day may gain instruction from them, for the better understanding of the sounds of our own languages. On this account no language and no alphabet are better suited to serve, not indeed as an absolute rule but as a starting-point, for the construction of an universal linguistic alpha- bet, than that of ancient India. Hence it is that the late progress in the solution of the alphabet problem has been associated in Europe, as formerly in India, with Sanskrit studies." "The alphabet problem" of which he speaks, is that of establishing an uniform orthography for writing foreign languages in European characters, or a standard alpha- bet for all unwritten languages and foreign graphic systems. The Devanagari is adapted to the expression of almost every known gradation of sound ; and every letter has a fixed and invariable pronun- ciation. There are fourteen vowels and thirty-three simple consonants : to which may be added the nasal symbol called Anuswara and tlic symbol for a final aspirate called Visarga. The vowels are a, a, i, i, u. u, ri, ri, Iri, Iri, e, ai, o, au. The consonants are : the gutturals k, kh. g, gh, n : the palatals ch, chh, j, jh, n : the cerebrals t, th, d, dh, n : the dentals t, th, d, dh, n : the labials p. ph, b, bh. m : the semi-vowels y, r, 1, V : the sibilants s, sh, s ; and the aspirate h. The compound or conjunct consonants may be multiplied, to the extent of four or five hundred. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 41 It must however be remembered, in connection with this statement, that in respect to the artistic elabo- ration of language, in variety and exactness of form, as well as m outward phonetic beauty and effect, the Greek far surpassed not only the Sanskrit, !)ut also every other language ancient or modem. Of the Sanskrit also it must be said, that in many particulars it has experienced, in the type in which it has reached our eyes, alterations of its original elements and character- istics : so much so, that not unfrequently some of the other families of languages present to us the primal theme of a word, in a much piu-er form than even the Sanskrit itself, as is often especially true of the Lithua- nian. No one of the sister languages of the Indo-Eu- ropean family has as clear and transparent a style of flexional orsjanism as the Sanskrit. In remote times other languages as dialects sprang up from the Sanskrit, which ere long supplanted it on its own soil : leaving it to maintain its existence at last, only as the language of the sacred books of India and of its learned men. These dialects are denominated the Pali and the Prakrit, and are now found as dead languages, by the side of their Sanskrit mother in northern Hin- dustan. Dialects are the result of mixtures of the stable element of the original tongue in which they occur, with a new variable element introduced from without, sometimes by conquest, and sometimes by commerce or other modes of social contact and inilu- 42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ence. The Pali grew up, as the offspring of the San- skrit, ill the province of Bahar, and is to this day the sacred language of all the nations that cherish Buddhism in Ceylon and farther India; since, among those that speak this dialect, that singular democratic form of heathenism originated. The Prakrit languages (for they are many : the idea is plm'al) include numerous low depraved dialects, which grew up as parasites on the decaying trunk of the original Sanskrit tree. The word Sanskrit is derived from the preposition sam, with (Gr. ovv, Latin cum) and krita, made; and like the Lat. confectus .means " carefully constructed," " complete," " classical : " that of Prakrit is " natural," "uncultivated;" while Pali means "ancient." The Pali and Prakrit dialects represent the middle age of the Sanskrit. The Pali was at the height of its excel- lence full 500 years before Christ ; while the Prakrit was not fully developed until one or tAvo centuries later. The present languages of Hindustan, some twenty or thirty in all, represent the Sanskrit in its most degen- erate state: having swerved very greatly from their original model. Most of the languages now spoken in Upper India are immediately derived from the Prakrit. Distinctions of caste have long prevailed in India and are founded, there as everywhere, in the distinction of conquering and conquered races : this being hitherto the history of the treatment that inferior races have al- ways received from superior when in mutual contact. THE INDO-EUROPEATNT LANGUAGES. 43 Hindii nationality is therefore now, partly of Arian origin and partly of either Semitic or Turanian, prob- -ably the latter: one language in its various dialects embracing them all, but not one wide fraternal spirit. Beside the Sanskrit, there is also another member of the Indian family, a vagrant language, whose geo- graphical home like that of those who speak it is everywhere. Only two people, while preserving their national distinctness in all times and places, have spread themselves as such over all the earth : one belono^ina: to the Semitic family, the Jews ; and the other to the Indo-European, the Gypsies. Their law of extension from age to age has not been orbital but cometary. They claim the wide world as their domain. The Jew preserves his language as a sacred relic, and prizes it for the fathers* sake. It contains in it a Divine de- posit, the law and the testimony ; and is beautiful for its antiquity and the honor that it has received from above ; but it is a living language no more and has lost all function in the present. But how different is it with the Gypsy ! His language is everywhere the same intact cherished old mother-tongue : as distinct and separate from the other languages among wliicli it is found, as are the people from those over whose ter- ritories they wander. Their language and their roving habits of life are all that constitute their national iden - tity. Their names are quite various : as Gypsy* from * The Finns, like the English, give them a name of their own devising, and call them Mustalainen or dark people. 44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF their supposed home in Egypt : Zigeiiner, their name in Germany, a word of doubtful meaning : Sinte, the name by which they call themselves, perhaps from Saindhawa, " inhabitants of Sindhu or the Indus ; " and also Roem meaning man and Kala " of dark skin" from Sanskrit Kala " dark." They first appeared in Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth centm*y. Their language,* in its great and manifold resem- blances to the Sanskrit, nullifies absolutely before the court of classical and historical criticism the so common conception of their Egyptian origin ; and shows that * COEEESPONDENCES OF THE GYPSY LAIfGTJAGE. Varions Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gypsy. Lithuan. Languages. German. English: 1. aksha (s) OKOS oculus ak akis (Russian) olco auge eye the eye (perhaps) yakcha yak (OM Slavonic.) 2. agni (s) fire aiyXri ignis yak fire ngnis ogny angara, angar a coal a coal (Illyrian) 3. nava (s) re'os novus nevo naujas nov neu new new for i. vid, ftSeiv videre bedar (Zend) wissen wit to see : for to teach vid to know wise vind to Yeibfiv weisen viz discover. causative to show -vide vedaya iffflfxi visere vedeml -vise (causative) I teach to teach 5. bhratar (ppaT-np frater bnil brolis (L.ttisl) bralis bruder brother brother THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 45 they came from Northern India. This liowcver is not the first or greatest ethnological fallacy, that has origi- nated in a popnlar empirical style of etymological guessing. The ancients especially were very fond of weaving legendary history, out of such dubious mate- rials. 2. The Iranian family. The name Iran is derived from Arya ; and includes those people, whose languages were originally allied closely with those of the Indian family, but yet by cer- tain definite laws of sound separated from them, such as these : (1 .) The change of a dental into s before t, as in Zend basta from Sanskrit baddha, bound. (2.) The Sanskrit sv changed into a guttural, as in Sansk, svasr, sister : New Persian chaher. (3.) A radical s changed into h, as in Sansk. saptan, Zend hapta and Sansk. sam, with : Old Persian ham. (4.) The fre- quent substitution of the dental sibilant z for the gut- tural aspirate h, as in Sansk. aham, I, and mih,* to uri- nate : Zend azem and miz. The two chief languages of this class are the Zend and the Old Persian. The Zend is the language of the most ancient cuneiform inscrip- tions, made in the 6th century before Christ, which are Persian inscriptions carved in the Assyrian character ; and also of the holy books of the Parsees, the Zend Avesta. The Avesta is a collection of sacred books, containing their early traditions and the religious and * Gr. ofil^cv: Lat. mingere and meiere. 46 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ethical system of Zarutluistra, commonly called Zo- roaster, their great legislator ; as well as a liturgy which is used to this day by some of the modern Persians in the oasis of Yezd, who still worship the element of fire. It seems to have been preserved in the world for many centuries, like the Iliad which may almost be called the Bible of the early Greeks, by mere oral transmission. It can be traced back in written records, and no farther in such a form, than, to the dynasty of the Sassanides (a. d. 2:26.) The Zend was the original vernacular of the Medes and Bactrians. So closely does it resem- ble the Sanskrit, that in very many words, by merely changing the Zend letters into their Sanskrit equiva- lents, you obtain at once precisely the same identical word. Very striking also in particular is the corre- spondence between Persia and India, in the elements of their religion and mythology. It is not indeed too much to say, that all the Indo-European nations have a common fundamental basis for their mythology, in their common sense of natural phenomena : with such variations in the myths, contrived by their sensuous imaginations for the ideal embodiment of their concep- tions among different nations, as the greater or less luxuriance of the poetic faculty in different climates sufficed to suggest. Still there were gods worshipped under the same names in Sanskrit and Zend, of which the other Indo-European nations seem to have had no idea. In many points tlie Zend compares with the THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 47 Vedic or primitive natural Sanskrit, better than with the subsequent cultivated or classical Sanskrit. It is a fact also worthy of remembrance in this connection, that the Zend is found to be throughout wonderfully congruous and correlated with the German languages. The Old Persian is the language of many, now perfectly deciphered, aiTow-headed inscriptions of the Achsemenidian kings. The intermediate forms of the Persian were the Pehlevi, the language of the Sassanians (a. D. 226-G51) ; and the Pazend, the mother of the neAV Persian, with which also the Pushtu spoken in Affghan- istan is connected. The Pehlevi, which was the lan- guage of western Persia, had in it a strong admixtm-e of Aramaic words ; while the Pazend, that of eastern Persia, was but the Old Persian greatly commingled with Ara- bic. The New Persian also has been much altered in flowing down from its original sources by the influence of the Arabic, through the long reign of Mohammedism over that region of the world. The greatest literary work in the New Persian is an immense epic poem, cafled the Shah Nameh or Book of Kings, written by Ferdousi, about the middle of the 10th century. It is a traditionary history so mingled with fiction and metamorphosed by it, as to be rather an Oriental Romance than a splendid structure of real and con- nected facts. This was the classic age of the New Persian. But there are other languages of this stock, of 48 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF much smaller philological value than those already mentioned : the Ossetian and Armenian. In the midst of the Caucasus, alone by itself though surrounded by men of other tongues, like the solitary nest of a wild bird in the mountains, is the home of the Ossetian* tongue. The people still call themselves by the old family name. Iron. They are but rude higlilanders, without a literature or a history. The Armenian lan- guage, on the contrary, has a rich historical literature, but of no older date than the 4th century of our era. The alphabet is peculiar, being immediately modelled after the Greek. Althouo-h the lansfuaore is of an original Iranian constitution, its form and features have been much altered by contact with surrounding languages, especially the Tm-kish. The Ancient Ar- menian was a living language down to the 12th cen- tury ; since wdiich time the present dialect has grow'U up into full individual stature. The skirts of the Armenian language, and of the busy trafficking people that speak it, are found now resting, in Em'ope, in Southern Russia around the Sea of Azof, and in Tur- key, Galicia and Hungary. II. The Grseco-Italic or Pelasgic family-pair. But a little while ago Latin etymology was univer- * Correspondences of the Ossetian Language : Sanckrit Ossetian. Gothic Latin, pilar, father fid fadar pater panchan, five fonz fimf quinqne pasu(s), a flock fos faihu pecu kas, who kha hvas quis THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 49 sally constructed: as it still is by many who are entirely ignorant of its true foundations, although fancying themselves to be on the pathway of high classical scholarship : on altogether a Greek basis. The Latin such writers have derived immediately from the Greek : accounting for the differences of form and structure, by all sorts of empirical explanations ; whose chief merit has consisted in their being an ingenious dodge of diificidties, that could not be solved. Such works as Valpy's Etymol. Latin Dictionary, Mair's Tyro, Doderlein's various works, and Schwenck's Ety- mologisches Worterbuch, illustrate this era and style of Latin etymology. These works still have a value, and that often considerable, in exhibiting correspond- ences in the two languages and suggesting hints for farther research. But they are no guide-books, as they profess to be, in either philological or historical research. The fundamental conception which they undertake to unfold is false and ridiculous. In very remote ages there existed evidently a Graeco-Italic race, to which the progenitors of both the Latin and Greek nations, as they came afterwards to be and to be called, belonged in common ; and from which they afterwards branched off into a separate man- ifestation. The time, when they thus parted into two distinct individualities, was many centuries before either Romulus lived or Homer sang. 1st. The Greek race, remaining nearer geographically 50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF and in closer contact, commercially and socially, with that Oriental world, amid whose abounding and in- spiring luxuriance God Himself prepared the first home of the human family, came in every respect to a higher and nobler style of growth and greatness, than the Latin. The people and their language spread out themselves, in different periods and localities, into a vigorous fourfold demonstration : as expressed in the ^olic, Doric, Ionic and Attic dialects; which mark indeed but so many stages or epochs of the same language. The Doric is but a variety of the zEolic ; and these two dialects may, without impropriety, be said to mark the earlier and later aspects of the Pelas- gic period. The Ionic, as a subsequent development of the same language, took on its separate form, under the influence of national progress, as a distinct home- product ; and, " so far," as K. O. MiiUer well observes, "as it differs in any word, in respect to either its vowels or its consonants, from the iEolic ; it differs also from the original type of the word." The Italic race parted from the common Grasco- Italic stock, by a more western migration ; where, in another climate and under other influences, they ma- tured into a well-defined development of their own. They ere long separated into an eastern and western branch; and the eastern subsequently divided itself into the Umbrian and Oscan. The causes, times and THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 51 modes of these difFcrcnt niigrations and separations lie out of tlie field of exact historic vision. As agriculture is the basis of all stable social or- ganization, we are compelled to believe that the origi- nal Grseco-Italic race were given to the culture of grain, oil and wine ; instead of leading that wandering shepherd-life, to which Orientals have ever been so much addicted, and which was undoubtedly therefore a leading feature at the first of Indo-European life in the East. The very names given to the first inhabit- ants of Italy declare this historic fact; as (Enotria (from olvog wine) from Avhich the title (Enotrians ; and so Opsci and Osci, laborers (ops) and Siculi and Sicani (secare to cut), reapers. The Greek and Latin languages have then a com- mon origin, and possess a common substantive being. The mould and model of the Latin are the more antique in their forms of the two. In the MoYic dialect, in which we have the remains, in general, of the Greek as it was in its primeval state, it resembles the Latin much more than in its later dialects. In this dialect, the Graeco-Italic or PelasQ-ic element that forms the common stock of the Greek and Latin languages is found most abundantl}'^, and Avith the fewest adulterations and ad- ditions. The words most distinctly common to the Greek and Latin, are those that thereby show them- selves to characterize that period, in which they had a blended life in one common stock. These words relate 52 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF to the domestic animals, the soil, the phenomena of na- ture, objects of worship, articles of subsistence and im- plements of industry ; or, in other words, to the ele- ments and experiences * of every-day life. In the Attic * Specimens of the correspondence alluded to in the Greek and Latin as well as in Sanskrit. Sanskrit. Latin. Greek. Tlieir sense in English. gaus bos fiovs ox avis ovis oi'y sheep hansas anser X^" goose asvas equus 'IttttoS JEol. 'tKKOS horse pasu pecu iraiv flock sthuras taurus ravpos bull akshas axis a^aip axis a wheel afx-a^a axle saras sal a,\s salt varahas porcus verres TTOpKOS pig sukaras sus (TVS and vs sow- s'van canis KVttlV dog mush mus fj-vs mouse 4tis anas VTJdcra, for avr)(r. 494-560) ruled Italy with a rod of iron ; and afterwards for 200 years (a. d. 568-774) the Lombards. The Lombardic dialect was, as is manifest from some of its relics, Old High German in the type of its consonantal structure. The Lombards began their wanderings in the course of the fourth century, from the northern shores of Germany and from Scandi- navia, and, after many various adventures with the Bulgarians, Heruli, Gepidae, Huns and Goths, settled quietly down in Pannonia, whence afterwards, under Alboin the 11th of their kings (a. d. 568), they m.arched into Italy and founded a kingdom, which en- dured, mitil overthrown by the Franks under Charle- 90 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF magne, and left behind an enduring memorial of itself, in the name Lombardy, still given to the richest por- tion of northern Italy.* In the beginning therefore of the sixth centm:"y a Gothic kingdom was established in Italy, as also in Spain ; and in Spain the succession of Gothic kings became (a. d. 531) elective. As Spain had been in earlier days traversed and scourged and conquered in different parts of her territory, by so many various races, as the Celts, Carthaginians and Romans : so, in connection with the great invasion of southern Europe from the north, race after race from the ever-swarming hive of Germany swept over the face of this then -fair land, eager for the pleasm^es and prizes of conquest. In the beginning of the fifth cen- tury, we find the Suevi in full possession of Modern Gallicia, Asturia,Leon and a part of Lusitania, as well as the region formerly held on the east by Carthaginian arms ; while in the south are the Vandals resting for a httle while, only to gather strength for a still more vigorous movement onwards, conquering every thing before them as they spread beyond over the regions of northern Afiica. ' In the north-east of Spain lay at the same time the Visigoths ; hovering like a dark cloud, which, though appearing to the rest of the land at the time as but a little fleck of darkness in the distant horizon, was destined ere long to envelop the whole peninsula in its folds of gloom and terror. * Grimm's Geschichte, pp. 473 — 485. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 91 The German irruption into Gaul bore away every thing Hke an overflowing flood, then upon the soil, ex- cept the Latin language ; so firmly established at that time over the people after so many centuries of Roman conquest and jurisdiction, and in itself so superior as the language of civilization, even in the eyes of the fierce northern conquerors as well as of the conquered ; and which therefore maintained itself both in Church and State, as a beacon-light upon a high firm rock, un- shaken amid all the swell of military commotions, in its place. And, as here in our own age the great peaceful German immigration, which is ever flowing in upon us, is constantly absorbed and assimilated to our common English type of language and of customs ; so, in France slowly but surely the prevailing numbers and institutions of the country brought about, together with the advantages of a comparatively high civilization even in the hands of a conquered race, the final absorp- tion of the new German element although an invasive one, into the grand all-comprehending unity of Roman life and law and language. The Roman type of social fixtures and usages was such, that its moulds were firm enough Avithout, to receive any amount of fiery martial overflow into them, without breaking under the pres- sure, and sharp enough within, to make the cooling mass distinctively of its o^vn pattern. By the year 486 the Franks had become masters of the greater part of Gaul. The first of the German tribes who were con- 92 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF verted to the Chnstiaiiity of the Cathohc Church, was the Franks ; and it was by this simikuity of faith, that these German conquerors were most of all amalgamated with the older inhabitants of the land ; as tlie develop- ment indeed of the new European nations, generally, was effected everywhere in the same way.* In the begin- ning of the fifth centuiy, the south-western part of Gaul was in the possession of the Visigoths : the south- eastern part, of the Bm-gundians and the northern of the Franks : aU Germanic tribes. Over the slow deli- quescence of the German from its new home on Gallic soil and its final disappearance there, a veil of historic darkness rests, which has at least the advantage of hiding from modern eyes the offensive process of its disso- lution. But " the position is hot too bold," says Diez,t " that the German continued to be used in France, up to the division of the Carolingian kingdom (a. d. 840) ; and in the north, taking the song of victory of King Louis III. over the Normans (881) as a voucher, up to the end of the ninth century : which would make the time of its dm'ation in Gaul from four to five hundred years." Long after the German conquest the Byzantine armies tramped, from time to time, over lower Italy and Sicily and southern Spain ; and yet no consider- able mixture of people of different blood occurred in such a way. * Gieseler's Ecc. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 131 — 3. t Diez' Grammatik, p. 03. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 93 The composition accordingly of the Romanic tongues is one, formed in the main of these staple elements : Classical or Pm.'e Latin, Middle Latin, Graeco-Romanic and Germano-Romanic words. The Middle or corrupted Latin is, like the original or proper Latin itself, a very large element of all the Romanic languages. This was the common spoken dialect or patois, out of whose elements as their bases, those forms which arose in the times of Charlemagne and afterwards were generated. The great mass also of common unclassical Latm, existing in the language before the age of the IMiddle Latin, has a representa- tion of itself, and that not inconsiderable, among these languages. Many of the forms also ranked under the Middle Latin, were but mere contractions of fuller classical or Greek forms of words : as cosinus (French and English cousin) of consobrinus ; and colpus (Ital. colpo, French coup) of xolacfoq, ; while not a few of the remainder were simply Latinized forms of words adopted from other languages, or forced into the speech of the Romanic races, by the busy or rough contact of the surrounding nations with them. Great care is needed, in tracing Byzantine- Greek originals in the Middle Latin. Appearances of resem- blance occur, at times, which are but appearances and entirely fortuitous ; and as Latin and Greek were pri- marily of one immediate united origin, words even at so late a period may seem many of them to have been 94 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF borrowed, wliicli yet are as nmcli vernacular to the one, as to the other. Like the principles of the common law, living of themselves unwatched and growing fresh and strong, without any of the trellises of statutory regulation or recognition to support them, beneath and around all the formalities of special legislation : so these words, never having shown themselves before on the high points of hterary demonstration, may have yet kept, on the plane of thought and feeling lying be- low it, a fresh green life perpetually of their own. It is as true in etymological and ethnographic relations, as in other things, that " fools rush in where angels dare not tread."* * Specimens of the different classes of elements to be found in the Romanic languages besides pure Latin : I. Of ante-mediasval unci assical Lat; in. Latin. Italian. Spanish. French. English. badius, brown bajo bayo bai bay Bassus, Prop, name, Of. 3aOC?, Comp. Patrauv. [• basso bas base beber, for fiber bevero bibaro bi&vre beaver ' cavalry cabaUus, a nag capulum, a rope cavallo cappio caballo cable cheval c4ble cavalier j chevalier (^chivalry cable camisia, a shirt camicia camisa chemise chemise cambiare, to exchange cangiare cambiar changer change confortare (con-fortis) confortare conhortar conforter comfort carricare, to load carcarc cargar charger ( charge I cargo gabalum, a cross gable gable grossus, thick grosso grueso gros gross pretiare, to put a price on prezzare preciar priser prize Sapius, wise, for Sapiens saggio sabio sage sage THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 95 Btruppus, a band unio (fro)n unus) vidulus, a knapsack stroppolo unione vulioria estrovo etropo strap oignon onion valise valise II. Of Grseco-Eomanic elements ; Greek. Latin. Italian. Spanish, biasimare Pvpaa, a skin rrvpyos a flexure > bursa burgus bolsa burero bors borgo lonza , ( lamba ) ffamba A-i ]■ ° ( jamon ) ,, ^ ( colaplius and ) , petium pezzo {spatlia, a broad ) , tool or sword. J ' " spathula, shoul- ) ,, der blade. f ^P''^^'' golpe pieza espada espalda rapaPoh'i parabola (Tiivpi;, emery Tpv(pav, to bore rS^of, smoke f trica and 9pi^, hair ■< terza, plait- ( edhair. parola palabra French. bUmer bourse bourg once jambe coup piSce epee epaule j parole ( parler English, blame ^bourse ■< dis 6 wrse (purse ( burgh / burgess ( jamb I ham piece spade epaulet r parable I palaver I parole (^ parlance smeriglio trapan tufo treccia German, bauen, to build. Old German, Buisc, build- ing material. brennen, to burn Harinc, a cor-~> ruption of Lat, >• halec. ) Hriiig and ring,") a circle for > fighting. ) III. Of Germano-Komanic Italian. Middle Latin. 1 ! boscus, a ) , r ^r^^.i f hosco wood esmeril trepanar tufo tresse elements ; Spanish. bosque emeri trepaner etoufFer to suffocate j etoufFer ) l to suffocate f emery- trepan tufa (tresses (trick brunus ") brown, lit. > br scorched. ) uno bronce annga arenque ( aringo (aringa French, bois brun hareno- English. ! bosky bush am6us^ *■ I brown I bronze herrino; harangue harangue 96 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Of Germane-Romanic elements in these languages, •there are two kinds of quite different chronological fea- tures. The first of these, as they were imported into these languages at the time of the first German immi- gration into the Provinces, are marked by the greater prevalence of the original a and i vowels in their forms, instead of the later introduced e, and the diphthong ai instead of ei, as well as the consonants p, t, and d for f, z and t. The second class of Germano-Romanic ele- ments has on it the special mark, which the Germans call Lautverschiebung, or a mutation of the radical con- sonant or consonants ; which is one of the great peculiari- ties of the Gothic languages, and which first became an established fact in them in the sixth century : so that this class of words must have been introduced into the Romanic languages after this time. In the Erench a third class also, German words, called Danish by the writers of the day, came in from the Normans in the north-western part of Prance. They readily amalgamated with the people of the land, and, so, gradually relin- quished their own language for theirs, although depos- iting in it also many of their own words, especially those pertaining to maritime life. German influence was felt, only on the lexical * and not at all on the grammatical features, of the Romanic * Diez finds in the different Romanic languages about 930 pure German roots, some still alive in them, and some obsolete, independ- ently of unnumbered derivatives and compounds ; of which 450 occur in French; 140, not occurring elsewhere, in Italian; and somewhat THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 97 languages, which are of a firm, unimpaired Latin struc- ture. But each of the Komanic languages requires a sep- arate consideration. (1.) The Itahan. By far the great majority of all its words, to at least nine parts out of ten, are Latin. Of the Greek ele- ments, which constitute a considerable portion of its remaining vocabulary, many must have doubtless come into it throuQ-h the Latin. Li the Sicilian and Sardin- ian dialects, where words of this natm^e most abound, it would seem probable that many of them must be the remains of that early contact with Greece, that grew out of theu original colonial relations to that land. The Italian since the second half of the twelfth century, when it first became enthroned in a perma- nent literature of its own, has changed but little ; far less indeed than any of its sister languages. It is alto- gether in itself the purest specimen of the old common stock, and has spread out its boughs beyond the limits of its own native sphere, into the Tyrol and even into Illyria. It was at first called common Latin, afterward Sicilian and then Tuscan, and seems to have come into use by the cultivated classes in its present distinct form by the end of the tenth centmy. Its phonetic phe- nomena are remarkable, as are those even of the differ- more than 50 each, in the Provencal Spanish and Portuguese lan- guages ; while in the Wallachian there are less than anywhere else. 98 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ent dialects compared with eacli other. The depart- ment of phonology is in fact quite as full of wonders, in the modern languages as in the ancient. Italian literature is of broad and high dimensions. In it are hung up as in a temple, the votive offerings of many poets, philosophers and scholars : offerings, which, though made in the midst of smoking incense and of holy water, have but few of them any of that fragrance of holy feeling and purpose, vdth which so much of Enoflish and American literatm^e is sweet-scented. In respect to the different dialects of the Italian, the Lombard, the Genoese, the Florentine, whose form of speech constitutes the standard of taste, the Neapoli- tan, the Sicilian, the Sardinian and the Corsican, each carries a distinct badge of his nativity upon him, in the different tone or form or spirit of his speech. Lan- guage is too impressible to all the influences of every kind which separate men not only into various nations, but, also on every extended area, into different sections of the same nation, and which mark off the historic life of the same community into successive periods of growth, maturity and decline ; to preserve for any great length of time or space, one unaltered, petrified, Egyptian style of form or features. It can no more be cribbed and confined in any one direction, however free and fuU, than humanity itself, whose utterance it is and which is ever sweUing with vital forces, strugghng for a newer and larger expression of themselves. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 99 (2.) The WaUachian. This descendant of the ohl Latin has been, almost wholly, made known to European scholars since the re- cent war at Sebastopol. The people call themselves Romani and their language Romania. The region over which it spreads, consists of Wallachia, Moldavia and parts of Hungary, Transylvania and Thrace, or, in other words, both banks of the lower part of the Danube ; and it is spoken by more than three millions of people. It is in its grammatical constitution more like the Ital- ian than any of the sister languages. It is accordingly easy of acquisition in this direction ; but, in respect to its lexical elements, it is not so readily mastered ; as it contains large mixtures of Slavonic elements, forced into it by the pressure of so many languages of this class lying around it on every side. They have also adopted from them the Cyrillic alphabet. The Wal- lachians proper number now not far from a million souls. Like the Albanians and Bulgarians, they put the article after the noun. They use also, like the French, in the formation of different tenses, auxiliary verbs nuich more than did the Latin. The old lUyrian ap- pears often also in broken fragments, in the Wallachian, and only in such a form ; as it does likewise in the Al- banian. The Danube divides the Wallachian into two principal dialects, northern and southern or Daco-Ro- man and Macedo-Roman. The northern is more pm'e, although having more Slavonic mixtures with it ; and 100 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF it is more cultivated than the southern, which has been overlaid with much foreign material, especially Alba- nian and Grecian. Many words also from various lan- guages have, under the pressure of past conflicts as well as social and commercial contact with neighboring na- tions, become incorporated into the fabric of the lan- guage, so as to form a penuanent part of its tissue ; and many are the Slavic, Albanian, Greek, German, Hungarian and Turkish words that, like strange birds, sit and sing now in this language, in boughs out of which they have driven forever the native inhabitants of the wood. The Wallachian took its rise, as one of the Romanic dialects, definitively in the Roman colonies sent into Dacia by Trajan, who made Dacia (107 b. c.) a Roman province. The original population of Dacia was of Thracian origin : the inhabitants of eastern Dacia being • Getae and those of the West being Dacians proper. In the Wallachian the Latin greatly preponderates, while the old Illyrian still preserves a foothold in it, remind- ing us in these modern times that there it once dwelt ; although its fires are now all quenched and its ancient walls destroyed. Wallachian, or Daco-Romanic litera- ture began its distinct career in the year 1580 ; and, since that day, poetical and scientific works have ap- peared from time to time, although not in great abun- dance. The mass of its literature is of a rehgious kind. (3.) The Spanish. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 101 The original inhabitants of Spain were Iberians, probably a very early offshoot of the ancient Celtic population of Europe. Pictet* regards Iberia, and with good reason, as like Hibernia a compound of Ibh the land and Er, of the Erins or Arii ; on which supposition, two marked instances occur in the West of the continued retention of the old family-name of this great class of languages. When afterwards sub- sequent generations of Celts came, in their separate historic character, as such, to be commingled Avith the descendants of those first settlers, they received from the Romans the name of Celtiberians. Phoenicians and Carthaginians very early settled on the coast, and, by ever fresh additions of men and resources, obtained ere long the supremacy of the land. After dispossess- ing them and conquering the fierce, obstinacy of the natives, the Romans seized upon Spain as their own possession (133 b. c), and held it as such for 600 years, until the Vandals and the Huns wrested it from the grasp of their effeminate descendants ; who them- selves also afterwards were compelled to give up this same tempting prize into the hands of the ]\Ioors. The Vandal or German invasion occurred in the begin- ning of the 5th century ; and in the beginning of the 8th the Arabic ; while, during the interval between them, the authority of Byzantium was acknowledged throughout the line of its seaward coast in the South. * Kuhn's Beitriige zur Sprachforschung, pp. 94 — 5. 8 102 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF And what a mixture of elements, for growth and greatness, is here ! So. much more energetic however was the influence of the Latin element than that of the others, that, except in phonetic and logical rela- tions, it moulded the whole language into conformity with its own spirit and type. The structure of the language and its accentuation are thorouglily Roman- ic, as is also the larger part of its lexical elements. In the north of Spain there still lives, like a wild bird that has wandered away from the rest of its spe- cies, undisturbed among the recesses of the mountains, a strange language, the Basque, that has come down from an elder age and remained unmixed with the dia- lects that surround it. This Humboldt regards as the remains of the original tongue of Spain, which, chased away from the open fields and streams of the land by Phoenician and Roman arms, found at last a safe re- treat for itself in fastnesses too deep and high to tempt their pursuit. Its present home embraces the prov- inces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, Alava and a part of Na- varra. Among the sisterhood of the Spanish dialects,* the Castilian sits queen, and has its local habitation in the very centre of Spain embracing the provinces of Leon, Estramadura, Andalusia, Aragon, most of Na- * Diez quotes Sarniiento's analysis of the constituent elements of Spanish to be as follows : Six-tenths Latin : one-tenth ecclesiastical and Greek: one-tenth npri;hern or German : one-tenth Oriental and one-tenth made up of American, modern German, French and Italian. — Die^ Grammatilc, 2d ed., p. 95. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 103 varra, Rioja and Murcia. The Catalonian and Gali- cian dialects which are next in vakie, are intermixed largely with elements serving to alloy their pnrity : the former with those of the dialect of Provence in France, and the latter with the neighboring Portugnese. In its forms of declension, the Spanish is more like the Latin than is the Italian ; but less like it in the sound or sense of its derivatives. It was about the middle of the twelfth century, that Spanish literature began its distinct career, and with it that the Spanish language assumed a fixed form : although it was not until three centuries afterwards, that scholars began to elaborate the language as such. Its vocabulary is very largely interspersed with foreign elements, especially Arabic. By her very position, so near to northern Africa, where Phoenician Carthage dwelt of old in the pride of her power and delighted to make her a prey, and whence afterwards the Moor trampled with furious energy upon all her growing greatness : Spain was through all the formative part of her- history held in subjection to the influence of Semitic* arms, languages * The stock of the present population of North Africa is well de- scribed by Barth, vol. i., p. 195. "They all." he says, '"aiipcar to have been originally a race of the Semitic stock ; but, by intermai-riage with tribes which came from Egypt or by way of it, to have received a certain admixture. Hence came several distinct tribes designated an- ciently as Libj'ans, IMoors, Numidians, Libyphocnieians, Getulians and others, and traced by the native historians to two different families, the Berimes and the Abtar, who however diverge from one common source, ^lazigh or ]\Iadaghs. This native wide-spread African race, 104 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF and institutions, beyond any other nation in Europe. The two languages, with which it thus came into close mechanical, if not chemical, combination for centuries, were the Phoenician or Hebrew, the noblest of the ancient tongues of that family, and the Arabic the noblest of the new. Its technical terminology is par- ticularly rich in words of Arabic origin. Spanish lit- erature is specially distinguished by two marked fea- tures : first the general ballad form of its poetry, and secondly the abounding prevalence of tales of chivalry and knight errantry. If ever the Ijyric Muse had a home that she specially loved, next after Jerusalem when David filled it with the music of his harp, whose echoes have ever since filled the world beside, and Lesbos, where Sappho sang in her heathen home of earthly loves, like a songster that had wandered from her native skies and lost her tune though not her voice ; it was in old Castile. Her strains were at first simple, tender and melting, but, after Arabic blood had mingled its fire with the . Spanish, she became more bold and brilliant in her eye and mien. Under the influence of Moorish energy and daring it was, that the romantic literature of Spain sprang into being. In no other lan- guage of Europe, except the German which is full of the balm and bloom of the luxuriant East, is there such cither from the name of their supposed ancestor Ber, which we recog- nize in the name Afer, or, in consequence of the Roman name barbari, has been generally called Berbei-, and in some regions Shawi and Shelluh." THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 105 an Oriental richness of coloring, as in the Spanish. In the language of Schlegel, " Castilian poetry incorporated into itself foreign forms and borrowed charms, combin- ing the most various Romantic dialects, until its glowing and fanciful creations at length expanded, like flowers of perfect brilliancy clad in every hue." In the fifth century the Vandals poured like a torrent through its rich valleys : in the sixth and seventh, Byzantium stretched its sway over its southern borders ; and in the eighth the Arab held Spain, like an eagle, gasping for life in his talons. It w^as in the middle of the twelfth century that the great national Epic of the Cid ap- peared. (4.) The Portuguese. This language is in its structure of great beauty. It was modified from the simple Latin original, much more than either of the other Romanic languages, by the Provencal dialect ; and is regarded by those ac- quainted Avith it as the flower of all those dialects : com- bining, as it does, in a most w^onderful manner, both simplicity and sweetness with high artistic finish of con- struction. And here let us listen ao-ain to SchleQ-el's glowing words : "In its power of expressing tender feeling, it surpasses every other language. It is also singularly rich in appropriate words, the very tone of which, independently of their beautifid signification, seems to melt at once into the soul. Even the soft Italian appears rough in comparison mth the Portu- 106 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF guese ; and the Spanish stern and northern. It is by far the most simple of all the Provencal and Romantic dialects, yet inferior to none in highly artistic construc- tion. The prose is simple, rich and laconic, yet with- out the slightest constraint ; indeed, in every kind of style, ease and grace appear to be with that nation natural qualities." Unfortunately we are as ignorant of its literature, as of that of Holland : having scarcely one author within our reach, except the noble Camoens ; in whose Lusiad, a great national epic poem, we find ourselves equally lost in joy and sorrow, as we converse in it with the poet and with Portugal : in joy at the splendor of his genius, and in sorrow that this beauti- ful production, like the last song of the dying Swan, though almost too sweet for earth, was but the prelude to the downfall of his country in the loss of India. Suddenly, like a star deserting all at once the bright sisterhood of planets in which it had before moved and shone, it wandered away from its place among the lead- ing nations of the world ; and is now remembered, only as having once had a lustre which it possesses no more. Such phonetic discordances occur in the vowel and diphthongal combinations and derivations of the Span- ish and Portuguese languages, as quite place them in respect to many points, at antipodes to each other. The Portuguese has far less Basque in it, than the Spanish ; and has adhered much more constantly to its own orig- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 107 inal antique modes and degrees of development. It is accordingly an independent slioot of itself from the roots of that vigorous old mother-tongue of Rome, which succeeded in spreading itself over all Western Europe ; and which, wherever it spread, was sure to exclude every thing that it could not assimilate to it- self from the soil. It has in its composition a mani- fest mixture of French elements, brought in by Henry, Count of Burgundy and his numerous Court-retinue. (5.) The dialect of Provence. This was the language of the old Troubadours, and occupied a sort of middle ground between the other dialects, and was greatly modified and moulded by them all. Those poetical musicians of the Middle Ages spent their time in wandering about from court to court in France and on the continent ; and, having no one place in which they might congregate and build up a lasting literature for themselves and for the world, they left behind them no written records of their own. Fortu- nately the airy spirit of this language, supposed but a little while ago to have been for ever exhaled from this world, has recently been found,* lingering spell-bound, although unvisited and unknown for many long centu- * It is announced also by F. Diimmler, of Berlin, that he has pub- lished of late oOO Troubadour poems in the Provencal dialect, edited by Dr. C. A. F. Mahn ; gathered, most of them for the first time, out of seven ancient manuscripts from the Royal Library at Paris, and four old English ones, wliich by a conjunction of fortunate circumstances have just come to light and into his hands. 108 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF lies in tlie very words and letters, wliicli those old min- strels' used and loved. As for itself it spread out like a vine of strong growth, throughout the southern part of France and beyond its native French limits, into all the neighboring parts of Italy and Spain. It was in the eleventh century, that the Troubadoiu: poetry reached the acme of its excellence, scattering its fra- grance for many years afterwards over all Europe. And even if the language had been obliterated from the records of the past, as was once supposed, its name and its influence would still have sui'vived, having passed by a true transmigration in the style and name of that department of literature, called Romance, into aU the languages of the civilized world. The Provencal dialect spread, in France, over Gas- cony, Provence, Limousin, Auvergne and Viennois, and in the regions of Northern Italy over Savoy and a small part of Switzerland, as Lausanne and the Southern part of Valais. Specimens of the Provencal dialect are found of as ancient a date as the year 960 ; but they are only single sentences occurring in old Latin records. The song of Boethius, a fragment of more than two hun- dred stanzas, preseiTcd in a manuscript of the eleventh centmy, although written probably half a century be- fore, is to be foimd among lleynouard's collections with some smaller pieces of the same date. (G.) The French language. This is in many respects the finest reproduction THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 109 of the original Latin, that we find among the modern languages. It has a much smaller mixture of other elements in it than the Spanish, and nuicli more tlian the Italian. The French character is not indeed as strongly representative as is the language, in its spirit, of its Roman original. The French mind has naturally the love of martial activity and pomp, as well as the instinct for organization and centralization, that charac- terized the Roman ; but it has, with these tendencies also, under its more favorable atmosphere, and sur- rounded by its more enchanting" landscapes, an in- clination to art and a sense of the beautiful, as well as an elastic vivacious style of social character, that are rather Grecian than Roman in their type. Gaul, originally settled by the Celts, afterwards conquered by the Romans, fell in the end into the hands of the Franks,! a tribe of Germans ; and was continuously Romanized, from the time of Caesar who first con- quered it, all along the track of the successive dynasties of Rome or for Rome, civil and spiritual, that held their sway over it. The southern part of it, occupied * In the language of Ruskin : " Of all countries for educating an artist to the perception of grace, Fi'ance beai"s the bell ; in even those districts of which country, that are rcgai'ded as most uninteresting, there is not a single valley, but is full of the most lively pictures." — Modern Painters^ Vol. i., p. 126. t In their very name Franks, we see that they were distinguished by their love of freedom and the openness of their character and con- duct, as a strong conquering race conscious of their own power and virtue, from the feeble Celts and degenerate Romans whom they had overcome. 110 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF at first by the Basques, still retains its memorial of that fact in the very name Gascony* applied to it, which means literally the land of the Basques, In this region, and that of Low Brittany, the influence of Rome was least felt upon the people and their language. The original dialects of the French were many. In those of Southern France, bordering on Italy, the old Latin vowel-sounds were preserved full and pure. In Northern France they were changed like the con- sonants, and rejected to such a degree as to depart far from their first Latin type. Compared with the Spanish and Italian, the French has in it less Latin and more German. The determinate amount of all its elements, it is difficult to decide. Of the Gallic words preserved to us as such in the old classical authors, a large number are still found clearly preserved in either the new or old French. The Old French, of which we have but few- remains, is chiefly allied to the Gothic, but less in its vowel-system than its consonantal, which is much akin to the Old Saxon, although after the Carohngian f period it inclined more towards the High German. Having * The interchange of g, in both Low and Middle Latin and the French, with b. v and w in German and English, is worthy of notice, as in Latin, Gulielmusj French, Guillaume; German, Wilhelm ; Eng- lish, William. So compare also French garder and English guard and ward, guardian and warden; also Latin vastare, French gater (for original gaster), English waste, vast and devastate, as also French guerre and English war. \ Or, Carlovingiau. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. Ill no monuments left now of those early Germanic dialects, the Lomhardian, Burgundian and Suevian, and scarcely any of the French, it is hard to trace with distinctness the action or presence, to any high degree, of each or any of the Germano-Romanic ele- ments that came into the French behind the Gothic, or even in parallel streams with it.* There are in Trench some four hundred and fifty root-words, with many derivatives and compound words, some now living in the language and some obsolete, of direct German origin. The southern part of France not being overrun by the Norman invasion, lost all that class of words introduced into the north, and was therefore less Germanized. It has spread out its boughs beyond its OAvn limits, over Belgium and a considerable part of Switzerland ; while, in connection with the Norman Conquest, it has much modified the English, both by its great^ effect upon the Latin ele- ments of our language itself, and also by the direct introduction into it of many of its own words. It is now also the universal language of social commerce * The following are specimens of Gallic and Old French : G. alauda, a lark. 0. F. aloe. " sagum, a military clock. " sale. " marga, manure. " marie. " bulga, Icathei'-bag. " boge. " braccae, breeches. F. braie. " betula, birch. " boule. " leuca, mile. " lieue. * beccus, beak. « bee. 112 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF throughout civihzed Europe. The oldest specimen of antique French in existence occurs in the oath of Charles the Bald against Lothaire (a. d. 842), at Strasburg. The old French literature was at its height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Before turning away from the Romanic family of languages it deserves to be remarked, that by a com- parison of them each with the other, the existence of the Latin, if wholly extinct, could be definitively ascer- tained from them, as an absolute foregone necessity. And, just as from the midtiplied analogies of these modern dialects of the Latin, we revert infallibly to their union in a common parentage, so, the analogies of the different Indo-European families declare with the same certainty, that once there existed somewhere an un- known mother of them all, who is yet noAv revealed to us as having herself had high character and honor, only by the innate beauty and^ energy of her illustrious progeny."* * A comparison of the numerals in the different Romanic lan^ guages : Latin. Italian. Wallachian. Spanish. Toi-tnguese. French. 1. unus uno unu uno hum un 2. duo due doi dos dois deux 3. tres tre trei tres tres trois 4. quatuor quattro patru quatro quatro quatre 5. quinque cinque quinque cinco cinco cinq 6. sex sei sese seis seis six 7. septem sette septe siete sete sept 8. octo otto optu ocho oito huit 9. novem nove nove nueve nove neuf 10. decern dicci dece diez dez dix THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 113 III. The Lcttic family. Under this title are included the Lithuanian, the old Prussian and the Lettish. 1st. The Lithuanian. This is a language of very great value to the philo- logist. It is the most antique in its forms, of all the living languages of the world, and most akin in its sub- stance and spiiit to the primeval Sanskrit. It is also at the same time so much like the Latin and the Greek, as to occupy to the ear of the etymologist, in a multi- tude of words not otherwise understood, the place of an interpreter : with its face fixed on the Latin and its hand pointing backwards to the Sanskrit. It has pre- served its identity wonderfully with the Sanskrit, in re- spect generally to its radical, and, in the case of the noun, also its flexional forms. It has seven of the eight cases found in the Sanskrit : the ablative being wanting, which in Latin indeed is preserved, while two cases, the locative and instrumental, have been lost in a dis- tinct form : the Greek has lost the three cases, which have disappeared variously from both the Lithuanian and Latin ; while the German has lost still another, the vo- cative, and the English one more even, the dative : re- taining only the nominative, genitive (or possessive) and accusative, or rather the possessive only : the nomina- tive and objective not being cases in English in their form. The Lithuanian has also, like the Greek and Gothic, but unlike the Latin, the dual number. 114 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF The Lithuanians, living as they do on the southern shore of the Baltic sea, have been from the first, as much as even the Icelanders themselves, out of the path of the successive tides of emigration, that so much crushed and bore away the forms of other languages. Their language, accordingly, on account of the primeval regularity of its roots and structure, stands related to the various branches of the Indo-European family, es- pecially to those of a modern date whose forms have been much mutilated, as a general exponent of their agreements and difierences, or a sort of general solvent for the etymologist, of a multitude of otherwise unre- solvable difficulties. It is like an universal interpreter, seeming to have the gift of tongues, since its tongue is so greatly like all the rest in preserving the pure pri- mal' model, from which they are all corrupted deriva- tives, as to seem in whatever language you hear the chime of its words, very much like an old-fashioned brogue of that language, ringing do^vvn loud and clear from ancient times. Its literatui-e possesses neither height nor breadth, and is limited to a moderate num- ber of popular songs, fables and proverbs. In respect to the flexion of the verb, it has departed more widely from its original than in any thing else ; having lost the principles of reduplication and augment, and of the change of the radical vowel in different tenses to indicate the several variations of time. The passive is formed by the aid of the substantive verb. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 115 It lias a middle voice forined by the use of s, si, which is a reflexive pronoun of the third person used in all the persons ; as also in Latin the middle sense was formed originally, and derivatively from it the passive, by attaching this same reflexive s (i. e. se, the third per- son pronoun), euphonically changed to r, to the forms of the active* voice. The phonetic constitution of the language like that of its radical forms, has been won- derfully preserved by the fortunate isolation of the peo- ple from the great movements of the nations around them, unimpaired in its leading elements. The Lithu- anian is now under the pressiu-e of Russian institutions, influences and ideas, fast becoming mongrelized with that language. The Lithuanians number in both Russia and Prus- sia, 1,500,000 people : not quite 200,000 living in Prussia. That their language should at last be found undergoing serious changes, who can wonder ; for what can resist the onset of modern innovation, or rather the tendency of Modern Christianity to " make," and of Modern Plumanity to receive, " all things new." " Be- hold," saith Christ, " I make all things new ! " The world is destined to be in the end, for God hath spoken it, one great brotherhood ; and, though, in some cli- * Thus the passive forms, amor, amaris or amare, &c., restored to then- original crude state, would be amo-se, lit. I love mj-self, amasse, amatse, &c. So the Germans use to a striking degree the reflexive forms, in our passive sense, as in sich schiimen, (lit. to shame one's self,) tScc. ; and in French similar forms occur, as in il se vend cher. (lit. it sells itself dear,) it is sold high. 116 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF mates and in some races, the process of fusion goes on more slowly than in others, yet it is still everywhere, with the same certainty, at work towards the final issue. Pei-petual changes in detail, but perpetual progress on the whole : these are the two great primordial laws of human progress. 2d. The Old Prussian. This sister-language of the Lettic family perished, about two hundred years ago. The only memorial, now left of it, is a Catechism prepared by Albert of Brandenburgh. While not so ancient and pure in its forms, it was still much less corrupted than the Let- tish. It had not so many cases as the Lithuanian and possessed no dual. It was spoken on the northern coast of Prussia, east of the Vistula. 3. The Lettish. This is the popular language of Com'land and of much of Livonia. It is properly but a derivative from the Lithuanian, like the Italian from the Latin. Its points of difference from it are, besides a general corruption of its forms, the following : — (1 .) It has the article as the Lithuanian had not. (2.) It has opened a wide door to foreign words, particularly to those of German and Russian origin. (3.) It has special euphonic laws of its own which it carefully follows. (4.) Its grammar is much more modern in its type than that of the Lithuanian. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 117 (5.) Its phonetic system has been much modified by Slavonic influences. IV. The Slavic or Slavonic family. The area covered by this class of languages in Europe is very large, extending from the Arctic Ocean on the north, to the Black and Adriatic Seas on the south ; and from the Dwina on the east, to the Hartz Mountains on the west. It extends itself, also, in scattered districts through Asia, into the upper regions of North America. The name, Slavic, comes from the root, slu, Sanskrit, sru, (Greek xXv, as in xXvco, and xXvtoq; Latin, inclytm ; Old High German, hlo), meaning to hear, and to hear one's self called, or to be named, to be celebrated. Its meaning is therefore* " renowned," " distinguished." The different stages of growth and strength in the Slavonic languages are well described by Sclileicher, in his f " Geschichte der Slav- ischen Sprache," as being marked by five distinct periods : (1.) The Slavic, in its primeval embryo state, among the elements of the unknown primeval Indo- European mother-tongue. * And yet this is the very word from which, as in the French esclavc and German sklave, comes our English word slave. So those great names. Caesar and Pompey, are now the common names of dogs and slaves. t This is a brief article, but quite valuable, of some 27 pages only published since his " Sprachen Europa's," in " The Oriental Journal of Literature and Art," and recently gathered with other brief philological essays, by Kuhn, into a sort of periodical collection, entitled, "Beitriige zur Sprachforschung," three parts of which have now been published- 118 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF (2.) The Slavic, as Slavo- German. (3.) The Slavic, as Letto-Slavic. (4.) The Slavic, as an individual independent lan- guage. (5.) The Slavic, as itself the mother of different dialects. The Slavonic languages are veiy intimately affiliated one Yi^ith the other. AVith any one of their various dialects, except the Bulgarian, which has degenerated most of all, it is quite easy to make one's self intel- ligible in conversation with those speaking the others. There are religious manuscripts in the Slavonic lan- guage dating back as far as the eleventh centuiy ; and by a comparison of the present forms with those of that date, they are found to have been remarkably stable. The changes that have taken place have occurred chiefly under the influence of the vowels, especially the i and j sounds, on the consonants pre- ceding them. By their influence many mutes have been changed into sibilants, or assibilated to those in juxta-position with them; and hence the super- abundance of sibilants in those languages. The double consonants that occm* so frequently in them, particularly in the Polish, while double to the eye, are like several similar combinations in English,* but single to the tongue. The Slavic languages are rich in grammatical forms. * As in English, know, knee, knife, gnash, gnat, pneumonia, &c. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 119 They have the same number of case-endings with the Sanskrit, but do not use the article with the noun, or the pronoun with tlie verb. In common witli the Lithuanian and German hmguages, they have a double form, the definite and indefinite, for each adjective. The alphabetic characters of this family of lan- guages are of two different kinds. The Slavonians of the Greek faith have what is called the Cyrilhc alphabet, first introduced by St. Cyril : and it is used in the ecclesiastical Slavic now, Cyril was a Greek monk, who went from Constantinople (a. d., 862), to preach the gospel to the Slavonians. The characters of his alphabet are chiefly Greek, although considerably modified ; and new signs also are introduced, to rep- resent sounds not found in the Greek. The Russians themselves also used the Cyrillic alphabet up to the time of Peter the Great, who boldly rejected nine of its characters, and then cut and carved what remained misparingly into a more tasteful form. Not only the Russian, but also the kindred Servian alphabets, are formed with some alterations from this alphabet, and are of recent origin. The style of orthography used by the other Slavonians, as the Croats, Bohemians, Lusi- tanians, Illyrians and Poles, is of the Roman order like our own, although somewhat dialectic in each case. There is also a secondary form of the Ecclesiastico- Slavonic to be found occasionally, called the Hierony- mic, from the idea that it was invented by Hieronymus. 120 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF It is however quite doubtful, when and by whom it was invented, and for what special pm*pose. The Slavic family of languages consists, properly, of two leading branches : 1. The South-eastern Slavic. 2. The Western Slavic. Some of the general points of difference existing between these two branches, although marked with many exceptions, are such as these : (1 .) An euphonic insertion of d before 1, in those of the second division, but not in those of the first. (2.) The letters d and t before 1 and n, are rejected in those of the first, but not in those of the second. (3.) The labials v, b, p, m, when followed by j, take in the first an 1 between them, but not in the second. I. The South-eastern Slavic branch : 1st. The Eussian. 2d. The Bulgarian. 3d. The Illyrian. 1st. The Russian language. It was 300 years ago, that Russia succeeded in throwing off the Mongol yoke, which had for about two centuries, well nigh crushed out its very fife; and, since the first full discovery then made of her own real inward streno;th, she has been marchins; forward in a lofty style of effort and of honor, in arts and arms, in learning and social improvement, and in every thing but rehgion. The same evil genius of hierarchical priest- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 121 craft stands in organized terror by her side, to poison continually the cup of all her sweets, that has drugged for so many centuries the papal nations of Christendom with its sorceries. Although Russian orthography has been greatly modified by the influence of ecclesiastico- Slavic elements ; the pronunciation of Russian words has remained true to their early forms, so that it almost embraces in fact two languages in itself: one to the eye and another to the ear. The Russian language, like the Russian empire, spreads over a very wide domain. It is with the Ser- vian, the most harmonious of all the Slavonic tongues. Consonantal combinations which would otherwise be harsh, it often improves by the special insertion of vowels. While the modern Slavonic languages agree wonderfully with both the Latin and Greek, the re- semblance of the Russian, especially, to the Latin is very striking. Donaldson quotes with approval a mod- em traveller, as saying that the founders of Rome spoke the Russian language. In the implication made, how- ever, by such a quotation, that so unclassical a surmise is to be received as a literal historical truth, he shows the same credulity and the same tendency to philolo- gical marvellousness, that elsewhere often characterize his speculations. Such tendencies indeed are among the customary weaknesses of that class of skeptical minds, whether in natural, theological, historical, lin- guistic, or other science which he reoresents. 122 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Ali'eady Russian literature, like Russian arms and Russian enterprise, has begun to show some of those gigantic proportions in which it is destined to lift up itself in full view, when, under a general equal evan- gelical system of social life, its people shall come to .appreciate and undertake their true work among the nations. The Russian contains three separate dialects. (1.) The Great Russian. A special form of this dialect, the Muscovite, is the standard, in respect to both orthography and orthoepy, for all the dialects. The Great Russian is spoken from the Peipus Sea to the Sea of Azof. (2.) The Little Russian. This is spoken in the southern part of Russia, as in Galicia, and shows many traces of foreign influences upon it. It has been but very little used as a written dialect, and that chiefly of late, although it is easily recognized in ecclesiastico-Slavonic as far back as the 11th century. (3.) The White Russian. This is spoken in diiferent parts of Lithuania, espe- cially in Wilna, Grodno, Bielostok, &c., and in Wliite Russia. It is a new dialect, and has grown up since the union of the Lithuanians with the Poles, and is full of Polonisms. The limits of its sway are much narrower than those of either of the other dialects, and it has made no throne for itself in books : nor has it THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 123 constituted its products a part of the high commerce, that prevails in the world of thought. 2d. The Bulgarian. This language spreads over the large and fruitful space, bounded on the north by the mouth of the Dan- ube, on the east by the Euxine in part, on the south by a line running from Salonica to Ochrida, and on the west by the Pruth, or rather a line a little beyond its western bank. The Bulgarians have a sohd deep earnest character, beyond the races that surround them, which must erelong bring them and theu' language, and all its archaeology, into bolder rehef than hitherto upon the page of history. . Tlie ecclesiastical Slavonic or, as it is sometimes called, the Cyrillic dialect, which is but the old Bul- garian modified, although no longer a living language, is yet used by them at the present time, in common with both the Russians and the Servians, as the lan- guage of the Scriptures and of their religious books ; so that, although in the ordinary business of life it is dead to the tongue, it is still alive to the heart. In all nations, old languages and old forms of language find their last hiding-place in the temples and services of religion, and there claim forever the right of sanc- tuary. Nothing but Time, which wears out all things, or the Spirit of Evangelical Reform, which can remove any obstacle, has ever sufficed to dislodge them from these cherished retreats. 124 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF It is in the old Bulgarian, that the most ancient religious writings of the Slavonians are found : the man- uscript of the oldest date being a collection of the four gospels, prepared for Prince Ostromir in the year 1056. There are also old manuscripts of the language, probably older than this, in the Glago-litic alphabet without date, Avhich, though of the same origin with the Cyrilhc, is yet difierent in its graphic symbols. Schafarik reo-ards them as the most ancient of all Bui- garian records ; and Schleicher proposes to call the Bulgarian v/ritten in this alphabet, the Old Church- Slavic : as distinguished from the Bulgarian found in the Cyrillic alphabet, which he denominates Church- Slavic. Not that the writings in the Glago-litic alpha- bet were all made necessarily before Cyril's day, but that what were not so written were put in this old character from a sort of traditionary pride in its an- tique aspect. The present Bulgarian is far inferior as a language, in the richness of its forms and the completeness of its structure, to the ecclesiastical Slavonic, and remains in its present state as it was three centuries ago. Its contour is plainly defined, as separate from all the other Slavic languages, by certain euphonic* principles and tendencies, which prevail in it. * These are as quoted by Schleicher (Spraclien Europas. p. 207,) from Schafarik, the groat historian of the Slavonic literature: (1.) The insertion of an s before t, when softened by an i or j placed after it, as in noszt for notj, night. (2.) The insertion of z (English zh). before a THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 125 3d. The Servian or Illyriaii. When written m the CyrilHc character, as by those of the Greek Church, it is called Servian ; but when in the Latin alphabet, as by the Roman Catholics, it is, called Illyrian : so much do men like names and fight for mere words. Under this general title are included in one the Servian, Croatian and Slowenic dialects, which them- selves also in turn might be resolved into still other dia- lects. Unifomiity is not found to be a law of hu- man development, in the department of speech, any more than in any other direction secular, or religious, practical or intellectual. The Servian dialect is very rich in vowels and so exceedingly musical to the ear. With the perfect sacrifice indeed of all scholastic in- stincts, and with none of that love of archetypal ety- mology so characteristic of the Greeks, who, while always at work artistically upon the forms of language to improve them, yet always left carefully on each new form some mark, that should forever in-um the remem- brance of the one that they had destroyed ; the Ser- vians, like the old Iconoclasts, break down old words and parts of words, and break them off with eager pleasure, if they can only thereby get a fuller, finer, sweeter sound. Thus consonants have been driven softened d or instead of it, as in mezdafor medja, limits. (3.) A pecu- liar adjective ending, in — ago. (4.) The use of the personal pronouns ti, si, instead of the attributions moj my : tvoj thy and svoi his, as in carstvo mi, my kingdom. 126 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF everjAvliere tlirougli the language, out of words where they had nestled for centuries. The Croatian and Slowenic dialects have no historical importance. The Slowenic is spoken by the people of Carinthia, Steier- mark and Carniola. The oldest monument of the language dates back to the tenth century.* 11. The Western Slavic family. This includes four special dialects, which, on ac- count of the historical insignificance of most of those who have spoken them, we can dismiss rapidly. * Slavonic Correspondences. Sanskrit. Zend. Greek. Latin. vrikas, a ■wolf vehrkas \6.oi lupus aham, I azem eyo'j ego bhratar, a brother. brata r,y6i fagus Tuvan, youtli, yavauo juvenis ganda, the cheek or chiu yvaOii ytvvi ■ gena Litliuanian: Slavonic. vilkas vluku bratr 1 brolis -l I and S brat 3 jaunas zandas buku jun szczeka Gothic. vulfs ik bruother b6ka (Gei'man, buche, beech ; buch, book.) Geiinan, jing kinnus Enslish. wolf brother book >■ beech youth chiu In the following Slavonic words, who can fail to see the resemblance to familiar classical words, especially Latin : moryo, the sea : voda, ■water : Icosti, a bone : volya, will : gosti, a guest : syny, a son : domy, a hoiLsc : mator, a mother. THF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 127 1. The Lechish. 2. The Tschechish or Bohemian, 3. The Sorbenwendish. 4. The Polabish. The Lecliish is so called, from the once powerful Lechs ; and its domain was formerly much wider than now. The Polish and the Kashubish, a dialect of the Pohsh, are its present representatives. In this lan- guage sibilants abound ; and as they are quite varied, the differences between them are often difficult of dis- covery except to a native's ear. Besides also being full of Usping and hissing utterances, it contains many nasal sounds ; and is distinguished by a double vocaU- zation of the letter 1 as either a palatal or a guttural, which is peculiar. Poland lost her place among the nations, by the selfish internecine strife of her princes and great men with each other ; and though in the days of Knight Errantry her sons exhibited as ener- getic, manly, martial qualities, as those of any other people ; yet, having been once laid prostrate by parri- cidal hands, she has never under the tyranny of her spiritual conquerors at Rome, or of her civil conquerors at St. Petersburg!!, been aUowed the privilege of a resur- rection. She has never therefore figm'ed as she might have done, upon the stage of history ; and her language awakens no pleasant memories of travel and discovery, of research and spoil or of pleasm^e and profit, in the hearts of the lovers of learning. The fountains of 128 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF knowledge and thought and truth and all beauty have been opened for them on other shores, and by other hands ; and Poland is spoken of only with sadness. A Russian and a Pole have so many grammatical and lexical forms in their two languages alike, although belonging to the two separate Slavic families, that they can each read the other's language about as readily as a Spaniard can the Italian. A Russian also, it is said, can comprehend easily the ancient Bulgarian. It has indeed been claimed by some writers, that all the va- rious Slavonic dialects differ no more from each other, than did the various dialects of Greece one from the other. The Tschechish is the speech of the Slavonic in- habitants of Bohemia, Moravia and north-western Hun- gary, and occurs sporadically throughout almost aU Hungary. In respect to both of its two leading dia- lects, the Bohemian and Slowakish, but especially the former, it can boast of an historical organic identity, that dates back half way at least, towards the begin- ninof of the Christian Era. The Sorbenwendish, or Sorbish as it is called by the Germans, or Wendish as the Lusatians name it, prevails in limited parts of Upper and Lower Lusatia The Polabish, as the word indicates (po along and Labe the Elbe), was spoken more or less, anciently, by those living on both sides of the Elbe. It disappeared, as a vernacular language, about two centuries ago ; al- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 129 though some few famiUes in that region §till keep it ahve among themselves. The domain of the Slavonic languages has been always, with singular uniformity, on the middle ground between barbarism and civilization. Their literature also has been almost always borrowed from other nations : a habit, which, when pursued continuously by any people whether with willing enthusiasm or blind thoughtlessness, is sure to spread a blighting mildew over all the germinating tendencies and forces of native genius. Like all otlier people also, whether viewed individually or socially, who have lacked principles of self-reliance and earnest self-development, in a world so full on every hand of unequal and unjust rivalry, they have been jostled aside and dashed down by stronger races rushing against them, in their strife for the prizes of this world. There are found in the interior of Germany at the present day, some Slavonic names of cities and rivers, even as far west as the Elbe : the only monuments now left of their ancient occupation of the regions lying westward of their present home in Europe. But as, on the one hand, they have succumbed to the influence of the more civilized and powerful races on their western borders, so, on the other, have the races less civihzed at the east yielded to them ; and Slavonic ideas and institutions, Slavonic law and order 130 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF now rule over the whole northern part of the continent of Asia. As the Greeks and Latins were originally blended in full combination with each other, as one primitive race ; so, the Slavonians and Germans, although never historically one, have yet been fi'om the first in long contact with each other in large masses, and must have come into Europe, at a nearly contemporaneous period. V. The Gothic, or Germanic family. In the Gothic version of the Scriptures made by Ulphilas (a. d. 388) are all the remains that the world now possesses of that noble old tongue, the queen- mother of so many princely languages. The Goths were living at that time on the lower side of the Danube, around its mouth. In Herodotus they are called the FtTcci,^ and in Tacitus the Getae, and are * In Menander's comedies, a Te'roj or Aaos is introduced as the standing representative of a slave, and as being brought from Thrace into Greece. The Tiros was a Goth and the Aao'■ losen loose lubh, to desire \ir;TzaQai Clibet and (lubet • lieben love madhu, honey fiiKi mel meth mead mah, to prepare jinxiivaaQai machinari machen make naman, a name Sifoua nomen name name patha, a way tt'itu; passns pfad path su, to scatter about act CIV serere saen sow- siv, to fasten together Kaaavciv * suere sew smi, to laugh ^ciSin for aftei63ii smile strr, to strew (XTopivvvvai steriiere streuen strew svid, to sweat ISpovv (for cFiSpovi') sudare schweissen sweat svadus, sweet ))ivi (for (tF'?^vs) suavis siisz sweet stabh and stubh, to press together, stambh, to support, " and stambhas, a stem oTs'iffciv and (jTijjtPetv to stamp on or down a stem, a stump J stipare stipes stipulus stapfeu stampfen steif stumpf ''staff step stop stamp stump stubb stubble stem vash, to wish cv^cadat wiinscheu wish yuyam, you ifie ti vos euch you * Kaaavcii = *aru-|-!7l'£i»'. 140 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF original dissyllabic form into one monosyllabic in Eng- lish. In consequence of the composite character of our language, its orthography and orthoepy are found at frequent variance from each other ; while there are al- most as many silent letters, not only in the middle and end of words but also when occurring initially, as in French; and the pronunciation of the same letters* * The following letters are sometimes found silent : (1) In the beginning of words: &, as in bdellium: g.&s in gnat: h, as in humble : 7c, as in knee : m, as in mnemonics : p, as in psalm. (2) In the middle of words : c, as in slack : g, as in daughter : Z, as in balm. (3) In the end of words: &, as in dumb and lamb : h, as in ah : n. as in condemn : y, as in say compared with ay : w, as in low. Some consonants also have double sounds as e, which is sounded as iin cat and as s in city : g, hard in gun and soft, (as_;) in gentle : ch, like Jc in Christian, like tch in chance and like sh in chemise : x, like I'S in axe and like z in Xenophon ; and gh as in though, laugh, hough. Along also what a scale of variations does each of the vowels run, as: a, in man, mate, many, father, water, caboose. e, in mete, met, they, there, behold, inter, linen. i, in pine, pin, lepine, bird. 0, in on, throne, attorney, move, lost. u, in gun, astute, mute, full, busy. How various too is the sound of the different diphthongs, as : ai, in aisle, straight, air, again, complaisant. o«, in slaughter, laughter, hautboy. ea, in lean, yea, meant, hearse, swear. ee, in seen, been, committee. ei, in sleight, feign, foreign, heifer, either, their. ie, in die, believe, friend. 00, in moon, soon, floor, flood. ou, in bound, through, though, should, hough, cough, enough. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 141 especially vowels, both singly and in diphtliongal combi- nations, is exceedingly varied. The pronunciation of each word agreed doubtless, at some time in the his- tory of the language, with its spelling : a fact which will serve well to show what great changes have occurred, within the very essential elements of its structure. In this country especially, om^ people, language and institutions have been borne through such an unsettled pioneer experience, that a strange unscholarlike, if not indeed almost universal, indifference prevails among even our educated men, to exactness and elegance in the niceties of language. The noble old English tongue has assumed, in some large districts of our country, not only in its orthoepy* but also in its orthography, a distinct American type, and that not for the better but for the worse. It is not claimed indeed that in language, any more than in laws, usages and institutions, we should be servile copyists of those in the old home across the waters, who certainly have no better right, and as we are apt to think no better * "Witness the double pionunciation in England and America of such words, as desultory, leisure, detail, azure, isolate, demonstrate, and those words, in which a occurs in the same syllable before 1, m. and st as in bahn, calm, last, past, and also national, patriot, evangelical, cour- teous, fealty, either and neither, therefore, fearful. &c. As for changes in orthography all know, on what an extensive systematic scale W^eb- ster has undertaken to force them ujion the language. Happilj', the resistance to such innovations by him proved too great ; and they are gradually losing, most of them, the little ground, which under his in- fluential name they had begun to acquire. 142 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF capacity, to act well for themselves, than we for our- selves. Nor do we suppose that language can be com- pressed, either here or there, within fixed arbitrary modes of manifestation. Much less can it be main- tained that language should cease its growth ; as it seems to be an universal law of all growths in this world, that their stoppage is the beginning of their decay, which, stated more philosophically, is the begin- ning of their disappearance from the field of view, in order to prepare the way for something better* in their place. America has the right and let her take it, for she surely wiU, to impress her o\vn genius on the English tongue. To undertake to stop it, would be to fight the whirlwind. But let not provincialisms be accepted, for they are unnecessary, and in whatever language they appear, are abnormal within and un- sightly without. Let not etymological principles, that is, grammatical, radical and phonetic analogies, which are not merely the ornaments of a language, but also its very essence and substance, be smitten and ham- mered down, by any rude barbarian zeal for squaring the forms of speech into phonographic correspondence with their pronunciation. As well attack the forms of sculptured life, fresh from the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles, and undertake to drive back the Spirit of beauty, now radiant in every feature, within the cold recesses of the marble where it had slept un waked before, hke Echo, sweet nymph of forest dells, slum- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 143 bering untliouglit of in her leafy bovver, until some friendly voice arouses her to answering words again. Whatever symbols of her greatness America carves upon the tablets of the English tongue, let them be no grotesque specimens of careless haste, or proofs of vulgar sensibility to forms of low life, in the world of speech. Let her signatures rather be here as else- where royal in their aspect : so that any who shall survey the vestiges of her influence, in whatever age or from whatever point of observation, shall be compelled to say with reverence and affection, Incedis Regina ! There are those however who undertake to justify many and great abuses in this hemisphere, to the ori- ginal, pure, historical Transatlantic English, which we have brought with us to our new home. The influence also of similar ideas and habits has run up, to a lament- able degree, into the whole style of our higher classical education, as it is generally conducted. Prosody, except in its rudest outlines, is openly disregarded and pro- nounced by teachers, wiio themselves are ignorant of its nice details, an useless appendage of classical study. Greek accentuation, similarly, is ridiculed by the same professional novices, who have not mastered it them-^ selves ; and who declare that it cannot be understood, or, that, if by long close study it should be compre- hended by any one, the fruit would not pay for the labor bestowed upon its cultivation. But no men, more than educated Englishmen and Americans, owe 144 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF it to themselves and their age and their mother- tongue, to preserve in its sacred beauty, unbroken and unspotted through all time, the temple of their liter- ature and their language. (3.) The Frisic. This is kindred to the Anglo-Saxon and the Old Norse, and yet separate from them both. It was once spoken on the Elbe, and along the northern coast of Germany. It is found now as a living language, only in a few scattered districts in the Netherlands ; and it is alive there only in the lips of men and not in their books, and so finds shelter only among the rude un- educated masses. The Dutch has entirely displaced its words, as current coin, by its own as having a far higher value. (4.) The Low Dutch. (a) The Netherlandish. These include the Flemish and Dutch languages. The native home of the Flemish language is Belgium. As the French is the court-lano;ua2;e of Belorium, and contains in itself great elements of vitality and wonderful tendencies to diffusion, wherever it once obtains a permanent lodgment, the Flemish is in such unfavorable contact with it rapidly waning away, and will probably ere long retain only the name of having been once cherished, as a household treasure, by its OAvn people. Happily however, for dead languages like depopulated countries are full of mournful asso- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 145 ciations, the Memisli language is a separate language from the Dutch, almost wholly in its orthography alone. As, therefore, they are in their real substantive essence alike and the words of the two languages are themselves the same, its spirit will still survive, when it has resigned its breath, in that fine rich Dutch lan- guage, of whose literature and of whose genius, as well as of the history of whose people although so strongly connected with our own, it is no praise to us, that we are so profoundly ignorant. (b) The Saxon. This is a modern title of convenience, for describing the staple or material of several kindred dialects, or rather different forms or stages of the same dialect, called the old Saxon, the Middle Low German and the flat or vulgar German (Plattdeutsch). The old Saxon was formerly spoken in the north of Germany. The Heliand, a poem written in the ninth century, is the only relic now left of it, possessing any value. It is a harmony of the gospels in mere* alliterative metre. The different dialects included under the old Saxon, receive in their bare enumeration all the honor that they deserve. They contain in them nothing that speaks of an heroic past or of a vitalized present. 2. The High German. The etymology of the word, German, a name given * A brief but good specimen of it may be found in Latham, on the English Language, pp. 2G — 7. Third edition. 146 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF to the people who bear it, by other nations and not by themselves, is yet a mooted question. Numerous have been the guesses made concerning it. Some have derived it from Kerman in Persia, now Caramania. But whatever affinities the German may have with the Persian, it is yet true that the Germans did not call themselves by this name, and so could not have carried it with them, from the place of their origin. Others have derived it from the Latin germanus (Eng. germain) kindred or cognate : a mere accidental resemblance in form, wdth no historical connection in sense; while others maintain that it originated in gher (French guerre, Spanish gueiTa) war, and mann, man ; and others still find it in the vernacular Irman or Erman. It is, on the contrary, in all probability a Celtic word, as Leo has recently suggested, derived from gairraean a shout or war-cry, formed from gair to cry.* The name Deutsch, by which the Gennans denominate themselves, and to which also the name Teutones is aUied, is derived from the Gothic thiudisko (Gr. edviyico^), from thiuda {tO-voz) a nation, and answers therefore to our word Gentile. Like the Latin, the German languages supply the want of separate tense-suffixes, by auxiliary verbs. The only tenses formed on the simple verb-stem, are the present and imperfect. The Gothic retained the dual* * So in Homer a great warrior is often described as aya&os 0or)v, good in shouting ; which is an essential part of war with a savage. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 147 and had also reduplicated forms ; but these are so mu- tilated in the modern Germanic tongues, as not to be discoverable except by comparison. Grimm states four pomts of discrimination, by which the German family of languages is individuahzed by it- self: (1.) The ablaut, or change of the radical vowel, in the conjugation-forms of the verb. (2.) The lautverschiebung, or change of sounds and letters from one point to another on the same scale. (3.) The weak conjugation of the verb. (4.) The strong conjugation. The High German has had three eras of periodic growth, in respect to the styles of its forms. 1. That of the Old High German, prevailing from the seventh to the eleventh century. 2. That of the Middle High Gennan, from the eleventh centmy to Luther's day. The Niebelungen, the great German epic of ancient times, was prepared in the form in which we find it, somewhere about the year 1200. It contains how- ever scraps of poetry, that probably date back as far as Charlemagne, two hundred years earlier (1000 a. d.). This is the Iliad of the Germanic tribes, written in the days of chivalry. Its heroes are those of the fifth and sixth centuries, and of a Christian type ; and it is full of old traditions and marvels. 3. The New Hi2:h Ger- man, or what we call the present classic German, born 148 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF in its full complete state at the Reformation, and of it. liUtlier was its foster-father. Its words took their fixed and final form in his earnest, glowing, scholarly mind, and by his pen were " engraven in the rock forever," [n his noble translation of the Scriptures, he not only scattered everywhere the seeds of divine truth but pop- ularized also the usage of his mother tongue, in richer, deeper, stronger forms, than ever before ; and by that translation, still recognized with national pride as the standard version of the Scriptures, as well as by the sweet hymnology that has flowered forth from its pro- Ufic stem around the walls of the sanctuary, the lan- guage has been preserved in the state in which he found and used it, with sacred care. Throughout all the stages of its historic development, the High German has been full of treasures, which the world has not been willing to forget. It is now, for both sesthetical and philosophical uses, more akin in its inward and subtle affinities to the Greek, than any other living language. It has a sort of divine aura around and within it. And if to one, not born in its presence or brought up under its power, who looks upon it from without with cool, critical survey, its channs seem so exquisite, even when compared with those of the other great languages of the world ; how inspiring must be its influence on those, who from childhood have been taught to love it as their mother tongue : all whose thoughts and feel- ings, aU whose wonder, joy and sorrow and aU whose THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 149 loves and hopes and longings, for this world and the next, have been breathed from the first through its living chords ! In original, constant productiveness and the capacity for an ever-enlarging home-growth of its own, and that of the most homogeneous character, no modern language equals it ; and in this respect as in so many others, some of them more easily felt than de- scribed, it resembles the Greek. There is no modern tongue, which a mind thoroughly English in its type and tone, can so profitably receive into all its elements of thought and growth, as the German. It has great capacity for expressing nice discriminations and poeti- cal conceptions ; and to us of other nations, whose lan- guages are the mere alluvial deposits of those of elder days : having none of the interior principles of sponta- neous organic growth, that the German like the Greek possesses, taking on new forms and combinations as used by each new age and even by each new mind that assumes to itself the privilege of making them, as the right is universally conceded : it seems dehghtful indeed to come within the atmosphere and aroma of its fresh blossoming fulness of life. The mind feels, when sur- rounded everywhere by the living stir of its agencies and energies, joyously and strangely elastic in its moods : it has an instinct to climb and vault and shake off every sense of weakness, as when, in tender sympathy with nature, it stands and gazes on the first full out- burst of new life and beauty in the spring. The heart 150 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF is moved amid the splendors of its poetry, as it some- times is mider the power of some wild witching melody, which makes the soul feel, as if deep within itself there were another self, to which few things in this world had the power to make themselves heard or seen. In many-sidedness the German is not at all equal to the English. Its connections with the Latin are far less numerous: the Greek element does not prevail so ex- tensively in it; nor have the modern languages im- pressed their form and influence upon it, as upon the English. The German has indeed, throughout, fewer admixtiu-es of other languages in it, than any other European tongue, while the EngHsh has more than any other. While therefore in English almost all words have been first distilled through the alembic of the Greek, Latin, Gothic, Gemian, Erench, Italian or Span- ish mind; in German, with few exceptions, they all claim one common origin and bear in them the mark of a distinct national individuality. German literature is full of strength and beauty, to a degree even of almost Asiatic luxuriance. The more recent type, however, of the German mind is that of profound scholarship. The Germans are the self-chosen and world-accepted miners of the realms of science, and obtain the pure ore of knowledge, by willing, patient delving after it ; which other nations convert into all the forms of intellectual commerce for the world's good. Instead of the sense of nationality, which other nations cherish so warmly THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 151 and of whicli their poets sing in songs of their father- land, as only those can sing who have lost a once dear treasure : a sense, vrhich, by their minute division into kingdoms and duchies, has been destroyed among them : they possess a broad cosmopolitan taste and consciousness, and have accordingly undertaken to be the stewards of the world's intellectual riches, and pur- veyors to its mental wants. VI. The Cehic. This class of languages has not been appreciated until very recently, as having the connections, which it really does possess, with the great Indo-Em'opean family. To Dr. Prichard, that fine EngHsh investiga- tor into the natui'al history of man and into ethnology, is due the honor of having first discovered their true connection with it. It was ingeniously guessed at the outset by Sir William Jones, to be one of the Indo- European family. But, as guesses are as likely to be false as true and have as such no science or substance in them, the merit of the discovery is as great, as if no such siu-mise had been previously made; since, in Prichard's day, it had lost all its qualities of value, whether authoritative or suggestive. Bunsen claims, as has been stated, that the place for the Celtic, in the history of languages, lies midway between the Old Egyptian, which he regards as the most primeval lan- guage yet discovered, and the Sanskrit : " The Cel- tic," as he claims, "never havinc^ had the Sanskrit 152 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF development; so that, while it exhibits a systematic affinity with it in some respects, it shows also iu others a manifest estrangement from it." The Old Egyptian, it is conceded, exhibits many inward resemblances to it in several respects ; and on any and every view, the Old Egyptian of the Semitic family, and the Sanskrit and Celtic not of that family, point in many of their common characteristics to a possible unity, at least, in one ultimate origin ; and it is not at present absolutely certain, in what way we should state the true relative order of their sequence. It is manifest that the Celts led the van of occi- dental emigration through the wilderness of primeval Europe, and spread over Gaul, Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Britain. The greater part of Europe in- deed was inhabited in its earliest historic period, by different tribes of Celts. They were found however by the races that followed in their train, most numer- ously in Germany, Erance, Spain and Great Britain ; while traces were found of them also even in Greece, Illyria and Italy. They had no letters and in fact despised them, as unworthy of a warlike people ; and therefore had no way of preseiTing their laws or his- tory or scanty Hterature, except to deposit them in the archives of their own hearts. Hence they undertook to hand them down, from one generation to another by song. Their poets they called bards : a profession that included all who felt moved by any strange wild THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 153 impulse witliin them, to an earnest utterance of them- selves to others ; and its ideal was best realized in a sort of native spontaneous combination of the poet, the musical composer and the practical singer, in one and the same person. Many such poets there were among them, in the course of those long centuries so voiceless now to us ; and their poems were sweet, like the carols of summer birds, to the hearts of those wandering tribes. The ancient Druids, the instructors of Celtic youth, sometimes devoted many years to teaching them those wild native songs ; and the primi- tive Celts were justly distinguished, as having been addicted beyond most rude early races to poetry ; and bards were held in high honor, both among the primi- tive Gauls and Britons. The chief monument of ancient Celtic verse, still left standing on the earth, is that of Ossian ; which is now generally allowed by those best acquainted with Gaelic literature, to be genuine. He was indeed, as he is commonly called, " the prince of Scottish bards." Certainly, if Macpherson could himself write such a poem, so noble in itself and so wonderfully set, in re- spect to its ideas and all their surroundings of men and manners, in the age to which it pretended to be- long, he would have no reason to be ashamed of ac- knowledging its authorship, and no motive to bestow the honor gratuitously upon another of whom nothing was known but his name. To one of the Wolfe-school 154 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF of doubters, who can make himself beUeve that Homer is a name for a class of giant-geniuses, instead of one alone, and so that the Iliad is a fortuitous concourse of many poems from several authors, no evidence could probably ever suffice to assure him of its gen- uineness. But to one who feels an argument, the proof seems sufficient for the reasonable conviction, that Ossian really made the poem, which Macpherson only translated. The Celtic possesses now but a sporadic existence. Its present remains are the Kymric or 'Welsh, and the Gaehc, the native tongue of the Scotch Highlanders, and the Erse or native Irish ; in which, especially the last, we have modern specimens of the most ancient type of languages of this stock. The Celtic departs most in the style of its poems, of all the languages hitherto enumerated, from the primeval aspects of words as found in the Sanskrit. The institutions that the Celts founded and the very vocabulary that they used, were early overborne by Roman conquests, ideas and in- fluences. They nowhere maintained a firm foothold, against the influx of the races that succeeded them, except at the most advanced outposts of the continent : whence there was no region beyond into which they could be driven except the sea. That German element also in modern society, which has so largely modified aU the aspects of the civilized world, came in ere long upon them with all its force, and overlaid them with THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 155 its owTi peculiar character. And yet the Celtic lias left at the same time its manifest impress upon the German; which, having existed geographically mid- way between the Celtic and Slavonic nations, has also partaken of their characteristics mutually but much more of the Celtic than of the Slavonic. In the Teu- tonic languages generally, there is found a greater mix- tm'e of Celtic words, than in any other class of lan- guages. The Teutonic races followed more exactly in the track of the Celts receding before them, than any others. The German and Celtic languages have like- wise, aside from their connnon inheritance of the same great original staple of Indo-European words, many words that they have directly borrowed each of them from the other. It is not therefore always easy : so changed are words often in passing from one language to another, whether passing early or late in their his- tory : to say, whether the correspondences which are found are in some cases original or derived. The Celtic is spoken still, in the central and south- ern parts of Ireland, in the north-western parts of Scotland, in the Hebrides and the islands between England and Ireland and also in Wales, and on the continent in Brittany. The Celts are aU now under the British yoke, except those living in Brittany over whom Erance rules. And, as they form in their geo- graphical and historical position alike, the advanced guard of all the nations of Europe, it is both natural and logical to conclude that if of Arian origin, as is 156 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF probable, and not of an antecedent date, tliey consti- tute the first cleavage from the great primary elemental mass of Indo-Ehiropean mind. Not only does the Celtic differ more from the Sanskrit, than any of the other languages of the Arian family, but it is also the least complete and mature of them all, in its OAvn in- dividual features. The Celts never invented any alpha- bet for themselves, and never borrowed one for their own separate use, as did the Greeks from the Phceni- cians, from any other people. The Celtic * family includes, 1st. The Kymric.f * This is Diefenbach's classification of them. He is one of the most recent investigators in this field, and is one of the highest of all author- ities in, philology : like Bopp, Pott, and the Brothers Grimm among the elder lights in this field, and Schleicher, Kuhn, Curtius and Aufrecht among its younger leaders. t Celtic Correspondences. Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gotliic. Celtic. English. rWelsh "^ bhu,tobe ,C. fui it°-'^^-)]S3, [be Lbi J i , , s ( oSov; dens J ^".f^fi'' \ stem stem >• tunthu dant tooth ^*°°"^ /o^.^^ dent ) hanu(s), the ja-R cf. ganda sara, md water anu(s), ) ^ the jaw. > yim" gena kinnus genau chin f. ganda ) r Irish ~] andsalan, VuAf sal ^ ix^^^°, Isalt a, salt J i salan, J-uAi ater ) ] Welsh (_ halen padafs) (""'^ P^^ ) afoot -;Stem stem V fotu ped foot (-00 ped 3 l^eap nis'a, night iC^ nox nochd nif^ht THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 157 2d. The Gadlielic. 1st. Under tlie Kymric are included (1) The Welsh. (2) The Cornish, which v/as confined to Cornwall, and ceased to be a living language about sixty years ago. (3) The Low-Breton or Armorican, which prevails in French Brittany. This whole class of Kymric lan- guages is separated very distinctly from the kindred Gadhelic; and they are sometimes denominated also the Britannic dialects. 2d. Under the Gadhelic are included also various dialects. Gadhelic is formed, as Pictet thinks, from gaedel and gaodheal, meaning hero, from gaodaim to rob, or plunder : a hero and a robber being among lawless men synonymous. This derivation is prefer- able to that of Charles Meyer, who regards Gadhel, Gael and Gallus, as all derived from the old Celtic root gwydh to follow, and so pointing to the nomadic hab- its of the primitive Celts, or their great perpetual ten- dency to clanships. (1) The Gaelic proper, or High Scotch. (2) The Irish or Erse. In the words Eirinn,* Erin and Ireland Pictet t The flexion of the word Eirinn is in Irish as follows : Nom. Eire also Ere. Gen. Eireann, Eirenn and Erenn. Dat. Eirinn, Erinn and Eiren. Ace. Eire. The classical forms of the name as 'ifpf/r, 'ifpi/jj, HovfpuUi, Hibernia 158 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF claims, notwithstanding JPott's hasty laughter at pre- vious etymologists for having broached such an idea, that we see the old family name Iran or Arii, still fly- ing on the flagstaff of one great branch of the Celts, who first left their common home. The Irish language possesses, beyond any other of the Celtic languages, the most ancient forms of words. What the Germans call the umlaut,* prevails here abundantly. (3) The Manx, or that spoken in the isle of Man. In the Celtic declension of the verb, the three per- sons are expressed sometimes by the personal pronouns, combined as suflixes with the verb-stem, as in the Sanskrit and also in mutilated forms in the other Indo- European languages ; and sometimes, as in English, by the separate use of the pronouns before the verb. A declension of the noun cannot be said to exist at all, in some of the languages of this family, as the Welsh and Low Breton. The relations of words to others in a sentence, are expressed by changes in their initial &c. are composite. Thus Hibernia, Pictet regards as compounded of Ibh the land, and Erna of the Erins ; and so in the Greek form hovepvla, the syllable ov is a softening of the Irish bh, or Latin b in Hibernia ; and the form hevpfj is for 'lFepi'17. The stem ibh may be connected, he thinks, with the Sanskrit ibhj-a wealthy, opulent, cf. Gr. 'icfuos strong, mighty : so that the stem of the word Iren or Irish would mean the good, the brave. Pictet's article is interesting, and may be found in Kuhn's Beitrilge zur Sprachforschnng, pp. 81 — 99. * This means a softening of a radical vowel of a word, into an e sound, to denote a difference of person in a noun, or of tense in a verb ; as in our words brother and brethren, foot and feet, tooth and teeth, was and were. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 159 parts, and those changes are phonetically adapted to the terminal characteristics of the words preceding them: the direction taken by the law of assimilation in this family of languages, being exactly opposite to that, taken in the other branches of the Indo-European family. In the Celtic languages, constant modifications are made by Avords placed in combination, one of the other, like those denominated Sandhi in Sanskrit. Conso- nantal mutations are much more varied in Welsh than in the Irish; and words beginning with vowels are subject also in Welsh to changes, similar to those made by Guna in Sanskrit. A comparison of the Nmiierals in Welsh and Irish with those in Sanskrit is worthy of attention. Welsh. Irish. Sanskrit. 1. un aen aika 2. dau and ) 1 da ^ dwi } dwau dwy ] 1 do 3. tri and tair tri tri 4. pedwar and pedair \ keathair chatur 5. pump kuig panchan 6. chwech se shash 7. saitli secht saptan 8. wyth ocht aslitau 9. naw noi navan [0. dee. deich dasan The Welsh and ^olic Greek make nearly the same kind of consonantal substitutions : as p (.t) for San- skrit ch as in Tiavrt, Mo\. ntf-irct, Welsh pump, Sansk. 160 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF panclian ; and the gutturals c, g, k for sh and s as <56;^«; Welsh deg; Sansk. dasan; and kixooi: Welsh ugain : Sansk. vins'ati. Snuilarly the Latin and the Erse are quite alike in their consonantal phenomena. They neither of them adopt the p of the Welsh and jiEolic Greek, but have c or q instead of it, as in Latin quatuor, Erse keathair, four : Sansk, cliatur : Welsh pedwar : Gr. r&TraQtg, Mo[. TviouQtQ ; and so quinque (pronounced originally kinke) : Erse kuig, compared with the Greek and Welsh as above. The Teutonic dialects agree generally more with the Welsh and vEolic Greek, than with the Latin and Erse. A few specimens of Erse and Welsh correspondents with the Sanskrit equivalent will make their diflPerences still more apparent. Sanskrit. Erse. Welsh. jani, a woman gean, virah, a hero fear matri, a mother mathair nabhah, aether neav n^v dhara, earth daiar ukshan, an ox agh yeh druh, a tree dair derw danta(s), a tooth dant dvar, a door dor mri, to die marbh marw vid, to know fis (knowledge) wydha (to learn) We have now passed in review the different fam- ilies of the historical languages of the world, ii^ as rapid a manner, as justice to their several degrees of excel- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 161 . lence and honor would allow. The original Indo-Eu- ropean language, so called from its many Asiatic and European descendants, whose names, for want of one more apposite, are united in it ; by whatever name it was called by those who spoke it, before they called themselves Arians, and wherever they lived under the power of those energetic influences, which the history of the languages descended from it shows it to have possessed, must have been one of great splendor within and without. And, as the reflex influence of a kingly language is one of the strongest of all stimulating in- fluences that a nation can ever feel, in the mode of its development, wondrous indeed must have been its adaptations, for the purposes of an ever-growing men- tal life and commerce among men. In it were the germs of most of the many great languages, that have since come and gone upon the face of the earth. What- ever words have been really added to the original stock, except in the way of new combinations of words already belonging to it, must have been wholly or chiefly ono- matopoetic; in which, as in the words hiss, crash, splash, murmur, men have simply uttered from their own tongues, by way of imitation, the same sounds which they had already heard in nature. It is worth the while, in conclusion, to consider even though in a brief manner, the lessons which are taught us by historical philology. They are these : 1. The Unity of the race. 162 HISTOllICAL SKETCH OF Nations and tribes that have no features physical, intellectual or spiritual in common, are yet found, by a comparison of their languages, to be bound closely to- gether in the bonds of a common primeval brotherhood. Every new discovery in philology reveals new aild wider connections between them, and harmonizes the voice of history with that of the Scriptures : just as in geology each new advance of the science serves to prove still more fully, that the genesis of nature was exactly the same as the Genesis of Revelation, 2, The greatly determining influence in man's his- tory of the material, passive and receptive side of his nature. Human language wonderfully exhibits the play of physical influences upon us, in respect to our speech aixl our ideas, om- experience and our employ- ment, our pleasure and pain, our social state and our social progress. It almost says, that man is the sport of circumstances. This it would say absolutely, Avere it not for the counteractive power of that gentle but ever-active providence of God, which, while not distm'b- ing at all the working of the most delicate, minute, un- guarded elements of free agency in our nature, yet always broods over each individual, to influence him to the best possible improvement of his nature ; and to combine the actual results of his untrammelled choice and action, in harmony with that of every other one, in the production of the greatest possible amount of good to all. There is thus a true materialism which phi- THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 103 losophy must recognize, as one of the fundamental bases of all her theories of man, whether viewed indi- vidually or collectively. Not more truly is man himself a compound being, composed of body and soul, or the body itself a duality in the details of its structure, than human experience and human development are two- sided, active and passive, material and spiritual. With- out doubt, as men come to be more and more under the constant action of mental and moral forces, by the aU- penetrating and widely-diffused power of Christianity, the sphere of chmatic influences will be greatly abridged and their potency much impaired. Similarity of religion and of education will induce, in very different latitudes, similarity of views, feelings and habits. The mind was made to rule the body and to have dominion, not only over its activities and energies, but also over its ever- changing states and moods. An intellect and a heart set on fire of Heaven and glowing with a spirit of high service to God and man, are adequate to any triumphs over the infirmities of the flesh, or the power of matter and of time. And yet, in that golden age of the fu- ture, in which Heaven and Earth are to be wedded to each other in one prolonged and happy union, each zone wiU still have its different air and sky as now, its different fields and floods, its different advantages and defects, and all its wide variety of sights by day and of voices by night. And, when we remember how much more God undertakes to educate the mass of men, by 164 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF the beauty of nature than by any other apphance even revelation itself, except the overflowing bounty of his providence, it is natural to believe, that in no coming Age of the world will objective influences cease to mould, /ery greatly, the growths and manifestations of human character and of human society. In the past, however, most nations, even those of the highest development, have used, and indeed possessed but to a very limited degree in their cultm-e, the full power of the light that Christianity contains in itself for the illumination of mankind, or of its heat to Avann their sluggish natures into that generous divine growth of which they are ca- pable. In the wild neglected state of Heathen hfe, in which as the very word itself implies, hmnan society is one vast moral heath, physical influences are all-power- ful, if not always upon the heart yet upon the tempera- ment, as also upon the experience, employment and character, of those who have no elements of thought, feeling or purpose competent to resist the force of ex- ternal agencies upon them, much less any transforming power within, that can make all things minister to their joy and work together for their good. 3. The low degree of man's inventive power. The very word inventive indicates in its etymology, that he stumbles by chance upon his discoveries. The history of the arts of life, as well as that of the natural sciences, each wonderfully illustrates this fact, but neither of them more strikingly than that of language. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 165 All the new forms to be found in any language are but new combinations of elements in previous existence, and but slightly and in the most accidental manner generally, modified to a new use or to a new form of expression for an old use. No new language is ever made, or was ever made, out of original underived ma- terials by man ; for the reason, that he is not only in- capable of such a work, but also that, from the very sense of his incapacity for it, he is, as any man may know by appealing to his own consciousness for a ver- dict, immovably averse both to the effort and to the very thought of it. How amazing, accordingly, seems the stupefied atheistic wonder of some sceptical German philologists, at the fact, so incomprehensible to them and to any one else who does not see in language the handiwork of God, that the earlier languages of the world were so much more complete in their forms, than those of modern times ! We do not pretend indeed to solve all the mysteries of language. We walk in every science, and when in the pursuit of any truth, in but a narrow zone of day, whether using the torch of reason or the upper lights of revelation. Is it asked: whence, if language be of divine origin, comes the order of successive relation in different languages to each other, the monosyllabic, ag- glutinated and inflected? To this question several answers may be given. We might, for example, rest quietly in the admission and even the plea of human IGG HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ignorance. Questions about tlie internal connections of things are more easily asked in every field of inquiry, than answered. Man, although having lived for six thousand years upon the earth, yet knows, to this day, nothing of its deep interior, save for the shallow dis- tance of one mile ; and, amid all the wonderful results of chemical analysis, no one can possibly tell in what life or light or electricity consist. We accept any thrust at human ignorance in general, and return it also with as good will as it is given upon the objector. But, so far as the divine origin of language is concerned, it is as easy to conceive of God's having created different types and orders of languages, as of his having made by distinct ordaining fiats, as he evidently has, so many different species of animals of the same genus. That Great Being, whose creative impulses have in them a royal measure of vitality : who gives to every zone its own distinct flora, in such unmeasured abundance, to every animal all his varied elements of activity and en- joyment, and to every man the whole vast comphcated apparatus of his faculties, resources, opportunities and blessings : multiplying, on every hand, variety in spe- cies as well as in genera, unfolding one order of life within another, and joying at all times in the infinite overflow of His power and skill and love in all things : surely He may find a pleasure, in erecting different stages for the manifestation of man as a social being, that is too subtle for our penetration, and too high for THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 167 US to undertake to climb up into the secret chambers of his plans. Suppose moreover that the agglutinated and in- flected languages were conceded to be of a derived na- ture, and, in their special forms, of absolute human construction, yet the divine origin of language itself could be asserted and vindicated. The development- theory of the origin of language claims as such, not merely a successive manifestation of related and im- proved forms, but also that this is the whole theoiy of their first origination, as well as of their consequent progress. Unfortunately for the advocates of the de- velopment-theory, in respect to the diff'erent forms of vegetable and animal life, there is no such commingling of types, as there should be on such a view, in nature > but each type, on the contrary, stands by itself, a bold distinctive token of a separate creation : so that hybrids are monsters, which, like the Gorgon and Chim.Tera dire, can easily be dreamed about but nowhere found. So, in the realm of language, the different classes of families stand apart by themselves, in large well-defined groups : no one of them losing itself in another, or being untrue in its growth to its own normal type of manifestation. But is all language to be regarded, as havin'g been in its first state a mere mass of word- germs : a huge pile of fortuitous, unconnected, crude syllabications? If any are pleased with such a philo- sophical analysis of the different styles of human speech, 168 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF can they persuade themselves to ahght, with confidence in their speculations, upon such a theory, as a matter of historical verity. If the Chinese system of mere separate monosyllables thus represents the first period of its manifestation, how happens it, that in four thou- sand years there has been no advance in that part of the world on such a supposition, as in all other parts, beyond its first beginnings ? Nothing else has re- mained stationary in that strange land, unless it be the kindred art of painting. The Chinese have arrived surely at as high a point in enterprise, literature and the arts of life generally in the aggregate, if not in some single particulars, as any heathen nation before them. Whence then such a long-continued petrified state of the language remaining, like a rock, still unchanged in its original simplicity, amid a sea of changes around it ? On the theory, that every language was not only a mass at first of monosyllabic germs, so that the organism of all speech must have commenced, like the reproductive processes of vegetation, in a sort of monadic cell-hfe ; but also that man himself has been, in each case, the creator of those germs : where, we ask, and when, lived that wonderful generation of men, who had the superhuman genius to evolve such a world of prolific germs out of nothing? The mystery of the creation of language, if of human origin, is by such an hypothesis only thrown farther back in time. It is also rather increased than diminished, by such THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 169 a fancied duplication of the modes and elements of its formation : first by germs of man's construction, and secondly by their multiform evolution in so many languages, in such a wonderful abundance of com- plicated word-growths. To create the germ of a tree is even a greater miracle, than to create a tree itself : since, not only the futiu*e existence of the tree is thereby determined, but also all the agencies, principles and processes fitted to secure it, are compacted together in so small a space and harmonized in their adaptations, to the wide array of circumstances and influences, by which it is surrounded. A botanist, who, after analyzing the elements of a plant into its ash or un- organized base on the one hand, and its organific elements on the other, should tell us, that these each came forth, in spontaneous succession, from the bosom of nature to their proper place and work, without any designing or ordaining hand to guide them, would receive for his recompense our pity, if not our contempt. But is not a theorist very much like him in his positions who contends, that the bases of words as such were made by men themselves, and that afterwards the organific principles, which form the constitution of the inflected languages, were also created in the same way, and combined with them in such a beautiful union : the more beautiful in clearness and completeness, the farther back that we go towards the dawn of creation ? Men have nowhere shown, within any historic 170 HiSTOmCAL SKETCH OF period, sncli amazing skill. The contributions made by any one generation in modern times to the stock of language, are exceedingly narrow, except in the single direction of scientific terminology ; for which the con- stant progress of the sciences, all of them so new in their origin or in their present style of effective demonstration, is ever making new demands. And such additions are not new words in themselves, but only importations directly from the Greek and Latin, into English or some other modern tongue. And yet we of our day, and not they who lived before us in times of less experience and progress, are the old men of the world ; and what we, in the manhood of historic humanity, are unable to do, they certainly, who were so much younger in their attainments, had not power to accomplish. The history of language also is always, as it floats down the stream of time, a history of abrasion and curtailment, in respect to its structural elements. To suppose that Adam was made by his great loving Maker but an adult infant, to develope lan- guage, his first social and mental necessity, by slow gradations from unmeaning inarticulate cries in the first place, mere syllabicated whines and hiccoughs, is a theory, that neither honors man in its statement, as it respects his real wants, or God, as it respects his dis- position to provide for them. That same benignant Father of mankind, who always works a miracle when it .is demanded, for the same reason that He refrains THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 171 from working one, when it is not : who confounded the speech of those who Avere building the tower of Babel : who wrote with his own finger on the tables of stone : who inspired prophets and apostles to speak unto all men the things that they received from Him ; and who gave the gift of tongues to the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, for the purpose of better spreading the truth, as it is in Christ : he surely would not leave Adam at the outset to himself, as a poor, ignorant, help- less being, to grope from one unavoidable mistake into another, in respect to the very simplicities of life, and, when accompanied by his mate made for high com- panionship and discourse with him, to eke out by slow degrees, in a few unformed and broken syllables, a poor and pitiable intercourse, but little better than the mute association of tAvo animals together. Wliile Adam was yet alone, God is represented as bringing before him "every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called every living creature, that w^as the name thereof." Surely here is a being, who is no infant in knowledge or in speech, but who is treated rather by God himself, as one who knows well the scope and power of words. And, as God looked upon His works, at the end of each of the great days of creation to see that they were all very good ; so, in the record here furnished he seems to call upon Adam to use the speech which He had taught him ; as if look- 172 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ing on, to enjoy the pleasing result of Ilis own con- triving skill. As a matter of plain undeniable fact also, eacli successive generation, in all times and places, has learned its language from the one immediately pre- ceding it ; and, as we run backwards with this rule of analysis to the first man and find him standing alone in the garden of Eden hearing God's commands, not to touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and giving names at His summons to every beast of the field, are we not forced, both by logic and fact, to ascribe the authorship of language as such to God? He moreover, who made man for intercourse with Himself, and therefore walked with him in open vision in the garden, would surely give him language, to use for the purpose ; and He, who afterwards made a coat for him, when having no implements yet prepared himself, with which to conceal his nakedness, would give him words, with similar love and care, with which to clothe his thoughts and feelings. It is no reply to this general course of argument to say, that children now-a-days learn language, by first of all uttering monosyllables, and, from such feeble initial attempts, grow up into the full use of all the mysteries of speech. For children learn even such simple mono- syllables, by imitating sounds that they hear, and that too under the constant effort of their parents and others, to lead them forward step by step in their progress. In mutes accordingly, as all know, the ear THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 173 is at fault and not the tongue or larynx : tliey are dumb, only because they are deaf; or, which is the same thing, they cannot speak, because they have never heard others speak. Language is accordingly, one of the imitative arts of life. There are but three possible theories, concerning the origin of language : the development-theory, w^hich we have attacked and, as we believe, overthrown ; the theory of its divine origin which we hold, with both intellectual and moral satisfaction ; and still another, which seems utterly preposterous in itself, but which yet no less a scholar than Max Miiller soberly ad- vocates : its origination, as an unique complete product by itself of a single human mind, especially in reference to each of the two great families of inflected languages. Hear his singular words : " In the grammatical fea- tures of the Arian and Semitic dialects we can discover the stamp of one powerfid mind, once impressed on the floating materials of human speech, and never to be obliterated again in the course of centuries. Like mighty empires founded by the genius of one man, in which his will is perpetuated as law through gene- rations to come; the Semitic and Arian languages exhibit in all ages and countries a strict historical con- tinuity, which makes the idioms of Moses and Moham- med, of Ilomer and Shakspeare, appear but slightly altered impressions of one original type. Most words and grammatical forms, in these two families, seem to 174 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF have been thrown out but once, by the creative power of an mdividual mind ; and the differences of the various Semitic and Arian languages, whether ancient or modern, were produced not so much by losses and new creations, as by changes and corruptions which defaced in various ways, the original design of these most primitive works of human art." Does it not seem strange, that such a scholar can seriously maintain a view so singular as this : that, from one man's mind alone the great primal language, now lost in itself but represented in various proportions by the several members of the Indo-European family, came, at a full and sudden birth, into existence ; and that too, with such inward and outward characteristics, that subsequent ages have been able to add nothing to them or subtract nothing of value from them ; and that, from another su.perhumaii mind of equally gigantic proportions the original mother-language of all the Semitic dialects came, with equally grand and fixed, although so diverse elements and energies, into being. Hear him still again in the same strain. He says, in an article furnished for Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History,* " on all the Arian languages, from Sanskrit to English, there is one conmion stamp, a stamp of definite indi^-iduality, inexplicable, if viewed as a pro- duct of nature, and intelligible only, as the work of one creative genius." All this he utters, while having * Vol. I. p. 475. THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 175 present to his thoughts, at the very tmie, such a con- ception of these languages as he thus expresses : " no new root has been added, no new grammatical form been produced in any of the Arian provinces or de- pendencies, of which the elements were not present at the first foundation of this mighty empire of speech." He views accordingly the Semitic and Arian languages, as " the manifestations and works of two individuals, which it is impossible to derive from one another." And what a divine intellect must such an one have possessed ! and what an age, fortunate beyond all others, must that have been that had two such giants in it, debarred by mutual ignorance and the wide interval that separated them from any communication with each other, yet each employed in the magnificent work of conceiving for himself the form and substance of a language, which was to be ever afterwards the supplying fountain, each in a separate sphere of relations, of a long procession of kingly languages, that should draw all their life and strength from its fulness. Is not the supposition as monstrous, as that of the ancients, in supposing Atlas to bear upon his shoulders this solid globe on which we dwell ? There is indeed a wonderfully scientific and artistic unity of plan, in the structure of the Indo-European type of language, as also in that of the Semitic : and the argument is conclusive from the unity of analogies here, as in nature, to unity of authorship, and that 176 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF autliorsliip divine. Tlie work of originating language is too high, for man's weak faculties. The hypothesis that language is of any other than divine origin, necessitates at once the farther sup- position, that immense periods of time have existed, for the development of the great leading languages of the world, especially those of a high and finished organ- ization, as the families of the inflected languages. This Bunsen sees and boldly accepts, as logically he must upon his theory. He says " a concurrence of facts and of traditions demand for the Noachian period about ten millennia before our era, and, for the beginning of our race, another ten thousand years or very little more." We find little or no difficulty in supposing, with him and others, the deluge to have been local, although vast and overwhelming, where it prevailed, in North- western Asia. Just principles of interpretation, at any rate, seem to allow the possibility of such a theory ; but not so with the history of our race, as given in the Bible, where a formal record is made of the successive generations of the race, step by step and name by name, with the birth and death and age of each rep- resentative of his own period in the series. A signal proof of the smallness of man's inventive powers in the department of language occurs in the fact, that even our low vulgar words, which never creep into a dictionary or upon any page, that has light and THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 177 beauty enough in it to deserve a day's continuance in any place of honor ; words, which, at first thought, one would suppose must be the slimy product of Eng- lish depravity : are yet thousands of years old. They are found, with but little change of form in Greek and Latin, preserved, together with other specimens of an- cient corruption, amid the altars of Heathen worship or the bowers of Heathen Song. Like the so ancient sports of boyhood, as the outdoor game of ball and the indoor game of chess, which were played in Babylon, Athens and Rome, just as they are now among us, they make us feel that after all there is nothing new beneath the sun. 4. The necessity, for the proper comprehension of any one language, of a thorough survey and analysis of its connections with other and older languao-es. Comparative philology is a science, of even more in- terest, than comparative anatomy. In its three chief departments : comparative grammar, comparative lexi- cography and comparative phonology, it reveals won- derful resemblances between the older and newer lan- guages, one and all of them, even in the most minute details. Etymology, taught and studied on thoroughly scientific and philological principles, is, not only one of the most engaging, but also, one of the most prof- itable of all studies. The time is near at hand, and may it come soon, when, in our universities and high 178 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF scliools, the languages can no more be taiiglit, in a nar- row, mechanical and profitless manner; and when mere verbal accuracy in translation, and the careful skimming off of a few facts and principles of syntax, form the sm*face of the lesson, shall not be deemed adequate results to be gained, in so high a department of study. A professorship of Sanskrit, embracing the whole field of comparative philology, is, as a part of the true ideal of classical instruction, an absolute ne- cessity in every college ; and it must ere long be recog- nized as such, in every institution that aspires to the character, of doing honestly and earnestly its true work in the world. There is surely no one department of instruction, in the collegiate course, that, in respect to all the elements and uses of a liberal education, can compare, in importance, with that of the languages. And to be found ignorant, amid all the lights of mod- ern philology, of the multiplied connections of Greek and Latin one with the other, as weU as of their con- nection mth the Sanskrit before them and with the modern languages behind them : to make no use or but little use of these great facts, enhghtening and in- spiring as they are in the work of instruction, should entitle him, who thus dishonors his hio-h callino;, to ex- change at once his false position, as a professed guide to others, for the true one of a learner for himself, in respect to its first prmciples. With the educated men THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 179 of the country, are lodged its fortune and its fate. And republicanism of the highest form claims, as one of its chief supports, a broad and columnar style of scholarship among them. TABULAR VIEWS. I. Op the Different Languages of the World, in GENERAL. 11. Of the Languages of Asia and Europe, in gen- eral. ITL Op the Indo-European Famidy, in particular. IV. Of the Sporadic Languages of Asia and Europe. 13 TABULAR VIEWS. I.— GENERAL TABULAE VIEW OF THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD. First. Those of the Unhistorical Continents : Africa and the Americas. I. The African. 1st. The Berber Languages: Native in Fezzan, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, &c. : Semitic in their origin. 2(]. The Caffre Languages. (1) The Congo : spoken in Lower Guinea. (2) The Sichuana : the language of the Bechuanas. (3) The Hottentot. 3d. The Languages of Soudan. (1) The Nubian. (2) The Galla. (3) The Senegambian. II. The Aboriginal American. These never have been, and probably never will be, classified into any thorough scientific system. They are polysyllabic and pol3'synthetic to a high degree ; and so, exactly antipodal to the monosyl- labic languages. Second. Those of the Historical Continents : Asia and Europe. I. The Monosyllabic. IT. The Agglutinative. III. The Inflected. IV. The Sporadic. 184 TABULAR VIEWS. II.— TABULAR VIEW OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE. First. The Monosyllabic, or Family-Languages. I. The Chinese. n. The Indo-Chinese. The Brahman, Siamese, &c. Second. The Agglutinative or. Nomadic Languages. I. Those distinctly Agglutinative. 1st. The Tataric Family. IE C-H_ = H = L (1) The Tungusic languages ; spoken from China, northward to Siberia and the River Tunguska. (2) The Mongolic : The Eastern ; Western : and Baikal dialects. (3) The Turkic: Dialects, the Osmanli 5 Karatschai ; Nogai ; Kumiickish, Sec. (4) The Samoiedic. (5) The Finnic, or Tschudic : Dialects, Ug- ric ; Permic ; Bulgaric ; Lappic ; Finnic. (G) The Tamulic. (7) The Bhotiya: Gangetic and Lohitic. (8) The Taic. (9) The Malaic. II. Those not so distinctly but yet essentially of the same rude style of mechanism. 2d. The Caucasian Family. (1) Iberian : Georgian ; Colchian ; Suanian. (2) Abchasic. (3) Lesgic. (4) Mizshegic. Third. The Inflected or State-Languages. I. Semitic. II. The Indo-European. TABULAR VIEWS. 185 The Semitic Languages. I. The Egyptian or Khamitic. 1st. The Old, or Hieroglyphical, or Ante-historical Egyptian. 2d. The Later Egyptian. (1) Hieratic. (2) Demotic. 3d. The latest Egyptian, or Coptic. IL The Old Assyrian or Babylonian : differing as such, only in their orthography. III. The Berber dialects of Africa. IV. The Canaanitic. 1st. Phoenician. 2d. Hebrew. (1) Ancient Hebrew. (2) Rabbinical Hebrew 3d. Punic. V. The Aramaean. 1st. Chaldee. 2d. Syriac. 3d. Samaritan. VI. The Arabic. 1st. .^thiopic, or Abyssinian. (Arabic, mixed with African elements.) 2d. Maltese. (Arabic, mixed with Italian.) 186 TABULAR VIEWS. III.— TABULAR VIEW OF THE ARIAN OR INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. First. The Arian Family-pair. I. The Indian. 1st. Sanskrit. (1) Ancient. a The Veda-dialect. h Classical Sanskrit. (2) Later. c Pali. cl Prakrit. (3) Modern. e Hindt-stanee. y Bengalee. 2d. Gipsy. II. The Iranian. 1st. The Persian Languages. (1) Old Persian. (2) Zend. (3) Pehlevi. (4) Pazend or Parsi. (5) New Persian. 2a. The Kurdish. 3d. The Ossetian. (Geographically a Caucasian language.) 4th. The Armenian. (1) Old Armenian. (2) New Armenian. Second. The Grteco-Italic or Latino-Greek Family-pair. I. Greek. 1st. The forming, or Dialectic period. (1) iEolic. (2) Doric. (3) Tonic. (4) Attic. TABULAR VIEWS. 187 2d. The full-grown, or Hellenic period. 3d. The Alexandrine period. 4th. The Roman period. 5th. The Byzantine period. Gth. The Modern Greek or Romaic period. II. The Italic Family. 1st. The lapygian. 2d. The Etruscan. 3d. The Italian. (1) The Umbro-Samnite Dialects : Umbrian ; Samnite or Oscan ; Vols(;ian ; Marsian. (2) The Latin. § I. Its own different phases. 1st. Literary Latin. (1) Anteclassical. (2) Classical (3) Postclassical. 2d. Middle Latin. 3d. Common Latin: (afterwards Italian.) § II. The Modern Languages derived from the Latin. 1st. Italian: (Dialects, Lombard ; Ge- noese ; Florentine ; Neapolitan, Sicilian; Corsican ; Sardinian, &c.) 2d. Wallachian. (1.) Daco-Romanic. (2) ^lacedo-Romanic. 3d. Spanish: (Dialects: Oastilian ; Catalonian ; Galician.) 4th. Portuguese. 5th. Provencal. Gtli. French. 7th. Rht«to-Romanic. (An uncultivated patois of Ital- ian elements mixed with Ger- man, found in the Caiitcn of the Grisons in SvvitzerlaTid.) 188 TABULAR VIEWS. Third. The Lettic Family. I. The Lithuanian. II. Old Prussian. IIL Lettish. Fourth. The Slavic Family. I. South-eastern Slavic. 1st. Russian. (1) The Great Russian. (2) The Little Russian. (3) The White Russian. 2d. Bulgarian. 3d. lUyrian. (1) Servian. (2) Croatian. (3) Slowenic. II. Western Slavic. 1st. Lechish or Polish. 2d. Tshechish. (1) Bohemian or Moravian. (2) Slowakish. 3d. Sorbenwendish. (1) Upper Lusatian. (2) Lower Lusatian. 4th. Polabish. Fifth. The Gothic, Teutonic or Germanic Family. I. The Low German. 1st. The Norse, or Scandinavian. (1) Icelandic, or Old Norse. (2) Swedish. (3) Danish-Norwegian. 2d. The Anglo-Saxon (English.) 3d. The Frisic. (1) Netherlandish. (2) Saxon. TABULAR VIEWS. 189 II. The High German. 1st. Old High German. 2d. Middle High German. 3d. New High German. Sixth. The Celtic Family. I. The kymric. 1st. Welsh. 2d. Cornish. 3d. Low Breton, or Armorican. II. Gadhelic. 1st. Gaelic Proper, or High Scotch. 2d. Irish or Erse. 3d. Manx. 190 TABULAR VIEWS. IV. TABULAR VIEW OF THE SPORADIC LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND EUROPE. First. Of Asia. I. The Caucasian Languages. (See Division II. of Agglutinated Languages.) IL The Thibetan: A hybrid between the Chinese which it resembles in its roots and the Tatar family, which it re- sembles more in its structure. III. The Japanese: Somewhat mingled with Chinese ; but in its gram- matical constitution more Tataric than Chinese. Second. Of Europe. I. The Basque : In the Pyrenees — the remains of the Old Iberian. II. The Albanian or Arnautic : A seedling of the original Gra3C0-Latin stock : Dialects, the Geghian and Toskian. II. THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. II. THE HISTORY OF MODERX PHILOLOGY. Philology* is that science which treats of the origin, history and structure of the words composing the clas- sical languages and those connected with them, whether cognate or derived. It comprehends what is usually included in the sepjirate departments of etymology and grammar, as well as both the history and the philosophy of language. The present state of philological research, vast as are its results, is rather that of splendid prepa- ration for a complete scientific construction of its ele- ments, than any such absolute construction itself. Its * The following Articles on the history of philology, although incomplete, are yet interesting and worthy of perusal : Wiseman's Lectures on Science and Religion, Nos. 2 and 3 : Edinburgh Review, Vol. 94, (1851.) pp. 297—339 : Bunsen's Philosophy of History, Vol. 1, pp. 44 — 04: Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol. 2. p. 142 ; Donaldson's New Cratylus, pp. 21 — 54 : "Winning's Comparative Philologj', pp. 16 — 32 : "Weber's Indische Skizzen, pp. 1 — 38. In the preparation of this article the author has been careful to go as far as possible to first sources, and to form his judgment from personal examination, and on an independent basis ; and for the analyses and criticisms made of the works of the various writers quoted, he alone is responsible. 194 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. discoveries are too new and too disconnected, to be put as yet into a perfect edifice of worthy proportions ; while the opportunity also for making fresh acquisitions is still too great, to be favorable for that high repose of thought in which science loves to dwell, and to gaze with deep, calm survey upon the wide circumference of things. Philology, like her elder sister Philosophy, has had for centuries a name among scholars ; but hke her, also, while honored with this formal remembrance, she has herself remained imknown, until standing within the horizon of our own day. Prom what beginnings, in what ways, and by what men, she has been conducted to her present seat of exaltation, it will be pleasant and profitable to learn. The various' senses of the word philology {(fLloloy'ia) at different times, exhibit in a general, though faint outline, the chief phases of its his- tory. In old classical usage, it meant the love of litera- ture ; afterwards the scholastic mastery and exposition of language; more recently a sort of general amateur study of language, as a matter of mere pleasant cu- riosity ; and last of all, the scientific exploration and comprehension of its interior mechanism, in relation both to its original elements, and also to their varied transformations, through a wide range of comparative analysis. Grammar, that great central determinative basis of all true philology, Grecian scholars at Alexandria, in HISTORY or MODERN PHILOLOGY. 195 Egypt, were the first to construct into any distinct scientific form. With both synthetic and analytic thoroughness, they collected and compacted together the materials furnished them by their mother tongue, which they so much idolized ; and defined with clear- ness the actual inward structure of their own language, as an independent mechanism by itself. This new science the Latins afterwards borrowed ; but they early lost it, as having any controlling influence over their educational discipline, and even over their own speech ; for in each one of the modern Romanic languages, which are but the Latin moulded with a few com- mingling elements into forms better adapted to express the wants and tastes of later generations, like old gar- ments refashioned for new uses, we find an almost per- fect obliteration of the many-angled and complicated syntax of the original Latin. It was in the cloisters of the middle ages, as in a conservatory, that the Latin was carefully sheltered from the rude storms without, and cultivated in all its native beauty. Here scholarly eyes watched with jealous care, by day and night, over its preservation. Here ancient words were kept as precious coins. Llere Grammar, on whose wide and firm supports all the drapery of language rests, as a rich vine with its clusters of fruits and flowers upon the strong frame beneath it, was valued rightly for its many high uses, and from hand to hand and heart to heart, with heroic earnestness, this 196 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. sacred relic of the elder times was carefully borne down from one age to another for the behoof of those who should live in the better days that were to come. And come they did, and that with observation. At the Ref- ormation, the deep, slow heat, which for ages had been spreading as in a subterranean mine through all the scholarship of the world, burst forth with its long accu- mulation of energy. The leaders of this great awakening in modem so- ciety, as of the next greatest event since that day, the exodus of the Puritan Church to these shores, were the leading classical scholars of the times. The new era, accordingly', of modern linguistic scholarship in its open and progressive manifestations, like that of modem so- cial piety, is to be found in one and the same eventful period. Luther and Melancthon, not to speak of others, were themselves fine classical scholars ; but, under the pressure of the times upon their consciences, they rather used the scholarship that they had previously acquired, for immediate desired results in other directions, than devoted their strength to its greater enlargement. But Reuchlin in Germany, Erasmus in Holland, and Budgeus in Erance, each in his own land, held high the banner of classical study before the eyes of many followers. They were succeeded by some others who surpassed them, as each generation should its predecessor, if not HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 197 in the quality of tlieir scholarship, yet in its vastness ; as Muretus, Scaliger, Casaubon, Salmasius, Bentlcy, Porson and others, whose names will never be forgotten for their great attainments as measured by the oppor- tunities of their age, and much more for the deep en- thusiasm out of which they grew. High aims always deserve and secure respect. They are, indeed, the only title to it ; and no standard for measuring a man could be more false, in multitudes of instances, than the com- mon one of success or failure. But the scholarship of those days either contented itself with its own conscious pleasm^e, or was almost wholly occupied in disentombing old authors, whom time had buried in oblivion, or in filing away excrescences and corruptions from the text, as first obtained, by a more careful collation of manu- scripts. Throughout the whole of the eighteenth cen- tury, and especially the latter half of it, the linguists of Europe, like the votaries of science who had been long searching for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, were eager to discover the one mother-tongue of all the languages of the world ; and whilst scholars de* cided variously, according to the different amount of their research, or the different quality of their mental constitutions, the majority believed that it was the He- brew, as that contained the oldest literature of any lan- guage which they knew, as well as the earHest records of our race. Others however thought, with equally good reason, that it was rather the Armenian, as that 14 198 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. was the language of the people living around ]\Iount Ararat, where, from the times of Noah's ark, their an- cestors had lived in unbroken succession. To one who would see the trail of these ideas extending down even to our own times, it will be worth the while to examine, in connection one with another, Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, Nork's Latin, and Webster's English Diction- aries. The Hebrew is represented in them all as moving like a king in a grand triumphal march, with the other languages walking humbly in its train. In another direction, also, much effort and learning were expended by scholars in that century, as by geologists fifty years ago who were everywhere seeking to find traces of the deluge, in the attempt to discover sm'e proofs of the confusion of tongues and of peoples, by the dispersion at Babel. As infidels also have sought to make each one of the natural sciences in their turn, when they first be- gan to make any clear utterances of their own, bring in their testimony against the Scriptures, so too in philol- ogy they hoped to find a victorious enemy to Chris- tianity. But Chronology, Ethnography and Etymo- logy have all been tortured in vain, to make them contradict the Mosaic account of the early history of man. During the last century great interest was felt throughout Europe in comparing as many different languages as possible, though only on a narrow scale HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 199 of words, one "with another. Leibnitz, who died an old man in 1716, that great philosopher, or rather uni- versal genius, entitled by his contemporaries on account of his large learning a living dictionary, was very zeal- ous in the study of Ethnography, and carefully col- lected all lists of words that he could obtain in differ- ent languages, for the piupose of comparing them to- gether. He founded the present Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the home of modern philology, for the pur- pose of promoting the study of language, on broad philosophic principles, by tracing out with care their analogies, and through them also the genealogy of mankind. His place in the history of philology is that of its early prophet, foreseeing in dim outline the won- ders of this new continent in the world of letters, but which, in his distance from it, he could picture to his eye only as a beautiful far-off dream-land. But with what sacred fervor did he, standing within the shadows of his own unilluminated age, wave his hand to the generations following him, in the direction of his ec- static though faint vision of the future. Catherine II. also. Empress of Russia, ordered a special list of many of the most common Russian words to be prepared, and to be carefully collated with their equivalents in as many languages as possible ; and, after undertaking herself to draw up formal tables of comparison in dif- ferent languages, she transferred the long labor to Pal- las, an eminent naturalist, who, as the result, published 200 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. in 1787 and 1789 a work entitled "A Comparison of the Vocabularies of all the Languages of the World." But in 1784 an event occiu'red, which made at the time but little show, and yet drew after it the most sur- prising consequences: the formation of the Asiatic So- ciety at Calcutta by Sir William Jones, who had gone to Calcutta a year before, as a great admirer and con- noisseur of Oriental poetry, in order to perfect his knowledge of Indian literature. Before his day, the term " oriental languages " had included only the Sem- itic dialects. Under the auspices of the Asiatic Society, the Chinese language and literature were thoroughly studied by the best Erench scholars, and the languages and literature of India by those of England. Those earnest students of the Sanskrit, however, we must leave for a time at their work, and look at the develop- ments meanwhile of European scholarship at home. In 1806, Adelung's Mithridates appeared, or at least the first volume of it : the second being issued in consequence of his death by Vater, in 1809, under whose auspices and those of the younger Adelung a third and a fourth volume appeared in 1816 and 1817. The lang-uages of the world are here classified and de- scribed ; and all helps for their acquisition then known are stated. Copies also of the Lord's prayer are pre- sented in a great variety of languages for examination ; biit no scientific basis for a comparative study of them is indicated or conceived. These collections form, there- HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 201 fore, but a mere imarrangecl mass of cmiosities, no higher in character than in mineralogy would ^e a col- lection of stones from different lands, divided into classes accordinsr to their mere resemblances of color or of shape. Neither Adelung nor Vater were any thing more than good hnguists ; and Vater, indeed, was not in any high sense entitled even to such a name. Gradually, and in the form of many successive de- tails, the true light was now beginning everywhere to dawn upon those that were seeking for it. The instinct and the effort to seek more light are always the needful preparation for obtaining it. In the study of the Per- sian, wonderful resemblances were found to both the Greek and German : the Latin and German also were compared together lexically, and found to possess many sm-prising points of connection ; and the feeling began to be common among scholars, that, in the pm'suit of mutual analogies in different languages, was to be found a path to much sure spoil. Amid such investigations and under the combined action of many minds, through- out Em'ope and Asia, the new and true philology slowly but steadily rose into being, at the beginning of the present centmy. German scholars claim that it should be called Indo- German, instead of Indo-Em'o- pean, and thus bear on its very front perpetual praise to those great Germans, who have brought its wonders into view. But it is to English enterprise and scholar- ship in the first place, that the world owes the dis- 202 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. covery of the elementary facts, which Gennan industry and skill have since so fully developed and woven into such a web of manifold and marvellous beauty to a lin- guist's eye» On any view, however, the title used for these new etymological developments should be one de- scriptive of the breadth of their relations and results, rather than of the genius of those who have made them known. " Great is Truth," whether seen resting tran- quilly on her shield upon the page of history, or moving in majesty along the pathway of human advancement ; and everywhere let her be honored, for she is divine, while it matters little whether any man or any set of men either stand or walk, in a vain show by her side. And what now of those busy explorers of the Sans- krit, for many silent years in India ! Much, in every way. Sanskrit literatm'e is voluminous, in the form of poems, plays, fables, systems of philosophy, and works on astronomy and medicine. No one of the other In- do-European languages has ever possessed metres so varied and so complicated as the Sanskrit. The hymns of the Vedas especially, written at the period when the Arian tribes first began to traverse the fields of North- em India, have an interest altogether their own : as we not only stand in them on the farthest outermost posi- tion in the whole realm of profane literature, facing the very dawn of the post-diluvian world ; but we also see there primeval humanity unfold in simple, careless ear- nestness, its hopes and fears for this life, its pleasures HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 203 and pains and all its anxious doubts and surmises about the future. These, as the result of the conquest of In- dia and the transplantation of English minds to its soil, some of the best scholars of the latter part of the last century studied critically, under thorough native schol- ars. It was in 17C5 that the East India Company ob- tained, by the treaty at Allahabad, their first sover- eignty of Bengal ; in the management of which they de- termined to rule the people in conformity with then own laws. Warren Hastings accordingly, then Gover- nor General, caused a Digest to be made of their most important books of laws by eleven Brahmin Scholars, which was first translated into Persian and afterwards into English, and published in London in 1776 under the title, Code of Gentoo Law, in the preface of which Halhed, the editor, first spoke of the Sanskrit to Euro- pean ears as being the original language of these an- cient books ; but without any knowledge of his own at the time of its character. Eoremost among the first students of Sanskrit were Sir William Jones, a man of great learning and high cultivation, Mr. H. T. Cole- brooke, author of a Sanskrit grammar, and Sir Charles Wilkins, also the author of a Sanskrit grammar, and the first to print Sanskrit in Europe. In searching the re- cesses of Sanskrit literature, like travellers rummaging the pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Nineveh, to see what they could find, how were they amazed and de- Ughted to discover at every step the most strange and 204 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. beautiful correspondences, not only with the Latin and the Greek, but also with their own mother-tongue, and indeed with almost every language of which they had sufficient knowledge to make it a term of comparison. As early as in 1778, six years before the formation of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, Halhed expressed his " astonishment " in his Bengal grammar, " at the simil- itude of Sanskrit words with Persian, Arabic, Latin and Greek, throughout the whole groundwork of the language." But Sir William Jones was the first to announce to the European Avorld the connection of the Arian languages one with another, saying, that "no philologer could examine the Sanskrit, Greek and Lat- in, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not c^uite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic had the same origin with the Sanskrit. The old Persian may be added to the same family." This sm-ely is a very bold, clear statement made at the outset, parlly as a matter of ascertained fact, and partly as a matter of well-con- ceived theory, of what has since been so fully discovered and verified by so many scholars, with such brilliant success. The first direct translation made from the Sanskrit itself into English, was that of the Bhagavad- gita, a philosophic episode in the great Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, furnished by a young merchant, named J. Wilkins, in 1785 ; and was followed by another two HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY 205 years later, of a book of fables called Hitopadesa. In 1789 Jones published a translation of the Sakuntala, a great drama full of tender and sweet thoughts ; whose gems, when spread before occidental eyes, created a new and wide-spread interest in a literature so ancient and foreign, which possessed such riches. Sir William Jones died in 1794 letting his mantle fall, as he passed away, upon Colebrooke, a man remarkable both for his intellectual force and his unwearied industry. Cole- brooke early published a translation of the chief one of the Sanskrit Koshas, called the Amara Kosha, "the most celebrated," says Wilson, " in all India, and hav- ing the widest circulation." This w^as but a vocabulary, made by an author named Amara Sinha, and not a dic- tionary ; being arranged in separate sections and chap- ters, according to the topics in the text that it accom- panied. Colebrooke is called by A. Schlegel, " a man who had shown himself a tasteful connoisseur of poetry, in the ancient and modern Asiatic and European lan- guages," and no one to this day has exhibited a better appreciation than he, of the genius of the Sanskrit tongue. Several of his best articles have been grouped together, from "The Asiatic Researches" and "The Transactions of the Asiatic Society," into a volume, en- titled " Essays on the Rehgion and Philosophy of the Hindus," a new edition of which has recently appeared. Horace H. Wilson, still living, then assistant secretary to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, published in 1819 a 20G HISTORY or MODERN PHILOLOGY. Sanskrit and English dictionary in London, translated and improved from one originally prepared by learned natives, for the College of Fort William in India, almost immediately after its foundation, as one of its first ne- cessities, having been begun in 1800, and finished in 1809. This translation, which has since reached a third edition, was hailed with joy by Schlegel, " as one," to use his language in his Indische Bibliothek, "by which we are at once brought forward to an immeasur- ably advanced position." And how was the spark of the new light, thus brought from India by English hands, kindled in Ger- many ? Eor there only has it been fanned into a broad all -illuminating flame. It was Frederic Schlegel, whose zeal for linguistic progress, during a brief visit to Eng- land in 1803, made him the depositary of the sacred treasure in behalf of his countiymen. From Mr. Alex- ander Hamilton, then recently returned from Calcutta, he obtained a slight knowledge of the Sanskrit, which he afterwards increased somewhat by farther study at Paris. Although the knowledge thus gained was slen- der, yet it was put to a noble use by him on his re- turn to Germany, both in his own intentions, and in its final results, by his production of " An Essay on the Language and Philosophy of the Indians,'' which he pubhshed in 1808, and which first aroused his countrymen to this new and great study. And, al- though all the facts that he gave them were what a HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 207 pliilological novice could carry home as a single slieaf in his hand, and the subsequent discoveries of his suc- cessors have made whatever was new in his statements, appear meagre and antiquated enough ; yet the impulse that he gave to his generation has been spreading with ever widening force, from that day to om' own. The highest and brightest path of modern scholarship now, is that on which he then started alone with a strong adventurous foot. As for his essay itself, it was a tis- sue almost equally of fancy and fact ; and, judged by the light of our times, its scientific aspects are almost contemptible. But yet that great fundamental princi- ple, which he was the first to state with distinctness, that corresponde7ice in the grammatical structure of different languages proves their identity, beyond any other Mnd of resemblance, remains stiQ intact, and will ever remain the basis of all real scientific philolo- gy. He also pointed out clearly the general fact that there is such a science as the comparative anatomy of language, in reference especially to the Sanskrit, Per- sian, Geeek, Roman and Teutonic languages. His services can never be forgotten by the lovers of com-, parative etymology, as he it was who first summoned^ his own people, a nation of scholars, into this new field of research where so much intellectual effort has since been so well rewarded ; and whose earnest, joy- ous spirit in entering upon it seems to have been trans- fused into all his successors. His half poetical and 208 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. half philosophical " Essay " was exactly adapted to do the work, which was needed at that period of German scholarship : to summon its energies, then just begin- ning to unfold themselves with power in other direc- tions, in an earnest, enthusiastic manner into this new, wide-opening, enchanting field of intellectual toil and discoveiy. And that we may know all the better the man, to whom the world owes so much, let us pause for a moment and listen in silence to his words, as he stands before our thoughts, venerable, not only for his own greatness, but also for the wonderful issue of his life. " It had been," he says, " my intention to pub- lish an Indian Chrestomathy, in the original character and in Latin, which should contain, besides the ele- mentary principles of the language, a selection of ex- tracts from the most imoortant Indian works, with a Latin translation, notes, and a glossary. Every thing was prepared for this publication, and, besides the gram- mar and the two vocabularies, I had also copied in the original character and prepared for insertion a more than sufficient number of such pieces. I endeavored, by carefully copying the finest manuscripts both in the Devanagari and Bengalese character, to attain such perfection as would enable me to furnish in T^Titing, very good models for the use of the type-cutter. But I found, notwithstanding, that the preparation of the types would require far more efficient assistance, than it was in my power to procure. The sacrifice of per- HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 209 sonal predilections, for the sake of any particular scien- tific object, brings its reward with it ; but it is vexa- tious, to be compelled to pause midway, in attaining the desii'ed goal, from the want of extraneous assistance. I must therefore be content, in my present experiments, to restrict myself to the furnishing of an additional proof of the fertility of Indian literature, and of the rich hidden treasures which mil reward our diligent study of it : to kindle in Germany a love for, or at least a prepossession in favor of, that study ; and to lay a firm foundation on which our structure may, at some future period, be raised with greater security and cer- tainty." Such were the aims, such the spirit, and such the labors of this first leader in philology. And to this hour no men put forth so much effort with so glad a heart, as the votaries of comparative philology. Pic- tures in still life do not appeal to many eyes, as do those of martial fire and fuiy ; and so the steady long continued heroism and patient benevolence of a stu- dent's heart, earnestly and lovingly at work for many years by day and night, to give the world the benefit of its best thoughts and discoveries in new and untried fields of research, are among the specimens of human nobility, which may be often little prized or noticed here, but which are held in high account in heaven. It is in the silent depths of such hearts, brooding over things before unknown, that the ideas which afterwards 210 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. rule the world are born. It is he who works, as well as he who prays, in secret, that the Great Father above rewards openly. The roots of all upward growths are out of sight under ground. His brother A. W. Schlegel made, after him, deeper and more thorough researches than he. From 1819 to 1830, he published at Bonn his " Indische Bibliothek," (Indian Library,) which was a sort of pri- vate bulletin, issued occasionally by an enthusiastic scholar as he could get sufficient materials for a num- ber, of the last results obtained from time to time in Sanskrit research. And well do its contents show,* with what versatile talent and high gratification, he undertook to spread the light of his new discoveries through his native land. In 1825, he set up a press for printing the Ramayana, a great Sanskrit work. He * Vols. I. II. Til. contain among other articles the following : 1st. The present state of Indian philology. 2d. Indian poems. (1.) Intro- ductory remarks on Indian epic rhythm and German hexameter. (2.) The orthography and pronunciation of Indian names. (3.) Two poems on the genealogy of the goddess Ganga. (4.) Notes and observations. 3d. The issue of Sanskrit works. 4th. The history of the Elephant. 5th. The Indian Sphinx. 6th. Etymological study. 7th. An ex- tended notice of "Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary. 8th. A full notice of the transactions of the Asiatic Society in respect to Geography, Botany, Ethnography, Antiquities, &c. 9th. Two articles by Hum- boldt on the Sanskrit gerunds. 10th. A general review (in 1824) of the whole field of Indian philology. 11th. The correspondence of II. H. Wilson, from Calcutta, containing brief notices of some Hindu dramas. 12th. Indian tales. 13th. The Indian Sphinx. 14th. Two long articles by Humboldt, on the Bhagavad Gita. 15th. Review by Lassen of Bopp's Sanskrit Grammar. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 211 went at this time to France and afterwards to England, in order to perfect liiinself in his oriental studies ; and, on his return to Berlin in 1827, devoted his energies with renewed effect to their advancement among his country- men. He and his brother Frederic were the founders of the modern Romantic school of German literature. He was himself a very voluminous and at the same time valuable writer on art, history, and language. These brothers were both of a warm, poetic, mental constitu- tion ; and in such hearts, when cultivated, philology is always a welcome guest. A man of dry nature, all whose instincts and aptitudes are only mathematical or logical, may manipulate well the forms of words ; he may analyze with thoroughness their syntactical combi- nations ; he may be able to state, with the accuracy of an exact statistician, the antiquities of a language, and map out with precision its various geographical details. All that can be done mechanically he can do ; as one ■without a soul for music, or an ear to know its discords from its concords, may yet play skilfully upon an in- strument, so that its harmonies shall warble in every heart but his own. He may thus be a cold and skilful anatomist of language ; but he is no artist. He lacks that divine enthusiasm which the ancients, in the very word itself, described as " God in us ; " and that inner sense of the beautiful, "without which science, nature, art, and even thoughts and treasures from above wear but a dull and leaden aspect, compared with their en- 212 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. chanting loveliness to him, whose heart knows how to revel, like a bee in tlie bosom of a rose, in their inward charms. But to one of a true ethereal temper, whose eye is open and pmified to see God everywhere and " good in every thing," and whose soul thirsts for beauty as a child does for love, language like every thing else that God has made for man's use in his outward and upward efforts on the way to the land that is above, is full within and without of His manifest wisdom and love. As the sea muTors the sky, so to such an one every thing earthly reflects the heavenly. The inner beauties of things shine through all their outside forms to such hearts, as to spuit-eyes. Francis Bopp made his first appearance as a philolo- gist, in 1816, in a work of high merit, entitled " The Conjugation-system of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German Languages." It was this production that first effectually opened the new era of comparative phi- lology. But as his great work, the Comparative Gram- mar, which constitutes properly the foundation of the new science of philology, in its present form and di- mensions, was not published until many years after- wards; the demands of both chronology and history will be best met, if we turn away from him for a time while brooding over his precious toil, and consider the character and labors of other leading scholars who began now to appear upon the stage. Rasmus Rask of Denmark, was a man of splendid HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 213 capacities by nature, and of large attainments for his years as a scholar. His star rose lirightly now above the horizon, but unfortunately soon sank again from sight. He had a strong taste for philological research and criticism ; and this he had stimulated and strength- ened by the careful comparative study of the Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon and Frisian languages. His principal work is entitled " The Origin of the old Norse or Ice- landic Languages," which was prepared in 1814. He discovered also and showed the close relationship be- tween the Germanic and classical languages. He set out (in 1816) from Petersburgh with great zeal, on a tour of general philological exploration, and, arriving at last in Persia and India, investigated thoroughly the Zend, and prepared the first grammar of that ancient language of Persia ; while he also brought home with him some of the best manuscripts of the Zend Avesta. He made besides some interesting but incomplete efforts, to delineate the comparative featm'es of German, Greek, Latin and Lithuanian grammar. Rask did not know Sanskrit, and so built his arch of comparative philology without its true keystone. Bopp, however, acknowledges his genius in classifying, as he did before him, (in 1819,) the Indian, Median, Lithuanian, Sla- vonic, Gothic and Celtic languages, as all belonging to the Arian family. Rask also clearly defined the place of the Zend as a sister language of the Sanskrit, instead of being, as some had begun to think, a corrupt 15 214 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. patois of it ; while he showed at the same time the der- ivation of the modern Persian from it, as of tlie Itahan from the Latin. Like the great Buttmann, Rask was endowed by his Maker Avith Hnguistic sensibiUties and capacities equal to those of the best scholars of any age ; and, as Buttmann* on the one hand lived, for the world's misfortune, before the time most open and appropriate to so exalted a genius in the study of language, so Rask on the other remained but long enough on the stage of life, to show mankind what a bright light was ex- tinguished upon the earth, by his departure from it. But Rask is worthy of distinct remembrance also for his zeal, in exploring the Turanian as well as the Arian languages ; and he was the first to do so with any en- thusiasm or effect. These he regarded as all resting on a wide-spread original Scythian base. Professor Cas- tren afterwards, who was a sort of earlier edition of Lieut. Kane, in respect, on the one hand, to his per- sonal qualities : as the boldness of his enterprise, the firmness of his will, and the delicacy of his health ; and on the other to the outward mode and sphere of his labors: travelling alone as he did in the frozen north in his own sledge, over the snows of Siberia and along the borders of the Arctic Ocean : published in various volumes, between 1844 and 1850, the results * Could Buttmann but have had the lever of the Sanskrit in his hands, what marvels would he not have raised up. out of the hard long trodden pathway of Greek grammar and Greek philology, over wjjich so many bad heedlessly ti-amped in their ignorance, before him. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 215 of liis wide and long research in tins branch of lan- guages; and they confirmed for the most part the learned convictions and statements of Rask. The Teutonic researches of Rask, though ended at a very imperfect stage in their accomplishment, have been since so well completed by Grimm, as to leave little for years to come to be expected farther in this direction. In 1819, Jacob Grimm commenced publishing his magnificent work, a Teutonic Grammar, embracing the Scandinavian as well as the German languages, and drawing his authorities from the whole wide, long range of German authorship, from Ulfilas' translation of the Scriptures, (a. d. 388,) the only relic in existence of the old Gothic, down to his own day ; and finished his great labor in 1837. The scholarship of the work is wonderful, for its breadth, accuracy and ingenuity. It is not too much to say, that the world has never ex- hibited a finer specimen of the true scholar, according to the highest and fullest ideal, than he is. Plis " scale," or law of correspondences of sound in the dif- ferent Indo-European languages, is one of the highest triumphs of inductive analysis that have been ever fur- nished in any science. Bopp's first incidental sugges- tions in this direction he perfected into fall ripe science ; and, in constructing his " scale," made it with such nicety, as to its own characteristics and all its grada- tions, that, while the sphere of its use has been nuich extended since, no improvement has been made upon 216 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. it at any time, in respect to its own essential nature. He has thus in effect given not only definiteness and certainty but also breadth and power, to the science of comparative etymology. The laws of analogy he has shown to pervade as truly human language as nature herself. The style of these discoveries, as of the mind that made them, is altogether Newtonian. While the finite mind cannot create analogies, it reveals itself in one of its highest forms of disciplined strength, in being able to trace them with clearness, in the demonstrations which the Infinite Mind has made of Itself in their ap- pointment. But behold the Scale and the interpretation of it ! Grimm's Scale.* Labials. Gutturals. Dentals Greek, ' B. P. PH. G. K. CH. D. T. TH. Gothic, P. PH. B. K. CH. G. T. TH. D. Old High German, PH. B. P CH. G. K. TH. D. T. For the Latin the scale runs as follows : Latin, B. P. F. G. C. H. D. T. (F). Gothic, P. F. B. K. H. G. T. TH. D. Old High Gei-man, PH. F. P. CH. H. K. Z. D. T. The intei'pretation of the scale is this : that the several letters corresponding perpendicularly displace each other, or are substituted for each other, in the equivalent forms of the different languages respectively especially when initial. Thus the Gothic and the Lower German dialects substitute, in relation to the * Grimm's Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, p. 276. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 217 Greek and Latin, and measurably also to the Sanskrit and the Zend, asph'ates for original tenues, (as, h for k, th for t, and f for p) : tenues for medials, (as, t for d, p for b, and k for g) ; and medials for aspirates (as, g for ch, d for th, and b for f ) It must not be supposed that these interchanges are observed in every case, with absolute uniformity. To what law, except that of love in things moral, and of attraction in things physical, are there not exceptions allowed and even constituted ? But such are the general principles that prevail in respect to the mutual interchanges of letters, in these several languages. EXAMPLES. Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Gothic. Old High German. English. aham, for agham iyci ego, ik ih I dyp6; ager akrs achar acre svan, a dog canis hunths hunt hound dasan, ten 6iKa decern taihun zehan ( ten I tithe danta(s), tooth oSoiJs dens tunthus zand tooth trajas, three rpeig tres threis dri three Si'ik-pv SdKpvjjLa ( hicryma •s archaic ( dacrima Uagr zahar tear Xeiiretv linquere leiban lipu leave ve, to weave IT ia for V vitis wida ( withe •j with ( wither ad, to eat £6eiv cdere itan ezan eat li^tXyeiv mulgerc miluks miluh milk pada(s), foot TTOVi pes fotus fuoz foot pula (s), much ^6\vi plus fihi filo full upari, above i'-ip super ufar uhar ( upper ] over sad, to sit sUaOai sedere sitan sizan sit 218 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Such analogies, found in hundreds of instances, cannot be accidental. Thus Grimm virtually founded a new and widely influential department of linguistic science, which he denominated Lautlehre or the doc- trine of sounds, or phonetic correspondences and sub- stitutions. Besides his Teutonic grammar, he has pub- lished a work entitled " Mythology and Researches into German Antiquities." He has also written a very in- teresting history of the German language, as seen from the stand-point of philology, which he published in two volumes, at Leipsic, in 1853. This work is held in high honor in Germany, and yet the regret felt is uni- versal, that his vast labors as a student and author have prevented him from perfecting the work, in ful- ness of form and finish of detail, more nearly accord- ing to the model of his own thoughts. On whatever subjects his mind is employed, it makes close research over a mde range of inquiry. He spares neither time nor pains, in making coast-surveys of German litera- ture, and taking soundings in all its seas, and mapping out carefully all the discoveries which he makes, for the world's good. He is now, with his brother Wil- liam, preparing a comprehensive dictionary of his ver- nacular tongue, beyond both for height and breadth the plan of any dictionary prepared or conceived for preparation, in any language : a work of Herculean toil, which none but an intellectual giant coidd for a moment feel himself adequate to achieve. Slowly but HISTORY OF MODERN rHILOLOGY. 219 surely the vast work rises under tlieir hands. May they live to put on its topmost stone ! And yet so broad are the foundations laid, and so huge is the structure that is to rest upon them, that one could hardly expect that they would live, were they men in middle life, to see its consummation. Jacob Grimm, though still full of the fire of his youth, is a septuage- narian. How sublime is German scholarship, in both its patience under present labor and its trust in the future for the cherished result ! and neither the changes of life nor its shortness frighten it back from any ef- forts, however long or hard, which seem worthy to be made. What an interval of many years often stretches between the first and last volume of a standard German work ! and how many, who have eagerly seized upon the first, have through many long years kept continually looking for its successor, and died without the sight ! The one man, however, who by his wide research and vast learning and wonderful insight and ingenuity, is entitled beyond all others, to the name of being the founder of modern philology as a science, is Francis Bopp : not so old a man as Grimm, yet perhaps hardly so full of his native strength. The one work, in which Bopp has specially developed the wonderful proportions and relations of this new science, is his " Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithu- anian, old Slavonic, Gothic and German," which he began to publish in 1833 and finished in 1849. Lit- 220 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. tie did Bopp dream in his earlier works, what a mine of inexhaustible riches he had struck, and what a sen- sation he was ere long to produce among the scholarly minds of his age. It was in these works that he came at the very outset upon the vein of phonetic correspond- ences in different languages, from which afterwards both himself and others deduced such vast results. Like other great discoveries, it was stumbled upon ! This is the very meaning of the word invent : they came upo?i it, as a traveller upon a prize by the road- side. A few similar cases of transformations, substi- tutions and interchanges in consonants and vowels, sufficed to suggest inquiry and comparison upon a wide scale to those earnest students : as the result of which they found a vast mass of natural hieroglyphs treasm'ed on the walls of each language that they inves- tigated ; the hidden alphabet of which they also dis- covered, preserved in the very characters themselves. Bopp is now preparing, with many improvements, a new edition of his grammar, and has published three parts of it already, since August 1857. Others have made great achievements in separate fields of research, but Bopp was the first, and has ever been foremost, in developing the comparative features of the old and new languages of the civilized world, Asiatic and Euro- pean ; and that on no partial or fanciful basis, but by an astonishingly A^ide and satisfactory scale of compari- sons. He analyzes the whole grammatical structm-e HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 221 of the Indo-Eiu'opcaii langua|2;es ; se})arating words everywhere into their roots, their formative and deriva- tive sufRxes, their case-terminations and person-end- ings : opening into view in each language its whole interior frame-work, and showing them all to be, both generally and specially, alike in their organism ; and the student feels on the one hand, that he stands on terra firma, while surveying the scene of strange and multiform correspondences of all languages around him, and on the other that he is gazing everywhere on unmistakable realities, both old and new. To then- difference of form he applied, with magic effect, the phonetic principles which he practically developed, but never scientifically methodized. He was also the first to strike out that new and valuable idea in philology, that the organific principle of language is to be found in its pronominal elements ; so that these contain the whole material of flexion, whether in the verb or in the noun both substantive and adjective. Bopp is one of the few men whose lives form eras in the progress of hu- manity. The study of his comparative grammar is like a constant festival to an inquisitive, scientific, scholarly mind. He travels, like one voyaging on the Rhine or the Nile or passing through a series of lovely landscapes in " la belle France," through scenery that at every point is full of beauty or of wonder. Bopp has become in effect the founder of a wholly new order of classical literature. Language has been 222 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. coiistnictecl, under his guidance and influence, into a science having a definite area and horizon. It^terri- tories have been explored with care ; and where its riches he, and what they are, is well known. Like Bacon in phOosophy, he has brought in philology the reign of theory without facts to a perpetual end. Up to his day, the streams of etymology were the favorite resort of ail sorts of fishers after whims and fancies, and the most fantastic absurdities were treated as scientific verities. But, by his long and earnest pursuit of facts, the most sui'prising affinities have been found to exist between the Sanskrit and all the other members of the Indo-European family. And the Sanskrit itself is found to be not their parent, but rather their elder-bom sister, although so much older and of such a different bearing as to have weU-nigh the mien and place and care of a parent among her younger sisters; for the Sanskrit also gives decided proof of a derived existence, at a far earlier date, from the same common stock. And the Sanskrit, now treasured in books, is found to be the Sanskrit of a later date than that to which the affiliated Indo-European languages bear such strangely full and minute resemblance : so that sometimes the Latin itself is more faithful to the archaic radical type of the word, as careful phonological analysis shows, than the Sanslo-it itself in its present form. It has been quite impossible to get a copy of Bopp until within a short time : almost fabulous prices having HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. ^23 been given for a stray copy that could be picked up in any .part of the world. An advertisement of such a copy for sale would attract at once as eager a host of buyers, as would the sight of a chamois left dead in the mountains, of hungry eagles. A single broken volume of a copy was snatched after, wherever found, at any price. Por those unacquainted with German, an Eng- lish translation by Eastwick (2d edition, London, 1854) can be obtained at a cost of $16, and though very dear it is well worth the purchase. In 1834 Bopp published his Sanskrit grammar, and in 1845 a second edition of it, and it is still the best Sanskrit grammar to be had. In " 1836 appeared his "Vocalismus, oder sprachverglei- chende Kritiken," &c., or philological criticisms on Grimm's German grammar, and in 1847 his " Glossa- rium Sanskritum " or " Sanskrit Dictionary ; in which all the Roots and most common Sanskrit Words are unfolded and compared with Greek, Latin, German, Lithuanian, Slavonic and Celtic Words." His last new work is the " Vergleichendes Accentuationssystem," published in 1854. It is a comparative view of the system of accentuation in Sanskrit and Greek, and, like all his works, full of evidences of acuteness and abihty. It was immediately followed by an ingenious work, published by Professors Henri Weil and Louis Benloew, in French, at variance in many of its leading positions with Bopp's, entitled " Theorie generale de I'accentua- tion Latine." Bopp has been, however, most success- 224 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. fully controverted in some of his views by Prof. Whit- ney, of Yale College, in a paper read before the Amer- ican Oriental Society, and published in their Journal, Vol. V. pp. 195 ff., as well as also in Germany in Kuhn's Zeitschrift. Bopp's services therefore as a linguist have had, as we have shown, two great directions : the thorough ad- vancement of Sanskrit scholarship as such, and the es- tablishment of the science of Comparative Grammar; which not only rose at the outset almost spontaneously as if a fairy castle, out of the elements of Sanskrit study, as soon as they were thoroughly mastered, but has ever since rested on them for its foundations, as there it must forever rest. A. W, Schlegel and his admirers, like Lassen, have confined themselves to the investigation of Indian literature and antiquities and the issue of critical texts of Sanskrit Avorks ; while Bopp and Grimm have gone with the torch of analytic phi- losophy into the depths of the Sanskrit language itself, as well as into those of all the related languages, in order to find their hidden riches. Wherever Bopp's discoveries are known, language w^ill be studied and taught on entirely different princi- ples and with very different results from wdiat have been ever before witnessed. Each language must now be studied, not only as it is in itself, but also in its va- rious relations ; and he w^ho studies but one language must stand on the outside of the gate of even that, and HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 22 only dream, but never see, what is within its walls ; what of beauty ! what of vastness ! what of life ! Some- thing, indeed, far different from the mere mastery of a few authors in a given language, is to be comprehended in the idea of studying not only language in general but any language in particular. Augustus F. Pott, now Professor at Halle, should ever, both for his contemporaneousness and his merit as a writer in philology, be associated with Bopp and Grimm. They form, indeed, by themselves, a splendid constellation in the firmament of this science. His great work was published in two volumes, in 1833 and 1836, at Lem go, entitled " Etymologische Porschun- gen," &c., or " Etymological Investigations in the Pield of the Indo-Germanic Languages, with special Refer- ence to the Changes of Sound in the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, and Gothic Languages :" the first volume of a new edition of which, much enlarged and improved, has recently appeared. Pott has the honor of first entering the department of Lexical Etymology, on any broad scale, with the torch of Indo-European analogy ; and yet neither he nor any European writer has ever attempted to this day, to determine its princi- ples, or group its facts into the form of a high and no- ble science. When, accordingly, Etymology is spoken of in this essay as a science, it is so ^denominated from deference to its own inward claims to such a desisrna- tion; and not as a recognition of any attempt, ever 226 HISTORY OF MODERN rillLOLOGY. made by German philologists to construct its elements into a distinct system. In 1846 Pott publislied a work of miicli merit on the language of the Gypsies, clearly establishing its membership in the great Indo- European family of languages. He has recently (1856) published an additional work of considerable interest on the Etymology of surnames, entitled " Personennamen und Eamihennamen." Pott is a man of great erudition in philology, and a critic of the first class ; while being also an original investigator, like Bopp and Grimm, al- though not on so large a scale. William Humboldt in 1835 Avrote a learned and philosophical treatise on " The different Modes of form- ing Human Speech," in which he presented, with clear- ness and effect, a true comparative estimate of different languages ; representing the Chinese or monosyllabic, and the Indo-European and Semitic or inflected lan- guages, as the two contrary poles of linguistic develop- ment, and holding up to honor the most thorough critical method of philological analysis as the only mode of studying language, deserving of the name. All such early utterances of a high sort in this department of study we hail with delight, as they show at least the quality of the men who made them ; their genius, their philosophy, their scholarship, and the ideals which they set up before their own minds. And in the kingdom of mind, not as in that of commerce and in common life, where men are estimated according to their sue- HISTORY OF . MODERN PHILOLOGY. 227 cesses, but as in the kingdom of Gocl, they arc to he judged to tlieir honor or their shame, according to their aims and their efforts." But while in Germany the science of philology was thus rising to a conspicuous height before all eyes, in France also a few earnest devotees to its interests began now to appear. Two especially deserve distinct men- tion, Burnouf and EichhofF. Eugene Burnouf published, in 1835, some of the results of his acute researches in the Zend, as compared with the Sanskrit, and estab- lished by careful induction the scale of correspondences between them : showing that the Zend is more like the Sanskrit than any other language, and that very often, by merely changing the Zend letters into their fixed Sanskrit equivalents, you may obtain the same precise word as in Sanskrit. He extended accordingly Grimm's law of substitutions and equivalents, so as to embrace the Zend with the Sanskrit. He also gave himself with much earnestness to the work of editing various publi- cations of the Zend, restoring in each case the manu- scripts with critical 'care ; and prepared a Zend gram- mar, and was indeed strictly the founder of all true Zend philology. E. G. EichhofF published at Paris, in 1836, a work entitled, "Parallele des Langues de I'Europe et de Tlnde," or " A Comparative view of the Languages of Europe and of India." This was after- wards translated into German by Kaltschmidt, who greatly admires his views, and who published also in 228 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 1 845, a second edition of it. EichhofF's work is designed to present a comparative view of tlie Indo-European languages, both grammatically and verbally, and to be at the same time as comprehensive and condensed as possible. But, while being well deserving of posses- sion, it is very unequal in its merits in the department of verbal etymology -. at times rising to the highest point of excellence, and at others sinking below the average level of philological accuracy and skill. He is so charmed with the love of new discoveries, and even of suppositions that look like discoveries, that his ety- mologies are of too mixed a character to be of uniform value. To one, however, who will use Eichhoff with true discrimination, he will furnish real help in the study of philology. Since Burnouf and Eichhoff stand together in solitary grandeur, as leaders in this new science in Erance, it will please the reader perhaps to let Eichhoff come forward and speak of his plans in his own person. Says he, " ' Who does not love etymolo- gies ? The imagination of what scholar would not in- voluntarily wander from one enterprise to another, out of one century into another, in order to find the re- mains of a perished language ; remains which are the fragments of the people's history.' * These words," (says Eichhoff,) " of one of our first scholars and most ingenious critics, strikingly indicate the plan of this work, which proceeds from the double point of view * Le Clcrc, the dean of Philosophy at Paris. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 229 afforded by philology and history. These two philoso- phies march for\A'ard in the world with equal steps and mutual support. The life of a nation reveals itself in its language : the true picture of their changing for- tunes ; and, where the history of a people is silent, where the thread of tradition is broken, there the ancient gene- alogy of language gives us light, which outlives the ^^Teck of empires, and eternizes the origin of a people and their memory. Language, the living organ of so many extinguished races, suffices to solve many enig- mas, which without it could not be resolved ; so soon as one, after obtaining a thorough knowledge of the special speech of each single nation, procures some common measure of comparison, which makes them all comprehensible at a glance. Deeply buried in the East, after having ceased to be a living speech for more than three thousand years, and being equally long for- gotten in Europe, a language has been found, which, in its inward spirit, in the completeness of its forms, in its riches, and especially in its agreement throughout with our European tongues, is full of wonder. A true com- prehension of the languages of the world, is one of the necessities of our century ; and it is no profitless task to aid in affording it. Following accordingly the dic- tionary and the grammar, in the leading languages of our system, (the Indo-Em'opean,) I have brought them together into one view, and developed them, sometimes singly and sometimes comparatively, and arranged to- 16 230 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. getlier tlieir coniponent parts, in a comprehensive and complete synopsis." He dedicates his work to " Chezy, the founder of Sanskrit study in France, and IMerian, the promoter of comparative philology," as being in a sense the authors and guides of his own thoughts in this direction. It is pleasant surely to look through even such a loop-hole into the developments of French scholarship at that time, and find there the same ardor in pursuit, and the same joy in discovery, which have ever characterized the German students of philology, and indeed the students of philology generally through- out the world. There is in fact so much of poetic ma- terial in this science, and so much of its inspiration in those who pursue it, that they might well be called the prose-poets of the world. But to return to Germany again : Albert Giese published in 1834 a work upon the ^olic dialect, of great interest. It is in this dialect that the Greek re- tains most of its primitive character and manifests its common heritage with the Latin, in all the elements of their equal Grseco-Latin or Pelasgic parentage, Giese lived only to pubUsli himself the first volume of his work, the second being pubhshed by his friends, from preparations for it that he left behind him. In 1837 Albert A. Benary gave to the world, as the result of his critical studies, a work entitled " Die ro- mische Lautlehrc sprachvergleichend dargestellt," or the phonetic principles of the Latin language philologically HISTORY OP MODERN PHILOLOGY. 231 viewed. Beside the intrinsic merits of this production as a fine specimen of thorough schohirly research, it has also the honor of beinu; the first distinct work of modern times on phonetics, not only relatively to the Latin, but also absolutely in itself. In modern times I have said, for in ancient days phonology was well understood by Sanskrit scholars. He dwells on two main points par- ticularly of the phonetic system of the Latin : diph- thongation and aspiration. The whole phonetic system of the Latin he regards as consisting of five principal features: 1st. Its disinclination to diphthongs. 2d. The small range of aspiration. 3d. The limited use of consonantal combinations in initial and medial syllables. 4th. The reciprocal influence of vowels and consonants upon each other, by their very nature and constitution. 5th. The weakening of end-syllables under the influ- ence of consonants, as also under that of vowels. The first two of the above elements he discusses in this work, so far as yet published. In treating of Latin diphthongs he shows that being in their very construc- tion binary, they are composed always of a fixed radi- cal element, and of a movable one attached to it ; and then divides them all into two classes : those formed by contraction and those formed by Guna.* Here he unfolds in full philosophic form the principles, sug- * Guna means, in Sanskrit gi-aminar, the lengthening and strength- ening of an i- or u- sound by a prefixed short a- sound, by which they "become respectively ai and au. 232 ' HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. gested and confirmed by a wide and full survey of the facts of the language, illustrating each step by full examples. Under the head of aspiration also, he is very minute and clear and interesting. Any fuller analysis of his work would not be consistent with the general design and scope of this essay. There is a good deal of valuable etymological material, strown in- cidentally throughout Benary's work. No Latin scholar can study it without real profit, in the way of enlarging his conscious grasp of the analytic constitution of the language. Albert Hoefer published in 1839 a volume enti- tled, " Beitrage zur Etymologic und vergleichende Grammatik der Hauptsprachen des Indo-Germanischen Stammes," or considerations on the etymology and comparative grammar, of the principal Indo-German languages. It is an able original work in the special field which it traverses. The whole vast scope of phi- lology embraces a wide range of many related topics, and touches language, phonetics, ethnography, chro- nology and cHmatology, at so many points and in so many ways, as to aff'ord room for an almost unlimited variety of special investigations and results. Hoefer' s work diff'ers from Benary's in this, that while Benary treats of the special phonetic system of the Latin, he spreads his inquiries with philosophic exactness over the whole field of phonetics. The two main topics that he discusses are, 1. The philosophy of vowels. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 233 with an investigation of the principles of Guna and. Vriddhi,* and the declension-forms of the Sanskrit. 2. The history of liquids in their relation to vowels and to consonants. ' To most readers doubtless there will seem to be, in the announcement of two such topics of investigation, nothing suggestive of either light or joy. It is not he who, never having climbed a moun- tain, stands beneath and looks up at its bold, bare peaks, that knows what food the glad spectator can there find who has ascended to the heights above heights, where the clouds thunder and roll and break at his feet, and who gazes down, like one of the watch- ers of the upper air, upon the world of his own former home below. Besides the writers of whom we have hitherto spoken, a few other names are deserving of special mention, though with varying degrees of merit in this inniiediate connection. H. L. Ahrens wrote in 1838 on "the conjugation in i-u, in the Homeric dialect." In 1839 he published his first volume on the dialects of the Greek, which is his principal work, following it with the second in 1843. The two volumes embrace the Jj]olic and Doric dialects, which are discussed with remarkable ingenuity and research, and not without reference to the princi- ples of Indo-European philology. Diintzer also appeared at this time. His principal t Vriddhi consists in prefixing a long a to i or u. 234 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. works are " The Philosophy of Latin Etymology " and "The Declension of the Indo-Germanic Languages." Diintzer is clear and ingenious, but, like most of the other writers already enumerated, except the first three that stand so high above the rest, Bopp and Pott and Grimm, has been so surpassed by subsequent writers as to wear now quite an antiquated aspect. Twenty years in fact serve generally to make scholarship in any direction appear as old in Germany and as well nigh useless, except historically, as they do most of our pe- riodical literature at home. Kaltschmidt, the satellite of EichhofF, published in 1839 a Greek Etymological dictionary of some merit: more, however, in respect to the amount of personal labor expended than in respect to the benefit to be reaped from it by the public ; for in the department of Etymology, on which it was specially intended to throw a high light, it is very deficient, being quite as full of fanciful characteristics as of those of real schol- arship. Kaltschmidt has less of the standard charac- teristics of a real authority in philology, than any other name mentioned in this earliest group of the imme- diate followers of the first leaders in philology. Their writings had been sown broadcast over the land, and the precious seed had germinated in many minds. A new generation of scholars has now come upon the stage ; men who had the advantage of starting in HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 235 their studies where their predecessors had ended ; men who are, at this very time, in the full vigor of their early manhood. Among these no name is more conspicuous than that of Lorenz Diefenbach, the former pupil of both Bopp and Pott, He is a philologist of the first class. His chief works are his "Celtica" and his " Verglei- chendes Worterbuch der Gothischen Sprache," or com- parative dictionary of the Gothic language, published in two volumes, at Frankfort, in 1851, which is a standard contribution, not only to the Gothic language, but also to comparative philology. It is a vast cabinet of rare linguistic curiosities : the most extensive mu- seum of comparative etymologies to be found in the world, not excepting in its present state that magnifi- cent German dictionary of the Grimms ; which, how- ever, when completed, will stand by itseK, as a vast pyramid of learning and labor, overshadowing all other human productions in the amplitude of its scholarship. Diefenbach is a noble follower of noble guides. Bopp does the most justice of them aU to the Sanskrit front of this great argument : Pott to the Latin and Greek side of it ; while Grimm and Diefenbach bring up the rear in splendid array with the Gothic and the Celtic. August Schleicher stands also in the first rank of the more recent philologists. His principal works are "Philological Investigations," published in 1848: " The Languages of Em'ope in a Systematic View," a 236 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. work of much scholarship and interest, pubhshed in 1850 ; and also " Litauische Grammatik,'' or " A Lith- uanian Grammar and Chrestomathy," published in 1856, which, like Diefenbach's Gothic dictionaiy, and Zeuss' Celtic grammar, is a splendid contribution of thorough original investigations to the science of phi- lology. He is now at work, and has been for a long time, (as he announces in a note to a brief article, on the history of the Slavic languages, in Kuhn's "Beitrage zur Sprachforschung,") on a history of the languages of the Gothic or Germanic family. George Curtius' name also deserves honorable men- tion here. He published in 1842 a dissertation on the " Formation of Greek Nouns," which was followed in 1846 by an admirable work on "The Formation of the Tenses and Modes in Greek and Latin," containing many fine specimens of philological analysis and argu- mentation. Beside contributing several articles of much interest to philological journals, he is the author of a " Griechische Schulgrammatik," published in 1852, (third edition, 1857.) His most interesting work, however, is his last, (1858,) entitled " Grundziige der Griechischen Etymologic," the first part of which only is yet published. Here, after a fine introduction on some interesting points connected with the range and limits of etymology as such, the danger of false analyses and of a careless use of the Sanskrit in solv- ing etymological difficulties, euphonic mutations, etc.. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 237 a scholarly view of more than six hundred Greek roots is presented, with their Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic or other correspondences, with brief notices of the views of other leading philologists confirmatory or adverse. When this work, which has just arrived in this coun- try, is finished and translated into English, as it surely will be, American scholars will have the means at hand of a thorough exploration and mastery of " the ele- ments of Greek etymology." Friedrich Diez is the author of a " Grammar of the Romanic Languages," which is the standard, supplant- ing aU others in this study. The second edition of it, enlarged and improved, is now passing through the press. He is an original and thorough investigator in a great field of research. No writer has explored as he has the lingual riches of the Italian, Spanish and Erench languages. His etymological dictionary also of the Romanic languages, published in 1853, is a no- ble structure, standing by itself in solitary majesty on the field that it occupies. A quotation from the pref- ace to this dictionary, will best show his style of mind and of scholarship. " The object of etymology is," he says, " to trace back a given word to its origin. The method adopted for the accomplishment of this object is not always the same. There is, as it is easy to see, a critical and an uncritical method. The uncritical draws its explanations, as a matter of good luck, out of a mere external resemblance of form, or forces them, 238 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. where there is httle resemblance and even entire vari- ance, through a mass of elements specially contrived for the purpose. Such a faulty mode of procedure, by which, notwithstanding, where wit and genius have not been wanting, a happy hit has been sometimes made, has brought the whole science of etymology into discredit with some ; while it has commended itself to others by the ease of its applications : since any one without preparation for it can enter upon such a work. The former err in their aversion, and the latter in their inclination to it. In contrariety to the uncritical method, the critical acts in subordination to the well-discovered principles and rules of phonology, so as not to swerve a foot's breadth from them, unless plain, actual excep- tions shall justify it. It strives to follow the genius of the language itself, and to draw out from its bosom its own secrets. It takes a careful gauge of each letter, and seeks to discover the value that attaches to it in each position. And yet how little often can it accom- plish ! How doubtful are its results ! The highest point reached by the etymologist, is the conscioyisness of having acted scientifically. For the attainment of absolute certainty he has no security. Some insignifi- cant new thing may hurl down froxn him under his feet, to his mortification, a result previously gained with great labor. This wiU happen to him in every extended investigation : it is indeed among the daily experiences of the etymologist, from which even the most keen- HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 239 eyed are not free. Therefore, modesty! even when every fact seems to support our theories." Here is pre- sented in full view a self-drawn pictm'e of the patient, scholarly, earnest spirit of the scientific etymologist. How diff'erent from that of the ancient empirical dealers in words as cheap, frivolous wares ! It is when study- ing such works as his and Bopp's, Grimm's, Pott's and Diefenbach's, that one stands on the summits of modern philology, where the whole field of its wonders lies spread out before him. Germany is at the present moment full of earnest investigators, in every part of the whole wide field of philology. In every university there is, as there ought to be, a provision for instruction in comparative phi- lology. This new science is not only giving law to grammar, lexicography, classical study and linguistic research, but also to history and ethnography. Under its light the history of Rome has been rewritten with new clearness and beauty by Theodore Mommsen, as has that of Greece by Ernst Curtius ; and under its in- fluence must om' own histories of the classical past be written still again for the proper illumination of Eng- lish and American scholarship, Ernst Curtius is, like George Curtius, a philologist of high attainments. He resided for four years in Greece, for the purpose of better pursuing his researches into the history of Greece. He was a pupil of O. Miiller, and has been the private Tutor of Prince Erederic Wil- 240 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. liam. He is one of the finest living writers of Ger- many. He endeavors, both scientifically and studiously, to open the myths of the legendary periods of ancient history, and to extract the hidden kernel of their real truth; while Mommsen rejects them altogether, and falls back on the mere historic guidance to be obtained from the disentombed remains of language, in the archaic periods of the past. Tor ourselves, we must say, that we sympathize rather with Curtius than with Mommsen, in his conceptions of the intrinsic value of the early legends of Greece and Rome. The great investigators, who have most opened the wonders of philology to the eyes of their admiring countrymen, are still living, to marvel at the effect of their labors upon their age : beholding changes quite as great in the community of scholars to which they be- long, as the pioneers of the west have seen, in the brief but brilliant history of our new settlements. Three works especially of those already mentioned, made a distinct epoch by then' great influence each by itself on the public mind of Germany : Erederic Schlegel's Essay on the Speech and Philosophy of the Indians ; Grimm's Teutonic Grammar, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar. Most of the great philologists of Germany appear more or less frequently as the authors of occasional papers, in the " Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung," &c., or " Journal of comparative Philology in the De- partment of the German, Greek, and Latin Languages," HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, 241 now in its seventh year ; edited at first by Theodore Aufrecht and Adalbert Kuhn, but now by Kuhn alone, and published every two months at Berlin. In this journal, the last and best results of the most recent in- vestigations appear, in a condensed form. Here tlie delighted reader meets with frequency with such men, in high discourse, as Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Aufrecht, Kuhn, KirchhofF, Benary, Curtius, Schleicher, Ebel, Ahrens, Benfey, Forstemann a Danish scholar, and many others of the same spirit, if not yet of the same reputation. This journal will be welcom.ed, as a friend whose face is full of light, by every earnest student of its contents. Aufrecht and Kirchhoff have recently prepared in combination a work of high critical cpialities, entitled " Die umbrischen Sprachdenkmaler," or "The Remains of the Umbrian Language," published in 1851, by which much light is thrown on the early Latin. It consists of an explanation of the Eugubine tables, and of the various remains of the Umbrian still to be found, which are treated in the most careful elaborate way. Benfey is learned and often exceedingly ingenious, and, like all such minds in other fields, exceedingly venturesome also at times, and so, quite unsafe as a guide to a novice. He has published a Greek Etymo- logical Dictionary, and also a Sanskrit grammar not 242 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. equal to Bopp's tliough succeeding it, which still re- mains the standard in this study. Heyse has written a work on " The Philosophy of Language," well deserving perusal : it is thoroughly philological in its type. Tor a compendious scientific suiTcy of the facts and principles of philology, in its broad general relations historically, phonologically, grammatically and lexically, it is, for so brief a work, one of great worth to the student ; and not only quite superior to Rapp, but unequalled yet by any other in the same field. From him and Schleicher, if he can obtain no more helps to philological information, the young stu- dent in this charming field of investigation can pro- cure a very good outfit of facts and principles, for wider and higher attainments, whenever means or opportu- nity can be secured. Heyse is the author also of a German dictionary, wdiich, for ordinary use, not only for purposes of exegesis, but also of etymology, is of high value. Grimm says indeed of it, in the introduc- tion to his own great national dictionary, what he does also of all others in the same field, that he has brought little if any thing new to the previous stock of knowl- edge possessed by the learned. But, while this is true, it is also true that he has thoroughly gathered together and methodized the various results of the most ad- vanced scholarship of his day ; and, while the honor is not so great to him, for brilliancy of intellect, as that of being a new discoverer, the advantage is very great HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 243 to others, who obtain at his hands what they would have otherwise to search long and hard to obtain from many som'ces. The philological acumen and attainments of Adal- bert Kuhn, although of the highest sort, have been ex- hibited thus far chiefly in brief but sterling articles, a large munber of which have appeared in the " Zeit- schrift" which he edits. He seems to be quite objec- tive in his aims and full of a spirit of usefulness. He does not wait for great occasions, or feel that when he acts he must move in state, and either do some great deed or do none at all. He appears on the contrary always intent on filling up that which is behind, and ever scattering the new light to others that has greeted his own vision. Albrecht Weber, Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Berlin, is one of the first Sanskrit scholars in Gennany. He is the conductor of a periodi- cal called " Indische Studien," now numbering four vol- umes, containing various interesting articles on Indian literature of value particularly to Sanskrit scholars as such. He is also the author of a collection of brief ar- ticles, entitled " Indische Skizzen," consisting of a sketch of " the recent investigations on ancient India," an article " on Buddhism," another on " the connec- tions of India with the lands in the west ; " and a fourth on " the Semitic origin of the Sanskrit alphabet." Weber ranks for character with Curtius, Kuhn and Schleicher. 244 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. Rapp, professor at Tubingen, has published recently in three parts a work which he entitles " Grundriss der Grammatik," or " An Outline of the Grammar of the Indo-European Family of Languages." He is ingeni- ous and learned. One of the main defects of this book is his adoption of phonographic equivalents for both simple and compound vowel-sounds in different lan- guages: turning every language to the eye into the same form that it has to the ear, so that not one of the many languages compared appears in its own home- dress and with its own native mien ; but they are all, with their different stature, complexion, airs and mo- tions, exhibited in one uniform, homely phonetic garb. It seems strange to think by what arbitrary laws of taste or criticism, a scholar could have persuaded him- self to undertake such a system of wholesale violence to those old familiar languages, on whose faces, as on that of the moon at night, so many loving eyes have looked with admiration, in all ages. In no way could he have made himseK more unintelligible to a beginner, or more distasteful to one who had passed through his novitiate in philology. Two classes of minds relish phonog- raphy : those who, being satisfied ^Yith only inci- dental superficial views and general outlines instead of minute details, delight in saving all the labor of thought that they can ; and those that have such an intense love of the beauty of abstract order, that, for the sake of its gratification, they are •walling to see the ancient, HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 245 well known, beloved forms of words broken to pieces, in order that they may be reduced to their simple, ulti- mate, radical type. Many, indeed, would greatly re- joice to possess a grand scientific dictionary, composed of the elementary themes of words, with a synoptical view of the variations more or less from them in dif- ferent languages, arranged in true philological order ; and doubtless, when philology has attained its full de- velopment, such a dictionary will be prepared. But even then phonography will not furbish the torch, that shdl illuminate to the scholar's eyes the pages that will contain the record. In the same spirit of unholy free- dom with which Rapp has thus handled the sacred; forms of words that have come down to us, unscathed! by time or human conflict, from the far-off past, he has also undertaken to build up a sort of Cyclopean struc- ture of his own fancies, far back in that unknown^ ante-historic period, when the Sanskrit itself had not yet appeared upon the earth. From a comparison of kindred forms of the same radical in different lan- guages, he finds among them what he deems a prepon- derance of authority for a given elementary constitution of the word, and from such data makes the majority absolute witnesses, over a stifled minority, about the formative necessary stem of the word, in that original mother-tongue. Indeed, his whole aim terminates in a vain efiPort to constitute his own guesses, by the aid of as many phonographic correspondents as possible, IT 246 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. into the framework of the first language of the world. In the realms of science how absurd are such structures, built up of mere empty suppositions ! nor are they re- lieved of their unsatisfactoriness by the prefatory re- mark with which he introduces them, that they are the results of many years of devoted study. Presumptions, of even many years' quarrying, are not the stones of which to build any part of the temple of science. Rapp and Diez represent in many things two opposite poles of scholarly charapter: the one bestowing too much honor on mere fancies for their novelty or beauty, and the other rejecting them at once, with sharp logical precision amounting almost to critical vengeance. Rapp is pithy and often witty, and, like most wits, greatly pleased with a new conceit. As one incidental specimen of this trait of his character, among many, consider his classification* of diphthongs. * " There are," he says, " two classes of them. I call it a genuine diphthong when the movement is from the central a towards the circum- ference, and indeed in the first place in the direction from a to i. Here lie the diphthongs te, ei, commonly written ei, ai and the nasal a? ; on the way from a towards u, ao eu (commonly written ou), au and the nasal ao ; and on the middle line from a to ii, ao, eli. ail and the nasal ao. A special kind of genuine diphthongs consists of those which make a lateral movement from the negative to the positive side as ae, oe, ai, oi, ail, oil. ui and the nasal oe. The second principal kind make a back- ward movement, from the circumference towards the centre ; and are called illegitimate or deceitful diphthongs, and are somewhat inflexible and the first sound is somewhat prolonged, so that they incline towards a triphthong, &c., &c. To some undoubtedly all this will appear very clear and beautiful ; but to the apprehension of the author that light is HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, 247 Ernst August Fritsch wrote in 1833, on the oblique cases and prepositions in Greek, and afterwards several treatises on different grammatical points, as the forma- tion of tenses, modes and oblique cases, but his work of chief merit is his last : " A Comparative Treatment of Latin and Greek Particles," the first part published in 1856, and the second in 1858. In this he discusses the etymology of the adverbs, conjunctions and suffixes of these languages. It is the best treatise to be found upon this subject, and much excels Dilntzer in this same field. This part of Bopp's grammar also is one of its most interesting parts, as, indeed, it is of the new philology generally ; since its testimony is so minute and unequivocal to the truth of its great leading positions. In all the principal works of philology, that appear now from time to time^ the department of pho- netics claims a distinct and full representation. The authors, who have treated it most fully in a separate form, are Benary and lioefer. In the nevv^ edition of Bopp's grammar, special attention is devoted to it at the outset, as is also in Rapp's. It will indeed force it- self into notice everywhere, in all true philology ; for its connections are vital with it in every part of its framework. To present a still longer catalogue of names in thif most desirable on all subjects, that serves best to reveal them as they are, instead of bedizening the eye with its own marvellous bril- liancy. 248 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. connection would be tedious, as it would be without profit ; for in those already detailed, the elements of philological study have been sufficiently indicated, as well as both the modes in which and the men by whom it has been brought to its present advanced stage. The history of Indo-European philology in Eng- land is very briefly written. A few names describe the narrow orbit of its development. Beside the first scholars already mentioned as so earnest in making the Sanskrit known to their countrymen, as Sir William Jones, Wilkins, Colebrooke and Wilson, the list of more recent authors in modem philology is equally limited in number. They are all told, but these few : Prichard, Rosen, Donaldson, Gamett, Winning, Max Miiller and Bunsen, the last two of whom are Germans, though writing in England and in the Enghsh language, as was also Rosen. James C. Prichard, M. D., a practising English physician, was a man of good natural endowments, and earnestly devoted to thorough philosophical and philo- logical research. His one great idea was to establish, if possible, the unity of the race. He pubhshed ac- cordingly an essay (in 1808) on the varieties of man- kind, in which he first made himself favorably known as a philosophical wi'iter. This he enlarged from time to time in successive editions, until in the last (1836- 1847) it had swollen into the five large volumes enti- tled " Researches into the Physical History of Man- HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 249 kind." The one work, on which his fame specially rests among scholars, is that denominated " The East- ern Origin of the Celtic Nations proved by a Com- parison of their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic Languages ;" which was published in 1831 as a supplement to "The Researches" above- mentioned. He is minute and thorough in this work, in the comparison of Celtic, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek themes and flexion-endings, both formally and euphoni- cally, and his labors in this direction have a high schol- arly value. Like Rask and Burnouf, Prichard was re- moved prematurely from his labors on earth ; but his memory, like theirs, will not perish. Dr. r. Rosen, a pupil of Bopp, was for many years Professor of Sanskrit in the University of London. The round of his labors and services seems to have been filled up with practical instructions in philology to his pupils, brief articles in the Penny Cyclopaedia of Lon- don, and the translation of the first eighth part of the Rigveda, which was published in 1838, and formed a new epoch in Sanskrit studies throughout the world. Previous translations of Indian literature had repre- sented only the later and somewhat degenerate periods of Sanskrit development ; but now the mine of Vedic thought, as well as that of its distinct dialectic forms, was struck ; and all Europe has been ever since ablaze with interest in this new direction. Donaldson has carefully studied grammar, language, 250 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. and history, in the hght of Indo-European philology ; and has felt, like every one else who has so studied them, an almost irresistible impulse to communicate the pleasure experienced by himself, as widely as pos- sible, unto others. Such a fire cannot easily be kept shut up within one's bones. He has accordingly written a book entitled " VaiTonianus," on the history and structiu-e of the Latin language, and another of similar natui-e upon the Greek, entitled the " New Cratylus," and both a Latin and Greek grammar for schools, of which the latter is decidedly the better, being built up more fully in its ground-forms on the basis of thorough philological principles. Donaldson is both learned and ingenious, but at the same time often fanciful. He has indeed fulfilled no mean office, in acting as an usher, to introduce the new philology to the acquaintance of so many English and American minds. He has added little, however, to the world's general knowledge of either its facts or principles : while he is, on the contrary, chargeable with the fault of needlessly leaving many parts of this great science in a state of very learned obscurity. It is doubtful whether any one who does not rise in his scholarship above the horizon of his works, so as to be able to look down critically upon them from a higher point of view, can fail to feel, as the priest of ancient Egypt made the crowd that stood wondering without feel, in their day, that there must be a veil over the truths on which they HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 251 most long to gaze with clear, full vision. To those who adore mystery for its inherent beauty, this may be acceptable ; but not to those who believe that truth is the proper ahment of the human mind, and that, then, it is most adapted to make it grow to all nobleness of stature and of strength, when it is most unmixed with other elements. And Donaldson seems to see the re- flection of his own image from his works, through the same haze in which he has invested many of the treas- m-es of philology to the eyes of his readers. He is guilty of the sin, -deemed so unpardonable in an author, of public self-praise. A single extract or two will ex- hibit it in all its fulness, especially to one who realizes, from the small number of English scholars in this field, how absolutely his language must be understood as re- ferring to himself. In speaking of the progress of philology in England, he says : " We can point to con- ceptions more original, and to results more important than any which have signalized the efforts of the learned elsewhere. It is not to be denied that we had great advantages at starting, and that it would have been very disgraceful if we had not learned to profit by them.""* So also (on page 39 of the same work) he says, " Our apprenticeship to German philology has ended in producing a number of original workmen, at least equal to a majority of those in whose school they had been trained." In connection with the above ex- * New Cratylus, 2d Edit. p. 45. 252 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. tracts, the reader should peruse at the same time his exquisite tirade (pp. 35, G, 7.) upon the Germans, which he concludes with this remark, " that German scholars limit their chances of improvement by the nar- row boimdary of their own nationality ; and that conse- quently they are not more favorably situated than our English scholars were, some forty years since." Was ever a wholesale slaughter of a whole nation of scholars committed in such cool blood and with such self-gratu- latory satisfaction ? Instead of making fresh inductions and generalizations for himself, like Bopp and Grimm and Diefenbach, he has merely acted the part of a theorist, in weaving out of the materials furnished him by others the web of his own philosophy ; while work- ing on it at times also figures of the most unreal and fantastic shape. Winning, although somewhat praised by Donald- son, from want of other compeers in this great study, was but a writer of the third class for merit, as Don- aldson himself is but of the second. He directly con- tradicts, in the latter part of his work, (published in 1838,) the positions which he formally took and de- fended in the first part ; and while we praise him for his straightforwardness, in openly declaring the change that had really occurred in his views, this is all which we can possibly admire. He should have rewritten it at once, so as to make it throughout harmonious Avith itself. jS'o true scholar will thus pilfer the time and HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 253 comfort of his reader, to whom such treachery is the same, as to a traveller would be that of a guide, who should lead him for a long time in a direction exactly opposite to that in which he ought to go, and at last, after many a weary hour, suddenly inform him that all his toil and patience hitherto had been expended but in vain. And now hear him honestly stultify himself. He says, (p. 160,) after having, through the long track of nearly one hundred pages, maintained the contrary, " Although I now attach not the slightest historical im- portance to the division of the European languages into Median* and Persian, yet it is still evident that there * It will amuse the philological reader to see his " table of lan- guages." Behold it. Iranian. Sanskrit, Zend, Persian. I. Irano-Indian. Sanskrit, Hindustanee, Bengalee. II. Irano-Europeax. Zend, Persian, Slavonian, Lithuanian, German, Celtic. 1. Slavonian. Russian, Servian, Croatian, Wendish. 2. Lithuanian. Lithuanian, Lettish, Old Prussian, Latin (!). 3. German. (1.) Lower German. Gothic, Scandinavian, Dutch. English, &c. (2.) Upper German. Old, Middle and New High German, Greek (!). 4. Celtic. Erse, Ga3lic, Welsh, Bas Breton, Basque. Of these he considered the Slavonian, Lithuanian, and Lower German as of Median origin, and the Upper German as of Pcr>ian ; while, as to the Celtic, he regarded the Erse, Gii^lic and IManx as Medo- Celticj but the "Welsh, Cornish and Bas Breton, as Perso-Celtic. 254 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. were three oiiginal Iranian dialects, viz. : Sanskiit, Zend, and some third language to which the name of Persian seems not appropriate." In a subsequent part of his work he undertakes to show learnedly from various Rabbinical surmises and statements, from Kimchi and others, that the original Tuscans were but a set of emigrant Edomites. " The summary of these statements is," he says, " that a peo- ple speaking a Semitic idiom came by sea, and landed on the south-west coast of Italy; that they became powerful there, and proceeding northward took posses- sion of Rome, which first attained to greatness under their dominion. It is impossible not to be struck with the close coincidence of this statement with the native Roman account, &c." (p. 198.) This extract occurs in a chapter entitled " The Origin and Prophetic Destiny of the Tuscans," to which sixty pages of learned non- sense are devoted ; and to any one who wishes to walk up and down in the fog that the interpreters of prophecy have such special skill in spreading about them, here is an opportunity such as is seldom offered. In another chapter he resolves the Pelasgians into an Egyptian or Hamite race, as, in the chapter on the Tuscans, he also classifies them and the Romans and Corinthians under the same description. But enough of such philological drivel. The reader will forgive so many extracts, if he remembers that the object in quoting them is only to show the actual state of real philological science within the bounds of English authorship. HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGT. 255 Garnett lias written several articles of merit for the London Philological Society, which have been recently grouped together in a volume by his son. They are interesting ; but relate chiefly to the Teutonic elements and aspects of our language. Amidst such meagre demonstrations of English scholarship in the department of Indo-European Phi- lology, it is pleasant to be able to add tlie name of one, in England though not of it, Max Miiller, professor of European languages and literature at Oxford, who is at once an original investigator of its wonders, and able to set forth what others have done and to make the results of their labors available to the public. His leading work is entitled " The Languages of the Seat of War in the East with a Survey of the three Eamilies of Languages, Semitic, Arian, and Turanian ;" a second and much improved edition of which was published in 1855. It was prepared in answer to a formal request by an officer of the English Government in 1854, in connection with the siege of Sebastopol, " that he would prepare at once a treatise on the languages spoken in the East ; theu' general character and structure, their alphabets, the classes of people by whom they were spoken, and the family to which they belong." Plis treatise, though brief, is one of great interest. Chevalier Bunsen is himself but little of a philolo- gist ; but in his " Philosophy of History," he has devoted a large part of the first volume to treatises on 256 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. the last results of philological research, by Max Miiller, and Aufrecht, who has been for some years in Oxford. Bimsen is an earnest religious thinker, and has busied himself with the progress of theology, rather as a general scholar, than as one of special earnestness in this one direction. In the present low state of philological learning in England, he seems determined to obtain the best light that he can ; and then to hold it up, high and bright, Avith all eagerness in the face of the age.* * There is a group of a few celebrated English writers on language, grammar, etymology and words, that ought to be mentioned here, both by way of honor for their merit, and for the sake of being clearly dis- criminated as a class, from those spoken of in the text. They are Harris, Ilorne Tooke. Kemble, Bosworth, Richardson, Turner, Latham, and Trench. John Harris published in 1751 a book of much learning and talent, entitled, " Hermes," pertaining to matters of grammatical philosophy, which had great influence and estimation in its day, as its basis and bearings were classical. Home Tooke, whose views were opposite to those of Harris, presented in his '• Diversions of Purley," amid a good many mere speculations, whose only value was their in- genuity, some very important facts and principles, concerning the Teu- tonic features of Enghsh etymology. He never came for a moment, however, into the neighborhood of the idea of a scientific comparison of languages one with the other. Kemble, Richardson, Bosworth and Turner, have all wrought and written well on the English, as a great Anglo-Saxon structure : the first two as general writers on the language and the last two as lexi- cographers. Latham has, in his latest edition of " The English lan- guage," both supplemented and supplanted most previous authors hitherto on the Teutonic features and philosophy of our language. Rev. Richard C. Trench, Professor of King's College, London, has made himself more known in this country than any other one as a writer on "the study of words." Many of our common words he opens to view, and shows them to contain poetical, ethical and historical elements of great interest. His work is, however, as it was designed HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 257 And what can we say of our own land, great in every thing but scholarship, but to be as great at some near day in this high element of power as in every other. Alas ! one little upper chamber, how small ! would hold the few elect spirits that have seen this new fire blazing on German altars, and snatched one spark from it to kindle the same glowing flame in their own hearts. Not only are very few works relating to general philology produced on our soil, but the number even of those imported from abroad is exceedingly scanty. We have in all the colleges of our country, only one professor of Sanskrit ; and he, though a philologist of widely acknowledged eminence, finds but few pupils to avail themselves of his instructions. In the outline above furnished of the steps by which philology has reached its present development, a suffi- cient view has been furnished, it is believed, of the literature that it has led in its train, to give the reader a true acquaintance with the men and the modes by which it has been advanced to its present position. Behold now the most important of the different names that we have mentioned, grouped in classes according to then' merit. by him to be, entertaining rather than scientific : a book of suggestions and of a few mere outline-sketches, adapted to the popular reader, and not one of deep scholarly investigations of his own or of scholarly guidance unto others. He coasts only around about a few of the Anglo- Saxon, Norman and Latin elements of our language, and speaks of Latin in old style as '• a compound of Grecian and un-Grecian deriv- atives." 258 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 1. Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Diefenbach, Benary, Schleicher, The two Curtius, Kuhii, Diez, Mommseii, Aufrecht, and Weber. 2. EichhofF, Ahi-ens, Giese, Hoefer, Heyse, Benfey, Donaldson. 3. Kaltschmidt, Rapp and Winning. These writers may also be advantageously divided, for the reader's information, into different classes, according to the subjects that they have investigated. I. Language. 1st. The Indo-European languages generally : Schleicher (Sprachen Europa's) ; Max Miiller (Survey of Languages, 2d edition) ; Heyse's System der Sprach- wissenschaft, pp. 174-208 ; Eichhoff's Vergleichung der Sprachen, pp. 20-36. 2d. Specially, (1.) The Graeco-Italic : Schleicher (Sprachen, &c.) ; Mommsen (Romische Geschichte ); E. Curtius (Griech- ische Gesch.) ; Aufrecht and Kirchhoff (Umbrische Sprachdenkmaler) ; Diez (Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen). (2.) The Lettic : Schleicher (Sprachen &c.). (3.) The Gothic : Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik and Geschichte) ; Schleicher ; Diefenbach (Gothisches Worterbuch) . (4.) Slavonic : Schafarik ; Schleicher ; Miklosich. (5.) Celtic: Diefenbach (Celtica) ; Pictet; Charles Meyer ; Zeuss (Grammatica Celtica) ; Ebel (Zeitschrift &c.) ; Prichard (Celtic Nations). HISTORY OP MODERN PHILOLOGY. 259 II. Phonetics. Benary ; Hoefer ; Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik and Geschichte) ; Bopp (Vergleicli. Gramm.) ; Diez (Grammatik, &c.) ; Corssen (Lateinische Vokalismus) ; Heyse's System, &c. ; Zeitsohrift fiir vergleicli. Sprach- forschimg; Arts, by Ebel, Benary, Kuhn&Forstemami. III. The Philosophy of Language. Becker's various works on Grammar, &c. ; Heyse's System cler Spracliwissenscliaft ; Lerscli's Spracliphilo- sopliie ; Humboldt's different essays on language ; Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History, vol. i. IV. Etymology. Pott's Etymologische Eorschungen, new edition. Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.) ; Schleicher (Litauische Grammatik) ; G. Curtius (Griechische Gramm., and especially Griechische Etymologic) ; Diez (Grammatik) ; Diez (Lexicon Etymologicum) ; Eritsch. A beginner in the study of philology who desires, at the least outlay of money and time, to put himself as soon as possible into the possession of the main facts and principles of the science, will find the following few works admirably answer the purpose : Schleicher's Sprachen Europa's. Heyse's System der Sprach^vissenschaft. Diez' Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen. Max MiiUer's Survey of Languages. In Germany by far the greatest attention has been paid from spontaneous impulse, to the claims of com- 260 HISTOllY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, parative philology; while in Russia the Governmem has as far exceeded all other governments, in its patron- age of this delightful study, and of those who are devoted to it. This is one of the chief legacies left by the Empress Catherine, in her own zealous example, to her successors on the throne ; and in accepting it they have not forgotten to put it to good usury. The gov- ernment publishes, at its own expense, the grammars, dictionaries and treatises, prepared by the best scholars ; and sustains travellers at its own expense, in making exploring tours for philological purposes in the East. Vienna, however, is the most prolifici of all single cities in the world, in oriental publications. In Erance, Prussia and Denmark also, much more zeal is shown in this captivating class of studies, than in either Eng- land or America. The Sanskrit has been indeed as long taught in England as in Germany, and even longer ; but not for classical and philological purposes : for commercial reasons rather, under the patronage of the East India Company, at the College of Haileybury. But justice to the great dead, who distinguished themselves in classical pliilology, immediately before the dawn of comparative Indo-European philology, demands their distinct remembrance here ; and all the more, as some of their foUoAvers have endeavored, by voluntarily shutting their eyes to such light as their predecessors never saw but would have hailed with eagerness, to limit themselves and others to the mere HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 261 paths which they trod, although with a far different spirit, and while moving in the van of their age instead of behind it. Heyne was the first to awaken high interest in classical philology, as a special distinct study, in Ger- many, and was followed in his noble efforts by such men as Buttmann, Hermann and Passow : all men of splendid genius and scholarship, according to the highest ideals of their age. . It is pleasant to pause at any time, and gaze at the dimensions of their scholar- ship, which rise before us like huge colossal structures, for their times, high and clear against the sky. No one of them had finer tastes and larger powers than Dr. Philip Buttmann : a native philologist and a noble Greek scholar, unsurpassed alike in philosophical insight and scholarly enthusiasm by any student in any land. His Greek Grammar and his Lexilogus are his principal works, and exhibit the best possible qualities of linguistic investigation. The advocates of mere classical philology now, are like an army that was once victorious, but has lost all its great leaders. Doderlein, one of the best repre- sentatives in Germany of the remnants of this school, still lives to look around him, Avith the loneliness of a man deserted by a generation that had no pride of its own to gratify in walking with him, and could not afford to gratify his pride in standing still and gazing with admiration upon him, while he walked majestically 18 262 HISTORY or modern philology. by himself. He has persistently refused to improve the light of the new philology, and has thereby exiled himself as a scholar from the generation with which he yet lives as a man. He has indeed fm-nished in his various works, in the mere isolated connections of Greek with Latin, a good deal of valuable material, which may be worked with care by other hands into a useful shape, by being re-adjusted and harmonized with the elements of a true and comprehensive etymology. His first great fault is the very fundamental conception of his whole plan, that of deriving the Latin immediately from the Greek, and his next great fault is his practical adoption of the Aristotelian system of squaring facts, with all possible ingenuity, to preconceived theories, instead of the Baconian system of first finding the facts and conforming his theory to them ; so that he con- stantly bends whatever is opposed to his views in the Greek, by force, into his service. But sm'ely and steadily the false light of a separate classical philology is fast waning away, under the brighter light of com- parative philology. Classical philology, in its true form, and of its true dimensions, when built on the foundations of comparative philology, is a science of vast and beautiful proportions, in which as in a mansion of light the highest minds can taiTy with joy and wonder ; but, built on any separate, exclusive basis of its own, its dimensions are all contracted, and its uses are meagre and pitiful. HISTORY or MODERN PHILOLOGY. 263 In its philosophical aspects, comparative philology bears a most commanding mien. Its generalizations, Uke those of the great philosophies, are unbounded in their scope, covering the whole field of human language. It has, like Christianity, out of whose hand it has flown forth among the nations, and like the great elements of nature and of life, the mark of its divine origin, in its adaptation to all times and ages, all languages and words. Comparative philology divides languages into two great classes, the old or primary, and the new or secondary. The primary are all arranged in a few family-groups, as the Indian, Graeco-Latin, Lettic, Sla- vonic, Gothic and Celtic ; while the secondary are the more recent languages derived from them, and usu- ally with many admixtures. Constant commingling, and thereby constant renovation, is the law of Provi- dence, in respect to tribes and races on the one hand, and correspondingly, by necessary result on the other, the law of language also ; which is but a vast pano- rama, in word-scenery, of the winding stream of a nation's history. The established limitations to the working of any contrary law are remarkable. Com- merce seems to be an absolute necessity to the world's progress, not only in business, but also in ideas and language, and even in blood. The secondary languages are classified according to their grammatical, instead of their lexical, resemblances. Thus, the English, though 264 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. SO largely Romanic in its constituent verbal elements, is yet, in its grammatical character, German. So, the New Persian, although full of Arabic words, is yet justly called Iranian and not Semitic, because of its inward Iranian structure. The amount of investigation made in comparative philology is, when contrasted with none at all, very large ; but, when contrasted with the whole area of aU languages, it is yet small. The languages of the civil- ized world are those that have been most explored, and those only in their main outlines, rather than in all their vast fulness of details. Each year is adding new discoveries to this recent, though great science ; and, though but partially developed, it is yet of gigantic proportions. The mighty intellects at work upon it, have made its foundations very large ; and yet at the same time, they have carried up its walls already to an unexpected height of grandeur. The principal results obtained by comparative phi- lology are the following : 1st. To invest the study of language with new charms. Language is now seen to be a vast store-house, full of treasures ; and many new and wide avenues to re- search are open within it. The study of language is not only made a higher study than ever before, but also entirely different : a study worthy of the greatest efforts of the greatest minds : the study of its inward structure HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 265 as an organic whole, and also of the origin, history, growth and elementary constitution of its separate words. The grammar and dictionary have now a new and high use : such an use as to an artistic eye, de- lighting in the logic of inward mutual adaptations, a steam engine has, as a piece of wondrous mechanism, compared with its uses to the unthinking traveller, for the mere object of locomotion. To the ignorant reader a dictionary seems but a vast mass of word-lumber ; but to a mind that knows the inward essences of things, it is an immense museum of the most interesting antiq- uities and curiosities. Here are historical memorials without number, and the coins of thought and love, that have passed current in myriad hands from one generation to another. And how is the silent past of language made, under the reviving touch of philology, all vocal of itself again. As from a vast seed-plot, once covered by many gener- ations of plants and trees, but now long barren, from want of the necessary outward conditions of growth : there has been from every language, on which the light and heat of comparative philology have been poured, a wondrous, universal outburst of its ancient, inward, long-concealed vitality. The monuments left by any nation, are indeed very scanty relics of the whole round orb of its active life ; but no monuments have been left in any part of the world, so determinate of their char- acter, so full of their spirit, and so enduring in contin- 266 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. uance, as hose of language. Language is in itself an impressible, elastic, ever yielding medium of social intercourse; but under the action of time its elements rapidly harden into fixed forms : retaining the impress of every thing stamped upon them, as, in the clear light of geology, we still find treasured in the rock forever the footprints of birds that walked centuries ago, on the yielding sands of the ancient world, and even the patter of rain-drops that poured their benediction upon the earth before man was here to receive it. In language, as in pure amber, the ideas, hopes, mistakes, experi- ences, follies, joys and sorrows of preceding generations are preserved, in clear, transparent beauty, for our constant appreciation and enlightenment. The study of language rises, under the light of true philology, like all high philosophy, into the very charms of poetry. 2d. To resolve many supposed grammatical ir- regularities, in different languages, into really regular forms. Thus, for example, we learn that in Latin, the per- fect tense has normally four different modes of forma- tion, as 1st. By reduplication, which we find (1) in the first conjugation, as in steti and dedi, from sto and do ; (2) in the second, as in momordi and spopondi, from mordeo and spondeo ; (3) in the third, as in cecidi and tetendi, from cado and tendo ; and each of these verbs is entirely regular in the formation of its perfect, as much as Ivco or yQcccfco in their perfects laXvxa and HISTORY or MODERN PHILOLOGY. 267 y'syQacfcc. 2d. By the addition of s, as in the Greek aoi'ist, active and middle : the Latin perfect being in its use an aorist as well as a perfect. The perfect in s we find (1) in the second conjugation, as in arsi, auxi, haesi and risi, from ardeo, augeo, haereo and rideo ; (2) in the third, as in scripsi and rexi, from scribo and rego; (3) in the fourth, as in hausi, sanxi, sensi, vinxi, from haurio, sancio, sentio, vincio ; and these are all equally regular, although in our manuals of grammar all called irregular. 3d. By the aid of the auxiliary verb fui, sometimes hardened into vi, and sometimes softened into ui. Thus, (1) amavi is for amafui : the stem of amare being ama and not am, as erroneously stated in all school-manuals ; (2) so monui is for mone- fui, (3) In the third conjugation we find this same auxiliary perfect, as in cupivi, lacessivi, petivi, quaesivi, trjvi, from cupio, lacesso, peto, quaero, (for quaeso,) and tero. (4) In the fourth conjugation this is the prevailing form of the perfect, so that the mode of forming the perfect by the aid of auxiliaries, is not, as sometimes stated, a mere modern system of conjuga- tion. In each, also, of the several conjugations, this style of perfect is as regular as in every other j and the perfect of petivi, from petere, is as normal as amavi from amare. 4th. By contracted forms of the pre- ceding styles of the perfect : as (I) of reduplicated per- fects in egi for e-agi, feci for fe-fici, veni for ve-veni, fugi for fufugi, legi for lelegi : (2) of perfects in s, as fidi 268 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. (pert', of fmdo) for iidsi, and scidi (perf. of sciiido) for scidsi. Here, indeed, we have irregularities, but of a very simple, intelligible kind. And so in Greek the analysis of forms in ao is beautiful, as an euphonic sym- bol for yi, y.L, /i, TL in various forms : as ruoaco for TuyiG), /^ccQiiOOa ioiv /jiQitvnu and rjaocov for rjxiMv. In a similar way supposed exceptions and irregu- larities in prosody are at once eclaircized by compara- tive etymology, as regular in fact although not in ap- pearance. 3d. To show us that, of all the perishable things of this world, language is the least perishable. Here is a monument of national life, that not only outlives the nation itself, but also all its structures of art or enter- prise. A language may be put to new uses and be borne to new climes; it may encounter, again and again, the shock of opposing arms, amid the terrors of invasion or of conquest ; it may be beaten and bruised by the changes of time ; and yet, while its surface is thus broken and worn, like that of a rock which fell ages ago from the bosom of some cliff into the arms of old Ocean, and Avhich he has been ever since tossing about as a plaything, its substance itself remains un- changed. Its texture and color and hardness gtill indi- cate its first parentage and place. 4th. To show us, that the great law of analogy, pervading the whole outward creation, prevails also throughout the department of language : the law of HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 269 perpetual unity in perpetual variety. All true ideas of perfection of form and of detail terminate in the con- ception of a grand unity. God himself may be defined as Infinite Fulness of all things great and good re- alized and impersonated in one, grand, glorious Being. 5th. To show us that each language, while specially endowed for its own wants and uses, has yet the divine stamp upon it of general utility, and of a large adapta- tion to relations and harmonies and benefits beyond itself. Comparative philology combines all the languages, which it resolves, into a grand mutually-sustained har- mony of dependence and service one to the other. It represents them, not, as each a separate musician play- ing among others a diff"erent melody in horrible dis- cord ; but rather, as standing up together like a band of brothers in full orchestra, with their difi'erent instru- ments, to join their notes together in one loud-swellhig universal chorus. 6th. To pour new light on the history of nations. The migrations of nations into different zones and into scenes of a different aspect and influence, from time to time, have their history fully written, in their stature, figure, features and whole physical conformation : as every tree contains, in the shape of its boughs and stems and in the amount of its flowers and fruits, a record of every breath of wind, and of every drop of rain, and of every beam of light that ever have visited 270 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. it. Our dull, coarse eyesight, wliicli receives only the outermost disclosure that things around us make of themselves, is not able to traverse this multiform record of the past, in any thing ; but yet every thing contains it. Each present object vv^ithin our view, is the pro- duct of millions on millions of minute agencies, ever active in the past, interlacing each other with their in- fluence, changing constantly from one form into another, and terminating in their present use and value, in the transient demonstration of themselves that they make at each moment to their casual beholder. In the languages of the world, however, all its changes, even those too slight for the pen of history to sketch or its eye to see, are stamped, according to their precise value, beyond the danger of erasure. Time it- self rolls the wheel of centuries, no matter hoAV heavily, over the faithful record, but in vain. The history of each civilized nation has been often written and will be often written again ; and so rapid is the progress of modern society, that each generation demands a new history for itself of all the leading nations of the world. So great have been the improvements made from time to time, that the model histories of preceding genera- tions have come to be quite antiquated and to be valued now, rather for the special style of the philosophic or religious views expressed in them, or the high rhetorical beauty of their composition, than for their adequate representation of the people themselves whom they de- HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY, 271 scribe. Historic writing indeed has evinced as nmcli growth, diuing the preceding century and the present ahke, not only in pubhc interest but also in its own triumphs of research and discovery, as any other de- partment of human genius. Ethnography cannot be written truly, except in the light of thorough philological inquiry. Much of our supposed knowledge of the earlier nations of the world and of the changes that passed over them, has been le- gendary : derived it is true from ancient sources, but of no better value for that reason than title-deeds wdiich, although they have come down through a suc- cession of men acting honestly in their transmission, were yet themselves at the outset invalid and worthless. A chain that has one imperfect link in it, is no stronger throughout than in the spot of its greatest weakness. And, as the history of Nineveh has recently been disentombed out of the mounds of earth that had before concealed it from the eyes of the world, and the history of Egypt has been first opened in our day, with any ful- ness, from the records hidden within its own monu- ments ; so, in the hitherto unexplored crypts and recesses of different languages, lie entombed the memo- rials of the w^orld's slow marches and solemn changes; and, as the philologist has the high office of interpret- ing the voice of God, in the Holy Scriptures, to the world, so, is it his grand function to interpret man to himself, and to unroll at his feet the scroll of the past 272 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. as it has actually been rolled up together in the gradual development of human life and action. Philology supplies also to some extent the want of ante-historic records, and that too often with quite pic- torial effect. Who would not delight to look within that shadowy dawn of humanity, on which no light from the hand of man has ever fallen, and to know well our race, in all the noAV unknown steps of its progress. But the first life both outw^ardly and inw^ardly of our original Arian ancestors, is painted to us clearly in word-colors* still fresh and strong of every varied hue. * There is in Weber's Indische Skizzen a brief but lively picture, of the earliest unwritten history of the Indo-European family : drawn out of their words themselves, like the pictures made by geologists from the fossil records of the earth, of the flora and fauna of the world before man entered upon it. " Let us try he says ^pp. 9 — 10), to present in a few touches a sketch of that primitive period. The common prevalence of most of the words for relationship, shows that f;imily-life among our first ancestors, had a very definite position. The same ex- pressions reappear, not only in reference to parents and children and brothers and sisters, but also to relatives in law as well as those by blood, in almost all the Indo-European tongues. The etymology of roots still living in the Sanskrit, teaches us that father, means a pro- tector ; mother, one who sets in order ; brother a helper ; sister the careful one ; and daughter one who milks : in which we sec the most simple patriarchal relations indicated. The prevailing use of domestic animals is shown, by the common names of the cow (the slow-march- ing) of the ox (the producing one) of the bvill, the goat the sheep the sow (the prolific) the horse, &c. The dog (the swift) defended the herds : the wolf (tearing to pieces) and the bear (shining, from his fur) w(!re their terror. Tiie mouse (the thief) stole their provisions ; the horse-fly buzzed about, the gnat stung, the snake crept. Goose, duck, dove, woodpecker, cuckoo, finch, chattered and sang, and the cock crowed. The light hare sprang before them, and the boar rooted in the HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. 273 Their deepest thonglits and experiences lie spread out before us, in the inner sense of their speech, as in a full bright landscape. It is surely pleasant, to be able to look back in any way, and see them distinctly in the distant, dark, historic solitude of their first experiences of life, and find that they had the same human hearts dirt. The house was firm, provided with doors. Wagons and boats served for their passage over fields and floods. The fields were tilled with the plough : barley and wheat furnished them meal and bread. Clothes, utensils and arms they had in abundance. Sword, spear, knife and arrow were all of brass. Intoxicating mead led the way to merry song, while large shells and reeds served for music. Conflict was a pleasure, and the sense of race was so strong that the word barbarian (stammering) was used indeed in that primeval time, to indicate other people of foreign speech. A subdued enemy was a slave. At the head of the many stood a ruler, defender or master, the leader in battle and the judge in peace. The country was mountainous and abounded in water. The forest furnished refreshing coolness: the oak was its principal ornament. The winter seems to have been severe; besides its name returns now still, that of the spring (clothing again). The sun was worshipped as the principle of life and praises were sung to the shining dawn of day : the moon served as the measure of time. The stars were regarded as ray -archers. The great bear whose Greek name apKTos pi-operly signifies only " the shining one " shone forth conspicuously among them. Thunder, lightning, storm, rain, cloud and wind sent terror and fear into the timid heart. The all-embracing Heaven whose Greek name ovpavos reappears in the Vedic Varuna, was regarded as the father of all and the earth as the universal mother. The dark cloud-god, who plundered in his ravines the golden flock of the stars and sunbeams and the fertilizing rains of Heaven, was pros- trated by the arrows of the god of lightning : his bands were torn in pieces and the plundered herd were set free. The mighty incompre- hensible powers of Natui-e awakened in man, the sense of his weakness ; and he bowed liis head in recognition of the same, offered to them his sacrifices and his songs, and represented them to himself in gracious or in dire terrific forms, as he clothed them in his fancy with the physical 274 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOLOGY. that we have, with the same joys and fears and sorrows as our own. Thanks to Philology, for the clear tele- scopic view which it furnishes us, of the otherwise un- sketched and invisible space, that stretches huge and dark beyond the misty outline of the first historic eras of our race. aspects, that environed him. To this dawn of Time belong the repre- sentations also of a Manu, the first man and father, and of a great flood which devastated and devoured every thing, and from which he alone was saved. Both of these traditions we find also among the Semitic family; and they are to be regarded, among other lingual facts, as proof that the Semitic and Indo-European families were at a still earlier period united in one, from which state they afterwards sepa- rated, before however the two common languages had arrived at any grammatical precision of form." III. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. III. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. The very caption of this Article will astonish some and amuse others, who have been in the habit of regarding etymology as a mere mass of vagaries. That it has any such scope as to deserve the dignified name of a science, or any such interior frame-work of principles as to possess its essential nature, is quite beyond the general estimate of its character. In this country, indeed, and in England as also in Prance and every- where but in Germany, both vernacular and classical etymology are in the same rude, unmethodized state of first and partial discovery, in which chemistry and geology existed half a centuiy ago. What facts are seen and appreciated appear to most even of their admirers, but as isolated novelties and wonders, and have none of the charm or power of a splendid combi- nation, of comprehensive and complicated afiinities and relations. Our modern languages are all derived from those of elder ages ; and these are found when subjected to 19 278 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. thorough analysis, to have been derived, in their turn, from those anterior to them ; while on a wide and critical survey, all the tongues of the civilized world appear full of multitudinous correspondences and con- nections. The object of this Essay will be realized, if the following topics connected with the science of etymol- ogy, are presented in sufficient outline : I. The general proportions and relations of the subject. II. The history of classical and vernacular etymology. III. The constituent elements of etymology as a science. IV. Its determinative princiiDles and tests. V. Some of the advantages of the study of this science. I. The general proportions and relations of the subject. It has been often said, and truly, that the study of the Latin has a value in it in its mere relations to our language, sufficient to authorize for this reason without reference to many others also, the most zealous attention to its claims. But how can any deep scholarly insight into its relations to the English be gained, except in the light of a broad and complete classical etymology, which shall present the Latin truly in all its manifold connections, not only with succeeding languages, but also with those which were antecedent and contempo- rary ? This ancient language must be seen in order to be rightly seen, wliile clothed in its own armor and bearing its own banners, not only leading other Ian- THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 279 guages majestically in its train but also moving in solemn and sublime raarcli along the highway of ages, with the great peoples and languages that anticipated and accompanied its glory and its doom. On account of the artistic treasures of the Greek language, and the fine, sesthetical influence of its higher literature upon those elect spirits who walk familiarly amid its Alpine wonders : an influence of which most American students of Greek, who are but dabblers in this tongue of the giants, have only heard by tradition, having never had a sensation of it themselves : it has come to be quite fashionable in the scholastic world, to speak of that noble language in terms quite disparaging, at the same time, to the Latin. And our classical students gener- ally have fallen, under the influence of this sort of per- petuated pedantry, into an almost universal habit of placing the Latin in contemptuous contrast with the Greek. Pew see even that it has any large connection with the Greek ; and few of those who have grasped that great fact comprehend, from the want of a wide philological view of the three classical languages in their mutual relations, the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, what that connection is. But while its correspondences with the Greek cover a vast array of details, and many of them when disclosed become immediately apparent to the eye, many more become delightfully clear to one, who, by applying the chemic tests of phonology, knows how to reduce at once both simple and comparative 280 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. forms to their original analytical elements. The Latin and the Greek are cognate languages, being of one common Pelasgic or Grseco-Latin origin, and as such greatly illustrative of each other ; while, placed together like associated mirrors, they reflect with strange exact- ness and fulness of effect the earlier Sanskrit, which is itself also a derived language, exhibiting not at all the ultimate origin of our present languages, but rather the farthest link backwards yet discovered in the chain of ascending relations and affinities. That chain of suc- cessive origination and derivation of all known languages runs backward from the centuries and countries of modem times, through one language and people after another more and more perfect in its texture as it rises, until it ends ultimately in that lost mother-tongue which Adam spoke in Eden ; and which, as a matter of moral evidence, it is absolutely certain that he learned directly from God himself, since each man and generation succeeding him has learned to speak only from those who have preceded them. As in the material world man creates nothing, and only moulds and transforms substances and shapes abeady at hand, so, in the world of language he only re-casts and trans- mutes the materials furnished liim by an earlier age. The same race bearing off the same original elements of speech in divided companies into different climates, amid diversified scenes and skies and modes of life, will as certainly change and conform them, though in- THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 281 sensibly, to the new atmospheres of their new hfe each for itself ; as that same race, departing into different zones, will erelong take on in each a different com- plexion, stature, and physiognomy, choose different food, employments, and dress, and adopt also different dwellings, institutions, and customs.* Nothing is found in the realms of speech any more than in those of nature, " without father or mother." Here, as everywhere else, the maxim is true, " ex nihilo nihil fit." The languages, therefore, of the world, like the men who have spoken them, have all been bound together by a regular series of sequences, running link by link in luminous beauty from any and every language now spoken upon earth, to the first language in which listening angels heard Adam and Eve discourse to each other ; and from that back to God himself, the great All-in-all, from whose own gii'dle the golden chain of human speech divine was dropped lovingly down to man, in order to bind him to hnnself and all nations in heavenly sympathy with each other. As for the Latin, whose connection with the Greek and Sanskrit has thus suggested and required the farther and wider statement of the connection of all languages with each other, it has excellences and * In Prichard's Natural History of Man, the curious reader will be interested to trace the different aspects and characteristics of the Jews, in different parts of the world, and even of Hinddstan alone, although everywhere living, in vaunted seclusion of blood from other people, as to their figure, countenance, color and whole physique. 283 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. advantages of its own ; which, while they set the seal of its peculiar individuality upon it, demonstrate its capability to supply the varied wants of human speech to be broad and deep. It will be the quick, decided testimony of any one who has studied it for many years, having surveyed its dimensions on every side, having sounded all its depths and scaled its various heights, and scanned alike its inward treasures and its outward relations, that in respect to the history of its influence as much as to that of its origin, and in respect to its own iron-like stability and the stability, force and dignity which it has imparted to the different languages into whose bosom it has poured the current of its own living strength, it is full of wonders. Not only is no one study in the whole current of educational appli- ances equal to it, for all the purposes of mental and scholastic drill ; but also, as a matter of actual fact, the great mass of all the linguistic culture, and of all the many rich results of the higher classical education of the whole civilized world, has been obtained from this source, in all ages. The Latin is thus distinctly dwelt upon at the outset and at length, because its position in the science of etymology is very high and altogether peculiar. And it is one of the first duties as well as one of the first instincts of an amateur of classical or vernacular etymology, to vindicate the Latin from the false ideas and estimates that prevail without thought concerning it in the community. The Latin is central THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 283 in its position and bearings, between the first known languages and those now existing. In it they find their mutual bond of connection. No language upon earth has in it so much of what is old, at the same time with so much of what is new. But for the Latin and the Greek, the Sanskrit, that wonderful fossil lan- guage in whose extinct remains we find the types of all the subsequent Indo-European languages, would be well nigh devoid of interest to us ; and but for the Latin, the modern languages would, all at least but the Gothic branch and that much more largely than most suppose, be tangled etymologically in a web of inextri- cable confusion. As, on Acro-Corinthus the classical scholar might stand and look down with swimming eyes upon the Saronic gulf to the eastward, wdiere Athens still glitters in her beauty, and upon the Corinthian gulf to the westward, and see beyond its waters Parnassus, sacred to the Muses, with its snow- white crown, having the fountain of Castalia in its bosom and the oracle of Delphi at its feet : so, standing on the heights of the Latin language, as on a tall isth- mus rising between two oceans, the far-off Past and the Present, we can look before us and see the waves of the elder ages as they bear on their bosom the wonders of India, Persia, and Greece, roll and break at our feet ; or, turn and behold behind us the vast expanse of the future covered with the riches of all nations, retiring in the far-off horizon from the view, until sky and sea 284 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY, mingling together conceal it in their own indistinguish- able confusion. Here is the high, true position for a complete survey of the facts of comparative etymology. From it, with a clear glass, the indistinct and mysterious forms of words are resolved in every direction into well- defined elements of vision. And as mountain ranges are precipitous on one side, while on the other, like weary camels, they couch down gradually into the vales below, so the farther side of the Latin, its archaic Sanskrit side, presents a bold, sharp outline from its summit to its base ; while its hither Romanic side sub- sides in every variety of slope and sweep and angle and curve so gently into the modern languages of our times, that it is almost hard to say where it ceases to be Latin and where it begins to be something else. But in no language is the area of etymological re- search so wide, and covered with such untold riches, as in our own language. He who would gather up the treasures of English etymology must make his garners large; for the harvest spreads over many fields and many centuries. Not only our own indigenous growths are in it, but exotics also from every clime and eveiy age in measureless abundance. As in no nation there has been such a commingling of all affinities of blood, so also in no language has there been such a mixture of all etymologies as in the English ; and as under the power of ancient Rome all nations soon became Avoven into one common web with her, of fortune and of fate. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 285 SO, under the absorbing and assimilating energies of the Enghsh mind and tongue, the wealth of thought and of speech contributed by all nations has been incorpo- rated into the greatness of our mother-tongue. The sentiments, experiences and utterances of every age and of every zone, belonging to the whole wide circumfer- ence of the earth and to the whole mountain-range of human development, from the lowest to the highest point, are in it and in the very forms in which, at the time, they burst spontaneously into view. Into the English, as into the bosom of a great central sea, all the streams of the past and present have poured and are still pouring their varied contents. " Every language," says Richter, " is a dictionary of faded metaphors." Our languages in their present state, as known to the inner consciousness of those who use them, are but herbariums in which lie pressed and preserved, but unappreciated, the dry forms of words that once were green with life and beauty, and as now handled are but the relics of their former selves. As used by the ancients, to whom they were vernacidar, the dead languages : as with very ironical propriety they are often called by those who thus speak of them, since in all their inner beauties as well as in all their outward scientific relations, they are so opaque and dead to them : were full, in whatever light they saw them, of ever-changing, opaline brilliancy. " Apples of gold in pictm-es of silver" were those dear old 286 THE SCIENCE OP ETYMOLOGY. "words fitly spoken," to their interior sense; yea rather gems which had been dropped to their con- sciousness from a mother's hand into theirs, and which seemed in their very brightness to reflect forever that mother's smile. And to the student now who compre- hends the power of words, to whom they are transpa- rent, revealing all their inmost essence to his linger- ing gaze, their lost light returns again, and language is evermore living and lovely. Each lettered page is to him a mass of shining wonders, a tree of Eden, loaded with blossoms clustering upon blossoms, on boughs bending and Avaving with the precious weight. Lan- guage is to his eye one vast redundant flora, fuU of the glitter of leaves, the scent of flowers, and the lus- ciousness of celestial fruitage. Each language, but most of all for our benefit our own language and those great languages, the Greek and Latin, with which it is so intimately connected, need to be elaborated, and to have all their inward treasures brought forth into clear view : in order that language, as such, the greatest of all the arts of life, may be truly comprehended by each succeeding generation of edu- cated men, and employed by them according to all its deep, real capabilities, in the divine contact of mind with mind, and the still diviner labor of mind for mind. As the body is the temple of the soul and should be full, as it is, of strange adaptations to the wonderful sensi- bilities and energies of its innnortal inhabitant ; so, Ian- THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 287 guage is the temple of tliouglit and love, the only exer- cises that ally earth to heaven, and man to God, and is full of all beauteous adaptations and uses which deserve to be searched and seen, as the divinely-constructed organ of communication between finite minds on the one hand, and also between mankind and the God that made them, on the other, 11. The history of classical and vernacular ety- mology. This fully rendered, would involve a complete his- tory of classical and comparative philology. But as the details of such a history have a special character of their own, and are presented in the preceding essay, it will be sufficient here to sketch its general philosophical outline. There have been three different stao-es in its development : 1. That of its popular empirical treatment, 2. That of its literary empirical treatment, 3. That of its true scientific treatment, under the exact laws of modern philology. The etymological instinct is very common in all nations, among the thinking classes. It is as natural and pleasant for those who reason at all, to think about the origin and connection of words, as about relation and dependence, antecedents and consequents, cause and effect, in any other direction. There is full scope here for the play of all those faculties that demand ad- venture and enjoy invention. The ancients were quite 288 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. addicted to this popular, random style of etymologizing, as is manifest in mucli of their mythology, their early traditionary history,* and their poetical legends. Ety- mology in this period of its development leads of course but a vagrant life, and neither receives nor deserves * Thus the names Romulus and Remus from piifirj strength, (Cf. Roma) and Numa from vofj-os, law, are but beautiful etymological hieroglyphs, in legendary not exact historj% of the first reign of physical force in Rome, and of the subsequent establishment of law and order, among the people. So also the story of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, from the name of the nurse Lupa ; that of the low origin of Servius Tullius, from the resemblance of Servius to Servus ; that of Brutus (brutus, stupid), reserving himself under a mask of pretended idiocy, for the crisis that was to come ; that of iMutius Scaevola (from scaevus, left-handed), calmly burning off his right hand before Porsena, and that of Valerius Corvus, on whose helmet a crow lighted, and, flying in the fiice of the opposing Gaul, made him an easy prey to his sword, from corvus. a crow, with other stories like them originated merely in an etymological wa3^ So also the conception of the one-eyed Cyclops, hideous and huge (from kvk\(o, in a circle, and &^, the ej'e), was born in the brain of some ancient etymologist, as was that of the Harpies (fem. pi. of afjuvms, and moaning lit. the seizors), a name used originally to describe violent winds, blowing off the coast of the Ionian Sea, as their names also show, Podarge (swift-footed), Aello (whirler) and Ocypete (flying rapidly), daughters of Thaumas (wonder) and Electra (the lightning) ; and the details of the Greek theogon}^ were of the same source, as of Uranus, Ge, Chronus, the Titans, &c. One of the best examples in modern times of this etymo- logical way of writing history, that yet never actually transpired, occurs in those writers, and there are several of them, who have from Richard's title, Coeur de Lion, invented a story that he really slew a lion in single combat and so recorded a fable of their own devising, as a veri- table reality. '• The name." says Buckle (Hist. Civilization, England, vol. i. p. 218), '• gave rise to the storj^ ; the story confirmed the name ; and another fiction was added to that long series of falsehoods, of which history mainly consisted during the Jliddle Ages." THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 289 much respect. It may be found in this form now in many a rural district, making its home at the house of the town-wit, the country-doctor or the village-peda- gogue.* Nothing is aimed at in this style of etymolo- gizing beyond the excitement of others' curiosity, or the show of a little learning or of a little wit ; and it is subjectively but the indulgence of some momentary, frivolous or selfish impulse, out of which nothing great or good was ever born ; while, objectively, it has no basis for its support, but mere shadowy empirical coinci- dences. * In such a brain etymologies like the following will be spon- taneously born, and held in high honor as its own children : catch from cat, ravenous from raven, rat from rapto, fudge from fiigio. So' similarly such empirics would be sure that Jove comes from Je- hovah ; German from germanus ; dine (Fr. diner, Lat. dc-coenare) from Seinveiv ; cover (Fr. couvrir, Lat. cooperire)from the Hebrew -isa kaphar ; and in German auge, the eye, from Gr. aiyrj, a word certainly very much like it by accident. The argument for each and all of these cases is one and the same, and it is this : why not ? In some cases sup- posed etymologies have sufficed to alter the spelling of words, as in the word surname (supra-nomen, so called because originally written directly over the Christian name) which has been altered by many to sir-name ; and so postumous (Lat. postumus) has been altered by a false theory to posthumous (as if derived from post-|-humus). In the phrases "you had better;" '• you had rather," instances of the same sort occur, involving even a grammatical absurdity. The original forms " you would better " or " would rather " became shortened in common parlance into you'd better, or you'd rather, and then v/ere afterwards, it seems, drawn out, by a foolish and utterly uugram- matical analysis of the contracted form into " had rather " and " had better ; " which nearly every even educated man now says, in careful composition as well as in conversation, although this intrusive verb " had " can by no possibility be parsed by any one. 290 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. In the second phase of its existence, that of hter- ary empiricism, its nature is no higher than in the first, but only its position. It no longer wanders about unwritten from mouth to mouth, but has a fixed habitation upon the lettered page. It has -passed witli favor or indulgence the ordeal of deliberate scrutiny, and been exalted on account of its supposed worthiness to an intended seat of high and permanent honor. Such etymologies, lexicographers and others glean some- times with great care from standard authors ; but they are all empirical in their own nature, and worthless. Science has foundations of its own Avhich are divine, and its character can neither be made nor unmade by those who describe it. Truth is still truth, however it is overlooked, and error cannot be sanctified by being ex- alted into a high position, or by being worshipped by a crowd of false admirers. In this meagre, false, em- jDirical state, classical etymology has wholly existed un- til of late, and in fact exists almost wholly now. Mere orthographical or orthoepical resemblances suffice among empirics, to introduce, without farther philological in- quiry, any word into their magic circle of approved guesses and fancies. A radical difference of meaning in the case is as readily disposed of by them, as was any antithesis of fact and theor}'' by the ancient philosophers ; since they are utterly ignorant of that elementary doctrine of all true philology, that every word has a fundamental theme or base which deter- THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 291 mines absolutely its personal identity ; and since like phrenologists they have a system of ideas, every one of which has a double polarity in it, by which it can he accommodated to any position or motion desired. The celebrated etymology of " lucus," a grove, " a ?io7i lu- cendo," from its not having any light, illustrates the ease with which such minds can weave positive and nega- tive ideas together, into the meshes of their theories. The first step taken in classical etymology was of this simple empirical kind. The second step forward in Latin etymology was taken so feebly, as to be rather the manifestation of a desire for progression, though in quite blind unconsciousness where or how to make it : that of introducing on a very hmited scale some simple Greek correspondences, and in a very cautious manner and one not involving any idea of their mutual relation. From this advance was realized only the slender ad- vantage of informing such minds, as had not before ob- served the wide and wonderful plexus of unities and analogies covering both languages, that they had had at some time a blended life ' and a strong, mutually penetrative influence on each other. The third step was one entirely false in its whole theory, and in all the re- sults achieved under it : that of deriving the Latin im- mediately from the Greek. This was the prevailing conception of the relation of the two languages at the beginning of this century, among the best scholars." * Ludwig Ross, an extensive traveller in Greece and Asia Minor, 292 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. As for lexicography it is in our best Latin, Greek, and English dictionaries, far behind the present advanced state of philology. The etymologies to be found, at this moment, in the leading classical dictionaries- of this but a far better observer of men than student of words, has undertaken in a formal treatise entitled, " Italiker und Graken. Sprachen die Rcimer Sanskrit oder Griechisch," not only to revive the idea of the direct Greek origin of the Latin, but also to establish it as a fixed fact, upon an adequate scientific basis. He exhibits a large number, and this is all, of real correspondences between the two languages, which every San- skrit philologer is equally eager to make good. Any amount of such resemblances does not however exclude an equal number, of even higher value (because so much more remote and, previously, so unan- ticipated) in the Sanskrit. Many that he quotes as existing between the Greek and Latin are ridiculous enough, as bellum and noXfuoi : multus and ttoXvs : frons and (jip^jv : pars and fiepos : vates and ndin-is : virago and virgo with fxelpa^ : juvenis and dioyevqs-: litera and bicjidepa: famulus and daXapos : finis and dls: verto and Tpenoi : altus and alnvs : bonus and evs : pulcher and ptXixpos : caedo and Trai'w : quatio and KOTTTco : Kpt((x} and rideo. His chief outlay of feeling against the modern school of philologists, is directed against Mommsen, whom he represents as '• almost the Oracle of the younger community (in Germany) whose crowned opinions are adopted, though unsubstantiated and undemonstrated, by thousands." He takes indeed his own key-note, from one of ^lommsen's statements to this effect, that " the old opinion, that the Latin is but a mixed language composed of Greek and un-Greek elements, is now abandoned on all sides ; and that, while some still regard it as a mix- ture of two nearly allied Italian dialects, one must needs ask in vain, for any philological or historical necessity for such a supposition." But he complains, " that so profound a philosopher, on the later political and juridical relations and circumstances of the Romans and their later lan- guage and literature, should have treated in a way of such unworthy trifling the ethnographic relations of the Latins and of the people of Middle and Southern Italy, as shows that he did not consider it worth the while, to make any earnest investigations on the subject." His niE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 293 country, are almost wholly those which are self-evident ; while the small remainder is composed of mere guesses, derived from no philosophical principles, and suggesting none. Beyond this narrow range of etymological simpli- cities and novelties, the rest of the language stretches out before the lexicographer's eye, and under his influence be- fore that of the student also, as a broad waste of unknown land. A true map, indeed, of the present state of classical etymology, as presented in our best dictionaries, would be as comical to one at all acquainted with Indo-Eu- ropean philology, as a Chinese map of the world to one versed in geography. It would be a map of every thing as it is not, and of nothing as it is. Preund represents the best development of Latin lexicography hitherto accessible to American scholars : Passow, as improved by Host and others, that of Greek ; and Web- ster, that of English. These all performed great labors and achieved great results ; and their names will ever stand high on the list of man's benefactors. But on none of them had the splendid orb of modern philology risen in its strength. It was in 1833 that Bopp began to pubKsh that great work, his Comparative Grammar, which in the department of language like Bacon's Novum Organon in that of physical science, lighted the own position is that " over all Middle and Southern Italy only one great family-tongue prevailed, the Greek ; and that Latins and Vol- seians, Sabines and Oscans, Messapians and lapygians spoke only de- generate Greek, and that even in the Tuscan there are, at all events, Greek admixtures. 20 294 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. world on the way to a new era. And yet Preund, whose eyes actually beheld the rising dawn of compara- tive philology, the only one of the three lexicographers mentioned whose feet stood consciously upon the mar- gin of the new order of linguistic researches and re- sults, was in the midst of his long labors, at this very time, and, in January, 1834, wrote in his preface the following words : " The question of the origin of the Latin language is beginning to be far more involved than many are willing to believe. Germanism is op- posing the Sanskrit with powerful weapons, and urges its claims to be the origin of Latin. The author there- fore feels that he would be called overhasty, if he al- lowed the Sanskrit or the German element to have the predominance in his work." In the light of the present hour, how strange even to ridiculousness seems this language. It is by such strong high waymarks stand- ing up in the past, that we can best realize how great progress has been made during the last quarter of a century, as in every thing else so also in the elements and processes of classical study. To dress, now, Latin lexicography in the etymology of Ereund's day, when such a man as he thought that it was quite as likely as not that the Latin was but a child of the German that had been lost in other days, but was now found again, would be like undertaking to parade a full-grown man of our times, in the clothes of some petty underling that lived half a century ago. Our lexical Latin etymology THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 295 wears, therefore, to one whose eye is open to the charms and claims of Indo-European philology, the most grotesque Lilliputian dimensions : casting the reproach of its dwarfishness and deformity upon the whole as- pect of the lexicography into which it is intnxluced. In Prcund's day Doderlcin's star was in the ascendant, in etymology, who published his " Lateinischc Syno- nyme and Etymologieen" in 1826. He derived the Latin immediately from the Greek, so far as he could either find or devise any similarity between them. And many and great were the tortuosities of his inventive genius in working its way through such a labyrinthine experiment. The Latin and the Greek are twin sisters, the Latin being the more antique in its features and bearing of the two, and having in its form and face and character much more resemblance to their elder sister, the Sanskrit, and so to the common parent of them all, than the Greek. Of what greater absurdity, therefore, could an etymologist be guilty, than that of undertaking to represent the Latin as the daughter of the Greek, its twin sister ? With nmch labor in so false a direc- tion, Doderlein has succeeded in building up, in his various works, a vast pile of learned and ingenious but false and worthless novelties and blunders ; a remark- able specimen of a patient, vigorous, enthusiastic scholar, industriously misspending all his days. There has been great elaboration in the argument of his life, but it has been developed, throughout, from entirely wrong prem- 296 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. ises. Through Freund's deference to his false views, he has been permitted to perpetuate the Wight of his errors, through this generation and perhaps through another, upon the scholarship of other lands than his own, where the light of better minds has sufficed to su- persede forever the false glare of his philological mis- conceptions. To Freund* we must give, however, the credit of having uttered his deep sense of the want of a true etymology. He says, that " a scientific exhibition of the genealogy of words is needed, but hithei-to [1833] has not been formed into a separate department of the general science of language, as it ought to be. In time there must and will, without doubt, be found a genealogy of words, which shall take its place as a science by the side of lexicography." But in the few correspondences of the Latin with the Greek which Freund ventured to indi- cate, how narrow was the prospect that he opened of their really wide and wonderful relations ! And what an utter w^ant of any system for its facts, and of any solution for its difficulties. In this period of well-nigh universal darkness in philology, but twenty-five years ago, the field of classical etymology was a favorite * While Freund is so deficient in all true etymological relations, he is much to be commended for the simple, clear, critical and condensed character of most of his researches and statements in other respects, and yet his ideal was throughout above his attainments. His dis- crimination of words as ante-classical, classical and post-classical, is especially one of the highest benefits that could be conferred on young composers in Latin. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 297 hunting ground for every sort of linguistic vagary, by all kinds of scliolastic pretenders, who kept ever doubling again and again upon their own tracks, and ended all their toils only in making game of themselves to every intelligent beholder. Many, like Doderlein, derived the Latin from the Greek. Schwenck pub- lished in 1827 an Etymological Latin Dictionary in German, deriving the Latin from the Greek, for the most part; but sometimes also from the German. But, while its references to the Greek are somewhat copious, they have no scientific basis and are all em- pirical, and many of them far-fetched and false. Valpy also published in English a Latin Etymological Dic- tionary, in the same spirit and with the same faults as Schwenck. " It will be said," he says, " that there are numerous words which we cannot show to be taken from the Greek. Doubtless it is so, although the num- ber of such words is constantly decreasing." Eor works based on such fundamentally wrong ideas, both of these dictionaries possess much scholarly merit. Others, like Jakel, in his " Germanische Ursprung Der Lateinischen Sprache" (in 1830), undertook, like one hunting for eggs among ashes, to find the origin of the Latin in the old Gothic ; others still, like the great Gesenius, connected it, very largely, with the Hebrew. Nork, accordingly, prepared a Latin dictionary on this basis ; and to one whose philological views are broad enough to enable him to appreciate the real quality of 298 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. tlie book, it is full of all humorous elements. A brief quotation will show, at once, his position. He says [1827], " the relationship of the Hebrew with the Greek and Latin cannot be denied, for the following reasons, namely : because the Tuscans, like the Cartha- ginians, claimed derivation from the inhabitants of Tyre ; and also the Hebrews, the neighbors of the Phoenicians, like the Greeks, had constructed their lan- guage out of Egyptian elements, while the Egyptians themselves, but colonists from Meroe, had been with the Ethiopians emigrants from India ; and hence their agreement in language, culture, and philosophy. Hence it comes that almost all the names of the Greek and Tuscan gods can be deciphered only through the Hebrew (as Dido,* Hecate, Minerva, Venus, etc.). But also other words in those languages have rewarded the search for their origin, only when made in the Hebrew, as ^aXxos, brass, from p'^n {chalalc) to divide ; XQvoo;, gold, from 7"]n {charats),\ to dig out, a name which, applying to every metal, came to be affixed, j^j^^r excellence, to gold. So also the root of capio, to take, is found in P]? {cajpli), the hand ; as of cupio, to desire, in ri^^ (^guplt), the body, and hence desire," etc. AVhal a mass of misstatements and misconceptions ! Is it any wonder, that such a book never saw a second edition, or that its author warned his readers to be * Of what god is this the name ? t Tliis verb means to cut into or on. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 299 careful not to belong to a class who had sworn to any previous master ? On principles like these one might derive any language from any other, and change the order of their sequence one to the other, ad libitum, forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, upside down and downside up, and still always pre- serve, unimpaired, the same wonderful beauty of con- nectiorf. A new Latin Dictionary by Reinhold Klotz, Pro- fessor of Classical Philology at Leipsic, has just appeared (1858), which is in decided advance of Preund, in its critical and historical aspects, and in range of research, as well as in breadth and copiousness of details. In respect also to etymologies lying within the specific boundaries of the Latin language, that is, within the department of classical philology, as technically discrim- inated from the wider and richer field of comparative philology, with which however its connections are, after all, so vast and vital, he is also superior to Preund. But alas ! the torch of Sanskrit discovery nowhere scatters its light here, and the eager philological student turns away, disappointed, from his pages. When will the day arrive when in our Latin school- lexicons we shall no more see the faces of Lobeck and Doderlein, Wachter and Scaliger, or Pestus, Vossius and Varro, sitting in state to teach us as authorities the native origin and sense of Avords ; but when in their places shall appear, in higher dignity and with purer light, 300 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. the forms of Bopp and Pott and Grimm, Schleicher, Curtius, Aufrecht, Diefenbach, Ebel and Kuhn. In Greek lexicography, Passow is of the greatest merit in every thing, but that inner presence of the true etymological element, which informs a dictionary with so much of its higher light and beauty. He lived and labored, as a lexicographer, earlier still than Preund ; having published the first edition of his dictioTiary in different parts, between the years 1818 and 1824. The new edition of Passow by Rost and others was begun tAventy years ago ; and, though much enlarged and improved through this long course of years, was begun and has been finished without the introduction of that one savory element of philology, so necessary to the new and improved taste of the modern scholar. Pape's Greek lexicon, prepared more recently, comes under the same condemnation, in reference to its supply of any etymological stores for meeting the cravings of those desiring more philological knowledge. Kalt- schmidt's comparative and etymological Greek diction- ary, published in 1839, is an approximation in both spirit and form to what is wanted, but much beloAv in quality. It is not, like the works of Grimm and Bopp and Pott and the leaders in the new philology, vast and profound, but is often fanciful and feeble, and therefore very generally unreliable ; as unsatisfactory commonly in its conclusions as Benfey, of whom, in tliis relation, he constantly reminds an investio-ator ; who, while THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 301 being a fine Sanskrit scholar, is yet quite a visionary and indifferent etymologist. Eichhoff is Kaltsclimidt's oracle ; and in so far as he follows Eichhoff he is always respectable, and in many cases valuable, as a leader ; but there is so much chaff mingled with the wheat in his lexicon, that, for a beginner in Greek philology, he is more dangerous than useful. His dictionary was probably, in its day, equal to the most advanced schol- arship of the times ; and, if so, it serves to show in a striking manner, how much progress has been made in the short interval betw^een. No adequate work, there- fore, has yet appeared in Latin or Greek lexicography, in the department of etymology. The light, in which our present generation of classical students is walking, is : like that of the fixed stars, which are so far from us that the beams which we are now receiving from them, actually left the orbs themselves Avhole centuries ago : that, shed from the best scholarship that prevailed a quarter of a century since, instead of the light of the foremost minds which are leading the scholarship of our day. And the wonder is, that, while there is so much bright beautiful light on the mountain-tops of the classical world, it creeps down so slowly into the vast cu'cumference of the vales below. As for our own vernacular etymology, since our language is wholly secondary in its origin, and, so, mixed and modern in its structure, more copious ma- terials and those for the most part of inherent value. 302 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. have been gatlierecl by Webster and preceding lexicog- raphers, without the aid of comparative philology, than could be done in any other language. But, while in certain directions and on certain sides of the language, much labor has been well bestowed in making collec- tions of classical and Teutonic correspondences, as well as of those in the various Romanic languages, with English words, here all the effort bestowed or designed to be has ceased. The facts established, or supposed to be established, have not been afterwards selected and arranged and compacted together, within the bonds of any true comprehensive scientific system. No phonetic principles have been developed, serving to ascertain or eclaircise all that large and best class of etymological facts, which are a little removed from immediate dis- covery, and so constitute, when found, the satisfying reward of successful scientific research. It is therefore but a mere chaos of etymologies that English lexicog- raphy yet fmiiishes ; a jumble of true things and false, more like the extended ruins of some huge edifice, than hke a structure built w^ith jealous care, to stand high and strong in its appointed place. Under the princely tread of the new philology, nudtitudes of before valued resemblances in English etymology are at once trampled down, as mere stubble. Much of such a romantic style of etymologizing, as that with which Home Tooke amused himself and his readers, in his " Diversions of Purley," disappears at once in the light of modern THE SCIEN'CE OF ETYMOLOGY. 303 scholarship, as Avoiild mere elegant frost-work Lcforc a bright sun. The etymological treasures which AVebster gathered together, with such scholarly industry and delight, excite our admiration at the breadth of his research and the luminous accuracy of his judgment, within the bounds of the narrow classical scholarship of his day. But the fountains of his learning were not drawn, since they could not be at first, from the heights of comparative philology. The salt of the Indo-Euro- pean element is not in them, and they cannot retain their virtue. Nothing can make amends for this fatal deficiency but their perfect renovation. It was in 1828, five years before Bopp began to scatter the light of his great discoveries over the study of the various languages of the civilized world, that Webster published his large dictionary ; and, when in 1840 he issued a new and last edition improved by himself, the additions designed to be made, as stated by him, did not embrace at all the results of the new philology. " The improve- ments," he says, " consist chiefly in the addition of several thousand words to the vocabulary, the division of words into syllables, and the correction of definitions in several of the sciences ; as well as the introduction of many phrases from foreign languages, and of many foreign terms used in books of music." And what of all tlie wonderful researches and results of the last quarter of a century, serving to revolutionize all lexi- cography, all classical study, and the whole science of 304 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. language ? Watchman on the towers of American philology, what of the night ? We wait for an answer after twelve years have come and gone, and only echo answers, w/iat ! The Semitic element, to which, accord- ing to the fashion of the times, he gave in 1828 such false prominence in the department of etymology, still retains its authority or rather its place unimpaired in 1840. And neither at first nor at last was any order of relation indicated or conceived to exist between the different correspondences of words, which are strung together as carelessly as were ever beads by a child upon a string. Some recent hand has undertaken to introduce the Sanskrit, somehow,* into this unmethod- * As a specimen of the utterly unphilological aspect of the Sanskrit additions made to Webster's dictionary, witness the followinjr facts, taken at random and only as samples of multitudes of the same sort. The Sanskrit equivalent is placed sometimes, between the Latin and Armenian {navy) ; sometimes between the Russian and Hebrew (to hear) ; and at other times, between the Persian and j\Ialaj^ (name), and between the Hindu and Pei'sian (new) ; the Swedish and Latin (stand) ; the Swedish and Persian (state) ; the Irish and Greek (hrotc) ; the Greek and Zend (mead) ; the Persian and Russian (mother) ; the Russian and Persian (no) ; the Armenian and Persian (seven) ; the Greek and Hebrew (six), and between the Danish and Welsh (luclc). and so on ad infinitum. The Sanskrit, besides being thus thrown in as a makeweight, among a mere disjointed mass of other etymologies, is introduced only in a very partial, meagre way, compared with its real claims ; and it is always placed last or among the last, instead of first, and here as before in all sorts of laughable combinations ; as, after the Irish and Slavonic (night) ; the Hebrew and Arabic (mix) ; the Danish and Russian [nail), etc. Could a more perfect wizard's potion be prepared with which to steep the thoughts of a young student of English etymology in " utter forgetfulness " of his work and of its THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 305 ized group of etymologies, 1)iit not in a way to throw any light upon them, or to draw them together around any common point of crystallization, or even of central preparation for it. The new comer from India, instead of being treated as a prince royal in his own lawful dominions, is here dishonored actually although not designedly, in the position assigned to him, as if a mere bantling, that must be taken care of in some way, and so is left by the way-side to be taken care of by others. There is no science or organific law prevailing in the series of connections and citations exhibited, nor can there be at any time, without an entire reorganization of the materials now employed, as well as their very great enlargement. The structure, therefore, which Webster built so industriously, must ere long be inevi- tably razed to the ground, as entirely inadequate to the more exact and vast scholarship of succeeding genera- tions ; or, be so built over and around with higher and better forms of lexical research, as to disappear itself Avholly from the view. The scholarship of our country, now so destitute perchance of any strong traces of such benefits ? IIovv does it remind one of the song of the three witches about the caldron in Macbeth : " Black spirits and white Red spirits and gray, INIingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may." Webster is not, and cannot be, accepted as a standard by our best scholars in orthography, orthoepy or etymology, but only in definitions, in which he is certainly the foremost of all English lexicographers. 306 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. a fact, will soon become so lofty in its type, so broad in its demands, and so irradiated with tlie hio-hest \vA\t of the age, as to require a style of lexicography that shall embrace in it a full view of all the vast array of scien- tific results developed by comparative philology. All honor to the man who shall arise in some future age, a man of exalted genius and splendid learning, to do this work ! He will be born ; and we record our hearty salutations to him in advance, across the stream of time which separates his day from ours. Let the motto of our American scholars be, both now and then, those sublime words of the great Passow in closing his labors in lexicography : " vorwiirts ! aufwLirts " ! for- wards ! upwards ! The only lexicography that has yet appeared in any lansfuao-e constructed after the true model and built O O without stint of means, according to the highest knowledge of the age, throughout every department of its wide-spread details, is the great national German Dictionary that the brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wil- liam) are now laboriously preparing, and of which they have recently published the first part of the third vol- ume (1859), extending through a portion of the letter E. In it is concentrated all the hght contained in the his- • tory, literature, and constitution of the language itself, to which is superadded all the light which any and every other language, when searched through all its depths, can be made to contribute to its fulness, along THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 307 the whole chain of Indo-European hmguages. Tlie views and the spirit with which the Grimms undertake their noble work, will be seen by a brief quotation from the introduction. " Etymology," they say (page 47), " is the salt* or spice of a dictionary, without the addi- tion of which the eating of it would still remain tasteless. The German language hangs by a chain which unites it with most of the European languages, and then leads back into Asia and directly to the Sanskrit, Zend, and Persian. From this proceeds a fulness of phenomena and relations, sometimes combined and sometimes sepa- rated from each other, as distinct peculiarities of differ- ent languages. Not a few links indeed of the great chain have fallen out and disappeared, so that many breaks in it must be skipped over. Every language possesses also in it an inward recuperative force, which gradually heals again any injury done, in sundering its connections. But this it can accomplish only by various compensations and special appliances, which afterwards come to be numbered among its individual peculiarities ; and hence comes the necessity of recog- nizing the limits where its own specialties cease, and where it enters again under the prevailing law of the other languages with which it is allied." Surely this is a new voice in the realms of lexi- cography : the voice of one of earth's greatest men, * •'Etymologie is das Salz, oder die Wiirze des Wurterbuclis, ohne deren Zuthat seine Speisc noch ungeschinack bliebe," etc. 308 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. coming to cast down the fabrics of the past ; not to re- joice over their ruin, but to gather their materials care- fully together in order to build them anew, with other elements of greater strength and beauty, into an edifice of grander proportions, and adequate to the wants of the highest minds of the age. Hail to the new era of linguistic exploration and discovery ! The age of empiricism is forever gone in etymology, except to those still remaining in the dark- ness of the past generation, and even they can see that the mountain -heights above them are gilded with an unwonted brightness. Comparative etymology, like the solar spectrum, presents in separate order, and in all the harmony of their mutual connection, the different rays that combine to form what seems the single and simple light of each distinct language. That the Sanskrit, in both its orthoepical and grammatical structure, is most intimately related to all the languages of Europe, ancient and modem, is a discovery that constitutes one of the chief wonders of the nineteenth century. It is one of the results of the conquest of India : a tribute first brought back by English scholarship from that far-off, fabulous land of gems and spices, to its mother country and the world ; but yet rather announced, than revealed in all its strange fulness of evidence, by the English. It w^as reserved for the strong, penetrative, analytic, persevering German mind, to explore and develop the untold riches of this new discovery. And what honor THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 309 have they shed upon their age, Bopp and Pott and Grimm, and a host of others hke them ; for they form now not so much " a school " as an army : similar for honor, as adventurers upon these new seas and coasts of the science of language, to that won by Columbus and the great navigators who succeeded him, in discovering new countries and continents, and sailing around the world. The absence of the Indo-European element in Greek, Latin, English, or any other etymology, makes it like a system of chemistry, in which oxygen, that universal agent in all heat and moisture, all growth and decay, and all the processes of life and of death, should be utterly wanting ; or one of geology, in which no ref- erence to stratification should occur, and to the agency of fire and water, separate and combined, in building up the stage of this world as it is ; or a piece of music, without any clef; or a structure, erected according to no order or plan, and but the vast and shapeless ag- glomeration of the elements of an edifice, but itself no edifice at all. The Semitic languages have spread over no such field of development, as the Indo-European. The Indo-European languages are susceptible, to an al- most unlimited extent, of changes made by the combina- tion, composition, and attraction of their elements into ever-new forms and uses. They have a wonderfully mo- bile, elastic, and impressible nature, like those human constitutions of a high organization, that respond so sen- 21 310 THE SCIENCE Or ETYMOLOGY. sitively to every influence, however gentle or occasional, that moves upon the delicate framework of theii' being. A royal family indeed is the Indo-European family of languages ! Each of its members is, in the eye of art, " a study " by itseK. As they pass, in stately review, before the mind : the Indian, the Grseco-Latin, the Lettic, the Slavonic, the Gothic, and the Celtic famihes : each, with its splendid retinue of associated languages, whose heart does not dilate with admiration at the pageant ? They are all sons of one ancient mother, and yet they have taken on such different complexions, in their different chmates, and acquired such a different stature, as they have lived on the mountains or the plains ; and such a softness or rigidity of muscular de- velopment, as they have toiled or lived in ease ; and spoken so variously, in figures or with plain speech, as they have maintained an out-door or an in-door life : that they have been supposed, and have supposed themselves, to bear no relationship to each other, and nave gloried in wars, as races, one against the other, as if they were natural enemies and not brethren. And now, after four thousand years, they are found under the light of that sublime inductive philosophy, which has opened so many other wonders to modern eyes, to be aU most intimately allied with each other ; and that, by the use of a key to this new and strange discovery, that had lain hidden, for thousands of years, from view, in India. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 311 Etymology is an inductive science, and rests upon the same strong foundations, in this respect, as any of the natural sciences. And very minute and wide and fuU have been the inductions made, and the comparisons instituted. The evidence of its facts is found by one who examines it, to be so various and so duplicated and reduphcated upon itself, as to rise everywhere, in high and golden piles around him, towards heaven. They will bear the closest scrutiny, however often repeated. Each time that they are sifted, they only appear more clear and bright, and the force of the most searching logic brought to bear upon them only serves, like acid upon gold, not to destroy but to beautify still more their claims. No wonder if, under the former empirical treatment of classical etymology, the more self-poised and stable scholars of the day, hke those thoughtful ancients called a&tot, not atheists, who rejected the con- temptible mythology of then* times, should discard the etymology, falsely so called, that was offered them, as having in it neither science nor sense. But mockery, now, of the science of etymology, or even indifference to its claims, will only rebound on him who indulges it, as a proof of the shallowness of his knowledge and the narrowness of his ideas. III. The constituent elements of etymology as a science. It has been shown that neither classical nor vernacu- lar etymology have risen, by themselves, to the cUgnity 312 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. of a science. They have had only an empirical de- velopment, when not under the hght of comparative philology. And it is only, when grafted on the root of comparative Indo-European etymology, that they pos- sess, either of them, any true life or value. The proper discussion of this part of the subject demands, at least, a brief presentation. 1st. Of the elements of comparative etymology. 2d. Of the principles that prevail, in respect to the specific etymology of any individual language, under its influence. 1st. The constituent elements of comparative ety- mology are threefold : (1 .) Comparative phonology, (2.) Comparative lexicography, (3.) Comparative grammar. It is not meant that, historically, these different elements actually developed themselves in this order; but that, in reference to their mutual connection, this is the true philosophic order of their arrangement. (1.) Comparative phonology. It will not be manifest at first, probably, to every reader what this word may mean, and yet it has a very definite and important meaning. Phonology or pho- netics is, literally, the science of sound, that is, the science of the mutations and transformations of conso- nants and vowels, in passing from one language to an- other. In Sanskrit, words merely joined together in THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 313 simple sequence have an influence upon each other, such as to cause great euphonic mutations of their con- sonantal elements. This style of changes is called Sandhi (conjunction) ; and by its laws the juxtaposi- tion of consonants of different orders, is forbidden ; while the law^s of composition themselves, whether in respect to the inward or outward blending of the ele- ments which are coinbined are called samasa (coalition). Bopp was the first to exhibit a wide array of facts upon the subject of comparative phonology, which, however, being so intent on ends lying farther beyond, he did not bind into any system or science. It was Jacob Grimm, as splendid a scholar as any country or age has ever pro- duced, who first, by a large and wonderful induction of kindi^ed forms in Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, Gothic and High German, developed the law of actual corre- spondences in these languages, since called Grimm's law ; according to which, a given letter in one of them is regularly transformed into a given letter in each of the others. Succeeding investigators in other lan- guages, as the Celtic, Slavonic, Zend, and old Persian, have lengthened out the scale of comparison into them, and established a general scientific schedule of mutual equivalents, throughout the whole range of the Indo- Em'opean languages. Going forth to new researches, with such a scale of phonetic correspondences, not made of artificial materials, but found imbedded in these lan- guages themselves like the diatonic scale in the very 314 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. organs of the voice, philologists have been able, not only to verify abundantly, over and over again, the truth of the scale itself, but also by its aid to extend the area of their discoveries in every direction. Like the natural sciences, the science of philology is in a state of constant and rapid growth. It has already mammoth proportions, and yet what it is to be is but partially shadowed forth, in what it' now is. Comparative phonology is therefore the science of the transformations, substitutions and correspondences of sounds, in different languages ; a science which had lain concealed in these languages for thousands of years, like a bird in a brake, which no foot had ever entered before : a beautiful many-voiced bird, now fly- ing abroad everywhere, before the eyes of its admirers, in the horizon of letters. The less a language has departed from its archaic forms, so much the more easily and certainly can the internal affiliations of its Avords, one with another, be traced. In the progress of ages, even in the same lan- guage, and much more as words traverse the domain of different latitudes and languages, do great changes in their primitive radical form occur. Eor, as the same words are put to different uses in the mouths of men, having different wants, experiences, and developments, even in the same age, and among the same people, and imder the same culture ; so, much more, do the shapes and sounds of words run tlu-ough a wide range of vari- THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 315 aliens, amid all the diversities of climate, employment, and character experienced over wide and varying tracts of the earth. The influence of climate on national physiognomy, statm'c, complexion, vigor, and every personal characteristic, is very apparent and has received formal recognition in history, geography and the nat- ural history of man ; but its influence on the organs of speech, so as to make certain sounds diflicult to one race or tribe, that to other races in other climates are easy and natural, has been little appreciated or consid- ered. As the elements of man's primitive language have come in contact with all these various currents of influence in different nations and epochs, they have undergone great changes, in every direction. In the modern Romanic languages, the Spanish, Italian, and French particularly, the greatness of these changes in forms, once fixed in the Latin as if having a constitu- tion of iron, is strikingly apparent within a period covered by the recent nlemory of men. No languages diff^er more in their phonetic elements from each other than these, although being of one immediate common origin. By the careful analytic study of their variations, as also by that of the agreements and differences of the several dialects of Greece, one, who is just beginning to have some insight into just phonetic solutions of the problems of comparative etymology, may be greatly 316 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. enlightened and aided."*' In them, accordingly, as geologists can often witness in changes now going on in the world the true energy, direction, and mode of ancient agencies ; we can see the real philosophy ex- emplified in actual view, of the various phonetic devel- opments of the ancient languages. When Cadmus brought the Phoenician alphabet of sixteen letters to Greece, he found some sounds pre- vailing there which his syllabarium did not contain, as the aspirates d-, cp, ;/, the double consonants '^, '^, yj, and the long vowels rj and co. The digamma F, which was at first used as the equivalent of the Phoenician Van, was, in the Hellenic period, entirely dropped from * The different forms of many of the same Christian names, and the different pronunciation of the same form to the ej^e, in several of the modern languages, illustrate well the gi'eatness of phonetic changes in recent times. Remember that J is pronounced in Spanish as H and in German as Y. Greek or Latin. Italian. 'Ukui^os Giacomo 'ItiiawTj; Gulielmus Carolus Edvardus Joseplms Giovanni Giovanna Gulielmo Carlo Carlotta Cai-olina Odoardo Giuseppe Spanish. lago and Santiago (St. James) Juan Juana Guillermo Carlos Carlota Carolina Eduardo Jose French. German. Jacques Jacob Jean Jeanne rHans ■} Hannclien (Jobs lanna Guillaume Wilbebn Cbarles Karl Charlotte Cbarlotfe Carolina Karolina Edouard Eduard Joseph Joseph English. Jacobus Jacob James Jack John Jane Joanna William Carlos Charles Cbarlotto 1^ Caroline Edward Joseph THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 317 the Greek language, as not euplionioiis to the ear ; while -in the Latin it was retained, in the letter v, Avith much favor. The breathing h was a great favorite in Greece, and often substituted for an original s ; while in Rome, contrarily, h was little and s'"'' was much fancied. In German, s is disliked in its common hissing sound, and accordingly is changed to z between two vowels in pronunciation, and in orthography it is often softened, by adding an aspirate, into sch. The guttural ch of that language, and of the Greek, Scotch, and Irish languages, is rejected by us and the Prench ; while both the Latin and the French reject our w, and we are entirely destitute of the sweet soft u sound, found in French, German, and Greek. So, the Lithu- "anians have no aspirates. The letter r has a roll in it, as used by some nations, which is almost drumlike, compared with its liquid and indeed almost unmeaning pronunciation in English. Some races, like the Poles, delight in sibilants ; others, like the Germans, in gut- tm'als ; some, like the Greeks, in aspirates ; some, like the French and Portuguese, in nasals ; and others, like the Italians and the Servians, in vowels and liquids. How differently is also the same letter pronounced in different languages. Our j is in German y and in * The same foct characterizes the Enghsh in that class of words which we call Latin-English ; while in French, though often occurring to the eye, it is generally rejected at the end of words and syllables in pronunciation, and often thrown entirely out of view, as is indicated by the circumflex accent in such a case. 318 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. Spanish h. Our v is the German f and our w their v ; ch is pronounced very differently by different nations. Many correspondences of words, therefore, which a classical novice would reject at once, as not meeting the demands of his eye or his ear, are yet beautifully certi- fied to be true by the wonder-working power of pho- Sanskrit. janu, the knee* vinsati, twenty s'atam, a hundred yuj, to hind yuga, a pair dvar, a door asvas, a horse hard, hrid, and hridaya, the heart svan, a dogf gen. SunOS pliivaya, to wash mahat, great, for maghat mahiyas, greater ashtau, eight Greek. 'fOVV \ev Karop \ C^y6v dvpa 'Iwiro^, jEolic 'Ikko? (kvp ■< and (_Kap5la { KVOIV ) I gen. Kvvos ) Aoveiv "(fern. fxfyd\Tf] fj.€'l(wv OXTW Latin. ( genu I geniculum 1 . y viijinti [■ centum jungere jugum j foris I foras, out of doors equus equestris cor(d) lavare [" magnus ! m actus [ magis , maoister Italian. ginocchio venti cento giungere] giogo j fuora equestre fcuore (^coraggio cane lavare masno major octo maggiore otto * These correspondences are selected from a list of some five thousand or more prepared with care by the author, in manuscript, t Irish cu. THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 319 iiology : the cliarm of the discovery being sometimes found in one language on an extended scale of com- parison, and sometimes in another. It will interest the reader to examine the following brief schedule of a fc"^ correspondences,* such as are established by it, in great numbers, to be true. Spanish. French. German. English. hinojo genou knie knee veinte vingt zwanzig twenty cent cent (lit. a hundredth) yugo j joindre [joch join yoke fuera hors thiir door ecuestre ecuyer (equestri (e-squire in corazou 'coeur courage hertz 'heart core cordial courage chien hund hound canine lavar laver \ laben ? 1 lauen lave magno maint ' manch michel ' raickle mas maLs - macht miglit maestro maitre mehr more ^ meister master mister major I mayor maii-e meier ^ mayor s ocho huit acht eight * Even through the French, as any one may see, English and Latin words that, placed together, have little if any resemblance to each other, are yet found to be in origin and sense the same. 320 THE SCIENCE OF ETYMOLOGY. Sanskrit, dantas, a tooth vusas, and vaisas, a house akshas, the eye panchan, five * Greek. Latin. uSovs ) dens gen. uSouTOi ^ oIkos for Fo7kos V vicus UKOS oculus ireVre quinque Italian, dents VICO occhio cinque pra TpO pro tvam, thou chatur, and chatvaras, four tti tu [• Te'( craapes /"quatuor < quadra (quartus Latin. bellus, beautiful, fine bonus cadere, to fall, part, cadens caput, the head captivus a captive co-operire collocare computare crispus, wrinkled debere, to owe decipere, to deceive dies diurnus domina fquattro J quadro j quarto l^quadrone French, j beau \ beaute jbon |bonte chance ^chef I achever chetif couvrir coucher compter crepe devoir, part, du duper (a) h jour jdame \ demoiselle * Lithuanian penki. (a) So de le becomes du and duccre, duire, to English. > beauty- boon bounty chance chief achieve caitiff S cover (cope couch count crape C devoirs ,^ 1 iC;. tfe ^^ tJ |[ U f v-; ^. I Bin ( lime c r Mono'n'Babic Jfc^^ |]I\eIli.%v Tin J V«l ImHiivn '*'-^ Hf 1 iuio I /;> \ i ( r JI Snjn t] O " ^ - C -/ H I N ? i A- E M t^ '""^^•.y - f^ ' y r^\ h^, ^' ' ' '^^^^J< ^ J^^5. EUROPE r For the sake of facilitating in every -way possible the study of Philology ia this country, the author has taken pains to ob- tain a list of prices of the principal authors referred to, from the two firms of booksellers, from which he has obtained his own supply of books, and whose promptness no less than their integrity he is happy, from long experience, to commend. B. Westermann & Co., No. 440 Broadway, New York, will furnish the following books, unbound, at the prices named. Bopp's Yergleichende Grammatil:, 3 vols .$10 50 Bopp's Vokalismus 1 38 Bopp's Accentuations System 1 75 Bopp's Grammatik Der Sanskrita-Sprache 2 25 Bopp's Glossarium Sanskritum 6 00 Rapp's A''ergleicli. Grammatik, 3 vols 5 00 Grimm's Teutonische Grammatik, 5 vols 17 38 Grimm's Gescliichte Der Deutscli. Sprache 3 50 Diefenbach's Gothisclies Worterbuch, 2 vols 8 00 Diefenbacb's Celtica G 00 Mommsen's Romische Geschichte 3 88 Schleicher's Linguist. Untersuchungen 2 50 Schleicher's Litauische Grammatik 1 75 Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft 2 25 Diez's Grammatik der Roman Sprachcn G G3 Diez's Lexicon Etymologicum 3 50 Pott's Etymologische P'orschungen. 1st vol 4 38 Aufrecht's Umbrisch. Sprachdenkmiiler 8 38 Kuhn's Beitrage zur Sprachforschung. Per vol 3 50 Gesenii Monumenta 10 50 Gloss. Med. Latin, (Du Fresne, Du Gauge, &c.) 18 00 Giese's iEolischer Dialekt. 2 parts 2 00 Eichhofif s Vergleich. der Sprachen 2 75 Humboldt's Verschiedeuheit der Sprachen 3 50 356 Lersch's Sprachphilosophie '^?, oO Curtius' Griecliische Schulgraminatik 63 Curtius' Griechische Etymologic. Vol.1 2 38 Benary's Romische Lautlehre 1 00 Hoefer's Beitrage zur Etymologic 2 25 Diintzer's Lehrc, &c 1 25 Corsscn's Aiissprach, Vokalismiis, &c., des Lateinischen 4 50 Zeitsclirift der Vcrgleich, Sprachforschung, (bi-monthly). Per year... 3 00 Max Miiller's Survey of Languages i 1 50 Garnett's Philological Essays 1 85 Of D. Appleton & Co., 348 Broadway, New York. Niebuhr's Rome, 3 vols ^10 00 Niebuhr's Ancient History, 3 vols 5 60 Brown's History of Greek Classical Literature 1 75 Brown's History of Roman Classical Literature 1 75 Donaldson's New Cratylus 5 50 Donaldson's Varronianus 3 50 Bunsen's Philosophy of Universal History, 2 vols 9 00 Bopp, translated by Eastwick, 3 vols 16 00 "Winning's Comparative Philology 3 00 Monier Williams' Sanskrit Grammar i 00 Prichard's Natural History of Man, 2 vols 10 00 Prichard's Eastern Origin Celtic Nations 4 50 F. Schlegel's ^sthetical Works 1 25 THE END. THE LIBRARY UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 852 449