Lectures on the Science of Language

by F. Max Müller

The Old Prussian, which is nearly related to Lithuanian, became extinct in the seventeenth century, and the entire literature which it has left behind consists in an old catechism.

Lettish is the language of Kurland and Livonia, more modern in its grammar than Lithuanian, yet not immediately derived from it.

We now come to the Slavonic languages, properly so called. The eastern branch comprehends the Russian with various local dialects; the Bulgarian, and the Illyrian. The most ancient document of this eastern branch is the so-called Ecclesiastical Slavonic, i.e. the ancient Bulgarian, into which Cyrillus and Methodius translated the Bible, in the middle of the ninth century. This is still the authorized version[184] of the Bible for the whole Slavonic race; and to the student of the Slavonic languages, it is what Gothic is to the student of German. The modern Bulgarian, on the contrary, as far as grammatical forms are concerned, is the most reduced among the Slavonic dialects.

Illyrian is a convenient or inconvenient name to comprehend the Servian, Croatian, and Slovinian dialects. Literary fragments of Slovinian go back as far as the tenth century.[185]

The western branch comprehends the language of Poland, Bohemia, and Lusatia. The oldest specimen of Polish belongs to the fourteenth century: the Psalter [pg 201] of Margarite. The Bohemian language was, till lately, traced back to the ninth century. But most of these old Bohemian poems are now considered spurious; and it is doubtful, even, whether an ancient interlinear translation of the Gospel of St. John can be ascribed to the tenth century.[186]

The language of Lusatia is spoken, probably, by no more than 150,000 people, known in Germany by the name of Wends.

We have examined all the languages of our first or Aryan family, which are spoken in Europe, with one exception, the Albanian. This language is clearly a member of the same family; and as it is sufficiently distinct from Greek or any other recognized language, it has been traced back to one of the neighboring races of the Greeks, the Illyrians, and is supposed to be the only surviving representative of the various so-called barbarous tongues which surrounded and interpenetrated the dialects of Greece.

We now pass on from Europe to Asia; and here we begin at once, on the extreme south, with the languages of India. As I sketched the history of Sanskrit in one of my former Lectures, it must suffice, at present, to mark the different periods of that language, beginning, about 1500 b. c., with the dialect of the Vedas, which is followed by the modern Sanskrit; the popular dialects of the third century b. c.; the Prakrit dialects of the plays; and the spoken dialects, such as Hindí, Hindústání, Mahrattí, Bengalí. There are many points of great interest to the student of language, in the long history of the speech of India; and it has been truly said that Sanskrit is to the science of [pg 202] language what mathematics are to astronomy. In an introductory course of lectures, however, like the present, it would be out of place to enter on a minute analysis of the grammatical organism of this language of languages.

There is one point only on which I may be allowed to say a few words. I have frequently been asked, “But how can you prove that Sanskrit literature is so old as it is supposed to be? How can you fix any Indian dates before the time of Alexander's conquest? What dependence can be placed on Sanskrit manuscripts which may have been forged or interpolated?” It is easier to ask such questions than to answer them, at least to answer them briefly and intelligibly. But, perhaps, the following argument will serve as a partial answer, and show that Sanskrit was the spoken language of India at least some centuries before the time of Solomon. In the hymns of the Veda, which are the oldest literary compositions in Sanskrit, the geographical horizon of the poets is, for the greater part, limited to the north-west of India. There are very few passages in which any allusions to the sea or the sea-coast occur, whereas the snowy mountains, and the rivers of the Penjáb, and the scenery of the Upper Ganges valley are familiar objects to the ancient bards. There is no doubt, in fact, that the people who spoke Sanskrit came into India from the north, and gradually extended their sway to the south and east. Now, at the time of Solomon, it can be proved that Sanskrit was spoken at least as far south as the mouth of the Indus.

You remember the fleet of Tharshish[187] which Solomon had at sea, together with the navy of Hiram, and [pg 203] which came once in three years, bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. The same navy, which was stationed on the shore of the Red Sea, is said to have fetched gold from Ophir,[188] and to have brought, likewise, great plenty of algum[189] trees and precious stones from Ophir.