The Semitic languages partake of the characteristics of that race whose thoughts they embodied. They are simple and rigid, metallic rather than fluid; physical and sensuous in their character, deficient in abstraction, and almost incapable of metaphysical accuracy. The roots are triliteral in form and so few in number that their meanings are generally vague, being in fact a series of metaphorical applications of some sensible perception. They are deficient in style and in perspective; they are, as Ewald observes, lyric and poetic, rather than oratorical and epic; they are the best means of showing us the primitive tendencies of language; they may be compared to the utterances of a fair and intelligent infancy retained in a manhood which has not fulfilled the brilliant promise of its early days.
The Semitic family has three main branches—viz., the Aramaic, divided into two dialects, Syriac and Chaldee; the Hebrew, with which is connected the Carthaginian and Phœnician, and the Arabic. Besides these the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Assyrian and the Berber dialects are now considered to have a Semitic character, such at least is the conclusion arrived at by those whose authority is of the highest importance—viz., Champollion and Bunsen in the case of Egyptian, MM. Lassen and Eugène Burnouf, Dr. Hincks and Sir H. Rawlinson in the case of Assyrian, and Prof. F. Newman in the case of the Berber dialects.[249] It is admitted, however, that the people speaking these languages were the cognate rather than the agnate descendants of Shem; and it must not be overlooked, that the conclusion which would rank these languages as indubitably Semitic is rejected by philologists so celebrated as MM. Pott, Ewald, Wenrich, and Renan.[250]
III. All languages which belong to neither of these two great families have been classed together under the name of the Turanian, Nomadic, or Allophylian family,[251] which “comprises all languages spoken in Asia or Europe, not included under the Arian and Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and its dialects.”
The chief labourers in the field of Turanian philology were Rask, Klaproth, Schott, and Castren; but even M. Müller, one of the main authorities for the classification of the various branches of language which occupy this wide range (e.g., the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoiedic, and Finnic), candidly admits that the characteristic marks of union ascertained for this immense variety of languages, “are as yet very vague and general, if compared with the definite ties of relationship which severally unite the Semitic and the Arian.” He argues, however, that this is exactly what we should have expected, à priori, in the case of Nomadic languages spoken over an area so vast; languages which have never been the instruments of political organisation, which have no history in the past and no destiny in the future, and which never had any literature to give fixity to their acknowledged unsettledness. Though the “Turanian” languages occupy by far the largest portion of the earth (viz., all but India, Arabia, Asia-Minor and Europe), there is not a single positive principle, except perhaps agglutination, which can be proved to pervade them all.[252]
It is impossible here to examine the arguments on which the unity of this family has been considered to be approximately established, while it is admitted that this unity does not admit of any proof so strong and decisive as in the case of the Indo-European and Semitic families. Those who seek the evidence will find it stated, at full length, and with great eloquence and ability, by Prof. Max Müller, in his “Survey of Languages,” and also in Baron Bunsen’s “Outlines.” Suffice it here to say, that to many the vast group of Tartaro-Finnic languages still appear to be purely sporadic, and to have no common character except such as is involved in their being neither Arian nor Semitic, i.e., in the purely negative trait of an absence of certain development. Under these circumstances, we think that for the present it would be far better to call these languages by the purely negative name, Allophylian,[253]—a name which involves no hypothesis, and which has the advantage of being the simple assertion of a fact.
But even supposing that we unhesitatingly admit a postulate so large as that required of us, by the supposition that the Nomad languages may be united into one family, which has points of affinity with the dialects of Africa and America, and even with Chinese, the further and more important question still remains; Are there any points of osculation between the languages of these three great distinct families? Is there any evidence in the present state of philology sufficiently strong to induce a scientific belief in the primitive unity of human language, and therefore of the human race? The answer to that question must be found in the next chapter, and I need only premise, that it is here treated as a question of pure science, and is entirely separated from its theological bearings. The question before us is not “must we believe in the unity of the human race?” but “does philology furnish any proofs or presumptions of the unity of the human race?”
[CHAPTER X.]
ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE?
“Innumeræ linguæ dissimillimæ inter se, ita ut nullis machinis ad communem originem retrahi possint.”—F. Schlegel.