lectures on the science of language 9

lectures on the science of language 9

The attempts of single grammarians and purists to improve language are

perfectly bootless; and we shall probably hear no more of schemes to prune

languages of their irregularities. It is very likely, however, that the

gradual disappearance of irregular declensions and conjugations is due, in

literary as well as in illiterate languages, to the dialect of children.

The language of children is more regular than our own. I have heard

children say _badder_ and _baddest_, instead of _worse_ and _worst_.

Children will say, _I gaed_, _I coomd_, _I catched_; and it is this sense

of grammatical justice, this generous feeling of what ought to be, which

in the course of centuries has eliminated many so-called irregular forms.

Thus the auxiliary verb in Latin was very irregular. If _sumus_ is _we

are_, and _sunt_, _they are_, the second person, _you are_, ought to have

been, at least according to the strict logic of children, _sutis_. This,

no doubt, sounds very barbarous to a classical ear accustomed to _estis_.

And we see how French, for instance, has strictly preserved the Latin

forms in _nous sommes_, _vous êtes_, _ils sont_. But in Spanish we find

_somos_, _sois_, _son_; and this _sois_ stands for _sutis_. We find

similar traces of grammatical levelling in the Italian _siamo_, _siete_,

_sono_, formed in analogy of regular verbs such as _crediamo_, _credete_,

_credono_. The second person, _sei_, instead of _es_, is likewise

infantine grammar. So are the Wallachian _súntemu_, we are, _súnteti_, you

are, which owe their origin to the third person plural _súnt_, they are.

And what shall we say of such monsters as _essendo_, a gerund derived on

principles of strict justice from an infinitive _essere_, like _credendo_

from _credere_!

 

However, we need not be surprised, for we find similar barbarisms in

English. Even in Anglo-Saxon, the third person plural, _sind_, has by a

false analogy been transferred to the first and second persons; and

instead of the modern English,

 

in Old in Gothic.

Norse.

we are ër-um sijum(53)

you are we find ër-udh sijuth

they are ër-u. sind.

 

Dialectically we hear _I be_, instead of _I am_; and if Chartism should

ever gain the upper hand, we must be prepared for newspapers adopting such

forms as _I says_, _I knows_.

 

These various influences and conditions under which language grows and

changes, are like the waves and winds which carry deposits to the bottom

of the sea, where they accumulate, and rise, and grow, and at last appear

on the surface of the earth as a stratum, perfectly intelligible in all

its component parts, not produced by an inward principle of growth, nor

regulated by invariable laws of nature; yet, on the other hand, by no

means the result of mere accident, or the production of lawless and

uncontrolled agencies. We cannot be careful enough in the use of our

words. Strictly speaking, neither _history_ nor _growth_ is applicable to

the changes of the shifting surface of the earth. _History_ applies to the

actions of free agents; _growth_ to the natural unfolding of organic

beings. We speak, however, of the growth of the crust of the earth, and we

know what we mean by it; and it is in this sense, but not in the sense of

growth as applied to a tree, that we have a right to speak of the growth

of language. If that modification which takes place in time by continually

new combinations of given elements, which withdraws itself from the

control of free agents, and can in the end be recognized as the result of

natural agencies, may be called growth; and if so defined, we may apply it

to the growth of the crust of the earth; the same word, in the same sense,

will be applicable to language, and will justify us in removing the

science of language from the pale of the historical to that of the

physical sciences.

 

There is another objection which we have to consider, and the

consideration of which will again help us to understand more clearly the

real character of language. The great periods in the growth of the earth

which have been established by geological research are brought to their

close, or very nearly so, when we discover the first vestiges of human

life, and when the history of man, in the widest sense of the word,

begins. The periods in the growth of language, on the contrary, begin and

run parallel with the history of man. It has been said, therefore, that

although language may not be merely a work of art, it would, nevertheless,

be impossible to understand the life and growth of any language without an

historical knowledge of the times in which that language grew up. We ought

to know, it is said, whether a language which is to be analyzed under the

microscope of comparative grammar, has been growing up wild, among wild

tribes, without a literature, oral or written, in poetry or in prose; or

whether it has received the cultivation of poets, priests, and orators,

and retained the impress of a classical age. Again, it is only from the

annals of political history that we can learn whether one language has

come in contact with another, how long this contact has lasted, which of

the two nations stood higher in civilization, which was the conquering and

which the conquered, which of the two established the laws, the religion,

and the arts of the country, and which produced the greatest number of

national teachers, popular poets, and successful demagogues. All these

questions are of a purely historical character, and the science which has

to borrow so much from historical sources, might well be considered an

anomaly in the sphere of the physical sciences.

 

Now, in answer to this, it cannot be denied that among the physical

sciences none is so intimately connected with the history of man as the

science of language. But a similar connection, though in a less degree,

can be shown to exist between other branches of physical research and the

history of man. In zoölogy, for instance, it is of some importance to know

at what particular period of history, in what country, and for what

purposes certain animals were tamed and domesticated. In ethnology, a

science, we may remark in passing, quite distinct from the science of

language, it would be difficult to account for the Caucasian stamp

impressed on the Mongolian race in Hungary, or on the Tatar race in

Turkey, unless we knew from written documents the migrations and

settlements of the Mongolic and Tataric tribes in Europe. A botanist,

again, comparing several specimens of rye, would find it difficult to

account for their respective peculiarities, unless he knew that in some

parts of the world this plant has been cultivated for centuries, whereas

in other regions, as, for instance, in Mount Caucasus, it is still allowed

to grow wild. Plants have their own countries, like races, and the

presence of the cucumber in Greece, the orange and cherry in Italy, the

potatoe in England, and the vine at the Cape, can be fully explained by

the historian only. The more intimate relation, therefore, between the

history of language and the history of man is not sufficient to exclude

the science of language from the circle of the physical sciences.

 

Nay, it might be shown, that, if strictly defined, the science of language

can declare itself completely independent of history. If we speak of the

language of England, we ought, no doubt, to know something of the

political history of the British Isles, in order to understand the present

state of that language. Its history begins with the early Britons, who

spoke a Celtic dialect; it carries us on to the Saxon conquest, to the

Danish invasions, to the Norman conquest: and we see how each of these

political events contributed to the formation of the character of the

language. The language of England may be said to have been in succession

Celtic, Saxon, Norman, and English. But if we speak of the history of the

English language, we enter on totally different ground. The English

language was never Celtic, the Celtic never grew into Saxon, nor the Saxon

into Norman, nor the Norman into English. The history of the Celtic

language runs on to the present day. It matters not whether it be spoken

by all the inhabitants of the British Isles, or only by a small minority

in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. A language, as long as it is spoken by

anybody, lives and has its substantive existence. The last old woman that

spoke Cornish, and to whose memory it is now intended to raise a monument,

represented by herself alone the ancient language of Cornwall. A Celt may

become an Englishman, Celtic and English blood may be mixed; and who could

tell at the present day the exact proportion of Celtic and Saxon blood in

the population of England? But languages are never mixed. It is

indifferent by what name the language spoken in the British Islands be

called, whether English or British or Saxon; to the student of language

English is Teutonic, and nothing but Teutonic. The physiologist may

protest, and point out that in many instances the skull, or the bodily

habitat of the English language, is of a Celtic type; the genealogist may

protest and prove that the arms of many an English family are of Norman

origin; the student of language must follow his own way. Historical

information as to an early substratum of Celtic inhabitants in Britain, as

to Saxon, Danish, and Norman invasions may be useful to him. But though

every record were burned, and every skull mouldered, the English language,

as spoken by any ploughboy, would reveal its own history, if analyzed

according to the rules of comparative grammar. Without the help of

history, we should see that English is Teutonic, that like Dutch and

Friesian it belongs to the Low-German branch; that this branch, together

with the High-German, Gothic, and Scandinavian branches, constitute the

Teutonic class; that this Teutonic class, together with the Celtic,

Slavonic, the Hellenic, Italic, Iranic, and Indic classes constitute the

great Indo-European or Aryan family of speech. In the English dictionary

the student of the science of language can detect, by his own tests,

Celtic, Norman, Greek, and Latin ingredients, but not a single drop of

foreign blood has entered into the organic system of the English language.

The grammar, the blood and soul of the language, is as pure and unmixed in

English as spoken in the British Isles, as it was when spoken on the

shores of the German Ocean by the Angles, Saxons, and Juts of the

continent.

 

In thus considering and refuting the objections which have been, or might

be, made against the admission of the science of language into the circle

of the physical sciences, we have arrived at some results which it may be

useful to recapitulate before we proceed further. We saw that whereas

philology treats language only as a means, comparative philology chooses

language as the object of scientific inquiry. It is not the study of one

language, but of many, and in the end of all, which forms the aim of this

new science. Nor is the language of Homer of greater interest, in the

scientific treatment of human speech, than the dialect of the Hottentots.

 

We saw, secondly, that after the first practical acquisition and careful

analysis of the facts and forms of any language, the next and most

important step is the classification of all the varieties of human speech,

and that only after this has been accomplished would it be safe to venture

on the great questions which underlie all physical research, the questions

as to the what, the whence, and the why of language.

 

We saw, thirdly, that there is a distinction between what is called

history and growth. We determined the true meaning of growth, as applied

to language, and perceived how it was independent of the caprice of man,

and governed by laws that could be discovered by careful observation, and

be traced back in the end to higher laws, which govern the organs both of

human thought, and of the human voice. Though admitting that the science

of language was more intimately connected than any other physical science

with what is called the political history of man, we found that, strictly

speaking, our science might well dispense with this auxiliary, and that

languages can be analyzed and classified on their own evidence

particularly on the strength of their grammatical articulation, without

any reference to the individuals, families, clans, tribes, nations, or

races by whom they are or have been spoken.

 

In the course of these considerations, we had to lay down two axioms, to

which we shall frequently have to appeal in the progress of our

investigations. The first declares grammar to be the most essential

element, and therefore the ground of classification in all languages which

have produced a definite grammatical articulation; the second denies the possibility of a mixed language.