sciences as botany, geology, or physiology is this:—Language is the work
of man; it was invented by man as a means of communicating his thoughts,
when mere looks and gestures proved inefficient; and it was gradually, by
the combined efforts of succeeding generations, brought to that perfection
which we admire in the idiom of the Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, and in
the poetry of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. Now it is perfectly
true that if language be the work of man, in the same sense in which a
statue, or a temple, or a poem, or a law are properly called the works of
man, the science of language would have to be classed as an historical
science. We should have a history of language as we have a history of art,
of poetry, and of jurisprudence, but we could not claim for it a place
side by side with the various branches of Natural History. It is true,
also, that if you consult the works of the most distinguished modern
philosophers you will find that whenever they speak of language, they take
it for granted that language is a human invention, that words are
artificial signs, and that the varieties of human speech arose from
different nations agreeing on different sounds as the most appropriate
signs of their different ideas. This view of the origin of language was so
powerfully advocated by the leading philosophers of the last century, that
it has retained an undisputed currency even among those who, on almost
every other point, are strongly opposed to the teaching of that school. A
few voices, indeed, have been raised to protest against the theory of
language being originally invented by man. But they, in their zeal to
vindicate the divine origin of language, seem to have been carried away so
far as to run counter to the express statements of the Bible. For in the
Bible it is not the Creator who gives names to all things, but Adam. “Out
of the ground,” we read, “the Lord God formed every beast of the field,
and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would
call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof.”(14) But with the exception of this small class of
philosophers, more orthodox even than the Bible,(15) the generally
received opinion on the origin of language is that which was held by
_Locke_, which was powerfully advocated by _Adam Smith_ in his Essay on
the Origin of Language, appended to his Treatise on Moral Sentiments, and
which was adopted with slight modifications by _Dugald Stewart_. According
to them, man must have lived for a time in a state of mutism, his only
means of communication consisting in gestures of the body, and in the
changes of countenance, till at last, when ideas multiplied that could no
longer be pointed at with the fingers, “they found it necessary to invent
artificial signs of which the meaning was fixed by mutual agreement.” We
need not dwell on minor differences of opinion as to the exact process by
which this artificial language is supposed to have been formed. Adam Smith
would wish us to believe that the first artificial words were _verbs_.
Nouns, he thinks, were of less urgent necessity because things could be
pointed at or imitated, whereas mere actions, such as are expressed by
verbs, could not. He therefore supposes that when people saw a wolf
coming, they pointed at him, and simply cried out, “He comes.” Dugald
Stewart, on the contrary, thinks that the first artificial words were
nouns, and that the verbs were supplied by gesture; that, therefore, when
people saw a wolf coming, they did not cry “He comes,” but “Wolf, Wolf,”
leaving the rest to be imagined.(16)
But whether the verb or the noun was the first to be invented is of little
importance; nor is it possible for us, at the very beginning of our
inquiry into the nature of language, to enter upon a minute examination of
a theory which represents language as a work of human art, and as
established by mutual agreement as a medium of communication. While fully
admitting that if this theory were true, the science of language would not
come within the pale of the physical sciences, I must content myself for
the present with pointing out that no one has yet explained how, without
language, a discussion on the merits of each word, such as must
necessarily have preceded a mutual agreement, could have been carried on.
But as it is the object of these lectures to prove that language is not a
work of human art, in the same sense as painting, or building, or writing,
or printing, I must ask to be allowed, in this preliminary stage, simply
to enter my protest against a theory, which, though still taught in the
schools, is, nevertheless, I believe, without a single fact to support its
truth.
But there are other objections besides this which would seem to bar the
admission of the science of language to the circle of the physical
sciences. Whatever the origin of language may have been, it has been
remarked with a strong appearance of truth, that language has a history of
its own, like art, like law, like religion; and that, therefore, the
science of language belongs to the circle of the _historical_, or, as they
used to be called, the _moral_, in contradistinction to the _physical_
sciences. It is a well-known fact, which recent researches have not
shaken, that nature is incapable of progress or improvement. The flower
which the botanist observes to-day was as perfect from the beginning.
Animals, which are endowed with what is called an artistic instinct, have
never brought that instinct to a higher degree of perfection. The
hexagonal cells of the bee are not more regular in the nineteenth century
than at any earlier period, and the gift of song has never, as far as we
know, been brought to a higher perfection by our nightingale than by the
Philomelo of the Greeks. “Natural History,” to quote Dr. Whewell’s
words,(17) “when systematically treated, excludes all that is historical,
for it classes objects by their permanent and universal properties, and
has nothing to do with the narration of particular or casual facts.” Now,
if we consider the large number of tongues spoken in different parts of
the world with all their dialectic and provincial varieties, if we observe
the great changes which each of these tongues has undergone in the course
of centuries, how Latin was changed into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Provençal, French, Wallachian, and Roumansch; how Latin again, together
with Greek, and the Celtic, the Teutonic, and Slavonic languages, together
likewise with the ancient dialects of India and Persia, must have sprung
from an earlier language, the mother of the whole Indo-European or Aryan
family of speech; if we see how Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac, with several
minor dialects, are but different impressions of one and the same common
type, and must all have flowed from the same source, the original language
of the Semitic race; and if we add to these two, the Aryan and Semitic, at
least one more well-established class of languages, the Turanian,
comprising the dialects of the nomad races scattered over Central and
Northern Asia, the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic,(18) Samoyedic, and Finnic,
all radii from one common centre of speech:—if we watch this stream of
language rolling on through centuries in these three mighty arms, which,
before they disappear from our sight in the far distance, clearly show a
convergence towards one common source: it would seem, indeed, as if there
were an historical life inherent in language, and as if both the will of
man and the power of time could tell, if not on its substance, at least on
its form. And even if the mere local varieties of speech were not
considered sufficient ground for excluding language from the domain of
natural science, there would still remain the greater difficulty of
reconciling with the recognized principles of physical science the
historical changes affecting every one of these varieties. Every part of
nature, whether mineral, plant, or animal, is the same in kind from the
beginning to the end of its existence, whereas few languages could be
recognized as the same after the lapse of but a thousand years. The
language of Alfred is so different from the English of the present day
that we have to study it in the same manner as we study Greek and Latin.
We can read Milton and Bacon, Shakespeare and Hooker; we can make out
Wycliffe and Chaucer; but, when we come to the English of the thirteenth
century, we can but guess its meaning, and we fail even in this with works
previous to the Ormulum and Layamon. The historical changes of language
may be more or less rapid, but they take place at all times and in all
countries. They have reduced the rich and powerful idiom of the poets of
the Veda to the meagre and impure jargon of the modern Sepoy. They have
transformed the language of the Zend-Avesta and of the mountain records of
Behistún into that of Firdusi and the modern Persians; the language of
Virgil into that of Dante, the language of Ulfilas into that of
Charlemagne, the language of Charlemagne into that of Goethe. We have
reason to believe that the same changes take place with even greater
violence and rapidity in the dialects of savage tribes, although, in the
absence of a written literature, it is extremely difficult to obtain
trustworthy information. But in the few instances where careful
observations have been made on this interesting subject, it has been found
that among the wild and illiterate tribes of Siberia, Africa, and Siam,
two or three generations are sufficient to change the whole aspect of
their dialects. The languages of highly civilized nations, on the
contrary, become more and more stationary, and seem sometimes almost to
lose their power of change. Where there is a classical literature, and
where its language is spread to every town and village, it seems almost
impossible that any further changes should take place. Nevertheless, the
language of Rome, for so many centuries the queen of the whole civilized
world, was deposed by the modern Romance dialects, and the ancient Greek
was supplanted in the end by the modern Romaic. And though the art of
printing and the wide diffusion of Bibles, and Prayer-books, and
newspapers have acted as still more powerful barriers to arrest the
constant flow of human speech, we may see that the language of the
authorized version of the Bible, though perfectly intelligible, is no
longer the spoken language of England. In Booker’s Scripture and
Prayer-book Glossary(19) the number of words or senses of words which have
become obsolete since 1611, amount to 388, or nearly one fifteenth part of
the whole number of words used in the Bible. Smaller changes, changes of
accent and meaning, the reception of new, and the dropping of old words,
we may watch as taking place under our own eyes. Rogers(20) said that
“_cóntemplate_ is bad enough, but _bálcony_ makes me sick,” whereas at
present no one is startled by _cóntemplate_ instead of _contémplate_, and
_bálcony_ has become more usual than _balcóny_. Thus _Roome_ and _chaney_,
_layloc_ and _goold_, have but lately been driven from the stage by
_Rome_, _china_, _lilac_, and _gold_, and some courteous gentlemen of the
old school still continue to be _obleeged_ instead of being _obliged_.
_Force_,(21) in the sense of a waterfall, and _gill_, in the sense of a
rocky ravine, were not used in classical English before Wordsworth.
_Handbook_,(22) though an old Anglo-Saxon word, has but lately taken the
place of _manual_, and a number of words such as _cab_ for cabriolet,
_buss_ for omnibus, and even a verb such as _to shunt_ tremble still on
the boundary line between the vulgar and the literary idioms. Though the
grammatical changes that have taken place since the publication of the
authorized version are yet fewer in number, still we may point out some.
The termination of the third person singular in _th_ is now entirely
replaced by _s_. No one now says _he liveth_, but only _he lives_. Several
of the irregular imperfects and participles have assumed a new form. No
one now uses _he spake_, and _he drave_, instead of _he spoke_, and _he
drove_; _holpen_ is replaced by _helped_; _holden_ by _held_; _shapen_ by
_shaped_. The distinction between _ye_ and _you_, the former being
reserved for the nominative, the latter for all the other cases, is given
up in modern English; and what is apparently a new grammatical form, the
possessive pronoun _its_, has sprung into life since the beginning of the
seventeenth century. It never occurs in the Bible; and though it is used
three or four times by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson does not recognize it as
yet in his English Grammar.(23)
It is argued, therefore, that as language, differing thereby from all
other productions of nature, is liable to historical alterations, it is
not fit to be treated in the same manner as the subject-matter of all the
other physical sciences.
There is something very plausible in this objection, but if we examine it
more carefully, we shall find that it rests entirely on a confusion of
terms. We must distinguish between historical change and natural growth.
Art, science, philosophy, and religion all have a history; language, or
any other production of nature, admits only of growth.
Let us consider, first, that although there is a continuous change in
language, it is not in the power of man either to produce or to prevent
it. We might think as well of changing the laws which control the
circulation of our blood, or of adding an inch to our height, as of
altering the laws of speech, or inventing new words according to our own
pleasure. As man is the lord of nature only if he knows her laws and
submits to them, the poet and the philosopher become the lords of language
only if they know its laws and obey them.
When the Emperor Tiberius had made a mistake, and was reproved for it by
Marcellus, another grammarian of the name of Capito, who happened to be
present, remarked that what the emperor said was good Latin, or, if it
were not, it would soon be so. Marcellus, more of a grammarian than a
courtier, replied, “Capito is a liar; for, Cæsar, thou canst give the
Roman citizenship to men, but not to words.” A similar anecdote is told of
the German Emperor Sigismund. When presiding at the Council of Costnitz,
he addressed the assembly in a Latin speech, exhorting them to eradicate
the schism of the Hussites. “Videte Patres,” he said, “ut eradicetis
schismam Hussitarum.” He was very unceremoniously called to order by a
monk, who called out, “Serenissime Rex, schisma est generis neutri.”(24)
The emperor, however, without losing his presence of mind, asked the
impertinent monk, “How do you know it?” The old Bohemian school-master
replied, “Alexander Gallus says so.” “And who is Alexander Gallus?” the
emperor rejoined. The monk replied, “He was a monk.” “Well,” said the
emperor, “and I am Emperor of Rome; and my word, I trust, will be as good
as the word of any monk.” No doubt the laughers were with the emperor; but
for all that, _schisma_ remained a neuter, and not even an emperor could
change its gender or termination.
The idea that language can be changed and improved by man is by no means a
new one. We know that Protagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher, after
laying down some laws on gender, actually began to find fault with the
text of Homer, because it did not agree with his rules. But here, as in
every other instance, the attempt proved unavailing. Try to alter the
smallest rule of English, and you will find that it is physically
impossible. There is apparently a very small difference between _much_ and
_very_, but you can hardly ever put one in the place of the other. You can
say, “I am very happy,” but not “I am much happy,” though you may say “I
am most happy.” On the contrary, you can say “I am much misunderstood,”
but not “I am very misunderstood.” Thus the western Romance dialects,
Spanish and Portuguese, together with Wallachian, can only employ the
Latin word _magis_ for forming comparatives:—Sp. _mas dulce_; Port. _mais
doce_; Wall, _mai dulce_; while French, Provençal, and Italian only allow
_of plus_ for the same purpose: Ital. _più dolce_; Prov. _plus dous_; Fr.
_plus doux_. It is by no means impossible, however, that this distinction
between _very_, which is now used with adjectives only, and _much_, which
precedes participles, should disappear in time. In fact, “very pleased”
and “very delighted” are Americanisms which may be heard even in this
country. But if that change take place, it will not be by the will of any
individual, nor by the mutual agreement of any large number of men, but
rather in spite of the exertions of grammarians and academies. And here
you perceive the first difference between history and growth. An emperor
may change the laws of society, the forms of religion, the rules of art:
it is in the power of one generation, or even of one individual, to raise
an art to the highest pitch of perfection, while the next may allow it to
lapse, till a new genius takes it up again with renewed ardor. In all this
we have to deal with the conscious acts of individuals, and we therefore
move on historical ground. If we compare the creations of Michael Angelo
or Raphael with the statues and frescoes of ancient Rome, we can speak of
a history of art. We can connect two periods separated by thousands of
years through the works of those who handed on the traditions of art from
century to century; but we shall never meet with that continuous and
unconscious growth which connects the language of Plautus with that of
Dante. The process through which language is settled and unsettled
combines in one the two opposite elements of necessity and free will.
Though the individual seems to be the prime agent in producing new words
and new grammatical forms, he is so only after his individuality has been
merged in the common action of the family, tribe, or nation to which he
belongs. He can do nothing by himself, and the first impulse to a new
formation in language, though given by an individual, is mostly, if not
always, given without premeditation, nay, unconsciously. The individual,
as such, is powerless, and the results apparently produced by him depend
on laws beyond his control, and on the co-operation of all those who form
together with him one class, one body, or one organic whole.
But, though it is easy to show, as we have just done, that language cannot
be changed or moulded by the taste, the fancy, or genius of man, it is
very difficult to explain what causes the growth of language. Ever since
Horace it has been usual to compare the growth of languages with the
growth of trees. But comparisons are treacherous things. What do we know
of the real causes of the growth of a tree, and what can we gain by
comparing things which we do not quite understand with things which we
understand even less? Many people speak, for instance, of the terminations
of the verb, as if they sprouted out from the root as from their parent
stock.(25) But what ideas can they connect with such expressions? If we
must compare language with a tree, there is one point which may be
illustrated by this comparison, and this is that neither language nor the
tree can exist or grow by itself. Without the soil, without air and light,
the tree could not live; it could not even be conceived to live. It is the
same with language. Language cannot exist by itself; it requires a soil on
which to grow, and that soil is the human soul. To speak of language as a
thing by itself, as living a life of its own, as growing to maturity,
producing offspring, and dying away, is sheer mythology; and though we
cannot help using metaphorical expressions, we should always be on our
guard, when engaged in inquiries like the present, against being carried
away by the very words which we are using.
Now, what we call the growth of language comprises two processes which
should be carefully distinguished, though they may be at work
simultaneously. These two processes I call,
1. _Dialectical Regeneration._
2. _Phonetic Decay._
I begin with the second, as the more obvious, though in reality its
operations are mostly subsequent to the operations of dialectical
regeneration. I must ask you at present to take it for granted that
everything in language had originally a meaning. As language can have no
other object but to express our meaning, it might seem to follow almost by
necessity that language should contain neither more nor less than what is
required for that purpose. It would also seem to follow that if language
contains no more than what is necessary for conveying a certain meaning,
it would be impossible to modify any part of it without defeating its very
purpose. This is really the case in some languages. In Chinese, for
instance, _ten_ is expressed by _shĭ_. It would be impossible to change
_shĭ_ in the slightest way without making it unfit to express _ten_. If
instead of _shĭ_ we pronounced _t’sĭ_, this would mean _seven_, but not
_ten_. But now, suppose we wished to express double the quantity of ten,
twice ten, or twenty. We should in Chinese take _eúl_, which is two, put
it before _shĭ_, and say _eúl-shĭ_, twenty. The same caution which applied
to _shĭ_, applies again to _eúl-shĭ_. As soon as you change it, by adding
or dropping a single letter, it is no longer twenty, but either something
else or nothing. We find exactly the same in other languages which, like
Chinese, are called monosyllabic. In Tibetan, _chu_ is ten, _nyi_ two;
_nyi-chu_, twenty. In Burmese _she_ is ten, _nhit_ two; _nhit-she_,
twenty.
But how is it in English, or in Gothic, or in Greek and Latin, or in
Sanskrit? We do not say _two-ten_ in English, nor _duo-decem_ in Latin,
nor _dvi-da’sa_ in Sanskrit.
We find(26) in Sanskrit _vin’sati_.
in Greek _eikati_.
in Latin _viginti_.
in English _twenty_.
Now here we see, first, that the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, are only
local modifications of one and the same original word; whereas the English
_twenty_ is a new compound, the Gothic _tvai tigjus_ (two decads), the
Anglo-Saxon _tuêntig_, framed from Teutonic materials; a product, as we
shall see, of Dialectical Regeneration.
We next observe that the first part of the Latin _viginti_ and of the
Sanskrit _vin’sati_ contains the same number, which from _dvi_ has been
reduced to _vi_. This is not very extraordinary; for the Latin _bis_,
twice, which you still hear at our concerts, likewise stands for an
original _dvis_, the English _twice_, the Greek _dis_. This _dis_ appears
again as a Latin preposition, meaning _a-two_; so that, for instance,
_discussion_ means, originally, striking a-two, different from
_percussion_, which means striking through and through. _Discussion_ is,
in fact, the cracking of a nut in order to get at its kernel. Well, the
same word, _dvi_ or _vi_, we have in the Latin word for twenty, which is
_vi-ginti_, the Sanskrit _vin-’sati_.
It can likewise be proved that the second part of _viginti_ is a
corruption of the old word for ten. Ten, in Sanskrit, is _da’san_; from it
is derived _da’sati_, a decad; and this _da’sati_ was again reduced to
_’sati_; thus giving us with _vi_ for _dvi_, two, the Sanskrit _vi’sati_
or _vin’sati_, twenty. The Latin _viginti_, the Greek _eikati_, owe their
origin to the same process.
Now consider the immense difference—I do not mean in sound, but in
character—between two such words as the Chinese _eúl-shĭ_, two-ten, or
twenty, and those mere cripples of words which we meet with in Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin. In Chinese there is neither too much, nor too little.
The word speaks for itself, and requires no commentary. In Sanskrit, on
the contrary, the most essential parts of the two component elements are
gone, and what remains is a kind of metamorphic agglomerate which cannot
be understood without a most minute microscopic analysis. Here, then, you
have an instance of what is meant by _phonetic corruption_; and you will
perceive how, not only the form, but the whole nature of language is
destroyed by it. As soon as phonetic corruption shows itself in a
language, that language has lost what we considered to be the most
essential character of all human speech, namely, that every part of it
should have a meaning. The people who spoke Sanskrit were as little aware
that _vin’sati_ meant _twice ten_ as a Frenchman is that _vingt_ contains
the remains of _deux_ and _dix_. Language, therefore, has entered into a
new stage as soon as it submits to the attacks of phonetic change. The
life of language has become benumbed and extinct in those words or
portions of words which show the first traces of this phonetic mould.
Henceforth those words or portions of words can be kept up only
artificially or by tradition; and, what is important, a distinction is
henceforth established between what is substantial or radical, and what is
merely formal or grammatical in words.