With the exception of the Chinese, the peoples of Indo-China, and the Thibetans, who speak monosyllabic languages, and also the Indo-Europeans and the Semito-Hamites, who use inflectional languages, all the rest of mankind belongs, by its mode of speech, to the division of agglutinative language. It must not be thought, however, that the difference is very marked in the three categories which I have just mentioned. We have already seen, for example, that the inflectional languages, like Italian, may have agglutinative forms; the Arab, the Frenchman, the Provençal have also recourse occasionally to agglutination; on the other hand, most of the isolating languages of Indo-China and Thibet exhibit several agglutinative characteristics, and even in Chinese, that pre-eminently monosyllabic language, there may be distinguished “full” roots having their signification, and “empty” roots playing the part of affixes.
It was thought until quite recently that originally all the languages of the earth were monosyllabic, that by a process of evolution they became transformed into agglutinative languages, passing thence into the final and most perfect form, the inflectional. But the immense disproportion between the number of peoples speaking the agglutinative languages and that of the other two categories; the presence of the agglutinative forms in monosyllabic languages; the unequivocal tendency of several inflected languages, like English, towards monosyllabism; lastly, the recent researches of Terrien de Lacouperie into the ancient pronunciation of Thibetan and Chinese words, have appreciably shaken this belief: one is rather led to see in agglutination the most primitive form of language. From it would be derived monosyllabism, polysyntheticism, and inflection; the two latter forms would tend in their turn towards monosyllabism.[156] I shall mention with regard to each of the principal ethnic groups, the peculiarities of the languages which they speak, and in [Chapter VIII.] I shall say a few words about linguistic classifications and the relation between “peoples” and “languages.” For the moment it is enough to point out that besides morphological structure, there are other characters: vocabulary, grammatical and phonetic forms, which enable us to group the allied idioms into linguistic families. Let me add that side by side with the thousands of languages and principal dialects distributed among the populations of the earth, there exist jargons, that is to say, semi-artificial languages, originating especially in the necessities of commerce.[157]
Let us not forget either that the different sexes and certain castes or classes, especially of sorcerers and priests, have often a special language, sacred or otherwise, but always unknown to persons of the other sex or of other castes, and kept secret. Language varies also among certain peoples (for example, among the Javanese) according as a superior speaks to an inferior, or vice versâ.
Signals.—To communicate at a distance relatively remote, all peoples make use of optic or acoustic signals. Optic signals are at first amplified gestures; thus the various tribes of Red Indians recognised each other at a distance by making conventional signs with the arms and the body. An arm raised high with two fingers uplifted and the others closed, signified “Who are you?” etc. Signals by means of lighted fires, to announce the tidings of a beast killed, the approach of the enemy, etc., still remain in use among the Indians of America, not only in the north, but also in the south of the continent as far as Cape Horn. Signalling by means of objects visible from afar, of a more complicated kind, is in everyday use even among civilised peoples, forming the basis of optic telegraphy; and there exists for sailors of all nations a truly international language, by means of flags of different colours, the code and the dictionary of which are found on board of every ship bound on a long voyage.
Among acoustic signals, apart from conventional cries and sounds of instruments, we must note two kinds of language of a quite special character. There is, firstly, the whistle language, which by means of whistles more or less loud, succeeding in a certain order and produced simply by the mouth, sometimes by introducing into it two fingers, enables a conversation to be held at a distance.
This language has attained a high degree of perfection in the Canary Islands,[158] but is also known in other parts of the globe (among the Berbers of Tunis, for instance). This language, however, must not be confounded with conventional signals, always the same, given by the whistle for commands in the navy, for example. The other mode of communicating at a distance, a highly developed one, is the drum language of the Dualas and other Bantu Negroes of the Cameroons, the Gallas, the Papuans, etc. With simply a drum they succeed, by varying the number and the order of the beats, in forming a veritable language of two hundred to three hundred words, very complicated and difficult to learn.[159]
FIG. 27.—
Writing by notches
of the Laotians.
(After Harmand, Engraving
of the Soc. Anthrop. Paris.)