a/. s^ LANGUAGE , AW THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE: TWELVE LECTURES OV THB PRINCIPLES OP LINGUISTIC SCIENCE BY WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, PROFE8SOK OF SANSKEIT AND INSTRUCTOR IN MODERN LANOITAGES IN TALE COLLEGE. FIFTH EDITION, NEW YORK: SCRIBNEE,, ARMSTRONG & CO., 654 BROADWAY. 1874. f7^i- Jlntered acoordir.g to Act of Conjrress, in the year 1867, by Chaeles Scribneb & Company, In ibe Clerk's Oflice of the District Court of the Uuited Statet for Iht bcuthem District of New Ycurk. John F. Trow & Son. primkks am) dookbindkkp, 205-213 East \2th St., NEW VOKK. UJq, TO JAMES HADLEY, PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN YALE COLLEaE, VmU TEUIT OF STUDIES WHICH HE HAS DONE MOU THAN ANY ONE ELSE TO ENCOURAGE AND AID la AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 1 PREFACE. The main argument of tlie following work was first drawn out in tlie form of six lectures " On the Principles of Linguistic Science/' delivered at tlie Smithsonian Insti- tution, in Washington, during the month of March, 1864. Of these, a brief abstract was printed in the Annual Report of the Institution published in the same year.* In the following winter (December, 1864, and January, 1865) they were again delivered as one of the regular courses before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, having been expanded into a series of twelve lectures. They are now laid before a wider public, essentially in their form as there presented. But they have been in the mean time carefully rewritten, and have suffered a not inconsiderable further expansion, as the removal of the enforced Pro- crustean limit, of sixty minutes to a lecture, has given opportunity to discuss with greater fulness important points in the general argument which had before come off with insufficient treatment. The chief matter of theory upon which my opinion has undergone any noteworthy modification is the part to be attributed to the onomato- poetic principle in the first steps of language-making (see the eleventh lecture). To this principle, at each revision ♦ Rqwrt for 1863, pp. 95-116. VI PREFACE, of my views, I have been led to assign a higher and higher efficiency, partly by the natural effect of a deeper study and clearer appreciation of the necessary conditions of the case, partly under the influence of valuable works upon the subject, recently issued.* In the general style of presentation I have not thought it worth while to make any change — not even to cast out those recapitulations and repetitions which are well-nigh indispensable in a course of lectures meant for oral delivery, though they may and should be avoided in a work intended from the outset for continuous reading and study. More than one of the topics here treated have been from time to time worked up separately, as communica- tions to the American Oriental Society, and are concisely reported in its Proceedings ; also, within no long time past, I have furnished, by request, to one or two of our leading literary periodicals, papers upon special themes in linguistic science which were, to no small extent, virtual extracts from this work. The principal facts upon which my reasonings are founded have been for some time past the commonplaces of comparative philology, and it was needless to refer for them to any particular authorities : where I have consci- ously taken results recently won by an individual, and to be regarded as his property, I have been careful to acknowledge it. It is, however, my dutj^ and my pleasure here to confess my special obligations to those eminent y^/masters in linguistic science. Professors Heinrich Steiuthal of Berlin and August Schleicher of Jena, whose works -f ♦ I will refer only to ^fr Farrar's " Chapters on Lanq-uaore " (London, I860), and to Professor Wedgwood's little book, " On the Origin of Lan- guugr>" (London, ISr^G). t As chief among them, I would mention Steinthal's " Cbarakteristik del PREFACE. Vii I have liad constantly upon my table, and liave freely consulted, deriving from tliem great instruction and enlightenment, even wlien I have been obliged to dififec most strongly from some of their theoretical views. Upon them I have been dependent, above all, in preparing my eighth and ninth lectures ;* my independent acqaaintance with the languages of various type throughout the world being far from sufficient to enable me to describe them at first hand. I have also borrowed here and there an illus- tration from the " Lectures on the Science of Language '' of Professor Max IMiiller, which are especially rich in such O material. To my friend Professor Fitz-Edward Hall, Librarian of the East India Office in London, I have to return my thanks for his kindness in. undertaking the burdensome task of reading the revise of the sheets, as they went through the press. It can hardly admit of question that at least so much knowledge of the nature, history, and classifications of language as is here presented ought to be included in every scheme of higher education, even for those who do not intend to become special students in comparative phil- ology. Much more necessary, of course, is it to those who cherish such an intention. It is, I am convinced, a mis- take to commence at once upon a course of detailed com- parative philology with pupils who have only enjoyed the ordinary training in the classical or the modern languages, Hauptsachlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues " (Berlin, 1860), and Schleicher's " Compendium der Vergleichenden Grammutik der ludogermanischen Spra- chen" (Weimar, 1861; a new edition has appeared this year) : other writings of both authors, of less extent and importance, are referred to by name in the marginal notes upon the text. ' I should mention also my indebtedness, as regards the Semitic lan- guages, to the admirable work of M. Ernest Renan, the " Ilistoire Generale des LanguDS Semitiques" (seconde edition, Paris, 18-58). V Vlll PREFACE. or in both. They are hable either to fail of apprehending the vahie and interest of the infinity of particulars into which they are plunged^ or else to become wlioUy absorbed in them, losing sight of the grand truths and principles which underlie and give significance to their work, and the recognition of which ought to govern its course throughout : perhaps even coming to combine with acute- ness and erudition in etymological investigation views respecting the nature of language and* the relations of languages of a wholly crude or fantastic character. I am not without hope that this book may be found a conve- nient and serviceable manual for use in our higher institu- tions of learning. I have made its substance the basis of my own instruction in the science of language, in Yale Col- lege, for some years past ; and, as it appears to me, with gratifying success. In order to adapt it to such a pur- pose, I have endeavoured to combine a strictly logical and scientific plan with a popular mode of handling, and with such illustration of the topics treated as shoukl be easily and universally apprehensible. If, however, the lecture style should be found too discursive and argu- mentative for a text-book cf instruction, I may perhaps be led hereafter to prepare another work for that special use. Yale College, Heic Haveyi, Conn.y August, 1867. CONTENTS. t»^. PAGl I. Introductory : history, material, objects of linguistic science ; plan of these lectures. Fundamental inquiry. How we acquired our speech, and what it was ; Jitferences of indi- vidual speech. What is the English language ; how kept in existence ; its changes. Modes and causes of linguistic change. . . . . . . . . . . i II. Nature of the force which produces the changes of language ; its modes of action. Language an institution, of his- torical growth ; its study a moral science. Analogies of linguistic science with the physical sciences. Its methods historical, Etyraolog>' its foundation. Analysis of com- pound words. Genesis of affixes.,^ Nature of all words as produced by actual composition. . . . . . . H ni. Phonetic change ; its ground, action on compound words, part in word-making, and destructive effects. Replace- ment of one mode of formal distinction by another. Extension of analogies. Abolition of valuable distinc- tions. Conversion of sounds into one another. Physical characters of alphabetic sounds ; physical scheme of the English alphabet Obsolescence and loss of words. Changes of meaning ; their ground and methods. Variety of meanings of one word. Synonyms. Conversions of physical into spiritual meaning. Attenuation of mean- ing ; production of form- words. Variety of derivatives from one root. Unreflectiveness of the process of making names and forms. Conceptions antedate their names. Reason of a name historical, and founded in convenience, not necessity. Insignificance of derivation in practical use of language. . . . . . . . . . . ng IV. Varying rate and kind of linguistic growth, and causes affect- ing it. Modes of growth of the English language. In- X CONTENTS. LECT. P\GB fluences conservative of linguistic identity Causes pro- ducing dialects; causes maintaining, producing, or ex- tending homogeneity of speech. Illustrations : history of the German language; of the Latin ; of the English. The English language in America. . . . . . . 136 V. Erroneous views of tjie relations of dialects. Dialectic variety implies original unity. Effect of cultivation on a language. Grouping of languages by relationship. Nearer and remoter relations of the English. Constitution of the Indo-European family. Proof of its unity. Impossibility of determining the place and time of its founders ; their culture and customs, inferred from their restored vocabu- lary. . . . . . . . . . . . . i7e VI. Languages and literatures of the Germanic, Slavonic, Lithu- anic, Celtic, Italic, Greek, Iranian, and Indian branches of Indo-European speech. Interest of the family and its study ; historical importance of the Indo-European races ; their languages the basis of linguistic science. Method of linguistic research. Comparative philology. Errors of linguistic method or its application. . . . . 209 Vll. Beginnings of Indo-European language. Actuality of linguia tic analysis. Koots, pronominal and verbal ; their character as the historical germs of our language ; devel- opment of inlkctive speech from them. Production of declensional, conjugational, and derivative apparatus, and of the parts of speech. Relation of synthetic and analytic forms. General character and course of inflective development. . . . . . . . . . . 249 Till. Families of languages, how established. Characteristic featuri's of Indo-European language. Semitic family : its constitution, historic value, literatures, and linguistic character Relation of Semitic to Indo-European lan- guage. Scythian or Altaic family : its five branches : their history, literatures, and chamctcr. Unity of the family somewhat doubtful. . , . . . . 288 IX. Uncertainties of genetic classification of languages. "Tura- nian" family. Dravidian group. North-eastern Asiatic. Monosyllabic tongues: Chinese, Farther Indian, Tibetan, etc. Malay-Polynesian and MelanesiaTi familico Egyptian language and its asserted kindred : Hamitic fami'y. Lan- guages of southern and central Africa. La-nguages of America : problem of derivation of American races. Isolated tongues : Basque, Caucasian, etc. • . . . 32S CONTEXTS. LECT. PAa« X. Classification of languages. Morphological classifications ; their defects. Schleicher's morphological notation. Classification by general rank. Superior value of genetic division. Bearing of linguistic science on ethnology. Comparative advantages and disadvantages of linguistic and physical evidence of race. Indo-European language and race mainly coincident. Difficulty of the ethnolo- gical problem. Inability of language to prove either unity or variety of human species. Accidental correspondences : futility of root comparisons. . . . . . . 35S XL Origin of language. Conditions of the problem. In what sense language is of divine origin. Desire of communi- cation the immediate impulse to its production. Lan- guage and thought not identical. Thought possible without language. Difference of mental action in man and lower animals. Language the result and means of analytic thought, the aid of higher thought. The voice as instrument of expression. Acts and qualities the first things named. The ' bow-wow,' 'pooh-pooh,' and ' ding- dong ' theories. Onomatopoeia the true source of first utterances. Its various modes and limitations. Its traces mainly obliterated. Kemaining obscurities of the problem. 395 XII. Wiiy men alone can speak. Value of speech to man. Train- ing involved in the acquisition of language. Red ex in- fluence of language on mind and history. Writing the natural aid and complement of speech. Fundamental idea of written speech. Its development. Symbolic and mnemonic objects. Picture writing. Egj'ptian hieroglyphs. Chinese writing. Cuneiform characters. Syllabic modes of writing. The Phenician alphabet and its descendants. Greek and Latin alphabets. English alphabet. English orthography. Rank of the English among languages. . . 436 ""91^' library Of oa^tf^ LANGUAGE AND THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE. LECTURE I. Introductory : history, material, objects of linguistic science ; plan of these lectures. Fundamental inquiry. How we acquired our speech, and wliat it was; differences of individual speech. Wliat is the English language ; how kept in existence ; its changes. Modes and causes of linguistic change. Those who are engaged in the investigation of language have bnt recently begun to claim for their study the rank and title of a science. Its development as such has been w holly the work of the present century, although its germs go back to a much more ancient date. It has had a history, iti fact, not unlike that of the other sciences of obser vation and inducti on — for example, geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics — which the intellectual activity of modern times has built up upon the scanty observations and crude inductions of other days. Men have ahvays been learning languages, in greater or less measure ; adding to their own mother- tongues the idioms of the races about them, for the practical end of communication with those races, of access to their thought and knov»ledge. There has, too, hardly been a time when some have not been led on from the acquisition of languages to the study of language. The interest of this precious and wonderful possession of man, at once the siga and the means of his superiority to the rest of the animal 1 1' HISTORY OP [LECT. creation, has in all ages strongly impressed the reflecting and philosophical, and impelled them to speculate respecting its nature, its history, and its origin. Eesearches into the genealogies and affinities of ^vords have exercised the in- genuity of numberless generations of acute and inquiring minds. Moreover, the historical results attainable by such researches, the light cast by them upon the derivation and connection of races, have never wholly escaped re- cognition. The general objects and methods of linguistic study are far too obviously suggested, and of far too engaging interest, not to have won a certain ihare of regard, from the time when men first began to inquire into things and their causes. jS'othing, however, that deserved the name of a science was the result of these older investigations in the domain of language-, any more than in those of chemistry and astronomy. Hasty generalizations, baseless hypotheses, inconclusive de- ductions, were as rife in the former department of study as they were in the two latter while yet passing through the preliminary stages of alchemy and astrology. The difficulty was in all the cases nearly the same ; it lay in the paucity of observed facts, and in the faulty position which the inquirer assumed toward them. There had been no sufficient collec- tion and classification of phenomena, to serve as the basis of inductive reasoning, for the establishment of sound methods and the elaboration of true results ; and along with this, and partly in consequence of it, prejudice and assumption had usurped the place of induction. National self-sufficiency and inherited prepossession long helped to narrow the limits imposed by unfiivourable circumstances upon the extent of linguistic knowledge, restraining that liberality of inquiry which is indispensable to the growth of a science. Ancient ])eople8 were accustomed to think each its own dialect the only true language ; other tongues were to them mere bar- barous jargons, unworthy of study. Modern nations, in virtue of their history, their higher culture, and their Chris- tianity, have been much less uncharitably exclusive ; and their reverence for the two classical idioms, the Greek and Latin, and for the language of the Old Testament, the He- I.] LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 3 brew, so widened their linguistic liorizon as gradually to pre- pare the \Aayfor juster and more comprehensive -views of the character and history of human speech. The restless and penetrating spirit of investigation, filially, of the nine- teenth century, with its insatiable appetite for facts, its tendency to injluction, and its practical recognition of the unity of human interests, and of the absolute value of all means of knowledge respecting human conditions and his- tory, has brought about as rapid a development in linguistic study as in the kindred branches of physical study to which we have already referred. The truth being once recognized that no dialect, however rude and humble, is without worth, or without a bearing upon the understanding of even the most polished and cultivated tongues, all that followed was a matter of course. Linguistic material was gathered in from every quarter, literary, commercial, and philanthropic activity combiuingr to facilitate its collection and thoroujjh examina- tion. Ancient records were brought to light and deci- phered ; new languages were dragged from obscurity and made accessible to study. The recognition, not long to be deferred when once atten- tion was turned in the right direction, of the special rela- tionship of the principal languages of Europe with one another and with the languages of south-western Asia — the establishment of the Indo-European family of languages — was the turning-point in this history, the true beginning of linguistic science. The great mass of dialects of the family, descendants of a common parent, covering a period of four thousand years with their converging lines of development, supplied just the ground which the science needed to grow up upon, working out its methods, getting fully into view its ends, and devising the means of their attainment. The true mode of fruitful investigation was discovered ; it ap- peared that a wide and searching comparison of kindred idioms was the way in which to trace out their history, and arrive at a real comprehension of the life and growth of lan- guage. Comparative philology, then, became the handmaid of ethnology and history, the forerunner and founder of tha science of human speech. 4 ^' HISTORY OF [lECT. No sir.gle circumstance more powerfully aided tlie onward movement than the introduction to Western scholars of the S ansk rit, the ancient and sacred dialect of India. Its ex- ceeding age, its remarkable conservation of primitive material and forms, its unequalled transparency of structure, give it an indisputable right to the first place among the tongues of t]ie Indo-European family. Upon their compari- son, already fruitfully begun, it cast a new and welcome light, displaying clearly their hitherto obscure relations, rectifying their doubtful etymologies, illustrating tlie laws of research which must be followed in their study, and in that of all other languages. AVhat l inguist ic science might have become without such a basis as was afforded it in the Indo-European dialects, what Indo-European philology might have become without the help oFthe Sanskrit, it were idle to speculate : certain it is that they could not have grown GO rapidly, or reached for a long time to come the state of advancement in which we now already behold them. As a historical fact, the scientific study of human speech is founded upon the comparative philology of the Indo-Eu- ropean languages, and this acknowledges the Sanskrit as its most valuable means and aid. But to draw out in detail th.e history of growth of lin- guistic science down to the present time, with particular notice of its successive stages, and with due mention of the scholars who have helped it on, does not lie within the plan of these lectures. Interesting as the task might be found, its execu- tion would require more time than we can spare from topics of more essential consequence.* A brief word or two is all we can aflbrd to the subject. Genuaiiy is, far more than any otlicr country, the birthplace and home of the study of language. There was produced, at the beginning of this century, the most extensive and impoitant of the prelimi- nary collections of material, specimens of dialects with ruilo attempt at their classification — the " Mithridates " of Adelunj]^ and Vater. There Jacob Grimm gave the first exemplification on a grand scale of the value and power of • For many intcrestint^ details, see Professor Max Muller's Lectures oa the Science of Language, first series, third aud fourth lectures. I.] LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 5 the comparative method of investigation in language, in hia grammar of the G-erniaiiic dialects, a work of gigantic labour, in which each dialect was made to explain the history and cha- racter of all, and all of each. There — what was of yet greater consequence — Bopp laid, in 1816, the foundation of Intlo-Eu- ropean comparative philology, by his " Conjugation-system of the Sanskrit Language, as compared with the G-reek, Latin, Persian, and Grerman; " following it later with his Compara- tive Grrammar of all the principal languages of the Indo- European family — a work which, m.ore than any other, gave shape and substance to the science. There, too, the labours of such men as the Schlegels, Pott, and Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, especially of the last-named, extended its view and generalized its principles, making it no longer an investiga- tion of the history of a single- department of human speech, but a systematic and philosophical treatment of the pheno- mena of universal language and their causes. The names of Rask, too, the Danish scholar and traveller, and of 13ur- nouf, the eminent French savant, must not be passed unno- ticed among those of the founders of linguistic science. Indeed, how ripe the age was for the birth of this new branch of human knowledge, how natural an outgrowth it was of the circumstances amid which it arose, is shown by the fact that its most important methods were workel out and applied, more or less fully, at nearly the same time, by several independent scholars, of different countries — by Rask, Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Burnouf. A host of worthy rivals and followers of the men whose names we have noted have arisen in all parts of Europe, and even in America, to continue the work which these had begun ; and by their aid the science has already attained a degree of advancement that is truly astonishing, considering its so recent origin. Though still in its young and rapidly growing stage, with its domain but just surveyed and only partially occupied, its basis is yet laid broadly and deeply enough, its methods and laws are sure enough, the objects it aims at and the results it is yielding are sufEciently import- ant, in themselves and in their bearing upon other branches of human knowledge, to warrant it in challenging a piac^ 6 MATERIAL AND OBJECTS [lECT among the sciences, as not the least worthy, thou<;h one of the youngest, of their sisterhood, and to give it a claim which inny not be disregarded to the attention of everv scho- lar, and of every ^Ye!l-tducated person. The material and subject of linguistic science is language, in its entirety ; all the accessible forms of human speech, in their infinite variety, whether still living in tlie minds and moutlis of men, or preserved only in written documents, or carved on the scantier but more imperishable records of brass and stone. It has a field and scope limited to no age, and to no portion of mankind. The dialects of the obscurest and most humbly endowed races are its care, as well as those of the leaders in the world's history. AVhenever and wlier- ever a sound has dropped from the lips of a human being, to signalize to others the movements of his spirit, this science would fain take it up and study it, as having a character and office worthy of attentive examination. Every fact of every language, in the view of the linguistic student, calls for his investigation, since only in the light of all can any be com- pletely'^ understood. To assemble, arrange, and ex[)lain the whole body of linguistic phenomena, so as thoroughly to com- prehend them, in each separate part and under all aspects, is his endeavour. His province, while touching, on the one hand, upon that of the philologist, or student of human thought and knowledge as depositeil in literary records, and, on the other hand, u])on that of the mere linguist, or learner of languages for their practical use, and while exchanging friendly aid with both of these, is yet distinct from either. He deals with language as the instrument of thought, its I means of ex})ression, not its record; he deals witli simple words and phrases, not with sentences and texts. He aims to trace out the inner life of language, to discover its origi;), to follow its successive steps of growth, and to deduce the laws that govern its mutations, the recognition of which shall account to him for both the unity and the variety of its present manifested phases ; and, along with this, to appre- hend the nature of language as a human endowment, its re- lation to thought, its influence upou the development of in- I.] ' or LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 7 tellect and fhe growtli of knowledge, and tlie history of mind and of knowledge as reflected in it. The exceeding interest of this whole class of inquiries i& at first sight manifest, but it grows to our sense in measure as we reflect upon it. We are apt to take language, like so manv other things of familiar daily use, as a thing of course, without appreciating the mystery and deep significance which belong to it. AVe clothe our thouglits without effort or reflection in words and phrases, having regard only to the practical ends of expression and communication, and the power conferred by them : we do not think of the long his- tory, of changes of form and changes of signification, through which each individual vocable employed by us has passed, of the labour which its origination and gradual elaboration has cost to successive generations of thinkers and speakers. We do not meditate upon the importance to us of this capacity of expression, nor consider how entirely the history of man would have been changed had he possessed no such faculty ; how little of that enlightenment which we boast would have been ours, if our ancestors had left no spoken memorial of their mental and spiritual acquisitions ; liow, in short, with- out speech, the noble endowments of our nature would have remained almost wholly undeveloped and useless. It is, in- deed, neither to be expected nor desired that our minds should be continually penetrated with a realizing sense of the marvellous character of language ; but we should be in- excusable if we neglected altogetlier to submit it to such an examination as should make us understand its nature and history, and should prepare our minds to grasp by reflection its whole significance. These and such as these are the objects most directly aim.ed at by the scientific student of language. But there are others, of a different character, to which his investiga- tions conduct him hardly less immediately, and which con- stitute an essential part of the interest which invests them. It is a truth now almost a-s familiar as, fifty years ago, it would have been deemed new and startling, that language furnishes the principal means of fruitful inquiry into the 8 '--^ VALUE OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. [LECT, deeds and fates of mankind during the ages \Yliicli precede direct historical record. It enables us to determine, in the main, both the fact and the degree of rehitionship subsist- ing among the different divisions of mankind, and thus to group them together into families, the members of which must have once set forth from a common home, with a com- mon character and a common culture, however widely separ- ated, and however unlike in manners and institutions, we may find them to be, when they first come forth into the light of written history. Upon the study of language is mainly founded the science of ethnology, the science which investigates the genealogy of nations. I say, mainly found- ed, without wishing to depreciate the claims of physical science in this regard : the relation between linguistic and physical science, and their joint and respective value to eth- nology, will be made the subject of discussion at a point further on in our inquiries. But language is also pregnant with information respecting races which lies quite beyond the reach of physical science : it bears within itself plain evidences of mental and moral character and capacity, of de- gree of culture attained, of the history of knowledge, philo- sophy, and religious opinion, of intercourse among peoples, and even of the physical circuni stances by which those who speak it have been surrounded. It is, in brief, a volume of the most varied historical information , to those who know how to read it and to derive the lessons it teaches. To survey the whole vast field of linguistic science, taking even a rapid view of all the facts it embraces and the results derived from their examination, is obviously beyond our power in a brief series of lectures like the present. I sluiU not, accordingly, attempt a formally systematic presentation of the subject, laying out its difterent departments and de- fining their limits and mutual relations. It will, I am per- suaded, be more for our profit to discuss in a somewhat general and familiar way the fundamental facts in the life of lanL,'uage, those which exhibit most clearly its character, and determine the method of its study. AVe shall thus gain an insight into the nature of linguistic evidence, see how it is elicited from the material containing it, and what and how I,] PLAN OF THESE LECTURES. 9 it \ias force to prove. We sliall, in short, enfleavour to arrive at au apprehension of the fundamental principles ol the science. But we shall also find occasion to glance at the main results accomplished by its means, seeking to un- derstana wliat language is and what is its value to man, and to recognize the great truths in human history which it has been instrumental in establishing. In order to these ends, we shall first take up one or two preliminary questions, the discussion of which v\'ill show ua how language lives and grows, and how it is to be investi- gated, and will guide us to an understanding of the place v.hich its study occupies among the scieiices. We shall then go on to a more detailed examination and illustration of the processes of linguistic growth, and of the manner in which they produce the incessant changes of form and con- tent which language is everyv.here and always undergoing. We shall note, further, the various causes which affect they kind and rate of linguistic change. The result of these processes of growth, in bringing about the separation of languages into dialects, will next engage our attention. This will prepare us for a construction of the group of dialects, and the family of more distantly related languages, of which our own English speech is. a member, and for an examination and estimate of the evidence Avhich proves them related. The extent and importance, historical and lin- guistic, of this family will be set forth, and its course of de- velopment briefly sketched. We shall next pass in review the other great families into which the known forms of human speech are divided, noticing their most striking characteristics. Then will be taken up certain general questions, of prime interest and importance, suggested by such a review — as the relative value and authority of lin- guistic and of physical evidence of race, and the bearing of lan- guage upon the ultimate question of the unity or variety of the human species. Einally, we shall consider the origin of language, its relation to thought, and its value as an element in human progress. And a recognition of the aid which it receives in this -last respect from written and recorded Bpt'.ech will lead us, by way of appendix, to take a cursory 10 METHOD OF TREATMENT. [LECT. view of the historical clevelopineiit of the art of writing. Tlie iiiethod which we shall follow will be, as much aa possible, the analytic rather thau the synthetic, the in- quiring rather than tlie dog.iiatic. AVe shall strive, above all things, after clearness, and shall proceed always from that which is well-known or obvious to that which is more recondite and obscure, establishing principles by induction from facts which lie within the cognizance of every well- educated person. For this reason, our examples, whether typical or illustrative, will be especially sought among the phenomena of our own familiar idiom; since every living and growing language has that within it which exempliiies th*e essential facts and principles belonging to all human speech. AVe shall also avoid, as far as is practicable, the use of figurative, metaphysical, or technical phraseology, endeavouring to talk the language of plain and homely fact. Not a little of the mystery and obscurity which,' in the minds of many, invest the whole subject of language, is due to the common employment respecting it of terms founded on analogies instead of fiicts, and calling up the things they represent surrounded and dimmed by a halo of fancy, in- stead of presenting sharply cut outlines and distinct linea- ments. The whole subject of linguistic investigation may be con- veniently summed up in the single inquiry, " Why do we speak as we do ? " The essential character of the study of language, as distinguished from the study of languages, lies in this, that it seeks everywhere, not the facts, but the rea- sons of them ; it asks, not how we speak, or should speak, but for what reason ; pursuing its search for reasons back to tlie very ultimate facts of human history, and down into the very depths of human nature. To cover the whole ground of investigation by this inquiry, it needs to be proposed in more than one sense ; as the most fitting introduction to our whole discussion, let us put it first in its plainest and most restricted meaning : namely, why do we ourselvng speak the English as our mother-tongue, or native language, instead of any other of the thousand varying forms of snt^tM'h current among men ? It is indeed a simple question, but to I.] WHY WE SPEAK ENGLISH. 11 answer t distinctly and trulj will lay the best possiblo foundation for our further progress, clearing our way of more than one of the imperfect apprehensions, or the raisa]- prehensions, which are apt to encumber the steps of students of language. The general answer is so obvious as hardly to require to be pointed out : we speak English because we were taught it by those who surrounded us in our infancy and growing age. It is our mother-tongue, because we got it from the lips of our mothers ; it is our native language, inasmuch as we were born, not indeed into the possession of it, but into the company of those who already spoke it, having learned it in the same way before us. We were not left to our ov/u devices, to work out for ourselves the great problem of how to talk. In our case, there was no development of language out of our own internal resources, by the reflection of phenomena in consciousness, or however else we may choose to describe it ; by the action of a natural impulse, shaping ideas, and creating suitable expression for them. No sooner were our minds so far matured as to be capable of intelli- gently associating an idea and its sign, than we learned, first to recognize the persons and things about us, the most familiar acts and phenomena of our little world, by the names which others applied to them, and then to apply to them tlie same names ourselves. Thus, most of us learned first of all to stammer the childish words for ' father ' and ' mother,' put, for our convenience, in the accents easiest for unpractised lips to frame. Then, as we grew on, we acquired daily more and more, partly by direct instruction, partly by imitation : those who had the care of us contracted their ideas and sim- plified their speech to suit our weak capacities ; they watched with interest every new vocable which we mastered, cor- rected our numberless errors, explained what we but half understood, checked us when we used longer words and more ambitious phrases than we could employ correctly or wield adroitly, and drilled us in the utterance of sounds which come hard to the beginner. The kind and degree of the training thus given, indeed, varied greatly in difierent cases, as did the provision made for the necessary wauts of 12 HOW WS ACQUIRED [lECT. childhood in respect to other matters ; as, foi .^jiistance, the food, the dress, the moral nurture. Just as aome have to rough their way by the hardest through the ucenes of early life, beaten, half-starved, clad in scanty rags, ^vhlle yet some care and provision were wholly indispensable, and no child could have lived through infancy without them — so, as con- cerns language, some get but the coarsest and most meagre in- struccion, and yet instruction enough to help them through the first stages of learning how to speak. In the least favourable circumstances, there must have been constantly about every one of us in our earliest years an amount and style of speech surpassing our acquirements and beyond our reach, and our acquisition of language consisted in our aji- propriating more and more of this, as we were able. In proportion as our minds grew in activity and power of com- prehension, and our knowledge increased, our notions and conceptions were brought into shapes mainly agreeing with those which they wore in the minds of those around us, and received in our usage the appellations to which the latter were accustomed. On making acquaintance with certain liquids, colourless or white, we had not to go throu/J,li a pro- cess of observation and study of their properties, m order to devise suitable titles for them ; we were taught that tliese were water and milk. The one of them, when standing stagnant in patches, or rippling between green banks, we learned to call, according to circumstances and the prefer- ence of our instructors, />ooZ or puddle, and hrook or river. An elevation rising blue in the distance, or towering nearer above us, attracted our attention, and drew from us the staple inquiry " What is that ? " — the answer, " A mountain," or " A hill," brought to our vocabulary one of the innuuierable additions which it gained in a like way. Along with the names of external sensible objects, we thus learned also that 2)ractical classification of them which our language recog- nizes : we learned to distinguish hi^ook andny^r; hill ^mi mountain ; tree, bush, vine, shrub, and plant; and so on, in cases without number. In like manner, among the various acts which we were capable of performing, we were tau>.::ht tj deuiguate certain ones by specific titles: much reppxif. I.] OUR MOTHER-TONGUE. 13 for instance, doubtless made us early understand what waa meant by cry, strike, push, kick, hite, and other names for misdeeds incident to even the best-rei^ulated childhood. How long our own n\ental states might have remained a confused and indistiuct chaos to our unassisted reflection, we do not know ; but we were soon helped to single out and recognize by appropriate appellations certain ones among them : for example, a warm feeling of gratification and at- tachment we were made to signify by the expression Jove ; an inferior degree of the sam.e feeling by like ; and their opposite by Jiate. Long before any process of analysis and combination carried on wit]iin ourselves would have given us the distinct conceptions of true and false, of good and naughty, they were carefully set before us, and their due ap- prehension was enforced by faithful admonition, or by some- thing yet more serious. And not only were we thus assisted to an intelligent recognition of ourselves and the world im- mediately about us, but knowledge began at once to be communicated to us respecting things beyond our reach. The appellations of hosts of objects, of places, of beings, which we had not seen, and perhaps have not even yet seen, we learned by hearing or by reading, and direct instruction enabled us to attach to them some characteristic idea, more or less complete and adequate. Thus, we had not to cross the ocean, and to coast about and traverse a certain island beyond it, in order to know that there is a country England^ and to hold it apart, by specific attributes, from other coun- tries of which we obtained like knowledge by like means'. But enough of this illustration. It is already sufficiently \ clear that the acquisition of language was one of the steps 1 of our earliest education. We did not make our own tongue, or any part of it ; we neither selected the objects, acts, mental states, relations^ which should be separately desig- nated, nor devised their distinctive designations. We simply received and appropriated, as well as we could, whatever our instructors were pleased to set before us. Independence of the general usages of speech was neither encouraged nor tolerated in us ; nor did we feel tempted toward independ- ence Our object was to communicate with those among 14 HOW WE ACQUIR3D [lECT. whom ( iir lot was cast, to understand them and be under- stood by them, to learn what their greater wisdom and experience could impart to us. In order to this, we had to think and talk as they did, and we were content to do so. Why such and such a combination of sounds was applied to designate such and such an idea was to us a matter of utter iudilfei-ence ; all we knew or cared to know was that others so applied it. Questions of etymology, of fitness of appella- tion, concerned us not. What was it to us, for instance, when the answer came back to one of our childish inquiries after names, that the word mountain was imported into our tongue out of the Latin, through the JN^orman Trench, and was Qri^inally an adjective, meaning ' hilly, mountainous,' while hill had once a y in it, indicating its relationship with the adjective hiyh ? We recognized no tie between any word and the idea represented by it excepting a mental association which we had ourselves formed, under the guidance, and in obedience to th^ example, of those about us. We do, indeed, wh^i a little older, perhaps, begin to amuse ourselves with inquiring into the. reasons why this word means that thing, and not otherwise : but it is only for the satisfaction of our curiosity ; if we fail to find a reason, or if the reason be found trivial and insufiieient, we do not on that account re- ject the word. Thus every vocable was to us an arbitrary and conventional sign : arbitrary, because any one of a thou- sand other vocables could have been just as easily learned by us and associated with the same idea; conventional, because the one we actjuired had its sole ground and sanc- tion in the consenting usage of the community of which we formed a part. Kaco and blood, it is equally evident, had notliin^: to do directly with determining our langiia'j^e. English descent would never have made us talk English. ]S'o matter who were our ancestors; if those about us had said loasser and milch, or can and lait, or hi/dor and qala, instead of water and milk, we should have done the same. We could just as readdy have accustomed ourselves to say Helen or aimer or pJiilrin, as love, ivahrheit or vvritc or ah'lheia, as truth. And 80 in every other case. An American or English mother, I.] OUR MOTHER-TONCtUE. 15 anxious that her cliild should grow up duly aceomplLihcd, gives it a French nurse, and takes care that no English be spoken in its presence ; and not all the blood of all the Joneses can save it from talking French first, as if this were indeed its own mother-tongue. An infant is taken alive from the arms of its drowned mother, the on]j waif cast upon the shore from the wreck of a strange vessel ; and it learns the tongue of its foster-parents ; no outbreak of natural and hereditary speech ever betrays from what land it derived its birth. The child of a father and mother of different race and speech learns the tongue of either, as circumstances and their choice may determine ; or it learns both, and is equally at home in them, hardly knowing which to call its native language. The bands of Africans, stolen from their homes and imported into America, lost in a generation their Congo or Mendi, and acquired from their fellow-slaves a rude jargon in which they could communicate with one another and with their masters. The Babel of dialects brought every year to our shores by the thousands of foreigners who come to seek a new home among us, dis- appear in as brief a time, or are kept up only where those who speak them herd together in separate communities. The Irish peasantry, mingled with and domineered over by English colonists, governed under English institutions, feel- ing the whole weight, for good and for evil, of a superior English civilization, incapacitated from rising above a condi- tion of poverty and ignorance without command of English speech, unlegtrn by degrees their native Celtic tongue, and adopt the dialect of the ruling and cultivated class. No oue, I am confi lent, can fail to allow that this is a true account of the process by which we acquire our " mot;her- tongue." Every one recognizes, as the grand advantage con- nected with the use of language, the fact that in it and by it whatever of truth and knowledge each generation has learned or worked out can be made over into the possession of the generation following. It is not necessary that each of ua study the world for himself, in order to apprehend and classify the varied objects it contains, Avith their qualitiea and relations, and invent designations for them. This has IG PECULIAUITIES OF FORM [lECTc befTi d'jT.e by those who came before us, and tvc cntei' into the fruits of their labours. It is only the first man, before whom every beast of the field and every fowl of the air must present itself, to see what he will call it ; whatever he calls any living creature, that is the name thereof, not to himself alone, but to his family and descendants, who are content to style each as their father had done before them. Our acquisition of English, however, has as yet been but partially and imperfectly described. In the first place, the English which we thus learn is of that peculiar form or local variety w^hich is talked by our in- structors and models. It is, indeed, possible that one may have been surrounded from birth by those, and those only, whoso speech is wholly conformed to perfect standards ; then it will have been, at least, his own fault if he has learned aught but the purest and most universally accepted English. But such cases cannot be otherwise than rare. For, setting aside the fact that all are not agreed as to whose usage forms the unexceptionable standard, nothing can be more certain than that few, on either side of the ocean, know and follow it accurately. Not many of us can escape ac- quiring in our youth some tinge of local dialect, of slang characteristic of grade or occupation, of personal peculiari- ties, even, belon<2:infr to our initiators into the mysteries of speech. These may be mere inelegancies of pronunciation, appearing in individual words or in the general tone of ut- terance, like the nasal twang, and the flattening of ou into au, which common fame injuriously ascribes to the Yankee ; or they may be ungrammatical modes of expression, or un- couth turns and forms of construction ; or favourite recur- rent phrases, such as I guess, I calculate, I reckon, I expect^ you knoLU, each of which has its own region of prevalence ; or colloquialisms and vulgarisms, which ought to hide their heads in good English society ; or words of only dialectic currency, which the general language does not recognize. Any or all of these or of their like we innocently learn along with the rest of our speech, not knowing how to distinguish the evil from the good. And often, as some of us know to our cost, errors and infelicities are thus so tlioroughly I.] OF EACH dice's ENGLISH. 17 wrouglit into our minds, as parts of our habitual modes of expression, that not all the care and instruction of after life can rid us of them. How many men of culture and eminent ability do we meet with, who exhibit through life the marks of a defective or vicious early training in their native tongue ! The dominion of habit is not less powerful in language than in anything else that we acquire and pra,c- tise. It is not alone true that he who has once thoroughly learned English is thereby almost disqualified from ever attaining a native facility, correctness, and elegance in any foreign tongue ; one may also so thoroughly learn a bad style of English as never to be able to ennoble it into tho best and most approved form of his native speech. Yet, with us, the influences which tend to repress and eradicate local peculiarities and individual errors are numerous and powerful. One of the most eifective among them is school instruction. It is made an important part of our education to learn to speak and write correctly. The pupil of a faith- ful and competent instructor is taught to read and pro- nounce, to frame sentences with the mouth and with the pen, in a manner accordant with that which is accepted among: the well-educated everywhere. Social intercourse is a cultivatirtg agency hardly less important, and more en- during in its action ; as long as we live, by associating with those who speak correctly, we are shown our own faults, and at the sait-e time prompted and taught to correct them. Heading — 'vhich is but another form of such intercourse — consultation of authorities, self-impelled study in various forms, help the work. Our speech is improved and per- fected, as it was first acquired, by putting ourselves in the position of learners, by following the example of those who speak better than we do. He who is really in earnest to complete his mastery of his mother-tongue may hope for final success, whatever have been his early disadvantages , just as one may acquire a foreign tongue, like German or French, with a degree of perfection depending only on his opportunities, his capacity, his industry, and the lengtli of tiii:e he devotes to the study. Again, even when the process of training which wc- have 2 18 ^ LIMITATIONS OF EXTENT [lECT. described gives general correctness and facility, it ia far from conferring universal command of the resources of the Eng- lish tongue. This is no grand indivisible unity, whereof tho learner acquires all or none ; it is an aggregation of particu- lars, and each one appropriates more or less of them, accord- ing to his means and ability. The vocabulary which the young child has acquired the pow er to use is a very scanty one ; it includes only the most indispensable part of speech, names for the commonest objects, the most ordinary and familiar conceptions, the simplest relations. You can talk with a child only on a certain limited range of subjects ; a book not written especially for his benefit is in great part unintelligible to him : he has not yet learned its signs for thought, and they must be translated into others with which he is acquainted ; or the thought itself is beyond the reach of his apprehension, the statement is outside the sphere of his knowledge. But in this regard we are all of us more or less children. "Who ever yet got through learning his mother-tongue, and could say, " The work is done ? " The encyclopedic English language, as we may term it, tlie Eng- lish of the great dictionaries, contains more than a hundred thousand words. And these are only a selection out of a greater mass. If all the signs for thought employed for purposes of communication by those who have spoken and Avho speak no other toiigue than ours were brought together, if all obsolete, technical, and dialectic words were gathered in, which, if they are not English, are of no assignable spoken tongue, the number mentioned would be vastly augmented. Out of this immense mass, it has been reckoned by careful observers that from three to five thousand answer all the ordinary ends of familiar intercourse, even among the culti- vated ; and a considerable portion of the English-speaking community, including the lowest and most ignorant class, never learn to use even so many as three thousand : what they do acquire, of course, being, like the child's vocabulary, the most necessary part of the language, signs for the com- monest and simplest ideas. To a nucleus of this character, every artisan, Ihongh otlierwise uninstructed, must add the t((linical lanjrua^e of his own craft — names for tools, and \ I.] OF EACH one's ENGLISH. 19 processes, and products whicli his every-day experience makes familiar to him, but of which the vast majority, per- haps, of those outside his own line of life know nothing Jj^norant as he may be, he will talk to you of a host of mat- ters which you shall not understand. Ko insignificant part of the hundred-thousand-vrord list is made up of selections from such technical vocabularies. Each department of labour, of art, of science, has its special dialect, fully known only to those who have made themselves masters in that department. The world requires of every well-informed and educated person a certain amount of knowledge in many special de- partments, aloDg with a corresponding portion of the lan- guage belonging to each : but he would be indeed a marvel of many-sided learning who had mastered them all. Who is there among us that will not find, on every page of the comprehensive dictionaries now in vogue, words which are strange to him, which need defining to his apprehension, which he could not be sure of employing in the right place and connection ? And this, not in the technical portions only of our vocabulary. There are words, or meanings of words, no longer in familiar use, antiquated or obsolescent, which yet may not be denied a place in the present English tongue. There are objects which almost never fall under the notice of great numbers of people, or of whole classes of the community, and to whose names, accordingly, when met with, these are unable to attach any definite idea. There are cognitions, conceptions, feelings, which have not come up in the minds of all, which all have not had occasion and acquired power to express. There are distinctions, in every department of thought, which all have not learned to draw and designate. Moreover, there are various styles of expres- sion for the same thing, which are not at every one's com- mand. One writer or speaker has great ease and copious- ness of diction ; for all his thoughts he has a variety of phrases to choose among ; he lays them out before us in beautiful elaboration, in clear and elegant style, so that to follow and understand him is like floating with the current. Another, with not less wealth of knowledge and clearneaa of judgment, is cramped and awkward in his use of lauguagej 2* 20 PECULIARITIES OF MEANING [lECT. he puts Ilia ideas before us in a rough and fragmentary way ; he carries our understandings Avitli him, but oidy at the cost of labour and pains on our ])art. And though he may be able to comprehend all that is said by the other, he has not in the same sense made the language his o\vn, any more than the student of a foreign tongue \vho can trani>late from it with facilityj but can express himself in it only lamely. Thus the infinite variety of the native and acquired capacity of different individuals comes to light in their idiom. It would be aa hard to find two persons with precisely the same limits to their speech, as with precisely the same lineaments of coun- tenance. / Once more, not all who speak the same tongue attach the ( same meaning to the words they utter. Y\'e learn what words signify either by direct definition or by inference from the circumstances in which they are used. But no definition is or can be exact and complete ; and we are always liable to draw wrong inferences. Cliildrcn, aa every one knows, are constantly misapprehending the extent of meaning and application of the signs they acquire. Un- til it learns better, a child calls every man pa^a ; liaviug been taught the word shj, it calls the ceiling of a room the sky ; it calls a donkey or a mule a horse — and naturally enough, since it has had to apply the name dog to creatures diftering far more than these from one anotlier. And so long as the learning of language lasts, does the liability to Buch error continue. It is a necessity of. the ca^^e, arising out of the essential nature of language. . "Words are not exact models of ideas ; they are merely signs for ideas, at whose significance we arrive as well as we can ; and no mind can put itself into such immediate and intimate com- munion with another mind as to think and feel precisely with it. Sentences are not images of thoughts, reflected in a faultless mirror; nor even photographs, needing only to have the colour added : they are but imperfect and frag- mentary sketches, giving just outlines enough to enable the sense before which they are set up to seize the view intended, and to fill it out to a complete picture; while yet, as regards the completeness of the filiing out, the details of the work, I.] IN EACH one's ENGLISH. 21 and ilie finer .sLades of colouring, no two minds will produce pictures perfectly accordant with one another, nor will any precisely reproduce the original. The limits of variation of meaning are, of course, very different in different classes of words. So far as these are designations of definite objects, cognizable by the senses, there is little danger of our seriously misapprehending one another when we utter them. Yet, even here, there is room for no trifling discordance, as the superior knowledge or more vivid imagination of one person gives to the idea called up by a name a far richer content than another can put into it. Two men speak of the sun, with mutual intel- ligence : but to the one he is a mere ball of light and heat, which rises in the sky every morning, and goes down again at night ; to the other, all that science has taught us respecting the nature of the great luminary, and its influence upon our little planet, is more or less distinctly present every time he utters its name. The word Fekin is spoken before a num- ber of persons, and is understood by them all : but some among them know only that it is the name of an immense city in Asia, the capital of the Chinese empire ; others have studied Chinese manners and customs, have seen pictures of Chinese scenery, architecture, dress, occupation, and are able to tinge the conception which the word evokes with some fair share of a local colouring ; another, perhaps, has visited the place, and its name touches a store of memories, and brings up before his mind's eye a picture vivid with the hues of truth. I feel a tolerable degree of confidence that the impressions of colour made on my sense are the same with those made upon my friend's sense, so that, when we use the words red or blue, we do not mean different things : and yet, even here, it is possible that one of us may be afflicted with some degree of colour-blindness, so that we do not apprehend the same shades precisely alike. But just so is every part of language liable to be affected by the per- sonality of the speaker ; and most of all, where matters of more subjective apprehension are concerned. The volup- tuary, the passionate and brutal, the philosophic, and the aentimental, for instance, when they speak of love or of hate^ 22 WHAT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 18, [lECT. mean by no means the same feelings. How pregnant with sacred meaning are home, patriotism, faith to some, while others utter or hear them with cool iDcliftereuce ! It is need- less, however, to multiply examples. Not halt' the words in our familiar speech would be identically defined by any consider- able number of those who employ them every day. Kay, who knows not that verbal disputes, discussions turning on the meaning of words, are the most frequent, bitter, and in- terminable of controversies ? Clearly, therefore, we are guilty of no paradox in main- taining that, while we all speak the English language, the English of no two individuals among us is precisely tho same: it is not the same in form; it is not the same in extent ; it is not the same in meaning. But what, then, is the English language? "We answer: It is the immense aggregate of the articulated signs for thought accepted by, and current among, a certain vast community which we call the English-speaking people, em- bracing the principal portion of the inhabitants of our own country and of Great Britain, with all those who elsewhere in the world talk like them. It is the sum of the separate languages of all the members of this community. Or — since each one says some things, or says them in a way, not to be accepted as in the highest sense English — it is their average rather than their sum ; it is that part of the aggregate wliich is supported by the usage of the majority ; but of a majority made in great part by culture and education, not by num- bers alone. It is a mighty region of speech, of somewliafc fluctuating and uncertain boundaries, whereof each speaker occupies a portion, and a certain central tract is included in the portion of all : there they meet on common ground ; olf it, they are strangers to one another. Although one language, it includes numerous varieties, of greatly dilfering kind and degree : individual varieties, class varieties, local varieties. Almost any two persons who speak it may talk so as to be unintelligible to each other. The one fact which gives it unity is, that ail who speak it may, to a considerable extent, and on subjects of the most general and pressing interest, talk so as to understand one another. X.] AND HOW IT IS KEPT IN EXISTENCE. 23 How this language is kept in existence is clearly sliown by the foregoing exposition. It is preserved by an un- interrupted tradition. Each generation bands it down to the generation following. Every one is an actor in the pro- cess ; in each individual speaker the language has, as we may say, a separate and independent existence, as has an animal species in each of its members ; and each does what inhim lies to propagate it — that is to say, his own part of it, as determined in extent and character by the inherent and acquired peculiarities of his nature. And, small as may be the share of the work which falls to any one of us, the sum of all the shares constitutes the force which effects the transmission of the whole language. In the case of a tongue like ours, too, these private labours are powerfully aided and supplemented by the influence of a literature. Each book is, as it were, an undying individual, with whom, often, much larger numbers hold intercourse than any living per- son can reach, and who teaches them to speak as he speaks. A great body of literary works of acknowledged merit and authority, in the midst of a people proud and fond of it, is an agent in the preservation and transmission of any tongue, the importance of which cannot easily be over-estimated: we shall have to take it constantly into account in the course of our farther inquiries into the history of language. But each work is, after all, only a single person, with his limita- tions and deficiencies, and with his restricted influence. Even Shakspeare, with his unrivalled wealth and variety of expression, uses but about fifteen thousand words, and Mil- ton little more than half so many — mere fragments of the encyclopedic English tongue. The language would soon be shorn of no small part of its strength, if placed exclusively in the hands of any individual, or of any class. jS'othing less than the combined eftort of a Avhole community, with all its classes and orders, in all its variety of characters, cir- cumstances, and necessities, is capable of keeping in lire a whole lanfTuaije. But, while our English speech is thus passed onward from generation to generation of those who learn to speak it, and, bar .ng learned the'jaselves, teach others, it does not remain 24 CHANGES IN [LBCvT, precisely the same ; on the contrary, it is undergoing all the time a slow process of modification, which is capable of ren- dering it at length auotlier language, unintelligible to those who now employ it. In order to be convinced of this, we have only to cast an eye backward over its past history, dur- ing the period for which we have its progress recorded in contemporary documents. How much is there in our pre- Bent familiar speech which wouldTj'e strange and meaningless to one of Elizabeth's court ! How much, again, do we find in any of the writers of that period — in Shakspeare, for in- stance — which is no longer good current English ! phrases and forms of construction w4iich never fall from our lips uow save as we quote them ; scores of words which we have lost out of memory, or do not employ in the sense which they then bore. Gro back yet farther, from half-century to half-century, and the case grows rapidly worse ; and when we arrive at Chaucer and Grower, who are separated from us by a paltry interval of five hundred years, only fifteen or twenty descents from father to son, we meet with a dialect whicli has a half- foreign look, and can only be read by care- ful study, with the aid of a glossary. Another like interval of five hundred years brings us to the Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred, which is absolutely a strange tongue to us, not less unintelligible than the Grerman of the present day, and nearly as hard to learn. And yet, we have no reason to believe that any one of those thirty or forty generations of English- men through whom we are descended from the contem- poraries of King Alfred was less simply and single-mindedly en