A special subdivision of secretion comprises those cases in which a
suffix takes over some sound or sounds from words to which it was
added. Clear instances are found in French, where in consequence of the
mutescence of a final consonant some suffixes to the popular instinct
must seem to begin with a consonant, though originally this did not
belong to the suffix. Thus _laitier_, at first formed from _lait_
+ _ier_, now came to be apprehended as = _lai(t)_ + _tier_, and
_cabaretier_ as _cabare(t)_ + _tier_, and the new suffix was then
used to form such new words as _bijoutier_, _ferblantier_, _cafetier_
and others. In the same way we have _tabatière_, where we should
expect _tabaquière_, and the predilection for the extended form of the
suffix is evidently strengthened by the syllable division in frequent
formations like _ren-tier_, _por-tier_, _por-tière_, _charpen-tier_.
In old Gothonic we have similar extensions of suffixes, when instead
of _-ing_ we get _-ling_, starting from words like OHG. _ediling_ from
_edili_, ON. _vesling_ from _vesall_, OE. _lytling_ from _lytel_,
etc. Consequently we have in English quite a number of words with the
extended ending: _duckling_, _gosling_, _hireling_, _underling_, etc.
In Gothic some words formed with _-assus_, such as _þiudin-assus_
‘kingdom,’ were apprehended as formed with _-nassus_, and in all the
related languages the suffix is only known with the initial _n_; thus
in E. _-ness_: _hardness_, _happiness_, _eagerness_, etc.; G. _-keit_
with its _k_ from adjectives in _-ic_ has already been mentioned (376).
From _criticism_, _Scotticism_, we have _witti-cism_, and Milton has
_witticaster_ on the analogy of _criticaster_, where the suffix of
course is _-aster_, as in _poetaster_. Instead of _-ist_ we also find
in some cases _-nist_: _tobacconist_, _lutenist_ (cf. _botan-ist_,
_mechan-ist_).
To form a new word it is often sufficient that some existing word is
felt in a vague way to be made up of something + an ending, the latter
being subsequently added on to another word. In Fr. _mérovingien_ the
_v_ of course is legitimate, as the adjective is derived from Mérovée,
Merowig, but this word was made the starting-point for the word
designating the succeeding dynasty: _carlovingien_, where _v_ is simply
taken over as part of the suffix; nowadays historians try to be more
‘correct’ and prefer the adjective _carolingien_, which was unknown to
Littré. _Oligarchy_ is _olig_ + _archy_, but for the opposite notion
the word _poligarchy_ or _polygarchy_ was framed from _poly_ and the
last two syllables of _oli-garchy_, and though now scholars have
made _polyarchy_ the usual form, the word with the intrusive _g_ was
the common form two hundred years ago in English, and corresponding
forms are found in French, Spanish and other languages. _Judgmatical_
is made on the pattern of _dogmatical_, though there the stem is
_dogmat-_. In jocular German _schwachmatikus_ ‘valetudinarian,’ we have
the same suffix with a different colouring, taken from _rheumatikus_
(thus also Dan. _svagmatiker_). Swift does not hesitate to speak of a
_sextumvirate_, which suggests _triumvirate_ better than _sexvirate_
would have done; and Bernard Shaw once writes “his equipage (or
autopage)”--evidently starting from the popular, but erroneous, belief
that _equipage_ is derived from Lat. _equus_ and then dividing the
word _equi_ + _page_. Cf. _Scillonian_ from _Scilly_ on account of
_Devonian_ as if this were _Dev_ + _onian_ instead of _Devon_ + _ian_.
XIX.--§ 15. Tainting of Suffixes.
It will be seen that in some of these instances the suffix has
appropriated to itself not only part of the sound of the stem, but
also part of its signification. This is seen very clearly in the case
of _chandelier_, in French formed from _chandelle_ ‘candle’ with the
suffix _-ier_, of rather vague signification, ‘anything connected
with, or having to do with’; in English the word is used for a hanging
branched frame to hold a number of lights; consequently a similar
apparatus for gas-burners was denominated _gaselier_ (_gasalier_,
_gasolier_), and with the introduction of electricity the formation
has even been extended to _electrolier_. _Vegetarian_ is from the stem
_veget-_ with added _-ari-an_, which ending has no special connexion
with the notion of eating or food, but recently we have seen the new
words _fruitarian_ and _nutarian_, meaning one whose food consists
(exclusively or chiefly) in fruits and nuts. Cf. _solemncholy_,
which according to Payne is in use in Alabama, framed evidently on
_melancholy_, analyzed in a way not approved by Greek scholars. The
whole ending of _septentrionalis_ (from the name of the constellation
_Septem triones_, the seven oxen) is used to form the opposite:
_meridi-onalis_.
A similar case of ‘tainting’ is found in recent English. The NED, in
the article on the suffix _-eer_, remarks that “in many of the words
so formed there is a more or less contemptuous implication,” but does
not explain this, and has not remarked that it is found only in words
ending in _-teer_ (from words in _-t_). I think this contemptuous
implication starts from _garreteer_ and _crotcheteer_ (perhaps also
_pamphleteer_ and _privateer_); after these were formed the disparaging
words _sonneteer_, _pulpiteer_. During the war (1916, I think) the
additional word _profiteer_[97] came into use, but did not find its
way into the dictionaries till 1919 (Cassell’s). And only the other
day I read in an American publication a new word of the same calibre:
“Against _patrioteering_, against fraud and violence ... Mr. Mencken
has always nobly and bravely contended.”
XIX.--§ 16. The Classifying Instinct.
Man is a classifying animal: in one sense it may be said that the
whole process of speaking is nothing but distributing phenomena, of
which no two are alike in every respect, into different classes on
the strength of perceived similarities and dissimilarities. In the
name-giving process we witness the same ineradicable and very useful
tendency to see likenesses and to express similarity in the phenomena
through similarity in name. Professor Hempl told me that one of his
little daughters, when they had a black kitten which was called _Nig_
(short for Nigger), immediately christened a gray kitten _Grig_ and
a brown one _Brownig_. Here we see the genesis of a suffix through a
natural process, which has little in common with the gradual weakening
of an originally independent word, as in _-hood_ and the other
instances mentioned above. In children’s speech similar instances are
not unfrequent (cf. Ch. VII § 5); Meringer L 148 mentions a child of
1.7 who had the following forms: _augn_, _ogn_, _agn_, for ‘augen,
ohren, haare.’ How many words formed or transformed in the same way
must we require in order to speak of a suffix? Shall we recognize one
in Romanic _leve_, _greve_ (cf. Fr. _grief_), which took the place
of _leve_, _grave_? Here, as Schuchardt aptly remarks, it was not
only the opposite signification, but also the fact that the words
were frequently uttered shortly after one another, that made one word
influence the other.
The classifying instinct often manifests itself in bringing
words together in form which have something in common as regards
signification. In this way we have smaller classes and larger classes,
and sometimes it is impossible for us to say in what way the likeness
in form has come about: we can only state the fact that at a given time
the words in question have a more or less close resemblance. But in
other cases it is easy to see which word of the group has influenced
the others or some other. In the examples I am about to give, I
have been more concerned to bring together words that exhibit the
classifying tendency than to try to find out the impetus which directed
the formation of the several groups.
In OE. we have some names of animals in _-gga_: _frogga_, _stagga_,
_docga_, _wicga_, now _frog_, _stag_, _dog_, _wig_. _Savour_ and
_flavour_ go together, the latter (OFr. _flaur_) having its _v_ from
the former. _Groin_, I suppose, has its diphthong from _loin_; the
older form was _grine_, _grynd(e)_. _Claw_, _paw_ (earlier _powe_,
OFr. _pol_). _Rim_, _brim_. _Hook_, _nook_. _Gruff_, _rough_ (_tough_,
_bluff_, _huff_--_miff_, _tiff_, _whiff_). _Fleer_, _leer_, _jeer_.
_Twig_, _sprig_. _Munch_, _crunch_ (_lunch_). _Without uttering or
muttering a word._ _The trees were lopped and topped._ In old Gothonic
the word for ‘eye’ has got its vowel from the word for ‘ear,’ with
which it was frequently collocated: _augo(n)_, _auso(n)_, but in the
modern languages the two words have again been separated in their
phonetic development. In French I suspect that popular instinct will
class the words _air_, _terre_, _mer_ together as names of what used
to be termed the ‘elements,’ in spite of the different spelling and
origin of the sounds. In Russian _kogot’_ ‘griffe’ (claw), _nogot’_
‘ongle’ (fingernail), and _lokot’_ ‘coude’ (elbow), three names
of parts of the body, go together in flexion and accent (Boyer et
Speranski, _Manuel de la l. russe_ 33). So do in Latin _culex_ ‘gnat’
and _pulex_ ‘flea.’ _Atrox_, _ferox_. A great many examples have been
collected by M. Bloomfield, “On Adaptation of Suffixes in Congeneric
Classes of Substantives” (_Am. Journal of Philol._ XII, 1891), from
which I take a few. A considerable number of designations of parts
of the body were formed with heteroclitic declension as _r-n_ stems
(cf. above, XVIII § 2): ‘liver,’ Gr. _hēpar_, _hēpatos_, ‘udder,’ Gr.
_outhar_, _outhatos_, ‘thigh,’ Lat. _femur_, _feminis_, further Aryan
names for blood, wing, viscera, excrement, etc. Other designations of
parts of the body were partly assimilated to this class, having also
_n_ stems in the oblique cases, though their nominative was formed in
a different way. Words for ‘right’ and ‘left’ frequently influence
one another and adopt the same ending, and so do opposites generally:
Bloomfield explains the _t_ in the Gothonic word corresponding to E.
_white_, where from Sanskr. we should expect _th_, _çveta_, as due to
the word for ‘black’; Goth. _hweits_, _swarts_, ON. _hvítr_, _svartr_,
etc. A great many names of birds and other animals appear with the
same ending, Gr. _glaux_ ‘owl,’ _kokkux_ ‘cuckoo,’ _korax_ ‘crow,’
_ortux_ ‘quail,’ _aix_ ‘goat,’ _alopex_ ‘fox,’ _bombux_ ‘silkworm,’
_lunx_ ‘lynx’ and many others, also some plant-names. Names for winter,
summer, day, evening, etc., also to a great extent form groups. In
a subsequent article (in IF vi. 66 ff.) Bloomfield pursues the same
line of thought and explains likenesses in various words of related
signification, in direct opposition to the current explanation through
added root-determinatives, as due to blendings (cf. above, Ch. XVII §
6). In Latin the inchoative value of the verbs in _-esco_ is due to
the accidentally inherent continuous character of a few verbs of the
class: _adolesco_, _senesco_, _cresco_; but the same suffix is also
found in the oldest words for ‘asking, wishing, searching,’ retained in
E. _ask_, _wish_, G. _forschen_, which thus become a small group linked
together by form and meaning alike.
XIX.--§ 17. Character of Suffixes.
There seems undoubtedly to be something accidental or haphazard in most
of these transferences of sounds from one word to another through which
groups of phonetically and semantically similar words are created; the
process works unsystematically, or rather, it consists in spasmodic
efforts at regularizing something which is from the start utterly
unsystematic. But where conditions are favourable, i.e. where the
notional connexion is patent and the phonetic element is such that
it can easily be added to many words, the group will tend constantly
to grow larger within the natural boundaries given by the common
resemblance in signification.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of our formatives, such as
suffixes and flexional endings, have arisen in this way through
transference of some part, which at first was unmeaning in itself,
from one word to another in which it had originally no business, and
then to another and another, taking as it were a certain colouring
from the words in which it is found, and gradually acquiring a more
or less independent signification or function of its own. In long
words, such as were probably frequent in primitive speech, and which
were to the minds of the speakers as unanalyzable as _marmalade_ or
_crocodile_ is to Englishmen nowadays, it would be perhaps most natural
to keep the beginning unchanged and to modify the final syllable or
syllables to bring about conformity with some word with which it was
associated; hence the prevalence of suffixes in our languages, hence
also the less systematic character of these suffixes as compared with
the prefixes, most of which have originated in independent words,
such as adverbs. What is from the merely phonetic point of view the
‘same’ suffix, in different languages may have the greatest variety of
meaning, sometimes no discernible meaning at all, and it is in many
cases utterly impossible to find out why in one particular language it
can be used with one stem and not with another. Anyone going through
the collections in Brugmann’s great _Grammar_ will be struck with this
purely accidental character of the use of most of the suffixes--a fact
which would be simply unthinkable if each of them had originally one
definite, well-determined signification, but which is easy to account
for on the hypothesis here adopted. And then many of them are not
added to ready-made words or ‘roots,’ but form one indivisible whole
with the initial part of the word; cf., for instance, the suffix _-le_
in English _squabble_, _struggle_, _wriggle_, _babble_, _mumble_,
_bustle_, etc.
XIX.--§ 18. Brugmann’s Theory of Gender.
As I have said, man is a classifying animal, and in his language tends
to express outwardly class distinctions which he feels more or less
vaguely. One of the most important of these class divisions, and at
the same time one of the most difficult to explain, is that of the
three ‘genders’ in our Aryan languages. If we are to believe Brugmann,
we have here a case of what I have in this work termed secretion. In
his well-known paper, “Das Nominalgeschlecht in den indogermanischen
Sprachen” (in Techmer’s _Zs. f. allgem. Sprachwissensch._ 4. 100 ff.,
cf. also his reply to Roethe’s criticism, PBB 15. 522) he puts the
question: How did it come about that the old Aryans attached a definite
gender (or sex, geschlecht) to words meaning foot, head, house, town,
Gr. _pous_, for instance, being masculine, _kephalē_ feminine, _oikos_
masculine, and _polis_ feminine? The generally accepted explanation,
according to which the imagination of mankind looked upon lifeless
things as living beings, is, Brugmann says, unsatisfactory; the
masculine and feminine of grammatical gender are merely unmeaning forms
and have nothing to do with the ideas of masculinity and femininity;
for even where there exists a natural difference of sex, language often
employs only one gender. So in German we have _der hase_, _die maus_,
and _der weibliche hase_ is not felt to be self-contradictory. Again,
in the history of languages we often find words which change their
gender exclusively on account of their form. Thus, in German, many
words in _-e_, such as _traube_, _niere_, _wade_, which were formerly
masculine, have now become feminine, because the great majority of
substantives in _-e_ are feminine (_erde_, _ehre_, _farbe_, etc.).
Nothing accordingly hinders us from supposing that grammatical gender
originally had nothing at all to do with natural sex. The question,
therefore, according to Brugmann, is essentially reduced to this: How
did it come to pass that the suffix _-a_ was used to designate female
beings? At first it had no connexion with femininity, witness Lat.
_aqua_ ‘water’ and hundreds of other words; but among the old words
with that ending there happened to be some denoting females: _mama_
‘mother’ and _gena_ ‘woman’ (compare E. _quean_, _queen_). Now, in
the history of some suffixes we see that, without any regard to their
original etymological signification, they may adopt something of the
radical meaning of the words to which they are added, and transfer
that meaning to new formations. In this way _mama_ and _gena_ became
the starting-point for analogical formations, as if the idea of female
was denoted by the ending, and new words were formed, e.g. Lat. _dea_
‘goddess’ from _deus_ ‘god,’ _equa_ ‘mare’ from _equus_ ‘horse,’ etc.
The suffix _-iē-_ or _-ī-_ probably came to denote feminine sex by a
similar process, possibly from Skr. _strī_ ‘woman,’ which may have
given a fem. *_wḷqī_ ‘she-wolf’ to *_wḷqos_ ‘wolf.’ The above is a
summary of Brugmann’s reasoning; it may interest the reader to know
that a closely similar point of view had, several years previously,
been taken by a far-seeing scholar in respect to a totally different
language, namely Hottentot, where, according to Bleek, CG 2. 118-22,
292-9, a class division which had originally nothing to do with sex has
been employed to distinguish natural sex. I transcribe a few of Bleek’s
remarks: “The apparent sex-denoting character which the classification
of the nouns now has in the Hottentot language was evidently imparted
to it after a division of the nouns into classes[98] had taken place.
It probably arose, in the first instance, from the possibly accidental
circumstance that the nouns indicating (respectively) man and woman
were formed with different derivative suffixes, and consequently
belonged to different classes (or genders) of nouns, and that these
suffixes thus began to indicate the distinction of sex in nouns where
it could be distinguished” (p. 122). “To assume, for example, that the
suffix of the m. sg. (_-p_) had originally the meaning of ‘man,’ or the
fem. sg. (_-s_) that of ‘woman,’ would in no way explain the peculiar
division of the nouns into classes as we find it in Hottentot, and
would be opposed to all that is probable regarding the etymology of
these suffixes, and also to the fact that so many nouns are included in
the sex-denoting classes to which the distinction of sex can only be
applied by a great effort.... If the word for ‘man’ were formed with
one suffix (_-p_), and the word indicating ‘woman’ (be it accidentally
or not) by another (_-s_), then other nouns would be formed with the
same suffixes, in analogy with these, until the majority of the nouns
of each sex were formed with certain suffixes which would thus assume
a sex-denoting character” (p. 298).
Brugmann’s view on Aryan gender has not been unchallenged. The weakest
points in his arguments are, of course, that there are so few old
naturally feminine words in _-a_ and _-i_ to take as starting-points
for such a thoroughgoing modification of the grammatical system, and
that Brugmann was unable to give any striking explanation of the
concord of adjectives and pronouns with words that had not these
endings, but which were nevertheless treated as masculines and
feminines respectively. It would lead us too far here to give any
minute account of the discussion which arose on these points;[99] one
of the most valuable contributions seems to me Jacobi’s suggestion
(_Compositum u. Nebensatz_, 1897, 115 ff.) that the origin of
grammatical gender is not to be sought in the noun, but in the pronoun
(he finds a parallel in the Dravidian languages)--but even he does not
find a fully satisfactory explanation, and the Aryan gender distinction
reaches back to so remote an antiquity, thousands of years before any
literary tradition, that we shall most probably never be able to fathom
all its mysteries. Of late years less attention has been given to the
problem of the feminine, which presented itself to Brugmann, than to
the distinction between two classes, one of which was characterized
by the use of a nominative in _-s_, which is now looked upon as a
‘transitive-active’ case, and the other by no ending or by an ending
_-m_, which is the same as was used as the accusative in the first
class (an ‘intransitive-passive’ case), and an attempt has been made
to see in the distinction something analogous to the division found
in Algonkin languages between a class of ‘living’ and another of
‘lifeless’ things--though these two terms are not to be taken in the
strictly scientific sense, for primitive men do not reason in the
same way as we do, but ascribe or deny ‘life’ to things according to
criteria which we have great difficulty in apprehending. This would
mean a twofold division into one class comprising the historical
masculines and feminines, and another comprising the neuters.
As to the feminine, we saw two old endings characterizing that gender,
_a_ and _i_. With regard to the latter, I venture to throw out the
suggestion that it is connected with diminutive suffixes containing
that vowel in various languages: on the whole, the sound [i] has a
natural affinity with the notion of small, slight, insignificant and
weak (see Ch. XX § 8). In some African languages we find two classes,
one comprising men and big things, and the other women and small
things (Meinhof, _Die Sprachen der Hamiten_ 23), and there is nothing
unnatural in the supposition that similar views may have obtained with
our ancestors. This would naturally account for Skr. _vṛk-ī_ ‘she-wolf’
(orig. little wolf, ‘wolfy’) from Skr. _vṛkas_, _napt-ī_, Lat.
_neptis_, G. _nichte_, Skr. _dēv-ī_, ‘goddess,’ etc. But the feminine
_-a_ is to me just as enigmatic as, say, the _d_ of the old ablative.
XIX.--§ 19. Final Considerations.
The ending _-a_ serves to denote not only female beings, but also
abstracts, and if in later usage it is also applied to males, as
in Latin _nauta_ ‘sailor,’ _auriga_ ‘charioteer,’ this is only a
derived use of the abstracts denoting an activity, sailoring, driving,
etc., just as G. _die wache_, besides the activity of watching,
comes to mean the man on guard, or as _justice_ (Sp. _el justicia_)
comes to mean ‘judge.’ The original sense of _Antonius collega fuit
Ciceronis_ was ‘A. was the co-election of C.’ (Osthoff, _Verbum in d.
Nominal-compos._, 1878, 263 ff., Delbrück, _Synt. Forsch._ 4. 6).
The same _-a_ is finally used as the plural ending of most neuters,
but, as is now universally admitted (see especially Johannes Schmidt,
_Die Pluralbildungen der indogerm. Neutra_, 1889), the ending here
was originally neither neuter nor plural, but, on the contrary,
feminine and singular. The forms in _-a_ are properly collective
formations like those found, for instance, in Lat. _opera_, gen.
_operæ_, ‘work,’ comp. _opus_ ‘(a piece of) work’; Lat. _terra_
‘earth,’ comp. Oscan _terum_ ‘plot of ground’; _pugna_ ‘boxing,
fight,’ comp. _pugnus_ ‘fist.’ This explains among other things the
peculiar syntactic phenomenon, which is found regularly in Greek and
sporadically in Sanskrit and other languages, that a neuter plural
subject takes the verb in the singular. Greek _toxa_ is often used
in speaking of a single bow; and the Latin poetic use of _guttura_,
_colla_, _ora_, where only one person’s throat, neck or face is meant,
points similarly to a period of the past when these words did not
denote the plural. We can now see the reason of this _-a_ being in
some cases also the plural sign of masculine substantives: Lat. _loca_
from _locus_, _joca_ from _jocus_, etc.; Gr. _sita_ from _sitos_. Joh.
Schmidt refers to similar plural formations in Arabic; and as we have
seen (Ch. XIX § 9), the Bantu plural prefixes had probably a similar
origin. And we are thus constantly reminded that languages must often
make the most curious _détours_ to arrive at a grammatical expression
for things which appear to us so self-evident as the difference
between he and she, or that between one and more than one. Expressive
simplicity in linguistic structure is not a primitive, but a derived
quality.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] Why so? Did sheep and cows also begin with vowels only, adding _b_
and _m_ afterwards to make up their _bah_ and _moo_?
[90] The examples taken from Gabelentz’s _Grammar_ and an article in
Techmer’s _Internat. Zeitschrift_ I.
[91] I must also mention A. Conrady, _Eine indochinesische
Causativ-denominativ-bildung_ (Leipzig, 1896), in which Lepsius’s
theory is carried a great step further and it is demonstrated with
very great learning that many of the tone relations (a well as
modifications of initial sounds) of Chinese and kindred languages find
their explanation in the previous existence of prefixes which are now
extinct, but which can still be pointed out in Tibetan. Though I ought,
therefore, to have spoken of prefixes instead of ‘flexional endings’
above, p. 371, the essence of the contention that prehistoric Chinese
must have had a polysyllabic and non-isolating structure is thus borne
out by the researches of competent specialists in this field.
[92] Madvig Kl 170, Max Müller L 1. 271, Whitney OLS 1. 283, G 124,
Paul P 1st ed. 181, repeated in the following editions, see 4th, 1909,
350 and 347, 349; Brugmann VG 1889, 2. 1 (but in 2nd ed. this has been
struck out in favour of hopeless skepticism), Schuchardt, _Anlass d.
Volapüks_ 11, Gabelentz Spr 189, Tegnér SM 53, Sweet, _New Engl. Gr._ §
559, Storm, _Engl. Phil._ 673, Rozwadowski, _Wortbildung u. Wortbed._,
Uhlenbeck, _Karakt. d. bask. Gramm._ 24, Sütterlin WGS 1902, 122,
Porzezinski, Spr 1910, 229.
[93] Two explanations of this formative element were given by the old
school: according to Schleicher C § 290, it was the root _ja_ of the
relative pronoun; according to Curtius and others it was the root _i_
‘to go,’ Greek _fer-o-i-mi_ being analyzed as ‘I go to bear,’ whence,
by an easy (?) transition, ‘I should like to bear,’ etc.
[94] Cf. Sommer, Lat. 528, and on Armenian and Tokharian _r_ forms MSL
18. 10 ff. and Feist KI 455. But it must not be overlooked that H.
Pedersen (KZ 40. 166 ff.) has revived and strengthened the old theory
that _r_ in Italic and Keltic is an original _se_.
[95] If _s_ was a definite article, why should it be used only with
some stems and not with others? Why should neuters never require a
definite article?
[96] While it is difficult to see the relation between a demonstrative
pronoun or a deictic particle and genitival function, it would be easy
enough to understand the latter if we started from a possessive pronoun
(ejus, suus), and, curiously enough, we find this very sound _s_ used
as a sign for the genitive in two independent languages, starting from
that notion. In Indo-Portuguese we have _gobernadors casa_ ‘governor’s
house,’ from _gobernador su casa_ (above, Ch. XI § 12, p. 213), and
in the South-African ‘Taal’ the usual expression for the genitive is
by means of _syn_, which is generally shortened into _se_ (_s_) and
glued enclitically to the substantive, even to feminines and plurals:
_Marie-se boek_ ‘Maria’s book,’ _di gowweneur se hond_ ‘the governor’s
dog’ (H. Meyer, _Die Sprache der Buren_, 1901, p. 40, where also the
confusion with the adjective ending _-s_, in Dutch spelt _-sch_, is
mentioned. For the construction compare G. _dem vater sein hut_ and
others from various languages; cf. the appendix on E. _Bill Stumps his
mark_ in ChE 182 f.).
[97] Cf. Lloyd George’s speech at Dundee (_The Times_, July 6, 1917):
“The Government will not permit the burdens of the country to be
increased by what is called ‘profiteering.’ Although I have been
criticized for using that word, I believe on the whole it is a rather
good one. It is _profit-eer-ing_ as distinguished from _profit-ing_.
Profiting is fair recompense for services rendered, either in
production or distribution; profiteering is an extravagant recompense
given for services rendered. I believe that unfair in peace. In war it
is an outrage.”
[98] Bleek is here thinking of classes like those of the Bantu
languages, which have nothing to do with sex.
[99] For bibliography and criticism see Wheeler in _Journ. of Germ.
Philol._ 2. 528 ff., and especially Josselin de Jong in _Tijdschr.
v. Ned. Taal- en Letterk._ 29. 21 ff., and the same writer’s thesis
_De Waardeeringsonderscheiding van levend en levenloos in het
Indogermaansch vergel. m. hetzelfde verschijnsel in Algonkin-talen_
(Leiden, 1913). Cf. also Hirt GDS 45 ff.
CHAPTER XX
SOUND SYMBOLISM
§ 1. Sound and Sense. § 2. Instinctive Feeling. § 3. Direct
Imitation. § 4. Originator of the Sound. § 5. Movement. § 6. Things
and Appearances. § 7. States of Mind. § 8. Size and Distance.
§ 9. Length and Strength of Words and Sounds. § 10. General
Considerations. § 11. Importance of Suggestiveness. § 12. Ancient and
Modern Times.
XX.--§ 1. Sound and Sense.
The idea that there is a natural correspondence between sound and
sense, and that words acquire their contents and value through a
certain sound symbolism, has at all times been a favourite one with
linguistic dilettanti, the best-known examples being found in Plato’s
_Kratylos_. Greek and Latin grammarians indulge in the wildest
hypotheses to explain the natural origin of such and such a word, as
when Nigidius Figulus said that in pronouncing _vos_ one puts forward
one’s lips and sends out breath in the direction of the other person,
while this is not the case with _nos_. With these early writers, to
make guesses at sound symbolism was the only way to etymologize; no
wonder, therefore, that we with our historical methods and our wider
range of knowledge find most of their explanations ridiculous and
absurd. But this does not justify us in rejecting any idea of sound
symbolism: abusus non tollit usum!
Humboldt (Versch 79) says that “language chooses to designate objects
by sounds which partly in themselves, partly in comparison with others,
produce on the ear an impression resembling the effect of the object on
the mind; thus _stehen_, _stätig_, _starr_, the impression of firmness,
Sanskrit _lī_ ‘to melt, diverge,’ that of liquidity or solution
(des zerfliessenden).... In this way objects that produce similar
impressions are denoted by words with essentially the same sounds,
thus _wehen_, _wind_, _wolke_, _wirren_, _wunsch_, in all of which
the vacillating, wavering motion with its confused impression on the
senses is expressed through ... _w_.” Madvig’s objection (1842, 13 = Kl
64) that we need only compare four of the words Humboldt quotes with
the corresponding words in the very nearest sister-language, Danish
_blæse_, _vind_, _sky_, _ønske_, to see how wrong this is, seems
to me a little cheap: Humboldt himself expressly assumes that much
of primitive sound symbolism may have disappeared in course of time
and warns us against making this kind of explanation a ‘constitutive
principle,’ which would lead to great dangers (“so setzt man sich
grossen gefahren aus und verfolgt einen in jeder rücksicht schlüpfrigen
pfad”). Moreover _blæse_ (E. _blow_, Lat. _flare_) is just as imitative
as _wind_, _vind_: no one of course would pretend that there was only
one way of expressing the same sense perception. Among Humboldt’s
examples _wolke_ and _wunsch_ are doubtful, but I do not see that this
affects the general truth of his contention that there is something
like sound symbolism in _some_ words.
Nyrop in his treatment of this question (Gr IV § 545 f.) repeats
Madvig’s objection that the same name can denote various objects,
that the same object can be called by different names, and that the
significations of words are constantly changing; further, that the
same group of sounds comes to mean different things according to the
language in which it occurs. He finally exclaims: “How to explain [by
means of sound symbolism] the difference in signification between
_murus_, _nurus_, _durus_, _purus_, etc.?”
XX.--§ 2. Instinctive Feeling.
Yes, of course it would be absurd to maintain that all words at all
times in all languages had a signification corresponding exactly to
their sounds, each sound having a definite meaning once for all. But
is there really much more logic in the opposite extreme, which denies
any kind of sound symbolism[100] (apart from the small class of evident
echoisms or ‘onomatopœia’) and sees in our words only a collection of
wholly accidental and irrational associations of sound and meaning? It
seems to me that the conclusion in this case is as false as if you were
to infer that because on one occasion X told a lie, he therefore never
tells the truth. The correct conclusion would be: as he has told a lie
once, we cannot always trust him; we must be on our guard with him--but
sometimes he may tell the truth. Thus, also, sounds may in some cases
be symbolic of their sense, even if they are not so in all words. If
linguistic historians are averse to admitting sound symbolism, this is
a natural consequence of their being chiefly occupied with words which
have undergone regular changes in sound and sense; and most of the
words which form the staple of linguistic books are outside the domain
of sound symbolism.
There is no denying, however, that there are words which we feel
instinctively to be adequate to express the ideas they stand for, and
others the sounds of which are felt to be more or less incongruous with
their signification. Future linguists will have to find out in detail
what domains of human thought admit, and what domains do not admit, of
congruous expression through speech sounds, and further what sounds are
suitable to express such and such a notion, for though it is clear--to
take only a few examples--that there is little to choose between
_apple_ and _pomme_, or between _window_ and _fenster_, as there is no
sound or sound group that has any natural affinity with such thoroughly
concrete and composite ideas as those expressed by these words, yet
on the other hand everybody must feel that the word _roll_, _rouler_,
_rulle_, _rollen_ is more adequate than the corresponding Russian word
_katat’_, _katit’_.
It would be an interesting task to examine in detail and systematically
what ideas lend themselves to symbolic presentation and what sounds are
chosen for them in different languages. That, however, could only be
done on the basis of many more examples than I can find space for in
this work, and I shall, therefore, only attempt to give a preliminary
enumeration of the most obvious classes, with a small fraction of the
examples I have collected.[101]
XX.--§ 3. Direct Imitation.
The simplest case is the direct imitation of the sound, thus _clink_,
_clank_, _ting_, _tinkle_ of various metallic sounds, _splash_,
_bubble_, _sizz_, _sizzle_ of sounds produced by water, _bow-wow_,
_bleat_, _roar_ of sounds produced by animals, and _snort_, _sneeze_,
_snigger_, _smack_, _whisper_, _grunt_, _grumble_ of sounds produced by
human beings. Examples might easily be multiplied of such ‘echoisms’
or ‘onomatopœia’ proper. But, as our speech-organs are not capable of
giving a perfect imitation of all ‘unarticulated’ sounds, the choice of
speech-sounds is to a certain extent accidental, and different nations
have chosen different combinations, more or less conventionalized,
for the same sounds; thus _cock-a-doodle-doo_, Dan. _kykeliky_, Sw.
_kukeliku_, G. _kikeriki_, Fr. _coquelico_, for the sound of a cock;
and for _whisper_: Dan. _hviske_, ON. _kvisa_, G. _flüstern_, Fr.
_chuchoter_, Sp. _susurar_. The continuity of a sound is frequently
indicated by _l_ or _r_ after a stopped consonant: _rattle_, _rumble_,
_jingle_, _clatter_, _chatter_, _jabber_, etc.
XX.--§ 4. Originator of the Sound.
Next, the echoic word designates the being that produces the sound,
thus the birds _cuckoo_ and _peeweet_ (Dan. _vibe_, G. _kibitz_, Fr.
pop. _dix-huit_).
A special subdivision of particular interest comprises those names,
or nicknames, which are sometimes popularly given to nations from
words continually occurring in their speech. Thus the French used to
call an Englishman a _god-damn_ (_godon_), and in China an English
soldier is called _a-says_ or _I-says_. In Java a Frenchman is called
_orang-deedong_ (_orang_ ‘man’), in America _ding-dong_, and during
the Napoleonic wars the French were called in Spain _didones_, from
_dis-donc_; another name for the same nation is _wi-wi_ (Australia),
_man-a-wiwi_ (in Beach-la-mar), or _oui-men_ (New Caledonia). In
Eleonore Christine’s _Jammersminde_ 83 I read, “Ich habe zwei _parle
mi franço_ gefangen,” and correspondingly Goldsmith writes (Globe ed.
624): “Damn the French, the _parle vous_, and all that belongs to them.
What makes the bread rising? the _parle vous_ that devour us.” In
Rovigno the surrounding Slavs are called _čuje_ from their exclamation
_čuje_ ‘listen, I say,’ and in Hungary German visitors are called
_vigéc_ (from _wie geht’s?_), and customs officers _vartapiszli_ (from
_wart’ a bissl_). Round Panama everything native is called _spiggoty_,
because in the early days the Panamanians, when addressed, used to
reply, “No spiggoty [speak] Inglis.” In Yokohama an English or American
sailor is called _Damuraïsu H’to_ from ‘Damn your eyes’ and Japanese
H’to ‘people.’[102]
XX.--§ 5. Movement.
Thirdly, as sound is always produced by some movement and is nothing
but the impression which that movement makes on the ear, it is quite
natural that the movement itself may be expressed by the word for its
sound: the two are, in fact, inseparable. Note, for instance, such
verbs as _bubble_, _splash_, _clash_, _crack_, _peck_. Human actions
may therefore be denoted by such words as to _bang_ the door, or
(with slighter sounds) to _tap_ or _rap_ at a door. Hence also the
substantives a _tap_ or a _rap_ for the action, but the substantive may
also come to stand for the implement, as when from the verb to _hack_,
‘to cut, chop off, break up hard earth,’ we have the noun _hack_, ‘a
mattock or large pick.’
Then we have words expressive of such movements as are not to the
same extent characterized by loud sounds; thus a great many words
beginning with _l_-combinations, _fl-_: _flow_, _flag_ (Dan. _flagre_),
_flake_, _flutter_, _flicker_, _fling_, _flit_, _flurry_, _flirt_;
_sl-_: _slide_, _slip_, _slive_; _gl-_: _glide_. Hence adjectives like
_fleet_, _slippery_, _glib_. Sound and sight may have been originally
combined in such expressions for an uncertain walk as _totter_,
_dodder_, dialectical _teeter_, _titter_, _dither_, but in cases of
this kind the audible element may be wanting, and the word may come
to be felt as symbolic of the movement as such. This is also the
case with many expressions for the sudden, rapid movement by which
we take hold of something; as a short vowel, suddenly interrupted
by a stopped consonant, serves to express the sound produced by a
very rapid striking movement (_pat_, _tap_, _knock_, etc.), similar
sound combinations occur frequently for the more or less noiseless
seizing of a thing (with the teeth or with the hand): _snap_, _snack_,
_snatch_, _catch_, Fr. _happer_, _attraper_, _gripper_, E. _grip_,
Dan. _hapse_, _nappe_, Lat. _capio_, Gr. _kaptō_, Armenian _kap_ ‘I
seize,’ Turk _kapmak_ (_mak_ infin. ending), etc. (I shall only mention
one derivative meaning that may develop from this group: E. _snack_
‘a hurried meal,’ in Swift’s time called a _snap_ (_Journ. to Stella_
270); cf. G. _schnapps_, Dan. _snaps_ ‘glass of spirits.’) E. _chase_
and _catch_ are both derived from two dialectically different French
forms, ultimately going back to the same late Latin verb _captiare_,
but it is no mere accident that it was the form ‘catch’ that acquired
the meaning ‘to seize,’ not found in French, for it naturally
associated itself with _snatch_, and especially with the now obsolete
verb _latch_ ‘to seize.’
There is also a natural connexion between action and sound in the word
to _tickle_, G. _kitzeln_, ON. _kitla_, Dan. _kilde_ (_d_ mute), Nubian
_killi-killi_, and similar forms (Schuchardt, _Nubisch. u. Bask._ 9),
Lat. _titillare_; cp. also the word for the kind of laughter thus
produced: _titter_, G. _kichern_.
XX.--§ 6. Things and Appearances.
Further, we have the extension of symbolical designation to things;
here, too, there is some more or less obvious association of what is
only visible with some sound or sounds. This has been specially studied
by Hilmer, to whose book (Sch) the reader is referred for numerous
examples, e.g. p. 237 ff., _knap_ ‘a thick stick, a knot of wood, a bit
of food, a protuberance, a small hill;’ _knop_ ‘a boss, stud, button,
knob, a wart, pimple, the bud of a flower, a promontory,’ with the
variants _knob_, _knup_.... Hilmer’s word-lists from German and English
comprise 170 pages!
There is also a natural association between high tones (sounds with
very rapid vibrations) and light, and inversely between low tones and
darkness, as is seen in the frequent use of adjectives like ‘light’
and ‘dark’ in speaking of notes. Hence the vowel [i] is felt to be
more appropriate for light, and [u] for dark, as seen most clearly in
the contrast between _gleam_, _glimmer_, _glitter_ on the one hand and
_gloom_ on the other (Zangwill somewhere writes: “The gloom of night,
relieved only by the gleam from the street-lamp”); the word _light_
itself, which has now a diphthong which is not so adequate to the
meaning, used to have the vowel [i] like G. _licht_; for the opposite
notions we have such words as G. _dunkel_, Dan. _mulm_, Gr. _amolgós_,
_skótos_, Lat. _obscurus_, and with another ‘dark’ vowel E. _murky_,
Dan. _mörk_.
XX.--§ 7. States of Mind.
From this it is no far cry to words for corresponding states of mind:
to some extent the very same words are used, as _gloom_ (Dowden writes:
“The good news was needed to cast a gleam on the gloom that encompassed
Shelley”); hence also _glum_, _glumpy_, _glumpish_, _grumpy_, _the
dumps_, _sulky_. If E. _moody_ and _sullen_ have changed their
significations (OE. _modig_ ‘high-spirited,’ ME. _solein_ ‘solitary’),
sound symbolism, if I am not mistaken, counts for something in the
change; the adjectives now mean exactly the same as Dan. _mut_, _but_.
If _grumble_ comes to mean the expression of a mental state of
dissatisfaction, the connexion between the sound of the word and its
sense is even more direct, for the verb is imitative of the sound
produced in such moods, cf. _mumble_ and _grunt_, _gruntle_. The
name of Mrs. _Grundy_ is not badly chosen as a representative of
narrow-minded conventional morality.
A long list might be given of symbolic expressions for dislike,
disgust, or scorn; here a few hints only can find place. First we
have the same dull or dump (back) vowels as in the last paragraph:
_blunder_, _bungle_, _bung_, _clumsy_, _humdrum_, _humbug_, _strum_,
_slum_, _slush_, _slubber_, _sloven_, _muck_, _mud_, _muddle_, _mug_
(various words, but all full of contempt), _juggins_ (a silly person),
_numskull_ (old _numps_, _nup_, _nupson_), _dunderhead_, _gull_, _scug_
(at Eton a dirty or untidy boy).... Many words begin with _sl-_ (we
have already seen some): _slight_, _slim_, _slack_, _sly_, _sloppy_,
_slipslop_, _slubby_, _slattern_, _slut_, _slosh_.... Initial labials
are also frequent.[103] After the vowel we have very often the sound
[ʃ] or [tʃ], as in _trash_, _tosh_, _slosh_, _botch_, _patch_; cf. also
G. _kitsch_ (bad picture, smearing), _patsch(e)_ (mire, anything
worthless), _quatsch_ (silly nonsense), _putsch_ (riot, political _coup
de main_). E. _bosh_ (nonsense) is said to be a Turkish loan-word; it
has become popular for the same reason for which the French nickname
_boche_ for a German was widely used during the World War. Let me
finally mention the It. derivative suffix _-accio_, as in _poveraccio_
(miserable), _acquaccia_ (bad water), and _-uccio_, as in _cavalluccio_
(vile horse).
XX.--§ 8. Size and Distance.
The vowel [i], especially in its narrow or thin variety, is
particularly appropriate to express what is small, weak, insignificant,
or, on the other hand, refined or dainty. It is found in a great many
adjectives in various languages, e.g. _little_, _petit_, _piccolo_,
_piccino_, Magy. _kis_, E. _wee_, _tiny_ (by children often pronounced
_teeny_ [_ti·ni_]), _slim_, Lat. _minor_, _minimus_, Gr. _mikros_;
further, in numerous words for small children or small animals
(the latter frequently used as endearing or depreciative words for
children), e.g. _child_ (formerly with [i·] sound), G. _kind_, Dan.
_pilt_, E. _kid_, _chit_, _imp_, _slip_, _pigmy_, _midge_, Sp. _chico_,
or for small things: _bit_, _chip_, _whit_, Lat. _quisquiliæ_,
_mica_, E. _tip_, _pin_, _chink_, _slit_.... The same vowel is found
in diminutive suffixes in a variety of languages, as E. _-y_, _-ie_
(_Bobby_, _baby_, _auntie_, _birdie_), Du. _-ie_, _-je_ (_koppie_
‘little hill’), Gr. _-i-_ (_paid-i-on_ ‘little boy’), Goth. _-ein_,
pronounced [i·n] (_gumein_ ‘little man’), E. _-kin_, _-ling_, Swiss
German _-li_, It. _-ino_, Sp. _-ico_, _-ito_, _-illo_....
As smallness and weakness are often taken to be characteristic of
the female sex, I suspect that the Aryan feminine suffix _-i_, as in
Skr. _vṛkī_ ‘she-wolf,’ _naptī_ ‘niece,’ originally denotes smallness
(‘wolfy’), and in the same way we find the vowel _i_ in many feminine
suffixes; thus late Lat. _-itta_ (_Julitta_, etc., whence Fr. _-ette_,
_Henriette_, etc.), _-ina_ (_Carolina_), further G. _-in_ (_königin_),
Gr. _-issa_ (_basilissa_ ‘queen’), whence Fr. _-esse_, E. _-ess_.
The same vowel [i] is also symbolical of a very short time, as in the
phrases _in a jiff_, _jiffy_, Sc. _in a clink_, Dan. _i en svip_; and
correspondingly we have adjectives like _quick_, _swift_, _vivid_
and others. No wonder, then, that the Germans feel their word for
‘lightning,’ _blitz_, singularly appropriate to the effect of light and
to the shortness of duration.[104]
It has often been remarked[105] that in corresponding pronouns and
adverbs the vowel _i_ frequently indicates what is nearer, and other
vowels, especially _a_ or _u_, what is farther off; thus Fr. _ci_,
_là_, E. _here_, _there_, G. _dies_, _das_, Low G. _dit_, _dat_, Magy.
_ez_, _emez_ ‘this,’ _az_, _amaz_ ‘that,’ _itt_ ‘here,’ _ott_ ‘there,’
Malay _iki_ ‘this,’ _ika_ ‘that, a little removed,’ _iku_ ‘yon, farther
away.’ In Hamitic languages _i_ symbolizes the near and _u_ what is far
away. We may here also think of the word _zigzag_ as denoting movement
in alternate turns here and there; and if in the two E. pronouns _this_
and _that_ the old neuter forms have prevailed (OE. m. _þes_, _se_,
f. _þeos_, _seo_, n. _þis_, _þæt_) the reason (or one of the reasons)
may have been that a characteristic difference of vowels in the two
contrasted pronouns was thus secured.
XX.--§ 9. Length and Strength of Words and Sounds.
Shorter and more abrupt forms are more appropriate to certain states of
mind, longer ones to others. An imperative may be used both for command
and for a more or less humble appeal or entreaty; in Magyar dialects
there are short forms for command: _írj_, _dolgozz_; long for entreaty:
_írjál_, _dolgozzál_ (Simonyi US 359, 214). Were Lat. _dic_, _duc_,
_fac_, _fer_ used more than other imperatives in commands? The fact
that they alone lost _-e_ might indicate that this was so. On the other
hand the imperatives _es_, _este_ and _i_ had to yield to the fuller
(and more polite) _esto_, _estote_, _vade_, and _scito_ is always said
instead of _sci_ (Wackernagel, _Gött. Ges. d. Wiss._, 1906, 182, on the
avoidance of too short forms in general). Other languages, which have
only one form for the imperative, soften the commanding tone by adding
some word like _please_, _bitte_.
An emotional effect is obtained in some cases by lengthening a word
by some derivative syllables, in themselves unmeaning; thus in Danish
words for ‘lengthy’ or ‘tiresome’: _langsommelig_, _kedsommelig_,
_evindelig_ for _lang(som)_, _kedelig_, _evig_. (Cf. Ibsen, _Når vi
døde vågner_ 98: Du er kanske ble’t ked af dette evige samliv med
mig.--Evige? Sig lige så godt: evindelige.) In the same way the effect
of _splendid_ is strengthened in slang: _splendiferous_, _splendidous_,
_splendidious_, _splendacious_. A long word like _aggravate_ is felt to
be more intense than _vex_ (Coleman)--and that may be the reason why
the long word acquires a meaning that is strange to its etymology. And
“to disburden one’s self of a sense of contempt, a robust full-bodied
detonation, like, for instance, _platitudinous_, is, unquestionably,
very much more serviceable than any evanescing squib of one or two
syllables” (Fitzedward Hall). Cf. also _multitudinous_, _multifarious_.
We see now the emotional value of some ‘mouth-filling’ words, some
of which may be considered symbolical expansions of existing words
(what H. Schröder terms ‘streckformen’), though others cannot be
thus explained; not unfrequently the effect of length is combined
with some of the phonetic effects mentioned above. Such words are,
e.g., _slubberdegullion_ ‘dirty fellow,’ _rumbustious_ ‘boisterous,’
_rumgumption_, _rumfustian_, _rumbullion_ (cf. _rumpuncheon_ ‘cask of
rum’ as a term of abuse in Stevenson, _Treas. Isl._ 48, “the cowardly
son of a rum-puncheon”), _rampallion_ ‘villain,’ _rapscallion_,
_ragamuffin_; _sculduddery_ ‘obscenity’; _cantankerous_ ‘quarrelsome,’
U.S. also _rantankerous_ (cf. _cankerous_, _rancorous_); _skilligalee_
‘miserable gruel,’ _flabbergast_ ‘confound,’ _catawampous_ (or
_-ptious_) ‘fierce’ (“a high-sounding word with no very definite
meaning,” NED); Fr. _hurluberlu_ ‘crazy’ and the synonymous Dan.
_tummelumsk_, Norw. _tullerusk_.
In this connexion one may mention the natural tendency to lengthen
and to strengthen single sounds under the influence of strong feeling
and in order to intensify the effect of the spoken word; thus, in
‘it’s very cold’ both the diphthong [ou] and the [l] may be pronounced
extremely long, in ‘terribly dull’ the [l] is lengthened, in ‘extremely
long’ either the vowel [ɔ] or the [ŋ] (or both) may be lengthened.
In Fr. ‘c’était horrible’ the trill of the [r] becomes very long
and intense (while the same effect is not generally possible in the
corresponding English word, because the English [r] is not trilled, but
pronounced by one flap of the tip). In some cases a lengthening due to
such a psychological cause may permanently alter a word, as when Lat.
_totus_ in It. has become _tutto_ (Fr. _tout_, _toute_ goes back to
the same form, while Sp. _todo_ has preserved the form corresponding
to the Lat. single consonant). An interesting collection of such cases
from the Romanic tongues has been published by A. J. Carnoy (_Mod.
Philol._ 15. 31, July 1917), who justly emphasizes the symbolic value
of the change and the special character of the words in which it occurs
(pet-names, children’s words, ironic or derisive words, imitative
words ...). He says: “While to a phonetician the phenomenon would
seem capricious, its apportionment in the vocabulary is quite natural
to a psychologist. In fact, reduplication, be it of syllables or of
consonants, generally has that character in languages. One finds it in
perfective tenses, in intensive or frequentative verbs, in the plural,
and in collectives. In most cases it is a reduplication of syllables,
but a lengthening of vowels is not rare and the reinforcement of
consonants is also found. In Chinook, for instance, the emotional
words, both diminutive and augmentative, are expressed by increasing
the stress of consonants. It is, of course, also well known that
in Semitic the intensive radical of verbs is regularly formed by a
reduplication of consonants. To a stem _qatal_, e.g., answers an
intensive: Eth. _qattala_, Hebr. _qittel_. Cf. Hebr. _shibbar_ ‘to cut
in small pieces’ [cf. below], _hillech_ ‘to walk,’ _qibber_ ‘to bury
many,’ etc. Cf. Brockelmann, _Vergl. Gramm._, p. 244.”
I add a few more examples from Misteli (428 f.) of this Semitic
strengthening: the first vowel is lengthened to express a tendency or
an attempt: _qatala jaqtulu_ ‘kill’ (in the third person masc., the
former in the prefect-aorist, the latter in the imperfect-durative,
where _ja_, _ju_ is the sign of the third person m.), _qātala juqātilu_
‘try to kill, fight’; _faXara jufXaru_ ‘excel in fame,’ _fāXara
jufāXiru_ ‘try to excel, vie.’ Through lengthening (doubling) of a
consonant an intensification of the action is denoted: Hebr. _šāβar
jišbōr_ ‘zerbrechen,’ _šibbēr jẹšabbēr_ ‘zerschmettern,’ Arab. _ḍaraba
jaḍrubu_ ‘strike,’ _ḍarraba juḍarribu_ ‘beat violently, or repeatedly’;
sometimes the change makes a verb into a causative or transitive, etc.
I imagine that we have exactly the same kind of strengthening for
psychological (symbolical) reasons in a number of verbs where Danish
has _pp_, _tt_, _kk_ by the side of _b_, _d_, _g_ (spirantic): _pippe_
_pibe_, _stritte_ _stride_, _snitte_ _snide_, _skøtte_ _skøde_,
_splitte_ _splide_, _skrikke_ _skrige_, _lukke_ _luge_, _hikke_ _hige_,
_sikke_ _sige_, _kikke_ _kige_, _prikke_ _prige_ (cf. also _sprække_
_sprænge_). Some of these forms are obsolete, others dialectal, but it
would take us too far in this place to deal with the words in detail.
It is customary to ascribe this gemination to an old _n_ derivative
(see, e.g., Brugmann VG 1. 390, Streitberg Urg pp. 135, 138, Noreen UL
154), but it does not seem necessary to conjure up an _n_ from the dead
to make it disappear again immediately, as the mere strengthening of
the consonant itself to express symbolically the strengthening of the
action has nothing unnatural in it. Cf. also G. _placken_ by the side
of _plagen_. The opposite change, a weakening, may have taken place in
E. _flag_ (cf. OFr. _flaquir_, to become flaccid), _flabby_, earlier
_flappy_, _drib_ from _drip_, _slab_, if from OFr. _esclape_, _clod_ by
the side of _clot_, and possibly _cadge_, _bodge_, _grudge_, _smudge_,
which had all of them originally _-tch_. But the common modification in
sense is not so easily perceived here as in the cases of strengthening.
I may here, for the curiosity of the thing, mention that in a
‘language’ coined by two English children (a vocabulary of which was
communicated to me by one of the inventors through Miss I. C. Ward,
of the Department of Phonetics, University College, London) there was
a word _bal_ which meant ‘place,’ but the bigger the place the longer
the vowel was made, so that with three different quantities it meant
‘village,’ ‘town’ and ‘city’ respectively. The word for ‘go’ was
_dudu_, “the greater the speed of the going, the more quickly the word
was said--[dœ·dœ·] walk slowly.” Cf. Humboldt, ed. Steinthal 82: “In
the southern dialect of the Guarani language the suffix of the perfect
_yma_ is pronounced more or less slowly according to the more or less
remoteness of the past to be indicated.”
XX.--§ 10. General Considerations.
Sound symbolism, as we have considered it in this chapter, has a very
wide range of application, from direct imitation of perceived natural
sounds to such small quantitative changes of existing non-symbolic
words as may be used for purely grammatical purposes. But in order to
obtain a true valuation of this factor in the life of language it is of
importance to keep in view the following considerations:
(1) No language utilizes sound symbolism to its full extent, but
contains numerous words that are indifferent to or may even jar with
symbolism. To express smallness the vowel [i] is most adequate, but it
would be absurd to say that that vowel always implies smallness, or
that smallness is always expressed by words containing that vowel: it
is enough to mention the words _big_ and _small_, or to point to the
fact that _thick_ and _thin_ have the same vowel, to repudiate such a
notion.
(2) Words that have been symbolically expressive may cease to be so in
consequence of historical development, either phonetic or semantic or
both. Thus the name of the bird _crow_ is not now so good an imitation
of the sound made by the bird as OE. _crawe_ was (Dan. _krage_, Du.
_kraai_). Thus, also, the verbs _whine_, _pipe_ were better imitations
when the vowel was still [i·] (as in Dan. _hvine_, _pibe_). But to
express the sound of a small bird the latter word is still pronounced
with the vowel [i] either long or short (_peep_, _pip_), the word
having been constantly renewed and as it were reshaped by fresh
imitation; cf. on Irish _wheen_ and dialectal _peep_, XV § 8. Lat.
_pipio_ originally meant any ‘peeping bird,’ but when it came to
designate one particular kind of birds, it was free to follow the usual
trend of phonetic development, and so has become Fr. _pigeon_ [piʒɔ̃],
E. _pigeon_ [pidʒin]. E. _cuckoo_ has resisted the change from [u]
to ʌ as in _cut_, because people have constantly heard the sound and
fashioned the name of the bird from it. I once heard a Scotch lady say
[kʌku·], but on my inquiry she told me that there were no cuckoos in
her native place; hence the word had there been treated as any other
word containing the short [u]. The same word is interesting in another
way; it has resisted the old Gothonic consonant-shift, and thus has the
same consonants as Skt. _kōkiláḥ_, Gr. _kókkux_, Lat. _cuculus_. On the
general preservation of significative sounds, cf. Ch. XV § 8.
(3) On the other hand, some words have in course of time become more
expressive than they were at first; we have something that may be
called secondary echoism or secondary symbolism. The verb _patter_
comes from _pater_ (= _paternoster_), and at first meant to repeat that
prayer, to mumble one’s prayers; but then it was associated with the
homophonous verb _patter_ ‘to make a rapid succession of _pats_’ and
came under the influence of echoic words like _prattle_, _chatter_,
_jabber_; it now, like these, means ‘to talk rapidly or glibly’ and
is to all intents a truly symbolical word; cf. also the substantive
_patter_ ‘secret lingo, speechifying, talk.’ _Husky_ may at first have
meant only “full of husks, of the nature of a husk” (NED), but it could
not possibly from that signification have arrived at the now current
sense ‘dry in the throat, hoarse’ if it had not been that the sound of
the adjective had reminded one of the sound of a hoarse voice. Dan.
_pöjt_ ‘poor drink, vile stuff’ is now felt as expressive of contempt,
but it originates in _Poitou_, an innocent geographical name of a kind
of wine, like _Bordeaux_; it is now connected with other scornful words
like _spröjt_ and _döjt_.
In E. _little_ the symbolic vowel _i_ is regularly developed from OE.
_y_, _lytel_, whose _y_ is a mutated _u_, as seen in OSax. _luttil_;
_u_ also appears in other related languages, and the word thus
originally had nothing symbolical about it. But in Gothic the word
is _leitils_ (_ei_, sounded [i·]) and in ON. _lítinn_, and here the
vowel is so difficult to account for on ordinary principles that the
NED in despair thinks that the two words are “radically unconnected.”
I have no hesitation in supposing that the vowel _i_ is due to sound
symbolism, exactly as the smaller change introduced in modern E.
‘leetle,’ with narrow instead of wide (broad) [i]. In the word for the
opposite meaning, _much_, the phonetic development may also have been
influenced by the tendency to get an adequate vowel, for normally we
should expect the vowel [i] as in Sc. _mickle_, from OE. _micel_. In
E. _quick_ the vowel best adapted to the idea has prevailed instead
of the one found in the old nom. forms _cwucu_, _cucu_ from _cwicu_
(inflected _cwicne_, _cwices_, etc.), while in the word _widu_, _wudu_,
which is phonetically analogous, there was no such inducement, and
the vowel [u] has been preserved: _wood_. The same prevalence of the
symbolic _i_ is noticed in the Dan. adj. _kvik_, MLG. _quik_, while
the same word as subst. has become Dan. _kvæg_, MLG. _quek_, where
there was no symbolism at work, as it has come to mean ‘cattle.’ I
even see symbolism in the preservation of the _k_ in the Dan. adj. (as
against the fricative in _kvæg_), because the notion of ‘quick’ is best
expressed by the short [i], interrupted by a stop; and may not the
same force have been at work in this adjective at an earlier period?
The second _k_ in OE. _cwicu_, ON. _kvikr_ as against Goth. _qius_,
Lat. _vivus_, has not been sufficiently explained. An [i], symbolic of
smallness, has been introduced in some comparatively recent E. words:
_tip_ from _top_, _trip_ ‘small flock’ from _troop_, _sip_ ‘drink in
small quantities’ from _sup_, _sop_.
Through changes in meaning, too, some words have become symbolically
more expressive than they were formerly; thus the agreement between
sound and sense is of late growth in _miniature_, which now, on account
of the _i_, has come to mean ‘a small picture,’ while at first it meant
‘image painted with minium or vermilion,’ and in _pittance_, now ‘a
scanty allowance,’ formerly any pious donation, whether great or small.
Cf. what has been said above of _sullen_, _moody_, _catch_.
XX.--§ 11. Importance of Suggestiveness.
The suggestiveness of some words as felt by present-day speakers is
a fact that must be taken into account if we are to understand the
realities of language. In some cases it may have existed from the very
first: these words sprang thus into being because that shape at once
expressed the idea the speaker wished to communicate. In other cases
the suggestive element is not original: these words arose in the same
way as innumerable others whose sound has never carried any suggestion.
But if the sound of a word of this class was, or came to be, in some
way suggestive of its signification--say, if a word containing the
vowel [i] in a prominent place meant ‘small’ or something small--then
the sound exerted a strong influence in gaining popular favour to the
word; it was an inducement to people to choose and to prefer that
particular word and to cease to use words for the same notion that were
not thus favoured. Sound symbolism, we may say, makes some words more
fit to survive and gives them considerable help in their struggle for
existence. If we want to denote a little child by a word for some small
animal, we take some word like _kid_, _chick_, _kitten_, rather than
_bat_ or _pug_ or _slug_, though these may in themselves be smaller
than the animal chosen.
It is quite true that Fr. _rouler_, our _roll_, is derived from Lat.
_rota_ ‘wheel’ + a diminutive ending _-ul-_, but the word would never
have gained its immense popularity, extending as it does through
English, Dutch, German and the Scandinavian languages, if the sound
had not been eminently suggestive of the sense, so suggestive that it
seems to us now _the_ natural expression for that idea, and we have
difficulty in realizing that the word has not existed from the very
dawn of speech. Or let me take another example, in which the connexion
between sound and sense is even more ‘fortuitous.’ About a hundred
years ago a member of Congress, Felix Walker, from Buncombe County,
North Carolina, made a long and tedious speech. “Many members left the
hall. Very naïvely he told those who remained that they might go too;
he should speak for some time, but ‘he was only talking for Buncombe,’
to please his constituents.” Now _buncombe_ (_buncome_, _bunkum_) has
become a widely used word, not only in the States, but all over the
English-speaking world, for political speaking or action not resting
on conviction, but on the desire of gaining the favour of electors, or
for any kind of empty ‘clap-trap’ oratory; but does anybody suppose
that the name of Mr. Walker’s constituency would have been thus used if
he had happened to hail from Annapolis or Philadelphia, or some other
place with a name incapable of tickling the popular fancy in the same
way as _Buncombe_ does? (Cf. above, p. 401 on the suggestiveness of the
short _u_.) In a similar way _hullaballoo_ seems to have originated
from the Irish village _Ballyhooly_ (see P. W. Joyce, _English as we
speak it in Ireland_) and to have become popular on account of its
suggestive sound.
In loan-words we can often see that they have been adopted less on
account of any cultural necessity (see above, p. 209) than because
their sound was in some way or other suggestive. Thus the Algonkin
(Natick) word for ‘chief,’ _mugquomp_, is used in the United States
in the form of _mugwump_ for a ‘great man’ or ‘boss,’ and especially,
in political life, for a man independent of parties and thinking
himself superior to parties. Now, no one would have thought of going
to an Indian language to express such a notion, had not an Indian word
presented itself which from its uncouth sound lent itself to purposes
of ridicule. Among other words whose adoption has been favoured by
their sounds I may mention _jungle_ (from Hindi _jangal_, associated
more or less closely with _jumble_, _tumble_, _bundle_, _bungle_);
_bobbery_, in slang ‘noise, squabble,’ “the Anglo-Indian colloquial
representation of a common exclamation of Hindus when in surprise or
grief--_Bap-rē!_ or _Bap-rē Bap_ ‘O Father!’” (Hobson-Jobson); _amuck_;
and U.S. _bunco_ ‘swindling game, to swindle,’ from It. _banco_.
XX.--§ 12. Ancient and Modern Times.
It will be seen that our conception of echoism and related phenomena
does not carry us back to an imaginary primitive period: these forces
are vital in languages as we observe them day by day. Linguistic
writers, however, often assume that sound symbolism, if existing at
all, must date back to the earliest times, and therefore can have
no reality nowadays. Thus Benfey (Gesch 288) turns upon de Brosse,
who had found rudeness in Fr. _rude_ and gentleness in Fr. _doux_,
and says: “As if the sounds of such words, which are distant by an
infinite length of time from the time when language originated, were
able to contribute ever so little to explain the original designation
of things.” (But Benfey is right in saying that the impression made
by those two French words may be imaginary; as examples they are not
particularly well chosen.) Sütterlin (WW 14) says: “It is bold to
search for such correspondence as still existing in detail in the
language of our own days. For words like _liebe_, _süss_ on the one
hand, and _zorn_, _hass_, _hart_ on the other, which are often alleged
by dilettanti, prove nothing to the scholar, because their form is
young and must have had totally different sounds in the period when
language was created.”
Similarly de Saussure (LG 104) gives as one of the main principles of
our science that the tie between sound and sense is arbitrary or rather
motiveless (immotivé), and to those who would object that onomatopoetic
words are not arbitrary he says that “they are never organic elements
of a linguistic system. Besides, they are much less numerous than is
generally supposed. Such words as Fr. _fouet_ and _glas_ may strike
some ears with a suggestive ring;[106] but they have not had that
character from the start, as is sufficiently proved if we go back to
their Latin forms (_fouet_ derived from _fagus_ ‘beech,’ _glas_ =
_classicum_); the quality possessed by, or rather attributed to, their
actual sounds is a fortuitous result of phonetic development.”
Here we see one of the characteristics of modern linguistic science:
it is so preoccupied with etymology, with the origin of words, that
it pays much more attention to what words have come from than to what
they have come to be. If a word has not always been suggestive on
account of its sound, then its actual suggestiveness is left out of
account and may even be declared to be merely fanciful. I hope that
this chapter contains throughout what is psychologically a more true
and linguistically a more fruitful view.
Though some echo words may be very old, the great majority are not;
at any rate, in looking up the earliest ascertained date of a goodly
number of such words in the NED, I have been struck by the fact of so
many of them being quite recent, not more than a few centuries old,
and some not even that. To some extent their recent appearance in
writing may be ascribed to the general character of the old literature
as contrasted with our modern literature, which is less conventional,
freer in many ways, more true to life with its infinite variety and
more true, too, to the spoken language of every day. But that cannot
account for everything, and there is every probability that this class
of words is really more frequent in the spoken language of recent times
than it was formerly, because people speak in a more vivid and fresh
fashion than their ancestors of hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The time of psychological reaction is shorter than it used to be, life
moves at a more rapid rate, and people are less tied down to tradition
than in former ages, consequently they are more apt to create and to
adopt new words of this particular type, which are felt at once to
be significant and expressive. In all languages the creation and use
of echoic and symbolic words seems to have been on the increase in
historical times. If to this we add the selective process through which
words which have only secondarily acquired symbolical value survive
at the cost of less adequate expressions, or less adequate forms of
the same words, and subsequently give rise to a host of derivatives,
then we may say that languages in course of time grow richer and
richer in symbolic words. So far from believing in a golden primitive
age, in which everything in language was expressive and immediately
intelligible on account of the significative value of each group of
sounds, we arrive rather, here as in other domains, at the conception
of a slow progressive development towards a greater number of easy and
adequate expressions--expressions in which sound and sense are united
in a marriage-union closer than was ever known to our remote ancestors.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] “Inner and essential connexion between idea and word ... there is
none, in any language upon earth,” says Whitney L 32.
[101] I have learnt very little from the discussion which followed
Wundt’s remarks on the subject (S 1. 312-347); see Delbrück Grfr 78
ff., Sütterlin WSG 29 ff., Hilmer Sch 10 ff.
[102] Schuchardt, KS 5. 12, _Zs. f. rom. Phil._ 33. 458, Churchill
B 53, Sandfeld-Jensen, _Nationalfølelsen_ 14, Lentzner, _Col._ 87,
Simonyi US 157, _The Outlook_, January 1910, _New Quarterly Mag._, July
1879.
[103] _F_, for instance, in _fop_, _foozy_, _fogy_, _fogram_ (old), all
of them more or less variants of _fool_.
[104] The preceding paragraphs on the symbolic value of _i_ are an
abstract of a paper which will be printed in _Philologica_, vol. i.
[105] Benfey Gesch 791, Misteli 539, Wundt S 1. 331 (but his examples
from out-of-the-way languages must be used with caution, and curiously
enough he thinks that the phenomenon is limited to primitive languages
and is not found in Semitic or Aryan languages), GRM 1. 638, Simonyi US
255, Meinhof, Ham 20.
[106] I must confess that I find nothing symbolical in _glas_ and very
little in _fouet_ (though the verb _fouetter_ has something of the
force of E. _whip_). On the whole, much of what people ‘hear’ in a
word appears to me fanciful and apt to discredit reasonable attempts
at gaining an insight into the essence of sound symbolism; thus E.
Lerch’s ridiculous remark on G. _loch_ in GRM 7. 101: “_loch_ malt die
bewegung, die der anblick eines solchen im beschauer auslöst, durch
eine entsprechende bewegung der sprachwerkzeuge, beginnend mit der
liquida zur bezeichnung der rundung und endend mit dem gutturalen _ch_
tief hinten in der gurgel.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH
§ 1. Introduction. § 2. Former Theories. § 3. Method. § 4. Sounds. §
5. Grammar. § 6. Units. § 7. Irregularities. § 8. Savage Tribes. § 9.
Law of Development. § 10. Vocabulary. § 11. Poetry and Prose. § 12.
Emotional Songs. § 13. Primitive Singing. § 14. Approach to Language.
§ 15. The Earliest Sentences. § 16. Conclusion.
XXI.--§ 1. Introduction.
Much of what is contained in the last chapters is preparatory to the
theme which is to occupy us in this chapter, the ultimate origin of
human speech. We have already seen the feeling with which this subject
has often been regarded by eminent linguists, the feeling which led to
an absolute taboo of the question in the French Société de linguistique
(p. 96). One may here quote Whitney: “No theme in linguistic science
is more often and more voluminously treated than this, and by scholars
of every grade and tendency; nor any, it may be added, with less
profitable result in proportion to the labour expended; the greater
part of what is said and written upon it is mere windy talk, the
assertion of subjective views which commend themselves to no mind save
the one that produces them, and which are apt to be offered with a
confidence, and defended with a tenacity, that are in inverse ratio to
their acceptableness. This has given the whole question a bad repute
among sober-minded philologists” (OLS 1. 279).
Nevertheless, linguistic science cannot refrain for ever from asking
about the whence (and about the whither) of linguistic evolution. And
here we must first of all realize that man is not the only animal that
has a ‘language,’ though at present we know very little about the real
nature and expressiveness of the languages of birds and mammals or of
the signalling system of ants, etc. The speech of some animals may
be more like our language than most people are willing to admit--it
may also in some respects be even more perfect than human language
precisely because it is unlike it and has developed along lines about
which we can know nothing; but it is of little avail to speculate on
these matters. What is certain is that no race of mankind is without
a language which in everything essential is identical in character
with our own, and that there are a certain number of circumstances
which have been of signal importance in assisting mankind in developing
language (cf. Gabelentz Spr 294 ff.).
First of all, man has an upright gait; this gives him two limbs more
than the dog has, for instance: he can carry things and yet jabber on;
he is not reduced to defending himself by biting, but can use his mouth
for other purposes. Feeding also takes less time in his case than in
that of the cow, who has little time for anything else than chewing
and a _moo_ now and then. The sexual life of man is not restricted to
one particular time of the year, the two sexes remain together the
whole year round, and thus sociability is promoted; the helplessness
of babies works in the same direction through necessitating a more
continuous family life, in which there is also time enough for all
kinds of sports, including play with the vocal organs. Thus conditions
have been generally favourable for the development of singing and
talking, but the problem is, how could sounds and ideas come to be
connected as they are in language?
What method or methods have we for the solution of this question?
With very few exceptions those who have written about our subject
have conjured up in their imagination a primitive era, and then asked
themselves: How would it be possible for men or manlike beings,
hitherto unfurnished with speech, to acquire speech as a means of
communication of thought? Not only is this method followed, so to
speak, instinctively by investigators, but we are even positively told
(by Marty) that it is the only method possible. In direct opposition
to this assertion, I think that it is chiefly and principally due to
this method and to this way of putting the question that so little has
yet been done to solve it. If we are to have any hope of success in our
investigation we must try new methods and new ways--and fortunately
there _are_ ways which lead us to a point from which we may expect to
see the world of primitive language revealed to us in a new light. But
let us first cast a rapid glance at those theories which have been
advanced by followers of the speculative or _a priori_ method.
XXI.--§ 2. Former Theories.
One theory is that primitive words were imitative of sounds: man copied
the barking of dogs and thereby obtained a natural word with the
meaning of ‘dog’ or ‘bark.’ To this theory, nicknamed the _bow-wow_
theory, Renan objects that it seems rather absurd to set up this
chronological sequence: first the lower animals are original enough
to cry and roar; and then comes man, making a language for himself
by imitating his inferiors. But surely man would imitate not only the
cries of inferior animals, but also those of his fellow-men, and the
salient point of the theory is this: sounds which in one creature
were produced without any meaning, but which were characteristic of
that creature, could by man be used to designate the creature itself
(or the movement or action productive of the sound). In this way an
originally unmeaning sound could in the mouth of an imitator and in
the mind of someone hearing that imitation acquire a real meaning.
In the chapter on Sound Symbolism I have tried to show how from the
rudest and most direct imitations of this kind we may arrive through
many gradations at some of the subtlest effects of human speech, and
how imitation, in the widest sense we can give to this word--a wider
sense than most advocates of the theory seem able to imagine--is so far
from belonging exclusively to a primitive age that it is not extinct
even yet. There is not much of value in Max Müller’s remark that “the
onomatopœic theory goes very smoothly as long as it deals with cackling
hens and quacking ducks; but round that poultry-yard there is a high
wall, and we soon find that it is behind that wall that language really
begins” (_Life_ 2. 97), or in his other remark that “words of this
kind (_cuckoo_) are, like artificial flowers, without a root. They are
sterile, and unfit to express anything beyond the one object which they
imitate” (ib. 1. 410). But _cuckoo_ may become _cuckold_ (Fr. _cocu_),
and from _cock_ are derived the names Müller himself mentions, Fr.
_coquet_, _coquetterie_, _cocart_, _cocarde_, _coquelicot_.... Echoic
words may be just as fertile as any other part of the vocabulary.
Another theory is the interjectional, nicknamed the _pooh-pooh_,
theory: language is derived from instinctive ejaculations called forth
by pain or other intense sensations or feelings. The adherents of this
theory generally take these interjections for granted, without asking
about the way in which they have come into existence. Darwin, however,
in _The Expression of the Emotions_, gives purely physiological reasons
for some interjections, as when the feeling of contempt or disgust is
accompanied by a tendency “to blow out of the mouth or nostrils, and
this produces sounds like _pooh_ or _pish_.” Again, “when anyone is
startled or suddenly astonished, there is an instantaneous tendency,
likewise from an intelligible cause, namely, to be ready for prolonged
exertion, to open the mouth widely, so as to draw a deep and rapid
inspiration. When the next full expiration follows, the mouth is
slightly closed, and the lips, from causes hereafter to be discussed,
are somewhat protruded; and this form of the mouth, if the voice be
at all exerted, produces ... the sound of the vowel _o_. Certainly a
deep sound of a prolonged _Oh!_ may be heard from a whole crowd of
people immediately after witnessing any astonishing spectacle. If,
together with surprise, pain be felt, there is a tendency to contract
all the muscles of the body, including those of the face, and the lips
will then be drawn back; and this will perhaps account for the sound
becoming higher and assuming the character of _Ah!_ or _Ach!_”
To the ordinary interjectional theory it may be objected that the
usual interjections are abrupt expressions for sudden sensations
and emotions; they are therefore isolated in relation to the speech
material used in the rest of the language. “Between interjection
and word there is a chasm wide enough to allow us to say that the
interjection is the negation of language, for interjections are
employed only when one either cannot or will not speak” (Benfey Gesch
295). This ‘chasm’ is also shown phonetically by the fact that the most
spontaneous interjections often contain sounds which are not used in
language proper, voiceless vowels, inspiratory sounds, clicks, etc.,
whence the impossibility properly to represent them by means of our
ordinary alphabet: the spellings _pooh_, _pish_, _whew_, _tut_ are very
poor renderings indeed of the natural sounds. On the other hand, many
interjections are now more or less conventionalized and are learnt
like any other words, consequently with a different form in different
languages: in pain a German and a Seelander will exclaim _au_, a
Jutlander _aus_, a Frenchman _ahi_ and an Englishman _oh_, or perhaps
_ow_. Kipling writes in one of his stories: “That man is no Afghan, for
they weep ‘Ai! Ai!’ Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep ‘Oh! Ho!’ He
weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say, ‘Ow! Ow!’”
A closely related theory is the nativistic, nicknamed the _ding-dong_,
theory, according to which there is a mystic harmony between sound and
sense: “There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature,
that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar
ring.” Language is the result of an instinct, a “faculty peculiar to
man in his primitive state, by which every impression from without
received its vocal expression from within”--a faculty which “became
extinct when its object was fulfilled.” This theory, which Max Müller
propounded and afterwards wisely abandoned, is mentioned here for the
curiosity of the matter only.
Noiré started a fourth theory, nicknamed the _yo-he-ho_: under any
strong muscular effort it is a relief to the system to let breath
come out strongly and repeatedly, and by that process to let the
vocal chords vibrate in different ways; when primitive acts were
performed in common, they would, therefore, naturally be accompanied
with some sounds which would come to be associated with the idea of
the act performed and stand as a name for it; the first words would
accordingly mean something like ‘heave’ or ‘haul.’
Now, these theories, here imperfectly reproduced each in a few lines,
are mutually antagonistic: thus Noiré thinks it possible to explain the
origin of speech without sound imitation. And yet what should prevent
our combining these several theories and using them concurrently? It
would seem to matter very little whether the first word uttered by man
was _bow-wow_ or _pooh-pooh_, for the fact remains that he said both
one and the other. Each of the three chief theories enables one to
explain _parts of language_, but still only parts, and not even the
most important parts--the main body of language seems hardly to be
touched by any of them. Again, with the exception of Noiré’s theory,
they are too individualistic and take too little account of language as
a means of human intercourse. Moreover, they all tacitly assume that up
to the creation of language man had remained mute or silent; but this
is most improbable from a physiological point of view. As a rule we do
not find an organ already perfected on the first occasion of its use;
it is only by use that an organ is developed.
XXI.--§ 3. Method.
So much for the results of the first method of approaching the
question of the origin of speech, that of trying to picture to oneself
a speechless mankind and speculating on the way in which language
could then have originated. We shall now, as hinted above (p. 413),
indicate the ways in which it is possible to supplement, and even in
some measure to supplant, this speculative or deductive method by
means of inductive reasonings. These can be based on three fields of
investigation, namely:
(1) The language of children;
(2) The language of primitive races, and
(3) The history of language.
Of these, the third is the most fruitful source of information.
First, as to the language of children. Some biologists maintain that
the development of the individual follows on the whole the same course
as that of the race; the embryo, before it arrives at full maturity,
will have passed through the same stages of development which in
countless generations have led the whole species to its present level.
It has, therefore, occurred to many that the acquisition by mankind at
large of the faculty of speech may be mirrored to us in the process
by which any child learns to communicate its thoughts by means of its
vocal organs. Accordingly, children’s language has often been invoked
to furnish illustrations and parallels of the process gone through
in the formation of primitive language. But many writers have been
guilty of an erroneous inference in applying this principle, inasmuch
as they have taken all their examples from a child’s acquisition of an
already existing language. The fallacy will be evident if we suppose
for a moment the case of a man endeavouring to arrive at the evolution
of music from the manner in which a child is nowadays taught to play
on the piano. Manifestly, the modern learner is in quite a different
position to primitive man, and has quite a different task set him: he
has an instrument ready to hand, and melodies already composed for
him, and finally a teacher who understands how to draw these tunes
forth from the instrument. It is the same thing with language: the task
of the child is to learn an existing language, that is, to connect
certain sounds heard on the lips of others with the same ideas that the
speakers associate with them, but not in the least to frame anything
new. No; if we are seeking some parallel to the primitive acquisition
of language, we must look elsewhere and turn to baby language as it
is spoken in the first year of life, before the child has begun to
‘notice’ and to make out what use is made of language by grown-up
people. Here, in the child’s first purposeless murmuring, crowing
and babbling, we have real nature sounds; here we may expect to find
some clue to the infancy of the language of the race. And, again, we
must not neglect the way children have of creating new words never
heard before, and often of attaching a sense to originally meaningless
conglomerations of sound.
As for the languages of contemporary savages, we may in some instances
take them as typical of more primitive languages than those of
civilized nations, and therefore as illustrating a linguistic stage
that is nearer to that in which speech originated. Still, inferences
from such languages should be used with great caution, for it should
never be forgotten that even the most backward race has many centuries
of linguistic evolution behind it, and that the conditions therefore
may, or must, be very different from those of primeval man. The
so-called primitive languages will therefore in the following sections
be only invoked to corroborate conclusions at which it is possible to
arrive from other data.
The third and most fruitful source from which to gather information of
value for our investigation is the history of language as it has been
considered in previous chapters of this work. While the propounders
of the theories of the origin of speech mentioned above made straight
for the front of the lion’s den, we are like the fox in the fable, who
noticed that all the traces led into the den and not a single one came
out; we will therefore try and steal into the den from behind. They
thought it logically correct, nay necessary, to begin at the beginning;
let us, for variety’s sake, begin with languages accessible at the
present day, and let us attempt from that starting-point step by step
to trace the backward path. Perhaps in this way we may reach the very
first beginnings of speech.
The method I recommend, and which I think I am the first to employ
consistently, is to trace our modern twentieth-century languages as far
back in time as history and our materials will allow us; and then, from
this comparison of present English with Old English, of Danish with
Old Norse, and of both with ‘Common Gothonic,’ of French and Italian
with Latin, of modern Indian dialects with Sanskrit, etc., to deduce
definite laws for the development of languages in general, and to try
and find a system of lines which can be lengthened backwards beyond
the reach of history. If we should succeed in discovering certain
qualities to be generally typical of the earlier as opposed to the
later stages of languages, we shall be justified in concluding that
the same qualities obtained in a still higher degree in the earliest
times of all; if we are able within the historical era to demonstrate a
definite direction of linguistic evolution, we must be allowed to infer
that the direction was the same even in those primeval periods for
which we have no documents to guide us. But if the change witnessed in
the evolution of modern speech out of older forms of speech is thus on
a larger scale projected back into the childhood of mankind, and if by
this process we arrive finally at uttered sounds of such a description
that they can no longer be called a real language, but something
antecedent to language--why, then the problem will have been solved;
for transformation is something we can understand, while a creation out
of nothing can never be comprehended by human understanding.
This, then, will be the object of the following rapid sketch: to search
the several departments of the science of language for general laws
of evolution--most of them have already been discussed at some length
in the preceding chapters--then to magnify the changes observed, and
thus to form a picture of the outer and inner structure of some sort of
speech more primitive than the most primitive language accessible to
direct observation.
XXI.--§ 4. Sounds.
First, as regards the purely phonetic side of language, we observe
everywhere the tendency to make pronunciation more easy, so as to
lessen the muscular effort; difficult combinations of sounds are
discarded, those only being retained which are pronounced with ease
(see Ch. XIV § 6 ff.). Modern research has shown that the Proto-Aryan
sound-system was much more complicated than was imagined in the
reconstructions of the middle of the nineteenth century. In most
languages now only such sounds are used as are produced by expiration,
while inbreathed sounds and clicks or suction-stops are not found in
connected speech. In civilized languages we meet with such sounds only
in interjections, as when an inbreathed voiceless _l_ (generally with
rhythmic variations of strength and corresponding small movements of
the tongue) is used to express delight in eating and drinking, or when
the click inadequately spelt _tut_ is used to express impatience.
In some very primitive South African languages, on the other hand,
clicks are found as integral parts of words; and Bleek has rendered
it probable that in former stages of these languages they were in
more extensive use than now. We may perhaps draw the conclusion that
primitive languages in general were rich in all kinds of difficult
sounds.
The following point is of more far-reaching consequence. In some
languages we find a gradual disappearance of tone or pitch accent; this
has been the case in Danish, whereas Norwegian and Swedish have kept
the old tones; so also in Russian as compared with Serbo-Croatian.
In the works of old Indian, Greek and Latin grammarians we have
express statements to the effect that pitch accent played a prominent
part in those languages, and that the intervals used must have been
comparatively greater than is usual in our modern languages. In modern
Greek and in the Romanic languages the tone element has been obscured,
and now ‘stress’ is heard on the syllable where the ancients noted only
a high or a low tone. About the languages spoken nowadays by savage
tribes we have generally very little information, as most of those who
have made a first-hand study of such languages have not been trained
to observe and to describe these delicate points; still, there is of
late years an increasing number of observations of tone accents, for
instance in African languages, which may justify us in thinking that
tone plays an important part in many primitive languages.[107]
So much for word tones; now for the sentence melody. It is a well-known
fact that the modulation of sentences is strongly influenced by the
effect of intense emotions in causing stronger and more rapid raisings
and sinkings of the tone. “All passionate language does of itself
become musical--with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech
of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song” (Carlyle).
“The sounds of common conversation have but little resonance; those
of strong feeling have much more. Under rising ill-temper the voice
acquires a metallic ring.... Grief, unburdening itself, uses tones
approaching in _timbre_ to those of chanting; and in his most pathetic
passages an eloquent speaker similarly falls into tones more vibratory
than those common to him.... While calm speech is comparatively
monotonous, emotion makes use of fifths, octaves, and even wider
intervals” (H. Spencer).
Now, it is a consequence of advancing civilization that passion,
or, at least, the expression of passion, is moderated, and we must
therefore conclude that the speech of uncivilized and primitive men
was more passionately agitated than ours, more like music or song.
This conclusion is borne out by what we hear about the speech of many
savages in our own days. European travellers very often record their
impression of the speech of different tribes in expressions like
these: “pronouncing whatever they spoke in a very singing manner,”
“the singing tone of voice, in common conversation, was frequent,”
“the speech is very much modulated and resembles singing,” “highly
artificial and musical,” etc.
These facts and considerations all point to the conclusion that there
once was a time when all speech was song, or rather when these two
actions were not yet differentiated; but perhaps this inference cannot
be established inductively at the present stage of linguistic science
with the same amount of certainty as the statements I am now going to
make as to the nature of primitive speech.
As we have seen above (Ch. XVII § 7), a great many of the changes
going on regularly from century to century, as well as some of the
sudden changes which take place now and then in the history of each
language, result in the shortening of words. This is seen everywhere
and at all times, and in consequence of this universal tendency we
find that the ancient languages of our family, Sanskrit, Zend, etc.,
abound in very long words; the further back we go, the greater the
number of _sesquipedalia_. We have seen also how the current theory,
according to which every language started with monosyllabic roots,
fails at every point to account for actual facts and breaks down before
the established truths of linguistic history. Just as the history
of religion does not pass from the belief in one god to the belief
in many gods, but inversely from polytheism towards monotheism, so
language proceeds from original polysyllabism towards monosyllabism:
if the development of language took the same course in prehistoric
as in historic times, we see, by projecting the teaching of history
on a larger scale back into the darkest ages, that early words must
have been to present ones what the plesiosaurus and gigantosaurus
are to present-day reptiles. The outcome of this phonetic section
is, therefore, that we must imagine primitive language as consisting
(chiefly at least) of very long words, full of difficult sounds, and
sung rather than spoken.
XXI.--§ 5. Grammar.
Can anything be stated about the grammar of primitive languages? Yes, I
think so, if we continue backwards into the past the lines of evolution
resulting from the investigations of previous chapters of this volume.
Ancient languages have more forms than modern ones; forms originally
kept distinct are in course of time confused, either phonetically or
analogically, alike in substantives, adjectives and verbs.
A characteristic feature of the structure of languages in their early
stages is that each form of a word (whether verb or noun) contains
in itself several minor modifications which, in the later stages,
are expressed separately (if at all), that is, by means of auxiliary
verbs or prepositions. Such a word as Latin _cantavisset_ unites in
one inseparable whole the equivalents of six ideas: (1) ‘sing,’ (2)
pluperfect, (3) that indefinite modification of the verbal idea which
we term subjunctive, (4) active, (5) third person, and (6) singular.
The tendency of later stages is towards expressing such modifications
analytically; but if we accept the terms ‘synthesis’ and ‘analysis’
for ancient and recent stages, we must first realize that there exist
many gradations of both: in no single language do we find either
synthesis or analysis carried out with absolute purity and consistency.
Everywhere we find a more or less. Latin is synthetic in comparison
with French, French analytic in comparison with Latin; but if we were
able to see the direct ancestor of Latin, say two thousand years before
the earliest inscriptions, we should no doubt find a language so
synthetic that in comparison with it Cicero’s would have to be termed
highly analytic.
Secondly, we must not from the term ‘synthesis,’ which etymologically
means ‘composition’ or ‘putting together,’ draw the conclusion that
synthetic forms, such as we find, for instance, in Latin, consist
of originally independent elements put together and thus in their
turn presuppose a previous stage of analysis. Whoever does not share
the usual opinion that all flexional forms have originated through
coalescence of separate words, but sees as we have seen (in Ch. XIX)
also the reverse process of inseparable portions of words gaining
greater and greater independence, will perhaps do well to look out
for a better and less ambiguous word than _synthesis_ to describe the
character of primitive speech. What in the later stages of languages
is analyzed or dissolved, in the earlier stages was unanalyzable or
indissoluble; ‘entangled’ or ‘complicated’ would therefore be better
renderings of our impression of the first state of things.
XXI.--§ 6. Units.
But are the old forms really less dissoluble than their modern
equivalents? This is repeatedly denied even by recent writers, on whom
my words in _Progress_, p. 117, cannot have made much impression, if
they have read them at all; and it will therefore be necessary to take
up this cardinal point. Let me begin with quoting what others have
said. “Historically considered, the Latin _amat_ is really two words,
as much as its English representative, the final _t_ being originally
a pronoun signifying ‘he,’ ‘she’ or ‘it,’ and it is only reasons of
practical convenience that prevent us from writing _am at_ or _ama t_
as two and _heloves_ as one word.... The really essential difference
between _amat_ and _he loves_ is that in the former the pronominal
element is expressed by a suffix, in the latter by a prefix” (Sweet PS
274, 1899). “It is purely accidental that the Latin form is not written
_am-av-it_. To the unsophisticated Frenchman _il a aimé_ is neither
less nor more one unit than _amavit_ to a Roman.... When the locution
_il a aimé_ sprang up, each element of it was still to some extent felt
separately; but after it had become a fixed formula the elements were
fused together into one whole. As a matter of fact, uneducated French
people have not the least idea whether it is one or three words they
speak” (Sütterlin WGS 11, 1902). “In some modern languages the personal
pronoun is, just as in archaic Greek, beginning to be amalgamated
with verbs so as to become a mere termination (_sic_: _désinence_;
prefix must be what is meant): Fr. _j’don’_, _tu-don’_, _il-don’_ (je
donne, tu donnes, il donne) and E. _i-giv’_, _we giv’_, _you-giv’_,
_they-giv’_, correspond exactly to Gr. _dido-mi_, _dido-si_, _dido-ti_,
only that the personal particle is in a different place” (Dauzat V 155,
1910). “If French were a savage language not yet reduced to writing,
a travelling linguist, hearing the present tense of the verb _aimer_
pronounced by the natives, would transcribe it in the following way:
_jèm_, _tu èm_, _ilèm_, _nouzémon_, _vouzémé_, _ilzèm_. He would be
struck particularly with the agglutination of the pronominal subject
and the verb, and would never feel tempted to draw up a paradigm
without pronouns: _aime_, _aimes_, _aime_, _aimons_, etc., in which
traditional spelling makes us believe.... He would even, through a
comparison of _ilèm_ and _ilzèm_, be led to establish a tendency to
incorporation, as the only sign of the plural is a _z_ infixed in the
verbal complex” (Bally LV 43, 1913).
In these utterances two questions are really mixed together, that of
the origin of Aryan flexional forms and that of the actual status of
some forms in various languages. As to the former question, we have
seen (p. 383) how very uncertain it is that _amat_ and _didosi_, etc.,
contain pronouns. As to the latter question, it is quite true that
we should not let the usual spelling be decisive when it is asked
whether we have one or two or three words; but all these writers
strangely overlook the really important criteria which we possess in
this matter. Bally’s traveller could only have arrived at his result
by listening to grammar lessons in which the three persons of the verb
were rattled off one after the other, for if he had taken his forms
from actual conversation he would have come across numerous instances
in which the forms occurred without pronouns, first in the imperative,
_aime_, _aimons_, _aimez_, then in collocations like _celui qui aime_,
_ceux qui aiment_, in which there is no infix to denote the plural;
in _le mari aime_, _les maris aiment_, and innumerable similar groups
there is neither pronoun nor infix. If he were at first inclined to
take _ilaaimé_ as one word, he would on further acquaintance with the
language discover that the elements were often separated: _il n’a pas
aimé_, _il nous a toujours aimés_, etc. Similarly with the English
forms adduced: _I never give_, _you always give_. This is the crucial
point: the French and English combinations are two (three) words
because the elements are not always placed together; Lat. _amat_,
_amavit_, are each of them only one word because they can never be
divided, and in the same way we never find anything placed between _am_
and _o_ in the first person, _amo_. These forms are as inseparable as
E. _loves_, but E. _heloves_ is separable because both _he_ and _loves_
can stand alone, and can also, in certain combinations, though now
rarely, be transposed: _loves he_. Some writers would compare French
combinations like _il te le disait_ with verbal forms in certain
Amerindian languages, in which subject and direct and indirect object
are alike ‘incorporated’ in a ‘polysynthetic’ verbal form; it is
quite true that these French pronominal forms can never be used by
themselves, but only in conjunction with a verb; still, the French
pronouns are more independent of each other than the elements of some
other more primitive languages. In the first place, this is shown by
the possibility of varying the pronunciation: _il te le disait_ may
be either [itlədizɛ] or [itəldizɛ] or even more solemnly [iltələdizɛ];
secondly, by the regularity of these joined pronominal forms, for they
are always the same, whatever the verb may be; and lastly, by their
changing places in certain cases: _te le disait-il?_ _dis-le-lui_, etc.
Nor can it be said that English forms like _he’s_ = _he is_ (or _he
has_), _I’d_ = _I had_ (or _I would_), _he’ll_ = _he will_ show a
tendency towards ‘entangling,’ for however closely together these
forms are generally pronounced, each of them must be said to consist
of two words, as is shown by the possibility of transposition (Is he
ill?) and of intercalation of other words (I never had); it is also
noteworthy that the same short forms of the verbs can be added to all
kinds of words (the water’ll be ..., the sea’d been calm). In the forms
_don’t_, _won’t_, _can’t_ there is something like amalgamation of the
verbal with the negative idea. Still, it is important to notice that
the amalgamation only takes place with a few verbs of the auxiliary
class. In saying ‘I don’t write’ the full verb is not touched by the
fusion, and is even allowed to be unchanged in cases where it would
have been inflected if no auxiliary had been used; compare _I write_,
_he writes_, _I wrote_ with the negative _I don’t write_, _he doesn’t
write_, _I didn’t write_. It will be seen, especially if we take into
account the colloquial or vulgar form for the third person, _he don’t
write_, that the general movement here as elsewhere is really rather
in the direction of ‘isolation’ than of fusion; for the verbal form
_write_ is stripped of all signs of person and tense, the person being
indicated separately (if at all), and the tense sign being joined to
the negation. So also in interrogative sentences; and if that tendency
which can be observed in Elizabethan English had prevailed by using the
combination _I do write_ in positive statements, even where no special
emphasis is intended, English verbs (except a few auxiliaries) would
have been entirely stripped of those elements which to most grammarians
constitute the very essence of a verb, namely, the marks of person,
number, tense and mood, _write_ being the universal form, besides the
quasi-nominal forms _writing_ and _written_.
Now, it is often said that the history of language shows a sort of
gyration or movement in spirals, in which synthesis is followed
by analysis, this by a new synthesis (flexion), and this again by
analysis, and so forth. Latin _amabo_ (which according to the old
theory was once _ama_ + some auxiliary) has been succeeded by _amare
habeo_, which in its turn is fused into _amerò_, _aimerai_, and the
latter form is now to some extent giving way to _je vais aimer_. But
this pretended law of rotation is only arrived at by considering
a comparatively small number of phenomena, and not by viewing the
successive stages of the same language as wholes and drawing general
inferences as to their typically distinctive characters (cf. above,
p. 337). If for every two instances of new flexions springing up we
see ten older ones discarded in favour of analysis or isolation, are
we not entitled to the generalization that flexion or indissolubility
tends to give way to analysis? We should beware of being under the same
delusion as a man who, in walking over a mountainous country, thinks
that he goes down just as many and just as long hills as he goes up,
while on the contrary each ascent is higher than the preceding descent,
so that finally he finds himself unexpectedly many thousand feet above
the level from which he started.
The direction of movement is towards flexionless languages (such as
Chinese, or to a certain extent Modern English) with freely combinable
elements; the starting-point was flexional languages (such as Latin or
Greek); at a still earlier stage we must suppose a language in which
a verbal form might indicate not only six things, like _cantavisset_,
but a still larger number, in which verbs were perhaps modified
according to the gender (or sex) of the subject, as they are in
Semitic languages, or according to the object, as in some Amerindian
languages, or according to whether a man, a woman, or a person who
commands respect is spoken to, as in Basque. But that amounts to the
same thing as saying that the border-line between word and sentence was
not so clearly defined as in more recent times; _cantavisset_ is really
nothing but a sentence-word, and the same holds good to a still greater
extent of the sound conglomerations of Eskimo and some other North
American languages. Primitive linguistic units must have been much more
complicated in point of meaning, as well as much longer in point of
sound, than those with which we are most familiar.
XXI.--§ 7. Irregularities.
Another point of great importance is this: in early languages we find
a far greater number of irregularities, exceptions, anomalies, than in
modern ones. It is true that we not unfrequently see new irregularities
spring up, where the formations were formerly regular; but these
instances are very far from counterbalancing the opposite class, in
which words once irregularly inflected become regular, or are given up
in favour of regularly inflected words, or in which anomalies in syntax
are levelled. The tendency is more and more to denote the same thing
by the same means in every case, to extend the ending, or whatever
it is, that is used in a large class of words to express a certain
modification of the central idea, until it is used in all other words
as well.
Comparative linguistics did not attain a scientific character till
the principle was established that the relationship of two languages
had to be determined by a thoroughgoing conformity in the most
necessary parts of language, namely (besides grammar proper) pronouns
and numerals and the most indispensable of nouns and verbs. But if
this domain of speech, by preserving religiously, as it were, the
old tradition, affords infallible criteria of the near or remote
relationship of different languages, may we not reasonably expect to
find in the same domain some clue to the oldest grammatical system
used by our ancestors? What sort of system, then, do we find there?
We see such a declension as _I_, _me_, _we_, _us_: the several
forms of the ‘paradigm’ do not at all resemble each other, as they
do in more recently developed declensions. We find masculines and
feminines, such as _father_, _mother_, _man_, _wife_, _bull_, _cow_;
while such methods of derivation as are seen in _count_, _countess_,
_he-bear_, _she-bear_, belong to a later time. We meet with degrees of
comparison like _good_, _better_, _ill_, _worse_, while regular forms
like _happy_, _happier_, _big_, _bigger_, prevail in all the younger
strata of languages. We meet with verbal flexion such as appears in
_am_, _is_, _was_, _been_, which forms a striking contrast to the
more modern method of adding a mere ending while leaving the body of
the word unchanged. In an interesting book, _Vom Suppletivwesen der
indogermanischen Sprachen_ (1899), H. Osthoff has collected a very
great number of examples from the old Aryan languages of different
stems supplementing each other, and has pointed out that this
phenomenon is characteristic of the most necessary ideas occurring
every moment in ordinary conversation: I take at random a few of
the best-known of his examples: Fr. _aller_, _je vais_, _j’irai_,
Lat. _fero_, _tuli_, Gr. _horaō_, _opsomai_, _eidon_, Lat. _bonus_,
_melior_, _optimus_. Osthoff fully agrees with me that we have here a
trait of primitive psychology: our remote ancestors were not able to
see and to express what was common to these ideas; their minds were
very unsystematic, and separated in their linguistic expressions things
which from a logical point of view are closely related: much of their
grammar, therefore, was really of a lexical character.
XXI.--§ 8. Savage Tribes.
If now it is asked whether the conclusions we have thus arrived at are
borne out by a consideration of the languages of savage or primitive
races nowadays, the answer is that these cannot be lumped together;
there are among them many different types, even with regard to
grammatical structure. But the more these languages are studied and the
more accurately their structure is described, the more also students
perceive intricacies and anomalies in their grammar. Gabelentz (Spr
386) says that the casual observer has no idea how manifold and how
nicely circumscribed grammatical categories can be, even in the
seemingly crudest languages, for ordinary grammars tell us nothing
about that. P. W. Schmidt (_Die Stellung der Pygmäenvölker_, 1910,
129) says that whoever, from the low culture of the Andamanese, would
expect to find their language very simple and poor in expressions
would be strangely deceived, for its mechanism is highly complicated,
with many prefixes and suffixes, which often conceal the root itself.
Meinhof (MSA 136) mentions the multiplicity of plural formations
in African languages. Vilhelm Thomsen, in speaking of the Santhal
(Khervarian) language, says that its grammar is capable of expressing
a multiplicity of _nuances_ which in other languages must be expressed
by clumsy circumlocutions; the native speakers go beyond what is
necessary through requiring expressions for many subordinate notions,
the language having, so to speak, only one fine gold-balance, on which
everything, even the simplest and commonest things, must be weighed
by the adding-up of a whole series of minutiæ. Curr speaks about the
erroneous belief in the simplicity of Australian languages, which on
the contrary have a great number of conjugations, etc. The extreme
difficulty and complex structure of Eskimo and of many Amerindian
languages is so notorious that no words need be wasted on them here.
And the forms of the Basque verb are so manifold and intricate that
we understand how Larramendi, in his legitimate pride at having been
the first to reduce them to a system, called his grammar _El Imposible
Vencido_, ‘The Impossible Overcome.’ At Béarn they have the story that
the good God, wishing to punish the devil for the temptation of Eve,
sent him to the Pays Basque with the command that he should remain
there till he had mastered the language. At the end of seven years God
relented, finding the punishment too severe, and called the devil to
him. The devil had no sooner crossed the bridge of Castelondo than he
found he had forgotten all that he had so hardly learned.
What is here said about the languages of wild tribes (and of the
Basques, who are not exactly savages, but whose language is generally
taken to have retained many primeval traits) is in exact keeping
with everything that recent study of primitive man has brought to
light: the life of the savage is regulated to the minutest details
through ceremonies and conventionalities to be observed on every and
any occasion; he is restricted in what he may eat and drink and when
and how; and all these, to our mind, irrational prescriptions and
innumerable prohibitions have to be observed with the most scrupulous,
nay religious, care: it is the same with all the meticulous rules of
his language.
XXI.--§ 9. Law of Development.