Lectures on the Science of Language

by F. Max Müller

Plato, indeed, in his Cratylus (c. 36), throws out a hint that the Greeks might have received their own words from the barbarians, the barbarians being older than the Greeks. But he was not able to see the full bearing of this remark. He only points out that some words, such as the names of fire, water, and dog, were the same in Phrygian and Greek; and he supposes that the Greeks borrowed them from the Phrygians (c. 26). The idea that the Greek language and that of the barbarians could have had a common source never entered his mind. It is strange that even so comprehensive a mind as that of Aristotle should have failed to perceive in languages some of that law and order which he tried to discover in every realm of nature. As Aristotle, however, did not attempt this, we need not wonder that it was not attempted by any one else for the next two thousand years. The Romans, in all scientific [pg 127] matters, were merely the parrots of the Greeks. Having themselves been called barbarians, they soon learnt to apply the same name to all other nations, except, of course, to their masters, the Greeks. Now barbarian is one of those lazy expressions which seem to say everything but in reality say nothing. It was applied as recklessly as the word heretic during the Middle Ages. If the Romans had not received this convenient name of barbarian ready made for them, they would have treated their neighbors, the Celts and Germans, with more respect and sympathy: they would, at all events, have looked at them with a more discriminating eye. And, if they had done so, they would have discovered, in spite of outward differences, that these barbarians were, after all, not very distant cousins. There was as much similarity between the language of Cæsar and the barbarians against whom he fought in Gaul and Germany as there was between his language and that of Homer. A man of Cæsar's sagacity would have seen this, if he had not been blinded by traditional phraseology. I am not exaggerating. For let us look at one instance only. If we take a verb of such constant occurrence as to have, we shall find the paradigms almost identical in Latin and Gothic:—

I have in Latin is habeo, in Gothic haba.

Thou hast in Latin is habes, in Gothic habais.

He has in Latin is habet, in Gothic habaiþ.

We have in Latin is habemus, in Gothic habam.

You have in Latin is habetis, in Gothic habaiþ.

They have in Latin is habent, in Gothic habant.

It surely required a certain amount of blindness, or rather of deafness, not to perceive such similarity, and [pg 128] that blindness or deafness arose, I believe, entirely from the single word barbarian. Not till that word barbarian was struck out of the dictionary of mankind, and replaced by brother, not till the right of all nations of the world to be classed as members of one genus or kind was recognized, can we look even for the first beginnings of our science. This change was effected by Christianity. To the Hindú, every man not twice-born was a Mlechha; to the Greek, every man not speaking Greek was a barbarian; to the Jew, every person not circumcised was a Gentile; to the Mohammedan, every man not believing in the prophet is a Giaur or Kaffir. It was Christianity which first broke down the barriers between Jew and Gentile, between Greek and barbarian, between the white and the black. Humanity is a word which you look for in vain in Plato or Aristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the children of one God, is an idea of Christian growth; and the science of mankind, and of the languages of mankind, is a science which, without Christianity, would never have sprung into life. When people had been taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, and then only, did the variety of human speech present itself as a problem that called for a solution in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and I, therefore, date the real beginning of the science of language from the first day of Pentecost. After that day of cloven tongues a new light is spreading over the world, and objects rise into view which had been hidden from the eyes of the nations of antiquity. Old words assume a new meaning, old problems a new interest, old sciences a new purpose. The common origin of mankind, the differences of race and language, the susceptibility of [pg 129] all nations of the highest mental culture, these become, in the new world in which we live, problems of scientific, because of more than scientific, interest. It is no valid objection that so many centuries should have elapsed before the spirit which Christianity infused into every branch of scientific inquiry produced visible results. We see in the oaken fleet which rides the ocean the small acorn which was buried in the ground hundreds of years ago, and we recognize in the philosophy of Albertus Magnus,[107] though nearly 1200 years after the death of Christ, in the aspirations of Kepler,[108] and in the researches of the greatest philosophers of our own age, the sound of that key-note of thought which had been struck for the first time by the apostle of the [pg 130] Gentiles:[109] “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.”

But we shall see that the science of language owes more than its first impulse to Christianity. The pioneers of our science were those very apostles who were commanded “to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,” and their true successors, the missionaries of the whole Christian Church. Translations of the Lord's Prayer or of the Bible into every dialect of the world, form even now the most valuable materials for the comparative philologist. As long as the number of known languages was small, the idea of [pg 131] classification hardly suggested itself. The mind must be bewildered by the multiplicity of facts before it has recourse to division. As long as the only languages studied were Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, the simple division into sacred and profane, or classical and oriental, sufficed. But when theologians extended their studies to Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, a step, and a very important step, was made towards the establishment of a class or family of languages.[110] No one could help seeing that these languages [pg 132] were most intimately related to each other, and that they differed from Greek and Latin on all points on which they agreed among themselves. As early as 1606 we find Guichard,[111] in his “Harmonie Etymologique,” placing Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac as a class of languages by themselves, and distinguishing besides between the Romance and Teutonic dialects.

What prevented, however, for a long time the progress of the science of language was the idea that Hebrew was the primitive language of mankind, and that, therefore, all languages must be derived from Hebrew. The fathers of the Church never expressed any doubt on this point. St. Jerome, in one of his epistles to Damasus,[112] writes: “the whole of antiquity (universa antiquitas) affirms that Hebrew, in which the Old Testament is written, was the beginning of all human speech.” Origen, in his eleventh Homily on the book of Numbers, expresses his belief that the Hebrew language, originally [pg 133] given through Adam, remained in that part of the world which was the chosen portion of God, not left like the rest to one of His angels.[113] When, therefore, the first attempts at a classification of languages were made, the problem, as it presented itself to scholars such as Guichard and Thomassin, was this: “As Hebrew is undoubtedly the mother of all languages, how are we to explain the process by which Hebrew became split into so many dialects, and how can these numerous dialects, such as Greek, and Latin, Coptic, Persian, Turkish, be traced back to their common source, the Hebrew?”