Contaminations will account for many irregularities noted by the authors.
CHAPTER IX.
ORIGINAL CREATION.
We must not suppose that the conditions under which language was originally created were different from those which we are able to trace and to watch in the process of its historical development. We must not suppose that mankind once possessed a special faculty for coining language, and that this faculty has died out. Education and experience must have developed our faculties no less for the creation of language than for other purposes; and if we have ceased to create new materials for language at the present day, the reason must be that we have no further need to do so. The mass of linguistic material which we have inherited is, in fact, so great that it is scarcely possible for us to conceive a new idea for which, in the existing language, we could not find some word or form either ready to our hand, or capable of being made more or less suitable to express it, or at least able to supply some derivative for the purpose. On the other hand, we must admit that the process of new creation has never wholly ceased in language; and even in English we find a certain quantity of words whose derivation is unknown, and which seem to be unconnected with any Indo-European language; e.g., dog, rabbit, ramble, etc.[81]
Again, we must not suppose that the history of language falls into two parts—a period of roots, and another period when language was built up of roots. At first, indeed, every idea to be expressed demanded the creation of a new term; and even when the stock of existing words had already become considerable, new thoughts must constantly have arisen for which, as yet, there was no expression. Still, as the existing vocabulary grew larger, the necessity for absolutely new words, not connected with or derived from others already existing, grew less and less; and it would therefore seem as if the need for such formations would have gradually disappeared completely. But a little consideration will suffice to show that, at all stages in the history of language, there must have existed a certain necessity for new creations to express new ideas; and we have a right to assume that in later times, as civilisation grew more complex, the degree in which new creations were necessary remained a considerable one.
The essence of original creation consists in the fact that a group of sounds is connected with a group of ideas, without the intervening link of any association already existing between a similar, related sound-group, and a similar, related idea. When the Dutch chemist, Van Helmont, conceived the novel idea of a category which should embrace all such substances as air, oxygen, hydrogen, etc., he invented a new term, ‘gas,’ which, unless the fancied connection with the word ‘geest’ (ghost) was indeed present in his mind, was a ‘new creation.’ If, on the other hand, some one were now to invent some entirely new process of treating gases, or of treating other substances with gases, and to indicate such an operation by some such form as gasel, the word gasel would no doubt be quite new, but we should not speak of it as an ‘original creation’ in the sense in which we use the words in this chapter. It would be a new derivative.
Original creation is due, in the first instance, to an impulse which may disappear and leave no permanent traces. It is necessary, in order that a real language may arise from this process, that the sounds should have operated upon the mind so that memory can reproduce them. It is further necessary that other individuals should understand the sounds which thus constitute a word, and should be able to reproduce them as well.
We find that the new is named in language after what is already known; in fact, the old and the new stand related to each other as cause and effect: in other words, the new is not produced without some kind of connection with the old. This connection generally consists of some pre-existing association between cognate words and cognate ideas. In the case, then, of original creation, the essence of which we declared to be the absence of that link, some other connection must exist; and this will generally be found in the fact that the sounds and their signification suggest each other. The sounds in that case will strike the generality of hearers as appropriate to the meaning intended to be conveyed, and the speaker will be conscious that those sounds are peculiarly fitted to express the idea which is in his mind. As an instance, we might take the barbarously constructed word ‘electrocution,’ now in use in America to denote the new method of inflicting the death penalty in that country. The word electric is understood; and so is the word execution: the barbarous new word is the effect of our previous comprehension of these two words. Such appropriateness will secure the repetition of the new creation by the same speaker, and make probable the spontaneous creation of the same term by various speakers living in the same mental and material surroundings, both which effects are essential conditions for the common acceptance of the new expression.
The most obvious class of words to illustrate this connection between sound and meaning is what is known as ‘onomatopoietic;’ i.e. names which were plainly coined in order to imitate sounds. The most common of these are such as seem to be imitations of noises and movements. Such are click, clack, clink, clang, creak, crack, ding, twang, rattle, rustle, whistle, jingle, croak, crash, gnash, clatter, chatter, twitter, fizz, whiz, whisk, whiff, puff, rap, slap, snap, clash, dash, hum, buzz, chirp, cheep, hiss, quack, hoot, whirr, snarl, low, squeak, roar, titter, snigger, giggle, chuckle, whimper, croon, babble, growl.[82] Those with the suffix le are used to express iteration, and so to form frequentative verbs. These suffixes are specially noticeable in words of imitative origin, such as the list given in Skeat, English Etymology, p. 278. Some verbs denote at once a noise and an explosion, like bang, puff; French, pan, pouf: others a noise and motion, as fizz, whirr. These are words which appear to date from comparatively modern English. There would be no difficulty in gathering from Greek and Latin parallel instances, namely of words imitative of sounds, which seem to be new creations and have no apparent connection with any other Indo-European language, such as gannire, χρεμετίζειν.
It would seem, therefore, that, as far as we can judge, the original creations of language must have consisted in words expressive of emotion on the one hand, and of sounds on the other.