LINGUISTIC.
INTRODUCTORY.
The processes, psychical and logical, which lie at the basis and modify
the forms of articulate speech, have yet to be defined and classified in
a manner to secure the general acceptance of scholars. While these
processes are operative and recognizable in all languages, it has ever
seemed to me that they are more apparent and transparent in the
unwritten tongues of savage tribes. As the stream is more diaphanous
near its source, as the problem of organic life is more readily studied
in the lowest groups of animals and vegetables, by such analogies we are
prompted to select the uncultured speech of the rudest of our race to
discover the laws of growth in human expression.
Though such laws are not precisely the same throughout space and time,
they unquestionably partake of the same uniformity as we note in other
natural phenomena, and no language has yet been reported which stands
alone in its formation.
Perhaps the general laws under which languages should be grouped have
already been defined as closely as the subject permits. The labors of
Wilhelm von Humboldt, as expanded by Professor Steinthal, would appear
to present the most comprehensive and satisfactory classification yet
attempted. Such is the conclusion to which my own studies of the subject
have led me, and in the first three essays of this Part, I have set
forth in considerable detail the application of this opinion to the
languages of America. Especially in the second essay, I have attempted
to popularize a profounder philosophic analysis of these tongues than
has heretofore appeared in works on the subject.
The essay on “The Earliest Form of Human Speech” offers a series of
inferences drawn from the study of American tongues as to the general
characteristics of the articulate utterances of the species when it
first became possessed—by some slow evolutionary process—of the power of
conveying ideas by intelligible sounds. It is an application of facts
drawn from a limited number of languages to the linguistic status of the
whole species at an indeterminately remote period, but is, I think, a
fair use of the materials offered.
The analysis of words for the affections is the theme of the essay on
“The Conception of Love in some American Languages.” It is an example of
the use to which linguistics may be put in the science of racial
psychology; while the essay on the words for linear measures in certain
tongues illustrates what knowledge as to the condition of a nation’s
arts may be obtained by a scrutiny of its lexicon.
The next essay, on the curious hoax perpetrated on some European and
American linguists by the manufacture of a novel American tongue by some
French students, is an instance, not wholly unprecedented, of misplaced
ingenuity on the one side, and easy credulity on the other. It belongs
among the “curiosities of literature.”
Professional linguists will probably consider the most important
generalization debated in this Part that of the identity or diversity of
the agglutinative and incorporative processes of tongues. These two
processes are considered as forms of but one by most of the present
French school; but I have maintained their radical distinction,
following the German writers above mentioned; and I have further
insisted that the incorporative plan is that especially prominent in
American languages.
AMERICAN LANGUAGES, AND WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THEM.[263]
_Contents._—Indian geographic names—Language a guide to
ethnology—Reveals the growth of arts and the psychologic processes
of a people—Illustration from the Lenâpe tongue—Structure of
language best studied in savage tongues—Rank of American
tongues—Characteristic traits; pronominal forms; idea of
personality; polysynthesis; incorporation; holophrasis; origin of
these—Lucidity of American tongues; their vocabularies; power of
expressing abstract ideas—Conclusion.
I appear before you this evening to enter a plea for one of the most
neglected branches of learning, for a study usually considered
hopelessly dry and unproductive—that of American aboriginal languages.
It might be thought that such a topic, in America and among Americans,
would attract a reasonably large number of students. The interest which
attaches to our native soil and to the homes of our ancestors might be
supposed to extend to the languages of those nations who for uncounted
generations possessed the land which we have occupied relatively so
short a time.
This supposition would seem the more reasonable in view of the fact that
in one sense these languages have not died out among us. True, they are
no longer media of intercourse, but they survive in thousands of
geographical names all over our land. In the state of Connecticut alone
there are over six hundred, and even more in Pennsylvania.
Certainly it would be a most legitimate anxiety which should direct
itself to the preservation of the correct forms and precise meanings of
these numerous and peculiarly national designations. One would think
that this alone would not fail to excite something more than a languid
curiosity in American linguistics, at least in our institutions of
learning and societies for historical research.
That this subject has received so slight attention I attribute to the
comparatively recent understanding of the value of the study of
languages in general, and more particularly to the fact that no one, so
far as I know, has set forth the purposes for which we should
investigate these tongues, and the results which we expect to reach by
means of them. This it is my present purpose to attempt, so far as it
can be accomplished in the scope of an evening address.
The time has not long passed when the only good reasons for studying a
language were held to be either that we might thereby acquaint ourselves
with its literature; or that certain business, trading, or political
interests might be subserved; or that the nation speaking it might be
made acquainted with the blessings of civilization and Christianity.
These were all good and sufficient reasons, but I cannot adduce any one
of them in support of my plea to-night: for the languages I shall speak
of have no literature; all transactions with their people can be carried
on as well or better in European tongues; and, in fact, many of these
peoples are no longer in existence—they have died out or amalgamated
with others. What I have to argue for is the study of the dead languages
of extinct and barbarous tribes.
You will readily see that my arguments must be drawn from other
considerations than those of immediate utility. I must seek them in the
broader fields of ethnology and philosophy; I must appeal to your
interest in man as a race, as a member of a common species, as
possessing in all his families and tribes the same mind, the same soul.
Language is almost our only clue to discover the kinship of those
countless scattered hordes who roamed the forests of this broad
continent. Their traditions are vague or lost, written records they had
none, their customs and arts are misleading, their religions
misunderstood; their languages alone remain to testify to a oneness of
blood often seemingly repudiated by an internecine hostility.
I am well aware of the limits which a wise caution assigns to the
employment of linguistics in ethnology, and I am only too familiar with
the many foolish, unscientific attempts to employ it with reference to
the American race. But in spite of all this, I repeat that it is the
surest and almost our only means to trace the ancient connection and
migrations of nations in America.
Through its aid alone we have reached a positive knowledge that most of
the area of South America, including the whole of the West Indies, was
occupied by three great families of nations, not one of which had formed
any important settlement on the northern continent. By similar evidence
we know that the tribe which greeted Penn, when he landed on the site of
this city where I now speak, was a member of the one vast family—the
great Algonkin stock—whose various clans extended from the palmetto
swamps of Carolina to the snow-clad hills of Labrador, and from the
easternmost cape of Newfoundland to the peaks of the Rocky Mountains,
over 20° of latitude and 50° of longitude. We also know that the general
trend of migration in the northern continent has been from north to
south, and that this is true not only of the more savage tribes, as the
Algonkins, Iroquois, and Athapascas, but also of those who, in the
favored southern lands, approached a form of civilization, the Aztecs,
the Mayas, and the Quiches. These and many minor ethnologic facts have
already been obtained by the study of American languages.
But such external information is only a small part of what they are
capable of disclosing. We can turn them, like the reflector of a
microscope, on the secret and hidden mysteries of the aboriginal man,
and discover his inmost motives, his impulses, his concealed hopes and
fears, those that gave rise to his customs and laws, his schemes of
social life, his superstitions and his religions.
Personal names, family names, titles, forms of salutation, methods of
address, terms of endearment, respect, and reproach, words expressing
the emotions, these are what infallibly reveal the daily social family
life of a community, and the way in which its members regard one
another. They are precisely as correct when applied to the investigation
of the American race as elsewhere, and they are the more valuable just
there, because his deep-seated distrust of the white invaders—for which,
let us acknowledge, he had abundant cause—led the Indian to practice
concealment and equivocation on these personal topics.
In no other way can the history of the development of his arts be
reached. You are doubtless aware that diligent students of the Aryan
languages have succeeded in faithfully depicting the arts and habits of
that ancient community in which the common ancestors of Greek and Roman,
Persian and Dane, Brahmin and Irishman, dwelt together as of one blood
and one speech. This has been done by ascertaining what household words
are common to all these tongues, and therefore must have been in use
among the primeval horde from which they are all descended. The method
is conclusive, and yields positive results. There is no reason why it
should not be addressed to American languages, and we may be sure that
it would be most fruitful. How valuable it would be to take even a few
words, as maize, tobacco, pipe, bow, arrow, and the like, each
representing a widespread art or custom, and trace their derivations and
affinities through the languages of the whole continent! We may be sure
that striking and unexpected results would be obtained.
These languages also offer an entertaining field to the psychologist.
On account of their transparency, as I may call it, the clearness with
which they retain the primitive forms of their radicals, they allow us
to trace out the growth of words, and thus reveal the operations of the
native mind by a series of witnesses whose testimony cannot be
questioned. Often curious associations of ideas are thus disclosed, very
instructive to the student of mankind. Many illustrations of this could
be given, but I do not wish to assail your ears by a host of unknown
sounds, so I shall content myself with one, and that taken from the
language of the Lenāpé, or Delaware Indians.
I shall endeavor to trace out one single radical in that language, and
show you how many, and how strangely diverse ideas were built up upon
it.
The radical which I select is the personal pronoun of the first person,
_I_, Latin _Ego_. In Delaware this is a single syllable, a slight nasal,
_Nē_, or _Ni_.
Let me premise by informing you that this is both a personal and a
possessive pronoun; it means both _I_ and _mine_. It is both singular
and plural, both _I_ and _we_, _mine_ and _our_.
The changes of the application of this root are made by adding suffixes
to it.
I begin with _ni'hillan_, literally, “mine, it is so,” or “she, it, is
truly mine,” the accent being on the first syllable, _ni'_, mine. But
the common meaning of this verb in Delaware is more significant of
ownership than this tame expression. It is an active, animate verb, and
means, “I beat, or strike, somebody.” To the rude minds of the framers
of that tongue, ownership meant the right to beat what one owned.
We might hope this sense was confined to the lower animals; but not so.
Change the accent from the first to the second syllable, _ni'hillan_, to
_nihil'lan_, and you have the animate active verb with an intensive
force, which signifies “to beat to death,” “to kill some person;” and
from this, by another suffix, you have _nihil'lowen_, to murder, and
_nihil'lowet_, murderer. The bad sense of the root is here pushed to its
uttermost.
But the root also developed in a nobler direction. Add to _ni'hillan_
the termination _ape_, which means a male, and you have _nihillape_,
literally, “I, it is true, a man,” which, as an adjective, means free,
independent, one’s own master, “I am my own man.” From this are derived
the noun, _nihillapewit_, a freeman; the verb _nihillapewin_, to be
free; and the abstract, _nihillasowagan_, freedom, liberty,
independence. These are glorious words; but I can go even farther. From
this same theme is derived the verb _nihillape-wheu_, to set free, to
liberate, to redeem; and from this the missionaries framed the word
_nihillape-whoalid_, the Redeemer, the Saviour.
Here is an unexpected antithesis, the words for a murderer and the
Saviour both from one root! It illustrates how strange is the
concatenation of human thoughts.
These are by no means all the derivatives from the root _ni_, I.
When reduplicated as _nĕnĕ_, it has a plural and strengthened form, like
“our own.” With a pardonable and well-nigh universal weakness, which we
share with them, the nation who spoke the language believed themselves
the first created of mortals and the most favored by the Creator. Hence
whatever they designated as “ours” was both older and better than others
of its kind. Hence _nenni_ came to mean ancient, primordial, indigenous,
and as such it is a frequent prefix in the Delaware language. Again, as
they considered themselves the first and only true men, others being
barbarians, enemies, or strangers, _nenno_ was understood to be one of
us, a man like ourselves, of our nation.
In their different dialects the sounds of _n_, _l_, and _r_ were
alternated, so that while Thomas Campanius, who translated the Catechism
into Delaware about 1645, wrote that word _rhennus_, later writers have
given it _lenno_, and translate it “man.” This is the word which we find
in the name Lenni Lenape, which, by its derivation, means “we, we men.”
The antecedent _lenni_ is superfluous. The proper name of the Delaware
nation was and still is _Len âpé_, “we men,” or “our men,” and those
critics who have maintained that this was a misnomer, introduced by Mr.
Heckewelder, have been mistaken in their facts.[264]
I have not done with the root _nē_. I might go on and show you how it is
at the base of the demonstrative pronouns, this, that, those, in
Delaware; how it is the radical of the words for thinking, reflecting,
and meditating; how it also gives rise to words expressing similarity
and identity; how it means to be foremost, to stand ahead of others; and
finally, how it signifies to come to me, to unify or congregate
together. But doubtless I have trespassed on your ears long enough with
unfamiliar words.
Such suggestions as these will give you some idea of the value of
American languages to American ethnology. But I should be doing
injustice to my subject were I to confine my arguments in favor of their
study to this horizon. If they are essential to a comprehension of the
red race, not less so are they to the science of linguistics in general.
This science deals not with languages, but with _language_. It looks at
the idiom of a nation, not as a dry catalogue of words and grammatical
rules, but as the living expression of the thinking power of man, as the
highest manifestation of that spiritual energy which has lifted him from
the level of the brute, the complete definition of which, in its origin
and evolution, is the loftiest aim of universal history. As the
intention of all speech is the expression of thought, and as the final
purpose of all thinking is the discovery of truth, so the ideal of
language, the point toward which it strives, is the absolute form for
the realization of intellectual function.
In this high quest no tongue can be overlooked, none can be left out of
account. One is just as important as another. Gœthe once said that he
who knows but one language knows none; we may extend the apothegm, and
say that so long as there is a single language on the globe not
understood and analyzed, the science of language will be incomplete and
illusory. It has often proved the case that the investigation of a
single, narrow, obscure dialect has changed the most important theories
of history. What has done more than anything else to overthrow, or, at
least, seriously to shake, the time-honored notion that the White Race
first came from Central Asia? It was the study of the Lithuanian dialect
on the Baltic Sea, a language of peasants, without literature or
culture, but which displays forms more archaic than the Sanscrit. What
has led to a complete change of views as to the prehistoric population
of Southern Europe? The study of the Basque, a language unknown out of a
few secluded valleys in the Pyrenees.
There are many reasons why unwritten languages, like those of America,
are more interesting, more promising in results, to the student of
linguistics, than those which for generations have been cast in the
conventional moulds of written speech.
Their structure is more direct, simple, transparent; they reveal more
clearly the laws of the linguistic powers in their daily exercise; they
are less tied down to hereditary formulæ and meaningless repetitions.
Would we explain the complicated structure of highly-organized tongues
like our own, would we learn the laws which have assigned to it its
material and formal elements, we must turn to the naïve speech of
savages, there to see in their nakedness those processes which are too
obscure in our own.
If the much-debated question of the origin of language engages us, we
must seek its solution in the simple radicals of savage idioms; and if
we wish to institute a comparison between the relative powers of
languages, we can by no means omit them from our list. They offer to us
the raw material, the essential and indispensable requisites of
articulate communication.
As the structure of a language reflects in a measure, and as, on the
other hand, it in a measure controls and directs the mental workings of
those who speak it, the student of psychology must occupy himself with
the speech of the most illiterate races in order to understand their
theory of things, their notions of what is about them. They teach him
the undisturbed evolution of the untrained mind.
As the biologist in pursuit of that marvellous something which we call
“the vital principle” turns from the complex organisms of the higher
animals and plants to life in its simplest expression in microbes and
single cells, so in the future will the linguist find that he is nearest
the solution of the most weighty problems of his science when he directs
his attention to the least cultivated languages.
Convinced as I am of the correctness of this analogy, I venture to
predict that in the future the analysis of the American languages will
be regarded as one of the most important fields in linguistic study, and
will modify most materially the findings of that science. And I make
this prediction the more confidently, as I am supported in it by the
great authority of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who for twenty years devoted
himself to their investigation.
As I am advocating so warmly that more attention should be devoted to
these languages, it is but fair that you should require me to say
something descriptive about them, to explain some of their peculiarities
of structure. To do this properly I should require not the fag end of
one lecture, but a whole course of lectures. Yet perhaps I can say
enough now to show you how much there is in them worth studying.
Before I turn to this, however, I should like to combat a prejudice
which I fear you may entertain. It is that same ancient prejudice which
led the old Greeks to call all those who did not speak their sonorous
idioms _barbarians_; for that word meant nothing more nor less than
babblers (βαλβαλοι), people who spoke an unintelligible tongue. Modern
civilized nations hold that prejudice yet, in the sense that each
insists that his own language is the best one extant, the highest in the
scale, and that wherein others differ from it in structure they are
inferior.
So unfortunately placed is this prejudice with reference to my subject,
that in the very volume issued by our government at Washington to
encourage the study of the Indian languages, there is a long essay to
prove that English is the noblest, most perfect language in the world,
while all the native languages are, in comparison, of a very low grade
indeed![265]
The essayist draws his arguments chiefly from the absence of inflections
in English. Yet many of the profoundest linguists of this century have
maintained that a fully inflected language, like the Greek or Latin, is
for that very reason ahead of all others. We may suspect that when a
writer lauds his native tongue at the expense of others, he is
influenced by a prejudice in its favor and an absence of facility in the
others.
Those best acquainted with American tongues praise them most highly for
flexibility, accuracy, and resources of expression. They place some of
them above any Aryan language. But what is this to those who do not know
them? To him who cannot bend the bow of Ulysses it naturally seems a
useless and awkward weapon.
I do not ask you to accept this opinion either; but I do ask that you
rid your minds of bias, and that you do not condemn a tongue because it
differs widely from that which you speak.
American tongues do, indeed, differ very widely from those familiar to
Aryan ears. Not that they are all alike in structure. That was a hasty
generalization, dating from a time when they were less known. Yet the
great majority of them have certain characteristics in common,
sufficient to place them in a linguistic class by themselves. I shall
name and explain some of these.
As of the first importance I would mention the prominence they assign to
pronouns and pronominal forms. Indeed, an eminent linguist has been so
impressed with this feature that he has proposed to classify them
distinctively as “pronominal languages.” They have many classes of
pronouns, sometimes as many as eighteen, which is more than twice as
many as the Greek. There is often no distinction between a noun and a
verb other than the pronoun which governs it. That is, if a word is
employed with one form of the pronoun it becomes a noun, if with another
pronoun, it becomes a verb.
We have something of the same kind in English. In the phrase, “I love,”
love is a verb; but in “my love,” it is a noun. It is noteworthy that
this treatment of words as either nouns or verbs, as we please to employ
them, was carried further by Shakespeare than by any other English
writer. He seemed to divine in such a trait of language vast resources
for varied and pointed expression. If I may venture a suggestion as to
how it does confer peculiar strength to expressions, it is that it
brings into especial prominence the idea of Personality; it directs all
subjects of discourse by the notion of an individual, a living, personal
unit. This imparts vividness to narratives, and directness and life to
propositions.
Of these pronouns, that of the first person is usually the most
developed. From it, in many dialects, are derived the demonstratives and
relatives, which in Aryan languages were taken from the third person.
This prominence of the _Ego_, this confidence in self, is a trait of the
race as well as of their speech. It forms part of that savage
independence of character which prevented them coalescing into great
nations, and led them to prefer death to servitude.
Another characteristic, which at one time was supposed to be universal
on this continent, is what Mr. Peter Du Ponceau named _polysynthesis_.
He meant by this a power of running several words into one, dropping
parts of them and retaining only the significant syllables. Long
descriptive names of all objects of civilized life new to the Indians
were thus coined with the greatest ease. Some of these are curious
enough. The Pavant Indians call a school house by one word, which means
“a stopping-place where sorcery is practiced;” their notion of
book-learning being that it belongs to the uncanny arts. The Delaware
word for horse means “the four-footed animal which carries on his back.”
This method of coining words is, however, by no means universal in
American languages. It prevails in most of those in British America and
the United States, in Aztec and various South American idioms; but in
others, as the dialects found in Yucatan and Guatemala, and in the Tupi
of Brazil, the Otomi of Mexico, and the Klamath of the Pacific coast, it
is scarcely or not at all present.
Another trait, however, which was confounded with this by Mr. Du
Ponceau, but really belongs in a different category of grammatical
structure, is truly distinctive of the languages of the continent, and I
am not sure that any one of them has been shown to be wholly devoid of
it. This is what is called _incorporation_. It includes in the verb, or
in the verbal expression, the object and manner of the action.
This is effected by making the subject of the verb an inseparable
prefix, and by inserting between it and the verb itself, or sometimes
directly in the latter, between its syllables, the object, direct or
remote, and the particles indicating mode. The time or tense particles,
on the other hand, will be placed at one end of this compound, either as
prefixes or suffixes, thus placing the whole expression strictly within
the limits of a verbal form of speech.
Both the above characteristics, I mean Polysynthesis and Incorporation,
are unconscious efforts to carry out a certain theory of speech which
has aptly enough been termed _holophrasis_, or the putting the whole of
a phrase into a single word. This is the aim of each of them, though
each endeavors to accomplish it by different means. Incorporation
confines itself exclusively to verbal forms, while polysynthesis
embraces both nouns and verbs.
Suppose we carry the analysis further, and see if we can obtain an
answer to the query,—Why did this effort at blending forms of speech
obtain so widely? Such an inquiry will indicate how valuable to
linguistic search would prove the study of this group of languages.
I think there is no doubt but that it points unmistakably to that very
ancient, to that primordial period of human utterance when men had not
yet learned to connect words into sentences, when their utmost efforts
at articulate speech did not go beyond single words, which, aided by
gestures and signs, served to convey their limited intellectual
converse. Such single vocables did not belong to any particular part of
speech. There was no grammar to that antique tongue. Its disconnected
exclamations mean whole sentences in themselves.
A large part of the human race, notably, but not exclusively, the
aborigines of this continent, continued the tradition of this mode of
expression in the structure of their tongues, long after the union of
thought and sound in audible speech had been brought to a high degree of
perfection.
Although I thus regard one of the most prominent peculiarities of
American languages as a survival from an exceedingly low stage of human
development, it by no means follows that this is an evidence of their
inferiority.
The Chinese, who made no effort to combine the primitive vocables into
one, but range them nakedly side by side, succeeded no better than the
American Indians; and there is not much beyond assertion to prove that
the Aryans, who, through their inflections, marked the relation of each
word in the sentence by numerous tags of case, gender, number, etc., got
any nearer the ideal perfection of language.
If we apply what is certainly a very fair test, to wit: the uses to
which a language is and can be put, I cannot see that a well-developed
American tongue, such as the Aztec or the Algonkin, in any way falls
short of, say French or English.
It is true that in many of these tongues there is no distinction made
between expressions, which with us are carefully separated, and are so
in thought. Thus, in the Tupi of Brazil and elsewhere, there is but one
word for the three expressions, “his father,” “he is a father,” and “he
has a father;” in many, the simple form of the verb may convey three
different ideas, as in Ute, where the word for “he seizes” means also
“the seizer,” and as a descriptive noun, “a bear,” the animal which
seizes.
This has been charged against these languages as a lack of
“differentiation.” Grammatically, this is so; but the same charge
applies with almost equal force to the English language, where the same
word may belong to any of four, five, even six parts of speech,
dependent entirely on the connection in which it is used.
As a set-off, the American languages avoid confusions of expression
which prevail in European tongues.
Thus in none of these latter, when I say “the love of God,” “l’amour de
Dieu,” “amor Dei,” can you understand what I mean. You do not know
whether I intend the love which we have or should have toward God, or
God’s love toward us. Yet in the Mexican language (and many other
American tongues) these two quite opposite ideas are so clearly
distinguished that, as Father Carochi warns the readers of his _Mexican
Grammar_, to confound them would not merely be a grievous solecism in
speech, but a formidable heresy as well.
Another example. What can you make out of this sentence, which is
strictly correct by English grammar: “John told Robert’s son that he
must help him?” You can make nothing out of it. It may have any one of
six different meanings, depending on the persons referred to by the
pronouns “he” and “him.” No such lamentable confusion could occur in any
American tongue known to me. The Chippeway, for instance, has three
pronouns of the third person, which designate the near and the remote
antecedents with the most lucid accuracy.
There is another point that I must mention in this connection, because I
find that it has almost always been overlooked or misunderstood by
critics of these languages. These have been free in condemning the
synthetic forms of construction. But they seem to be ignorant that their
use is largely optional. Thus, in Mexican, one can arrange the same
sentence in an analytic or a synthetic form, and this is also the case,
in a less degree, in the Algonkin. By this means a remarkable richness
is added to the language. The higher the grade of synthesis employed,
the more striking, elevated, and pointed becomes the expression. In
common life long compounds are rare, while in the native Mexican poetry
each line is often but one word.
Turning now from the structure of these languages to their vocabularies,
I must correct a widespread notion that they are scanty in extent and
deficient in the means to express lofty or abstract ideas.
Of course, there are many tracts of thought and learning familiar to us
now which were utterly unknown to the American aborigines, and not less
so to our own forefathers a few centuries ago. It would be very unfair
to compare the dictionary of an Indian language with the last edition of
Webster’s Unabridged. But take the English dictionaries of the latter
half of the sixteenth century, before Spenser and Shakespeare wrote, and
compare them with the Mexican vocabulary of Molina, which contains about
13,000 words, or with the Maya vocabulary of the convent of Motul, which
presents over 20,000, both prepared at that date, and your procedure
will be just, and you will find it not disadvantageous to the American
side of the question.
The deficiency in abstract terms is generally true of these languages.
They did not have them, because they had no use for them—and the more
blessed was their condition. European languages have been loaded with
several thousand such by metaphysics and mysticism, and it has required
many generations to discover that they are empty windbags, full of sound
and signifying nothing.
Yet it is well known to students that the power of forming abstracts is
possessed in a remarkable degree by many native languages. The most
recondite formulæ of dogmatic religion, such as the definition of the
Trinity and the difference between consubstantiation and
transubstantiation, have been translated into many of them without
introducing foreign words, and in entire conformity with their
grammatical structure. Indeed, Dr. Augustin de la Rosa, of the
University of Guadalajara, says the Mexican is peculiarly adapted to
render these metaphysical subtleties.
I have been astonished that some writers should bring up the primary
meaning of a word in an American language in order to infer the
coarseness of its secondary meaning. This is a strangely unfair
proceeding, and could be directed with equal effect against our own
tongues. Thus, I read lately a traveler who spoke hardly of an Indian
tribe because their word for “to love” was a derivative from that
meaning “to buy,” and thence “to prize.” But what did the Latin _amare_,
and the English _to love_, first mean? Carnally living together is what
they first meant, and this is not a nobler derivation than that of the
Indian. Even yet, when the most polished of European nations, that one
which most exalts _la grande passion_, does not distinguish in language
between loving their wives and liking their dinners, but uses the same
word for both emotions, it is scarcely wise for us to indulge in much
latitude of inference from such etymologies.
Such is the general character of American languages, and such are the
reasons why they should be preserved and studied. The field is vast and
demands many laborers to reap all the fruit that it promises. It is
believed at present that there are about two hundred wholly independent
stocks of languages among the aborigines of this continent. They vary
most widely in vocabulary, and seemingly scarcely less so in grammar.
Besides this, each of these stocks is subdivided into dialects, each
distinguished by its own series of phonetic changes, and its own new
words. What an opportunity is thus offered for the study of the natural
evolution of language, unfettered by the petrifying art of writing!
This is the case which I present to you, and for which I earnestly
solicit your consideration. And that I may add weight to my appeal, I
close by quoting the words of one of America’s most distinguished
scientists, Professor William Dwight Whitney, of Yale College, who
writes to this effect:
“The study of American languages is the most fruitful and the most
important branch of American Archæology.”
WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT’S RESEARCHES IN AMERICAN LANGUAGES.[266]
_Contents._—What led Humboldt toward the American tongues—Progress
of his studies—Fundamental doctrine of his philosophy of
language—His theory of the evolution of languages—Opinion on
American languages—His criterion of the relative perfection of
languages—Not abundance of forms—Nor verbal richness—American
tongues not degenerations—Humboldt’s classification of
languages—Psychological origin of Incorporation in language—Its
shortcomings—In simple sentences—In compound sentences—Absence of
true formal elements—The nature of the American verb.
The foundations of the Philosophy of Language were laid by Wilhelm von
Humboldt (born June 22, 1767, died April 8, 1835). The principles he
advocated have frequently been misunderstood, and some of them have been
modified, or even controverted, by more extended research; but a careful
survey of the tendencies of modern thought in this field will show that
the philosophic scheme of the nature and growth of languages which he
set forth, is gradually reasserting its sway after having been neglected
and denied through the preponderance of the so-called “naturalistic”
school during the last quarter of a century.
The time seems ripe, therefore, to bring the general principles of his
philosophy to the knowledge of American scholars, as applied by himself
to the analysis of American languages.
These languages occupied Humboldt’s attention earnestly and for many
years. He was first led to their study by his brother Alexander, who
presented him with the large linguistic collection amassed during his
travels in South and North America.
While Prussian Minister in Rome (1802–8) Wilhelm ransacked the library
of the _Collegio Romano_ for rare or unpublished works on American
tongues; he obtained from the ex-Jesuit Forneri all the information the
latter could give about the Yurari, a tongue spoken on the Meta river,
New Granada;[267] and he secured accurate copies of all the manuscript
material on these idioms left by the diligent collector and linguist,
the Abbé Hervas.
A few years later, in 1812, we find him writing to his friend Baron
Alexander von Rennenkampff, then in St. Petersburg: “I have selected the
American languages as the special subject of my investigations. They
have the closest relationship of any with the tongues of north-eastern
Asia; and I beg you therefore to obtain for me all the dictionaries and
grammars of the latter which you can.”[268]
It is probable from this extract that Humboldt was then studying these
languages from that limited, ethnographic point of view, from which he
wrote his essay on the Basque tongue, the announcement of which
appeared, indeed, in that year, 1812, although the work itself was not
issued until 1821.
Ten years more of study and reflection taught him a far loftier flight.
He came to look upon each language as an organism, all its parts bearing
harmonious relations to each other, standing in a definite connection
with the intellectual and emotional development of the nation speaking
it. Each language again bears the relation to language in general that
the species does to the genus, or the genus to the order, and by a
comprehensive process of analysis he hoped to arrive at those
fundamental laws of articulate speech which form the Philosophy of
Language, and which, as they are also the laws of human thought, at a
certain point coincide, he believed, with those of the Philosophy of
History.
In the completion of this vast scheme, he continued to attach the utmost
importance to the American languages.
His illustrations were constantly drawn from them, and they were ever
the subject of his earnest studies. He prized them as in certain
respects the most valuable of all to the philosophic student of human
speech.
Thus, in 1826, he announced before the Berlin Academy that he was
preparing an exhaustive work on the “Organism of Language,” for which he
had selected the American languages exclusively, as best suited for this
purpose. “The languages of a great continent,” he writes, “peopled by
numerous nationalities, probably never subject to foreign influence,
offer for this branch of linguistic study specially favorable material.
There are in America as many as thirty little known languages for which
we have means of study, each of which is like a new natural species,
besides many others whose data are less ample.”[269]
In his memoir, read two years later, “On the Origin of Grammatic Forms,
and their Influence on the Development of Ideas,” he chose most of his
examples from the idioms of the New World;[270] and the year following,
he read the monograph on the Verb in American languages, which I refer
to on a later page.
In a subsequent communication, he announced his special study of this
group as still in preparation. It was, however, never completed. His
earnest desire to reach the fundamental laws of language led him into a
long series of investigations into the systems of recorded speech,
phonetic hieroglyphics and alphabetic writing, on which he read memoirs
of great acuteness.
In one of these he again mentions his studies of the American tongues,
and takes occasion to vindicate them from the current charge of being of
a low grade in the linguistic scale. “It is certainly unjust,” he
writes, “to call the American languages rude or savage, although their
structure is widely different from those perfectly formed.”[271]
In 1828, there is a published letter from him making an appointment with
the Abbé Thavenet, missionary to the Canadian Algonkins, then in Paris,
“to enjoy the pleasure of conversing with him on his interesting studies
of the Algonkin language.”[272] And a private letter tells us that in
1831 he applied himself with new zeal to mastering the intricacies of
Mexican grammar.[273]
All these years he was working to complete the researches which led him
to the far-reaching generalization which is at the basis of his
linguistic philosophy.
Let me state in a few words what this philosophy teaches.
It aims to establish as a fundamental truth that _the_ _diversity of
structure in languages is both the necessary antecedent and the
necessary consequent of the evolution of the human mind_.[274]
In the establishment of this thesis he begins with a subtle analysis of
the nature of speech in general, and then proceeds to define the
reciprocal influences which thought exerts upon it, and it upon thought.
It will readily be seen that a corollary of this theorem is that the
Science of Language is and must be the most instructive, the
indispensable guide in the study of the mental evolution of the human
race. Humboldt recognized this fully. He taught that in its highest
sense the philosophy of language is one with the philosophy of history.
The science of language misses its purpose unless it seeks its chief end
in explaining the intellectual growth of the race.[275]
Each separate tongue is “a thought-world in tones” established between
the minds of those who speak it and the objective world without.[276]
Each mirrors in itself the spirit of the nation to which it belongs. But
it has also an earlier and independent origin; it is the product of the
conceptions of antecedent generations, and thus exerts a formative and
directive influence on the national mind, an influence not slight, but
more potent than that which the national mind exerts upon it.[277]
He fully recognized a progress, an organic growth, in human speech. This
growth may be from two sources, one the cultivation of a tongue within
the nation by enriching its vocabulary, separating and classifying its
elements, fixing its expressions, and thus adapting it to wider uses;
the second, by forcible amalgamation with another tongue.
The latter exerts always a more profound and often a more beneficial
influence. The organism of both tongues may be destroyed, but the
dissolvent force is also an organic and vital one, and from the ruins of
both constructs a speech of grander plans and with wider views. “The
seemingly aimless and confused interminglings of primitive tribes sowed
the seed for the flowers of speech and song which flourished in
centuries long posterior.”
The immediate causes of the improvement of a language through forcible
admixture with another, are: that it is obliged to drop all unnecessary
accessory elements in a proposition; that the relations of ideas must be
expressed by conventional and not significant syllables; and that the
limitations of thought imposed by the genius of the language are
violently broken down, and the mind is thus given wider play for its
faculties.
Such influences, however, do not act in accordance with fixed laws of
growth. There are no such laws which are of universal application. The
development of the Mongolian or Aryan tongues is not at all that of the
American. The goal is one and the same, but the paths to it are
infinite. For this reason each group or class of languages must be
studied by itself, and its own peculiar developmental laws be
ascertained by searching its history.[278]
With reference to the growth of American languages, it was Humboldt’s
view that they manifest the utmost refractoriness both to external
influences and to internal modifications. They reveal a marvellous
tenacity of traditional words and forms, not only in dialects, but even
in particular classes of the community, men having different expressions
from women, the old from the young, the higher from the lower classes.
These are maintained with scrupulous exactitude through generations, and
three centuries of daily commingling with the white race have scarcely
altered their grammar or phonetics.
Nor is this referable to the contrast between an Aryan and an American
language. The same immiscibility is shown between themselves. “Even
where many radically different languages are located closely together,
as in Mexico, I have not found a single example where one exercised a
constructive or formative influence on the other. But it is by the
encounter of great and contrasted differences that languages gain
strength, riches, and completeness. Only thus are the perceptive powers,
the imagination and the feelings impelled to enrich and extend the means
of expression, which, if left to the labors of the understanding alone,
are liable to be but meagre and arid.”[279]
Humboldt’s one criterion of a language was its tendency to _quicken and
stimulate mental action_. He maintained that this is secured just in
proportion as the grammatical structure favors clear definition of the
individual idea apart from its relations; in other words, as it
separates the material from the inflectional elements of speech. Clear
thinking, he argued, means progressive thinking. Therefore he assigned a
lower position both to those tongues which inseparably connect the idea
with its relations, as most American languages, and to those which, like
the Chinese and in a less degree the modern English, have scarcely any
formal elements at all, but depend upon the position of words
(placement) to signify their relations. But he warns us that it is of
importance to recognize fully “that grammatical principles dwell rather
in the mind of the speaker than in the material and mechanism of his
language,” and that the power of expressing ideas in any tongue depends
much more on the intellectual capacity of the speaker than the structure
of the tongue itself.
He censures the common error (common now as it was in his day) that the
abundance and regularity of forms in a language is a mark of excellence.
This very multiplicity, this excessive superfluity, is a burden and a
drawback, and obscures the integration of the thought by attaching to it
a quantity of needless qualifications. Thus, in the language of the
Abipones, the pronoun is different as the person spoken of is conceived
as present, absent, sitting, walking, lying or running—all quite
unnecessary specifications.[280]
In some languages much appears as form which, on close scrutiny, is
nothing of the kind.
This misunderstanding has reigned almost universally in the treatment of
American tongues. The grammars which have been written upon them proceed
generally on the principles of Latin, and apply a series of grammatical
names to the forms explained, entirely inappropriate to them, and
misleading. Our first duty in taking up such a grammar as, for instance,
that of an American language, is to dismiss the whole of the arrangement
of the “parts of speech,” and by an analysis of words and phrases, to
ascertain by what collocation of elements they express logical,
significant relations.[281]
For example, in the Carib tongue, the grammars give _aveiridaco_ as the
second person singular, subjunctive imperfect, “if thou wert.” Analyze
this, and we discover that _a_ is the possessive pronoun “thy;” _veiri_
is “to be” or “being” (in a place); and _daco_ is a particle of definite
time. Hence, the literal rendering is “on the day of thy being.” The
so-called imperfect subjunctive turns out to be a verbal noun with a
preposition. In many American languages the hypothetical supposition
expressed in the Latin subjunctive is indicated by the same
circumlocution.
Again, the infinitive, in its classical sense, is unknown in most,
probably in all, American languages. In the Tupi of Brazil and
frequently elsewhere it is simply a noun; _caru_ is both “to eat” and
“food;” _che caru ai-pota_, “I wish to eat,” literally “my food I wish.”
Many writers continue to maintain that a criterion of a language is its
lexicographic richness—the number of words it possesses. Even recently,
Prof. Max Müller has applied such a test to American languages, and,
finding that one of the Fuegian dialects is reported to have nearly
thirty thousand words, he maintains that this is a proof that these
savages are a degenerate remnant of some much more highly developed
ancestry. Founding his opinion largely on similar facts, Alexander von
Humboldt applied the expression to the American nations that they are
“des débris échappés à un naufrage commun.”
Such, however, was not the opinion of his brother Wilhelm. He sounded
the depths of linguistic philosophy far more deeply than to accept mere
abundance of words as proof of richness in a language. Many savage
languages have twenty words signifying to eat particular things, but no
word meaning “to eat” in general; the Eskimo language has different
words for fishing for each kind of fish, but no word “to fish,” in a
general sense. Such apparent richness is, in fact, actual poverty.
Humboldt taught that the quality, not merely the quantity, of words was
the decisive measure of verbal wealth. Such quality depends on the
relations of concrete words, on the one hand, to primitive objective
perceptions at their root, and, on the other, to the abstract general
ideas of which they are particular representatives; and besides this, on
the relations which the spoken word, the articulate sound, bears to the
philosophic laws of the formation of language in general.[282]
In his letter to Abel-Remusat he discusses the theory that the American
languages point to a once higher condition of civilization, and are the
corrupted idioms of deteriorated races. He denies that there is
linguistic evidence of any such theory. These languages, he says,
possess a remarkable regularity of structure, and very few anomalies.
Their grammar does not present any visible traces of corrupting
intermixtures.[283]
Humboldt’s classification of languages was based on the relation of the
word to the sentence, which, expressed in logic, would mean the relation
of the simple idea to the proposition. He taught that the plans on which
languages combine words into sentences are a basic character of their
structure, and divide them into classes as distinct and as decisive of
their future, as those of vertebrate and invertebrate animals in natural
history.
These plans are four in number:
1. By Isolation.
The words are placed in juxtaposition, without change. Their relations
are expressed by their location only (placement). The typical example of
this is the Chinese.
2. By Agglutination.
The sentence is formed by suffixing to the word expressive of the main
idea a number of others, more or less altered, expressing the relations.
Examples of this are the Eskimo of North America, and the Northern
Asiatic dialects.
3. By Incorporation.
The leading word of the sentence is divided, and the accessory words
either included in it or attached to it with abbreviated forms, so that
the whole sentence assumes the form and sound of one word.
4. By Inflection.
Each word of the sentence indicates by its own form the character and
relation to the main proposition of the idea it represents. Sanscrit,
Greek and Latin are familiar examples of inflected tongues.
It is possible to suppose that all four of these forms were developed
from some primitive condition of utterance unknown to us, just as
naturalists believe that all organic species were developed out of a
homogeneous protoplasmic mass; but it is as hard to see how any one of
them _in its present form_ could pass over into another, as to
understand how a radiate could change into a mollusk.
Of the four plans mentioned, Incorporation is that characteristic of,
_though not confined to_, American tongues.
The psychological origin of this plan is explained rather curiously by
Humboldt, as the result of an _exaltation of the imaginative over the
intellectual elements of mind_. By this method, the linguistic faculty
strives to present to the understanding the whole thought in the most
compact form possible, thus to facilitate its comprehension; and this it
does, because a thought presented in one word is more vivid and
stimulating to the imagination, more individual and picturesque, than
when narrated in a number of words.[284]
Incorporation may appear in a higher or a lower grade, but its intention
is everywhere the effort to convey in one word the whole proposition.
The verb, as that part of speech which especially conveys the synthetic
action of the mental operation, is that which is selected as the stem of
this word-sentence; all the other parts are subordinate accessories,
devoid of syntactic value.
The higher grade of incorporation includes both subject, object and verb
in one word, and if for any reason the object is not included, the
scheme of the sentence is still maintained in the verb, and the object
is placed outside, as in apposition, without case ending, and under a
form different from its original and simple one.
This will readily be understood from the following examples from the
Mexican language.
The sentence _ni-naca-qua_ is one word, and means “I, flesh, eat.” If it
is desired to express the object independently, the expression becomes
_ni-c-qua-in-nacatl_, “I it eat, the flesh.” The termination _tl_ does
not belong to the root of the noun, but is added to show that it is in
an external and, as it were, unnatural position. Both the direct and
remote object can thus be incorporated, and if they are not, but
separately appended, the scheme of the sentence is still preserved; as
_ni-te-tla-maca_, literally, “I, to somebody, something, give.” How
closely these accessories are incorporated is illustrated by the fact
that the tense-augments are not added to the stem, but to the whole
word; _o-ni-c-temaca-e_, where the _o_ is the prefix of the perfect.
In these languages, every element in the sentence which is not
incorporated in the verb has, in fact, no syntax at all. The verbal
exhausts all the formal portion of the language. The relations of the
other words are intimated by their position. Thus _ni-tlaçotlaz-nequia_,
I wished to love, is literally, “I, I shall love, I wished.” _Tlaçotlaz_
is the first person singular of the future; _ni-nequia_, I wished; which
is divided, and the future form inserted. The same expression may stand
thus: _ni-c-nequia-tlaço-tlaz_, where the _c_ is an intercalated
relative pronoun, and the literal rendering is, “I it wished, I shall
love.”
In the Lule language the construction with an infinitive is simply that
the two verbs follow each other in the same person, as _caic tucuec_, “I
am accustomed to eat,” literally, “I am accustomed, I eat.”
None of these devices fulfils all the uses of the infinitive, and hence
they are all inferior to it.
In languages which lack formal elements, the deficiency must be supplied
by the mind. Words are merely placed in juxtaposition, and their
relationship guessed at. Thus, when a language constructs its cases
merely by prefixing prepositions to the unaltered noun, there is no
grammatical form; in the Mbaya language _e-tiboa_ is translated “through
me,” but it is really “I, through;” _l’emani_, is rendered “he wishes,”
but it is strictly, “he, wish.”
In such languages the same collocation of words often corresponds to
quite different meanings, as the precise relation of the thoughts is not
defined by any formal elements. This is well illustrated in the Tupi
tongue. The word _uba_ is “father;” with the pronoun of the third person
prefixed it is _tuba_, literally “he, father.” This may mean either “his
father,” or “he is a father,” or “he has a father,” just as the sense of
the rest of the sentence requires.
Certainly a language which thus leaves confounded together ideas so
distinct as these, is inferior to one which discriminates them; and this
is why the formal elements of a tongue are so important to intellectual
growth. The Tupis may be an energetic and skillful people, but with
their language they can never take a position as masters in the realm of
ideas.
The absence of the passive in most American tongues is supplied by
similar inadequate collocations of words. In Huasteca, for example,
_nana tanin tahjal_, is translated “I am treated by him;” actually it
is, “I, me, treats he.” This is not a passive, but simply the idea of
the Ego connected with the idea of another acting upon it.
This is vastly below the level of inflected speech; for it cannot be too
strenuously maintained that the grammatical relations of spoken language
are the more perfect and favorable to intellectual growth, the more
closely they correspond to the logical relations of thought.
Sometimes what appears as inflection turns out on examination to be
merely adjunction. Thus in the Mbaya tongue there are such verbal forms
as _daladi_, thou wilt throw, _nilabuite_, he has spun, where the _d_ is
the sign of the future, and the _n_ of the perfect. These look like
inflections; but in fact, _d_ is simply a relic of _quide_, hereafter,
later, and _n_ stands in the same relation to _quine_, which means “and
also.”
To become true formal elements, all such adjuncts must have completely
lost their independent signification; because if they retain it, their
material content requires qualification and relation just as any other
stem-word.
A few American languages may have reached this stage. In the Mexican
there are the terminals _ya_ or _a_ in the imperfect, the augment _o_ in
the preterit and others in the future. In the Tamanaca the present ends
in _a_, the preterit in _e_, the future in _c_. “There is nothing in
either of these tongues to show that these tense-signs have independent
meaning, and therefore there is no reason why they should not be classed
with those of the Greek and Sanscrit as true inflectional
elements.”[285]
The theory of Incorporation, it will be noted, is to express the whole
proposition, as nearly as possible, in one word; and what part of it
cannot be thus expressed, is left without any syntax whatever. Not only
does this apply to individual words in a sentence, but it extends to the
various clauses of a compound sentence, such as in Aryan languages show
their relation to the leading clauses by means of prepositions,
conjunctions and relative pronouns.
When the methods are analyzed by which the major and minor clauses are
assigned their respective values in these tongues, it is very plain what
difficulties of expression the system of Incorporation involves. Few of
them have any true connecting word of either of the three classes above
mentioned. They depend on scarcely veiled material words, simply placed
in juxtaposition.
It is probable that the prepositions and conjunctions of all languages
were at first significant words, and the degree to which they have lost
their primary significations and have become purely formal elements
expressing relation, is one of the measures of the grammatical evolution
of a tongue. In most American idioms their origin from substantives is
readily recognizable. Frequently these substantives refer to parts of
the body, and this, in passing, suggests the antiquity of this class of
words and their value in comparison.
In Maya _tan_ means in, toward, among; but it is also the breast or
front of the body. The Mexican has three classes of prepositions—the
first, whose origin from a substantive cannot be detected; the second,
where an unknown and a known element are combined; the third, where the
substantive is perfectly clear. An example of the last mentioned is
_itic_, in, compounded of _ite_, belly, and the locative particle _c_;
the phrase _ilhuicatl itic_, in heaven, is literally “in the belly of
heaven.” Precisely the same is the Cakchiquel _pamcah_, literally,
“belly, heaven”==in heaven. In Mexican, _notepotzco_ is “behind me,”
literally, “my back, at;” this corresponds again to the Cakchiquel
_chuih_, behind me, from _chi_, at, _u_, my, _vih_, shoulder-blades. The
Mixteca prepositions present the crude nature of their origin without
disguise, _chisi huahi_, belly, house—that is, in front of the house;
_sata huahi_, back, house—behind the house.
The conjunctions are equally transparent. “And” in Maya is _yetel_, in
Mexican _ihuan_. One would suppose that such an indispensable connective
would long since have been worn down to an insoluble entity. On the
contrary, both these words retain their perfect material meaning.
_Yetel_ is a compound of _y_, his, _et_, companion, and _el_, the
definite termination of nouns. _Ihuan_ is the possessive, _i_, and
_huan_, associate companion, used also as a termination to form a
certain class of plurals.
The deficiency in true conjunctions and relative pronouns is met in many
American languages by a reversal of the plan of expression with us. The
relative clause becomes the principal one. There is a certain logical
justice in this; for if we reflect, it will appear evident that the
major proposition is in our construction presented as one of the
conditions of the minor. “I shall drown, if I fall in the water,” means
that, of the various results of my falling in the water, one of them
will be that I shall drown. “I follow the road which you described,”
means that you described a road, and one of the results of this act of
yours was that I follow it.
This explains the plan of constructing compound sentences in Qquichua.
Instead of saying “I shall follow the road which you describe,” the
construction is, “You describe, this road I shall follow;” and instead
of “I shall drown if I fall in the water,” it would be, “I fall in the
water, I shall drown.”
The Mexican language introduces the relative clause by the word _in_,
which is an article and demonstrative pronoun, or, if the proposition is
a conditional one, by _intla_, which really signifies “within this,” and
conveys the sense that the major is included within the conditions of
the minor clause. The Cakchiquel conditional particle is _vue_, if,
which appears to be simply the particle of affirmation “yes,” employed
to give extension to the minor clause, which, as a rule, is placed
first.
Or a conventional arrangement of words may be adopted which will convey
the idea of certain dependent clauses, as those expressing similitude,
as is often the case in Mexican.
About 1822 Humboldt read a memoir before the Berlin Academy on “The
American Verb,” which remained unpublished either in German or English
until I translated and printed it in the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society in 1885. At its close he sums up his results, and
this summary will form an appropriate conclusion to the present review
of his labors in the field of American linguistics:
“If we reflect on the structure of the various verbal forms here
analyzed, certain general conclusions are reached, which are
calculated to throw light upon the whole organism of these
languages.
“The leading and governing part of speech in them is the Pronoun;
every subject of discourse is connected with the idea of
Personality.
“Noun and Verb are not separated; they first become so through the
pronoun attached to them.
“The employment of the Pronoun is two-fold, one applying to the
Noun, the other to the Verb. Both, however, convey the idea of
belonging to a person—in the noun appearing as Possession, in the
verb as Energy. But it is on this point, on whether these ideas are
confused and obscure, or whether they are defined and clear, that
the grammatical perfection of a language depends. The just
discrimination of the kinds of pronouns is therefore conclusive, and
in this respect we must yield the decided pre-eminence to the
Mexican.
“It follows that the speaker must constantly make up his verbs,
instead of using those already on hand; and also that the structure
of the verb must be identical throughout the language, that there
must be only one conjugation, and that the verbs, except a few
irregular ones, can possess no peculiarities.
“This is different in the Greek, Latin and ancient Indian. In these
tongues many verbs must be studied separately, as they have numerous
exceptions, phonetic changes, deficiencies, etc., and in other
respects carry with them a marked individuality.
“The difference between these cultivated and those rude languages is
chiefly merely one of time, and of the more or less fortunate
mixture of dialects; though it certainly also depends in a measure
on the original mental powers of the nations.
“Those whose languages we have here analyzed are, in speaking,
constantly putting together elementary parts; they connect nothing
firmly, because they follow the changing requirements of the moment,
joining together only what these requirements demand, and often
leave connected through habit that which clear thinking would
necessarily divide.
“Hence no just division of words can arise, such as is demanded by
accurate and appropriate thought, which requires that each word must
have a fixed and certain content and a defined grammatical form, and
as is also demanded by the highest phonetic laws.
“Nations richly endowed in mind and sense will have an instinct for
such correct divisions; the incessant moving to and fro of
elementary parts of speech will be distasteful to them; they will
seek true individuality in the words they use; therefore they will
connect them firmly, they will not accumulate too much in one, and
they will only leave that connected which is so in thought, and not
merely in usage or habit.”
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN LANGUAGES.[286]
_Contents._—Study of the human species on the geographic
system—Have American languages any common trait?—Duponceau’s
theory of polysynthesis—Humboldt on Polysynthesis and
Incorporation—Francis Lieber on Holophrasis—Prof. Steinthal on
the incorporative plan—Lucien Adam’s criticism of it—Prof.
Müller’s inadequate statement—Major Powell’s omission to
consider it—Definitions of polysynthesis, incorporation and
holophrasis—Illustrations—Critical application of the theory to
the Othomi language—To the Bri-bri language—To the Tupi-Guarani
dialects—To the Mutsun—Conclusions—Addendum: critique by M. Adam
on this essay.
As the careful study of the position of man toward his surroundings
advances, it becomes more and more evident that like other members of
the higher fauna, he bears many and close correlations to the
geographical area he inhabits. Hence the present tendency of
anthropology is to return to the classification proposed by Linnæus,
which, in a broad way, subdivides the human species with reference to
the continental areas mainly inhabited by it in the earliest historic
times. This is found to accord with color, and to give five sub-species
or races, the White or European, the Black or African, the Yellow or
Mongolian (Asiatic), the Brown or Malayan (Oceanic), and the Red or
American Races.
No ethnologist nowadays will seek to establish fixed and absolute lines
between these. They shade into one another in all their peculiarities,
and no one has traits entirely unknown in the others. Yet, in the mass,
the characteristics of each are prominent, permanent and unmistakable;
and to deny them on account of occasional exceptions is to betray an
inability to estimate the relative value of scientific facts.
Does this racial similarity extend to language? On the surface,
apparently not. Only one of the races named—the Malayan—is monoglottic.
All the others seem to speak tongues with no genetic relationship, at
least none indicated by etymology. The profounder study of language,
however, leads to a different conclusion—to one which, as cautiously
expressed by a recent writer, teaches that “every large, connected,
terrestrial area developed only one, or scarcely more than one,
fundamental linguistic type, and this with such marked individuality
that rarely did any of its languages depart from the general
scheme.”[287]
This similarity is not to be looked for in likeness between words, but
in the inner structural development of tongues. To ascertain and
estimate such identities is a far more delicate undertaking than to
compare columns of words in vocabularies; but it is proportionately more
valuable.
Nor should we expect it to be absolute. The example of the Basque in a
pure white nation in Western Europe warns us that there are exceptions
which, though they may find a historic explanation, forbid us all
dogmatic assertion. They are so few, however, that I quote Dr. Winkler’s
words as the correct expression of the latest linguistic science, and I
wish that some investigator would make it the motto of his study of
American tongues.
The task—no light one—which such an investigator would have, would be,
first to ascertain what structural traits form the ground plan or plans
(if there are more than one) of the languages of the New World. Upon
this ground-plan he would find very different edifices have been
erected, which, nevertheless, can be classified into groups, each group
marked by traits common to every member of it. These traits and groups
he must carefully define. Then would come the separate question as to
whether this community of traits has a genetic explanation or not. If
the decision were affirmative, we might expect conclusions that would
carry us much further than etymological comparisons, and might form a
scientific basis for the classification of American nations.
Possibly some one or two features might be discovered which though not
peculiar to American tongues, nor fully present in every one of them,
yet would extend an influence over them all, and impart to them in the
aggregate a certain aspect which could fairly be called distinctive.
Such features are claimed to have been found in the grammatic processes
of _polysynthesis_ and _incorporation_.
Peter Stephen Duponceau, at one time President of the American
Philosophical Society, was the first to assert that there was a
prevailing unity of grammatic schemes in American tongues. His first
published utterance was in 1819, when he distinguished, though not with
desirable lucidity, between the two varieties of synthetic construction,
the one (incorporation) applicable to verbal forms of expression, the
other (polysynthesis) to nominal expressions. His words are—
“A _polysynthetic_ or _syntactic_ construction of language is that in
which the greatest number of ideas are comprised in the least number of
words. This is done principally in two ways. 1. By a mode of compounding
locutions which is not confined to joining two words together, as in
Greek, or varying the inflection or termination of a radical word as in
most European languages, but by interweaving together the most
significant sounds or syllables of each simple word, so as to form a
compound that will awaken in the mind at once all the ideas singly
expressed by the words from which they are taken. 2. By an analogous
combination [of] the various parts of speech, particularly by means of
the verb, so that its various forms and inflections will express not
only the principal action, but the greatest possible number of the moral
ideas and physical objects connected with it, and will combine itself to
the greatest extent with those conceptions which are the subject of
other parts of speech, and in other languages require to be expressed by
separate and distinct words. Such I take to be the general character of
the Indian languages.”[288]
Duponceau’s opinion found an able supporter in Wilhelm von Humboldt,
who, as already shown, placed the American languages among those acting
on the incorporative plan—_das Einverleibungssystem_. The spirit of this
system he defines to be, “to impress the unity of the sentence on the
understanding by treating it, not as a whole composed of various words,
but as one word.” A perfect type of incorporation will group all the
elements of the sentence in and around the verbal, as this alone is the
bond of union between the several ideas. The designation of time and
manner, that is, the tense and mode signs, will include both the object
and subject of the verb, thus subordinating them to the notion of
action. It is “an indispensable basis” of this system that there should
be a difference in the form of words when incorporated and when not.
This applies in a measure to nouns and verbals, but especially to
pronouns, and Humboldt names it as “the characteristic tendency” of
American languages, and one directly drawn from their incorporative
plan, that the personal pronouns, both subjective and objective, used in
connection with the verbs, are of a different form from the independent
personal pronouns, either greatly abbreviated or from wholly different
roots. Outside of the verbal thus formed as the central point of the
sentence, there is no syntax, no inflections, no declension of nouns or
adjectives.[289]
Humboldt was far from saying that the incorporative system was
exclusively seen in American languages, any more than that of isolation
in Chinese, or flexion in Aryan speech. On the contrary, he distinctly
states that every language he had examined shows traces of all three
plans; but the preponderance of one plan over the other is so marked and
so distinctive that they afford us the best means known for the
morphological classification of languages, especially as these traits
arise from psychological operations widely diverse, and of no small
influence on the development of the intellect.
Dr. Francis Lieber, in an essay on “The Plan of Thought in American
Languages,”[290] objected to the terms _polysynthesis_ and
_incorporation_ that “they begin at the wrong end; for these names
indicate that that which has been separated is put together, as if man
began with analysis, whereas he ends with it.” He therefore proposed the
noun _holophrasis_ with its adjective _holophrastic_, not as a
substitute for the terms he criticised, but to express the meaning or
purpose of these processes, which is, to convey the whole of a sentence
or proposition in one word. Polysynthesis, he explains, indicates a
purely etymological process, holophrasis “refers to the meaning of the
word considered in a philosophical point of view.”
If we regard incorporation and polysynthesis as structural processes of
language aiming to accomplish a certain theoretical form of speech, then
it will be convenient to have this word _holophrasis_ to designate this
theoretical form, which is, in short, the expression of the whole
proposition in a single word.
The eminent linguist Professor H. Steinthal, has developed the theory of
incorporation more fully than any other writer. He expresses himself
without reserve of the opinion that all American languages are
constructed on this same plan, more or less developed.
I need not make long quotations from a work so well-known as his
_Charakteristik der hauptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues_, one
section of which, about thirty pages in length, is devoted to a
searching and admirable presentation of the characteristics of the
incorporative plan as shown in American languages. But I may give with
brevity what he regards as the most striking features of this plan.
These are especially three:—
1. The construction of words by a mixed system of derivation and new
formation.
2. The objective relation is treated as a species of possession; and
3. The possessive relation is regarded as the leading and substantial
one, and controls the form of expression.
The first of these corresponds to what I should call _polysynthesis_;
the others to _incorporation_ in the limited sense of the term.
Some special studies on this subject have been published by M. Lucien
Adam, and he claims for them that they have refuted and overturned the
thesis of Duponceau, Humboldt, and Steinthal, to the effect that there
is a process called _incorporative_ or _polysynthetic_, which can be
traced in all American languages, and though not in all points confined
to them, may fairly and profitably be taken as characteristic of them,
and indicative of the psychological processes which underlie them. This
opinion M. Adam speaks of as a “stereotyped phrase which is absolutely
false.”[291]
So rude an iconoclasm as this must attract our careful consideration.
Let us ask what M. Adam understands by the terms _polysynthesis_ and
_incorporation_. To our surprise, we shall find that in two works
published in the same year, he advances definitions by no means
identical. Thus, in his “Examination of Sixteen American Languages,” he
says, “_Polysynthesis_ consists essentially in the affixing of
subordinate personal pronouns to the noun, the preposition and the
verb.” In his “Study of Six Languages,” he writes: “By _polysynthesis_ I
understand the expression in one word of the relations of cause and
effect, or of subject and object.”[292]
Certainly these two definitions are not convertible, and we are almost
constrained to suspect that the writer who gives them was not clear in
his own mind as to the nature of the process. At any rate, they differ
widely from the plan or method set forth by Humboldt and Steinthal as
characteristic of American languages. M. Adam in showing that
polysynthesis in his understanding of the term is not confined to or
characteristic of American tongues, missed the point, and fell into an
_ignoratio elenchi_.
Equally narrow is his definition of incorporation. He writes, “When the
object is intercalated between the subject and the verbal theme, there
is _incorporation_.” If this is to be understood as an explanation of
the German expression, _Einverleibung_, then it has been pared down
until nothing but the stem is left.
As to Dr. Lieber’s suggestion of _holophrastic_ as an adjective
expressing the plan of thought at the basis of polysynthesis and
incorporation, M. Adam summarily dismisses it as “a pedantic
succedaneum” to our linguistic vocabulary.
I cannot acknowledge that the propositions so carefully worked up by
Humboldt and Steinthal have been refuted by M. Adam; I must say, indeed,
that the jejune significance he attaches to the incorporative process
seems to show that he did not grasp it as a structural motive in
language, and a wide-reaching psychologic process.
Professor Friedrich Müller, whose studies of American languages are
among the most extended and profitable of the present time, has not
given to this peculiar feature the attention we might reasonably expect.
Indeed, there appears in the standard treatise on the science of
language which he has published, almost the same vagueness as to the
nature of incorporation which I have pointed out in the writings of M.
Adam. Thus, on one page he defines incorporating languages as those
which “do away with the distinction between the word and the sentence;”
while on another he explains incorporation as “the including of the
object within the body of the verb.”[293] He calls it “a peculiarity of
most American languages, but not of all.” That the structural process of
incorporation is by no means exhausted by the reception of the object
within the body of the verb, even that this is not requisite to
incorporation, I shall endeavor to show.
Finally, I may close this brief review of the history of these doctrines
with a reference to the fact that neither of them appears anywhere
mentioned in the official “Introduction to the Study of Indian
Languages,” issued by the United States Bureau of Ethnology! How the
author of that work, Major J. W. Powell, Director of the Bureau, could
have written a treatise on the study of American languages, and have not
a word to say about these doctrines, the most salient and characteristic
features of the group, is to me as inexplicable as it is extraordinary.
He certainly could not have supposed that Duponceau’s theory was
completely dead and laid to rest, for Steinthal, the most eminent
philosophic linguist of the age, still teaches in Berlin, and teaches
what I have already quoted from him about these traits. What is more,
Major Powell does not even refer to this structural plan, nor include it
in what he terms the “grammatic processes” which he explains.[294] This
is indeed the play of “Hamlet” with the part of Hamlet omitted!
I believe that for the scientific study of language, and especially of
American languages, it will be profitable to restore and clearly to
differentiate the distinction between polysynthesis and incorporation,
dimly perceived by Duponceau and expressed by him in the words already
quoted. With these may be retained the neologism of Lieber,
_holophrasis_, and the three defined as follows:
_Polysynthesis_ is a method of word-building, applicable either to
nominals or verbals, which not only employs juxtaposition with
aphæresis, syncope, apocope, etc., but also words, forms of words and
significant phonetic elements which have no separate existence apart
from such compounds. This latter peculiarity marks it off altogether
from the processes of agglutination and collocation.
_Incorporation_, _Einverleibung_, is a structural process confined to
verbals, by which the nominal or pronominal elements of the proposition
are subordinated to the verbal elements, either in form or position; in
the former case having no independent existence in the language in the
form required by the verb, and in the latter case being included within
the specific verbal signs of tense and mood. In a fully incorporative
language the verbal exhausts the syntax of the grammar, all other parts
of speech remaining in isolation and without structural connection.
_Holophrasis_ does not refer to structural peculiarities of language,
but to the psychologic impulse which lies at the root of polysynthesis
and incorporation. It is the same in both instances—the effort to
express the whole proposition in one word. This in turn is instigated by
the stronger stimulus which the imagination receives from an idea
conveyed in one word rather than in many.
A few illustrations will aid in impressing these definitions on the
mind.
As _polysynthetic_ elements, we have the inseparable possessive pronouns
which in many languages are attached to the names of the parts of the
human body and to the words for near relatives; also the so-called
“generic formatives,” particles which are prefixed, suffixed, or
inserted to indicate to what class or material objects belong; also the
“numeral terminations” affixed to the ordinal numbers to indicate the
nature of the objects counted; the negative, diminutive and
amplificative particles which convey certain conceptions of a general
character, and so on. These are constantly used in word-building, but
are generally not words themselves, having no independent status in the
language. They may be single letters, or even merely vowel-changes and
consonantal substitutions; but they have well-defined significance.
In _incorporation_ the object may be united to the verbal theme either
as a prefix, suffix or infix; or, as in Nahuatl, etc., a pronominal
representative of it may be thus attached to the verb, while the object
itself is placed in isolated apposition.
The subject is usually a pronoun inseparably connected, or at least
included within the tense-sign; to this the nominal subject stands in
apposition. Both subjective and objective pronouns are apt to have a
different form from either the independent personals or possessives, and
this difference of form may be accepted as _a priori_ evidence of the
incorporative plan of structure—though there are other possible origins
for it. The tense and mode signs are generally separable, and,
especially in the compound tense, are seen to apply not only to the verb
itself, but to the whole scope of its action, the tense sign for
instance preceding the subject.
Some further observations will set these peculiarities in a yet clearer
light.
Although in polysynthesis we speak of prefixes, suffixes, and
juxtaposition, we are not to understand these terms as the same as in
connection with the Aryan or with the agglutinative languages. In
polysynthetic tongues they are not intended to form words, but
sentences; not to express an idea, but a proposition. This is a
fundamental logical distinction between the two classes of languages.
With certain prefixes, as those indicating possession, the form of the
word itself alters, as in Mexican, _amatl_, book, _no_, mine, but
_namauh_, my book. In a similar manner suffixes or postpositions affect
the form of the words to which they are added.
As the holophrastic method makes no provision for the syntax of the
sentence outside of the expression of action (_i. e._, the verbal and
what it embraces), nouns and adjectives are not declined. The “cases”
which appear in many grammars of American languages are usually
indications of space or direction, or of possession, and not
case-endings in the sense of Aryan grammar.
A further consequence of the same method is the absence of true relative
pronouns, of copulative conjunctions, and generally of the machinery of
dependent clauses. The devices to introduce subordinate propositions I
have referred to in a previous essay (above, p. 346).
As the effort to speak in sentences rather than in words entails
constant variation in these word-sentences, there arise both an enormous
increase in verbal forms and a multiplication of expressions for ideas
closely allied. This is the cause of the apparently endless conjugations
of many such tongues, and also of the exuberance of their vocabularies
in words of closely similar signification. It is an ancient error—which,
however, I find repeated in the official “Introduction to the Study of
Indian Languages,” issued by our Bureau of Ethnology—that the primitive
condition of languages is one “where few ideas are expressed by few
words.” On the contrary, languages structurally at the bottom of the
scale have an enormous and useless excess of words. The savage tribes of
the plains will call a color by three or four different words as it
appears on different objects. The Eskimo has about twenty words for
fishing, depending on the nature of the fish pursued. All this arises
from the “holophrastic” plan of thought.
It will be seen from these explanations that the definition of
Incorporation as given by M. Lucien Adam (quoted above) is erroneous,
and that of Professor Müller is inadequate. The former reduces it to a
mere matter of position or placement; the latter either does not
distinguish it from polysynthesis, or limits it to only one of its
several expressions.
In fact, Incorporation may take place with any one of the six possible
modifications of the grammatical formula, “subject + verb + object.” It
is quite indifferent to its theory which of these comes first, which
last; although the most usual formula is either,
subject + object + verb, or,
object + subject + verb;
the verb being understood to be the verbal theme only—not its tense and
mode signs. Where either of the above arrangements occurs, we may
consider it to be an indication of the incorporative tendency; but as
mere position is insufficient evidence, incorporation may be present in
other arrangements of the elements of the proposition.
As a fair example of polysynthesis in nouns, we may select the word for
“cross” in the Cree. The Indians render it by “praying-stick” or “holy
wood,” and their word for “our praying-sticks” (crosses) is:
_N't'ayamihewâttikuminânak_.
This is analyzed as follows:
_n't'_, possessive pronoun, ½ person plural.
_ayami_, something relating to religion.
_he_, indicative termination of the foregoing.
_w_, a connective.
_âttik_, suffix indicating wooden or of wood.
_u_, a connective.
_m_, sign of possession.
_i_, a connective.
_nân_, termination of ⅓ person plural.
_ak_, termination of animate plural (the cross is spoken of as animate
by a figure of speech).
Not a single one of the above elements can be employed as an independent
word. They are all only the raw material to weave into and make up
words.
As a characteristic specimen of incorporation we may select this Nahuatl
word-sentence:
_onictemacac_,
I have given something to somebody:
which is analyzed as follows:
_o_, augment of the preterit, a tense sign.
_ni_, pronoun, subject, 1st person.
_c_, “semi-pronoun,” object, 3d person.
_te_, “inanimate semi-pronoun,” object, 3d person.
_maca_, theme of the verb, “to give.”
_c_, suffix of the preterit, a tense sign.
Here it will be observed that between the tense-signs, which are
logically the essential limitations of the action, are included both the
agent and the near and remote objects of the action.
In the modifications of meaning they undergo, American verbal themes may
be divided into two great classes, either as they express these
modifications (1) by suffixes to an unchanging radical, or (2) by
internal changes of their radical.
The last mentioned are most characteristic of synthetic tongues. In all
pure dialects of the Algonkin the vowel of the verbal root undergoes a
peculiar change called “flattening” when the proposition passes from the
“positive” to the “suppositive” mood.[295] The same principle is
strikingly illustrated in the Choctaw language, as the following example
will show:[296]
_takchi_, to tie (active, definite).
_takchi_, to be tying (active, distinctive).
_tak'chi_, to _tie_ (active, emphatic).
_taiakchi_, to tie tightly (active, intensive).
_tahakchi_, to keep tying (active, frequentative).
_tahkchi_, to tie at once (active, immediate).
_tullakchi_, to be tied (passive, definite).
_tallakchi_, to be the one tied (passive, distinctive), etc., etc.
This example is, however, left far behind by the Qquichua of Peru, which
by a series of so-called “verbal particles” affixed to the verbal theme
confers an almost endless variety of modification on its verbs. Thus
Anchorena in his Grammar gives the form and shades of meaning of 675
modifications of the verb _munay_, to love.[297]
These verbal particles are not other words, as adverbs, etc., qualifying
the meaning of the verb and merely added to it, but have no independent
existence in the language. Von Tschudi, whose admirable analysis of this
interesting tongue cannot be too highly praised, explains them as
“verbal roots which never reached independent development, or fragments
handed down from some earlier epoch of the evolution of the
language.”[298] They are therefore true synthetic elements in the sense
of Duponceau’s definition, and not at all examples of collocation or
juxtaposition.
While the genius of American languages is such that they permit and many
of them favor the formation of long compounds which express the whole of
a sentence in one word, this is by no means necessary. Most of the
examples of words of ten, twenty or more syllables are not genuine
native words, but novelties manufactured by the missionaries. In
ordinary intercourse such compounds are not in use, and the speech is
comparatively simple.
Of two of the most synthetic languages, the Algonkin and the Nahuatl, we
have express testimony from experts that they can be employed in simple
or compound forms, as the speaker prefers. The Abbé Lacombe observes
that in Cree “sometimes one can employ very long words to express a
whole phrase, although the same ideas can be easily rendered by
periphrasis.”[299] In the syllabus of the lectures on the Nahuatl by
Prof. Agustin de la Rosa, of the University of Guadalaxara, I note that
he explains when the Nahuatl is to be employed in a synthetic, and when
in an analytic form.[300]
I shall now proceed to examine those American tongues which have been
authoritatively declared to be exceptions to the general rules of
American grammar, as being devoid of the incorporative and polysynthetic
character.
THE OTHOMI.[301]
As I have said, the Othomi was the stumbling block of Mr. Duponceau, and
led him to abandon his theory of polysynthesis as a characteristic of
American tongues. Although in his earlier writings he expressly names it
as one of the illustrations supporting his theory, later in life the
information he derived from Señor Emmanuel Naxera led him to regard it
as an isolating and monosyllabic language, quite on a par with the
Chinese. He expressed this change of view in the frankest manner, and
since that time writers have spoken of the Othomi as a marked exception
in structure to the general rules of synthesis in American tongues. This
continues to be the case even in the latest writings, as, for instance,
in the recently published _Anthropologie du Mexique_, of Dr. Hamy.[302]
Let us examine the grounds of this opinion.
The Othomis are an ancient and extended family, who from the remotest
traditional epochs occupied the central valleys and mountains of Mexico
north of the Aztecs and Tezcucans. Their language, called by themselves
_nhiân_ _hiû_, the fixed or current speech[303] (_nhiân_, speech, _hiû_,
stable, fixed), presents extraordinary phonetic difficulties on account
of its nasals, gutturals and explosives.
It is one of a group of related dialects which may be arranged as
follows:
{ The Othomi.
{ The Mazahua.
{ The Pame and its dialects.
{ The Meco or Jonaz.
It was the opinion of M. Charencey, that another member of this group
was the Pirinda or Matlazinca; a position combatted by Señor Pimentel,
who acknowledges some common property in words, but considers them
merely borrowed.[304]
Naxera made the statement that the Mazahua is monosyllabic, an error in
which his copyists have obediently followed him; but Pimentel pointedly
contradicts this assertion and shows that it is a mistake, both for the
Mazahua and for the Pame and its dialects.[305]
We may begin our study of the language with an examination of the
TENSE-SIGNS IN OTHOMI.
PRESENT TENSE.
1. I wish, _di nee_.
2. Thou wishest, _gui nee_.
3. He wishes, _y nee_.
PAST AORIST.
1. I wished, _da nee_.
2. Thou wished, _ga nee_.
3. He wished, _bi nee_.
PERFECT.
1. I have wished, _xta nee_.
2. Thou hast wished, _xca nee_.
3. He has wished, _xpi nee_.
PLUPERFECT.
1. I had wished, _xta nee hma_.
2. Thou hadst wished, _xca nee hma_.
3. He had wished, _xpi nee hma_.
FIRST FUTURE.
1. I shall wish, _ga nee_.
2. Thou wilt wish, _gui nee_.
3. He will wish, _da nee_.
SECOND FUTURE.
1. I shall have wished, _gua xta nee_.
2. Thou wilt have wished, _gua xca nee_.
3. He will have wished, _gua xpi nee_.
The pronouns here employed are neither the ordinary personals nor
possessives (though the Othomi admits of a possessive conjugation), but
are verbal pronouns, strictly analogous to those found in various other
American languages. The radicals are:
I, _d_—.
Thou, _g_—.
He, it, _b_—.
In the present, the first and second are prefixed to what is really the
simple concrete form of the verb, _y-nee_. In the past tenses the
personal signs are variously united with particles denoting past time or
the past, as _a_, the end, to finish, _ma_ and _hma_, yesterday, and the
prefix _x_, which is very noteworthy as being precisely the same in
sound and use which we find in the Cakchiquel past and future tenses. It
is pronounced _sh_ (as in _sh_ove) and precedes the whole verbal,
including subject, object, and theme; while in the pluperfect, the
second sign of past time _hma_ is a suffix to the collective expression.
The future third person is given by Neve as _da_, but by Perez as _di_,
which latter is apparently from the future particle _ni_ given by Neve.
In the second future, the distinctive particle _gua_ precedes the whole
verbal, thus inclosing the subject with the theme in the tense-sign,
strictly according to the principles of the incorporative conjugation.
This incorporative character is still more marked in the objective
conjugations, or “transitions.” The object, indeed, follows the verb,
but is not only incorporated with it, but in the compound tense is
included within the double tense signs.
Thus, I find in Perez’s Catechism,
_di_ _ûn-ba_ _magetzi_,
He will give-them heaven.
In this sentence, _di_ is the personal pronoun combined with the future
sign; and the verb is _ûn-ni_, to give to another, which is compounded
with the personal _ba_, them, drops its final syllable, forming a true
synthesis.
In the phrase,
_xpi_ _ûn-ba_ _hma_ _magetzi_,
he had give them (had) heaven,
both subject and object, the latter inclosed in a synthesis with the
radical of the theme, the former phonetically altered and coalesced with
a tense particle, are included in the double tense-sign, _x-hma_. This
is as real an example of incorporation as can be found in any American
language.
Ordinary synthesis of words, other than verbs, is by no means rare in
Othomi. Simple juxtaposition, which Naxera states to be the rule, is not
all universal. Such a statement by him leads us to suspect that he had
only that elementary knowledge of the tongue which Neve refers to in a
forcible passage in his _Reglas_. He writes: “A good share of the
difficulty of this tongue lies in its custom of syncope; and because the
tyros who make use of it do not syncopate it, their compositions are so
rough and lacking in harmony to the ears of the natives that the latter
count their talk as no better than that of horse-jockeys, as we would
say.”[306]
The extent of this syncopation is occasionally to such a degree that
only a fragment of the original word is retained. As:
The charcoal-vendor, _na māthiâ_.
Here _na_ is a demonstrative particle like the Aztec _in_, and _māthiâ_
is a compound _pà_, to sell, and _thêhñâ_, charcoal.
The expression,
_y mahny oqha_, he loves God,
is to be analyzed,
_y_ _mâhdî_ _nuny_ _oqha_;
he loves him God;
where we perceive not only synthesis, but the object standing in
apposition to the pronoun representing it which is incorporated with the
verb.
So: _yot-gua_, light here; from _yotti_, to light, _nugua_, here.
These examples from many given in Neve’s work seem to me to prove beyond
cavil that the Othomi exhibits, when properly spoken, precisely the same
theories of incorporation and polysynthesis as the other American
languages, although undoubtedly its more monosyllabic character and the
extreme complexity of its phonetics do not permit of a development of
these peculiarities to the same degree as many.
Nor am I alone in this opinion. It has already been announced by the
Count de Charencey, as the result of his comparison of this tongue with
the Mazahua and Pirinda. “The Othomi,” he writes, “has all the
appearance of a language which was at first incorporative, and which,
worn down by attrition and linguistic decay, has at length come to
simulate a language of juxtaposition.”[307]
Some other peculiarities of the language, though not directly bearing on
the question, point in the same direction. A certain class of compound
verbs are said by Neve to have a possessive declension. Thus, of the two
words _puengui_, he draws, and _hiâ_, breath, is formed the verb
_buehiâ_, which is conjugated by using the verb in the indefinite third
person and inserting the possessives _ma_, _ni_, _na_, my, thy, his;
thus,
_ybuemahia_, I breathe.
_ybuenihia_, thou breathest.
_ybuenahia_, he breathes.[308]
Literally this would be “it-is-drawing, my breath,” etc.
In the Mazahua dialects there is a remarkable change in the objective
conjugations (transitions) where the whole form of the verb appears to
alter. In this language _ti_ = I; _ki_ or _khe_ = thou.
I give, _ti une_.
I give thee, _ti dakke_.
He will give us, _ti yakme_.[309]
The last example is not fully explained by my authorities; but it shows
the verbal change.
Something like this occurs in the Pame dialects. They reveal a manifest
indifference to the integrity of the theme, characteristic of
polysynthetic languages. Thus, our only authority on the Pame, Father
Juan Guadalupe Soriano, gives the preterit forms of the verb “to aid:”
_Ku pait_, I aided.
_Ki gait_, thou aidedest.
_Ku mait_, he aided.
So, of “to burn:”
_Knu aum_, I burned.
_Kuddu du taum_, they burned.[310]
A large number of such changes run through the conjugation. Pimentel
calls them phonetic changes, but they are certainly, in some instances,
true syntheses.
All these traits of the Othomi and its related dialects serve to place
them unquestionably within the general plan of structure of American
languages.
THE BRI-BRI LANGUAGE.
The late Mr. Wm. M. Gabb, who was the first to furnish any satisfactory
information about it and its allied dialects in Costa Rica, introduces
the Bri-Bri language, spoken in the highlands of that State, by quoting
the words of Alexander von Humboldt to the effect that “a multiplicity
of tenses characterizes the rudest American languages.” On this, Mr.
Gabb comments: “This certainly does not apply to the Costa Rican family,
which is equally remarkable for the simplicity of its inflections.”[311]
This statement, offered with such confidence, has been accepted and
passed on without close examination by several unusually careful
linguists. Thus Professor Friedrich Müller, in his brief description of
the Bri-Bri (taken exclusively from Gabb’s work), inserts the
observation—“The simple structure of this idiom is sufficient to
contradict the theories generally received about American
languages.”[312] And M. Lucien Adam has lately instanced its verbs as
notable examples of inflectional simplicity.[313] The study of this
group of tongues becomes, therefore, of peculiar importance to my
present topic.
Since Mr. Gabb published his memoir, some independent material,
grammatical as well as lexicographical, has been furnished by the Rt.
Rev. B. A. Thiel, Bishop of Costa Rica,[314] and I have obtained, in
addition, several MS. vocabularies and notes on the language prepared by
Prof. P. J. J. Valentini and others.
The stock is divided into three groups of related dialects, as follows:—
I. The Brunka, Bronka or Boruca, now in southwestern Costa Rica, but
believed by Gabb to have been the earliest of the stock to occupy the
soil, and to have been crowded out by later arrivals.
II. The Tiribi and Terraba, principally on the head-waters of the Rio
Telorio and south of the mountains.
III. The Bri-Bri and Cabecar on the head-waters of the Rio Tiliri. The
Biceitas (Vizeitas) or Cachis, near the mouth of the same stream, are
off-shoots of the Bri-Bris; so also are the small tribes at Orosi and
Tucurrique, who were removed to those localities by the Spaniards.
The Bri-Bri and Cabecar, although dialects of the same original speech,
are not sufficiently alike to be mutually intelligible. The Cabecars
occupied the land before the Bri-Bris, but were conquered and are now
subject to them. It is probable that their dialect is more archaic.
The Bri-Bri is a language of extreme poverty, and as spoken at present
is plainly corrupt. Gabb estimates the whole number of words it contains
as probably not exceeding fifteen hundred. Some of these, though Gabb
thinks not very many, are borrowed from the Spanish; but it is
significant, that among them is the pronoun “that,” the Spanish _ese_.
Let us now examine the Bri-Bri verb, said to be so singularly simple. We
are at once struck by Mr. Gabb’s remark (just after he has been speaking
of their unparalleled simplicity) that the inflections he gives “have
been verified with as much care as the difficulties of the case would
admit.” Evidently, then, there were difficulties. What they are, becomes
apparent when we attempt to analyze the forms of the eighteen brief
paradigms which he gives.
The personal pronouns are
_je_, I. _sa_, we.
_be_, thou. _ha_, you.
_ye_, he, etc. _ye-pa_, they.
These are both nominative and objective, personal and, with the suffix
_cha_, possessives.
The tenses are usually, not always, indicated by suffixes to the theme;
but these vary, and no rule is given for them, nor is it stated whether
the same theme can be used with them all. Thus,
To burn, _ĭ-norka_, present, _i-nyor-ket-ke_.
To cook, _i-lu’_. “ _ĭ-luk_.
To start, _i-be-te_. “ _i-be-te_.
Here are three forms for the present, not explained. Are they three
conjugations, or do they express three shades of meaning, like the three
English presents? I suspect the latter, for under _ikiana_, to want,
Gabb remarks that the form in _-etke_, means “he _wants_ you,” _i. e._,
is emphatic.
The past aorist has two terminations, one in _-na_, and one in _-e_,
about the uses and meanings of which we are left equally in the dark.
The future is utterly inexplicable. Even Prof. Müller, just after his
note calling attention to the “great simplicity” of the tongue, is
obliged to give up this tense with the observation, “the structural laws
regulating the formation of the future are still in obscurity!” Was it
not somewhat premature to dwell on the simplicity of a tongue whose
simplest tenses he acknowledges himself unable to analyze?
The futures of some verbs will reveal the difficulties of this tense:—
To burn, _i-nyor-ka_; future, _i-nyor-wane-ka_.
To cook, _i-lu’_; ” _i-lu’_.
To start, _i-bete_; ” _i-bete_.
To want, _i-ki-ana_; ” _i-kie_.
To count, _ishtaung_; ” _mia shta’we_.
In the last example _mia_ is the future of the verb _imia_, to go, and
is used as an auxiliary.
The explanation I have to suggest for these varying forms is, either
that they represent in fact that very “multiplicity of tense-formations”
which Humboldt alluded to, and which were too subtle to be apprehended
by Mr. Gabb within the time he devoted to the study of the language; or
that they are in modern Bri-Bri, which I have shown is noticeably
corrupted, survivals of these formations, but are now largely
disregarded by the natives themselves.
Signs of the incorporative plan are not wanting in the tongue. Thus in
the objective conjugation not only is the object placed between subject
and verb, but the latter may undergo visible synthetic changes. Thus:
_Je be sueng._
I thee see.
_Ke je be wai su-na._
Not I thee (?) see-did.
In the latter sentence _na_ is the sign of the past aorist, and the verb
in synthesis with it drops its last syllable. The _wai_ Gabb could not
explain. It will be noticed that the negative precedes the whole verbal
form, thus indicating that it is treated as a collective idea
(holophrastically).
Prepositions always appear as suffixes to nouns, which, in composition,
may suffer elision. This is strictly similar to the Nahuatl and other
synthetic tongues.
Other examples of developed synthesis are not uncommon, as—
away, _imibak_, from _imia_ to go, _jebak_, already.
very hot, _palina_, from _ba_ + _ilinia_.
The opinion that the Bri-Bri is at present a considerably corrupted and
worn-down dialect of a group of originally highly synthetic tongues is
borne out by an examination of the scanty materials we have of its
nearest relations.
Thus in the Terraba we find the same superfluous richness of pronominal
forms which occurs in many South American tongues, one indicating that
the person is sitting, another that he is standing, a third that he is
walking.[315]
The Brunka has several distinct forms in the present tense:
I eat, _cha adeh_, and _atqui chan_ (_atqui_ = I).
Although Bishop Thiel supplies a number of verbal forms from this
dialect, the plan of their construction is not obvious. This is seen
from a comparison of the present and perfect tenses in various words.
The pronouns are—
⅓ {_atqui_, I.
(_ique_, he.
For instance:
BRUNKA VERBAL FORMS.
To kill (radical, _ai_).
Present, I kill, _cha atqui i aíra_.
Perfect, he has killed, _iang i aíc_.
To die (radical, _cojt_).
Present, I die, _cójo drah_.
Perfect, he has died, _cojt crah_.
To hear (radical, _dój_).
Present, I hear, _aari dój ograh_.
Perfect, I have heard, _aqui dój crah_.
To forget.
Present, I forget, _asqui chita uringera_.
Perfect, I have forgotten, _ochita uringea_.
These examples are sufficient to show that the Brunka conjugations are
neither regular nor simple, and such is the emphatic statement of Bishop
Thiel, both of it and all these allied dialects. In his introduction he
states that he is not yet ready to offer a grammar of these tongues,
though well supplied with lexicographical materials, and that “_their
verbs are especially difficult_.”[316]
The Cabecar dialect, in which he gives several native funeral poems,
without translations, is apparently more complicated than the Bri-Bri.
The words of the songs are long and seem much syncopated.
THE TUPI-GUARANI DIALECTS.
Several writers of the highest position have asserted that these
dialects, spoken over so large a portion of the territory of Brazil, are
neither polysynthetic nor incorporative. Thus the late Prof. Charles F.
Hartt in his “Notes on the Lingoa Geral or Modern Tupi,” expressed
himself: “Unlike the North American Indian tongues, the languages of the
Tupi-Guarani family are not polysynthetic in structure.”[317] With
scarcely less positiveness Professor Fredrich Müller writes: “The
objective conjugation of the Tupi-Guarani does not show the
incorporation usually seen in American languages, but rather a mere
collocation.”[318]
It is, I acknowledge, somewhat hazardous to venture an opinion contrary
to such excellent authorities. But I must say, that while, no doubt, the
Tupi in its structure differs widely from the Algonkin or Nahuatl, it
yet seems to present unmistakable signs of an incorporative and
polysynthetic character, such as would be difficult to parallel outside
of America.
I am encouraged to maintain this by the recent example of the erudite
Dr. Amaro Cavalcanti, himself well and practically versed in the spoken
Tupi of to-day, who has issued a learned treatise to prove that “the
Brazilian dialects present undoubtedly all the supposed characteristics
of an agglutinative language, and belong to the same group as the
numerous other dialects or tongues of America.”[319] Dr. Cavalcanti does
not, indeed, distinguish so clearly between agglutinative and
incorporative languages as I should wish, but the trend of his work is
altogether parallel to the arguments I am about to advance.
Fortunately, we do not suffer from a lack of materials to study the
Tupi, ancient and modern. There are plenty of dictionaries, grammars and
texts in it, and even an “Ollendorff’s Method,” for those who prefer
that intellectual (!) system.[320]
All recent writers agree that the modern Tupi has been materially
changed by long contact with the whites. The traders and missionaries
have exerted a disintegrating effect on its ancient forms, to some of
which I shall have occasion to refer.
_O Selvagem i Curso da Lingua Geral._ By Dr. Couto de Magalhaes (Rio de
Janeiro, 1876).
Turning our attention first to its synthetic character, one cannot but
be surprised after reading Prof. Hartt’s opinion above quoted to find
him a few pages later introducing us to the following example of
“word-building of a more than usually polysynthetic character.”[321]
_akáyu_, head; _ayú_, bad.
_akayayú_, crazy.
_muakayayu_, to seduce (make crazy).
_xayumuakayayú_, I make myself crazy, etc.
Such examples, however, are not rare, as may be seen by turning over the
leaves of Montoya’s _Tesoro de la Lengua Guarani_. The most noticeable
and most _American_ peculiarity of such compounds is that they are not
collocations of words, as are the agglutinative compounds of the
Ural-Altaic tongues, but of particles and phonetic elements which have
no separate life in the language.
Father Montoya calls special attention to this in the first words of his
_Advertencia_ to his _Tesoro_. He says:—“The foundation of this language
consists of particles which frequently have no meaning if taken alone;
but when compounded with the whole or parts of others (for they cut them
up a great deal in composition) they form significant expressions; for
this reason there are no independent verbs in the language, as they are
built up of these particles with nouns or pronouns. Thus, _ñemboé_ is
composed of the three particles _ñe_, _mo_, _e_. The _ñe_ is reciprocal;
_mo_ an active particle; _e_ indicates skill; and the whole means ‘to
exercise oneself,’ which we translate, ‘to learn,’ or ‘to teach,’
indeterminately; but with the personal sign added, _anemboe_, ‘I
learn.’”
This analysis, which Montoya carries much further, reminds us forcibly
of the extraordinarily acute analysis of the Cree (Algonkin) by Mr.
James Howse.[322] Undoubtedly the two tongues have been built up from
significant particles (not words) in the same manner.
Some of these particles convey a peculiar turn to the whole sentence,
difficult to express in our tongues. Thus the element _é_ attached to
the last syllable of a compound gives an oppositive sense to the whole
expression; for example, _ajur_, “I come” simply; but if the question
follows: “Who ordered you to come?” the answer might be, _ajuré_, “I
come of my own accord; nobody ordered me.”[323]
Cavalcanti observes that many of these formative elements which existed
in the old Tupi have now fallen out of use.[324] This is one of several
evidences of a change in structure in the language, a loss of its more
pliable and creative powers.
This synthesis is also displayed in the Tupi, as in the Cree, by the
inseparable union of certain nouns with pronouns. The latter are
constantly united with terms of consanguinity and generally with those
of members of the body, the form of the noun undergoing material
modifications. Thus:
_tete_, body; _cete_, his body; _xerete_, my body.
_tuba_, father; _oguba_, his father; _xerub_, my father.
_mymbaba_, domestic animal; _gueymba_, his domestic animal.
_tera_, name; _guera_, his name.
Postpositions are in a similar manner sometimes merged into the nouns or
pronouns which they limit. Thus: _tenonde_, before; _guenonde_, before
him.
It appears to me that the substratum, the structural theory, of such a
tongue is decidedly polysynthetic and not agglutinative, still less
analytic.
Let us now inquire whether there are any signs of the incorporative
process in Tupi.
We are at once struck with the peculiarity that there are two special
sets of pronouns used with verbals, one set subjective, and the other
objective, several of which _cannot be employed in any other
construction_.[325] This is almost diagnostic of the holophrastic method
of speech. The pronouns in such cases are evidently regarded by the
language-faculty as subordinate accessories to the verbal, and whether
they are phonetically merged in it or not is a secondary question.
The Tupi pronouns (confining myself to the singular number for the sake
of brevity) are as follows:
Verbal affixes.
Independent personals. Possessives. Subject. Object.
_ixe_ or _xe_. _se_ or _xe_. _a._ _xe._
_inde_ or _ne_. _ne_ or _re_. _re_, _yepe_. _oro._
_ae_ or _o_. _ae_ or _i_. _o._ _ae_ or _i_.
The verbal affixes are united to the theme with various phonetic
changes, and so intimately as to form one word. The grammars give such
example as:—
_areco_, I hold; _guereco_, they hold him.
_ahenoi_, I call; _xerenoi_, they call me.
_ayaca_, I dispute him; _oroaca_, I dispute thee.
In the first person singular, the two pronominal forms _xe_ and _a_ are
usually merged in the synthesis _xa_; as _xamehen_, I love.
Another feature pointing to the incorporative plan is the location of
the object. The rule in the old language was to place the object in all
instances _before_ the verb, that is, between the verb and its subject
when the latter was other than a personal suffix. Dr. Cavalcanti says
that this is now in a measure changed, so that when the object is of the
third person it is placed after the verb, although in the first and
second persons the old rule still holds good.[326] Thus the ancient
Tupis would say:
_boia_ _aè_ _o-sou_,
snake him he-bites.
But in the modern tongue it is:
_boia_ _o-sou_ _aé_
snake he-bites him.
With the other persons the rule is still for the object to precede and
to be attached to the theme:
_xeoroinca_, I thee kill.
_xepeinca_, I you kill.
_xeincayepe_, me killest thou.
Many highly complex verbal forms seem to me to illustrate a close
incorporative tendency. Let us analyze for instance the word,
_xeremimboe_,
which means “him whom I teach” or “that which I teach.” Its theme is the
verbal _mboe_, which in the extract I have above made from Montoya is
shown to be a synthesis of the three elementary particles _ñe_, _mo_,
and _e_; _xe_ is the possessive form of the personal pronoun, “my”; it
is followed by the participial expression _temi_ or _tembi_, which,
according to Montoya, is equivalent to “illud quod facio;” its terminal
vowel is syncopated with the relative _y_ or _i_, “him, it”; so the
separate parts of the expression are:—
_xe_ + _tembi_ + _y_ + _ñe_ + _mo_ + _e_.
I shall not pursue the examination of the Tupi further. It were, of
course, easy to multiply examples. But I am willing to leave the case as
it stands, and to ask linguists whether, in view of the above, it was
not a premature judgment that pronounced it a tongue neither
polysynthetic nor incorporative.
THE MUTSUN.
This is also one of the languages which has been announced as “neither
polysynthetic nor incorporative,” and the construction of its verb as
“simple to the last degree.”[327]
We know the tongue only through the Grammar and Phrase-Book of Father de
la Cuesta, who acknowledges himself to be very imperfectly acquainted
with it.[328] With its associated dialects, it was spoken near the site
of the present city of San Francisco, California.
Looking first at the verb, its “extreme simplicity” is not so apparent
as the statements about it would lead us to expect.
In the first place, the naked verbal theme undergoes a variety of
changes by insertion and suffixes, like those of the Quiche and
Qquichua, which modify its meaning. Thus:
_Ara_, to give.
_Arsa_, to give to many, or to give much.
_Arapu_, to give to oneself.
_Arasi_, to order to give, etc., etc.
Again:
_Oio_, to catch.
_Oiñi_, to come to catch.
_Oimu_, to catch another, etc.
The author enumerates thirty-one forms thus derived from each verb, some
conjugated like it, some irregularly. With regard to tenses, he gives
eight preterits and four futures; and it cannot be said that they are
formed simply by adding adverbs of time, as the theme itself takes a
different form in several of them, _aran_, _aras_, _aragts_, etc. In the
reflexive conjugation the pronoun follows the verb and is united with
it: As,
_aragneca_, I give myself,
where _ca_ is a suffixed form of _can_, I; _ne_ represents _nenissia_,
oneself; the _g_ is apparently a connective; and the theme is _ara_.
This is quite in the order of the polysynthetic theory and is also
incorporative.
Such syntheses are prominent in imperative forms. Thus from the
above-mentioned verb, _oio_, to catch, we have,
_oiomityuts_, Gather thou for me,
in which _mit_ is apparently the second person _men_, with a
postposition _tsa_, _mintsa_; while _yuts_ is a verbal fragment from
_yuyuts_, which the author explains to mean “to set about,” or “to get
done.” This imperative, therefore, is a verbal noun in synthesis with an
interjection, “get done with thy gathering.” It is a marked case of
polysynthesis. A number of such are found in the Mutsun phrases given,
as:
_Rugemitithsyuts cannis_, Give me arrows.
In this compound _cannis_, is for _can_ + _huas_, me + for; _yuts_ is
the imperative interjection for _yuyuts_; the remainder of the word is
not clear. The phrase is given elsewhere
_Rugemitit_, Give (thou) me arrows.
Without going further into this language, of which we know so little, it
will be evident that it is very far from simple, and that it is
certainly highly synthetic in various features.
CONCLUSIONS.
The conclusions to which the above study leads may be briefly summarized
as follows:
1. The structural processes of incorporation and polysynthesis are much
more influential elements in the morphology of language than has been
conceded by some recent writers.
2. They are clearly apparent in a number of American languages where
their presence has been heretofore denied.
3. Although so long as we are without the means of examining all
American tongues, it will be premature to assert that these processes
prevail in all, nevertheless it is safe to say that their absence has
not been demonstrated in any of which we have sufficient and authentic
material on which to base a decision.
4. The opinion of Duponceau and Humboldt, therefore, that these
processes belong to the ground-plan of American languages, and are their
leading characteristics, must still be regarded as a correct
generalization.
[ADDENDUM.
_Critique by M. Lucien Adam on the above._
Shortly after the above essay appeared in the _Proceedings_ of the
American Philosophical Society, its arguments and conclusions were
vigorously attacked by M. Lucien Adam in the _Revue de Linguistique
et de Philologie Comparée_, Tome XIX (Paris, 1886). He begins by
pointing out that examples of incorporation may be found in tongues
of the Old World—which has never been denied (see above, pp. 353–4).
Having acknowledged the incompleteness of his own definitions, he
intimates that those I give are calculated rather to sustain my
theory than to prove a linguistic trait. He then proceeds to lengthy
and minute criticisms of the analyses I have made of the examples
given under the several languages discussed. I am quite willing to
concede that with the imperfect grammars and lexicons of these
tongues so far published, I may have tripped at times in such
analyses; but I am far from acknowledging that all those of M. Adam
are correct, and I am quite certain that in some he is mistaken. The
question, however, is one not possible to discuss in this place, and
I must leave it; but I would refer the earnest student to the acute
and learned article of M. Adam, which is much the most thorough yet
written on the negative side of the debate.]
THE EARLIEST FORM OF HUMAN SPEECH, AS REVEALED BY AMERICAN TONGUES.[329]
Archæologists tell us that the manufacturers of those rude stone
implements called palæoliths wandered up and down the world while a
period of something like two hundred thousand years was unrolling its
eventless centuries. Many believe that these early artisans had not the
power of articulate expression to convey their emotions or ideas; if
such they had, they were confined to inarticulate grunts and cries.
Haeckel proposed for the species at this period of its existence the
designation _Homo alalus_, speechless man. Anatomists have come forward
to show that the inferior maxillary bones disinterred in the caves of La
Naulette and Schipka are so formed that their original possessors could
not have had the power of articulation.[330] But the latest
investigators of this point have reached an opposite conclusion.[331] We
must, however, concede that the oral communication of men during that
long epoch was of a very rudimentary character; it is contrary to every
theory of intellectual evolution to suppose that they possessed a speech
approaching anything near even the lowest organized of the linguistic
stocks now in existence. By an attentive consideration of some of these
lowest stocks, can we not form a somewhat correct conception of what was
the character of the rudimentary utterances of the race? I think we can,
but, as I believe I am the first to attempt such a picture, I offer it
with becoming diffidence.