ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE?
“Innumeræ linguæ dissimillimæ inter se, ita ut nullis machinis ad
communem originem retrahi possint.”--F. SCHLEGEL.
Besides the immense number of languages now spoken over the surface
of the globe, we must remember that hundreds have now died away
altogether, and left no trace behind them. Even in our own times,
languages are dying out; the last person who could speak Cornish
died almost within this generation,[254] and it is probable that
Manx will not long survive, although it may be violently galvanized
into a semblance of vitality. Many of the sporadic dialects,
spoken by the North American Indians, have disappeared with the
tribes that spoke them; and Humboldt even mentions that he had
seen a parrot which was the only living thing that preserved the
articulation of one forgotten tongue. Every extant language has
grown out of the death of a preceding one.[255] “Like a tree,
unobserved through the solitude of a thousand years, up grows the
mighty stem, and the mighty branches of a magnificent speech. No
man saw the seed planted; no eye noticed the infant sprouts; no
register was kept of the gradual widening of its girth, or of the
growing circumference of its shade, till the deciduous dialects of
surrounding barbarians dying out, the unexpected bole stands forth
in all its magnitude, carrying aloft in its foliage, the poetry,
the history, and the philosophy of an heroic people.”[256]
Thus the Greeks and Romans[257] displaced by their dominant idioms
numerous languages of Southern and Central Europe; the Arabs
effaced the indigenous dialects of a large portion of Western
Asia, and Northern and Eastern Africa; the Spanish and Portuguese
have expelled a crowd of American languages. Again, the Visigoths
and Alani lost in Spain both their name and their language; the
Ostrogoths and Heruli suffered the same fate in Italy; and in
short, we may fairly suppose that the dead languages of the world
are nearly as numerous as those that are still living.
Passing over the dead languages, is it possible to deduce even all
living languages from one primitive speech?
Even those who believe in a primitive language admit that the three
families of language are irreducible, _i.e._ incapable of being
derived from one another.
“These three systems of grammar (Arian, Semitic, and Turanian),
are,” says Professor Max Müller, “_perfectly distinct, and it is
impossible to derive the grammatical forms of the one from those of
the other_, though we cannot deny that in their radical elements
the three families of human speech may have had a common source.”
Attempts have, indeed, been made to connect Hebrew and Sanskrit,
but the adduced points of osculation are so few and dubious, that
such attempts must be pronounced to be egregious failures. Dr.
Prichard endeavoured to prove a connection between Celtic and
Hebrew, but “he succeeds no better than those who had made the
same attempt before him. In nearly every case, the identity of the
terms compared is questionable, and in many it is demonstrably
imaginary.”[258]
It must then be allowed, that the Indo-European and Semitic
families are in their grammatical system (which affords the truest,
if not the only test of affinity) radically distinct, and can in no
way be derived from each other. The motto of the old school, that
“all languages are dialects of a single one,” must be abandoned for
ever.
But even if it could be shown that there is an affinity between
Hebrew and Sanskrit, a far more difficult task would remain for
those who endeavour to prove from philology the original unity of
the human race; for it would be still necessary for them to show
further the Turanian unity, and the possibility of a primitive
nucleus, not only for Semitic, and Arian, and Turanian languages,
(assuming this to comprise even the Malay, Australian, Papuan,
Kaffir, Esquimaux, &c.), but also for these languages and the
ungrammatical, unagglutinative, monosyllabic Chinese. Yet, such is
the task undertaken, with vast learning and marvellous ingenuity,
by Professor Müller and Baron Bunsen. It will, however, be
admitted, that the proved existence of great irreducible families
is a strong _à priori_ evidence against them. Let us examine some
of their main arguments.
1. “Though in physical ethnology we cannot derive the Negro from
the Malay, or the Malay from the Negro type, we may look upon each
as a modification of a common and more general type. The same
applies to the types of language. We cannot derive Sanskrit from
Hebrew, or Hebrew from Sanskrit: but we can well understand how
both may have proceeded from one common source.”[259]
Thus it is argued, that although these families of language cannot,
in their present state, have been derived from each other, yet it
is possible to suppose that they are widely diverging radii from
the same original centre; that they may all have sprung from a
primitive language, whose existence we may conjecture, just as we
should have conjectured the existence of such a language as the
Latin, to account for the numerous marks of affinity between the
Romance dialects.
But this proposition is hedged in by difficulties. The very unity
of the great Arian and Semitic families tells powerfully against
it. If the members of these families retain, after the separation
of many hundred years, the most striking similarity, in the roots
of the words which refer to the relations of life, and to the
primitive acts of weaving and the working of metals, how is it
possible to believe that the points of resemblance between Sanskrit
and Hebrew, or between Chinese and Greek, are so extremely few,
and so dubiously vague, that they hardly afford the shadow of a
presumption in favour of the hypothesis which they are adduced to
support? Even if we grant the postulated length of time--thousands
and thousands of years--which take us back to a period when
historical “chronology borders on the geologic eras,” which will
alone render such a diversity of sister languages _possible_, we
confess that it still appears to us so improbable, that it rather
wears the appearance of an arbitrary hypothesis, than an inductive
conclusion.
2. The main affinities supposed to exist between language of the
different families, will be found at large in the “Outlines of
the Philosophy of Universal History.” Great stress is there laid
(i.) on the supposed discovery of certain non-Sanskritic elements
in Celtic, which form the link by which the Indo-European family
approaches the Turanian formations; and (ii.) the establishment of
a connection between the Arian and Semitic families, by a reduction
of the Hebrew triliteral roots to biliteral ones.
(i.) While wishing to allow the fullest weight to everything
which has been adduced by Dr. Meyer in proof of this discovery,
and not professing to be fully able to weigh the value of the
evidence, we cannot think that his researches have at all settled
the question. Beyond certain accidental and vague resemblances,
a few lexicographical similarities[260] easily explicable by
onomatopœia, and a few words[261] adopted in consequence of
foreign influences, and that general affinity which we should
expect from the ascertained fact of the psychological unity of the
human race, nothing that we have hitherto met with seems at all
adequate to counterbalance the enormous difficulty of supposing
that families, closely united together, yet radically distinct
from each other, could, even during thousands of years, have
diverged so widely from a common source. Again, we must ask, if
it was possible for one primitive language to pass through stages
of development so irreconcilably different as those represented
by Hebrew and Sanskrit, what cause can be adduced sufficient to
account for the fact that after the lapse of three millenniums,
a Lithuanian peasant could almost understand the commonest of
Sanskrit verbs?[262]
The Chinese must always remain a stumbling-block in the way of
all theories respecting a primitive language. Radical as is the
dissimilarity between Arian and Semitic languages, and wide as is
the abyss between their grammatical systems, yet they almost appear
like sisters when compared with the Chinese, which has nothing
like the organic principle of grammar at all. Indeed, so wide is
the difference between Chinese and Sanskrit, that the richness
of human intelligence in the formation of language receives no
more striking illustration than the fact that, as we have already
observed, these languages have absolutely _nothing_ in common
except the end at which they aim. This end is in both cases the
expression of thought, and it is attained as well in Chinese as in
the grammatical languages, although the means are wholly different.
(ii.) Very great stress has been laid on the general
lexicographical affinity between Hebrew and Sanskrit, produced by
the reduction of the Hebrew triliteral roots to biliteral ones.
This was suggested by Klaproth, and supported with great learning
and industry by Fürst and Delitzsch. We have already alluded to
it, and can only repeat here, that it is not accepted as certain,
or even as probable, by some high authorities. We cannot now
recount the numerous and weighty objections brought against this
attempt by the historian of the Semitic languages[263]--objections
derived mainly from the extreme laxity of the process which even
involves the extraordinary hypothesis, that these triliteral roots
were formed by prefixes and suffixes, and that the prefixes have
nothing determinate about them, but that every letter in the
alphabet might be used for the purpose,--an hypothesis contrary to
the most essential principles of language. It will be sufficient
to repeat his questions. How can we conceive the passage from
the monosyllabic to the triliteral stage? What cause can be
assigned for it? At what epoch did it take place? Was it due to
the multiplication of ideas or the invention of writing? Was this
stage of grammatical innovation the result of chance, or of a
common agreement? To these inquiries, no answer ever has been or
can be given. The supposition of an original biliteralism must be
considered (as we said before) simply as a convenient hypothesis,
and must not be taken for an historical fact.
Languages, of course, develop; but it is, as we have seen, by
the germinal development of a rudimentary idea, and not by this
process of gross exterior concretion for which no single parallel
can be suggested. The only monosyllabic dialects which we know,
viz., those of Eastern Asia, have continued monosyllabic for
unknown ages. Chinese cannot attain to a grammar, and the Semitic
languages could never arrive either at regularly written vowels,
or at a satisfactory system of moods and tenses. Grammar is to a
language its _unalterable_ individuality. The growth and change
of language has nothing analogous to grammatical revolution; it
is due to a silent, a spontaneous, an unconscious genius, not to
deliberate reflexion, or conscious alteration. All idioms which
have been artificially altered (_e.g._ Rabbinic Hebrew), betray the
fact by their harshness and awkwardness,--their want of harmony and
flexibility; they bear no resemblance to those languages which are
the genuine instrument of a nation’s thoughts.
3. Undoubtedly the strongest argument in favour of a Primitive
Language arises from the phenomenon of several languages which
appear to occupy an anomalous position on the frontier of the great
kingdoms of speech, and to present a lexicographical affinity with
one family, and a grammatical affinity with another family. Such
languages are the Egyptian, the Berber, the Touareg, and generally
the languages of Northern and Eastern Africa, which resemble the
Semitic tongues, in some parts of their vocabulary, but differ
widely from them in all the rest. Similarly, the Tibetian and
Burmese stand on the confines of the monosyllabic languages.
Perhaps the only way to account for these strange appearances is to
suppose that language had a period of primitive _fusibility_,[264]
during which they were susceptible of great modification from
contact with other languages also in an ante-historical and
embryonary state. It is impossible, otherwise, to explain the
identity, for instance, of the pronouns and numerals in Coptic
and the Semitic languages, or to account for the fact that among
different races _t_ is the sign of the second person singular, and
_n_, of the first person plural. The analogies which guided the
first men in such cases entirely escape our power of perception.
Philology in its present state has not sufficient materials to
decide how can it be that a few essential elements in a vocabulary
should be nearly the same in two languages, while yet they differ
totally in so important a particular as the flexions of the noun
and verb. We know, however, as an historical fact, that wide as
is the difference between the Semitic and Egyptian systems of
civilisation, and different as are the physical traits of the two
nations, yet that for many ages the Semitic influence was very
strongly felt in Egypt.[265] Egypt, indeed, was only a narrow
valley, surrounded by Semitic Nomads, who lived side by side
with the sedentary population; sometimes victorious, sometimes
subject,--always detested. The Egyptian language belongs then to
a Chamitic family, to which also belong the Berber, and other
indigenous languages of Northern Africa; a family which is spread
in Africa from the Red Sea to Senegal, and from the Mediterranean
to the Niger.
Of these languages, the Berber presents numerous grammatical
affinities with the Hebrew, but is completely distinct in its
vocabulary. This, too, may be accounted for by the fact, that it
has also been submitted to long ages of Semitic influence, in
consequence of its relations with Carthaginian and Arabic. The
possibility of a state of language so incomplete as to admit of
these radical influences from contact with superior idioms, is an
important subject for philological inquiry.
We are forced then to conclude that whatever may be the other
arguments, physiological and historical, for a material unity of
the human race, a belief, which understood in a high psychological
sense, will meet with universal acceptation, philology alone,
so far as it has yet proceeded, adds no contribution to the
probability of such a view. Of the primitive men we know little
or nothing, nor can we advance beyond the region of conjecture;
but language _does_ reveal to us something about the origin of
_nations_, and the apparition of the main _races_ of humanity would
appear to have been in the following succession.
‘1st. Inferior races which have no history, covering the soil
since an epoch which must be determined by geology rather than by
history.[266] In general, these races have disappeared in those
parts of the world where the great civilised races have advanced.
The Arians and the Semites have everywhere found the traces of
these half-savage tribes which they exterminate, and which often
survive in their legends as gigantic or magical, and autochthonous
races. The relics of their primitive humanity are found in those
parts of the world where the great races have not established
themselves, and they present a profound diversity, varying from the
sweet and simple child of the Antilles to the voluptuous Tahitian,
and the wicked population of Borneo and Assam. But wherever
found, these primitive tribes betray an absolute incapacity for
organisation and progress; and they wither away before the advance
of civilisation, and pine into a sickness and decay from which, as
far as we can see at present, not even the healing influences of
Christianity are sufficient to rescue them.[267]
‘2ndly. The apparition of the first civilised races; Chinese
in Eastern Asia, the Cushites and Chamites in Western Asia and
Africa. Early civilisations stamped with a materialistic character;
religious and poetic instincts slightly developed; a feeble
sentiment of art, but a refined sentiment of elegance; a great
aptitude for manual arts and the applied sciences; literatures
exact, but without an ideal; a turn for business, but an absence
of public spirit and political life; perfect administrations, but
little military aptitude; language monosyllabic and flexionless
(Egyptian, Chinese); hieroglyphic or ideographic systems of
writing. These races have a history of three or four thousand years
before the Christian era. All the Cushite and Chamite civilisations
have disappeared before the advance of the Arians and Shemites; but
in China this type of primitive civilisation has survived even to
the present day.
‘3rdly. Apparition of the great noble races, Arians and Shemites,
coming from the Imäus. These races appeared simultaneously in
history, the Shemites in Armenia, the Arians in Bactriana, about
two thousand years before the Christian era. Inferior to the
Chamites and Cushites in external civilisation, material works,
and the science of imperial organisation, they infinitely excel
them in vigour, courage, poetic and religious genius. The Arians
far surpass the Shemites in political and military arts, and
in their intelligence and capacity for rational speculation,
but the Shemites long preserved a religious superiority, and
ended by drawing almost every Arian nation to their monotheistic
conceptions. In this point of view Islamism crowns the essential
work of the Shemites, which has been to simplify the human
spirit--to banish polytheism and those enormous complications in
which the religious thought of the Arians became entangled. This
mission once accomplished, the Shemite race rapidly declines, and
leaves the Arian race to march alone at the head of the destinies
of mankind.’
Such are some of the conclusions to which philology would seem to
point; but they are only stated with a perfect readiness to abandon
all present inferences when we are required to do so by a wider
knowledge, and with a profound consciousness that what we know as
yet is but a drop compared to the ocean, which is still untraversed
and unknown.
NOTE.--For some very accurate original observations on the
Egyptian language, I refer the reader to a remarkable book, the
_Genesis of the Earth and Man_, 2nd. ed. pp. 255-268. To Mr.
Reginald Stuart Poole, the Editor of that candid and learned
Essay, I take this opportunity of returning my thanks.