The progress of civilization, then, implies a continuous diminution of the languages and dialects of the world, and a corresponding extension of a single tongue. Just as we have seen that language advances from complexity to simplicity, so we now see that it advances from multiplicity to unity. The more barbarous a society is, the more numerous will be the languages that it speaks. The further back we go into the past, the greater must be the linguistic anarchy with which we meet. A language begins with dialects, and since language is the product and reflection of the community that uses it, the primæval languages of the world must have been as infinitely numerous as the communities that spoke them. We start with the Babel of confusion, with the houseless savage who did that which was right in his own eyes. Language, it is true, first cemented society together, but it also made each society a body of hostile units. Many as are the existing languages of the earth, they are but the selected relics of an infinitely greater number which have passed away. Here and there we still come across the last waifs of an otherwise extinct family of speech, the last survivors of a group of languages and dialects which has long since been forgotten. The Basque, like the scattered languages of the Caucasus, seems to have no connection with any other known speech; sheltered by the mountain fastnesses of Biscay, it remains to bear witness to the linguistic character of an extinct world. So far as appears at present, the mysterious Etruscan which has left us some 3,000 short inscriptions is another forlorn waif, without kith or kin in the world of known tongues. Perhaps, too, the language of the Lykian inscriptions, which still refuses to be “classified” in spite of the efforts that have been made to turn it into an Iranian idiom, is a further example of the same kind. The boulders that have been left on our hilltops do not tell us with more certainty of the icebergs and icefloes which brought them thither, than do these stray languages of the manifold forms of speech of which they are the scanty remnants. Our only wonder should be not that there are any tongues which refuse to be classed with others, but that there are so few which thus maintain an isolated existence.
As we shall see hereafter, families of languages are exceptional in the history of speech. Professor Max Müller very truly says:[132] “Families of languages are very peculiar formations; they are, and they must be, the exception, not the rule, in the growth of language. There was always the possibility, but there never was, as far as I can judge, any necessity for human speech leaving its primitive stage of wild growth and decay.” “If we confine ourselves to the Asiatic continent, with its important peninsula of Europe, we find that in the vast desert of drifting human speech, three, and only three oases have been formed, in which, before the beginning of all history, language became permanent and traditional; assumed, in fact, a new character—a character totally different from the original character of the floating and constantly varying speech of human beings.” And these oases, these families of speech, it is important to remember, are themselves made up of dialects, only dialects with a common grammar and a common stock of roots. We may, if we like, construct a hypothetical “parent-speech,” from which we may derive the several dialects and languages which are the only facts we have to work upon; but we must not forget that such a parent-speech is purely hypothetical, the product of reflective analysis and logical deduction. Fick’s dictionary of the Parent-Aryan is as much the creation of the comparative philologist’s closet as Schleicher’s “restoration” of its grammatical forms. Because the Sanskrit panchan and the Latin quinque can both be reduced to the same form quemquem, it does not follow that the latter form was ever actually existent. As far back as we can go, we still find ourselves in the presence of allied dialects, never of a single tongue. The east-Aryan primitive ghard, “heart,” cannot be reduced to the same form as the west-Aryan kard, with the same meaning; the two variant forms of the root testify to a dialectical difference from the outset.[133] Such, too, is the evidence of words like those for “daughter,” Greek θυγάτηρ, but Sanskrit duhitâ, or “door,” Greek θύρα, Sanskrit dwâram (not dhwâram), while the demonstrative pronouns appear from the first under two incompatible forms sa(s) and ta(s). For the sake of convenience we may assume a parent-speech; we may even go so far as to picture to ourselves a family of languages like a family in social life, except that it springs not from two ancestors but from one; but unless we bear in mind that these assumptions are like the assumptions of the geometer, ideal creations, never realized in the actual world, we shall be betrayed into numberless absurdities and false conclusions. It is to them, indeed, that we owe the belief that the primitive Aryans had but the single vowel a in their alphabet besides the three tenues k, t, p, the labials r, m, n, and the sibilant s. Even Dr. Murray, with his nine primæval roots ag, bag, dwag, gwag, lag, mag, nag, rag, and swag, did better than this.[134]
Repulsion and division, then, is the natural condition of language. The three causes of change are ever actively at work, and the influence of civilization cannot entirely destroy their power. But with the advance of culture, the dividing barriers are broken down, and to borrow a metaphor from mechanics, the centrifugal is exchanged for the centripetal force. Dialects make way for languages, and languages in their turn tend to centralization. Where thought is of more consequence than the vocal symbols in which it is expressed, means will be found for making the symbols uniform and constant. Language begins with multiplicity and disunion, but its end is unity. The theory that would derive the idioms of the world from three or four primæval centres, or even from a single centre, is contrary to the facts. In the very act of being formed a language necessarily splits itself into dialectical variety. The children of to-day resemble those children of humanity, the first framers of articulate speech, and the children of a single household, if left to themselves, would have each his own jargon, his own dialect. So it was, too, with primitive man. Where circumstances were favourable the inhabitants of the same locality, breathing the same air, and enjoying the same food, would maintain a family likeness in the tongues they spoke; but elsewhere all the causes of change would have had free play, and the languages of mankind would have been as numerous as the songs of birds. With the growth of society, however, language, the great social unifier, became more and more fixed and settled; though dialects continued to branch off, they each occupied a wider area, belonged to a larger community, and retained their marks of relationship to one another. When the first level of civilization had been reached, the history of language entered upon a new phase. Families of speech became possible, and the same causes that produced permanence and stability in the customs and beliefs of the community produced them also in the dialects that it used. The first step had been made towards counteracting the anarchy of primæval speech and attaining that ideal unity to which language tends. Here and there the race may have deteriorated; the Hottentots, for instance, with their developed dialects, may be the degenerate descendants of more civilized ancestors; but the movement on the whole has been forward and not backward. Science with a myriad voices declares the ascent and not the descent of man. Our civilization, it is true, like the languages that reflect it, is still imperfect, is still far from the goal that it has in view. But we may take heart from what has been achieved, and perhaps even look forward to the day when there shall be not only one hope and one faith, but also one language in which they shall find utterance.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
SPECIMENS OF MIXED JARGONS.
Maltese.
St. John i. 1-14. (1.) Fil bidu kienet il kelma, u il kelma kienet ’aand Alla, u Alla kien il kelma. (2.) Dina kienet fil bidu ’aand Alla. (3.) Kollosh biha sar; u minn ’aayrha sheyn ma sar, milli sar. (4.) Fiha il ḥaỹa kienet, u il ḥaỹa kienet id dawl tal bniedmin. (5.) U id dawl yilma fid dlamiyiet, u id dlamiyiet ma fehmuhsh. (6.) Kien hemma bniedem mib’aut mn’ Alla, li ismu Jwan. (7.) Dana jie b’shiehed biesh yished mid Dawl, biesh il koll yemmnu bih. (8.) Hua ma kiensh id Dawl, izda kien biesh yishhed mid Dawl. (9.) Kien Dawl tas sew̃a, li yuri lil koll bniedem li yiji fid dinya. (10.) Hu kien fid dinya, u id dinya bih saret, u id dinya ma ’aarfetush. (11.) Jie fiḥ weyju, u niesu ma laq’auhsh. (12.) Izda lil dawk kollha li laq’auh, tahom il yedd illi isiru ulied Alla, lil dawka li yemmnu b’ Ismu: (13.) Li le twieldu(sh) mid demm, u la mir rieda tal jisem, lanqas mir rieda tar rajel, izda mn’ Alla. (14.) U il kelma saret jisem, u ’aammret fostna (u rayna sebḥu [or kburitu], bḥala sebḥ li mnissel-waḥdu mil missier), mimlia bil graẓya u bis sew̃a.
Creolese (or broken Danish), the language of 39,000 negroes in Danish West Indies, possessing no genders or numbers, declension or conjugation. See Klauer-Klattowski, “Deutsche Orthoepie,” p. 108, and J. C. Kingos, “Kreool A B C Buk” (S. Croix, 1770). The language is really Dutch with Danish words intermixed.
St. John i. 1-14. (1.) In die Begin die Woord ha wees, en die Woord ha wees bie Godt, en Godt ha wees die Woord. (2.) Die selve ha wees bie Godt in die Begin. (3.) Almael gut ka maek door die selve; en sonder die niet een gut ka maek, van almael, wat ka maek. (4.) Die Leven ha wees in hem, en die Leven ha wees die Ligt van die Mensen. (5.) En die Ligt ha skien in die Dysternis, en die Dysternis no ha begriep die. (6.) Die ha hab een mens, Godt ha stier hem, en sie naem ha wees Johannes. (7.) Hem ha kom tot een Getiegnis, dat hem ha sal getieg van die Ligt, dat almael ha sal gloov door hem. (8.) Hem no ha wees die Ligt, maer dat hem ha sal getieg van die Ligt. (9.) Die ha wees die waeragtig Ligt, die verligt almael Mensen, die kom na die Weereld. (10.) Hem ha wees in die Weereld, en die Weereld ka maek door hem, en die Weereld no ka ken hem. (11.) Hem ha kom na sie Eigendom, en sie eigen no ha neem hem an. (12.) Maer sooveel ka neem hem an, na sender hem ka giev magt for kom kinders van Godt, die gloov in sie Naem; (13.) Die no bin gebooren van Blud, ook niet van die Wil van Vleis, ook niet van die Wil van man, maer van Godt. (14.) En die Woord ka kom Vleis, en ka woon onder ons, en ons ka kik sie Heerligheid, een Heerligheid, als van die eenig gebooren Soon van die Vaeder, vol van Gnaede en Waerheid.
Surinam Negro-English (or rather Negro-English-Dutch), spoken in the Dutch colony of Guiana by at least 100,000 persons, of whom 10,000 are Europeans. See Greenfield, “Defence of the Surinam Negro-English Version,” p. 17. It includes Spanish, Portuguese, and French words. Nearly all its words end in a vowel, and it is nearly devoid of grammar. It is called by the Negroes, Ningre-tongo or Bakra.