Lectures on the Science of Language

by F. Max Müller

The theory which is suggested to us by an analysis of language carried out according to the principles of comparative philology is the very opposite. We arrive in the end at roots, and every one of these expresses a general, not an individual, idea. Every name, if we analyze it, contains a predicate by which the object to which the name applies was known.

There is an old controversy among philosophers, whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper names.[337] It is the question of the primum cognitum, and its consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature of the root, or the primum appellatum.

Some philosophers, among whom I may mention [pg 371] Locke, Condillac, Adam Smith, Dr. Brown, and with some qualification Dugald Stewart, maintain that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects. I quote from Adam Smith. “The assignation,” he says, “of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns substantive, would probably be one of the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages who had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which they would endeavor to make their mutual wants intelligible to each other by uttering certain sounds whenever they meant to denote certain objects. Those objects only which were most familiar to them, and which they had most frequent occasion to mention, would have particular names assigned to them. The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with. The new objects had none of them any name of its own, but each of them exactly resembled another object which had such an appellation. It was impossible that those savages could [pg 372] behold the new objects without recollecting the old ones; and the name of the old ones, to which the new bore so close a resemblance. When they had occasion, therefore, to mention or to point out to each other any of the new objects, they would naturally utter the name of the correspondent old one, of which the idea could not fail, at that instant, to present itself to their memory in the strongest and liveliest manner. And thus those words, which were originally the proper names of individuals, became the common name of a multitude. A child that is just learning to speak calls every person who comes to the house its papa or its mamma; and thus bestows upon the whole species those names which it had been taught to apply to two individuals. I have known a clown who did not know the proper name of the river which ran by his own door. It was the river, he said, and he never heard any other name for it. His experience, it seems, had not led him to observe any other river. The general word river therefore was, it is evident, in his acceptance of it, a proper name signifying an individual object. If this person had been carried to another river, would he not readily have called it a river? Could we suppose any person living on the banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word river, but to be acquainted only with the particular word Thames, if he were brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a Thames? This, in reality, is no more than what they who are well acquainted with the general word are very apt to do. An Englishman, describing any great river which he may have seen in some foreign country, naturally says that it is another Thames.... It is this application of the name of an individual [pg 373] to a great multitude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of that individual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems originally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments which, in the schools, are called genera and species.”

This extract from Adam Smith will give a clear idea of one view of the formation of thought and language. I shall now read another extract, representing the diametrically opposite view. It is taken from Leibniz,[338] who maintains that general terms are necessary for the essential constitution of languages. He likewise appeals to children. “Children,” he says, “and those who know but little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all proper or individual names have been originally appellative or general.” And again: “Thus I would make bold to affirm that almost all words have been originally general terms, because it would happen very rarely that man would invent a name, expressly and without a reason, to denote this or that individual. We may, therefore, assert that the names of individual things were names of species, which were given par excellence, or otherwise, to some individual; as the name Great Head to him of the whole town who had the largest, or who was the man of the most consideration of the great heads known.”

It might seem presumptuous to attempt to arbitrate [pg 374] between such men as Leibniz and Adam Smith, particularly when both speak so positively as they do on this subject. But there are two ways of judging of former philosophers. One is to put aside their opinions as simply erroneous where they differ from our own. This is the least satisfactory way of studying ancient philosophy. Another way is to try to enter fully into the opinions of those from whom we differ, to make them, for a time at least, our own, till at last we discover the point of view from which each philosopher looked at the facts before him, and catch the light in which he regarded them. We shall then find that there is much less of downright error in the history of philosophy than is commonly supposed; nay, we shall find nothing so conducive to a right appreciation of truth as a right appreciation of the error by which it is surrounded.

Now, in the case before us, Adam Smith is no doubt right, when he says that the first individual cave which is called cave gave the name to all other caves. In the same manner, the first town, though a mere enclosure, gave the name to all other towns; the first imperial residence on the Palatine hill gave the name to all palaces. Slight differences between caves, towns, or palaces are readily passed by, and the first name becomes more and more general with every new individual to which it is applied. So far Adam Smith is right, and the history of almost every substantive might be cited in support of his view. But Leibniz is equally right when, in looking beyond the first emergence of such names as cave or town or palace, he asks how such names could have arisen. Let us take the Latin names of cave. A cave in Latin is called antrum, cavea, spelunca. [pg 375] Now antrum means really the same as internum. Antar in Sanskrit means between and within.[339] Antrum, therefore, meant originally what is within or inside the earth or anything else. It is clear, therefore, that such a name could not have been given to any individual cave, unless the general idea of being within, or inwardness, had been present in the mind. This general idea once formed, and once expressed by the pronominal root an or antar, the process of naming is clear and intelligible. The place where the savage could live safe from rain and from the sudden attacks of wild beasts, a natural hollow in the rock, he would call his within, his antrum; and afterwards similar places, whether dug in the earth or cut in a tree, would be designated by the same name. The same general idea, however, would likewise supply other names, and thus we find that the entrails were called antra (neuter) in Sanskrit, enteron in Greek, originally things within.

Let us take another word for cave, which is căvea or căverna. Here again Adam Smith would be perfectly right in maintaining that this name, when first given, was applied to one particular cave, and was afterwards extended to other caves. But Leibniz would be equally right in maintaining that in order to call even the first hollow cavea, it was necessary that the general idea of hollow should have been formed in the mind, and should have received its vocal expression cav. Nay we may go a step beyond, for cavus, or hollow, is a secondary, not a primary, idea. Before a cave was called cavea, a hollow thing, many things hollow had passed before the eyes of men. Why then was a hollow thing, or a hole, [pg 376] called by the root cav? Because what had been hollowed out was intended at first as a place of safety and protection, as a cover; and it was called therefore by the root ku or sku, which conveyed the idea of to cover.[340] Hence the general idea of covering existed in the mind before it was applied to hiding-places in rocks or trees, and it was not till an expression had thus been framed for things hollow or safe in general, that caves in particular could be designated by the name of cavea or hollows.

Another form for cavus was koilos, hollow. The conception was originally the same; a hole was called koilon because it served as a cover. But once so used koilon came to mean a cave, a vaulted cave, a vault, and thus the heaven was called cœlum, the modern ciel, because it was looked upon as a vault or cover for the earth.

It is the same with all nouns. They all express originally one out of the many attributes of a thing, and that attribute, whether it be a quality or an action, is necessarily a general idea. The word thus formed was in the first instance intended for one object only, though of course it was almost immediately extended to the whole class to which this object seemed to belong. When a word such as rivus, river, was first formed, no doubt it was intended for a certain river, and that river was called rivus, from a root ru or sru, to run, because of its running water. In many instances a word meaning river or runner remained the proper name of one river, without ever rising to the dignity of an appellative. Thus Rhenus, the Rhine, [pg 377] means river or runner, but it clung to one river, and could not be used as an appellative for others. The Ganges is the Sanskrit Gangâ, literally the Go-go; a word very well adapted for any majestic river, but in Sanskrit restricted to the one sacred stream. The Indus again is the Sanskrit Sindhu, and means the irrigator, from syand, to sprinkle. In this case, however, the proper name was not checked in its growth, but was used likewise as an appelative for any great stream.

We have thus seen how the controversy about the primum cognitum assumes a new and perfectly clear aspect. The first thing really known is the general. It is through it that we know and name afterwards individual objects of which any general idea can be predicated, and it is only in the third stage that these individual objects, thus known and named, become again the representatives of whole classes, and their names or proper names are raised into appellatives.[341]