It must, then, be the task of the historian of language to endeavour to settle the relationship between linguistic usage on the one hand, and individual linguistic activity on the other; and in order to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions on this point, it is necessary to classify, as far as we can, the different changes of usage which occur in the growth and development of language. It is, then, his business to trace the relationship between the different classes which he has formed, and to remember that his province is to trace connections where ordinary grammar draws lines of demarcation, bearing in mind that the steps which lead from class to class are very gradual, and that the processes leading up to the smallest variation of usage are in very few cases due to a single cause, but are generally very complicated. The gradual development in the life of language in general may be best studied in individual languages, as when we compare the English of Chaucer’s day with that of our own; and, again, in the relations of individual languages to each other, as when we compare Spanish, for instance, with Italian, and note the different paths taken by these sister-tongues in their development from Latin.
Sound-changes come about in the individual partly from the tendencies of his own organs of speech, as when [ii] becomes [ai[2]] and when one sound is habitually substituted for another, as in the case of the Russian Feodor for Theodore, or the similar substitution, frequent among children, fing for thing. They partly, too, depend upon the influences which each individual receives from others, as when an endeavour is made to substitute a significant for an unmeaning whole, in cases of popular etymology and the like. To this must be added the possibility of imperfect audition, and consequently of imperfect reproduction of sounds. These influences are mostly operative and easiest of observation at the time that language is being learnt, i.e. most commonly during the time of infancy. To watch such processes as a particular language is being learnt must always be very instructive for the explanation of variations in the usages of language in general.
These changes in usage may of course be classified in various ways, but there is one important point which should be noted: the processes may either consist in the creation of what is new or in the disappearance of what is old; or, lastly, in the replacement of the old by the new in a single act, which is the process seen in sound-change. In the case of word-significations, the processes of change consist either in the disappearance of the old or in the appearance of the new. But these processes are in truth very gradual. A word may be perfectly intelligible with a certain meaning in one generation, and in another generation may be obsolete and not understood: but there will none the less have been an intervening generation, some members of which understood the meaning attached to the word or phrase by the former generation, while some only imperfectly understood it.
Again, we may classify changes in usage according to whether sounds or significations are affected. The sounds change without the signification being altered, as in the numerous words in Chaucer which as yet clearly retained their French pronunciation. Again, the signification is affected without any change affecting the sound, as in the case of metaphorical uses of a word, such as a crane, used alike for the bird and the lifting machine; etc. Thus it is that we arrive at the two classes of change: sound-change and change in signification; not that the two kinds are mutually exclusive—they may both occur together, as in our owe, from A.S. âgan, to possess. But the two kinds of change are independent in their origin and their development; neither is caused by the other.
There is, however, an important class of cases in which Sound and Meaning develop simultaneously; these are the original creations of language; and we must suppose the entire development of language to rest upon this primitive combination. We must conceive the original utterances in language to have been the imitation of various natural cries and sounds, aided and interpreted by gesticulation. Then comes a stage in which the sound-groups already existing in language develop on the basis of this original creation. They develop in this way mainly by the influence of analogy, which is itself an imitative faculty and plays a larger part where sound and signification are united than in the department of pure sound. The principles of which we have spoken must be held applicable to all languages at all stages of their development. When once language had originated, it must have developed solely in the way we have indicated. The differences between early and later stages of language are merely differences of degree and not of kind.
It must also be noticed that we must not sharply separate the grammatical and the logical relations of language, as if they were in no way connected. Grammatical rules are simply convenient descriptions of the most ordinary and striking ways in which a language expresses itself at a particular time. But the groups of ideas in the mind of a speaker are constantly forming themselves anew, and finding expression in forms which do not tally with actual and received linguistic expression, and, as they change, give rise to so-called irregularities of grammar. The philologist must therefore discard neither the linguistic processes which are described and registered by grammar, nor the psychical ones which manifest themselves in speaking and hearing, but are not represented in linguistic expression, and yet are always operative in the direction of change in Language.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF LANGUAGE.
The most elementary study of Comparative Philology teaches us that from a language which, in all essentials, may be considered one uniform tongue, there have frequently sprung several others; and that these, in their turn, have parted into new dialects or distinct languages. This process has been usually compared to that which we see operative in the growth and development of organic nature; and the relationship between various languages has often been expressed by the terms applicable to the human family. Latin, for instance, is called the parent of French, Spanish, Portuguese, and the other Romance dialects; English and Dutch are called sister-tongues, while the last-named pair may be called cousins of German.
The comparison implied by such use of these terms is in the main correct; but it would be more exact to illustrate the relationship between languages from the language of Botany: we might consider the language of each individual speaker as the parallel of the individual plant, and compare the various dialects, languages, and families of languages, to the varieties, species, and classes of the vegetable kingdom. Even then our simile is but partially applicable, and a careful consideration of how far it holds good, and where and when it becomes misleading, will be found instructive to a student of language.