In the Aryan languages the modifications of words, comprised under declension and conjugation, were likewise originally expressed by agglutination. But the component parts began soon to coalesce, so as to form one integral word, liable in its turn to phonetic corruption to such an extent that it became impossible after a [pg 292] time to decide which was the root and which the modificatory element. The difference between an Aryan and a Turanian language is somewhat the same as between good and bad mosaic. The Aryan words seem made of one piece, the Turanian words clearly show the sutures and fissures where the small stones are cemented together.
There was a very good reason why the Turanian languages should have remained in this second or agglutinative stage. It was felt essential that the radical portion of each word should stand out in distinct relief, and never be obscured or absorbed, as happens in the third or inflectional stage.
The French âge, for instance, has lost its whole material body, and is nothing but termination. Age in old French was eage and edage. Edage is a corruption of the Latin œtaticum; œtaticum is a derivative of œtas; œtas an abbreviation of œvitas; œvitas is derived from œvum, and in œvum, œ only is the radical or predicative element, the Sanskrit ây in ây-us, life, which contains the germ from which these various words derive their life and meaning. From œvum the Romans derived œviternus, contracted into œternus, so that age and eternity flow from the same source. What trace of œ or œvum, or even œvitas and œtas, remains in âge? Turanian languages cannot afford such words as âge in their dictionaries. It is an indispensable requirement in a nomadic language that it should be intelligible to many, though their intercourse be but scanty. It requires tradition, society, and literature, to maintain words and forms which can no longer be analyzed at once. Such words would seldom spring up in nomadic languages, [pg 293] or if they did, they would die away with each generation.
The Aryan verb contains many forms in which the personal pronoun is no longer felt distinctly. And yet tradition, custom, and law preserve the life of these veterans, and make us feel unwilling to part with them. But in the ever-shifting state of a nomadic society no debased coin can be tolerated in language, no obscure legend accepted on trust. The metal must be pure, and the legend distinct; that the one may be weighed, and the other, if not deciphered, at least recognized as a well-known guarantee. Hence the small proportion of irregular forms in all agglutinative languages.[303]
A Turanian might tolerate the Sanskrit,
as-mi, a-si, as-ti, 's-mas, 's-tha, 's-anti,
I am, thou art, he is, we are, you are, they are;
or even the Latin,
's-um, e-s, es-t, 'su-mus, es-tis, 'sunt.
In these instances, with a few exceptions, root and affix are as distinguishable as, for instance, in Turkish: