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THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REVIEW.

AUGUST, 1863.

ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.*

BY RICHARD STEPHEN CHARNOCK, Esq.. F.S.A., F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L.

In the year 1861, Professor Max Müller, at the request of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, delivered a series of lectures on the Science of Language. These lectures have since been brought out in a separate volume, with many learned notes and additions; which, in 1862, had reached a third edition. The work embraces nearly everything that could be treated of on the science of language; as the growth in contradistinction to the history of language; the empirical, theoretical, and classificatory stages; the genealogical and morphological classification of languages; comparative grammar; the constituent elements of language; and the origin of languages. These heads include phonetic decay, dialectic regeneration, a discourse on modern languages and dialects, demonstrative roots, the terminational stage, and the natural selection of roots. Although I feel quite unable to criticize, in the way that it deserves, any work from the pen of so distinguished a linguist as Professor Müller, I will nevertheless take the liberty of making a few remarks upon his arduous undertaking. Professor Müller says: "I had lived long enough in England to know that the peculiar difficulties arising from an imperfect knowledge of the language would be more than balanced by the forbearance of an English audience; and I had such perfect faith in my subject, that I thought it might be trusted even in the hands of a less skilful expositor." Any one who has carefully read through the work will doubtless be of opinion that Professor Müller had no need of any forbearance whatever;

The present article is based upon a paper read before the Anthropological Society of London, June 9th, 1863.

+ Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861, by Max Müller, M.A. London : 8vo, 3rd ed. Longman: 1862.

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and that it would be quite as well if authors of the present age would take example from his simple and unaffected style.

Philologists have for a long time bewildered themselves and the rest of the world in their search after a primitive language; and the number of theories thereon, and on the origin and affinities of some of the principal languages, is somewhat amusing. Dr. Murray derives language from nine principal roots, viz., ag, bag, cwag, dwag, mag, nag, rag, swag, tag,* a theory which I shall take the liberty of christening from the doctor's own roots, the tag-rag or c(w)ag-mag theory. Dr. Schmidt, in a homœopathical manner, derives all Greek words from the root e, and all Latin words from the arch-radical hi‚† in which he and I do not agree.

Most Eastern writers give the preference in point of antiquity to the Syriac Camden and many learned writers ascribe priority to the Chaldee. Dr. Webster says, "the descendants of Noah journeyed from the East, and settled in the plain of Shinar, or in Chaldea; that the language used at that time by the inhabitants of that plain must then have been the oldest or the primitive language of man; and this must have been the original Chaldee." The Jews contend that the Hebrew language was the most ancient; and with them many Christian writers agree, as Chrysostom, Augustin, Origen, Jerome, among the ancients; Bochart, Heidigger, Buxtorf, Selden, and Dr. Sharpe, among the moderns. Guichard ‡ maintained that as Hebrew was written from right to left, and Greek from left to right, Greek words might be traced back to Hebrew by being simply read from right to left. Lord Monboddo says, "I have supposed that language could not be invented without supernatural assistance; and, accordingly, I have maintained that it was the invention of the dæmon kings of Egypt, who, being more than men, first taught themselves to articulate, and then taught others. But, even among them, I am persuaded there was a progress in the art, and that such a language as the Shanskrit was not at once invented."

The Arabs very reasonably dispute the priority of antiquity with the Hebrews; whilst the Armenians consider their language the most ancient, because the ark first rested in Armenia. Again, some authors maintain that the language spoken by Adam is lost, and that the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic are only dialects of the original lan

* Cf. Max Müller, p. 343.

+ Ibid., cf. Curtius, Griechische Etymologie.

L'Harmonie Etymologique des Langues Hébraique, Chaldaique, Syriaque, Greque, Latin, Françoise, Italienne, Espagnole, Allemande, Flamende, Anglaise, etc., par Estienne Guichard. Paris: 1806.

guage; and that Abraham spoke Chaldee before he passed the Eu phrates, and that he first acquired a knowledge of Hebrew in the land of Canaan. According to Reading, the Abyssinian was the primitive language; Stiernhielm and Rudbeckius contend for Swedish; Verstegan, Junius, and Ray for Saxon; Skinner for Belgic and Teutonic; Lye for Icelandic; Salmasius, Boxhorn and Aurelius for Scythian; Hugo for Latin; Erici for Greek: whilst others, with more love for their country than for truth, have traced Greek and Latin to German and Celtic. Indeed some have gone so far as to assert that Hebrew and its sister dialect, the Phoenician, are based upon Celtic. Court de Gébélin, in a work in nine quarto volumes,* endeavours to derive Latin and French from a pretended primitive tongue. He considers speech as an instinct, and every language as a dialect of what he calls "primitive, inspired by God Himself, natural, necesrary, universal, and imperishable." He treats Persian, Armenian, Malay, and Coptic as dialects of Hebrew; derives Latin from Celtic; and discovers Hebrew, Greek, English, and French words in the idioms of America. Herodotust tells us, that in consequence of a dispute between the Egyptians and Phrygians concerning the antiquity of their respective languages, Psammetichus, king of Egypt, ordered two children to be brought up with a prohibition that no word should be pronounced in their presence, but that nature should be left to speak for herself; and that the first word they uttered was BEKKOS, which in Phrygian signified "bread"; and that the Egyptians, convinced by this experiment, admitted that the Phrygians were more ancient than themselves. Again, a preference in point of antiquity has also been given to the Chinese. It has been urged that the Chinese are the posterity of Noah, and that Fohi, the first king of China, was Noah himself. Mr. Webb, an ingenious writer in the reign of Charles II, strenuously maintains that the Chinese is the only original language, and that it was spoken in Paradise. Its antiquity is said to be strengthened by its singularity, consisting, as it does, of few words, all monosyllables, and from its simplicity of construction, having no variety of declensions, conjugations, or grammatical rules.

Celtic scholars assert their language to be the most ancient.‡

* Le Monde primitif analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne. Paris: 1773; containing etymological vocabularies of the Latin and French languages. + “ Ευτερπή.”

Cleland has a partiality for the Celtic. Cf. Fauchet, Antiquités Gauloises ; Bacon, Recherches sur les origines Celtiques; Le Brigant, Éléments de la langue des Celtes; Frippault, Celt-hellenisme.

Pezron* and Bulletf have discovered in the Bas Breton the root of all languages. Dr. Armstrong has gone so far as to show Celtic words in the names of places in the New World; leaving us to infer thereby that the Celts had discovered America before the time of Columbus. According to Goropius, the Low Dutch was the language of Paradise. Chardin tells us the Persians believe three languages to have been spoken in Paradise; Arabic by the serpent, Persian by Adam, and Turkish by Gabriel. André Kempe says God spoke to Adam in Swedish, Adam answered in Danish, and the serpent spoke to Eve in French.§ Errol claims Basque as the language spoken by Adam. If we are to believe some writers, the Iberians were the fathers of the human race; and the Basque was not only the original language of Spain, but the primæval language, and that from it all languages have been derived. Their grammarians tell us that it existed before the Tower of Babel, and was brought into Spain by Tubal himself. Perhaps of all writers upon this subject, Larramendi has furnished us with the largest amount of trash. This truth-hating scholiast, in the preface to his Diccionario Trilingue del Castellano, Bascuence y Latin, asserts that of all languages the Basque is the most perfect, the most harmonious, the most copious and rich, the most eloquent, the most easy, and the most pleasing in the variety of its dialects; that it cannot be traced to any Oriental language; and that it is not only a primitive language, but the primitive language. He states that 1,951 Basque words are found in the Spanish, and that the Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, have derived many words from it. According to D'Abbadie,** "La langue euskarienne date des premiers siècles de notre temps historique; elle naquit durant le premier âge, dans le midi; sa vocalization vierge est divine, sa nomenclature est originale et sans mélange; l'architecture merveilleusement régulière et simple de son système grammatical achève d'en faire le dialecte le plus philosophique, le plus complet du verbe humain. Conservée jusqu'au milieu de l'âge ancien, par les Apothomites, les Anherrites, les Churites, les Muthugores et autres peuplades de la

*Pezron, Antiquité de la langue Celtique.

+ Bullet, Mémoire sur la langue Celtique.

Hermathena Joannis Goropii Becani, Antwerpiæ, 1580. Origines, Antverpianæ, 1569.

§ On the Language of Paradise. Cf. Max Müller, p. 131.

El Mundo primitivo filosofico de la Antiquedad y Cultura de la Nacion Bascongada, by J. B. Erro. Madrid: 1815.

San Sebastian, 1745.

Etudes grammaticales sur la langage Euskarienne, par A. Th. d'Abbadie et J. Augustin Chabo. Paris: 1836. Première partie, p. 3.

Mauritanie primitive, cette langue fleurit en Espagne pendant trois milles ans, avec les Ibères-Euskariens,* jusqu'à l'invasion des Celtes ou Tartares, dont les dialectes grossiers et ténébreux enfantèrent dans nos contrées méridionales la confusion de Babel. Il est donc vrai de dire, en allégorie, que la langue Eskuera, bien antérieure à l'établissement des barbares dans le midi, tire son origine d'Adam; puisque ce mythe génésique représente l'humanité des premiers âges." Again, another writert contends that as the uncultivated populations of the two Americas could not have sprung from the ground like mushrooms, they must have emigrated from Asia, and the period of their emigration was unknown until recently. He recommends to notice a book written by Ethan Smith, a pastor in Poultney in the United States, entitled View of the Hebrews, etc., and comprehending accounts of various English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese tourists, who had made diligent inquiries relative to the aborigines. He says they agree in their accounts as to the primitive settlers of America, that they were all of one stock, viz., of the ten tribes of Israel, "who were carried away by the Assyrian kings to Halah and Habbor, the river Gozen (or Ganges), and the cities of Media"; who in a short time, making their way towards the east of Asia, crossed the ice of Behring's Straits, and in time multiplied and extended themselves all over America from north to south. That although the primitive discoverers of America declared the natives to be savages, because they did not possess letters, and were treated as such by the European savages who conquered them, yet modern tourists find them (by the traditions preserved among the natives) to possess religious principles, sentiments, customs and manners, far surpassing our opinions regarding them; all which afford testimony to their having been once of the patriarchal seed of Israel. Quoting from the same work, he says, "they all inform us, agreeably to their traditions, that their primitive parent had twelve sons, of whose descendants they are a portion; that their forefathers, having transgressed against God, were made captives, and carried off far from their own country; that 2,500 years ago their ancestors left the country of their captivity, proceeded towards the east, crossed a river of hardened water, and settled themselves in America. Regarding their religion, they acknowledge a supreme power; they have priests, and some sort of sacrifices; they believe in a future state, and in rewards and punishments; and it is asserted

Voyage en Navarre pendant l'insurrection des Basques, 1830-1835.

+ See Theological and Critical Treatise on the Primogeniture of the Holy Language, by Solomon Bennett. London: 1835. Note, p. 8.

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