Lectures on the science of language delivered at the Royal institution of Great Britain, Volume 2Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861 |
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Page 44
... independent words , which were slowly reduced to mere dust by the constant wear and tear of speech . But in order to explain how the principle of phonetic decay leads to the formation of grammatical termi- nations , let us look to ...
... independent words , which were slowly reduced to mere dust by the constant wear and tear of speech . But in order to explain how the principle of phonetic decay leads to the formation of grammatical termi- nations , let us look to ...
Page 47
... independent substantial existence . Language exists in man , it lives in being spoken , it dies with each word that is pronounced , and is no longer heard . It is a mere accident that language should ever have been reduced to writing ...
... independent substantial existence . Language exists in man , it lives in being spoken , it dies with each word that is pronounced , and is no longer heard . It is a mere accident that language should ever have been reduced to writing ...
Page 52
... independent tribes , speaking their own independent dialects ; and in the neighbourhood of Manipura alone Captain Gordon collected no less than twelve dialects . " Some of them , " he says , " are spoken by no more than thirty or forty ...
... independent tribes , speaking their own independent dialects ; and in the neighbourhood of Manipura alone Captain Gordon collected no less than twelve dialects . " Some of them , " he says , " are spoken by no more than thirty or forty ...
Page 67
... again , comparing several specimens of rye , would find it difficult to account for their respective peculiarities , unless he knew that in some parts of 68 LANGUAGE INDEPENDENT OF HISTORICAL EVENTS . the world this F 2.
... again , comparing several specimens of rye , would find it difficult to account for their respective peculiarities , unless he knew that in some parts of 68 LANGUAGE INDEPENDENT OF HISTORICAL EVENTS . the world this F 2.
Page 68
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
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Common terms and phrases
agglutinative ancient Anglo-Saxon Arabic Armenia Arya Aryan family Aryan languages Asia auxiliary verb Brahmans branch brutes Burnouf called Celtic Celts century Chinese classification common origin comparative grammar declension derived dialects Dionysius Thrax distinct distinguished doubt elements empire English express family of speech Finnic formation French genealogical genitive German Gothic grammarians grammatical forms Greek and Latin growth guage Hebrew Hervas High-German human speech idea India inflectional instance Italian Latin Lectures Leibniz likewise literary language literature Low-German means modern Mongolic nations nature never nouns origin of language Persian philosophers phonetic corruption physical sciences plough plural preserved primitive pronouns Provençal race recognised Roman Rome Samoyedic Sanskrit Saxon scholars science of language sense Slavonic speak spoken stage Strabo supposed Tataric terminations Teutonic thou tion translated tribes Tungusic Turanian Turanian family Turanian languages Turkic Turkish Ulfilas Veda verb vowels words Zend Zend-avesta Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 31 - And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Page 374 - The 400 or 500 roots which remain as the constituent elements in different families of language are not interjections, nor are they imitations. They are phonetic types BB produced by a power inherent in human nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by nature, we mean by the hand of God.* There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings.
Page 373 - If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas that way, to any degree: this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas, is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes; and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.
Page 155 - The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists...
Page 58 - ... livelong day, become habituated to a language of their own. The more voluble condescend to the less precocious, and thus, from this infant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together without rule, and in the course of a generation the entire character of the language is changed...
Page 361 - The assignation of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns' substantive, would, probably, be one of the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language, by which...
Page 362 - It is this application of the name of an individual to a great multitude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of that individual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems originally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments which, in the schools, are called genera and species.
Page 284 - I am, thou art, he is, we are, you are, they are ; or even the Latin, 's-um, es, es-t, 'su-mus, es-tis, 'sunt.
Page 362 - Could we suppose any person living on the banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word river but to be acquainted only with the particular word Thames, if he was brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a Thames?
Page 373 - Greek language is logos, but logos means also reason, and alogon was chosen as the name, and the most proper name, for brute. No animal thinks, and no animal speaks, except man. Language and thought are inseparable. Words without thought are dead sounds; thoughts without words are nothing. To think is to speak low ; to speak is to think aloud. The word is the thought incarnate. And now I am afraid I have but a few minutes left to explain the last question of all in our science, namely —How can...