The CONTINENTAL for May contained an article, written by Stephen Pearl
Andrews, entitled: A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE: ITS POSSIBILITY, SCIENTIFIC
NECESSITY, AND APPROPRIATE CHARACTERISTICS. Although then treated
hypothetically, or as something not impossible of achievement _in the
future_, a Language constructed upon the method therein briefly and
generally explained, is, in fact, substantially completed at the present
time. It is one of the developments of a new and vast scientific
discovery--comprising the Fundamental Principles of all Thought and
Being, and the Law of Analogy--on which Mr. Andrews has bestowed the
name of UNIVERSOLOGY. The public announcement of this discovery,
together with a general statement of its character, has been recently
made in the columns of a leading literary paper--_The Home Journal._
Although the principle involved in the Language discussed in the article
referred to is wholly different from that upon which all former attempts
at the construction of a common method of lingual communication have
been based; and although such merely mechanical _inventions_ were
therein distinguished from a Language _discovered as existing in the
nature of things_; several criticisms, emanating from high literary
quarters, indicate that there is still much misunderstanding as to the
real nature of a Universal Language framed upon the principles of
Analogy between Sense and Sound. This misunderstanding seems most
prevalent in respect to the two points relating directly to the
practical utility of such a Lingual Organ. It is assumed that a Language
so constituted must be wholly different in its material and structure
from any now existing, and that the latter would have to be abandoned as
soon as the former was adopted. It is supposed, therefore, that in
order to introduce the SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, the people must be
induced to learn something entirely new, and to forsake for it their old
and cherished Mother-tongues. The accomplishment of such an undertaking
is naturally regarded as highly improbable, if not impossible.
It is also supposed that every word of the Language is to be determined
in accordance with exact scientific formulas;--a process which, if
employed, would, as is conceived, give a stiff, inflexible, monotonous,
and cramped character to the Language itself; and would be wanting in
that profusion of synonymes which gives an artistic and life-like
character to the lingual growths of the past.
Both of these objections arise, as we shall hereafter see, from an
erroneous impression of the nature of Language based on Analogy, coupled
with a misconception of the real character and constituents of existing
Languages. It is the purpose of the present papers to correct these
false notions. In order to do so--and, what is essential to this, to
present a clear exposition of the true character of the Language under
consideration, and of its relations to the Lingual Structures of the
past and present--it is necessary to give a preliminary examination to
the fundamental question of the Origin of Speech. By means of this
examination we shall come to understand that the existence and general
use of a Universal Language with the elements of which Nature has
herself furnished us, would not involve the abrupt or total abandonment
of the Tongues now commonly employed; but, on the contrary, while
preserving all that is substantially valuable in each, would enable us
to acquire a knowledge of them with a facility which Comparative
Philology, as now developed, lays no claim to impart.
How, then, did Language originate? In setting out to answer this
question, Professor Max Mueller says, in his _Lectures on the Science of
Language_:[A]
[Footnote A: Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, in April, May, and June, 1861, by Max
Mueller, M. A. From the second London edition, revised. New York: Charles
Scribner, 124 Grand street. 1862.]
'If we were asked the riddle how images of the eye and all the
sensations of our senses could be represented by sounds, nay, could
be so embodied in sounds as to express thought and to excite
thought, we should probably give it up as the question of a madman,
who, mixing up the most heterogeneous subjects, attempted to change
color and sound into thought. Yet this is the riddle we have now to
solve.
'It is quite clear that we have no means of solving the problem of
the origin of language _historically_, or of explaining it as a
matter of fact which happened once in a certain locality and at a
certain time. History does not begin till long after mankind had
acquired the power of language, and even the most ancient
traditions are silent as to the manner in which man came in
possession of his earliest thoughts and words. Nothing, no doubt,
would be more interesting than to know from historical documents
the exact process by which the first man began to lisp his first
words, and thus to be rid forever of all the theories on the origin
of speech. But this knowledge is denied us; and, if it had been
otherwise, we should probably be quite unable to understand those
primitive events in the history of the human mind. We are told that
the first man was the son of God, that God created him in His own
image, formed him of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life. These are simple facts, and to be
accepted as such; if we begin to reason on them, the edge of the
human understanding glances off. Our mind is so constituted that it
cannot apprehend the absolute beginning or the absolute end of
anything. If we tried to conceive the first man created as a child,
and gradually unfolding his physical and mental powers, we could
not understand his living for _one_ day without supernatural aid.
If, on the contrary, we tried to conceive the first man created
full-grown in body and mind; the conception of an effect without a
cause, of a full-grown mind without a previous growth, would
equally transcend our reasoning powers. It is the same with the
first beginnings of language. Theologians who claim for language a
divine origin, ... when they enter into any details as to the
manner in which they suppose Deity to have compiled a dictionary
and grammar in order to teach them to the first man, as a
schoolmaster teaches the deaf and dumb, ... have explained no more
than how the first man might have learnt a language, if there was a
language ready made for him. How that language was made would
remain as great a mystery as ever. Philosophers, on the contrary,
who imagine that the first man, though left to himself, would
gradually have emerged from a state of mutism and have invented
words for every new conception that arose in his mind, forget that
man could not, by his own power, have acquired _the faculty_ of
speech, which is the distinctive character of mankind, unattained
and unattainable by the mute creation. It shows a want of
appreciation as to the real bearings of our problem, if
philosophers appeal to the fact that children are born without
language, and gradually emerge from mutism to the full command of
articulate speech.... Children, in learning to speak, do not invent
language. Language is there ready made for them. It has been there
for thousands of years. They acquire the use of a language, and, as
they grow up, they may acquire the use of a second and a third. It
is useless to inquire whether infants, left to themselves, would
invent a language.... All we know for certain is, that an English
child, if left to itself, would never begin to speak English, and
that history supplies no instance of any language having thus been
invented....
'Speech is a specific faculty of man. It distinguishes man from all
other creatures; and if we wish to acquire more definite ideas as
to the real nature of human speech, all we can do is to compare man
with those animals that seem to come nearest to him, and thus to
try to discover what he shares in common with these animals, and
what is peculiar to him, and to him alone. After we have discovered
this we may proceed to inquire into the conditions under which
speech becomes possible, and we shall then have done all that we
can do, considering that the instruments of our knowledge,
wonderful as they are, are yet too weak to carry us into all the
regions to which we may soar on the wings of our imagination.'
As the result of a comparison of the human with the animal kingdom,
Professor Mueller remarks that, 'no one can doubt that certain animals
possess all the physical acquirements for articulate speech. There is no
letter of the alphabet which a parrot will not learn to pronounce. The
fact, therefore, that the parrot is without a language of his own, must
be explained by a difference between the _mental_, not between the
_physical_ faculties of the animal and man; and it is by a comparison of
the mental faculties alone, such as we find them in man and brutes, that
we may hope to discover what constitutes the indispensable qualification
for language, a qualification to be found in man alone, and in no other
creature on earth.'
Of mental faculties, the author whose ideas we are stating, claims a
large share for the higher animals. 'These animals have _sensation_,
_perception_, _memory_, _will_, and _intellect_, only we must restrict
intellect to the comparing or interlacing of single perceptions.' But
man transcends in his mental powers the barriers of the brute intellect
at a point which coincides with the starting-point of language. And in
this coincidence Professor Mueller endeavors to find a sufficiently
fundamental explanation of the problem of the origin of language.
In reference to this point of coincidence, he quotes Locke as saying
that, 'the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect
distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the
faculties of brutes do by no means attain to,' and then adds:
'If Locke is right in considering the having of general ideas as
the distinguishing feature between man and brutes, and, if we
ourselves are right in pointing to language as the one palpable
distinction between the two, it would seem to follow that language
is the outward sign and realization of that inward faculty which
is called the faculty of abstraction, but which is better known to
us by the homely name of reason.
'Let us now look back to the result of former lectures. It was
this: After we had explained everything in the growth of language
that can be explained, there remained in the end, as the only
inexplicable residuum, what we called _roots_. These roots formed
the constituent elements of all languages.... What, then, are these
roots?'
Two theories have been started to solve this problem: the Onomatopoetic,
according to which roots are imitations of sounds; and the
Interjectional, which regards them as involuntary ejaculations. Having
discussed these theories, and taken the position that, although there
are roots in every language which are respectively imitations of sounds
and involuntary exclamations, it is, nevertheless, impossible to regard
any considerable number of roots, and much less, all roots, as
originating from these sources, the distinguished Philologist announces
as the true theory, that every root 'expresses a general, not an
individual, idea;' just the opposite of what he deems would be the case
if the Onomatopoetic and Interjectional theories explained the origin of
speech.
Some paragraphs are then devoted to the examination of the merits of a
controversy which has existed among philosophers as to
'whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper
names. It is the question of the _primum cognitum_, and its
consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature
of the root, or the _primum appellatum_. Some philosophers, among
whom I may mention Locke, Condillac, Adam Smith, Dr. Brown, and,
with some qualification, Dugald Stewart, maintain that all terms,
as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects. I quote
from Adam Smith. 'The assignation,' he says, 'of particular names
to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns
substantive, would probably be one of the first steps toward the
formation of language.... The particular cave whose covering
sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit
relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed
their thirst, would first be denominated by the words _cave_,
_tree_, _fountain_, or by whatever other appellations they might
think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterward,
when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to
observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention
of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would
naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by
which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they
were first acquainted with.''
This view of the primitive formation of thought and language, is
diametrically opposed to the theory held by Leibnitz, who maintained
that 'general terms are necessary for the essential constitution of
languages.' 'Children,' he says, 'and those who know but little of the
language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which
they would employ it, make use of general terms, as _thing_, _plant_,
_animal_, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute.
And it is certain that all proper or individual names have been
originally appellative or general.'
Notwithstanding the contradictory and seemingly antagonistic nature of
these positions, Professor Mueller shows that they are not
irreconcilable.
'Adam Smith is no doubt right, when he says that the first
individual cave which is called cave, gave the name to all other
caves; ... and the history of almost every substantive might be
cited in support of his view. But Leibnitz is equally right when,
in looking beyond the first emergence of such names as cave, town,
or palace, he asks how such names could have arisen. Let us take
the Latin names of cave. A cave in Latin is called _antrum_,
_cavea_, _spelunca_. Now _antrum_ means really the same as
_internum_. Antar, in Sanskrit means _between_ or _within_.
_Antrum_, therefore, meant originally what is within or inside the
earth or anything else. It is clear, therefore, that such a name
could not have been given to any individual cave, unless the
general idea of being within, or inwardness, had been present in
the mind. This general idea once formed, and once expressed by the
pronominal root _an_ or _antar_, the process of naming is clear and
intelligible. The place where the savage could live safe from rain
and from the sudden attacks of wild beasts, a natural hollow in the
rock, he would call his _within_, his _antrum_; and afterward
similar places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be
designated by the same name ... Let us take another word for cave,
which is _cavea_ or _caverna_. Here again Adam Smith would be
perfectly right in maintaining that this name, when first given,
was applied to one particular cave, and was afterward extended to
other caves. But Leibnitz would be equally right in maintaining
that in order to call even the first hollow _cavea_, it was
necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been formed
in the mind, and should have received its vocal expression _cav_
...
_'The first thing really known is the general. It is through it
that we know and name afterward individual objects of which any
general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the third stage
that these individual objects, thus known and named, become again
the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper
names are raised into appellatives.'_
The italics in the last paragraph are my own.
But the name of a thing, runs the argument, meant originally that by
which we know a thing. And how do we know things? Knowing is more than
perceiving by our senses, which convey to us information about single
things only. 'To _know_ is more than to feel, than to perceive, more
than to remember, more than to compare. We know a thing if we are able
to bring it, and [or?] any part of it, under more general ideas.' The
facts of nature are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to
borrow an expression of Oersted's, can be conceived by our reason only.
The first step toward this real knowledge is the '_naming of a thing_,
or the making a thing knowable;' and it is this step which separates man
forever from all other animals. For all naming is classification,
bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether
empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general
ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a
certain sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant
with single objects only. Man has, in addition to these, reason, and it
is his reason only that is conversant with general ideas.
'At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at
the first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within
us, there we see the true genius of language. Analyze any word you
like, and you will find that it expressed a general idea peculiar
to the individual to which the name belongs. What is the meaning of
moon?--the measurer. What is the meaning of sun?--the begetter ...
'If the serpent is called in Sanskrit _sarpa_, it is because it was
conceived under the general idea of creeping, an idea expressed by
the word _srip_. But the serpent was also called _ahi_ in Sanskrit,
in Greek _echis_ or _echidna_, in Latin _anguis_. This name is
derived from quite a different root and idea. The root is _ah_ in
Sanskrit, or _anh_, which means to press together, to choke, to
throttle. Here the distinguishing mark from which the serpent was
named was his throttling, and _ahi_ meant serpent, as expressing
the general idea of throttler. It is a curious root this _anh_, and
it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it appears as
_ango_, _anxi_, _anctum_, to strangle, in _angina_, quinsy, in
_angor_, suffocation. But _angor_ meant not only quinsy or
compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import, and signifies
anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives _angustus_, narrow, and
_anxius_, uneasy, both come from the same source. In Greek the root
retained its natural and material meaning; in _eggys_, near, and
_echis_, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit it was chosen with
great truth as the proper name for sin. Evil no doubt presented
itself under various aspects to the human mind, and its names are
many; but none so expressive as those derived from our root _anh_,
to throttle. _Anhas_ in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only
because it meant originally throttling--the consciousness of sin
being like the grasp of the assassin on the throat of his victim
... This _anhas_ is the same word as the Greek _agos_, sin ... The
English _anguish_ is from the French _angoisse_, the Italian
_angoscia_, a corruption of the Latin _angustiae_, a strait ... _Ma_
in Sanskrit means to measure, from which we had the name of the
moon. _Man_, a derivative root, means to think. From this we have
the Sanskrit _manu_, originally thinker, then man. In the later
Sanskrit we find derivatives, such as _manava_, _manusha_,
_manushya_, all expressing man. In Gothic we find both _man_ and
_mannisks_, the modern German _mann_ and _mensch_.'
And now we are brought by the author of _The Science of Language_ to the
great question to which the foregoing is merely preparatory, to the
fundamental consideration of Philological research: 'How can sound
express thought? How did roots become the signs of general ideas? How
was the abstract idea of measuring expressed by _ma_, the idea of
thinking by _man_? How did _ga_ come to mean going, _stha_ standing,
_sad_ sitting, _da_ giving, _mar_ dying, _char_ walking, _kar_ doing?'
Here is his answer:
'The four or five hundred roots which remain as the constituent
elements in different families of languages are not interjections,
nor are they imitations. They are _phonetic types_, produced by a
power inherent in nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by
nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by
nature, we mean by the hand of God. There is a law which runs
through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck
rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more
or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the
answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings
differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according
to the nature of each percussion. It was the same with man, the
most highly organized of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and
perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power
of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions
by onomatopoieia. He possessed likewise the faculty of giving more
articulate expression to the rational conceptions of his mind. That
faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct
of the mind as irresistible as any other instinct. So far as
language is the production of that instinct, it belongs to the
realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them.
His senses become fainter when, as in the case of scent, they
become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to each
conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a
phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled.
The number of these _phonetic types_ must have been almost infinite
in the beginning, and it was only through the same process of
_natural elimination_ which we observed in the early history of
words, that clusters of roots, more or less synonymous, were
gradually reduced to one definite type.'
Professor Max Mueller occupies a commanding position in the foremost rank
of the students of Philology. His work on _The Science of Language_,
from which the preceding discussion of the Origin of Speech is taken,
is, so far as I am aware, the latest volume treating of the problem in
question which has issued from what is commonly regarded as high
authority in the department of Language. It is to that volume,
therefore, that we are to look for the last word of elucidation which
the Comparative Philologist can furnish respecting it. And it is for
this reason--in order that we might have before us the results of the
latest research of the schools--that the exposition of the Origin of
Language given in the work referred to has been so fully stated.
Where, then, does this explanation of the problem leave us? Does it go
to the bottom of the matter? Is it sufficiently distinct and
satisfactory? In brief, does it give us any clear understanding of the
Origin of Speech? Does it not rather leave us at the crucial point of
the whole inquiry, with the essence and core of the subject untouched
and shrouded in mystery? Some indefinite hundreds of roots, obtained, it
is assumed, by means of some indescribable and unknown mental instinct!
This is the sober and contented answer of Philology to the investigator
who would know of the Sources of Language, and its constituent elements.
But of the component parts of these roots--the true and fundamental
constituent elements of Speech, without a knowledge of which there can
be no basic and conclusive comprehension of the meaning of roots--and of
the nature of the method by which these elements become expressive of
thoughts or ideas, there is no word. Language, as it now rests in the
hands of the Comparative Philologists, is in the same state that
Chemistry was when Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were supposed to be the
ultimate constituent elements of Matter, ere a single real ultimate
element was known as such. But Chemistry, _as a science_, had no
existence prior to the discovery of the simple constituents of Physical
creation. In like manner, a _Science_ of Language must be founded on a
knowledge of the nature and _meaning_ of the simple elements of Speech.
Until this knowledge is in our possession it is only on the outskirts of
the subject that we are able to tread. Roots are, it is true, the actual
bases of Language, so far as its concrete, working, or synthetical
structure is concerned; in the same sense that _compound_ substances are
the main constituents found in the Universe as it really and naturally
exists. But, although the proportion of simple chemical elements, in the
real constitution of things, is small, as compared with that of compound
substances; yet it is only by our ability to separate compound
substances into these elements that we arrive at an understanding of
their true character and place in the realm of Matter. So it is only by
our ability to analyze roots--the compound constituents of
Language--into the prime elements which have, except rarely, no
distinctive and individual embodiment in it, that we can hope to gain a
clear comprehension of the nature of Language itself, or of its most
primitive concrete or composite foundations.
Comparative Philology furnishes us with admirable guidance--so far as it
goes. But we do not wish to stop at the terminus which it seems to
consider a satisfactory one. The final answer it offers us, we do not
regard as final. We gladly accept the analysis of Language down to its
Roots. But we wish to analyze Roots also. That the Moon derives its name
from being regarded as the _Measurer_ of time; and Man, from the notion
of _thinking_; that an (_anh_) is a widely-diffused root, signifying
_pressure_; and that _ga_ denotes _going_; with similar expositions, is
valuable information, and takes us a great way toward the goal of our
seeking. But the question of questions relating to Language is not
answered by it. Why should the abstract idea of measuring be expressed
by _ma_; and that of thinking by _man_? How did _an_ come to signify
pressure; and _ga_, going? Is there any special relationship between
these roots and the ideas which they respectively indicate? Or was it by
chance merely that they were adopted in connection with each other?
Might _da_ just as meet have been taken to denote doing, and _kar_,
giving, as _vice versa_? Has the root _an_ any distinguishing
characteristics peculiarly fitting it to suggest _choking_ or
_pressure_? Or might that notion have been equally well expressed by
_stha_?
It is at this fundamental stage of the investigation, whence a true
_Science_ of Language must take its departure, that the labors and
disclosures of Comparative Philology cease; leaving the problem of the
Origin of Language involved in the same state of unintelligibility with
which it has always been surrounded. It is just at this point, however,
that the SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE previously noticed begins its
developments. By means of its assistance we may hope, therefore, to
arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem in question, and,
through this solution, at a clear understanding of the more specific
objects of our present inquiry. Before approaching this main object--the
exposition of the general character of the NEW SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL
LANGUAGE and its relations to existing Tongues--and still in aid of that
purpose, I must offer some further comments upon the excerpts already
made from 'The Science of Language;' and upon a few other points which
remain to be extracted from that work.
Of the four or five hundred roots which remain, the insoluble residuum
(so thought by Professor Mueller) of Language, after eliminating the
immense mass of variable and soluble material, he says: 1. That 'they
are _phonetic types_ produced by a power inherent in human nature;' 2.
'Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed like the
brute with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and
his perceptions by onomatopoieia [mere imitation of sound]. He possessed
_likewise_ the power of giving _more articulate_ expression to the
_rational conceptions of his mind_.' The italics here are, again, my
own, introduced for more emphasis and more ready reference to the
central thought of the writer. 3. 'That faculty was not of his own
making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind, as irresistible as
any other instinct. So far as language is the production of that
instinct, it belongs to the realm of nature. Man loses his instincts as
he ceases to want them. His senses become fainter when, as in the case
of scent, they become useless. Thus the creative faculty which gave to
each conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a
phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled.' 4.
'The number of these _phonetic types_ [root-syllables] must have been
almost infinite in the beginning, and it was only through the same
process of _natural elimination_ which we observed in the early history
of words, that clusters of roots more or less synonymous, were gradually
reduced to one definite type.'
Professor Mueller, in stopping with root-syllables (to the number of four
or five hundred), as the _least_ or ultimate elements to which Language
can be reduced, has, naturally enough, and along with all Comparative
Philologists hitherto, committed the error of _insufficient analysis_;
an error of precisely the same kind which the founders of Syllabic
Alphabets have committed, as compared with the work of Cadmus, or any
founder of a veritable alphabet. The true and radical analysis carries
us back in both cases to the _Primitive Individual Sounds_, the Vowels
and Consonants of which Language is composed.
It is clear enough that the analysis must be carried to the very
ultimate in order to reach the true foundation for an effective and
sufficient alphabetic _Representation_ of Language. Precisely the same
necessity is upon us in order that we may lay a secure and adequate
foundation for a _True Science of Language_. This will explain more
fully what was meant in a preceding paragraph, when it was stated that
the labors of Mr. Andrews begin, in this department of Language, just
where the labors of the whole school of Comparative Philologists have
ended. He first completes the analysis of Language, by going down and
back to the Phonetic _Elements_, the ulterior roots, the Vowels and
Consonants of Language. Then by putting Nature to the crucial test, so
to speak, to compel her to disclose the hidden meaning with which each
of these absolute (ultimate) Elements of Speech is inherently laden, he
discovers--what might readily be an _a priori_ conception--that these
_Elements_, and not any compound root-syllables whatsoever, are the true
'_Phonetic Types_,' representative in Nature of '_the Rational
Conceptions_ of the human mind.'
The ultimate Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind are confessedly,
among all Philosophers of the Mind, not four or five hundred, but like
the Alphabetic Sounds of Language, a mere handful in number. Precisely
how many they are and how they are best distributed has not been agreed
upon. Aristotle classed them as _Ten_. Kant tells us there are _Twelve_
only of the Categories of the Understanding. Spencer, while finding the
Ultimate of Ultimates in the idea of _Force_ alone, admits its immediate
expansion into this handful of Primitive Conceptions, but without
attempting their inventory or classification. The discoverer of
UNIVERSOLOGY, first settling and establishing the fact that the Elements
of Sound in Speech are the natural Phonetic Types, equal in number to
the inventory of the Primitive Rational Conceptions of the Human Mind,
is then enabled to work the new discovery backward, and, by the aid of
the classifications which Nature herself has clearly introduced among
these Sounds (into Vowels, Consonants, Liquids, etc.), to arrive at a
classification of all the Primitive Rational Conceptions, which cannot
fail to be completely satisfactory and final. The same discovery leads,
therefore, to the reconstruction of the Science of Language, on the one
hand, and of Ontology, the Science of the highest Metaphysical domain,
on the other.
But, again, it is one of the demonstrations of UNIVERSOLOGY that all
careers, that of the development of the Human Mind among others, pass
through three Successive Stages correspondential with each other in the
different domains of Being. As respects the Mind, these are: 1.
_Intuitional_ (or Instinctive); 2. _Intellectual_ (or Reflective); and
3. _Composite_ (or Integral). It is another of these demonstrations that
the Intuitional (_Unismal_) development of Mind, and the Intellectual
(_Duismal_), proceed in opposite courses or directions; so that the
highest _Intellectual_ development reaches and investigates _in its own
way_ just those questions with which the _Intuitional_ development
('Instinct,' as Professor Mueller denominates it) began; and which, in
the very earliest times, it disposed of in _its_ appropriate way _as if_
finally.
By this means, the road having been passed over completely in both
directions, the way is prepared for the inauguration of the third or
Integral Stage, which consists in putting the road intelligently to all
its possible uses.
To apply these statements to the instance before us, for the elucidation
both of the statements themselves and of the matter to be expounded; it
is the _test labor_ of the highest _Intellectual_ development to come
back upon precisely those recondite points of knowledge which the
nascent _Intuition_ of the race felt or 'smelt' out blindly; and, by the
sight of the Mind's eye, to arrive more lucidly at the understanding of
the same subject. Not that the nature of the Understanding by any two
senses or faculties is ever the same; but that each has _its own method_
of cognizing the same general field of investigation. It is the
_re-investigation_, _intellectually_, of the Relationship of the (true,
not the pseudo) _Phonetic Types_ with the Fundamental Rational
Conceptions of the Human Mind, which is the first step taken by Mr.
Andrews, in laying the basis for the new and coming stage of the
development of the Science of Language.
It is the completion of this Intellectually Analytical process which
offers the _point of incipency_ for the new and immense Lingual
Structure of the future, and the ultimate virtual unification of Human
Speech. It may be quite true, as Professor Mueller affirms, that the
Instinctual Development of Language--by which _we_ mean the whole
Lingual History of the Past, with the exception of our present very
imperfect Scientific nomenclatures--has never proved adequate to the
introduction of a single new _root_, since the 'Instinct' exhausted
itself, as he says, in the nascent effort. But it is a pure assumption,
when he supposes, for that reason, that the informed Human Intellect of
the Future will not be competent to constitute thousands of them. It is
just as legitimate as would have been the assumption in the infancy of
Chemistry, that because Nature never _synthetized_ in _her_ laboratory
more than a few simple salts, the modern chemist would never be able to
produce any one of the two thousand salts now known to him. This kind of
assumption is the common error of the expounders of existing science, as
contrasted with the bolder originality of discoverers.
But, again, though it is true that the _Intuitional_ (or Instinctual)
faculty of man has, in a manner, declined, as in the case of the sense
of Smell, while the _Intellect_ (the Analogue of the Eye) has been
developed, still it is assuming too much to say that it utterly fails us
even yet. It remains, like the sense of Smell, an important helper even
in our present investigations. Professor Mueller should not, because he
may happen to have a cold, affirm that nobody smells anything any more.
To explain what I mean in this respect, the following extract may serve
as a text:
'It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when
we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine
that he hears in the word 'thunder' an imitation of the rolling and
rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their god Thor
playing at nine-pins? Yet _thunder_ is clearly the same word as the
Latin _tonitru_. The root is _tan_, to stretch. From this root
_tan_ we have in Greek _tonos_, our tone, _tone_ being produced by
the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound
thunder is expressed by the same root _tan_; but in the derivatives
_tanyu_, _tanyatu_, and _tanayitnu_, thundering, we perceive no
trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the
Latin _tonitru_ and the English _thunder_. The very same root
_tan_, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but
rough and noisy. The English _tender_, the French _tendre_, the
Latin _tener_ are derived from it. Like _tenuis_, the Sanskrit
_tanu_, the English _thin_, _tener_ meant originally what was
extended over a larger surface, then _thin_, then _delicate_. The
relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_ would be hard
to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been
its rumbling noise.
'Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French
_sucre_, _sucre_? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called
_'sarkhara_, which is anything but sweet sounding. This _'sarkhara_
is the same word as _sugar_; it was called in Latin _saccharum_,
and we still speak of _saccharine_ juice, which is sugar juice.'
It may appear, on a closer inspection at this point, that it is
Professor Mueller who is deceived, and not the common verdict, both in
respect to the question whether such words as _thunder_, _sucre_, etc.,
really do or do not have some inherent and organic relation in the Human
Mind to the ideas of rumbling noise and sweetness respectively; and in
respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it would
seem, confounded two separate and distinct questions. 1st. Is there such
a relation between the sound and the sense? and 2d. Were these words
introduced into speech because of that resemblance?
In respect to the latter of these questions, Professor Mueller's answer,
so far as the word _thunder_ is concerned, is rather in favor of an
affirmative answer than against it. So far from its being 'hard to
establish the relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_,' on
the hypothesis that 'the original conception of thunder had really been
its rumbling noise; 'it is just as easy to establish this relationship
as it is to show the connection between the root _tan_, to stretch, and
its derivatives _tonos_, _tone_, _tendre_, _tener_, _thin_, and
_delicate_;--an undertaking which Professor Mueller finds no difficulty
whatever in accomplishing.
The idea of _stretching_ signified by the original root _tan_ has no
_direct_ or _immediate_ connection with any of the conceptions expressed
by the derivative words. But by stretching an object it is diminished in
_breadth_ and _depth_, while it increases in _length_; hence it becomes
_thinner_; so that the Mind readily makes the transition from the
primitive conception of _stretch_ to that of _thinness_, indicated by
the English word, and by the Sanskrit _tanu_, and the Latin _tener_,
_tenuis_. _Thinness_, again, is allied to _slimness_, _slenderness_,
_fineness_, etc.; ideas which are involved in the conception of
_delicate_, and furnish an easy transition to it.
But it is also from the notion of _stretching_, though in a still less
direct manner, that we gain an idea of sound as conveyed by musical
tones; '_tone_,' as Professor Mueller remarks, 'being produced by the
_stretching_ and vibrating of cords.' Still further: if we cause a heavy
piece of cord to vibrate, or, what is better, the bass string of a
violin or guitar, or strike a very low key on the piano, and pronounce
the word _tone_ in a full voice at the same time, the remarkable
similarity of the two sounds thus produced will be clearly apparent.
Thus the root _tan_, to stretch, becomes also expressive of the idea of
_sound_ as seen in the words _tonos_, _tone_, _tonitru_, _thunder_, etc.
But what is especially to be noticed is this: that in those derivatives
of _tan_, to stretch, which are _not_ indicative of ideas of sound (as
_tenuis_, thin, etc.), the sounds of the words do _not_ cause us to
imagine that we hear the imitation of noise; while in those derivatives
which _are_ expressive of it, we not only imagine that we _do_ hear it,
but, in the case of _tonos_ and _tone_ at least, have an instance in
which we _know_ that the word employed to convey the idea is a
proximately perfect representation of the sound out of which the idea
arose. Even in _tanyu_, _tanyatu_, _tanayitnu_, thundering, in which
Professor Mueller affirms that 'we perceive no trace of the rumbling
noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin _tonitru_ and the
English _thunder_'--although he seems to admit that it is perceptible in
the Sanskrit word for thunder expressed by the same root _tan_--the
reason why we cannot trace it may be because of the terminations, which,
as it were, absorb the sound that is there, although less obviously, in
the _tan_, or shade it off so that it becomes diluted and hardly
traceable.
Vowel Sounds are so fluctuating and evanescent that they go for
comparatively little in questions of Etymology. _Tan_ is equivalent to
T--n; the place of the dash being filled by any vowel. _T_ is readily
replaced by _th_ or _d_, and _n_ by _ng_; as is known to every
Philological student. The object, which in English we call _tin_, and
its name, are peculiar and important in this connection, as combining
the two ideas in question: 1st, that of outstretched surface or
_thinness_; and, 2d, that of a persistent tendency to give forth just
that species of sound which we call, by a slight shade of difference in
the form of the word, a _din_. The Latin _tintinnabulum_, a little bell,
and the English _tinkle_, the sound made by a little bell, are among the
words which are readily recognized as having a natural relation to a
certain trivial variety of sound. The English _ding-dong_ and
_ding-dong-bell_ are well-known imitations of sound; and are, at the
same time, etymologically, mere modifications of the root under
consideration. As _tone_ and _strain_ or _stretch_ are related in idea,
as seen in the case of musical notes or tones, is it not as probable
that the original root-word of which _tan_, _ton_, _thun_, _tin_, _din_,
_ding_, _dong_, etc., are mere variations, took its rise from the
imitation of sound, as it is that the fact of _strain_ or _stretch_ was
the first to be observed and to obtain the name from which, afterward
and accidentally, so to speak, were derived words which confessedly
have a relation in their own sound to other and external sounds, as in
the case of thunder, musical tone, the sheet of tin, and the bell? Is it
not, in fact, more probable?
In respect to the question whether _sucre_ and _sucre_ were introduced
into Language because of their resemblance to the idea of sweetness,
Professor Mueller gives a valid negative answer. He shows that the word
is derived from the Sanskrit _'sarkhara_, 'which,' as he says, 'is
anything but sweet sounding.'
The question whether the words under consideration (_sucre_, _sucre_)
are really sweet-sounding words, Professor Mueller decides by implication
in the affirmative, and, perhaps, quite unconsciously, by the very act
of contrasting them with another word which, as he affirms, is not at
all sweet sounding.
But this is by far the more important point than that of the mere
historical genesis of the word; and a point which really touches vitally
the whole question of the nature and Origin of Language.
How should any word be either _sweet-sounding_ or _not sweet-sounding_?
Sound is a something which has no _taste_, and sweetness is a something
which makes no _noise_. Now the very gist and crux of this whole
question of Language consists in confounding or not confounding a case
like this with _mere_ Onomatopoieia, or the direct and simple imitation
of one sound by another. All that Professor Mueller says against the
Origin of Language in this 'bow-wow' way is exceedingly well said; and
it is important that it should be said. But unconsciously he is now
confounding with the Bow-wow, something else and totally different; and
something which is just as vital and profound in regard to the whole
question of the origin and true basis of the reconstruction of Language,
as the thing with which he confounds it is trivial and superficial.
The point is so important that I beg the reader's best attention to it,
in order that he may become fully seized of the idea.
I can imitate very closely the buzz of a bee, by forcing the breath
through my nearly-touching teeth. A mimic can imitate the natural sounds
of many animals, and other sounds heard in Nature. This _mere imitation_
is what Lingual Scholars have dignified by the high-sounding and rather
repulsive technicality, _Onomatopoieia_. In the early and simple period
of Lingual Science much has been made, in striving to account for the
Origin of Language, of this faculty of imitation, and of the fact that
there are undoubtedly certain words in every language consisting of such
imitations. It is against this simple and superficial theory that
Professor Mueller has argued so well. But in these words _sucre_,
_sucre_, incautiously included by him as instances of the same thing, we
are in the presence of a very different problem. To imitate one sound by
another sound is a mere simple, external, and trivial imitation;
onomatopoieia, and nothing more than that. But to imitate a _sound_, by
a _taste_, or to recognize that such an imitation has occurred, is a
testimony to the existence of that recondite and all-important _echo of
likeness_ through domains of Being themselves the most unlike, which we
call ANALOGY.
That we do recognize such _analogy_ or _correspondence of meaning_, that
Professor Mueller himself does so, is admitted when he tells us that
another form of the words in question is 'not at all sweet-sounding.' It
is not in this perception, therefore, that we deceive ourselves, but
only in supposing that these particular words came to mean sugar,
_because_ they were sweet-sounding. That there is this perception of the
analogy in question is again confessed by the fact that we have the same
feeling in respect to the German _suesse_, sweet; while the English words
_sugar_ and _sweet_, notwithstanding any greater familiarity of
association, do not convey the same ideas in the same marked degree.
The words _mellifluous_ (honey-flowing) and _melody_ (honey-sound) are
themselves standing witnesses in behalf of the existence of the same
perception. The fact that we instinctually speak of a _sweet_ voice, is
another witness.
If, then, there is an echo of likeness (real analogy) between these two
unlike spheres of Thought and Being, _Sound_ and _Taste_, may there not
be precisely a similar echo through other and all spheres; so that there
shall be a Something in Number, in Form, in Chemical Constitution, in
the Properties of Mind, in Ultimate Rational Conceptions, in fine, that
echoes to this idea, which, by a stretch of the powers of Language, we
call _sweet_, both in respect to Sound and Taste? May it not have been
precisely this Something and the other handful of primitive Somethings,
each with its multitudinous echoes, that the _Nascent Intuition_ of the
race laid hold of and availed itself of _irreflectively_ for laying the
foundations of Speech? Again, may it not happen that the _Reflective
Intellect_ should in turn discover _intelligently_ (or _reflectively_)
just that _underlying_ system of Analogy which the primitive Instinct
was competent to appreciate unintelligently; and, by the greater
clearness of this intelligent perception, be able to elevate the Science
of Language, and found it upon a new and constructive, instead of upon
this merely instinctual plane? To all these questions the
Universologists return an affirmative answer. They go farther, and aver
that this great intellectual undertaking is now fully achieved, and is
only awaiting the opportunity for elaborate demonstration and
promulgation.
A word further on this subject. To pronounce the words _sucre_, _sucre_,
_suesse_, the lips are necessarily pinched or perked up, in a certain
exquisite way, as if we were sucking something very gratifying to the
taste. This consideration carries us over to the further analogy with
_shapes_ or _forms_, and, hence, with the Organic or Mechanical
production of sounds; another grand element, the main one, in fact, of
the whole investigation.
Among the infinite contingencies of the origin and successive
modifications of words, it is very possible that the word _'sarkhara_,
although meaning sugar in a particular tongue, may not have primarily
related to its property of sweetness; and that, therefore, its phonetic
form should not be accordant with that property. It may have meant the
_cane-plant_, for instance, before its sweetness was known. Then it is
possible that a derivative and modified form of the same word should
happen to drift into that precise phonetic; form which is accordant with
that property. But the marvel, and the point of importance is, that so
soon as this happens, the 'instinct' of the race, even that of Professor
Mueller himself, remains good enough to recognize the fact. 'Who does not
imagine,' he says, 'that he hears something sweet in the French _sucre_,
_sucre_?' But why do we all imagine that we hear what does not exist?
The uniformity of the imagination proves it to be a _real_ perception.
If the universal consciousness of mankind be not valid evidence, where
shall we hope to find it?
The consideration of Analogy as existing between the Ultimate Elements
of Sound and Ultimate Rational Conceptions will be the subject of the
next paper.