[CONTENTS.]
| CHAPTER I. | |
| THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. | |
| PAGE | |
| The faculty of speech.—Definition of language.—Importance of philology.—Three main theories on the origin of language—1. That language was innate and organic.—Curiouserrors.—Objections to this view.—2. That language was the result of imitation and convention.—Objections.—3. That language was revealed.—In what sense this may be held to be true.—Thephrase obscure, and leads to many misconceptions.—Danger of a misapplied literalism.—Five objections to the common belief.—The real meaning of Gen. ii. 19, 20.—Rightly understood it exactlyaccords with the true theory.—Germ of truth in each of these views. | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF SPEECH. | |
| Germinal development of language.—How came words to be accepted as signs?—The inquiry not absurd.—What is a word?—Words only express the relations of things.—Connectionof thought and speech.—Growth of individuality.—Theory of M. Steinthal.—Speech depends on the power of abstraction; the transformation of [xii]intuitions into ideas.—1. Impressions awokesounds.—2. Sounds, by the association of ideas, recalled impressions.—3. Sounds became words by connecting the external object and the inward impression.—Influence of organism.—Earliest impressionsexpressed by the simplest sounds.—Influence of women.—Influences of climate. | [34] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS. | |
| Words never purely arbitrary.—They become conventional in time.—Corruptions produced by the dislike of mechanical words.—Inappropriate corruptions.—Words,significant at first, are allowed to become conventional.—Grammar the life of a language.—Onomatopœic or imitative words.—Motive of words.—Delicacy of the appellativefaculty.—The imitation always purely artistic.—Instances of the spontaneous tact which gives rise to new names. | [53] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| ONOMATOPŒIA. | |
| Sounds naturally used as the signs of sounds; as among infants, and savage races.—Wide application of this law overlooked.—The imitation modified organically and ideally.—Admirableperfection of the organs of sound.—Boundless capabilities of language.—Diversity of relations gave rise to different imitations.—Roots universally onomatopœic.—Cause of dialecticvariety.—Interjections and onomatopœia the two natural elements of language.—Instances of words derived from exclamations; and from imitation.—Supposed vulgarity of onomatopœic words.—Their realdignity when well used.—Instances from the poets.—They cannot be avoided.—Harmonies of language. | [72] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROOTS. | |
| Roots supposed to be primitive and irreducible.—Words derived from sensible images; the personal pronouns; and even the numerals.—The verb ‘to be,’ in all languages, from a materialroot.—Permutations and combinations of a few roots.—Instances of their diffusiveness.—The root ‘ach.’—The root ‘dhu.’—The same root to express opposite meanings.—Roots refractedand reflected.—Important applications of these remarks. | [97] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| METAPHOR. | |
| We know nothing absolutely.—Language an asymptote.—Necessity of analogy to express things.—All words ultimately derivable from sensible ideas.—Instances in the Semiticlanguages.—Graphic effects thus produced.—Words involve all history.—Catachresis and metaphor.—Defence of both from the charge of imperfection.—Necessity, power, and value ofmetaphor.—Comparisons of style.—Rigid accuracy and clumsiness of scientific terminology.—Words are but symbols.—The two worlds.—Poetry of life to the primal man, and its influenceon language.—A nation’s language expresses its character. | [116] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| WORDS NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. | |
| Inferences drawn from the derivation of all words from ‘sensible ideas.’—Gradual degeneracy of the Sensational School.—Condillac.—Helvetius.—The Diversions of Purley.—Realderivation of the words ‘If’ and ‘Truth.’—What words really stand for.—The conclusions of nominalism need not be accepted.—Reason.—Words which can only be explained by the idea. | [147] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| THE LAWS OF PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. | |
| These laws psychological.—1. Languages advance from exuberance to moderation by eliminating superfluities.—Unity of speech the result of civilisation.—Redundancy marks an earlystage of thought.—Superfluous words dropped or desynonymised.—2. Languages advance from indetermination to grammar.—Simplicity succeeds complexity.—Instances of agglutination.—3. Languagesadvance from synthesis to analysis.—Tmesis a relic of Polysynthetism.—Analysis not inferior to synthesis for the expression of thought.—Instances in the Indo-European and Semitic languages.—Grimmon the English language.—Some would add a 4th law, viz.: the progress from monosyllabism.—Arguments in favour of this law.—It remains very questionable; only a convenient hypothesis. | [166] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| THE FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES. | |
| Stages of Language.—The logical order not the historical.—1. The Indo-European and Arian family.—Its unity and importance.—Life of the early Arians.—“LinguisticPalæontology.”—2. The Semitic family.—Its character and divisions.—3. The Allophylian or Turanian (?) family (?).—Can only be called a ‘family’ hypothetically.—Includes a vast number oflanguages, which have very little connection with each other. | [185] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE? | |
| Immense number of languages dead as well as living.—Three irreducible families.—Arguments in favour of an original [xv]language.—1. All may be derived (not from each other, but)from some lost language.—Objections.—2. Supposed affinities between different families, i. Non-Sanskritic elements in Celtic. ii. Possible reduction of the triliteral Semitic roots.—Objections.—3.Languages apparently anomalous.—Egyptian, Berber, &c.—How they may possibly be accounted for.—Inference.—Apparent successions of races.—1. The inferior races.—2. Thesemi-civilised.—3. The great noble races. | [203] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE. | |
| 1. Destinies of the Arian race.—The future of the English language.—The distinction of nations a design of Providence.—2. Advantages which result from diversities oflanguage.—Indispensable for the preservation of truth.—Value of knowing languages.—3. A universal language could, in the present state of the world, only last for a short time.—Conclusion. | [220] |
| A list of books valuable as forming an Introduction to the Study of Philology. | [229] |
AN ESSAY
ON
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.