have wrought so complete a change in the classificatory study of
languages? If Sanskrit had been the primitive language of mankind, or at
least the parent of Greek, Latin, and German, we might understand that it
should have led to quite a new classification of these tongues. But
Sanskrit does not stand to Greek, Latin, the Teutonic, Celtic, and
Slavonic languages in the relation of Latin to French, Italian, and
Spanish. Sanskrit, as we saw before, could not be called their parent, but
only their elder sister. It occupies with regard to the classical
languages a position analogous to that which Provençal occupies with
regard to the modern Romance dialects. This is perfectly true; but it was
exactly this necessity of determining distinctly and accurately the mutual
relation of Sanskrit and the other members of the same family of speech,
which led to such important results, and particularly to the establishment
of the laws of phonetic change as the only safe means for measuring the
various degrees of relationship of cognate dialects, and thus restoring
the genealogical tree of human speech. When Sanskrit had once assumed its
right position, when people had once become familiarized with the idea
that there must have existed a language more primitive than Greek, Latin,
and Sanskrit, and forming the common background of these three, as well as
of the Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic branches of speech, all languages
seemed to fall by themselves into their right position. The key of the
puzzle was found, and all the rest was merely a work of patience. The same
arguments by which Sanskrit and Greek had been proved to hold co-ordinate
rank were perceived to apply with equal strength to Latin and Greek; and
after Latin had once been shown to be more primitive on many points than
Greek, it was easy to see that the Teutonic, the Celtic, and the Slavonic
languages also, contained each a number of formations which it was
impossible to derive from Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin. It was perceived that
all had to be treated as co-ordinate members of one and the same class.
The first great step in advance, therefore, which was made in the
classification of languages, chiefly through the discovery of Sanskrit,
was this, that scholars were no longer satisfied with the idea of a
general relationship, but began to inquire for the different degrees of
relationship in which each member of a class stood to another. Instead of
mere _classes_, we hear now for the first time of well regulated
_families_ of language.
A second step in advance followed naturally from the first. Whereas, for
establishing in a general way the common origin of certain languages, a
comparison of numerals, pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and the most
essential nouns and verbs, had been sufficient, it was soon found that a
more accurate standard was required for measuring the more minute degrees
of relationship. Such a standard was supplied by Comparative Grammar; that
is to say, by an intercomparison of the grammatical forms of languages
supposed to be related to each other; such intercomparison being carried
out according to certain laws which regulate the phonetic changes of
letters.
A glance at the modern history of language will make this clearer. There
could never be any doubt that the so-called Romance languages, Italian,
Wallachian, Provençal, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, were closely
related to each other. Everybody could see that they were all derived from
Latin. But one of the most distinguished French scholars, Raynouard, who
has done more for the history of the Romance languages and literature than
any one else, maintained that Provençal only was the daughter of Latin;
whereas French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese were the daughters of
Provençal. He maintained that Latin passed, from the seventh to the ninth
century, through an intermediate stage, which he called Langue Romane, and
which he endeavored to prove was the same as the Provençal of Southern
France, the language of the Troubadours. According to him, it was only
after Latin had passed through this uniform metamorphosis, represented by
the Langue Romane or Provençal, that it became broken up into the various
Romance dialects of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. This theory, which
was vigorously attacked by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, and afterwards
minutely criticised by Sir Cornewall Lewis, can only be refuted by a
comparison of the Provençal grammar with that of the other Romance
dialects. And here, if you take the auxiliary verb _to be_, and compare
its forms in Provençal and French, you will see at once that, on several
points, French has preserved the original Latin forms in a more primitive
state than Provençal, and that, therefore, it is impossible to classify
French as the daughter of Provençal, and as the granddaughter of Latin. We
have in Provençal:—
_sem_, corresponding to the French _nous sommes_,
_etz_, corresponding to the French _vous êtes_,
_son_, corresponding to the French _ils sont_,
and it would be a grammatical miracle if crippled forms, such as _sem_,
_etz_, and _son_, had been changed back again into the more healthy, more
primitive, more Latin, _sommes_, _êtes_, _sont_; _sumus_, _estis_, _sunt_.
Let us apply the same test to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin; and we shall see
how their mutual genealogical position is equally determined by a
comparison of their grammatical forms. It is as impossible to derive Latin
from Greek, or Greek from Sanskrit, as it is to treat French as a
modification of Provençal. Keeping to the auxiliary verb _to be_, we find
that _I am_ is in
Sanskrit Greek Lithuanian
_asmi_ _esmi_ _esmi_.
The root is _as_, the termination _mi_.
Now, the termination of the second person is _si_, which, together with
_as_, or _es_, would make,
_as-si_ _es-si_ _es-si_.
But here Sanskrit, as far back as its history can be traced, has reduced
_assi_ to _asi_; and it would be impossible to suppose that the perfect,
or, as they are sometimes called, organic, forms in Greek and Lithuanian,
_es-si_, could first have passed through the mutilated state of the
Sanskrit _asi_.
The third person is the same in Sanskrit, Greek, and Lithuanian, _as-ti_
or _es-ti_; and, with the loss of the final _i_, we recognize the Latin
_est_, Gothic _ist_, and Russian _est’_.
The same auxiliary verb can be made to furnish sufficient proof that Latin
never could have passed through the Greek, or what used to be called the
Pelasgic stage, but that both are independent modifications of the same
original language. In the singular, Latin is less primitive than Greek;
for _sum_ stands for _es-um_, _es_ for _es-is_, _est_ for _es-ti_. In the
first person plural, too, _sumus_ stands for _es-umus_, the Greek
_es-mes_, the Sanskrit _’smas_. The second person _es-tis_, is equal to
Greek _es-te_, and more primitive than Sanskrit _stha_. But in the third
person plural Latin is more primitive than Greek. The regular form would
be _as-anti_; this, in Sanskrit, is changed into _santi_. In Greek, the
initial _s_ is dropped, and the Æolic _enti_, is finally reduced to
_eisi_. The Latin, on the contrary, has kept the radical _s_, and it would
be perfectly impossible to derive the Latin _sunt_ from the Greek _eisi_.
I need hardly say that the modern English, _I am_, _thou art_, _he is_,
are only secondary modifications of the same primitive verb. We find in
Gothic—
_im_ for _ism_
_is_ for _iss_
_ist_.
The Anglo-Saxon changes the _s_ into _r_, thus giving—
_eom_ for _eorm_, plural _sind_ for _isind_.
_eart_ for _ears_, plural _sind_
_is_ for _ist_, plural _sind_
By applying this test to all languages, the founders of comparative
philology soon reduced the principal dialects of Europe and Asia to
certain families, and they were able in each family to distinguish
different branches, each consisting again of numerous dialects, both
ancient and modern.
There are many languages, however, which as yet have not been reduced to
families, and though there is no reason to doubt that some of them will
hereafter be comprehended in a system of genealogical classification, it
is right to guard from the beginning against the common, but altogether
gratuitous supposition, that the principle of genealogical classification
must be applicable to all. Genealogical classification is no doubt the
most perfect of all classifications, but there are but few branches of
physical science in which it can be carried out, except very partially. In
the science of language, genealogical classification must rest chiefly on
the formal or grammatical elements, which, after they have been affected
by phonetic change, can be kept up only by a continuous tradition. We know
that French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese must be derived from a
common source, because they share grammatical forms in common, which none
of these dialects could have supplied from their own resources, and which
have no meaning, or, so to say, no life, in any one of them. The
termination of the imperfect _ba_ in Spanish, _va_ in Italian, by which
_canto_, I sing, is changed into _cantaba_ and _cantava_, has no separate
existence, and no independent meaning in either of these modern dialects.
It could not have been formed with the materials supplied by Spanish and
Italian. It must have been handed down from an earlier generation in which
this _ba_ had a meaning. We trace it back to Latin _bam_, in _cantabam_,
and here it can be proved that _bam_ was originally an independent
auxiliary verb, the same which exists in Sanskrit _bhavâmi_, and in the
Anglo-Saxon _beom_, I am. Genealogical classification, therefore, applies
properly only to decaying languages, to languages in which grammatical
growth has been arrested, through the influence of literary cultivation;
in which little new is added, everything old is retained as long as
possible, and where what we call growth or history is nothing but the
progress of phonetic corruption. But before languages decay, they have
passed through a period of growth; and it seems to have been completely
overlooked, that dialects which diverged during that early period, would
naturally resist every attempt at genealogical classification. If you
remember the manner in which, for instance, the plural was formed in
Chinese and other languages examined by us in a former Lecture, you will
see that where each dialect may choose its own term expressive of
plurality, such as _heap_, _class_, _kind_, _flock_, _cloud_, &c., it
would be unreasonable to expect similarity in grammatical terminations,
after these terms have been ground down by phonetic corruption to mere
exponents of plurality. But, on the other hand, it would by no means
follow that therefore these languages had no common origin. Languages may
have a common origin, and yet the words which they originally employed for
marking case, number, person, tense, and mood, having been totally
different, the grammatical terminations to which these words would
gradually dwindle down could not possibly yield any results if submitted
to the analysis of comparative grammar. A genealogical classification of
such languages is, therefore, from the nature of the case, simply
impossible, at least, if such classification is chiefly to be based on
grammatical or formal evidence.
It might be supposed, however, that such languages, though differing in
their grammatical articulation, would yet evince their common origin by
the identity of their radicals or roots. No doubt, they will in many
instances. They will probably have retained their numerals in common, some
of their pronouns, and some of the commonest words of every-day life. But
even here we must not expect too much, nor be surprised if we find even
less than we expected. You remember how the names for father varied in the
numerous Friesian dialects. Instead of _frater_, the Latin word for
brother, you find _hermano_ in Spanish. Instead of _ignis_, the Latin word
for fire, you have in French _feu_, in Italian, _fuoco_. Nobody would
doubt the common origin of German and English; yet the English numeral
“the first,” though preserved in _Fürst_, _prïnceps_, prince, is quite
different from the German “Der Erste;” “the second” is quite different
from “Der Zweite;” and there is no connection between the possessive
pronoun _its_, and the German _sein_. This dialectical freedom works on a
much larger scale in ancient and illiterate languages; and those who have
most carefully watched the natural growth of dialects will be the least
surprised that dialects which had the same origin should differ, not only
in their grammatical framework, but likewise in many of those test-words
which are very properly used for discovering the relationship of literary
languages. How it is possible to say anything about the relationship of
such dialects we shall see hereafter. For the present, it is sufficient if
I have made it clear why the principle of genealogical classification is
not of necessity applicable to all languages; and secondly, why languages,
though they cannot be classified genealogically, need not therefore be
supposed to have been different from the beginning. The assertion so
frequently repeated that the impossibility of classing all languages
genealogically proves the impossibility of a common origin of language, is
nothing but a kind of scientific dogmatism, which, more than anything
else, has impeded the free progress of independent research.
But let us see now how far the genealogical classification of languages
has advanced, how many families of human speech have been satisfactorily
established. Let us remember what suggested to us the necessity of a
genealogical classification. We wished to know the original intention of
certain words and grammatical forms in English, and we saw that before we
could attempt to fathom the origin of such words as “I love,” and “I
loved,” we should have to trace them back to their most primitive state.
We likewise found, by a reference to the history of the Romance dialects,
that words existing in one dialect had frequently been preserved in a more
primitive form in another, and that, therefore, it was of the highest
importance to bring ancient languages into the same genealogical
connection by which French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese are held
together as the members of one family.
Beginning, therefore, with the living language of England, we traced it,
without difficulty, to Anglo-Saxon. This carries us back to the seventh
century after Christ, for it is to that date that Kemble and Thorpe refer
the ancient English epic, the Beowulf. Beyond this we cannot go on English
soil. But we know that the Saxons, the Angles, and Jutes came from the
continent, and there their descendants, along the northern coast of
Germany, still speak _Low-German_, or Nieder-Deutsch, which in the harbors
of Antwerp, Bremen, and Hamburg, has been mistaken by many an English
sailor for a corrupt English dialect. The Low-German comprehends many
dialects in the north or the lowlands of Germany; but in Germany proper
they are hardly ever used for literary purposes. The Friesian dialects are
Low-German, so are the Dutch and Flemish. The Friesian had a literature of
its own as early at least as the twelfth century, if not earlier.(167) The
Dutch, which is still a national and literary language, though confined to
a small area, can be traced back to literary documents of the sixteenth
century. The Flemish, too, was at that time the language of the court of
Flanders and Brabant, but has since been considerably encroached upon,
though not yet extinguished, by the official languages of the kingdoms of
Holland and Belgium. The oldest literary document of Low-German on the
Continent is the Christian epic, the _Heljand_ (Heljand = Heiland, the
Healer or Saviour), which is preserved to us in two MSS. of the ninth
century, and was written at that time for the benefit of the newly
converted Saxons. We have traces of a certain amount of literature in
Saxon or Low-German from that time onward through the Middle Ages up to
the seventeenth century. But little only of that literature has been
preserved; and, after the translation of the Bible by Luther into
High-German, the fate of Low-German literature was sealed.
The literary language of Germany is, and has been ever since the days of
Charlemagne, the _High-German_. It is spoken in various dialects all over
Germany.(168) Its history may be traced through three periods. The
present, or New High-German period dates from Luther; the Middle
High-German period extends from Luther backwards to the twelfth century;
the Old High-German period extends from thence to the seventh century.
Thus we see that we can follow the High-German, as well as the Low-German
branch of Teutonic speech, back to about the seventh century after Christ.
We must not suppose that before that time there was _one_ common Teutonic
language spoken by all German tribes, and that it afterwards diverged into
two streams,—the High and Low. There never was a common, uniform, Teutonic
language; nor is there any evidence to show that there existed at any time
a uniform High-German or Low-German language, from which all High-German
and Low-German dialects are respectively derived. We cannot derive
Anglo-Saxon, Friesian, Flemish, Dutch, and Platt-Deutsch from the ancient
Low-German, which is preserved in the continental Saxon of the ninth
century. All we can say is this, that these various Low-German dialects in
England, Holland, Friesia, and Lower Germany, passed at different times
through the same stages, or, so to say, the same latitudes of grammatical
growth. We may add that, with every century that we go back, the
convergence of these dialects becomes more and more decided; but there is
no evidence to justify us in admitting the historical reality of _one_
primitive and uniform Low-German language from which they were all
derived. This is a mere creation of grammarians who cannot understand a
multiplicity of dialects without a common type. They would likewise demand
the admission of a primitive High-German language, as the source, not only
of the literary Old, Middle, and Modern High-German, but likewise of all
the local dialects of Austria, Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia. And they
would wish us to believe that, previous to the separation into High and
Low German, there existed one complete Teutonic language, as yet neither
High nor Low, but containing the germs of both. Such a system may be
convenient for the purposes of grammatical analysis, but it becomes
mischievous as soon as these grammatical abstractions are invested with an
historical reality. As there were families, clans, confederacies, and
tribes, before there was a nation; so there were dialects before there was
a language. The grammarian who postulates an historical reality for the
one primitive type of Teutonic speech, is no better than the historian who
believes in a _Francus_, the grandson of Hector, and the supposed ancestor
of all the Franks, or in a _Brutus_, the mythical father of all the
Britons. When the German races descended, one after the other, from the
Danube and from the Baltic, to take possession of Italy and the Roman
provinces,—when the Goths, the Lombards, the Vandals, the Franks, the
Burgundians, each under their own kings, and with their own laws and
customs, settled in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, to act their several parts in
the last scene of the Roman tragedy,—we have no reason to suppose that
they all spoke one and the same dialect. If we possessed any literary
documents of those ancient German races, we should find them all dialects
again, some with the peculiarities of High, others with those of Low,
German. Nor is this mere conjecture: for it so happens that, by some
fortunate accident, the dialect of one at least of those ancient German
races has been preserved to us in the Gothic translation of the Bible by
Bishop Ulfilas.
I must say a few words on this remarkable man. The accounts of
ecclesiastical historians with regard to the date and the principal events
in the life of Ulfilas are very contradictory. This is partly owing to the
fact that Ulfilas was an Arian bishop, and that the accounts which we
possess of him come from two opposite sides, from Arian and Athanasian
writers. Although in forming an estimate of his character it would be
necessary to sift this contradictory evidence, it is but fair to suppose
that, when dates and simple facts in the life of the Bishop have to be
settled, his own friends had better means of information than the orthodox
historians. It is, therefore, from the writings of his own co-religionists
that the chronology and the historical outline of the Bishop’s life should
be determined.
The principal writers to be consulted are Philostorgius, as preserved by
Photius, and Auxentius, as preserved by Maximinus in a MS. lately
discovered by Professor Waitz(169) in the Library at Paris. (Supplement.
Latin. No. 594.) This MS. contains some writings of Hilarius, the two
first books of Ambrosius De fide, and the acts of the Council of Aquileja
(381). On the margin of this MS. Maximinus repeated the beginning of the
acts of the Council of Aquileja, adding remarks of his own in order to
show how unfairly Palladius had been treated in that council by Ambrose.
He jotted down his own views on the Arian controversy, and on fol. 282,
seq., he copied an account of Ulfilas written by Auxentius, the bishop of
Dorostorum (Silistria on the Danube), a pupil of Ulfilas. This is followed
again by some dissertations of Maximinus, and on foll. 314-327, a treatise
addressed to Ambrose by a Semi-arian, a follower of Eusebius, possibly by
Prudentius himself, was copied and slightly abbreviated for his own
purposes by Maximinus.
It is from Auxentius, as copied by Maximinus, that we learn that Ulfilas
died at Constantinople, where he had been invited by the emperor to a
disputation. This could not have been later than the year 381, because,
according to the same Auxentius, Ulfilas had been bishop for forty years,
and, according to Philostorgius, he had been consecrated by Eusebius. Now
Eusebius of Nicomedia died 341, and as Philostorgius says that Ulfilas was
consecrated by “Eusebius and the bishops who were with him,” the
consecration has been referred with great plausibility to the beginning of
the year 341, when Eusebius presided at the Synod of Antioch. As Ulfilas
was thirty years old at the time of his consecration, he must have been
born in 311, and as he was seventy years of age when he died at
Constantinople, his death must have taken place in 381.
Professor Waitz fixed the death of Ulfilas in 388, because it is stated by
Auxentius that other Arian bishops had come with Ulfilas on his last
journey to Constantinople, and had actually obtained the promise of a new
council from the emperors, but that the heretical party, _i.e._, the
Athanasians, succeeded in getting a law published, prohibiting all
disputation on the faith, whether in public or private. Maximinus, to whom
we owe this notice, has added two laws from the Codex Theodosianus, which
he supposed to have reference to this controversy, dated respectively 388
and 386. This shows that Maximinus himself was doubtful as to the exact
date. Neither of these laws, however, is applicable to the case, as has
been fully shown by Dr. Bessell. They are quotations from the Codex
Theodosianus made by Maximinus at his own risk, and made in error. If the
death of Ulfilas were fixed in 388, the important notice of Philostorgius,
that Ulfilas was consecrated by Eusebius, would have to be surrendered,
and we should have to suppose that as late as 388 Theodosius had been in
treaty with the Arians, whereas after the year 383, when the last attempt
at a reconciliation bad been made by Theodosius, and had failed, no mercy
was any longer shown to the party of Ulfilas and his friends.
If, on the contrary, Ulfilas died at Constantinople in 381, he might well
have been called there by the Emperor Theodosius, not to a council, but to
a disputation (ad disputationem), as Dr. Bessell ingeniously maintains,
against the Psathyropolistæ,(170) a new sect of Arians at Constantinople.
About the same time, in 380, Sozomen(171) refers to efforts made by the
Arians to gain influence with Theodosius. He mentions, like Auxentius,
that these efforts were defeated, and a law published to forbid
disputations on the nature of God. This law exists in the Codex
Theodosianus, and is dated January 10, 381. But what is most important is,
that this law actually revokes a rescript that had been obtained
fraudulently by the Arian heretics, thus confirming the statement of
Auxentius that the emperor had held out to him and his party a promise of
a new council.