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

by Arthur James Johnes

Section III.

Application of these Conclusions to the Question of the Unity of the Human Race.

It may be objected that if language were in its origin imitative, the identity of the various languages of the globe shown in this work may be accounted for on that principle, without ascribing that important fact to an original unity of race. But an answer to this objection is involved in the following passage from the Mithridates of Adelung and Vater:

“In those instances in which the sound imitated is very definite and invariable, the imitation is so likewise (as in that of the name of the Cuckoo, which is nearly the same in all languages). But this is seldom the case. Generally the natural sound is very variable; hence one people imitates one, and another a different change. A very striking example occurs in the names for Thunder. Distinct as this natural sound is, the impressions which it makes on the ear are very variable, and it has accordingly given rise to a great number of different names, which all betray, nevertheless, their origin in Nature. In my Ancient History of the German Language I have adduced, in proof of this proposition, 353 of these names from the European languages.”

It appears, then, that the principle that language was imitative in its origin does not involve the inference that there is for that reason a tendency in human language to Unity. On the contrary, this principle leads, as has been shown, to the very opposite conclusion. Hence features of affinity displayed by different Tongues must be referred to original unity of race.

Section IV.

Recent Origin of the Human Race.

The Hebrew and Sanscrit, as pointed out in the previous Sections, display certain features which cannot have long survived the infancy of language. The caprices of custom, the progress of the human mind, and the dictates of convenience, are calculated to efface these features within a limited period of time. Hence it follows, that the existence of language, and of the Species by which it is employed, could not have commenced at an era very remotely anterior to the date of the earliest specimens of these ancient Tongues; for it must be borne in mind that the identity of the Hebrew and the Sanscrit with other Human Tongues having been proved (see [Appendix A]), the vestiges of recent formation which these two languages display furnish evidence of the recent origin, not only of the ancient nations by whom they were spoken, but also of the Human Race. As previously noticed, no difficulty is felt in accounting for the descriptive character of the scientific names which occur at page [95], on the ground that the substances named have only lately become known to man. The existence in the Sanscrit of numerous descriptive Synonymes for the “Sun” (see page [98]), the most conspicuous object in nature, is an example which, as already intimated, must suggest analogous reflections.

Viewed with reference to the lapse of a few centuries, the changes language undergoes are too irregular to furnish a safe test of the date of historical events. But adverting to the progress of the European languages within the last thousand years, we may infer, nevertheless, that the effect of a long interval in producing extensive changes is certain.

Judging from these data, I conceive it may reasonably be concluded that the ancient Hebrew and Sanscrit remains could not have preserved the descriptive or metaphorical character to the same extent as they have done had the Human species been introduced at a period anterior to the date assigned to that event by our received systems of chronology.