Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race

by Arthur James Johnes

The researches of Professor Rask will be found distinctly to warrant the following conclusions. These conclusions are in the nature of results that legitimately flow from his researches; they do not represent the inferences which he himself has thence deduced. With regard both to the languages of England and of his native Scandinavia, this learned writer seems evidently to have been perplexed by the extent and variety of the changes he has described. Hence, in both instances, he has shown an inclination to ascribe to the influence of War and Social disturbance changes which his own researches clearly prove to have been the effects neither of transient nor of local influences, but of causes progressively at work through a series of ages, and embracing large groups of nations and languages in their action.

1. The differences which now exist between the various Scandinavian Languages extend to all those features in which it is possible that one Language, or one Class of Languages, can differ from another; viz. to Words, Grammar, Inflections,[46] and to the arrangement of Words in sentences,[47] or Idioms.

2. Not only do differences of this nature present themselves in the various Scandinavian Kingdoms—but also in the various [pg 046] Provinces of the same Kingdom, which in many instances are distinguished by the most marked differences in Words, Grammar, &c. Thus the Dialect of Dalecarlia in Sweden is very ancient and distinct, and approaches to the Gothic.[48]

3. These characteristic features of the various languages and dialects of Scandinavia have arisen progressively during the course of ages.

4. These differences principally consist in the abandonment in one Kingdom or Province of a portion of the Words, Idioms, Grammar, &c. of the Parent Speech—that part of the elements of the Original Tongue which have become obsolete in one dialect having generally been preserved in the dialects of other kingdoms and provinces—which have at the same time generally lost other distinct portions of the Vocabulary, Grammar, &c. of their common Original. In other words, the “Disjecta Membra” of the old Scandinavian, or “Danska Tunge,” when not preserved in the Danish, have been retained for the most part in the Swedish, Icelandic, and Norwegian, or in some of the Provincial dialects of Scandinavia, and vice versâ. In the various provinces in which it was once spoken different portions of the Parent speech have been abandoned or preserved.

5. Hence it follows that the Primitive Language of Scandinavia, or “Danska Tunge,” does not exist in any one—but is dispersed in all its derivative dialects. (Compare the motto from Grotius on the title-page.)

6. It is a necessary consequence of the third and fourth propositions that the more ancient remains of the derivative dialects approach more nearly to the Parent Speech, and—in the ratio of their superior antiquity—unite a greater proportion of the distinctive peculiarities of all the sister-dialects, [pg 047] which, as previously stated, have arisen in consequence of certain portions of the Parent speech having been abandoned in some provinces and retained in others, and vice versâ.

An interesting illustration of this maxim occurs in a passage from Professor Rask's preface already quoted, in which, after giving a specimen of old Danish, which approaches closely to the Icelandic, he adds, “The few deviations from the Icelandic bear for the most part a strong resemblance to the Swedish.” In other words, the older specimens of the Danish unite those peculiarities by which the modern collateral Tongues of Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden are distinguished from each other.

Let it be borne in mind, that the lapse of one thousand years has produced these changes, and the instructive nature of this example will be fully apparent. Of the accuracy of the data on which the previous deductions rest, all doubt must be removed by reference to one remarkable event. It is historically certain that the Island of Iceland is inhabited by a nation descended from emigrants from the opposite Norwegian coast. It is historically certain, also, that previously to the Ninth Century these warlike adventurers had not established themselves on the Icelandic soil. Anterior to that period, therefore, it is self-evident that, inasmuch as the Icelanders had no existence as a nation, the Icelandic Tongue could not have had a separate existence as a language. Yet it is certain that in the present day the Icelandic deviates at least as widely from the language of the adjoining Norwegian Coasts as that language deviates from the other Scandinavian Tongues.

The evidence furnished by Professor Rask and the writers whose views he has combated, will be found, when fairly balanced, distinctly to support a very important Conclusion, contemplated by neither. The facts adduced on both sides conspire to show a rapid approximation of the Teutonic and [pg 048] Scandinavian branches of the Gothic as we ascend into remote ages.