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do not use ilanga, the general word for sun, because their first chief's name was Ulanga, but employ isota instead. For a similar reason, the Amagqunukwebi substitute immela for isitshetshe, the general term for knife.1

Here, then, we may perceive two things: first, the influence which a mere whim, if it once becomes stereotyped, may exercise on the whole character of a language (for we must remember, that, as every woman had her own male relations, and every tribe its own ancestors, a large number of words must constantly have been tabooed and supplanted in these African and Polynesian dialects); secondly, the curious coincidence that two great branches of speech, the Kafir and the Polynesian, should share in common what at first sight would seem a merely accidental idiosyncrasy, a thing that might have been thought of once, but never again. It is perfectly true that such principles as the Te pi and the Ukuhlonipa could never become powerful agents in the literary languages of civilized nations, and that we must not look for traces of their influence either in Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin, as known to us. But it is for that very reason that the study of what I call Nomad languages, as distinguished from State languages, becomes so instructive. We see in them what we can no longer expect to see even in the most ancient Sanskrit or Hebrew. childhood of language with all its childish freaks, and we learn at least this one lesson, that there is more in language than is dreamt of in our philosophy.

1 Appleyard, L. c. p. 70.

We watch the

One more testimony in support of these views. Mr. H. W. Bates, in his latest work, "The Naturalist on the Amazons," writes: "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 200 or 300 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 corruption of language becomes 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 Collínas on the Jurúa. 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 wonderful diversity of languages in South America." (Vol. i. pp. 329, 330.)

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As I intend to limit the present course of lectures chiefly to Greek and Latin, with its Romance offshoots; English, with its Continental kith and kin;

and the much-abused, though indispensable, Sanskrit, I thought it necessary thus from the beginning to guard against the misapprehension that the study of Sanskrit and its cognate dialects could supply us with all that is necessary for the Science of Language. It can do so as little as an exploration of the tertiary epoch could tell us all about the stratification of the earth. But, nevertheless, it can tell us a great deal. By displaying to us the minute laws that regulate the changes of each consonant, each vowel, each accent, it disciplines the student, and teaches him respect for every jot and title in any, ever the most barbarous, dialect he may hereafter have to analyze. By helping us to an understanding of that language in which we think, and of others most near and dear to us, it makes us perceive the great importance which the Science of Language has for the Science of the Mind. Nay, it shows that the two are inseparable, and that without a proper analysis of human language we shall never arrive at a true knowledge of the human mind. I quote from Leibniz:—“I believe truly," he says, "that languages are the best mirror of the human mind, and that an exact analysis of the signification of words would make us better acquainted than anything else with the operations of the understanding."

I propose to divide my lectures into two parts. I shall first treat of what may be called the body or the outside of language, the sounds in which language is clothed, whether we call them letters, syllables, or words; describing their origin, their formation, and the laws which determine their growth and

decay. In this part we shall have to deal with some of the more important principles of Etymology.

In the second part I mean to investigate what may be called the soul or the inside of language; examining the first conceptions that claimed utterance, their combinations and ramifications, their growth, their decay, and their resuscitation. In that part we shall have to inquire into some of the fundamental principles of Mythology, both ancient and modern, and to determine the sway, if any, which language as such exercises over our thoughts.

LECTURE IL

LANGUAGE AND REASON.

THE division of my subject which I sketched out at the end of my last lecture is liable, I am aware, to some grave objections. To treat of sound as independent of meaning, of thought as independent of words, seems to defy one of the best established principles of the science of language. Where do we ever meet in reality, I mean in the world such as it is, with articulate sounds sounds like those that form the body of language, existing by themselves, and independent of language? No human being utters articulate sounds without an object, a purpose, a meaning. The endless configurations of sound which are collected in our dictionaries would have no existence at all, they would be the mere ghost of a language, unless they stood there as the embodiment of thought, as the realization of ideas. Even the interjections which we use, the cries and screams which are the precursors, or, according to others, the elements, of articulate speech, never exist without meaning. Articulate sound is always an utterance, a bringing out of something that is within, a manifestation or revelation of something that wants to manifest and to reveal itself. It would be different if language had been invented by agreement; if

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