\\m li:ii, III II !li!|l|J;: i! jjlli fH( fllilifi!;' lillil'ii ili!^ ;ii'^ llllllhiliilj;!:''''' liiiiii ! :iii;iJii.iiiiliiiL University of California FKdM THK IIHKAKY « »F DR. FRANCIS L 1 K 15 K K . I'rutVsM.i . f lli-lory and I.nw in C<.lunil)ia C-IU'^-. X^'^v ^'•*^^- THK (iii-r oi- /^ V CU' MICHAEL REESE, ^^^ l:- NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND ON THE LANGUAGE NATURE. CHARLES KRAITSIR, M. D. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 10 PARK-PLACE. J 852. 1 ; % Sir r-4r: TO THE EEADEli. This treatise is not a mere collection of trivial remarks or of the usual views on Human Speech, considered either as a vehicle of in- tercourse between men or as a key to unlock the literary treasures of a specific language with. It is analogous to a treatise on Navigation or on Architecture or on Matena Medica ; each one being taken with reference to the whole cycle of the respective sciences, of which it is composed. As each of those treatises is, — as it were, — a sort of nosegay or bouquet of flowei-s, culled from the several beds of their scientific gardens : so is the present book intended to be a kind of brain-, eai-s- and eyes-gay, gathered from the psychologic, anatomic acoustic, graphic, grammatic, lexiconic, ethnographic, etc., beds of the garden of Anthropology. May it not prove to be a brain-, ear- and eye-sore to any body. The mode of treatment of the subject will be found pecuhar. The poet's " laudatur ah his culpatur ah illis''' will be practised on it, with the verbosity of our age ; according to the intellectual, moral and aesthetic character of each reader. Blame, unless it be unjust, will be less disagi*eeable than thoughtless praise. The writer pleads guilty to great compression of style. But had he expanded his material in the customaiy manner, the book would be, at least, three times more bulky, consequently more costly, and would require more time for perusal. Only minds unaccustomed to masticate the food, offered to them in the infinite realm of creation, will find the style obscure in some parts. Our almost innumer- IV PREFACE. able school-books and the common treatises on science, — courting popularity at any price, — sin just in the opposite direction. Any body may make, — so to say, — pufF-paste of the compact substance here laid before him, by diluting and inflating it -with the usual mass of tautologies and other unmeaning circumlocutions. Should the aim of the book, which is plainly indicated in the Introduction and in the Conclusion, be approved by a fair amount of public favor, other treatises, both carrying out the hints of the present and bearing upon other subjects of paedagogic and of popular edu- cation, whether elementary or of a higher degree, will thus be invited into existence. The United States have declared themselves independent from Koyal Great Britain on the 4th of July. That they may become independent also from medieval scholasticity is the most ardent wish of him who wi'ites these Hnes, on the homarithmic YGth anniversary of that Glorious Day, Charles Kraitsir, M. D. New-York. CONTENTS. Introduction. — Philology ; Glossology ; Grammar ; Bacon on Words ; Ap- peal to study ; Education of children ; Speilihg-books ; Study of lan- guage ; Aim of the work ; Mission of the English nations ; Earopeo- American language; J. Wallis; Latin and German parents of English ; Universities; Excellence of the English language ; Kadical reform of in- struction, of the so-called spelling ; Eesults of a sound system ; Espe- cial points aimed at ; Babel, - - - - - - 9 Chap. I. Language. — The tongue the principal tool of expression ; Defini- tions of language ; Language the highest of all human energies ; Speech a necessary function of raaa's thoughts and sensations ; Extract from Humboldt's Kosmos ; Mankind divided into varieties, designated by the term race; Human perfectibility, - - - - - - 21 Chap. III. English Language. — Corruption of the Latin language ; Eeasons for learning' Latin ; Its importance to Glossology ; Eev. E. N. Kirk's Ik letter to S. P. Andrews on the merits of Phonography ; Advantages re- pf "^ suiting from a correct pronunciation of Latin ; Language ought to be written in harmony with its sounds ; Importance of amending its pro- nunciation, - - - - - - - -35 Chap. III. Sounds and Letters. — Language analogous to music ; Paramount importance of a correct beginning ; Elementary instruction in language should be given orally ; Division of speech-sounds ; Organs of speech ; Table showing the means of producing the vowel sounds ; Scale of vow- fo, els likened to colors, shapes and sensations ; Vowel-elements of plasticity j|< and of modifications ; Affinity of vowels to guttural consonants ; Neces- sity of a correct view of the Alphabet ; Alphabet as now used in writing the German, English, and with some slight omissions, the greatest num- ber of the European languages ; Explanation of the Alphabet-table ; Succincthistory of writing \ Egyptian: Images, Hieroglyphs as the mode of representation ; Chinese iconography ; Sanskrita's Devanagari and importance of its arrangement ; Hindostanee and Persian ; Phoenician Alphabet ; Perfectharmony cf the present alphabet ; All Italic alphabets derived from ancient Greek ; Roman alphabet ; The materials for wri- ting ; The Anglo-Saxon alphabet formed from the Latin ; Pronunciation of the present modern Greek ; Eussian alphabet formed under Peter I. ; Alphabet of the Armenians ; Alphabet of Georgia ; Two kinds of writ- ing in Media and Persia ; Ancient Hebrew; Ancient Aramaic ; Sassan- idic ; Zend ; Pehlvi ; Alphabet called Estrangelo ; The cycle of alpha- betic writings closed with Sabaeic ; Writing of the Arabs ; Celtic graph- ic ; Synoptic resume ; Concordance of writing the same sounds in Latin, VI CONTENTS. German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese ; The most remarkable discrepancies affect the most important elements of Lan- guage ; The dental sounds ; The liquid sounds, - - - 63 Chap. IV. Germs and Koots. — Plato's Cratylus, and othpr philosophers of antiquity — their views on language ; Elements of language ; Pure sylla- bles ; Eoots; Germs of all languages the same; Rationale of grammatic nomenclature ; Logic categories of a sentence or proposition the real parts of speech; Variations in the grammar of languages ; Examination of words ; Sanscrit roots ; Germs ; Sounds ; The alphabet; Signification of the organ- ic germ perceptible only in simple roots : gutturals, labials, dentals. Un- guals, nas-ality ; In words, five predicaments of Sounds and Letters : 1. The logic — 2. The grammatic — 3. The euphonic — 4. The erroneous — 5. The superfluous ; Borne nations prefer certain sounds to others, 126 CiiAP. V. "Words and Idioms. — In Chinese, the name and root but one ; Num- ber of so-called roots in German, French, Greek, etc. ; Words framed by grouping the germs ; Conjugation of verbs, declension common to all languages ; Languages differ, not by roots, but by the use of roots and words ; Common modes of derivation and composition ; Combin- ation and inflection of vowels ; Source of variety in the Indo-Europ. languages ; Examples ; Certain words predominate in certain lan- guages ; Shifting of sounds from the Latin forms in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French ; Table exhibiting the more important Latin combinations as altered in those Romanic languages ; French accent ; Examples of metamorphoses of words ; So-called irregularities; Logic . variation of words ; Idiosyncrasy of each language ; individualization and assimilation of the sense ; Original poetry of the human mind ; Decay of Latin and rise of the Romanio languages, - - - 179 Conclusion, - - - - - - - - 215 Excursus. — A) History and Literature of Philology, _ _ _ 2I8 B) *' " Indo-European languages, - - - 230 C) Pronunciation of Latin, _____ 233 D) Mathematic phraseology, - - - - 239 REMARKS AND ABBREVIATIONS. From the usual termination of adjectives in -ical the author rejects the ^, for the reason given on p. 174. He ejects, moreover, the -on- from Teut^Tiic, SlavoTiic, etc , rejects -an from Anglic^Ti, Gallic«?i, etc., for the same reason. Should, however, somebody infer from this, that American ought to be treated in the same way, he would find himself mistaken ; be- cause the names of the respective countries are Anglia, Gallia, America, and if adjectives were derived alike from all three, we would have Angli- can, Galilean, AmericSican or Americcan. f. i. = for instance. i. e. = id est, viz., to wit, namely. G. = German. Gr. = Greek. L. = Latin. I. = Italian. S. = Spanish. P. = Portuguese. F. = French. Sometimes one or more letters are added to those capitals. Wherever a part of a word is in Italics or in Capitiils, the part so mark- ed is the subject in speech. A hyphen after a letter (thus a-) denotes it to be initial, two hyphens (thus -n-) point it out as medial (within the word), a hyphen before a letter (-s) shows it to be final. See p. 199 especially. A hyphen within a word, I joins its parts. -j-, =, :, : : are used as in Algebra. See p. 198. COERECTION OF ERRATA. Page 9, line 16 : MATTHI^, and of, instead of or ; last line: FRIESE.— P. 12, 1. 6 from bottom: simulacre. — P. 17, 1. 9: brain-functions. — P. 23, 1. 7: Vernunft; 1. 12: metior; 1. 19: in, inst.of the 2dwith.— P. 29,1.5fr.bot. : take out the ,.— P. 80, 1. 12 fr. bot. : PrkTiard.—?. 31, 1. 17 : take out the first ,.— P. 32, 1. 1 : every-.— P. 38, 1. 24 : put in after naTlO : and not.— P. 59, 1. 22 : one another, inst. of each other. — P. 61, 1. 5 fr. bot. : anorganic. — P. 163, 1. 5 fr. bot. : Instruction-Books. — P. 74, 1. 19 : as, for are.— P. 76, 1. 13 : middle for last.— P. 77, 1. 23 : Germans.— P. 80, 1. 1 : put a comma after one.— P. 83, last 1. : The locusts, for These latter.— P. 88, 1. 2 : take out the ,.— P. 89, 1. 2 fr. bot. : through. —P. 91, 1. 17 : Kawi.— P. 92, in the Table : put a , after Eoman.— P. 95, 1. 8 fr. bot. : of, for off.— P. 90, 1. 23 : ) between ^ and ; 1. 3 fr. bot. : stichs.— P. 97, 1. 4 : CELT-IBEEIAN.— P. 98, L 8 : put a , after occur; last 1. in the note : put a ; after leich-t.— P. 99, 1. 1 : era for cera.—V. 103, 1. 20 : to the.— P. 107, 1. 16 and 23 : exchange Chinese and Jxipanese, one for the other ; 1. 25 : put in a , after era.— P. 110, 1. 8 fr. bot.: Malayu.—V. 116, 1. 23: take out the , after language. — P. 118, 1. 22 : condemned, for expressed ; 1. 3 fr. bot. : put: for ;. — P. 121, 1. 10 : in, forrinto ; 1. 18 : (ye) -roasted.— P. 123, first word : tlti&.—?. 130, 1. 2 fr. bot. : ) after soul.— P. 132, 1. 9 : Vi^t a , after punctilious.— P. 142, 1. 20 : put '* before And.— P. 143, 1. 13 : put a jailer is.— P. 146, 1. 7 : put ; and, after languages. — P. 147, 1. 5 fr. bot. : strike oiit the words : so much and. — P. 148, 1. 10. fr. bot. : put a ? after cloud.— P. 149, 1. 6 fr. bot. : at.—V. 151, 1. 2 and 3 : the word plain is contained in Field, and or is explained under ^W;?^. — P. 152, 1. 18 : put : after words. — P. 158, 1. 3 : put a , for ;. 1. 9 fr. bot. : put a ; after sopor. — P. 163, 1. 6 : ou, for on ; 1. 23 : put a ; after themselves ; 1. 7 fr. bot. : , lacessit.— P. 164, 1.4: proclaiming; 1. 12: put 127, for 151.— P. 165,1. 10: denkbeeldcn ; 1. 17 : of, for the last with ; 1. 27 : dgee.^V, 166, 1. 11 : correla- ted; 1. 28: pauca.— P. 167, 1. 28: take out the, after rather; 1. 29: put a — after dialects.— P. 169, 1. 28 : put a ; after log.— P. 172, 1. 1 : five, for four ; 1. 14 : 4, for 7 ; 1. 27 : -ate should be in italics.- P. 175, 1. 1 : this, for the ; 1. 81 : put a ; after obligatio ; 1. 8 fr. bot. : put a-t, after supinifying. — P. 177, 1. 13 : put a ; after schematic ; 1. 15 : also a ; after speech. — ^P. 180, 1. 4 : put a , after verve; 1. 9 : living word!; 1. 10: put a , after sounds; 1. 16: put a : after ones.— P. 181, 1. 7 : foundation.— P. 182, 1. 23 : our, for this.— P. 188, 1. 2u : add 160, after 181.— P. 184, 1. 10: sounds, for vowel.— P. 186, 1. 1 : became; \A 25 : dry-as-dust; 1. 82 : 59, for 60.— P. 187, 1. 16 ; put 160, 164, for 146.— P. 189 1. 7 fr. bot. : to search, for disguised.— P. 192, 1. 8 : put till between 151 and 156 ; 1. 27 : put a , after languages; 1. 5 fr. bot. : put a , after stand.— P. 193, 1. 27 : a , after and. — P. 195, 1. 6 : thatheth; last 1. of the text: put after now:] G. buclie, beech (hence G. buch, book), inst. of: buch, book.— P. 196, I. 6 : brother.— P. 197, 1. 14 : receives ; 1. 24 : Wall-street. INTRODUCTION. The science of language is currently known under the name of Philology, This term was interpreted in antiquity as follows : love of speech — Plato ; love of speaking on philosophic subjects — Socrates ; love of books — Alexandrine School, where the study of ancient writers began; love of knowledge — Isocrates, Aristotle, (hence Eratosthenes was called philologos or learned) ; eruditio, doctrina, hterarum studium and cognitio — Romans. In the middle ages it was applied to the study of Greek and Latin authors ; or to the knowledge of languages and of all archaeology — WOWER. In modern times, Philology was : the science of antiquity and of all things concerning the Greeks and Romans — Fr. A. Wolf ; the know- ledge of the whole activity of a people within a definite time — ^Boeckh ; the construction, history, and contemplation of the works of art and science — Schelling ; the study of the Greek and Roman languages and antiquities — Mathiae ; the science of the signification of words, or the manifestation of the human mind by language and writing — ^Muet- zell ; the art of understanding the results of the endeavors to teach and to educate others — Milhausen ; the history of mankind and the full conception of ancient spiritual life — K. O. Mueller ; the science to follow a people, or a stock of peoples, in their all-sided existence, to the very basis of their soul — Mayer ; the research into the languages of cultivated nations, and in a higher view, into language, as such, in order to recognize from its essence the nature of our intellectual powers — Conversations Lexic. der Gegenwart ; the sum of the knowledge of the Greeks and the Romans — Freese ; the historico-critic 2 10 INTRODUCTION. study of language, but restncted to a narrower sphere than the uni- versal science of language, to one or several languages — Kirchner. To this array of attempted definitions might be added those of Jahn, Haase, Ihlefeld, and of many other German scholars; and the collection might be swelled with those of English, French, etc., writers ; but the synopsis is deemed sufficient to show the wide range and importance of Philology ; while it exhibits, at the same time, the diversity of its acceptations, and the more or less definite, the more or less correct views entertained of it by professional men. For these reasons it is advisable to name the present essay Glos- sology^ (yXoJcro-a, tongue, language ; and Xoyos, speech, reasoning, com- ment, discoui-se) confining (with W. v. Humboldt) Philology to the interpretation of the written monuments of a language. Glossology or Linguistic J has for its object the analysis of the structure of lan- guage in general, and the comparison of particular languages among themselves. The word Philology will however be used before this treatise en- ters upon its restricted field ; because it occurs in many of the pas- sages, which will be referred to in the recommendation of its useful- ness. Philology has been variously divided into general and special — as to its extent ; into classic — of the Greek and Latin ; oriental — He- brew, Arab, Chinese, etc. ; biblic, com2^arative — of all languages, etc., without any regard to logic pnnciples. A shoit history and literature of it is given in the Appendix, A. Is there a science of language ? — Those who think language to be a mere arbitraiy contrivance, simply a matter of memoiy, and only a tool for so-called ^'' practicaV ends, deny it. Those, on the contrary, who five, move, and are in Ilim who — " out of the mouth of babes and suckhngs has ordained strength ; — the work of whose fingere are his heavens (Ps. viii. 2, 3 ; comp. Ps. xix. 1, 2) — whose " all works are done in truth" (Ps. xxxiii. 4) — " who covers himself with light as with a garment" (Ps. civ. 2-32) — think it a blasphemy to except the human mind and its ninnit'cstalioii by speech from the universal harmony of the world (koct/xo?, beauty, comeliness, order; mundus^ clean, pure, etc.). Should a drop of water be subject \o law, but human language not ? From this want of perception, — not to speak of conviction, of INTRODUCTION. 11 divine order in the most gifted of creatures, have flowed and are flowing the most baneful consequences to the Hfe of humanity, llie education of the rising generations, instead of being what it is professed to be, is hence convei-ted into a wholesale poisoning of the veiy sources of its own means. So deep is the dullness, engendered and fostered by the veiy extension and inculcation of all the rubbish of schools into the innocent, pure souls of youth, that it seems vain to cry out against this sin of our brawling civilization. Were this not so, how would the admonitions of Milton, Bacon, both Humboldts, and of a galaxy of mental worthies, have proved to be but a voice of one cry- ing in the wilderness ? Was the voice of Wm. Cardell (Essay on Language, etc., New-York, 1825) of any use, ye stewards of educar tion ? Hei*e it is : — " Much of what is received as the exposition of speech, is alike opposed to fact, science and common sense; for under no other name but that of Grammar^ could such gross inconsistencies be admitted and pass for instruction .... A nation of plain men could not agree in the adoption of a form of speech, the rules of which should resemble the artificial, pei'plexing, contradictory, impracti- cable systems of schools. They may be unsuspectingly led to great extravagance by commanding authority .... Why did Egypt, the in- structress of nations, bow to dogs and bulls? What is just, is not easily made entertaining, nor reconcilable to prejudices acquired from instruction." Bacon says : " False appearances are imposed upon us by ivords^ which are framed and applied according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar soi-t ; and although we think we govern our words and presci'ibe it well, " Loquendum ut vulgus^ sentiendum ut sapientes^'^ yet certainly do words, as Tartar-bows, shoot back upon the under- standing of the wisest, and entangle and pervert their judgment So, that it is necessary in controversies to imitate the wisdom of the mathe- matics, in setting down in the very beginning, the definitions of our words For we are sure to end where we ought to have begun, in questions about words." It would be a desecration of what is holiest (truth, justice, and taste), to hope a better fate at the hands (rather minds) of the whole obdurate tribe of such, as live in the mephitic mental atmosphere pro- duced by scholastic prejudices and self-sufficiency ; for whom the laws of God in human speech, and the prophets of reason and beauty in 12 INTRODUCTION. the realms of philosophy (from Plato to Wm. Humboldt), have been bhnd, dumb and tasteless. " For him who's done, natif^ht can more be done : But a beginner will ever thankful be." Goethe. To You " who dare to be wise ;" to You on whose mind there re- mains a spot undyed by the manufacturing process of common schools ; to You whose intellect has not been blunted, besquinted, tattooed by the cacoethes of the miscalled English spelling, and anomalous in- struction ; to You who wish to obey the gi'eat Doric precept : " Know thyself ^^^ — Chilon (engraved on the temple of Apollo's oracle) ; to You who wish to undei-stand the : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word w^as with God, and the Word was God, In him was hfe, and the life was the hght of men, And the light shineth in dark- ness; and the darkness comprehended it not — St. John i. 1, 4, 5 ; to All tliose who are foes of darkness, — is the present attempt to render the learning of languages a natural, healthy, pleasant task, dedicated. This is done with becoming difhdence, not in the solubility of the pro- blem, but in the own weakness of the writer. Every intelligent child, — and all are so unless blighted with a bodily abnormity, or ruined by wanton treatment, — feels the livehest interest in all objects of nature and art, that come under its obser^'a- tion. While most impressible, with a blank mind, full of curiosity and retaining in a faithful memory all that it perceives, the poor crea- ture is sent to the shambles of the mind, called schools, where it is most carefully imbued with all elements of false views and of bad taste. Instead of receiving an instruction suited to its physical, men- tal, moral, and esthetic faculties, his body is put to the bench to be tortured, his mind is shocked and deadened with incoherent absurdi- ties, his taste is polluted by ungraceful sights, sounds, etc. What must then become of the hopeful image of God? A podnnlic, big- oted, canting, timid, hypocritic, spelling, pai-sing, ciphering, siimilachro of man, either a ^^ good suhjecC of an autocrat, or a ^'rnom// innk-'oKf* citizen of a republic. A lady speaks thus on this to]>ic. "Tlio stark and scn.-cl.-s n^w of lettei-s thrust upon the child, a.^ m^oh as it cubTs ilif >r!n>ML can afford no plejisuro whatever. They excite no id«a, tlu y awak* ii no INTRODUCTION. 13 recollection of any pleasing object ever before seen, and give no prom- ise of any delight ever afterwards to be conferred. They are neither beauty to the eyes, nor music to the ears, nor sense to the under- standing. Teaching the alphabet first^ therefore, and in the common way^ only disqualifies the child for the correct pronunciation of the great proportion of the words of our language ; and the more per- fectly the alphabet is learned, the more is the child disqualified for the next step in liis progi*ess. The more readily the sound of every letter rises to a child's mind, when looking at it in a word, the more will he be disposed to pronounce it the way that custom calls wrong, the more flatly, to his mind, will the teacher contradict what he had taught him before. When the words are analyzed into their ele- mentary sounds, they utterly disown and belie the sounds which chil- dren were taught to give to the same letters in the alphabet. According to the ordinary method, therefore, as soon as a child passes from lettei"s to words, he is required to give n£w sounds to the old lettere ; and if he remembere the names of the old letters and reproduces them, he is corrected. This renders learning not only difficulty but disgusting. It alienates the child from study, instead of attracting him to it. It makes play more delightful than books, because play is conversant with real things^ while books when used in such a way, are lifeless and repulsive. They are not mere impediments to progress but causes of bad mental habitsP Mi's. Hor. Mann's Primer, Bos- ton, 1851. Not hecatombs, but millions of English children fall holocausts to the idol of falsehood, enthroned on the teacher's desk. Thousands of scholastic cai-s of Jaggernaut are crushing the young germs of truth, morality, and good taste, through the whole length and breadth of the republican as well as the royal empire of the English and asso- ciated nations. That there is not much hope of a speedy relentment in this slaughter of the innocents, on the part of their educational guardians, may be gathered from the spirit and character of " The English Spelling-boohJ'' published by the American Society /or the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge^ New- York, 1850. As for the stereo- typed flourishes about progress, there we find a goodly display : but as regards real, bona fide, organic and fertile amendments of the former ways of teaching the elements of knowledge, — there are none whatever to bo found. Another voucher for Eccles. i. 9. 1*4 INTRODUCTION. We read there : " After a year of careful investigation, this com- inittee presented a report, containing a list of 110 different spelling- hooks published in this country since 1804 .... These investigations led to interesting and unexpected discussions and results. The immense circulation of these books ; their influence upon the mind and charaxi' ter^ in the incipient stages of mental development ; and their power to give the earliest, the most valuable, and the most lasting impressions, in respect to the nature and use of our language^ have been often and carefully considered. The Spelling-book has long been regarded in England, Scotland, and the United States, as an almost indispensa- ble introduction to a knowledge of our language. So extensively has this sentiment prevailed, that the history of spelling-books embodies no ■unimportant part of the history of education .... they show the pro- gress which has been made in the application of philosophical prin- ciples in systems of instruction .... One book in England has passed through more than 450 editions! The Spelling-book is one of the most eftective instruments, in developing and moulding the youthful mindr The great importance of such books can certainly not be sufficiently extolled ! Yet a very powerful mental microscope would be sorely puzzled to find in this result of so much care that thing which is commonly called progress ; and though it sounds very credi- ble that (page v) " the child may not derive either pleasure or profit from the study, while he is in the Spelling-book," it invites to incredu- lity to read : "yet he ^ will, in all his future studies find great and per- manent advantages resulting from this early instruction in the ele- ments of language^ With the hand on the heart, and the mind on St. Mark x. 14; and St. Matt. vii. 9, 1 0, it can be asked : Is a stone bread ? is a ser- pent a fish ? — or, in the present case. Is no visible genuine improve- ment, progress ? Is the utter want of feeling, which pervades our community, as regards a full appreciation of what language is, worth the name of great and permanent advantages ? Is mere industry in book-making a proof of philosophical principles ? Does the spirit of all that great mass of books for children show that their writers even understand what elements of language means ? With the view of putting this matter of the study of language, not of languages, or of so-called " classical languages," but especially of the English, — ^into still more light, let us recapitulate the substance INTRODUCTION. U of the remarks made by a highly competent writer, in the North Amei-ican Review, January, 1849, Art. vi. " We hear much of the study of languages, but very little on the study of language. This most important and interesting branch of knowledge has not, up to this time, even been numbered among the natural sciences. It seems as if the contentment with which we endure this ignorance, were an effect of a divine interdict ; or, as if we were actuated by the senti- ment akin to that of the pious member of Parliament, who opposed the emancipation of the Jews for fear of defeating the designs of Provi- dence ; and as if we were bound to leave languages in that confusion in which the presumption of the heaven-scaling architects involved them. On this subject the public mind is in a state of apathy, regarding the living science of language fts a mere dead matter of books, a pro- vince of the pedant and the recluse, wholly unconnected with the laboi-s and pleasures of every-day man. At the same time, with a singular inconsistency, a degree of supei-stitious respect is paid to men supposed to possess great acquirements of this sort : as if the wearisome and thankless pui*suit conferred a merit upon those who have devoted themselves to the penance. While thorough attain- ments in the field of language are deemed superfluous, fashion and a certain traditionary prestige confer a vague value on slender acquire- ments of this kind. Many most important years are spent in the acquisi- tion of a few varieties of speech, in order to comply with custom ; or, if a worthier motive sway us, and we seek keys to the stores of ancient learning or to cotemporary genius, we regard the toil be- stowed on their acquisition but as the price for the desired good. It does not occur to us, that if followed in another spirit and under dif- ferent auspices, the pursuit itself would, at every step, yield a vivid pleasure, and lead us into one of the noblest fields of science. We continue to walk bhndly through the planless maze, with no better assistance than some unreasoning trick of memory, or with such small remains of our instinctive perception of truth, as a false education has left us. It does not occur to us, that language also must have its fundamental principles, and that these eternal laws must be, as in eveiy other science, simple, easy of comprehension, when once dis- closed, and universal in their application. Our mind is so impressed with the consciousness of design and order reigning through the uni- verse, that it asks of all, even the most mysterious phenomena of na- \ 16 INTRODUCTION. ture, the causes and laws of their existence : yet we are content to believe that human speech has sprung up and unfolded itself by chance, or that it is the capricious work of man alone, undirected by the great ordering Mind, etc. Had the Committee of the American Society for the DifFasion of Useful Knowledge, carefully investigated the subject entrusted to them, they would have found ample matter in the article just spoken of (which was certainly accessible to them) to offer as " unexpected re- sults''' for the improvement of the rising generation. If it be asked why so much is said about Spelling-books, and why strong language is used concerning the compilers of them, the answer must be their own admission of the great influence of ele- mentary instruction on the mental and moral character of children. This admission grants, nay, challenges full liberty to inquire into two things, viz.: 1. whether the performance of the duty to furnish materials and to prescribe methods of teaching, be equal in quantity as well as in quality, to the sacredness of that duty, or not ? 2. into the effects of the so-called systems and methods of instruction, pre- vaihng in the enormous empires of the United States and of Great Britain. " Ye shall know them by their fruits, Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?" etc., St. Matt. vii. 16-20. Fashionable awe, conventional apathy, scholastic pusillanimity, courtier-like flattering for popularity, the failures of many attempts to reform prescriptive pi-ejudices and abuses, propped up by the hosts of all those into whom they have been and are inculcated under the guise of improvements, — all these hobgoblins may frighten a man from his purpose of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the hopeful reliance on the power of truth, which must ultimately prevail, together with the deep conviction of the incalculable advantages not only to men-machines who use lan- guage little better than animals, prone to earth, do their voices, but chiefly to all such as wish to employ language for its divine ends, — as a pole, so to say, whereon the tendrils of clear reason, of be- nign humanity and of chaste taste climb up, in the direction of man's posture, towards the Source of light ; — that hope and convic- tion embolden the writer of this essay to tell as much as he knows on the nature of language, and on the paramount importance of an organic study of the English especially. INTRODUCTION. 17 Reserving further proofs of the many anomalies practised in teach- ing the vernacular, the so-called classical and the fashionable lan- guages, as well as other so-called branches of education, for the proper places in the course of this treatise ; the writer calls attention to the following points which embrace the spint, tendency, and hoped for results of his endeavors to be useful to his fellow-citizens by adoption. 1. The nations speaking English have the mission to be the pio- neers and bearers of human culture in all its forms. Their choice position on this earth; their energies and success both in peaceful and warlike pui-suits; their political institutions, their number and riches, render them more capable of fulfilling that divine appointment, than the Greeks, Romans of old, or any now living people. These extraordinary advantages impose upon them corresponding duties, the chief of which is to benefit their less favored fellow-nations by deeds most benefiting themselves. 2. The English language, that Mississippi among the human tongues, confluent of a Teutic branch with the Latin Missouri, which are symbols of the aggrandizement of the English people by* tribu- tary streams and brooks of other tongued nations, is the vehicle of that great mission : this Europeo- American language, par excellence, being more fit to be the tool of humanization all over this globe, than any other tongue. It is not only akin and connected with the other lan- guages of the best nations, but also more apt to be that providential instrument by such excellent intrinsic qualities, as are not even dreamt of by the mass of its professors in their philosophy. 3. As if to furnish new inductive proofs to the truth of the saying that " corruptio optimi pessima," the spelling-nui'ses as well as the pea- cocks of colleges (who display rather the eyed tail of their lore than the brain functions of the English Minerva) have so ill-treated and are continually ill-treating their vernacular tongue, that it ad- mits of demonstration that none can be compared with the English as to bad luck in this respect. Since Joa. Wallis {Gram. LingucB Anglicoe^ Oxon., 1653), none of the English writers on Enghsh is " worthy to unloose his shoe's latchet," if we take into account the flood of light that has been poured on the subject of language since his time. 4. The Latin and German, parents of the English language, in- 2* 18 INTRODtTCTlON. stead of being properly (the former) and deservedly (the latter) cul- tivated, are, in consequence of the slovenliness of the English profes- soi-s, a bugbear to the mass of the would-be students, so much so that the German letters, though they had once been used in English (i. e. the black letters) and though they be not exclusively German, are sufficient of themselves to deter many persons from attempting the language itself. The Latin, instead of being made, together with the Greek, a living link of our culture with the ancient; instead of being employed as a cynosure, as a regulator of modem languages, as far as its nature legitimately admits of its being so ; is recorrupted by those very corruptions with which it had tainted the Latin portion of English. No wonder that it is a " dead language''' to those dead minds which strangle it every day and every where on one-fourth of the inhabited earth. As for the German, it seems only to furnish a staple for the literary phrases : " languages of the Gothic stock," " Ger- man scholars," etc., and for boasting about Anglo-Saxons^ whenever other nations are to be vilipended. Pray, how do we stand as to Anglo-Sax on ism ? Which of the many uni verities (say UNIVER- SITlfiS) in this fair land converts its attention to this unique language of the patriarchs of England ? Thomas Jefferson made it incumbent on the professor of modern languages at the Univej-sity of Virginia, to teach that maiTowy idiom : but he ought to have done like Ali pasha of Egypt and other civilizers, who compelled attendance on the lessons prescribed, if ^ he wished to create respect for the noble an- cestry of ^he present English. 5. In consequence of what has been said, and in consideration of the admirable logic and phonetic plasticity of the English language (which will be rendered manifest below), it becomes a sacred duty, if we look at the future development of humanity, to make a complete radical reform in the system and method of teaching the young, in general, and of treating the study of the vernacular in a manner con- genial to its nature as well as parallel to its grand mission. Were it not too shocking, one of the laboi-s of Hercules might be imitated by leading a sort of Croton-aqueduct through the murky, crooked, and encumbered alleys and galleries of the prevailing systems of in- struction. But is such a wish not forbidden by the ignorance of the hybrid monster sprung from fashion and pedantry ? How to hope when we see millions of dollare spent on the Girard-palace in Phila- INTRODUCTION. 19 delphia with scarcely another genuine benefit than that the orphans tliere taught may sing : "I dreamt I learnt in marble halls.'' But how^ and what ? — The reader may continue to enlarge on this topic, if his own faculties have not been stunted by the raja torpedo of the schools. 6. It is less than useless, it is a positive degradation of mind, to wish and to hope to make a wholesome improvement, without up- rooting the upas in the paradise of instruction, misnamed SPELLING* Unless the "flesh-pots" (Exod. xvi. 3) on which the children, that are kept in a more than Egyptian captivity of mind, are being fed, be consigned to Lethe, to utter forgetiulness, there is no hope whatever of their ever entering the land of promise, flowing with the milk and honey of graceful humanities and of sympathetic humanity. For, if we spurn the law^s of God, we cannot be exempted from their just consequences. We must praise him not by what we conceive to be true, but by trying to find what IS true. Voluminous works on lan- guage cannot lead us in this reform : for they only add waters to wa- ters, without furnishing a magnetic needle, or the means to find our longitude and latitude on the ocean of tongues. 7. By starting aright with the elements of the English language, we are enabled to acquire the material of the principal tongues of Europe ; we become pervaded by the harmony found in the relation of the ideas and objects around us, as uttered by articulate speech ; and thus encouraged, we can cheerfully proceed on the path of further progress. Those knots and meshes, which cannot be disentangled by the present mode of learning, yield to the dissolving power of the organic energy contained in language. Not only the dialects and metamorphoses of the English, but the totality of the Teutic and Romanic dialects can be overlooked from the lofty, unclouded position, to which we are raised in that way ; and we gain courage to wander through that which had seemed to us to be an impenetrable forest. While those who are hurrying heedlessly through the labyrinth with- out an Ariadne's thread, are sliding hither and thither, and backwards, quite bewildered, hopeless : the student who begins and proceeds, trusting in the natural order and laws of all existing things, works not at random but according to those laws ; and he cannot fail reaping the golden fruit of his labors. Time, labor and money can be saved. 20 INTRODUCTION. and yet more advantage gained by exchanging the customary man ner of study for the one which will be recora mended. 8. The especial points intended to be made out are as follows : a) The harmony between the external world (macrocosm) and the world within us (microcosm) ; or more explicitly: between the objects that surround us and impress themselves through our senses on our mind, and the expression or utterance we give to those impressions by the activity of our organs of speech ; and further, even the agree- ment between the sounds of speech and the characters by which we represent them to the eye or touch in writing. b) The original unity, and subsequent diversity of speech. c) The primitive, c^?i^r«Z signification of the elementary sounds, and their secondary, tertiary, a. s. o., peripheric meanings. d) The lexic, as necessary, and the grammatic as well as euphonic^ as accessory, material of language. e) The vital connexion between the ^qyqtqX families of languages, but especially of those of the Indo-European family [See Appendix B], /) The modifications (normal as well as abnormal) of the sounds and letters, both taken singly and in connexion with each other. g) The restoration of the ancient Latin pronunciation. h) The practic results of these inquiries on the method of teaching languages. 9. The last and highest result of a genuine system, and of the pro- posed reform, is an approximation of the various races and nations to that union into one mankind , which is admitted to have existed, by all earnest inquirers into language, and which is attested by Gen. xi. 1, " And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." For, the chief reason of the division of men, into families and nations, was produced " after their tongues" (Gen. x. 5, 20, 31), which division itself was owing to their various piimitive circumstances. Although "the language of all the earth was confounded''^ (Ibid. xi. 9) at Babel (i. e. confusion ; compare : to babble, use lips ; blab, Lat. fabula, balbus ; Germ, plappern, plaudem, etc. : though others derive the word fi'om the Arab, bdb, gate, i. e., hall of Belus), the geims of one common speech are found scattered in all the different languages and dialects ; so that one completes and illustrates all othei-s reciprocally, and that one single language cannot be fully known by itself. CHAPTER I. LANGUAGE. " Ignorance of the signification of words, which is a want of understanding, disposeth men to take on trust, not only the truth they know not, but the errors, — and which is more, the nonsense of them they trust ; for neither error nor sense can, without a perfect under- standing of words, be detected."— Hobbes' Leviathan, Chap. II. Language is but another form of the Lat. LinGua, obsol. dingua^ tongue. Now, as the tongue is the principal tool by which man ex- presses his thoughts and feelings, and as this tool proclaims itself by the sounds made both at its root and tip, with which it taps the up- ;per front-teeth ; there can be no more appropriate name for itself than the sounds of this its own function. rAwTra expresses the same gests or acts of itself, in a natural order, and it signifies, in the form of glos^ sound, in the Slavic languages. Both words are akin to all those other words, — are rather modifications of the varieties of the same word, — that denote all the functions or performances of the tongue (See the chapters on Sounds and Roots). Speech^ Gei-man Sprache^ is less directly significant, inasmuch as it does not manifest the innermost connexion of language with the Aoyo9, reason, cause, etc. It is bodily identic with Lat. spargere^ to spread, scatter ; being composed of the separative 5, of the pierm\g per and of the root of ago^ akin to the English go ; so that it signifies spreading out that which is in our mind. This word is related to Lat. sermo (origin, ser-moii-) i. e., sero and mens, sow out mind. Germ. JRede coincides radically with Lat. ratio, Greek prjTopcKrj from pew, fluo. All that concerns the appellations of language by words of various origin, will become plain in the sequel. Our subject, indeed, is so dove-tail- 22 LANGUAGE. e"d,.so to say, |;hat^it;ifj: very hard to present it in so clear a way in a consectiti^'«j(il«vd6pnient, as to satisfy those who have never seriously thought that language is a living organism. Repetitions, recapitula- tions can therefore scarcely be avoided. W. V. Humboldt gives several, more or less restricted, definitions of language, the genetic being this : " Language is the ever recurring labor of the mind, to make the articulate sound an expression of thought.''^ Ueber die Kawi Sprache, S. Ivii. Elsewhere : " Lan- guage is the striving of the power of speech to break forth, according to the mental cast of a peopled S. xxv. He characterizes it as the centre of all the individualities of humanity, of nations and persons. Notwithstanding the high authority just quoted, language might be more comprehensively defined as the manifestation of our internal state by articulate sounds, i. e. not restricting it to the manifestation of thought, but extending it to that of feeling also. For, if we regard the expression of the internal state of animals by their sounds, and our own involuntary, unintentional manifestations of external percep- tions and of internal feelings, — which certainly are the germs and basis of our conceptions, ideas and thoughts, — we cannot fail perceiving that Humboldt's definition is too narrow. Our internal state may also be manifested in other ways than by articulate sounds, for instance, by music, by various gestures, and by other contrivances. Among these may be mentioned, pantomimics, the language of flowers, all kinds of telegraphs, symbolic images, a. s. f. But all these modes of conveying to others what is within us, are very impeifect and dim, when compared Avith the wonderful gift of human speech, whose " each word is a piece of the soul, — Nizami. As each individual word, in its original acceptation, coincides with the idea or feeling which gave it birth, and as the ideas of individual men vary according to the cast of their mind and sensibility : various words are used to express the veiy energies or faculties of the human mind as well as its operations or functions. No word is precisely synonymous, i. e. cosignificant with any other. Hence, at the very outset of our inquiry we are beset by a multitude of expressions used by various individuals, in treating of the powers and actions of the mind. Some examples will show this. Let us begin with English words : — percepWow originally signifies (the action of to) pierce and keep; sensixUoii — touch, put to ; feelmg — fall, flow, fleet ; understanding — LANGUAGE. ^ 23 Rtand amidst (not under, below ; comp. Lat. t^ reason (ratio — re- or, ra-tus) — run, flow. As the^^ji|p|t5BBi^fe either Latin or German, let us look at some of both languages: L, ju- dicium — good and token ; cogitatio^ — bring, go and act together ; mens — mind, measure, meet; meditatio — measure repeatedly. Thus in Germ. Empfin^wwg^ — in find; Fors/^Zlung, — before stand; Be- griff^ — he gripe, grasp ; Verstand, — for stand, stall ; Vernuaft, — for name, originally gnome ; Urtheil^ — ordeal, order and deal ; Oe- danke^ — getoken, think ; Anschauung^ — on show or see ; Hollandish JDenkheeld^ — think and build or shape ; Greek €t8ca tSca, — video, idem, i. e. coincide with the original type ; hence image, form, idol, proper ; voos, — know, ken ; /i-cXeV');, — fxeTpio)^ meteor, measure, meet, mould ; KpLo-i