Introduction to the science of language, Volume 1 (of 2)

by A. H. Sayce

We have seen that a knowledge of more than one language is an indispensable preliminary to the formation of a grammar of either; we have seen also that it was among the Semites of Babylonia and Assyria that the earliest grammatical essays were first made. The impulse given to grammatical studies by these attempts did not survive the fall of Babylon; and though the Jewish schools in Babylonia and elsewhere were forced to accompany the extinct Hebrew of their sacred books with glosses and commentaries in Aramaic, they produced nothing that can be called with any truth a grammatical work. It was not until the foundation of the School of Edessa, in the sixth century, that the traditions of the scribes of Assur-bani-pal were taken up by their successors in Mesopotamia. The study of Greek for ecclesiastical purposes among the Syrian Christians led to the compilation of a Syrian grammar; and Jacob of Edessa (A.D. 650-700) succeeded in elaborating one which served as a model for all succeeding works. His whole grammar, however, was based on that of the Greeks, and his terminology was either borrowed directly from the Greek, or formed after the analogy of his Greek originals. Jacob, to whom the systematization of the Syriac vowel-points is to be ascribed, was followed by Elias of Nisibis (eleventh century), and John Barzugbi (thirteenth century), who, says M. Renan, “may be regarded as the author of the first complete grammar of the Syriac language.”[18] The Arabs were not slow to imitate the example of their Syrian neighbours. The preservation of the text of the Korân turned their attention to philological studies at an early period; and we may assign the real foundation of Arabic grammar to the end of the seventh century, when Abul-Aswed (who died 688 A.D.) introduced the diacritical points and vowel-signs, and wrote some treatises on several questions of grammar. His labours were continued in the schools of Basra and Kufa, and Sibawaih (770), the oldest grammarian whose works have come down to us, shows us Arabic grammar almost complete. His successors, as M. Renan remarks, did little more than fill out the details of his teaching; and in the fifteenth century, Suyuthi knows of no less than 2,500 grammarians who had made a name in Arabic literature.

With Syriac and Arabic grammars thus formed, and the doctrine of triliteral roots enunciated, all that was wanting was to work out a comparative grammar of the Semitic dialects. Just as the grammarians of Greece and Rome had perceived the connection that existed between the two languages, and in their haphazard and arbitrary fashion had endeavoured to trace the origin of Latin words to Greek sources, so the relationship between the Semitic idioms could not but be detected as soon as serious labours were commenced upon them; and the closeness of this relationship prevented the errors and absurdities into which the classical grammarians were betrayed by their ignorance of other tongues. To the Jews belongs the merit of first formulating what we may term a comparative grammar. The Saboreans and Masoretes in the sixth century did for the Old Testament what the Alexandrine Greeks had done for Homer, the Arabs for the Korân, and the Hindus for the Veda; and in the tenth century a Hebrew grammar was founded under Arabic influence, and with it a comparative grammar of the Semitic languages. The Jews, who had warmly received Mohammedan culture, and even become intermediaries between their Arabic masters and the “infidel” philosophy of Greece, were necessarily bilingual; and the first fruits of this necessity were the grammatical works of the Gaon, Saadia-el-Fayyumi (who died 942). After Saadia came Menahem-ben-Seruk of Tortosa (960), and Dunash-ben-Librât of Fez (970), who composed the first works on Hebrew lexicography, and of whom the latter declares that he “compares the relation of Arabic and Hebrew, counts all the genuine words of Arabic which are found in Hebrew, and points out that Hebrew is pure Arabic.” About the same time Judah Khayyug of Fez gave an exhaustive account of defective roots and the permutation of servile letters, while Jonah ben Gannach of Cordova (in Arabic Abul Walid Mervan-ibn-Janah), in the eleventh century, completed the grammatical labours of his predecessors.

With the decline of Arabic supremacy and the introduction of Neo-Hebrew arose a new school of Hebrew philology, of which the Kimchi of Narbonne (A.D. 1200) are the leading representatives. This school was less comparative than the foregoing, and the rabbinical spirit that prevailed in it, though conducing to minute accuracy, was not favourable to philological progress. It was, however, the instructor of the Christian scholars of the Renaissance, whose zeal for knowledge and learning brought the study of Hebrew and its cognate languages within the circle of European thought. The Reformation, breaking as it did with the mediæval Church, and making its appeal to the Scriptures themselves, made a knowledge of the original language of the Old Testament indispensable. Christian scholars like Reuchlin, the two Buxtorfs, Richard Simon, Ludolf, Schultens, or our own Castell and Pococke, devoted themselves to a study of Semitic philology with the same energy and success as men like the Stephenses, the Scaligers, and the Vosses to a study of classical philology. Lexicons and grammars were compiled, texts were critically examined and edited, and a comparative dictionary of the Semitic languages was brought out. It was inevitable that men who were at once masters of Hebrew and Greek should discover resemblances and coincidences between the two languages. Hebrew grammar was cast into a classical mould, and Latin and Greek words were derived from Hebrew roots. Hebrew, it was argued, was the sacred language which had been spoken by Adam and the patriarchs, since the names of our first parents and their offspring are of Hebrew origin; and it was therefore clear that Hebrew must have been the primæval speech used before the confusion of tongues at Babel, the primitive source from which the manifold dialects of the world have been derived. A new etymological system accordingly sprang up, quite as grotesque in its rules and its results as the old etymological system of Greece and Rome; and dictionaries of Latin and English appeared in which every word was provided with its Hebrew original.[19] Since Hebrew is written from right to left, it was assumed that a Hebrew root could be read the reverse way if a satisfactory etymology was not otherwise forthcoming; and as the profane languages might be expected to retain some reminiscences of their sacred mother, a similar procedure was adopted to connect words in English and the classical tongues with one another, and so stum was proved to come from the Latin mustum, and the Latin forma from the Greek μορφή. It was not the only instance in which theological prepossessions have injured the cause of philology.

With Herder and Lessing, however, a new era of thought and philosophy began. The mechanical explanation of the world was superseded by a psychological one; the idea of development took the place of the idea of contract and convention. Herder devoted a special treatise to the “Ideal of Speech,”[20] and a prize offered by the Berlin Academy for the best essay on “the Ideal of a Perfect Language,” was won by Jenisch in 1796. The work of Jenisch bore the ambitious title, “A philosophico-critical Comparison and Estimate of Fourteen of the Ancient and Modern Languages of Europe, viz., Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian.” But Jenisch was still under the dominion of the assumption which made the Roman jurist discover his jus gentium in those points in which the laws of different nations agreed; he finds the ideal of a perfect language in the fourteen languages of his title, all deviations from their grammar being characterized as “less perfect formations.” Richness in the vocabulary, expressiveness, clearness, and euphony are the four marks of superiority. The value of Jenisch’s lucubrations, however, may be judged from his statement that the Greek case-endings were probably modelled after those of Hebrew. It needed the genius of Herder to recognize that the language of a people is but the expression of its spiritual life, and to lay down in his “Ideen” (1785) that “in each language the understanding and character of its speakers reflects itself.” A step forward was made by Mahn in his “Representation of Lexicography from every Point of View,” published in 1817. In this (p. 264) he divides the history of speech into three periods corresponding with the periods in the life of the individual—childhood, youth, and age—severally distinguished by memory, imagination, and intellect. The first period is that in which language was formed, the second that in which it was perfected, the third that in which it was made logical.

If language is logical it is evident that the categories of grammar ought to correspond with the categories of logic, and attempts were accordingly made to sketch the outlines of a universal grammar. In 1801 Vater brought out his “Versuch einer allgemeinen Sprachlehre,” with an introduction on the nature and origin of speech, and an appendix on the adaptation of the rules of universal grammar to those of the grammars of individual tongues. But Vater chose “the high priori road;” he assumed that the first men spoke in accordance with the forms of logic, and instead of tracing the history of grammar in the records of living speech, made that alone normal and correct which seemed to himself to be so. This work of Vater’s was followed, three years later, by a translation of De Sacy’s “Axioms of Universal Philology,” and in 1805 by a “Lehrbuch allgemeiner Grammatik.” Comparative grammar is defined as a setting side by side of the forms of different languages for the sake of reaching that which is “common” to them; but this definition is only scientific in appearance; what is “common” turns out to be not the original forms of a parent-speech, but the forms which a philosopher of the eighteenth century believed to lie at the bottom of “universal grammar.”

This idea of a universal grammar was due partly to the influence of an age which believed the ultimate analyses of logic to represent the thoughts of primitive man, partly to the unmethodical comparison of a variety of languages, some ancient, some modern, and some as unrelated to one another as Greek and Hebrew. But it was also in some measure the result of a revived study of the old Greek theories about language. Our countryman James Harris led the way with his “Hermes, or a Philosophical Enquiry concerning Universal Grammar” (1765). The work was an important one, for it not only stimulated an interest in linguistic studies, but also recalled attention to the labours of those who had built up the framework of our school grammars. Harris was succeeded by Horne Tooke, whose “Diversions of Purley,” however imperfect and erroneous from the point of view of modern scientific philology, threw a charm over what had hitherto seemed repulsive inquiries into the words and forms of speech, and laid down the axiom that we must first investigate the older forms of a language before we can determine the origin and nature of their later equivalents. But Horne Tooke’s work was composed in the interests of a philosophical theory, and its keynote is struck in the assertion that truth is that which a man troweth. Things are but the reflection of words, and words are what men deliberately make them. Grammar is no organic growth, but the mechanical invention of mankind. And just as the first men framed it in ignorance and imperfection, so the philosophers of the eighteenth century could reframe it according to the requirements of formal logic. It was the old mistake of the Greek Analogists over again, only with the difference that they thought of the grammar of a single language alone, whereas the more ambitious philologists of the “Aufklärung” aimed at producing a grammar which would be applicable to all tongues.

The French Encyclopædia was the manifesto of the “Aufklärung,” and the Encyclopædia devoted six of its volumes to grammar and literature. Grammar is divided into general and particular, and while general grammar is defined as “la science raisonnée des principes immuables et généraux de la parole prononcée ou écrite dans toutes les langues,” particular grammar is defined as “the art of applying to the immutable and general principles of the word whether pronounced or written the arbitrary and customary usages (institutions) of a special language.” In accordance with the lines thus traced out, Gottfried Hermann, in 1801, published his work, “De emendendâ ratione Græcæ Grammaticæ,” and G. M. Roth brought out his “Antihermes, or Philosophical Researches into the pure apprehension of Human Speech and Universal Philology” in 1795, and his “Outlines of pure Universal Philology for the use of Academies and advanced classes in the Gymnasia” in 1815. As yet neither families of speech nor the morphology of language were even dreamt of; and the “principles” derived from the school grammars of Greece and Rome, supplemented by the categories of modern philosophical systems, were supposed to apply to all languages alike. It was reserved for A. F. Bernhardi, the pupil of F. A. Wolf and Fichte, the friend of Tieck and Schlegel, to approach towards a truer conception of the nature and relationship of speech in his “Sprachlehre,” which he dedicated to his master Wolf. The first part of this work appeared at Berlin in 1801, under the title of “Reine Sprachlehre,” the second part, “Angewandte Sprachlehre,” being published in 1803, and the third part, “Anfangsgründe der Sprachwissenschaft,” in 1805. Bernhardi first caught sight of the fact that whereas, from a purely scientific point of view, the grammar of every language follows its own independent and peculiar line, for practical purposes we must dwell mainly upon those particulars in which it agrees with the grammars of other tongues.[21] According to Haym his book was “the first entrance of the spirit of the romantic movement into the sphere of real science.” Language is defined “as an allegory of the understanding, which expresses and represents itself, according to its inherent nature, through this externalization.” Hence a connection is sought between the sound and the thing signified; the initial liquid of light, for instance, indicates the sense of the word, whether used as a substantive or as an adjective. In the second part of his work Bernhardi discusses the relation of language to poetry on the one side, and to science on the other, and, as might have been expected from his definition of it as an allegory, regards it as being in its very essence the lyrical utterance of the primitive poet.[22]

Meanwhile the etymologists went on with their work of random guessing, with little heed to the labours of continental scholars upon a philosophy of grammar. In this country Dr. Murray’s “History of the European Languages” was posthumously published in 1823, in which he holds that all the manifold languages of the world are derived from a single primeval one which consisted of a few monosyllables, AG or WAG being the first articulate sound. To this primeval language the Teutonic, and not the Hebrew, “comes nearest;” and it is only fair to say that the relationship of Sanskrit and Persian to the Aryan dialects of Europe is recognized, and a full account given of the ancient Indian speech. In an appendix Dr. Murray also pointed out what we should now term the Aryan affinities of the Scythian words preserved by the classical authors. But his principles of etymology were the same as those of the Greeks; similarity of sound was sufficient to prove identity of origin. And every word, from whatever quarter it may be gathered, is forced to become a proof or an example of the descent of language from his nine monosyllabic interjections. A volume, published in 1800 by W. Whiter, under the ambitious title of “Etymologicum Magnum, or Universal Etymological Dictionary,” is not content even with the limits prescribed to himself by Dr. Murray. English, Greek, Latin, French, Irish, Welsh, Slavonic, Hebrew, Arabic, Gipsey, Coptic, and many more, are all mixed up together with the most impartial prodigality. The character of the work may be judged of by the assertion of the writer, “that from a hord of vagrant Gipsies once issued that band of sturdy robbers—the companions of Romulus and Remus;” this being based on the fact that the Gipsies “are in their own language called Romans, or Romani.” After this we need not be surprised at being told that the English give and shaft, the Hebrew gabbe (sic), the Chaldee gavav, the French javeau, the German garbe, and the Latin sparum, have all one and the same origin; or that sepulcrum is derived from the Hebrew kabar, “to bury,” and the Celtic pen from the Hebrew phânâh, “to incline.”

What has been termed the discovery of Sanskrit by Western scholars put an end to all this fanciful playing with words and created the science of language. The native grammarians of India had at an early period analyzed both the phonetic sounds and the vocabulary of Sanskrit with astonishing precision, and drawn up a far more scientific system of grammar than the philologists of Alexandria or Rome had been able to attain. The Devanâgari alphabet is a splendid monument of phonological accuracy, and long before the time of Saadia and Khayyug, the Hindu “Vaiyâkaranas,” or grammarians, had not only discovered that roots are the ultimate elements of language, but had traced all the words of Sanskrit to a limited number of roots. Their grammatical system and nomenclature rest upon a firm foundation of inductive reasoning, and though based on the phænomena of a single language, show a scientific insight into the nature of speech which has never been surpassed.