Lectures on The Science of Language 38

Lectures on The Science of Language 38

This is, however, only a small beginning, if compared with the profusion

of grammatical resources displayed by the Turkic languages. In their

system of conjugation, the Turkic dialects can hardly be surpassed. Their

verbs are like branches which break down under the heavy burden of fruits

and blossoms. The excellence of the Finnic languages consists rather in a

diminution than increase of verbal forms; but in declension Finnish is

even richer than Turkish.

 

These four classes, together with the Samoyedic, constitute the northern

or Ural-Altaic division of the Turanian family.

 

The southern division consists of the Tamulic, the Gangetic

(Trans-Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan), the Lohitic, the Taïc, and the Malaïc

classes.(305) These two divisions comprehend very nearly all the languages

of Asia, with the exception of Chinese, which, together with its

neighboring dialects, forms the only representative of radical or

monosyllabic speech. A few, such as Japanese,(306) the language of Korea,

of the Koriakes, the Kamchadales, and the numerous dialects of the

Caucasus, &c., remain unclassed; but in them also some traces of a common

origin with the Turanian languages have, it is probable, survived, and

await the discovery of philological research.

 

Of the third, or inflectional, stage, I need not say much, as we have

examined its structure when analyzing in our former Lectures a number of

words in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, or any other of the Aryan languages. The

chief distinction between an inflectional and an agglutinative language

consists in the fact that agglutinative languages preserve the

consciousness of their roots, and therefore do not allow them to be

affected by phonetic corruption; and, though they have lost the

consciousness of the original meaning of their terminations, they feel

distinctly the difference between the significative root, and the

modifying elements. Not so in the inflectional languages. There the

various elements which enter into the composition of words, may become so

welded together, and suffer so much from phonetic corruption, that none

but the educated would be aware of an original distinction between root

and termination, and none but the comparative grammarian able to discover

the seams that separate the component parts.

 

If you consider the character of our morphological classification, you

will see that this classification, differing thereby from the

genealogical, must be applicable to all languages. Our classification

exhausts all possibilities. If the component elements of language are

roots, predicative and demonstrative, we cannot have more than three

combinations. Roots may either remain roots without any modification; or

secondly, they may be joined so that one determines the other and loses

its independent existence; or thirdly, they may be joined and be allowed

to coalesce, so that both lose their independent existence. The number of

roots which enter into the composition of a word makes no difference, and

it is unnecessary, therefore, to admit a fourth class, sometimes called

_polysynthetic_, or _incorporating_, including most of the American

languages. As long as in these sesquipedalian compounds, the significative

root remains distinct, they belong to the agglutinative stage; as soon as

it is absorbed by the terminations, they belong to the inflectional stage.

Nor is it necessary to distinguish between _synthetic_ and _analytical_

languages, including under the former name the ancient, and under the

latter the modern, languages of the inflectional class. The formation of

such phrases as the French _j’aimerai_, for _j’ai à aimer_, or the

English, _I shall do_, _thou wilt do_, may be called _analytical_ or

_metaphrastic_. But in their morphological nature these phrases are still

inflectional. If we analyze such a phrase as _je vivrai_, we find it was

originally _ego_ (Sanskrit _aham_) _vivere_ (Sanskrit _jîv-as-e_, dat.

neut.) _habeo_ (Sanskrit _bhâ-vayâ-mi_); that is to say, we have a number

of words in which grammatical articulation has been almost entirely

destroyed, but has not been cast off; whereas in Turanian languages

grammatical forms are produced by the combination of integral roots, and

the old and useless terminations are first discarded before any new

combination takes place.(307)

 

At the end of our morphological classification a problem presents itself,

which we might have declined to enter upon if we had confined ourselves to

a genealogical classification. At the end of our genealogical

classification we had to confess that only a certain number of languages

had as yet been arranged genealogically, and that therefore the time for

approaching the problem of the common origin of all languages had not yet

come. Now, however, although we have not specified all languages which

belong to the radical, the terminational, and inflectional classes, we

have clearly laid it down as a principle, that all languages must fall

under one or the other of these three categories of human speech. It would

not be consistent, therefore, to shrink from the consideration of a

problem, which, though beset with many difficulties, cannot be excluded

from the science of language.

 

Let us first see our problem clearly and distinctly. The problem of the

common origin of languages has no necessary connection with the problem of

the common origin of mankind. If it could be proved that languages had had

different beginnings, this would in nowise necessitate the admission of

different beginnings of the human race. For if we look upon language as

natural to man, it might have broken out at different times and in

different countries among the scattered descendants of one original pair;

if, on the contrary, language is to be treated as an artificial invention,

there is still less reason why each succeeding generation should not have

invented its own idiom.

 

Nor would it follow, if it could be proved that all the dialects of

mankind point to one common source, that therefore the human race must

descend from one pair. For language might have been the property of one

favored race, and have been communicated to the other races in the

progress of history.

 

The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered

most seriously from being mixed up together. The classification of races

and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change

their languages, and history supplies us with several instances where one

race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may

be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different

races; so that any attempt at squaring the classification of races and

tongues must necessarily fail.

 

Secondly, the problem of the common origin of languages has no connection

with the statements contained in the Old Testament regarding the creation

of man, and the genealogies of the patriarchs. If our researches led us to

the admission of different beginnings for the languages of mankind, there

is nothing in the Old Testament opposed to this view. For although the

Jews believed that for a time the whole earth was of one language and of

one speech, it has long been pointed out by eminent divines, with

particular reference to the dialects of America, that new languages might

have arisen at later times. If, on the contrary, we arrive at the

conviction that all languages can be traced back to one common source, we

could never think of transferring the genealogies of the Old Testament to

the genealogical classification of language. The genealogies of the Old

Testament refer to blood, not to language, and as we know that people,

without changing their name, did frequently change their language, it is

clearly impossible that the genealogies of the Old Testament should

coincide with the genealogical classification of languages. In order to

avoid a confusion of ideas, it would be preferable to abstain altogether

from using the same names to express relationship of language which in the

Bible are used to express relationship of blood. It was usual formerly to

speak of _Japhetic_, _Hamitic_ and _Semitic_ languages. The first name has

now been replaced by _Aryan_, the second by _African_; and though the

third is still retained, it has received a scientific definition quite

different from the meaning which it would have in the Bible. It is well to

bear this in mind, in order to prevent not only those who are forever

attacking the Bible with arrows that cannot reach it, but likewise those

who defend it with weapons they know not how to wield, from disturbing in

any way the quiet progress of the science of language.

 

Let us now look dispassionately at our problem. The problem of the

possibility of a common origin of all languages naturally divides itself

into two parts, the _formal_ and the _material_. We are to-day concerned

with the formal part only. We have examined all possible forms which

language can assume, and we have now to ask, can we reconcile with these

three distinct forms, the radical, the terminational, and the

inflectional, the admission of one common origin of human speech? I answer

decidedly, Yes.

 

The chief argument that has been brought forward against the common origin

of language is this, that no monosyllabic or radical language has ever

entered into an agglutinative or terminational stage, and that no

agglutinative or terminational language has ever risen to the inflectional

stage. Chinese, it is said, is still what it has been from the beginning;

it has never produced agglutinative or inflectional forms; nor has any

Turanian language ever given up the distinctive feature of the

terminational stage, namely, the integrity of its roots.

 

In answer to this it should be pointed out that though each language, as

soon as it once becomes settled, retains that morphological character

which it had when it first assumed its individual or national existence,

it does not lose altogether the power of producing grammatical forms that

belong to a higher stage. In Chinese, and particularly in Chinese

dialects, we find rudimentary traces of agglutination. The _li_ which I

mentioned before as the sign of the locative, has dwindled down to a mere

postposition, and a modern Chinese is no more aware that _li_ meant

originally interior, than the Turanian is of the origin of his

case-terminations.(308) In the spoken dialects of Chinese, agglutinative

forms are of more frequent occurrence. Thus, in the Shanghai dialect, _wo_

is to speak, as a verb; _woda_, a word. Of _woda_ a genitive is formed,

_woda-ka_, a dative _pela woda_, an accusative _tang woda_.(309) In

agglutinative languages again, we meet with rudimentary traces of

inflection. Thus in Tamil the root _tûngu_, to sleep, has not retained its

full integrity in the derivative _tûkkam_, sleep.

 

I mention these instances, which might be greatly multiplied, in order to

show that there is nothing mysterious in the tenacity with which each

language clings in general to that stage of grammar which it had attained

at the time of its first settlement. If a family, or a tribe, or a nation,

has once accustomed itself to express its ideas according to one system of

grammar, that first mould remains and becomes stronger with each

generation. But, while Chinese was arrested and became traditional in this

very early stage the radical, other dialects passed on through that stage,

retaining their pliancy. They were not arrested, and did not become

traditional or national, before those who spoke them had learnt to

appreciate the advantage of agglutination. That advantage being once

perceived, a few single forms in which agglutination first showed itself

would soon, by that sense of analogy which is inherent in language, extend<