Lectures on The Science of Language 6

Lectures on The Science of Language 6

But, though it is easy to show, as we have just done, that language cannot

be changed or moulded by the taste, the fancy, or genius of man, it is

very difficult to explain what causes the growth of language. Ever since

Horace it has been usual to compare the growth of languages with the

growth of trees. But comparisons are treacherous things. What do we know

of the real causes of the growth of a tree, and what can we gain by

comparing things which we do not quite understand with things which we

understand even less? Many people speak, for instance, of the terminations

of the verb, as if they sprouted out from the root as from their parent

stock.(25) But what ideas can they connect with such __EXPRESSION__s? If we

must compare language with a tree, there is one point which may be

illustrated by this comparison, and this is that neither language nor the

tree can exist or grow by itself. Without the soil, without air and light,

the tree could not live; it could not even be conceived to live. It is the

same with language. Language cannot exist by itself; it requires a soil on

which to grow, and that soil is the human soul. To speak of language as a

thing by itself, as living a life of its own, as growing to maturity,

producing offspring, and dying away, is sheer mythology; and though we

cannot help using metaphorical __EXPRESSION__s, we should always be on our

guard, when engaged in inquiries like the present, against being carried

away by the very words which we are using.

 

Now, what we call the growth of language comprises two processes which

should be carefully distinguished, though they may be at work

simultaneously. These two processes I call,

 

1. _Dialectical Regeneration._

 

2. _Phonetic Decay._

 

I begin with the second, as the more obvious, though in reality its

operations are mostly subsequent to the operations of dialectical

regeneration. I must ask you at present to take it for granted that

everything in language had originally a meaning. As language can have no

other object but to express our meaning, it might seem to follow almost by

necessity that language should contain neither more nor less than what is

required for that purpose. It would also seem to follow that if language

contains no more than what is necessary for conveying a certain meaning,

it would be impossible to modify any part of it without defeating its very

purpose. This is really the case in some languages. In Chinese, for

instance, _ten_ is expressed by _shĭ_. It would be impossible to change

_shĭ_ in the slightest way without making it unfit to express _ten_. If

instead of _shĭ_ we pronounced _t’sĭ_, this would mean _seven_, but not

_ten_. But now, suppose we wished to express double the quantity of ten,

twice ten, or twenty. We should in Chinese take _eúl_, which is two, put

it before _shĭ_, and say _eúl-shĭ_, twenty. The same caution which applied

to _shĭ_, applies again to _eúl-shĭ_. As soon as you change it, by adding

or dropping a single letter, it is no longer twenty, but either something

else or nothing. We find exactly the same in other languages which, like

Chinese, are called monosyllabic. In Tibetan, _chu_ is ten, _nyi_ two;

_nyi-chu_, twenty. In Burmese _she_ is ten, _nhit_ two; _nhit-she_,

twenty.

 

But how is it in English, or in Gothic, or in Greek and Latin, or in

Sanskrit? We do not say _two-ten_ in English, nor _duo-decem_ in Latin,

nor _dvi-da’sa_ in Sanskrit.

 

We find(26) in Sanskrit _vin’sati_.

in Greek _eikati_.

in Latin _viginti_.

in English _twenty_.

 

Now here we see, first, that the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, are only

local modifications of one and the same original word; whereas the English

_twenty_ is a new compound, the Gothic _tvai tigjus_ (two decads), the

Anglo-Saxon _tuêntig_, framed from Teutonic materials; a product, as we

shall see, of Dialectical Regeneration.

 

We next observe that the first part of the Latin _viginti_ and of the

Sanskrit _vin’sati_ contains the same number, which from _dvi_ has been

reduced to _vi_. This is not very extraordinary; for the Latin _bis_,

twice, which you still hear at our concerts, likewise stands for an

original _dvis_, the English _twice_, the Greek _dis_. This _dis_ appears

again as a Latin preposition, meaning _a-two_; so that, for instance,

_discussion_ means, originally, striking a-two, different from

_percussion_, which means striking through and through. _Discussion_ is,

in fact, the cracking of a nut in order to get at its kernel. Well, the

same word, _dvi_ or _vi_, we have in the Latin word for twenty, which is

_vi-ginti_, the Sanskrit _vin-’sati_.

 

It can likewise be proved that the second part of _viginti_ is a

corruption of the old word for ten. Ten, in Sanskrit, is _da’san_; from it

is derived _da’sati_, a decad; and this _da’sati_ was again reduced to

_’sati_; thus giving us with _vi_ for _dvi_, two, the Sanskrit _vi’sati_

or _vin’sati_, twenty. The Latin _viginti_, the Greek _eikati_, owe their

origin to the same process.

 

Now consider the immense difference—I do not mean in sound, but in

character—between two such words as the Chinese _eúl-shĭ_, two-ten, or

twenty, and those mere cripples of words which we meet with in Sanskrit,

Greek, and Latin. In Chinese there is neither too much, nor too little.

The word speaks for itself, and requires no commentary. In Sanskrit, on

the contrary, the most essential parts of the two component elements are

gone, and what remains is a kind of metamorphic agglomerate which cannot

be understood without a most minute microscopic analysis. Here, then, you

have an instance of what is meant by _phonetic corruption_; and you will

perceive how, not only the form, but the whole nature of language is

destroyed by it. As soon as phonetic corruption shows itself in a

language, that language has lost what we considered to be the most

essential character of all human speech, namely, that every part of it

should have a meaning. The people who spoke Sanskrit were as little aware

that _vin’sati_ meant _twice ten_ as a Frenchman is that _vingt_ contains

the remains of _deux_ and _dix_. Language, therefore, has entered into a

new stage as soon as it submits to the attacks of phonetic change. The

life of language has become benumbed and extinct in those words or

portions of words which show the first traces of this phonetic mould.

Henceforth those words or portions of words can be kept up only

artificially or by tradition; and, what is important, a distinction is

henceforth established between what is substantial or radical, and what is

merely formal or grammatical in words.

 

For let us now take another instance, which will make it clearer, how

phonetic corruption leads to the first appearance of so-called grammatical

forms. We are not in the habit of looking on _twenty_ as the plural or

dual of _ten_. But how was a plural originally formed? In Chinese, which

from the first has guarded most carefully against the taint of phonetic

corruption, the plural is formed in the most sensible manner. Thus, man in

Chinese is _ģin_; _kiai_ means the whole or totality. This added to _ģin_

gives _ģin-kiai_, which is the plural of man. There are other words which

are used for the same purpose in Chinese; for instance, _péi_, which means

a class. Hence, _ĭ_, a stranger, followed by _péi_, class, gives _ĭ-péi_,

strangers. We have similar plurals in English, but we do not reckon them

as grammatical forms. Thus, _man-kind_ is formed exactly like _ĭ-péi_,

stranger-kind; _Christendom_ is the same as all Christians, and _clergy_

is synonymous with _clerici_. The same process is followed in other

cognate languages. In Tibetan the plural is formed by the addition of such

words as _kun_, all, and _t’sogs_, multitude.(27) Even the numerals,

_nine_ and _hundred_, are used for the same purpose. And here again, as

long as these words are fully understood and kept alive, they resist

phonetic corruption; but the moment they lose, so to say, their presence

of mind, phonetic corruption sets in, and as soon as phonetic corruption

has commenced its ravages, those portions of a word which it affects

retain a merely artificial or conventional existence, and dwindle down to

grammatical terminations.

 

I am afraid I should tax your patience too much were I to enter here on an

analysis of the grammatical terminations in Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin, in

order to show how these terminations arose out of independent words, which

were slowly reduced to mere dust by the constant wear and tear of speech.

But in order to explain how the principle of phonetic decay leads to the

formation of grammatical terminations, let us look to languages with which

we are more familiar. Let us take the French adverb. We are told by French

grammarians(28) that in order to form adverbs we have to add the

termination _ment_. Thus from _bon_, good, we form _bonnement_, from

_vrai_, true, _vraiment_. This termination does not exist in Latin. But we

meet in Latin(29) with __EXPRESSION__s such as _bonâ mente_, in good faith. We

read in Ovid, “Insistam forti mente,” I shall insist with a strong mind or

will, I shall insist strongly; in French, “J’insisterai fortement.”

Therefore, what has happened in the growth of Latin, or in the change of

Latin into French, is simply this: in phrases such as _forti mente_, the

last word was no longer felt as a distinct word, and it lost at the same

time its distinct pronunciation. _Mente_, the ablative of _mens_, was

changed into _ment_, and was preserved as a merely formal element, as the

termination of adverbs, even in cases where a recollection of the original

meaning of _mente_ (with a mind), would have rendered its employment

perfectly impossible. If we say in French that a hammer falls

_lourdement_, we little suspect that we ascribe to a piece of iron a heavy

mind. In Italian, though the adverbial termination _mente_ in _claramente_

is no longer felt as a distinct word, it has not as yet been affected by

phonetic corruption; and in Spanish it is sometimes used as a distinct

word, though even then it cannot be said to have retained its distinct

meaning. Thus, instead of saying, “claramente, concisamente y

elegantemente,” it is more elegant to say in Spanish, “clara, concisa y

elegante mente.”

 

It is difficult to form any conception of the extent to which the whole

surface of a language may be altered by what we have just described as

phonetic change. Think that in the French _vingt_ you have the same

elements as in _deux_ and _dix_; that the second part of the French

_douze_, twelve, represents the Latin _decim_ in _duodecim_; that the

final _te_ of _trente_ was originally the Latin _ginta_ in _triginta_,

which _ginta_ was again a derivation and abbreviation of the Sanskrit

_da’sa_ or _da’sati_, ten. Then consider how early this phonetic disease

must have broken out. For in the same manner as _vingt_ in French,

_veinte_ in Spanish, and _venti_ in Italian presuppose the more primitive

_viginti_ which we find in Latin, so this Latin _viginti_, together with

the Greek _eikati_, and the Sanskrit _vin’sati_ presuppose an earlier

language from which they are in turn derived, and in which, previous to

_viginti_, there must have been a more primitive form _dvi-ginti_, and

previous to this again, another compound as clear and intelligible as the

Chinese _eúl-shĭ_, consisting of the ancient Aryan names for two, _dvi_,

and ten, _da’sati_. Such is the virulence of this phonetic change, that it