elaborated, it could not be expected to give us an insight into the nature
of language. The division into nouns and verbs, articles and conjunctions,
the schemes of declension and conjugation, were a merely artificial
network thrown over the living body of language. We must not look in the
grammar of Dionysius Thrax for a correct and well-articulated skeleton of
human speech. It is curious, however, to observe the striking coincidences
between the grammatical terminology of the Greeks and the Hindús, which
would seem to prove that there must be some true and natural foundation
for the much-abused grammatical system of the schools. The Hindús are the
only nation that cultivated the science of grammar without having received
any impulse, directly or indirectly, from the Greeks. Yet we find in
Sanskrit too the same system of cases, called _vibhakti_, or inflections,
the active, passive, and middle voices, the tenses, moods, and persons,
divided not exactly, but very nearly, in the same manner as in Greek.(100)
In Sanskrit, grammar is called _vyâkaraņa_, which means analysis or taking
to pieces. As Greek grammar owed its origin to the critical study of
Homer, Sanskrit grammar arose from the study of the Vedas, the most
ancient poetry of the Brahmans. The differences between the dialect of
these sacred hymns and the literary Sanskrit of later ages were noted and
preserved with a religious care. We still possess the first essays in the
grammatical science of the Brahmans, the so-called _prâtiśâkhyas_. These
works, though they merely profess to give rules on the proper
pronunciation of the ancient dialect of the Vedas, furnish us at the same
time with observations of a grammatical character, and particularly with
those valuable lists of words, irregular or in any other way remarkable,
the Gaņas. These supplied that solid basis on which successive generations
of scholars erected the astounding structure that reached its perfection
in the grammar of Pâņini. There is no form, regular or irregular, in the
whole Sanskrit language, which is not provided for in the grammar of
Pâņini and his commentators. It is the perfection of a merely empirical
analysis of language, unsurpassed, nay even unapproached, by anything in
the grammatical literature of other nations. Yet of the real nature, and
natural growth of language, it teaches us nothing.
What then do we know of language after we have learnt the grammar of Greek
or Sanskrit, or after we have transferred the network of classical grammar
to our own tongue?
We know certain forms of language which correspond to certain forms of
thought. We know that the subject must assume the form of the nominative,
the object that of the accusative. We know that the more remote object may
be put in the dative, and that the predicate, in its most general form,
may be rendered by the genitive. We are taught that whereas in English the
genitive is marked by a final _s_, or by the preposition _of_, it is in
Greek expressed by a final ος, in Latin by _is_. But what this ος and _is_
represent, why they should have the power of changing a nominative into a
genitive, a subject into a predicate, remains a riddle. It is self-evident
that each language, in order to be a language, must be able to distinguish
the subject from the object, the nominative from the accusative. But how a
mere change of termination should suffice to convey so material a
distinction would seem almost incomprehensible. If we look for a moment
beyond Greek and Latin, we see that there are in reality but few languages
which have distinct forms for these two categories of thought. Even in
Greek and Latin there is no outward distinction between the nominative and
accusative of neuters. The Chinese language, it is commonly said, has no
grammar at all, that is to say, it has no inflections, no declension and
conjugation, in our sense of these words; it makes no formal distinction
of the various parts of speech, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, &c. Yet
there is no shade of thought that cannot be rendered in Chinese. The
Chinese have no more difficulty in distinguishing between “James beats
John,” and “John beats James,” than the Greeks and Romans or we ourselves.
They have no termination for the accusative, but they attain the same by
always placing the subject before, and the object after the verb, or by
employing words, before or after the noun, which clearly indicate that it
is to be taken as the object of the verb.(101) There are other languages
which have more terminations even than Greek and Latin. In Finnish there
are fifteen cases, expressive of every possible relation between the
subject and the object; but there is no accusative, no purely objective
case. In English and French the distinctive terminations of the nominative
and accusative have been worn off by phonetic corruption, and these
languages are obliged, like Chinese, to mark the subject and object by the
collocation of words. What we learn therefore at school in being taught
that _rex_ in the nominative becomes _regem_ in the accusative, is simply
a practical rule. We know when to say _rex_, and when to say _regem_. But
why the king as a subject should be called _rex_, and as an object
_regem_, remains entirely unexplained. In the same manner we learn that
_amo_ means I love, _amavi_ I loved; but why that tragical change from
_love_ to _no love_ should be represented by the simple change of _o_ to
_avi_, or, in English, by the addition of a mere _d_, is neither asked nor
answered.
Now if there is a science of language, these are the questions which it
will have to answer. If they cannot be answered, if we must be content
with paradigms and rules, if the terminations of nouns and verbs must be
looked upon either as conventional contrivances or as mysterious
excrescences, there is no such thing as a science of language, and we must
be satisfied with what has been called the art (τέχνη) of language, or
grammar.
Before we either accept or decline the solution of any problem, it is
right to determine what means there are for solving it. Beginning with
English we should ask, what means have we for finding out why _I love_
should mean I am actually loving, whereas _I loved_ indicates that that
feeling is past and gone? Or, if we look to languages richer in
inflections than English, by what process can we discover under what
circumstances _amo_, I love, was changed, through the mere addition of an
_r_, into _amor_, expressing no longer _I love_, but _I am loved_? Did
declensions and conjugations bud forth like the blossoms of a tree? Were
they imparted to man ready made by some mysterious power? Or did some wise
people invent them, assigning certain letters to certain phases of
thought, as mathematicians express unknown quantities by freely chosen
algebraic exponents? We are here brought at once face to face with the
highest and most difficult problem of our science, the origin of language.
But it will be well for the present to turn our eyes away from theories,
and fix our attention at first entirely on facts.
Let us keep to the English perfect, _I loved_, as compared with the
present, _I love_. We cannot embrace at once the whole English grammar,
but if we can track one form to its true lair, we shall probably have no
difficulty in digging out the rest of the brood. Now, if we ask how the
addition of a final _d_ could express the momentous transition from being
in love to being indifferent, the first thing we have to do, before
attempting any explanation, would be to establish the earliest and most
original form of _I loved_. This is a rule which even Plato recognized in
his philosophy of language, though, we must confess, he seldom obeyed it.
We know what havoc phonetic corruption may make both in the dictionary and
the grammar of a language, and it would be a pity to waste our conjectures
on formations which a mere reference to the history of language would
suffice to explain. Now a very slight acquaintance with the history of the
English language teaches us that the grammar of modern English is not the
same as the grammar of Wycliffe. Wycliffe’s English again may be traced
back to what, with Sir Frederick Madden, we may call Middle English, from
1500 to 1330; Middle English to Early English, from 1330 to 1230; Early
English to Semi-Saxon from 1230 to 1100; and Semi-Saxon to
Anglo-Saxon.(102) It is evident that if we are to discover the original
intention of the syllable which changes _I love_ into _I loved_, we must
consult the original form of that syllable wherever we can find it. We
should never have known that _priest_ meant originally _an elder_, unless
we had traced it back to its original form _presbyter_, in which a Greek
scholar at once recognizes the comparative of _presbys_, old. If left to
modern English alone, we might attempt to connect _priest_ with _praying_
or _preaching_, but we should not thus arrive at its true derivation. The
modern word _Gospel_ conveys no meaning at all. As soon as we trace it
back to the original _Goddspell_, we see that it is a literal translation
of _Evangelium_, or good news, good tidings.(103) _Lord_ would be nothing
but an empty title in English, unless we could discover its original form
and meaning in the Anglo-Saxon _hlafford_, meaning a giver of bread, from
_hlaf_, a loaf, and _ford_, to give.
But even after this is done, after we have traced a modern English word
back to Anglo-Saxon, it follows by no means that we should there find it
in its original form, or that we should succeed in forcing it to disclose
its original intention. Anglo-Saxon is not an original or aboriginal
language. It points by its very name to the Saxons and Angles of the
continent. We have, therefore, to follow our word from Anglo-Saxon through
the various Saxon and Low-German dialects, till we arrive at last at the
earliest stage of German which is within our reach, the Gothic of the
fourth century after Christ. Even here we cannot rest. For, although we
cannot trace Gothic back to any earlier Teutonic language, we see at once
that Gothic, too, is a modern language, and that it must have passed
through numerous phases of growth before it became what it is in the mouth
of Bishop Ulfilas.
What then are we to do?—We must try to do what is done when we have to
deal with the modern Romance languages. If we could not trace a French
word back to Latin, we should look for its corresponding form in Italian,
and endeavor to trace the Italian to its Latin source. If, for instance,
we were doubtful about the origin of the French word for fire, _feu_, we
have but to look to the Italian _fuoco_, in order to see at once that both
_fuoco_ and _feu_ are derived from the Latin _focus_. We can do this,
because we know that French and Italian are cognate dialects, and because
we have ascertained beforehand the exact degree of relationship in which
they stand to each other. Had we, instead of looking to Italian, looked to
German for an explanation of the French _feu_, we should have missed the
right track; for the German _feuer_, though more like _feu_ than the
Italian _fuoco_, could never have assumed in French the form _feu_.
Again, in the case of the preposition _hors_, which in French means
_without_, we can more easily determine its origin after we have found
that _hors_ corresponds with the Italian _fuora_, the Spanish _fuera_. The
French _fromage_, cheese, derives no light from Latin. But as soon as we
compare the Italian _formaggio_,(104) we see that _formaggio_ and
_fromage_ are derived from _forma_; cheese being made in Italy by keeping
the milk in small baskets or forms. _Feeble_, the French _faible_, is
clearly derived from Latin; but it is not till we see the Italian
_fievole_ that we are reminded of the Latin _flebilis_, tearful. We should
never have found the etymology, that is to say the origin, of the French
_payer_, the English _to pay_, if we did not consult the dictionary of the
cognate dialects, such as Italian and Spanish. Here we find that _to pay_
is expressed in Italian by _pagare_, in Spanish by _pagar_, whereas in
Provençal we actually find the two forms _pagar_ and _payar_. Now _pagar_
clearly points back to Latin _pacare_, which means _to pacify_, _to
appease_. To appease a creditor meant to pay him; in the same manner as
_une quittance_, a quittance or receipt, was originally _quietantia_, a
quieting, from _quietus_, quiet.
If, therefore, we wish to follow up our researches,—if, not satisfied with
having traced an English word back to Gothic, we want to know what it was
at a still earlier period of its growth,—we must determine whether there
are any languages that stand to Gothic in the same relation in which
Italian and Spanish stand to French;—we must restore, as far as possible,
the genealogical tree of the various families of human speech. In doing
this we enter on the second or classificatory stage of our science; for
genealogy, where it is applicable, is the most perfect form of
classification.
Before we proceed to examine the results which have been obtained by the
recent labors of Schlegel, Humboldt, Bopp, Burnouf, Pott, Benfey,
Prichard, Grimm, Kuhn, Curtius, and others in this branch of the science
of language, it will be well to glance at what had been achieved before
their time in the classification of the numberless dialects of mankind.
The Greeks never thought of applying the principle of classification to
the varieties of human speech. They only distinguished between Greek on
one side, and all other languages on the other, comprehended under the
convenient name of “Barbarous.” They succeeded, indeed, in classifying
four of their own dialects with tolerable correctness,(105) but they
applied the term “barbarous” so promiscuously to the other more distant
relatives of Greek, (the dialects of the Pelasgians, Carians, Macedonians,
Thracians, and Illyrians,) that, for the purposes of scientific
classification, it is almost impossible to make any use of the statements
of ancient writers about these so-called barbarous idioms.(106)
Plato, indeed, in his Cratylus (c. 36), throws out a hint that the Greeks
might have received their own words from the barbarians, the barbarians
being older than the Greeks. But he was not able to see the full bearing
of this remark. He only points out that some words, such as the names of
_fire_, _water_, and _dog_, were the same in Phrygian and Greek; and he
supposes that the Greeks borrowed them from the Phrygians (c. 26). The
idea that the Greek language and that of the barbarians could have had a
common source never entered his mind. It is strange that even so
comprehensive a mind as that of Aristotle should have failed to perceive
in languages some of that law and order which he tried to discover in
every realm of nature. As Aristotle, however, did not attempt this, we
need not wonder that it was not attempted by any one else for the next two
thousand years. The Romans, in all scientific matters, were merely the
parrots of the Greeks. Having themselves been called barbarians, they soon
learnt to apply the same name to all other nations, except, of course, to
their masters, the Greeks. Now _barbarian_ is one of those lazy
expressions which seem to say everything but in reality say nothing. It
was applied as recklessly as the word _heretic_ during the Middle Ages. If
the Romans had not received this convenient name of barbarian ready made
for them, they would have treated their neighbors, the Celts and Germans,
with more respect and sympathy: they would, at all events, have looked at
them with a more discriminating eye. And, if they had done so, they would
have discovered, in spite of outward differences, that these barbarians
were, after all, not very distant cousins. There was as much similarity
between the language of Cæsar and the barbarians against whom he fought in
Gaul and Germany as there was between his language and that of Homer. A
man of Cæsar’s sagacity would have seen this, if he had not been blinded
by traditional phraseology. I am not exaggerating. For let us look at one
instance only. If we take a verb of such constant occurrence as _to have_,
we shall find the paradigms almost identical in Latin and Gothic:—
I have in Latin is habeo, in Gothic haba.
Thou hast in Latin is habes, in Gothic habais.
He has in Latin is habet, in Gothic habaiþ.
We have in Latin is habemus, in Gothic habam.
You have in Latin is habetis, in Gothic habaiþ.
They have in Latin is habent, in Gothic habant.
It surely required a certain amount of blindness, or rather of deafness,
not to perceive such similarity, and that blindness or deafness arose, I
believe, entirely from the single word _barbarian_. Not till that word
barbarian was struck out of the dictionary of mankind, and replaced by
brother, not till the right of all nations of the world to be classed as
members of one genus or kind was recognized, can we look even for the
first beginnings of our science. This change was effected by Christianity.
To the Hindú, every man not twice-born was a Mlechha; to the Greek, every
man not speaking Greek was a barbarian; to the Jew, every person not
circumcised was a Gentile; to the Mohammedan, every man not believing in
the prophet is a Giaur or Kaffir. It was Christianity which first broke
down the barriers between Jew and Gentile, between Greek and barbarian,
between the white and the black. _Humanity_ is a word which you look for
in vain in Plato or Aristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the
children of one God, is an idea of Christian growth; and the science of
mankind, and of the languages of mankind, is a science which, without
Christianity, would never have sprung into life. When people had been
taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, and then only, did the
variety of human speech present itself as a problem that called for a
solution in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and I, therefore, date the
real beginning of the science of language from the first day of Pentecost.
After that day of cloven tongues a new light is spreading over the world,
and objects rise into view which had been hidden from the eyes of the
nations of antiquity. Old words assume a new meaning, old problems a new
interest, old sciences a new purpose. The common origin of mankind, the
differences of race and language, the susceptibility of all nations of the
highest mental culture, these become, in the new world in which we live,
problems of scientific, because of more than scientific, interest. It is
no valid objection that so many centuries should have elapsed before the
spirit which Christianity infused into every branch of scientific inquiry
produced visible results. We see in the oaken fleet which rides the ocean
the small acorn which was buried in the ground hundreds of years ago, and
we recognize in the philosophy of Albertus Magnus,(107) though nearly 1200
years after the death of Christ, in the aspirations of Kepler,(108) and in
the researches of the greatest philosophers of our own age, the sound of
that key-note of thought which had been struck for the first time by the
apostle of the Gentiles:(109) “_For the invisible things of Him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead_.”
But we shall see that the science of language owes more than its first
impulse to Christianity. The pioneers of our science were those very
apostles who were commanded “to go into all the world, and preach the
Gospel to every creature,” and their true successors, the missionaries of
the whole Christian Church. Translations of the Lord’s Prayer or of the
Bible into every dialect of the world, form even now the most valuable
materials for the comparative philologist. As long as the number of known
languages was small, the idea of classification hardly suggested itself.
The mind must be bewildered by the multiplicity of facts before it has
recourse to division. As long as the only languages studied were Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew, the simple division into sacred and profane, or
classical and oriental, sufficed. But when theologians extended their
studies to Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, a step, and a very important step,
was made towards the establishment of a class or family of languages.(110)
No one could help seeing that these languages were most intimately related
to each other, and that they differed from Greek and Latin on all points
on which they agreed among themselves. As early as 1606 we find
_Guichard_,(111) in his “Harmonie Etymologique,” placing Hebrew, Chaldee,
and Syriac as a class of languages by themselves, and distinguishing
besides between the Romance and Teutonic dialects.
What prevented, however, for a long time the progress of the science of
language was the idea that Hebrew was the primitive language of mankind,
and that, therefore, all languages must be derived from Hebrew. The
fathers of the Church never expressed any doubt on this point. St. Jerome,
in one of his epistles to Damasus,(112) writes: “the whole of antiquity
(universa antiquitas) affirms that Hebrew, in which the Old Testament is
written, was the beginning of all human speech.” Origen, in his eleventh
Homily on the book of Numbers, expresses his belief that the Hebrew
language, originally given through Adam, remained in that part of the
world which was the chosen portion of God, not left like the rest to one
of His angels.(113) When, therefore, the first attempts at a
classification of languages were made, the problem, as it presented itself
to scholars such as Guichard and Thomassin, was this: “As Hebrew is
undoubtedly the mother of all languages, how are we to explain the process
by which Hebrew became split into so many dialects, and how can these
numerous dialects, such as Greek, and Latin, Coptic, Persian, Turkish, be
traced back to their common source, the Hebrew?”
It is astonishing what an amount of real learning and ingenuity was wasted
on this question during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It
finds, perhaps, but one parallel in the laborious calculations and
constructions of early astronomers, who had to account for the movements
of the heavenly bodies, always taking it for granted that the earth must
be the fixed centre of our planetary system. But, although we know now
that the labors of such scholars as Thomassin were, and could not be
otherwise than fruitless, it would be a most discouraging view to take of
the progress of the human race, were we to look upon the exertions of
eminent men in former ages, though they may have been in a wrong
direction, as mere vanity and vexation of spirit. We must not forget that
the very fact of the failure of such men contributed powerfully to a
general conviction that there must be something wrong in the problem
itself, till at last a bolder genius inverted the problem and thereby
solved it. When books after books had been written to show how Greek and
Latin and all other languages were derived from Hebrew,(114) and when not
one single system proved satisfactory, people asked at last—“Why then
_should_ all languages be derived from Hebrew?”—and this very question
solved the problem. It might have been natural for theologians in the
fourth and fifth centuries, many of whom knew neither Hebrew nor any
language except their own, to take it for granted that Hebrew was the
source of all languages, but there is neither in the Old nor the New
Testament a single word to necessitate this view. Of the language of Adam
we know nothing; but if Hebrew, as we know it, was one of the languages
that sprang from the confusion of tongues at Babel, it could not well have
been the language of Adam or of the whole earth, “when the whole earth was
still of one speech.”(115)
Although, therefore, a certain advance was made towards a classification
of languages by the Semitic scholars of the seventeenth century, yet this
partial advance became in other respects an impediment. The purely
scientific interest in arranging languages according to their
characteristic features was lost sight of, and erroneous ideas were
propagated, the influence of which has even now not quite subsided.
The first who really conquered the prejudice that Hebrew was the source of
all language was Leibniz, the cotemporary and rival of Newton. “There is
as much reason,” he said, “for supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive
language of mankind, as there is for adopting the view of Goropius, who
published a work at Antwerp, in 1580, to prove that Dutch was the language
spoken in Paradise.”(116) In a letter to Tenzel, Leibniz writes: “To call
Hebrew the primitive language, is like calling branches of a tree
primitive branches, or like imagining that in some country hewn trunks
could grow instead of trees. Such ideas may be conceived, but they do not
agree with the laws of nature, and with the harmony of the universe, that
is to say with the Divine Wisdom.”(117)
But Leibniz did more than remove this one great stumbling-block from the
threshold of the science of language. He was the first to apply the
principle of sound inductive reasoning to a subject which before him had
only been treated at random. He pointed out the necessity of collecting,
first of all, as large a number of facts as possible.(118) He appealed to
missionaries, travellers, ambassadors, princes, and emperors, to help him
in a work which he had so much at heart. The Jesuits in China had to work
for him. Witsen,(119) the traveller, sent him a most precious present, a
translation of the Lord’s Prayer into the jargon of the Hottentots. “My
friend,” writes Leibniz in thanking him, “remember, I implore you, and
remind your Muscovite friends, to make researches in order to procure
specimens of the Scythian languages, the Samoyedes, Siberians, Bashkirs,
Kalmuks, Tungusians, and others.” Having made the acquaintance of Peter
the Great, Leibniz wrote to him the following letter, dated Vienna,
October the 26th, 1713:—