The Origin of Thought and Speech

by M. Moncalm

But there is another class of words differing somewhat from those we have named, such words, as day, night, spring, winter, dawn and twilight; these lack the individuality and tangibleness of the others; and when we say “day approaches, night comes,” we attribute acts to things which are not agents, we affirm propositions, which, logically analysed, have no properly defined subjects. Semi-tangible names, such as sky, earth, belong to the same category. When we say “the earth nourishes man,” we do not allude to any well defined portion of the soil, we take the earth as a whole; and the sky is not only the small portion of the horizon grasped by our eyes, our imagination conceives objects not within the ken of our senses, but inasmuch as we look upon the earth or sky as a whole, see in it a power or an ideal, we make of it, involuntarily, an individuality. Now these words had certain terminations affixed to them indicating what we call gender, and became masculine or feminine, the neuter gender at that time did not enter into the language, until thought becoming more lucid perceived it in nature. What was the result? That it was impossible to speak of morning or night, of spring or winter, of dawn or twilight, of sky and earth, without clothing them not only with active and individual characteristics, but with personal and sexual attributes; hence all the objects of discourse as used by the founders of language became necessarily so many actors, as men and women act; and thought, when once launched in this direction, being irresistibly attracted by the tendency towards analogy and metaphor, overspread the whole world of human experience with this method of representation. What is called animism, anthropomorphism, and personification, have therefore their source in this inevitable dynamic stage, as Max Müller calls it, of thought and language, in which the psychological necessity of representing the external objects as resembling themselves operated on our ancestors. This necessity might have been named subjectivism had it not received more specific terms such as animism, which consists in conceiving of inanimate objects as animate; anthropomorphism, conceiving objects as men, and personification, conceiving objects as persons. As soon as this new mental act was performed, a new world was called into existence, a world of names, or as we now call it, the world of myths.

“So long as the real identity of thought and language had not been grasped, so long as people imagined that language is one thing and thought another, it was but natural that they should fail to see the real meaning of treating mythology, if not as a disease, at all events as an inevitable affection of language. If the active verb was merely a grammatical, and not at the same time a psychological, nay, an historical fact, it might seem absurd to identify the active meaning of our roots with the active meaning ascribed to the phenomena of nature. But let it be once perceived that language and thought are one and indivisible, and nothing will seem more natural than that what, as the grammarian tells us, happened in language, should, as the psychologist tells us, have likewise happened in thought.”[46]

The men who spoke in this manner of the external phenomena understood perfectly that they themselves, who struck, who measured, who ran, who rose up, who lay down, were not to be confounded with the thunder, the moon, the river, and the sun; those scholars who studied thought as apart from language, rather allowed themselves selves to be misled by the phraseology of the time, and considered it a proof that our Aryan ancestors looked upon their physical surroundings as human beings, endowed with the appropriate organs and acts. Not only had the early Aryans perfectly understood that they were not identical with themselves, but they were far more struck by the differences between them than by any imaginary similarities. The confirmation of this theory is preserved for us in the Veda. “The torrent is roaring—not a bull,” i.e. like a bull; instead of saying as we do, “firm as a rock,” the poets of the Veda would say “firm—not a rock.” “The mountains were not to be thrown down, but they were not warriors,” “The fire was eating up the forest, yet it was not a lion.”

The men of that time used few words; all thoughts that went beyond the narrow horizon of their daily and practical lives had to be expressed by the transference of a name from the object to which it properly belongs to other well known objects. It was the birth of metaphor; it was metaphor that enabled the inner consciousness to project itself into the outer chaos of the world of objects; which it recreated with personal images; and the fact that each natural phenomenon bore many names, and that these same names were used for many other different objects furnished germs of metaphor. Metaphor was to language what rain and sunshine are to the harvest, it multiplies each grain a hundred and a thousand fold; and metaphor in multiplying language disperses it in every direction; without it no language would have progressed beyond the simplest rudiments.

We must be careful not to confuse the radical metaphor with the poetical which we use daily, and which is very different from the former. If we open any book of poetry at whatever page, we shall find inanimate and mute objects described as speaking, rejoicing, praising their Creator; there is no portion of nature however insentient, however incapable of thought, in which we do not infuse our own sentiments, our own ideas. This mode of expression is especially a poet’s prerogative, and that it does not strike us as incongruous is owing to the fact that poetry appeals to the generality of men, and is more natural to them than prose, and that this outpouring of our heart towards nature costs us less effort than to speak of it in the abstract. It requires cold reflection to describe lightning as an electrical discharge, and rain as condensed vapour; in this case it is no longer the transference of the characteristic of a known object to one still unknown, but that of a known object to another equally well known; the poet who transfers the word tear to the dew has already clear names and concepts both for tear and dew; the poetical metaphor is thus a voluntary creative act of our mind, and as such takes no part in the formation of the human mind.

The world was astonished some few years ago by a declaration made by students of the science of language that the 250,000 words comprehended in the English Dictionary now being published at Oxford all proceeded from about 800 roots; and it has now been found possible to reduce this number. In any case 500 to 800 Sanscrit roots, on account of their great fertility, sufficed our Aryan ancestors for all the many words occurring in Sanscrit literature, and suffice also for us who have 245,000 living animals and 95,000 fossil specimens to name; also 100,000 living and 2500 fossil plants, without speaking of crystals, metals and minerals. Another surprising discovery is that every thought that has ever passed through a human brain can be expressed in 121 radical concepts, of which I give a list. It is taken from Max Müller’s Science of Thought, p. 404. Each single word of every phrase that we use has its origin in one of the 800 roots, and not a thought but proceeds from the 121 fundamental concepts. This is as accepted a fact as that all that is visible on the earth and in the vault of heaven is composed of about 60 elementary substances.

The 121 Original Concepts.

1. Dig.
2. Plait, weave, sew, bind.
3. Crush, pound, destroy, waste, rub, smoothe.
4. Sharpen.
5. Smear, colour, knead, harden.
6. Scratch.
7. Bite, eat.
8. Divide, share, eat.
9. Cut.
10. Gather, observe.
11. Stretch, spread.
12. Mix.
13. Scatter, strew.
14. Sprinkle, drip, wet.
15a. Shake, tremble, quiver, flicker.
15b. Shake mentally, be angry, abashed, fearful, etc.
16. Throw down, fall.
17. Fall to pieces.
18. Shoot, throw at.
19. Pierce, split.
20. Join, fight, check.
21. Tear.
22. Break, smash.
23. Measure.
24. Blow.
25. Kindle.
26. Milk, yield.
27. Pour, flow, rush.
28. Separate, free, leave, lack.
29. Glean.
30. Choose.
31. Cook, roast, boil.
32. Clean.
33. Wash.
34. Bend, bow.
35. Turn, roll.
36. Press, fix.
37. Squeeze.
38. Drive, thrust.
39. Push, stir, live.
40. Burst, gush, laugh, beam.
41. Dress.
42. Adorn.
43. Strip, remove.
44. Steal.
45. Check.
46. Fill, thrive, swell, grow strong.
47. Cross.
48. Sweeten.
49. Shorten.
50. Thin, suffer.
51. Fat, stick, love.
52. Lick.
53. Suck, nourish.
54. Drink, swell.
55. Swallow, sip.
56. Vomit.
57. Chew, eat.
58. Open, extend.
59. Reach, strive, rule, have.
60. Conquer, take by violence, struggle.
61. Perform, succeed.
62. Attack, hurt.
63. Hide, dive.
64. Cover, embrace.
65. Bear, carry.
66. Can, be strong.
67. Show.
68. Touch.
69. Strike.
70. Ask.
71. Watch, observe.
72. Lead.
73. Set.
74. Hold, wield.
75. Give, yield.
76. Couch.
77. Thirst, dry.
78. Hunger.
79. Yawn.
80. Spue.
81. Fly.
82. Sleep.
83. Bristle, dare.
84. Be angry, harsh.
85. Breathe.
86. Speak.
87. See.
88. Hear.
89. Smell, sniff.
90. Sweat.
91. Seethe, boil.
92. Dance.
93. Leap.
94. Creep.
95. Stumble.
96. Stick.
97. Burn.
98. Dwell.
99. Stand.
100. Sink, lie, fail.
101. Swing.
102. Hang down, lean.
103. Rise up, grow.
104. Sit.
105. Toil.
106. Weary, waste, slacken.
107. Rejoice, please.
108. Desire, love.
109. Wake.
110. Fear.
111. Cool, refresh.
112. Stink.
113. Hate.
114. Know.
115. Think.
116. Shine.
117. Run.
118. Move, go.
119a. Noise, inarticulate.
119b. Noise, musical.
120. Do.
121. Be.

This classification of the roots is purely tentative. It has been difficult to ascertain what is most likely to have been the original meaning of some; there are certain words of which it is almost impossible to find the etymology. The order in which the concepts succeed each other is not very systematic. Max Müller tried to classify them more correctly by keeping the special acts, such as to dig, the general acts, such as to find, the special states, such as to cough, and the general states, such as to stand—together. But it was impossible to adhere strictly to such a plan, because there are roots which express both acts and states; while in many cases it is difficult to determine whether the special or general meaning predominates; thus there are the words to boil, to make boil, or to be boiling. Some of the roots have closely allied meanings, so that there are as many as fifteen connected with the concepts to burn, and to speak; and many more which can be traced to shine.

We experience feelings at once humbling and elevating when we consider that all we admire, all on which we pride ourselves, our thoughts, whether poetical, philosophical, religious, our whole literature, all our dictionaries, whether scientific or industrial; in fact, our whole intellectual life is built upon this small number of mother-ideas, of 121 concepts. We should feel neither humbled nor elevated; we are making use of the wisdom of our ancestors. It is our duty to transmit the legacy to our descendants which they gave us, but purged from alloy.