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firmed by those who have carefully analysed the various languages of mankind, and (so far as this is sible) traced their course historically. Nothing is more easy than to dabble in etymology, and no study is more laborious than that of the veritable philologist. Thus it hap pens that as all persons are capable of amasing themselves, or pestering their neighbours, by fantastic derivations, and as very few are able or willing to pursue those studies that would enable them to discriminate between these etymologies of the ear and such as are sanctioned by general principles (deduced from a wide examination of the changes which language undergoes), there grows up a popular in credulity as to the results obtained by the philologist. In general, the ignorant inan is too credulous; here it is a hasty incredulity which the unscientific person has to guard himself against.

"I do not wonder," says Max Müller, speaking of another branch of his subject-namely, of the marvellous feats which have been performed in the interpretation of hieroglyphics and of other ancient inscrip

tions

"I do not wonder that the discoveries due to the genius and persevering industry of Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and last, not least, of Rawlinson, should seem incredible to those who only glance at them from a distance. Their incredulity will only prove the greatest compliment that could have been paid to these eminent scholars. What we at present call the Cuneiform inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, &c. (of which we now have several editions, translations, grammars, and dictionaries)-what were they originally A mere conglomerate of wedges, engraved or impressed on the solitary monument of Cyrus in the Murgháb, on the ruins of Persepolis, on the rocks of Behistun, near the frontiers of Media, and the precipice of Van in Armenia, When Grotefend attempted to decipher them, he had first to prove that these scrolls were really inscriptions, and not mere arabesques or fanciful ornaments. He had then to find out whether these magical characters were to be read horizontally or perpendicularly, from

VOL. XUVI.

2 E

right to left or from left to right. Lichtenberg maintained that they must be read in the same direction as Hebrew. Grotefend, in 1802, proved that the letters followed each other, as in Greek, fend, Münter and Tychsen had observed from left to right. Even before Grotethat there was a sign to separate the words. Such a sign is, of course, an immense help in all attempts at deci phering inscriptions, for it lays bare at once the terminations of hundreds of words, and, in an Aryan language, supplies us with a skeleton of its grammar. Yet consider the difficulties that had yet to be overcome before a single line could be read. It was unknown in what language these inscriptions were composed; it might have been a Semitic, a Turanian, or an Aryan language. belonged, and whether they commemIt was unknown to what period they orated the conquests of Cyrus, Darius, Alexander, or Sapor. It was unknown whether the alphabet used was phonetic, syllabic, or ideographic. It would detain us too long were I to relate how all these difficulties were removed one after the other; how the proper names of Darius, Xerxes, Hystaspes, and of their god Ormusd, were traced; how from them the values of certain letters were determined; how, with an imperphered which clearly established the fect alphabet, other words were deci fact that the language of these inscriptions was ancient Persian; how then, with the help of the Zend, which represents the Persian language previous to Darius, and with the help of the later Persian, a most effective cross-fire was opened; how even more powerful ordnance was brought up from the arsenal of the ancient Sanskrit; how outpost after outpost was driven in, and a practical breach effected, till at last the fortress had to surrender, and submit to the terms dictated by the Science of Language."

It would be a poor return for such almost heroic patience, for such knowledge, ingenuity, and perseverance, to treat their results with a smile of incredulity. Yet here, as elsewhere, an intelligent public, aware that discoverers must have enthusiasm

as well as patience, will often hold itself in a state of suspended judgment. Our system of interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics, for instance, may admit of revisal or improve

ment; Max Müller, in one passage and Latin, as Latin is of French and

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of these lectures, seems to think that it is still incomplete; and even discoveries of another kind, of which he speaks more confidently, may not yet have assumed their It is unhesitatingly final shape. proclaimed to be the "great disof the modern science of language that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Celtic, and other languages of ancient Europe, are related to some prior and unknown language, to which the name of Aryan has been given, in precisely the same manner in which the modern languages, French, Italian, and Spanish, are related to the Latin. This may be so; but if there was an Aryan language, the parent of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, just as Latin was the parent of French and Italian, there must have been an Aryan people and an Aryan civilisation that have departed without leaving any traces of their existence-that are utterly unknown to history. It is difficult, in short, to frame a history of these Aryans that shall correspond with the part their language is said to have played. One may here acknowledge a perplexity without being rashly sceptical. The study of Sanskrit is a comparative novelty; first impressions may not endure; another generation of scholars, aided by the labours of their predecessors, may stand on a vantage-ground which we do not occopy; the 'Rig veda,' the oldest form of Sanskrit, and reputed to be the ollest book in the world, is not yet translated; it is not unreasonable, under such circumstances, to give a certain qualified assent to this theory of an Aryan people, from whom so many other peoples are to be derived. One may rather accept it as the best hypothesis which enlightened men an at present fort than the last discoverable truth.

"No sound scholar," writes Max Müller, "would ever think of deriving any Greek or Latin word from Sanskrit, Sanskrit is not the mother of Greek

Italian. Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin are sisters, varieties of one and the same type. They all point to some earlier stage, when they were less different from each other than they now All we can say in are, but no more. favour of Sanskrit is, that it is the eld est sister; that it has retained many words and forms less changed and corrupted than Greek and Latin. The more primitive character and transparent structure of Sanskrit have naturally endeared it to the student of language, but they have not blinded him to the fact that in many points Gothic and Greek and Latin nay, Celtic-have preserved primitive features which Sanskrit has lost."

The readers of the First Series of these Lectures will remember that some rather bold hypothesis was put forth on the origin of language. Discarding what he called the Bowwow and Pooh-pooh theory-the hypothesis that interjections and the imitations of the cries of animals, or the sounds made by inanimate objects, would form the first rude speech of man-the lecturer had recourse to the bold expedient of supposing that there was some occult connection between certain roots, or primitive words, and the things signifie.'. In the Second Series the same idea is put forth, but with still more vagueness and vacillation. The lecturer was at perfect liberty to discard, in what terms he pleased, the Bow-wow theory: it is the unintelligible nature of the hypothesis he substitutes that we should quarrel with. Analysing the oldest dialects of hunan speech which remain for our examination, we eliminate, as our simplest elements, certain roots, primitive words, or what to us are representatives of primitive words; and the meaning of such words was apparently determined, just as the meaning of any word we now use, by custom and tradition. analysis and no historical investigation enables us to rise to the origin of language, to explain why any object about which men had occasion to speak should have been associated with any one of these

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syllables more than with another. If, therefore, we are resolved to frame any theory upon this subject, it must be from conjecture, from a balance of probabilities. We try to put ourselves in the position of men wh had a language to form, who had the need and desire to communicate with each other, and found themselves in the possession of a sound-producing organ, an organ which, in one way or the other, they as spontaneously used as any of their limbs; for a child cries as readily as it kicks, and all through boyhood noise is as delightful as motion. We try to fancy what would be the steps of their progress. It must be a matter of conjecture; only let the conjecture be intelligible.

Max Müller says

"I believed, and still believe, that in the science of language we must accept roots simply as ultimate facts, leaving to the physiologist and the psychologist the question as to the possible sympathetic and reflective action of the five organs of sensuous perception upon the motory nerves of the organ of speech."

What does he in this, and other like passages, mean? What is the question he leaves to the psychologist and the physiologist? If we had the first articulate words uttered by man before us, we might perhaps frame some question for the physiologist; we might ask him what connection there was between uttering such sounds and the impression of certain objects. But no one pretends that in Sanskrit roots, or in any other roots, we have the first articulate syllables that man made use of for the communication

of his wants or his commands.

That cries, shouts, interjections of all kinds, form a part of human speech, is plain enough; and many of the animals about us share in this rude species of language, if language it is to be called. But how are we to describe the passage from this inarticulate language to the articulate speech of man? Man being an imitative creature, it has at all times been a favourite sup

position that his first words would be coined by an imitation of the cries of animals-that out of these cries he would make names for them. Such naming, however, could only form the commencement of a language-give an example, so to speak, of what might be done with this admirable pipe, this throat, these lips, ever breaking forth in some sound or other.

Max Müller admits that such imitations may carry us to a certain point on our road, but how are we to account, he asks, for words of objects which emit no sound, and are not immediately associated with such as do? He seems to think it impossible that men, after having framed, accidentally so to speak, a certain number of vocal signs, and having found the utility of them, should purposely frame other signs by a mere variation of those they already possessed. Yet such a stage in the process does not appear to us very difficult to imagine. Having some words and wanting others, one can imagine these other words coined by some variation of those already in use. Our lecturer puts the case thus:

"That sounds can be rendered in language by sounds, and that each language possesses a large stock of words imitating the sounds given out by cer tain things, who would deny? And who would deny that some words, originally expressive of sound only, might be transferred to other things which have some analogy with sound? But to the sense of hearing-how are the how are all things which do not appeal ideas of going, moving, standing, sinking, tasting, thinking, to be expressed ?

We will not long detain our readers over a matter on which they have probably come to the conclusion that nothing quite satisfactory can be said. The early stages by which the first people framed a language, are as irrecoverable as those early stages in each man's individual consciousness by which he advanced to the complete use of his senses. The suggestions which we would offer to bridge over

the passage from the inarticulate them; but in the much more simple language of animals to the articu- manner of varying the sounds allate speech of man, are briefly these: ready produced, so as to produce 1st, That the imitation of the cries a new vocal sign for the new of animals, or of other natural emergency. This process, as it could sounds made for the purpose of de- only be wanted, so also it could signating the objects connected with only take place, in the earliest them, would, owing to the very stages of the formation of a lanstructure and play of the human guage. If a people in possession organs, assume the form of an ar- of a considerable vocabulary want ticulate sound. If a man imitates a name for a new object, they fix, the sound of a bird, he, from the as Max Müller shows, on some very configuration of his larynx, quality of that object, for which mouth, lips, makes a very different quality a name already exists, and sound from the bird. It is a man's thus the object readily obtains a imitation of the bird. It would name. In this manner wheat may only be after repeated trials that he have been named from its whiteness, would eliminate, so to speak, the because there was already a word human element, and produce a truly for white. But if there were no bird-like sound. If he calls a bird name for whiteness, or any other from its cry a pee-wit, he puts con- marked quality of wheat, by what sonants in his imitation that were process could men name it, but by not really pronounced by the bird. varying some articulate sounds alThus the imitation of the inarticu- ready used as a name, and applying late cry becomes, by the spontane- the new variety of sound to the obous play of the human organs, an ject to be named? If they had alarticulate sound or word. It may, ready called something bi-bo, they indeed, be said, that it is from the must call this other thing bo-bi or habit of using consonants that we fo-fi. This operation appears imput them in our imitations; and we probable to us only from its great readily admit that, when a nurse simplicity, and because it is an opetells a child to say bâ to a sheep, or ration we can scarce be called upon moo to a cow, these are but nursery to perform: we coin words from words; there is very little effort of other words, guided entirely by the imitation in them of the bleating of meaning of those other words; but a sheep or the lowing of a cow. But there must surely have been a time without questioning at all that the when men coined new words, after habit of using articulate speech the pattern of other words, by alterwould render an imitation of the ing, transposing, combining the sylinarticulate still more difficult, we lables of which they were composed. think it may be safely asserted that, from the difference in his organisation, the first imitations that a man would attempt, would not be such artistic, perfect imitations, as he afterwards learns to make, but would be a human rendering of an animal sound. He would frame a word out of a cry. And, 2d, That when a few words were thus produced, others would be formed, not only in the manner Max Müller points out, by transferring these words to "things which have some analogy with sound," which is rather to increase the meanings of words than to add to the stock of

We shall all agree with Max Müller in discarding the idea of a solemn convention, at which it was agreed that certain chosen sounds should be used as signs for certain objects or actions. Before such a convention could take place, language must already have advanced to such a stage as not to need it. If we really wish to form a conception how language might have arisen, we must transport ourselves to the family group, or the tribe consisting of several family groups. The intimate nature of the union of such groups, and the comparatively few objects, and the often-repeated

and periodical nature of the actions ful diversity of languages in South
and events that would require naming, America."
would favour the establishment of
some articulate sign, which might at
first be a mere sportive invention of
one of the group. Amongst some
savages we know that it is an amuse-
ment to invent new words by altering
the pronunciation of, or otherwise
transforming the old ones. And al-
though in these cases the savage only
substitutes one name for another, and
does not name a thing that previously
had no name at all, yet this facility of
playing with mere sounds enables us
to comprehend how names for things
yet unnamed might arise to the infan-
tine intellect of the savage.

This and several other curious1BR

Mr. Bates in his delightful book, the 'Naturalist on the Amazons,' which, amongst its other charms, has that unspeakable charm of truthfulness in it, so that one feels always under good guidance,-Mr. Bates, writing about the native Brazilians, says :

"But language is not a sure guide in the filiation of Brazilian tribes, seven or eight languages being sometimes spoken on the same river within a distance of two or three hundred miles. There are certain peculiarities in Indian habits which lead to a quick corruption of language and segregation of dialects. When Indians, men or women, are conversing amongst themselves, they seem to take pleasure in inventing new modes of pronunciation, or in distorting words. It is amusing to notice how the whole party will laugh when the wit of the circle perpetrates a new slang term, and these new words are very often retained. I have noticed this during long voyages made with Indian crews. When such alterations occur amongst a family or horde, which often live many years without communication with the rest of their tribe, the local corruptions of language become perpetuated. Single hordes belonging to the same tribe, and inhabiting the banks of the same river, thus become, in the course of many years' isolation, unintelligible to other hordes, as happens with the Collénas on the Zurúa. I think it, therefore, very probable that the disposition to invent new words and new modes of pronunciation, added to the small population

and habits of isolation of hordes and tribes, are the causes of the wonder

customs are mentioned in these
Lectures-customs which show a
readiness in some savages to modify
the sounds of their language in a
manner which to us would be im-
possible, because we should never
think of uttering a new sound by
way of variety of language. Any
sound we use has already some
meaning. Suppose we made a rule
that throughout the English language
some half-dozen syllables, wherever
they occur, should be struck out, and
other syllables arbitrarily substituted,
what gibberish we should make of
many of our words! It is a process
we could not condescend to. Yet the
Tahitians have a custom of this
description. What was gibberish one
moment becomes a word the next.
They arbitrarily choose a mere
sound, and substitute it for others.

"The Tahitians have another and
more singular mode of displaying their
reverence towards their king, by a
custom which they term Te pi. They
cease to employ in the common language
those words which form a part, or the
whole, of the sovereign's name, or that
of one of his near relatives, and invent
new terms to supply their place. As all
names in Polynesia are significant, and
as a chief usually has several, it will be
seen that this custom must produce a
considerable change in the language.
It is true that this change is only
temporary, as at the death of the king
or chief the new word is dropped, and
the original term resumed. Vancouver
observes that, at the accession of Otu,
which took place between the visit of
Cook and his own, no less than forty or
fifty of the most common words which
occur in conversation had been entirely
changed."

The Kafir women have a custom of a similar kind. Every word which "happens to contain a sound similar to one in the names of their nearest stitute for it. Thus temporary divermale relatives," must have some subsities of the most arbitrary character are introduced into the language of

the women.

We quote these anecdotes to show

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