THE 
 
 LIFE AND GROWTH OF 
 LANGUAGE 
 
 AN OUTLINE OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE 
 
 BY. 
 
 WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 LATE PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 
 IN YALE COLLEGE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1808
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washingtom.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE present work needs only a few words by way 
 of introduction. That its subject calls for treatment in 
 the series of which it forms a part, especially at thiu 
 time, when men's crude and inconsistent views of lan- 
 guage are tending to crystallize into shape, no labored 
 argument is required to prove. Yery discordant opin- 
 ions as to the basis and superstructure of linguistic 
 philosophy are vying for the favor, not of the public 
 only, but even of scholars, already deeply versed in the 
 facts of language-history, but uncertain and compara- 
 tively careless of how these shall be coordinated and 
 explained. Physical science on the one side, and psy- 
 chology on the other, are striving to take possession of 
 linguistic science, which in truth belongs to neither. 
 The doctrines taught in this volume are of the class of 
 those which have long been widely prevalent among 
 students of man and his institutions; and they only 
 need to be exhibited as amended and supported, not 
 crowded out or overthrown, by the abundant new 
 knowledge which the century has yielded, in order to 
 
 2O56O45
 
 ri PREFACE. 
 
 win an acceptance well-nigh universal. They who hold 
 them have been too much overborne hitherto by the ill- 
 founded claims of men who arrogate a special scientific 
 or philosophic profundity. 
 
 After one has once gone over such a subject upon a 
 carefully matured and systematic plan, as I did in my 
 " Language and the Study of Language " (New York 
 and London, 18G7), it is not possible, when treating it 
 again for the same public, to avoid following in the 
 main the same course; and readers of the former work 
 will not fail to observe many parallelisms between the 
 two. Even a part of the illustrations formerly used 
 have been turned again to account ; for, if it be made 
 a principle to draw the chief exemplifications of the 
 life and growth of language from our own tongue, 
 there are certain matters especially our most impor- 
 tant recent formative endings and auxiliaries which 
 must be taken, because they are most available for the 
 needed purpose. Nor has the basis of linguistic facts 
 and their classification undergone during the past eight 
 years such change or extension as should show conspicu- 
 ously in so compendious a discussion as this. Accord- 
 ingly, I present here an outline of linguistic science 
 agreeing in many of its principal features with the 
 former one ; the old story told in a new way, under 
 changed aspects and with changed proportions, and 
 with considerably less fullness of exposition and illus- 
 tration. 
 
 The limits imposed on the volume by the plan of
 
 PREFACE. Vli 
 
 the series have compelled me to abbreviate certain 
 parts to which some will perhaps agree with me iu 
 wishing that more extension could have been given. 
 Thus, it had been my intention to include in the last 
 cliapter a fuller sketch of the history of knowledge and 
 opinion in this department of study. And I have had 
 to leave the text almost wholly without references : 
 although I may here again allege the compendious cast 
 of the work, which renders them little called for; I 
 trust that no injustice will be found to have been done 
 to any. The foundation of my discussion is the now 
 generally accessible facts of language, which are no one 
 man's property more than another's. As for views 
 opposed to my own, while often having them distinctly 
 in mind in their shape as presented by particular schol- 
 ars, I have hardly ever thought it necessary to report 
 them formally ; and I have on principle avoided any- 
 thing bearing the aspect of personal controversy. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, April, 1875.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 L INTRODUCTORY : THE PROBLEMS OF THE SCIENCE OF LAN- 
 GUAGE 1 
 
 II. How EACH INDIVIDUAL ACQUIRES HIS LANGUAGE : LIFE or 
 
 LANGUAGE 7 
 
 III. THE CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES IN LANGUAGE . 34 
 IV. GROWTH OF LANGUAGE : CHANGE IN THE OUTER FORM OF 
 
 WORDS 46 
 
 V. GROWTH OF LANGUAGE: CHANGE IN THE INNER CONTENT 
 
 OF WORDS 76 
 
 VI. GROWTH OF LANGUAGE: Loss OF WORDS AND FORMS . 98 
 VII. GROWTH OF LANGUAGE : PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND 
 
 FORMS 108 
 
 rUL SUMMARY: THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS . . . . 134 
 
 IX. LOCAL AND CLASS VARIATION OF LANGUAGE: DIALECTS . 153 
 
 X. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE 179 
 
 XL LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE: MATERIAL AND FORM IN LAN- 
 
 GUAGK 213 
 
 XII. OTHER FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE: THEIR LOCALITY, AGB, 
 
 AND STRUCTURE 228 
 
 XIII. LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY 265 
 
 K1V. NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE .... 278 
 XV. Tin SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE: CONCLUSION . ,810
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY : THE PEOBLEM8 OF THE SCIENCE OF LAN- 
 GUAGE. 
 
 Definition of language. Man its universal and sole possessor. Variety 
 of languages. The study of language ; aim of this volume. 
 
 LANGUAGE may be briefly and comprehensively de- 
 fined as the means of expression of human thought. 
 
 In a wider and freer sense, everything that bodies 
 forth thought and makes it apprehensible, in whatever 
 way, is called language ; and we say, properly enough, 
 that the men of the Middle Ages, fcr example, speak 
 to us by the great architectural works which they have 
 left behind them, and which tell us very plainly of 
 their genius, their piety, and their valor. But for 
 scientific purposes the term needs restriction, since it 
 would apply else to nearly all human action and prod- 
 uct, which discloses the thought that gives it birth. 
 Language, then, signifies rather certain instrumentali- 
 ties whereby men consciously and with intention rep- 
 resent their thought, to the end, chiefly, of making it 
 known to other men : it is expression for the sake of 
 communication. 
 
 The instrumentalities capable of being used for this 
 purpose, and actually more or less used, are various : 
 gesture and grimace, pictorial or written signs, and
 
 3 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 uttered 01 spoken signs : the first two addressed to the 
 eye, the last to the ear. The first is chiefly employed 
 by mutes though not in its purity, inasmuch as these 
 unfortunates are wont to be trained and taught by 
 those who speak, and their visible signs are more or 
 less governed by habits born of utterance ; going even 
 so far as slavishly to represent the sounds of speech. 
 The second, though in its inception a free and indepen- 
 dent means of expression, yet in its historical develop- 
 ment becomes linked as a subordinate to speech, and 
 even finds in that subordination its highest perfection 
 and greatest usefulness. 1 The third is, as things actu- 
 ally are in the world, infinitely the most important ; in- 
 somuch that, in ordinary use, "language" means utter- 
 ance, and utterance only. And so we shall understand 
 it here : language, for the purposes of this discussion, 
 is the body of uttered and audible signs by which in 
 human society thought is principally expressed, gesture 
 and writing being its subordinates and auxiliaries. 8 
 
 Of such spoken and audible me_ans of expression 
 no human community is found destitute. From the 
 highest races to the lowest, all men speak ; all are able 
 to interchange such thoughts as they have. Language, 
 then, appears clearly " natural " to man ; such are his 
 endowments, such his circumstances, such his history 
 one or all of these that it is his invariable possession. 
 
 Moreover, man is the sole possessor of language. 
 Tt is true that a certain degree of power of communi- 
 cation, sufficient for the infinitely restricted needs of 
 their gregarious intercourse, is exhibited also by some 
 
 1 See the author's " Language and the Study 01 Language," p. 448 
 teq. ; and his " Oriental and Linguistic Studies," ii. 193-196. 
 
 8 Their natural and historical relations will be further treated of in 
 thapter liv.
 
 DIVERSITY OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 3 
 
 Df the lower animals. Thus, the dog's bark and howl 
 signify by their difference, and each by its various style 
 and tone, very different things ; the domestic fowl has 
 a song of quiet enjoyment of life, a clutter of excite- 
 ment and alarm, a cluck of maternal anticipation or 
 care, a cry of warning and so on. But these are not 
 only greatly inferior in their degree to human lan- 
 guage ; they are also so radically diverse in kind from 
 it, that the same name cannot justly be applied to both. 
 Language is one of the most marked and conspicuous, 
 as well as fundamentally characteristic, of the faculties 
 of man. 
 
 Nevertheless, while human language is thus one as 
 contrasted with brute expression, it is in itself of a 
 variety which is fairly to be termed discordance. It is 
 a congeries of individual languages, separate bodies of 
 audible signs for thought, which, reckoning even those 
 alone of which the speakers are absolutely unintelli- 
 gible to one another, are very numerous. These lan- 
 guages differ among themselves in every degree. Some 
 are so much alike that their users can with sufficient 
 trouble and care come to understand one another ; of 
 others, even a superficial examination shows abundant 
 correspondences ; of yet others, similar points of ac- 
 cordance are rarer, and only discoverable by practised 
 study and research ; and a great number are to all ap- 
 pearance wholly diverse and often, not only diverse 
 in respect to the actual signs which they use for their 
 various conceptions, but also as to their whole struct- 
 ure, the relations which they signify, the parts of 
 speech they recognize. And this diversity does not 
 accord with differences of intellectual capacity among 
 the speakers : individuals of every degree of gift are 
 found using, each according to his power, the same
 
 4. INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 identical dialect; and souls of kindred calibre in differ 
 ent societies can hold no communion together. Nor 
 does it accord with geographical divisions ; nor yet, in 
 its limits and degrees, with the apparent limits of 
 races. Not seldom, far greater race-differences are met 
 with among the speakers of one language, or of one 
 body of resembling languages, than between those who 
 use dialects wholly unlike one another. 
 
 These, and their like, are the problems which oc- 
 cupy the attention of those who pursue the science of 
 language, or linguistic science. That science strives to 
 comprehend language, both in its unity, as a means of 
 human expression and as distinguished from brute 
 communication, and in its internal variety, of material 
 and structure. It seeks to discover the cause of the 
 resemblances and differences of languages, and to effect 
 a classification of them, by tracing out the lines of re- 
 semblance, and drawing the limits of difference. It 
 seeks to determine what language is in relation to 
 thought, and how it came to sustain this relation ; 
 what keeps up its life and what has kept it in existence 
 in past time, and even, if possible, how it came into 
 existence at all. It seeks to know what language is 
 worth to the mind, and what has been its part in the 
 development of our race. And, less directly, it seeks 
 to learn and set forth what it may of the history of hu- 
 man development, and of the history of races, their 
 movements and connections, so far as these are to bo 
 read in the facts of language. 
 
 No reflecting and philosophizing people has ever 
 been blind to the exceeding interest of problems like 
 these, or has failed to offer some contribution toward 
 their solution. Yet the body of truth discovered in 
 earlier times has been so small, that the science of Ian-
 
 THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 5 
 
 guage is to be regarded as a modern one, as much so 
 as geology and chemistry ; it belongs, like them, to the 
 nineteenth century. To review its history is no part of 
 our present task ; no justice could be done the subject 
 within the space that could be spared it in this volume; 
 and the few words that we can bestow upon it will be 
 better said in the last chapter than here. Although of 
 to recent growth, the science of language is already 
 one of the leading branches of modern inquiry. It is 
 not less comprehensive in its material, definite in its 
 aims, strict in its methods, and rich and fruitful in its 
 results, than its sister sciences. Its foundations have 
 been laid deep and strong in the thorough analysis of 
 many of the most important human tongues, and the 
 careful examination and classification of nearly all the 
 rest. It has yielded to the history of mankind as a 
 whole, and to that of the different races of men, defi- 
 nite truths and far-reaching glimpses of truth which 
 could be won in no other way. It is bringing about a 
 re-cast of the old methods of teaching even familiar 
 and long-studied languages, like the Latin and Greek ; 
 it is drawing forward to conspicuous notice others of 
 which, only a few years ago, hardly the names were 
 known. It has, in short, leavened all the connected 
 branches of knowledge, and worked itself into the very 
 structure of modern thought, so that no one who hears 
 or reads can help taking some cognizance of it. No 
 educated person can afford to lack a clear conception 
 of at least a brief connected outline of a science po& 
 eessing such claims to attention. 
 
 The design of this volume, accordingly, is to draw 
 out and illustrate the principles of linguistic science, 
 and to set forth its results, with as much fullness as the 
 limited space at command shall allow. The study is
 
 6 -INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 not yet so developed and established as not to include 
 subjects respecting which opinions still differ widely 
 and deeply. But direct controversy will be avoided ; 
 and the attempt will be made to construct an argu- 
 ment which shall commend itself to acceptance by the 
 coherence of its parts and the reasonableness of itti 
 conclusions. In accordance with the plan of the series 
 of treatises into which this enters as a member, sim- 
 plicity and popular apprehensibility will be everywhere 
 aimed at. To start from obvious or familiar truths, 
 to exemplify by well-known facts, will be found, it is 
 believed, the best way to arrive with assurance at the 
 ultimate results sought after. The prime facts of lan- 
 guage lie, as it were, within the easy grasp of every 
 man who speaks yet more, of every man who has 
 studied other languages than his own and to direct 
 intelligent attention toward that which is essential, to 
 point out the general in the midst of the particular 
 and the fundamental underneath the superficial, ii 
 matters of common knowledge, is a method of instrno 
 tiou which cannot but bear good fruit.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DO\V EACH INDIVIDUAL ACQUIRES HIS LANGUAGE: LIFB 
 OP LANGUAGE. 
 
 Language learned, not inherited or made, by the individual; process of 
 children's learning to speak ; what this involves, outside the prov- 
 ince of the linguistic student. Origin of particular words. Charac- 
 ter of a word as sign for a conception. Mental training in learning 
 language ; determination of the inner form of language from with- 
 out ; constraint and advantage in the process. Acquisition of a 
 second language, or of more than one ; learning even of native 
 speech a never-ending process. Imperfection of the word as sign ; 
 language only the apparatus of thought. 
 
 THEJSE can be asked respecting language no other 
 question of a more elementary and at the same time 
 of a more fundamentally important character than this : 
 how is language obtained by us ? how does each speak- 
 ing individual become possessed of his speech? Its 
 true answer involves and determines well-nigh the 
 whole of linguistic philosophy. 
 
 There are probably few who would not at once re- 
 ply that we learn our language ; it is taught us by 
 those among whom our lot is cast in childhood. A nd 
 this obvious and common-sense answer is also, as wo 
 shall find on a more careful and considerate inquiry, 
 the correct one. "We have to look to see what is im 
 plied in it.
 
 8 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 In the first place, it sets aside and denies two other 
 conceivable answers : that language is a race-character- 
 istic, and, as such, inherited from one's ancestry, along 
 with color, physical constitution, traits of character, 
 and the like ; and that it is independently produced by 
 eash individual, in the natural course of his bodily and 
 mental growth. 
 
 Against both these excluded views of the acquisi- 
 tion of language may be brought such an array of facts 
 so familiar and undeniable that they cannot be serious- 
 ly upheld. Against the theory of a language as a race- 
 characteristic may be simply set, as sufficient rebutting 
 evidence, the existence of a community like the Ameri- 
 can, where there are in abundance descendants of Af- 
 rican, of Irish, of German, of southern European, of 
 Asiatic, as well as of English ancestors, all using the 
 same dialect, without other variety than comes of dif- 
 ferences of locality and education, none showing a 
 trace of any other " mother-tongue " or " native 
 speech." But the world is full of such cases, on the 
 small scale and on the large. Any child of parents liv- 
 ing in a foreign country grows up to speak the foreign 
 speech, unless carefully guarded from doing so ; or, it 
 speaks both this and the tongue of its parents, with 
 equal readiness. The children of missionary families 
 furnish the most striking examples of this class : no 
 matter where they may be in the world, among what 
 remotely kindred or wholly unrelated dialects, they ac- 
 quire the local speech as " naturally " as do the chil- 
 dren of the natives. And it is only necessary that the 
 child of English or German or Russian parents, born 
 in their native country, should (as is often done) be put 
 with a French nurse, and hear French alone spoken 
 about it, and it will grow up to speak French first and
 
 LANGUAGE NOT INHERITED. 9 
 
 French only, just as if it were a French child. And 
 what is French, and who are its speakers ? The mass 
 of the people of France are Celts by descent, with 
 characteristic Celtic traits which no mixture or educa 
 tion has been able to obliterate ; but there is hardly an 
 appreciable element of Celtic in the French language ; 
 this is almost purely a Romanic dialect, a modern rep- 
 resentative of the ancient Latin. There are few un- 
 inixed languages in the world, as there are few unmixed 
 races ; but the one mixture does not at all determine 
 the other, or measure it. The English is a very strik- 
 ing proof of this ; the preponderating French-Latin 
 element in our vocabulary gets its most familiar and 
 indispensable part from the Normans, a Germanic race, 
 who got it from the French, a Celtic race, who got it 
 from the Italians, among whom the Latin-speaking 
 community were at first a very insignificant element, 
 numerically. It is useless to bring up further exam- 
 ples ; the force of those here given will be sufficiently 
 supported by our later inquiry into the actual processes 
 of acquisition of language. 
 
 So far as the other theory, that of independent pro- 
 duction by each person of his own speech, implies that 
 each inherits from his ancestors a physical constitution 
 which makes him develop unconsciously the same 
 speech as theirs, it is virtually coincident with the first 
 theory, and the same facts tell with crushing weight 
 against it ; so far as it is meant to imply that there is 
 a general likeness in intellectual constitution between 
 members of the same community which leads them to 
 frame accordant systems of expression, it is equally 
 without support from facts; for the distribution of 
 human dialects is as irreconcilable with that of natural 
 capacity and bent as with that of physical form among 
 2
 
 10 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 human beings. Every variety of gift is found among 
 those who employ, each with his own degree of skill 
 and capacity, the same speech ; and souls of commen- 
 surate calibre in different communities are unable to 
 have intercourse together. 
 
 We come, then, to consider directly the process by 
 which the child becomes able to speak a certain lan- 
 guage a process sufficiently under every one's obser- 
 vation to allow of general and competent criticism of 
 any attempted description of it. We cannot, it is true, 
 follow with entire comprehension all the steps of evo- 
 lution of the infantile and childish powers ; but we can 
 understand them well enough for our purpose. 
 
 The first thing which the child has to learn, before 
 speech is possible, is to observe and distinguish ; to 
 recognize the persons and things about him, in their 
 concrete individuality, and to notice as belonging to 
 them some of their characteristic qualities and acts. 
 This is a very brief description of a very intricate psy- 
 chological process which, however, it does not belong 
 to the student of language to draw out in greater de- 
 tail. There is involved in it, we may further remark 
 in passing, nothing which some of the lower animals 
 may not achieve. At the same time, the child is ex- 
 ercising his organs of utterance, and gaining conscious 
 command of them, partly by a mere native impulse to 
 the exertion of all his native powers, partly by imita- 
 tion of the sound-making persons about him : the child 
 brought up in solitude would be comparatively silent. 
 This physical process is quite analogous with the train- 
 ing of the hands: for some six months the child tosses 
 them about, he knows not how or why ; then he begins 
 to notice them and work them under command, till at 
 length he can do by conscious volition whatever is
 
 LEARNING TO SPEAK. 11 
 
 within their power. Control and management of the 
 organs of utterance comes much more slowly ; but the 
 time arrives when the child can imitate at least some 
 of the audible as well as the visible acts of others ; can 
 reproduce a given sound, as a given gesture. But bo 
 fore this, he has learned to associate with some of the 
 objects familiar to him the names by which they are 
 called ; a result of much putting of the two together 
 on the part of his instructors. Here is seen more 
 markedly, at least in degree, the superiority of human 
 endowment. The association in question is doubtless 
 at the outset no easy thing, even for the child ; he does 
 not readily catch the idea that a set of sounds belongs 
 to and represents a thing any more than, when older, 
 the idea that a series of written characters represents a 
 word ; but their connection is set so often and so dis- 
 tinctly before him as to be learned at last, just as the 
 connection is learned between sugar and pleasure to 
 the taste, between a rod and retribution for misbe- 
 havior. And every child begins to know things by 
 their names long before he begins to call them. The 
 next step is to imitate and reproduce the familiar name, 
 usually at first in the most imperfect way, by a mere 
 hint of the true sound, intelligible only to the child's 
 constant attendants ; and when that step is taken, then 
 for the first time is made a real beginning of the ac- 
 q aisition of language. 
 
 Though not all children start with the acquisition 
 cf precisely the same words, yet their limit of variety 
 is but a narrow one. We may take as fair examples 
 of at least the very early ones the childish names for 
 1 father ' and * mother,' namely papa and mamma, and 
 the words water, mitfc, good. And we have to notice 
 especially both how wholly external is the process
 
 12 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 which makes the child connect these particular names 
 with their respective ideas, and how empirical and im- 
 perfect are the ideas themselves. What is really im- 
 plied in papa and mamma, the child does not in the 
 least know ; to him they are only signs for certain IOT- 
 ing and caring individuals, distinguished most con- 
 spicuously by differences of dress ; and the chance is 
 (and it not seldom chances) that lie will give the same 
 names to other individuals showing like differences ; 
 the real relation of male and female parent to child he 
 comes to comprehend only much later not to speak 
 of the physiological mysteries involved in it, which no 
 man yet comprehends. As little does he understand 
 the real nature of water and milk ; he knows no more 
 than that, among the liquids (that name, to be sure, 
 comes much later, but not till long after the child has 
 realized the distinction of liquid and solid) constantly 
 brought before him there are two which he readily dis- 
 tinguishes, by look and by taste, and to which other 
 people give these names ; and he follows their example. 
 The names are provisional, convenient nuclei for the 
 gathering of more knowledge about ; where the liquids 
 come from will be learned by and by. and their chemi- 
 cal constitution, perhaps, in due time. As for good, 
 the first association of the term is probably with what 
 has a pleasant taste ; then what is otherwise agreeable 
 comes to be comprehended under the same name ; it 
 gets applied to behavior which is agreeable to the par- 
 ents, as judged by a standard which the child himself 
 is i'ar from understanding and this transfer to a moral 
 sphere is by no means an easy one ; as he grows up, 
 the child is (perhaps) all the time learning to distin- 
 guish more accurately between good and bad; but he 
 is likely to be at the last baffled by finding that the
 
 LEARNING TO SPEAK 13 
 
 wisest heads in the world have been and are iriecon- 
 cilably at variance as to what good really means 
 whether it implies only utility, or an independent and 
 absolute principle. 
 
 These are only typical examples, fairly illustrating 
 the whole process of speech-getting. The child begins 
 as a learner, and he continues such. There is continu- 
 ally in presence of his intellect more and better than 
 he can grasp. By words he is made to form dim con- 
 ceptions, and draw rude distinctions, which after ex- 
 perience shall make truer and more distinct, shall 
 deepen, explain, correct. He has no time to be origi- 
 nal ; far more rapidly than his crude and confused im- 
 pressions can crystallize independently into shape, they 
 are, under the example and instruction of others, cen- 
 tred and shaped about certain definite points. So it 
 goes on indefinitely. The young mind is always learn- 
 ing words, and things through words ; in all other cases 
 as really, if not so obviously, as when, by description 
 and picture or by map and plan, it is led to form some 
 inaccurate half-conception of the animal lion or the 
 city Peking. The formal distinctions made by the in- 
 flectional system of even so simple a language as Eng- 
 lish, and by words of relation, are at first out of the 
 child's reach. lie can grasp and wield only the grosser 
 elements of speech. He does not apprehend the rela- 
 tion of one and more than one clearly enough to uso 
 the two numbers of nouns ; the singular has to do duty 
 for both ; and so also the root-form of the verb, to the 
 neglect of persons, tenses, and moods. It is an era in 
 his education when he first begins to employ preterits 
 and plurals and their like. So with the pronouns. Ho 
 is slow to catch the trick of those shifting names, ap- 
 plied to persons according as they are speaking, spoken
 
 14 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 to, or spoken of; he does not see why each should not 
 have an own name, given alike in all situations: and he 
 speaks of himself and others by such a name and such 
 only, or blunders sorely in trying to do otherwise 
 till time and practice set him right. 1 Thus, in every 
 respect, language is the expression of matured and 
 practised thought, and the young learner enters into 
 the use of it as fast as natural capacity and favoring 
 circumstances enable him to do so. Others have ob- 
 served, and classified, and abstracted ; he only reaps 
 the fruit of their labors. It is precisely as when the 
 child studies mathematics ; he goes over and appropri- 
 ates, step by step, what others have wrought out, by 
 means of word and sign and symbol ; and he thus 
 masters in a few years what it has taken generations 
 and ages to produce, what his unaided intellect could 
 never have produced ; what, perhaps, he could never 
 independently have produced a single item of, having 
 just mental force enough to follow and acquire it : 
 though also, perhaps, he has capacity to increase it by 
 and by, adding something new for those to learn who 
 come after him even as the once educated speaker 
 may come to add, in one way and another (as will be 
 pointed out later), new stores of expression to language. 
 In all this, now, is involved infinitely more than 
 linguistic science has any call to deal with and explain. 
 Let us consider, for example, the word green. Its pres- 
 ence in our vocabulary implies first the physical cause 
 of the color, wherein is involved the whole theory of 
 optics : and this concerns the physicist ; it is for him 
 to talk of the ether and its vibrations, and of the fre- 
 
 1 The amount of sapient philosophy which has been aimlessly ex- 
 pended on this simple fact as if it involved the metaphysical distinction 
 of the ego and the non-ego is something truly surprising.
 
 WHAT IS INVOLVED IN SPEAKING. If, 
 
 quency and length of the waves which produce the 
 sensation of greenness. Then there is the structure 
 of the eye : its wondrous and mysterious sensitiveness 
 to just this kind of vibration, the apparatus of nerves 
 whir h conveys the impression to the brain, the cere- 
 bral structure which receives the impression : to treat 
 of all this is the duty of the physiologist. His domain 
 borders and overlaps that of the psychologist, who has 
 to tell us what he can of the intuition and resulting 
 conception, considered as mode and product of mental 
 action, of the power of apprehension and distinction 
 and abstraction, and of the sway of consciousness over 
 the whole. Then, in the hearing of the word green is 
 involved the wonderful power of audition, closely akin 
 with that of vision : another sensitive apparatus, which 
 notes and reports another set of vibratory waves, in 
 another vibrating medium : it falls, like vision, into the 
 hands of the physicist and physiologist. They, too, 
 have to do with the organs of utterance, which produce 
 the audible vibration ; with their obedience to the di- 
 rections of the will : directions given but not executed 
 under the review of consciousness, and implying that 
 control of the mind over the muscular apparatus of the 
 body which is by no means the least of mysteries. We 
 might go on indefinitely thus, noticing what is included 
 in the simplest linguistic act ; and behind all would lie- 
 as a background the great mystery of existence and ita 
 cause, which no philosophy has yet been able to do 
 more than recognize. Every part of this is of interest 
 and importance to the linguistic scholar, but each in 
 its own way and degree; and his specific and central 
 business is with none of it, but rather with something 
 else. This, namely : there exists an uttered and audi- 
 ble sign, green, by which, in a certain community, are
 
 16 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 designated a certain class of kindred shades among tlie 
 infinitely varied hues of nature and of art ; and every 
 person who, by birth or by immigration or as a visitor 
 (a bodily visitor, or only a mental one, as student of ita 
 literature), comes into the community in question, 
 learns to associate that sign with the given group of 
 shades, and to understand and employ it as designat- 
 ing them ; and he learns to classify the infinity of "hues 
 under that and certain other signs, of like nature and 
 use. About this pivotal fact all the other matters in- 
 volved fall into position as more or less nearly auxili- 
 ary; from it as point of view they are judged and have 
 their value estimated. Language, both in its single 
 items and as a whole, is primarily_the sign of the idea, 
 the sign with its accompanying idea ; and to~lake~any 
 other department of the questions involved as the cen- 
 tral one is to throw the whole into a false position, dis- 
 torting the proportions and relations of every part. 
 And, as the_science of language seeks after causes, en- 
 deavors to explain the facts oflahguage, the primary 
 inquiry respecting this fact is : how came this sign to 
 be thus used ? what is the history of its production and 
 application ? and even, what is its ultimate origin and 
 the reason of it ? provided we can reach so far. 
 
 For there is, recognizably and traceably, a time 
 when and a reason why many of our words came into 
 use as signs for the ideas they icpresent. For exam- 
 ple, a cei tain other shade of color, a peculiar red, was 
 produced (with more, of its kind) not many years ago, 
 3s result of the chemical manipulation of coal tar, and 
 was, reflectively and artificially, called by its inventor 
 magenta, after the name of a place which a great battle 
 had recently made famous. The word magenta is just 
 as roal and legitimate a part of the English language
 
 HISTORY OF WORDS. 17 
 
 as green y though vastly y( unger and less important ; 
 and those who acquire and use the latter do so in pre- 
 cisely the same manner as the former, and generally 
 with equal ignorance and unconcern as to its origin. 
 The word gas is of much longer standing and wider use 
 with us, and has its respectable family of derivatives 
 and compounds as gaseous, gasify, gas-pipe and even 
 its colloquial figurative uses as when we call an empty 
 and sophistical but ready talker gassy ; but it was the 
 wholly arbitrary invention of a Dutch chemist (Van 
 Helmont), about A. D. 1600. Science was at that time 
 getting so far along as to begin to form the distinct 
 conception of an aeriform or gaseous condition of exist- 
 ence of matter ; and this name chanced to be intro- 
 duced and supported in a way that commended it to 
 general acceptance ; and so it became the name, and 
 for all Europe., The young now for the most part 
 know it first as the title of a certain kind of gas, made 
 practically useful in giving light ; but by and by, if 
 fairly educated, they are led in connection with the 
 word to form for themselves the scientific idea of which 
 this is the sign. To trace the history of these two vo- 
 cables is to inform ourselves as to the time and the cir- 
 cumstances of production of the aniline colors, and as 
 to the taking of a certain important step forward in 
 scientific thinking. We cannot follow so clearly tow- 
 ard or to its source the word green, because it is vastly 
 older, reaching back far beyond the period of literary 
 record ; but we do seem to arrive by inference at a 
 connection of it with our word grow, and at seeing 
 11 1 at a green thing was named from its being a groiving 
 thing ; and this is a matter of no small interest as bear- 
 ing on the history of the word. 
 
 It is not the place here to follow up this line of in
 
 18 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 quiries, and see what is meant by etymologizing, or 
 tracing the history of words toward their origin ; the 
 subject is one which will occupy us more properly later. 
 We touch it in passing merely in order to note that the 
 reason of first attribution of a sign to its specific use 
 is one thing, and that the reason of its after employ- 
 ment in that use is another and a very different thing. 
 To the child learning to speak, all signs are in them- 
 selves equally good for all things ; he could acquire 
 and reproduce one as well as another for a given pur- 
 pose. In fact, children in different communities do 
 learn every possible variety of names for the same 
 thing : instead of green, the German child learns grun, 
 the Dutch groen, the Swedish grun all related to our 
 green, yet not identical with it ; and the French child 
 learns vert, the Spanish verde, the ItaMsaiwride a simi- 
 lar group of related yet diverse names ; while the Rus- 
 sian says selenui, the Hungarian zold, the Turk ishil, 
 the Arab aklisar^ and so on. Each of these, and of hun- 
 dreds of others, is obtained in the same way : the child 
 hears it uttered by those about him under such circum- 
 stances as make plain to him what it signifies ; by its 
 aid he in part learns to abstract the quality of color 
 from the colored object and conceive it separately ; and 
 he learns to combine in one comprehensive conception 
 the different shades of green, distinguishing them to- 
 gether from the other colors, as blue and yellow, into 
 which they pass by insensible gradations. The learner 
 grasps the conception, at least in a measure, and then 
 associates his own word with it by a purely external tie, 
 having been able, if so guided, to form the same asso- 
 ciation with any other existing or possible word, and 
 not less easily and surely. An internal and necessary 
 tie between word and idea is absolutely non-existent for
 
 WORDS ARBITRARY AND CONVENTIONAL. 19 
 
 him ; and whatever historical reason there may be ia 
 also non-existent to his sense. He may sometimes ask 
 " what for 2 " about a word, as he does, in his childish 
 curiosity, about everything else ; but it makes no differ- 
 ence with the young etymologist (any more than with 
 the older one) what answer he gets, or whether he geta 
 an answer ; to him, the sole and sufficient reason why he 
 should use this particular sign is that it is used by those 
 about him. In the true and proper meaning of the terms, 
 then, every word handed down in every human language 
 is an arbitrary and conventional sign : arbitrary, because 
 any one of the thousand other words current among men, 
 or of the tens of thousands which might be fabricated, 
 could have been equally well learned and applied to 
 this particular purpose ; conventional, because the rea- 
 son for the use of this rather than another lies solely in 
 the fact that it is already used in the community to 
 which the speaker belongs. The word exists Oeaei, ' by 
 attribution,' and not c^ua-et, * by nature,' in the sense 
 that there is, either in the nature of things in general, 
 or in the nature of the individual speaker who uses it, 
 any reason that prescribes and determines it. 
 
 There is obviously mental training and shaping, aa 
 well as mental equipment, in the process of learning to 
 speak. The mental action of the individual is schooled 
 into certain habits, consonant with those of his com- 
 munity ; he acquires the current classifications and ab- 
 stractions and ways of looking at things. To take an 
 example : the quality of color is so conspicuous, and 
 our apprehension of it so urged by the infinity of iti 
 manifested differences which are ever before our eyes, 
 that the conception of color is only quickened and ren- 
 dered more distinct by acquisition of the words which 
 denote it. But in the classification of the shades of hue
 
 80 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 the phraseology of the language acquired bears a deter- 
 mining part ; they fall into order under and about the 
 leading names, as white, Mack, red, blue, green; and 
 each hue is tested in the mind by aid of these, and re- 
 ferred to the one or the other class. And different 
 languages make different classifications : some of them 
 BO unlike ours, so much less elaborate and complete, 
 that their acquisition gives the eye and mind a very 
 inferior training in distinguishing colors. This is still 
 more strikingly the case as regards number. There 
 are dialects which are in a state of infantile bewilder- 
 ment before the problem of numeration ; they have 
 words for ' one,' ' two,' and ' three ; ' but all beyond is 
 an undivided * many.' 'iNone of us, it is tolerably cer- 
 tain, would ever have gone farther than that by his 
 own absolutely unassisted efforts ; but by words and 
 only by words ; for such is the abstractness of the rela- 
 tions of number that they, more than any others, are 
 dependent for their realization and nianageableness on 
 expression more and more intricate numerical rela- 
 tions have been mastered by us, until finally we arc 
 provided with a system which is extensible to every 
 tiling short of infinity the decimal system, namely, or 
 that which proceeds by constant additions of ten indi- 
 viduals of any given denomination to form the next 
 higher. And what is the foundation of this system \ 
 Why, as every one knows, the simple fact that we have 
 ten fingers (" digits ") on our two hands ; and that fin- 
 gers are the handiest substitutes for figures, the most 
 r^ady and natural of aids to an unready reckoner. A 
 fact as external and physical as this, and seemingly so 
 trivial, has shaped the whole science of mathematics, 
 and, altogether without his being aware of it, gives 
 form to all the numerical conceptions of each nc\*
 
 MENTAL TRAINING BY LANGUAGE. gl 
 
 learner. It is a suggestion of general human experi 
 ence in the past, transmuted through language into a 
 law for the government of thought in the future. 
 
 The same, in varying way and measure, is true of 
 every part of language. All through the world of 
 matter and of mind, our predecessors, with such wis- 
 dom as they had at command, have gone observing, de- 
 ducing, and classifying ; and we inherit in and through 
 language the results of their wisdom. So with the dis- 
 tinctions of living and lifeless ; of animal and vege- 
 table and mineral y of fish and reptile and bird and in- 
 sect / of tree and bush and herb / of rock and pebble 
 and sand and dust. So with those of body, life, mind, 
 spirit, soul, and their kindred. So with the qualities 
 of objects, both physical and moral, and with their re- 
 lations, through the whole round of the categories : 
 position and succession, form and size, manner and de- 
 gree: all, in their indefinite multitude, are divided and 
 grouped, like the shades of color, and each group has 
 its own sign, to guide the apprehension and help the 
 discrimination of him who uses it. So, once more, 
 with the apparatus of logical statement : the ability to 
 put a subject and predicate closely together, and to test 
 their correspondence by repeated comparison, comes 
 only by language ; and it is the fruitful means where- 
 by old cognitions are corrected and new ones attained. 
 So, in fine, with the auxiliary apparatus of inflectiona 
 and form -words, wherein various tongues are most of 
 all discordant, each making its own selection of what it 
 will express and what it \vill leave for the mind to un- 
 derstand without expression. 
 
 Every single language has thus its own peculiar 
 framework of established distinctions, its shapes and 
 forms of thought, into which, for the human being who
 
 J2 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 learns that language as his " mother-tongue," is cast 
 the content and product of his mind, his store of im- 
 pressions, however acquired, his experience and knowl- 
 edge of the world. This is what is sometimes called 
 the " inner form " of language the shape and cast of 
 thought, as fitted to a certain body of expression. 
 But it comes as the result of external influence ; it is 
 an accompaniment of the process by which the indi- 
 vidual acquires the body of expression itself ; it is not 
 a product of his internal forces, in their free and undi- 
 rected workings ; it is something imposed from with- 
 out. It amounts simply to this : that the mind which 
 was capable of doing otherwise has been led to view 
 things in this particular way, to group them in a cer- 
 tain manner, to contemplate them consciously in these 
 and those relations. 
 
 There is thus an element of constraint in language- 
 learning. But it is an element of which the learner is 
 wholly unconscious. Whatever language he first ac- 
 quires, this is to him the natural and necessary way of 
 thinking and speaking ; he conceives of no other as 
 even possible. The case could not be otherwise. For 
 even the poorest language in existence is so much bet- 
 ter than any one's powers could have produced unaided, 
 that its acquisition would imply a greatly accelerated 
 drawing out and training of the powers of even the 
 most gifted being ; the advantage is so great that the 
 disadvantage entirely disappears before it. We, to be 
 sure, looking on from without, can sometimes find rea- 
 son for regret, saying : " Here is a man of capacities 
 far beyond the average of the degraded community of 
 which he is a member ; in justice to those capacities, 
 he should have had his birth where a higher language 
 would have developed them into what they were able
 
 ADVANTAGE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE. 23 
 
 to become ; only," we should have to add, " this bar- 
 Darian tongue raises him far above what he could have 
 become had he never learned to speak at all." More- 
 over, it is far oftener the case that the individual's lin 
 guistic lot is beyond his deserts ; that he acquires a 
 language above his level, and would have been better 
 litted by a lower dialect. 
 
 It is not easy to over-estimate the advantage won by 
 the mind in the obtaining of a language. Its confused 
 impressions are thus reduced to order, brought under 
 the distinct review of consciousness and within reach 
 of reflection ; an apparatus is provided with which it 
 can work, like the artisan with his tools. There is no 
 other parallel so close, as regards both the kind and the 
 degree of assistance afforded, as this between words, 
 the instruments of thought, and those other instru- 
 ments, the creation and the aids of man's manual dex- 
 terity. By as much as, supplied with these, man can 
 traverse space, handle and shape materials, frame text- 
 ures, penetrate distance, observe the minute, beyond 
 what he could compass with his unequipped physical 
 powers, by so much is the reach and grasp, the pene- 
 tration and accuracy, of his thought increased by speech. 
 This part of the value of speech is by no means easy 
 to bring to full realization, because our minds are so 
 used to working by and through words that they can- 
 not even conceive of the plight they would be in if de- 
 prived of such helps. But we may think, for example, 
 of what the mathematician would be without figures 
 and symbols. 
 
 In respect to this general training and equipment 
 of the mind for work, the first acquisition of a lan- 
 guage does for the individual what can never be re- 
 peated later. When we first take hold of an additional
 
 B4 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 language, we cannot help translating its signs into 
 those we already know ; the peculiarities of its " inner 
 form," the non-identity and incommensurability of it 
 shaped and grouped ideas with those of our native 
 epeech, escape our notice. As we gain familiarity with 
 it, as our conceptions adapt themselves to its frame- 
 work and operate directly through it, we come to see 
 that our thoughts are cast by it into new shapes, that 
 its phraseology is its own and inconvertible. Perhaps 
 it is here that we get our most distinct hint of the ele- 
 ment of constraint in language-learning. Certainly, 
 the exception ally -gifted Polynesian or African who 
 should learn a European language as English, French, 
 German would find himself prepared for labor in de- 
 partments of mental action which had before been in- 
 accessible to him, and would realize how his powers 
 had been balked of their best action by the possession 
 of only the inferior instrument. The scholars of the 
 Middle Ages, who employed the Latin for the expres- 
 sion of their higher thought, did so partly because the 
 popular dialects had not yet become enriched to a ca- 
 pacity for aiding the production of such thought and 
 for expressing it. 
 
 But in all other respects, the learning of a second 
 language is precisely the same process as the learning 
 of a first, of one's own " mother-tongue." It is the 
 memorizing of a certain body of signs for conceptions 
 and their relations, used in a certain community, exist- 
 ing or extinct signs which have no more natural and 
 necessary connection with the conceptions they indicate 
 than our own have, but are equally arbitrary and con- 
 ventional with the latter ; and of which we may make 
 ourselves masters to a degree dependent only on our 
 opportunities, our capacity, our industry, and the length
 
 LANGUAGE-LEARNING AN ENDLESS PROCESS. 25 
 
 of tiuie devoted to the work ; even coming to substi- 
 tute, if circumstances favor, the second language in GLUT 
 constant and ready use, and to become unfamiliar with 
 and forget its predecessor. 
 
 We realize better in the case of a second or " for- 
 eign," than in that of a first or " native " language, 
 that the process of acquisition is a never-ending one ; 
 but it is not more true of the one than of the other. 
 We say, to be sure, of a child who has reached a cer- 
 tain grade that he " has learned to speak ; " but wo 
 mean by this only that he has acquired a limited num- 
 ber of signs, sufficient for the ordinary purposes of the 
 childish life, together with the power, by much prac- 
 tice, of wielding them with adroitness and general cor- 
 rectness. There are, probably, only a few hundred 
 such signs, all told ; and outside their circle, the Eng- 
 lish is as much an unknown language to the child as is 
 German, or Chinese, or Choctaw. Even ideas which 
 he is fully able to grasp when put into his acquired 
 phraseology are unintelligible if expressed as grown-up 
 men would naturally write them ; they must be trans- 
 lated into childish phrase. What he has is especially 
 the central core of language, as we may call it : signs 
 for ths most commonly recurring conceptions, words 
 which every speaker uses every day. As he grows 
 older, as his powers develop and his knowledge in- 
 creases, he acquires more and more ; and in different 
 departments, according to circumstances. He who has 
 to turn at once to the hard work of life may add to the 
 first childish store little besides the technical expres- 
 sions belonging to his own narrow vocation ; he, on 
 the other hand, who devotes years to the sole work of 
 getting himself educated, and continues to draw in 
 knowledge through the rest of his life, appropriates
 
 86 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 constantly larger stores, and rises to higher styles of ex- 
 pression. The ordinary vocabulary of the educated, in- 
 cluding a great variety of the technical terms of special 
 branches of knowledge with which the educated man 
 must have at least a degree of acquaintance, he may 
 como to understand and to use with intelligence ; but 
 there will be whole bodies of English expression which 
 he cannot wield, as well as styles to which he does 
 not attain. The vocabulary of a rich and long-culti- 
 vated language like the English may be roughly esti- 
 mated at about 100,000 words (although this excludes a 
 great deal which, if " English " were understood in its 
 widest sense, would have to be counted in) ; but thirty 
 thousand is a very large estimate for the number ever 
 used, in writing or speaking, by a well-educated man ; 
 three to five thousand, it has been carefully estimated, 
 cover the ordinary needs of cultivated intercourse ; 
 and the number acquired by persons of lowest training 
 and narrowest information is considerably less than 
 this. Nowhere more clearly than here does it appear 
 that one gets his language by a process of learning, and 
 only thus ; for all this gradual increase of one's lin- 
 guistic resources goes on in the most openly external 
 fashion, by dint of hearing and reading and study ; and 
 it is obviously only a continuation, under somewhat 
 changed circumstances, of the process of acquisition of 
 the first nucleus ; while the whole is parallel to the be- 
 ginning and growth of one's command of a " foreign " 
 tongue. 
 
 The same thing, however, appears clearly enough, 
 if we consider more narrowly the somewhat shifting 
 relations between our linguistic signs and the concep- 
 tions for wiiich they stand. The relation is established 
 at first by a tentative process, liable to error and sub-
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF CLASSIFICATION. 27 
 
 ject to amendment. The child finds out very soon that 
 names do not in general belong to single objects alone, 
 but rather to classes of related objects ; and his power 
 of noting resemblances and differences, the most fun- 
 damental activity of intellect, is from the first called 
 into lively action and trained by the constant necessity 
 of applying names rightly. But the classes are of every 
 variety of extent, and in part determined by obscure 
 and perplexing criteria. We have noted already the 
 natural and frequent childish error of using papa and 
 mamma in the sense of ' man ' and ' woman ; ' the child 
 is puzzled, by and by, by finding that there are other 
 papas and mammas, though he must not call them so. 
 An older child he learns to call, for example, George / 
 but he finds that he must not say George of other kin- 
 dred beings ; there is another word, Joy, for that use. 
 But then, again, he makes acquaintance with still other 
 Georges / and to find the tie that binds them into a 
 class together is a problem quite beyond his powers. 
 A variety of creatures of very diverse appearance he 
 learns to call dog ; but he may not take the same lib 
 erty with horse ; though mules and donkeys are much 
 more like horses than greyhounds and Japdogs are like 
 terriers, they must be carefully distinguished in appel- 
 lation. A sun in a picture is still a sun / and in a culti- 
 vated community the child soon gets his imagination 
 trained to recognize the pictured representations of 
 things, and to call them by the same names, while 
 etill distinctly aware of the relation between thing aiii 
 picture ; while a grown-up untutored savage is com- 
 pletely baffled by such a counterfeit, seeing in it only a 
 confusion of lines and scratches. A toy house or tree 
 is to have the title house or tree ; but a kind of toy hu- 
 man being has the specific name of doll. The words
 
 28 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 of degree have their peculiarities of application : new 
 is sometimes at an inch of distance, sometimes at a 
 rod ; a big apple is not nearly so big as a little house ; 
 a long time means a few minutes or a few years* 
 The inconsistencies of expression are numberless ; and 
 till added experience explains them, there is room for 
 misapprehensions and blunders. Moreover, there are 
 cases in which the difficulty is much more persistent, 
 or is never wholly removed. Fish even adult appre- 
 hension makes to include whales and dolphins, till sci- 
 entific knowledge points out a fundamental difference 
 as underlying the superficial resemblance. 
 
 But it is especially in regard to matters of which 
 the knowledge is won in a more artificial way, that the 
 beginner's ideas are vague and insufficient. For ex- 
 ample, children are apt to be taught the names and 
 definitions of geographical objects and relations with- 
 out gaining any real comprehension of what it all 
 means ; a map, a more unintelligible kind of picture, is 
 little better than a puzzle ; and even older children, or 
 grown men, have defective conceptions which are only 
 rectified by exceptional experience in after-life. Local- 
 ities, of course, are most incorrectly imagined by those 
 who have not seen them. Of Sedan, Peking, Hawaii, 
 Chimborazo, every well-instructed person knows enough 
 to be able to talk about them ; but how imperfectly do 
 we conceive them, as compared with one who has lived 
 at or near them ! We have to be extremely careful, in 
 teaching the young, not to push them on too rapidly, 
 lest we prove to have been building up a mere artificial 
 and empty structure of names, without real enlighten- 
 ment. And yet, something of this is unavoidable, a 
 necessary incident of instruction. A host of grand 
 conceptions are put before the youthful mind, and kept
 
 IMPERFECTION OF LANGUAGE. 29 
 
 there by a paltry association or two, while it is left for 
 after-development to fill them out to more nearly their 
 true value. The child is ludicrously unable at first to 
 know what is meant by God, or good, or duty, or con 
 science, or the world, even as sun and moon, weight 
 and color, involve infinitely more than he has an ink- 
 ling of; but the word, in each case, gives him a definite 
 nucleus, about which more and ever more knowledge 
 may be grouped ; he makes a constant approach toward 
 the right conception, even if it be one to which no hu- 
 man wisdom has yet attained. For the condition of 
 the child, after all, differs only in degree from that of 
 the man, and in no very great degree. Our words are 
 too often signs for crude and hasty, for indefinite and 
 indefinable, generalizations. We use them accurately 
 enough for the ordinary practical purposes of life ; and 
 most of mankind go through life content with that, let- 
 ting instruction and experience bring what improve- 
 ment they may ; few have the independence, even if 
 they had the time and ability, to test every name to 
 the bottom, drawing precise limits about each. For 
 the most part, we are loose thinkers and loose talkers, 
 misled into error in an infinity of cases by our igno- 
 rance of the terms we glibly use. But even the wisest 
 and most thorough of us is met by the impossibility of 
 giving to speech a preciseness of definition which should 
 exclude misunderstanding and unsound reasoning es- 
 pecially as to matters of subjective import, where it is 
 hard to bring conceptions to a sharp test. And so tho 
 differences of view, even of philosophers, take on tho 
 form of verbal questions, controversies hinge on tho 
 interpretation of a term, and every writer who aims at 
 exactness has to begin with definitions to which, then, 
 he finds it impossible to be faithful ; some antagonist
 
 30 ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 or successor, perhaps, shows him to have failed of ex- 
 actness at a critical point, and tumbles into ruins the 
 whole magnificent structure of fancied truth which he 
 had erected. 
 
 We see from all this, it may be observed, how far 
 language is from being identical with thought. It is 
 so just as much as the mathematician's figures and 
 symbols are identical with his conceptions of mathe- 
 matical quantities and relations ; and not one whit 
 more. It is, as we noticed at the outset, the means 
 of expression of thought, an instrumentality auxili- 
 ary to the processes of thought. An acquired lan- 
 guage is something imposed from without upon the 
 methods and results of mental action. It does, indeed, 
 as a frame-work imposed upon a growing and develop- 
 ing body, give shape to that which underlies it, deter- 
 mining the " inner form ; " and yet it is everywhere 
 loose and adjustable. While working by it, the mind 
 also works under it, shifting and adapting, changing 
 and improving its classifications, working in new knowl- 
 edge and better insight. Thus far we have emphasized 
 the passive receptive work of the mind in dealing with 
 language, because that is, especially at the outset, the 
 bulk of its work ; in the following chapters we have 
 to take account of its more independent and creative 
 activity. 
 
 But nothing that has been said is to be misconstrued 
 into meaning that the mind is not, in all its work, es- 
 sentially an active and creative force, or that it gets by 
 instruction a faculty which it did not before possess. 
 All that is implied in the power to speak belongs inde- 
 feasibly to man, as a part of his natural endowment ; 
 but this power is guided in its development, and deter- 
 mined in the result it attains, by the example and in
 
 LANGUAGE-LEARNING A PART OF EDUCATION. 31 
 
 struction of other minds, already developed. It does 
 nothing which it might not have done alone, under 
 favoring circumstances, and with sufficient time the 
 life-time, namely, of a few score or hundred genera- 
 tions ; but for what it actually does, both as regards 
 the how much and the how, it has to thank those about 
 it. Its acquisition of language is a part of its educa- 
 tion, in just the same manner and degree as the other 
 parts of education.
 
 CHAPTEE IIL 
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES DT LAN- 
 GUAGE. 
 
 Other side of life of language ; growth and change ; question of its mode 
 and cause. Illustrative passage from oldest English, or Anglo- 
 Saxon ; exposition of its differences from modern English : differ- 
 ences of pronunciation ; abbreviations and extensions ; changes of 
 meaning ; ' of phraseology and construction. Classification of liii- 
 guistic changes. 
 
 WE have seen in the foregoing chapter that the in- 
 dividual learns his language, obtaining the spoken signs 
 of which it is made up by imitation from the lips of 
 others, and shaping his conceptions in accordance with 
 them. It is thus that every existing language is main- 
 tained in life ; if this process of tradition, by teaching 
 and learning, were to cease in any tongue upon earth, 
 that tongue would at once become extinct. 
 
 But this is only one side of the life of language. If 
 it were all, then each spoken dialect would remain the 
 same from age to age. In virtue of it, each does, in 
 fact, remain nearly the same ; this is what maintains 
 the prevailing identity of speech so long as the iden- 
 tity of the speaking community is maintained aside 
 from those great revolutions in their circumstances 
 which now and then lead w r hole communities to adopt 
 the speech of another people. This, then, is the grand
 
 LANGUAGE CONSTANTLY CHANGING. 33 
 
 conservative force in the history of language ; if there 
 were no disturbing and counteracting forces to interfere 
 with its workings, every generation to the end of time 
 would speak as its predecessors had done. 
 
 Such, however, as every one knows, is very far from 
 being the case. All living language is in a condition 
 of constant growth and change. It matters not to 
 what part of the world we may go : if we can find for 
 any existing speech a record of its predecessor at some 
 time distant from it in the past, we shall perceive that 
 the two are different and more or less different, main- 
 ly in proportion to the distance of time that separates 
 them. It is so with the Romanic tongues of southern 
 Europe, as compared with their common progenitor the 
 Latin ; so with the modern dialects of India, as com- 
 pared with the recorded forms of speech intermediate 
 between them and the Sanskrit, or with the Sanskrit 
 itself; and not less with the English of our day, as 
 compared with that of other days. An English speaker 
 even of only a century ago would find not a little in 
 our every-day speech which he would understand with 
 difficulty, or not at all ; if we were to hear Shakespeare 
 read aloud a scene from one of his own works, it would 
 be in no small part unintelligible (by reason, especially, 
 of the great difference between his pronunciation and 
 ours) ; Chaucer's English (500 years ago) we master by 
 dint of good solid application, and with considerable 
 help from a glossary ; and King Alfred's English (1000 
 years ago), which we call Anglo-Saxon, is not easier to 
 us than German. All this, in spite of the fact that no 
 one has gone about of set purpose to alter English 
 speech, in any generation among the thirty or forty 
 that have lived between us and Alfred, any more than 
 in our own. llere, then, is another side of the life of
 
 34 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 language for us to deal with, and to explain, if we can. 
 Life, here as elsewhere, appears to involve growth and 
 change as an essential element ; and the remarkable 
 analogies which exist between the birth and growth 
 and decay and extinction of a language and those of an 
 organized being, or of a species, have been often enough 
 noticed and dwelt upon : some have even inferred from 
 them that language is an organism, and leads an or- 
 ganic life, governed by laws with which men cannot 
 interfere. 
 
 Plainly, however, we should be overhasty in resort- 
 ing to such an explanation until after mature inquiry 
 and deliberation. There is no primd facie impossibil- 
 ity that language, if an institution of human device, 
 and propagated by tradition, should change. Human 
 institutions in general go down from generation to 
 generation by a process of transmission like that of 
 language, and they are all modified as they go. On 
 the one hand, tradition is by its very nature imperfect 
 and inaccurate. No one has ever yet been able to pre- 
 vent what passes from mouth to ear from getting al- 
 tered on the way. The child always commits blunders, 
 of every kind, in his earlier attempts at speaking : if 
 careful and well trained, he learns later to correct 
 them ; but he is often careless and untrained. And 
 all through the life-long process of learning one's 
 " mother-tongue," one is liable to apprehend wrongly 
 and to reproduce inexactly. On the other hand, al- 
 though the child in his first stage of learning is more 
 than satisfied to take what is set before him and use it 
 as he best can, because his mental development is far 
 short of that which it represents, and its acquisition is 
 urging him on at his best rate of progress, the case 
 does not always continue thus with him : by and bj
 
 INDIVIDUAL CHANGES OF LANG I AGE. 35 
 
 his mind lias grown up, perhaps, to the full measure 
 of that which his speech represents, and begins to ex- 
 hibit its native and surplus force ; it chafes against the 
 imposed framework of current expression ; it modifies 
 a little its inherited instrument, in order to adapt this 
 better to its own purposes. So, to have recourse to an 
 obvious analogy, one may, by diligent study under in- 
 structors, have reached in some single department as 
 of natural science, mathematics, philosophy the fur- 
 thest limits of his predecessors' knowledge, and found 
 them too strait for him ; he adds new facts, draws new 
 distinctions, establishes new relations, which the sub- 
 sisting technical language of the department is incom- 
 petent to express ; and there arises thus an absolute 
 need of new expression, which must in some way or 
 other be met ; and it is met. Every language must 
 prove itself able to signify what is in the minds of its 
 speakers to express ; if unequal to that, it would have 
 to abdicate its office ; it would no longer answer the 
 purposes of a language. The sum of what all the in- 
 dividual speakers contribute to the common store of 
 thought and knowledge by original work has to be 
 worked into the " inner form " of their language along 
 with and by means of some alteration in its outer form. 
 
 Here, then, at any rate, are two obvious forces, hav- 
 ing their roots in human action, and constantly operat- 
 ing toward the change of language ; and it remains to 
 be seen whether there are any others, of a different 
 character. Let us, then, proceed to examine the changes 
 which actually go on in language, and which by their 
 sum and combined effect constitute its growth, and see 
 what they will say as to the force that brings them 
 about. 
 
 And it will be well to begin with a concrete exam-
 
 36 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 pie, a specimen of altered speech, which shall serve a a 
 a source of illustration, and as groundwork for a clas- 
 sification of the kinds of linguistic change. The French- 
 man would find his best example in a parallel between 
 a phrase of ancient Latin and its correspondent in mod- 
 ern French, with intermediate forms from the older 
 French ; the German could trace a passage backward 
 through the Middle to the Old High-German, with 
 hints of a yet remoter antiquity derived from the 
 Gothic ; to the English speaker, nothing else is so 
 available as a specimen of the oldest English, or Anglo- 
 Saxon, of a thousand years ago. Let us look, then, at 
 a verse from the Anglo-Saxon gospels, and compare it 
 with its modern counterpart : 
 
 Se Ihdendfor on reste-docg ofer ceceras / sothUce his 
 leorning-cnihtas liyngrede, and hi ongunnon pluccian 
 thd ear and etan. 
 
 No ordinary English reader, certainly, would un- 
 derstand this, or discover that it is the equivalent of 
 the following sentence of our modern version : 
 
 " Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn ; 
 and his disciples were a hungered, and began to pluck 
 the ears of corn and to eat." (Matthew xii. 1.) 
 
 And yet, by translating it as literally as we can, we 
 shall find that almost every element in it is still good 
 English, only disguised by changes of form and of 
 meaning. Thus : 
 
 ' The Healing [one] fared on rest-day over [the] 
 acre? ; soothly, his learning-knights [it] hungered, and 
 they began [to] pluck the ears and eat.' 
 
 Thus although, from one point of view, and and 
 his are the only words in the Anglo-Saxon passage 
 which are the same also in the English and not even 
 those really, since their former pronunciation was some-
 
 CHANGES OF PRONUNCIATION. 37 
 
 what different from their present from another point 
 of view everything is English excepting se, ' the,' and 
 hi, l they ' and even those, virtually ; since they are 
 cases of inflection of the -definite article and third per- 
 sonal pronoun, of which other cases (as the, that, they, 
 and he, his, him} are still in good use with us. Both 
 the discordance and the accordance are complete, ac- 
 cording to the way in which we look at them. We 
 will proceed to examine the passage a little in detail, 
 in order to understand better the relations between the 
 older and the newer form. 
 
 In the first place, their pronunciation is even more 
 different than is indicated by the written text. There 
 are at least two sounds in the Anglo-Saxon which are 
 unknown in our present speech : namely, the h of 
 cniktas, which was nearly or quite the same with the 
 cAof the corresponding German word knecht, and the y 
 of hyngrede, which was the German -wand French u, an 
 u(oo)-sonnd with an *(^)-sound intimately combined 
 with it. On the other hand, there are sounds in the 
 English which were unknown to the Anglo-Saxon. 
 Our so-called " short 0," of on, was no ancient sound ; 
 nor was the " short u " of begun, pluck, which had 
 then the vowel-sound of book and full; nor was the 
 " short i " of his, which was more like the French 
 and German short i, not markedly different in quality 
 from the true long i, our so-called "long e^ or^-sound. 
 All these are examples of the manifold changes of Eng- 
 lish pronunciation during the thousand years since Al- 
 fred changes which have altered the whole aspect of 
 our orthoepy and orthography. And others of them 
 are illustrated in the passage : for instance, our knight 
 and eat show protractions of the short vowels of cniht 
 and etan, each typical of a whole class of cases ; and
 
 38 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 the lengthened i has been changed into a diphthong, 
 which we call "long *" simply because it has taken the 
 place of our former long i (ee) ; while we call the real 
 long i of eat by the false name of " long e " for the 
 Eime reason. 
 
 Again, we may observe in the forms of many words 
 the effects of a tendency toward abbreviation. Eeste 
 and hyngrede have lost with us their final e, which in 
 Anglo-Saxon, as now in German and Italian, made an 
 additional syllable. Ongunnon, plucciaii, and etan 
 have lost both vowel and consonant of a final syllable ; 
 and these syllables were the distinctive endings, in the 
 first word of the plural verbal iiificction (origan, ' I or 
 he began,' but ongunnon, l we or they began '), in the 
 other two of the infinitive. In ceceras, ' acres,' and 
 cnihtas, ' knights,' though we have saved the final s of 
 the plural ending, it no longer makes an additional 
 syllable. And in sothlice, ' soothly ' (i. e. ' truly, ver- 
 ily '), there is a yet more marked abbreviation, to which 
 we shall presently return. 
 
 On the other hand, ear, ' ears,' and for, ( fared,' 
 have been extended in modern time by the addition of 
 other pronounced elements. It was the rule in Anglo- 
 Saxon that a neuter noun of one syllable, if of long 
 quantity, had no (nom. or accus.) plural ending. With 
 us, every noun, of whatever gender or quantity (save 
 a few exceptions, of which we need take no account 
 here), takes s as its plural sign. As for for, the Anglo- 
 Saxons conjugated faran, ' fare,' as they did dragan^ 
 1 draw,' and said for, ' fared,' like droh, l drew ' (com- 
 pare the corresponding German faliren fuhr and tra- 
 gen trug] that is to say, faran was to them a verb of 
 the " irregular," or " old," or " strong " conjugation. 
 But for a long time there has existed in English speech
 
 CHANGES OF MEANING. 39 
 
 a tendency to work over such verbs, abandoning their 
 irregularly varying inflection, and reducing them to 
 accordance with the more numerous class of the " regu- 
 larly" inflected, like love, loved; audfare is one of the 
 many that have undergone this change. The process 
 is quite analogous with that which has turned ear into 
 ears: that is to say, a prevailing analogy has been 
 extended to include cases formerly treated as excep- 
 tional. 
 
 In connection with ear comes to light another very 
 striking difference between the ancient and modern 
 English : the Anglo-Saxon had grammatical gender, 
 like the Greek and Latin and German ; it regarded ear 
 as neuter, but cecer and dceg as masculine, and, for in- 
 stance, tunge, ( tongue,' and deed, ' deed,' as feminine ; 
 to us, who have abolished grammatical gender in favor 
 of natural sex, all are alike neuter. 
 
 We turn now to consider a few points relative to 
 the meaning of the words used. In for we find a 
 marked difference of sense as well as of form. It is 
 part of an old Germanic verb meaning * go,' and is 
 traceable even back into the earliest Indo-European, as 
 the root par, ' pass ' (Skt. pdraydmi, Gk. irepdco, Lat. 
 ex-per-ior) ; now it is quite obsolete in any such sense 
 as this, and rather unusual even in that of 'getting on,' 
 ' making progress : ' "it fared ill with him." Again, 
 cever meant in Anglo-Saxon a * cultivated field,' as does 
 the German acker to the present day ; and here, again, 
 we have its very ancient correlatives in Sanskrit ajra, 
 Greek dypos, Latin ager ; the restriction of the word 
 to signify a field of certain fixed dimensions, taken as 
 a unit of measure for fields in general, is something 
 quite peculiar and recent. It is analogous with the like 
 treatment of rod and foot and grain, and so on, except
 
 40 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 that in these cases we have saved the old meaning 
 while adding the new. 
 
 Among the striking peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon 
 passage is its use of the words Hwlend, * healing one,' 
 reste-dccg. ' rest-day,' and leorning-cnihtas, ' learning- 
 knights ' (i. e. ' youths under instruction'), in the sense 
 respectively of ' Savior,' ' sabbath,' and ' disciples.' 
 Though all composed of genuine old Germanic mate- 
 rials, they were nevertheless recent additions to the 
 language. The introduction of Christianity had cre- 
 ated a necessity for them. For the new idea of the 
 Christian Creator and Father, the old word god, en- 
 nobled and inspired with a new meaning, answered 
 English purposes well enough. But there was no cur- 
 rent name applicable to the conception of one who 
 saved men from their sins, making them whole or hale ; 
 and so the present participle of the verb hcelan, ' make 
 hale, Jiealj was chosen to represent awrrjp, and special- 
 ized into a proper name, a title for the one Savior. It 
 is the same word which, in German, is still current as 
 Ileiland. IZeste-dceg, as name for the sabbath, needs 
 no word of explanation or comment. As for leorning- 
 cnihtas,, rendering disGipuli and fjuOijrai, its most 
 striking characteristic, apart from its rather lumbering 
 awkwardness, is the peculiar meaning which it implies 
 in cnikt, ' knight.' Between our knight, a word of 
 high chivalric significance, and the German knecht, 
 ' servant, menial,' is a long distance : both show a de- 
 viation, the one in an upward and the other in a down- 
 ward direction, from the indifferent ' youth, fellow,' 
 which lies at the bottom of the use of the word in our 
 Anglo-Saxon compound. 
 
 But a not less noteworthy point in the history of 
 these words is that in our later usage they have all be
 
 MAKING OF FORMS. 41 
 
 come superseded by other terms, of foreign origin. 
 The Anglo-Saxon did not, like our English, resort free- 
 ly to foreign stores of expression for the supply of new 
 needs. It was easier then to accept the new institu- 
 tions of Christianity than new names for then. AVa 
 have wonderfully changed all that, under the operation 
 of causes which will come up for notice hereafter 
 (chapter vii.) ; and in place of the three new Saxon 
 names we have put other yet newer ones : two Latin- 
 French, disciple and savior, and one Hebrew, sabbath. 
 The substitution exemplifies a capital trait in English 
 language-history. 
 
 Our attention being thus directed to the introduc- 
 tion of new elements into Anglo-Saxon, we will note 
 another case or two of the same kind of linguistic 
 change in another department. Sothlice is an adverb, 
 answering to our ' truly.' We recognize in the first 
 pajrt of it our sooth, a word now almost obsolete quite 
 so, as far as ordinary use is concerned. Its second part, 
 lice, is our ly. But it is also a case-form (instrumental) 
 of an adjective lie, our like, which was appended to the 
 noun soth, ' truth,' forming a compound adjective (or 
 adjectival derivative) equivalent to truth-like, and com- 
 pletely analogous to truthful, from truth and full. 
 Our adverbial ending ly, then, by which most of our 
 adverbs are made, and which to us is only a suffix, is 
 really the product of alteration of a case-form of a 
 compounded adjective, a word originally independent, 
 instead of using, like the modern German, the base or 
 crude-form of an adjective as adverb that is to say, in 
 the formal grammatical character of adaptedness to 
 qualify a verb or adjective rather than a substantive 
 we have wrought out for that purpose a special form, 
 01 which the history of development may be followed
 
 12 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 step by step to its origin, and which is exclusively the 
 property of our language among its kindred Germanic 
 dialects. 
 
 A second case is brought before us in hyngredt, 
 Its preterit ending de is not, like the adverbial ly, ex 
 clusively English; it is rather, like the adjective lie, a 
 common Germanic possession. Without dwelling here 
 at length upon its history, we will only observe that it 
 is, like lice, traced back to an independent word, the 
 preterit did, which was in remote Germanic time added 
 to some verbal derivative, or other part of speech, to 
 form a new style of past tense, when the yet older pro- 
 cesses of preterit formation had become no longer man- 
 ageable. 
 
 There are also changes of construction in our pas- 
 sage which ought not to pass without a moment's no- 
 tice. The word leorning-cnihtas is object, not subject, 
 of hyngrede; and the construction is that peculiar one 
 in which the impersonal verb, without expressed sub- 
 ject, takes before it as object the person affected by the 
 action or feeling it signifies. This is still a familiar 
 mode of expression in German, where one freely says 
 mich hungerte, ' me hungered,' for ' I hungered ; ' and 
 even we have a trace of it, in the obsolescent meihinks, 
 German mich duiikt that is, ' it seems to me.' Again, 
 the infinitives pluccian and etan, being by origin ver- 
 bal nouns and having properly the construction of 
 nouns, are directly dependent, as objects, on the tran- 
 sitive verb ongunnon. We make the same construc- 
 tion with some verbs : so, he will pluck, he must eat, 
 see him pluck, let him eat ; and even after legan short- 
 ened to 'gan it is allowed ; * but in the vast majority of 
 sases we require the preposition to as " infinitive sign,'' 
 
 1 " Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare." W SOOTT.
 
 CHANGES OF CONSTRUCTION. 43 
 
 saying " began to pluck and to eat." This preposition 
 was not unknown in Anglo-Saxon ; but it was used 
 only where the connection pretty manifestly favored 
 the insertion of such a connective ; and the infinitive 
 after it had a peculiar form : thus, god to etanne, l good 
 rinto eating,' and so * good to eat.' The to which at 
 the period of our specimen-passage was a real word of 
 relation has now become the stereotyped sign of a cer- 
 tain verbal form; it has no more independent value 
 than the ending an of pluccian and eta/n, which, in- 
 deed, it in a manner replaces ; though not, like -ly and 
 -d, combined with the word to which it belongs, its of- 
 fice is analogous with theirs. 
 
 We will notice but one thing more in the passage : 
 the almost oblivion into which soth, our sooth, has fall- 
 en. Only a small part of the great body of English- 
 speakers know that there is such a word ; and no one 
 but a poet, or an imitator of archaic style, ever uses it. 
 We have put in place of it trite and truth, which of old 
 were more restricted to the expression of faithfulness, 
 trustworthiness. 
 
 The brief sentence selected, we see, illustrates a 
 very considerable variety of linguistic changes ; in fact, 
 there is hardly a possible mode of change which is not 
 more or less distinctly brought to light by it. Such 
 are, in general, the ways in which a language comes to 
 be at a later period different from what it has been at 
 n earlier. They are matters of individual detail ; each 
 item, or each class of accordant items, has its own time 
 and occasion, and analogies, and secondary causes, and 
 consequences ; it is their sum and collective effect which 
 make up the growth of language. If we are to under- 
 stand how language grows, we must take them up and 
 examine them in their individuality. This, then, is the
 
 14 CONSERVATIVE AND ALTERATIVE FORCES. 
 
 subject wliicli is now for some time to occupy us : an 
 inquiryinto the modes of linguistic change, and their 
 causes, nearer and remoter. 
 
 "We have already rudely made one classification of 
 these linguistic changes, founded on the various pur- 
 pose which they subserve : namely, into such as make 
 new expression, being produced for the designation of 
 conceptions before uudesignated ; and such as merely 
 alter the form of old expression ; or, into additions and 
 alterations. It will, however, suit our purpose better 
 to make a more external division, one depending upon 
 the kind of change rather than upon its object. In 
 carrying this out, it will be practicable to take every- 
 where sufficient notice of the object also. 
 
 "We may distinguish, then : 
 
 I. Alterations of the old material of language ; 
 change of the words which are still retained as the sub- 
 Btance of expression ; and this of two kinds or sub- 
 classes : 1. change in uttered form ; 2. change in con- 
 tent or signification ; the two, as we shall see, occurring 
 either independently or in conjunction. 
 
 II. Losses of the old material of language, disap- 
 pearance of what has been in use ; and this also of two 
 kinds : 1. loss of complete words ; 2. loss of gram- 
 matical forms and distinctions. 
 
 III. Production of new material ; additions to the 
 old stock of a language, in the way of new words or 
 new forms ; external expansion of the resources of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 This classification is obviously exhaustive ; there 
 can be no change in any language which will not fall 
 under one or other of the three classes here laid down
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 QKO\Vm OF LANGUAGE I CHANGE IN THE OUTER FORM OB 
 WORDS. 
 
 Relation of tk^ word to the conception it designates, as conditioning the 
 possibility, and the mutual independence, of its changes of form and 
 meaning. Tendency to ease or economy in changes of form. Ab- 
 breviation of words ; examples ; its agency in form-making ; losti 
 of endings. Substitution of one sound for another ; examples of 
 vowel and consonant change ; Grimm's law ; underlying causes of 
 phonetic change ; processes of utterance ; physical or natural scheme 
 of spoken alphabet ; its series and classes ; distinction of vowel and 
 consonant ; syllabic or articulate character of human speech. Gen- 
 eral tendencies in phonetic change. Limits to phonetic explanation. 
 Change of form by extension of a prevailing analogy. 
 
 IN this chapter we have to take up and illustrate 
 the first division of the first class of linguistic changes, 
 that which includes alterations of the uttered and au- 
 dible forms of words. But first it will be well to call 
 attention anew to certain general principles (already 
 hinted at in the second chapter), which are of funda- 
 mental importance as underlying the whole subject of 
 verbal alteration, whether in respect to shape or sense. 
 And we shall best attain our object by discussing a 
 selected example. 
 
 Let us take a familiar word, found in most of the 
 languages of modern Europe, and having a well-known 
 history the word bishop. It comes, as almost every
 
 46 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 one is aware, from the Greek eVtovcoTro? (ejiiskopos). 
 This, again, is a derivative from the root skep, ' see, 
 look,' with the prefix epi, ' at ;' and so it means by ori- 
 gin simply ' inspector, overseer ; ' in the early formative 
 period of the Christian church, it was selected as ofli 
 cial designation of the person to whom was committed 
 the oversight of the affairs of a little Christian com- 
 munity : and both word and office are still readily rec- 
 ognizable in our bishop and its use. But we have cut 
 down the long title into a briefer one, by dropping its 
 first and last syllables : and we have worked over into 
 new shape most of its constituent sounds : we have 
 changed the first p into a different but closely kindred 
 sound, its corresponding sonant, bj the *&, a sibilant 
 with following palatal mute, has been as it were fused 
 together into the more palatal sibilant, sh y a simple 
 sound, though it is written with two letters, just be- 
 cause of its usual derivation by fusion of two simple 
 sounds into one ; and the o-sound of the second sylla- 
 ble has been neutralized into what we usually call the 
 "short u" sound and the result is our word, with two 
 syllables instead of four, and with five sounds instead 
 of nine, and among those five only two, the consonant 
 p and the vowel i, which were of the nine. The Ger- 
 man, in its Msc/tqf, has altered even the final p. The 
 French, again has made out of the same original a 
 very different looking product, eveque, which does not 
 contain a single sound that is found either in the Eng- 
 lish word or in the German ; it comes, by another set 
 of changes, from evesc, for episk. In Spanish, the word 
 is made into obispo, by yet another process, and this is 
 further shortened in the Portuguese bispo. The Dan- 
 ish, finally, shows the extreme of abbreviation, in the 
 monosyllable bisp. While these changes have been
 
 THE WORD BISHOP. 47 
 
 going on, the meaning of the word has been not less 
 altered. The official who was, when first named, mere 
 ly overseer of the interests of a little band of timid 
 proselytes to a new and proscribed faith, half-expectant 
 martyrs, has risen immensely in dignity and power, 
 along with the rise of the religion to importance, and 
 to preeminence in the state ; he has become a conse- 
 crated prelate, charged with spiritual and temporal 
 authority through an entire province a kind of eccle- 
 siastical prince, yet still wearing his old simple title. 
 
 From this word, taken as a type, we may learn 
 many things, which a wider induction, from innumer- 
 able examples, would only confirm. 
 
 First, the name had its origin in a need which arose 
 at a particular time and place in the progress of human 
 history. A new religion came into being, and required 
 organization of its votaries ; and this made a call for 
 technical designations of its officials which, as in all 
 similar cases, were then without difficulty found : not 
 bishop only, but priest and deacon, and so on. The 
 words were, in fact, already in existence, as general 
 terms, ready, like the people who should wear them, to 
 be selected and set apart to this specific office. What 
 should come of it further, whether the new titles should 
 rise to importance and attain wide currency, depended 
 on the after-fate of the system to which they be- 
 longed. 
 
 Again, the word bishop did not describe, either fully 
 or accurately, the office which it was used to designate. 
 Mere ' looking on ' or * looking over ' was not what 
 men expected of the person elected ; the barest hint of 
 his official duty is contained in the term. But, imper- 
 fect as it may have been as a description, it was suffi- 
 cient as a designation. The description would have
 
 48 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 needed to be a long one, and varied to suit the cir- 
 cumstances of each new place and time ; the title 
 answered its desired purpose equally well in all cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Hence also, as little did the retention of the title 
 depend upon the maintenance of just that kird and do- 
 gree of relation between its etymological meaning and 
 the office it denominated which had existed at the out- 
 set. Even what etymological appropriateness it once 
 possessed was no longer of any account, when once it 
 had become established in use as name of the office. 
 It passed, with the institution to which it belonged, 
 into the keeping and use of great communities which 
 did not speak Greek and had no knowledge of what it 
 originally signified, and it served its purpose with them 
 just as well as if they had understood its whole history. 
 From the moment when it became an accepted sign for 
 a certain thing, its whole career was cut loose from its 
 primitive root ; it became, what it has ever since con- 
 tinued to be, a conventional sign, and hence an alter- 
 able sign, for a certain conception, but a variable and 
 developing conception. 
 
 In this fundamental fact, that the uttered sign was 
 a conventional one, bound to the conception signified 
 by it only by a tie of mental association, lay the possi- 
 bility both of its change of meaning and of its change 
 of form. If the tie were a natural, an internal and 
 necessary one, it would seem to follow that any change 
 in either would have to be accompanied by a change in 
 the other. But in the case taken, while the idea has 
 expanded into greatness, the word has been shrinking 
 in its proportions, and is nowhere more than a frag- 
 ment of its former self. The only tendency which we 
 can discover in its treatment is a tendency toward
 
 CHANGE OF FORM AND MEANING. 49 
 
 economy of effort in its utterance ; it has been reshaped 
 to suit better the convenience of those who used it. 
 In the forms which it has assumed, we can plainly trace 
 the influence of national habits. The Germanic races 
 accent prevailingly the first syllable of their words ; 
 they have, then, while retaining the old accented syl- 
 lable with its accent, cast off the one that preceded it. 
 The French, on the other hand, accents its final sylla- 
 ble (which is regularly the Latin accented syllable) ; it, 
 accordingly, drops all that followed the accented -^pisk-^ 
 but retains the initial syllable which the others re- 
 jected. And the other various alterations of form 
 which the word has undergone may be paralleled with 
 classes of similar alterations in other words of the same 
 language ; all apparently made to humor the ease of 
 the speakers. 
 
 In treating separately, therefore, the subjects of 
 change of form and change of meaning in words, we 
 are not parting two necessarily connected and mutually 
 dependent processes, but only recognizing a natural 
 independence. A word may change its form, to any 
 extent, without change of meaning ; it may take on an 
 entirely new meaning without change of form. As a 
 matter of fact, the words are few or none which have 
 not done both ; and, in taking up either, we shall have 
 to use examples which illustrate the other as well. All 
 the material of language exhibits more or less the 
 working of all the processes of growth ; but it will not 
 be hard to direct our attention, exclusively or espe- 
 cially, now to the one and now to the other of them. 
 
 And, as regards change of form, we have to recog- 
 nize, as the grand tendency underlying all the innu- 
 merable and apparently heterogeneous facts which it 
 embraces, the disposition, or at least the readiness, to
 
 50 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 give up such parts of words as can be spared without 
 detriment to the sense, and so to work over what id 
 left that it shall be more manageable by its users, more 
 agreeable to their habits and preferences. The science 
 of language has not succeeded in bringing to light any 
 more fundamental law than this, even any other to put 
 alongside of it ; it is the grand current setting through 
 universal language, and moving all its materials in a 
 given direction although, like other such currents, it 
 has its eddies, where a counter-movement on a small 
 scale may seem to prevail. It is another manifestation 
 of the same tendency which lends men to use abbre- 
 viations in writing, to take a short cut instead of going 
 around by the usual road, and other like things in 
 which there is no harm, unless more is lost than gained 
 by the would-be economy : then, indeed, it becomes 
 rather laziness than economy. Its operation, as mani- 
 fested in language, is of both kinds, true economy and 
 lazy wastefulness ; for it works on with blind absence 
 of forethought, heedless, in part, of the results to 
 which it leads. 
 
 The character of the tendency is seen most clearly 
 in the abbreviation of words ; obviously, nothing else 
 is needed to explain the gradual reduction of form 
 which has ever been going on in the constituents of 
 every language. We noticed above (p. 38) sundry ex- 
 amples of innocent abbreviation made by us in the 
 words of our specimen-passage : the most striking was 
 our knights (i. e. naits) for cnihtas, a loss of two pro- 
 nounced elements besides the shortening by a syllable. 
 It is easy to perceive in all these cases the tendency to 
 ease at work ; and w r e appreciate in the last the eom- 
 paiative difficulty of uttering a &-sound before an n: 
 the class of words in which we have dropped it off ia
 
 WEARING OUT OF EXDINGS. 51 
 
 not a small one (e. g. Tcnife and Tcnit, gnaw and gnarl). 
 And the German c^-sound (of ick, etc.) belonging to the 
 h of cniht, itself coming by phonetic change from an 
 earlier &, is one which English organs have taken a dia 
 taste to, and have refused longer to produce. Some- 
 times they have left it out altogether (with compensa- 
 tory prolongation of the preceding vowel), as in the 
 word before us ; sometimes they have changed it into 
 y, as in draught and laugh. In ongunnon, l begun,' 
 however, and in plucdan and etan, ' pluck ' and ' eat,' 
 we have instances of that kind of loss which is akin to 
 wastefulness ; for the lost final syllables are those which 
 showed the grammatical form of the words, being plu- 
 ral ending and infinitive ending. Regrettable as they 
 may be, the history of our language, and of the others 
 related with it, has been from the beginning marked 
 with such losses, whereby grammatical distinctions have 
 been let go, along with the forms on which the speak- 
 ers' consciousness of them depended. To show this 
 more fully, we will for a moment follow the history of 
 the on, the now lost ending of ongunnon. In the old- 
 est form to which it can be traced, it was anti, probably 
 the relic of an independent pronoun or pronouns, dis- 
 tinguishing the third person plural in all verbal inflec- 
 tion. In the Latin it is shortened to unt, but still per- 
 fectly distinctive. In the oldest Germanic (Moeso- 
 Gothic), it is and in the present tense, but in the preterit 
 already contracted to un. The corresponding ending 
 in the first person plural was masi, also of pronominal 
 derivation ; this, after passing through such intermedi- 
 ate forms as Sanskrit mas, (Doric) Greek //.e?, Latii. 
 mus, and Slavonic mu, had become in Gothic am in the 
 present, um in the perfect. In German, we find only 
 tn. in both first and third person, the slight difference of
 
 52 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 um and un having been obliterated ; but the second 
 person has et, different from the other two ; in the An- 
 glo-Saxon, this distinction has gone the way of the rest, 
 and we have left only a general ending on, separating 
 all the plural persons alike from the singular ; and 
 SrsaMy, the English has swept away even this remnant 
 of a former elaborate system. 
 
 Another example of the earlier effects of the same 
 tendency in our passage is for, ' fared,' the brevity of 
 which, like that of English monosyllables generally, is 
 the result of a long succession of abbreviating processes. 
 Its earliest traceable form is papara / but even that 
 shows the loss of a personal ending ti, which it must 
 have had at the outset, and which is still represented to 
 us in the present tense by the t of German fdkrt, and 
 the th or s of our fareth or fares. 
 
 It was pointed out above (p. 41) that in the lice of 
 sothlice we have the full case-form of a compounded 
 adjective, out of which has been made later the adjec- 
 tive and adverbial suffix ly. Here is illustrated another 
 department of the action of the abbreviating tendency ; 
 its aid is essential to the conversion of what was once 
 an independent word into an affix, an appended element 
 denoting relation. So long as the word which enters 
 into combination with another retains its own shape 
 unaltered, the product is a compound only ; but when, 
 by phonetic change, its origin and identity with the still 
 Rubsisting independent word are hidden, the compound 
 becomes rather a derivative. Phonetic abbreviation has 
 made the difference between godly, for example a 
 formed word, containing a radical and a formative ele- 
 ment and godlike, a mere compound. Just so } in Ger- 
 man, the adjective suffix lich has become distinct from 
 qleich (which has, besides, a prefix) ; and in that lau
 
 ABBREVIATING TENDENCY. 63 
 
 guage gottlich and gottergleicTi stand in the same man- 
 ner side by side, the one a derivative and the other a 
 compound. At an earlier period of Germanic language- 
 history, the same influence helped to convert the com- 
 pound hyngre-dide, ' hunger-did,' into the grammatical 
 form hyngre-de, ' hunger-ed ; ' and, in vastly more an- 
 cient time, to shape over certain pronominal elements 
 into the personal endings anti, masi, and ti, spoken of 
 above. 
 
 Thus the tendency to economy, in the very midst of 
 its destructive action, is at the same time constructive. 
 It begins with producing those very forms which it is 
 afterward to mutilate and wear out. Without it, com- 
 pound words and aggregated phrases would remain ever 
 such. Its influence is always cast in favor of subordi- 
 nating in substance what is subordinate in meaning, of 
 integrating and unifying what would otherwise be of 
 loose structure in short, of disguising the derivation 
 of linguistic signs, making them signs merely, and signa 
 easy to manage. The point is one to which we shall 
 have to return in discussing (in the seventh chapter) the 
 third great class of linguistic changes, the production 
 of new words and forms. 
 
 But .vhile the tendency is everywhere one, the ways 
 in which it manifests itself by abbreviation are very 
 various, each needing for its explanation a full under- 
 standing of the habits of the language in which it ap- 
 pears. The Germanic languages are all characterized 
 by a pretty strong accentual stress, laid in general on"" 
 the first or radical syllable of their words, derivative or 
 inflectional, and on the first members of compounds. 
 This mode of accentuation is itself an example of pho- 
 netic change ; for it belongs to none of the related lan- 
 guages, not even to the Slavonic, generally regarded aa
 
 51 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 nearest of kin with the Germanic. A result of it has 
 been that at a later time, and quite independently ID 
 the different Germanic languages, the endings or suf- 
 fixes, of inflection or derivation, have generally lost 
 their distinctive vowels, and come to be spoken with 
 the more neutral e: this change belongs, for example, 
 to the transition from Old to Middle High-German, and 
 from Anglo-Saxon to Old English. To it is also in 
 part due (though also to a more mental willingness to 
 abandon distinctions formerly established and main- 
 tained) the extensive loss of endings to which these 
 languages have been subjected, and which appears most 
 of all in our English. In French, the history of change 
 has been somewhat different : there has been no gen- 
 eral shift of the place of the accent as compared with 
 Latin ; but there has been a wholesale abbreviation and 
 loss of whatever in Latin followed the accented sylla- 
 ble, which has accordingly become (leaving out of ac- 
 count the mute e) the final one of every regular French 
 word : so peuple li cm populum, faire from fdcere, 
 prendre from prehendere, ete from both aestdtem and 
 station. This last example ete from stdtum draws 
 aside our attention for a moment to a class of altera- 
 tions which, by a curious turn, end in the extension of 
 a word's syllabic form. To the Gallic peoples who 
 adopted Latin speech, the utterance of an s before a 
 mute , t, or p seemed a difficulty which should be 
 avoided : just as to us, later, the utterance of a g or k 
 before n (in gnaw, knife, etc.). But, instead of drop- 
 ping the trying letter, they at first prefixed a vowel to 
 it, to make it more manageable, producing such words 
 as escape (Lat. scapus\ esprit (spiritus), estomac (sto~ 
 niackus). And then, by an actual abbreviation, and a 
 common one, the sibilant has in later times been usu-
 
 SILENT LETTERS. 55 
 
 ally dropped out, and a large class of words like ecole 
 (schola), epoux (sponsus), and etude (studium\ is left in 
 the French vocabulary. Another consequence of tho 
 same difference of accent is the greater mutilation of 
 the radical part of the word in the Romanic languages 
 (especially French) than in the Germanic ; and many of 
 its results have passed into English : thus, preach (Fr. 
 precher) from prcedicare, cost (Fr. couter) from constare, 
 count (Fr. compter) from computare, T)lam# (Fr. Planter) 
 from Uasfemare (Gr. /rfXao-^^ew;). "Words, however, 
 like such and which (A.-S. swylc and hwylv. Scotch 
 wh'dk, Germ, solch and welch\ from so-like and who- 
 like, show plainly that this disguising fusion of two 
 parts of a word is by no means limited to the French 
 part of English. 
 
 One conspicuous result of these procusses is the 
 presence of numberless " silent letters " in the written 
 forms of languages like French and English, in which 
 the omission of sounds formerly uttered has been go- 
 ing on during the period of record by writing. Such 
 letters are relics of modes of utterance formerly preva- 
 lent. 
 
 This must suffice by way of illustration of the ten- 
 dency to ease as manifested in abbreviation. But the 
 other mode of its action, consisting in the alteration of 
 the retained elements of words, the substitution of one 
 sound for another, is .quite as extensive, and much more 
 intricate and difficult. "We have already noted exam- 
 ples of it : the abbreviated piskop, we saw, has been 
 mouthed over into bishop ; and we reviewed above (p. 
 37) some of the principal differences which separate 
 our vowel-utterance from that of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 The consistency of our vowel-system, especially, has 
 beer, completely broken up by these changes, the per-
 
 56 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 rading nature of which is attested by the strange nainefl 
 we give to our vowel-sounds. The original and proper 
 Bound of a is that in far, father : what we call "long 
 a " (fate) is really long e, the nearest correspondent in 
 quality to the " short e " of met, which we continue to 
 call by its right name because we have not generally al- 
 tered its ancient sound ; our " short a " (fat) is a new 
 tone, intermediate between a (far] and e (fate), and 
 none of our letters was devised for its representation. 
 In like manner, our " long e " (mete) is really a long I, 
 and what we call " long i " (pine) is a diphthong, ai. 
 And, on the other side, our " long u " {pure) is not 
 even a diphthong, but a syllable, yu, composed of semi- 
 vowel and vowel, and our " short o " (not) and " short 
 u " (but) are new sounds, having nothing to do with 
 " long o " and " long u" and, of course, possessing no 
 hereditary and rightful representatives in our alphabet. 
 It is somewhat as if we were to call our elms " tall li- 
 lacs," and our rose-bushes " short maples." That our 
 written vowels have from three to nine values each, is 
 owing to the fact that we have altered their original 
 unitary sounds in so many different ways during the 
 historic period ; and there lies yet further back another 
 like history of change. This kind of change has been 
 carried on upon a larger scale in English than in almost 
 any other known language ; but its effects are found 
 abundantly in every other : the French, for example, 
 has given to the old Latin u a mixed i and u sound (the 
 German u), and has converted the old diphthong ou 
 into an w(0o)-sound (being curiously paralleled in both 
 respects by the ancient Greek) ; it has taken a strange 
 fancy for the diphthongal oi (nearly equal to our wa of 
 was), and substitutes it for all manner of ancient sounds : 
 as in moi for me, crois for credo, mois for mensis, quoi
 
 CONSONANT CHANGES. 57 
 
 for quid, foi for jides^ loi for legem, noir for nigrum, 
 noix for nucem / and so on. 
 
 The vowels are much more liable to wholesale alter- 
 ation than are the consonants, and in our specimen-pa* 
 sage the indications of consonantal change are rather 
 scanty. Ofer, however, has become over with us, by 
 the conversion of a surd into its corresponding sonant 
 sound, a phenomenon of very wide range and great 
 frequency in language ; and the same change has passed 
 upon the final s of his and ceceras, making of it a 2, 
 though without change of spelling. But if we look 
 further away, among the tongues kindred with ours, we 
 shall discover signs in plenty of consonantal mutation. 
 Dccg is in German tag, with t for d, and hyngrede ia 
 hungerte ; and if we were to go through the whole vo- 
 cabulary of the two languages, we should find this the 
 prevailing relation, and be led to set up the " law " that 
 English d and German t correspond to one another. 
 Again, etan is essen in German, with an s-sound for t : 
 and this, too, is a constant relation ; nor is it otherwise 
 with thd, which is German die, with d for th. But etan 
 and essen answer to Latin edere, Greek e'So>, Sanskrit 
 ad j and thd and die are the two regular Germanic 
 forms of the old pronominal root ta (Gr. TO, etc., Skt. 
 tad, etc.) : and these, too, are general facts ; insomuch 
 that comparative grammarians are led to set up the 
 " law " that a -sound, as found in most of the languages 
 of our family, is regularly a th in part of the Germanic 
 dialects and a d in others ; that a ^-sound, in like man- 
 ner, is a t or an s j and that to English d and German t 
 an aspirate, th or dh, corresponds in Greek and San- 
 gkrit. This is, indeed, the famous " Grimm's Law," of 
 the permutation or rotation of mutes in Germanic 
 speech. It io only an example to be sure, an unusu-
 
 58 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 ally curious and striking example of what is univer- 
 sally true between related languages : their sounds, in 
 corresponding words, are by no means always the same ; 
 they are diverse, rather, but diverse by a constant dii 
 f erence ; there exists between them a fixed relaticL, 
 though it is not one of identity. Hence, in the com- 
 parison of two languages, a first point to which atten- 
 tion has to be directed is this : what sounds in the one, 
 vowel or consonantal, correspond to what sounds in the 
 other. This condition of things is only a necessary re- 
 sult of the fact, already noted, that the mode of pro- 
 nunciation of every language is all the time undergoing 
 a change : a change now more and now less important 
 and pervading, but never entirely intermitted ; and that 
 no two languages change after precisely the same fash- 
 ion. In presence of such a phenomenon as that last in- 
 stanced, the student of language has to inquire which 
 (if any) of the sounds, t, d, th, dh, s is in any given 
 case the original, through what steps of successive 
 change each varying result has been reached, and, if 
 within his reach, what cause has governed the course of 
 mutation. 
 
 And, heterogeneous as the facts may at first sight 
 appear, the student soon finds that they are very far 
 from being a mere confusion of lawless changes ; they 
 have their own methods and rules. One sound passes 
 into another that is physically akin with it : that is to 
 say, that is produced by the same organs, or otherwise 
 in a somewhat similar manner ; and the movement of 
 transition follows a general direction, or else is governed 
 by specific causes. This has caused the processes of 
 articulation to be profoundly studied, as part of the 
 science of language. And such is the interest and im- 
 portance of the study that we sannot avoid dwelling
 
 FORMATION OF ARTICULATE SOUNDS. 59 
 
 npon it here a little : not long enough, indeed, to pene- 
 trate to its depths, but at least until we are able to gain 
 some idea of our spoken alphabet as of an orderly sys- 
 tem of sounds, and of the lines and degrees of relation- 
 ship which bind its members together, and help to de- 
 termine their transitions. 
 
 The organs by which alphabetic sounds are produced 
 are the lungs, the larynx, and the parts of the mouth 
 above the larynx. The lungs are, as it were, the bel- 
 lows of the organ ; they simply produce a current of 
 air, passing out through the throat, and varying in ra- 
 pidity or force according to the requirements of the 
 speaker. The larynx is a kind of box at the upper end 
 of the windpipe, and contains what is equivalent to the 
 reed of the organ-pipe, with the muscular apparatus for 
 its adjustment. From the sides of the box, namely, 
 spring forth a pair of half-valves, of which the mem 
 branous edges, the " vocal chords," are capable of being 
 brought close together in the middle of the passage, 
 and made tense, so that the passing current of air sets 
 them in vibration ; and this vibration, communicated to 
 the air, is reported to our ears as sound. In ordinary 
 breathing, the valves are relaxed and retracted, leaving 
 a wide and rudely triangular opening for the passage 
 of the air. Thus the larynx gives the element of tone, 
 accompanied with variety of pitch : and how important 
 a part of speaking this latter is, only they can fully re- 
 alize who have heard the performance of an automatic 
 speaking-machine, with its dreadful monotone. Above 
 the vibrating reed -apparatus is set, after the fashion of 
 a sounding-box, the cavity of the pharynx, with that of 
 the mouth, and the nasal passage ; and movements of 
 the throat and mouth-organs under voluntary control so 
 alter the shape and size of this box as to give to the
 
 80 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 tone produced a variety of characters, or to modify it 
 into a variety of tones which are the sounds of our 
 spoken alphabet. A concise description of voice, then, 
 is this : it is the audible result of a column of air emit- 
 ted by the lungs, impressed with sonancy and varietj 
 of pitch by the larynx, and individualized by the mouth- 
 organs. 
 
 To describe in detail the construction of the \ocal 
 apparatus, and the movements of the muscles and car- 
 tilages and membranes which cause and modify the 
 vibrations, belongs to physiology ; to determine the 
 form and composition of the vibrations which produce 
 the audible variety of effects upon the ear, belongs to 
 acoustics : the part of phonetics, as a branch of linguis- 
 tic science, is to follow and describe, as closely as may 
 be, the voluntary changes of position of the mouth-or- 
 gans, etc., which determine the various sounds. These 
 are in part easy of observation, in part much more dif- 
 ficult ; but the main points, nearly all that we need to 
 take account of here, are within the reach of careful 
 and continued self -observation. And no one can claim 
 to have any proper understanding of phonetic ques- 
 tions, unless he has so studied that he fairly follows and 
 understands the movements that go on in his own 
 mouth in speaking, and can arrange his spoken alpha- 
 bet into a systematic and consistent scheme. Such a 
 Echeme, for the ordinary sounds composing the English 
 alphabet, we will attempt here to set up. 
 
 Every alphabetic system must start from the sound 
 j, (of far, father} ; for this is the fundamental tone of 
 the human voice, the purest intonated product of lunga 
 and throat ; if we open the mouth and fauces to their 
 widest, getting out of the way everything that should 
 modify the issuing current, this is the sound that ia
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF THE ALPHABET. Gl 
 
 heard. Upon this openest tone various modifications 
 are produced by narrowing the oral cavity, at different 
 points and to different degrees. The less marked modi- 
 fications, which, though they alter decidedly the quality 
 of the tone, yet leave predominant the element of toiiGj 
 of material, give rise to the sounds which we call vow* 
 els. But the cavity may be so narrowed, at one and 
 another point, that the friction of the breath, as driven 
 out through the aperture, forms the conspicuous ele- 
 ment in the audible product ; this, then, is a sound of 
 very different character, a fricative consonant. And 
 the narrowing of the organs may be pushed even to 
 the point of complete closure, the element of form, of 
 oral modification, coming thus to prevail completely 
 over that of material, of tone : the product, in that case, 
 is made distinctly audible only as the contact is broken ; 
 and we call it a mute. 
 
 This brief statement suggests the plan on which the 
 systematic arrangement of every human alphabet is to 
 be made. It must lie between the completely open a 
 (far) and the completely "close mutes; these are its 
 natural and necessary limits ; and it may be expected 
 to fall into classes according to the intermediate de- 
 grees of closure. But there are also other lines of 
 relationship in it. Theoretically, an indefinite num- 
 ber of mute-closures are possible, all along the mouth, 
 from the lips to as far back in the throat as the organs 
 can be brought together ; in practice, however, they' 
 are found to be prevailingly three: one in the front, 
 made by lip against lip, the labial closure, giving p / 
 one in the back of the mouth, made against the soil 
 palate by the rear upper surface of the tongue, the 
 palatal (or guttural) closure, giving k; and one inter- 
 mediate between the other two, made by the point or
 
 62 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 front of the tongue against the roof of the mouth near 
 the front teeth, the lingual (or dental) closure, giving t. 
 These are the only mute-closures found in English, or 
 French, or German ; or even in the majority of tongues 
 in the world. And the same tendency toward a triple 
 classification, of front, back, and intermediate, appears 
 also in the other classes of sounds, so that these arrange 
 themselves, in the main, nearly upon the lines of gradual 
 closure proceeding from the neutrally open a (far) to 
 the shut p, t, ~k. This adds, then, the other element 
 which is needed in order to convert the mass of articu- 
 late utterances into an orderly system. We have below 
 the English alphabet arranged upon the plan described, 
 and will go on to consider it in more detail. 
 
 ng 
 
 urd. h 
 sonant. zh 
 eurd. sh 
 
 palatal 
 
 aaries. 
 
 r, I 
 
 n 
 
 z 
 s 
 
 dh 
 th 
 d 
 t 
 
 lineal 
 series. 
 
 semivowels. 
 m nasals. 
 
 aspiration. 
 
 I sibilants. ' 
 
 spirants. 
 
 Along with &, t,_p, in the first place, go their near- 
 ent kindred, g, <2, b. These are their sonant (or vocal> 
 phthongal, intonated) counterparts. In the former, 
 namely, there is no audible utterance, but complete
 
 SURD AND SONANT SOUNDS. 63 
 
 Bilencc, during the continuance of the closure ; the anti- 
 thesis to a is absolute ; the explosion is their whole sen- 
 sible substance. In the latter there is, even while the 
 closure lasts, a tone produced by the vibration of the 
 vocal chords, a stream of air sufficient to support vibra- 
 tion for a very brief time being forced up from the 
 lungs into the closed cavity or receiving-box of the 
 pharynx and mouth. This is the fundamental distinc- 
 tion of " surd " and " sonant " sounds ; anything else is 
 merely a consequence of this and subordinate to it ; the 
 names strong and weak, hard and soft, sharp and flat, 
 and so on, founded (with more or less of misapprehen- 
 sion added) upon these subordinate characteristics, are 
 to be rejected. The difference between pa and fo, 
 then, is that the sonant utterance begins in the former 
 just when the contact is broken, and in the latter just 
 before ; in ab, it continues a moment after the contact 
 is made ; in aba, it is uninterrupted and continuous : 
 and so also with d and g. 
 
 But there is a third product of the same three posi- 
 tions of mute-closure. By dropping, namely, the veil 
 of the palate, which in ordinary utterance closes the 
 passage from the pharynx into the nose, the intonated 
 current of J, d, g is allowed entrance to the nose and 
 exit there : and the result is the class of nasals (or " res- 
 onants "), m, n, and ng (as in singing). Here, though 
 there is closure of the mouth-organs, the tone is so 
 sonorous and continuable that the breach of contact, or 
 explosion, is reduced to a very subordinate value, and 
 the class belongs high up in the alphabet, toward the 
 rowels. 
 
 As a general rule (exceptions to it are not com- 
 mon), any language that has either of these three prod- 
 ucts of a given mute-closure will have also the other
 
 64 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 two : thus, the presence of a p in the alphabet implies 
 also that of a 5 and an in j and so on. 
 
 In the older tongues of our family, and even in 
 eome modern ones, both of our own and of other fami- 
 lies, there are fourth and fifth products of the same 
 positions, the former made by letting slip an audible 
 bit of breath or flatus, a brief A, after the simple mute, 
 turning p into pli (pronounced as written), and so on ; 
 the latter, the sonant JA, of more doubtful character. 
 These are called aspirate mutes, or, briefly, aspirates. 
 
 Next to the mutes in regard to degree of closure 
 are the class of so-called " fricatives," defined above as 
 containing a rustling or friction of the breath through 
 a narrowed aperture as their main element. If the 
 lips are brought together in loose instead of close con- 
 tact, and the breath forced out between them, there is 
 heard an /"-sound; or, if the breath be intonated, a v- 
 sound. These, however, are not precisely our English 
 or French (nor the general German) f and v ; for, in 
 the latter, the tips of the teeth are brought forward 
 and laid upon the lower lip, and the expulsion is made 
 between them ; giving a product somewhat differently 
 shaded, a dentilabial instead of a purely labial sound. 
 A relaxation of the lingual contact, in like manner, 
 gives the s and z sounds ; and that of the palatal gives 
 the German ch (its sonant counterpart is very rare). 
 Practically, however, it is found convenient to divide 
 the fricatives into two sub-classes: s and z have a pe- 
 culiar quality which we call sibilant or hissing; and the 
 game is shared by the sh and the zh (in azure, vision} 
 sounds, which are produced farther back upon the 
 roof of the mouth, or in a more palatal position. 
 These two pairs, accordingly, we set by themselves, 
 as lingual and palatal "sibilants." Then, along with
 
 VOWEL AND CONSONANT SERIES. 65 
 
 the f and -y, as akin with them, especially in their 
 dentilabial variety, we have the two English ^A-sounds, 
 Biird in thin and sonant in then (written dh in the 
 scheme), real dentilinguals, produced between the 
 tongue and teeth. These four, with the (German) 
 eA -sound, we class as " spirants." Historically, they 
 have a special kinship in that they are all alike fre- 
 quent products of the alteration of an aspirate mute; 
 hence it is that they are so often, in various languages, 
 written with ph, th, ch (=kh). 
 
 A like tendency to the points of oral action already 
 defined appears in the vowels, the opener tone-sounds. 
 An i (in pique, pick} is a palatal vowel, made by an 
 approach of the flat of the tongue toward the palate 
 where its contact produces a kj an u (rule, pull) in- 
 volves a rounding approach of the lips, the organs 
 whose contact makes a p (although not without accom- 
 panying action at the base of the tongue also). And 
 between a (far) and i stands e (they, then}, made by a 
 less degree of palatal approach, as o (note, obey) be- 
 tween a and u. And again, the sound of fat, man 
 (ce in the scheme) stands between a and e, as that of 
 all, what (A in the scheme) between a and o. Repre- 
 senting for the moment the pure fricatives by kh and 
 ph) we have the palatal series a CB e i kh k, and the 
 labial series a A o u ph p, which are true series all the 
 way through, made by gradually increasing degrees of 
 approximation of the same parts of the mouth until 
 complete closure is reached. 
 
 There is still one class to be noticed : that of tho 
 semivowels, or sounds which ctand nearly on the divis- 
 ion-line between vowel and consonant. / {pique} and 
 u (rule) are the closest sounds we can make with reten- 
 tion of the predominant tone-quality which constitutes
 
 56 CHANGE 01' OUTER FORM OP WORDS. 
 
 a vowel. But so close are they, that it is only necessary 
 to abbreviate them sufficiently, making them merely 
 starting-points from which to reach another vowel- 
 sound, in order to convert them into consonants, y and 
 w / these differ, at the utmost, only infiuitesimally in 
 articulating position from i and u. And with them be- 
 long the r and I, lingual semivowels, used in many lan- 
 guages also as vowels ; the I, even in English, in able, 
 eagle, etc. The r is produced between the tongue-tip 
 and the roof of the mouth, and is so generally trilled or 
 vibrated that trilling is apt to be given as its distinc- 
 tive characteristic ; the I sets the tip of the tongue 
 against the roof of the mouth, but leaves the sides 
 open for the free escape of the intonated breath. 
 
 We have one more pair of simple vowels, that in 
 hurt and hut (9 in the scheme), the specific quality of 
 which is due to a dimming action along the whole 
 mouth rather than an approach at a definite point or 
 points, and which are thus a duller kind of a ; they 
 are put in the centre of the vowel-triangle rather be- 
 cause they belong nowhere else than because they 
 belong precisely there. 
 
 The distinctions of long and short vowel, although 
 in English they always involve differences of quality 
 as well as of quantity, and the three compound vowel- 
 sounds or diphthongs, ai ("long i" of aisle, isle), au 
 (out, how), and Ai (oil, loy), are for simplicity's sake 
 left unnoticed in the scheme. And it remains only 
 (o find a place in it, and a definition, for the somewhat 
 auomalous h. We have seen that in the classes of 
 mutes and fricatives the sounds go in pairs, one pro- 
 duced by mere breath, the other by intonated breath, 
 forced through the same position of the organs ; while 
 this is not the case with the remaining and oponer
 
 THE ALPHABETIC SCHEME. 67 
 
 classes of sounds. We may define the difference in a 
 general way thus : after a certain degree of closeness is 
 reached, simple breath is sufficiently characterized to 
 give a constituent to the alphabet for every articulafc- 
 ing position; short of that degree, only tone is fully 
 distinctive ; surd breath, though somewhat differen- 
 tiated in the several positions, is not enough so to 
 furnish a separate alphabetic element in each ; the 
 various breaths count only as one letter namely, the 
 h. The A, the pure aspiration, is an expulsion of fiat/us 
 through the position of the adjacent letter, whether 
 vowel, semivowel, or nasal ; in English, it occurs only 
 before a vowel, or before w and y, in such words as 
 when and hue. It is, then, the common surd to the 
 three classes of sonant sounds just mentioned. 
 
 The scheme thus drawn up and described may be 
 taken as a general model, on the plan of which the 
 spoken alphabet of any language may best be arranged, 
 in order to the determination of its internal relations 
 and to its comparison with other alphabets. Though 
 not accurate to the very last detail, it exhibits more of 
 the relations of alphabetic sounds, and exhibits them 
 more truly, than any other plan that can be adopted. 
 And, restricted as it is in number of sounds, as com- 
 pared with the immense variety rot less than three or 
 four hundred which enter into human speech, it yet 
 includes those sounds which make up the bulk of all 
 human speech, and of which many of the others are 
 slightly differentiated variations. The possible num 
 ber of human articulations is theoretically infinite ; but 
 practically it is rather narrowly limited ; and a system 
 like our own, which contains about forty -four distinctly 
 characterized sounds, is hardly excelltd in richness, 
 among tongues ancient or modern.
 
 58 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 Our scheme is to be valued, especially, as putting 
 in a true light the relations of vowel and consonant : 
 which, though their distinction is of the highest im- 
 portance in phonetics, are by no means separate and 
 independent systems, but only poles, as it were, in one 
 continuous unitary series, and with a doubtful or neu- 
 tral territory between them : they are simply the opener 
 and closer sounds of the alphabetic system. Upon their 
 alternation and antithesis depends the syllabic or " artic- 
 ulate" character of human speech: the stream of utter- 
 ance is broken into articuli, ' joints,' by the interven- 
 tion of the closer sounds between the opener, connecting 
 the latter at the same time that they separate them, 
 giving distinctness and flexibility, and the power of 
 endlessly variable combination. A mere succession of 
 vowels passing into one another would be wanting in 
 definite character ; it would be rather sing-song than 
 speech ; and, on the other hand, a mere succession of 
 consonants, though pronounceable by sufficient effort, 
 would be an indistinct and disagreeable sputter. 
 
 Another advantage of the same arrangement consists 
 in its illustration of the general historical development 
 of the alphabet. The primitive language of our family 
 had not half the sounds given in the scheme ; and those 
 which it had were the extreme members of the sys- 
 tem : among the vowels, only , i, and u, the corners 
 of the vowel triangle; among the consonants, mainly 
 the mutes, along with the nasals m and n, which are 
 also mutes as concerns their mouth-position; of the 
 whole double class of fricatives, only the s. The I wag 
 not yet distinctly separated from the r, nor the w and 
 y from u and i. There has been a filling-up of the 
 scheme by the production of such new sounds as are 
 intermediate in character, made by less strongly dlf
 
 NEWER INTERMEDIATE SOUNDS. 69 
 
 ferentiated positions of the organs. We may fairly 
 Bay that, in the process of time, with greater acquired 
 skill in the art of utterance, men's organs have como 
 to be able to make and use more nicely distinguished, 
 more slightly shaded tones than at first. This is no 
 mere loose poetic expression ; nor, on the other hand, 
 dues it imply any organic change in the organs of 
 utterance. The case is only as in any other department 
 of effort : the higher skill is won by the advanced or 
 adult speakers, and the shape which they give to their 
 inherited speech becomes the norm toward w r hich new 
 learners have to strive, attaining it when they can. 
 
 In the process, too, is involved an evident manifes- 
 tation of the tendency to ease. Not, indeed, that the 
 new sounds are in themselves any easier than the old ; 
 on the contrary, judged by some tests, they are harder : 
 they are not so readily learned and reproduced by chil- 
 dren ; they are not so frequently met with in the gen- 
 eral body of human languages. But they are easier to 
 the practised speaker, in the rapid movements of con- 
 tinuous utterance, when the organs are making constant 
 quick transitions between vowel and consonant, between 
 opener and closer positions. To reduce the length of 
 swing of these transitions, by reducing the openness of 
 the open sounds and the closeness of the close ones, is an 
 economy which the articulating organs of course, un- 
 consciously find out for themselves by experience and 
 learn to practise. It is the most general kind of assimi- 
 lating influence exerted by consonant and vowel upon one 
 another: each class draws the other toward itself; the 
 vowels become more consonantal ; the consonants be- 
 come more vocalic. Hence the prevailing direction of 
 phonetic change is from the extremities toward the mid- 
 dle of the alphabetic scheme: the mutes become
 
 ?0 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 tives ; tlie a (far) is changed to e (tliey) and i (jpique), or 
 to o (note) and u (t^ule). Movement in the contrary 
 direction is by no means unknown ; but it is exceptional 
 or under special causes : it is, as we have called it above, 
 the eddy in the current. The central classes, of nasals 
 and semivowels, which are least exposed to this general 
 movement, are also, on the whole, the least convertible 
 of the alphabetic sounds. To illustrate the effects of 
 the tendency : in Sanskrit (the least altered, phonetically, 
 of the tongues of our family), the a (far) is full thirty 
 per cent, of the whole utterance ; and we can easily 
 reason back to a time when a and the mutes were three 
 quarters of the sounds heard in continuous speech ; in 
 English, the most altered, a is only about half of one 
 per cent, of our utterance, while i (pique, piclt) and 9 
 (hurt, hut\ the closest and thinnest of the vowels, are 
 over sixteen per cent. ; and the fricatives have become 
 rather more common than the mutes (each class, about 
 eighteen per cent.). 1 
 
 We have called this a process of assimilation; and 
 under the same comprehensive head may be grouped 
 the greater part of the other phonetic changes that 
 occur in language. The combinations of elements to 
 form words, their contraction by the omission of light 
 vowels, often bring into contact or into proximity 
 sounds which cannot be so uttered without too much 
 muscular exertion : it is eased by adapting the one to 
 the other. For example, many combinations of surd 
 consonant with sonant have that degree of difficulty 
 which we call impossibility (this is only a matter of 
 degree) ; and nothing is more frequent in all language 
 
 1 See the author's " Oriental and Linguistic Studies," second series 
 (1874), where many of the questions concerning the alphabet are mc.it- 
 fiilly discussed.
 
 ASSIMILATION AND DISSIMILATION. 71 
 
 than the interchange of surd and sonant utterance. 
 There is also a more general movement here : since the 
 sonant elements in connected speech are (including the 
 vowels) much more numerous than the surd, the gen- 
 eral weight of the assimilative force is in the direction 
 of sonancy, and surds are converted into sonants more 
 often than the reverse. 
 
 There is a degree of assimilation effected in vowels 
 by the consonants with which they come into imme- 
 diate connection ; yet the cases are rather sporadic and 
 often doubtful. The influence of vowels on other 
 vowels, even when separated from them by conso- 
 nants, is more marked, and leads to some important 
 classes of phenomena. The difference between mom 
 and men is ultimately due only to the f ormer presence 
 of an i-vowel in the plural ending, which colored by 
 anticipation the preceding vowel : in Icelandic, the 
 effect is still plainly illustrated in the forms degi and 
 dogum from dagr. In the Scythian languages, on the 
 other hand, it is the final vowel of the base which 
 assimilates that of the following suffixes, as will be 
 noted hereafter (p. 234). 
 
 Though assimilation is the leading principle in the 
 mutual adjustment of sounds, its opposite, dissimilation, 
 is not altogether unknown, as the close recurrence of 
 two acts of the same organs is felt as burdensome, and 
 avoided by the alteration of one of them. 
 
 Not only the parts of the same words, in their com- 
 bination, but also separate words, in their collocation, 
 affect one another; and the influence expresses itselt 
 particularly in their final elements. There are various 
 circumstances which help to condition this. In our 
 own and the majority of other families of speech, the 
 formative or less indispensable element comes last, and
 
 72 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 is the one least efficiently conserved by the sense of its 
 importance. Moreover, all experience shows that an 
 " open syllable," one ending with an open or vowel 
 sound, is easier, more " natural " to the organs, than a 
 closed one, ending with a consonant. A mute, indeed, 
 is hardly audible as^ final, unless the contact is broken 
 igain with a puff of flatus ; and something of the same 
 du.ubility clings also to the other consonants. The dif- 
 ficulty is one which English-speakers can hardly realize, 
 since they allow freely every consonant in their alpha- 
 bet (with the accidental exception of the sA-sound) at 
 the end of a word, or of a syllable, before another con- 
 sonant ; but the Polynesian dialects, for example, ad- 
 mit no groups of consonants anywhere, and end every 
 word with a vowel ; the literary Chinese has no final 
 consonant except a nasal ; the Greek, none save v, a, p 
 (n, s, r) ; the Sanskrit allows only about half a dozen, 
 and almost never a group of more than one ; the Italian 
 rarely has any final consonant ; the French silences, as 
 a rule, all save e,/ 1 , I, r ; the German tolerates no final 
 sonant mutes : and so on. 
 
 But the principle of ease does not find its sole exer- 
 cise in the work of assimilation. Nothing is more fre- 
 quent than for a language to take a dislike, as it were, 
 to some particular sound or class of sounds, and to get 
 rid of it by conversion into something else. We found 
 an example of this above in the old English A-souiid of 
 cniht, etc. Most of the tongues of our family have cast 
 out the ancient aspirate mutes, changing them to simple 
 mutes or to spirants. The Greek early rejected the 
 y-sound, and then the w: the latter, as the "digamma," 
 just prolonging its existence into the historical period. 
 Curiouii caprices, discordances between different lan- 
 guages as to their predilections and aversions, come
 
 MUTUAL INTERCHANGE OF SOUNDS. 73 
 
 abundantly to light in this department of phonetic 
 change. Yet more exceptional and puzzling are the 
 cases of interchange between two sounds: for exam- 
 pie, the Armenian mutual exchange of surd and sonant 
 (Dikran for Tigranes, and so on): to which the cock' 
 ney confusion of w and v, and of the presence and 
 absence of an initial h, furnishes a familiar, if undig- 
 nified, parallel. And of a comparative difficulty which 
 is at least as the square of the number of elements in- 
 volved is "Grimm's Law" of permutation of mutes, 
 illustrated above (p. 57). Phonetic science is not yet 
 far enough. advanced to deal successfully with facts like 
 this ; no attempted explanation of the particular phe- 
 nomenon in question does much more than ignore it8 
 real difficulties. 
 
 It must be carefully noted, indeed, that the reach of 
 phonetics, its power to penetrate to the heart of its 
 facts and account for them, is only limited. There is 
 always one element in linguistic change which refuses 
 scientific treatment : namely, the action of the human 
 will. The work is all done by human beings, adapting 
 means to ends, under the impulse of motives and the 
 guidance of habits which are the resultant of causes so 
 multifarious and obscure that they elude recognition 
 and defy estimate. The phonetist is never able to put 
 himself in an d priori position ; his business is only to 
 note the facts, to determine the relation between the 
 later and the earlier, and to account for the change aa 
 well as he can, showing of what tendencies, in which of 
 their forms, it may be accounted the result. The real 
 effective reason of a given phonetic change is that a 
 community, which might have chosen otherwise, willed 
 it to be thus ; showing thereby the predominance of 
 this or that one among the motives which a careful
 
 74 CHANGE OF OUTER FORM OF WORDS. 
 
 induction from the facts of universal language proves 
 to govern men in this department of their action. 
 
 The tendency of phonetic change is so decidedly 
 toward the abbreviation and mutilation of words and 
 forms that it has been, suitably enough, termed " pho- 
 netic decay.' Under the impulse to ease, the compo- 
 nent elements of speech are first unified, then unbuilt 
 and destroyed. It is the processes of combination (to 
 be treated of in the seventh chapter) that open a wide 
 field for the action of the tendency ; if language had 
 always remained in its original simple state, the sphere 
 of change would have been a greatly restricted one, and 
 the effects far less comparable to decay. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of changes of external 
 form, we must give a moment's attention to a class of 
 changes which bear a very different character, although 
 their cause has its points of analogy with those which 
 we have been considering : the class, namely, of which 
 we found instances in our modern ears and fared (p. 
 38), as compared with the earlier ear and for. When 
 phonetic corruption has disguised too much, or haa 
 swept away, the characteristics of a form, so that it 
 becomes an exceptional or anomalous case, there is 
 an inclination to remodel it on a prevailing norm. The 
 greater mass of cases exerts an assimilative influence 
 upon the smaller. Or, we may say, it is a case of men- 
 tal economy : an avoidance of the effort of memory in- 
 volved in remembering exceptions and observing them 
 accurately in practice. The formal distinction of plu- 
 ral from singular was one which our language was 
 never minded to give up. Of all the plural signs, the 
 one which had the most distinctive character was 8. 
 The attention of the language-users became centred 
 upon this as an affix by which the plural modification
 
 EXTENSION OF PREVAILING ANALOGIES. 75 
 
 of sense was made, and they proceeded to apply it in 
 words where it had not before been used; and the 
 movement, once started, gathered force in its progress, 
 until it swept in nearly all the nouns of the language. 
 So with the verb. By the numerical predominance o( 
 forms like loved from love, the addition of a d got itself 
 more conspicuously associated with the designation of 
 past time ; and men began to overlook the cases which 
 by right of former usage ought to be made exceptions. 
 Considerable numbers of verbs, in the middle age of 
 our tongue, thus changed, like fare, their old mode of 
 conjugation for a new. But the tendency is ever at 
 work, and on a small scale as well as a large ; and, of 
 course, especially among those whose acquisition of their 
 language has not been made complete and accurate. 
 Children, above all others, are all the time blundering 
 in this direction saying gooder and ladder, mans and 
 foots, goed and corned, even brang and ihunk and 
 items of such products creep not seldom into culti- 
 vated speech. Its was made in this way, in the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries ; we have gained thus 
 the double comparatives lesser and worser / many are 
 led to say plead (like read) instead of pleaded, and 
 even to fabricate such unsupported anomalies as proven 
 for proved. And the principle is often appealed to in 
 explaining the processes of earlier language-making. 
 The force of analogy is, in fact, one of the most potent 
 in all language-history; as it makes whole classes of 
 forme, so it has power to change their limits.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OHOWTH OF LANGUAGE: CHANGE IN THE INNER CONTENT 
 OF WORDS. 
 
 Wide reach and variety of this change ; underlying principles : looseness 
 of tie between word and meaning ; principle of economy ; class- 
 names and proper names. Illustrations : the planets and their kin. 
 Restriction of general terms to specific use ; extension of specific 
 terms to wider use. Figurative extension ; illustrations, head, etc. ; 
 forgetfulness of derivation. Growth of intellectual vocabulary from 
 physical terms ; of means of formal expression from material terms ; 
 auxiliaries, formal parts of speech ; phrases. 
 
 WE come next to consider the other grand depart- 
 ment of change in the existing material of language 
 namely, that of the inner content or meaning of words. 
 This is just as vast a subject as the preceding ; and, if 
 possible, even more irreducible in its immensity and in- 
 finite variety to the dimensions of a chapter. The pro- 
 cesses of phonetic change have been worked out with 
 great industry by numerous students of language and 
 brought into order and system, and the comparatively 
 restricted and sensible movements of the organs of 
 tpeech investigated in order to form a concrete basis for 
 their explanation; but no one has ever attempted to 
 classify the processes of significant change, and the 
 movements of the human mind under the variety of 
 circumstances defy cataloguing. Yet we may hope
 
 TIE BETWEEN FORM AND CONTENT. 77 
 
 within reasonable space to lay out at least the founda- 
 tions of the subject, and to trace some of the chief 
 directions of movement. 
 
 It has been already pointed out that the separate 
 possibility of external and internal change rests upor 
 the nature of the tie, as a merely extraneous and une^ 
 sential one, which connects the meaning of a word with 
 its form. Were the case otherwise, the two kinds of 
 change w r ould be mutually dependent and inseparable ; 
 as it is, each runs its own course and is determined by 
 its own causes ; even though the history of the two 
 may often touch, or go on for a time in close connec- 
 tion. We also saw that words were assigned to their 
 specific uses (so far as it is possible to trace their his- 
 tory) each at some definite time in the past, and for 
 reasons which were satisfactory to the nomenclators, 
 though they did not make the name either a definition 
 or a description of the conception ; and that the name, 
 once given, formed a new and closer tie with the thing 
 named than w r ith its own etymological ancestor. We 
 took as illustration of this the word bishop, originally 
 simply ' overseer ; ' claiming that it was only a speci- 
 men of the way things regularly go on in language. It 
 is just so, for example, with priest \ formerly irpe<r- 
 Birepos, presbyter, elder, literally ' older person ; ' so 
 with volume, though no longer * rolled,' as when the 
 name was given ; with book, though not now a block of 
 * bee ;h '-wood ; with paper, now made of other mate^ 
 rial ihan papyrus ; with gazette, which has ceased to bo 
 sold for a Venetian < penny ; ' with bank, which has in- 
 finitely outgrown the simple * bench ' of the money- 
 changer in the market-place, while the bankrupt has 
 vastly worse trials to endure than having his ' beneb 
 broken ; ' with candidate, though one in such a posi-
 
 78 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 tion is no longer expected to be 'dressed in white; 
 with copper and muslin, which come now from other 
 quarters than Cyprus and Mosul ; with lunatic, even if 
 we discredit the moon's influence on the disorder ; with 
 Indian, though the error of the Spanish navigators, 
 who thought they had discovered ' the Indies ' in 
 America, was detected a good while ago and so on in- 
 definitely. 
 
 We may see in all this something of the same prin- 
 ciple of ease or economy which we found to underlie 
 the changes of form. Were it altogether as easy, when 
 the shape of one's conception alters a little, or more 
 than a little, to fling away its old name and make a new 
 one ; were it as easy, when a new conception presents 
 itself, to give it an appellation before unheard-of, as to 
 stretch a familiar term a little to cover it, then might 
 there perhaps be no such thing as significant change in 
 human speech ; as it is, the old material of language is 
 constantly suffering extension and transferral to new 
 uses, obstructed by no too intrusive sense of original 
 meaning. Again, in virtue of the same principle, our 
 words are, almost universally, class-names. There is, 
 if narrowly enough regarded, a degree of individuality 
 about every being, thing, act, quality, which would jus- 
 tify it in laying claim to a separate appellation ; but 
 language would be utterly unmanageable if it were 
 made up of such appellations ; and, in practice, having 
 named an individual thing, we apply the same name to 
 whatever other things are enough like it to form a class 
 ;vith it. And thus, as we noted in the second chapter, 
 the acquisition of language is the adoption of certain 
 classifications ; herein consists a large share of its value 
 us a means of training. The classes, to be sure, are of 
 rery different extent : there are even some as win,
 
 PROPER NAMES 79 
 
 woon, God, world which have a natural restriction tea 
 Biiigle member. Then, again, there are classes of which 
 the individuals in their separateness rise to such impor- 
 tance for us that we give each in addition a name be- 
 longing to it as an individual only, or a " proper name," 
 as we call it : such are the persons of our community, 
 our pet animals, streets, towns, and other localities, the 
 planets, months, week-days, and the like. In this class- 
 use is an additional facilitation of significant change; 
 for every class is liable to revision, in consequence of 
 increased knowledge, keener insight, and consequent 
 change of criteria. 
 
 "We shall best establish these fundamental princi- 
 ples, and win suggestion of a classification for the 
 modes of change, by glancing over a series of illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 In the olden time, certain heavenly bodies which, as 
 they circled daily about the earth from east to west, 
 had also a slower and more irregular movement in the 
 opposite direction among their fellows, were by a little 
 community in the eastern Mediterranean called plane- 
 tes, because the word in their language meant 'wan- 
 derer.' From their use, we imported it into our own 
 tongue in the form planet, mutilated in shape and hav- 
 ing no etymological connection with any other of our 
 words. The class included the sun and moon not one 
 whit less than Jupiter and Mars ; it did not include tho_ 
 earth. But within two or three centuries past, we have 
 acquired new knowledge which has led us to alter this 
 classification, and give a new value to its nomenclature. 
 We see now that, in a truer sense, the sun is not a 
 planet, but that the earth is one ; and planet has been 
 changed to mean, not a 'wandering star' as viewed 
 from earth, but a body that moves about a central sun,
 
 BO CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 The moon is no longer precisely a planet, but a second- 
 ary planet, a satellite. Having thus altered the concep- 
 tion designated by moon, we are ready, when the tele- 
 scope discloses to us like satellites of other planets, to 
 convert this unique appellation into a class-name, call- 
 ing tL^.m all alike moons. So also with sun: having 
 found that the sun is essentially akin with the fixed 
 stars rather than with the planets, we put him into the 
 linguistic class of fixed stars, or we call the fixed stars 
 guns. 
 
 The class of planets is one of those already referred 
 to, of which each separate member calls for an indi- 
 vidual designation, or " proper name." Apart from 
 the sun and moon, however, they did not so impress 
 the popular mind as to receive popular titles, and it fell 
 to the learned, the astronomo-astrologers, to christen 
 them. These, though they did their work reflectively, 
 were not altogether arbitrary in their selection ; they 
 took the names of gods, since Sun and Moon were al- 
 ready names of gods as well as of luminaries ; and they 
 distributed the names Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, 
 Venus under the guidance of motives which we can 
 at least in part recognize : Mercury, for example, the 
 swift messenger of the divinities, had the most rapidly 
 moving and changeful of the class called after him. 
 Then, by a like transfer, the alchemists gave the god- 
 and planet-name to the most mobile of the metals. 
 And now, though the god Mercury is only a memory 
 of a state of things long gone by, Mercury and mer- 
 cury are still words of familiar use in our vocabulary ; 
 we even shut up mercury in a tube and bid him, as 
 Jupiter used to do, go up and down, to tell us what the 
 weather is. Again, the Frenchman calls the middle day 
 of his week 'Mercury's day' (Merwdi), though with
 
 PLANETS AND THEIR CONNECTIONS. 81 
 
 out being well aware of it, and yet less comprehending 
 why : it is because, in the distribution by the astrologers 
 of the hours through the whole week to the planets in 
 their order, the first hour of that day fell to the re- 
 gency of Mercury. Then, once upon a time, these 
 Latin day-names were mechanically turned into German 
 shape for the use of Germanic peoples, and Mercurii 
 dies became Woden's day, our Wednesday : and so with 
 the rest. Certainly a most curious history of transfer, 
 which brings out of a series of reflective acts of nomen- 
 clature made by learned heathen and not without 
 Christian aid, since the planetary day-names would have 
 remained to Europe, as to India, a mere astrologers' 
 fancy, but for Christianity and its inheritance of the 
 Jewish seven-day period as a leading measure of time 
 a little group of some of the commonest and most truly 
 popular terms in our language ! The same words, more- 
 over, have been made to answer other purposes: the 
 astrologers held that a person born under the special in- 
 fluence of a certain planet was characterized by a cor- 
 responding disposition ; and those dispositions we still 
 call mercurial, jovial, saturnine; martial and venereal, 
 on the other hand, come from the ofiice of the divinities 
 themselves. 
 
 Again, we use sun and moon to designate ' day ' and 
 * month,' saying " so many suns," " so many moons." 
 Here is simply a striking ellipsis : we mean really " so 
 many [revolutions of] sun or moon " counting, how- 
 ever, the revolutions on different principles ; else a sun 
 would be a * year.' Then month, which is only a de- 
 rivative form of moon, has been transferred to desig- 
 nate an arbitrary period of twenty-eight to thirty-one 
 days, having nothing whatever to do with the moon's 
 movement. Further, a moon (or lune] is in fortification
 
 82 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 a crescent-shaped outwork : an analogy, this time, oi 
 shape merely. Nor is it meant to imply that the moon 
 is always, or usually, of this shape ; hut only that she 
 is the most conspicuous object in nature that ever as- 
 sumes the shape. If we want to he more precise, we 
 suy " cre8cent-&ln.aj>ed." But here also is an ellipsis, and 
 of the most striking kind ; for crescent literally means 
 simply ' growing,' and does not contain even a hint of 
 the moon. Moreover, the moon does not have this 
 shape all the time she is " growing," but only at a par- 
 ticular period, and she has it just as much when decreas- 
 ing as when increasing ; so that crescent really means 
 ' [resembling the moon at a certain stage of her] grow- 
 ing [as also of her waning].' It is good English, too, 
 to talk of a moon-struck idler as mooning around, al- 
 though we should indignantly deny the belief in lunar 
 influences which suggested the expressions. 
 
 This may seem like an aimless roaming through one 
 department of our vocabulary ; but its heterogeneous- 
 ness is due to the character of the facts with which we 
 have to deal, and is an important part of the value of 
 the illustration. It is simply impossible to exhaust the 
 variety of significant change in linguistic growth : there 
 is no conceivable direction in which a transfer may not 
 be made ; there is no assignable distance to w T hich a 
 word may not wander from its primitive meaning. 
 There is no such thing as a concise and exhaustive clas- 
 sification of such variety ; all we can do is to point out 
 some of the main divisions, the leading directions in 
 which the movement goes on, neglecting the unclassi- 
 fied and perhaps in part unclassifiable residue. 
 
 One of the largest classes (already more than once 
 hinted at) has a striking example in crescent. Crescent, 
 ! growing,' is a word of the widest application ; a younp
 
 NAMES NOT DEFINITIONS. 83 
 
 child or tree, an aggregating crystal, a new-built fire, a 
 beginning reputation, an evolving cosmos, are really aa 
 much crescent as a young (so, by a figure, we call it) 
 moon. To seize upon the word as specific title of the 
 growing moon, then, is to commit a very bold and ar- 
 bitrary act of restriction. But the act is also open to 
 objection on another side. It takes account of only a 
 single, and that a very trivial, characteristic of an object 
 which has many others. All we can say in reply is that 
 nomenclature is a free and easy process, and that such 
 objections count for nothing as against the demands of 
 convenient expression. The case was the same with 
 bishop, ' overseer,' as we saw above ; it was the same 
 with green, * growing ; ' it was the same with planet, 
 'wanderer.' It is believed by the etymologists that 
 moon itself comes in a similar way from a root mean- 
 ing ' measure ;', our satellite having been thus desig- 
 nated, in remote ages, because of her office in measur- 
 ing the longer intervals of time : " so many moons" 
 Certainly, her Latin name luna is for lucna, and re- 
 lated with lux, and so describes her simply as a ' shiner.' 
 And sun goes back, it is believed, to an equivalent 
 source. Comparative philology claims to have shown 
 (as will be noticed hereafter) that the earliest appella- 
 tions of specific things were in general won in precisely 
 this way, the germs of speech being expressions for 
 acts and qualities. However that may be, it is certam 
 that, through the whole history of language since, the 
 method has been in constant use : epithets of things, 
 representing some one of their various attributes, be- 
 come the names of things, through every department 
 of nomenclature. Our etymologies are apt to bring us 
 back finally to some so general, comprehensive, colorless 
 idea, that we almost wonder how it can have given
 
 84 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 birth to such strongly-marked progeny. All the varied 
 and definite meanings of post (to take a further example 
 or two) go back to the sense of ' put, placed.' The 
 idea of rolling is specialized into the muster roll and 
 the breakfast roll, the roll of the drum and rolls of 
 iat ; by a longer route, it conies to us in the form of 
 the actor's role / and a slight addition makes of it con- 
 trol^ of which the connection with its original escapes 
 all but skilled and curious eyes. 
 
 Another leading principle, of the first order of im- 
 portance, is somewhat contrary in its effects to that 
 which we have been considering : it is the principle of 
 extension, as opposed to restriction, of the sphere of 
 meaning of a term. A name won by specialization be 
 gins an independent career, which ends in its gaining 
 the position of head of a tribe. Mr. Miller, named by 
 the specializing process from his vocation, becomes the 
 father of a multitude of Millers, so named from their 
 relation to him, without the least regard to their voca- 
 tions. And he may turn out the founder of a sect, who 
 shall call themselves Millerites after him, and make his 
 name as conspicuous an element in the nomenclature of 
 theology as is already that of Arius or Nestorius. The 
 butterflies were first named in the species which showed 
 itself butter-colored as it flew: the title is extended, 
 heedless of the differences of color, to every other kin- 
 dred species. Our recent examples showed us sun and 
 moon made class-names. Crescent develops a group of 
 new uses out of the fortuitous presence of the figure 
 or. the Mohammedan standard. No one knows precise- 
 ly why tli3 rose was so entitled : the botanist has made 
 it the type of a whole order of quite diverse plants, 
 which he terms rosacecv, ' rose-like.' A great part of 
 our acquisitions of new knowledge go to swell old estnb
 
 EXTENSION OF APPLICATION. 85 
 
 lished classes, expending themselves, so far as language 
 is concerned, in the extension of existing class-names. 
 To take an example of the most obvious kind : the dis- 
 covery of every new animal or plant or mineral stretches 
 a little not only the scope of those widest terius, but 
 also of a whole series of subordinate ones. And some- 
 times the change rises to conspicuous value. The zo- 
 ologist's conception of horse, for example, has under- 
 gone no slight modification by the recent discovery in 
 the American West of numerous fossil species, of 
 greatly varying size and structure. Every exploring 
 naturalist, in fact, is all the time illustrating, in an 
 openly reflective way, in his naming of species, the two 
 principles which direct a great part of the world's less 
 conscious nomenclature. Having in his hands a new 
 plant, he at once proceeds to classify it : that is to say, 
 to determine of what current class-names it must swell 
 the content : he finds it, we will suppose, a plant, and a 
 phenogamous, a dicotyledonous, a rose-like plant, and 
 finally a rubus or ' blackberry.' But it has peculiarities 
 which entitle it to a specific designation ; and this must 
 be gained by the other method : the nomenclator selects 
 the quality which he will describe, and christens it meg- 
 alocarpus, ' big-fruited,' ffradlis, ' elegant,' or the like ; 
 or he gets a suggestion from the locality, the situation, 
 the circumstances of discovery ; or he connects it with 
 some still more extraneous matter : so, for instance, ]*s 
 compliments his friend Smith by naming it Smithii 
 
 The extension of a name's application, however, in- 
 volves a great deal that is far less plain and legitimate 
 than all this. Not only a true accordance in generic 
 character, but relations of an infinitely looser kind, are 
 used to tie together the classes that go under one name. 
 We saw lately a heathen god, a planet, a metal, a ten>
 
 8G CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 perament, and a day of the week, all forced into un- 
 natural u\iion under the title mercury. Since fruit ia 
 apt to be green when not 'fully ripe, green becomes a 
 synonym for ' unripe ' (and so we can commit the fa- 
 miliar linguistic paradox that blackberries are red when 
 they are green] ; and then, in less elegant diction, it is 
 again shifted to signify ' immature, not versed in the 
 ways of the world.' Such transfers we are wont to call 
 figurative ; they rest upon an apprehended analogy, 
 but one generally so distant, subjective, fanciful, that 
 we can hardly regard it as sufficient to make a connect- 
 ed class. Instances of this kind lie all about us, in our 
 most familiar words ; and this department of change is 
 of so conspicuous importance in language-history that 
 we must dwell upon it a little longer. Our minds de- 
 light in the discovery of resemblances, near and remote, 
 obvious and obscure, and are always ready to make 
 them the foundation of an association that involves the 
 addition of a new use to an old name. Thus, not only 
 an animal has a head, but also a pin, a cabbage. A bed 
 has one, where the head of its occupant usually lies 
 and it lias a foot for the same reason, besides the four 
 feet it stands on by another figure, and the six feet it 
 measures by yet another. More remarkable still, a river 
 has a head : its highest point, namely, where it heads 
 among the highlands and so it has arms j or, by an- 
 other figure, branches', or, by smother, feeders j or, by 
 another, tributaries / and it has a right and left side ; 
 and it has a bed, in which, by an unfortunate mixture 
 of metaphors, it runs instead of lying still ; and then, 
 tit the farthest extremity from the head, we find, not its 
 foot, but its mouth. Further, an army, a school, a sect, 
 has its head. A class has its head and its tail ; and so 
 has a coin, though in quite a different way. A sermon
 
 READINESS TO FORGET DERIVATION. 87 
 
 has its heads, as divided by their different headings ; 
 and we can beg to be spared anything more " on that 
 head." A sore comes to a head; and so, by one step 
 further away from literalness, a conspiracy or other dis- 
 order in the state, the body politic, does the same. Wo 
 give a horse his head, which he had before our dona- 
 tion ; and then we treat in the same way our passions 
 that is to say, if by their overmastering violence we lose 
 our heads. And so on, ad infinitum. 
 
 These side or figurative uses of a word do not per- 
 plex us ; they do not even strike us as anything out of 
 the way ; they are part and parcel of the sphere of ap- 
 plication of the word. For it is an important item in 
 this process of transfer that we gradually lose our sense 
 of the figure implied, and come to employ each sign as 
 if it had always been the simple and downright repre- 
 sentative of its idea. Here we see again the willing- 
 ness, which has been already pointed out, and which is 
 essential to the prosperous development of a language, 
 to forget the origin of a name when once it is won, to 
 let drop the old associations and suggestions which be- 
 longed to it in virtue of its etymology, and invest it 
 with a new set appertaining to its present use. Per- 
 haps there is in English hardly a more stiiking example 
 of this than our word butterfly, a name of utterly pro- 
 saic and trivial origin, but which has become truly po- 
 etic and elegant, as we think in connection with it of. 
 the beautiful creatures it designates, and not one in a 
 thousand has ever had come into his head the idea that 
 it literally means * a fly of butter-color.' The relics of 
 forgotten derivations, of faded metaphors, are scattered 
 thickly through every part of our vocabulary. It is, to 
 our apprehension, in the nature of a word to have its 
 figurative as well as its literal uses and applications ; we
 
 88 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 inherited our vocabulary in that condition ; and, by new 
 discoveries of analogies and new transfers of meaning. 
 \ve are all the time adding to the confusion if it were 
 a confusion. Sometimes the connection between the 
 different senses is obvious on the least reflection ; some- 
 times, again, it is so obscure that we cannot find it, or 
 that we conceive it wrongly; ordinarily, we do not con- 
 cern ourselves about the matter ; we use each word as 
 we have learned it, leaving to the lexicographer to fol- 
 low up the ramifications to their source in its primitive 
 or etymological meaning. 
 
 A conspicuous branch of the department of figu- 
 rative transfer, and one of indispensable importance in 
 the history of language, is the application of terms hav- 
 ing a physical, sensible meaning, to the designation of 
 intellectual and moral conceptions and their relations. 
 It is almost useless to attempt to illustrate this ; the ex- 
 amples would come crowding in too numerously to be 
 dealt with : we will merely notice a few of those which 
 happen to be offered in the preceding paragraph. Per- 
 plex means ' braid together, intertwine.' Simple is 
 ' without fold,' as distinguished from what is double, or 
 ' two-fold ; ' in simplicity and duplicity we have a 
 moral contrast more distinctly brought to view ; appli- 
 cation contains the same root, and denotes an actual 
 physical ' folding or bending to ' anything, so as to fit 
 it closely ; while imply intimates a ' folding in.' Im- 
 portant, means 'bringing in, importing, having conferred 
 import or consequence.' Apprehension signifies literally 
 the ' taking hold' of a thing. Relation is a * carrying 
 back,' as transfer is a ' carrying across ' in Latin, and 
 metaphor nearly the same thing in Greek. To invest ia 
 to ' put into clothes ; ' to develop is to ' unwrap.' Triv- 
 ial is what is found ' at the street-crossings ; ' anything
 
 FIGURATIVE WORDS. 89 
 
 is obvious which meets us ' in the way,' which occurs to, 
 or * runs against ' us. Derivation involves the curious- 
 ly special idea of drawing off streams of water from 
 a river, for irrigation or the like. To suggest is to 
 * carry under,' or supply, as it were, from beneath, not 
 conspicuously and so on. All these are from the 
 Latin part of our language, which furnishes examples 
 iu the greatest abundance, because our philosophical and 
 scientific vocabulary comes mainly from that source ; 
 but there is plenty like it in the Saxon part also. Wrong 
 is * wrung ' or ' twisted,' as its opposite right is ' straight ; ' 
 and downright involves the same figure as upright, as 
 having nothing oblique or indirect about it. A striking 
 example needs no comment. To forget is the opposite 
 of to get, but signifies only a mental loss. We see 
 tilings that never come before our bodily eyes. And 
 point out, let drop, follow uj}, lay down, come into the 
 head, out of the way, are instances of phrases that show 
 plainly a similar shift of application. In fact, our 
 whole mental and moral vocabulary has been gained 
 precisely in this way ; the etymologist feels that he has 
 not finished tracing out the history of any one of its 
 terms until he has hunted it back to the physical con- 
 ception in which, by the general analogies of language, 
 it must have had its origin. 
 
 Thus, as the general movement of human knowl- 
 edge is from the recognition of sensible objects to an 
 ever finer analysis of their qualities and determination 
 of their relations, and to the apprehension of more rec- 
 cwidite existences, objects of thought, so, as the accom- 
 paniment and necessary consequence, there is a move- 
 ment in the whole vocabulary of language from the 
 designation of what is coarser, grosser, more material, 
 to the designation of what is finer, more abstract and
 
 00 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF TVORDS. 
 
 eonceptional, more formal. Considered with reference 
 to the ends rather than the methods of expression, there 
 is no grander phenomenon than this in all language-hia- 
 tory. But the evolution of the intellectual vocabulary 
 is only one division of the movement ; there is another 
 to which a few moments' attention must be given. 
 
 We have a verb, be, bearing the purely formal gram- 
 matical office of connecting a subject with its predicate. 
 Such a connective is wanting in many languages, which 
 are obliged simply to set the two elements side by side, 
 leaving their relation to be supplied by the mind. Its 
 conjugation is made up of various discordant parts ; 
 which, however, agree in the quality of derivation from 
 roots having a distinct physical meaning : am, is, are, 
 come from as, which signified either ' breathe ' or ' sit ; ' 
 was, were, from vas, f abide ; ' be, bee?i, from JA4, 
 'grow.' The French has filled up its scheme of the 
 same verb from the Latin stare, ' stand.' The develop- 
 ment of meaning here is analogous with what we have 
 been considering, a case of transfer and extension ex- 
 tension so wide that it has effaced all that was distinc- 
 tive in the words ; we may call it an attenuation, a fad- 
 ing-out, a complete formalizing, of what was before 
 solid, positive, substantial. 
 
 The same general connective be, when used with the 
 past participle of a transitive verb, becomes an " auxil- 
 iary," making a whole conjugation of what we call 
 " passive " forms " I am loved," etc. ; with a present 
 participle, it makes a like scheme of " continuous " or 
 " imperfect " tenses " I am loving," etc. It thus en- 
 ters just as fully into the service of formal grammatical 
 expression as the formative endings of languages of 
 other habit than ours. We have manv other words oi 
 which the history and present application are nearly
 
 VERBAL AUXILIARIES. 91 
 
 the same. There is do, which, from the original physi- 
 cal notion of ' set, place,' has been extended and for- 
 malized into expressing efficient action of every kind 
 do good, do one's best, do to death, and so on : and 
 which also does service as verbal auxiliary I do love, 
 did I love ? etc. Again, the Latin root cap (capere) 
 means ' seize, grasp.' Its Germanic correspondent is 
 hob, in Gothic haban, German hdben, our have. But 
 here the more physical sense of ' grasp ' has almost dis- 
 appeared (we have it in Germ, handhdbe, our haft, the 
 part of an instrument that is ' grasped ' by the hand) ; 
 in its place has come the more conceptional one of ' pos- 
 sess.' So also with the Latin hdbere, the relation of 
 which to capere on the one hand and hdben on the other 
 is a puzzle to the etymologists. Finally, this too has 
 been turned to use in verbal expression, and by a trans- 
 fer which, though illustrated in the history of many 
 languages, must be called a very remarkable one. Pres- 
 ent possession often implies past action : hdbeo cultellum 
 iuventmn, habeo virgulam jissam, hdbeo digitum vul- 
 neratum, 1 1 possess my knife found (recovered after 
 loss), I possess a twig that is split, I have a wounded 
 finger : ' here the several conditions have been preceded 
 by the several acts, of finding, splitting, wounding. On 
 this absurdly narrow basis is built up the whole im- 
 mense structure of the u perfect "-tense expression: 
 the phrase shifts its centre of gravity from the ex~ 
 pressed condition to the implied antecedent act ; and / 
 have found ike knife^ ich hdbe das Messer gefunden } 
 fai trouve le couteau, become indicators of a peculiar 
 variety of past action contemplated as completed : fur- 
 ther examples are the Sanskrit kritavdn, l [I am] pos- 
 sessing [something] done,' i. e. ' I have done ; ' and 
 Turkish dogd-um. * striking mine,' i. e. ' I have struck. 1
 
 02 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 The next step is to forget how have came by its " per- 
 fect " meaning, and to use it with all sorts of verbs, 
 where an etymological analysis would make nonsense : 
 as in / have lost the knife', I have lived (German and 
 French the same) ; and, in English, even / have come, 
 where the other languages still say, more properly, * I 
 am come.' 
 
 But the same verb has other auxiliary work to do. 
 The phrases hdbeo virgulam ad findendum, fai une 
 verge a fendre, ich habe ein Aestchen zu spalten, I have 
 a twig to split (for splitting), as plainly imply a con- 
 templated future action. They become formal verbal 
 expressions when, by a like shift of emphasis and ap- 
 prehended connection with that noted above, the con- 
 struction is changed to / have to cut a twig, and the 
 noun is viewed no longer as object of the have, but 
 rather of the other verb, the infinitive ; and yet more 
 completely when (again as above) the construction is so 
 extended that we say / have to strike, I have to go, I 
 have to he care/til. We thus have a phrase denoting 
 obligation to future action, developed out of the same 
 expression for ' seizing ' which is also used to denote 
 past action. The French has gone still further. ]S r ot 
 emphasizing, as we do, the idea of obligation, it uses 
 the same phrase as simple expression of futurity ; and 
 more, it combines the auxiliary into one word with the 
 other verb -je fendrai (for je fendre ai, i. e. fai d 
 fendre) ; in which no French speaker, unless philologi- 
 cally educated, ever recognizes the elements of the com- 
 bination. 
 
 Once more, the English is peculiar in expressing a 
 causative sense by the same agency : / had my /torse 
 shod, 1 10 ill have the book bound, point to a different 
 aspect of the action, setting it forth as something
 
 VERBAL AUXILIARIES. 93 
 
 brought about, though not executed, by the actor. It is 
 merely a tuming-up to view of another of the many 
 implications involved in the state of possession. 
 
 All our verbal auxiliaries come after a like fashion. 
 Behind our shall and will, as signs of future action, lira 
 a history of transfers and extensions. One step back, 
 1 shall means ' I owe, am under obligation ; ' I will, ' I 
 intend, purpose.' Both are examples of that important 
 little class of Germanic verbs called " preterito-presen- 
 tial," because (by a change just the opposite of that 
 which we noticed above) they have won their present 
 meaning through a "perfect" one. And shall, it is 
 claimed, goes back finally to ' I have offended,' and 
 hence * am under penalty ; ' will, to ' I have selected ' 
 (yet more primitively, ' have enclosed or surrounded '). 
 The Greek Keicrij^ai, ' I have acquired ' (colloquial Eng- 
 lish, / have got), for ' I possess,' is a parallel here : in. 
 deed, both Greek and Sanskrit have one of the very 
 verbs that compose the Germanic class : Skt. veda, Gr. 
 o'Sa, Goth, wait, Germ, weiss, ' I wot or know : ' liter- 
 ally, * I have seen.' And the Latin furnishes a very 
 notable parallel to the shifts of construction we have 
 been instancing, in its use of the accusative as " sub- 
 ject " of an infinitive : it all grew out of an inorganic 
 extension of such constructions as dicit te eware, ' he 
 declares you to err.' Toward this we have in English 
 at least a near approach in phrases like " for him to err, 
 is a rare thing," where we have almost forgotten that 
 for logically connects him with rare : " to err is a thing 
 rare for him." Another kindred case is the infinitive 
 in passive sense in German causative phrases : er lies* 
 sich nicht halten, l he did not let himself be held ; ' Jit- 
 erally, * did not let [any one] hold him.' 
 
 This kind of change is by no means limited to ver
 
 94 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 bal constructions, as a few examples from otlier parts of 
 the grammar will show. In Anglo-Saxon there was no 
 such word as of, as distinguished from off j their sepa- 
 ration, in form and meaning, is a piece of very recent 
 word-history. Off is the earlier sense, as the more ma- 
 terial : though itself, as preposition, a sign of relation, 
 and therefore formal as compared with our general vo- 
 cabulary. But in of we have all limited and definable 
 relation extinguished ; the word is a token of the most 
 indefinite appurtenance, the absolute equivalent of a 
 genitive case-ending, a link between a noun and its 
 modifying noun, sign of the adjective relation of one 
 noun to another. The French de has a history not un- 
 like this. Almost as striking an example is our for, 
 originally the same word with fore, ' before, in front 
 of ; ' in German the word has taken on a threefold form 
 for its various offices, in vor, fur, and the inseparable 
 prefix ver each of more attenuated quality than its 
 predecessor. To retains in general its ancient office as 
 designating approach ; but as " sign of the infinitive " 
 it is as purely formal as of itself ; in to have, for exam- 
 ple, it is nothing more than a kind of modern substitute 
 for the old ending an of hdban: we have absolutely 
 lost from memory its real value, as that of a preposition 
 governing a verbal noun. 
 
 But there is another shift of construction lying back 
 of the whole class of prepositions. The oldest of them 
 were originally as many of them still continue also 
 to be adverbs, modifiers of verbal action, only aiding 
 to determine the noun-case which that action should 
 take as its further adjunct. Here is a whole part of 
 speech, of an especially formal character, developed from 
 those of more material aspect and office. The conjunc- 
 tions are another case of the same kind, though into
 
 RELATIVE PRONOUNS. 95 
 
 Ihe details of their history we have no time here to en- 
 ter. And the articles, sometimes ranked as a separate 
 part of speech, are likewise altered and faded words : 
 their originals, to be sure, were formal enough; but 
 they are etherealized formals : the definite article is 
 a demonstrative, from which the full demonstrative 
 force has been withdrawn ; the indefinite article comes 
 by a similar process of attenuation from the numeral 
 ' one.' 
 
 The great variety and prominent importance of this 
 department of change of meaning tempt to protracted 
 illustration ; and no brief array of examples can do it 
 justice : but we must content ourselves with only one 
 more. Alongside the conjunctions, the relative pro- 
 nouns are by far the most important of the connoctives 
 by which we bind together separate assertions, making 
 a period out of what would otherwise be a loore aggre- 
 gation of phrases. They are pronouns with conjunctive 
 force ; they fasten distinctly to their antecedent an as- 
 sertion which would otherwise be connected with it 
 only by implication. There are plenty of languages in 
 the world which have no such syntactical apparatus; 
 and we, too, could make shift to get on well enough 
 without it. To say " my friend had had a fever ; he 
 was not quite recovered ; he was looking pale and ill," 
 is fully sufficient to enable the hearer to combine the 
 circumstances in their proper relations. We only put 
 into expression the necessarily implied mental act when 
 we say " my friend, who had had a fever from which 
 he was not quite recovered, was looking ill ; " and we 
 La^e no small variety of other ways of putting the 
 same thing : " he was looking ill because (or, for), he 
 bad had" etc.; or, "my friend, being not yet recov- 
 ered from a recent fever, was looking ill ; " and BO on.
 
 96 CHANGE OF INNER CONTENT OF WORDS. 
 
 The various modes of statement are devices for present- 
 ing to more special attention one and another aspect of 
 a fact and its causes ; their possibility is an added deco- 
 ration rather than a substantial resource of speech ; they 
 serve a rhetorical purpose. But the relatives, which, 
 Jiough not indispensable, are an agency we could hard- 
 ly afford to miss, are only a comparatively recent acqui- 
 sition. They are demonstratives and interrogatives put 
 to a new use ; employed first with pregnant allusion to 
 an antecedent, then gaining such allusion as an essential 
 element. The construction was in a forming and doubt- 
 ful state in our earliest English, and who and which 
 won their relative force only considerably later. 
 
 It is by no means only in verbal phrases and other 
 examples of the reduction of terms of independent 
 meaning to formal value that language exhibits its char- 
 acteristic tendency toward oblivion of original meaning 
 and disregard of etymological concinnity. Most tongues 
 are full of idiomatic phrases, which, when we attempt 
 to analyze them, are often obscure or meaningless or 
 absurd, and which nevertheless constitute no small part 
 of the strength and charm of expression. Take place 
 is a fair English example ; the same expression in Ger- 
 man, Platz nehmen, means' ' sit down,' while to repre- 
 sent our meaning the German says rather Staff finden, 
 ' find stead.' In French we may instance avoir beau, 
 literally ' to have beautiful,' used to intimate the use- 
 lessness of an action : il a beau sexcuser, ' he tries in 
 vain to excuse himself ; ' or en vouloir, literally ' wish 
 about it,' but meaning ' bear a grudge.' And between 
 the three equivalent expressions there is, il y a, liter- 
 ally ' it has there,' and es gilt, ' it gives,' it is hard to 
 choose the one which implies the most curious twist 
 of meaning. The very abundance and heterogeneous-
 
 VARIETY OF SIGNIFICANT CHANGE. 97 
 
 riess of the material here discourage more extended 
 illustration. 
 
 ft is, as has been already said, impossible to exhaust 
 the variety of significant change in linguistic growth. 
 Whole volumes, full of interest and instruction, have 
 been produced upon this subject alone ; and if our ob- 
 ject were general interest and instruction, we should 
 not quit the theme here. We should dwell, for in- 
 stance, upon the curious fate which, while some worda 
 fade to the thinnest skeleton, almost shadow, of sub- 
 stantial value, crowds others with pregnancy and force 
 like Jiome, comfort, tact (literally ' touch '), taste, hu- 
 mor (' moisture ') ; upon the' contrast between words 
 which from a low or an indifferent origin rise to dig- 
 nity, and those which from a respectable origin sink 
 into contempt (we had above, p. 40, an example of both 
 these changes in the same word, our knight and the 
 German fenecM) ; between words which become so con- 
 ventionally inexpressive that we seek for newer and 
 more positive phraseology, and those which, dealing 
 with delicate subjects, become too directly suggestive, 
 and are replaced in refined usage by others which hint 
 more remotely at the intended sense ; between words 
 which for no assignable reason become the fashion, and 
 others which as causelessly come to be looked askance 
 at and avoided. Some of these cases will call for re- 
 mark farther on, in other connections : for the present 
 we must be satisfied with having noticed at least the 
 principal tendencies, those which have most influence 
 on the growth of language.
 
 CHAPTER YI 
 
 GHOWTH OF LANGUAGE: LOSS OF WORDS AXD FORMS. 
 
 Lews of words ; its causes ; obsolescent and obsolete words. Loss of 
 meanings. Loss of grammatical forms and the distinctions conveyed 
 by them ; examples ; excess of this loss in English. 
 
 WE saw above (in the third chapter) that loss of 
 what had constituted the material of a language was an 
 appreciable element in that constant change and devel- 
 opment which we called its growth. Even such a pro- 
 cess of subtraction is fairly enough to be reckoned as a 
 part of growth ; just as the growth of organic beings 
 consists in removal as well as in resupply. And our 
 preliminary illustrations showed us that the loss might 
 consist either in the disappearance of complete words 
 from a vocabulary, or in the disappearance of the signs 
 of grammatical distinction. 
 
 The reduction of a vocabulary by loss of its words 
 is a matter so simple that we shall not need to spend 
 much time upon it. 
 
 As all the items of a given language are kept in ex 
 istence only by being taught and learned, it is evident 
 enough that the cessation of this process of tradition with 
 regard to any item will bring about its annihilation. 
 Existence, in speech, is use ; and disuse is destruction. 
 Whatever leads to disuse leads to loss; and there ic
 
 DISAPPEARANCE OF WORDS. 99 
 
 nothing else that can have that effect. And there are, 
 accordingly, two principal ways in which loss can occur. 
 In the first place, the disappearance from before the 
 attention of a community of the conceptions designated 
 by certain words occasions the disappearance of those 
 words. If anything that people once thought and 
 talked about comes to concern them no longer, ita 
 phraseology goes into oblivion unless, of course, it bo 
 pieserved, as a memory of the past, by some of those 
 means which culture supplies. It has been so, for ex- 
 ample, with the old heathen religion of our Germanic 
 ancestors. Once, the names of Thor and Woden, of 
 Tuis and Freya, and the rest of them, were as common 
 on English lips as those of Christ and the Virgin Mary, 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, are nowadays ; but, save for 
 their fortuitous and generally unrecognized retention in 
 the names of the days of the week, they have become 
 extinct in the speech of common life, and are known 
 only to curious students of antiquity. The same thing 
 is true of a host of words belonging to the vocabulary 
 of the ancient arts and sciences, the ancient institutions 
 and customs. The technical terms of chivalry mostly 
 fell out as those of modern warfare came in ; those of 
 astrology, as this was crowded from existence by as- 
 tronomical science. Only, we have here and there, not 
 always consciously, in our present speech, reminiscences 
 of the old order of things, in the shape of words trans^ 
 ferred to new uses. Even so common and indispensa- 
 ble a term as influence is said to be of astrological ori- 
 gin, denoting in its early use only the bearing of the 
 heavenly bodies on human affairs ; disaster is etyrao- 
 logically a mishap due to a baleful stellar aspect ; and 
 we have already noted jovial, saturnine, mercurial, as 
 names for dispositions that were regarded as produced
 
 tOO LOSS OF WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 by the influence of planets. In like manner, part ol 
 the vocabulary of hawking, when that mode of secur- 
 ing game went out of use, was transferred to the new 
 apparatus : as an especially noticeable instance, musket 
 was the name of a certain small hawk. 
 
 But, in the second place, words are crowded out of 
 use, and so out of life, by the coming into use of other 
 words which mean the same thing, and which for somo 
 cause, definable or not, win the popular favor, and sup- 
 plant their predecessors. Of this process we found 
 examples in our specimen-passage : the honest Saxon 
 derivatives or compounds Ifcelend, reste-dceg, leorning- 
 cnihtas, are replaced in our usage by the outlandish 
 terms Savior, sabbath, disciple, and have themselves 
 disappeared. And this is but a specimen of a process 
 of wide reach and abundant results in English. In con- 
 sequence of the Xorman conquest, a considerable body 
 of French words was poured in upon our language, and 
 gradually accepted and put to service as an integral part 
 of it. To no small degree, indeed, as a direct enrich- 
 ment of English speech, by furnishing expression for 
 new ideas, or French synonyms for Saxon words, each 
 useful in its own style and connection : like brotherly 
 &nd fraternal, outlandish &n& foreign, forgive and par- 
 don, rot and decay, hue and color, stench and odor, fore- 
 sight and providence. But to a considerable extent also 
 there was an over-enrichment, which the requirements 
 of practical use did not justify ; and the intrusion of 
 the new caused an extrusion of the old. Thus a host 
 of Saxon words gave place to substitutes of foreign 
 origin : nothing would be easier than to add to the 
 examples given above numberless others, like wanhope 
 displaced by despair, ayenbite by remorse, inwit \)j 
 conscience, and so on.
 
 DISAPPEARANCE OF WORDS. 101 
 
 Nor is it by foreign importation alone that words of 
 native growth become superfluous, and are dropped out 
 of a language. There are cases in abundance of a 
 word's simply going out of fashion, becoming obso- 
 lescent and then obsolete, by an act of supersession at- 
 tributable only to what we call chance or caprice. AVo 
 have one or two fair examples of it in our specimen- 
 passage, as already pointed out (pp. 39, 43) : namely 
 for and soth. In Anglo-Saxon, the verb faran, ' fare,' 
 was in frequent and familiar use in the simple sense of 
 ' go ' or * pass.' Gdn, ( go,' was also good English, with 
 its irregular preterit eode, ' went ; ' likewise gangan, 
 4 gang,' with geng, 'ganged ; ' and wendan, ' turn, wend/ 
 with wende, 'turned, went.' Out of this, as it was 
 found, somewhat wasteful provision of words for 
 'going,' our later English has made arbitrary selec- 
 tion of go and went, dropping the rest or else, as in 
 the case of fare, restricting them to special uses. In 
 a similar way, equus has gone out of use as name for 
 ' home ' in all the descendants of the Latin, and has 
 been replaced by cdballus, which was originally a word 
 of inferior dignity, like our nag / although, in chivalry \ 
 etc., it has since come to honor enough : so magnus has 
 been superseded by grandis, axidpulcher by bellus j and 
 so, in French, wipes has been given up for renard, 
 which is the German fiein/iart, a proper name, by 
 which a fox was at one time popularly called, much ag. 
 we call a dog " Tray." It may even happen that an 
 important word dies out, without provision of any full 
 substitute : so the Anglo-Saxon weorthan, corresponding 
 to the German werden, 'become.' Doubtless the trans- 
 fer to its present meaning of lecome (literally ' come by, 
 get at, get ') caused the oblivion of the older and more 
 legitimate synonym ; and with this went the possibility
 
 102 LOSS OF WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 of such distinctions as the German makes abundantly 
 by means of werden : especially, that of the true passive 
 es wird gebrochen, ' it is getting broken,' i. e. ' is under- 
 going fracture,' as against es ist gelrochen, ' it is broken/ 
 i. e. ' has undergone fracture ; ' whence, further, tho 
 necessity for such awkward, but naturally formed and 
 really unavoidable phrases as it is being broken. 
 
 By these means, there is in every language a certain 
 amount of obsolescent material, in various stages : some 
 words that are only unusual, or restricted to particular 
 phrases (like stead, in in stead alone) ; some that belong 
 to a particular style, archaic or poetical ; some that have 
 become strange and unintelligible to ordinary speakers, 
 though formerly in every-day use ; some that survive 
 only in local dialects. And the older records of any 
 tongue, if preserved, show words in greater or less num- 
 ber that are gone past recovery. 
 
 It is hardly necessary even to spend, in passing, a sin- 
 gle word upon the somewhat analogous loss, by words 
 and phrases, of their old meanings, although this may 
 also involve, in its manner and degree, a reduction of 
 the resources of expression. The examples of transfer 
 of meaning given in the last chapter have shown also 
 sufficiently that the process is not always, though it may 
 be usually, an addition of new meanings without an 
 abandonment of the old. It may be, too, that the sub- 
 stantial sense of a word remains to it, while its acces- 
 sory suggestiveness is altered ; so when Milton speaks 
 of ladies who '" from their eyes rain influence-" we miss 
 the whole poetic significance of the line if we do not 
 know the astrological allusion it involves. In reading 
 older authors, we are constantly liable to this loss or 
 misunderstanding, often skimming a mere surface com 
 prehension off that which has a profound meaning, or
 
 LOSS OF FORMS. 103 
 
 deluding ourselves with a belief that we understand 
 where the real sense escapes us. 
 
 A subject of greater consequence and deeper reach 
 in language-history is the loss of old distinctions of 
 grammatical form. Of this, our illustrative sentence 
 brought to light several striking examples, already 
 briefly noticed by us. By the wearing off, under the 
 prevalent phonetic tendency, of the old infinitive end- 
 ing an (Middle English and German en}, our infinitive 
 as a verbal form is no longer different from the root of 
 verbal inflection. And yet we do not fail to appreciate 
 distinctly enough the idea of the form, and have even 
 (as we saw) fabricated a new sign to as a kind of substi- 
 tute for the obliterated suffix. Again, having lost all 
 such signs of plurality as the final on of ongunnon, we 
 110 longer distinguish the plural of a verbal tense for- 
 mally from the singular except in am and are, was and 
 were : yet here, also, the difference made by us between 
 singular and plural nouns and pronouns, scantily supple- 
 mented by the absence of a personal ending in tfiey love 
 as compared with he loves, seems still to keep up in full 
 life the old distinction. The se and thd, however, as 
 singular and plural respectively, and the former of them 
 as specifically masculine (the feminine was seo, and the 
 neuter thcef), are examples of a class of grammatical dis- 
 tinctions which have gone by the board, swept clean 
 away, so that we have forgotten that they ever existed : 
 namely, the variation of an adjective word for gendeT 
 and number and case. The Anglo-Saxon adjective had 
 a fuller inflection than the German, almost as full a one 
 as the Greek or Latin ; it even had a double one, defi- 
 nite and indefinite, like the German ; and the language 
 Btill retained the old system of concord, of formal cor- 
 respondence between a substantive and its qualifier or
 
 104 LOSS OF WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 representative, which, founded on the original identity 
 of substantive and adjective, is one of the glories of a 
 completely inflective language ; but since we have lost 
 it, we have never thought of missing or regretting it; 
 and no one of us would be easy to convince that, when 
 \ve say good men, there would be anything gained by 
 gh ing the word good a different form from that which 
 it has in good man. And yet less, from that which it 
 has in good women. For the distinctions of gender 
 have been extirpated even in our nouns. To us, the 
 name or appellation of a person is masculine or feminine 
 only according as the person is male or female ; and of 
 sex in the lower animals we make very small account ; 
 while our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were as much under 
 the dominion of that old artificial grammatical distinc- 
 tion of all the objects of thought as masculine, feminine, 
 and neuter, on a basis only in small part coinciding with 
 actual sex, as are the Germans now, or as were the 
 Greeks and Latins of old : it was one of the original 
 and characteristic features of that language from which 
 all these, and most of the other tongues of Europe, are 
 descended. The French has suffered the same loss only 
 partially, having saved the distinction of masculine from 
 feminine, but confounded neuter and masculine together 
 by the obliteration of their respective marks of differ- 
 ence. But also the old scheme of cases in our nouns 
 has become a wreck and a remnant, although the dis- 
 tinctions on which it is founded are jiist as necessary 
 i\ part of language as ever. The English has no dative, 
 and no accusative except in a few pronouns (him, them, 
 whom, etc.) ; the French is still poorer, having not even 
 a possessive; although it makes in a few pronominal 
 words a somewhat evanescent distinction of subject and 
 object. We have also nearly parted with our subjuno
 
 EXCESSIVE LOSS IN ENGLISH. 105 
 
 tive, which in German is as rich in forms as is tho 
 indicative. 
 
 The English is, in truth, of all the languages of its 
 kindred, the one which most remarkably illustrates that 
 mode of linguistic change consisting in the loss of for- 
 mal grammatical distinction by synthetic means ; there 
 is no other known tongue which, from having been so 
 rich in them, has become so poor; none which has so 
 nearly stripped its root-syllables of the apparatus of suf- 
 fixes with which they were formerly clothed, and left 
 them monosyllabic. All this has come about mainly 
 through the instrumentality of the tendency to ease and 
 abbreviation, a tendency which in this department of its 
 working, especially, makes truly for decay ; the conserv- 
 ative force, the strictness of traditional transmission, has 
 not been sufficient to resist its inroads. Much of the 
 loss has been the work of the last few centuries ; and 
 there is no difficulty in pointing out causes which have 
 at least quickened it. When men learn a strange lan- 
 guage, by a practical process, they are apt especially to 
 make bad work with its endings ; if they get the body 
 of the word, its main significant part, intelligibly cor- 
 rect, they will be content to leave the relations to bo 
 understood from the connection. This was what helped 
 the decay of the Latin tongue, and its reduction, in the 
 mouths of Italians, Celts, Iberians, and others, into the 
 corrupted and abbreviated shape of the modern Romanic 
 dialects ; and the irruption into England of the French- 
 speaking Normans, and their fusion with the Saxon- 
 6 peaking English, added an appreciable element of 
 force to a tendency which was perhaps already suffi- 
 ciently marked in the later Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 But it is only in degree that the English differs 
 herein from the other languages of its family, and from
 
 106 LOSS OF WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 those of other families. The tendency to abbreviation 
 for ease, for economy of effort in expression, is a uni- 
 versal and a blind one ; destruction lies everywhere in 
 its path. The same process which, by a disguising 
 fusion and integration of elements once independent, 
 makes a word or form, goes straight on to its contiac- 
 tion and mutilation and in early language as certainly, 
 though not necessarily so rapidly, as in later. There ia 
 believed to be hardly anything, if anything at all, ear- 
 lier in the structure of our language than the first-per- 
 sonal endings, mi in the singular, masi in the plural. 
 Yet these are already economized alterations of some- 
 thing still more primitive ; the masi, especially, so 
 changed that the comparative philologists dispute as 
 to its derivation. All that we have left of either of 
 them in English is the solitary m of am (for as-mi). 
 And every language related with ours has something of 
 the same loss to show ; and like losses in every other 
 department of inflection and of derivation. 
 
 The forms, even of the richest known languages, 
 embody and bring to distinct consciousness only a small 
 part of the infinity of relations which subsist among 
 the objects of thought, and which the mind impliedly 
 recognizes, even when it does not direct attention to 
 them by expression. JSTot one of those which are ex- 
 pressed, any more than those which have not found em- 
 bodiment, is absolutely essential to successful speech. 
 When it has attained expression, the mind which con- 
 templates it is not dependent upon its audible sign, but 
 may even be made carelessly secure by this, and, while 
 realizing the idea, permit itself to drop the sign as not 
 indispensable. But we may note for our consolation 
 that, unless a people is undergoing actual degradation 
 in quantity and quality of mental work, it does not
 
 COMPENSATION FOR LOSS. 107 
 
 lose what it once possessed in the way of inflectional 
 apparatus without providing some other and on the 
 whole equivalent means of expression. The style of 
 expression may become very much changed, without 
 any real loss of expressiveness. The downfall of the 
 case-system was accompanied by the uprise of the class 
 cf prepositions ; the loss of pronominal elements in the 
 form of personal endings led only to their more extend 
 ed use as independent words; the impoverishment of 
 the scheme of moods and tenses was compensated by 
 the introduction of a rich apparatus of auxiliaries, capa- 
 ble of expressing nearly all the old distinctions, along 
 with a host of new ones. 
 
 This brings us, however, as we have already been 
 repeatedly brought, to face the remaining department 
 of change of language namely, the addition of iie~w 
 resources of expression ; and to tliat we now turn.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DiiOWTH OF LANGUAGE : PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AUD 
 FORMS. 
 
 Special importance of Ihis mode of linguistic change ; objects attained by 
 it. These objects partly gained without external additions ; enrich- 
 ment, definition, multiplication of meaning in old words. Provision 
 of new styles of expression. External additions ; borrowing from 
 other languages ; its kind and degree ; excess of it in English. In- 
 vention of new words ; onomatopreia. New words made by combina- 
 tion of old ones ; production of forms by this method ; its wide reach 
 and importance ; internal formative changes really 'the result of ex- 
 ternal additions. Differentiation of the form of a word in different 
 uses. Multiplication of the uses of a word by derivative apparatus ; 
 conversion of one part of speech into another. 
 
 IN our examination of the methods of change or 
 growth in language, we have finally to consider the sub- 
 ject of acquisition of new material, of the means where- 
 by the waste incident to phonetic decay is made np, and 
 expression for new thought and knowledge provided. 
 These means have been already in part set forth or 
 alluded to ; for all the modes of linguistic growth so 
 intertwine and interact that it is impossible to discuss 
 any one of them, however succinctly, without taking 
 more or less account of the others. 
 
 This last mode of change, it may be remarked in 
 introduction, constitutes in a higher and more essential
 
 CHANGE OF VALUE OF OLD WORDS. 100 
 
 sense than any of the others the growth of language, 
 and ought to bring most distinctly to light the forces 
 actually concerned in that growth. 
 
 The general object attained by additions to language 
 is obviously the extension and the improvement of ex- 
 pression, supply of representative signs for new knowl- 
 edge, amendment in the representation of old knowl- 
 edge. But, as we must first observe, these ends are to 
 no small extent gained without any apparent change in 
 language. In part, by new syntactical combinations of 
 the old materials of speech, by putting together old 
 words into new sentences : and this is plainly a depart- 
 ment of the use of language by which great results are 
 won ; hosts of new cognitions and deductions are thus 
 provided for. And yet, this work cannot go on without 
 more or less affecting the inner content of the terms we 
 use, changing the limits and even the whole character 
 of the conceptions which they represent. If, for exam- 
 ple, we say " the sun rises, shedding light and heat on 
 the earth," the sentence is one which (or its equivalent 
 in other languages) might have been uttered, so far as 
 concerns the items of which it is made up, at any time 
 since the infancy of speech and knowledge : but how 
 different the real meaning which it stands for as em- 
 ployed by us, and by a modern boor or an ancient sage ! 
 Rise to us, as applied to the sun, is only a concession to 
 appearances ; we do not care to take the trouble to say- 
 that the earth has been rolling over till now our spot 
 of it comes within reach of the sun's rays ; and as to 
 rising and falling, it is only since Newton discovered 
 the great cosmic law of gravitation that we really know 
 what the words denote. It is a much shorter time since 
 we learned that light and heat are modes of motion of 
 matter, apprehended by certain effects which they pro-
 
 HO PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 duce on our sensitive organization. And the transfor- 
 mation which sun and earth have undergone in onr 
 minds needs no more than an allusion. The example 
 is, no doubt, an extreme one : yet it is a perfectly fair, 
 even normal, illustration of what becomes in speech of 
 one most important part of the new knowledge we 
 ncquire. This kind of change is ever operating like a 
 ferment through the whole material of language, incor- 
 porating without outward show the changed apprehen- 
 sions, the clearer cognitions, the sharpened distinctions, 
 which are the result of gradual intellectual growth. It 
 is, as we have called it before, the mind of the com- 
 munity all the time at work beneath the framework of 
 its old language, improving its instruments of expres- 
 sion by adapting them to new uses. 
 
 In fact, all the ground over which we went in the 
 fifth chapter, treating the alterations of meaning as in- 
 dividual changes, of various kind and direction, we 
 might properly enough here go over again, having in 
 view the purposes which the changes are made to sub- 
 serve. That, however, would take too much time ; and 
 we must content ourselves with briefly pointing out cer- 
 tain aspects of the subject. 
 
 How great, in the lirst place, is the sum of enrich- 
 ment of language by this means, may be seen by ob- 
 serving the variety of meanings belonging to our words. 
 If each of them were like a scientific term, limited to a 
 definite class of strictly similar things, the number 
 which the cultivated speaker now uses would be very 
 far from answering his purposes. But it is the cus- 
 tomary office of a word to cover, not a point, but a 
 territory, and a territory that is irregular, heterogene- 
 ous, and variable. A certain noted English lexicog- 
 rapher thought he had performed a great feat when he
 
 MULT/ PLICATION OF MEANINGS. 11] 
 
 had reduced the uses of good to forty varieties, besides 
 an insoluble residue of a dozen or two of phrases ; and, 
 though we need not accept all his distinctions as valu- 
 able, their number at any rate indicates a real condition 
 of things. No student who remembers his occasional 
 despair as (in early stages of his studies) he has glanced 
 uver the lists of meanings of Greek and Latin words in 
 his dictionaries, trying to find the one that fitted the case 
 in hand, will question that foreign words, at any rate, 
 have a perplexing variety of signification ; but the case 
 is precisely the same with the foreigner who uses an 
 English dictionary. It is the duty of the competent 
 lexicographer, in any language, to reduce the apparent 
 confusion to order by discovering the nucleus, the natu- 
 ral etymological meaning from which all the rest have 
 come by change and transfer, and by drawing out the 
 others in proper relation to their original and to one an- 
 other, so as to suggest the tie of association by which each 
 was added to the rest if he do not find (as is not very 
 rarely the fact) that the tie is doubtful or undiscoverable. 
 If we were to count in our words only those degrees of 
 difference of meaning for which in other cases separate 
 provision of expression is made, the 100,000 English 
 words would doubtless be found equivalent to a million 
 or two. As an extreme example of what this mode of 
 enrichment can do, there is in existence one highly cul- 
 tivated tongue, the Chinese, all the growth of which_ 
 has had to be by differentiation of meaning, since it re- 
 jects all external additions ; and it has only about 1,500 
 M oras : what a host of discordant and hardly connect- 
 able meanings each word is compelled to bear may bo 
 easily imagined. 
 
 The particular mode of transfer by which new ex- 
 pression is most abundantly won is the figurative (as sut
 
 112 PRODUCTION OF *EW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 forth and illustrated in the last chapter but one). But, 
 rich as are its contributions to the absolute needs of ex- 
 pression, especially in the department of intellectual 
 and relational language, they are by no means limited 
 to that. The mind not only has a wonderful facility in 
 Batching resemblances and turning them to account, but 
 it takes a real creative pleasure in the exercise, and de- 
 rives from it desirable variety and liveliness of style. 
 The power is strikingly illustrated in the case of men 
 whose life-occupations run in restricted lines, and who 
 have little general culture ; when they come to talk 
 upon matters less familiar, they see constant analogies 
 between these and their staple subjects of thought, and 
 their discourse is redolent of the " shop." So especially 
 the sailor talks as if all the world were a ship, and with 
 a piquancy and raciness which, as illustrated in the nau- 
 tical stories, is full of charm to us land-lubbers ; and 
 many a term or phrase of this origin has passed into 
 our general English tongue. And if we would see how 
 far the phraseology of the mine and the card-table can 
 be made to go in figurative substitution for ordinary 
 speech, we may read, in Mark Twain's " Houghing It " 
 (chap, xlvii.), that amusing (and, in this aspect, instruc- 
 tive) account of the interview between the preacher and 
 the gambler who wants to get his late exemplary part- 
 ner decently buried. For a more dignified example, 
 take the constant recurrence of the Yedic poets to the 
 cattle-yard and the pasture for the staple of their com- 
 parisons, and for the suggestion of many a term used 
 later, without any sense of a figure involved in it, to 
 eKpress human conditions. So far as this is odd or un- 
 dignified, it forms the largest element of what we call 
 " slang," and we frown upon it ; and properly enough ; 
 but yet it is only the excess and abuse of a tendency
 
 CONVENTIONAL PHRASES. 113 
 
 which is wholly legitimate, and of the highest value, in 
 the history of speech. It seeks relief from the often 
 oppressive conventionality, even insipidity, of words 
 worn out by the use of persons who have put neither 
 knowledge nor feeling into them, and which seem inca- 
 pable of expressing anything that is real. In the exu- 
 berance of mental activity, and the natural delight of 
 language-making, slang is a necessary evil ; and there 
 are grades and uses of slang whose charm no one need 
 be ashamed to feel and confess ; it is like reading a nar- 
 rative in a series of rude but telling pictures, instead of 
 in words. 
 
 A meaningless conventionality, to be sure, has also 
 its special uses, as in the forms of social intercourse, 
 where we are sometimes called upon to disguise instead 
 of disclosing our thoughts by speech. To take an ex- 
 ample or two of the simplest kind we say " how do you 
 do ? " to an acquaintance, but should feel imposed upon 
 if he answered by detailing all the symptoms of hia 
 health ; we begin a letter to one whom we really detest 
 with " my dear sir," and at the end declare ourselves his 
 " obedient servant," though we should resent a single 
 word from him which bore the semblance of a command. 
 And so in many other cases : to devise more sincere 
 phrases would seem blunt and odd, an unbecoming in- 
 trusion of our personality. Then, again, there are sub- 
 jects of decency or delicacy, with reference to which we 
 have to pick our expressions very carefully, if we would 
 aot offend or disgust. It is one of the most striking 
 illustrations possible of the dominion which words havo 
 won over our thoughts, that we will tolerate in indirect, 
 figurative, merely suggestive expression what would be 
 repidsive in direct statement. Here, by an effect con- 
 trary to that which we noticed above, a tenn perhaps
 
 114 PBODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 becomes after a time, by frequent use, too directly sig- 
 nificant, and we have to devise a new one, less lively. 
 
 Thus, independently of any marked increase of 
 knowledge and multiplication of conceptions, as well us 
 in connection with this, the instrument of expression is 
 continually undergoing alteration for the better, by be- 
 ing applied to more varied and defter modes of use. 
 The same methods of increase serve both the one pur- 
 pose and the other. "We have perhaps already given 
 sufficient attention, in the fifth chapter, to that most 
 general and grandest of movements of signification, 
 which carries words over from a more material and sub- 
 stantial value toward one that is more conceptual and 
 formal, in its two departments of the making of intel- 
 lectual expression and the production of form-words 
 in the former, turning more to the uses of new thought ; 
 in the latter, more toward the completion of the ex- 
 pression of old thought ; and we may proceed to take 
 up the other and more conspicuous part of growth, con- 
 sisting in external additions to language, the accession 
 of new words to the vocabulary. 
 
 And we may best begin with that particular mode 
 of external increase which is the most extraneous of all 
 namely, the bringing into a language of words bor- 
 rowed out of other languages. Borrowing, in greater 
 or less degree, is well-nigh universally resorted to ; there 
 is hardly a dialect in the world, of which the speakers 
 ever come in contact with those of another dialect, 
 which has not taken something out of that other. What 
 comes most easily after this fashion is names for article? 
 and institutions of foreign growth, which, on making 
 their acquaintance, and deeming them worthy of intro- 
 duction or adoption, we often find it convenient to call 
 by the names given them by their former possessors
 
 FOREIGN WORDS. 115 
 
 So the banana is a tropical fruit, with its own tropical 
 title ; and the nations of continental Europe mostly call 
 anana, for the same reason, the fruit for which we have 
 chosen to provide the more native appellation of pvM- 
 apple i. e. such an apple as, judging from its cones, a 
 pine might bear if it tried to be an apple-tree. So also 
 with the institution of the tabu, of which the Polyne- 
 sian name has fairly won a place in more than one 
 European tongue. A language like ours since we 
 come in contact with nearly all the nations of the world, 
 and draw in to ourselves whatever we find of theirs that 
 can be made useful to us, and since even our culture de- 
 rives from various sources comes to contain specimens 
 from dialects of very diverse origin. Thus, we have 
 religious words from the Hebrew, as sabbath, seraph, 
 jubilee; certain old-style scientific terms from the 
 Arabic, as algebra, alkali, zenith, cipher, besides a con- 
 siderable heterogeneous list, like lemon, sugar (ultimate- 
 ly Sanskrit), sherbet, magazine / from the Persian, cara- 
 van, chess, shawl, and even a word which has won so 
 familiar and varied use as check / from Hindi, calico 
 and chintz, punch and toddy ; from Chinese, tea and 
 najikeen / from American Indian languages, canoe and 
 moccasin, guano and potato, sachem and caucus. Some 
 of these are specimens out of tolerably long lists ; and 
 there are yet longer from sundry of the modern Euro- 
 pean languages, as the Spanish and Italian. All \o- 
 g ether, they do not make up any considerable propor- 
 tion of English speech ; but they have for us a high 
 theoretical importance, as casting light upon the general 
 process of names-giving, of which we shall treat more 
 particularly in the next chapter. It is by no process of 
 organic growth, assuredly, that we put a certain title 
 upon a certain thing because some far-off community, of
 
 116 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 which we know little and for which we care less, gave 
 it that title ; yet this makes, when once in use, just aa 
 good English as the words that belong to the very old- 
 est Saxon families, or that " came in with the Con- 
 queror." 
 
 This last expression, however, reminds us that there 
 is another kind and rate of borrowing in which our lan- 
 guage indulges, more or less in common with others. 
 All the leading nations of Europe have received their 
 culture and their religion, directly or indirectly, from 
 Greece and Rome. Some of them, indeed as the vari- 
 ous tribes of Italy, the Celts of Gaul, the Celtiberians of 
 the Spanish peninsula took so much from Rome that, 
 along with the rest, they accepted also her speech, in 
 mass, and now talk a nearly pure Latinic dialect. With 
 the others, there followed only a result akin with that 
 which we have been noticing above ; in connection with 
 new ideas and institutions, they took the names by 
 which these were known to their more original possess- 
 ors. Thus there came to be numerous Latin and Greek 
 words in the Germanic, the Slavonic, and the Celtic 
 tongues. Not a few of them occur in the oldest Anglo- 
 Saxon ; and they abound in the German vocabulary, 
 even in those parts of it which have an original aspect. 
 The dependence of Europe on the classical sources for 
 knowledge, arts, and sciences, continued long. Latin 
 was everywhere read and written by the learned, almost 
 as the only language worthy of such high uses ; and 
 fcveii now its study is a pervading element in education. 
 This kept fully alive the habit of resorting to the stores 
 of Latin expression to satisfy all those needs of the 
 learned which the more regular growth of the popular 
 speech did not supply. In a certain way, it was easier 
 for those modern tongues which are themselves derived
 
 BORROWING OF FOREIGN WORDS. 117 
 
 from the Latin to do this than for others ; but we must 
 not estimate their advantage too highly, observing how 
 little we ourselves borrow from the Anglo-Saxon, or 
 from any other Germanic language. The Latin and 
 Greek alone have occupied such a position that all Eu- 
 rope could resort to them for the enrichment of its mul- 
 tifarious speech. In other parts of the world, othei 
 languages have stood in a like place. To the scores of 
 tribes and nations of discordant speech in India, the 
 Sanskrit has long been the sacred and literary dialect, 
 and its literature the fountain of higher thought and 
 knowledge ; and all the cultivated tongues of modern 
 India have come to be full of Sanskrit words, as the 
 European tongues are of Latin. The Persians, a thou- 
 sand years and more ago, were forced to receive a new 
 religion and constitution at the hands of their Arab con- 
 querors, and modern Persian is almost more Arabic 
 than Persian. The Turks burst into Persia as a wild 
 uncultivated horde, with nearly everything to learn save 
 war and plunder ; and their present written style is 
 more crowded with Persian and Arabic than the most 
 extreme Johnsonese with Latin. The Japanese made 
 themselves, fifteen centuries since, the pupils of the 
 Chinese ; and they have absorbed the Chinese vocabu- 
 lary almost bodily into their own language. 
 
 The English, then, is not at all peculiar in its bor- 
 rowing freely from other tongues to enrich it! vocabu- 
 lary ; it is merely peculiar among European languages 
 for the extent of its borrowing from tongues only re- 
 motely akin with itself. A trustworthy estimate of the 
 derivation of the words found in our great dictionaries 
 makes nearly five sevenths of them to be of classical 
 derivation, and only about two sevenths native Ger- 
 manic : the sum of derivatives from other quarters-
 
 L18 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 Dnly a thousand or two being of no account in such 
 an estimate. Of course, the words do not enter into 
 the ordinary combinations of practical use in any such 
 proportion as this, because our commonest terms, the 
 bulk of the material of ordinary speech and nearly all 
 its machinery, are Germanic. In the list of words used 
 by Milton, for example, full two thirds are classical ; 
 but in a page anywhere of Milton's poetry the classical 
 element is only ten to thirty per cent. ; and even in 
 Johnson's style its proportion is but little greater. 
 
 For this preponderance, in one aspect, of the bor- 
 rowed material in English speech, there are easily as- 
 signable reasons. The Norman invasion, leading to a 
 long antagonism and final fusion of a French-speaking 
 with a Saxon-speaking race, brought in by violence, as 
 it were, a great store of French words, of Latin origin, 
 and thus made it comparatively easy to bring in without 
 violence a great many more. And the deadening of the 
 native processes of composition and derivation and in- 
 flection, caused in part by the same great historical 
 event, made the language more incapable of meeting 
 out of its own resources any great call for new expres- 
 sion. So, when the pressing exigencies of the last cen- 
 tury or two, almost unexampled in their urgency, arose, 
 the resource of borrowing, already much availed of, was 
 drawn upon almost to excess. When a community is 
 living quietly on, with no marked accumulation of the 
 fruits of mental activity, ruminating its old conceptions 
 and slowly elaborating new, the purely natural increase, 
 proceeding slowly and unconsciously from the great body 
 of speakers, will be likely to serve all needs. But when 
 science and art and philosophy are making rapid ad- 
 vances, when new branches of knowledge are springing 
 up, one after another, each calling for a whole vocabulary
 
 BORROWING OF LEARNED WORDS. H9 
 
 of new terras, when infinite numbers of new facts and 
 new objects are coming to notice, then the native modes 
 of growth, of even the most fertile language, will bo 
 taxed beyond their capacity to provide a nomenclature 
 for all. The call is in very great part for technical vo- 
 cabularies, words for learned use ; and the learned find 
 what they want most conveniently in the learned lan- 
 guages. They gain in addition the practical advantage 
 that all the inheritors and continuers of a common civ- 
 ilization thus possess something like a common dialect, 
 in which to denominate those conceptions in which they 
 have a joint interest closer than that which they have 
 with the mass of their countrymen. Our five sevenths 
 of classical material are mainly words of learned use 
 only, which the young child does not acquire in order 
 to "speak English," and which the uneducated man 
 never learns ; a host of them are of rare occurrence 
 even in books. But any one of them may come, under 
 the conditions of practical life, to be as familiar as 
 material of less artificial origin : cases of this kind are 
 gas, Thursday and its kin, dahlia, petroleum, telegraph, 
 photograph. 
 
 There are degrees of kind as well as of extent in 
 the process of borrowing. What is most easily taken 
 out of the stores of one language to be added to those of 
 another is the names and epithets of things, nouns and 
 adjectives ; verbs, much less easily ; particles, hardly 
 at all ; apparatus of derivation, prefixes and suffixes, 
 very sparingly ; and apparatus of inflection, endings of 
 declension and conjugation, least of all. Even English 
 is nearly unmixed in its grammar ; its articulating parts, 
 the elements that bind ideas together and show their 
 relations, that make sentences, are almost exclusively of 
 Anglo-Saxon origin. For this reason, notwithstanding
 
 120 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 the preponderance of classical material in its wider vo 
 cabulary, the English is still rightly reckoned a Ger- 
 manic language. 
 
 Of the out-and-out invention of new words, Ian' 
 guage in the course of its recorded history (for we do 
 not now speak of its initial stage) presents only rare 
 examples. Sometimes, however, a case occurs like that 
 of yas, already noticed as having been devised by an 
 ancient chemist, as artificial appellation for a condition 
 of existence of matter which had not before been so 
 distinctly apprehended as to seem to require a name. 
 Along with it, he proposed Has for that property of the 
 heavenly bodies whereby they regulate the changes of 
 time : this, however, was too purely fanciful to recom- 
 mend itself to general use, and it dropped out of sight 
 and was forgotten, while the other came to honor. 
 
 More frequent than such words as this, which only 
 by a lucky hit gain life and a career, are those in which 
 the attempt has been made in a rude way to imitate the 
 sounds of nature : as when the cuckoo and the 2 )ewe 
 and the toucan were named from their notes ; or as in 
 some of the descriptive words like crack and crash, Jdss 
 and buzz, which are by no means all old, but have been 
 made, or shaped over into a pictorial form, within no 
 long time. "\Ve call such words onomatopoeias, literally 
 ' name-makings,' because the Greeks did so : they could 
 conceive of no way in which absolutely new language- 
 material should be produced except by such imitation. 
 
 AVe pass now to notice another process, whereby 
 there comes into being for the uses of expression ma- 
 terial which is only in a certain sense new, but which 
 nevertheless furnishes notable enrichment to speech, 
 and in more than one department ; a process which the 
 general history of language shows to be more important
 
 COMPOUND WORDS. 121 
 
 than any other. It is the composition of words, tho 
 putting two independent elements together to form a 
 single designation. Our illustrative passage furnished 
 us one or two examples of it : namely, reste-dceg, ' rest- 
 day,' and leorning-cnihtas, ' learning-knights,' i. e. ' pu- 
 pils.' Such a word is logically an abbreviated descrip- 
 tive phrase, with the signs of relation, the ordinary 
 inflections or connectives, omitted ; the two main ideaa 
 are put side by side, and the mind left to infer their re- 
 lation to one another from the known circumstances of 
 the case. It is so far an abnegation, for the sake of 
 brevity and convenience, of the advantages of a lan- 
 guage which has formative elements and form-words. 
 The undefined relation may be of every variety : thus, 
 a Jwadache is a pain in the head ; a head-dress, a dross 
 for the head ; a headland, a point of land comparable 
 to a head ; a headsman, a man for cutting off heads ; 
 headway, motion in the direction of the head (of any 
 animal but man) ; thus, also, a steamboat is a boat pro- 
 pelled ly the force of steam ; a railroad or railway is 
 a road laid with rails ; a buttercup or butterfly is a cup 
 or fly having the color of butter : and so forth. Such 
 a word, again, is formally characterized by a unity of 
 accent ; this is the chief outer sign of combination, 
 binding the word together although it is not enough 
 of itself to make a compound ; else the man and have 
 gone and shall go and their like would be compounds 
 also. Nothing is simpler or more common than for a 
 language to form such compounds. Yet their frequency 
 is very different in different languages: the Sanskrit 
 abuses the liberty of making them ; the Greek, the 
 Latin, the German, are examples of tongues which use 
 them abundantly, yet with wise moderation ; the French 
 lias most nearly lost the power of their production.
 
 L22 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 Though in English they are far from being as numer 
 ous as in German, our speech is pretty full of them ; 
 the words quoted above may serve as examples of what 
 is done in tliis way to increase the resources of expres- 
 sion. How ready the language-users are to forget the 
 source of the compound, to lose the separate impression 
 of its constituent words, to use it as a unitary sign for 
 the conception to which it is attached, and then to dis- 
 guise and integrate it by phonetic change, has been al- 
 ready pointed out, and need not be here further dwelt 
 on or exemplified. But a most important department 
 of its action is in a direction which calls for a little ad- 
 ditional illustration. 
 
 Among the many adjectives which we sometimes 
 combine with nouns to form compound adjectives, there 
 are those which, in virtue of their meaning and conse- 
 quent wide applicability, we use with special frequency, 
 forming considerable classes of compounds with a com- 
 mon final element. A typical instance is full. German 
 voll, which is added to nouns enough, and in a suffi- 
 ciently general sense, to be made a kind of suffix, ita 
 own specific force being lost : dutiful and plentiful 
 are equivalent to duteous and plenteous. Its opposite 
 is less, German los / not our adjective less, but, as the 
 German indicates and as the older forms of our lan- 
 guage prove, loose; here the originally independent 
 word has been so disguised by phonetic change as to 
 have become absolutely an adjective suffix. Ly (of godly, 
 homely, etc.) has been already fully enough explained 
 (p. 41), as coining, by a different sort of phonetic change, 
 from like. And a certain case-form of this compounded 
 adjective, we saw, was by a change of office converted 
 into a nearly universal adverbial suffix : thus, truly, 
 plentifully. The French adverbial ending ment is in
 
 GENESIS OF GRAMMATICAL FORMS. 123 
 
 like manner from the Latin ablative mente: grande- 
 ment, ' grandly,' is by origin grandi mente, ' with great 
 mind.' Our some in wholesome (German sam in heil- 
 ttam) is altered from older sam, and identical with earns 
 in the sense of ' like.' There are noun-forming suffixes, 
 also, which own a like origin. The plainest cases among 
 them, perhaps, are ship, German schaft, in lordship, 
 fwrschqft, and their like ; and dom, German thum, in 
 kingdom, wisdom, Tconigthum, weisthum : the former 
 comes from shape, the latter from doom. We have 
 glanced above at a case or two of verbal tense-making 
 after the same fashion. The don of hyngredon (plural 
 of hyngrede, p. 42) was in Gothic dedum, an evident 
 auxiliary, our did, which, at a time very early in the 
 common history of the Germanic dialects (for it is 
 found in them all, though not in any even of their 
 nearest relatives), was added to some verbal word to 
 make a verbal form, with the final result that the two 
 became fused together into one, even as we now add it 
 to a verbal word, the infinitive, to make a verbal phrase, 
 I do love, I did love, only without fusion. Quite par- 
 allel with this is the fusion of the present of the verb * to 
 have ' with the infinitive in the Romanic languages, to 
 make their modern future, as donner-ai, ' I shall give,' 
 when compared with our verbal phrase I have to give, 
 its unfused equivalent. Abundant traceS"of the same 
 sort of composition, fusion, and resulting production of 
 a new verbal form, are to be seen in the Latin, whoso 
 imperfect in bam, future in oo, and perfect in ui or vi, 
 are generally acknowledged to contain as their endings 
 certain forms of the verb which in our language is the 
 substantive verb to oe. And even the Greek and San- 
 skrit have like compound forms to show, of earlier and 
 later date: one, the future in Skt. sydmi, Gr. ao>. is
 
 124 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 believed to go back to the primitive period of linguis- 
 tic growth in our family of languages. 
 
 These are some of the plainest among the numerous 
 examples which might be brought forward, going to 
 show that suffixes of derivation and inflection are made 
 out of independent words, which, first entering into 
 union with other words by the ordinary process of com- 
 position, then gradually lose their independent charac- 
 ter, and finally come to be, in a more or less mutilated 
 and disguised form, mere subordinate elements, or in- 
 dicators of relation, in more elaborate structures. The 
 auxiliary processes of oblivion and attenuation and 
 transfer of meaning, and of disguise and abbreviation 
 of form, are simply the same here as in all the other 
 cases we have treated ; they are essential parts of the 
 making of forms ; for so long as the independent word, 
 in its individual shape and meaning, is plainly recognized 
 in the combination, so long does this remain a compound 
 rather than a form : our/W, for example (German vott), 
 is not so truly a suffix as lij (licK), because the indepen- 
 dent adjective is too apparent in it ; a disguising altera- 
 tion is needed to help make an affix a " formative ele- 
 ment," as it is properly termed, in distinction from the 
 " radical element," the root or base, or the crude-form, 
 to which it is appended. 
 
 Now it is by no means all, or even the largest part, 
 of our existing formative elements, suffixes of deriva- 
 tion and inflection, of which the origin in this method 
 can be actually proved ; and if we are to believe noth- 
 ing respecting language which does not rest on positive 
 evidence, we shall never make the principle of combi- 
 nation go far toward explaining the growth of language. 
 But it would be highly unreasonable to demand every- 
 where such proof. The disguising effect of the two
 
 GENESIS OF GRAMMATICAL FORMS. 125 
 
 principles of change which bear their part in every new 
 formation is such that after a time we may be able only 
 to guess, or not even that, at its origin. We could not 
 explain the ly from modern English alone ; we could 
 not be certain as to the d of loved without the help oi 
 the Gothic ; nor as to the <ra> of the Greek future with- 
 out the Sanskrit. Every period of linguistic life, with 
 its constantly progressing changes of form and meaning, 
 wipes out a part of the intermediates which connect a 
 derived element with its original. There are a plenty 
 of items of word-formation in even the modern Ro- 
 manic languages which completely elude explanation. 
 Mere absence of evidence, then, will not in the least 
 justify us in assuming the genesis of an obscure form 
 to be of a wholly different character from that which is 
 obvious or demonstrable in other forms. The presump- 
 tion is wholly in favor of the accordance of the one 
 with the other ; it can only be repelled by direct and 
 convincing evidence. And, in actual fact, linguistic 
 study does not bring to light any such evidence ; its 
 trustworthy results go rather to prove that the combi- 
 nation of independent element with element has been 
 from the beginning, in the languages of our family, the 
 fertile and the sufficient method of new external growth, 
 lias furnished the needed supply of fresh material, which 
 then, under the action of the other processes, has been 
 applied to meet the needs of expression. We shall 
 have, by and by, to review in brief the history of early 
 development of these languages, as explained by the 
 comparati\e philologists upon the principle here stated. 
 But a part of our forms, derivative and inflectional, 
 appear to be made by internal modification rather than 
 external addition. We say boy and loys, indeed, but we 
 also say man and men; we say love and loved, but aloe
 
 120 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 read and read ; and tlien there is that wide-reaching and 
 most important phenomenon in Germanic language, 
 the variation of radical vuwel, in large classes of words 
 like sing, sang, sung, and song j like break, broke, and 
 It-each; like bind, bound, bond, and land. The Greek 
 Ins a kindred but less conspicuous change in a consider- 
 able bodv of verbs and verbal derivatives like 
 t\iirov, XeXotTra; like rpeTraj, erpaTrov, rtTpo^ 
 Tpairri%, rpovro? ; etc. These are seeming violations of 
 the principle of new growth by external addition, by 
 combination ; if, however, they can be shown to be, 
 after all, its results, they will rather lend it a strong 
 support. 
 
 Let us begin with read read, as the most recent and 
 the plainest case. In the Anglo-Saxon, this verb and 
 the little class that go like it had no such difference of 
 vowel between present and preterit ; and they had in 
 the preterit the same added ending as other " regular " 
 or new verbs : the forms were rccdan, ' read,' rwdde, 
 1 read.' Lut here came in the phonetic principle of easy 
 utterance : the penult of rccdde had a long vowel be- 
 fore a doubled consonant ; it was lightened by shorten- 
 ing the vowel a proceeding so customary in all Ger- 
 manic speech that it has led to the frequent orthographic 
 device of marking a vowel as short by doubling the con- 
 sonant after it. AVhen, then, in the further course of 
 abbreviation, by loss of final vowels, both forms were 
 reduced to monosyllables, the double pronunciation of 
 the final consonant was lost, and the difference of vow. 
 els was left alone to mark the difference of tense. The 
 case is, on the one hand, analogous with leave left, feel 
 fill, etc., where there is a shortening of the vowel for 
 a like cause, the occurrence of two consonants after it, 
 but where the consonant group has been preserved ;
 
 APPARENT INTERNAL INFLECTION. 127 
 
 and, on the other hand, it is analogous with set, put, and 
 their like, which have also lost their preterit ending, 
 but, having a short vowel in the present, never estab- 
 lished a difference between the two tenses, and so have 
 the same form in both. The distinction of read recui, 
 llcul led, etc., is thus a mere phonetic accident ; a final 
 turning to account, for the purposes of grammatical ex- 
 pression, of a difference which arose secondarily, as tho 
 unforeseen consequence of an external addition, when 
 that addition had been lost by phonetic decay. Such 
 a distinction is wont to be termed " inorganic," as dis- 
 tinguished from one like loved from love, which answers 
 just the purpose for which it was at first intended. 
 
 As for man men, that is a case of what in German 
 is termed umlaut, or " modification of vowel," a phe- 
 nomenon of wide range in Germanic language, but of 
 which the results are reduced almost to a minimum in 
 English. It was originally the alteration of an a-sound 
 to an 0-sound by the assimilating influence of a follow- 
 ing i (see above, p. 71) : a change, therefore, which de- 
 pended on the character of the ease-ending, and had 
 nothing whatever to do with the distinction of plural 
 from singular; it was even the fact in Anglo-Saxon 
 that one of the singular cases (dative) had e, and two of 
 the plural cases (genitive and dative) had a. But, after 
 exercising their assimilative influence, the endings were 
 lost (like the second d which had shortened the long 
 vowel of read}', and the dative and genitive (plural) 
 were lost as separate forms ; and so man and men were 
 left to stand over against one another as singular and 
 plural. And because this difference of vowel was suf- 
 ficient to distinguish the two numbers, linguistic usage 
 did not go on, as in a multitude of other cases (e. g. in 
 cars for ear : see p. 38), to add an * for the same pur
 
 128 PRODUCTION* OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 pose. Here, again, is an application to tlie purposes of 
 grammatical distinction of a difference which was acci- 
 dental, inorganic, in its origin. 
 
 To enter into a full discussion and explanation of 
 the remaining case, the ablaut, or variation of radical 
 vowel, in bifid, bound, band, bond, and their like, would 
 Uke a great deal more time than we can afford to it, 
 and would bring up some obscure and difficult points, 
 as to which the opinions of investigators are still at 
 variance. But we should find in it nothing different, as 
 regards the essential principles involved, from what the 
 other two examples have furnished us. The preterit, 
 the participle, the derivative noun, had originally their 
 external formative elements the first its reduplication, 
 as in ca.no cecini, Tpeirw rerpo^a, haldan Itaihald / 
 the other two their endings of derivation there was 
 no difference of vowel. And when the difference first 
 appeared, it was not significant, any more than that of 
 felt from feel, of (German) manner from mann / it 
 was developed under purely euphonic influences ; it 
 involves, in its various manifestations, the weakening 
 and varying of original root-vowels, under accentual 
 and other influences, and a fusion of the preterit re- 
 duplication with the root. There is nothing here to 
 call for the admission of an exception to the general 
 rule that, in our languages, forms are made by an exter- 
 nal accretion of elements which were at first indepen- 
 dent words. 
 
 The fact, however, is here brought to light, and con- 
 stitutes an addition of some importance to the meant* 
 of enrichment of language, that accidental differences 
 are seized upon and turned to account by being put to 
 new uses. A word thus, as it were, divides into two or 
 more, each of which then leads an independent life
 
 DIVISION OF A WORD INTO TWO OR MORE. 129 
 
 Some notable examples of this we have seen already : 
 the Anglo-Saxon an has become in English the numeral 
 one and the article an or a ; of has become off and of; 
 also and as, like German also and ah, are representa- 
 tives of one original ; so fore and for, like German 
 vor,fur, ver ; through and thorough are a very peculiar 
 divorcement, with accompanying conversion of an ad- 
 verb into an adjective ; outer and utter are two sides of 
 one word and one idea ; conduct and conduct are speci- 
 mens of a large class of couplets, distinguished by ac- 
 cent alone ; minute and minute (minit) are a convenient 
 distinction, which we might wish we had also for the 
 two uses of second ; and genteel, gentle, and gentile are 
 all alike the Latin gentilis, and in their variety of mean- 
 ing, as well as in their common derivation from a root 
 signifying simply * to be born,' are a striking example 
 of the possibilities of linguistic mutation. 
 
 The method of growth out of the native resources 
 of a language, by putting its materials together into new 
 combinations, and so making new naip.es for things, and 
 sometimes new forms, is of course -one of much slower 
 operation than the importation of learned and technical 
 terms from abroad, especially when this is pushed to 
 such an extreme as in our speech. Above all, in the 
 making of forms, its progress is almost insensibly grad- 
 ual, and its results are few. It cannot well take less 
 than generations to pass an element originally indepen- 
 dent through those changes of shape and meaning 
 which it must undergo in order to become a suffix. As 
 a set-oil against this, to be sure, the results, once at 
 tained, are of very wide application. When, for exam- 
 ple, did in worked down into a preterit ending, we ap 
 ply it to make past tenses for all our new verbs, howevei 
 many they may be ; and there are few adjectives in the
 
 130 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 language which may not form their corresponding ad 
 verb with l>j, little as most of them would endure com- 
 position with like. But if we take into consideration 
 the whole long course of life of a language, extending 
 through thousands of years, and also the sum of human 
 languages in all parts of the world, few of which, com- 
 paratively, are placed in circumstances to derive much 
 advantage from borrowing, it is of the utmost impor- 
 tance. It is capable of providing, along with variation 
 of meaning, and variation of form under phonetic 
 change, all the new material which is needed for the 
 ordinary development of expression ; it is also able, 
 with the same help, to transform by degrees the gram- 
 matical character of a language, adding new distinctions, 
 and supplying the place of those that are lost by the 
 wearing-out processes. 
 
 In connection with this, we have to note one more 
 important department of the means of enrichment of a 
 language : namely, the capacity, belonging to every 
 tongue that has any share of an inflective character, of 
 multiplying the applicabilities, and so the usefulness, of 
 its material, new or old, by adding formative elements 
 to it, by putting it through the processes of inflection 
 and derivation. By no means all the formative appara- 
 tus which a language possesses can be turned to use in 
 this way ; the English distinctions, for example, of he 
 and him and they and them, of man and men, of give 
 and gave, of sit and set, of true and truth, of land and 
 landscape, though inflective, are dead, and we can no 
 longer make new forms by their help. But to any noun 
 which we import we may add an s for the possessive 
 and plural, as telegraphs ; from any verb we can make 
 a little scheme of inflectional forms, as telegraphest, tele- 
 graphs, telegraphed (pret. and part.), telegraphing (part
 
 CHANGE OF ONE PART OF SPEECH INTO OTHERS. ]3J 
 
 and infm.). Then we have our suffixes for turning a 
 noun into an adjective, as telegraphic ; a number of 
 these, as ful, less, ous, ish, y, are still sufficiently alive 
 to admit of practical application. Then, besides that 
 wo can turn any adjective, on occasion, into a noun as 
 the good, the beautiful, and the true we have a suffix 
 njss, of very wide applicability, for abstracts. And tho 
 ly will convert almost any adjective into an adverb, as 
 telegraphically. The verb, too, has its instruments of 
 mutation : telegraph, for instance, makes telegrapher 
 and telegraphist and telegraphy. And, on the other 
 hand, there are means of turning nouns and adjectives 
 into verbs : we say harden and roughen, and revolution- 
 ize and demoralize, and so on. This last is in all lan- 
 guages the principal means whereby the stock of verbal 
 expression is increased, and new starting-points are ob- 
 tained for further development : such " denominative " 
 verbs, as they are called, abound in every member of 
 our family, in every period of its history. All depends 
 upon the power which language has of treating its stock 
 of formative elements in the same"way as its more ma- 
 terial elements. Let a certain modificatory syllable, 
 however reduced to formative value, once come to occur 
 in forms enough to get itself distinctly associated in the 
 minds of speakers with a certain modification of mean- 
 ing, and it is further applied when that modification 
 needs to be expressed, just as naturally as a connects e 
 or an auxiliary is similarly used. A notable example of 
 how an element of extraneous origin can come into a 
 language, and by slow extension finally work its way up 
 to such a use, is afforded by ize and ism and ist, which, 
 though ultimately of Greek origin, and imported by us 
 through the French, have made themselves part of our 
 living apparatus of derivation, and are even abused, in
 
 132 PRODUCTION OF NEW WORDS AND FORMS. 
 
 a half-artificial and affected way, by low speakers and 
 writers, to the formation of snch monstrosities as walk- 
 ist. hair-cuttist. 
 
 It is of high importance, if we would understand 
 the structure of any language, to distinguish its living 
 apparatus of inflection and derivation from that which 
 Js only recognizable in its older words as having been 
 formerly alive. And it is in great part by the deaden- 
 ing of such means of multiplication of expression that 
 a language like ours gains its peculiar character, as 
 a prevailingly analytical speech. Each tongue has its 
 own way in this regard : the French is poorer even 
 than English in apparatus of derivation ; the Slavonic 
 tongues, as the Russian, are vastly richer than either 
 Germanic or Romanic. 
 
 The English retains a peculiar relic of its former 
 capacities as an inflective language, in its power to turn 
 one part of speech directly into another, without using 
 any external sign of the transfer. The tongues of our 
 family had in old time a formal means of making "de- 
 nominative " verbs out of nouns and adjectives ; we 
 have mainly worn out and lost the means, but we make 
 the verbs almost more freely than ever: thus, to head 
 an army, to foot a stocking, to hand a plate, to toe a 
 mark, to mind a command, to eye a foe, to look a pas- 
 senger, to chair a candidate, to table a resolution, to 
 atone a martyr, to scalp an enemy : and so on indefi- 
 nitely. The examples show that the relation of the 
 action to the conception expressed by the noun is of the 
 greatest possible variety, determined in each case only 
 by its known conditions, as apprehended by the mind 
 of speaker and hearer. An equally peculiar capacity is 
 that of transmuting without ceremony a noun into an 
 adjective : thus we say a gold watch, while the French-
 
 CHANGE OF ONE PART OF SPEECH INTO OTHERS. 133 
 
 man must say * a watch of gold,' and the German ' a 
 golden watch,' or else, by actual composition, * a gold- 
 watch ; ' so also, a steam mill, as against the French * a 
 mill by steam' and the German 'a steam-mill;' so a 
 China rose ; and so on. This comes from a relaxation 
 cf the bonds of composition ; the division, as it were, 
 of a loose compound like gold-mine into its parts, and 
 an attribution to the name itself in separate use of an 
 office rightfully belonging to it only when it loses its in- 
 dependence by union with another. This changeableness 
 of office is something very different from the original 
 indefiniteness of iminflected languages. Our apprehen- 
 sion of the different office of verb, noun, and adjective 
 is kept clear enough by the numerous words which have 
 only one and not another of these characters ; we pre- 
 serve the distinction even after abandoning its sign ; and 
 thus have by inheritance more of the power of increas- 
 ing the resources of expression than makes any outwjvnl 
 show in our language.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SUMMARY I THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 Rcvl v w of the processes of change ; their contribution to name-mokiug. 
 Degrees of reflectiveness in name-making. Antecedence of the cou- 
 ception to its sign ; illustrations ; examination of arguments used 
 against this view. Sources of the material of names ; artificiality 
 of the tie between name and idea. Etymological inquiries ; char- 
 actor of the reasons for names ; a science of morphology. Force 
 concerned in name-making; the linguistic faculty; false views aiid 
 their grounds examined. Part taken by the community in the pro- 
 fess ; its relation to the action of individuals. 
 
 WE Lave now finished our compendious review of 
 the individual processes at least, the leading ones of 
 which is made up the growth of languages like ours. 
 In order to understand the historical movement of any 
 language at a given period, we need to analyze it into 
 such parts as these, and to see how, separately and to- 
 gether, they are working ; to note the kind and degree 
 of activity of each, and trace, if possible, the causes 
 that determine their difference. In our exposition and 
 illustration, we have had in view especially their agency 
 in the recent and present growth of English ; and we 
 cannot spend the time, nor is it necessary, to take any 
 more notice of their different operation in other lan- 
 guages than we have already incidentally done, and 
 have occasion in the same way to do hereafter.
 
 CONSCIOUS NAME MAKING. 135 
 
 We go on, rather, to consider certain general principles, 
 mainly derivable in the way of inference from the de- 
 tails we have had before us, and bearing upon the gen- 
 eral process of name-giving, or the provision of signs 
 for conceptions. The other departments of linguistic 
 change, as we have already seen, are of comparatively 
 subordinate importance and not difficult of explanation ; 
 but to understand fully the means whereby language 
 compasses the expression of whatever calls for expres- 
 sion is to comprehend the essential nature of linguistic 
 growth, and even that of language itself. 
 
 We will begin by noticing that a part of the name- 
 giving process, at any rate, is easy enough to under- 
 stand ; it goes on in the broadest daylight. When a 
 human being is born into the world, custom, founded 
 in convenience, requires that he have a name ; and those 
 who are responsible for his existence furnish the re- 
 quired adjunct, according to their individual tastes, 
 which are virtually a reflection of those of the com- 
 munity in which they live. English-speaking parents 
 do not give a Chinese or a Sioux name, nor vice versa / 
 the saint to whom his natal or christening day is sacred, 
 a conspicuous public character, a relation from whom 
 expectations are entertained, or something else equally 
 unessential, directs their choice; no matter what, so 
 long as the individual is named, and with such a name 
 that neither the community who call him by it, nor ho 
 himself later, shall revolt and insist on another appella- 
 tion. Such an act as this may seem to have little to do 
 with general language ; but that depends upon circum- 
 stances : the proper name Julius has ended in our call- 
 ing a month July ; the nickname Ccesar has given the 
 title to the heads of two great nations, Germany and 
 Russia (kaiser, czar] ; the christening of the baby Ve*
 
 136 THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 pucci as Amerigo has led to America and American. 
 So also with a planet: Ilerscliei had the naming of 
 Uranus, and Leverrier of Neptune ; only they too were 
 guided by the already established usages of language 
 and the consequent preferences of the community; the 
 name of Georgium sidus, with which, in the former 
 case, it was unworthily sought to flatter a monarch, waa 
 frowned upon, and dropped out of sight. The discov- 
 erers of the asteroids enjoy the same privilege ; and 
 under the same conditions. So with all scientific dis- 
 coverers ; they exercise a prerogative, yet under limita- 
 tions ; they must respect the prejudices of their fellows, 
 and they must prove their right as nomenclators : in 
 the scientific community, as every one knows, the claims 
 of rival name-makers are very sharply discussed, under 
 government of nicely-established rules. So with in- 
 ventors likewise : to each is Conceded a limited right to 
 give a name, or to determine the acceptance of a name 
 given by some one else, to what he has produced. Nor 
 is the case different anywhere in the technical vocabu- 
 laries of art, of science, of philosophy. The metaphy- 
 sician who draws a new distinction denominates it ; 
 he is even allowed always with restrictions to recast 
 the whole vocabulary of his department, for his own 
 special convenience ; and if the other philosophers 
 are convinced of the usefulness of the change, they 
 ratify it. 
 
 All this is done under the full review of conscious- 
 ness. There is first the apprehension of something as 
 ceiling for expression, or for better expression, and then 
 the reaching out after, and the obtaining in some way, 
 the means of expression. 
 
 But just this, only with variety in the degree of 
 Consciousness involved, is the nature of the process of
 
 THE IDEA ANTECEDENT TO THE NAME. \ 
 
 name-making in all its varieties. If it were not so, Ln, 
 giiage would consist of two discordant parts, one made 
 in this way, and one in some other. Let us consider it 
 a little more particularly, with reference to some of the 
 principles involved. 
 
 First, there is always and everywhere an antecedency 
 of the conception to the expression. In common phrase, 
 we first have our idea, and then get a name for it. This 
 is so palpably true of all the more reflective processes 
 that no one would think of denying it ; to do so would 
 be to maintain that the planet, or plant, or animal, 
 could not be found and recognized as something yet 
 unnamed until a title had been selected and made ready 
 for clapping upon it ; that the child, could not be born 
 until the christening bowl was ready. But it is equally 
 true, only not so palpable, in all the less conscious acts, 
 all the way down the scale to the most instinctive. The 
 principle of life, for example, was called animus, 'blow- 
 ing,' or spiritus, ' breathing,' because tjie nomenclators 
 had a dim, to us a wholly insufficient, apprehension of 
 something within the bodily frame, distinct from it, 
 though governing and directing it something which 
 could come to an end while the body continued in ex- 
 istence ; and because the breath seemed a pecular mani- 
 festation of this something, its stoppage being the most 
 conspicuous sign of the latter's death : they seized the 
 expression for an already formed conception as undeni- 
 ably as did the anatomist who, by an equally bold fig- 
 ure, first applied inosculation to the observed connec- 
 tion of the arteries and veins. Every figurative trans- 
 fer which ever made a successful designation for some 
 non-sensible act or relation, before undesignated, rested 
 upon a previous perception of analogy between the one 
 thing and the other : no one said apprehend of an idea 
 10
 
 138 THE NAME-MAKIXG PROCESS. 
 
 tmtil he had felt the resemblance between the reaching- 
 out of the bodily organs after a physical object they 
 want to handle and the striving of the mental powers 
 toward a like end ; we repeat the act when we say " you 
 don't get hold of my meaning." Ko one said " a thought 
 strikes me," or "occurs to me" (i. e. 'runs against me'), 
 or " comes into my head" (German, fdllt mir ein, 'falls 
 in to me '), except as result of an analogy which his 
 mind had discovered between the intellectual and the 
 physical action. When a certain new shade of red had 
 been produced by the creative ingenuity of modern 
 chemistry, the next thing was to give it a name ; and 
 magenta was pitched upon, by a perfectly conscious pro- 
 cess, because historical causes had at about that time 
 given a celebrity to the town Magenta : the name was 
 not a whit more indispensable to the conception of the 
 color than, at a period so much more ancient that we 
 cannot get back to it, the name green had been to the 
 conception of its color : men said green when they had 
 observed the distinction of this from other colors, and 
 its especial appurtenance to ' growing ' things. And if 
 we were to trace the etymology of any other similar 
 word, we should find it of the same character. K^or ia 
 the genesis of form-words and forms unlike this. Of 
 was changed to a (virtual) sign of the genitive case, 
 and to to an infinitive sign, by a long succession of 
 steps, each of which was a putting of the word to 
 a use slightly different from that which it had served 
 before, in order to answer a felt need of expression ; 
 and nothing other than this is implied in the making 
 of loved, of donnerai, of amabam, of Swaa, of asmi 
 (am). 
 
 We might go over the whole list of illustrations 
 given in the preceding chapters, and as many more aa
 
 TUB IDEA ANTECEDENT TO THE NAME. 139 
 
 we chose to take, without finding a case different from 
 these. The doctrine that a conception is impossible 
 without a word to express it is an indefensible paradox 
 indefensible, that is to say, except by misapprehensions 
 and false arguments. One or two of these it may bo 
 worth while to notice more particularly. 
 
 It is wont to be assumed by those who oppose the 
 antecedence of the idea to the sign, that this opinion 
 implies the elaboration by thinkers of a store of thoughts 
 in advance, and then the turning back and naming them 
 by a conscious after-thought. Here is an inexcusably 
 gross misrepresentation. There is implied, rather, that 
 each act of nomenclature is preceded by its own act of 
 conception ; the naming follows as soon as the call for 
 it is felt : even, it may be, before the need is realized ; 
 the forward step in mental action may be so small in 
 each particular case that only after many have been 
 taken in the same direction is the removal noticed, when 
 reflection chances to be applied to it. Every conceptual 
 act is so immediately followed as to jgeem accompanied 
 by a nomenclatory one. Or, an inkling of an idea is 
 won ; it floats obscurely in the mind of the community 
 until some one grasps it clearly enough to give it a name ; 
 and it at once takes shape (perhaps only a delusive 
 shape), after his example, in the minds of others. The 
 immense gain in clearness of apprehension, in facility of 
 handling, conferred upon a conception by its naming, is 
 not for a moment to be denied : only those are in error 
 who would transform this advantage into an absolute 
 necessity. Not less is their error by whom the acknowl- 
 edged impossibility that the mind should do without 
 language the work which it actually does is transferred 
 to each single minute mental action. It might just a* 
 well be claimed that a man cannot ascend to the summit
 
 [40 THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 of St. Peter's, or go from Rome to Constantinople, be- 
 cause in each case the distance is vastly greater than the 
 length of his legs. In point of fact, he takes one step, 
 upward or onward, at a time, and makes each newly- won 
 position a starting-point for further motion ; and in this 
 way he can go just as far as circumstances and his natu- 
 ral powers allow. Just so with the mind ; every item 
 of knowledge and of self-command that it conquers it 
 lixes in assured possession by means of language ; and it 
 is always reaching out for more knowledge, and gaining 
 additional control of its powers, and fixing them in the 
 same way. It is, as we have repeatedly seen already, 
 always at work under the surface of speech, recasting 
 and amending the classifications involved in words, ac- 
 quiring new control of conceptions once faintly grasped 
 and awkwardly wielded, crowding new knowledge into 
 its old terms all, on the whole, by and with the help 
 of language, and yet in each individual item indepen- 
 dently of language : and there is nothing in the produc- 
 tion of new signs that is different from the rest. The 
 mind not only remodels and sharpens its old instru- 
 ments, but also makes its new ones as it works on. 
 
 Again, in making provision of expression for new 
 conceptions, the names-giving faculty gets its material 
 simply where it can most conveniently, not inquiring 
 too curiously whence it comes. Virtually, the object 
 aimed at is to find a sign which may henceforth be 
 linked by association closely to the conception, and used 
 to represent it in communication and in the processes 
 cf mental action. To attempt more than this would be 
 useless indeed, when the tie by which each individual 
 holds and uses his whole body of expression is only thia 
 eame one of association. As we saw abundantly in the 
 second chapter, the child gets his words by learning
 
 VALUE OF ETYMOLOGICAL REASONS. 141 
 
 them from others' lips, and connecting them with the 
 same conceptions that others do. Questions of etymol- 
 ogy are naught to him, as even the question what lan- 
 guage he shall acquire at all. But those questions are 
 not really anything more to the adult ; nay, not even to 
 the learned etymologist, so far as concerns his practical 
 nse of speech. The most learned of the guild can only 
 follow for a brief distance backward the history of most 
 words ; and, near or far, he comes to a reason identical 
 with that of the peasant : " It was the usage : " a cer- 
 tain community, at a certain time, used such and such a 
 sign thus and so ; and hence, by this and that succession 
 of partly traceable historical changes, our own usage 
 has come to be what it is. We have had to notice over 
 and over again, above, the readiness on the part of 
 language-users to forget origins, to cast aside as cum- 
 brous rubbish the etymological suggestiveness of a 
 term, and concentrate force upon the new and moro 
 adventitious tie. This is one of the most fundamental 
 and valuable tendencies in name-making; it consti- 
 tutes an essential part of the practical availability of 
 language. 
 
 Even when there is no conspicuous transfer, when 
 the changes of use are so slight and gradual that each 
 new application stands-closely connected with its prede- 
 cessor, th.ere is no real persistency of original value, and 
 the point finally reached is often enough so far off from 
 the place of starting that the one cannot be seen from 
 the other as when, in one of our examples above, a 
 word (kme) of which the ultimate radical idea is ' seize, 
 grasp,' has become in one and the same language a sign 
 of possession in every kind, physical and moral, and 
 likewise of past action, of future obligation, and of 
 causation. There is nothing in the least abnormal
 
 142 THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 about such a case ; every language has a plenty like it to 
 show. But every language has also cases in abundance 
 of a more summary distant transfer, making the reasons 
 that underlie the current use of words so trivial or so 
 preposterous that, if use were heedful of incongruities, 
 the words could not stand a moment. Two forms, for 
 example, of the great forces that govern matter, elec- 
 tricity and magnetism, are named, the one from a Greek 
 word for ' amber,' the other from an obscure province of 
 Thessaly ; merely because the first electric phenomena 
 observed by the founders of our civilization appeared in 
 connection with the rubbing of a bit of amber, and be- 
 cause the stones that exhibited to them the magnetic 
 force came from Magnesia. Galvanism seems more 
 worthy, because there is a certain propriety in our hon- 
 oring the man who initiated our acquaintance with 
 this department of phenomena ; yet, after all, it is 
 rather petty to link such an element to the name of an 
 Italian doctor. Tragic, tragedy, and all their train, 
 come, by some tie of connection not yet fully under- 
 stood, from the Greek word for a ' he-goat ; ' comic and 
 comedy, probably from that for ' village,' the same with 
 our home. Many of the examples already used in other 
 connections might well be recalled here, as equally suit- 
 ing our present purpose ; but it is surely unnecessary to 
 go further ; our thesis is already sufficiently proved. If 
 a direct and necessary tie had to be established even at 
 the outset between idea and sign, new inventions would 
 lie constantly coming into speech, instead of showing 
 themselves, as at present, the rarest of phenomena. 
 The reason why we resort instead to the store of old 
 material is, like all the rest, simply one of convenience. 
 And perhaps, after all, the most telling fact of wide 
 ranee is that the stores of expression of a wholly
 
 VALUE OF ETYMOLOGICAL REASONS. 143 
 
 strange language are, when once the way is opened, 
 drawn upon without stint; and we English-speakers 
 come to call things innumerable by certain names for 
 the very unphilosophical reason that certain commu- 
 nities in southeastern Europe, a long time ago, called 
 things more or less resembling these by names some- 
 what similar. 
 
 Our doctrine must not at all be understood as imply- 
 ing that there is no reason why anything is called as it 
 is : there is in every case a reason ; only the present use 
 of the name is not dependent on it ; it cannot always be 
 found out ; and, if found, it is grounded on conven- 
 ience, not on necessity of any kind. It amounts to this : 
 the conception in question is thus designated because 
 that other was formerly so and so designated ; and the 
 same is true of the latter also ; another earlier designa- 
 tion of a more or less kindred conception lay back of. it 
 and so on, as far back toward the beginning as our 
 limited vision can reach. Our tracing. ,pf the etymology 
 of a word is the following-up of- series of acts of 
 name-making, consisting chiefly in the new applications 
 of old material with the accompanying, but indepen- 
 dent, changes of form. And every one of those acts 
 was one of choice, involving the free working of the 
 human will ; only under the government, as always and 
 everywhere, of conditions and motives. In order com- 
 pletely to understand and judge it, we need to put our- 
 selves precisely in the nomenclator's place, apprehending 
 just his acquired resources of expression and his habits 
 of thought and speech as founded on them ; realizing 
 just his insight of the new conception and his impulse 
 to express it. But this, of course, is wholly out of our 
 power ; the d priori position is one we can never as- 
 sume; we can only deal with the case d posteriori,
 
 144 THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 reasoning back toward the mental condition from the act 
 in which it is manifested. 
 
 Hence it is evident in what sense alone there can bo 
 a science of morphology, or of the adaptations and re- 
 adaptations of articulate signs to the uses and changes 
 of thought. As implying the existence of necessary 
 laws of significant development, which are to be traced 
 out and made to explain the phenomena underlain by 
 them, no such science is possible ; as classifying and 
 arranging the infinite variety of actual facts, and point- 
 ing out the directions in which the movement takes place 
 more than in others, it has a most useful work to do. 
 What has been done above, in the fifth chapter, is only 
 a beginning ; the subject is one which would reward a 
 deep and comprehensive investigation, embracing the 
 languages of many or all families. 
 
 . Once more, there is nothing in the whole compli- 
 cated process of name-making which calls for the ad- 
 mission of any other efficient force than the reasonable 
 action, the action for a definable purpose, of the speakers 
 of language : their purpose being, as abundantly shown 
 above, the adaptation of their means of expression to 
 their constantly changing needs and shifting preferences. 
 This great and most important institution, though car- 
 ried forward from step to step of its existence in its 
 condition as heretofore existing, by the incessant process 
 of teaching and learning, is at the same time in no part 
 or particle out of reach of the altering action of those 
 who learn and use it. If convenience require that the 
 word learned and hitherto only used in a certain sense 
 or group of senses, and having a certain form, be applied 
 to an additional sense, or change its application from the 
 old to a new, and be shaped a little differently, the thing 
 is done, and no one can hinder it ; if practical use isfoi
 
 THE FORCE AT WORK. 145 
 
 any reason no longer served by a word, it drops out of 
 use and is no more ; if practical need, again, call for pro- 
 vision of new expression, it is in one way or another ob- 
 tained, the particular way depending on the conditions 
 of the particular case. Nor is there any peculiar faculty 
 of the mind, any linguistic instinct, or language-sense, 
 or whatever else it may be called, involved in the pro- 
 cess ; this is simply the exercise in a particular direction 
 of that great and composite faculty, than which no other 
 is more characteristic of human reason, the faculty of 
 adapting means to ends, of apprehending a desirable 
 purpose and attaining it. It is diif erent only in its acci- 
 dents namely, the kind of object aimed at and the 
 kind of material used and not in its essential nature, 
 from that other process, not less characteristic of human 
 reason, the making and using of instruments. No ex- 
 ercises of reason, in fact, as we have already once or 
 twice remarked, are so closely and instructively parallel 
 as these two. 
 
 This point is obviously one of the most fundamental 
 and vital importance in the philosophy of language. 
 There are those still who hold that words get them- 
 selves attributed to things by a kind of mysterious 
 natural process, in which men have no part ; that there 
 are organic forces in speech itself which by fermenta- 
 tion, or digestion, or crystallization, or something of the 
 sort produce new material and alter old. No one, 
 however, has ever managed, if indeed any one has ever 
 attempted, to show these forces in actual operation, or 
 to analyze and set forth their way of working and the 
 results it produces in detail, exhibiting their product 
 item by item. Take any individual bit of linguistic 
 growth, and it is found and acknowledged to be the act 
 of a human being, working toward definable ends under
 
 146 THE NAME-MAKING PKOCESS. 
 
 the government of recognizable motives, even though 
 without any reflective consciousness of what he is accom- 
 plishing : and it is manifestly absurd to recognize one 
 force in action in the items and another in their sum. 
 If we refuse to examine the items when forming an 
 estimate of the force, and only gaze with admiration at 
 the great whole, there is no theory so false that we may 
 not for a time rest in it with satisfaction. But we 
 might with the same reason regard the pyramids, in our 
 wonder at their immensity and grandeur, as great crys- 
 tals, produced by the infinite organizing forces of Na- 
 ture, as ascribe language to organic powers contained 
 within itself ; the moment we come to examine their 
 component parts, we find everywhere the marks of 
 human workmanship ; and we ourselves are all the 
 time building similar structures, even if not upon so 
 grand a scale as the men of old. The general laws or 
 general tendencies of language, well enough called by 
 that name if we do not let ourselves be deceived by the 
 terms we use, are really only laws of human action, un- 
 der the joint guidance of habit and circumstance. As 
 for setting them up as efficient causes, that is sheer 
 mythology ; we might as well erect into forces the laws 
 which govern the development of political institutions, 
 or the tendencies which in any countiy, at a given 
 time, are leading to the victory of one party over anoth- 
 er : it all resolves itself at last into the action of mdi- 
 vidual minds, capable of choice, under wide-reaching 
 motives and inducements, which are recognizable in 
 their general operations, though not in the detail of 
 their working upon each mind. 
 
 One great reason why men are led to deny the 
 agency of the human will in the changes of speech is 
 that they see so clearly that it does not work consciously
 
 UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF THE PROCESS. 147 
 
 toward that purpose. No one says to himself, or to 
 others : " Our language is defective in this and that par- 
 ticular ; go to now, and let us change it ; " any more 
 than he says : " All things carefully considered, this par- 
 ticular word in our speech can well enough be spared ; 
 let us cast it out." The end aimed at and not even 
 that with full consciousness is the supply of a need 
 of expression, or the attainment of a more satis- 
 factory expression. An exigency arises, a conjuncture 
 in which the existing available resources are not suf- 
 ficient for the speaker's ends; and, in one or other of 
 the various ways described above, he adds to them to 
 answer his present purpose. Or the opportunity offers 
 itself, and is seized, for a short cut, a new and more 
 attractive path, to a point accessible enough in old ways. 
 A person commits thus an addition to language without 
 ever being aware of it ; any more than the parents who 
 name their son reflect that they are thus virtually mak- 
 ing an addition to the city directory If he will well 
 understand it to be in this sense, every one is welcome 
 to hold that alterations of speech are not made by the 
 human will ; there is no will to alter speech ; there is 
 only will to use speech in a way which is new ; and the 
 alteration comes of itself as a result. So it was not by 
 the exertion of his will that the reptile, creeping over 
 the muddy surface of a Permian or Jurassic shore, made 
 a record of himself for the human geologist to study, 8 
 few million years later ; and yet, if he had not volun- 
 tarily taken the steps, under sufficient inducement, there 
 would have been no record. 
 
 "We must not, indeed, commit the error of ascribing 
 too much consciousness even to the act of satisfying 
 the momentary impulse which produces the alteration. 
 Thus, for example, in phonetic change. A word is pro-
 
 [48 THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 duced by a highly intricate succession of acts on the 
 part of the vocal organs ; a careless and unheeded omis- 
 sion of any one of them results in a mutilation of the 
 word, or a slight relaxation of the energy of articulation 
 alfects the character of one of the sounds in the com- 
 pound ; and as the word answers its purpose just as 
 well as before, it passes without notice, and the act is 
 repeated, and becomes first customary, then constant. 
 This is, in fact, the normal method of phonetic cor- 
 ruption ; yet no sensible person would ever think of 
 recognizing any other agency at work than the speaker 
 himself, acting voluntarily any more than he would 
 attribute it to some force operating from outside if a 
 man, on coming to a ditch which he had been used to 
 leap every day, should some time put forth an insuf- 
 ficient exertion of force, and should fall in. If there 
 were penalties of this sort following slips in utterance, 
 the subject of phonetic change would make but a small 
 figure in our comparative grammars. And this is not 
 the only way in which careless or slovenly handling of 
 language leads to change. A very large department of 
 alterations has no other source, but is due to the omis- 
 sion of distinctions, the blunders of mistaken analogy, on 
 the part of those who have not carefully studied and do 
 not bear accurately in mind the proper uses of the words 
 they employ. And yet, here just as much as in the case 
 of the naturalist who cons his Greek and Latin diction- 
 aries in search of a name for a new mineral or plant, 
 tbe act of change is the work of the speaker, and of him 
 alone. 
 
 Another reason for holding the false view which we 
 are now combating is that every person is conscious of 
 his inability to effect a change in language by his own 
 authority and arbitrarily ; and what he cannot do, ho in
 
 ACTION OF THE COMMUNITY. 149 
 
 eiire that nobody can do. And that is true enough ; in 
 a sense, it is not the individual, but the community, that 
 makes and changes language. We must be careful, 
 however, to see clearly in what sense, lest we fail sig- 
 nally to understand the subject we are examining. 
 There is implied here a point of high importance in 
 linguistic philosophy, one which we have already had 
 more or less in view, but have not taken up for direct 
 consideration : namely, the part which the community 
 of speakers, as distinguished from the individual speak- 
 er, have to play in language-making. 
 
 The community's share in the work is dependent 
 on and conditioned by the simple fact that language is 
 not an individual possession, but a social. It exists (as 
 we shall notice more particularly in the fourteenth chap- 
 ter), not only partly, but primarily, for the purpose of 
 communication; its other uses come after and in the 
 train of this. To the great mass of its speakers, it exists 
 consciously for communication alonej^ this is the use 
 that exhibits and commends itself to^very mind. That 
 would have no right to be called a language which only 
 one person understood and could use ; and there is not, 
 nor has ever been, any such in existence. Acceptance 
 by some community, though but a limited one, is abso- 
 lutely necessary in order to convert any one's utterances 
 into speech. Hence arise the influences which guid^ 
 and restrain individual action on language. In the first 
 place, an individual's alterations and additions, if not 
 adopted by others and kept up in their tradition, dio 
 with him, and never come to light at all. But again, 
 even if he were careless of offending the prejudices or 
 shocking the taste of his fellows, he would not, at any 
 rate, pass the limit of being intelligible to them ; and 
 this would be by itself a powerful brake to checl Uii
 
 15C THE NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 arbitrary action. But such a brake is unnecessary, be- 
 cause, in the third place, each individual feels, in the 
 main, the governing force of the same motives which 
 sway the minds of his fellows, lie does not himself 
 incline, any more than they would incline to allow him, 
 to abandon the established habits of speech and go oil 
 upon a tangent, toward some new and strange mode of 
 expression.. Everything in language goes by analogy ; 
 what a language is in the habit of doing, it can do, but 
 nothing else ; and habits are of very slow growth ; a lost 
 habit cannot be revived ; a new one cannot be formed 
 except gradually, and almost or quite unconsciously. 
 Ard the reason of this lies in the common preferences 
 of the speakers. AYe signify the fact popularly by say- 
 ing that such and such a thing is opposed to the "genius 
 of the language;' 1 ' but that is merely a mythological 
 term ; the German calls the same thing the Sprnch- 
 <jefi(hl, 'speech-feeling,' or 'linguistic -instinct :' both 
 are expressions of a convenient dimness, under which 
 inexact thinkers often hide an abundance of indefinite 
 or erroneous conceptions. What is really meant is the 
 sum, or resultant, of the preferences of the language- 
 users, as determined by the already existing material 
 and usages of their speech ; outside of certain narrow 
 limits of variation, they are not themselves tempted to 
 suggest, nor will they ratify and accept as suggested by 
 any one, new meanings, new phrases, new words. 
 
 Our recognition of the community as final tribunal 
 which decides whether anything shall be language or 
 not, does not, then, in the least contravene what has 
 been claimed above respecting individual agency. Some 
 one must lead the way for the rest to follow ; if they do 
 not follow, he falls back or stands alone. The comm-j- 
 nity cannot act save by the initiative of its single mem-
 
 VARIOUS ORIGINS OF ONE WORD. 151 
 
 bers ; they can accomplish nothing save by its coopera- 
 tion. Every new item in speech has its own time and 
 occasion and place of origination; it spreads from one 
 to another until it wins general currency, or else it ia 
 etifled by general neglect. Only, of course, it is not 
 necessary that every single change should start from a 
 single point. There are some toward which the general 
 mind so distinctly inclines, which lie so close outside of 
 and within reach from the present boundaries of usage, 
 that they are made independently by many persons, in 
 many places, and thus have a variety of starting-points 
 from which to strive after currency. Probably it was 
 thus with its, when, two or three centuries ago, it was 
 crowded into English speech, against the outspoken 
 opposition of educated and " correct " speakers, by the 
 force of its apparent analogy with the general store of 
 English possessives ; probably the same was the case 
 with is being done, the corresponding passive form to 
 the continuous active is doing, as is done corresponds to 
 does a phrase which, against a like opposition, has not 
 yet made its place entirely good in the best English 
 usage. Phonetic changes are especially likely to be thus 
 general, instead of solitarily individual, in their origin. 
 A very notable example is seen in the Germanic 'um- 
 laut, or modification of vowel (see above, p. 71) ; which, 
 since it is wanting in the Gothic, cannot have belonged 
 to the Germanic branches before their separation, but 
 was later developed independently in the High-Oerman, 
 the Low-German, and the Scandinavian dialects, doubt- 
 less as the final and accordant working-out of habits of 
 utterance which were already present in the unitary 
 Germanic dialect. 
 
 Having thus recognized the nature of the force 
 which, notwithstanding the strictness of linguistic tr
 
 152 TUB NAME-MAKING PROCESS. 
 
 dition, is all the time altering the traditionary material, 
 and seen in what ways and under what inducements it 
 acts, we have next to view the same force, in the same- 
 modes of action, as causing not only the variation of a 
 single language from age to age of its existence, but 
 also, under the government of external circumstances, 
 ib variation, in space, its divarication into dialect?.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1XX1AL AND CLASS VARIATION OF LANGUAGE I DIALEUTS. 
 
 Dialectic differences within the limits of a single language; individual, 
 class, and local peculiarities of speech. What makes a language 
 one. Influences favoring or restraining dialectic differences ; effect 
 of culture. Illustration : Germanic language-history ; Romanic. 
 Centripetal and centrifugal forces ; separate growth causes dia- 
 lectic division; examples. Verbal correspondences prove common 
 descent of words and languages ; cautions as to applying this prin- 
 ciple. Degrees of relationship. Constitution of Indo-European 
 family and evidences of its unity. Universality of families and 
 dialectic relations. Relation of terms " language " and " dialect." 
 
 OUE inquiries into the phenomena of speech have 
 thus far shown us that the mass of each one's language 
 is acquired by him by a process of learning, of direct 
 acquisition of what is put before his mind by others; 
 that, however, each one is at the same time a partner 
 in the work of changing the language : contributing, in- 
 deed, only an infinitesimal quota toward it, in exact pro- 
 portion to his importance in the aggregate of speakers 
 by whom the language is kept in existence, yet doing 
 his part in a. sum which is all made up of such infinitesi- 
 mal parts, and would not exist without them. The tr 
 dition of speech is carried on by him and such as he is ; 
 its modification is due to no other agency. Every item 
 of difference between now speech and old, whether ID 
 11
 
 154 
 
 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 the way of alteration or of addition, has its separate ori- 
 gin, beginning in the usage of individuals, and spread 
 ing and seeking that wider acceptance which alone 
 makes language of it ; and it has its time of probation, 
 during which it is trying to establish itself. 
 
 P>ut if this is true, then there must be in every exist- 
 ing language, at any time, processes of differentiation 
 not yet fully carried out, words and forms of words in 
 a state of transition, altering but not altered ; words and 
 phrases under trial, introduced but not general ; words 
 obsolescent but not yet obsolete ; old modes of pronun- 
 ciation beginning to seem strange and affected, new 
 modes coining into vogue and so on, through the 
 whole catalogue of possible linguistic changes. 
 
 And this i-, in fact, precisely the state of things, in 
 every language under the sun : a state of things only 
 explainable by the causes which we have been consider- 
 ing. It exists even in our own speech; although here, 
 for reasons to be presently adverted to, the conditions 
 are more opposed to it than almost anywhere else in the 
 world. AYe must be careful not to overrate the uni- 
 formity of existing languages; it is far enough from 
 being absolute. In a true and defensible sense, every 
 individual speaks a language different from every other. 
 The capacities and the opportunities of each have been 
 such that he has acquired command of a part of English 
 speech not precisely identical with any one else's : the 
 peculiarity may be slight, but it is certainly there. 
 Then, what is yet more obvious and yet more impor- 
 tant, the form of each one's conceptions, represented by 
 his use of words, is different from any other person's; 
 all his individuality of character, of knowledge, educa- 
 tion, feeling, enters into this difference. And yet 
 again, few if any escape the taint of local and personal
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND CLASS VARIATIONS. 155 
 
 peculiarities of pronunciation and phraseology, peculiari- 
 ties which, because more conspicuous than the others, 
 are more often noticed by us and called dialectic. This 
 last shades off into the more wide-spread and deeper 
 differences of district and class; every separate part of 
 a great country of one speech has its local form, more 
 or less strongly marked even where, as in America, 
 there are no old inherited dialects, of long standing, 
 such as prevail in Britain, in Germany, in France : in 
 short, almost everywhere. Every class, however con- 
 stituted, has its dialectic differences : so, especially, the 
 classes determined by occupation ; each trade, calling, 
 profession, department of study, has its technical vocabu- 
 lary, its words and phrases unintelligible to outsiders ; 
 the carpenter, the iron-maker, the machinist, the miner, 
 not less than the physician, the geologist, or the meta- 
 physician, has occasion every day to say many things 
 which would not be understood by a man of any of the 
 >ther classes mentioned, if not exceptionally well-in- 
 formed. Then there are the differences in grade of 
 education ; the highly cultivated have a diction which 
 is not in all its parts at the command of the vulgar ; 
 they have hosts of names for objects and ideas of edu- 
 cated knowledge, which (like dahlia, petroleum, tele- 
 graph, instanced above) may perhaps some time work 
 their way down into the lower rank, becoming uni- 
 versal, like is and head, and long and short, instead of 
 class- words only ; and, yet more especially, the uncul- 
 tivated have current in their dialect a host of inaccu- 
 racies, offenses against the correctness of speech aa 
 ungrammatical forms, mispronunciations, blunders of 
 application, slang words, vulgarities ; all of these, per- 
 haps, analogous with alterations which the cultivated 
 ppeech, as compared with its predecessors, has under-
 
 15 6 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 gone, and some of them destined to become at a future 
 time the established usage of the whole language ; but 
 as yet kept down in the category of errors by the re- 
 sistance of the higher classes to their acceptance and 
 use. Finally, there are the differences of age : the nui- 
 .sery, in particular, has its dialect, offensive to the ears of 
 old bachelors ; and older children have their language 
 at least characterized by limited vocabulary. 
 
 Every one ot all these differences is essentially dia- 
 lectic : that is to say, they differ not at all in kind, but 
 only in degree, from those which hold apart acknowl- 
 edged dialects. They all fall, as regards their origin, 
 under the classes of change already laid down : they are 
 deviations from a former standard of speech which have 
 hitherto acquired only a partial currency, within the 
 limits of a class or district; or they are retentions of a 
 former standard, which the generality of good speakers 
 have now abandoned. In ilHistration of this latter 
 class, we may note in passing that no small number of 
 what the English stigmatize as Americanisms are cases 
 of survival from former good usage, and that, on the 
 other hand, much of what we regard as the peculiarities 
 of Irish pronunciation is also old English, more faith- 
 fully preserved by the Irish than by the more native 
 speakers. Of course, it is as wrong to be lagging in the 
 rear of the great moving body of the usages of a lan- 
 guage as to be rushing on in advance, or flying off to 
 one side. When the speech of the best speakers 
 changes, those who do not conform have to be ranked 
 in a lower class. 
 
 And yet, despite all these varieties, the language is 
 one; and one for the simple reason that, though the 
 various individuals who speak it may talk so as to be 
 unintelligible to one another, they may also, on matters
 
 VARIATION WITHIN A LANGUAGE. 157 
 
 of the most familiar common interest, understand one 
 another. As the direct object of language is communi 
 cation, the possibility of communication makes the unity 
 of a language. No one can define, in the proper sense 
 ol that term, a language ; for it is a great concrete insti- 
 tution, a body of usages prevailing in a certain commu 
 nity, and it can only be shown and described. You 
 have it in its dictionary, you have it in its grammar ; as 
 also, in the material and usages which never get into 
 either dictionary or grammar; and you can trace the 
 geographical limits within which it is used, in all its 
 varieties. 
 
 It is an obvious corollary from the view we have 
 taken of the forces governing the growth of language, 
 and of the way in which they act, that the <??w-dialectic 
 discordances existing within the limits of the same lan- 
 guage in the same community will be greatest where 
 the separation of classes and sections is greatest. The 
 necessity of communication is the restraint upon the 
 alterative processes, and communication is the means 
 whereby any alteration actually made is adopted by 
 all : whatever, then, makes communication most lively 
 and penetrating, through all regions and all ranks, will 
 tend to preserve the unity of speech most strictly 
 through the whole community. On the other hand, 
 all that dulls the forces of communication, and lets a 
 people break up into tribes, or into widely-sundered 
 castes or classes, tends to increase the discordance of tho 
 forms comprehended together in the general language. 
 
 Different causes exert in this way a different influ 
 ence. On the one hand, in a barbarous condition of 
 society the discordances of class and occupation are At 
 their lowest. All members of the same community 
 stand substantially upon the same level ; with but in-
 
 158 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 significant exceptions, they have the same knowledge, 
 the same skill, the same habits ; the collective wealth of 
 thought and its expression is not too great for each per- 
 son to grasp and wield the whole of it. On the other 
 hand, local differences are at their highest point, since 
 it is only civilization and culture that can bind together 
 into one the parts of a great community. The influ- 
 ences of barbarism, beyond narrow limits, are prevail- 
 inglv segregative ; a wild race that multiplies and 
 spreads widelv breaks up into mutually jealous and hos- 
 tile divisions, within each of which linguistic changes 
 run their own independent course. Every element of 
 culture that iinds its way in exercises a conservative in- 
 fluence, tending both to preserve the language from 
 change and to preserve its unity throughout the terri- 
 tory it occupies. The rise of a national feeling of so 
 high an order that it reverences the deeds and the words 
 of past generations, and leads to the production of a 
 national literature, is obviously conservative, because it 
 amounts to setting up a norm of correct speech, by 
 which men's minds shall be influenced in judging, for 
 acceptance or rejection, the individual proposals of 
 change. A written literature, the habit of recording 
 and reading, the prevalence of actual instruction, work 
 yet more powerfully in the same direction ; and when 
 such forces have reached the degree of strength which 
 they show in our modem enlightened communities, 
 they fairly dominate the history of speech. The lan- 
 guage is stabilized, especially as regards all those altera- 
 tions which proceed from inaccuracy ; local differences 
 are not only restrained from arising, but are even wiped 
 out, eo far as the effect of education extends. There is 
 also a state of things intermediate between the two ex> 
 trainee of barbarism and all-pervading culture : namely,
 
 LEARNED AND POPULAR LANGUAGE. 159 
 
 where there is culture which reaches only a particular 
 class, a minority, of the community, its conserving influ- 
 ences being mainly limited to that class. This alone 
 possesses the records of the language, and, using them 
 as models, propagates its speech nearly unaltered, whilo 
 the language of the mass goes on changing unchecked. 
 There comes thus to be a separation of the originally 
 unitary speech into two parts : a learned dialect, which 
 is the old common language preserved, and a popular 
 dialect, which is its altered descendant ; and the latter, 
 perhaps, finally crowds the former out of existence, and 
 becomes, in its turn, the cultivated speech of a new 
 order of things. Such has been, for example, the his- 
 tory of the Latin, and of the later dialects descended 
 from it, and now become the vehicles of great and noble 
 literatures ; such, also, that of the now cultivated lan- 
 guages of modern Aryan India, in their relations to the 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, that there is-sr definite com- 
 munity X, of one speech. It is divided not, of course, 
 by definite or fixed lines into the various local parts 
 A, B, C, etc., and into the classes, whether social, voca- 
 tional, or educational, J., ./?, C, etc., and 0, J, c, etc. ; 
 the various divisions variously overlapping and overly- 
 ing one another. The common speech is, like all living 
 speech, in a condition of constant growth and change ; 
 this change being possible, and actually occurring, only 
 by such acts of alteration as we have considered in de 
 tail above, each arising at a point or points in one or 
 more divisions, and spreading thence by communication 
 to the rest. What arises thus in A, or B, or C, becomes 
 at length tho possession of all if, indeed, it does not 
 continue within certain limits, as a merely local dialectic 
 word or mode of expression. So what arises iu A or a
 
 [60 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 goes through the rest unless it remain within theboun 
 daries of a class, as a technical term, a high-caste ex- 
 pression, a popular blunder or vulgarism, or something 
 of the sort. And the amount and value of these vari- 
 ous residua, constituting the minor discordances which 
 may consist with general agreement and unity, is vari- 
 ous according to such determining circumstances as we 
 reviewed briefly in the paragraph next preceding : no 
 language is or can be without them, but they are very 
 different in different languages. 
 
 This whole state of things is dependent on his- 
 torical conditions, as concerns its continuance and 
 changes. Let us take our hypothetical case to represent 
 the German language as it was at and after the be- 
 ginning of our era. Here, while the divisions of class 
 And occupation were comparatively unimportant, those 
 of locality, A, ]>, C, etc., were very marked: so much 
 BO, indeed, as to make it improper to speak of the 
 whole as one language ; besides innumerable minor dis- 
 cordances, there were sections the speech of each of 
 which was not intelligible to the rest ; and if no new 
 force had been introduced, things might have gone on 
 thus to the end of time, the local discordances constant- 
 ly deepening and widening. But a new and controlling 
 force was introduced : that of Greco-Roman, soon to 
 become European, civilization : this led the way to in- 
 stitutional and political unity. But not for a longtime 
 did it win the predominance in the domain of language. 
 At tirst, each local division had its own separate culture; 
 the beginnings of literature were produced, and are in 
 part still extant, in one and another local form of speech, 
 fully intelligible only within limits. But at length, 
 early in the sixteenth century, the fullness of time waa 
 come ; political and educational conditions had readied
 
 GERMAN LANGUAGE. Id 
 
 a point where a movement toward an educated and so, 
 in a certain sense, an artificial unity of speech could 
 be made with success. A certain local form of speech, 
 A which, to be sure, had already gained a degree of 
 currency as a class-form also was definitely adopted by 
 the educated as their dialect, A, the style of German 
 which should thenceforth alone be written, and looked 
 up to as a model, and taught in the schools. And its 
 authority has ever since gone on increasing, with the 
 extension of the power of civilization and education, till 
 now an outsider almost looks upon it as the sole German 
 speech. That, however, it is far enough from being ; it 
 is still only A, the German of a class, though of a class 
 which the conditions of modern civilization have made 
 the dominant and the growing one. B, C, and D, etc., 
 still subsist ; there are whole regions of Germany where 
 the local dialect is unintelligible to him who is versed 
 only in the literary language ; but they divide among 
 them, for the most part, only the classes^of lower educa- 
 tion, E and F, etc. ; and they, as wejl as the classes of 
 vocation, a and 5 and c, etc., feel profoundly and in 
 various ways the influence of the learned speech. A 
 is the predominant speech, modifying and shaping every- 
 thing else in German usage, and even promising, if the 
 forces of education should ever attain that overwhelm- 
 ing degree of importance, to sweep out of existence all 
 the other varieties, save those of occupation. 
 
 Not, however, as we must next notice, over the 
 whole territory occupied by High or Low German 
 tribes. There were at least two local varieties we may 
 call them E and F which did not fall under the unify- 
 ing influences that brought all the rest within the do- 
 minion of A. One, E, the English, was cut off by di 
 tance and inaccessibility, and consequent independence,
 
 |62 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 The Germanic Angles and Saxons, who carried a Ger- 
 man dialect across the North Sea into Britain, and with 
 it displaced the old Celtic speech, have passed, in their 
 eeparateness, through a series of changes analogous with 
 thoee of their former fellow-countrymen. Their own 
 secondary divisions, of whatever kind whether local, as 
 E', E", E'", etc., or of class, as E' , E" , etc. have been 
 in a similar manner brought under the controlling influ- 
 ence of another literary dialect, of like origin with that 
 of Germany. And in the northeastern district of con- 
 tinental Germany, the Netherlands, political indepen- 
 dence, with the consequent isolation of general interests, 
 had a kindred result ; while the rest of Low Germany, 
 speaking by local division forms of German speech not 
 less peculiar than those of the Anglo-Saxons and Dutch, 
 uses the High-German literary dialect as its learned 
 speech, the corner Holland and the colony England have 
 given an equivalent literary value to their separate Low- 
 German dialects. No matter how the local varieties 
 A and J> and C become separated, so that what passes 
 in each is not participated in by the others, their de- 
 velopment will take a different course, and they will in 
 time become separate tongues. 
 
 The same forces, in like modes of action, but with 
 abundant differences of detail, are seen at work in pro- 
 ducing the modern Romanic languages, descendants of 
 the Latin. When the arms and civilization and polity 
 of Koine carried her speech all through Italy, and over 
 groat regions outside of Italy, it was already divided by 
 education into class-varieties. All were transmitted to- 
 gether; and the learned dialect A, as we may call it, 
 in accoi dance with our use of this sign above has been 
 kept up in its complete purity even to the present day, 
 l.y appropriate and adequate means, though in a con-
 
 KOMANIC LANGUAGE. 163 
 
 fitautly diminisliing class. The lower forms of speech, 
 B, C, etc., had their full influence in laying the founda- 
 tions of the new history. The changes of Latin went 
 on, all the more rapidly for its having passed into the 
 keeping of races who had learned it at second hand, by 
 an outside pressure; and, as the forces of communica- 
 tion were very far from being sufficient to keep the 
 immensely extended community one, it broke up, by 
 differentiation within geographical limits, into a corre- 
 spondingly numerous array of local forms, for which it 
 would take several alphabets to provide sufficient sym- 
 bols ; and historical circumstances, which in their main 
 character and influence admit of being distinctly pointed 
 out, led to one here and another there as C, and F, 
 and I, and P, and S, and W being adopted as the 
 learned dialects of great regions, and used for literary 
 and educational purposes, not only by their own native 
 speakers, but also by those of the rest which, like thn 
 German dialects, still subsist as the uneducated patoi* 
 each of its own district. 
 
 It would be very easy to push this illustration in- 
 definitely, but to carry it further is quite needless. The 
 methods of linguistic change detailed above, and gov 
 erned in tjheir historical workings by the antithesis be- 
 tween the initiatory action of the individual, and the 
 regulating action of the community in accepting or re- 
 jecting his proposals this has been all we have needed 
 to explain the historical phenomena instanced; and this, 
 and this only, is sufficient to explain all the rest. It 
 may be fairly and confidently claimed that there is no 
 known case which cannot thus be solved. Individuals 
 are the diversifying or centrifugal force in the growth 
 of speech ; for, as there are no two persons absolutely 
 alike in countenance, so there are no two identical in
 
 164: DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 character and education, and the shaping influence ex 
 erted by each on the speech he has learned will be 
 slightly different from that of every one else. But just 
 BO far as communication extends, like the centripetal 
 force, which dominates the other, and keeps the moving 
 body rpon a certain track never too far remote from tho 
 centre, the individualities are curbed and restrained, and 
 their jarring action forced into and held in accordance. 
 Or, in terms of our recent hypothesis, just so long as 
 every change which arises in the local parts A and B 
 and C, and so on, works its way through all the rest, 
 passing the ordeal of their acceptance or rejection, so 
 long will the language X remain one. It may and will 
 alter from age to age ; it may even become so changed 
 in two or three centuries (as English has actually become 
 in a thousand years) that its speakers at one and the 
 other end of that period would not, if they could be 
 brought together, understand one another at all ; yet, 
 at every period, all the community would understand 
 each other, because it would have changed alike in the 
 minds and mouths of all. But separate, in any way you 
 please, the parts A and B and C from one another, so 
 that the changes in each are made in that alone, and do 
 not extend into the rest, and the peculiarities of each 
 will begin to be confined to itself ; what we call dialectic 
 growth will set in ; the process of divarication into 
 diverse languages will have begun. A brick wall, high 
 enough and long enough, between the sections, would 
 perfectly accomplish their division, and initiate dialectic 
 divergence ; only, of course, if the separation takes place 
 by local removal, so that the sections are brought into 
 different external circumstances of nature and occupa- 
 tion, and under different historical influences, the pro 
 cess of linguistic divergence will be quickened.
 
 INCREASING DIVARICATION. 105 
 
 This cutting off, by cessation of comm anicatiou, of 
 a common regulative influence over the never-ending 
 changes of speech, may seem a very slight cause of di- 
 vergence ; and so in truth it is; but it is fully sufficient 
 to account for all the phenomena of dialectic growth, 
 Xo matter how small the angle may be between two 
 lines starting from the same point ; if they are protract- 
 ed far enough, their extremities may be found any given 
 distance apart. And the angle of dialectic divergence 
 is practically an increasing one ; the two lines of devel- 
 opment curve asunder. At the outset, namely, the 
 sum of guiding analogies in each is almost precisely the 
 same ; identity of material, and of habits of its use, is, 
 as it were, a continuance of the common momentum, car- 
 rying the two on in almost the same direction ; and inde- 
 pendent accordant results of this community of original 
 habit may, as we have more than once seen above, con- 
 tinue to appear for a long time, even indefinitely. But 
 each bit of difference that creeps in lessens the accord 
 ance ; new habits arise, special disturbing influences set 
 in, and the distance conies at last, perhaps, to be rapidly 
 instead of slo\vly increased. The history of our English, 
 as compared with the Low-German dialects from which 
 it sheered off in the fifth and sixth centuries, is as strik- 
 ing an example of this as could be desired. 
 
 Again, as dialectic discordance only arises in conse- 
 quence of linguistic growth, and as the maintenance of 
 an original condition of speech unchanged would do 
 away with all possibility of difference of speech among 
 the separated parts of the community which formerly 
 spoke it as one together, it is evident that the rate of 
 divergence must depend in great degree upon the gen 
 eral rate of growth. And, as we have seen, the influ 
 ences of barbarism and of civilization are directly op
 
 166 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 posed to one another in this regard, although they arc 
 by no means the only determining influences which 
 (jiiieken or retard the alterative processes. It is the 
 predominant forces of civilization which, by a two-fold 
 action, have kept the language of the two great divisions 
 of English-speakers nearly accordant, notwithstanding 
 the broad ocean that rolls between them : first, by mak- 
 ing actual communication betweeir them easier and 
 closer than between two tribes of rude people separated 
 only by a few miles of mountain or of plain, by a forest 
 or a river; indeed, even by giving them, as it were, in 
 their common literature, a great body of speakers who 
 are all the time communicating with both ; and, in the 
 second place, by so restraining the activity of the alter- 
 ative processes that their results have time to reach aiid 
 permeate both divisions. Absence of the same conserv- 
 ing inlluences causes the French of the habitans of Can- 
 ada and the German of the colony in Pennsylvania to 
 differ far more widely from the dialects of the countries 
 whence these colonists came. 
 
 The most instructive attainable example of dialecti( 
 growth, on the whole, is that presented us in the Eo 
 manic languages, because we have there a most im 
 portant and widely-spread body of highly cultivated 
 languages, each with its legion of subsidiary dialectic 
 forms ; and also what is nowhere else to be had in any- 
 thing like the same measure the very mother, the 
 Latin, from which they have all sprung. The student 
 of language finds in them a whole world of facts to study 
 and compare, to trace out in their origin and in thelawr 
 which have produced them. And his task, though in 
 part simple and easy, is also in no small part difficult 
 and baffling ; for even here, under the ;ves of history, 
 as it were, though hidden from them, have gone on
 
 EXAMPLES OF ROMAMC VARIATION. 167 
 
 changes which seem to defy investigation, producing 
 results which cannot be carried back to their sources. 
 Let us look at a specimen or two of the process of li- 
 varication, as it has passed upon some of the materials 
 of the Latin original. 
 
 The Latin had a word for 'brother,' f rater. In 
 French, the word, in the abbreviated form frere, still 
 bears the old office. But in Italian and Spanish, the 
 same word, having undergone still greater mutilation 
 as Spanish fray, Italian frate and fra signifies only a 
 { brother ' of some ecclesiastical order, a friar ', as we call 
 it, by yet another form of the same name. So, for 
 ' brother ' in its original and proper sense, each language 
 has had to provide a new word : the Italian takes the 
 diminutive fratello / the Spanish puts to use the Latin 
 gennanws, ' nearly related,' and says hermano. Again, 
 the Lathi had the name mulier for a ' woman,' dis- 
 tinctively as woman, besides femina for 'female/ 
 woman or other. In Spanish, now, the former is still 
 retained, altered to muger, in nearly itsTancient mean- 
 ing ; but in Italian, as mocjlie, it signifies only ' wife ' or 
 1 spouse ;' and in French it has utterly disappeared. In 
 French, femme, the representative of the other Latin 
 word, has become the general name for ' woman,' adding 
 also the meaning of 'wife;' while for 'female' has 
 come to be uscdfe?nette (like Italian fratello for Latin 
 frater}. For ' woman,' the Italian has shaped a new 
 word, donna, out of later Latin dom ina, ' mistress;' 
 and the Spanish uses for ' lady ' the same word donna, 
 besides senora, a feminine of modem make to senior, 
 4 older person.' These are fair specimens of how the 
 original material of a language gets worked over, in 
 form and in meaning, in the keeping of the severed de- 
 scendants of that language. If we looked into the class
 
 [68 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 of verbs, we should find the same condition of things. 
 The verb ' be,' for example, is made up of a remnant 
 of the forms of the Latin ease, pieced out in all the 
 dialects with parts of stare, 'stand:' so the French 
 etais, ek', are stabam, status, with remarkable alterations 
 of form, one of which has been commented on above 
 (p. 54-). And the French verb ' go ' is put together by 
 adding parts of Latin ire, ' go,' and parts of vadere, 
 1 walk,' to a main stock of very obscure origin, repre- 
 senting Latin adnare, 'arrive by water,' or aditare, 
 1 make one's adit, or arrival,' or something of the sort. 
 Turning now to the Germanic dialects, our own near- 
 est relatives, we find the same kind of resemblance in 
 difference everywhere prevailing. The Germanic words 
 for ' brother ' as Netherlandish broeder, German bmder, 
 Icelandic brodkir, Swedish and Danish broder and bror 
 are not less obviously the variations of one original 
 than are the Romanic products of f rater. The old 
 Germanic weib, ' woman,' is found in most of the 
 modern languages, in easily recognizable forms, with 
 its former value ; but in modern English its representa- 
 tive wife has become restricted (like Italian moglie) to 
 a married woman. And there is another ancient word. 
 Gothic quens and quinon, w r hich in some dialects is the 
 accepted name for ' woman,' instead of the other, but 
 which in English has undergone the curious fate of be- 
 ing divided into two terms, of lofty and humble mean- 
 ing, queen and quean. Our verbs be and go, too, like 
 their Romanic equivalents, are made up of fragments 
 fjom various roots, pieced together partly in more 
 ancient, partly in more modern times. Both we have 
 already noticed elsewhere in passing (pp. 90, 101) ; it ia 
 unnecessary here to enter into any further detail re 
 spec-ting them.
 
 EXAMPLES OF GERMANIC VARIATION. 169 
 
 From these and all the other innumerable corre- 
 pondences of the Germanic dialects we cannot possibly 
 help drawing the same conclusion which is taught na 
 by a comparison of the Latin with its descendants. It 
 is not one whit less certain that wife and weib and vif 
 >.nd the rest are the variously altered representatives of 
 a single primitive Germanic vocable, than that rrwglit 
 and muger come from the Latin mulier. We may not 
 always, or often, be able to restore by inference the Ger- 
 manic word with a certainty equal to that inspired by 
 the actually preserved Latin word ; but that makes no 
 difference. We believe in the former existence of the 
 grandfather of a group of cousins, whom we have never 
 seen because he died long ago; just as thoroughly as in 
 the present existence of one whom we find still living 
 in the midst of another group. According to our ex- 
 perience of how things go on in the world of human 
 beings and in that of words, there is no other possibil- 
 ity. The processes of linguistic change, working regu- 
 larly on in the way in which we see Jhem working in 
 the present and the recently past historic periods, are 
 fully sufficient to account for the existence in certain 
 languages of groups of words more or less resembling 
 one another yet not identical ; and there is no need that 
 we resort to adventurous hypotheses for its explanation. 
 
 This, legitimately generalized, gives us the great 
 principle that genuine correspondences, of whatever 
 degree, between the words of different languages, are 
 to be interpreted as the result of derivation from one 
 original : relationship, in words as in men, implies de- 
 Btent from a common ancestor. And what is true ot 
 the words of two languages is true of the language! 
 themselves : languages made up of related words nnut 
 be descended from a single common language. 
 12
 
 17 Q DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 Only, to tK.s principle need ID be applied certain 
 pa ut ions and corrections. Two sources of error require 
 to be guarded against in its use. First, woids are bor- 
 rowed out of one language into another, as was fully 
 explained and illustrated in the seventh chapter. Cer- 
 tain elements in English are of common descent with 
 elements in the Romanic and in many other of the 
 world's languages ; they have been handed over from 
 the tradition of one people into that of another : and 
 though there is so far a community of tradition, it does 
 not imply general relationship of the languages. Sec- 
 ondly, accidental correspondences occur between words 
 .vhich have no historical connection : so, for example, 
 between Greek 0X09 and our whole, between Sanskrit 
 IvJdt and Latin locus, between Mod. Greek /.tart, ' eye,' 
 and Polynesian mata, ' see,' and so on. These two dif- 
 ficulties impose upon the comparer of languages the 
 necessity of increased caution in his work, and warn 
 him against over-hasty conclusions. An instance or two, 
 or a few instances, of verbal correspondence are not 
 sufficient to prove anything. But accidental resem- 
 blances have their limit ; and it is in general possible to 
 distinguish borrowed material, so as not to be misled by 
 it into false inferences. The linguist looks to see both 
 how many and how close the asserted correspondences 
 are, and in what part of the vocabulary they are found. 
 If we did not know by external information the history 
 of English, we could still recognize it beyond all question 
 as essentially a Germanic dialect, by noticing what parts 
 of its material accord with the Germanic tongues, and 
 what part with the Romanic. 
 
 But relationship in language, as in genealogy, is a 
 thing of degrees, and for the same reason. The French, 
 Spanish, and Italian are cousins, on grounds which we
 
 INDO-EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCES. 171 
 
 have already sufficiently noticed ; but each is a group 
 of yet more closely related dialects. And so also among 
 the Germanic languages : the English belongs to a Low- 
 German group, still occupying the northern shores of 
 Germany, whence the ancestors of the English came: 
 there is likewise a High-German group, occupying tho 
 central and southern part of Germany ; and there is a 
 Scandinavian group, holding in possession Denmark, 
 Sweden and Norway, and Iceland ; moreover, there is 
 a single dialect, the Moeso-Gothic, of which limited rec- 
 ords are saved from extinction, and which represents 
 alone yet another group, of unknown extent. From 
 these minor groupings precisely the same inference is 
 to be drawn as from the larger ones : they represent 
 historical centres of more recent divergence, of the 
 same kind and by the same means as the others. 
 
 Nor does the finding of correspondences and tracing 
 of relationships end here. Between the Germanic bro- 
 thar and the Latin f rater there is a pretty evident re- 
 semblance, which becomes still morejjvident when we 
 put alongside of them other words of the same class, as 
 German rnothar, fat/Mr, and Latin mater, pater. But 
 there are yet other groups of languages which show 
 similar signs of relationship : we find in Greek $pari')p 
 (meaning, to be sure, only a member of a confraternity, 
 like fray and fra, as noticed above) and p-n^np an ^ 
 irarrjp ; and, in Sanskrit, Ihrdtar and mdtar mdptiar; 
 and the Persian and Celtic and Slavonic tongues have 
 in the same words correspondences which are like these, 
 though not quite so striking. These are telling indica- 
 tions of an original relationship among all the groups 
 of languages mentioned: outcroppings, as it were, of 
 a vein which invites further exploration. For, in the 
 fij-Et place, the correspondences are too numerous and
 
 172 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 wide-spread and close to be explained with the slightest 
 show of plausibility as the result of chance ; and then, 
 there appears to be equally small hope of accounting 
 for them by borrowing. How should all these widely- 
 sundered tribes of men, found at the dawn of history 
 ia every variety of cultural condition, have obtained 
 irom a common source, or by transmission from one 
 to another, names for conceptions like these, the forma- 
 tion of which must have accompanied the first devel- 
 opment of family life \ Plainly, all probabilities are 
 against it. 
 
 Xo confident conclusion, however, as to so impor- 
 tant a fact should be built on narrow foundations ; and 
 we look further, into other classes of words. There are 
 no savages in the world so undeveloped that they can- 
 not count ' one, two, three ' even though there are 
 those who have gone no further than that by their own 
 powers, but are either destitute of the higher num- 
 bers, or have borrowed them from races more advanced. 
 If we tind these numerals accordant in the languages 
 we have named, it will be a very strong piece of evi- 
 dence corroborative of that furnished by the names of 
 relationship. And the accordance exists, and is of the 
 most striking character, not only in these numerals, but 
 in all that follow : dwa is the common basis of the 
 various words for ' two,' and tri of those for ' three,' 
 through the whole great mass of dialects. The pro- 
 nouns, again, are a class of words in which the suspicion 
 of borrowing is, if possible, even less to be entertained ; 
 and here also, in such words as those for ' thou ' (twa) 
 and * me ' (ma), in the demonstrative ta and the inter- 
 rogative kwa, we find a degree of agreement which ia 
 quite beyond the power of accident to have produced. 
 
 Yet once more, we have seen (p. 119) that inflectional
 
 ITfDO-EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCES. 173 
 
 apparatus, grammatical structure, is most of all out of 
 the reach of a language that is borrowing from another. 
 But through all the grammatical apparatus of these 
 groups of dialects, when we can reach far enough back 
 in their history to find it preserved in a distinct fonn, 
 we discover an accordance not less convincing. Thus, 
 in the verbal inflection, there are the various alterations 
 of an original ending mi for the first person singular, 
 and of mai for the 'first plural ; of si and tasi for the 
 second person, and of ti, and anti for the third ; of a 
 reduplication forming a perfect tense, of a sign of the 
 optative mood, and so on. In noun declension the 
 traces are more obscure and scanty, but still perceptible 
 enough. The comparison of adjectives is everywhere 
 by the same means. Participles and other derivative 
 words show the same suffixes of derivation. 
 
 In short, there is a superabundance of evidence go- 
 ing to prove that the speech of all the peoples we have 
 mentioned, filling most of Europe, ancient and modern, 
 and an important tract of Asia, is related, in the sense 
 in which we have used that word above. There is no 
 theoretic reason against such a fact ; rather, every con- 
 clusion drawn from the phenomena of existing speech 
 makes directly in its favor. We know that the separa- 
 tion and isolation of the different parts of a once uni- 
 tary community must necessarily bring about a separa- 
 tion of its language into different dialects; and wo 
 know that this process may go on repeating itself, over 
 and over again ; and that, at the end, those dialects 
 which parted latest will (apart from special altering 
 forces), though unlike, be least unlike and most like ono 
 another, while those which parted earliest will be least 
 like and most unlike one another : and we know of no 
 other way in which this likeness in unlikeuess cau be
 
 |74 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 brought about We infer, then, that all the languages 
 in question are the divaricated representatives of a siu 
 gle tongue, spoken somewhere and somewhen in the 
 past by a single limited community, by the spread and 
 dispersion of which all its discordances have in iho 
 course of time grown up. Such a grand congeries of 
 related languages, in different degrees, w r e are accua- 
 tomed to call a " family : " a name taken, by an allow- 
 able figurative transfer, from the vocabulary of gene- 
 alogy. 
 
 This is an example of the way we are to proceed to 
 examine and classify all the various languages which 
 the earth contains. The first steps in it are easy enough. 
 It takes no conjurer to discover that London English and 
 Yorkshire English and Scotch English and negro Eng- 
 lish, even, are all one language ; and no observant per- 
 son, probably, who learns German or Dutch or Swedish, 
 fails to see that he has in hand a tongue akin with his 
 own. But it takes a more penetrating and enlightened 
 study to pick out the signs of original unity amid the 
 greatly more conspicuous differences of English, French, 
 Welsh, Russian, Romaic, Persian, and Hindi ; and it 
 requires especially a resort, in the case of each Ian 
 gunge, to the older tongues of its own nearer kindred, 
 which have preserved the ancient common material 
 with less change. Only the learned and experienced 
 investigator, therefore, can be trusted to push the woik 
 of classification safely to its extreme limits ; and the 
 classification of all human tongues is only attainable by 
 the labors of a great number of investigators, each 
 rained in his own special department. Kor has it 
 been even thus by any means finished ; yet much has 
 been done toward it: the vast majority of languages 
 h*ve l>een grouped together by their affinities into fain
 
 UNIVERSALITY OF DIALECTS. 175 
 
 Hies and branches of families ; and the results of this 
 classili cation have to be briefly reviewed by us in the 
 following chapters. 
 
 For, at< might be expected to follow from the prin- 
 ciples laid down above as determining dialectic growth, 
 there is not a language in the world which does not ey- 
 ist in the condition of dialectic division, so that the 
 speech of each community is the member of a more or 
 less extended family unless, indeed, there may be here 
 and there in isolated language so nearly extinct as to 
 be used only by the narrowest possible community : by 
 a few families, or a single village. Even languages of 
 so limited area as the Basque in the Pyrenees, as some 
 of the tongues in the Caucasus, have their well-marked 
 dialectic forms; because an uncivilized people can 
 hardly break up even into camps, and still maintain 
 that communication which alone can keep their speech 
 a unit. 
 
 This linguistic condition of the earth runs parallel, 
 in the closest manner, with its social and political con- 
 dition. At the very beginning of history, and even as 
 far beyond as archaeological science can penetrate, the 
 earth is all peopled, more or less thickly, with a seem- 
 ingly heterogeneous mass of clans and tribes and na- 
 tions. But not even the most heterodox naturalist who 
 holds to a variety of origins for the human race believes 
 these all to have sprung out of the ground, as it were, 
 where they stand : they come from the multiplication 
 and dispersion of a certain limited number of primitive 
 families, if not, as many think, from that of a singlo 
 family. So with language : at the first attainable pe- 
 riod of our knowledge of it, whether by actual record 
 or by the inferences of the comparative student, it is in 
 a etate of almost endless subdivision ; and yet every
 
 76 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 soimJ linguist holds, and knows that he has the most 
 satisfactory reasons for holding, that this apparent con- 
 fusion is a result of the extension and divarication of a 
 certain limited number of primitive dialects whether 
 of a single one, is a question which we shall have later 
 to consider our right to determine. At the earliest 
 historical period, too, the darkness of barbarism covers 
 the earth in general ; the centres of culture are but two 
 or three, and their light spreads but a very little way, 
 and is even in constant danger of being extinguished 
 by the greatly superior brute force of the uncultivated 
 masses around. Hence the divaricating forces in lin- 
 guistic growth are also in the ascendant ; dialects go on 
 multiplying, by the action of the same causes that had 
 already produced them. But wherever civilization is at 
 work, an opposite influence, in linguistic as in political 
 aifairs, is powerfully operating. Out of the congeries of 
 jarring tribes are growing great nations ; out of the Babel 
 of discordant dialects are growing languages of wider and 
 constantly extending unity. The two kinds of change 
 go hand in hand, simply because the one of them is de- 
 pendent on the other : nothing can make wide unity of 
 speech except extended community ; nothing but civili- 
 zation can make extended community. As, through the 
 ages of recorded history, the power as well as the degree 
 of civilization has been constantly growing, till now it is 
 the predominant force, and the uncivilized races subsist 
 only by the toleration of the civilized if even that ; so, 
 by external forces, every act and influence of wliich is 
 clearly definable, the cultivated languages have been 
 and are extending their sway, crowding out of existence 
 tiae patois which had grown up under the old order of 
 tilings, gaining such advantage that men are beginning 
 to dream of A time when one language. may be spoken
 
 LANGUAGE AND DIALECT. 177 
 
 all over the earth. And, though the dream may be 
 Utopian, there is not an element of the theoretically 
 impossible in it ; only a certain condition of external 
 circumstances is needed to render it inevitable. 
 
 It is possible so to misunderstand these facts in the 
 wide history of human speech as to believe that lan- 
 guage actually began in a condition of infinite dialectic 
 division, and has been from the outset tending toward 
 concentration and final unity. But that is possible only 
 by a total failure to comprehend the forces that are at 
 work in the growth of language, and the modes of 
 their interaction. Tell the ethnologist that the begin- 
 nings of the human race were an indefinite number of 
 unconnected individuals, who first coalesced into fami- 
 lies, and these into clans and tribes, and these into con- 
 federacies, whence came nations, and whence may yet 
 come, by the same natural tendency to unity out of di- 
 versity, a single homogeneous race all over the earth 
 and he will hardly pay the theory the compliment even 
 of laughing at it. And the corresponding linguistic 
 view is really just as absurd ; only, from the greater 
 obscurity or unfainiliarity of the conditions involved, 
 not so palpably absurd, and therefore not so ludicrous. 
 
 Before closing this chapter, we must notice for a 
 moment the meaning of the terms language and dialect, 
 in their relation to one another. They are only two 
 names for the same thing, as looked at from differ- 
 ent points of view. Any body of expressions used by 
 a community, however limited and humble, for the 
 purposes of communication and as the instrument of 
 thought, is a language ; no one would think of credit- 
 ing its speakers with the gift of dialect but not of lan- 
 guage. On the other hand, there is no tongue in tho 
 world to which we should not with perfect frcedoMi
 
 178 DIALECTIC VARIATION. 
 
 and perfect piopriety apply the name of dialect, when 
 considering it as one of a body of related forms of 
 speech. The science of language has democratized our 
 views on such points as these ; it has taught us that 
 one man's speech is just as much a language as another 
 man's ; that even the most cultivated tongue that exists 
 is only the dialect of a certain class in a certain locality 
 both class and locality limited, though the limits may 
 be wide ones. The written English is one of the forma 
 of English, used by the educated class for certain pur- 
 poses, having dialectic characters by which it is distin- 
 guished from the colloquial speech of the same class, 
 and yet more from the speech of other classes or sections 
 of the English-speaking community and each one of 
 these is as valuable to the comparative student of lan- 
 guage as their alleged superior. But English and 
 Dutch and German and Swedish, and so on, are the 
 dialects of Germanic speech ; and the same, along with 
 French and Irish and Bohemian, and the rest, are the 
 dialects of the wider family whose limits we have 
 drawn above. This is the scientific use of the terms ; 
 in the looseness of popular parlance, an attempt is made 
 at the distinction of degrees of dignity and importance 
 by means of the same words, as when the literary lan- 
 guage of a community is alone allowed the name of 
 language, and the rest are styled dialects. For ordinary 
 pin-poses the usage is convenient enough ; but it has uo 
 acceptableness on other grounds ; it forms no part of 
 linguistic science.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENDO- EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Gcnietic classification. Indo-European family; its names; its brauohee 
 and their earliest records: Germanic, Slavo-Lettic, Celtic, Italic, 
 Greek, Iranian, and Indian ; doubtful members. Importance of this 
 family ; value of its study to the science of language. Time an J . 
 place of original community impossible to determine. Scientific 
 method of studying its structural history ; form-making by compo- 
 sition and integration ; sufficiency of the principle. Resulting doc- 
 trine of original radical monosyllabism ; Indo-European roots. De- 
 velopment of forms: structure of verb, of noun; pronouns; adverbs 
 and particles ; interjections, their analogy wiU> roots. Question of 
 order of development, and time occupied^. Synthetic and analytl? 
 structure. 
 
 HAVING examined, with all the fullness which the 
 space at our command allows, the foundation on which 
 a genetic classification of the languages of the world 
 reposes, we are ready to undertake a brief view of that 
 classification, as established by the researches of linguis- 
 tic scholars. We have seen that correspondence in the 
 material of different languages, if existing in measure 
 and kind beyond what can be accounted for as the re- 
 sult of accident or of borrowing, is explainable only 00 
 due to the separate tradition of an originally common 
 tongue, a tradition which preserved a part of the ori- 
 ginal usages, while it modified or discarded other parts,
 
 18 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 or introduced what was new, to such an extent as to 
 obscure, and perhaps even to hide, the evidences of for- 
 mer connection. As an example, we glanced at an out- 
 line of the great family of related tongues to which 
 our own belongs, and noticed a limited but sufficient 
 specimen of the evidence on which is founded the gen- 
 eral belief in its unity as a family. We have now to 
 go on and lay down more definitely the constitution of 
 this family, and to sketch its structure and its structural 
 history. 
 
 It is called, in the first place, by a variety of names, 
 no one of which has fully established itself in general 
 use. AVe will employ " Indo-European," as having on 
 the whole the best claim ; it was deliberately adopted 
 by IJopp, the great expounder of the relations of the 
 family, and is as widely used as any of the others. 
 Most of Lopp's countrymen now prefer " Indo-Ger- 
 manic,'" for no other assignable reason than that it con- 
 tains the foreign appellation of their own particular 
 branch, as given by their conquerors and teachers, the 
 Ivomans. Others, rejecting both these titles as cum- 
 brously long, say instead " Aryan," which also has a 
 wide and perhaps a growing currency ; the chief objec- 
 tion is, that it properly belongs only to the Asiatic 
 division, composed of the Iranian and Indian branches, 
 and is still needed and widely used to designate that 
 division. " Sanskritic," from the oldest and in some 
 respects the leading language of the family, and " Ja- 
 phetic," from the son of Koah to whom are attributed 
 as descendants in the Genesis some of the people speak- 
 ing its various dialects, are terms of limited and now 
 obsolescent employment. 
 
 The Indo-European family, then, is composed of 
 seven great branches : the Indian, the Iranian or Per
 
 GERMANIC BRANCH. ]gl 
 
 sian, the Greek, the Italic, the Celtic, the Slavonic or 
 Slavo-Lettic, and the Germanic or Teutonic. 
 
 Taking these up in their inverse order, we have 
 first the Germanic branch, in the four principal divi- 
 sions already noted : 1. The Hceso-Gothic, or dialect 
 of the Goths of Moesia, preserved only in parts of a 
 IJible-version made by their bishop Ulfilas in the fourth 
 century of our era, being long ago extinct as a spoken 
 language. 2. The Low ; German languages, still spoken 
 in the north of Germany, from Holstein to Flanders, 
 and across in the neighboring England, and including 
 two important cultivated tongues, the Netherlandish 
 and the English. English literary monuments go back 
 to the seventh century, Netherlandish to the thirteenth ; 
 and there is an " Old-Saxon " poem, the Ifeliand, or 
 4 Savior,' from the ninth, and Frisian literature from 
 the fourteenth. 3. The High-German body of dialects, 
 represented at the present day by only a single literary 
 language, the so-called German, of whjeh the literature 
 begins with the Reformation, in the-ixteenth century ; 
 back of this, the New High-German period, lie a Mid- 
 dle and an Old High-German period, with their litera- 
 tures in various somewhat discordant dialects, reaching 
 back into the eighth century. 4. The Scandinavian 
 division, written in the forms of Danish, Swedish, 
 Norwegian, and Icelandic. The Icelandic monuments 
 go back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and are 
 in point of style and content older than anything in 
 High or Low German: the Edda is the purest and 
 most abundant source of knowledge for primitive Ger- 
 manic conditions. The Icelandic is also, especially in 
 its phonetic state, the most antique of living Germanic 
 dialects. Besides these literary remains, there are brief 
 Runic inscriptions, generally of but a word or two, go
 
 IS2 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 ing back, it is believed, even to the third or second cen 
 lury. 
 
 The Slavonic branch has always lain in close prox 
 imity to the Germanic, on the ea&t ; it has been the 
 last of all to gain historical prominence. Its eastern 
 division includes the Russian, Bulgarian, Servian and 
 Croatian, and Slovenian. The Bulgarian has the oldest 
 records ; its version of the Bible, made in the ninth 
 century, in the same region where the Gothic version 
 had been made live centuries earlier, has become the 
 accepted version, and its dialect the church language, 
 throughout the Slavonic division of the Greek church. 
 The Russian is by far the most important language of 
 the whole branch ; it has remains from the eleventh 
 century; some of the southern dialects present speci- 
 mens from a yet remoter date. To the western division 
 belong the Polish, the Bohemian, of which the Mora- 
 vian and Slovakian are closely kindred dialects, the 
 Serbian, and the Polabian. There is nothing in Polish 
 earlier than the fourteenth century; Bohemian records 
 are believed to go back to the tenth. 
 
 This branch is often called the Slavo-Lettic, because 
 it is made to include another sub-branch, the Lettic or 
 Lithuania, which, though considerably further removed 
 from the Slavonic than any of these from the rest, is 
 yet too nearly related to rank as a separate branch. It, 
 is composed of three main dialects : the Old-Prussian, 
 extinct din-ing the past two centuries, the Lithuanian, 
 and the Livonian or Lettish ; all clustered about the 
 great bend of the Baltic. The Lithuanian is the most 
 important and the oldest, having records from the mid- 
 dle of the sixteenth century. It exhibits in some re- 
 npects a remarkable conservation of ancient material 
 and form.
 
 CELTIC AND ITALIC BRANCHES. 133 
 
 The Celtic branch is one which from the beginning 
 of history has been shrinking in extent, till it now oc- 
 cupies only the remotest western edges of the immense 
 region of western and central Europe which it formerly 
 possessed. Not enough is known of the ancient Celtic 
 dialects of northern Italy, of Gaul, of Spain, to show 
 \\hat was their place in the sub-classification of the 
 branch. The preserved dialects compose two groups, 
 usually called the Cymric and Gadhelic. The Cymric 
 includes the Welsh, with " glosses " from the ninth cen- 
 tury or thereabouts, and a literature from the twelfth, 
 but of which part of the substance is probably older, 
 even up to the sixth ; the Cornish, which became ex- 
 tinct as a vernacular about the end of the last century, 
 leaving a considerable literature nearly as old as the 
 Welsh ; and the Armorican of Brittany, so nearly allied 
 to the Cornish that it is believed to belong to- fugitives 
 from that part of England ; its earliest records are of 
 the fourteenth century. The Gadhelio-group includes 
 the Irish, which has monuments going back to the end 
 of the eighth century, the Scotch Gaelic, of which the 
 earliest remains are attributed to the sixteenth, and the 
 insignificant dialect of the Isle of Man. 
 
 The Italic branch is represented among living lan- 
 guages only by the Romanic dialects, so called as being 
 ill descended from the dialect of Rome, the Latin. Wo 
 have already noticed some particulars affecting their 
 history and their importance. They all rose at not far 
 from the same period namely, the eleventh to the thir- 
 teenth centuries out of the condition of local j;atoi 
 products of the corruption of the popular speech while 
 the Latin continued the language of the learned. Frag- 
 ments of French are oldest, coming from the tenth 
 century; its literature begins one or two centuries later;
 
 184 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 the earliest Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, arc from the 
 twelfth, or hardly earlier. These four are the conspicu- 
 ous modern members of the group. But there was also, 
 in the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, a rich litera- 
 ture of the chief dialect of southern France, the Pro 
 vcncal, which, except for a recent sporadic effort or two, 
 lias been ever since unused as a cultivated tongue. 
 There exists, too, in the northern provinces of Turkey, 
 in "\Vallachia and Moldavia, a broad region of less culti- 
 vated Romanic speech, witness to the spread of Roman 
 supremacy eastward : it is destitute of a proper litera- 
 ture. Moreover, certain dialects of southern Switzer- 
 land are enough unlike Italian to be ordinarily ranked 
 as an independent tongue, under the name of Rhseto- 
 Ro manic, or Riimansh, or Ladine. 
 
 The ancient members of the Italic branch, coordi- 
 nate with the Latin, were long ago crowded out of ex- 
 istence ; but a few remains of them are still left, es- 
 pecially of the Umbrian, north from Rome beyond the 
 Apennines, and of the Oscan of southern Italy. The 
 Litin itself, in its oldest monuments, reaches hardly 
 three centuries beyond the Christian era, appearing 
 there in a form which seems very strange, and is hardly 
 intelligible, to those who have learned only the culti- 
 vated dialect of the last century B. c. 
 
 The Greek branch attains a much greater age, those 
 masterpieces of human genius, the poems of Homer, 
 being nearly or quite a thousand years older than out 
 era. From about 3<>0 B. c., all Greek is written in the 
 .'Utic or Athenian dialect, as all modern German liteia- 
 ture in the Xew High-German; but before that time, 
 iis in the Old High-German period, each author used 
 more or less distinctly his own local dialect ; and in thia 
 way, as well as, more widely but less abundantly, by
 
 IRANIAN BRANCH. 185 
 
 inscriptions and the like, we have a tolerably full repre- 
 sentation of the local varieties into wliich the Greek 
 had divided in prehistoric times. There is, of course, 
 a similar variety of dialects now ; but only one is writ- 
 ton, and it is called Modern Greek, or Romaic ; it la 
 less altered from the classic Greek than is the Italian 
 frjm the Latin. Notwithstanding the wide sway of 
 Greek civilization, the spread of Greek empire under 
 Alexander and his successors, and the unexcelled char- 
 acter of the language, the latter has had a limited and 
 inconspicuous career as compared with the Latin : out 
 of Greece itself, it is spoken only on the islands and 
 shores of the JEgean, and along the northern and 
 southern edges of Asia Minor. 
 
 The next branch is the Persian, or properly Iranian, 
 since Persia is only one among the many provinces con- 
 stituting the territory of Iran (Airyana, the home of 
 the western Aryans). It has two ancient representa- 
 tives : the Old Persian, or Achaemenidan Persian, of 
 Darius and his successors ; and the^language of the 
 Avesta, the so-called Zend, or Avestan, or Old Bactrian. 
 The former, of determinate date (five centuries B. c.), is 
 read in the cuneiform inscriptions, recently deciphered ; 
 of the other, the date is unknown ; it may be older or 
 younger. The Avesta is the Bible of the Zoroastrian 
 iaith, of which the date and place of origin are obscure ; 
 It is believed to reach beyond 1000 B. c. ; and if parts of 
 the record are, as they claim to be, from Zoroaster him- 
 self, they have this antiquity. The modern votaries of 
 ilie religion, and the keepers of its sacred books, are th 
 Parsis of western India, fugitives from Mohammedau 
 persecution in their native land. With the Avesta, 
 Ihey have preserved a version of it in the Iluzvaresh or 
 Pehlevi, of the time of the Sassanids, a dialect of p* 
 13
 
 186 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 culiar and problematical character. The Modern Per- 
 sian literature, abundant and rich, begins from about 
 A.I). 1000, after the country had been ground over in 
 Uie Mohammedan mill. 
 
 These arc the languages composing the main body of 
 Iranian speech. The Kurdish is only a strongly-marked 
 dialect of Persian ; and nearly the same thing may be 
 said of the Beluchi, the leading language of Beluchistan. 
 The Ossetic, in a little district of the Caucasus, is plainly, 
 but more distantly, related. The Afghan, or Pushto, 
 near the passes that lead from Iran into India, is of Ira- 
 nian kindred. Finally, the Armenian, of which the con- 
 siderable literature goes back to the fifth century, is gen- 
 erally, though not without recent question by certain 
 authorities, regarded as Iranian in fundamental type. 
 
 The branch of Indo-European language in India does 
 not cover the whole of that vast territory ; the Dravid- 
 ian race, which was doubtless crowded out by the in- 
 truHve Aryans in the north, still occupies the main 
 central part of the southern peninsula, the Dekhan. 
 The earliest of Indo-European tongues is the Sanskrit, 
 especially its earlier or Vedic dialect, the dialect of the 
 religious hymns, which, with auxiliary literature of 
 somewhat later date, became the Bible of the Hindus, 
 the so-called Veda. At the period of the oldest hymns, 
 the Sanskrit-speaking peoples appear to have been not 
 yet in possession of the great Gauge? basin, but nearly 
 or quite confined, rather, to the valleys of the Indus ana 
 rtri branches, in the northwestern corner, the region 
 bordering nearest on Iran. The date is incapable of 
 being determined with any exactness ; probably it was 
 nearly or quite 2000 B. c. The classical Sanskrit is a 
 dialect which, at a later period, after the full posses- 
 sion of Hindustan and the development of Brahmaiiism
 
 INDIAN BRANCH. 187 
 
 out of the simpler and more primitive religion and 
 polity of Vedic times, became established as the literary 
 language of the whole country, and has ever since main- 
 tained that character, being still learned for writing and 
 speaking in the native schools of the Brahraanic priest- 
 hood. From the fact that inscriptions in a later form 
 of Indian language are found dating from the third cen- 
 tury B. c., it is inferred that the Sanskrit must at least 
 as early as that have ceased to be a vernacular tongue. 
 The next stage of Indian language, to which the in- 
 scriptions just referred to belong, is called the Prakri- 
 tic. One Prakrit dialect, the Pali, became in its turn 
 the sacred language of southeastern Buddhism, and is 
 still taught and learned as such in Ceylon and Farther 
 India ; the others are represented partly in the Sanskrit 
 dramas, as the unlearned speech of the lower orders of 
 characters, and partly by a limited literature of their 
 own. Finally, there are the modern dialects of India, 
 numerous and various, but rudely classifiable under 
 the three comprehensive names of Hidi, Mahratti, and 
 Bengali, having literatures of more recent origin. The 
 so-called Hindustani, or Urdu, is Hindi with a great in- 
 fusion of Arabic and Persian words, introduced by Mo- 
 hammedan influence. 
 
 The boundaries of tliis great family are more dis- 
 tinctly drawn than those of any other. But they are 
 not absolute or immovable. There are one or two 
 isolated tongues in Europe which may yet be pro- 
 nounced Indo-European. Thus, the Skipetar, or lan- 
 guage of the Albanians, on that part of the west coast 
 of European Turkey which lies close opposite tho heel 
 of Italy : it is believed to be the representative of the 
 ancient Illyrian, and more probably Indo-European tlian 
 anything else. And the Etruscan, the obscure and
 
 188 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 much-discussed tongue of that peculiar people with 
 whose relations to the early Eonians, until finally con- 
 quered and assimilated by Rome, every school-boy ia 
 familiar, after being assigned to almost every distant 
 race on earth, has recently (1874) even been declared 
 Indo-European and Italican by scholars of high rank 
 and authority ; their opinion, however, is generally re- 
 jected. It is evident enough that in theory such cases 
 of doubtful classification are to be expected. There ia 
 no limit to the degree to which a language may, by 
 special disturbing causes, become altered in its material 
 and structure, even to the eifectual disguise of its ori- 
 ginal relationships. 
 
 There are many reasons why the Indo-European 
 family is of predominant importance among the lan- 
 guages of the world ; why it has thus far received a 
 very large share of the attention of linguistic scholars, 
 and must always continue to receive, even if not the 
 same share as hitherto, yet a larger than any other fam- 
 ily. The least of these reasons is that it is our own 
 family ; though that is, after all, no illegitimate plea in 
 enhancement of the interest with which it is invested 
 for us. Of more importance is the circumstance that 
 it belongs to the race which has long been the leading 
 one in the history of the world, and which at the present 
 day, as for some time past, has not even a rival. The 
 grand and highly-developed institutions of great nations 
 are those which most demand and best repay study. 
 The tongues and the history of the Greeks and Romans 
 are that part of antiquity which will continue to form, 
 even as it constitutes at present, a leading subject in all 
 liberal education. And the whole history of Indo- 
 European language will have its share by reflection in 
 this educational value, because it casts light on the stud?
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THIS FAMILY. 189 
 
 of Greek and Latin, of the Komanic languages, of the 
 Germanic languages, of the Slavonic languages, on all 
 that is nearest and dearest to those nations which are 
 pursuing the study. 
 
 But there are other and more imperative reasons 
 why the study of Indo-European language has been tho 
 training-ground of the science of language ; why the two 
 have almost grown up together, and in the minds of 
 some have even perhaps been confused and identified 
 with one another. The student has at best a most im- 
 perfect and fragmentary record before him. If the 
 whole history of human speech were represented by a 
 great sheet of paper, the part of it to be marked as 
 known, or as accessible to direct knowledge, would be 
 almost ludicrously small. For most human races, only 
 the present spoken dialects lie within reach ; then a few 
 lines of light mu back into the past to various distances 
 toward the Christian era ; a much smaller number be- 
 yond that point ; four or five, probably, iftto the second 
 thousand years before Christ ; and ouly one, the Egyp- 
 tian, to a time considerably remoter yet. And how 
 much of language-history, as of human history in every 
 department, may lie behind even that point, we are 
 only recently beginning to realize. Such being the 
 rendition of the whole field, how was a fruitful begin- 
 ning to be made except just as it has been made name- 
 ly, by taking up that body of historically-related facts 
 which was widest in its range, deepest and most abun- 
 dant in its penetration of the past, and most advanced 
 in its development out of original conditions? By 
 grasping this and reducing it to manageable order, dis- 
 covering the general hidden under the particular, tracing 
 tendencies and laws, the student might hope to acquire 
 the ability to deal with other like bodies of facts, of
 
 [90 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 narrower range and offering less abundant facilities. 
 The character of preeminence in this line belongs to the 
 Indo-European, beyond dispute and beyond comparison : 
 where we have equal or greater penetration of the past, 
 as in Egyptian, Chinese, and the Semitic tongues, thcro 
 is either (as in the two former) a peculiar jejuncness of 
 development, or at any rate (as in the last) a variety 
 and wealth which is greatly inferior. To blame philolo- 
 gists, therefore, for their devotion hitherto to Indo- 
 European study is in the highest degree unreasonable ; 
 one might as properly blame historians for their devo- 
 tion to the study of European civilization and of its 
 sources in the past. To cast reproach upon them, more- 
 over, for their attention to the past, to the partially 
 understood records of extinct and almost forgotten 
 tongues, and to declare that the true and fruitful field 
 for linguistic research is the living and spoken dialects 
 of the present day, is not less narrow and erroneous. It 
 overlooks the character of linguistics as a historical sci- 
 ence ; it forgets that the explanation of the present ia 
 by the past, and that the record of by-gone conditions 
 casts on existing conditions a light that nothing else could 
 yield. More precisely, it exaggerates and pushes for- 
 ward unduly the equally true fact that the comprehension 
 of the past is complete only by the help of the present. 
 It would be most unfortunate to check the zeal of those 
 who are submitting present language to the most rigor- 
 ous investigation, especially on its phonetic side, or to 
 cast the slightest reflection on the deep and far-reach- 
 ing value of their work ; there is hardly another more 
 promising direction of linguistic inquiry : only they, on 
 their side, should refrain from impliedly contemning 
 their predecessors, and should realize that they are strik- 
 ing in now when the way is prepared for making their
 
 IMPORTANCE OF ITS STUDY. 19] 
 
 labors fruitful. So the minute study of the customs, 
 institutions, beliefs, and myths of rude peoples now ex- 
 isting was, not long ago, comparatively a mere matter 
 of curiosity ; it gains its most valuable bearing from tlie 
 etudy of civilization in its historical development. It 
 was of little use to watch and study nebula until geolo- 
 gy and astronomy together had learned so much about 
 the constitution and history of our solar system as to 
 have found out how to interpret the facts observed. 
 
 So also, in the claims here put forth as to the pri- 
 ority and preeminence of the Indo-European tongues as 
 a subject of linguistic study, there is nothing which 
 must be in the slightest degree understood as depreciat- 
 ing the importance of the study of other families, even 
 its indispensability to the comprehension of Indo-Euro- 
 pean language itself. The science of language is what 
 its name implies, a study of all human speech, of every 
 existing and recorded dialect, without rejection of any, 
 for obscurity, for remoteness, for IOWR^SS of develop 
 ment. The time has come when qoiestions are rising 
 in abundance in the history of Indo-European speech 
 which cannot possibly be answered until the languages 
 of lower organization are more thoroughly understood. 
 And it must be distinctly laid down as a fundamental 
 principle in linguistics, that no fact inhuman expression 
 is fully estimated, until it is seen in the light of related 
 facts all through the domain of universal expression. 
 Only, it is not possib'e, in philology any more than in 
 other branches of study, to help letting facts arrange 
 themselves along certain leading lines, and converge 
 their light where light is most desired. 
 
 We have reached, as was seen above, the certain 
 conclusion that all the known Indo-European lan- 
 guages are descended from a single dialect, which raurt
 
 193 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 have been spoken at some time in the past by a single 
 limited community, by the spread and emigration of 
 which not, certainly, without incorporating also bodies 
 of other races than that to which itself belonged by ori- 
 gin it has reached its present wide distribution : even 
 as a similar process, in historical times, has brought its 
 two leading modern branches to fill the New World, a 
 region almost vaster than that which it occupies in the 
 Old. Of course, it would be a matter of the highest 
 interest to determine the place and period of this im- 
 portant community, were there any means of doing so; 
 but that is not the case, at least at present. As for the 
 time, the less said about that the better, in this transi- 
 tional period of opinion as to the age of man on the 
 earth. The question whether the first man was born 
 only G,fi(H) years ago, or 12,000, or 100,000, or 1,000,000, 
 as the new schools of anthropology are beginning to 
 claim, is one of which the decision must exercise a con- 
 trolling influence on that which we have here in view. 
 As for the testimony of language itself, there is none, 
 of any authority ; the philologists will doubtless claim 
 that they do not see how to compress the growth of 
 Indo-European language into the shortest of the periods 
 named, but they have not yet found a rule with which 
 to measure the time they actually need. To give even 
 a conjecture at present would be foolish. 
 
 Nor is the place perceptibly easie'r to determine. 
 Man has ever been a migratory animal, and if he has 
 had a million years, or a tenth part of the number, to 
 wander in, it must be next to impossible to fix the 
 starting-point of any division of the race. How little 
 could be inferred as to the history of movement of the 
 Celts from their present distribution ! If some barbar 
 ous race had conquered and exterminated or absorbed
 
 PLACE OF INDO-EUROPEAN UNITY. 193 
 
 the Germans of the continent, what erroneous conclu- 
 sions might not be drawn from their presence only in 
 Scandinavia and Iceland ! And there are probabilities 
 of just as baffling occurrences in the history of the Indo- 
 Europeans. Men have long, and on well-known grounds, 
 been accustomed to look upon the southwestern part of 
 Asia as the cradle of the human race ; and, mainly un- 
 der the influence of this opinion, so long rooted that it 
 sways the minds even of those who reject the authority 
 of the testimony on which it is founded, it is by many 
 asserted with great confidence that the Ilmdu-Kush 
 mountain-region, or that Bactria, is the Indo-European 
 cradle : the only bit of tangible evidence which they are 
 able to allege being that that is the region where the 
 Iranians and Indians separated, and that the Iranian and 
 Indian dialects are the most primitive of the family. But 
 to plead this is equivalent to maintaining that slowness 
 or rapidity of change in language is dependent on stabil- 
 ity or change of place in the speaking community : which 
 is so grossly wrong that it needs no refutation. In fact, 
 the condition of these languages is reconcilable with any 
 possible theory as to the original site of the family. As 
 to the interconnections of the different branches with one 
 another, the best scholars have for some years past been 
 settling down upon the opinion that the separation of 
 the five European branches from one another must have 
 been later than their common separation from the two 
 Asiatic branches, which latter then continued to exist as 
 one community almost down to the historical period. 
 Upon this last point, there is unanimity of opinion ; tho 
 oldest forms of Persian and Indian speech are as closely 
 like one another as, for instance, the more dissimilar of 
 the Germanic dialects ; the two branches are ranked to- 
 gether under the common name of "Aryan;" and the
 
 [94 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Indian branch is thought to have parted from the com- 
 mon home in northeastern Iran not very much earlier 
 than 2000 B.C. Within the European grand division, 
 the Germanic and Slavonic are by nearly all regarded 
 as specially related ; opinions are more nearly divided 
 as to whether the Celtic is a wholly independent branch, 
 or closely akin with the Italican. In all this there is 
 evidently nothing which should point our eyes definitely 
 toward an original home. The separation of Aryan 
 from European may just as well be due to a spread 
 and migration of the former into Asia as of the latter 
 into Europe : and localities in Europe as well as in 
 Asia have actually been pitched upon by eminent 
 scholars. But it is useless to pretend to come to a 
 definite conclusion where the data are so indefinite. 
 Evidences of real weight bearing on the question may 
 possibly yet be found ; but certainly none such have 
 been hitherto brought to light. 
 
 Owing to the exceptional abundance of the material 
 for study of the history of Indo-European speech, and 
 the amount of study which has been devoted to it, it is 
 far better understood than is the history of any other 
 division of human language. Partly, therefore, because 
 of the high intrinsic interest of the subject, and partly 
 as a standard of reference in the treatment of the struct- 
 ural growth of other languages, we have to follow out 
 in a little detail, though still with all possible brevity, 
 the ascertained history of the common foundation of tho 
 Indo-European languages. 
 
 But we have first to consider the question if, in- 
 deed, it can be called a question as to how the prehis- 
 torical periods of language are to be investigated. Not 
 even the Indo-European has more than a small part of 
 iia history illustrated by contemporary documents : liow
 
 METHOD OF PREHISTORIC STJDY. 195 
 
 are we to learn anything beyond the point where the 
 records fail us? The answer, it is believed, is a plain 
 and a confident one: we have to study the forces at 
 work under our observation, and the methods of their 
 working ; and we have to carry them back into the p:ist 
 by careful analogical reasoning, inferring from similar 
 effects to similar causes, just as far as the process can be 
 made to work legitimately, never assuming new forces 
 and modes of action except where the old ones are abso- 
 lutely incapable of furnishing the explanation we are 
 seeking and, even then, only under the most careful 
 restrictions. This is the familiar method of the modern 
 inductive sciences ; and its applicability to the science of 
 language also is beyond all reaso/nable doubt. The paral- 
 lel between linguistics and geology, the most historical of 
 the physical sciences, is here closest and most instructive ; 
 and it has often been resorted to for illustration. The 
 geologist infers the mode of formation of ancient sand- 
 stones and conglomerates from that of modern sand- 
 banks and gravel and pebble-beds ; .and so on, through 
 the whole series of strata, sedimentary and eruptive ; he 
 accounts for the occurrence of fossils by the engulfing 
 or burying of extant species. And the true geologic 
 method has been so thoroughly worked out, and is so 
 strictly applied, that the scientific man who abandons it, 
 and resorts to arbitrary hypotheses, even to account for 
 facts which for the time seem unexplaiuable by ordi- 
 nary means, ia at once put down as " unscientific," ami 
 bidden to wait until the growth of knowledge shall 
 bring around the possibility of solving his problem, 
 if it shall finally be found soluble, in an admissible 
 way. 
 
 Of course, the circumstances and conditions of action 
 of the same forces may differ greatly. The admission
 
 196 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 of the unity of geologic history by no means implies 
 that the earth has always worn the same aspect as at 
 present ; it is even a prevailing opinion among geolo- 
 gists that the whole solar system was once a nebulous 
 mass c f whirling vapor ; but this result is reached by 
 the inductive method. The essential unity of linguistic 
 history, in all its phases and stages, must be made the 
 cai linal principle of the study of language, if this is to 
 bear a scientific character. To assume outright, as some 
 do, either explicitly or impliedly, that ancient modes of 
 language-making were and must have been different 
 from modern, and that the former are not to be judged 
 by the latter, would, if linguistic science were as ma- 
 tured and well-established a branch of study as geology, 
 be enough to exclude the assumer from the ranks of 
 scientific linguists. Here, again, the difference of con- 
 ditions, of the grade of historic development, has to be 
 fully allowed for; and the student may arrive at the 
 recognition of a primitive condition of language to 
 which the present is as unlike as a civilized country, 
 teeming with the public and private works of its inhab- 
 itants, is unlike the wilderness through which the sav- 
 age roams ; or even as the existing cosmos is unlike the 
 nebulous chaos ; yet the present must be regarded aa 
 the consequence of a gradual accumulation of results in 
 one unbroken line of action. We must beware, too, of 
 claiming that we understand the present forces and their 
 action in all points so thoroughly that we can judge the 
 past by them completely, or even that processes which 
 would now strike us as anomalous may not come here- 
 after to appear regular ; but we are authorized to ref use 
 to admit them until a clear case shall be made out in 
 their favor ; they are never to be granted as postulates. 
 we have seen above, in the chapters devoted to
 
 SYNTHETIC FORM-MAKING. 197 
 
 detailed examination of the changes of language, that 
 the general effort of language-making is toward the pro- 
 vision of expression, for the needs of communication 
 and the uses of thought, by such means as lie most avaiJ- 
 aMy at hand; that a prominent part of the movement 
 is the reduction of coarser and more physical, material, 
 sensible designations to finer and more formal uses, both 
 by constant shifts of meaning, by the attenuation of 
 words once of full material meaning to the value of 
 form-words, and by the conversion of words formerly 
 independent into formative elements, suffixes and pre- 
 fixes, signs of modified meaning or of relation attached 
 to and forming part of other words. In the earliest 
 traceable condition of our language, the use of forma- 
 tive elements was the prevailing means of denoting 
 relations, so much so as to constitute the distinctive 
 characteristic of the common Indo-European language ; 
 and to explain this feature is to explain Indo-European 
 growth. 
 
 It was in the simple practice of composition that we 
 found (p. 120 seq.} the germ of synthetic form-making ; 
 and we noticed a number of real f onns as made by this 
 means, with the help of only those tendencies which are 
 universally prevalent in human speech. The adverbial 
 endings ly and (French) ment, the tense-signs d and 
 (French) ai, the derivative suffixes less and dom, and so 
 on, am, in all respects, precisely as true and as good for- 
 mative elements as anything in Indo-European speech ; 
 it is only the historical student, not the speaker, who 
 knows them as different from the * of loves and the tk 
 of truth, which go back for their origin to a period 
 greatly remote in comparison. And all form-making 
 of which we know anything in the historical jwriod ia 
 of this same kind, by external accretion ; all the caMf
 
 [98 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 of an apparently different character (we exemplified 
 them by man and men, read and read, sing and sang) 
 being demonstrably inorganic, accidental, results of the 
 putting to use of a difference of secondary value, 
 wrought out by phonetic change from forms originally 
 made by concretion. 
 
 This being so, we are required by the principles of 
 inductive investigation to endeavor to make this sole 
 recognizable method of formation found active in his- 
 torical times explain the growth of Indo-European lan- 
 guage in the ancient times. If it is sufficient, we are 
 not only not called upon, but actually forbidden, to 
 bring in any other method to aid ; or, at any rate, noth- 
 ing but the most direct and cogent evidence can have 
 the right to compel our admission of any other. And 
 such evidence is by no means to be found in our simple 
 inability to trace any given element or elements, or even 
 a great many such, to the independent words out of 
 which they grew, and to describe the series of changes 
 of fonn and meaning which converted the one into the 
 other. The linguistic record is too hopelessly frag- 
 mentary for that. As every period in the changeful 
 life of the earth denudes or covers up or dislocates a 
 part of the record of geological succession, so the 
 changes of every age contribute to break the continu- 
 ity of linguistic succession, in every part in the trans- 
 fers of meaning, in the formation of words, in the 
 making of means of derivation. While there is so 
 much in the peculiar and recent formations of even the 
 Gormanic and Romanic languages that baffles the in- 
 quirer and seems to defy explanation, it would be most 
 unreasonable to expect that words and forms of vastly 
 more ancient growth will be completely and in all parts 
 ini enable to analysis. If we can find any trustworthy
 
 PRIMITIVE ROOT-PERIOD. 199 
 
 evidences of the operation of the method of combina- 
 tion in the earliest synthetic forms, we have the right 
 to assume it, in default of proof to the contrary, to 
 have been the sole operative principle, then as well as 
 later. 
 
 And it is claimed by the leading school of compara- 
 tive philology that the principle in question is actually 
 sufficient to account for the whole structure of Indo- 
 European language ; that the latter presents no forma 
 which demand the admission of any other genesis than 
 by addition of element to element ; that wherever, by 
 our analytical processes, we succeed in detaching from a 
 word a subordinate part, indicating some modification 
 or relation of a radical idea, there we are to recognize 
 the trace of a formerly independent word, which has 
 lost its independence and become an affix, by the same 
 processes which have made love-did into loved, true-like 
 into truly, habere habeo into aurai, verd mente into vrai- 
 merit, and so on. 
 
 But in this doctrine is involved another very impor- 
 tant one : that, namely, of a primitirB body of mono- 
 syllabic roots as the historical beginnings of Indo- 
 European speech-development. Its necessity as a corol- 
 lary from the former is clear enough : if all formative 
 elements come by accretion and integration, then only 
 that can have been original which is left when these 
 have been stripped off, to the very last one : and what 
 is left is the root ; and it is, in our family of language, 
 a monosyllable. This is the doctrine actually held by 
 n.ost students of language ; the dissidents are few, and 
 have nothing to say, in defense of their unbelief, ex- 
 cept what is easily refuted as misapprehension or want 
 of logical consistency. Though at iirst sight repellent 
 to some, it involves nothing that has a right to trouble
 
 200 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 the scientific inquirer, any more than the acceptance of 
 a primitive state of rudeness with reference to the arts 
 of life or the condition of knowledge. And as there 
 are races now living on the earth which have never 
 g: lined command of more than the simplest tools, modes 
 of dress and shelter, and the like, so (as we shall see 
 more particularly in the twelfth chapter) there are those 
 which have never developed their language out of this 
 radical stage. If we see in later times conjugational 
 and declensional inflections formed and brought into 
 use, there can be no invincible obstacle in the way of 
 our reasoning back to a time when such things did not 
 exist; if we see parts of speech like prepositions, con- 
 junctions, and articles coming into being, we may regard 
 as possible a period when the first distinction of parts of 
 speech was made. Whether such possibilities were ever 
 realities, is a matter to be determined by sufficient scien- 
 tific evidence. 
 
 It is to be noticed that this doctrine does not commit 
 us to the recognition of any actually traceable list of 
 roots as being the beginnings of development in our 
 family. If it shall be shown hereafter as it is already 
 shown, or at least made probable, with regard to some 
 that any of the elements now generally regarded as 
 roots are of composite structure, containing a formative 
 element fused with a root (as in our count, cost, preach, 
 etc., noticed above, p. 55), this will only push the name 
 and quality of roots one step further back. The firm 
 foundation of the theory of roots lies in its logical ne- 
 cessity as an inference from the doctrine of the histori- 
 cal growth of grammatical apparatus. It is to be no- 
 ticed further that the question of roots as the histori- 
 cal beginnings of language is quite distinct from that 
 of the origin of language, which we do not take up untiJ
 
 ROOTS. 201 
 
 tater (fourteenth chapter); the one is exclusively lin 
 guistic, the other partly anthropological. 
 
 The Indo-European roots, then, are the elements 'of 
 speech which existed prior to the whole development of 
 the means of grammatical distinction, before the growth 
 of inflection, before the separation of the parts of 
 qjcech. They indicated each some conception in entire 
 indefiniteness as concerns its relations, neither viewed 
 as the concrete name of an object, nor as attribute only, 
 nor as predicate ; but as equally ready to turn to the 
 purpose of any of the three. This is a state of things 
 which we, w r ith our habits of speech and thought, find 
 it very hard to realize, but which is brought compara- 
 tively within reach of our apprehension by making 
 acquaintance with existing tongues of a low grade of 
 development. The roots, however, are not all of one 
 homogeneous class ; there is a little body of so-called 
 pronominal or demonstrative roota which are distin- 
 guished from the rest as signifying position or direction 
 with reference to the speaker, rather than any more 
 concrete quality. They are very few,~and of the sim- 
 plest phonetic form : a vowel only, or a consonant with 
 following vowel. That they are ultimately distinct 
 from the roots of the other class, and were not rather 
 developed out of these by attenuation of meaning, as 
 form-words in the later stages of language-hitrtory, many 
 si udents of language are very loath to bulieve, and not 
 without reason ; but the distinction is one which must, 
 it seems, at any rate be admitted as antecedent to the 
 whole growth of Indo-European forms ; nor have tho 
 bt tempts to identify the one class with the other been 
 as yet at all successful. The point is one of which tho 
 complete solution will probably be possible only \vheu 
 the languages of lower order shall have come to bo more 
 14
 
 202 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 widely and deeply understood ; perhaps the early devel 
 opment of such a class of form-words was the first sign 
 of that linguistic aptitude which has always distin- 
 guished this family, and prepared the way for its after- 
 evolution. The other class, commonly called verbal or 
 predicative roots, were significant in general of sucli 
 acts and qualities as are apprehensible by the senses, 
 and were much more numerous, counting by hundreds : 
 examples are at a (Greek '(CTTIJ/JLI, Lat. stare, our 'stand] 
 etc.), da, 'give' (BiBto/ii, dare], par, 'pass' (Trepdco, ex- 
 per-ior,faki'en,fare, etc.), wid, ' see ' (olSa, video, weiss, 
 tout, etc.), and s< * on. 
 
 An early (perh.ips the first) and most important act 
 in the history of lingui.-tic development out of these 
 rather s.-aiity beginnings was that whereby a separation 
 was made between noun ('substantive aud adjective) and 
 The essence of a verb is that it predicates or 
 ; and the establishment of a distinct form by 
 which predication >ha!l be signified has by no means 
 been reached in all languages. There are many tongues 
 which do not formally distinguish giving (adjective or 
 substantive; and gift from gives: they put the subject 
 and predicate side by side, as 'he giver,' 'he good,' and 
 leave the mind to supply the lacking copula. The mak- 
 ing of a verb is nothing more than the establishment 
 of certain combinations of elements in an exclusively 
 predicative use, the supplying of a copula in connection 
 with them and not with others. This was accomplished 
 by adding certain pronominal elements to the verbal 
 clement: da-mi, da-si, dd-tl ; the former having al- 
 ready gained at least a quasi-personal significance, as 
 designating that which is nearer or remoter. Precisely 
 how we shall explain da-mi, for instance whether as 
 meaning more ' give I,' or ' giving (adj.) I,' or * giving
 
 VERBAL FORMS. ^03 
 
 (subst.) mine,' or ' giving here ' seems a matter not 
 worth contending about ; since, at the period in ques- 
 tion, noun and adjective and verb were equally present 
 in tho one element, and pronoun and adverb in the 
 other; and there was as jet no distinction of * I ' ami 
 'mine.' The combinations adduced above gave three 
 verbal persons ; they were made exclusively singular in 
 iiumber by the addition of a plural and a dual, most 
 often explained (though very doubtfully) as formed 
 by a composition of pronominal elements in the end- 
 ing : masij for example, being ma-si 1 1 [and] you,' i. e. 
 ' we.' The forms thus made contained no implication 
 of time, were not properly a "tense;" but a past was 
 by-and-by made by prefixing an adverbial element, the 
 " augment " of the Greek, pointing to a ' then ' as ad- 
 junct of the action : a-dd-mi, l then give I,' i. e. ' 1 
 gave ; ' and the form, by reason of the accented addition 
 at the beginning, was shortened at the end, to dddm 
 (Skt. dddrn, Gr. eBo>v) whence the distinction between 
 secondary and primary endings, conspicuous in some of 
 the languages of. the family. But yet another tense, of 
 completed action, was made by reduplication or repeti- 
 tion of the root: dd-dd-mi, 'give-give I,' i. e. ' 1 have 
 given ' (the reduplication being then variously abbre- 
 viated) ; and this in Latin and Germanic has become the 
 general preterit, the augment-tense having been lost ; 
 our sa?ig, held, etc., are its descendants. As handed 
 down to us, however, few of the " present " tenses of 
 Indo-European verbs are of the simple formation abovo 
 illustrated ; more usually, the root appears in some way 
 extended, either by another reduplication (Skt. daddmi, 
 Or. 8t'8o>/u), or by the addition of sundry formative 
 elements (Lat. cer-no, cre-sco, Gr. Sdft-vrj-fju, BeU-w-fU, 
 etc., etc.) : all of them supposed to' have been at first
 
 204 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE 
 
 means employed for denoting the continuousness of an 
 action, like our am giving, though they later lost their 
 restriction to this sense. In some verbs, along with the 
 new present and its continuous preterit or proper " im- 
 perfect," the preterit and moods of the simpler root 
 were retained in use, with a more undefined past mean- 
 ing, becoming the Greek (and Sanskrit) "second aorist 5 ' 
 (as e'S<yi>, ddd/n, beside imperfect e&lSwv, ddaddin). For 
 other verb?, a tense of like value was formed by help 
 of a sibilant, $, of doubtful origin, making what is 
 called in Greek the first aorist. Besides these, a fu- 
 ture, al-o containing the same sibilant sign, was 
 made before the separation of the branches, and is best 
 retained in Greek and Sanskrit: the full form of its 
 suffix is xijit .- San.-ki'it Jd-*yd-in<, Greek Scocrw (or older 
 &u>cria)), * I will give/ There were some imperative 
 persons, with no special mood-sign, but with peculiar 
 endings. Of other moods, there were a subjunctive 
 and an optative, marked by insertions between root and 
 ending, of somewhat doubtful character. Then, finally, 
 there was a reflexive or "middle" voice for all thei-o 
 various forms, with its characteristic in the personal 
 endings themselves: an extension of them, prevailingly 
 (but hardly successfully) explained as a repetition, once 
 witli subjective, once with objective. 
 
 This appears to have been the entire fabric of the 
 Indo-European verb prior to the separation of the 
 brandies. It has been variously preserved, contracted, 
 expanded, in the later history of the branches. The 
 Sanskrit has preserved most faithfully the outward 
 forms ; the Greek has best retained the original uses, 
 and has added most, so that its verb is far the richest in 
 the family. The Latin lost much, but added a great 
 variety of modern formations. The Germanic lost all
 
 NOUN AND ADJECTIVE 205 
 
 save present and perfect, with their optative (called by 
 us subjunctive), and with the imperative ; apart from 
 the preterit with did, often already referred to, its ne\v 
 additions have been made in the way of analytic com- 
 bination. To follow out further the details of the verl> 
 histoiy, interesting as the task would be, would take ua 
 (oo long. 
 
 The genesis of the noun as a part of speech, in ita 
 two forms, substantive and adjective, was implied in 
 that of the verb : when one set of forms became dis- 
 tinctly verb, the rest were left as noun. And every- 
 thing in Indo-European speech from predicative roots 
 is by origin either verb or noun, a form either of con- 
 jugation or of declension. On the other hand, the fur- 
 ther we go back, the less are substantive and adjective 
 distinguished from one another ; they are made by the 
 same suffixes, they share the same inflection : things, in 
 fact, are named from their qualities ; and whether the 
 quality-denoting word shall be used ^attributively or 
 appellatively is at the outset a matter of comparative 
 indifference ; though the two come finally to be distinct 
 enough. The characteristic of the noun is the case-end- 
 ing, as that of the verb is the personal ending ; case 
 and number are to the noun what person and number 
 are to the verb, fitting it to enter into definite relations 
 in the sentence. The Indo-European cases are seven, 
 besides the vocative, which is not a case in the same 
 sense with the rest, since it stands in no syntactical 
 relation with anything else. The accusative is the to- 
 case, marking that toward which the action of the verb 
 is immediately directed, and hence becoming also the 
 case of the direct object ; the ablative is the/7wn-caae; 
 the locative, the at- or w-case ; the instrumental, that of 
 adjacency or accompaniment, then of instrument or
 
 206 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 means- the &y-case, in both senses of by. Then tlio 
 dative is the /o/'-case, ami the genitive the of-ca.se, that 
 of general relation or concernment. The nominative, 
 finally, is the case of the subject, and its ending, so far 
 as at present appears, more formal than that of any 
 of the others ; the vocative is most often accordant 
 ^vith it, and has, at any rate, no iniiectional sign of its 
 own. 
 
 The subject of the genesis of the case-endings ia 
 much more obscure than the history of the verb. The 
 genitive suffixes show most signs of kindred with the 
 ordinary sufiix--? of derivation. Pronominal elements 
 seem clearly visible among some of the rest ; but every 
 point is too dntibtful to allow of summary presentment; 
 and for more than this there would be no room here. 
 How the distinctions of number are combined with 
 those of case is bv no means plain ; the endings of sin- 
 gular, dual, and plural have the air of being indepen- 
 dent of one another, nor are there demonstrable indica- 
 tors of number, such as in languages of lower type are 
 often found inserted between theme and ending. Yet 
 the earliest language is mainly free from that diversity 
 of modes of inflection according to which, in the middle 
 period, words are arranged in different " declensions." 
 First, uniformity, at least approximate, of declension in 
 all words ; then correspondence in the declension of 
 themes having the same iinal ; then, the characteristic 
 linals being lost, a confusion of declensions such haa 
 L<*m the general history of development. 
 
 One more matter of distinction, that of gender, is 
 &j mixed up with those of case and number as not to bo 
 completely separable from them. The problem of the 
 treatment of this element in Indo-European language ia 
 still very far from being completely solved. Its foun-
 
 GENDER. 207 
 
 dation appears to lie in the distinction of sex among 
 those creatures which have conspicuous sex ; but such 
 constitute only an exceedingly small part of the crea- 
 tion ; and the distinctions of gender involve everything 
 that exists, and in a manner which is only in the small 
 rst part accordant with natural sex. The world of un- 
 (raceably sexual or of unsexual objects is not, as with 
 ns, relegated to the indifferent "neuter;" great classes 
 of names are masculine or feminine partly by poetical 
 analogy, by an imaginary estimate of their distinctive 
 qualities as like those of the one or the other sex in the 
 higher animals, especially man ; partly by grammatical 
 analogy, by resemblance in formation to words of gen- 
 der already established. At any rate, in the common 
 Indo-European period, all or nearly all attributive words 
 were inflected in three somewhat varying modes, to in- 
 dicate generic distinctions ; and the names of things 
 followed one or other of these modes, and were mas- 
 culine or feminine or neuter. The Distinction was 
 partly in the case-ending, partly in the derivative theme 
 or base, though there was hardly if suffix, derivative 
 or inflectional, that was rigidly of one gender only ; it 
 was most marked as characterizing the feminine ; mas- 
 culine and neuter were hardly separated except in the 
 nominative and accusative cases. 
 
 The noun-inflection was shared also by the pronouns, 
 in all the three varieties of case, number, and gender. 
 In those demonstrative words, however, which acquired 
 a specific personal character, as denoting the speaker 
 mid the spoken-to, gender was undistinguished. And 
 the words of pronominal origin exhibit certain irregu- 
 larities of inflection, different from those of the general 
 mass of nouns. 
 
 Although a case-ending of itself makes a noun, and
 
 208 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 there are many primitive Indo-European nouns which 
 are made by such alone, the great mass of them have 
 other elements interposed between root and ending, 
 which we call suffixes of derivation ; and these even 
 come, in time, to be divided into two well-marked 
 classes : primary, or such as are appended directly to 
 verbal roots ; and secondary, or such as are added only 
 after other derivative endings. Of these, likewise, too 
 few among the most ancient ones are recognizable in 
 their independent character, and traceable through their 
 changes of application, to allow of our illustrating here 
 the method of their growth. But though the subject 
 is full of obscurity in its details, there is no mystery in 
 the principles involved : the processes which have 
 formed modern suffixes are fully capable of having pro- 
 duced also the ancient ones. 
 
 As the two sides of meaning and application in the 
 predicative or verbal roots are verb and noun, so in the 
 demonstrative (which do not make verbs) the two sides 
 may be said to be pronoun and adverb. From the latter 
 class come those earliest words of place and direction, 
 readily convertible also into words of time, which are 
 of adverbial quality. Yet even these appear to be origi- 
 nally and properly case-forms of pronouns : and, in fact, 
 there is no fundamental distinction to be recognized be- 
 tween adverbial suffixes and case-endings. Moreover, 
 the class of adverbs, after being established as a class, 
 continues to receive accessions of case-forms, through 
 its whole history, down to the latest, from which we 
 have already drawn examples (pp. 41, 122). Prepo- 
 sitions, in our sense of the term, are of yet more re- 
 cent origin, created a separate part of speech by the 
 swinging away of certain adverbs from apprehended 
 relation to the verb, and their connection in idea with
 
 PARTICLES AND INTERJECTIONS. 209 
 
 tlie noun-cases which their addition to the verb had 
 caused to be construed with it. "We see them coming 
 into distinct existence in the oldest languages of the 
 family, as the Sanskrit ; and their increase of number 
 and consequence ever since is apparent. Conjunctions, 
 though we nowhere find them absolutely wanting, are 
 of secondary origin, being among the most characteristic 
 products of the historical development of speech. To 
 be able to put clauses together into periods, with due 
 determination of their relation to one another, is a step 
 beyond the power to put words alike determinately to- 
 gether into clauses. 
 
 These are the Indo-European " parts of speech : " 
 that is to say, the main classes of words, liaving restrict- 
 ed application and definite connection, into which the 
 holophrastic (' equivalent to a whole phrase ') utterances 
 of a primitive time have by degrees become divided ; 
 the separated parts, members, of what was once an un- 
 distinguished whole. But theVe is one other class, the 
 interjections, which are not in the same and the proper 
 sense a "part of speech ;" which are, rather, analogous 
 with those all-comprehending signs out of which the 
 rest have come by evolution. A typical interjection is 
 the mere spontaneous utterance of a feeling, capable of 
 being paraphrased into a good set expression for what 
 it intimates: thus, an ah ! or an oh! may mean, accord- 
 ing to its tone, ' I am hurt,' or * am surprised,' or c am 
 pleased,' and so on ; only there is no part of it which 
 means one of the elements of the statement while 
 mother part means another. Yet, such creatures of 
 conventional habit in regard to expression have we be- 
 come by our long use of the wholly conventional ap- 
 paratus of language, that even our exclamations have 
 generally a conventional character, and shade off into
 
 210 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 exclamatory utterance of ordinary terms. A man's feel- 
 ings must be very keenly touched in order to draw out 
 of him a purely natural interjection, in which absolute- 
 ly no trace of the acquired habits of his community 
 shall be perceptible. And the interjeetional employ- 
 ji:ent of common words, or of incomplete phrases, is a 
 TIT\ common tiling in the general use of speech; emo- 
 tion or eagerness causing the usual set framework of the 
 FC'iitence, t!ie combination of subject and predicate, to 
 be thrown aside, and the conspicuous or emphatic ele- 
 ments to 1/e presented alone a real abnegation of the 
 historical development which, under the growing do- 
 minion of consciousness over instinct and of reason 
 over passion, has wrought the sentence out of the root. 
 In this too brief and imperfect sketch of the history 
 of Indo-European speech, no attempt has been made to 
 define the order in which the parts of the inflectional 
 development followed one another. Success is not to be 
 hoped for in any such attempt until the history of less 
 highly developed and of almost undeveloped languages 
 shall be far better understood than it is at present. 
 For, to reason these matters out on Indo-European 
 ground alone is at any rate impossible : the period lies 
 too far back, its evidences are too fragmentary and 
 dillicnlt of interpretation ; we are not competent to 
 judge them. As to the impossibility of determining 
 the absolute time occupied by the history, enough, per- 
 l.aps, has been already said: that it should have taken 
 Jess than a very long time, there is no reason whatever 
 for believing. The whole was a series of successive 
 Etcps, tf which one led to another and these to yet 
 ethers; a growth of habits which were in themselves 
 capacities also ; and each step, the formation of each 
 habit, vras a work of time, not less in the olden timo
 
 SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS. 211 
 
 than it would have to be in the modern period : though 
 whether a work of not less time, we can hardly venture 
 to say, since the rate of growth may fall under the gov- 
 ernment of conditions which we cannot, as yet, fully 
 appreciate. 
 
 There has also been, so far as synthetic structure i 
 concerned, an evident climax, followed by an anti -cli- 
 max, in this history. During the immense prehistoric 
 period, and prior to the separation of the branches from 
 one another, the inflectional system of the noun, and 
 less distinctly that of the verb, reached a fullness which 
 has since undergone a gradual reduction. Not that 
 there has been generally a diminution of ability to ex- 
 press distinctions ; but means of another kind have been 
 more and more resorted to : auxiliaries, form-words, in- 
 stead of suffixes, formative elements in words; and 
 these later means we are accustomed to call analytic, as 
 distinguished from synthetic. He might have loved 
 and he will le loved, as contrasted with their Latin 
 equivalents amavisset and amabitur, may be taken as 
 typical examples of the two modes of expression. This 
 fact has been adduced as evidence against an original 
 radical condition of language, by some scholars, who 
 prefer to assume a primitive period of excessive poly- 
 Byllabism. But with evident injustice; the argument 
 would be a good one only if no such thing as the mak- 
 ing of forms were known in language, but only their 
 wearing-oat and loss. If we see how collocation ami 
 Combination and integration and mutilation and cor- 
 ruption all work in succession .on the same material in 
 every part of language, producing forms and destroying 
 them again, it is plainly within the competency of tho 
 changing circumstances and habits of the language-mak- 
 ing community to give the history of development a
 
 212 INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 climactic form. The constructive methods, once in- 
 augurated, are made effective up to the provision of a 
 sufficient apparatus for the expression of relations ; and 
 for a time, until this point is reached, their efficiency is 
 greater than that of the destructive processes, which 
 also have been all the time at work then the relation 
 ia gradually reversed, and there is more wearing-out 
 than replacement by synthetic means, though this latter 
 also never entirely ceases; collocations remain such, 
 instead of going on to combination and integration ; 
 there is still abundant new provision, but it is of 
 another sort. The habit of construction has changed ; 
 though to a very different degree in the divided parts 
 of the great community. If there is a law which 
 governs this climactic phase of development, it has not 
 yet been worked out and exhibited ; nor is it likely 
 ever to be so, although we can trace some of the deter 
 mining influences which have contributed to bring about 
 the effect. 
 
 It is time now for us to leave the family which has 
 so long occupied us, and to review, in a much briefer 
 manner, the structure of the other grand divisions of 
 human language. But, founding upon the example of 
 historic growth which we have just been studying, it ia 
 desirable first to turn our attention to some general 
 features of the doctrine of linguistic structure.
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE: MATERIAL AND FORM IN LAN 
 GUAGE. 
 
 The distinction of material and form ; examples : number, gender, case, 
 etc., in nouns; comparison and concord of adjectives; time, mood, 
 and other distinctions in verbs. Form by position. Inferences. 
 National and individual prejudices ; comparative value of different 
 languages. A language represents the capacity of its makers. 
 Rude beginnings of all speech. 
 
 To understand, in a general way, the structure of 
 Indo-European speech, in its character and its uses, io 
 to us no difficult task ; the subject is already more or 
 less familiar. Though the parts of this structure 
 which our own language still possesses are but frag- 
 mentary, they are at least akin with the rest, and lead 
 the way to the knowledge of the whole. It is compara- 
 tively a question only of less and more; and many of 
 us know the more, as exhibited in those tongues of the 
 family which have retained a larger share of the origi- 
 nal structure, or have supplied its loss more fully. Wo 
 cannot, however, go on profitably to examine the char- 
 acter of other languages without discussing a little, 
 by way of introduction, the principles of grammatical 
 structure. It will be possible to do this, sufficiently for 
 our purpose, in a wholly simple and unpretentious man- 
 ner, drawing illustration from phenomena with which
 
 214 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 almost every one is familiar, and especially out of oui 
 own English. 
 
 The distinction of the more material and the more 
 formal, relational parts of expression has been noticed 
 and illustrated by us often already. The s of brooks, 
 for example, is formal in relation to "brook as material ; 
 the added letter indicates something subordinate, a 
 modification of the conception of brook, the existence of 
 it in more than one individual : it turns a singular into 
 a plural. Men has the like value as regards man, the 
 means of making the same formal distinction having 
 come to be of a diil'erent kind from the other, an in- 
 ternal change instead of an external. Brooks and men 
 are not mere material; they are ''formed" material, 
 signs for conceptions with one important characteristic, 
 number, added. T>\it then, by simple contrast with 
 them, hi'ouk and -ninn are also " formed;" each implies, 
 not by a sign, but by the absence of an otherwise 
 nece-sary sign to the contrary, restriction to a single 
 article of the kind named. According to our habits of 
 speech, no one of these words, no one of our nouns in 
 general, can be used without a distinct recognition by 
 the mind of the number of things signified. 
 
 I'.ut there are many other definable qualities or cir- 
 cumstances belonging to brooks and men besides num- 
 ber. They arc, for example, of very different sizes. 
 And we have a similar formal means, though only a 
 very limited one, of signifying this : a small brook is to 
 us a brooklet ; a small man, a mannikin. It is perfect- 
 ly conceivable that a language should take constant 
 cognizance of this element of size, distinguishing always 
 Hie large, the medium, and the small individuals of a 
 kind, by diminutives and magnificatives. The Italian 
 almost does as much as that, by a peculiarity which has
 
 GENDER. 21fi 
 
 grown up in it since it became a separate language. 
 But while we cull a small brook a brooklet, we call a 
 large one a week, or a river, or something of that sort ; 
 or we apply small and large to it, in all their varying 
 degrees: and so with gia/nt and dwarf, and all tho 
 limiting adjectives, as applied to man. All this classi- 
 fication which is made by independent words is as truly 
 expression of form as is that which is made by affixes. 
 Another equally real quality, the differences of which 
 are apparent in every case that comes before the mind, 
 is, in many animals, age ; and we can say man, lad, 
 boy, child, infant, etc., as horse and colt, cow and calf, 
 and their like ; and the Latin senex and German greis 
 show the extension of the same system in the other 
 direction, where we have to use the method of descrip- 
 tion by independent words. 
 
 Once more, man in its distinctive sense indicates a 
 male animal, and we have a different word, woman, for 
 a female of the same kind ; and so all through the list 
 of animals in which sex is a conspicuous or an impor- 
 tant distinction : as brother and sister, lull and cow, 
 ram and ewe: nor is there a language in the world 
 which does not do the same. Only, as we have already 
 seen, our own family of languages (along with two 01 
 three others) has erected this distinction of sex into a 
 universal one, like number, making it a test to be ap- 
 plied in the use of every word ; breaking away from 
 the actual limits of sex, and sexual i/ing, as it were, all 
 objects of thought, on grounds which no mortal haa 
 yet been wise enough to discover and point out in do- 
 lail. And, though we in English have abandoned the 
 artificial part of the system, we retain its fundamental 
 distinction by our use of he, she, and it; the test of sex 
 IB to us a real and ever-present one. The modern Per
 
 216 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 sian Las lost from liis language even that degree of gen- 
 eric distinction ; and to him, as to the Turk or the Finn, 
 whose ancestors never acknowledged any grammatical 
 gender, it seems no less strange to use one pronoun for 
 a male being and another for a female than it would 
 <ecui to us to use one for a small, or a young, or a near, 
 or a white object, and another for a large, or an old, or 
 remote, or a black object. And he has really reason 
 on his side ; it is our usage that is the exceptional one, 
 and needs justification. There is in the nature of 
 things no necessity for our choosing among the various 
 accidents of a conception any particular ones, to the 
 exclusion of the rest, as subjects of grammatical dis- 
 tinction although, of course, there may be reason 
 enough why one is practically better worth distinguish- 
 ing than another. There is a second, somewhat anal- 
 ogous yet not identical, distinction made by us, also 
 sok-lv by the use of pronouns namely of who and 
 wJtich or what between persons and non-persons; and 
 the American Indians have one between things animate 
 and things inanimate, with (as in the case of our gen- 
 der) abundant figurative and personifying transfer : 
 either of these is perhaps as valuable in itself, and aa 
 capable of higher uses, as is the Indo-European distinc- 
 tion of the three genders. 
 
 We will notice only one more item in connection 
 with the noun, its cases. Our language has preserved 
 to most of its nouns their old genitive case, though not 
 without restriction of the limits of its former uses. 
 A nd in the pronouns we distinguish the object from 
 the subject or nominative case : he him, they them, etc. 
 Ty this difference, the distinction of subject and object 
 relation is kept so clearly before us that we transfer it 
 in apprehension to the whole class of nouns, and reckon
 
 CASES. 211 
 
 them also as possessing objective cases, though there ia 
 really none such in the language. We do not recognize 
 a dative, though we have some really dative construc- 
 tions as in " I give him the book " because there is 
 not in use even one dative of different form from the 
 accusative. Just so, the Latin and Greek reckon ac- 
 cusatives neuter, though these are not in a single in- 
 stance different from the nominatives, because the two 
 cases are usually unlike in other words ; so the Latin 
 reckons an ablative plural different from the dative, 
 because there is in a part of its words an ablative sin- 
 gular different from the dative. This transfer of a 
 formal distinction only partially made to the words in 
 tfhich it is not made at all is an important feature in 
 the history of forms. Our two or three cases seem to 
 compare but ill with the Sanskrit seven ; yet these 
 compare as ill, in one sense, with the Scythian fifteen 
 or twenty : and, on the one hand, we are able, by the 
 help of another instrumentality, to express all that is 
 expressed by either Sanskrit or Scythian ; while, on the 
 other hand, we imply a great deal more than we or 
 they distinctly express; if we were to use different 
 signs for all the shades of case-relation which we can 
 recognize by analysis in our speech, we should have to 
 multiply our list of prepositions many times. 
 
 For a part of our adjectives of quality, we have 
 forms (strictly, derivative rather than inflectional) de- 
 noting two "degrees" of increment: high, higher^ 
 highest; they seem to have been at the beginning 
 i&ther intensive than strictly comparative. But, aa 
 means of comparison, they cover only a small part 
 of the conceivable ground, and cover it only rudely. 
 The possible degrees of a quality are indefinitely nu- 
 merous, and there are descending as well as ascending 
 
 15
 
 218 STRUCTURE IX LANGUAGE. 
 
 grades, wliich have in theory an equal right to notice : 
 many of them we clearly mark by onr analytic substi- 
 tutes for the old derivatives ; and we frame such kin- 
 dred mean? of expression as are exemplified by reddish 
 and bluish, German rothlich and Udulich (' redlike/ 
 etc. : resembling the quality, but not quite it), French 
 Yougedtre and lleudtre. Most of the later tongues of 
 our family still retain that adaptedness of the qualify- 
 ing adjective, in gender and number and case, to the 
 noun qualified, which, inherited from the time when 
 adjective and substantive were not separated, was char- 
 asteristic of their ancestors ; to this we preserve noth- 
 ing whatever that is correspondent ; that an adjective 
 should change its form on account of the character of 
 the noun it belongs to is as strange to us as to many 
 languages it is that the verb should change its form on 
 account of the character of the subject of which it 
 predicates something. 
 
 In fact, we have almost reduced to a nullity also the 
 concord of the verb and its subject. How there came 
 to be such, we have seen in the foregoing chapter : the 
 endings were the actual subject-pronouns themselves; 
 and the distinction of person and number in the verb 
 was the necessary concomitant and result of that in the 
 pronouns and nouns. Nor is it yet quite a nullity : 
 while we say I love, but thou lovest and he loves, and 
 while ilvey love stands over against he loves, so long shall 
 we continue, by an apprehended extension of these 
 clearly-felt distinctions, to reckon three persons and two 
 numbers in all our verbal inflection. But our triple 
 distinction of persons is far from exhausting the possi- 
 bilities of personal relation ; many tongues have a 
 double first person plural, one inclusive and one exclu- 
 sive of the person or persons addressed : one we whicli
 
 VERBAL FORMS. 
 
 219 
 
 means I and my party ' as opposed to you ; and one 
 that means 'my party and yours,' as opposed to all 
 third persons. Others, again, distinguish genders in 
 verbal inflection : 'lie loves' has one ending, ' elie loves' 
 has another. We have seen that some older languages 
 of our family have a dual number ; and it would be 
 quite as proper in theory, only not so manageable in 
 practice, to have a whole decimal system of numbers, 
 just as of numerals. 
 
 But the attendant circumstances which present them- 
 selves for inclusion in verbal expression, and in one or 
 another language find expression, are simply number- 
 less ; and the richest verbal scheme that was ever put 
 together takes account of only a part of them, even 
 when supplemented by the resources of analytic phrase- 
 ology. To us, the element of time is the conspicuous 
 and pressing one; the denoting of an action appears 
 almost to require an implication of tense-relation. Yet 
 many languages do not regard this element as calling 
 for inclusion in the fundamental structure of the verb 
 rather than others; and they leave it to be inferred 
 from the connection, or intimated by external means, 
 particles, auxiliaries, as we on dur part treat other ele- 
 ments which they weave into the verbal structure. To 
 any given act of speaking ', for example, there cleaves 
 some qualification of time; but so also of place, of 
 manner, of purpose. Equally modifications of the in- 
 definite act of speaking are speaking repeatedly or 
 habitually, rapidly, with violence, under compulsion, 
 for another, or causing, ceasing, appearing to speak, 
 declaring another to speak, speaking to one's self and 
 EO on, indefinitely: and these, or many of them, are 
 actually incorporated in derivative verbal forms by 
 races who treat the tense-element less elaborately than
 
 220 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 we. And our tense-making is on the smallest scale, as 
 compared with the infinite possibilities of tense-dis- 
 tinction. We have not even, as some languages have, 
 a nearer and remoter past, a nearer and remoter future. 
 That a thing was done long ago is as true a temporal 
 relation as that it happened in past time at all ; but wo 
 intimate only the latter by an inflection, and the former 
 by relational words ; and therefore, to our way of think- 
 ing, he who wants the inflection has too little, and he 
 who converts the other into an inflection has too much. 
 Our triple forms for each tense Hove, I do love, I am 
 loving by their incessant use, and the necessity con- 
 stantly imposed on us of choosing among them, keep 
 before our minds certain distinctions which are com- 
 paratively unnoticed in French or German ; yet they 
 are in the French and German minds also, and if any 
 of them rises to prominent importance, those languages 
 have sufficient means of intimating them. It is good 
 English or German to say " I picked up the book that 
 lay there ; " but to the Frenchman it would be a gross 
 blunder to use the same tense for the instantaneous act 
 of picking up and the continuous condition of lying ; 
 the difference is clearly involved in our thought as well 
 as his ; only our language does not compel our atten- 
 tion to it. The case is quite the same with our moods, 
 those means of denning the contemplated relation be- 
 tween subject and predicate, or modifications of the 
 copula. There are infinite shades of doubt and con- 
 tingency, of hope and fear, of supplication and exaction, 
 in eur mental acts and cognitions, which all the syn- 
 thetic resources of Greek moods, with added particles 
 and adverbs, which all the analytic phraseology of 
 English, are but rude and coarse means of signifying. 
 And an Algonkin verb makes a host of distinction*
 
 PRINCIPLES. 221 
 
 which are BO strange to us that we can hardly learn to 
 appreciate them when defined. 
 
 There is one other mode of formal distinction which 
 demands a moment's notice from us : namely, position. 
 In "you love your enemies, but your enemies hate 
 you," the distinction of subject and object is dependent 
 solely on position, and is given by that means with all 
 necessary clearness. In a language of which the inflec- 
 tions are so much worn out as are ours, this method 
 counts for much ; and there are tongues in which it is 
 of even superior importance. Those, on the other 
 hand, which have a greater abundance of inflections 
 possess a freedom of arrangement which to us is sur- 
 prising, and almost puzzling. 
 
 The principal conclusions intended to be suggested 
 by this brief exposition, and to be made of use in com- 
 paring the structure of various languages, are, it is be- 
 lieved, sufficiently clear. In the first place, the realm 
 of formal relation is infinite, unexhausted by the formal 
 resources of even the richest language, or of all lan- 
 guages : however much may be expressed, there is 
 vastly more of the same kind left unexpressed, to be 
 inferred by the intelligent mind from the perceived 
 conditions of the particular case, or passed over as unes- 
 sential to the ordinary purposes of communication 
 which is, at the best, only a rude and fragmentary 
 means of putting one mind, or heart, into communion 
 with another. There are no relations to which a lan- 
 guage must necessarily give expression ; there are only 
 certain ones which are more naturally suggested, of 
 which the expression is more practically valuable, than 
 others : and what these are, we can learn only from the 
 general study of languages ; our own educated prefer 
 ences are no trustworthy guide to them. In the second
 
 222 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 place, there is no absolute dividing-line between what 
 is material and what is formal in a language ; material 
 and form are relative words only, names for degrees, 
 for poles of a continuous series, of which the members 
 shade into one another. And, as we saw in the fifth 
 chapter, the grandest Internal movement in a growing 
 and improving language is that from more material to 
 more formal uses, whereby both words and phrases take 
 on a less gross and physical meaning, even to the ex- 
 tent of being attenuated into form-words, or, in com- 
 bination with other elements, into formative elements 
 both alike indicators of relation. Hence, in the 
 third place, the means of formal expression are of the 
 utmost variety ; they are not to be sought in one de- 
 partment of a language only, but in all ; they are scat- 
 tered through the whole vocabulary, as well as concen- 
 trated in the grammatical apparatus. Deficiency in one 
 department may be compensated, or more than com- 
 pensated, by provision of resources in another. There 
 is no human tongue which is destitute of the expression 
 of form ; and to call certain languages, and them alone, 
 " form-languages," is indefensible, except as the term 
 may be meant to describe them as possessing in a higher 
 or exceptional degree a quality which they really share 
 with all the rest. 
 
 In judging other languages, then, we have to try to 
 rid ourselves of the prejudices generated by our own 
 acquired habits of expression, and to be prepared to 
 find other peoples making a very different selection 
 from our own of those qualifications and relations of 
 the more material substance of expression which they 
 shall distinctly represent in speech, and also sharing 
 these out very differently among the different modea 
 of formal expression. It is a common error of uncul
 
 COMPARATIVE MERIT. 22U 
 
 tivated, and of narrowly though highly cultivated peo- 
 ples, to regard themselves alone as speakers, and ah 
 others as babblers, " barbarians," unintelligent because 
 to them unintelligible talkers. We are in no danger 
 of doing that ; but we are in danger still of over-esti 
 mating the peculiar traits of our speech, and depreciat- 
 ing those of others' speech. Nothing is harder than to 
 be perfectly impartial here ; to judge the comparative 
 merit of one's own and of another language requires a 
 grasp of all the particulars involved, a power of analy- 
 sis and comparison, and a freedom from both national 
 and individual prejudice, of which only exceptionally 
 endowed and exceptionally trained minds will be capa- 
 ble. Even great scholars are liable here to great errors. 
 There are eminent English-speaking philologists who 
 regard English analysis as the only reasonable or " logi- 
 cal " mode of expression, and look down on Greek 
 synthesis as something characteristic of a rude and un- 
 developed intellectual condition ; there are many more, 
 doubtless, of various nationality, who undervalue the 
 resources of English, and are loath to assign a high 
 rank to a tongue which has lost or thrown awaj so 
 much of its inherited structure. 
 
 On the whole, perhaps the best and most trvet- 
 worthy test of the value of a language is, what ita 
 speakers have made it do. Language is but the instru- 
 ment for the expression of thought. If a people ha* 
 looked at the world without and within us with a pene- 
 trating and discerning eye, has observed successfully the 
 resemblances and differences of things, has distinguished 
 well and combined well and reasoned well, its language, 
 of however apparently imperfect structure, in the t 
 nical sense of that term, enjoys all the advantage which 
 oomes from such use; it is the fitting instrument of an
 
 224 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 enlightened mind. There is nothing in the grammatical 
 form of either Greek or English that may not be de- 
 graded to serve only base uses. 
 
 In another sense also a language is what its speakers 
 make it: its structure, of whatever character, represents 
 their collective capacity in that particular direction of 
 elToit. It is, not less than every other part of their civ- 
 ilization, the work of the race ; every generation, every 
 individual, has borne a part in shaping it. Whether, 
 however, the language-making capacity can be corre- 
 lated with any other, so that we may say, a highly- 
 organized speech could not be expected from a histoi 
 ical community whose work in this or that other respect 
 shows a deiiciencv of excellence, is extremely doubtful ; 
 thus far, at any rate, nothing of value has been done in 
 that direction. The Chinese is, as we shall see in the 
 ne.xt chapter, ?. most striking example of how a commu- 
 nity of a very high grade of general ability may exhibit 
 an extreme inaptitude for fertile linguistic development. 
 We may suitably compare this with the grades of apti- 
 tude shown by various races for plastic or pictorial or 
 musical art, which by no means measure their capacity 
 for other intellectual or spiritual products. No uncult- 
 ured people ever spends consciously any time or effort 
 upon its speech ; this cannot be thought over and worked 
 up into better shape ; it must come by the way, as inci- 
 dent to the work of thought, as result of unreflective 
 effort at communication. That race which possesses 
 D'.ost of the right kind of regulative force will turn out 
 a product that is admirable; and the contrary. 
 
 Only, also, the possibility of a radical change of his- 
 tory, a new turn of development, is different at different 
 periods of growth. After a certain stage of advance in 
 definite and established expression is reached, the con-
 
 LANGUAGE MADE BY ITS BPEAKERa 225 
 
 Bervative forces, depending on acquired habits of speech, 
 are too strong to be overcome, and the language goes on 
 forever on the course which the directing hands of the 
 earlier generations have determined. This is a point 
 upon which we have no right yet to speak with definito- 
 ness; wo may hope some day to understand it better: 
 to be able, for example, to lay down exactly what condi- 
 tions the stagnation of Chinese speech. There are other 
 departments of civilization in which a race does not 
 always show itself able to develop unaided its own best 
 capacities. The Celtic and Germanic tribes, which have 
 proved themselves equal to taking leading places in the 
 world's history, might have remained comparative bar- 
 barians to the present time, if they had not received 
 Greek civilization, as shaped over and reorganized by 
 Rome. But though a nation may borrow culture from 
 its neighbors, it does not in the same way borrow lin- 
 guistic development ; no race ever adopted a new mode 
 of structural growth for its native speech by imitation 
 of another ; though many a community has, under suffi- 
 cient external inducement, exchanged its native speech 
 for another ; and borrowing, as we have already seen, 
 especially accompanies transfer of culture, and is capable 
 of going on to such an extent as vastly to enrich the 
 borrowing speech, and fit it for higher uses. 
 
 While a people's capacities and acquirements make 
 its language, we must not fail to notice also the con- 
 trary truth, that its language helps to determine its in- 
 tellectual character and progress. The powerful refle.t 
 influence of language on mental action is a universally 
 admitted fact in linguistics ; to allow it is only to allow 
 that rooted habits, learned by each generation from it 
 predecessor, have a controlling influence on action 
 which is axiomatic. But the subject belongs to a rnncb
 
 226 STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 more advanced and elaborate discussion of language 
 than this work makes any pretense of being; and it has 
 never yet been worked out fruitfully. 
 
 On the analogy of Indo-European speech alone we 
 have a right to assume, at least provisionally, that whitr 
 ever of inflective structure may be possessed also by 
 other languages, whatever of formal and formative 
 apparatus they may contain, of any kind, has been 
 wrought out by somewhat similar methods, from a 
 similar initial stage of rude and gross material. If 
 there shall be found languages in which this is demon- 
 Btrably not the ease, we can modify or abandon the 
 assumption hereafter ; but it will require very definite 
 and cogent evidence to make such demonstration. For 
 language is an instrumentality ; and the law of sim- 
 plicity of beginnings applies to it not less naturally and 
 necessarily than to other instrumentalities. Some seem 
 to imagine that to regard men as having begun to talk 
 with formless roots, which we now arrive at " by ab- 
 straction " from the material of living languages, is like 
 regarding them as having begun the use of physical 
 instruments with the bare abstract motive powers the 
 inclined plane, the wheel, the pulley. But such a par 
 allel is as absolutely erroneous as anything can be : the 
 analogues of the motive powers, rather, would be the 
 attributive and predicative relations, the assertive, inter- 
 rogative, and imperative modes, and their like. The 
 analogue of the root is the stick or the stone which 
 was indubitably man's first instrument : a crude tool or 
 weapon, used for a variety of purposes to which we 
 now adapt a corresponding variety of much more intri- 
 cate and shapely tools. And to hold that formed words, 
 divisible into radical and formative elements, were first 
 in the uses of speech, is just as defensible as to hold
 
 BEGINNINGS OF STRUCTURE. 227 
 
 that men began to labor with hammers and saws and 
 planes and nails, and to fight with iron-headed lancea 
 and bows and catapults. In each single root was pres- 
 ent at the outset as may be present in a single inter- 
 jectional monosyllable now a whole assertion, or in- 
 quiry, or command, to which the tone and accompanying 
 gesture, or the mere circumstances of its utterance, fur- 
 nished the sufficient interpretation : just as in the stick 
 or stone was present and may, on an emergency, be 
 made present still a variety of instruments or weapons. 
 Again, to maintain, for the purpose of explaining 
 the variety of later languages, that the expressions of 
 the earliest men must have been potentially different in 
 the different races, as the seeds or germs which develop 
 into different animals or plants are different ; that a for- 
 mative principle must have been present in the material 
 of one language and not of another ; that in the ele- 
 ments which came afterward to be put to formative 
 uses there was from the beginning a form-making func- 
 tion inherent, and so on all this is sheer mythology. 
 One might as well claim that in the stick or stone, as 
 used by some races, there was lying perdu a well-mem- 
 bered instrument or machine, which somehow developed 
 out of it in the hands of its users, and that in the wood 
 and metal of certain regions were inherent machine- 
 making functions, not possessed elsewhere. Language 
 comes to be just what its users make it ; its offices coi- 
 rcspond to their capacities ; if there is a higher degree 
 of formative structure in one language than in another. 
 the reason lies in the difference of quality of the two 
 races, their different capacity of education and growth ; 
 not at all in the character of the beginnings from wliu-h 
 both alike started, nor of the materials which both alik 
 have ever since had at command.
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 OTHER FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE I THEIR LOCALITY, AOJS, 
 AKD STKTJCTUEE. 
 
 Cluwsification by families. Scythian or Ural-Altaic or Turanian family ; 
 doubtful members of it. Monosyllabic family: Chinese, Farther 
 Indian, etc. Japanese. Malay-Polynesian ; other insular families : 
 Papuan, Australian. Dravidian. Caucasian languages. Semitic 
 family; question of its relationships. Hamitic: Egyptian, etc. 
 South African or Bantu. Middle African languages. Basque. 
 American Indian languages. 
 
 WE have called a certain body of languages a fami- 
 ly, the Indo-European. The name "family," we saw, 
 was applied to it by strict analogy with the use of the 
 same term elsewhere : the languages in question had 
 been found, on competent examination, to show good 
 evidence of descent from a common ancestor. We had, 
 however, to confess that the limits, even of this best- 
 known of families, cannot be traced with absolute pre- 
 cision ; one or another tongue, not now thought of, 01 
 else doubtfully regarded, as Indo-European, may one 
 day make good its title to a place with the rest. "We 
 have also seen that, by the operation of completely com- 
 prehensible causes, no language on earth exists in a state 
 of absolute accordance through the whole community 
 that speaks it ; it is a group, even if a very limited one, 
 of related dialecte. This being the case, it is the first
 
 CLASSIFICATION BY FAMILIES. 229 
 
 task of the comparative study of languages to divide all 
 human speech into families, by recognizable signs of 
 relationship: only thus can there be made any such 
 examination of their character and history as shall lead 
 the way to the other results which the science seeks to 
 attain. And such a classification has in fact been made. 
 It is, of course, in parts only a tentative and provisional 
 arrangement, held liable to rectification, both by addi- 
 tion and by the giving up of what is now held even 
 with a fair degree of confidence : for it not seldom hap- 
 pens that lines which in a half-light appear definite and 
 fixed dissolve away Avhen full illumination is turned 
 upon them. The cautious philologist combines only so 
 far as trustworthy evidences take him, leaving the rest 
 to be settled when more knowledge is won. 
 
 As a matter of fact, moreover, linguistic scholars 
 have hitherto been able to put together into families 
 only those languages which have a common structure. 
 That is to say, only tongues which have shared at least 
 a part of their growth out of the original radical stage 
 (provided they have left it) have yet been found to 
 exhibit reliable evidence of relationship. No one, it is 
 evident, has a right to declare d priori that there cannot 
 remain even from the initial stage sufficient signs of 
 'common descent, in branches whose whole structural 
 development has been separate : in fact, philologists aro 
 feeling about among the roots of certain families for 
 euc-h signs, and may one day succeed in bringing them 
 to light; but thus far no definite results have been 
 reached. We shall have occasion to note in the next 
 chapter the difficulties which environ the inquiry, and 
 to point out the reasons why, on a large scale, it it 
 likely to fail of success. 
 
 The first family, then, which we take up is tliat D!
 
 230 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 which the leading branches occupy more or less of 
 European soil, alongside those of our own kindred. 
 Of these branches there are three. The first, the 
 Finno-IIungarian, or Ugrian, is chiefly European: it 
 includes the Finnish, with the nearly related Esthonian. 
 and Livonian, and the remoter Lappish in the Scandi- 
 navian peninsula; the Hungarian, an isolated dialect in 
 the south, wholly environed by Indo-European tongue?, 
 but of which the intrusion into its present place, by im- 
 migration from near the southern Ural, has taken place 
 within the historic period ; the dialects from which the 
 Hungarian separated itself, the Ostiak and Wogul, in 
 and beyond the Ural ; and the tongues of other related 
 tribes iu eastern Kus.sia, as the Ziryanians, Wotiaks, 
 Mordwins, etc. The Finns and Hungarians are the 
 only cultivated peoples of the branch: there are frag- 
 ments of Hungarian language from the end of the 
 twelfth century, but the literature begins only four 
 centuries later, and scantily, the people formerly using 
 the Latin much more than their own speech for literary 
 purposes; the earliest Finnish records are of the six- 
 teenth century ; the language has a mythic poem, the 
 Kalevala, written down in this century from the mouths 
 of popular singers, of especial originality and interest. 
 
 The second branch, quite nearly related with this 
 one, is the Samoyed, belonging to a Hyperborean race, 
 which stretches from the Korth Sea to beyond the 
 Yenisei, and up the course of this river into the central 
 mountains of the continent, the Altai range, probably 
 the starting-point of its migrations. It has no culture, 
 iior importance of any kind. 
 
 The third branch, the Turkish or Tartar (more 
 properly Tatar), only touches and overlaps the Euro- 
 lean frontier at the south. The race to which it bo
 
 SCYTHIAN FAMILY. 231 
 
 tongs, after having been long the restless foe of the 
 Iranians on their northeastern frontier, finally, after the 
 Mohammedanizing of Persia, forced its way through, 
 worked on westward, 'captured Constantinople in the 
 fifteenth century, and was arrested there only by the 
 combined and long-continued efforts of the powers of 
 central Europe. It is stretched out at present from 
 European Turkey (in which it nowhere forms the mass 
 of the population) over a great part of central Asia, 
 and even, in its Yakut branch, to the mouth of the dis- 
 tant Lena. The Yakuts, Bashkirs, and Kirghiz, the 
 Uigurs, Usbeks, and Turkomans, and the Osmanlis of 
 Asiatic and European Turkey, are some of the princi- 
 pal divisions of the race. The Uigurs, getting their 
 alphabet and culture from Nestorian missionaries, were 
 the first to produce a scanty literature, as far back as 
 the eighth to the tenth centuries ; the southeastern peo- 
 ples have records (" Jagataic ") of the fourteenth to the 
 sixteenth ; the abundant and varied but little original 
 literature of the Osmanlis dates from the time of their 
 European conquests ; it is full of Persian and Arabic 
 materials. 
 
 Respecting the family relationship of these three 
 branches there is no question. As to the common name 
 by which they shall be called, usage is very diverse. 
 " Turanian " is perhaps more frequent than any other, 
 but there are grave objections to its genesis and appli- 
 cation, and, till use shall pronounce more definitely i& 
 its favor, it is hardly fit to be employed in scientific 
 description. Ural-Altaic," " Scythian," " Tnrtaric " 
 are others, employed by various authors : the first haa 
 its advantages, but is unwieldy, and implies rather more 
 knowledge as to the movements of the family than we 
 actually possess ; we may use here " Scythian," provi*
 
 232 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 sionally, and disclaiming for it any marked or partisan 
 preference. 
 
 Scythian language is the type of what is called an 
 "agglutinative" structure, as distinguished from the 
 u iullective " Indo-European. By this is meant that the 
 elements of various origin which make up Scythian 
 vorcU and forms are more loosely aggregated, preserve 
 more independence, than do the Indo-European ; there 
 is far less integration of 'the parts, with disguise and 
 obliteration of their separate entity. All our own for- 
 mations, as has Leen seen, begin with being agglutina- 
 tions ; and such words as un-tru-ih-fjMy preserve an 
 agglutinative character ; if all our words were like it, 
 there would be no marked difference between the tw T o 
 families as to this fundamental item. For the Scythian 
 formative elements are also only in small part trace- 
 able to the independent words out of which they have 
 grown ; they are, like the Indo-European affixes, mere 
 signs of relation and of modification of meaning. But 
 Scythian formations do not go on to fuse root and end- 
 ing, even to the replacing of an external by an internal 
 flection. As a rule, the root maintains itself unaltered 
 in the whole group of derivatives and inflection, and 
 each suffix has an unchanged form and office : whence, 
 on the one hand, a great regularity of formation, and, 
 on the other hand, a great intricacy. Thus, in Turkish, 
 for example, lar (or ler} forms plurals everywhere ; to 
 it are added the same case-endings which alone make 
 the singular cases ; and pronominal elements indicating 
 possession may be yet further interposed between the 
 two : so ev, * house,' ev-den, * from a house,' ev-um-den^ 
 ' from my house,' ev-ler-um-den, ' from my housee.' 
 The ease-relations indicated by these endings or suffixed 
 particles are numerous, in some dialects rising to twenty.
 
 SCYTHIAN FAMILY. 333 
 
 The verb exemplifies the same peculiarity still more 
 strikingly : there are half a dozen modifying elements 
 capable of insertion, singly or in variously combined 
 groups, between root and endings, to express passive, 
 reflexive, reciprocal, causative, negative, and impo&iblu 
 action ; so that from the simple root sev, for example, 
 we may make the intricate derivative sev-ishrdir-H-e-m*' 
 mck, ' not to be capable of being made to love one an- 
 other,' which is then conjugated with the various form? 
 of the simple verb ; thus bringing the possible inflec- 
 tive forms- from one root up to a number which is im- 
 mense as compared with any Indo-European verb. 
 
 But the distinction of verb and noun in these lan- 
 guages is much less original, fundamental, and sharply 
 drawn than with us. The verbally used forms are, 
 rather, but one step removed from nouns used predi- 
 catively, with subjective or possessive pronominal ele- 
 ments appended. The types of verbal forms are, for 
 example, (Turkish) dogur-um, 'striking I,' i. e. 'I 
 strike,' and doffd-um, * act of striking mine,' i.e. 'I 
 have struck ; ' and the third person is without ending : 
 dogdi, 'he lias struck,' dogdi-ler, 'they have struck,' 
 literally ' striking,' ' strikings.' To say this is not to 
 say that these languages have no real verb ; since to 
 make a verb it needs only that certain forms be set 
 apart and strictly devoted by usage to the expression of 
 the predicative relation ; but it does imply a decided 
 inferiority in the grade of clearness of this most fruit' 
 ful of formal distinctions, and may shade off into a 
 total absence of it. Of tenses and moods such as those 
 instanced above, and others made with auxiliaries, these 
 languages have a plenty ; and their variety of resource 
 in derivatives is very great ; so that all the formal ap- 
 paratus is provided which is needed for shaping by the 
 1ft
 
 234 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 right usage into a sufficient instrument of thought ; and 
 the most cultivated of the dialects do indeed come go 
 near to " inflection " that their falling short of it ia 
 hardly more than nominal. 
 
 The Scythian adjective is as bare of inflection as the 
 English ; and there is an utter absence of gender as 
 one of the categories of noun-inflection or of pronomi- 
 nal distinction, just as in Persian. Relatives and con- 
 junctions are also nearly unknown, the combinations 
 of dependent clauses being, as is natural in languages 
 where the verb is a less deflnite part of speech, rather 
 by case-forms of verbal nouns. These constructions 
 make upon us the impression of great intricacy, and in- 
 vert that order of the members of the sentence to which 
 we are accustomed. 
 
 In the phonetic structure of these languages, the 
 most striking trait is the so-called "harmonic sequence 
 ;f vowels." There are, namely, two classes of vowels, 
 light and heavy, or palatal (e, i, ii, o) and other (a, o, 
 u] ; and it is the general law that the vowels of the 
 various endings shall be of the class of that in the root, 
 or in its last syllable thus marking the appurtenance 
 and dependency of the endings in their relation to the 
 root in a manner which, though undoubtedly at first 
 euphonic only (like the Germanic umlaut}, has lent it- 
 self usefully to the purposes of formal distinction. 
 Every suftix, then, has two forms, a, light and a heavy: 
 we have al-mak, but sev-mekj ev-ler, but ayha-lar, and 
 6-> on. In some dialects this assimilative process is of a 
 wonderful degree of intricacy. 
 
 There is field and ccope in these languages for a 
 comparative grammar of the highest interest and im- 
 portance ; but no one has yet taken up the work seriously 
 and comprehensively ; the science of language has ad
 
 ACCADL\N LANGUAGE. 235 
 
 vauced far enough to demand its execution, wliich, it i* 
 to be hoped, will not be long deferred. One obstacle 
 in its way, the lack of really ancient -records, from a 
 time comparable to that of the early Indo-European 
 documents, is likely to be removed, if recent claims 
 shall prove well-founded. There is, namely, in the 
 Mesopotamian and Persian records, a third language, 
 the so-called Accadian, of greatly disputed character 
 and connections, but which has been for some time past 
 persistently declared by one party of its students to be 
 Ugrian, an ancient dialect of the Finno-Himgariau 
 stock, and a grammar of it has lately been written (by 
 M. Lenormant) on that understanding. This is a point 
 of very high importance, but we have no right yet to 
 consider it fairly settled ; it is doubtful whether so ex- 
 act and comprehensive knowledge and so sound method 
 have yet been applied as to yield a trustworthy result. 
 What adds greatly to the interest of the matter is that 
 this language and its community are demonstrably the 
 original owners of the cuneiform mode of writing, 
 which has been borrowed and adapted by both Semitic 
 and Indo-European peoples : it would follow, then, that 
 the original basis of culture in that great and important 
 centre of the world's civilization was Scythian. \Ve 
 have no right to deny the possibility of this ; at the 
 same time, it is so inconsistent with what we know of 
 the activity of- the race elsewhere that we have a right 
 to regard it with provisional incredulity, and to demaud 
 a full demonstration before yielding it our belbf. 
 
 Along with the three branches we have been con- 
 sidering are generally ranked, as belonging to the same 
 family, two others, the Mongolian and the Tungusie : 
 but the evidence for their inclusion with the rest i 
 confessedly less positive, and we are justified in holding
 
 236 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 a doubtful position as regards them. Their languages 
 are of a much lower grade of development, verging 
 even upon monosyllabic poverty, having nothing which 
 can be called a verb, possessing even no distinction of 
 number and person in their predicative words. This 
 may well enough be the resL.lt of arrested growth, but 
 whether it demonstrably is so is another question, to 
 which we demand a more competent and satisfactory 
 reply than has yet been given. An opposing consider- 
 ation of no slight weight is the different physical type 
 (" Mongolian ") of these races, which connects them 
 rather with the extreme eastern Asiatics than with the 
 Europeans. Another is their possession of a " classifi- 
 catory" system of estimation and designation of rela- 
 tionship (Mr. L. II. Morgan), as opposed to the analytic 
 or " descriptive " one of the other branches. It is not, 
 then, undue skepticism that leads us to limit the Scyth- 
 ian family for the present to its three demonstrated 
 branches. Just in this direction there has been such an 
 excess of unscientific and wholesale grouping, the clas- 
 sification of ignorance, that a little even of overstrained 
 conservatism ought to have a wholesome effect. 
 
 The Mongol territory occupies a great space on the 
 inhospitable plateau of central Asia ; and, as a conse- 
 quence of the great movement by which, in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, the race became the conquer- 
 ors and devastators of almost the whole world, frag- 
 ments of it are scattered far westward, one even occu- 
 pying a considerable tract astride the Volga, near its 
 mouth. The Mongols reach eastward along a great part 
 of the northern frontier of China, and are there succeeded 
 by the Tungusic tribes, who range still farther east and 
 north, almost to the coasts. Of these tribes, the only 
 one of note is the Manchu, whose great deed and title
 
 CHINESE LANGUAGE. 237 
 
 to historic fame is its conquest and administration of 
 China during the past two centuries. Both Mongola 
 and Manchus have alphabets, tbeir usual ones derived 
 Uirough the Uigur Turkish from the Syriac ; their lit- 
 eratures are quite modem only, and reflections of Chi- 
 nese originals. 
 
 If in Mongol and Manchu we are close upon the 
 absence of all inflective structure, in the Chinese we 
 actually reach that condition. The Chinese is a tongue 
 composed of about five hundred separate words, as we 
 should reckon them, each a monosyllable. But in this 
 language tone is pressed into the service of ordinary in- 
 tellectual distinction, and the words are multiplied to 
 over fifteen hundred by the significant variety of into- 
 nation. Nor are these words, like English monosyl- 
 lables, worn-out relics of a formerly inflected condition 
 of speech ; there is no good reason to doubt their being 
 the actual undeveloped roots of the language, analogous 
 with the Indo-European roots except in the results of 
 use by an enlightened community for communication 
 and thought during thousands of years. They have 
 been crowded with meanings of every kind, and of 
 various degrees of formality ; they have been combined 
 into standing phrases, with balance of parts and unity 
 of emphasis, as in our / shall have gone, by the way, 
 ind so on ; many of them have become auxiliaries, 
 signs of relation, indicators of special uses analogous 
 with those of our parts of speech; but yet they hmo 
 never been made into actual parts of speech, nor united 
 into inflectional systems. If they had gone through 
 any such process as this, the present speech would show 
 plainly the results of it: there would be a much greater 
 number and variety of words ; they would fall into re- 
 Uited groups ; and they would be more sharply defined
 
 238 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 and discriminated in their uses. The Chinese word 
 admits of employment indifferently as one and another 
 part of speech, and plainly by an inherent non-distinc- 
 tion of their various offices. 
 
 The Chinese language is therefore, in one most im- 
 portant and fundamental respect, of the very lowest 
 grade of structure and poverty of resource. But it if 
 ulso the most remarkable example in the world of a 
 weak instrumentality which is made the means of ac- 
 complishing great things ; it illustrates, in a manner 
 which the student of language cannot too carefully 
 heed, the truth that language is only an instrumentality, 
 and the mind the force that uses it ; that the mind, 
 which in all its employment of speech implies a great 
 deal more than it expresses, is able to do a high quality 
 of work with only the scantiest hints of expression, 
 catching from the connection and from position the 
 shades of meaning and the modes of relation which it 
 needs. It is but a difference of degree between Chi- 
 nese inexpressiveness and the frequent overloading of 
 distinctions which in our view characterizes some of the 
 agglutinative idioms: for example, the American In- 
 dian ; and, with a right view of language, one is as 
 explainable as the other. A few scratches on a board 
 with a bit of charcoal by a skilled artist may be more 
 full of meaning, may speak more strongly to the im- 
 agination and feeling, than a picture elaborated by an 
 inferior hand with all the resources of a modern art^ 
 school. 
 
 The abundant and varied literature of Cliina goes 
 back in its beginnings to about 2000 B. c., an antiquity 
 exceeded in only two or three other countries of the 
 world. Though a tongue of so bald structure is com- 
 paratively little liable to disguising alteration, the Chi
 
 MONOSYLLABIC FAMILY. 239 
 
 nese of to-day is quite unlike what it was so long ago 
 to what extent and how, learned men are now making 
 effort to determine. A still more obvious measure of 
 the progress of alteration is given by the dialectic vari- 
 eties of the existing language, which are so great that 
 almost every hundred miles along the southern coast 
 brings one to a new speech, nearly or quite unintelli- 
 gible to dwellers in other districts. The literary dialect 
 is one in its written character, but somewhat discordant 
 in its spoken form, through the whole empire. Some 
 hold that here and there, in the dialects, the line which 
 separates utter uninflectedness from a rude agglutination 
 has been overstepped. 
 
 The various languages of Farther India as the An- 
 namese or Cochin-Chinese, the Siamese, and the Bur- 
 mese, with the tongues of numerous other wilder and 
 less important tribes or races are sufficiently unlike to 
 Chinese and to each other in material to pass for wholly 
 unrelated. But they are all alike in the capital point 
 that they are uninllected ; and this cannot but be re- 
 garded as a strong indication of ultimate relationship 
 between them. AVe can point out, indeed, no reason 
 why one race more than another should exhibit an in- 
 capacity for linguistic development; and if we met 
 with monosyllabic tongues in different parts of the 
 earth, we should have no right to infer their connec- 
 tion ; but that the dialects of one corner of Asia should 
 share a peculiarity so exceptional can hardly be other 
 than the result of a common fixation of the monosyl- 
 labic type. At any rate provisionally, therefore, we claw 
 all these together as the southeastern Asiatic, or mono- 
 syllabic family. The Farther Indian tongues are in- 
 ferior to the Chinese in just that manner and degree 
 which was to be expected in dialects of inferior racei
 
 J40 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 and lower culture. They abound in sucli means of 
 detinitiou as auxiliaries and indicative particles. 
 
 How far the limits of the family thus constructed 
 extend, is a question which only further research can 
 determine. Running up the southern border of the 
 Asiatic plateau, from northern Farther India, westward, 
 is a region occupied by a great and far from homoge- 
 neous mass of dialects, generally called Himalayan, of a 
 low type of structure, which are at any rate not suffi- 
 ciently known to be classified as distinct from the fam- 
 ily we have been considering. With them goes the 
 Tibetan, though this has an alphabet, of Indian origin, 
 and a IJuddhibt literature, from the seventh century 
 down. 
 
 Among all these peoples, the position of the Chinese 
 is a striking and exceptional one, as that of the only 
 race possessing a wholly independent and highly-devel- 
 oped civilization, with attendant literature. It is some- 
 what like the position of the Accadians if they be 
 proved Scythian among the other Scythian peoples. 
 China has been as grand a centre of light to all its 
 neighbors as Mesopotamia; but with this marked differ- 
 ence : by a persistency which is one of the most strik- 
 ing facts in the history of the world, it has maintained 
 its own institutions, political and religious and linguis- 
 tic, substantially unchanged from the very dawn of the 
 historic period. 
 
 The nation which has profited most by Chinese 
 teaching, which has alone shown the capacity to assimi- 
 late and continue the Chinese culture, with adaptations 
 to its own peculiar character, is the Japanese. It is of 
 the same pronounced physical type which we are accus- 
 tomed to call Mongolian. Attempts have been made 
 to connect its language with those of the Mongols and
 
 JAPANESE LANGUAGE. 241 
 
 Manchus, but they have not' met with ipproved suo- 
 cess, and the Japanese still stands alone. It is by no 
 means monosyllabic, but rather an agglutinative dialect 
 of extremely simple structure, with hardly an estab- 
 lished distinction between noun and verb, and with no 
 determinate flexion ; the relations of case and number 
 and person are indicated by analytic means, by separate 
 particles or auxiliary words ; number in part by dupli- 
 cation. Variations of the radical verbal idea akin with 
 those exemplified above from the Turkish are also 
 made, by various compounded elements. Combination 
 of separate root-words, often with considerable contrac- 
 tion or mutilation, is very common ; but it does not tend, 
 as with us, to the production of formative elements and 
 of forms, except coarsely and restrictedly. Relatives 
 and subordinating conjunctions are wanting. The 
 language is burdened with the over-elaborate recogni- 
 tion of degrees of dignity in the speaker and the per- 
 sons addressed or spoken of, almost to the disuse of 
 simple pronouns. The Chinese vocabulary is imported 
 en masse into the more learned styles, especially of 
 writing. The phonetic structure of the language ia 
 very simple and euphonious. The oldest literary re- 
 mains are from the seventh and eighth centuries. 
 
 The shores and peninsulas and islands of the north- 
 eastern comer of Asia are occupied by a variety of races 
 and languages, which are too little known, and of too 
 little interest, to demand attention from us in this hasty 
 review. 
 
 On the islands, however, which lie off the south- 
 eastern part of the continent, and through most of tlio 
 groups and isolated islets that dot the Pacific, north to 
 Formosa, east to Easter island, south to New Zealand, 
 and west even to Madagascar, on the very border of
 
 242 FAMILIES OP LANGUAGE. 
 
 Africa, are found the scattered members of a vast and 
 perfectly well-developed family, the Malay-Polynesian. 
 From what central point the migrations of the tribes 
 and their dialects took place, it is not possible to tell : 
 the family is strictly an insular one, the hold which a 
 part of the Malays have on the mainland in Malacca 
 being only recently gained (since the twelfth century). 
 The Malays proper have adopted Mohammedanism, and 
 taken for use the Arabic alphabet ; and they have a 
 tolerably abundant literature, reaching up into the 
 fourteenth century. Some of the other less conspicu- 
 ous tribes as the Battaks, Mancassars, and Bugis, and 
 the Tagalas of the Philippines have alphabets, which 
 are believed to come ultimately from India, but nothing 
 that can fairly be called a literature. But in Java and 
 its dependencies, especially Bali, the introduction of 
 culture and writing from India dates back even to the 
 first century of our era, with a considerable literature, 
 founded on the Sanskrit. Elsewhere in the family, 
 record begins only with the labors of Christian mis- 
 sionaries in the most recent period. 
 
 The family is divided (Friedrich Miiller) into three 
 great branches : 1. The Malayan, filling on the one 
 hand the great islands nearest to Asia, and on the other 
 hand the Philippine and Ladrone groups ; 2. The 
 Polynesian, in most of the smaller groups, with New 
 Zealand and Madagascar; 3. The Melanesian, of the 
 Rjian and other archipelagos off the northeastern cor- 
 ner of Australia. The various Polynesian dialects are 
 clearly and closely related ; the Melanesian show the 
 extreme of dialectic division, with other peculiarities 
 which, along with the darker hue and other physical 
 differences oi their speakers, have been plausibly ex- 
 plained as due to an imposition of Polynesian speech
 
 MALAY-POLYNESIAN FAMILY. 243 
 
 iipon a population chiefly Papuan. The Malayan di- 
 alects are farthest developed, making most approach 
 toward something like a rude flexion. For, in general, 
 the languages of the family are almost as bare of de- 
 rivative and inflectional combinations as is the Chinese 
 itself ; their grammatical relations are indicated by pro- 
 nouns and particles, which only in the Malayan group, 
 and in derivation rather than inflection, take on the 
 aspect of affixes : gender, case, number, mood, tense, 
 person, are wanting; nor is there any distinction of 
 noun from verb ; the verb is a substantive or adjective 
 used predicatively without copula. The roots, if we 
 may call them so, the most ultimate elements accessible 
 to our analysis, are prevailingly dissyllabic ; and their 
 reduplication, either complete or by abbreviation, is a 
 means of variation of which great use is made, and for 
 Tery various purposes. Only the pronouns have dis- 
 tinct numeral forms, and the first person has the double 
 plural, inclusive or exclusive of the person addressed, 
 referred to above (pp. 218, 219). The determinative 
 particles are more often prefixed than suffixed. 
 
 The Malay-Polynesian languages are more simple in 
 regard to their phonetic structure than any others in 
 the world. Hardly any of them have more than ten 
 consonants ; many only seven. And they do not allow 
 a syllable to begin with more than one consonant, or to 
 close with a consonant. 
 
 Not the whole population of the Pacific islands 
 belongs to this family. The mass of the great islands 
 Borneo and New Guinea, with the more inaccessible 
 parts of the Philippines and others, are inhabited by a 
 black and woolly-haired race, the Papuans or Negritos, 
 resembling the Africans though not related with them, 
 and quite distinct from the Malay-Polynesians, by whose
 
 244 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 incursions tliej liave been exterminated or crowded 
 back from parts of their ancient possessions. Their 
 languages are almost utterly unknown. 
 
 Australia, again, and the neighboring Tasmania, 
 were inhabited, when discovered, by a third island-race, 
 of dark color but straight-haired, and of nearly or quite 
 the lowest known grade of endowment. Their greatly 
 varying dialects are polysyllabic and agglutinative, of 
 simple phonetic character, and especially different from 
 the Polynesian in using exclusively suffixed instead of 
 prefixed particles. 
 
 In reviewing the Indian branch of the Indo-Euro- 
 pean family, we saw that the tribes of our kindred had 
 worked their way in through the passes of the north- 
 west, driving out or subjecting a more aboriginal pop- 
 ulation. This primitive race still holds in possession 
 most of the great southern peninsula, beyond the chain 
 of mountains and wild highlands which cuts it off from 
 the wide valleys of Hindustan proper. The so-called 
 " Dravidians " number thirty to forty millions : their 
 principal languages are the Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, 
 and Malay al am or Malabar ; there are several others, of 
 inferior importance ; and the Brahui, of Beluchistan, 
 has been claimed to show signs of affinity with the 
 group. The Dravidian tongues have some peculiar 
 phonetic elements, are richly polysyllabic, of general 
 agglutinative structure, with prefixes only, and very 
 soft and harmonious in their utterance ; they are of a 
 very high type of agglutination, like the Finnish and 
 Hungarian ; and the author has been informed by ail 
 American who was born in southern India and grew 
 up to speak its language vernacularly along with his 
 English, a man of high education and unusual gifts as 
 a preacher and writer, that he esteemed the Tamil a
 
 CAUCASIAN LANGUAGES. 245 
 
 finer language to think and speak in than any European 
 tongue known to him. 
 
 Excepting that they show no trace of the harmonic 
 sequence of vowels, these languages are not in their 
 structure so different from the Scythian that they might 
 not belong to one family with them, if only sufficient 
 correspondences of material were found between the 
 two groups. And some have been ready, though on 
 grounds not to be accepted as sufficient, to declare them 
 related. The comparative grammar of the Scythian 
 languages has not yet been so reduced to form that it 
 should be possible to define the boundaries of the fami- 
 ly, either on the east or in the south. 
 
 Among the less familiar languages of Asia we have 
 occasion to notice further only that intricate and prob- 
 lematical group known as the Caucasian. As the name 
 denotes, its locality is the region between the Caspian 
 and Black Seas, filled by the Caucasus range and its 
 dependent hills and valleys. The chief dialects on the 
 south of the main crest are the Georgian, Suanian, Min- 
 grelian, and Lazian, all plainly related to one another, 
 and the first having an alphabet, derived along with its 
 religion from Armenia, and a literature of some an- 
 tiquity. The principal groups on the north are the 
 Circassian, Mitsjeghian, and Lesghian, the first border- 
 ing the Black Sea, the last the Caspian. The variety of 
 sub-dialects, especially of the Lesghian, is very great. 
 There is no demonstrated affinity between the southern 
 and northern divisions, nor between the members of the 
 northern ; how many independent groups there may be 
 is yet undetermined; and also, whether there is any 
 tie of analogical structure to bind them together into a 
 family, or whether they are the relics of ultimately 
 separate families, left stranded, as it were, on tho
 
 246 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 mountains, and defended by them and by the great seas 
 in front and behind from the movements of migration 
 which have swept the families elsewhere out of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Last among the Asiatic languages, we come to tho 
 Semitic, so called because in the genealogies of the 
 Genesis the communities which speak them are mostly 
 described as descendants of Shem. They fill the im- 
 mense, but barren and thinly -populated peninsula of 
 Arabia, with its northern border-lands, of Mesopotamia 
 and Syria and Palestine, and with a district in Abys- 
 sinia, lying opposite its southwest corner. The north- 
 ern division is composed of the Assyrian and Babylo- 
 nian, the Canaanitic dialects (chief among them the 
 .Hebrew and Phoenician), and the Syrian, or Aramaic ; 
 the- southern divi>ion contains the Arabic and Abys- 
 sinian dialects. This is their ancient territory : the 
 PliuMiieian was carried to its colonies, and, as Car- 
 thaginian, might perhaps have become the tongue of 
 Mediterranean civilization, but that the long struggle 
 for supremacy ended with the complete overthrow of 
 Carthage by Koine ; the Hebrew, replaced in vernacu- 
 lar use, even in its own home, four centuries before 
 Christ, by the Syrian (Chaldee, Aramaic), has led ever 
 since the artificial life of a learned language, scattered 
 among the civilized nations ; the Arabic, as the sacred 
 dialect of a conquering people and religion, has been 
 carried, since the seventh century, over a part of the 
 world comparable with that which the Latin came final- 
 ly to occupy : it is the speech of the whole northern 
 border of Africa ; it has crowded out the other Semitic; 
 branches, and has filled with its words the Persian, 
 Turkish, and Hindustani, and to a less extent the Malay 
 and Spanish vocabularies. It has given birth, however,
 
 SEMITIC FAMILY. 217 
 
 to no such group of independent derived languages aa 
 the Latin can show. 
 
 The ancient Hebrew literature is familiar to us far 
 beyond the rest, being our " Bible ; " its earliest parts 
 go back into the second thousand years before Christ. 
 The Phoenician has left no literature, and the inscribed 
 coffin of a king of Sidon (probably 500 B. c.) is its chief 
 monument ; a very recently discovered Moabite tablet 
 (of 900 B. c.) gives us a specimen of another ancient 
 Oanaanitic dialect, almost identical with Hebrew. The 
 Aramaic has an abundant Greco-Christian literature, 
 beginning from the second century, besides its share in 
 the Talmudic writings. The Assyrian has a fragmen- 
 tary literature in the inscriptions and tablets of Nineveh 
 and Babylon, from a period beyond that of the earliest 
 Hebrew. The Arabic begins its record mainly with 
 the rise of Islam ; since that time it is one of the rich- 
 est literatures in the world. In southwest Arabia pre- 
 vailed a very different body of dialects, usually styled 
 Himyaritic, now preserved only in the jealously-guard- 
 ed remains of an earlier civilization. With the Iliin- 
 jraritic is most nearly akin the Abyssinian group, which, 
 in two principal literary dialects, the earlier Gee'z or 
 Ethiopic and the later Amharic, has a considerable lit- 
 erature, beginning in the fourth century. 
 
 The Semitic family of languages and races is, after 
 the Indo-European, by far the most prominent in the 
 history of the world. None but the Semites have, since 
 the dawn of the historic period, seriously disputed with 
 our family the headship of the human race ; and, of the 
 three great conquering religions, two, Christianity and 
 Mohammedanism, are of Semitic birth although the 
 former won its world-wide dominion in connection with 
 itfl transfer to the hands of Indo-Europeans, the Greeks
 
 248 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 and Romans. That we have put off, then, our exami- 
 nation of Semitic language to this point is mainly ow- 
 ing to its exceptional and anomalous character. Semitic 
 speech stands more alone in the world than any other, 
 than even the nakedly isolating Chinese or the indefi- 
 nitely synthetic American. For, as regards all other 
 tongues, the basis of radical elements and the principle 
 of their combination being given, it is easy enough in 
 theory to explain their various structures, as product? 
 of one general method of development. But no such 
 thing is at present practicable for the Semitic ; this 
 contains two characteristics the triliterality of the roots 
 and their inflection by internal change, by variation of 
 vowel which belong to it alone. 
 
 AVhat we call the Semitic root, namely, is (except in 
 the pronouns and a wholly insignificant number of 
 other cases) a conglomerate of three consonants, no 
 more and no less : thus, for example, q-t-l represents 
 the conception of ' killing,' k-t-fi that of ' writing.' By 
 this is not meant, of course, that such conglomerates 
 were, like the Indo-European roots, the historical germs 
 of a body of derivative forms ; but, as we arrive at the 
 root in Indo-European by taking off the variously ac- 
 creted formative elements, we arrive at such a Semitic 
 root by removing its formative elements. The latter 
 includes no vowel that has an identity to preserve ; the 
 addition of any vowel makes a form. Thus, in Arabic 
 (the best preserved and most transparent in structure of 
 the various dialects), qatala is a verbal third singular, 
 * he killed ; ' as it were, the base of a system of per- 
 Bonal fomis, made, like ours, by pronominal endings : 
 thug, qataltu, ' I killed,' qatalat, she killed,' qataUumA, 
 1 ye two killed,' qatalnd, ' we killed.' A change of vow- 
 els, to qntita, makes of it a passive, ' he was killed ; '
 
 SEMITIC FAMILY. 
 
 249 
 
 and from this we have by a like process qutiliu, qutilat, 
 gutiltumd, qutilna, etc. Another change, to aqtala, 
 signifies ' he caused to kill,' with its passive uqttia ; and 
 BO on. Then (u)gtul is imperative, ' kill ! ' and some 
 thing like this is base of another set of persons, formed 
 partly by prefixes, partly by suffixes : as yaqtulu, he 
 kills,' taqtulu, ' she kills,' yaqtuluna, ' they (men) kill,' 
 naqtulu, ' we kill,' etc. Then, qdtil is present participle, 
 1 killing,' and qatl infinitive, 'act of killing;' while 
 iqtdl is 'causing to kill ' as noun, and muqtU^bfi same 
 as adjective. And qitl, ' enemy,' and qutl, ' murder- 
 ous,' are specimens of derivative noun and adjective. 
 These forms at once suggest our sing, sang, etc., already 
 often used as illustrations ; yet there is an immense dif- 
 ference between the two'cases : the Semitic phenomena 
 are infinitely more intricate and various ; and then they 
 are the very life and soul of the inflection of the lan- 
 guage, not in a single item reducible to anything more 
 original, out of which they should be seen to grow, by 
 an "inorganic" process. If we could conceive that, at 
 some peculiarly plastic period in the history of a Ger- 
 manic dialect, by an abnormal extension of the analogy 
 of sing, sang, etc., the popular taste taking a sudden 
 bent toward such formations, all the rest of the lan- 
 guage should come to be patterned after that model, 
 with consequent complete oblivion of the state of things 
 out of which sing, sang, etc. proceeded that would be 
 something analogous with the present condition of Se- 
 mitic. 
 
 The other peculiarities of the language are trifling 
 as compared with these, not different in kind or d* 
 from such as are variously found in other tongues. The 
 structure of the verb is quite unlike ours. The element 
 of time does not enter distinctly into it ; the (only) twc 
 17
 
 250 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 BO-called tenses are explained as indicating primarily 
 complete and incomplete action, and each tills various 
 offices of tense. In Assyrian, the tense of complete 
 action has gone almost entirely out of use. Of forms 
 analogous with our moods, too, there is great poverty. 
 But, as we have found the case in more than one other 
 family, there is a disposition to the formation of numer- 
 ous conjugations from one root, representing the radical 
 idea in a causative, a reflexive, an intensive, a conative 
 form, and so on. In Arabic, where these changes are 
 fullest, there are some fifteen such conjugations ; and 
 about a dozen of them, each with its passive, are in tol- 
 erably frequent use. The tense of incomplete action 
 tyaqtulu, etc.) has the aspect of being younger than 
 the other, and of standing at only one remove from a 
 noun ; since its endings of number are mainly coinci- 
 dent with those of ordinary noun inflection, and it de- 
 notes person by prefixes, while the other (yatala, etc.) 
 indicates person and number together by added end- 
 ings, evidently of pronominal origin. Both tenses dis- 
 tinguish masculine from feminine subject, except in the 
 first person. We find the distinction of gender (mas- 
 culine and feminine only) here again for the first time 
 since we left the Indo-European family. The nouns 
 have the same three numbers as the verb, but of case 
 distinction there is almost nothing. Derived nouns are 
 formed by the help both of internal flexion and of ex- 
 ternal additions, both prefixes and suffixes ; but only 
 directly from the root : those successive derivations, by 
 ending added to ending, in which the Indo-European 
 abounds (as true, tru-th, truthful, un-truthfuUy) are 
 quite unknown. Nor are compounds formed, save in 
 exceptional cases. Finally, connecting particles, as 
 means of the intertwining and subordination of clauses,
 
 SEMITIC FAMILY. 251 
 
 their conversion into a period, are almost wanting: 
 Semitic style is bald and simple, proceeding from asser> 
 tion to assertion. Another marked peculiarity is the 
 persistency of radical meaning in derivative and figura- 
 tive expression : the metaphorical or other transfer by 
 which a new term is won, instead of soon passing out 
 of memory, as in Indo-European, lets the old meaning 
 continue to show through. Picturesqueness, pictorial 
 vividness, therefore, are leading characteristics of Se- 
 mitic language. 
 
 The scale of dialectic differences is much less in 
 Semitic than in Indo-European ; all the great branches, 
 even, are as it were the closely related members of a 
 single branch. This is not necessarily because their 
 separation has been more recent than that of the 
 branches of our family ; for Semitic speech has shown 
 itself much more rigid and changeless than Indo-Euro- 
 pean or, it is believed, than any other variety of hu- 
 man speech. The ground of this difference doubtless 
 lies partly in the character of the speakers ; but it is 
 also in part to be plainly read in the character of the 
 language itself, with its rigid framework of three con- 
 sonants appearing in the whole body of derivatives ol 
 each root, with its significant and therefore more care- 
 fully maintained variations of vowel, and with its in- 
 capacity of new formations by composition. Its primi- 
 tive development, if development it was, was into so 
 individual and sharply defined a type that it has since 
 been comparatively exempt from variation. 
 
 There are two ways of looking at the peculwritiei 
 of Semitic structure. One, by far the simpler and 
 more comfortable, is to pronounce them original and 
 inexplicable, an indefeasible part of the apjwmage of 
 the Semitic mind, to be taken as presented, and no
 
 252 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 questions asked. This, however, is virtually to declare 
 them outside the pale of science, to abnegate with re- 
 gard to them the right of the linguistic student to ask 
 after the why of what he finds anywhere in language. 
 The other wav is to put this question and pursue it, not 
 daunted by the acknowledged difficulties of the case. 
 If all other languages have had a history of develop- 
 ment into their present shape, then doubtless the Se- 
 mitic also ; if all the rest have started from pronounce- 
 able roots, composed of a combination of consonant and 
 vowel, and have grown by external accretion of other 
 similar elements to these, then it is not lightly to be 
 believed that the Semitic has not done the same. That 
 is to say, there must probably lie behind the consonantal 
 triple roots and the internal flexion of the Semitic 
 something more analogous with what is seen to lie at 
 the basis of all other human speech ; and there must 
 have been a history of change from the one of these 
 conditions to the other whether we shall or shall not 
 prove able to retrace the history and restore the primi- 
 tive condition. Most linguistic scholars, as might bo 
 expected, take the latter view ; and the attempt has 
 been repeatedly made to reduce the roots to a more 
 primitive form ; but no definite and solid results have 
 been yet attained. The most plausible conjectural ac- 
 count of the matter, probably, yet suggested has been 
 that the universality of the three root-consonants is duo 
 (as in our hypothetical case above) to the inorganic ex- 
 tension of an analogy which had in some way become a 
 dominant one ; and that a stage of dissyllabic or trisyl- 
 labic derivative nouns lies between the primitive roots 
 and their present shape. But to offer a plausible con- 
 jecture is one thing, and to demonstrate its value as a 
 true explanation is another ; and until something like
 
 RELATION OF SEMITIC TO OTHER FAMILIES. 253 
 
 a demonstration is reached (which possibly may never 
 be), there will doubtle^ continue to be those who 
 will look upon Semitic triliterality and internal flexion 
 as original, as not only inaccessible to explanation but 
 calling for none. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that with the retrac- 
 ing of Semitic root-history is indissolubly bound up the 
 historical connection of Semitic language with any other 
 form of human speech. So long as Semitic flexion re- 
 mains what it is, it cannot be identified with that of 
 any other language ; so long as Semitic roots remain 
 what they are, no re'semblances which may be traced 
 between them and those of any other language can have 
 real value. It has been a favorite subject of effort with 
 scholars, ever since the beginning of linguistic study, to 
 connect the germs of Semitic and Indo-European speech, 
 and to prove the two families and the races that speak 
 them branches of an ultimately common stock. There 
 are many things which tempt to this : the two peoples 
 are, at the beginning of their cultural history, near 
 neighbors and mutual helpers ; they are the two great 
 conquering and civilizing white races, exchanging in- 
 fluence and institutions with one another through the 
 ages : how natural to connect them more closely with 
 one another than with mankind in general I This con 
 sideration goes all the way back to the representation 
 of Shem and Japhet as sons of one father. But here, 
 again, plausible theory is one thing, and scientific dem 
 onstration another. If the items of apparent agree- 
 ment which great scholars have hunted up between 
 Semitic and Indo-European had been pointed out as 
 existing between Indo-European and Zulu or Papuan, 
 no one would think them of any account ; and they are 
 really worth no more where they are, as scientific evi
 
 254 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 dence. It cannot be too strongly insisted on that, until 
 the anomalies of Semitic language are at least measu- 
 rably explained, it is too soon to say anything about a 
 relationship between it and any other tongue. 
 
 The same rule is to be applied to the current asser- 
 tions of Semitic relationship in the opposite direction, 
 with the tongues which are grouped together to form 
 the " Hamitic " family. In this family, the Egyptian 
 occupies the same commanding position as the Chinese 
 among the monosyllabic tongues of southeastern Asia. 
 Egypt is the home of by far the oldest civilization of 
 which we have any records. The question as to the 
 chronology of its earliest monuments is not, to be sure, 
 settled beyond dispute ; but the present tendency of 
 scientilic inquiry seems decidedly toward recognizing as 
 well founded even the extreme claims put forth respect- 
 ing them, and fixing the reign of the first historical 
 king at nearly 4000 B. c. ; and even at that time the 
 race must have been a powerful one, with a highly de- 
 veloped civilization. The knowledge of Egyptian lan- 
 guage has been recovered in our own century, after 
 being utterly lost for near two thousand years, and re- 
 markable discoveries of new material in the country 
 itself, and advances in Egyptian learning in Europe, 
 are at this very time going on ; so that many of the 
 historical and chronological questions about which we 
 are disputing will be fully settled for the generation 
 that succeeds us. 
 
 The key to the decipherment of the ancient Egyp- 
 tian was furnished in its descendant, the modern Cop- 
 tic. The Coptic records are Christian only, written in 
 an alphabet derived from the Greek, and dating back 
 to the early centuries of our era. But the language 
 was extinguished in vernacular use by the Arabic, throe
 
 EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE. 25fl 
 
 or four centuries ago. Several slightly different dia- 
 lects are to be recognized in its literary remains. 
 
 The Egyptian language, old and new, was of the 
 utmost simplicity of structure. It hardly knew a dis- 
 Unction between root and word ; its fundamental cle 
 nients (not always monosyllabic) were brought directly 
 into the combinations of the sentence, without formal 
 means of distinction of one part of speech from an- 
 other. ]Sor even in inflection is such distinction clearly 
 made ; noun and verb are separated in part by the con- 
 nection only : ran4, for example, is literally * naming- 
 mine,' and means either ' my name ' or * I name or call.' 
 The personal inflection of the verb is by means of af- 
 fixed pronouns, loosely agglutinated to it, that of the 
 third person being omissible when a subject noun is 
 expressed. Mood and tense are marked, within narrow 
 limits, by prefixed auxiliary words. The noun has no 
 declension : relations of case are denoted by connec- 
 tives ; its use as noun is generally marked by a prefixed 
 "article." And in this article, as in the pronominal 
 elements generally, is made in the singular a distinction 
 of masculine and feminine gender a marked peculiar- 
 ity of the language, putting it so far into one class with 
 the Semitic and Indo-European. This particular, how- 
 ever, is one of which the reach and importance are wont 
 to be greatly exaggerated ; in its general character, the 
 language can sustain no comparison at all with the otlu-r 
 two mentioned ; it is little richer or more developed 
 than the lowest tongues of the eastern Asiatic races. 
 
 It must be clearly apparent from this description 
 how venturesome is the assertion of a n-latiui^hi]. 
 twcen the Egyptian and Semitic. Thnv :nv. t. IK- SUIT, 
 certain remarkable resemblances bctwn-n the- pronouni 
 of the two languages ; but to rely on these as suffidcnt
 
 256 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 proof of connection is not an acceptable proceeding, 
 In many languages, signs of relationship, abundantly 
 traceable through their whole material, are especially 
 conspicuous in the pronouns ; of connection proved by 
 pronominal evidence solely, or chiefly, there are no ex 
 amples. And the question is, whether pronominal 
 words could possibly retain an almost undisguised iden- 
 tity while the rest of the language was undergoing such 
 a tremendous revolution as should alone be able to con- 
 vert Egyptian poverty of inflection and fixity of root 
 nnd freedom of radical form into the strictly regulated 
 wealth and internal flexion of the Semitic. And the 
 provisional answer must be in the negative. We do 
 not need to deny the possibility of ultimately proving 
 the Semitic related with the Hamitic, any more than 
 with the Indo-European ; we have only to see that no 
 sufficient evidence of it has yet been brought forward, 
 nor is likely to be so until the riddle of Semitic struct- 
 ure is solved. 
 
 I wo other groups of languages in northern and 
 northeastern Africa are held to be ultimately related 
 
 itli the Egyptian, forming along with it the Hamitic 
 
 They are the Libyan or Berber group (Kabyle 
 
 and T;miu.<hek, and, more doubtfully, Hausa), and, 
 
 H.uthward from Egypt, the Ethiopian, or Cushitic group 
 
 (Px-ja, (Julia, Dankali, Somali, etc.). 
 
 Nearly the whole of the narrower southern penin- 
 sula of Africa is occupied by the branches of a single 
 very distinct family, best called the South-African 
 
 mown also as Bantu, Chuana, Zingian). It has no 
 
 e and no literature, except what it has produced 
 
 aid of Christian missionaries in the most recent 
 
 It is strikingly characterized by its extensive use 
 
 >1 prefixes: a word without a formative prefix being
 
 SOUTH-AFRICAN FAMILY. 357 
 
 here nearly as unknown as, in the synthetic period of 
 Indo-European, a word without a formative suffix. 
 Different prefixes distinguish various classes of nouns, 
 and numbers in those classes : thus, in Zulu, um-fana 
 is ' boy,' and dba-fana ( boys ; ' in-komo is ' cow,' an'l 
 i-sin-komo ' cows ; ' ili-zwe is ' country,' and ama-2W6 
 1 countries,' and so on. Then, in the clauses into which 
 any one of these words enters as dominant member, 
 other members relating to them as adjectives, posses- 
 sives, verbs take into their structure representative 
 parts of the same prefix : e. g. dba-fana b-ami aba-kulu, 
 ba tanda, 'my large boys, they love;' but izin-komo 
 z-ami izin-kulu, zi tanda, ' my large cows, they love.' 
 This is like Latin or Greek inverted ; an alliterative 
 instead of a rhyming congruence. Verbal mood and 
 tense are signified in part by suffixes, as are also cou- 
 jugational distinctions analogous with those made in 
 Scythian and Semitic language : thus, from bona, l see,' 
 come bonisa, l show,' bonana, ' see each other,' bonisana, 
 1 show each other,' and so on. Case-relations are sig- 
 nified by prefixed prepositions. The South-African 
 languages are thus by no means unprovided with the 
 formal means of sufficiently various distinction. Those 
 of them which border on the Hottentot dialects have in 
 their alphabets peculiar sounds called " clicks," made 
 by sharp separation of the tongue from the roof of the 
 mouth, with suction. 
 
 The clicks are a marked feature of the Hottentot, 
 and look as if they had been introduced into the South- 
 African from thence, perhaps along with mixture of 
 blood. There is no relationship whatever between the 
 two families ; nor, probably, between the Hottentot and 
 the Bushman. Of the last mentioned, the scientific in- 
 vestigation is now just beginning (Bleek) ; the other.
 
 258 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 chiefly on the ground of its partial distinction of gen 
 ders, has been by some accounted a branch of tho 
 llamitic family, strayed away into the far south and 
 greatly degraded in type ; but the connection is con- 
 lid en tly denied by others. 
 
 Between the South-African and llamitic domains, 
 in a broad band extending across the widest part of tho 
 African continent, is found an intricate and heterogene- 
 ous mass of dialects, of which the classification is a 
 matter of much difference of opinion among even the 
 latest investigators, and which are of too little impor- 
 tance to be dwelt on by us. The region is that of the 
 typical negro ; yet there are also in it races of a lighter 
 tint: the variety of physical characteristics in Africa, 
 among races which we in our ignorance lump together 
 as one. is not inconsiderable. 
 
 Before leaving the eastern continent, we must re- 
 turn to Europe for a word or two upon one language 
 which lias as yet found no place for notice the Basque, 
 now spoken, in four principal dialects and a number of 
 minor varieties, in a very limited mountain-district at 
 the angle of the Bay of Biscay, astride the frontier, but 
 chieily on the Spanish side. It is believed to be the 
 modern representative of the ancient Iberian, and to 
 have belonged to the older population of the penin- 
 sula, before the irruption of the Indo-European Celts. 
 Tni"cs of local nomenclature show it to have occupied 
 also at least the southern part of France. The Basque 
 may then be the sole surviving relic and witness of an 
 aboriginal western European population, dispossessed 
 y the intrusive Indo-European tribes. It stands en- 
 tirely alone, no kindred having yet been found for it in 
 my part of the world. It is of an exaggeratedly ag- 
 glutinative type, incorporating into its verb a variety of
 
 AMERICAN FAMILY. 259 
 
 relations which are almost everywhere else expressed by 
 independent words. 
 
 The Basque forms a suitable stepping-stone from 
 which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the 
 New World, since there is no other dialect of the Old 
 World which so much resembles in structure the Ameri- 
 can languages. Not that the latter are all of accordant 
 form. Although it is usual among philologists to ac- 
 count them as making together but a single great fami- 
 ly, this is in no small part a classification of ignorance, 
 and should be held only provisionally, ready to be 
 changed, if necessary, when additional knowledge is 
 won. As regards the material of expression, it is fully 
 confessed that there is irreconcilable diversity among 
 them. There are a very considerable number of groups, 
 between whose significant signs exist no more appar- 
 ent correspondences than between those of English, 
 Hungarian, and Malay : none, namely, which may not 
 be merely fortuitous. So, for example, between the 
 neighboring tongues of the Algonkin, Iroquois, and 
 Dakota groups, the speakers of which we have every 
 reason to regard as ultimately related, on the ground of 
 common physical characteristics, gifts, and institutions. 
 Indeed, there is even linguistic evidence to the same 
 effect. The case seems to be clearly one where the 
 ptyle of structure of a language is more permanent than 
 the material, constituting of itself a satisfactory proof 
 of relationship. That is to say, while the material ele- 
 ments of these tongues have been highly variable since 
 their separation from one another, till identities in this 
 department are no longer traceable a feature in their 
 history which we shall understand and judge more truly 
 when the special laws of their growth and change shall 
 be much better comprehended there still remains, nil
 
 260 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 alt civil in its main features, their common mode of 
 managing and combining the linguistic material, of 
 apprehending the relations which are to be expressed 
 in language, and the way in which they shall be ex- 
 pi essed. 
 
 And this common mode of structure, which, in ita 
 various aspects and degrees, is at least generally chai- 
 acterir-tic of American language, is called the polysyn- 
 thetic or incorporating. Its marked tendency is toward 
 the ab>orbing of the other parts of the sentence into 
 tin- verb. Not the subject alone, as in Indo-European, 
 entrrs into combination with the root for predicative 
 expression, but the objects also, of every kind of rela- 
 tion, and the signs of time and place and manner and 
 de-give, and a host of modifiers of the verbal action, 
 f<r purpu.-es unknown to any grammatical system with 
 which we are ordinarily familiar. It has been deliber- 
 ately calculated, by one long versed in the chief Algon- 
 kin dialects (Rev. T. Ilurlbut), that 17,000,000 verbal 
 forms may be made from an Algonkin root ; and even 
 if our credence were to extend to only the thousandth 
 part of this, enough would be left to be very character- 
 istic of a structural style. Everything tends to verbal 
 expression : nouns, and adjectives, and even adverbs 
 and prepositions, are regularly conjugated ; nouns are 
 to a great extent verbal forms: e. g. 'home' is 'they 
 live there,' or 'where they live/ Or, to express it 
 more accurately, our grammatical terminology does not 
 at all suit these languages; we are involved in contra- 
 dictions and absurdities as soon as we attempt to apply 
 it to them. Of course, the tendency is toward the 
 formation of words of immense length, and of an in- 
 tricate structure that gives expression to a host of things 
 left by us to be understood. The longest word in Eliot's
 
 AMERICAN FAMILY. 261 
 
 Massachusetts Bible, however, is of eleven syllables : 
 wut-appesituq\issun-nooweliirunk-quoJi^ which renders 
 " kneeling down to him " in our version ; but it really 
 means ' he came to a state of rest upon the bended 
 knees, doing reverence unto him' (J. H. Trumbull). 
 All the parts of such combinations must be recognized 
 in their separateness ; the word must be in all its mem- 
 bers significant and self -explaining. And the separate 
 elements are not, as is often represented, a reduction to 
 manageable fragments of long words for which they 
 stand; they are rather the desired significant element 
 among those w r hich compose the other word. Of 
 course, there are infinite possibilities of expressiveness 
 in such a structure ; and it would only need that some 
 native-American Greek race should arise, to fill it full 
 of thought and fancy, and put it to the uses of a noble 
 literature, and it would be rightly admired as rich and 
 flexible, perhaps, beyond anything else that the world 
 knew. As it is, it makes upon us the impression of as 
 much exceeding the due medium of formal expressive- 
 ness as the Chinese comes short of it ; it is cumbrous 
 and time-wasting in its immense polysyllabism. Partly 
 as a result of its multiplicity of accessory details, it 
 seems to us deficient in simple abstract terms : as hav- 
 ing, for instance, separate roots for washing all kinds of 
 objects, in all kinds of ways, but none for < washing ' 
 pure and simple. There is something of our prejudice 
 in this, however; so a Chinaman or Englishman might 
 criticise a Latin adjective unfavorably, saying : " Tho 
 Latin is deficient in the power of abstraction, of con- 
 sidering a quality apart from its accidental accessories: 
 so magnus, for example, does not signify simply to, 
 * great,' but a quality of great of a first degree, and as 
 belonging to only one object, and to one that is (for
 
 262 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 some unassignable reason) regarded as masculine and 
 can be only the subject of a verb ; magnas indicates iu 
 like manner an objective and feminine and plural great- 
 ness ; but for the bare idea of ta, ' great,' the Latin has 
 no expression." 
 
 There are other characteristics of American speech, 
 of universal or general prevalence, like the distinction 
 of animate and inanimate gender (which would seem to 
 be quite as significant, and as capable of being applied 
 to higher formative uses, as is our own sexual gender), 
 the possession of the inclusive and exclusive first per- 
 sons plural, the classih'catory system of designation of 
 relationships, and so on ; but they are of only minor 
 importance, as compared with the general style of 
 structure. 
 
 The polysynthetic structure does not belong in the 
 same degree to all the American languages ; on the 
 contrary, it seems to be altogether effaced or originally 
 wanting in some. So, for example, a monosyllabic or 
 nninllective character has been claimed for the Otomi 
 in Mexico, and for one or two dialects in South Ameri- 
 ca ; and all sign of polysynthetism has been denied (C. 
 F. Ilartt) to the great Tupi-Guarani stock, on the 
 eastern side of the South American continent. It re- 
 mains yet to be determined how far such exceptions are 
 real, and how far apparent only. But the common 
 character is recognizable in so large a part of American 
 tongues, from the Eskimo of the extreme north to the 
 Antarctic Ocean, that the linguist regards them, with 
 considerable confidence, as members of a family, do 
 scemlants of one original speech, of unknown age, lo- 
 cality, and derivation. Attempts have been made to 
 connect them with some dialect or family of the Old 
 World, but with obviously unavoidable ill-success. If,
 
 AMERICAN FAMILY. 263 
 
 for example, there is not left in Algonkin, Iroquois, and 
 Dakota enough of the material once common to the 
 ancestors of all to furnish ground for trustworthy 
 identifications, much less are they to be identified with 
 tongues from which they have been so much longer 
 separated that even their structure is of a different char- 
 aoter. It is not proper, perhaps, to limit the possibili- 
 ties of the future ; but there appears to be no tolerable 
 prospect that, even supposing the American languages 
 derived from the Old World, they can ever be proved 
 so, or traced to their parentage. 
 
 An exhaustive classification of the American lan- 
 guages is at present impossible ; and to give what can 
 already be given would demand much more space than 
 can be afforded here. There are many great groups, 
 and a host of lesser knots of idioms, or of dialects 
 isolated or unclassified. The Eskimos line the whole 
 northern coast, and the northeastern down to Newfound- 
 land. The Athabaskan or Tinne" occupies a great re- 
 gion in the far northwest (the Apache and Navajo in 
 the south also belong to it), and is flanked on the west 
 by the Selish and other smaller groups. The Algonkiu 
 had in possession the northeastern and middle United 
 States, and stretched westward to the Rocky Moan- 
 tains ; within its territory was included that of the 
 Iroquois. The Dakota (Sioux) is the largest of the 
 families occupying the great prairies and plains of the 
 far "West, to the Rocky Mountains. Beyond them is 
 found the extensive Shoshone family, and, north of it, 
 the Sahaptin and Selish families. Still further, on the 
 Pacific coast, occurs a perplexing variety of dialects. The 
 Mu>kokee and Cherokee group filled the States of the 
 southeast. In Colorado and Utah commence the towns 
 of the settled and comparatively civilized "puiblo
 
 2(54 
 
 FAMILIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Indians," rising to the more advanced culture of the 
 Mexican peoples, attaining its height in the Mayas of 
 Central America, and continued in the empire of the 
 Incas of Peru. . The Quichua of the latter, with the 
 related Aymara, are still the native dialects of a consid- 
 erable part of South America ; with the Tupi-Guarani, 
 already referred to, on the east, ill the valleys of the 
 Ama/ons and its tributaries. 
 
 The condition of American languages is thus an 
 epitome of that of the language of the world in gen- 
 eral, (treat and wide-spread families, limited groups, 
 isolated and perishing dialects, touch and jostle one 
 another. Such, in the vicissitudes of human affairs, 
 must be the history of races aiul of their dialects. 
 "What families, once covering great tracts of the earth's 
 surface, have been wiped out without a trace, what 
 others have been reduced to mere fragments, what have 
 etarted from a narrow beginning, and, by prosperous 
 growth and by working in parts of other races, have 
 risen to prominence on such points as these we must 
 remain forever only imperfectly informed. We need 
 to guard against supposing that, when we have succeed- 
 ed in classifying all existing languages and determining 
 their relations, we shall have gained a complete outline 
 of the history of human language : the darkness of the 
 past may hide a great deal of which we do not even 
 catch a glimpse. 
 
 Some of the questions bearing on this point will 
 engage our attention in the next chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGV. 
 
 Limitations to the scope of linguistic science : materials of speech not 
 analyzable to the end ; annihilation, transmutation, new creation, 
 possible in it ; cumulative character of evidences of relationship. 
 Impossibility that language can prove either unity or variety of the 
 human race. Relation of language to race, as transmitted institu- 
 tion only ; exchange of language accompanying mixture of blood. 
 Insolubility of the ethnological problem. Contributions to it of 
 archaeology and linguistics ; merits of the latter ; importance of the 
 testimony of language to race. Reconciliation of the various lines of 
 ethnological evidence. Inferior value of other classifications of lan- 
 guage as compared with the genetic. 
 
 THE classification of languages given in the preced- 
 ing chapter has confessedly represented only the pres- 
 ent state of knowledge, and is liable to amendment here- 
 after, as further investigation shall bring more light. 
 But its main features will probably stand unaltered. 
 The leading independent families will continue separate 
 to the end. One and another of tho^e now recognized, 
 it is true, may hereafter assume a dependent place, aa 
 branches of a wider and more comprehensive family, 
 but there is no reasonable ground for anticipating that 
 each will ever be the case with them all. To maintain 
 this is not so much to limit the future of linguistic sci- 
 ence, as, rather, to recognize the limits which in the 
 
 18
 
 2G6 
 
 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 nature of tilings are set to its progress; as a brief and 
 simple exposition will show. 
 
 We must not fail to appreciate the essential differ- 
 ence between the material of the physical sciences and 
 that of our subject ; that we have to deal with the 
 usages of men, in all of which intervenes that indefinite 
 element, the human will as determined by circumstance, 
 hv habit, by individual character; and that these do not 
 admit an analysis penetrating to the ultimate elements. 
 There is no natural substance which the chemist may 
 not aspire to analyze; into whatever new forms and 
 combinations an element may enter, he has tests which 
 will dftrct its presence ; neither new creation nor an- 
 nihilation is possible ; all change is but recombination 
 of material always existing ; there is no transmutation 
 of one element into another. But it is altogether dif- 
 feivnt with speech. A word, a whole family of words, 
 prri>hes by simple disuse, and is as if it had never been, 
 unless civilization is there to make a record of its de- 
 parted worth. A whole language, or family of Ian 
 guages, is annihilated by the destruction of the commu- 
 nity that spoke it, or by the adoption of another lan- 
 guage by that community. When the Gauls learned 
 Latin, there was nothing saved which, without the aid 
 of external evidences, should show what their primitive 
 speech had been ; when the Etruscans were Latinized, 
 but for the scattering words which they had written 
 down, their speech passed out of all reach of knowl- 
 edge : and inany a dialect has doubtless gone out in a 
 like way, leaving no such telltale records. The actual 
 creation of the new in speech is, as we have seen, very 
 rare ; yet there is nothing whatever to prevent it save 
 men's preferences. And it amounts, for all purposes o* 
 analysis, to a new creation, when a derivative word gets
 
 ANNIHILATION AND TRANSMUTATION. 267 
 
 BO far from its primitive, in form and meaning, that the 
 tie between them is traceable only by external, historical 
 evidence: and of such cases all language is full. A 
 formative element is annihilated when it is worn oil 
 from every form which it once made ; such a one if 
 created when it is fully established in its derived ami 
 subordinate use : no process of analysis that we have or 
 of which we can conceive would ever find the lost masi 
 of oui- first persons plural, or detect the presence of did 
 in loved: there is wanted the historical support, for 
 lack of which a host of other like cases cannot be ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 The changes of linguistic usage are all the time sep- 
 arating in appearance what really belongs together : 
 "bisliop and eveque are historically one word ; so are eye 
 and auge / so are I&ndje and ik and eywv and aham / 
 though not one of them has an audible element which 
 is found in any other. And then, the same changes 
 are bringing together what really belongs apart : the 
 Latin locus and the Sanskrit lokas, ' place, room,' have 
 really nothing to do with one another, though so nearly 
 identical and in closely-related languages ; likewise 
 Greek 0X05 (holos) and English whole ; and so on. We 
 may take the English language (as too many do), and 
 compare it with every unrelated dialect in existence, 
 and find a liberal list of apparent correspondences; 
 which then a little study of the English words will 
 prove unreal and fallacious. This is, above all others, 
 the decisive fact which stands in the way of a com 
 parison that shall penetrate to the bottom of the matter. 
 If there were no resemblances in either the material or 
 the structure of language save such as have a historical 
 basis, we might let them be swept away as much as 
 they would ; what was left, if anything were left, would
 
 263 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 suffice to prove relationship. As it is, the process of 
 proof is not direct and absolute, but cumulative ; the 
 result comes from a sufficient number of particulars of 
 which each, taken by itself, would prove nothing. Wo 
 have had expressly to allow that two dialects may di 
 verge from a common original so far that all sign of 
 their kinship shall be lost ; there may be a plenty of 
 the altered products of common material in them both ; 
 but if it have gotten into the condition of bishop and 
 eveque, it is of no use to the linguist. Accidental cor- 
 respondences are capable of rising to a certain percent- 
 age ; if all that appear stand at or near this figure, the 
 case is one hopeless of settlement. 
 
 This cumulative character of the signs of relation- 
 ship, the uncertain value of any single item, and the 
 need of historical evidence to support their interpreta- 
 tion, set limits to the reach and competence of linguistic 
 investigation. Thus far, the recognized families are 
 such as have had a common development. There are 
 even some of which the sole uniting tie is a common 
 style of structure. If we cannot prove the American 
 languages related except by the characteristic of poly- 
 syuthetism, nor the southeastern Asiatic except by that 
 of monosyllabism, it is obviously impossible to prove 
 American and Chinese related by the material corre- 
 spondences of their roots. In the present stage of lin- 
 guistic science, root-comparisons are surrounded with 
 too many uncertainties and dangers to have any value. 
 All that have been made thus far are worthless ; wheth- 
 er the future will show anything better, we may leave 
 for tho future to determine. There is no harm in any 
 one's rating even too highly the possibilities of a pro- 
 gressive science like linguistics, provided he do not let 
 his sanguineness warp his judgment as to what shall
 
 UNITY OR VARIETY OF HUMAN ORIGINS. 2G9 
 
 have been at any given time already accomplished, and 
 lead him to take plausible fancies for tried and ap- 
 proved facts. He who realizes the immense difficulty 
 of arriving at the ultimate roots even of a family like 
 the Indo-European, despite the exceptional antiquity 
 and conservation of its oldest dialects, will be likely to 
 be saved from hanging his expectations on root-com- 
 parisons. 
 
 It is, then, impossible that linguistic science should 
 ever be able to prove, by the evidence of community 
 of the first germs of expression, that the human race 
 in the beginning formed one society together. Even if 
 the number of families be lessened by future research, 
 it will never be reduced to one. 
 
 But it is even far more demonstrable that linguistic 
 science can never prove the variety of human races and 
 origins. As we have repeatedly seen, there are no lim- 
 its to the diversity which may arise by discordant 
 growth between languages originally one. Given any 
 angle of divergence, and the law of increasing diver- 
 gence (p. 165), and the distance of the ends of two lines 
 may be made, by their production far enough, to exceed 
 any assignable quantity ; and in linguistics, as has been 
 just pointed out, there comes, far short of infinite pro- 
 longation, a distance across which the historical scholar, 
 with his limited vision, cannot see : and that is, for all 
 practical purposes, infinity. The understanding now 
 won of the methods of growth and change in speech 
 lias taken away all possibility of a dogmatic assertion 
 on the part of the linguistic scholar that language haa 
 a various origin. If every tongue had from the begin- 
 ning its own structure and material complete, then lan- 
 guage-history would run back only in parallel lines, 
 with no indication of convergence. But the difference
 
 270 
 
 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 of English and German and Danish comes by divergent 
 growth from a common centre ; that of English and 
 Russian and Armenian and Persian is by similar diver- 
 gence from a more distant centre : and we cani.ot say 
 that English and Turkish and Circassian and Japanese 
 may not owe their difference to the same cause. The 
 lines of development of all families of language do point 
 back to one original common condition of formless 
 roots ; and precisely what these roots were, in shape 
 and meaning, we cannot in most families even begin to 
 trace out ; we caanot, then, deny that they may have 
 been the same for all. "NVe may talk of probabilities as 
 much as we please; but of impossibility there is actually 
 nothing in the assumption of identity of origins. 
 
 This, again, implies that linguistic science cannot 
 assume to prove the diversity of human races. But it 
 deserves to be pointed out that there is an additional 
 difficulty in the way of the same proof. If we must 
 regard it as at least possible (whether we admit it as an 
 established conclusion or not) that men made the begin- 
 nings of their own speech, as well as created all its 
 after-development, then we shall be obliged also to al- 
 low that a period of some length may have elapsed 
 before any so settled store of expression had been won 
 that it should show itself in the later forms of lan- 
 guage ; and during this period the race, though one, 
 might have spread and separated, so that the abiding 
 germs of the speech of each part should be independent. 
 As a general conclusion, the incompetence of linguistic 
 science to pass any decisive judgment as to the unity 
 or diversity of the human race, or even as to that of 
 human speech, appears to be completely and irrevoca- 
 bly demonstrated. 
 
 Another highly important anthropological question,
 
 LANGUAGE AND RACE. 271 
 
 connected with and suggested by our classification of 
 languages, concerns its relation to the ethnologist's clas- 
 sification of races. And here we have to make at the 
 outset the unreserved confession that the two do not by 
 any means correspond and agree : wholly discordant 
 languages are spoken by communities whom the ethnol- 
 ogist would not separate in race from one another; and 
 related languages are spoken by men of apparently dif 
 ferent race. And the view we have taken of language 
 is entirely consistent with this. We have seen that 
 there is no necessary tie between race and language ; 
 that every man speaks the language he has learned, be- 
 ing born into the possession of no one rather than an- 
 other ; and that, as any individual may learn a language 
 different from that of his parents or of his remoter 
 ancestors, so a community (which is only an aggregate 
 of individuals) may do the same thing, not retaining 
 the slightest trace of its ancestral speech. The world, 
 past and present, is full of examples of this, of every 
 class and kind, and sundry of them have been already 
 noticed by us in passing as the combination of hetero- 
 geneous elements, now using only English as their 
 native tongue, found in the American community ; the 
 Celts of Gaul, the Normans of France, the Celts of Ire- 
 land and Cornwall, the Etruscans of Italy, and all the 
 other communities whose idioms have been crowded 
 out and replaced by the Latin, the English, the Arabic. 
 There are conquering languages which are always en- 
 croaching upon the territory of their neighbors, as there 
 are others which are always losing ground. 
 
 The testimony of language to race is thus not that 
 of a physical characteristic, nor of anything founded on 
 and representing such ; but only that of a transmitted 
 institution, which, under sufficient inducement, is cnpa-
 
 272 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 ble of being abandoned by its proper inheritors, or as- 
 sumed by men of strange blood. And -the inducement 
 lies in external circumstances, not in the nature of the 
 language abandoned or assumed. Political control, 
 social superiority, superiority of culture these are the 
 leading causes which bring about change of speech. 
 Or rather, these are the added circumstances which, iu. 
 the case of a mixture of communities, decide which 
 element of population shall give, chiefly or wholly, its 
 tongue to the resulting community. If there were no 
 such thing as mixture of blood, then there would at 
 least be next to nothing of the shifting of speech. 
 Borrowing there would still be, but not substitution. 
 
 It is mixture of communities which creates the 
 great intricacy of the ethnological problem, on its lin- 
 guistic side as on its physical ; which renders it, in fact, 
 insoluble except approximately; and which, so far as 
 the history of races is concerned, makes the linguist as 
 glad of the help of the physicist as vice versa. The 
 ethnologist has to confess the same possibility which 
 was admitted on the part of the linguists at the end of 
 the preceding chapter. During the long past, there 
 have been indefinite encroachments, superpositions, 
 mixtures, displacements, destructions, among human 
 races (or derived branches of a unitary race), as among 
 human languages (or derived branches of the unitary 
 human language). In neither department is it likeiy 
 that the history will ever be unraveled with anything 
 approaching to completeness: especially, since the great 
 extension which the generally-admitted period of man's 
 existence on the earth has lately received. Opinions 
 are by no means as yet agreed upon this point ; but 
 iven those who still refuse to accept the new doctrine 
 are preparing themselves to believe by-and-by, if the
 
 ARCHAEOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS. 273 
 
 evidence to that effect shall turn out irresistible, that the 
 life of man has lasted for scores, if not for hundreds, 
 of thousands of years. This is a doctrine of the highest 
 interest to the ethnologist; but it balks his hopes of 
 being able to trace more than a little way into the thick 
 darkness of early time the lines of race-history ; it gives 
 the precedence to anthropology as the science of man's 
 development as a whole race, or a congeries of undis- 
 tinguishable races, as yet not sufficiently differentiated 
 in their capacities and products to be held apart from 
 one another ; and to zoology as alone capable of answer- 
 ing the question as to his origins 
 
 The records of the earliest and rudest period of 
 man's activity are of two kinds : the products of their 
 art and industry, wrought by their hands; and the 
 primitive materials and forms of their speech, wrought 
 for the uses of their minds ; the latter the instrument 
 of sociality, as the former of individual subsistence and 
 defense ; both turning, each in its own way and meas- 
 ure, to the education and equipment of the higher 
 capacities of the race, and its advance toward self-con- 
 trol, the control of Nature, and civilization. Both kinds 
 of record are eagerly sought and carefully scanned by 
 historical students, as evidences of a remoter past than 
 the pen of history or the voice of legend reports. But, 
 of the two, the linguistic remains are infinitely the more 
 important and instructive ; and it is almost they alone 
 which can serve the purpose of the ethnologist, since 
 the others are indicative rather of a grade of develop- 
 ment than of the special endowments or habits of a 
 race. The linguistic evidence has over even the physi- 
 cal the advantage that it is far more abundant and 
 varied, and therefore manageable. The differences in 
 the kingdom of language are not like those which pre
 
 274: LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 vail within the limits of a single species of animals; 
 they are equal, rather, in range to those which belong 
 to the whole animal kingdom. It is, to the other, like 
 a microscopic image thrown up by optical means upon 
 a wall, where its parts may be examined and measured 
 and described and compared by even the unskilled stu- 
 dent. Breadth of knowledge and competent judgment 
 are to be won in physical ethnology only by rare 
 opportunities, peculiar gifts, and prolonged training. 
 Though languages are traditional institutions, they are 
 of a special kind, capable of application to ethnological 
 purposes far beyond any other, as being so various and 
 so distinct as they are, capable of being looked at ob- 
 jcctivelv, and handled and compared with accuracy. 
 They arc persistent, also, at least to a degree far be- 
 yond other institutions. 
 
 To admit that a language can be exchanged, there- 
 fore, is by no means to deny its value as a record of 
 human history, even of race-history ; it is only to put 
 that value upon its proper basis, and confess those limi- 
 tations which can in no manner be avoided, and of which. 
 a due consideration is needful to the proper use of lin- 
 guistic evidence. It still remains true that, upon the 
 whole, language is determined by race, since each human 
 being usually learns to speak from his parents and others 
 of the same blood. And the marked exceptions to this 
 rule take place in the full light of historical record. 
 Civilization facilitates mixture, as it does communica- 
 tion. It is not the wild and obscure races which are, or 
 have ever been, mixing blood and mixing or shifting 
 speech upon a grand scale ; it is the cultivated ones. If 
 one barbarous tribe overcomes another, unless the con- 
 querors absorb the conquered into their own commu- 
 nity, there is not usually a change of speech : but nations
 
 VALUE OF LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE. 375 
 
 like the Romans and Arabs, who come with the force of 
 an organized polity and a literature, extend their speech 
 widely over strange peoples. Where the information 
 derivable from language, therefore, is most needed, thero 
 it comes with the greatest presumption of accuracy. 
 
 Hence, when the ethnological relations of a comnm- 
 uity or of a group of communities are to be settled, the 
 first question is as to the affinities of its speech. Tliia 
 does not necessarily decide the case ; the linguistic evi- 
 dence may be overborne by some other ; but nothing 
 can be determined without it ; it lays the basis for fur- 
 ther discussion. We need only to quote an example or 
 two in illustration of this. The Basques are a white, 
 " Caucasian " race ; there is nothing in their other eth- 
 nological characteristics which should forbid our con- 
 necting them with any great division of the white race ; 
 but their speech at once cuts them off from every other, 
 and we accept its decision as authoritative. Out of what 
 mixtures the original Iberians may have grown, we can- 
 not tell; nor can we ever absolutely know that the 
 Basques did not borrow their Euskarian dialect, as the 
 French their Eomanic dialect ; there are indefinite possi- 
 bilities lying behind ; but the language tells us a great 
 deal, and probably all that will ever be within our reach. 
 Again, of the Etruscans there are records and descrip- 
 tions and pictures, and products, art and industrial ; but 
 to settle the relationship of the race the ethnologists 
 with one consent appeal to the infinitesimal remnants 
 of Etruscan speech: a single page of connected Etrus- 
 jnn text, with but a hint of its meaning, would in the 
 briefest time settle the question whether the race is to 
 be connected with any other on earth, or whether, like 
 the Basque, it is an isolated fragment. There lies bo- 
 fore us a vast and complicated problem in the Ameri
 
 276 LANGUAGE AND ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 can races ; and here, again, it is their language that must 
 do by far the greatest part of the work in solving it. 
 American ethnology depends primarily and in bulk on 
 the classifications and connections of dialects ; till that 
 foundation is laid, all is uncertain ; although there are 
 points involved which may not yield even to the combi- 
 nation of all attainable evidence, from every quarter. 
 
 We are to look for no real reconciliation between 
 the results won by the two great branches of ethnologi- 
 cal study until their methods are more fully established 
 than at present; nor is it worth while to hurry the pro- 
 cessleast of all, to attempt prematurely an artificial 
 and superficial scheme of combination. All that will 
 come in good time, if we only have patience. Within 
 its own domain, each is supreme. The classifications 
 and relations of speech are what they are, without any 
 reference to underlying questions of race ; and yet, 
 those questions cannot be kept down and ignored by 
 the linguist : his study is too thoroughly a historical 
 one, it involves too much of the element of race in the 
 later periods, to allow of our leaving that element out 
 of account for the earlier. As one of the leading 
 branches of historical investigation, as claiming to make 
 its contribution to the elucidation of the past, it must 
 offer its results to be criticised by every other concur- 
 rent branch. And to exaggerate its claims, or to put 
 them upon a false basis, is both needless and harmful. 
 If any one is not content with the degree of dignity and 
 authority that belongs to the science of language when 
 kept within the very strictest limits which a sound and 
 impartial criticism is impelled to draw, there are other 
 departments in which his aid will be welcomed, and he 
 had better turn to them. 
 
 There is one more point calling for brief notice in
 
 GENETIC CLASSIFICATION. 277 
 
 connection with our classification of the dialects of the 
 world. That classification aimed at being a strictly 
 genetical one, each family embracing those tongues 
 which, by the sum of all available evidences, were 
 deemed traceable to a common ancestor. To the his- 
 torical philologist, still deep in the labor of determiu- 
 :ng relations and tracing out the course of struct mal 
 development, this is by far the most important of all ; 
 indeed, the value of any other at present is so small as 
 to be hardly worthy of notice. The wider distinction 
 of languages as isolating, agglutinative, and inflective, 
 which has a degree of currency and familiarity, offers a 
 convenient, but far from exact or absolute, test by which 
 the character of linguistic structure may be tried ; the 
 three degrees lie in a certain line of progress, but, as in 
 all such cases, pass into one another. To lay any stress 
 upon this as a basis of classification is like making the 
 character of the hair or the color of the skin a basis of 
 classification in physical ethnology, or the number of sta- 
 mens or the combination of leaves in botany : it ignores 
 and overrides other distinctions of an equal or of greater 
 importance. If the naturalist had the actual certainty 
 which the linguist has of the common descent of related 
 species, he would care little for any other classification, 
 but would spend his strength upon the elaboration and 
 perfection of this one. The linguist has enough of thu? 
 still left to do ; and till it is all accomplished, at *ny 
 rate, any other is of small account to him.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 LAI gnage an acquisition 
 limitation to 
 pression. (_'< 
 speech ; this the co 
 history. Natural e 
 
 a part of culture. Its universality among meu; 
 itlercnce between human and other means of ex- 
 cation the direct motive to the production of 
 scious and determining element in all language- 
 es as basis of the development ; question as to 
 
 their nature and range; postulation of instinctive articulate utter- 
 ances uncalled tor. Use of the voice as principal means of expres- 
 sion. Imitative element in the beginnings of speech ; range and 
 limits of onomatopoeic expression. The doctrine of roots. Suffi- 
 ciency of this view of the origin of language ; the opposing miracu- 
 lous theory. Capacity involved in language-making; difference hi 
 this respect between men and lower animals. Relation of language 
 to development of man ; rate and manner of its growth. 
 
 OUR examination of the history of language, of its 
 mode of transmission, preservation, and alteration, has 
 shown us clearly enough what we are to hold respecting 
 its nature. It is not a faculty, a capacity ; it is not an im- 
 mediate exertion of the thinking power; it is a mediate 
 product and an instrumentality. To many, superficial 
 01 prejudiced, inquirers this seems an unsatisfactory, 
 even a low, view ; but it is because they confound to- 
 gether two very different senses of the word language. 
 Man possesses, as one of his most marked and distinctive 
 sharacteristics, a faculty or capacity of speech or, more
 
 LANGUAGE AS CAPACITY AND AS PRODUCT. 379 
 
 accurately, various faculties and capacities which lead 
 inevitably to the production of speech : but the facul- 
 ties are one thing, and their elaborated products are 
 another and very different one. So man has a capacity 
 for art, for the invention of instruments, for finding out 
 and applying the resources of mathematics, for many 
 other great and noble things ; but no man is bora an 
 artist, an engineer, or a calculist, any more than he is 
 born a speaker. In regard to these various exercises of 
 our activities our condition is the same. In all alike, the 
 race has been undergoing almost from the beginning a 
 training of its capacities, step by step, each step being em- 
 bodied in a product. The growth of art implies a period 
 of rude shapings, and a rise to higher and higher pro- 
 duction by improving on former models and processes. 
 Mechanics still more clearly has the same history ; it 
 was by the use of ruder instruments, by the dexterity 
 acquired in that use and the consequent suggestion of 
 improvements, that men came finally to locomotives and 
 power-looms. Mathematics began with the apprehen- 
 sion that one and one are two, and its development has 
 been like that of the others. And every new indi- 
 vidual of the race has to go through the same series of 
 steps, from the same humble beginnings. Only, he 
 takes them at lightning-speed, as compared with their 
 first elaboration ; because he is led onward by others 
 over a beaten and smoothed track. The half-grown boy 
 now is often a more advanced mathematician or mech- 
 anician than the wisest of the Greeks : not because his 
 gifts are superior to theirs, but because he has only to 
 receive and assimilate what they and their successors 
 have wrought out for him. Though possessing the 
 endowments of a Homer or a Demosthenes, no man 
 can speak any language until he has learned it, as truly
 
 380 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 learned it as he learns the multiplication-table, or the 
 demonstrations of Euclid. 
 
 Now these collected products of the exercise of 
 man's developing powers, which are passed on from 
 one generation to another, increasing and changing ag 
 they go, we call institutions, constituents of our culture. 
 Something of them is possessed by every section of 
 humanity. There is no member of any community, 
 however barbarous, who is not raised vastly above what 
 he would otherwise be by learning what his fellows 
 have to teach him, acquiring their fragments of knowl- 
 edge, however scanty, and their arts including the art 
 of speech. Doubtless the 'most degraded community 
 has more to teach the most gifted individual than he 
 would have learned, to the end of his life, by the use of 
 his own faculties unaided ; certainly this is so as regards 
 speech. Every one acquires that which the accident of 
 birth places within his reach, exercising his faculties 
 upon that foundation, expanded and at the same time 
 constrained by it, making to it his individual contribu- 
 tion, if he have one to make : just as truly in the case 
 of language as of any other part. Language is in no 
 way to be separated from the rest : it is in some re- 
 spects very unlike them ; but so are they unlike one 
 another ; if it be the one most fundamentally impor- 
 tant, most highly characteristic, most obviously the 
 product and expression of reason, that is only a differ- 
 ence of degree. 
 
 We regard every language, then, as an institution, 
 one of those which, in each community, make up its 
 culture. Like all the constituent elements of culture, 
 it is various in every community, even in the different 
 individuals composing each. There are communities in 
 which it has come down within the strict limits of racej
 
 UNIVERSALITY OF LANGUAGE. 281 
 
 in others it has been, partly or wholly, taken from 
 strange races ; for, like the rest, it is capable of being 
 transferred or shifted. Race-characteristics can only go 
 down by blood; but race- acquisitions language not 
 less than religion, or science can be borrowed and 
 lent. 
 
 The universality of language, we may remark in 
 passing, is thus due to nothing more profound or mys- 
 terious than that every division of the human race has 
 been long enough in existence for its language-capaci- 
 ties to work themselves out to some manner of result. 
 Precisely so, there is a universal possession by men of 
 some body of instruments, to help the hands in provid- 
 ing for human needs. This universality does not at all . 
 prove that, if we could see coming into being a new 
 race, by whatever means brought the existing race into 
 being, we should find it within any definite assignable 
 period possessed of instruments or of speech. 
 
 But, as things are, every community of men has a 
 common language, while none of the lower animals are 
 possessed of such ; their means of communication being 
 of so different a character that it has no right to be 
 called by the same name. No special obligation resta 
 upon the linguist to explain this difference, any more 
 than upon the historian of art or of mechanics to ex- 
 plain why the lower animals are neither artists nor 
 machine-makers. It is enough for him to point out 
 that, the gifts of man being such as they are, he in- 
 variably comes to the possession of this as well as of tho 
 other elements of culture, while not one of the lower 
 races has shown itself capable of originating a civiliza- 
 tion, in any element, linguistic or other ; their utmost 
 capacity being that of being trained by the higher race 
 to the exercise of activities which in their own keeping 
 19
 
 282 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 had remained undeveloped, of being taught various arta 
 and acts, performed partly mechanically, partly with a 
 certain hardly detcrminable degree of intelligence. But 
 the subject is one upon which erroneous views are so 
 prevalent that we can hardly help giving it a brief con- 
 t [deration. 
 
 The essential difference, which separates man's 
 means of communication in kind as well as degree from 
 that of the other animals, is that, while the latter is 
 instinctive, the former is, in all its parts, arbitrary and 
 conventional. That this is so, the whole course of our 
 exposition has sufficiently shown. It is fully proved by 
 the Dingle circumstance that for each object, or act, or 
 quality, there are as many names as there are languages 
 in the world, each answering as good a purpose as any 
 other, and capable of being substituted for another in 
 the usage of any individual. There is not in a known 
 language a single item which can be truly claimed to 
 exist <f)v<rei, ' by nature ; ' each stands in its accepted use 
 Btaci, ' by an act of attribution,' in which men's circum- 
 stances, habits, preferences, will, are the determining 
 force. Even where the onomatopoeic or imitative ele- 
 ment is most conspicuous as in cuckoo and peioee, in 
 crack and whiz there is no tie of necessity, but only 
 of convenience : if there were a necessity, it would ex- 
 tend equally to other animals and other noises ; and 
 also to all tongues ; while in fact these conceptions have 
 elsewhere wholly other names. No man can become 
 possessed of any existing language without learning it ; 
 no animal (that we know of) has any expression which 
 lie learns, which is not the direct gift of nature to him. 
 We are not less generously treated in this latter respect 
 than the animals ; we have also our " natural " ex- 
 pression, in grimace, gesture, and tone ; and *ve make
 
 VARIOUS MEANS OF EXPRESSION. 283 
 
 use of it : on the one hand, for communication where 
 the usual conventional means is made of no avail aa 
 between men of diiferent tongue, or those who by deaf- 
 ness are cut off from the use of speech and, on the 
 other hand, for embellishing and explaining and enforc- 
 ing our ordinary language : where it is of a power and 
 value that no student of language can afford to over- 
 look. In the domain of feeling and persuasion, in all 
 that is intended to impress the personality of the com- 
 municator upon the recipient, it possesses the highest 
 consequence. "We say with literal truth that a look, a 
 tone, a gesture, is often more eloquent than elaborate 
 speech. Language is harmed for some uses by its con- 
 ventionality. Words of sympathy or affection can be 
 repeated parrot-like by one whose heartless tone takes 
 all value from them ; there is no persuasion in a dis- 
 course which is given as if from a mere animated 
 speaking-machine. And herein comes clearly to light 
 the true sphere of natural expression ; it indicates feel- 
 ing, and feeling only. From the cry and groan and 
 laugh and smile up to the lightest variations of tone 
 and feature which the skilled elocutionist uses, it is 
 emotional, subjective. Not a tittle of evidence has 
 ever been brought forward to show that there is such 
 a thing as the natural expression of an intellectual 
 conception, of a judgment, of a cognition. It is 
 where expression quits its emotional natural basis, and 
 turns to intellectual uses, that the history of language 
 begins. 
 
 Nor is it less plain what inaugurates the conversion, 
 and becomes the main determining element in tho 
 whole history of production of speech ; it is the desiro 
 of communication. This turns the instinctive into the 
 intentional. As itself becomes more distinct and COD-
 
 284 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Bcious, it lifts expression of all kinds above its natural 
 basis, and makes of it an instrumentality ; capable, as 
 Biicl., of indefinite extension and improvement. lie 
 who (as many do) leaves this force out of account, can- 
 not but make utter shipwreck of his whole linguistic 
 philosophy. Where the impulse to communication ia 
 wanting, no speech comes into being. Here, again, the 
 parallelism between language and the other departments 
 of culture is close and instructive. The man growing 
 up in solitude would initiate no culture. He would 
 never come to a knowledge of any of the higher things 
 of which he was capable. It needs not only the inward 
 power, but also the outward occasion, to make man 
 what he is capable of becoming. This is characteristic 
 of his whole historical attitude. Races and generations 
 of men have passed away in barbarism and ignorance 
 who were as capable of civilization as the mass of the 
 present civilized communities : indeed, there are such 
 actually passing away around us. It is in no wise to 
 deny the grand endowments of human nature that we 
 ascribe the acquisition of speech, to an external induce- 
 ment. We may illustrate the case by a comparison. 
 A stone has lain motionless for ages on the verge of a 
 precipice, and may lie there for ages longer ; all the 
 cosmic forces of gravity will not stir it. But a chance 
 thrust from some passing animal jostles it from its 
 equilibrium, and it goes crashing down. Which, shall 
 we say, caused the fall ? gravity, or the thrust ? Eacli, 
 in its way ; the great force would not have wrought 
 this particular effect but for the aid of the petty one : 
 and there is nothing derogatory to the dignity of 
 gravitation in admitting the fact. Just so in language : 
 the great and wonderful powers of the human soul 
 would never move in this particular direction but foi
 
 THE IMPULSE TO COMMUNICATION. 285 
 
 the added push given by the desire of communication ; 
 when this leads the way, all the rest follows. 
 
 Our recognition of the determining force of this 
 element is far from implying that communication is the 
 eole end, or the highest end, of speech. We have suf- 
 ficiently noticed, in the second chapter, the infinite valuo 
 of expression to the operations of each individual mind 
 and soul, and its fundamental value as an element in 
 the progress of the race. But it is here as elsewhere ; 
 men strive after that which is nearest and most obvious 
 to them, and attain thereby a vast deal more than they 
 foresaw. In the devising and constructing of instru- 
 ments, of all kinds, men have had directly in view only 
 what may be called the lower uses of them, their im- 
 mediate contributions to comfort and safety and sensu- 
 ous enjoyment ; but the result has been a calling-out of 
 many of the higher powers which could find appropriate 
 exercise in no other way, a reduction of Nature to ser- 
 vice in a manner that allows a part of the race to engage 
 m the more ele vai ed and elevating occupations ; and a 
 discovery of truths in bewildering abundance. A yet- 
 closer parallel is afforded by the closely kindred art of 
 writing, which adds to and enhances all the advantages 
 belonging to the art of speech, and is as indispensable 
 to the highest culture as is speech to the lower ; but, 
 like speech, it came into being by a process in which 
 the only conscious motive was communication ; all ita 
 superior uses followed in the train of that, and wero 
 nnthought of until experience disclosed them ; indeed, 
 they are even yet unthought of by the greater part of 
 those who derive advantage from them. And this lost 
 is true, to a degree which we must not fail to observe, 
 of spoken language also : its higher uses are not con- 
 scious ones. Not one in a hundred, or a thousand, of
 
 286 NATURE >ND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 those who speak realizes that he " uses language ; " but 
 there is no one who does not know well enough that he 
 can talk. That is to say, language, to the general ap- 
 prehension of its users, is simply a means of receiving 
 from others and giving to them : what it is to the in- 
 dividual soul, what it is to the race, few have roach of 
 vision to see. And least of all is such penetration to be 
 credited to primitive man : he, especially, needs some 
 motive right before his eyes, and of which he can feel 
 everv moment the impelling force ; and the desire to 
 communicate with his fellows is that motive, the sole 
 and the wholly sufficient one. He has no thoughts 
 swelling in his soul and demanding utterance ; he has 
 no foreboding of high capacities which only need educa- 
 tion to make him a little lower than the angels; he 
 feels nothing but the nearest and most urgent needs. 
 If language broke out from within, driven by the 
 wants of the soul, it ought to come forth fastest and 
 most fully in the solitary ; since he, cut off from other 
 means of improvement, is thrown back upon this s his 
 only resource : but the solitary man is as speechless aa 
 the lower animals. 
 
 There might be ground for questioning this conclu- 
 sion as to the decisive value of the impulse to com- 
 munication in the initiation of language-history, if the 
 Rfter-course of that history showed entire independence 
 of it. That is no acceptable scientific explanation 
 which calls in a special force at the beginning, like a 
 dew ex machina, to accomplish what we cannot see to 
 be otherwise feasible, and then to retire and act no 
 more. But communication is the leading determinative 
 force throughout. This it is for which and by which 
 we make our first acquisitions; this leads us, when 
 circumstances change, to lay our old acquisitions aside
 
 NATURAL BASIS OF LANG CAGE. j>87 
 
 and make new ; this determines the unity of a lan- 
 guage, and puts a restraint upon its dialectic variation ; 
 this is, both consciously and unconsciously, recognized 
 by every individual as the regulator : we speak so \s> to 
 be intelligible to others; we hear and learn that we 
 may understand them ; we do not speak simply as we 
 ourselves choose, letting others understand us if thej 
 can and will. 
 
 If this be so, then we have virtually solved, so fai 
 as it admits of solution, the problem of the origin of 
 language ; we have ascertained what was the original 
 basis, and what the character of its development. The 
 basis was the natural cries of human beings, expressive 
 of their feelings, and capable of being understood as 
 such by their fellows. That is to say, the basis so far 
 as audible speech is concerned ; for it is not to be main- 
 tained that this was the only, or even the principal, 
 means of primitive expression. Gesture and grimace 
 are every whit as natural and as immediately intelli- 
 gible ; and in the undeveloped condition of expression 
 every available means will unquestionably have been 
 resorted to, perhaps with a long predominance of the 
 visible over the audible. But it cannot be that the use 
 of the voice for expression should not have been sug- 
 gested and initiated by Nature's own endowments in 
 this direction. 
 
 Here, however, conies in a question respecting which 
 even the most recent opinions, and among those who in 
 general accept the view of language here taken, are 
 divided. How wide was this basis, and of what and 
 how definite character? Did it consist of articulate 
 Bounds instinctively attached to certain conceptions? 
 Was there a limited natural vocabulary of actual words 
 or roots, of the same kind with later language, and
 
 288 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 needing only to be extended into the latter? There 
 are those who would answer these questions in the af- 
 tiinative, and who hold, therefore, that the fruitful way 
 to investigate concretely the problem of the origin of 
 language is to study the means of expression of the. 
 lower animals, especially of those which stand nearest 
 to man, in order to find, there something analogous with 
 the routs of our speech. But this view has its basis in 
 the clinging impression, which many of those who rea- 
 son and write about language cannot possibly get rid 
 of, that there is somehow a real internal connection be- 
 tween at least a part of our words and the ideas which 
 these represent if one could only find out what it is. 
 If we recognize the truths that all existing human 
 speech is in every part and particle conventional, that 
 all of which there is record in the past was of the same 
 character, and that there is an utter absence of evidence 
 going to show that any uttered sound, any combination 
 of articulations, comes or ever came into existence as 
 the natural sign of an intellectual conception we shall 
 be led to look with extreme disfavor upon any sugges- 
 tion of this kind. Beyond all question, it is wholly 
 uncalled for by necessity : the tones significant of feel- 
 ing, of which no one can deny the existence because 
 they are still an important part of our expression, are 
 fully capable of becoming the effective initiators of 
 language. Spoken language began, we may say, when 
 a cry of pain, formerly wrung out by real suffering, and 
 seen to be understood and sympathized with, was re- 
 peated in imitation, no longer as a mere instinctive 
 utterance, but for the purpose of intimating to another, 
 " I am (was, shall be) suffering ; " when an angry growl, 
 formerly the direct expression of passion, was repro- 
 duced to signify disapprobation and threatening ; and
 
 INSTINCTS OF MAN. 289 
 
 Hie like. This was enough to serve as foundation for 
 all that should be built upon it. 
 
 It is further to be considered, in judging this point, 
 that, as we approach man, the general capacities in- 
 crease, but the specific instincts, the already formed 
 and as it were educated capacities, decrease. It is 
 among the insects that we find those wonderful arts 
 which seem like the perfected results of training of a 
 limited intellect ; it is among birds that we find specific 
 modes of nest-building and a highly art-like, almost 
 artistic, song. Man is capable of acquiring everything, 
 but he begins in the actual possession of next to noth- 
 ing. Except suckling, he can hardly be said to be born 
 with an instinct. His long helpless infancy, while the 
 chicken and the calf run about and help themselves 
 from the very day of their birth, is characteristic of 
 Nature's whole mode of treatment of him. There is 
 no plausibility in the suggestion that he should have 
 begun social life with a naturally implanted capital of 
 the means of social communication and any more in 
 the form of words than in that of gestures. It is a 
 blunder of our educated habit to regard the voice as 
 the specific instrument of expression ; it is only one of 
 several instruments. We might just as hopefully look 
 among the higher animals for the particular and definite 
 beginnings out of which our clothes, our buildings, our 
 instruments, are a development. In these departments 
 of human production, we see clearly enough what the 
 natural beginning should have been. No animal save 
 man is known to make any attempt at dressing ; but it* 
 any did, it would amount to nothing; for there are 
 tribes of men that go utterly, or almost utterly, naked ; 
 and no one, probably, would think of suggesting that 
 the rudiments of dress are not a turning to account, for
 
 290 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 perceived purposes of comfort or decency, just such 
 materials as Nature placed in man's way. The earliest 
 shelters were of the same sort : it would be of high in- 
 terest to find the animals nearest to man showing that 
 kind of capacity which he possesses, of putting to use 
 freely, simply as directed by circumstances, the vaiied 
 resources of Nature ; but probably the idea has ne 7er 
 come into any one's head that man, as an animal unedu- 
 cated, would be found building a particular style of 
 bhelter (as the beaver its dam, the oriole its hanging 
 nest, the wasp its cells), out of which have grown, by 
 a process showing nowhere a saltus or lacuna, the 
 huts and palaces and temples of the more educaled 
 races. And the same thing is true of instruments: 
 clubs and stones we allow to have been the first, only 
 because Nature offers such most conveniently within 
 reach of the beings who were gifted with mind enough 
 to see how they could be made available for perceived 
 needs. 
 
 Now it is only an unclear or a false view of the na- 
 ture of speech that prevents any from seeing that its 
 case is entirely analogous with these others, and that to 
 postulate, and then seek for traces of, a primitive basis 
 for language in the form of specific articulate signs for 
 ideas is an uncalled-for, even a necessarily vain and futile, 
 proceeding. It is, indeed, a matter of high interest, 
 and promising of valuable instruction, to investigate as 
 closely as possible the means of communication of the 
 lower animals, so as to determine its character and 
 scope ; but the point calling for special attention is, 
 how far the natural tones and utterances and postures 
 and movements are used secondarily and mediately, for 
 the purpose of signifying something, in rudimentary 
 correspondence with what we have seen to be the infer
 
 THE VOICE AS MEANS OF EXPRESSION. 291 
 
 able beginnings of human language-making. We need 
 not be surprised to find, in more than one quarter, such 
 methods of communication in use, only limited, and, 
 for lack of the right kind and degree of capacity in 
 their users, incapable of development ; and these would 
 be the real analogues of speech, and would bridge the 
 salt us of which some are so afraid. If the Darwinian 
 theory is true, and man a development out of some 
 lower animal, it is at any rate conceded that the last 
 and nearest transition-forms have perished, perhaps ex- 
 terminated by him in the struggle for existence, as his 
 special rivals, during his prehistoric ages of wild- 
 ness ; if they could be restored, we should find the 
 transition-forms toward our speech to be, not at all a 
 minor provision of natural articulate signs, but an in- 
 terior system of conventional signs, in tone, gesture, 
 and grimace. 
 
 As between the three natural means of expression 
 just mentioned, and constantly had in view by us in 
 this discussion, it is simply by a kind of process of 
 natural selection and survival of the fittest that the 
 voice has gained the upper hand, and come to be so 
 much the most prominent that we give the name of 
 language (' tonguiness ') to all expression. There is no 
 mysterious connection between the thinking apparatus 
 and the articulating apparatus, whereby the action that 
 forms a thought sets the tongue swinging to utter it. 
 Apart from the emotional (and non-articulate) natural 
 cries and tones, the muscles of the larynx and mouth 
 are no nearer to the soul than those of voluntary mo- 
 tion, by which, among other things, gestures are pro- 
 duced. Besides the lack of all evidence in language, 
 rightly understood, to indicate such connection, it is 
 sufficiently disproved, in a positive way, by the absence
 
 292 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 of vocal expression in the deaf, whose thinking and ar- 
 ticulating apparatus is all in normal order, but who, by 
 the nunibing of the single nerve of audition, are re- 
 moved from the disturbing infection of conventional 
 speech ; it ought to be many times more instructive to 
 watch the " natural utterances " of a person thus affected 
 than to study the jabberings of monkeys. The analogy 
 between gesture and speech here is in the highest de- 
 gree instructive. The hands and arms are muscular 
 instruments under control of the same mind which pro- 
 duces conceptions and judgments. Among their mani- 
 fold capacities, they are able to make gestures, of infi- 
 nite variety, all of which are reported by the vibrations 
 of the luminifcrous ether to a certain apprehending or- 
 gan, the eye, both of the maker and of others. There 
 is a natural basis of instinctive gesture, which to the 
 human intellect is capable of suggesting a method of 
 intimation of intended meaning, developable into a 
 complete system of expression ; and it is so developed 
 for the use of those who by lack of power to hear are 
 cut oil from the superior advantages of the other means 
 of expression. In the same manner, the larynx and 
 the parts which lie between it and the outer world are 
 muscular organs, movable by the same will which moves 
 the arms and hands. The parts have other offices to 
 perform besides that of shaping tone ; and the tone 
 which it is the sole office of the vocal chords to generate 
 is for other purposes as well as that of utterance : yet, 
 ilong with other things, they can produce an indefinite 
 rariety of modified vibrations, reported through the 
 sympathetic vibrations of the air to another apprehend- 
 ing organ, the ear, both of the producer and of others ; 
 and the sounds so reported are capable of combination 
 into groups practically infinite in number. There is a
 
 THE VOICE AS MEANS OF EXPRESSION. 293 
 
 natural basis of tonic expression ; and on this and by 
 its suggestion human intelligence has worked out a great 
 number of diverse systems of expression, used, one or 
 other of them, by all ordinarily endowed men. 
 
 There is nothing here to require the admission of a 
 peculiar connection between thought and articulate ut- 
 terance. In a certain sense, it is true, the voice may 
 fairly be said to have been given us for the purpose of 
 speech ; but it is only as the hands have been given us 
 to write with ; our speaking organs do also our tasting, 
 breathing, eating. So iron has been given us to make 
 rails with for fast traveling : that is to say, among the 
 various substances provided in the world for man's vari- 
 ous uses, iron is the one best suited to this use ; its 
 qualities had only to be discovered by men, in the 
 course of their experience of Nature, and, when the 
 time for the use came, the perception of its adapted ness, 
 and the application, necessarily followed. In the course 
 of man's experience, it has come to light that the voice 
 is, on the whole, the most available means of communi- 
 cation, for reasons which are not hard to understand : 
 it acts with least expenditure of effort ; it leaves the 
 hands, much more variously efficient and hard-worked 
 members, at leisure for other work at the same time ; 
 and it most easily compels attention from any direction. 
 Only the smalle?' part of its capacities are laid under 
 contribution for the uses of speech ; of the indefinite 
 number of distinguishable sounds which it can pio- 
 duce, only a fraction, of twelve to fifty, are put to 
 use in any one language ; and there is nothing in tho 
 selection to characterize a race, or to be used (except 
 in the same historical way as language in general) for 
 ethnological distinction : from among the many possi- 
 bles, these have chanced to be taken ; mainly the sounds
 
 894 NATURE AND ORIGIX OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 easiest to make, and broadly distinguished from one an- 
 other. 
 
 Under these determining considerations, vocal utter- 
 ance has become everywhere the leading means of ex- 
 pression, and has so multiplied its resources that tone, 
 and still more gesture, has assumed the subordinate 
 office of aiding the effectiveness of what is uttered. 
 And the lower the intellectual condition of the speaker 
 and the spoken-to, the more indispensable is the addi- 
 tion of tune and gesture. It belongs to the highest 
 development of speech that the word written and 
 read should have something like the same power as 
 the word spoken and heard ; that the personality of 
 the writer, even his frame of mind, should be felt, 
 and should move the sympathetic feeling of the reader. 
 And yet, it should also be noted here that, as we saw 
 in the twelfth chapter, there are languages (e. g. Chi- 
 nese) in which tone and inflection come to be used, in a 
 secondary and conventional way, to eke out the too 
 scanty resources of intellectual designation. 
 
 If we thus accept the impulse to communicate as 
 the governing principle of speech-development, and the 
 voice as the agent whose action we have especially to 
 trace, it will not be difficult to establish other points in 
 the earliest history. Whatever offered itself as the 
 uiost feasible means of arriving at mutual understand- 
 ing would be soonest turned to account. We have re- 
 garded the reproduction, with intent to signify some- 
 thing, of the natural tones and cries, as the positively 
 earliest speech ; but this would so immediately and cer- 
 tainly come to be combined with imitative or onomato- 
 poetic utterances, that the distinction in time between 
 the two is rather theoretical than actual. Indeed, the 
 reproduction itself is in a certain way onomatopoetie
 
 ONOMATOPOETIO EXPRESSION. 205 
 
 it imitates, so to speak, the cries of the human animal, 
 in order to intimate secondarily what those cries in their 
 primary use signified directly. Just as soon, at any 
 rate, as an inkling of the value of communication was 
 gained, and the process began to be performed a little 
 wore consciously, the range of imitation would be ex- 
 tended. This is a direct corollary to the principles laid 
 down above. Mutual intelligence being aimed at, and 
 audible utterance the means employed, audible sounds 
 will be the matter most readily represented and con- 
 veyed ; just as something else would come easiest to 
 one who used a different means. To repeat once more 
 the old and well-worn, but telling, illustration : if we 
 had the conception of a dog to signify, and the instru- 
 mentality were pictorial, we should draw the outline 
 figure of a dog ; if the means were gesture, we should 
 imitate some characteristic visible act of the animal 
 for example, its bite, or the wagging of its tail ; if it 
 were voice, we should say "bow-wow." This is the 
 simple explanation of the importance which is and must 
 be attributed to the onomatopoetic principle in the early 
 stages of language-making. We have no need of ap- 
 pealing to any special tendency toward imitation. Man 
 is, to be sure, an imitative animal, as we may fairly say ; 
 but not in an instinctive or mechanical way ; he is imi- 
 tative because he has the capacity to notice and appre- 
 ciate what he sees, in other animals or in nature, and to 
 reproduce it in imitative show, if anything is to bo 
 gained thereby whether amusement, or artistic pleas- 
 ure, or communication. He is an imitator just as he is 
 an artist ; the latter is only the higher development of 
 the former. 
 
 The scope of the imitative principle is by no mean* 
 restricted to the sounds which occur in nature, although
 
 296 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 these are the most obvious and easiest subjects of sig 
 niticative reproduction. What it is, may be seen in part 
 from the range of onomatopoetic words in known lan- 
 guages. There is a figurative use of imitation, where- 
 by rapid, slow, abrupt, repetitive motions are capable of 
 being signified by combinations of sounds which make 
 something such an impression on the mind through 
 the ear as the motions in question do through the eye. 
 And we can well conceive that, while this was the chiel 
 efficient surest ion of expression, men's minds may have 
 been sharpened to catch and incorporate analogies which 
 now escape our notice, because, having a plentiful pro- 
 vision of expression from other sources, we no longer 
 have our attention keenly directed to them. Our judg- 
 ments on such points as this can only be partially trust- 
 ed, and must be tested with extreme caution, because 
 we are all of us now the creatures of educated habit, and 
 cannot look at things as men uneducated and with no 
 formed habits would do. We can safely investigate and 
 combine and speculate in this direction, if we keep fully 
 in mind the governing principle that mutual intelli- 
 gence is the end, and that whatever conduces to mutual 
 intelligence, and that alone, is the acceptable means. 
 We shall thus be saved from running off into, or tow- 
 ard, that most absurd doctrine, the absolute natural sig- 
 nificance of articulate sounds, and the successful intima- 
 tion of complex ideas by a process of piecing these ele- 
 ments together. 
 
 There are one or two further points connected with 
 this theory of the imitative origin of language which 
 call for a few words of explanation. In the first place, 
 it does not rest on a discovery of the signs of onoma- 
 topoeia as predominant in the early traceable stages of 
 language. Those stages are still too far from the begin-
 
 THE IMITATIVE PRINCIPLE. 297 
 
 ning to furnish any such discovery. The intent was to 
 find means of mutual intelligence; and when this was 
 won, the way it came was a matter of small consequence, 
 and might be left to be covered up. This has been, as 
 we abundantly saw above, a governing tendency in the 
 growth of speech down to the present time. Speakers 
 know not and care not whence their words came ; they 
 know simply what they mean ; even the wisest of us 
 can trace the history of only a small part of his vocabu- 
 lary, and only a little way. The very earliest dialects 
 are as exclusively conventional as the latest ; the savage 
 has no keener sense of etymological connection than the 
 man of higher civilization. Nothing has done so much 
 to discredit the imitative theory with sound and sober 
 linguistic scholars as the way in which some pass be- 
 yond the bounds of true science in their attempts to 
 trace our living vocabularies to mimetic originals. The 
 theory does, indeed, rest in part on the undeniable pres- 
 ence of a considerable onomatopoeic element in later 
 speech, and on the fact that new material is actually 
 won in this way through the whole history of language ; 
 onomatopoeia is thus raised to the rank of a vera causa, 
 attested by familiar fact ; and nothing that is not so 
 attested for example, the assumed immediate intel- 
 lectual significance of articulate combinations has the 
 right to stand as a causa at all; but it rests also in 
 part, and in the main part, on the necessities of the case, 
 as inferred from the whole traceable history of speech 
 and its relation to thought, its use and its value. 
 Here is just the other support which it needs : no ac- 
 count of the origin of language is scientific which does 
 not join directly on to the later history of language with- 
 out a break, being of one piece with that history. 
 But, in the second place, it may at first sight 
 
 20
 
 298 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 to some that there is a break in the history : for why do 
 we not still go on to make words abundantly by onoma- 
 topoeia ? A moment's thought will show the baseless- 
 ness of this objection. The office of onomatopoaia was 
 the provision, by the easiest attainable method, of the 
 means of mutual intelligence ; in proportion, then, as it 
 became easier to make the same provision by another 
 method, the differentiation and new application of signs 
 :il readv existing, the primitive method went into com- 
 parative disuse as it has ever since continued, though 
 lu-vcr absolutely unused. 
 
 ( )nce mure, our theory furnishes the satisfactory 
 solution of a difficulty which has had influence with 
 some minds. "Why should the genus of speech be what 
 we have called roots, elements indicative of such ab- 
 stract things as acts and qualities? surely concrete 
 objects are soonest and most easily apprehended by 
 the mind. "Without stopping to dispute on more philo- 
 sophical grounds this last assertion, claiming instead 
 that we apprehend only the concreted qualities and acts 
 of objects, it will be more to the point with those who 
 feel the difficulty to note that the process of speech is 
 one of signifying, and that only the separate qualities 
 of objects, at any rate, are capable of being signified. 
 To revert to our former example : there may be a state 
 of mind in which there should exist a confused concrete 
 impression of a dog, just sufficient to make it possible 
 to recognize another as agreeing with one already seen, 
 but without any distinct sense of its various attributes. 
 But eo long as that is the case, no production of a sign 
 is poLsible : it is only when one has so clear a conception 
 of its fonn that he can signify it by a rude outline pict- 
 ure, or of its characteristic acts that he can reproduce 
 the bite, or wag, or bark, in imitation of them, that he
 
 ROOTS. 299 
 
 is ready for an act of language-making of which the dog 
 shall be the subject. And so with every other case ; 
 the first acts of comparing and abstracting must pre- 
 cede, and the first signs must follow ; even as we have 
 before seen that it is through the whole history of 
 epeech : the conception first, then the nomenclative 
 act. And low^wow is a type, a normal example, of the 
 whole genus " root." It is a sign, a hint, that calls 
 before the properly prepared mind a certain conception, 
 or set of related conceptions : the animal itself, the act, 
 the time and other circumstances of hearing it, and what 
 followed. It does not mean any one of these things 
 exclusively ; it comprehends them all. It is not a verb, 
 for that adds the idea of predication ; nor is it a name : 
 it may be put to use in either of these two senses. 
 What it comes nearest in itself to meaning is ' the action 
 of barking' just that form of abstraction into which 
 we now most naturally and properly cast the sense of a 
 " root." And so with both the other suggested signs. 
 Only, the outline figure has a decidedly more concrete 
 character than either of the others, and is in a certain 
 way their antithesis. It is a curious fact, and one tell- 
 ingly illustrative of how the character of the sign de- 
 pends on the instrumentality by which it is made, that 
 hieroglyphic systems of representation of thought (which 
 are in their origin independent systems, parallel with 
 speech, though they are wont finally to come into servi- 
 tude to speech) begin with the signs for concrete objects, 
 and arrive from these, and secondarily, at the designa- 
 tion of acts and qualities. In Chinese, a combinatior 
 Df the hieroglyphs of sun and moon makes the charactei 
 for 'light' and 'shine;' in speech, on the contrary, 
 both luminaries are apt to be named from their shin- 
 ing (see above, p. 83). In Egyptian, a picture of a pair
 
 300 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 of legs in motion means ' walk ; ' while, with us, the 
 foot is so named as being the ' walker.' 
 
 That by the methods thus described it was possible 
 to make a provision of signs capable of development, by 
 processes not different from those traceable in the his- 
 toric period of language, into such vocabularies as we 
 find actually existing, it does not seem as if any one 
 could reasonably deny. If this is true, and if the 
 methods are not only not inconsistent, but even in com- 
 plete harmony, with the whole traceable course of hu- 
 man action on language, then we have found an accept- 
 able solution of that part of the problem we are seek- 
 ing to solve which is at present within our reach. A 
 scientific solution requires that we take man as he is, 
 with no other gifts than those we see him to possess, 
 but also with all those that constitute his endowment as 
 man, and examine whether and how he would possess 
 himself of the beginnings of speech, analogous with 
 those which our historical analysis shows to have been 
 the germs of the after-development, but beyond which 
 historical research will not carry us. As he would, if 
 need were, make the acquisition now, so may he, or 
 must he, have made it of old. This is not a part of 
 the historical science of language, but a corollary to it, 
 a subject for the anthropologist who is also a linguistic 
 scholar, who knows what language is to man, and how. 
 He is not prepared to deal with it who is merely master 
 of the facts of many languages. 
 
 Of course, a language thus produced would be a rude 
 and rudimentary means of expression. But that con- 
 stitutes, in the mind of the modern anthropologist, no 
 bar to the acceptance of the theory. If we deny to 
 primitive man the possession of the other elements of 
 civilization, and hold him to have gradually developed
 
 IMPERFECTION OF PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE 3QJ 
 
 them out of scanty beginnings made by himself, then 
 there is no reason why we should not hold the same 
 view in respect to language, which is only such an ele- 
 ment. Even in existing languages the differences of 
 degree are great, as in existing states of culture in gen- 
 eral. An infinity of things can be said in English 
 which cannot be said in Fijian or Hottentot ; a vast 
 deal, doubtless, can be said in Fijian or Hottentot 
 which could not be said in the first human languages. 
 For what can be done in the way of distinct, even cul- 
 tivated and elaborate, expression, by only a few hun- 
 dred formless roots, we have a brilliant, almost a start- 
 ling, example in the Chinese. Of how sentences can 
 be made of roots alone, with the relations left to be sup- 
 plied by the intelligently apprehending mind, the same 
 tongue is a sufficient illustration. The Greek, or Ger- 
 man, or English, can elaborate a thought in a period 
 half a page long, determining by proper connectives 
 the relation of each of its clauses to the central idea, 
 and also, in widely varying degree and method, that of 
 the members of each clause to one another. This is a 
 capacity which belongs only to languages of high cul- 
 tivation, working on a richly inflective basis. Many 
 another tongue can form only simple clauses, possessing 
 no more intricate apparatus of connection than * ands ' 
 and ' buts,' though having form enough in its words 
 to construct a clause of defined parts. Yet others lack 
 this definition of parts ; they strike only at the leading 
 ideas, presenting them in such order that the hearer 
 supplies the missing relations out of his general compre- 
 hension of what must be the intended meaning. And 
 it is but another step backward to the primitive root- 
 condition of speech, where an utterance or two had to 
 do the duty of a whole clause. Men thus began, not
 
 302 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 with parts of speech which they afterward learned to 
 piece together into sentences, but with comprehensive 
 utterances in which the parts of speech lay as yet unde- 
 veloped, sentences in the germ ; a single word signify- 
 ing a whole statement, as even yet sometimes with us : 
 only then from poverty, as now from economy. To 
 demand that " sentences," in the present sense of that 
 term, with subject and predicate, with adjuncts and 
 modifiers, should have been the first speech, is precisely 
 analogous with demanding that the first human abodes 
 should have contained at least two stories and a cellar ; 
 or that the earliest garments should not have lacked 
 buttons and braces ; or that the first instruments should 
 have had handles, and been put together with screws. 
 These conditions, in the last three cases, are at once 
 recognized as possible only to a miraculous endowment 
 of humanity, a gifting of man, at his birth, not with 
 capacities alone, but also with their elaborated results, 
 with the fruits of education ; and the assumption in re- 
 gard to language is really precisely the same, a proper 
 part of a miraculous theory of the origin of speech, but 
 of no other. 
 
 The word " miraculous," rather than " divine," is 
 here used to characterize the theory in question, be- 
 cause it is the only truly descriptive one. One may 
 hold the views advocated in this chapter without any 
 detriment to his belief in the divine origin of language ; 
 since he may be persuaded that the capacities and ten- 
 dencies which lead man universally and inevitably to 
 the acquisition of speech were implanted in him by the 
 Creator for that end, and only work themselves out to 
 a foreseen and intended result. If language itself were 
 a gift, a faculty, a capacity, it might admit of being 
 regarded as the subject of direct bestowal ; being onl 7
 
 CAPACITIES INVOLVED IN SPEECH. 303 
 
 a result, a historical result, to assert that it sprang into 
 developed being along with man is to assert a miracle ; 
 the doctrine has no right to make its appearance except 
 in company with a general miraculous account of the 
 beginnings of human existence. That view of the 
 nature of language which linguistic science establishes 
 takes entirely away the foundation on which the doc- 
 trine of divine origin, in its form as once held, reposed. 
 The human capacity to which the production ol 
 language is most directly due is, as has been seen, the 
 power of intelligently, and not by blind instinct alone, 
 adapting means to ends. This is by no means a unitary 
 capacity ; on the contrary, it is a highly composite and 
 intricate one. But it does not belong to the linguistic 
 student to unravel and explain, any more than to the 
 student of the histoiy of civilization in its other depart- 
 ments ; it falls, rather, to the student of the human 
 mind and its powers, to the psychologist. So also with 
 all the mental capacities involved in language, the 
 psychic forces which underlie that practical faculty, and 
 which, being by it brought to conscious action, are 
 drawn out and trained and developed. The psycholo- 
 gist has a work of highest interest and importance to 
 do, in analyzing and exhibiting this ultimate ground- 
 work, on which have grown up the great institutions 
 that make man what he is : language, society, the arts 
 of life, machinery, art, and so on ; and in tracing the 
 history of education of the human powers in connection 
 with them ; and his aid and criticism must be every- 
 where of great value to their student. And this is most 
 of all the case with regard to language ; for language 
 is in an especial manner the incorporation andrevelation 
 of the acts of the soul. Out of this relation has grown 
 the error of those who look upon linguistic science as a
 
 304 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 branch of psychology, would force it into a psychologic 
 mould and conduct it by psychologic methods : an error 
 which is so refuted by the whole view we have taken 
 of language and its history, that we do not need to 
 spend any more words upon it here. Language id 
 merely that product and instrumentality of the inner 
 powers which exhibits them most directly and most 
 fully in their various modes of action ; by which, so far 
 as the case admits, our inner consciousness is externized, 
 turned up to the light for ourselves and others to see 
 and studv. 
 
 Out of the same close relation grows another and a 
 far grosser error, that of actually identifying speech 
 with thought and reason. This, too, we may take as 
 sufficiently refuted by our whole argument ; nothing 
 but the most imperfect comprehension of language can 
 account for a blunder so radical. The word reason, to 
 be sure, is used so loosely, in such a variety of senses, 
 that an unclear thinker and illogical arguer can com- 
 paratively easily become confused by it; but no one 
 who attempts to enlighten his fellow-men on this clas^ 
 of subjects is excusable for such inability to grasp theii 
 most fundamental principles. Language is, upon the 
 whole, the most conspicuous of the manifestations of 
 man's higher endowments, and the one of widest and 
 deepest influence on- every other ; and the superiority 
 of man's endowments is vaguely known as reason and 
 that is the whole ground of the assertion of identity. 
 There are many faculties which go to the production of 
 speech; and they have other modes of manifestation 
 besides speech. And we have only to take the most 
 normally endowed human being and cut off artificially 
 the avenue of a single class of sensuous impressions, 
 those of hearing, and he will never have any speech.
 
 WHY THE ANIMALS DO NOT SPEAK 3Q5 
 
 [f speech, then, is reason, reason will have to be defined 
 as a function of the auditory nerve. 
 
 Whether, among the powers that contribute to tho 
 production of language, there is one, or more than one 
 not belonging in any degree to a single animal below 
 man, is a point which must be left to the psychologist 
 to decide. It may fairly be claimed, however, that 
 none such has yet been demonstrated ; and also, that 
 none such is necessary : a simple difference of degree in 
 the capacities common to both is amply sufficient to 
 account for the possession and the lack, on the one side 
 and the other. A heightened power of comparison, of 
 the general perception of resemblances and differences ; 
 an accompanying higher power of abstraction, or of 
 viewing the resemblances and differences as attributes, 
 characteristic of the objects compared ; and, above all 
 else, a heightened command of consciousness, a power 
 of looking upon one's self also as acting and feeling, of 
 studying one's own mental movements these, it is be- 
 lieved, are the directions in which the decisive superi- 
 ority is to be looked for. It is the height of injustice 
 to maintain that there is not an approach, and a very 
 marked approach, made by some of the lower animals 
 to the capacity of language. In the ratio of what we 
 call their " intelligence," they are able distinctly and 
 fruitfully to associate conceptions with signs signs, 
 namely, which we make for them, and by which we 
 guide and govern them. But, as an actual fact, their 
 capacity, though rising thus far, stops short of the 
 native production of such a sign, even of its acquisition 
 from the higher rare and its independent use among 
 themselves. There is a long interval, incapable of 
 being crossed by the lower animals, between their en- 
 dowments and ours ; and he is a coward who, out of
 
 306 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 fear for the preservation of man's supremacy, attempts 
 to stretch it out, or to set up barriers upon it. 
 
 There is yet another important corollary from our 
 established view of language as a constituent element 
 of human civilization. Its production had nothing to 
 do, as a cause, with the development of man out of any 
 other and lower race. Its province was to raise man 
 from a savage state to the plane which he was capable 
 of reaching. The only development in which it was 
 concerned is the historical development of man's facul- 
 ties. Except, of course, that minor and limited change 
 which falls within the sphere of ordinary heredity. The 
 descendant of a cultivated race is more cultivable than 
 the descendant of a wild one. The capacity of a yet 
 higher cultivation grows with the slow increase of cul- 
 tivation ; and if a people is suddenly brought in contact 
 with a civilization too far in advance of it, it is rather 
 deteriorated and wasted tlian elevated. The power of 
 brain, the capacity of thought, is enhanced by speech ; 
 but no such differences are produced as separate one 
 animal species from another. All men speak, each race 
 in accordance with its gift and culture ; but all to- 
 gether are only one species. To the zoologist, man was 
 what he is now when the first beginnings of speech 
 were made ; it is to the historian that he was infinitely 
 different. " Man could not become man except by 
 language ; but in order to possess language, he needed 
 already to be man," is one of those Orphic sayings 
 which, if taken for what they are meant to be, poetic 
 expressions whose apparently paradoxical character shall 
 compel attention and suggest thought and inquiry, are 
 admirable enough. To make them the foundation or 
 test of scientific views is simply ridiculous ; it is as if 
 one were to say : " A pig is not a pig without being
 
 LANGUAGE-MAKING AN INCIDENT, NOT TASK. 307 
 
 fattened ; but in order to be fattened he must first be 
 a pig." The trick of the aphorism in question lies in 
 its play upon the double sense of the word man; 
 properly interpreted, it becomes an acceptable expres- 
 sion of our own view : ' Man could not rise from what 
 he was by nature to what he was able and intended to 
 become, and ought to become, except by the aid of 
 speech ; but he could never have produced speech had 
 he not been at the outset gifted with just those powers 
 of which we still see him in possession, and which 
 make him man.' 
 
 We have already noted the linguist's inability at 
 present to form even any valuable conjectures as to 
 the precise point in the history of man at w r hich the 
 germs of speech should have appeared, and the time 
 which they should have occupied in the successive steps 
 of their development. Men's views are greatly at vari- 
 ance as to this, and with no prospect of reconciliation at 
 present, because there is no criterion by which they can 
 be tested. That the process was a slow one, all our 
 knowledge of the history of later speech gives us reason 
 to believe. As to the precise degree of slowness, that 
 is an unessential point, which we may well enough leave 
 for future knowledge to settle if it can. "What we 
 have to guard especially against is the tendency to look 
 upon language-making as a task in which men engage, 
 to which they direct their attention, which absorbs a 
 part of their nervous energy, so that they are thereby 
 prevented from working as effectively in other direc- 
 tions of effort. Language-making is a mere incident of 
 eocial life and of cultural growth ; its every act is sug 
 gcsted or called forth by an occasion which is by com 
 parison the engrossing thing, to which the nomenclative 
 act is wholly subordinate. It is as great an error to hold
 
 308 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 that at some period men are engaged in making and 
 laving up expressions for their own future use and that 
 of their descendants, as that, at another period, men are 
 packing away conceptions and judgments for which their 
 successors shall find expression. Each period provides 
 just what it has occasion for ; nothing more. A gen- 
 eration or period may, indeed, by a successful incorpo- 
 ration in speech of an exceptionally fertile distinction, 
 start a train of development which shall lead to immense 
 consequences in the future, and lay a foundation on 
 which a great deal shall admit of being built : such, for 
 example (as we thought to see above), was the early 
 Indo-European establishment of a special predicative 
 form, a verb. This is truly analogous with those fortu- 
 nate inventions or discoveries (like that of treating iron, 
 of domesticating useful animals) which appear now and 
 then to have given a happy turn to the history of a race, 
 initiating an upward career of growth which would 
 have seemed a priori equally within the reach of any 
 other race. Such occurrences we are in the habit of 
 calling accidental ; and properly enough, if we are care- 
 ful to understand by this only that they are the prod- 
 net of forces and circumstances so numerous and so 
 indeterminable that we cannot estimate them, and could 
 not have predicted their result. But, slower or more 
 rapid, the production of language is a continuous pro- 
 cess; it varies in rate and kind with the circumstances 
 and habits of the speaking community; but it never 
 ceases ; there was never a time when it was more truly 
 going on than at present. 
 
 What terra we shall apply to the process and its 
 result is a matter of very inferior consequence. Inven- 
 tion, fabrication, devisal, production, generation aU 
 these are terms which have their favorers and also their
 
 LANGUAGE AN INSTITUTION. 309 
 
 violent opposers. Provided we understand what the 
 thing in reality is, we need care little about the phra- 
 seology used in characterizing it. Each word may be 
 not unfitly compared to an invention ; it has its own 
 place, mode, and circumstances of devisal, its prepara- 
 tion in the previous habits of speech, its influence in 
 determining the after-progress of speech-development ; 
 but every language in the gross is an institution, 011 
 which scores or hundreds of generations and unnum- 
 bered thousands of individual workers have labored.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THK SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE : CONCLUSION. 
 
 iJbaractcr of the study of language ; its analogies with tha physical 
 sciences. Its historical methods ; etymology ; rules of its success- 
 ful pursuit. Comparative philology and linguistic science. History . 
 of the scientific study of language. 
 
 WHAT we have to observe here in conclusion with 
 regard to the study of language must be very brief, and 
 mainly in the way of more or less obvious corollary to 
 what has been already said. With any one who accepts 
 the views of language set forth above, the rest will fol- 
 low as a matter of course ; with one who does not, it is 
 too late here to argue. 
 
 Whether, in the first place, men be willing to allow 
 to the study the name of a science or not, is a matter of 
 the smallest moment. It has its own character, its own 
 sphere, its own importance of bearing on other depart- 
 ments of knowledge. If there are those whose defini- 
 tion of a science excludes it, let it be so ; the point is 
 one on which no student of language need insist. 
 
 What he does need to insist upon is that the charac- 
 ter of his department of study be not misrepresented, in 
 order to arrogate to it a kind and degree of consequence 
 to which it is not entitled by declaring it, for exam- 
 ple, a physical or natural science, in these days when the
 
 THE WILL IN LANGUAGE. 311 
 
 physical sciences are filling men's minds with wonder at 
 their achievements, and almost presuming to claim the 
 title of science as belonging to themselves alone. It is 
 curiously indicative of the present as an early and for- 
 mative period in the history of this study, that there 
 should exist a difference of opinion among its conspicu- 
 ous followers as to whether it be a branch of physical or 
 of historical science. The difference may be now re- 
 garded as pretty conclusively settled: certainly, it is 
 high time that any one who takes the wrong view be 
 read out of the ranks, as one who has the alphabet of 
 the science still to learn. No study into which the acts 
 and circumstances ami habits of men enter, not only aa 
 an important, but even as the predominant and deter- 
 mining element, can possibly be otherwise than a his- 
 torical or moral science. Not one item of any existing 
 tongue is ever uttered except by the will of the utterer ; 
 not one is produced, not one that has been produced or 
 acquired is changed, except by causes residing in the 
 human will, consisting in human needs and preferences 
 and economies. There is no way of claiming a physical 
 character for the study of such phenomena except by a 
 thorough misapprehension of their nature, a perversion 
 of their analogies with the facts of physical science. 
 
 These analogies are real and striking, and are often 
 fitly used as instructive illustrations. There is no 
 branch of historical study which is so like a physical 
 science as is linguistics, none which deals with such an 
 infinite multiplicity of separate facts, capable of being 
 observed, recorded, turned over, estimated in their vari- 
 ous relations. A combination of articulate sounds form- 
 ing a word is almost as objective an entity as a polyp or 
 a fossil ; it can be laid away on a sheet of paper, like a 
 plant in a herbarium, for future leisurely examination.
 
 312 THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Though a product of voluntary action, it is not an arti- 
 ficiality ; what the producer consciously willed it to be is 
 bat the smallest part of what we seejc to discover in it : 
 we seek to read the circumstances which, unconsciously 
 to himself, guided his will, and made the act what it 
 was ; we regard it as a part of a system, as a link in a 
 historical series, as an indicator of capacity, of culture, 
 of ethnological connection. So a flint-chip, a scratched 
 outline of an animal, an ornament, is a product of in- 
 tention ; but it is also, as a historical record, pure of all 
 intention; a fact as objectively trustworthy as is a fos- 
 sil bone or footmark. The material of archaeology is 
 even more physical than that of linguistics; but no 
 one has ever thought of calling archaeology a physical 
 science. 
 
 As linguistics is a historical science, so its evidences 
 are historical, and its methods of proof of the same 
 character. There is no absolute demonstration about 
 it ; there is only probability, in the same varying degree 
 as elsewhere in historical inquiry. There are no rules 
 the strict application of which will lead to infallible 
 results. Nothing will make dispensable the wide gath- 
 ering-in of evidence, the careful sifting of it, so as to 
 determine what bears upon the case in hand and how 
 directly, the judicial balancing of apparently conflicting 
 testimony, the refraining from pushing conclusions be- 
 yond what the evidences warrant, the willingness to 
 rest, when necessary, in a merely negative conclusion, 
 which should characterize the historical investigator in 
 all departments. 
 
 The whole process of linguistic research begins in 
 and depends upon etymology, the tracing out of the 
 histories of individual words and elements. From 
 words the investigation rises higher, to classes, to parts
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN ETYMOLOGY. 313 
 
 of speech, to whole languages. On accuracy in etymo- 
 logical processes, then, depends the success of the whole ; 
 and the perfecting of the methods of etymologizing is 
 what especially distinguishes the new linguistic science 
 from the old. The old worked upon the same basis on 
 which the new now works : namely, on the tracing of 
 resemblances or analogies between words, in regard to 
 form and meaning. But the former was hopelessly 
 superficial. It was guided by surface likenesses, with- 
 out regard to the essential diversity which might under- 
 lie them as if the naturalist were to compare and class 
 together green leaves, green paper, green wings of in- 
 sects, and green laminae of minerals ; it was heedless of 
 the sources whence its material came ; it did not, in 
 short, command its subject sufficiently to have a method. 
 A wider knowledge of facts, and a consequent better 
 comprehension of their relations, changed all this. 
 Especially, the separation of languages into families, 
 with their divisions and subdivisions, the recognition 
 of non-relationships and relationships and degrees of 
 relationship, effected the great revolution, by changing 
 the principles on which the probable value of particu- 
 lar evidences is estimated. It was seen that, whereas a 
 close verbal resemblance between two nearly related 
 tongues has the balance of probabilities in its favor, 
 one between only distantly related tongues, or those 
 regarded as unrelated, has the probabilities against it ; 
 and hence, that, in order to be successful, comparative 
 investigation must be carried on with strict regard to 
 demonstrated affinities. "While affinities are unsettled, 
 of course, all comparisons are tentative only, and may 
 bo made in any direction, with due caution as to over- 
 estimate of the results reached. But when a family 
 like the Indo-European is constituted, with its branches 
 21
 
 314 THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 and sub-branches and dialects, all founded on the colleo 
 tion and thorough examination of a vast body of evi- 
 dence, and by its side another like the Semitic and yet 
 another like the Scythian, then even cross-comparisons 
 between the branches are to be held in strict subordina- 
 tion to the general comparison of branch with branch, 
 and cross-comparisons between families not less so : in- 
 deed, they are not to be admitted at all, except as pos- 
 sible evidences bearing on the question whether the 
 families are not, after all, ultimately akin a question 
 which is ever theoretically an open one, but of which 
 the extreme difficulty has been sufficiently pointed out 
 in previous chapters. It is, at any rate, only when the 
 structure and material of the families shall have become 
 understood with equal thoroughness, by the bringing 
 to bear of all the evidences lying within the boundaries 
 of each, that apparent resemblances between them can 
 be deemed genuine, or used as signs of original con- 
 nection. It is not enough that such preparatory work 
 be done in one family ; all the subjects of comparison 
 must be reduced to the same value before they can be 
 treated as commensurable. 
 
 There are, in short, two fundamental rules, under 
 the government of which all comparative processes 
 must be carried on : 1. comparisons must have in view 
 the established lines of genetic connection ; and 2. the 
 comparer must be thoroughly and equally versed in the 
 materials of both sides of the comparison. For want of 
 regard to them, men are even yet filling volumes with 
 linguistic rubbish, drawing wide and worthless conclu- 
 eions from unsound and insufficient premises. On the 
 other Land, if they be duly heeded, there is no limit to 
 the scale on which the comparative process may be car- 
 ried on, and made fruitful of valuable results. "Wo
 
 COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. 315 
 
 have already noticed that no fact in any language ii? 
 completely understood until there has been brought to 
 bear upon it the evidence of every other analogous fact, 
 related or unrelated ; and doubtless, to the end, so long 
 ns any corner of the earth remains unransacked. some 
 of the views which we hold with confidence \\ ill bo 
 liable to modification or overthrow. 
 
 The comparative method is really no more char- 
 acteristic of the study of language than of the other 
 branches of modern inquiry. But it was sufficiently 
 conspicuous in connection with the new start taken by 
 the study early in this century to make the name of 
 " comparative philology," like the earlier " comparative 
 anatomy" and the later "comparative mythology," 
 familiar and favored, for a time, beyond any other. 
 And the title is still accurate enough, as applied to that 
 aspect of the study in which it is engaged in collecting 
 and sifting its material, in order to determine corre- 
 spondences and relationships and penetrate the secrets 
 cf structure and historic growth ; but it is insufficient 
 as applied to the whole study the science of language, 
 or linguistic science, or glottology. Comparative phi- 
 lology and linguistic science, we may say, are two side? 
 of the same study : the former deals primarily with the 
 individual facts of a certain body of languages, classify- 
 ing them, tracing out their relations, and arriving at the 
 conclusions they suggest ; the latter makes the laws and 
 general principles of speech its main subject, and uses 
 particular facts rather as illustrations. The one is tho 
 working phase, the other the regulative and critical and 
 teaching phase of the science. The one is more impor- 
 tant as a part of special training, the other a8 an ele- 
 ment of general culture if, indeed, it be proper to raise 
 any question as to their relative importance, even to
 
 3^6 THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 the special student of language ; for tlie lack of cither 
 will equally unfit him for doing the soundest and best 
 service. 
 
 Yet the two are certainly different enough to make 
 it possible that a scholar should excel in the one and not 
 iii the other. The science of language runs out, on its 
 comparative side, into an infinity of details, like chem- 
 istry or zoology ; and one may be extremely well versed 
 in the manipulation of its special processes while wholly 
 wrong as regards its grander generalizations : just as 
 one may be a skillful analyst while knowing little or 
 nothing of the philosophy of chemistry, or eminent in 
 the comparative anatomy of animals with no sound 
 knowledge or judgment as to the principles of biology. 
 To illustrate this, it would be easy to cite remarkable 
 examples of men of the present generation, enjoying 
 high distinction as comparative philologists, who, as 
 soon as they attempt to reason on the w r ider truths of 
 linguistic science, fall into incongruities and absurdities; 
 or, in matters of minor consequence, they show in mani- 
 fold ways the lack of a sound and defensible basis oi 
 general theoretical views. Comparative work of the 
 broadest scope and greatest value has long been done 
 and is still doing ; but the science of language is only 
 in the most recent period taking shape ; and its princi- 
 ples are still subjects of great diversity of opinion and 
 of lively controversy. It is high time that this state of 
 things, tolerable only in the growing and shaping period 
 of a study, should come to an end, and that, as in other 
 sciences of observation and deduction for example, in 
 chemistry, zoology, geology there should be acknowl- 
 edged to exist a body, not of facts only, but of truths, 
 BO well established that he who rejects them shall havt 
 no claim to be considered a man of science.
 
 HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 317 
 
 To review the history of the study is a task for 
 ^vhich we have no room remaining, and which may well 
 enough be left here unattempted ; it is a subject by it- 
 self, and has been treated in independent works. 1 The 
 beginnings of the science lie as far back in the past as 
 the time when men first began to inquire and to specu- 
 late concerning the facts which they observed in them- 
 selves and in the world about them. The germs of all 
 the most important modern doctrines are to be found in 
 the reasonings of the Greek philosophers, for example ; 
 but unclearly apprehended, and mixed with much that 
 is erroneous. Their basis of knowledge was almost en- 
 tirely limited to the facts of their own language, and 
 hence insufficient for sound generalization. In the 
 great progress which has taken place during the last 
 century, resulting in the elaboration of a whole sister- 
 hood of new sciences, it was in the nature of things 
 impossible that linguistics should not come into being 
 with the rest ; and it came. The movement toward it 
 was well initiated in the last century, by the suggestive 
 and inciting deductions and speculations of men like 
 Leibnitz and Herder, by the wide assemblage of facts 
 and first classifications of language by the Russians 
 under Catherine and by Adelung and Yater and their 
 like, and by the introduction of the Sanskrit to the 
 knowledge of Europe, and the intimation of its connec- 
 tions and importance, by Jones and Colebrooke. No 
 
 1 Important authorities are : L. Lersch, Sprachphilosophie der Alien 
 (1840) ; H. Stcinthal, Qeschichte der Sprachwissenschafl bri den Griechtt, 
 und Romern (1862-3); T. Benfey, Geschichle der Sprachmuenschaft tmd 
 orienlalischen Philologie in DeuteMand (1869). Dr. J. Jolly has added 
 * sketch of the subject, in a couple of chapters, to his German version of 
 the author's "Language and the Study of Language" (Munich, 1874); 
 nd many interesting details arc given in 51. Muller's " Lectures on th 
 Science of Language," first series.
 
 318 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 one tiling was so decisive of the rapid success of the 
 movement as this last ; the long-gathering facts at onco 
 fell into their proper places, with clearly exhibited rela- 
 tions, and on the basis of Indo-European philology was 
 built up the science of comparative philology. Fred- 
 erick Schlegel was a forerunner of the study ; more than 
 any other man, Francis Bopp was its leader. Parallel 
 with Bopp's great Comparative Grammar of Indo-Eu- 
 ropean tongues came forth Jacob Grimm's Comparative 
 Grammar of the Germanic branch of the family, each 
 in its own way a masterpiece, and both together raising 
 the historical study of language at once to the rank of 
 a science. 
 
 Almost all these names, it will be observed, are 
 German ; and, in truth, to Germany belongs nearly the 
 whole credit of the development of comparative phi- 
 lology; the contributions made to it from other coun- 
 tries are of only subordinate value. In Germany, the 
 names of George Curtius, Pott, Benfey, Schleicher, 
 Kulm, Leo Meyer, are perhaps the most conspicuous, 
 in the generation still mainly upon the stage ; but they 
 have so many fellows of nearly equal eminence that 
 it is almost invidious to begin specification and to stop 
 anywhere, without going on to include as many more. 
 Outside of Germany, Rask in Denmark, Burnouf in 
 France, and Ascoli in Italy, have most right to be men- 
 tioned on the same page with the great German masters. 
 
 But while Germany is the home of comparative 
 philology, the scholars of that country have, as was 
 hinted above, distinguished themselves much less in 
 that which we have called the science of language. 
 There is among them (not less than elsewhere) such 
 discordance on points of fundamental importance, such 
 uncertainty of view, such carelessness of consistency,
 
 THE SCIENCE NOT YET ESTABLISHED. 319 
 
 that a German science of language cannot be said yet 
 to have an existence. And, accustomed as the world is 
 to look to Germany for guidance in all matters pertain- 
 ing to this subject, until they shall come to something 
 like agreement it will hardly be possible to claim that 
 there exists a world's science of language. In the pres- 
 ent condition, however, of linguistic study on the one 
 side and of anthropology on the other, it cannot be that 
 the period of chaos will endure much longer ; if men 
 will begin with learning to understand those facts in 
 the life and growth of language which lie nearest to 
 them, they will surely be guided to consistent and sen- 
 sible views as to the past history, the origin, and the 
 uature of this most ancient and valuable of man's social 
 institutions.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 or an. article. 129. 
 
 tihbreviation pi words, 38, 50-55. 
 
 rilaut, or variation of radical vowel, 
 126, 128. 
 
 Abyssinian group, 247. 
 
 Accadian language, 235. 
 
 accent, makes unity of word, 121. 
 
 accidental correspondences of words, 
 170. 
 
 accusative subject of infinitive, 93. 
 
 Achsumenidan language, 185. 
 
 acquisition of language by the indi- 
 vidual, 7-31. 
 
 acre, 39. 
 
 additions to language, 108-133. 
 
 adjective originally identical with 
 noun, 205 ; comparison, 217, 218 ; 
 its inflection lost in English, 103, 
 104, 2] 8 ; English noun convertible 
 into, 132, 133. 
 
 adverb, Indo-European, 208. 
 
 Afghan language, 186. 
 
 African languages, 254-258. 
 
 agglutinative structure, 232. 
 
 -at, (French) future ending, 92. 
 
 Albanian language, 187. 
 
 Algonkin language, 259, 260, 263. 
 
 alter (French), 168. 
 
 alphabetic rounds, how produced. 
 58-P>7; historical development or 
 alphabet, 68-70. 
 
 alterative tendency in language, 33, 
 
 am, 90, 106. 
 America, 130. 
 
 American languages, 259-264. 
 Americanisms, 156. 
 Amliario language, 247. 
 an or a, article, 129. 
 &ualogv, its force in linguistic growth, 
 74. 75. 
 
 analytic and synthetic structure, 21 1, 
 
 212. 
 Anglo-Saxon, its relation to English, 
 
 33-43. 
 animals, the lower, relation of their 
 
 expression to ours, 2, 3, 282, 290, 
 
 291 ; their lack of speech, 305. 
 animus, 137. 
 
 Annamese language, 239. 
 antiquity of man, 192. 
 application, 88. 
 
 apprefand, apprehension, 88, 187. 
 Arabic language and its kin, 246, 
 
 Aramaic language, 246, 247. 
 
 archaeology, its relation to linguistics, 
 273, 312. 
 
 Armenian language, 186 ; ita ex- 
 change of surd and sonant, 73. 
 
 Armoncau language, 183. 
 
 articles, their origin, 95. 
 
 articulate utterance, 68. 
 
 Aryan languages, 180, 193, 194. 
 
 as and also, 129. 
 
 aspirate mutes, 64. 
 
 aspiration, /-, 66, 67. 
 
 assimilation of sounds, 69-72. 
 
 Assyrian language, 246, 247. 
 
 Athabaskan group, 263. 
 
 attenuation of meaning of word's 
 90-95. 
 
 Australian languages, 244. 
 
 auxiliary and relational words, thcll 
 production, 90-96. 
 
 Avestau language, 186. 
 
 binana, 115. 
 bank, bankrupt, 77. 
 Hantu family, 256. 
 P.:ishkir language, 281. 
 Basque language, a68, 27C.
 
 322 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 *, 90. 
 
 Bengali language, 187. 
 bishop, 45-4S. 
 blame, 55. 
 
 Bohemian language, 182. 
 book, 77. 
 
 borrowing as means of adding to lan- 
 guage, 114-120, 170. 
 Brahui language, 244. 
 Irotlier and related words, 168, 171. 
 Bulgarian language, 182. 
 Burmese language, 239. 
 Bushman language, 257. 
 butterfly, 84, t>7. 
 
 Cxtar, 135. 
 
 Canaanitie languages, 24 (*. 
 
 Canarese language, 244. 
 
 candidate, 77, 76. 
 
 capacities involved in production and 
 u*e of language, 145, 278, 279, 303, 
 305. 
 
 Carthaginian language, 246. 
 
 canes, 21 >i, 217"; Indo-European, 
 205-207 ; English and French, 104. 
 
 Caucasian languages, 245. 
 
 Celtic languages, 183, 
 
 Chuldee language, 246, 247. 
 
 change in language, its universality, 
 33-30; illustrated from Anglo- 
 Saxon, 36-4U : classification of 
 changes, 44 ; change in outer form 
 of word.*, 45-75 ; in inner content, 
 76-97 ; losses and additions, 98- 
 152 ; its effect in producing dialects, 
 153-169. 
 
 child's acquisition of language, 8-31. 
 
 Chinese language, 111, 224, 225, 237- 
 240, 301. 
 
 class varieties of language, 155. 
 
 classification of languages, 174, 229 ; 
 its bearing on etymological pro- 
 cesses. 313. 
 
 Cochin-Chinese language, 239. 
 
 stmedy, comic, 142. 
 
 communication, its influence in lan- 
 guage, 149-151, 157-159, 164-166; 
 impulse to it the immediate mo- 
 tive to language-making, 149, 283- 
 
 community, its part in langua^e- 
 
 making, 149, 151. 
 comparative method in linguistic 
 
 science, 315. 
 
 comparative philologv, 315, 316. 
 composition of word's, its value as 
 
 element in growth of language 
 
 121-180, 197-199. 
 
 conjunctions, Indo-European, 209. 
 oonseiouBnesa, its diflertnt degrees 
 
 in language- making, 135-137, 147, 
 
 148. 
 conservative force in life of language, 
 
 32, 33. 
 constraint in language-learning, 22, 
 
 23. 
 
 control, 84. 
 conventionality of words, 19, 283, 
 
 288 ; conventional phraseology, 
 
 113. 
 
 copper, 78. 
 
 Coptic language, 254. 
 Cornish language, 183. 
 correspondences, verbal, as signs of 
 
 relationship, 169, 170. 
 cost, 55. 
 count, 55. 
 crescent, 82-84. 
 Croatian language, 182. 
 culture, its effect in language-hw- 
 
 tory, 158, 176. 
 Cymric languages, 183. 
 
 -d, preterit sign, 42, 53. 
 
 Dakota language, 259, 263. 
 
 Danish language, 181. 
 
 decimal system, its basis, 20. 
 
 denominative verbs, 131, 132. 
 
 derivation, 89. 
 
 derivative endings, Indo-European, 
 
 208. 
 
 develop, 88. 
 dialect and language, distinction of, 
 
 177, 178. f 
 dialectic variation in language, 153- 
 
 178. 
 
 digamma, Greek, 72. 
 disaster, 99. 
 disciple, 40, 41. 
 dissimilation, euphonic, 71. 
 divarication, dialectic, law of, 168- 
 
 _166. 
 
 divine origin of language, 302, 303. 
 do, 91. 
 -dom 123. 
 double, 88. 
 
 Dravidian family, 244, 245. 
 duplicity, 88. 
 
 ears, 38, 74, 75. 
 
 case or economy, tendency towartL 
 as element in phonetic history 01 
 language, 49-74; its constructive 
 effect, 53 ; same principle in 
 change of meaning, 79. 
 
 education and culture, their effect 
 on history of language, 158. 
 
 Egyptian language, 254-256. 
 
 electricity, 142. 
 
 English language, a mixed speecn
 
 INDEX. 
 
 323 
 
 , 100, 117-119 ; its periods, 33 ; 
 its change from Anglo- Saxon il- 
 lustrated. 86-43 ; its inconsist- 
 ent vowel-system, 56 ; lobs of old 
 words and forms, 99-106 ; conver- 
 sion of one part of speech into 
 another, 132, 133. 
 
 Esthouian language, 230. 
 
 to. etc. (French), 64. 
 
 Ethiopian languages, 256. 
 
 Ethiopic or Geez language, 247. 
 
 ethnology, bearing of language on, 
 '265-276. 
 
 Etruscan language, 188, 275. 
 
 etymology, foundation of linguistic 
 science, 312, 313 ; its true methods, 
 313-315. 
 
 expression, various means of, 1, 2, 
 282, 287 ; conversion of emotional 
 into intellectual, 283-289 ; pre- 
 dominance of voice, 291-294. 
 
 extension of sphere of meaning of 
 words, 84-96. 
 
 families of language, 174, 228, 229, 
 268. 
 
 /are, 38, 39, 52, 74, 75. 
 
 femina and its derivatives, 167. 
 
 figurative transfer of meaning, 86-89, 
 112. 
 
 final part of a word most liable to 
 change, 71, 72. 
 
 Finnish language, 230. 
 
 foot, 86, 300. 
 
 for,Jore, 94, 129. 
 
 foreign language, its acquisition, 23- 
 25. 
 
 forget, 89. 
 
 formal expression, objects and means 
 of, 106, 213-227; its derivation 
 from more material elements, 89- 
 96 ; learned later than material 
 expression bv children, 13, 14. 
 
 formative elements, how obtained, 
 1-_"J-130. 197 : their uses, 129-181. 
 
 /rater and its derivatives, 167, 171. 
 
 French language, 9, 183. 
 
 fricative sounds, 61, 64, 65. 
 
 Frisian language, 181. 
 
 (indholic languages, 188. 
 
 Ciaelie language, 183. 
 
 Gaila language, 256. 
 
 fdliwiism, 142. 
 
 yets, 17, 120. 
 
 gazette, 77. 
 
 (ifC-x language, 247. 
 
 sender in language, 215, 216 ; ID In- 
 do-European, 39, 206, 207 ; IOM in 
 EcglUh, 104. 
 
 genetic claujification, its value, 277. 
 genius of a language, 150. 
 genteel, gentile, gentle, 129. 
 Geoigian language, 245. 
 German language, 181 ; its history, 
 
 160-162. 
 
 German linguistic scholars, 317-819. 
 Germanic languages, 181. 
 gesture as means of expression. 292. 
 go, 101. 
 good, 12, 111. 
 Greek language, 184, 185. 
 green, 14-17, 83, 86, 138. 
 Grimm's Law of rotation of mutes, 
 
 57, 58, 73. 
 growth of language, 34 ; its modes 
 
 and processes, 45-162. 
 
 Hainitic family, 254-256. 
 
 harmonic sequence of vowels in Scy- 
 thian, 71, 234. 
 
 liave, 91-93. 
 
 lead, 86, 87. 
 
 Hebrew language, 246, 247. 
 
 High-German languages, 181. 
 
 Himalayan languages, 240. 
 
 Himvaritic language, 247. 
 
 Hindi language, 187. 
 
 Hindustani language, 187. 
 
 Hottentot language, 257. 
 
 human race, its antiquity, 192; its 
 unity or variety not demonstrable 
 by language, 268-270. 
 
 Hungarian language, 230. 
 
 Huzvaresh language, 185. 
 
 Icelandic language, 181. 
 
 ideas antecedent to their names, 137- 
 140. 
 
 imitative principle in language -mak- 
 ing, 120, 282, 294-298. 
 
 imply, 88. 
 
 important, 83. 
 
 Indian, 78. 
 
 Indian (Asiatic) languages, 186, 187. 
 
 individual action on language, 144- 
 151,163,163: individual varii-tic* 
 of language, 1.14-156. 
 
 Indo-European family, its establish- 
 in. nt, 167-174; its branches, 180- 
 188; importance, 188-191; tim 
 and place of unity unknown, 192- 
 194; history of its structural de- 
 velopment, 194-212. 
 
 influri,cr, un, 102. 
 
 inner form of language, 22. 
 
 inorganic means of formal 
 tion.127. 
 
 inotculation, 137. 
 
 instinct- in man, 289. 890.
 
 324 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Institutions composing culture, lan- 
 guage one of them. 280, 2S1, 34. 
 
 intellectual and moral terms derived 
 from physical, 88, 89. 
 
 Interjections, 209, 210. 
 
 internal change of vowel in Indo- 
 European, its origin, 125-123. 
 
 invention of new words, 120. 
 
 invest i 88. 
 
 Iranian languages, 185, 186. 
 
 Irish language, 183. 
 
 Irish pronunciation of English, 156. 
 
 lrqu<>is language, 259, 203. 
 
 is beinfi, 1<>2~151. 
 
 Italian language, 18-1. 
 
 Itali.; languages, 1S3. 
 
 tit, 75, 1.01. 
 
 Japanese language, 117, 240, 241. 
 jocial. 81. 
 Julius, July, 105. 
 
 Kalevala, 230. 
 Kirghiz language, 231. 
 leni'jht, 40. 
 Kurdish language, 186. 
 
 lan?uage. double sense of the 
 term, 278-2^0 ; nature of language, 
 1, -1, 30, 280,282,304; universality 
 as possession of man, 2, 281 ; lim- 
 ited to man, 2 ; 3, 281 ; why thus 
 limited, 305 ; its discordance, 3 ; 
 its acquisition bv speakers, 7-30 ; 
 conservative and alterative forces 
 in its life and growth, 32-34 ; pro- 
 cesses of its constant growth or 
 change, 34-152 ; forces producing 
 this, "144-151 ; dialectic variation, 
 153-178 ; relationships and classifi- 
 cation of languages, 1G'J-175; the 
 known families of language, 179- 
 212, 223-204 ; linguistic structure, 
 213-227 ; bearing of language on 
 ethnology, 265-277 ; historical be- 
 ginnings" of language, 199-202, 
 22*5, 227, 293, 299; their origin, 
 278-309 ; the science of language, 
 310-319. 
 
 Lappish language, 230. 
 Latin language, 183, 184 its history, 
 162, 103; borrowing from it, 116, 
 
 laws of language, their true charac- 
 ter, H6. 
 
 learned dialects, 159. 
 -U*, 122, 
 
 Lettish language, 182. 
 Libyan or Berber language, 256. 
 life of language, 32-34. 
 
 linguistic science, or science of lan- 
 guage, its problems, 4, 15, 16 ; its 
 character and method, 5, 191, 313- 
 315; difference of its material 
 from that of physical science, 266, 
 207 ; its history, 5, 317-319 ; ita 
 relation to Indo-Europeau study, 
 189-191. 
 
 Lithuanian language, 182. 
 
 Livonian language, 182. 
 
 loss of material from language, 50- 
 53, 98-107. 
 
 Low-German languages, 181. 
 
 lunatic, 78. 
 
 -ly, 41, 52, 122. 
 
 magenta, 16, 138. 
 mdanetism, 142. 
 
 Mahratti language, 187. 
 
 Malay-Polynesian family, 241-243. 
 
 Malayalam or Malabar language, 
 244. 
 
 Malayan languages, 242. 
 
 man, men, 127. 
 
 man, universal and sole possessor 
 of language, 2, 3, 281, 282, SOS- 
 SOS; His development by means 
 of language, 306, 307 ; question 
 of his antiquity, 192. 
 
 Manchu language, 236, 237. 
 
 material and form in language, 213- 
 227 ; material expression reduced 
 to formal, 89-90. 
 
 Mava language, 263. 
 
 Melanesian languages, 242. 
 
 -ment (French), 122, 123. 
 
 mental training and shaping in ac- 
 quisition of language, 19-23. 
 
 Mercury, mercurial, 80, 81. 
 
 metapluir, 88. 
 
 mdhinks, 42. 
 
 miraculous theory of language, 80?, 
 303. 
 
 mixture of race and language, 9, 
 271, 272. 
 
 Moabite language, 247. 
 
 modification ot vowel (umlaut) 
 Germanic language, 71, 127, 151. 
 
 Mo3so-Gothic language, 181. 
 
 Mongolian language, 235-237. 
 
 monosyllabic famuy, 237-240. 
 
 month' 81. 
 
 moon, 80-83. 
 
 Moravian language, 182. 
 
 Mordwinian language, 230. 
 
 morphology, question of a science 
 of, 144. 
 
 mulier and its derivatives, 187 
 
 musket, 100. 
 
 Muskokee languages, 263,
 
 INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 muslin, 78. 
 
 mute consonants, 61 -63. 
 
 name-making process, as part of the 
 growth of language, 134-151, 307. 
 
 nasal mutes, 6&. 
 
 Netherlandish language, 181. 
 
 Norwegian language, 181. 
 
 noun-inflection in Indo-European, 
 205-207. 
 
 obsolescent material in language, 
 101-103. 
 
 obvious, 89. 
 
 occur. 89. 
 
 of, of, 94, 129, 138. 
 
 Old Bactrian language, 185. 
 
 Old Persian language, 185. 
 
 Old Prussian language, 182. 
 
 Old Saxon language, 181. 
 
 one, 129. 
 
 onomatopoeia, its part in language- 
 making, 120, 282, 294-298. 
 
 origin oflanguage, 278-309. 
 
 Oscan language, 184. 
 
 Osmanli Turkish language, 231. 
 
 Ossetic language, 186. 
 
 Ostiak language, 280. 
 
 Otomi language, 262. 
 
 Pali language, 187. 
 
 paper, 77. 
 
 Papuan family, 243, 244. 
 
 parts of speech in Indo-European, 209. 
 
 Pehlevi language, 185. 
 
 perplex, 88. 
 
 Persian language, 185, 186 ; its bor- 
 rowing and lending, 117. 
 
 Phoenician language, 246, 247. 
 
 phonetic change in the growth of 
 language, 49, 73 ; limit to its expla- 
 nation, 73, 74. 
 
 physical science, analogy of linguis- 
 tic science with it, 311, 312. 
 
 pine-apple, 115. 
 
 planet, 79, 83. 
 
 til H'l, 7">. 
 
 I'olabian language, 182. 
 
 Polish language, 182. 
 
 Polynesian languages, 242. 
 
 polysynthetic structure, 258-262. 
 
 Portuguese language, 184. 
 
 rosition as means of formal distinc- 
 tion, 221. 
 
 pott, 84. 
 
 Prakrit language, 187. 
 
 preach. 55. 
 
 prepositions in Indo-European, 04, 
 208, 209. 
 
 priest, 77. 
 
 pronominal roots and pronouns iia 
 
 Indo-European, 201, 207. 
 proper names. 79, 80. 
 proven, 75. 
 
 Provencal language, 184. 
 psychology, its part in connection 
 
 with the study of language. 10, 16, 
 
 303, 304. 
 
 queen, quean, 168. 
 Quichua language, 263, 264. 
 
 race and language, their relations, 8, 
 
 9, 271-276. 
 read, read. 126. 
 reason, relation of language to, 804, 
 
 relation, 88. 
 
 relative pronouns, 95. 
 
 Rhaetc-Romanic language, 184. 
 
 rue, 109. 
 
 roll, role, 84. 
 
 Romaic or Modern Greek language, 
 
 185. 
 Romanic languages, 183 ; their his- 
 
 tory, 162, 163, 166. 
 roots of Indo-European language, 199. 
 
 202; of other languages, '-J:.'6. -_'^7: >! 
 
 Semitic, 248 ; their value 298, 299. 
 Rumansh language, 184. 
 Russian language, 182. 
 
 salbath, 40, 41. 
 
 Samoved languages, 230. 
 
 Sansk'rit language, 186, 187, 117. 
 
 saturnine, 81. 
 
 savior^ 40, 41. 
 
 Scandinavian languages, 181. 
 
 science of language see linguistic 
 science. 
 
 Scythian family, 230-237 ; its branch- 
 es, 230. 231 ; its structure, _' 
 its doubtful members, 235-237, 244, 
 245. 
 
 Semitic family, 246-254 ; its locality 
 and branches, 246, 247 ; structure, 
 248-251 ; question of the origiu 
 of this, 251-253; of relationship 
 with other languages, 253, 264. 
 
 semivowels, 65, 66. 
 
 Servian language, 182. 
 
 sex as gr<nul f formal distinction 
 
 -thip, 123. 
 Siamese language, 239. 
 sibilants, 64. ' 
 silent letters. 55. 
 rimpU, nmpticity, 88.
 
 326 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bkipetar language, 187. 
 
 variation of radical vowel (ablaut). 
 
 slang. 112, 113. 
 Slavonic languages 182. 
 Slovakia!! language, 182. 
 Slovenian language, 182. 
 sonif "* 23. 
 
 128. 
 verb, Indo-European, 202-205 ; Scy- 
 thian, 233; Semitic, 248-250; 
 American, 260; verbal structure, 
 218-221 ; making of verbs from 
 
 sonant and surd, distinction of, 63 ; 
 
 nouns and adjectives, 131, 132. _ 
 
 thuir interchanges, 70,71. 
 tooth, 41, 43. 
 Borbian language, 182. 
 South-African family, 256, 257. 
 
 vocabularv, different extent of, in in-' 
 dividuals and classes, 25,_26. 
 voice as means of expression, 287, 
 289, 291-294. 
 
 Spanish language, 1^4. 
 specialization of meaning in growth 
 of language, 82-84. 
 spirants, 65. 
 
 volume, 77. 
 vowels, 61, 65, 66 ; relation of vow- 
 el and consonant, 68; chaotic con- 
 dition of English vowel system, 
 
 tpiritw, 137. 
 
 55, 56. 
 
 structure in language, 213-227. 
 
 
 tuch, 55. 
 
 Wallachian language, 184. 
 
 suffixes, how made, 122-130. 
 
 was, were, 90. 
 
 tuggest, 89. 
 
 Wednesday, 81. 
 
 tun, 80, 81, 83. 
 
 Welsh language, 183. 
 
 surd and sonant, distinction of, 63. 
 
 which, 55. 
 
 Swedish language, 181. 
 
 wife and its kin, 168. 
 
 synthetic and analytic structure, 211, 
 
 will, 93. 
 
 212. 
 
 Wofful language, 230. 
 
 Syrian language, 246, 247. 
 
 words, are arbitrary and convention- 
 
 
 al signs for ideas, 19, 283, 288; 
 
 tabu, 115. 
 take place, 96. 
 Tamil language, 244. 
 
 connected with meaning by a men- 
 tal association only, 11, 18, 48; 
 this how established, 26-30; char- 
 
 Tartar or Tatar languages, 230, 231. 
 Telugu language, 244. 
 
 acter of the etymological reason, 
 143 ; are not definitions or descrip- 
 
 there is,W. 
 
 tions, 47, 48 ; have each its own 
 
 thorouah, through, 129. 
 
 time, place, occasion, 16, 17, 40, 
 
 Tibetan language, 240. 
 
 47; are class-names, 78; change 
 
 time in verbal expression, 219, 220. 
 to, 43, 94, 138. 
 tragedy, tragic, 142. 
 transfer, 88. 
 
 form and meaning separately, 49 ; 
 changes of form, 45-75 ; changes of 
 meaning, 76-97 ; figurative change, 
 86-89; attenuation, 90-95 ; change 
 
 trivial, 88. 
 
 of pregnancy or dignity, 97, 113 ; 
 
 Tungusic language, 235, 237. 
 Tupi-Guarani languages, 262, 264. 
 Turanian languages, 231. 
 
 variety of meanings, 110, 111 ; lofla 
 of words from a language, 98-102 ; 
 additions of new words, 108-133 ; 
 
 Turkish languages, 230, 231, 117. 
 Turkoman language, 231. 
 
 principles governing addition, 134- 
 152. 
 
 
 wot, 93. 
 
 Jgrian languages, 230. 
 Cigur language, 231. 
 
 Wotiak language, 230. 
 wrong, 89. 
 
 Umbrian language, 184. 
 
 
 Ural-Altaic family, 231. 
 Urdu language, 187. 
 
 Yakut language, 231. 
 
 usage the law of speech, 141. 
 Usbek language, 231. 
 
 Zend language, 185. 
 
 r, 129. 
 
 Ztryanian language, 230.
 
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