“Nommer par la mimologie, s’enrichir par la comparaison, les langues n’ont pas d’autre moyen: elles ne sortent pas de là.”—Nodier, p. 39.
From the general question as to the manner in which sounds acquired significance as words, we proceed to the longer and wider inquiry as to the causes which led to the choice of special sounds in special significations; or, in other words, we shall consider the origin of roots.[85]
When in the first chapter we proved that language was neither innate nor revealed, we proved implicitly that no words could be purely arbitrary.[86] The historic character of language,—the fact that in innumerable cases we can distinctly trace the laws which presided at the genesis of any particular word,—strongly confirms our à priori conclusion. The inference to be deduced from the labours of all the best philologists, is that of Ihre, “Non ut fungi nascuntur Vocabula.” We have no reason to believe that any elements of language were deduced from roots which of themselves had no significance; and the more rigorous and extensive the analysis to which even inflections are subjected, the more clear is the proof that they arise from the agglutination of separate and significant words. “We believe,” says one of the ablest of modern[87] inquirers, “that in language ex nihilo nihil fit; and we are at a loss to conceive how elements originally destitute of signification can determine the sense of anything with precision. To assume that they have no meaning, because we cannot always satisfactorily explain it, is only an argumentum ad ignorantiam.”
Nor must it be forgotten, that in endeavouring to prove that in language nothing is arbitrary, we are under a great disadvantage, because no existing language has come to us in its primitive form. Every language, even those which are most ancient, and have long since ceased to be spoken, bears in its records the traces of a more primitive condition. Words, of which the composition was originally clear, are worn and rubbed by the use of ages, like the pebbles which are fretted and rounded into shape and smoothness by the sea waves on a shingly beach; or to use the more appropriate image suggested by Goethe, their meaning is often worn away like the image and superscription of a coin. This process is so continuous, that it is quite hopeless to recover the original form of many words, or even to make a probable[88] guess at their origin.
Language always tends to become mechanical (i.e. unmeaning of itself) by corruption;[89] and to such an extent is this the case, that it is rather a matter of astonishment when, after the lapse of centuries, a word still retains the obvious traces of its original form. And yet in spite of this we can by induction discover from words themselves the main laws which influenced the formation of primitive speech.
The violent dislike which we instinctively feel to the use of a word entirely new to us, and of which we do not understand the source, is a matter of daily experience; and the tendency to give a meaning to adopted words by so changing them as to remove their seemingly arbitrary character has exercised a permanent and appreciable influence on every language. An instance or two will perhaps pave the way for a more ready acceptance of our subsequent remarks.
When we go into a ship or factory, and inquire the technical name of various parts of the machinery, we are either unable to use the names from not catching the pronunciation, or, in attempting to pronounce them we substitute for them other words of similar sound and more significance.
It often happens that gardeners become acquainted with new plants, or new species of old plants, that are brought to them under a foreign name; not understanding this name, they corrupt it into some word which sounds like it, and with which they are already familiar. To this source of corruption we owe such words as dandylion[90] (dent de lion), rosemary (ros marinus), gilly-flower (girofle), quarter sessions rose (des quatre saisons), Jerusalem artichoke (giresol) &c. For the same reason (the dislike of terms with which they are unacquainted) sailors corrupt Bellerophon into Billy Ruffian: and we have heard of a groom, who, having the charge of two horses called Othello and Desdemona, christened them respectively Old Fellow and Thursday Morning. Lamprocles, the name of a horse of Lord Eglintoun’s, was converted by the ring into “Lamb and Pickles.” The same principle may be seen at work among servants; we have heard a servant systematically use the word “cravat” for “carafe,” and astonish a gentleman by calmly asking him at luncheon, “If she should fill his cravat with water?”
The working of this tendency is all the more curious from the fact that very often the corrupted form of the word is wholly inappropriate, although significant. There is no doubt that, in most cases, we prefer a corruption, which is appropriate as well as significant, and we find instances[91] of this in such words as worm-wood (wermuth), cray-fish (écrévisse), lanthorn (laterna), belfry (beffroi), rakehell (racaille), beefeater (buffetier), verdigrease (verd de gris), sparrow-grass (asparagus), &c. Where, however, this is unattainable, we are well content with some significant corruption, for which we can invent or imagine a meaning even if we are unaware of the real explanation; as, for instance, in Charter House (Chartreuse), “to a cow’s thumb” = exactly (à la coutume), wiseacre (weissager), saltpetre (salpetra), &c. It is curious to find that in the desire to understand, at any rate in some degree, the words we use, the corrupted form often gives birth to a totally false explanation. Thus Dr. Latham mentions[92] that the corruption of Château Vert into Shotover has led to the legend that Little John shot over the hill of that name near Oxford. Similar instances are supplied by the legends of Veronica, and of St. Ursula with her eleven thousand virgins.
It may seem that we have, in the course of this chapter, made statements somewhat contradictory; viz., that it is the tendency of language to become mechanical (i.e., arbitrary and conventional) by corruption, and yet that there is an instinctive dislike to the use of new words which convey no intrinsic meaning to the mind of the speaker. If we argued from the instances adduced in the last pages, we might infer that language was originally arbitrary, and had been twisted into meaning by subsequent use. We must, however, draw attention to the fact that this latter phenomenon is only observable on the naturalisation of a word. A new word, however bright and perfect in itself, is like a strange coin upon which we look with suspicion, because we are unaccustomed to its appearance. But when a word is accepted and generally understood, when, in fact, it has become current, we are then indifferent to the amount of wear on the surface or even to the complete obliteration of its original significance; just in the same way as we do not trouble ourselves to observe a coin which is in common use, and pay no regard to the fact that its image is confused, and its superscription undecipherable. We might, for instance, find words which have passed through both processes. Let us suppose[93] that, in course of time, the word sherbet had become corrupted first into syrup, then into shrub; in this case we should have an exemplification of a word first appropriately corrupted into a familiar form in the course of naturalisation, and then re-corrupted into a purely mechanical[94] word, by the ordinary progress of language. We are therefore fairly entitled to infer from the dislike to the introduction of any sound as a word, when the sound is to the speaker an arbitrary one, that the same feeling must have operated at the dawning exercise of the faculty of speech; while from the indifference which we exhibit to the corruption of a word when it has once been currently received; we may give a reason for our inability to explain the origin of all primitive roots, even while we assume with confidence that every root was originally significative.