Transcriber's Note
Bold text is indicated by ‡double daggers‡, italics by _underscores_,
and superscript by caret symbols, e.g. R^x.
LANGUAGE
ITS NATURE
DEVELOPMENT
AND ORIGIN
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
‡Articulation of Speech Sounds‡ (Marburg: Elwert)
‡Studier over engelske kasus‡ (out of print)
‡Chaucers liv og digtning‡ (out of print)
‡Progress in Language‡ (out of print)
‡Fonetik‡ (Copenhagen: Gyldendal)
‡How to Teach a Foreign Language‡ (London: George Allen & Unwin)
‡Lehrbuch der Phonetik‡ (Leipzig: Teubner)
‡Phonetische Grundfragen‡ (Leipzig: Teubner)
‡Growth and Structure of the English Language‡ (Leipzig: Teubner)
‡A Modern English Grammar: I, II‡ (Heidelberg: Winter)
‡Sprogets logik‡ (Copenhagen: Gyldendal)
‡Nutidssprog‡ (Copenhagen: Gyldendal)
‡Negation in English and Other Languages‡ (Copenhagen: Höst)
‡Chapters on English‡ (London: George Allen & Unwin)
‡Rasmus Rask‡ (Copenhagen: Gyldendal)
LANGUAGE
ITS NATURE
DEVELOPMENT
AND ORIGIN
BY
OTTO JESPERSEN
PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN
[Illustration]
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
_First published in 1922_
(_All rights reserved_)
TO
VILHELM THOMSEN
Glæde, når av andres mund
jeg hørte de tanker store,
Glæde over hvert et fund
jeg selv ved min forsken gjorde.
PREFACE
The distinctive feature of the science of language as conceived
nowadays is its historical character: a language or a word is no longer
taken as something given once for all, but as a result of previous
development and at the same time as the starting-point for subsequent
development. This manner of viewing languages constitutes a decisive
improvement on the way in which languages were dealt with in previous
centuries, and it suffices to mention such words as ‘evolution’ and
‘Darwinism’ to show that linguistic research has in this respect been
in full accordance with tendencies observed in many other branches of
scientific work during the last hundred years. Still, it cannot be
said that students of language have always and to the fullest extent
made it clear to themselves what is the real essence of a language.
Too often expressions are used which are nothing but metaphors--in
many cases perfectly harmless metaphors, but in other cases metaphors
that obscure the real facts of the matter. Language is frequently
spoken of as a ‘living organism’; we hear of the ‘life’ of languages,
of the ‘birth’ of new languages and of the ‘death’ of old languages,
and the implication, though not always realized, is that a language
is a living thing, something analogous to an animal or a plant. Yet
a language evidently has no separate existence in the same way as a
dog or a beech has, but is nothing but a function of certain living
human beings. Language is activity, purposeful activity, and we should
never lose sight of the speaking individuals and of their purpose
in acting in this particular way. When people speak of the life of
words--as in celebrated books with such titles as _La vie des mots_,
or _Biographies of Words_--they do not always keep in view that a word
has no ‘life’ of its own: it exists only in so far as it is pronounced
or heard or remembered by somebody, and this kind of existence cannot
properly be compared with ‘life’ in the original and proper sense of
that word. The only unimpeachable definition of a word is that it is
a human habit, an habitual act on the part of one human individual
which has, or may have, the effect of evoking some idea in the mind
of another individual. A word thus may be rightly compared with such
an habitual act as taking off one’s hat or raising one’s fingers to
one’s cap: in both cases we have a certain set of muscular activities
which, when seen or heard by somebody else, shows him what is passing
in the mind of the original agent or what he desires to bring to the
consciousness of the other man (or men). The act is individual, but
the interpretation presupposes that the individual forms part of a
community with analogous habits, and a language thus is seen to be one
particular set of human customs of a well-defined social character.
It is indeed possible to speak of ‘life’ in connexion with language
even from this point of view, but it will be in a different sense from
that in which the word was taken by the older school of linguistic
science. I shall try to give a biological or biographical science of
language, but it will be through sketching the linguistic biology
or biography of the speaking individual. I shall give, therefore, a
large part to the way in which a child learns his mother-tongue (Book
II): my conclusions there are chiefly based on the rich material I
have collected during many years from direct observation of many
Danish children, and particularly of my own boy, Frans (see my book
_Nutidssprog hos börn og voxne_, Copenhagen, 1916). Unfortunately, I
have not been able to make first-hand observations with regard to the
speech of English children; the English examples I quote are taken
second-hand either from notes, for which I am obliged to English and
American friends, or from books, chiefly by psychologists. I should be
particularly happy if my remarks could induce some English or American
linguist to take up a systematic study of the speech of children, or
of one child. This study seems to me very fascinating indeed, and a
linguist is sure to notice many things that would be passed by as
uninteresting even by the closest observer among psychologists, but
which may have some bearing on the life and development of language.
Another part of linguistic biology deals with the influence of the
foreigner, and still another with the changes which the individual
is apt independently to introduce into his speech even after he has
fully acquired his mother-tongue. This naturally leads up to the
question whether all these changes introduced by various individuals
do, or do not, follow the same line of direction, and whether mankind
has on the whole moved forward or not in linguistic matters. The
conviction reached through a study of historically accessible periods
of well-known languages is finally shown to throw some light on the
disputed problem of the ultimate origin of human language.
Parts of my theory of sound-change, and especially my objections to
the dogma of blind sound-laws, date back to my very first linguistic
paper (1886); most of the chapters on Decay or Progress and parts
of some of the following chapters, as well as the theory of the
origin of speech, may be considered a new and revised edition of the
general chapters of my _Progress in Language_ (1894). Many of the
ideas contained in this book thus are not new with me; but even if a
reader of my previous works may recognize things which he has seen
before, I hope he will admit that they have been here worked up with
much new material into something like a system, which forms a fairly
comprehensive theory of linguistic development.
Still, I have not been able to compress into this volume the whole
of my philosophy of speech. Considerations of space have obliged
me to exclude the chapters I had first intended to write on the
practical consequences of the ‘energetic’ view of language which I
have throughout maintained; the estimation of linguistic phenomena
implied in that view has bearings on such questions as these: What is
to be considered ‘correct’ or ‘standard’ in matters of pronunciation,
spelling, grammar and idiom? Can (or should) individuals exert
themselves to improve their mother-tongue by enriching it with new
terms and by making it purer, more precise, more fit to express subtle
shades of thought, more easy to handle in speech or in writing, etc.?
(A few hints on such questions may be found in my paper “Energetik
der Sprache” in _Scientia_, 1914.) Is it possible to construct an
artificial language on scientific principles for international use?
(On this question I may here briefly state my conviction that it is
extremely important for the whole of mankind to have such a language,
and that Ido is scientifically and practically very much superior to
all previous attempts, Volapük, Esperanto, Idiom Neutral, Latin sine
flexione, etc. But I have written more at length on that question
elsewhere.) With regard to the system of grammar, the relation of
grammar to logic, and grammatical categories and their definition, I
must refer the reader to _Sprogets Logik_ (Copenhagen, 1913), and to
the first chapter of the second volume of my _Modern English Grammar_
(Heidelberg, 1914), but I shall hope to deal with these questions more
in detail in a future work, to be called, probably, _The Logic of
Grammar_, of which some chapters have been ready in my drawers for some
years and others are in active preparation.
I have prefixed to the theoretical chapters of this work a short survey
of the history of the science of language in order to show how my
problems have been previously treated. In this part (Book I) I have, as
a matter of course, used the excellent works on the subject by Benfey,
Raumer, Delbrück (_Einleitung in das Sprachstudium_, 1st ed., 1880; I
did not see the 5th ed., 1908, till my own chapters on the history of
linguistics were finished), Thomsen, Oertel and Pedersen. But I have in
nearly every case gone to the sources themselves, and have, I think,
found interesting things in some of the early books on linguistics
that have been generally overlooked; I have even pointed out some
writers who had passed into undeserved oblivion. My intention has
been on the whole to throw into relief the great lines of development
rather than to give many details; in judging the first part of my
book it should also be borne in mind that its object primarily is to
serve as an introduction to the problems dealt with in the rest of the
book. Throughout I have tried to look at things with my own eyes, and
accordingly my views on a great many points are different from those
generally accepted; it is my hope that an impartial observer will find
that I have here and there succeeded in distributing light and shade
more justly than my predecessors.
Wherever it has been necessary I have transcribed words phonetically
according to the system of the _Association Phonétique Internationale_,
though without going into too minute distinction of sounds, the object
being, not to teach the exact pronunciation of various languages, but
rather to bring out clearly the insufficiency of the ordinary spelling.
The latter is given throughout in italics, while phonetic symbols
have been inserted in brackets [ ]. I must ask the reader to forgive
inconsistency in such matters as Greek accents, Old English marks of
vowel-length, etc., which I have often omitted as of no importance for
the purpose of this volume.
I must express here my gratitude to the directors of the Carlsbergfond
for kind support of my work. I want to thank also Professor G. C. Moore
Smith, of the University of Sheffield: not only has he sent me the
manuscript of a translation of most of my _Nutidssprog_, which he had
undertaken of his own accord and which served as the basis of Book II,
but he has kindly gone through the whole of this volume, improving and
correcting my English style in many passages. His friendship and the
untiring interest he has always taken in my work have been extremely
valuable to me for a great many years.
OTTO JESPERSEN.
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN,
_June 1921_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 7
ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOK TITLES, ETC. 13
PHONETIC SYMBOLS 16
_BOOK I_
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
CHAPTER
I. BEFORE 1800 19
II. BEGINNING OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 32
III. MIDDLE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 63
IV. END OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 89
_BOOK II_
THE CHILD
V. SOUNDS 103
VI. WORDS 113
VII. GRAMMAR 128
VIII. SOME FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS 140
IX. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHILD ON LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT 161
X. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHILD (_continued_) 172
_BOOK III_
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE WORLD
XI. THE FOREIGNER 191
XII. PIDGIN AND CONGENERS 216
XIII. THE WOMAN 237
XIV. CAUSES OF CHANGE 255
XV. CAUSES OF CHANGE (_continued_) 276
_BOOK IV_
DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE
XVI. ETYMOLOGY 305
XVII. PROGRESS OR DECAY? 319
XVIII. PROGRESS 337
XIX. ORIGIN OF GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS 367
XX. SOUND SYMBOLISM 396
XXI. THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH 412
INDEX 443
ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOK TITLES, ETC.
Bally LV = Ch. Bally, _Le Langage et la Vie_, Genève 1913.
Benfey Gesch = Th. Benfey, _Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft_,
München 1869.
Bleek CG = W. H. I. Bleek, _Comparative Grammar of South African
Languages_, London 1862-69.
Bloomfield SL = L. Bloomfield, _An Introduction to the Study of
Language_, New York 1914.
Bopp C = F. Bopp, _Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache_, Frankfurt
1816.
AC = _Analytical Comparison_ (see ch. ii, § 6).
VG = _Vergleichende Grammatik_, 2te Ausg., Berlin 1857.
Bréal M = M. Bréal, _Mélanges de Mythologie et de Linguistique_, Paris
1882.
Brugmann VG = K. Brugmann, _Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik_,
Strassburg 1886 ff., 2te Ausg., 1897 ff.
KG = _Kurze Vergleichende Grammatik_, Strassburg 1904.
ChE = O. Jespersen, _Chapters on English_, London 1918.
Churchill B = W. Churchill, _Beach-la-Mar_, Washington 1911.
Curtius C = G. Curtius, _Zur Chronologie der indogerm.
Sprachforschung_, Leipzig 1873.
K = _Zur Kritik der neuesten Sprachforschung_, Leipzig 1885.
Dauzat V = A. Dauzat, _La Vie du Langage_, Paris 1910.
Ph = _La Philosophie du Langage_, Paris 1912.
Delbrück E = B. Delbrück, _Einleitung in das Sprachstudium_, Leipzig
1880; 5te Aufl. 1908.
Grfr = _Grundfragen der Sprachforschung_, Strassburg 1901.
E. = English.
EDD = J. Wright, _The English Dialect Dictionary_, Oxford 1898 ff.
ESt = _Englische Studien_.
Feist KI = S. Feist, _Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der
Indogermanen_, Berlin 1913.
Fonetik = O. Jespersen, _Fonetik_, Copenhagen 1897.
Fr. = French.
Gabelentz Spr = G. v. d. Gabelentz, _Die Sprachwissenschaft_, Leipzig
1891.
Gr = _Chinesische Grammatik_, Leipzig 1881.
Ginneken LP = J. v. Ginneken, _Principes de Linguistique
Psychologique_, Amsterdam, Paris 1907.
Glenconner = P. Glenconner, _The Sayings of the Children_, Oxford 1918.
Gr. = Greek.
Greenough and Kittredge W = J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, _Words
and their Ways in English Speech_, London 1902.
Grimm Gr. = J. Grimm, _Deutsche Grammatik_, 2te Ausg., Göttingen 1822.
GDS = _Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_, 4te Aufl., Leipzig 1880.
GRM = _Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift_.
GS = O. Jespersen, _Growth and Structure of the English Language_, 3rd
ed., Leipzig 1919.
Hilmer Sch = H. Hilmer, _Schallnachahmung, Wortschöpfung u.
Bedeutungswandel_, Halle 1914.
Hirt GDS = H. Hirt, _Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_, München 1919.
Idg = _Die Indogermanen_, Strassburg 1905-7.
Humboldt Versch = W. v. Humboldt, _Verschiedenheit des menschlichen
Sprachbaues_ (number of pages as in the original edition).
IF = _Indogermanische Forschungen_.
KZ = Kuhn’s _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung_.
Lasch S = R. Lasch, _Sondersprachen u. ihre Entstehung_, Wien 1907.
LPh = O. Jespersen, _Lehrbuch der Phonetik_, 3te Aufl., Leipzig 1920.
Madvig 1857 = J. N. Madvig, _De grammatische Betegnelser_, Copenhagen
1857.
Kl = _Kleine philologische Schriften_, Leipzig 1875.
ME. = Middle English.
MEG = O. Jespersen, _Modern English Grammar_, Heidelberg 1909, 1914.
Meillet DI = A. Meillet, _Les Dialectes Indo-Européens_, Paris 1908.
Germ. = _Caractères généraux des Langues Germaniques_, Paris 1917.
Gr = _Aperçu d’une Histoire de la Langue Grecque_, Paris 1913.
LI = _Introduction à l’étude comp. des Langues Indo-Européennes_, 2e
éd., Paris 1908.
Meinhof Ham = C. Meinhof, _Die hamitischen Sprachen_, Hamburg 1912.
MSA = _Die moderne Sprachforschung in Afrika_, Berlin 1910.
Meringer L = R. Meringer, _Aus dem Leben der Sprache_, Berlin 1908.
Misteli = F. Misteli, _Charakteristik der haupts. Typen des
Sprachbaues_, Berlin 1893.
MSL = _Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris_.
Fr. Müller Gr = Friedrich Müller, _Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft_,
Wien 1876 ff.
Max Müller Ch = F. Max Müller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. iv,
London 1875.
NED = _A New English Dictionary_, by Murray, etc., Oxford 1884 ff.
Noreen UL = A. Noreen, _Abriss der urgermanischen Lautlehre_,
Strassburg 1894.
VS = _Vårt Språk_, Lund 1903 ff.
Nyrop Gr = Kr. Nyrop, _Grammaire Historique de la Langue Française_,
Copenhagen 1914 ff.
OE. = Old English (Anglo-Saxon).
Oertel = H. Oertel, _Lectures on the Study of Language_, New York 1901.
OFr. = Old French.
ON. = Old Norse.
Passy Ch = P. Passy, _Les Changements Phonétiques_, Paris 1890.
Paul P = H. Paul, _Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte_, 4te Aufl., Halle
1909.
Gr = _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_.
PBB = _Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_ (Paul u. Braune).
Pedersen GKS = H. Pedersen, _Vergl. Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen_,
Göttingen 1909.
PhG = O. Jespersen, _Phonetische Grundfragen_, Leipzig 1904.
Porzezinski Spr = V. Porzezinski, _Einleitung in die
Sprachwissenschaft_, Leipzig 1910.
Progr. = O. Jespersen, _Progress in Language_, London 1894.
Rask P = R. Rask [Prisskrift] _Undersögelse om det gamle Nordiske
Sprogs Oprindelse_, Copenhagen 1818.
SA = _Samlede Afhandlinger_, Copenhagen 1834.
Raumer Gesch = R. v. Raumer, _Geschichte der germanischen Philologie_,
München 1870.
Ronjat = J. Ronjat, _Le Développement du Langage chez un Enfant
Bilingue_, Paris 1913.
Sandfeld Jensen S = Kr. Sandfeld Jensen, _Sprogvidenskaben_, Copenhagen
1913.
Sprw = _Die Sprachwissenschaft_, Leipzig 1915.
Saussure LG = F. de Saussure, _Cours de Linguistique Générale_,
Lausanne 1916.
Sayce P = A. H. Sayce, _Principles of Comparative Philology_, 2nd ed.,
London 1875.
S = _Introduction to the Science of Language_, London 1880.
Scherer GDS = W. Scherer, _Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_,
Berlin 1878.
Schleicher I, II = A. Schleicher, _Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen_,
I-II, Bonn 1848, 1850.
Bed. = _Die Bedeutung der Sprache_, Weimar 1865.
C = _Compendium der vergl. Grammatik_, 4te Aufl., Weimar 1876.
D = _Die deutsche Sprache_, Stuttgart 1860.
Darw. = _Die Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft_, Weimar
1873.
NV = _Nomen und Verbum_, Leipzig 1865.
Schuchardt SlD = H. Schuchardt, _Slawo-Deutsches u.
Slawo-Italienisches_, Graz 1885.
KS = _Kreolische Studien_ (Wien, Akademie).
Simonyi US = S. Simonyi, _Die Ungarische Sprache_, Strassburg 1907.
Skt. = Sanskrit.
Sommer Lat. = F. Sommer, _Handbuch der latein. Laut- und Formenlehre_,
Heidelberg 1902.
Stern = Clara and William Stern, _Die Kindersprache_, Leipzig 1907.
Stoffel Int. = C. Stoffel, _Intensives and Down-toners_, Heidelberg
1901.
Streitberg Gesch = W. Streitberg, _Geschichte der indogerm.
Sprachwissenschaft_, Strassburg 1917.
Urg = _Urgermanische Grammatik_, Heidelberg 1896.
Sturtevant LCh = E. H. Sturtevant, _Linguistic Change_, Chicago 1917.
Sütterlin WSG = L. Sütterlin, _Das Wesen der sprachlichen Gebilde_,
Heidelberg 1902.
WW = _Werden und Wesen der Sprache_, Leipzig 1913.
Sweet CP = H. Sweet, _Collected Papers_, Oxford 1913.
H = _The History of Language_, London 1900.
PS = _The Practical Study of Languages_, London 1899.
Tegnér SM = E. Tegnér, _Språkets makt öfver tanken_, Stockholm 1880.
Verner = K. Verner, _Afhandlinger og Breve_, Copenhagen 1903.
Wechssler L = E. Wechssler, _Giebt es Lautgesetze?_ Halle 1900.
Whitney G = W. D. Whitney, _Life and Growth of Language_, London 1875.
L = _Language and the Study of Language_, London 1868.
M = _Max Müller and the Science of Language_, New York 1892.
OLS = _Oriental and Linguistic Studies_, New York 1873-4.
Wundt S = W. Wundt, _Die Sprache_, Leipzig 1900.
PHONETIC SYMBOLS
' stands before the stressed syllable.
· indicates length of the preceding sound.
[a·] as in _a_lms.
[ai] as in _i_ce.
[au] as in h_ou_se.
[æ] as in h_a_t.
[ei] as in h_a_te.
[ɛ] as in c_a_re; Fr. t_e_l.
[ə] indistinct vowels.
[i] as in f_i_ll; Fr. qu_i_.
[i·] as in f_ee_l; Fr. f_i_lle.
[o] as in Fr. s_eau_.
[ou] as in s_o_.
[ɔ] open _o_-sounds.
[u] as in f_u_ll; Fr. f_ou_.
[u·] as in f_oor_l; Fr. ép_ou_se.
[y] as in Fr. v_u_.
[ʌ] as in c_u_t.
[ø] as in Fr. f_eu_.
[œ] as in Fr. s_œu_r.
[~] French nasalization.
[c] as in G. i_ch_.
[x] as in G., Sc. lo_ch_.
[ð] as in _th_is.
[j] as in _y_ou.
[þ] as in _th_ick.
[ʃ] as in _sh_e.
[ʒ] as in mea_s_ure.
[’] in Russian palatalization, in Danish glottal stop.
_BOOK I_
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
BEFORE 1800
§ 1. Antiquity. § 2. Middle Ages and Renaissance. § 3.
Eighteenth-century Speculation. Herder. § 4. Jenisch.
I.--§ 1. Antiquity.
The science of language began, tentatively and approximately, when
the minds of men first turned to problems like these: How is it that
people do not speak everywhere the same language? How were words
first created? What is the relation between a name and the thing it
stands for? Why is such and such a person, or such and such a thing,
called _this_ and not _that_? The first answers to these questions,
like primitive answers to other riddles of the universe, were largely
theological: God, or one particular god, had created language, or
God led all animals to the first man in order that he might give
them names. Thus in the Old Testament the diversity of languages is
explained as a punishment from God for man’s crimes and presumption.
These were great and general problems, but the minds of the early
Jews were also occupied with smaller and more particular problems of
language, as when etymological interpretations were given of such
personal names as were not immediately self-explanatory.
The same predilection for etymology, and a similar primitive kind of
etymology, based entirely on a more or less accidental similarity of
sound and easily satisfied with any fanciful connexion in sense, is
found abundantly in Greek writers and in their Latin imitators. But
to the speculative minds of Greek thinkers the problem that proved
most attractive was the general and abstract one, Are words natural
and necessary expressions of the notions underlying them, or are they
merely arbitrary and conventional signs for notions that might have
been equally well expressed by any other sounds? Endless discussions
were carried on about this question, as we see particularly from
Plato’s _Kratylos_, and no very definite result was arrived at, nor
could any be expected so long as one language only formed the basis of
the discussion--even in our own days, after a century of comparative
philology, the question still remains an open one. In Greece, the
two catchwords _phúsei_ (by nature) and _thései_ (by convention) for
centuries divided philosophers and grammarians into two camps, while
some, like Sokrates in Plato’s dialogue, though admitting that in
language as actually existing there was no natural connexion between
word and thing, still wished that an ideal language might be created
in which words and things would be tied together in a perfectly
rational way--thus paving the way for Bishop Wilkins and other modern
constructors of philosophical languages.
Such abstract and _a priori_ speculations, however stimulating and
clever, hardly deserve the name of science, as this term is understood
nowadays. Science presupposes careful observation and systematic
classification of facts, and of that in the old Greek writers on
language we find very little. The earliest masters in linguistic
observation and classification were the old Indian grammarians. The
language of the old sacred hymns had become in many points obsolete,
but religion required that not one iota of these revered texts should
be altered, and a scrupulous oral tradition kept them unchanged from
generation to generation in every minute particular. This led to a
wonderfully exact analysis of speech sounds, in which every detail
of articulation was carefully described, and to a no less admirable
analysis of grammatical forms, which were arranged systematically
and described in a concise and highly ingenious, though artificial,
terminology. The whole manner of treatment was entirely different
from the methods of Western grammarians, and when the works of Panini
and other Sanskrit grammarians were first made known to Europeans in
the nineteenth century, they profoundly influenced our own linguistic
science, as witnessed, among other things, by the fact that some of the
Indian technical terms are still extensively used, for instance those
describing various kinds of compound nouns.
In Europe grammatical science was slowly and laboriously developed
in Greece and later in Rome. Aristotle laid the foundation of the
division of words into “parts of speech” and introduced the notion
of case (_ptôsis_). His work in this connexion was continued by the
Stoics, many of whose grammatical distinctions and terms are still
in use, the latter in their Latin dress, which embodies some curious
mistakes, as when _genikḗ_, “the case of kind or species,” was rendered
_genitivus_, as if it meant “the case of origin,” or, worse still, when
_aitiatikḗ_, “the case of object,” was rendered _accusativus_, as if
from _aitiáomai_, ‘I accuse.’ In later times the philological school of
Alexandria was particularly important, the object of research being the
interpretation of the old poets, whose language was no longer instantly
intelligible. Details of flexion and of the meaning of words were
described and referred to the two categories of analogy or regularity
and anomaly or irregularity, but real insight into the nature of
language made very little progress either with the Alexandrians or
with their Roman inheritors, and etymology still remained in the
childlike stage.
I.--§ 2. Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Nor did linguistic science advance in the Middle Ages. The chief thing
then was learning Latin as the common language of the Church and of
what little there was of civilization generally; but Latin was not
studied in a scientific spirit, and the various vernacular languages,
which one by one blossomed out into languages of literature, even less
so.
The Renaissance in so far brought about a change in this, as it widened
the horizon, especially by introducing the study of Greek. It also
favoured grammatical studies through the stress it laid on correct
Latin as represented in the best period of classical literature: it now
became the ambition of humanists in all countries to write Latin like
Cicero. In the following centuries we witness a constantly deepening
interest in the various living languages of Europe, owing to the
growing importance of native literatures and to increasing facilities
of international traffic and communication in general. The most
important factor here was, of course, the invention of printing, which
rendered it incomparably more easy than formerly to obtain the means
of studying foreign languages. It should be noted also that in those
times the prevalent theological interest made it a much more common
thing than nowadays for ordinary scholars to have some knowledge of
Hebrew as the original language of the Old Testament. The acquaintance
with a language so different in type from those spoken in Europe in
many ways stimulated the interest in linguistic studies, though on
the other hand it proved a fruitful source of error, because the
position of the Semitic family of languages was not yet understood, and
because Hebrew was thought to be the language spoken in Paradise, and
therefore imagined to be the language from which all other languages
were descended. All kinds of fanciful similarities between Hebrew and
European languages were taken as proofs of the origin of the latter;
every imaginable permutation of sounds (or rather of letters) was
looked upon as possible so long as there was a slight connexion in
the sense of the two words compared, and however incredible it may
seem nowadays, the fact that Hebrew was written from right to left,
while we in our writing proceed from left to right, was considered
justification enough for the most violent transposition of letters in
etymological explanations. And yet all these flighty and whimsical
comparisons served perhaps in some measure to pave the way for a more
systematic treatment of etymology through collecting vast stores of
words from which sober and critical minds might select those instances
of indubitable connexion on which a sound science of etymology could
eventually be constructed.
The discovery and publication of texts in the old Gothonic (Germanic)
languages, especially Wulfila’s Gothic translation of the Bible,
compared with which Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old German and Old
Icelandic texts were of less, though by no means of despicable,
account, paved the way for historical treatment of this important
group of languages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But
on the whole, the interest in the history of languages in those days
was small, and linguistic thinkers thought it more urgent to establish
vast treasuries of languages as actually spoken than to follow the
development of any one language from century to century. Thus we
see that the great philosopher Leibniz, who took much interest in
linguistic pursuits and to whom we owe many judicious utterances on the
possibility of a universal language, instigated Peter the Great to have
vocabularies and specimens collected of all the various languages of
his vast empire. To this initiative taken by Leibniz, and to the great
personal interest that the Empress Catherine II took in these studies,
we owe, directly or indirectly, the great repertories of all languages
then known, first Pallas’s _Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia
comparativa_ (1786-87), then Hervas’s _Catálogo de las lenguas de las
naziones conocidas_ (1800-5), and finally Adelung’s _Mithridates oder
allgemeine Sprachenkunde_ (1806-17). In spite of their inevitable
shortcomings, their uncritical and unequal treatment of many languages,
the preponderance of lexical over grammatical information, and the
use of biblical texts as their sole connected illustrations, these
great works exercised a mighty influence on the linguistic thought
and research of the time, and contributed very much to the birth of
the linguistic science of the nineteenth century. It should not be
forgotten, moreover, that Hervas was one of the first to recognize the
superior importance of grammar to vocabulary for deciding questions of
relationship between languages.
It will be well here to consider the manner in which languages and
the teaching of languages were generally viewed during the centuries
preceding the rise of Comparative Linguistics. The chief language
taught was Latin; the first and in many cases the only grammar with
which scholars came into contact was Latin grammar. No wonder therefore
that grammar and Latin grammar came in the minds of most people to be
synonyms. Latin grammar played an enormous rôle in the schools, to the
exclusion of many subjects (the pupil’s own native language, science,
history, etc.) which we are now beginning to think more essential for
the education of the young. The traditional term for ‘secondary school’
was in England ‘grammar school’ and in Denmark ‘latinskole,’ and the
reason for both expressions was obviously the same. Here, however, we
are concerned with this privileged position of Latin grammar only in so
far as it influenced the treatment of languages in general. It did so
in more ways than one.
Latin was a language with a wealth of flexional forms, and in
describing other languages the same categories as were found in Latin
were applied as a matter of course, even where there was nothing in
these other languages which really corresponded to what was found in
Latin. In English and Danish grammars paradigms of noun declension
were given with such cases as accusative, dative and ablative, in
spite of the fact that no separate forms for these cases had existed
for centuries. All languages were indiscriminately saddled with the
elaborate Latin system of tenses and moods in the verbs, and by means
of such Procrustean methods the actual facts of many languages were
distorted and misrepresented. Discriminations which had no foundation
in reality were nevertheless insisted on, while discriminations which
happened to be non-existent in Latin were apt to be overlooked. The
mischief consequent on this unfortunate method of measuring all
grammar after the pattern of Latin grammar has not even yet completely
disappeared, and it is even now difficult to find a single grammar of
any language that is not here and there influenced by the Latin bias.
Latin was chiefly taught as a written language (witness the totally
different manner in which Latin was pronounced in the different
countries, the consequence being that as early as the sixteenth century
French and English scholars were unable to understand each other’s
spoken Latin). This led to the almost exclusive occupation with letters
instead of sounds. The fact that all language is primarily spoken
and only secondarily written down, that the real life of language is
in the mouth and ear and not in the pen and eye, was overlooked, to
the detriment of a real understanding of the essence of language and
linguistic development; and very often where the spoken form of a
language was accessible scholars contented themselves with a reading
knowledge. In spite of many efforts, some of which go back to the
sixteenth century, but which did not become really powerful till the
rise of modern phonetics in the nineteenth century, the fundamental
significance of spoken as opposed to written language has not yet been
fully appreciated by all linguists. There are still too many writers
on philological questions who have evidently never tried to think in
sounds instead of thinking in letters and symbols, and who would
probably be sorely puzzled if they were to pronounce all the forms that
come so glibly to their pens. What Sweet wrote in 1877 in the preface
to his _Handbook of Phonetics_ is perhaps less true now than it was
then, but it still contains some elements of truth. “Many instances,”
he said, “might be quoted of the way in which important philological
facts and laws have been passed over or misrepresented through the
observer’s want of phonetic training. Schleicher’s failing to observe
the Lithuanian accents, or even to comprehend them when pointed out
by Kurschat, is a striking instance.” But there can be no doubt that
the way in which Latin has been for centuries made the basis of all
linguistic instruction is largely responsible for the preponderance of
eye-philology to ear-philology in the history of our science.
We next come to a point which to my mind is very important, because it
concerns something which has had, and has justly had, enduring effects
on the manner in which language, and especially grammar, is viewed and
taught to this day. What was the object of teaching Latin in the Middle
Ages and later? Certainly not the purely scientific one of imparting
knowledge for knowledge’s own sake, apart from any practical use or
advantage, simply in order to widen the spiritual horizon and to obtain
the joy of pure intellectual understanding. For such a purpose some
people with scientific leanings may here and there take up the study
of some out-of-the-way African or American idiom. But the reasons for
teaching and learning Latin were not so idealistic. Latin was not
even taught and learnt solely with the purpose of opening the doors
to the old classical or to the more recent religious literature in
that language, but chiefly, and in the first instance, because Latin
was a practical and highly important means of communication between
educated people. One had to learn not only to read Latin, but also
to write Latin, if one wanted to maintain no matter how humble a
position in the republic of learning or in the hierarchy of the Church.
Consequently, grammar was not (even primarily) the science of how words
were inflected and how forms were used by the old Romans, but chiefly
and essentially the art of inflecting words and of using the forms
yourself, if you wanted to write correct Latin. This you must say, and
these faults you must avoid--such were the lessons imparted in the
schools. Grammar was not a set of facts observed but of rules to be
observed, and of paradigms, i.e. of patterns, to be followed. Sometimes
this character of grammatical instruction is expressly indicated in the
form of the precepts given, as in such memorial verses as this: “Tolle
_-me_, _-mi_, _-mu_, _-mis_, Si declinare _domus_ vis!” In other words,
grammar was _prescriptive_ rather than _descriptive_.
The current definition of grammar, therefore, was “ars bene dicendi et
bene scribendi,” “l’art de bien dire et de bien écrire,” the art of
speaking and writing correctly. J. C. Scaliger said, “Grammatici unus
finis est recte loqui.” To attain to correct diction (‘good grammar’)
and to avoid faulty diction (‘bad grammar’), such were the two objects
of grammatical teaching. Now, the same point of view, in which the two
elements of ‘art’ and of ‘correctness’ entered so largely, was applied
not only to Latin, but to other languages as well, when the various
vernaculars came to be treated grammatically.
The vocabulary, too, was treated from the same point of view. This
is especially evident in the case of the dictionaries issued by the
French and Italian Academies. They differ from dictionaries as now
usually compiled in being not collections of all and any words their
authors could get hold of within the limits of the language concerned,
but in being selections of words deserving the recommendations of
the best arbiters of taste and therefore fit to be used in the
highest literature by even the most elegant or fastidious writers.
Dictionaries thus understood were less descriptions of actual usage
than prescriptions for the best usage of words.
The normative way of viewing language is fraught with some great
dangers which can only be avoided through a comprehensive knowledge of
the historic development of languages and of the general conditions of
linguistic psychology. Otherwise, the tendency everywhere is to draw
too narrow limits for what is allowable or correct. In many cases one
form, or one construction, only is recognized, even where two or more
are found in actual speech; the question which is to be selected as
the only good form comes to be decided too often by individual fancy
or predilection, where no scientific tests can yet be applied, and
thus a form may often be proscribed which from a less narrow point
of view might have appeared just as good as, or even better than,
the one preferred in the official grammar or dictionary. In other
instances, where two forms were recognized, the grammarian wanted to
give rules for their discrimination, and sometimes on the basis of
a totally inadequate induction he would establish nice distinctions
not really warranted by actual usage--distinctions which subsequent
generations had to learn at school with the sweat of their brows and
which were often considered most important in spite of their intrinsic
insignificance. Such unreal or half-real subtle distinctions are the
besetting sin of French grammarians from the ‘grand siècle’ onwards,
while they have played a much less considerable part in England, where
people have been on the whole more inclined to let things slide as best
they may on the ‘laissez faire’ principle, and where no Academy was
ever established to regulate language. But even in English rules are
not unfrequently given in schools and in newspaper offices which are
based on narrow views and hasty generalizations. Because a preposition
at the end of a sentence may in some instances be clumsy or unwieldy,
this is no reason why a final preposition should always and under all
circumstances be considered a grave error. But it is of course easier
for the schoolmaster to give an absolute and inviolable rule once
and for all than to study carefully all the various considerations
that might render a qualification desirable. If the ordinary books
on _Common Faults in Writing and Speaking English_ and similar works
in other languages have not even now assimilated the teachings of
Comparative and Historic Linguistics, it is no wonder that the
grammarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with whom
we are here concerned, should be in many ways guided by narrow and
insufficient views on what ought to determine correctness of speech.
Here also the importance given to the study of Latin was sometimes
harmful; too much was settled by a reference to Latin rules, even where
the modern languages really followed rules of their own that were
opposed to those of Latin. The learning of Latin grammar was supposed
to be, and to some extent really was, a schooling in logic, as the
strict observance of the rules of any foreign language is bound to be;
but the consequence of this was that when questions of grammatical
correctness were to be settled, too much importance was often given
to purely logical considerations, and scholars were sometimes apt
to determine what was to be called ‘logical’ in language according
to whether it was or was not in conformity with Latin usage. This
disposition, joined with the unavoidable conservatism of mankind, and
more particularly of teachers, would in many ways prove a hindrance to
natural developments in a living speech. But we must again take up the
thread of the history of linguistic theory.
I.--§ 3. Eighteenth-century Speculation. Herder.
The problem of a natural origin of language exercised some of the
best-known thinkers of the eighteenth century. Rousseau imagined the
first men setting themselves more or less deliberately to frame a
language by an agreement similar to (or forming part of) the _contrat
social_ which according to him was the basis of all social order. There
is here the obvious difficulty of imagining how primitive men who had
been previously without any speech came to feel the want of language,
and how they could agree on what sound was to represent what idea
without having already some means of communication. Rousseau’s whole
manner of putting and of viewing the problem is evidently too crude to
be of any real importance in the history of linguistic science.
Condillac is much more sensible when he tries to imagine how a
speechless man and a speechless woman might be led quite naturally to
acquire something like language, starting with instinctive cries and
violent gestures called forth by strong emotions. Such cries would come
to be associated with elementary feelings, and new sounds might come
to indicate various objects if produced repeatedly in connexion with
gestures showing what objects the speaker wanted to call attention to.
If these two first speaking beings had as yet very little power to vary
their sounds, their child would have a more flexible tongue, and would
therefore be able to, and be impelled to, produce some new sounds, the
meaning of which his parents would guess at, and which they in their
turn would imitate; thus gradually a greater and greater number of
words would come into existence, generation after generation working
painfully to enrich and develop what had been already acquired, until
it finally became a real language.
The profoundest thinker on these problems in the eighteenth century
was Johann Gottfried Herder, who, though he did little or nothing in
the way of scientific research, yet prepared the rise of linguistic
science. In his prize essay on the _Origin of Language_ (1772) Herder
first vigorously and successfully attacks the orthodox view of his
age--a view which had been recently upheld very emphatically by one
Süssmilch--that language could not have been invented by man, but
was a direct gift from God. One of Herder’s strongest arguments is
that if language had been framed by God and by Him instilled into the
mind of man, we should expect it to be much more logical, much more
imbued with pure reason than it is as an actual matter of fact. Much
in all existing languages is so chaotic and ill-arranged that it could
not be God’s work, but must come from the hand of man. On the other
hand, Herder does not think that language was really ‘invented’ by
man--although this was the word used by the Berlin Academy when opening
the competition in which Herder’s essay gained the prize. Language
was not deliberately framed by man, but sprang of necessity from his
innermost nature; the genesis of language according to him is due to
an impulse similar to that of the mature embryo pressing to be born.
Man, in the same way as all animals, gives vent to his feelings in
tones, but this is not enough; it is impossible to trace the origin of
human language to these emotional cries alone. However much they may be
refined and fixed, without understanding they can never become human,
conscious language. Man differs from brute animals not in degree or in
the addition of new powers, but in a totally different direction and
development of all powers. Man’s inferiority to animals in strength and
sureness of instinct is compensated by his wider sphere of attention;
the whole disposition of his mind as an unanalysable entity constitutes
the impassable barrier between him and the lower animals. Man, then,
shows conscious reflexion when among the ocean of sensations that
rush into his soul through all the senses he singles out one wave and
arrests it, as when, seeing a lamb, he looks for a distinguishing mark
and finds it in the bleating, so that next time when he recognizes the
same animal he imitates the sound of bleating, and thereby creates a
name for that animal. Thus the lamb to him is ‘the bleater,’ and nouns
are created from verbs, whereas, according to Herder, if language had
been the creation of God it would inversely have begun with nouns,
as that would have been the logically ideal order of procedure.
Another characteristic trait of primitive languages is the crossing
of various shades of feeling and the necessity of expressing thoughts
through strong, bold metaphors, presenting the most motley picture.
“The genetic cause lies in the poverty of the human mind and in the
flowing together of the emotions of a primitive human being.” Another
consequence is the wealth of synonyms in primitive language; “alongside
of real poverty it has the most unnecessary superfluity.”
When Herder here speaks of primitive or ‘original’ languages, he is
thinking of Oriental languages, and especially of Hebrew. “We should
never forget,” says Edward Sapir,[1] “that Herder’s time-perspective
was necessarily very different from ours. While we unconcernedly take
tens or even hundreds of thousands of years in which to allow the
products of human civilization to develop, Herder was still compelled
to operate with the less than six thousand years that orthodoxy
stingily doled out. To us the two or three thousand years that
separate our language from the Old Testament Hebrew seems a negligible
quantity, when speculating on the origin of language in general;
to Herder, however, the Hebrew and the Greek of Homer seemed to be
appreciably nearer the oldest conditions than our vernaculars--hence
his exaggeration of their _ursprünglichkeit_.”
Herder’s chief influence on the science of speech, to my mind, is not
derived directly from the ideas contained in his essay on the actual
origin of speech, but rather indirectly through the whole of his life’s
work. He had a very strong sense of the value of everything that had
grown naturally (das naturwüchsige); he prepared the minds of his
countrymen for the manysided receptiveness of the Romanticists, who
translated and admired the popular poetry of a great many countries,
which had hitherto been _terræ incognitæ_; and he was one of the first
to draw attention to the great national value of his own country’s
medieval literature and its folklore, and thus was one of the spiritual
ancestors of Grimm. He sees the close connexion that exists between
language and primitive poetry, or that kind of spontaneous singing
that characterizes the childhood or youth of mankind, and which is
totally distinct from the artificial poetry of later ages. But to him
each language is not only the instrument of literature, but itself
literature and poetry. A nation speaks its soul in the words it
uses. Herder admires his own mother-tongue, which to him is perhaps
inferior to Greek, but superior to its neighbours. The combinations of
consonants give it a certain measured pace; it does not rush forward,
but walks with the firm carriage of a German. The nice gradation of
vowels mitigates the force of the consonants, and the numerous spirants
make the German speech pleasant and endearing. Its syllables are rich
and firm, its phrases are stately, and its idiomatic expressions are
emphatic and serious. Still in some ways the present German language
is degenerate if compared with that of Luther, and still more with
that of the Suabian Emperors, and much therefore remains to be done
in the way of disinterring and revivifying the powerful expressions
now lost. Through ideas like these Herder not only exercised a strong
influence on Goethe and the Romanticists, but also gave impulses to
the linguistic studies of the following generation, and caused many
younger men to turn from the well-worn classics to fields of research
previously neglected.
I.--§ 4. Jenisch.
Where questions of correct language or of the best usage are dealt
with, or where different languages are compared with regard to their
efficiency or beauty, as is done very often, though more often in
dilettante conversation or in casual remarks in literary works than
in scientific linguistic disquisitions, it is no far cry to the
question, What would an ideal language be like? But such is the
matter-of-factness of modern scientific thought, that probably no
scientific Academy in our own days would think of doing what the
Berlin Academy did in 1794 when it offered a prize for the best essay
on the ideal of a perfect language and a comparison of the best-known
languages of Europe as tested by the standard of such an ideal. A
Berlin pastor, D. Jenisch, won the prize, and in 1796 brought out
his book under the title _Philosophisch-kritische vergleichung und
würdigung von vierzehn ältern und neuern sprachen Europens_--a book
which is even now well worth reading, the more so because its subject
has been all but completely neglected in the hundred and twenty years
that have since intervened. In the Introduction the author has the
following passage, which might be taken as the motto of Wilhelm v.
Humboldt, Steinthal, Finck and Byrne, who do not, however, seem to
have been inspired by Jenisch: “In language the whole intellectual and
moral essence of a man is to some extent revealed. ‘Speak, and you are’
is rightly said by the Oriental. The language of the natural man is
savage and rude, that of the cultured man is elegant and polished. As
the Greek was subtle in thought and sensuously refined in feeling--as
the Roman was serious and practical rather than speculative--as the
Frenchman is popular and sociable--as the Briton is profound and the
German philosophic--so are also the languages of each of these nations.”
Jenisch then goes on to say that language as the organ for
communicating our ideas and feelings accomplishes its end if it
represents idea and feeling according to the actual want or need of
the mind at the given moment. We have to examine in each case the
following essential qualities of the languages compared, (1) richness,
(2) energy or emphasis, (3) clearness, and (4) euphony. Under the head
of richness we are concerned not only with the number of words, first
for material objects, then for spiritual and abstract notions, but
also with the ease with which new words can be formed (lexikalische
bildsamkeit). The energy of a language is shown in its lexicon and in
its grammar (simplicity of grammatical structure, absence of articles,
etc.), but also in “the characteristic energy of the nation and its
original writers.” Clearness and definiteness in the same way are shown
in vocabulary and grammar, especially in a regular and natural syntax.
Euphony, finally, depends not only on the selection of consonants and
vowels utilized in the language, but on their harmonious combination,
the general impression of the language being more important than any
details capable of being analysed.
These, then, are the criteria by which Greek and Latin and a number of
living languages are compared and judged. The author displays great
learning and a sound practical knowledge of many languages, and his
remarks on the advantages and shortcomings of these are on the whole
judicious, though often perhaps too much stress is laid on the literary
merits of great writers, which have really no intrinsic connexion
with the value of a language as such. It depends to a great extent on
accidental circumstances whether a language has been or has not been
used in elevated literature, and its merits should be estimated, so far
as this is possible, independently of the perfection of its literature.
Jenisch’s prejudice in that respect is shown, for instance, when
he says (p. 36) that the endeavours of Hickes are entirely futile,
when he tries to make out regular declensions and conjugations in the
barbarous language of Wulfila’s translation of the Bible. But otherwise
Jenisch is singularly free from prejudices, as shown by a great number
of passages in which other languages are praised at the expense of
his own. Thus, on p. 396, he declares German to be the most repellent
contrast to that most supple modern language, French, on account of
its unnatural word-order, its eternally trailing article, its want of
participial constructions, and its interminable auxiliaries (as in ‘ich
werde geliebt werden, ich würde geliebt worden sein,’ etc.), with the
frequent separation of these auxiliaries from the main verb through
extraneous intermediate words, all of which gives to German something
incredibly awkward, which to the reader appears as lengthy and diffuse
and to the writer as inconvenient and intractable. It is not often
that we find an author appraising his own language with such severe
impartiality, and I have given the passage also to show what kind of
problems confront the man who wishes to compare the relative value of
languages as wholes. Jenisch’s view here forms a striking contrast to
Herder’s appreciation of their common mother-tongue.
Jenisch’s book does not seem to have been widely read by
nineteenth-century scholars, who took up totally different problems.
Those few who read it were perhaps inclined to say with S. Lefmann (see
his book on Franz Bopp, Nachtrag, 1897, p. xi) that it is difficult to
decide which was the greater fool, the one who put this problem or the
one who tried to answer it. This attitude, however, towards problems
of valuation in the matter of languages is neither just nor wise,
though it is perhaps easy to see how students of comparative grammar
were by the very nature of their study led to look down upon those
who compared languages from the point of view of æsthetic or literary
merits. Anyhow, it seems to me no small merit to have been the first
to treat such problems as these, which are generally answered in an
off-hand way according to a loose general judgement, so as to put them
on a scientific footing by examining in detail what it is that makes
us more or less instinctively prefer one language, or one turn or
expression in a language, and thus lay the foundation of that inductive
æsthetic theory of language which has still to be developed in a truly
scientific spirit.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See his essay on Herder’s “Ursprung der sprache” in _Modern
Philology_, 5. 117 (1907).