_Lusatia_. The oldest specimen of Polish belongs to the fourteenth
century: the Psalter of Margarite. The Bohemian language was, till lately,
traced back to the ninth century. But most of these old Bohemian poems are
now considered spurious; and it is doubtful, even, whether an ancient
interlinear translation of the Gospel of St. John can be ascribed to the
tenth century.(186)
The language of Lusatia is spoken, probably, by no more than 150,000
people, known in Germany by the name of _Wends_.
We have examined all the languages of our first or Aryan family, which are
spoken in Europe, with one exception, the _Albanian_. This language is
clearly a member of the same family; and as it is sufficiently distinct
from Greek or any other recognized language, it has been traced back to
one of the neighboring races of the Greeks, the Illyrians, and is supposed
to be the only surviving representative of the various so-called barbarous
tongues which surrounded and interpenetrated the dialects of Greece.
We now pass on from Europe to Asia; and here we begin at once, on the
extreme south, with the languages of India. As I sketched the history of
Sanskrit in one of my former Lectures, it must suffice, at present, to
mark the different periods of that language, beginning, about 1500 B. C.,
with the dialect of the Vedas, which is followed by the modern Sanskrit;
the popular dialects of the third century B. C.; the Prakrit dialects of
the plays; and the spoken dialects, such as Hindí, Hindústání, Mahrattí,
Bengalí. There are many points of great interest to the student of
language, in the long history of the speech of India; and it has been
truly said that Sanskrit is to the science of language what mathematics
are to astronomy. In an introductory course of lectures, however, like the
present, it would be out of place to enter on a minute analysis of the
grammatical organism of this language of languages.
There is one point only on which I may be allowed to say a few words. I
have frequently been asked, “But how can you prove that Sanskrit
literature is so old as it is supposed to be? How can you fix any Indian
dates before the time of Alexander’s conquest? What dependence can be
placed on Sanskrit manuscripts which may have been forged or
interpolated?” It is easier to ask such questions than to answer them, at
least to answer them briefly and intelligibly. But, perhaps, the following
argument will serve as a partial answer, and show that Sanskrit was the
spoken language of India at least some centuries before the time of
Solomon. In the hymns of the Veda, which are the oldest literary
compositions in Sanskrit, the geographical horizon of the poets is, for
the greater part, limited to the north-west of India. There are very few
passages in which any allusions to the sea or the sea-coast occur, whereas
the snowy mountains, and the rivers of the Penjáb, and the scenery of the
Upper Ganges valley are familiar objects to the ancient bards. There is no
doubt, in fact, that the people who spoke Sanskrit came into India from
the north, and gradually extended their sway to the south and east. Now,
at the time of Solomon, it can be proved that Sanskrit was spoken at least
as far south as the mouth of the Indus.
You remember the fleet of Tharshish(187) which Solomon had at sea,
together with the navy of Hiram, and which came once in three years,
bringing _gold_ and _silver_, _ivory_, _apes_, and _peacocks_. The same
navy, which was stationed on the shore of the Red Sea, is said to have
fetched gold from _Ophir_,(188) and to have brought, likewise, great
plenty of _algum_(189) trees and precious stones from Ophir.
Well, a great deal has been written to find out where this Ophir was; but
there can be no doubt that it was in India. The names for _apes_,
_peacocks_, _ivory_ and _algum_-trees are foreign words in Hebrew, as much
as _gutta-percha_ or _tobacco_ are in English. Now, if we wished to know
from what part of the world _gutta-percha_ was first imported into
England, we might safely conclude that it came from that country where the
name, _gutta-percha_, formed part of the spoken language.(190) If,
therefore, we can find a language in which the names for peacock, apes,
ivory, and algum-tree, which are foreign in Hebrew, are indigenous, we may
be certain that the country in which that language was spoken must have
been the Ophir of the Bible. That language is no other but Sanskrit.
_Apes_ are called, in Hebrew, _koph_, a word without an etymology in the
Semitic languages, but nearly identical in sound with the Sanskrit name of
ape, _kapi_.
_Ivory_ is called either _karnoth-shen_, horns of tooth; or _shen habbim_.
This _habbim_ is again without a derivation in Hebrew, but it is most
likely a corruption of the Sanskrit name for elephant, _ibha_, preceded by
the Semitic article.(191)
_Peacocks_ are called in Hebrew _tukhi-im_, and this finds its explanation
in the name still used for peacock on the coast of Malabar, _togëi_, which
in turn has been derived from the Sanskrit _śikhin_, meaning furnished
with a crest.
All these articles, ivory, gold, apes, peacocks, are indigenous in India,
though of course they might have been found in other countries likewise.
Not so the _algum-tree_, at least if interpreters are right in taking
_algum_ or _almug_ for sandalwood. Sandalwood is found indigenous on the
coast of Malabar only; and one of its numerous names there, and in
Sanskrit, is _valguka_. This _valgu_(_ka_) is clearly the name which
Jewish and Phœnician merchants corrupted into _algum_, and which in Hebrew
was still further changed into _almug_.
Now, the place where the navy of Solomon and Hiram, coming down the Red
Sea, would naturally have landed, was the mouth of the Indus. There _gold_
and _precious stones_ from the north would have been brought down the
Indus; and _sandalwood_, _peacocks_, and _apes_ would have been brought
from Central and Southern India. In this very locality Ptolemy (vii. 1)
gives us the name of _Abiria_, above _Pattalene_. In the same locality
Hindu geographers place the people called _Abhîra_ or _Âbhîra_; and in the
same neighborhood MacMurdo, in his account of the province of Cutch, still
knows a race of _Ahirs_,(192) the descendants, in all probability, of the
people who sold to Hiram and Solomon their gold and precious stones, their
apes, peacocks, and sandalwood.(193)
If, then, in the Veda the people who spoke Sanskrit were still settled in
the north of India, whereas at the time of Solomon their language had
extended to Cutch and even the Malabar coast, this will show that at all
events Sanskrit is not of yesterday, and that it is as old, at least, as
the book of Job, in which the gold of Ophir is mentioned.(194)
Most closely allied to Sanskrit, more particularly to the Sanskrit of the
Veda, is the ancient language of the Zend-avesta,(195) the so-called
_Zend_, or sacred language of the Zoroastrians or Fire-worshippers. It
was, in fact, chiefly through the Sanskrit, and with the help of
comparative philology, that the ancient dialect of the Parsis or
Fire-worshippers was deciphered. The MSS. had been preserved by the Parsi
priests at Bombay, where a colony of fire-worshippers had fled in the
tenth century,(196) and where it has risen since to considerable wealth
and influence. Other settlements of Guebres are to be found in Yezd and
parts of Kerman. A Frenchman, Anquetil Duperron, was the first to
translate the Zend-avesta, but his translation was not from the original,
but from a modern Persian translation. The first European who attempted to
read the original words of Zoroaster was Rask, the Dane; and after his
premature death, Burnouf, in France, achieved one of the greatest triumphs
in modern scholarship by deciphering the language of the Zend-avesta, and
establishing its close relationship with Sanskrit. The same doubts which
were expressed about the age and the genuineness of the Veda, were
repeated with regard to the Zend-avesta, by men of high authority as
oriental scholars, by Sir W. Jones himself, and even by the late Professor
Wilson. But Burnouf’s arguments, based at first on grammatical evidence
only, were irresistible, and have of late been most signally confirmed by
the discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes. That
there was a Zoroaster, an ancient sage, was known long before Burnouf.
Plato speaks of a teacher of Zoroaster’s Magic (Μαγεία), and calls
Zoroaster the son of _Oromazes_.(197)
This name of Oromazes is important; for Oromazes is clearly meant for
_Ormuzd_, the god of the Zoroastrians. The name of this god, as read in
the inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes, is _Auramazdâ_, which comes very
near to Plato’s Oromazes.(198) Thus Darius says, in one passage: “Through
the grace of Auramazda I am king; Auramazda gave me the kingdom.” But what
is the meaning of _Auramazda_? We receive a hint from one passage in the
Achæmenian inscriptions, where Auramazda is divided into two words, both
being declined. The genitive of Auramazda occurs there as _Aurahya
mazdâha_. But even this is unintelligible, and is, in fact, nothing but a
phonetic corruption of the name of the supreme Deity as it occurs on every
page of the Zend-avesta, namely, _Ahurô mazdâo_ (nom.). Here, too, both
words are declined; and instead of _Ahurô mazdâo_, we also find _Mazdâo
ahurô_.(199) Well, this _Ahurô mazdâo_ is represented in the Zend-avesta
as the creator and ruler of the world; as good, holy, and true; and as
doing battle against all that is evil, dark, and false. “The wicked perish
through the wisdom and holiness of the living wise Spirit.” In the oldest
hymns, the power of darkness, which is opposed to _Ahurô mazdâo_ has not
yet received its proper name, which is _Angrô mainyus_, the later
_Ahriman_; but it is spoken of as a power, as _Drukhs_ or deceit; and the
principal doctrine which Zoroaster came to preach was that we must choose
between these two powers, that we must be good, and not bad. These are his
words:—
“In the beginning there was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a
peculiar activity. These are the Good and the Base in thought, word, and
deed. Choose one of these two spirits; Be good, not base!”(200)
Or again:—
“Ahuramazda is holy, true, to be honored through veracity, through holy
deeds.” “You cannot serve both.”
Now, if we wanted to prove that Anglo-Saxon was a real language, and more
ancient than English, a mere comparison of a few words such as _lord_ and
_hlafford_, _gospel_ and _godspel_ would be sufficient. _Hlafford_ has a
meaning; _lord_ has none; therefore we may safely say that without such a
compound as _hlafford_, the word _lord_ could never have arisen. The same,
if we compare the language of the Zend-avesta with that of the cuneiform
inscriptions of Darius. _Auramazdâ_ is clearly a corruption of _Ahurô
mazdâo_, and if the language of the Mountain-records of Behistun is
genuine, then, _à fortiori_, is the language of the Zend-avesta genuine,
as deciphered by Burnouf, long before he had deciphered the language of
Cyrus and Darius. But what is the meaning of _Ahurô mazdâo_? Here Zend
does not give us an answer; but we must look to Sanskrit, as the more
primitive language, just as we looked from French to Italian, in order to
discover the original form and meaning of _feu_. According to the rules
which govern the changes of words, common to Zend and Sanskrit, _Ahurô
mazdâo_ corresponds to the Sanskrit _Asuro medhas_; and this would mean
the “Wise Spirit,” neither more nor less.
We have editions, translations, and commentaries of the Zend-avesta by
Burnouf, Brockhaus, Spiegel, and Westergaard. Yet there still remains much
to be done. Dr. Haug, now settled at Poona, has lately taken up the work
which Burnouf left unfinished. He has pointed out that the text of the
Zend-avesta, as we have it, comprises fragments of very different
antiquity, and that the most ancient only, the so-called Gâthâs, can be
ascribed to Zarathustra. “This portion,” he writes in a lecture just
received from India, “compared with the whole bulk of the Zend fragments
is very small; but by the difference of dialect it is easily recognized.
The most important pieces written in this peculiar dialect are called
Gâthâs or songs, arranged in five small collections; they have different
metres, which mostly agree with those of the Veda; their language is very
near to the Vedic dialect.” It is to be regretted that in the same
lecture, which holds out the promise of so much that will be extremely
valuable, Dr. Haug should have lent his authority to the opinion that
Zoroaster or Zarathustra is mentioned in the Rig-Veda as Jaradashṭi. The
meaning of jaradashti in the Rig-Veda may be seen in the Sanskrit
Dictionary of the Russian Academy, and no Sanskrit scholar would seriously
think of translating the word by Zoroaster.
At what time Zoroaster lived, is a more difficult question which we cannot
discuss at present.(201) It must suffice if we have proved that he lived,
and that his language, the Zend, is a real language, and anterior in time
to the language of the cuneiform inscriptions.
We trace the subsequent history of the Persian language from Zend to the
inscriptions of the Achæmenian dynasty; from thence to what is called
_Pehlevi_ or _Huzvaresh_ (better Huzûresh), the language of the Sassanian
dynasty (226-651), as it is found in the dialect of the translations of
the Zend-avesta, and in the official language of the Sassanian coins and
inscriptions. This is considerably mixed with Semitic elements, probably
imported from Syria. In a still later form, freed also from the Semitic
elements which abound in Pehlevi, the language of Persia appears again as
_Parsi_, which differs but little from the language of _Firdusi_, the
great epic poet of Persia, the author of the Shahnámeh, about 1000 A. D.
The later history of Persian consists entirely in the gradual increase of
Arabic words, which have crept into the language since the conquest of
Persia and the conversion of the Persians to the religion of Mohammed.
The other languages which evince by their grammar and vocabulary a general
relationship with Sanskrit and Persian, but which have received too
distinct and national a character to be classed as mere dialects, are the
languages _of Afghanistan_ or the _Pushtú_, the language of _Bokhára_, the
language of the _Kurds_, the _Ossetian_ language in the Caucasus, and the
_Armenian_. Much might be said on every one of these tongues and their
claims to be classed as independent members of the Aryan family; but our
time is limited, nor has any one of them acquired, as yet, that importance
which belongs to the vernaculars of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and
Germany, and to other branches of Aryan speech which have been analyzed
critically, and may be studied historically in the successive periods of
their literary existence. There is, however, one more language which we
have omitted to mention, and which belongs equally to Asia and Europe, the
language of the _Gipsies_. This language, though most degraded in its
grammar, and with a dictionary stolen from all the countries through which
the Zingaris passed, is clearly an exile from Hindústán.
You see, from the diagram before you,(202) that it is possible to divide
the whole Aryan family into two divisions: the _Southern_, including the
Indic and Iranic classes, and the _Northern_ or _North-western_,
comprising all the rest. Sanskrit and Zend share certain words and
grammatical forms in common which do not exist in any of the other Aryan
languages; and there can be no doubt that the ancestors of the poets of
the Veda and of the worshippers of _Ahurô mazdâo_ lived together for some
time after they had left the original home of the whole Aryan race. For
let us see this clearly: the genealogical classification of languages, as
drawn in this diagram, has an historical meaning. As sure as the six
Romance dialects point to an original home of Italian shepherds on the
seven hills at Rome, the Aryan languages together point to an earlier
period of language, when the first ancestors of the Indians, the Persians,
the Greeks, the Romans, the Slaves, the Celts, and the Germans were living
together within the same enclosures, nay under the same roof. There was a
time when out of many possible names for _father_, _mother_, _daughter_,
_son_, _dog_ and _cow_, _heaven_ and _earth_, those which we find in all
the Aryan languages were framed, and obtained a mastery _in the struggle
for life_ which is carried on among synonymous words as much as among
plants and animals. Look at the comparative table of the auxiliary verb
AS, to be, in the different Aryan languages. The selection of the root AS
out of many roots, equally applicable to the idea of being, and the
joining of this root with one set of personal terminations, all originally
personal pronouns, were individual acts, or if you like, historical
events. They took place once, at a certain date and in a certain place;
and as we find the same forms preserved by all the members of the Aryan
family, it follows that before the ancestors of the Indians and Persians
started for the south, and the leaders of the Greek, Roman, Celtic,
Teutonic, and Slavonic colonies marched towards the shores of Europe,
there was a small clan of Aryans, settled probably on the highest
elevation of Central Asia, speaking a language, not yet Sanskrit or Greek
or German, but containing the dialectical germs of all; a clan that had
advanced to a state of agricultural civilization; that had recognized the
bonds of blood, and sanctioned the bonds of marriage; and that invoked the
Giver of Light and Life in heaven by the same name which you may still
hear in the temples of Benares, in the basilicas of Rome, and in our own
churches and cathedrals.
After this clan broke up, the ancestors of the Indians and Zoroastrians
must have remained together for some time in their migrations or new
settlements; and I believe that it was the reform of Zoroaster which
produced at last the split between the worshippers of the Vedic gods and
the worshippers of Ormuzd. Whether, besides this division into a southern
and northern branch, it is possible by the same test (the community of
particular words and forms), to discover the successive periods when the
Germans separated from the Slaves, the Celts from the Italians, or the
Italians from the Greeks, seems more than doubtful. The attempts made by
different scholars have led to different and by no means satisfactory
results;(203) and it seems best, for the present, to trace each of the
northern classes back to its own dialect, and to account for the more
special coincidences between such languages as, for instance, the Slavonic
and Teutonic, by admitting that the ancestors of these races preserved
from the beginning certain dialectical peculiarities which existed before,
as well as after, the separation of the Aryan family.
LECTURE VI. COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR.
The genealogical classification of the Aryan languages was founded, as we
saw, on a close comparison of the grammatical characteristics of each; and
it is the object of such works as Bopp’s “Comparative Grammar” to show
that the grammatical articulation of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Roman, Celtic,
Teutonic, and Slavonic, was produced once and for all; and that the
apparent differences in the terminations of Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin,
must be explained by laws of phonetic decay, peculiar to each dialect,
which modified the original common Aryan type, and changed it into so many
national languages. It might seem, therefore, as if the object of
comparative grammar was attained as soon as the exact genealogical
relationship of languages had been settled; and those who only look to the
higher problems of the science of language have not hesitated to declare
that “there is no painsworthy difficulty nor dispute about declension,
number, case, and gender of nouns.” But although it is certainly true that
comparative grammar is only a means, and that it has well nigh taught us
all that it has to teach,—at least in the Aryan family of speech,—it is to
be hoped that, in the science of language, it will always retain that
prominent place which it has obtained through the labors of Bopp, Grimm,
Pott, Benfey, Curtius, Kuhn, and others. Besides, comparative grammar has
more to do than simply to compare. It would be easy enough to place side
by side the paradigms of declension and conjugation in Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin, and the other Aryan dialects, and to mark both their coincidences
and their differences. But after we have done this, and after we have
explained the phonetic laws which cause the primitive Aryan type to assume
that national variety which we admire in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, new
problems arise of a more interesting nature. We know that grammatical
terminations, as they are now called, were originally independent words,
and had their own purpose and meaning. Is it possible, after comparative
grammar has established the original forms of the Aryan terminations, to
trace them back to independent words, and to discover their original
purpose and meaning? You will remember that this was the point from which
we started. We wanted to know why the termination _d_ in _I loved_ should
change a present into a past act. We saw that before answering this
question we had to discover the most original form of this termination by
tracing it from English to Gothic, and afterwards, if necessary, from
Gothic to Sanskrit. We now return to our original question, namely, What
is language that a mere formal change, such as that of _I love_ into _I
loved_, should produce so very material a difference?
Let us clearly see what we mean if we make a distinction between the
radical and formal elements of a language; and by formal elements I mean
not only the terminations of declension and conjugation, but all
derivative elements; all, in fact, that is not radical. Our view on the
origin of language must chiefly depend on the view which we take of these
formal, as opposed to the radical, elements of speech. Those who consider
that language is a conventional production, base their arguments
principally on these formal elements. The inflections of words, they
maintain, are the best proof that language was made by mutual agreement.
They look upon them as mere letters or syllables without any meaning by
themselves; and if they were asked why the mere addition of a _d_ changes
_I love_ into _I loved_, or why the addition of the syllable _rai_ gave to
_j’aime_, I love, the power of a future, _j’aimerai_, they would answer,
that it was so because, at a very early time in the history of the world,
certain persons, or families, or clans, agreed that it should be so.
This view was opposed by another which represents language as an organic
and almost a living being, and explains its formal elements as produced by
a principle of growth inherent in its very nature. “Languages,”(204) it is
maintained, “are formed by a process, not of crystalline accretion, but of
germinal development. Every essential part of language existed as
completely (although only implicitly) in the primitive germ, as the petals
of a flower exist in the bud before the mingled influences of the sun and
the air caused it to unfold.” This view was first propounded by Frederick
Schlegel,(205) and it is still held by many with whom poetical phraseology
takes the place of sound and severe reasoning.