The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

IV. Although a naturalist, and therefore habitually disposed to attribute to the characters drawn from physical man a preponderating importance, I cannot allow that this superiority is absolutely constant. There are some facts which speak too strongly. Had it not been for their special language no one would have hesitated to consider the Basques as belonging to the same family as other Southern Europeans. Had their special dolichocephaly been discovered, as it has been by M. Broca, no one would have thought of making them allophylian whites. It is the same with the peoples of the Caucasus, who were long considered, entirely on account of their physical characters, as the pure stock of White European populations. We must, therefore, acknowledge that in some cases language has a characteristic importance superior to that of external features and anatomical facts, or, at least, that it furnishes indications more readily understood.

This alternation of value between certain characters will cause no surprise to naturalists who are familiar with the results of modern zoology. They know that it is the same with animal species. In the vertebrata the respiratory organs furnish characters of the first order, which are dominant: in annelids, and in secondary types in which this function is less rigorously localized, families, perfectly similar in other respects, have the branchia very highly developed or altogether wanting. In their case the characters drawn from the respiratory organs are evidently secondary and subordinate. If this is the case between different species and different groups, we must not be surprised if, with still greater reason, it should be the same between different races.

V. In anthropological applications of the science of language, every one will allow that far more importance must be attributed to grammar than to vocabulary; it is clear that it cannot be otherwise. But have we not in certain cases, despised too much the information which may be derived from the latter? The results to which Young has arrived from the calculation of probabilities may, it seems to me, be very aptly quoted here. The object of the illustrious author was to discover, how many similar words in two different languages were necessary to authorize us in considering these words as having belonged to the same language. From these calculations it appears that the common possession of one word has no meaning. But the probability of unity of origin is already three to one when there are two words common to both, and more than ten to one when there are three. When the number of words common to both is six, the probability is more than 1,700, and almost 100,000 when there are eight.

It is, therefore, almost certain that eight words common to two different languages have originally belonged to the same language, and when isolated in the midst of a language to which they do not belong must be regarded as imported. These conclusions of the learned Englishman are of extreme importance. They tend to make anthropologists regard the relations between various peoples in a different manner from that to which many anthropologists have been accustomed, and force us to admit the existence of communications which we should otherwise be inclined to doubt.

VI. Whilst fully recognising the undoubted importance of linguistic characters, we must not trust to them entirely as guides in the estimation of ethnological relations. A language may become extinct and be replaced upon the same spot. The mere linguist would then assume the annihilation of a race or population which was in reality flourishing. This was the case with the Canary Islanders. The descendants of the Guanches having all adopted the Spanish language, it was thought that they no longer existed, till M. Berthelot showed that in reality they formed the basis of the population of the whole archipelago.

VII. Monogenism and polygenism have fought, and are still fighting upon linguistic as well as upon organographical grounds. Thus it has very often happened that the scientific question has been obscured by considerations entirely foreign to science; and with the less reason as the opposed doctrines have really less connection with this subject than has generally been supposed.

From a linguistic point of view the problem may be stated in the following terms:—Was there in times past, a single primitive language, from which all languages, living or dead, have sprung? Or rather, have languages existed, and do languages still exist, which cannot be traced to a common origin?

We shall at once understand the reply of the polygenistic philologist. Arguing from the differences by which certain families of languages are separated, they declare them to be irreducible, and with Crawfurd, M. Hovelacque, and others, state their belief “in the original plurality of the races which have been formed with them.” On the other hand, this irreducibility is denied by Max Müller, who, without as yet affirming the existence of a primitive language, allows us to see that, in his opinion, all philological researches are tending to the demonstration of this fact.

Being a complete stranger to studies of this nature, I cannot express an opinion upon special questions. I shall confine myself to the statement of some general facts, and to pointing out the sense in which they seem to me to claim most attention.

This irreducibility, upon which the polygenistic philologists rely, recalls the argument, which is based upon physical characters, and consists in contrasting the Negro with the White. This argument long possessed a certain appearance of strength, which it has lost as more numerous intervening links were discovered between these two extremes. It seems to me that the general progress of philology is tending to the same result. All linguists now place side by side languages which would have been considered irreducible at the beginning of the century.