LANGUAGE.
The origin and growth of language evidently afford a great field for
study, in not only tracing the development of civilization, but also in
confirming the testimony of the ancients and the conclusions of the
geologists. If the unity of language could not be established, there
would still be left a field so great as would not lessen the interest or
the importance of the subject. But a new language cannot be formed. For
the sake of convenience the many varieties of language have been grouped
into three great divisions, _i. e._, the Aryan, the Semitic, and the
Turanian. "The English, together with all the Teutonic languages of the
Continent, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Latin with its modern offshoots,
such as French and Italian, Persian, and Sanskrit, are so many varieties
of one common type of speech: that Sanskrit, the ancient language of the
Veda, is no more distinct from the Greek of Homer, ... or from the
Anglo-Saxon of Alfred, than French is from Italian. All these languages
together form one family, one whole, in which every member shares
certain features in common with all the rest, and is at the same time
distinguished from the rest by certain features peculiarly its own. The
same applies to the Semitic family which comprises, as its most
important members, the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Arabic of the
Koran, and the ancient languages on the monuments of Phoenicia and
Carthage, of Babylon and Assyria. These languages, again, form a compact
family, and differ entirely from the other family, which we called Aryan
or Indo-European. The third group of languages, for we can hardly call
it a family, comprises most of the remaining languages of Asia, and
counts among its principal members the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic,
Samoyedic, and Finnic, together with the languages of Siam, the Malay
Islands, Thibet, and Southern India. Lastly, the Chinese language stands
by itself as monosyllabic, the only remnant of the earliest formation of
human speech."[103]
Anterior to these three families there was still another from which
these were derived. It contained the germs of all the Turanian, as well
as the Aryan and Semitic forms of speech. It belongs to that period in
the history of man when ideas were first clothed in language, and has
been called the Rhematic Period.[104]
As regards the origin of language, three theories have been proposed:
the Interjectional, the Imitation, and the Root. The first supposes that
the beginnings of human speech were the cries and sounds which are
uttered when a human being is affected by fear, pain, or joy. The second
supposes "that man, being as yet mute, heard the voices of birds, and
dogs, and cows, the thunder of the clouds, the roaring of the sea, the
rustling of the forest, the murmurs of the brook, and the whisper of the
breeze. He tried to imitate these sounds, and finding his mimicking
cries useful as signs of the objects from which they proceeded, he
followed up the idea and elaborated language." The third theory,
advanced by Max Mueller, is that language followed as the outward sign
and realization of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of
abstraction, and the roots, to which language may be reduced, express a
general, not an individual idea.[105]
There is more or less truth in all these theories. At the very earliest
period man must have possessed some method of communicating his wants or
ideas. The casual observer has noticed that animals have methods of
communicating with one another. It is not improbable that at the very
earliest period man's only mode was that of cries and signs. This may
have lasted for a very long time. Then the mimicking commenced. Next,
comparison was resorted to when he had so far advanced as to describe
his thoughts and, finally, from these various beginnings, from necessary
or forced improvement, his ideas were expressed in root words.[106]
Instead of new languages originating, old languages change. They are
mutable, and from them new dialects are produced. In the history of man
there never has been a new language, and the languages now spoken are
but the modifications of old ones. The words now used by all people,
however broken up, crushed, or put together, are the same materials as
were used in the beginnings of speech. New words are but old words; old
in their material elements, though they may be renewed and dressed in
various forms. "The modifiability of the language and its tendency to
vary never cease, so that it would readily run into new dialects and
modes of pronunciation if there were no communication with the mother
country direct or indirect. In this respect its mutability will resemble
that of species, and it can no more spring up independently in separate
districts than species can, assuming that these last are all of
derivative origin."[107]
There are from four thousand to six thousand living languages. The
number of unspoken languages is not known. Their growth has required
ages, and during their development many a parent stalk has ceased to
exist. The changes in a language are slowly produced. It requires
centuries to so far leave a language as to need an interpreter in order
to understand it. Some idea of this slow change may be gained by
comparing the writings in the English language of different periods. In
the year 1362 appeared a poem called "Piers Ploughman's Creed," which
begins as follows:
"In a summer season,
When soft was the sun,
I shoop me into shrowds[108]
As I a sheep[109] were;
In habit as an hermit
Unholy of werkes,
Went wide in this world
Wonders to hear;
Ac[110] on a May morwening
On Malvern hills
Me befel a ferly,[111]
Of fairy me thought." Etc.
Written language is more permanent than spoken, but the process of
either is necessarily slow. When it is remembered that a language has
been derived successively through numerous others, no special limit or
time can be given, although a very long period would be required. The
usually accepted chronology would not allow sufficient time for the
diversity in the Semitic family, to say nothing of the time required for
the development of the three general classes.