Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

Again, if we look to the still closer analogy furnished by savages, we meet with a still further corroboration of this view. For instance, Professor Sayce remarks that in “all savage and barbarous dialects, while individual objects of sense have a superabundance of names, general terms are correspondingly rare.” And he gives a number of remarkable illustrations.[193]

In view of these considerations, my only wonder is that these 120 root-words do not present better evidence of conceptual thought. I have already given my reasons for refusing to suppose that we have here to do with the “original” framers of spoken language; and looking to the comparatively high level of culture which the people in question must have reached, it seems remarkable that the root-words of their language should only in so few instances have risen above the level of pre-conceptual utterance.[194] This, however, only shows how comparatively small a part self-conscious reflection need play in the practical life of uncultured man: it does not show that the people in question were remarkably deficient in this distinctively human faculty. Archdeacon Farrar tells us that he has observed the whole conversational vocabulary of certain English labourers not to exceed a hundred words, and probably further observation would have shown that the great majority of these were employed without conceptual significance. Therefore, if these labourers had had to coin their own words, it is probable that, without exception, their language would have been destitute of any terms betokening more than a pre-conceptual order of ideation. Nevertheless, these men must have been capable, in however undeveloped a degree, of truly conceptual ideation: and this proves how unsafe it would be to argue from the absence of distinctively conceptual terms to the poverty of conceptual faculty among any people whose root-words may have come down to us—although, no doubt, in such a case we appear to be getting within a comparatively short distance of the origin of this faculty.

The point, however, now is that really aboriginal, and therefore purely denotative names, must certainly have been “generic” as well as “particular”: they must have been the names of recepts as well as of percepts, of actions as well as of objects and qualities. Moreover, it is equally certain that among this aboriginal assemblage of denotative names as particular and generic, only those belonging to the latter class could have stood much chance of surviving as roots. In other words, no aboriginal name could have survived as a root until it had acquired some greater or less degree of receptual and, therefore, of connotative value. Hence the fact that the ultimate result of the philological analysis of any language is that of reducing the language to a certain small number of roots, and the fact that all these roots are expressive of general and generic ideas,—these facts in themselves yield no support whatever to the doctrine, either that these roots were themselves the aboriginal elements of language, or, a fortiori, that the aboriginal elements of language were expressive of general ideas.[195]

And this conclusion involves another of scarcely less importance. A great deal of discussion has been expended over the question as to whether, or how far, aboriginal language was indebted to the principle of onomatopœia, or the imitation by articulate names of sounds obviously distinctive of the objects or actions named. Of course, on evolutionary principles we should be strongly inclined to suppose that aboriginal language must have been largely assisted in its formation by such intentional imitation of natural sounds, seeing that of all forms of vocal expression they admit of most readily conveying an idea of the object or action named. And the same applies to the so-called interjectional element in word-formation, or the utilization as names of sounds which are naturally expressive of states of human feeling. On the other hand, contempt has been poured upon this theory as an adequate explanation of the first beginnings of articulate speech, on the ground that it is not supported either by history[196] or by the results of philogenetic inquiry.[197] It is, however, forgotten by those who argue on this side that names of onomatopoetic origin must always be, in the first instance, particular; that so long as they remain particular (as, for example, is the case with our word “cuckoo”), they cannot have much chance of surviving as roots; that in proportion as they increase their chances of survival as roots by becoming more general, they must do so by becoming more conventional; and, therefore, that the vast majority of roots, even if aboriginally they were of onomatopoetic origin, must necessarily have had that origin obscured.

In order to illustrate each and all of these general considerations, let us turn to the example of our own “baby-language.” The fact that such language presents so large an element of onomatopœia in itself furnishes a strong presumption that what is now seen to constitute so important a principle in the infancy of the individual (notwithstanding the hereditary tendency to speak), must have constituted at least as important a principle in the infancy of the race. But the point now is, that if we mark the connotative extension of any such nursery word, we may find that just in proportion as it becomes general does its onomatopoetic origin become obscure. For instance, the late Mr. Darwin gave me the following particulars with regard to a grandchild of his own, who was then living in his house. I quote the account from notes taken at the time.

“The child, who was just beginning to speak, called a duck ‘quack’; and, by special association, it also called water ‘quack.’ By an appreciation of the resemblance of qualities, it next extended the term ‘quack’ to denote all birds and insects on the one hand, and all fluid substances on the other. Lastly, by a still more delicate appreciation of resemblance, the child eventually called all coins ‘quack,’ because on the back of a French sou it had once seen the representation of an eagle. Hence, to the child, the sign ‘quack,’ from having originally had a very specialized meaning, became more and more extended in its signification, until it now serves to designate such apparently different objects as ‘fly,’ ‘wine,’ and ‘coin.’”

Now, if any such process of extending or generalizing aboriginally onomatopoetic terms were to have taken place among the primitive framers of human speech, how hopeless would be the task of the philologist who should now attempt to find the onomatopoetic root! Yet, as above observed, not only may we be perfectly certain that such extensions of aboriginal onomatopoetic terms must have taken place, if any such terms were ever in existence at all (and this cannot be doubted), but also that it must have been almost a necessary condition to the survival of an onomatopoetic term as a root that such an extension of its meaning should have taken place. In other words, we can see very good reason to conclude that, as a rule, only those instances of primitive onomatopœia can have survived as roots, which must long ago have had their onomatopoetic origin hopelessly obscured. So that nowhere so much as in this case should we be prepared to entertain the general principle of philological research, that, as Goethe graphically states it, the original meanings of words become gradually worn out, like the image and superscription of a coin.[198]

In view of such considerations, my only wonder is that this origin admits of being traced so often as it does, even as far back as the comparatively recent times when a pastoral people coined the terms which afterwards constituted the roots of Sanskrit. Kas, to cough; kshu, to sneeze; proth, to snort; ma, to bleat, and not a few others, are conceded, even by Professor Max Müller, to be of obviously imitative origin. In the present connection, however, it is of interest to notice how this authority deals with such cases. He says:—“Not one of them is of any importance in helping us to account for real words in Sanskrit. Most of them have had no offspring at all, others have had a few descendants, mostly sterile. Their history shows clearly how far the influence of onomatopœia may go, and if once we know its legitimate sphere, we shall be less likely to wish to extend it beyond its proper limits.”[199]

Now, under our present point of view we can see a very good reason why this element of sterility should have attached to these roots of Sanskrit whose onomatopoetic origin still admits of being clearly traced: it is just because they failed to be extended that their imitative source continues to be apparent.[200] But suppose, for the sake of illustration, that any one of them had been extended, and what would have happened? If ma, to bleat, had been metaphorically applied to the crying of a child, and had then become more and more habitually used in this new signification, while the original meaning became more and more obsolete, it might have taken the place of any such root as bhi, to fear; ish, to love, &c.; and in all the progeny of words which in this its conventional use it might subsequently have generated, no trace of imitative origin could now have been met with—any more than such an origin can be detected in the sound “quack,” as used by the above-mentioned child to designate a shilling.