Languages may now be classified only according to their prevailing tendencies. Thus, modern English is in part isolating, in part inflectional and in part agglutinative, as that term is generally applied. Basque is an incorporating language, far removed geographically and linguistically from any other of that character. The Indo-European family may be considered as inflectional, because that process is a prominent feature, but it is by no means the only one present, nor is it exclusively typical of that family.
There is no doubt that all languages pass through certain stages in their development, but it is not at all true that they all have eventually the same or even similar histories. There are endless possibilities of growth and decay, and this fact alone excludes any set evolutionary scheme. Nor are the isolating languages the most primitive. On the contrary, they are as complex in their way as the most agglutinative North American tongues, and as expressive, for some psychological categories.
There is little doubt that all languages have begun on an isolating principle of simple roots for single ideas, from which they have diverged in endless variety. Probably all inflectional languages had an isolating and agglutinative stage, although this is by no means proved. The Chinese seems to have undergone an agglutinative past of some sort, but to have resolved again into simple roots, with only traces of fuller forms, but with the added complexity of tone, accent, and order, to give, as Sweet puts it, “that extreme of elliptical conciseness and concentrated force of expression, which excites our admiration.”
English has become analytical, for many older inflected words have now been worked over into combinations of independent words, but this is far from a complete or consistent process. Probably it will never become like the Chinese, for to do away now with its inflectional system entirely would necessitate a complete upheaval of structure which is not likely to happen in the course of normal inner development, particularly with a vast literature to assist in stabilizing present forms.
As regards polysynthesism, or amount of agglutination, the Aryan tongues are intermediate; they allow affixes, but only within certain limits.
Languages undoubtedly differ from one another in their richness and power of expression, but may not be used as a test of the intellectual capacity of those who now speak them. In fact, men of any race can learn any language, unless abnormal. To account for the great and striking difference of structure among human languages is beyond the power of the linguistic student, and will doubtless always continue so. We are not likely to be able even to demonstrate a correlation of capacities, saying that a race which has done this and that in other departments might have been expected to form such and such a language. Every tongue represents the general outcome of the capacity of a race as exerted in this particular direction, under the influence of historical circumstances which we can have no hope of tracing, but there are striking anomalies to be noted.
“The Chinese and the Egyptians have shown themselves to be among the most gifted races the earth has known; but the Chinese tongue is of unsurpassed jejuneness, and the Egyptian, in point of structure, little better, while among the wild tribes of Africa and America we find tongues of every grade up to a high one or the highest. This shows clearly enough that mental power is not measured by language structure. On the whole the value and rank of a language are determined by what its users have made it do—a poor tool in skilful hands can do vastly better work than the best tool in unskilful hands, even as the ancient Egyptians, without steel or steam, turned out products which, both for colossal grandeur and for exquisite finish, are the despair of modern engineers and artists.” In other words, we must not underestimate the important part played by habit or inertia. “The formation of habit is slow, and once formed it exercises a constraining as well as a guiding influence.”
The Indo-European language is one of the most highly organized families of tongues that exist, and its greatest power lies (in modern English, etc.) in its mixed structural and material character. So to the Indo-European family belongs incontestably the first place, and for many reasons,—the historical position of the peoples speaking its dialects, who have now long been the leaders in world history, the abundance, variety and merit of its literatures ancient and modern and, most of all, the great variety and richness of its development. These have made it an illustration of the history of human speech, which is extremely valuable and the training ground of comparative philology.
W. D. Whitney gives the following linguistic groups in order of their importance from a literary standpoint:
1. Indo-European (Indo-Germanic). 2. Semitic. 3. Hamitic. 4. Monosyllabic or Southeastern Asiatic. 5. Ural-Altaic (Scythian, Turanian). 6. Dravidian or South Indian. 7. Malay-Polynesian. 8. Oceanic— a. Australian and Tasmanian. b. Papuan and Negrito, etc. 9. Caucasian— a. Circassian. b. Mitsjeghian. c. Lesghian, Georgian. 10. European Remnants— Basque. Etruscan? Lydian? 11. South African, Bantu. 12. Central African. 13. American.