
 
 </>* 
 
 <Dn % Scunc* of Slanguage anb its Sfufcg, foitjj 
 sptrial regarb to Sowtjj Africa, 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 ( \ 
 
 THEOPHILUS HAHN, Esq., Ph.D., 
 
 COLONIAL PHILOLOGIST, 
 
 AT THE ( * 
 
 S0utlj lifrrcciiT public yitrarjj, 
 
 SATURDAY, 29n APRIL, 1882. 
 
 CAPE TOWN- 
 
 HERI; :. \KI.IS. '. MAUKKT-STKEKT. 
 
 i 
 
 v, /; 
 
 a ^2.^^, ^s^-^<
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., 
 
 PRINTEBS, 
 ST. GEOROE'S-STRBET. CAPE TOWN.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 The Committee of Management of the South African 
 Public Library has. conferred upon me the honour of taking 
 the chair at its fifty-third annual meeting, and in accordance 
 with the traditions of this Institution, of addressing you on 
 some scientific or literary subject. 
 
 Although born under the English flag, my lot in early 
 life unfortunately did not put me in the position of enjoying 
 the literary treasures which during six centuries had been 
 accumulated by your poets, historians and philosophers. 
 When far away from my native land, I became acquainted 
 with the English language and literature, in that country 
 where your Beowulf, Shakespeare and Byron found their 
 greatest and most eloquent interpreters, their most com- 
 petent translators and their most enthusiastic admirers. 
 
 In Germany I had learnt to understand English and to 
 enjoy an English book ; but it is still a great step from 
 reading to writing a language. And when eleven years ago 
 I came back to my native shores, I at once proceeded to 
 the Transjgaripian territories, where, during my seven years 
 of wanderings, I never had an opportunity of cultivating 
 English conversation and style. And it is only since my 
 return from there, four years ago, that I have been able to 
 devote myself to a more careful practice of the English 
 idiom. 
 
 But I had experience enough of the English character to 
 know that the difficulties arising from my imperfect know- 
 
 1220907
 
 ledge of the language would be balanced by your generous 
 forbearance, and at the same time I thought it most oppor- 
 tune to speak to you on a branch of Science which I have 
 been appointed to cultivate in South Africa, especially as 
 my first year's experience in the Grey Library had taught 
 me that the conceptions of " Language and its Study" prevail- 
 ing in this Colony were still very crude and embryonic. I felt 
 assured that this science deserved a greater share of our 
 sympathy than it had hitherto received. 
 
 These were the reasons which prompted me to accept the 
 call of your Committee. 
 
 The realm of the Science of Language, however, is so 
 extensive, that I shall hardly be able, in the narrow compass 
 of one hour, to give more than a very superficial outline of 
 its history, principles and results, and a short comment 011 
 the question of language with regard to our colonial 
 intellectual and literary life. 
 
 I shall therefore proceed to address you " On the Science 
 of Language and its Study, with special regard to South 
 Africa." 
 
 It is a curious fo.ct that people have a very fair insight 
 into the structure and nature of things surrounding them, 
 but know little or nothing of -themselves. 
 
 \Ve can explain the changes of the moon and its eclipses, 
 we can classify animals or plants, we can analyse minerals 
 and can fortell the changes of the Aveather, but very rarely 
 do we meet a person who is able to give us a fair description 
 of the functions of his own body, or of those organs which 
 alone enable us to communicate with the world without, and 
 make us really worthy of the name men, i.e. thinkers, by 
 which our ancestors called themselves, when first they 
 awoke to self-consciousness I mean the organs of speech. 
 
 And still further the greatest and most unwarrantable 
 misconceptions prevail with regard to language itself and 
 its nature. 
 
 There seems to be a horror, an innate prejudice, against
 
 a deep study of language, and I believe I can account 
 for it. 
 
 Many a one thinks of the days vrhentypto, typteis 3 typtomen, 
 and, especially, typtomai and typtomctha, were practically 
 demonstrated to him by his schoolmaster, and when a mo 
 and amabo or amor and amabor were empty and Utopian 
 sounds. 
 
 And yet everybody thinks he has a right to talk about 
 language, and considers it an easy thing to discuss the most 
 difficult problems of language and its origin. 
 
 The Science of Language is a child of the nineteenth 
 century ; it is a production of the cosmopolitan genius of 
 our times. In ancient Greece, whose masterpieces in Art 
 and Literature will serve for ever as standards of intellec- 
 tual culture and taste, this science was unknown ; the Hel- 
 lenic spirit lacked all sense and understanding of ethnology 
 and comparative psychology (Volkerkunde). They under- 
 stood nothing which was not essentially Greek. All other 
 nations were either barbaroi, barbarophonoi, or allothrooi. 
 The language of the Persians for instance was compared 
 to the twittering of birds. Herodotus and JEschylus 
 speak with contempt of the Persians, their own Indo-Ger- 
 manic kith and kin. The Romans, copying the Greeks, 
 s j tnke of all other nations as barbarians and brutes. They 
 very little dreamt that the descendants of those very gladia- 
 tors, who were butchered for the amusement and expired 
 under the deafening applause of a Roman mob, would be 
 the ablest and most ingenious commentators on the Lan- 
 guage of Latium. 
 
 The Jews were not a bit better. They divided all man- 
 kind into two sections : the first, formed by themselves, the 
 worshippers of Jahveh ; till the rest were Gojim. 
 
 The Indians called all nations of the world Mk-tshHnis, 
 i.' . Staiiinicrersj and the ancestors of the present Parsis knew 
 only the worshippers of Ahurama/dao, and the worshippers 
 of the evil spirits.
 
 "VV hat would we not give, if Caesar or some other educated 
 Roman had taken down from the lips of German or British 
 or Gallic gladiators the stories of their gods and heroes, or 
 if Ovid, while living in banishment, had preserved us some 
 Gothic mythology ? And we, if we neglect to do such work, 
 with regard to the natives of South Africa, show the 
 same narrowmindedness of which we accuse the ancient 
 nations. 
 
 The Christian doctrine of equality broke the spell which 
 hitherto had made outcasts of other nations, and the spread 
 of the Gospel demanded a study of the languages of those 
 nations to which the Holy Scriptures were carried. 
 Hieronymusand Augustine knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew. 
 And no sooner had Christoforo Colombo and Vasco da 
 Gama thrown new worlds open to the commercial enterprise of 
 Europe than Roman Catholic missionaries, especially of the 
 order of the Jesuits, followed the steps of the traders, and 
 gave us learned works on the customs, manners, religions 
 and languages of Japan, China, Africa and America, works 
 which even now call forth our admiration, and from which we 
 humbly have to learn that, with regard to our own continent, 
 the course of the Zambesi, the position of lake Ukerewe 
 with its islands, of lake Mwutan, and of the mighty 
 Congo River, were two and three hundred years ago esta- 
 blished geographical facts, and that Livingstone, Cameron, 
 Stanley and Elton have only rediscovered what the 18th 
 century had forgotten. 
 
 The names of Athanasius Kircher, Eduardo Lopez, 
 Father Paez, Cavazzi,and Hervas, will live in the History oj 
 the Science of Language, Ethnology, and Geography, of our 
 Continent. Hervas claims the honour of having first 
 pointed out that Language relationship is based on gramma- 
 tical structure., and not on mere word similarity. He also 
 established the fact that the so-called Malay o-Polynesian 
 languages, extending from Madagascar to the Easter Island 
 in the Pacific, claim one parentage, and Wilhelm von Hum-
 
 boldt merely repeated it. And if we mention Hervas we 
 should not forget the Empress Catherine of Russia, the 
 great German philosopher Leibniz, and his friend Witsen, 
 the Burgomaster of Amsterdam, at whose instigation the 
 first specimens of the Hottentot language were written down 
 by Wreede and Greevenbroek at the Cape, in the times of 
 Governor van der Stell. (1691). 
 
 But, however much we may admire the arduous labour, 
 the zeal and the energy of those persons who made language 
 the study of their life, we cannot speak of a Science of 
 Language yet, because the workers in that field had no 
 method. 
 
 It was not until the year 1808, in which Fred. Schlegel 
 published his work on The Language and Wisdom of the 
 Indians, that the veil hanging over the eyes of philologists 
 was torn to pieces, a work which, according to Max M tiller, 
 was like the wand of the magician : " It pointed out a place 
 where a mine should be opened." And the miner who 
 blasted the rock and produced the first ore was Francis 
 Bopp, a native of Mayence. 
 
 Here I must digress a little and lead you away to India. 
 In 1600 the so-called East India Company was established 
 by a body of London merchants. A second Company was 
 formed 98 years later, and after some vexatious rivalry, in 
 1708 both combined under the name of the United East 
 India Company. Their increasing wealth and power drew 
 the attention of the Home Government, who tried to 
 appropriate to themselves a part of the power and property 
 of this illustrious Company. These and other circumstances 
 brought about the publication of the so-called Code, of 
 Gcntoo Law, a collection of Native Laws, in 1776, by order 
 of Warren Hastings, the then Governor of India. 
 
 I may mention that we have commenced a similar work, 
 which will undoubtedly, if scientifically and methodically 
 executed, have the beneficial effect of making the natives of 
 British South Africa more reconciled to our rule.
 
 8 
 
 In the preface to this Code of Gentoo Law, Halhed, a 
 Dane, gave the first full account of Sanscrit, the sacred 
 language of India, in which the Vedas and other books 
 were written. Sir William Jones, who was appointed Chief 
 Justice of Calcutta, laid the foundation of the Asiatic 
 Society in 1784. His attention Avas drawn to the article 
 on Sanscrit in the Code of Gentoo Law, and he at once 
 took earnestly and successfully to the study of the sacred 
 language and literature of the Brahmins. Another pupil 
 of the priests was the merchant James Wilkins, who 
 translated a part of the epic poem Mahabaratta, and, later 
 on, the Hitopadesa. Both Wilkins and Jones, especially 
 the latter, were struck with the wonderful identity of 
 grammatical structure in Sanscrit and the classical 
 languages. In 1789 the first Latin Translation of 
 Kalidasa's Sakuntala was published by Jones, and, shortly 
 before his death in 1794, the Law Book or Code of Maim. 
 His beautiful and rare collection of Sanscrit manuscripts 
 passed into the hands of Henry Thomas Colebrooke, then 
 British Resident at Berar. This scholar issued many 
 valuable editions of Sanscrit literature, texts as '.veil as 
 grammars and dictionaries. 
 
 Thus to enlightened Englishmen is due the honour of 
 having introduced and facilitated to European scholars the 
 study of the Sanscrit language. 
 
 Without these helps and preparations Fred. Schlegel 
 would never have been able to write his famous book on 
 Tltc Language and Wisdom of the Indians, and though a 
 German scholar, he could not but attribute to Sir William 
 Jones the priority of the ideas expounded in his work. 
 August Wilhelm Schlegel and Lassen followed in revealing 
 the wonderful mysteries of Indian literature, until Francis 
 Bopp in 1816 gave us the first outline sketch of an Indo- 
 Gcrmanic Grammar, the precursor of his masterpiece, the 
 Comparative Grammar of Sanscrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, 
 Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonian and German.
 
 Next to him must be mentioned Wilhelm von Humboldt, 
 the brother of the great naturalist, Alexander von Hum- 
 boldt. He laid the foundation of the " Philosophy of 
 Language " in the introduction to his great work on the 
 Kawi Language. 
 
 And the ring of the founders of Comparative Philology 
 would be incomplete were we to omit August Frederick 
 Pott, whose Etymological Researches appeared first in 
 1833 and 1836, and have seen since a second and con- 
 siderably enlai'ged edition. As we turn over the leaves of 
 this truly gigantic work, we find difficulty in believing that 
 one mortal alone could have written it ; and I suppose, if we 
 were to live another two hundred years, some clever and 
 ingenious philologist will tell the world that these 
 Etymological Researches were the work of different authors, 
 and that Pott is but a collective name for the various con- 
 tributors. 
 
 Bopp and Pott's method was successfully applied to the 
 Teutonic tongues, in a truly grand and colossal work, the 
 Deutsche Grammatik, by Jacob Grimm. He is at the same 
 time the discoverer of the Law of Consonantal Change, 
 called after him Grimm's Law. 
 
 On the method and principles laid down by these men, 
 is based the Classification of the Languages of Mankind. 
 Let us pause for a moment to learn something about the 
 principles of this method. 
 
 What is language, we ask ? How easily the question is 
 put, but how difficult to answer it. 
 
 Language is a creation of society, or, better, of a com- 
 munity. It is the touchstone of the perceptive power of 
 the community by which it is spoken, and it contains the 
 intellectual characteristics and mental peculiarities of that 
 community. It is the mirror which reflects the picture and 
 impression made by the outer world on man's soul, and it 
 is the medium by which the mind communicates its inner 
 life to the outer Avorld. 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 Under the same conditions, the outer world will make on 
 any community the same impression, and the language of 
 that community will reflect this impression in a Avay which 
 corresponds to the general impression made on the mind of 
 the community. 
 
 Now nil languages, even the unwritten idioms of savages, 
 consist of grammar and words. A community, to make 
 itself understood, that is, to communicate its impressions of 
 the outer world, uses these words not in an arbitrary and 
 capricious manner, but. arranging them into sentences 
 according to certain laws and principles. This arrange- 
 ment constitutes what we call grammar. Words uttered 
 without being pressed into the mould of grammar are 
 empty sounds without reason. 
 
 The articulate sounds, of which words consist, are 
 changeable. Dialects belonging to the same parentage 
 have laws of phonetic change of their own, which do not 
 apply to dialects of another stock. 
 
 Grammar, however, that is, the mode in which the mind 
 expresses the impressions of the outer world, remains un- 
 changed. 
 
 In order, therefore, to compare two languages and to Jix 
 the degree of their affinity, we can only be yuidcd by the 
 result of grammatical i.e. structural comparison. Conse- 
 quently,- nothing is more deceptive than superficial word 
 comparison. 
 
 The dialects of savages I only refer to the Bushman 
 dialects of our own continent, to the dialects of the Indians 
 of America and the Aborigines of Australia are submitted 
 to a continual change. If they hardly allow word com- 
 parisons among themselves, we cannot claim for them 
 relationship with the dialects of communities divided from 
 times immemorial by the vast ocean, on account of super- 
 ficial and accidental verbal similarities. According to such 
 a mode of comparison there would be no difficulty of 
 proving a primeval relationship of all languages.
 
 11 
 
 But ycm will say, " Did you not tell us just now that 
 Professor Pott lias become famous through his Etymological 
 Researches ?" Quite right, and I could add the names of 
 Kuhn, Curtius, Grimm, Delbriick, Fick and many more. 
 Therefore to prevent the conception that Etymology is to 
 be rejected, I must add a few remarks on this point. 
 
 There is a real Science of Etymology, but it finds its 
 application in Comparative Philology, after grammatical 
 relationship has been established, and then only. Etymology 
 cannot be regarded as a science unless it is based entirely 
 on sound phonological research. Both Phonology and 
 Etymology are instruments of the Science of Language and 
 Comparative Philology, but they are not themselves Com- 
 parative Philology. 
 
 The laws of Etymology can only be established by the 
 medium of Phonology, and unless every jot and tittle is 
 conscientiously observed the laws of Etymology are of no 
 avail. The laws of phonetic change are the only guide in 
 the comparison of words and forms, and without these laws 
 it is simply impossible to reason scientifically on the common 
 origin and history of words. It is on the strength of 
 phonetic laws once established that, in various dialects, words 
 irliidi had not one single letter in common, were u-itli 
 mathematical exactness reconstructed and traced bach to the 
 same root. Beyond roots we cannot go, any more than the 
 biologist can go beyond the protoplasma of organic life. 
 
 Grammatical structure, i.e. the conception which a 
 community has of the sentence formed by language and 
 the arrangement of the component parts of the sentence, is 
 the supreme criterion for the relationship of two idioms ; 
 without this criterion we cannot go a step further. But, at 
 the .same time, if words and forms put under the phonetic 
 and etymological microscope do not shoiv any substantial 
 relationship, the strongest evidence of structural similuriti/ 
 will never entitle us to vindicate for two languages a common 
 parentage. 
 
 B 2
 
 12 
 
 The modern Science of Language, like all inductive 
 sciences, viz., Biology, Comparative Anatomy, etc., is based 
 on accurate knowledge. The comparative method requires 
 for its operations historically proved and scientifically tested 
 facts. And it cannot do otherwise. A fact is something 
 accurate, something of which the quantity is clearly circum- 
 scribed and defined, and the quality and ingredient parts 
 minutely analyzed. Moreover, the cause and effect and the 
 relation of a fact to other facts, and the numerous agencies 
 based on eternal, unchangeable laws, which produce as the 
 end-result a new fact from the combination of already 
 established facts, must be clear and transparent. Only 
 by means of facts are we in the position to draw conclusions 
 w r hich lead to scientific results. And if the comparative 
 and inductive method is worth anything, if it has led to 
 scientific results in one branch of human knowledge, we are 
 justified in expecting that it will lead to results in Com- 
 parative Philology. This science, however, deals with the 
 morphological or formal conditions of- language ; everything 
 that is formal is the result of rational combination. 
 
 Scientific method and investigation are strictly against 
 spinning theories in accordance with our wishes or fancies. 
 It is not unusual for scientific investigation to tear to pieces 
 our pet theories, and tell us truths which are not very 
 palatable. The history of culture and civilization and the 
 annals recording the progress of science in the 19th century 
 prove this in a thousand instances. Thus it is in Com- 
 parative Philology. The principles and method of com- 
 parison for all languages are alike. There is and I must 
 repeat it again only one standard by which we can measure 
 ill languages, and that standard is grammatical structure. 
 \Ye cannot, without being justly accused of want of method, 
 ftnply this standard in one case, and in the next, when we 
 find this mode of comparison not agreeing with what we 
 wish the result to be, apply superficial word comparisons, 
 based on doubtful phonetic resemblances, Phonetic com-
 
 13 
 
 parison can only then be admitted when relationship and 
 coincidence of grammatical structure have been proved. 
 
 I spoke of Phonology and Etymology, and I take this 
 opportunity of remarking that all those who work in the 
 field of South African Languages should apply a uniform 
 phonetic alphabet, say for instance the Standard Alphabet 
 of Professor Lepsius, in a modified form. Travellers and 
 missionaries especially, if they wish to serve the cause of 
 South African Philology, should be well acquainted with 
 the principles of Phonology before they venture to write 
 down texts in the languages of savages. No missionary 
 should be sent to the heathen without having acquired as 
 thorough a knowledge of phonetics as he has of the Gospel ; 
 and he should be taught to respect every accent, every 
 consonant, in fact every jot and tittle in any, even the most 
 barbarous, dialect he may hereafter have to analyse. Here I 
 sincerely regret to say that much of what has been published 
 in the native literature of South Africa, especially in the 
 Bantu languages,ofFers but small help to scientific Etymology, 
 on account of the orthography, I might rather say, 
 Kakography. The clicks and their relation to the con- 
 sonants and vowels are very unsatisfactorily expressed. 
 They seem to puzzle people, and yet their origin, nature 
 and physiology can be as easily and clearly described 
 as that of any consonant. In fact the clicks group with the 
 consonants, they are produced by the same organs, lips, 
 tongue, teeth, gum, etc., as the consonants. And surely if 
 the IlKhosa or Zulu language were really phonetically 
 written, there would be no difficulty in showing as regards 
 the greater number of words containing clicks, especially in 
 IlKhosa, that they are importations from the Hottentot, 
 especially the Khoikhoi. And being thus able to trace 
 the true etymology of Kafir words, we should be able to read 
 the past history of battles and friendly intercourse between 
 the Khoikhoi and IlKhosa, as well as if it were handed down 
 to us in written records.
 
 14 
 
 It is therefore an urgent want for us here in South 
 Africa that a Standard Orthography for the Native 
 Languages should be introduced in all official, educational 
 and public departments. The task is not as difficult as it 
 may appear at first sight. I hope that, for instance, our 
 laud surveyors in their future examinations will have to 
 show a thorough efficiency in the application of a phonetic 
 alphabet, Avhen mapping native territories. At present 
 much confusion is caused simply by employing different 
 modes of spelling the same name. 
 
 Taking up again the thread of our discourse on the 
 principles of comparative philology, we saw that grammatical 
 structure formed the standard of language affinity. 
 Languages accordingly are classified into 
 
 1. Isolating languages, 
 
 2. Agglutinating languages, 
 
 3. Inflecting languages. 
 
 This mode of classification is called the morphological 
 classification. We shall afterwards have to say something 
 on the genealogical classification. 
 
 Of all groups of languages, the isolating class presents 
 the simplest form. There are no word classes, such as 
 substantive, adjective, numeral, preposition or postposition 
 and adverb ; nor are time, mood, person, gender or number 
 formally expressed by suffix, prefix or infix. Accordingly 
 there can be no declensions, no conjugations, no degrees of 
 comparison as we have them in the second, and still more 
 in the third class of languages. 
 
 The root in the isolating class remains unchanged. Ta 
 in Chinese may mean great, greatness, greatly ; Pi again 
 equal, equality, to be equal, equally. And it is solely by the 
 position of the root in the sentence that its class nature is 
 ascertained. And still this class of languages is not less 
 fit for literary purposes than our Indo-European languages, 
 which belong to the third stage. The rich Chinese literature
 
 15 
 
 proves that every shade of thought has been expressed by 
 their philosophers and great thinkers. 
 
 The Annamese, Siamese, Burmese and Tibetan languages 
 belong to this stage. 
 
 I may at once mention that all languages belonging to the 
 second and third stage once passed through this monosyllabic 
 or isolating stage. Our own Indo-Germanic languages with 
 their complicated inflections show unmistakable traces of a 
 monosyllabic origin. 
 
 And, again, the second class, of which we shall directly 
 give an illustration, has been the channel through w r hich our 
 own language had to pass to its present development. Thus 
 in language, as in all other organic growths, we see the work- 
 ing of the principle of evolution. 
 
 If we mark the root with R, we may express the morpho- 
 logical composition of this first stage by the formula R + R 
 + R, etc. 
 
 Next, we have the agglutinative languages, which attach 
 or glue to the bare root particles at the beginning or at the 
 end or in the middle, or beginning and end, etc., etc., and are 
 called accordingly prefix, suffix, infix, etc., languages. The 
 root remains entirely unchangeable, and these particles* 
 generally, not always, of a pronominal nature, modify the 
 meaning of the root. Thus in Hottentot we have KHOI as 
 root of the word man ; Klioi-}) man, Khoi-s woman, Khoi-gu 
 men, Klioi-ii women, Kiwi-si (adj.) or Klwi-x^ humane, 
 friendly, Khoi-xn-sc (adv.) friendly, JT/ioz-ei-ga-gu to marry 
 each other, verbally to be towards each other friends. \AU 
 to flow, la-b blood, i.e. that which flows, l~xa bloody. 
 From these specimens we infer that the Hottentot is a suffix 
 language. And from the specimens in Bantu we shall learn 
 that the latter is a prefix language. 
 
 Herero : Sing, omu-ndu man, plur. ova-ndu ; sing, e-yurii 
 heaven, plur. oma-yuru. 
 
 Tsuana : Sing, lo-ru cloud, plur. ma-ru ; Hin.ir. .sc-fuba 
 breast, plur. H-fuba.
 
 16 
 
 Hercro : zepa to kill, ri-zepa Reflex. 
 
 Tsuana : bona to see, i-pona Reflex. 
 
 Kafir : tanda to love, zi-tanda Reflex. 
 
 These prefixes are all of a pronominal nature, while the 
 suffixes in Bantu tire of a nominal origin. 
 
 Khosa : in-taka bird, in-tak-ana little bird, um-fo man, 
 um-f-ana little man, youth. Or tcta, IlKhosa to speak, forms 
 the following derivatives : tet-ela Relat., tet-isa Causat., 
 tet-eka Rel. Caus. 
 
 In this agglutinative group we first meet with the 
 various categories of words, such as substantives, adjectives, 
 numerals, prepositions or postpositions, adverbs and conjunc- 
 tions. 
 
 Here we first have derivatives in the true sense of the 
 word, also the embryonic germs of declension and conjuga- 
 tion, though not in the full sense of the inflecting languages ; 
 and therefore these terms should be used with reserve- 
 Mood and tense are well developed, and generally, for 
 instance in Turkish and Hottentot, surpass in this respect 
 anything known in the next fullgrown Indo-Germanic 
 tongues, such as Sanscrit, Greek or Lithuanian. 
 
 Suppose we mark the root again with R, and the various 
 particles, which are prefixed, suffixed or infixed with p, s, i, 
 we get for the agglutinative or agglomerating stage the 
 following formulas : 1. pR ; 2. Rs ; 3. R ; 4. pR ; 5. Rs, 
 6. pRs. etc., Thus we see that t\vo characteristic facts distin- 
 guish the agglutinating from the isolating class. 
 
 In the former the word is no longer composed from the 
 root alone, but is formed by the union of several roots. In 
 the second place, one only of these roots thus agglomerated 
 retains its real value ; in the others the individual meaning 
 becomes obscured and passes into the second rank. The 
 primary root being thus retained in its primitive form, the 
 others lose their independence, and fall into their place 
 side by side of each other. These prefixes and suffixes are 
 loosely connected, so that they may be easily removed with-
 
 17 
 
 out impairing the original meaning of the root. The fissures 
 are still clearly to be seen where they are connected with 
 the root. And this exactly is called Agylutinatum. 
 
 The tongues belonging to this class are the most numerous 
 on the earth. All the languages of Africa, the Egyptian 
 and its kindred, the Hamitic excepted, the Malayo-Poly- 
 nesian, the languages of Australia and America, the Ural- 
 Altaic or Finnish-Tataric, and the Dravidian or Dekhan, not 
 to forget the Basque in Spain, are reckoned in this class. 
 
 But it must be distinctly understood that they are not 
 genealogically related, and that this classification is entirely 
 based on their formal or anatomical appearance. 
 
 It will therefore be necessary here to say something on 
 the so-called Turanian theory of Professor Max Miiller. 
 
 A certain venerable old patriarch in Central Asia is sup- 
 posed to have given birth to a race, whose idiom became 
 the common language of the so-called Turanian tribes. 
 Professor Max Miiller is the godfather of this theory, which 
 is now represented by three different schools, each with some 
 amendment to it. 
 
 The first school holds that all languages, with the ex- 
 ception of Indo-Germanic, Semitic and Hamitic, form this 
 Turanian group. Thus they not only claim for this family 
 all the abovementioned agglutinative tongues of mankind, 
 but also the monosyllabic or isolating languages of the first 
 class. 
 
 The second school confines the name to the Uralo-Altaic, 
 Dravidian, Malayo-Polynesian, Tibetan and Siamese, leav- 
 ing out other very important agglutinative tongues, such 
 as the Nuba, Bantu, Central and West African Negro 
 languages, Hottentot, Japanese, etc., and dragging in the 
 Siamese and Thai, belonging to the isolating class. 
 
 The third school, for the same or other reasons, does not 
 like to do away with the name altogether, although they feel 
 the mischief it has in its train, and apply it now entirely 
 to the Uralo-Altaic family.
 
 18 
 
 The greater part of these pretended Turanian languages 
 have only this one point in common, that they arc aggluti- 
 nating. But their mode of agglutinating and the phonetic 
 composition of their roots defy every effort to prove them 
 genealogically related. Professors Pott, Schleicher and 
 "Whitney have very successfully refitted the Turanian 
 theory, and we may consider the question a settled one. 
 
 Let us now proceed to inspect the third stage of language 
 development, the Inflecting Stage. At the outset we have 
 to answer the question, "What is Inflection 9 " 
 
 First : The roots of inflected languages have this 
 peculiarity, that the various modifications of the root are not 
 only expressed by suffix and prefix, but by phonetic change ; 
 thus we have sing, sang, sung ; think, thought ; man, men ; 
 goose, geese ; Icipo, Icloipa ; fangcn, finy ; cano, cccini : 
 pario, pcperi, etc. 
 
 "Secondly : The root so grows together with a second 
 root, or with a formal element (stiffix or prefix), that no 
 fissure can be seen, and that neither root nor formal part, if 
 cut off" from each other, has any meaning* In short Root 
 and Affix amalgamate into a new organism. Sometimes the 
 root, as we have seen in the agglutinative languages, re- 
 mains unchanged. 
 
 If we now represent this power of phonetic change in- the 
 root, by the index x, we get for the inflecting stage the 
 following formulas : R*, R*s, R'fss, R^sss, etc., p R*> 
 etc., and pR*s. 
 
 The inflecting languages are represented by two large 
 families : 
 
 1 . The so-called Aryan or Lido-Germanic Languages, and 
 
 2. The Semitic Tongues, amongst which some cottnt the 
 Hamitic or North-East African Languages. 
 
 Be it enough to state that the methods of inflecting in these 
 three families vary so much from each other, that all 
 attempts to bring them under one genealogical heading have 
 hitherto proved abortive;
 
 19 
 
 Schleicher and Whitney have most carefully analysed 
 these differences, but it would lead us too far, in our limited 
 time, to discuss their analysis. 
 
 I have repeatedly mentioned the term " genealogical 
 classification," and shall have briefly to say something about 
 it. 
 
 Languages may group morphologically together -with- 
 out belonging to the same genealogical class. But lan- 
 guages cannot be genealogically related, without belonging 
 to the same morphological group. The genealogical classifi- 
 cation has been hitherto applied only to the Indo-Germanic, 
 Semitic and Hamitic languages. In all other languages it 
 has not yet been undertaken, though here and there some 
 feeble attempts have been made, viz., with the Bantu and 
 Polynesian. 
 
 The genealogical classification is mainly based on the 
 real substance of a language, it has to do with its Grammar 
 and Dictionary, and besides grammatical structure compares 
 the roots of words. Its main instrument is Etymology : but 
 as I said before, Etymology is only a secondary element in 
 Comparative Philology, and can then only be applied when 
 Grammatical and Morphological relationship has been esta- 
 blished. 
 
 Thus morphologically Hottentot (Khoikhoi and Sa 
 [Bushman]) and Bantu (Tsuana, IlKhosa, Zulu, Herero, 
 Mbo) are agglutinative languages, but, comparing them 
 again grammatically, the one is exclusively suffixing, and all 
 the suffixes show the same root, being of a pronominal 
 nature, while the latter is prefix-suffixing, the prefix being 
 the main characteristic. The prefixes in Bantu show 
 among themselves the same origin, and arc also of a prono* 
 minal nature. Derivatives in Hottentot are formed by 
 pronominal suffixes, but in Bantu by nominal elements, now 
 for the most part worn down to particles, which are suffixed, 
 viz.: 
 
 Moreover, Sa and Khoihhoi have this peculiarity, that all
 
 roots are monosyllabic and end in a voircl (Auslaut vocalisch), 
 viz., khoiy a, \gu, yai, i, etc.), while in Bantu the roots as a 
 rule arc not monosyllabic, and though ending in a vowel, this 
 vowel always is an a, thus we have rata, hcrara, tona, kora, 
 etc. 
 
 But I must reserve a detailed examination of the lan- 
 guages of South Africa for another occasion. I shall now 
 proceed to show what the study of Comparative Philology 
 has done to unveil to us the primeval history of our own 
 ancestors. I said that language is the telescope with which 
 we can look into the very dawn of man's life. Let us turn 
 over the leaves of Pictet's Origincs Indo-Europecnncs, of 
 . Pott's Etymological Researches and Fick's Comparative Dic- 
 tionary of the Lido-Germanic Languages, and we shall be 
 able to draw a fair picture of the social condition and daily 
 life of our ancestors, before they left their primitive home, 
 and migrated to the South, North, East and West. 
 
 The primitive Aryans lived in a country well watered, 
 mountainous and very rugged. The mountains were in the 
 winter capped with snow, their slopes covered with 
 thick forests in which oaks formed a prominent feature. 
 The forests offered cool shade to the hunter and traveller, 
 for in summer, again, it could be very hot. For travelling 
 purposes, boats as well as other vehicles were used. But 
 travelling was extremely dangerous ; wolves, bears and 
 smaller carnivorous animals kept the traveller constantly on 
 the alert, and the poisonous bites of snakes were known, but 
 also the beneficial and healing effects of herbs and other 
 antidotes. 
 
 Family life was well developed. Our ancestors Avere 
 monogamists, and the father was the lord and head of the 
 family. He was called patis (Greek posis), the ruler. His 
 helpmate the wife was the mistress patni (Greek potnia). 
 The various degrees of relationship were well distinguished, 
 and there were such differences as wife's sister (syali) and 
 the wife of a brother (yataras). The father was supreme
 
 21 
 
 judge of controversies, and had -the lives of those he pro- 
 tected in his hands. The brother Avas the helping one, the 
 bearing one, while the sister was the provider or the caring 
 one. The daughter (duhitar) had her name from her main 
 household duty, namely, the milking of the cows. The com- 
 munity was a family, but on a larger base, and governed on 
 the same principles. The eldest man of the ruling family 
 was the chief. He again stood under the head of the tribe, 
 the king or ragan. The king's council consisted of the various 
 heads of the clans and families. The communities lived 
 in villages, which were surrounded by fences, in order to 
 protect them against the attacks of the beasts of the forests. 
 The pasturage was the property of the community, while 
 the lands for agricultural purposes were allotted to the 
 fathers of the families, according to stipulated rules and regu- 
 lations. Houses, cattle and movables belonged to the indivi- 
 dual ; the houses were strongly built of wood and had thatched 
 roofs. The chiefs or ragan's house was built on a larger 
 scale than those of others, it had large lofty halls for con- 
 vivial purposes, where the bowl was often sent round and 
 music was made on shells and reed pipes. 
 
 Among the domestic animals we find the bull, cows 
 oxen, horses, goats, sheep and pigs. Milk formed the 
 chief drink, but black broth, a sort of hodgepodge, was also 
 made. Dogs accompanied the herdsmen to the pasturage 
 and kept watch during the night. The mistress of the 
 house had to guard her stores against the aggressions of the 
 mice, which had the significant name of thieves. 
 
 Among the feathery, tribe we find the cock announcing 
 the day. Pigeons, geese and ducks were kept in the fowl 
 yard. 
 
 The cuckoo was the messenger of the spring. Priests 
 watched the flight of birds, and the future was divined from 
 their movements, especially those of the falcon. 
 
 For the cultivation of the soil, ploughs were in use ; and 
 the main work on which men prided themselves most,
 
 22 
 
 to being bravo in battle, was the cultivation of the soil, 
 hence the name Aryans, i.e. Agriculturists. 
 
 Among the cereals, we find chiefly wheat and barley ; 
 and flour was prepared for their meals in the shape of 
 porridge or bread. 
 
 The metals, gold, silver and bronze Avere best known ; 
 and lovers in those days already presented each other with 
 jewellery. The dagger was originally made of stone, 
 afterwards of bronze ; battle axes, swords and other arms and 
 implements were manufactured by a certain class of men, 
 the smiths, who were held in high estimation on account of 
 their skill. 
 
 Pottery, not only dried in the sun, but baked in the fire, 
 was of great variety. We read of vases, jars, pots, cups 
 and dishes. And there is every reason to believe that the 
 richer classes had their vases ornamented by skilful 
 painters. 
 
 For their daily intercourse and commercial dealings they 
 had a decimal system developed up to one hundred. 
 Clothing was made of wool and hemp, and sandals of the- 
 hides of large game and oxen. 
 
 Besides the smaller communities or villages, there were 
 townships, tastu or puris (Greek asty and polis), connected 
 by roads, on which caravans as well as single hawkers 
 carried merchandize ; and vehicles and animals served as 
 the means of conveyance. 
 
 These early Aryans Avere able horsemen, and made 
 inroads into the territory of other tribes, on horseback, and 
 carried away in hasty flight their spolia opima. lu battle 
 the axe, sword, lance, boAv, arroAV, club and shield were used ; 
 also stones, in the heat of the conflict, Avhen other weapons 
 were broken or lost. 
 
 The chief led his people in battle, he had to be the 
 foremost ; in peace he ruled and protected them and Avas 
 their supreme judge. 
 
 The moon Avas called the measurer of time, for according
 
 23 
 
 to its changes they calculated their chronological dates. 
 Among the stars we find the Great Bear mentioned and 
 the Pleiades. The heavenly vault, Fizn/wa, was worshipped 
 as All-Father. The religion of the primitive ancestors of 
 our race consisted of a purely natural worship of the various 
 heavenly bodies and phenomena, such as the Sun, Dawn, 
 Moon and other bright powers, which Avere all considered to 
 be the manifestations of the one Father of Heaven, Dyaus- 
 pitar, who with his immortal children, stars and moon, dwelt 
 on a glorious and magnificent Olympus. 
 
 Opposed to Dyauspitar there were the evil spirits of the 
 dark night. There was the gloomy god of the clouds, 
 I'ritra, who was supposed to steal the golden herds of 
 heaven, the cows of the clouds, and kept back from the 
 earth the fertilising rain, until he was slain by the lightning 
 arrow of Indra. 
 
 It was in the midst of the dark night when the winds 
 u ere howling, and crashing thunder deafening the ear, that 
 the ancient Aryan believed the evil spirits were lurking 
 about. Then and there awoke in his breast the feeling of 
 guilt, and he sought forgiveness in prayer, offering and self- 
 penance. 
 
 There was an idea of a life after this ; the souls of tho 
 deceased had to pass through a broad river, that is tho 
 atmosphere, and they were led by a faithful dog to tho 
 abodes of their friends and relations. 
 
 There were legends and myths of a common ancestor, 
 Manu, and of a great deluge which destroyed everything 
 except Manu. 
 
 I could have drawn this picture of the social and daily 
 life of our ancestors more elaborately and minutely, but 
 this little sketch will give us a sufficiently good idea of the 
 state of culture; and civilisation among the old Aryans. My 
 object has been to show how, with the aid of language, we 
 may read the records of the past ; and in a similar manner 
 we shall be able to read the history of the Hottentot and
 
 24 
 
 
 
 Bantu races, as soon as we have succeeded in restoring the 
 records of their languages. 
 
 Haying taken this short and very superficial survey 
 of the History, Principles and Results of Comparative 
 Philology, we will proceed to the consideration of Language 
 in its bearings on Education. 
 
 There is indeed no branch of education which demands 
 our attention so much and is of such vital importance to the 
 intellectual and ethical development, both of the individual 
 and of the nation, as the study of language. 
 
 In fact nothing is done in the dark workshop of our mind 
 without the aid of language. ' As the shadow follows the 
 body, the articulate sound is attached and linked to the 
 thought, and, while the mind is in full action though in silent 
 meditation, the greatest thoughts which ever throned on the 
 brow of an Alexander, Ctesar, Homer or Shakespere, would 
 never have been realized without language : Whether we 
 speak, or whether we are silent, as soon as ice think, we really 
 speak. All thinking is silent conversation, either with ourselves 
 or icith others ; for ivords, whether they are pronounced, or 
 whether they are thought, are the inseparable form, the natural 
 mould of the substance of thought and of reason itself. Lan- 
 guage is the embodiment of the mind ! 
 
 Therefore, if we want to understand our own psychological 
 life, if we wish to study the minds of others or to watch the 
 progress of culture and intellect in whole nations, in order to 
 ascertain the mutual working of the laws which brought 
 about this development, we must study language itself. 
 
 Leibniz, accordingly, and very appropriately, called lan- 
 guage the mirror of the soul ; because only by the medium of 
 language can we grasp and digest the ingredient substances 
 of thought and reason. 
 
 Language, again, in itself has a retro verse action on our 
 thought ; it has the widest and most wonderful bearing on 
 the development of our mind, on account of its relation to 
 our inner life, The orator addresses a meeting from the
 
 '25 . 
 
 platform. From his mouth issues a breath ; by a peculiar 
 action of the tongue and other organs of speech, this breath 
 in a continual flow and rotation offers like a kaleidoscope a 
 series of phonetic pictures, and these pictures impress them~ 
 selves on the minds of his audience and produce there new 
 thoughts and emotions. The Promethean spark from his 
 mind flies on the wings of these articulate sounds to his 
 audience, and nestles itself in the secret recesses and abodes 
 of the souls of the hearers, creating there new feelings, new 
 emotions, new ideas, ever acting as an invigorating and 
 Propelling force. The boldest and highest speculations of 
 the philosopher ; the cravings and yearnings of our heart 
 after the Infinite ; the deepest devotional feelings with Avhich 
 the grandeur of Nature impresses itself on our soul ; what we 
 praise as the Divine primeval revelation ; the out-cry and 
 protest of Liberty against Despotism ; the despair and con- 
 vulsions of the wicked conscience ; the soothing and balmy 
 consolation which flows from the lips of a sympathising 
 friend ; the smarting of. a cruelly wronged heart, and its 
 craving for justice and revenge ; the sweet whisperings of 
 the lover ; the first accents of endearment the infant stammers 
 at the mother's breast : in short, whatever has stirred, still 
 fills, and will for ever move the human heart, all these feelings 
 have but one willing messenger and eloquent interpreter . 
 Articulate Speech! 
 
 Language, thus, is not only one of the various instruments 
 of thought for communicating with the outer world, but the 
 only legitimate and therefore natural mediator of social and 
 intellectual life. 
 
 To connect the succession of periods in the history and 
 development of mankind in an unbroken chain ; to describe 
 the natural influence and connection of the great geniuses 
 who imprinted their mark on the face of their times ; to trace 
 the intellectual growth and decay of nations, their action and 
 reaction on each other ; all these grand heirlooms of history 
 and civilisation are chiefly handed down from generation to 
 
 C
 
 26 
 
 generation by this volatile and spiritual production of man- 
 And even monuments, tools, implements, and other archaeo- 
 logical relics of ages past, however valuable they may be 
 for the student who attempts to lift the veil from prehistoric 
 times, would remain sealed records were it -not for the posi- 
 tion of language. 
 
 But why should we speak of ideas so high and treasures 
 so precious ? Even the most simple, absurd and common 
 events of daily life can be communicated by language only. 
 Artists may transform their ideal beauties into marble, the 
 painter may throw the combinations of his rich fancy on 
 canvas : but can the sculptor or painter also express by his 
 art such a simple sentence as the following : " In 1882 Par- 
 liament met on the seventeenth of March. The most impor- 
 tant part in the Governor's opening speech dealt with the 
 Basuto question "? Never ! This peculiarity of language, 
 that it offers to thought the only facility for combining time 
 and circumstance, necessarily makes it, as I said before, the 
 only natural and legitimate interpreter of thought. With- 
 out language we should stand on a level with the brute, and 
 mankind never would be called the crowning work and 
 masterpiece of Creation. 
 
 Thus, if language is the form, tie, embodiment and 
 mirror of the mind, the natural interpreter of man's inner 
 life, and the most important instrument for its development, 
 it is manifest that in education the study of language is the 
 most important and congenial occupation not only of the 
 scholar, but of every man who aspires to a higher educa- 
 tion, and being both of a psychological and ethical charac- 
 ter, claims our most earnest attention and most persevering 
 energy. 
 
 Studying language is studying psychology, i.e. the crea- 
 tion and origin of thought, in its very workshop. 
 
 The task of education is, first to show the process and 
 practice of transforming thought into speech, the life and 
 development of the former by the latter, and secondly, to
 
 27 
 
 explain the origin, life and development of language in the 
 mind. 
 
 All men who have made their mark in the history of 
 education have forcibly demanded the mastering of language 
 as the first step in the intellectual and moral training of 
 each individual, and claimed for a thorough acquisition of 
 the mother tongue a careful and deep study of foreign 
 languages and literatures. Our own mother tongue remains 
 a sealed book without the knowledge of some other language. 
 For we are so organized that we cannot understand our own 
 nature without having put it in the full light and reflex of 
 the nature of others. 
 
 In the sweat of our brow we are condemned to eat our 
 bread, and the lower wants of our own nature are clamorous 
 for satisfaction. But we do not live by bread alone ; 
 language, next to bread, serves the demands of our practical 
 life. And above the drudgery of daily life there remains a 
 yearning and craving after an ideal, and the interpreter of 
 these feelings is, and for ever will remain, language. And as 
 the possession of our native idiom gives us access to other 
 minds, so the acquisition of languages widens our sphere of 
 mental intercourse, lays open additional sources of enlighten- 
 ment and increases the number of our instructors. 
 
 The easiest and most successful way of cultivating our in- 
 tellectual faculties is philological study. This supplies us with 
 one needed ground of comparison, and brings character- 
 istic qualities to our conscious comprehension. Nothing 
 else develops the faculty of literary criticism, and leads to 
 that skilled and artistic handling of our mother tongue, 
 which is the highest adornment of a cultivated mind. 
 
 This seemingly roundabout course through other tongues, 
 in order to master effectively the resources of our own ver- 
 nacular, is after all the shortest and cheapest. Again, nothing 
 else so effectively trains the capacity of penetrating into 
 the minds and hearts of men, of reading aright the records 
 of the past, and leads us into so many new avenues of the 
 
 c 2
 
 L'S 
 
 social and intellectual life of ancient races, and teaches us 
 so clearly that we are linked to the past in an unbroken 
 chain. The pulse of our present civilisation beats in the 
 heart of the past ; and not one atom of our modern culture 
 can boast of independence and originality. The history of 
 nations bygone may be read in the pages of language. 
 
 Those, especially, who aspire to the highest culture of in- 
 tellect, who make philosophical and historial studies their 
 lifelong occupation, require a sound study of a philology that 
 reaches far beyond that of modem languages, for not one 
 single part of our modern languages and their literatures 
 has an entirely independent growth. In everything, socially 
 and intellectually, we have to follow up its roots in the life 
 of nations belonging to the past. Much, it is true, has 
 been made accessible by translations of the ancient classics. 
 But, how tame and lifeless the best translations are com- 
 pared with the classical original, those only understand who 
 have mastered Greek and Latin so as thoroughly to enjoy 
 an ancient author. 
 
 In Athens and Rome are the beginnings of nearly all 
 that we value most. Greek and Latin stand incontestably 
 first as our mental drill masters. They are like the twin- 
 lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza in which the Nile has 
 its origin ; the mountain torrents which centre in these, to 
 issue in that majestic stream, are by comparison hardly 
 worth our attention. There is, as I said before, the very 
 heart of the great past, and it is through these classical 
 languages that the glorious days of Thermopylae and 
 Salamis, the golden age of Pericles and Augustus, speak 
 to us. 
 
 In no other literature of the world do we meet with such 
 pregnancy of expression, such radiant beauty of thought, 
 such vigour and fertility of fancy, such plastic and elegant 
 form of diction. Greek and Latin, therefore, will for ever 
 remain the models of our education, and the antiquity they 
 unveil before our astonished eyes will be studied in spite of
 
 29 
 
 the objections raised in modern times by men who are 
 considered to have the first word in educational matters. 
 
 And of the two classical languages I can recommend, 
 without fear of contradiction, the Greek as the most perfect 
 and best preserved example of the synthetic type, a type 
 through which our own English had to pass. But as you 
 know, besides this genealogical affiliation there is a direct 
 connection between Greek and Latin on the one side, and 
 the German, English and French on the other side. 
 Especially with regard to English, the rich stores of words, 
 technical terms and phrases came partly through the 
 channel of French, partly direct from the ancient languages. 
 And in our daily work we continually have to return to 
 them to satisfy our growing wants of expression. 
 
 The languages most nearly allied to ours by common 
 parentage are German and French. The former, belonging 
 to 'the same Teutonic stock as English, is genealogically our 
 next of kin. It is most nearly connected with our own 
 circumstances and character. And the mutual intellectual 
 influence of the two nations, and their love and admiration 
 for each other, have made the Germanic race politically 
 supreme. For culture breeds culture, and intellect" is the 
 supreme power with which mankind will conquer even the 
 forces of nature. 
 
 As I said in the introduction, there is really no country 
 in the world where England's great poets are more admired 
 and better translated than in Germany. Your Shakespere 
 is ours. In Germany we have the best Shakespere Society. 
 Germans learn English for the sole purpose of reading 
 Shakespere in his mother tongue. Tieck and Schlegel'n 
 translation of the works of the Swan of Avon is acknow- 
 ledged to be an improvement on the poet's own original. 
 German actors like Schroder, Devrient and Dawison have 
 successfully rivalled Garrick, Kean and Kemble, and other 
 English celebrities of the stage, in reproducing the grand 
 characters of Shakespere's plays, Delius, Uorjenstedt,
 
 30 
 
 Gervinus, Genee, Ulrici, Elze, have for ever linked their 
 names with that of the great Briton by their classical 
 commentaries and essays on his works, and their excellent 
 biographies of the interpreter of the human heart. 
 Shakespere has become in Germany a household name. 
 If one wishes to know Shakespere, let him study modern 
 German classics from Gothe down to the present time. 
 Every word of Shakespere re T echoes in the heart of every 
 German who reads his works. We call him the Herzens- 
 Jiiinfh'f/cr. The Germans truly love, admire and worship 
 Shakespere, and quote him as they do the three heroes of 
 modern German literature, Lessing, Gothe and Schiller. 
 In fact the last classical period of German literature roots 
 partly in the study of Shakespere, and many a beautiful 
 blossom of Gothe's genius bears an indisputable family 
 likeness to those of Shakespere's Muse. The songs and 
 melodies of Heine, the poet of the Weltschmcrz, are saturated 
 with the gloomy grandeur of Byronism. 
 
 At German gymnasiums, the boys have their English 
 societies or Kranzchen, in which they read, either in transla- 
 tion or in the original, the plays of Shakespere, and enjoy 
 the poems of Moore and Byron, and even attempt to 
 translate the English authors in their original metre and 
 verse. 
 
 There is no other foreign poet with whom the Germans 
 are equally familiar, except Homer, the genius par excellence. 
 All other foreigners Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Dante, Tasso, 
 Racine, Corneille, Cervantes and Camoens are admired as 
 we admire a marble statue. 
 
 Your Beowulf is better studied and known in Germany 
 than in England. Macaulay's History has been translated 
 and reprinted in the original at Leipsic, and we learn that 
 it had a larger sale in Germany than the works of any 
 German historian. Scott, Bulwer, Dickens and Thackeray 
 are to be found in every German Public Library as well 
 as in every private collection, and the productions of the
 
 31 
 
 best English writers are expected with the same impatience 
 at Berlin and Leipsic as they are in London. 
 
 How extensively English is cultivated and studied is 
 clearly proved by the fact that we have in Germany four 
 different scientific periodicals ; two, the Anglia edited by 
 AViilcker and Trautmann, and the Englischc Studien edited 
 by Kolbing, exclusively for English language and literature; 
 and two, for modern languages, Herrig's Archivfur das 
 Studium der neueren Sprachcn, and Ebert and Lemcke's 
 Jit lirlmcli fur Romanische und Englische Liter atur. But 
 even in these latter publications English occupies the 
 greater space. And in every Realschule English is com- 
 pulsory as is French. More than 100,000 young Germans 
 are annually instructed in these schools in English, not to 
 speak of the number of those who learn the language by 
 private tuition. 
 
 The English language and literature has so many 
 admirers in Germany that they are to be numbered I may 
 safely say without fear of exaggeration by millions, and the 
 prophesy of the great Teutonic philologist, Jacob Grimm, 
 is being verified from day to day, that the Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue of Great Britain will become a cosmopolitan language, 
 the medium of commercial and intellectual communication 
 for the Races of Mankind. 
 
 And the same tribute has been paid to German poets and 
 philosophers by the enlightened public of England. Gothc 
 and Schiller are well known through Carlyle, Lewes and 
 others. The famous illustrations of Kaulbach's Frauen- 
 ycstalten of Gothe's works have been republished with English 
 text, and are the delight of the best of the English 
 nation. And if we look at the weekly issues of English 
 periodicals, like the Academy and Athcnaum, we are sure 
 to see notices of some new translation of German works ; 
 and every book of importance published in Germany, no 
 matter to what science it belongs, is carefully reviewed in 
 English periodicals. The works of German genius find
 
 32 
 
 almost as many thoughtful readers in the colleges of 
 England as they find in their Fatherland. The study and 
 thorough knowledge of German is now considered, in 
 England one of the most important attainments of a higher 
 education. The most candid acknowledgment is given of 
 the invigorating and refreshing influence of the German 
 mind on the English. Now, in this Colony, where the 
 greater part of the white community speak a vernacular so 
 closely related to the literary Dutch of the Netherlands, 
 one would think it a matter of course that German should 
 be easily taught and learnt, especially as Dutch is only one 
 of the many Low German idioms. 
 
 French, again, which is unsurpassed for its elegance in form 
 and diction, and which has had such a deep influence on 
 English, Dutch and German language and literature, should 
 not be neglected. Although there is a strong national line 
 of demarcation drawn between France and Germany, French 
 is taught in every German Gymnasium, Realschule and 
 Rectoratschule. A German student reads with ease the 
 great French classics, and expresses himself Avithout difficulty 
 in conversation and writing in the language of France. To 
 show the importance the French attach to good and'elegant 
 expression, I may remind you of the French proverb " Le 
 style c'est 1'homme." In spite of his pressing duties, the 
 great French naturalist Cuvier regularly attended lectures 
 on style and rhetorics. In the elegant and classic style of 
 Alexander von Humboldt we easily discover the influence 
 of French diction. Everywhere in European Society the 
 social qualification of a man is measured by his power of 
 expressing himself in French. 
 
 Not only can the Germans pride themselves in having 
 laid the foundation of the Comparative Grammar of the 
 Indo-Germanic languages, but a German professor, Diez, 
 wrote the best Comparative Grammar and Etymological 
 Dictionary of the Romance languages. These two facts bear 
 sijfficient testimony to the great stress and value put on the
 
 33 
 
 study of French, and its cognate dialects in Germany 
 Brachet's French grammar, based on Diez's work, should be 
 introduced in every Government school in this Colony. 
 
 Some of the most prominent branches of thought, in 
 English as well as in Dutch, have to be followed up to their 
 roots in the French and German literatures. They, by their 
 beauties and peculiarities, are admirably fitted to furnish the 
 ground of comparative literary study ; and the same advan- 
 tage is possessed by the structure and usages of the languages 
 themselves, an advantage heightened by the historical 
 relation they sustain in English. Had we nothing else with 
 yet stronger recommendations to apply to, the German and 
 French, especially the former, icould answer for us all the 
 essential disciplinary purposes of philological study ; as indeed 
 to many they are and must be made to answer those purposes. 
 (Whitney). As the case stands they are among the inde- 
 spensable parts of a disciplinary education. He rvho quits 
 school and enters on the arena of life without mastering cither 
 or both of them cannot claim to have enjoyed the benefit of a 
 thorough liberal and intellectual training. Whatever natural 
 attainments he may possess his work will always betray a 
 peculiar clumsiness, the ivorh of an unskilled mind! 
 
 Among the other cultivated languages of modern Europe, 
 Dutch stands in nearest relation to us here in South Africa, 
 from purely ethnical and historical reasons, Italian, 
 Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish lying more in the 
 special sphere of the student of literature and modern 
 philology. As to the cultivation of Dutch in this Colony, 
 however, it is more than questionable whether it will ever 
 command the position English takes as the medium of 
 intellectual and commercial intercourse. 
 
 Both literatures, Dutch and English, are of the same age ; 
 both nations had trials of the same nature, both had great 
 political catastrophes and events the forerunners of literary 
 life ; the vessels of both nations crossed the seas, and 
 brought a store of new i(Uw and viewi from transatlantic
 
 34 
 
 countries : and still, how differently have they utilized the 
 times. The English shows such blossoms and ripe fruits of 
 a highly developed intellectual type, and stands foremost 
 with the German in the literatures of our age ; while with 
 all love of justice we cannot claim for Dutch even a secondary 
 I>osi1ion in modern Europe, lest we should appear to be partial, 
 ami unfair to other nations. Look at the large and select 
 number of English poets of world-wide fame and the few 
 men of real Olympian genius in the ranks of the Dutch. 
 We can count them on the fingers of one hand! 
 
 One must be Dutch to appreciate the home-made, or as 
 we say in German, home-baked (hausbacken) niceties of 
 Dutch writers and poets, with that stale, tame and philistine 
 flavour of the clay pipe with which their literature is saturated. 
 One has to undertake a special voyage to Holland and 
 retire into those quiet country villages famous as pictures 
 of Dutch still life, and enveloped in a gaudy dressing gown 
 of rich but artless pattern smoke canaster, to enjoy a Dutch 
 author. There is with the exception of two or three poets 
 no originality, the characteristic of true genius ; no romance 
 and emphasis, the golden gloss of true poetry ; in fact no 
 passion, feeling or sentiment. Homer, Shakespere, Dante 
 and Gothe you can read on the wild ocean and in the arid 
 desert ; no matter where you are, you feel at home with 
 them. Byron, Lenau, Pushkin and Lermontow will have 
 an echo in the heart of every feeling and thinking man, to 
 whatever civilised nation he may belong. 
 
 In comparing Dutch Avith German, French and English, 
 it is a most remarkable fact, that the three latter have 
 produced the greatest comparative philologists, and that 
 the Dutch just here are very backward. With the exception 
 of the works in their own language, what they really have 
 produced in other languages comes, as far as general and 
 foreign philology is concerned, through an impulse from 
 without. 
 
 Dutch writers can be so prolix, that the reader's mind
 
 35 
 
 becomes thoroughly wearied with the amount to be gone 
 over, and at length loses its power of comprehending the 
 dilated thought. Their lavishness in writing is something- 
 appalling, being exercised with no thought that the power 
 of attention and the eyesight of the world are limited. 
 There is no instinct of selection, " an instinct Avhich seems 
 almost entirely confined to the French and English mind." 
 We find just the polar opposite of what is now sometimes 
 called, by a misunderstood application of the term, exhaus- 
 tiveness, and consisting in a certain manner of writing the 
 subject to dreys. 
 
 Gothe, whom our Dutch friends cannot accuse of par- 
 tiality, for he acknowledged readily the natural formal 
 richness of the Dutch language, says : " The English, as a 
 rule, all write wcll t as practical men, with eye diverted to 
 the real. The French do not deny their general character 
 in their style. They are of a social nature, and so never 
 forget the public they address ; they try to be clear, to 
 convince the reader, and charming to please him." On the 
 Dutch, which was not unknown to him, he says nothing, and 
 this speaks volumes. 
 
 The besetting defect of Dutch writers has been sufficiently 
 considered. It is an obscurity, proceeding from a certain 
 unconscious slowness and philistine circuitousness, sometimes 
 from a wilful imitation of the conduct of the cuttlefish ; 
 sometimes from want of the sense of proportion. " There 
 is too much of the verbose, ponderous, roundabout and inane, 
 caused by the want of the pressure of a great national 
 life, with its practical discipline, and its ever active tradi- 
 tions." 
 
 I do not deny for one single moment that the Dutch have 
 done excellent work in other sciences; but, first of all, 
 scientific men are not always models in style and diction, 
 nnd secondly, the Dutch like Boerhavn, Agricola, Erasmus, 
 Lipsius, Scaliger, Spanheim, Hemsterhuis, Huyghons, 
 (jrotius, Valkenaer and others wrote more or less in Latin.
 
 36 
 
 Spinoza, I must remark, is *no Dutchman, however much 
 our Dutch cousins may wish to claim him as their own. 
 
 And why did the Dutch write in Latin ? They knew 
 very well that if they wrote in their own tongue, they would 
 not be read and understood ; and Latin was up to 150 years 
 ago, and even later, the medium of scientific intercourse. 
 Now English, on account of its cosmopolitan nature, gains 
 daily more and more ground among the civilised nations, 
 and there is no reason whatsoever why we should try to retard 
 its glorious world-cultivating mission, or supplant it by a 
 language which has not shown vigour and original strength 
 enough to take its place in the foremost ranks of the literatures 
 of the ivorld. In learning English, German, French ancl 
 the ancient classical languages, we open to our mind rich 
 storehouses, brimful with spiritual food. In enforcing a 
 language unwieldy, clumsy and poor in productions of in- 
 tellect, we cut ourselves off from the intercourse of the 
 civilised world at large, and leave the highroad of culture 
 and progress, and have to walk in the fashion of the craw- 
 fish ; nay, we are guilty of intellectual suicide, for which our 
 children and grandchildren will bless our memory. 
 
 One Avord about the Dutchpatois of this Colony. It can 
 be traced back to a fusion of the county dialects of the 
 Netherlands and North- Western Germany, and although 
 phonetically Teutonic, it is psychologically an essentially 
 Hottentot idiom. For we learn this patois first from our 
 nurses and ayahs. The young Africander on his solitary 
 farm has no other playmates than the children of the Bastard 
 Hottentot servants of his father, and even the grown-up 
 farmer cannot easily escape the deteriorating effect of his 
 servant's patois. It can hardly be expected that the descen- 
 dants of Malayo-Polynesian slaves and Hottentot servants, 
 who originally spoke an agglutinative tongue, will have any 
 improving influence on an inflecting language. Take, for 
 instance, the variety of words to express in English the 
 different shades of \yjiat wo call beautiful. We have hand"
 
 37 
 
 some, pretty, fine, shapely, graceful, lovely, elegant, comely, 
 seemly, beauteous, splendid, glorious, fair, and various other 
 synonyms, too numerous to mention. But if we speak in 
 the patois of a handsome young man, a pretty girl, a fine 
 pig, beautiful weather, a splendid sky, an elegant form, a 
 glorious sight, a noble looking animal, a graceful attitude, 
 a gaudy dress, a brilliant production, a lovely face, a delicate 
 colour, there stands the broad sounding adjective " MO OI " 
 which has to fit into every possible shape. We have en 
 irwoie jong herd, en mooie juffrouw , en mooie vark, en rnooi 
 pumpocn, mooie iccer, mooie Inch, en mooie leif, en mooie bees, 
 en mooie houdiny, en mooie tawcrtjc, en mooie roorstclliny, en 
 mooie ycziy, en mooie aap, en mooie kleur. Everything is 
 monotonously mooi! 
 
 There is no literature in it deserving the name, and it is 
 still awaiting its Chaucer, Shakespere and Byron. But true 
 poetry roots in a vigorous national and intellectual life. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, In concluding this discourse, I 
 feel how little justice I have done to the matter I brought 
 before you. I coidd say nothing on the Native Languages 
 of South Africa, I could not touch on the influence of Com- 
 parative Philology on the Science of Religion, and of its 
 bearings on Ethnology, and the special study this Science 
 claims from us here in South Africa. But I hope that on 
 some other occasion I shall have an opportunity of bringing 
 these subjects before you. Still I am thankful that you have 
 done me the honour of listening to me, and I shall feel amply 
 rewarded if 1 have succeeded in securing some share of your 
 nympathy for a science which, as I believe, will have a great 
 future here in South Africa. 
 
 SAUL SOLOMON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. GEORGE'S^ST KEET.
 
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