Lectures on the Science of Language

by F. Max Müller

The southern division consists of the Tamulic, the Gangetic (Trans-Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan), the [pg 324] Lohitic, the Taïc, and the Malaïc classes.[305] These two divisions comprehend very nearly all the languages of Asia, with the exception of Chinese, which, together with its neighboring dialects, forms the only representative of radical or monosyllabic speech. A few, such as Japanese,[306] the language of Korea, of the Koriakes, the Kamchadales, and the numerous dialects of the Caucasus, &c., remain unclassed; but in them also some traces of a common origin with the Turanian languages have, it is probable, survived, and await the discovery of philological research.

Of the third, or inflectional, stage, I need not say much, as we have examined its structure when analyzing in our former Lectures a number of words in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, or any other of the Aryan languages. The chief distinction between an inflectional and an agglutinative language consists in the fact that agglutinative languages preserve the consciousness of their roots, and therefore do not allow them to be affected by phonetic corruption; and, though they have lost the consciousness of the original meaning of their terminations, they feel distinctly the difference between the significative root, and the modifying elements. Not so in the inflectional languages. There the various elements which enter into the composition of words, may become so welded together, and suffer so much from phonetic corruption, that none but the [pg 325] educated would be aware of an original distinction between root and termination, and none but the comparative grammarian able to discover the seams that separate the component parts.

If you consider the character of our morphological classification, you will see that this classification, differing thereby from the genealogical, must be applicable to all languages. Our classification exhausts all possibilities. If the component elements of language are roots, predicative and demonstrative, we cannot have more than three combinations. Roots may either remain roots without any modification; or secondly, they may be joined so that one determines the other and loses its independent existence; or thirdly, they may be joined and be allowed to coalesce, so that both lose their independent existence. The number of roots which enter into the composition of a word makes no difference, and it is unnecessary, therefore, to admit a fourth class, sometimes called polysynthetic, or incorporating, including most of the American languages. As long as in these sesquipedalian compounds, the significative root remains distinct, they belong to the agglutinative stage; as soon as it is absorbed by the terminations, they belong to the inflectional stage. Nor is it necessary to distinguish between synthetic and analytical languages, including under the former name the ancient, and under the latter the modern, languages of the inflectional class. The formation of such phrases as the French j'aimerai, for j'ai à aimer, or the English, I shall do, thou wilt do, may be called analytical or metaphrastic. But in their morphological nature these phrases are still inflectional. If we analyze such a phrase as je vivrai, we find it was originally ego (Sanskrit [pg 326] aham) vivere (Sanskrit jîv-as-e, dat. neut.) habeo (Sanskrit bhâ-vayâ-mi); that is to say, we have a number of words in which grammatical articulation has been almost entirely destroyed, but has not been cast off; whereas in Turanian languages grammatical forms are produced by the combination of integral roots, and the old and useless terminations are first discarded before any new combination takes place.[307]

At the end of our morphological classification a problem presents itself, which we might have declined to enter upon if we had confined ourselves to a genealogical classification. At the end of our genealogical classification we had to confess that only a certain number of languages had as yet been arranged genealogically, and that therefore the time for approaching the problem of the common origin of all languages had not yet come. Now, however, although we have not specified all languages which belong to the radical, the terminational, and inflectional classes, we have clearly laid it down as a principle, that all languages must fall under one or the other of these three categories of human speech. It would not be consistent, therefore, to shrink from the consideration of a problem, which, though beset with many difficulties, cannot be excluded from the science of language.

Let us first see our problem clearly and distinctly. The problem of the common origin of languages has no necessary connection with the problem of the common origin of mankind. If it could be proved that languages had had different beginnings, this would in nowise necessitate the admission of different beginnings of the human race. For if we look upon language as [pg 327] natural to man, it might have broken out at different times and in different countries among the scattered descendants of one original pair; if, on the contrary, language is to be treated as an artificial invention, there is still less reason why each succeeding generation should not have invented its own idiom.

Nor would it follow, if it could be proved that all the dialects of mankind point to one common source, that therefore the human race must descend from one pair. For language might have been the property of one favored race, and have been communicated to the other races in the progress of history.

The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered most seriously from being mixed up together. The classification of races and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change their languages, and history supplies us with several instances where one race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different races; so that any attempt at squaring the classification of races and tongues must necessarily fail.

Secondly, the problem of the common origin of languages has no connection with the statements contained in the Old Testament regarding the creation of man, and the genealogies of the patriarchs. If our researches led us to the admission of different beginnings for the languages of mankind, there is nothing in the Old Testament opposed to this view. For although the Jews believed that for a time the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, it has long been pointed out by eminent divines, with particular reference [pg 328] to the dialects of America, that new languages might have arisen at later times. If, on the contrary, we arrive at the conviction that all languages can be traced back to one common source, we could never think of transferring the genealogies of the Old Testament to the genealogical classification of language. The genealogies of the Old Testament refer to blood, not to language, and as we know that people, without changing their name, did frequently change their language, it is clearly impossible that the genealogies of the Old Testament should coincide with the genealogical classification of languages. In order to avoid a confusion of ideas, it would be preferable to abstain altogether from using the same names to express relationship of language which in the Bible are used to express relationship of blood. It was usual formerly to speak of Japhetic, Hamitic and Semitic languages. The first name has now been replaced by Aryan, the second by African; and though the third is still retained, it has received a scientific definition quite different from the meaning which it would have in the Bible. It is well to bear this in mind, in order to prevent not only those who are forever attacking the Bible with arrows that cannot reach it, but likewise those who defend it with weapons they know not how to wield, from disturbing in any way the quiet progress of the science of language.

Let us now look dispassionately at our problem. The problem of the possibility of a common origin of all languages naturally divides itself into two parts, the formal and the material. We are to-day concerned with the formal part only. We have examined all possible forms which language can assume, and we [pg 329] have now to ask, can we reconcile with these three distinct forms, the radical, the terminational, and the inflectional, the admission of one common origin of human speech? I answer decidedly, Yes.

The chief argument that has been brought forward against the common origin of language is this, that no monosyllabic or radical language has ever entered into an agglutinative or terminational stage, and that no agglutinative or terminational language has ever risen to the inflectional stage. Chinese, it is said, is still what it has been from the beginning; it has never produced agglutinative or inflectional forms; nor has any Turanian language ever given up the distinctive feature of the terminational stage, namely, the integrity of its roots.