Jenisch then goes on to say that language as the organ for communicating our ideas and feelings accomplishes its end if it represents idea and feeling according to the actual want or need of the mind at the given moment. We have to examine in each case the following essential qualities of the languages compared, (1) richness, (2) energy or emphasis, (3) clearness, and (4) euphony. Under the head of richness we are concerned not only with the number of words, first for material objects, then for spiritual and abstract notions, but also with the ease with which new words can be formed (lexikalische bildsamkeit). The energy of a language is shown in its lexicon and in its grammar (simplicity of grammatical structure, absence of articles, etc.), but also in “the characteristic energy of the nation and its original writers.” Clearness and definiteness in the same way are shown in vocabulary and grammar, especially in a regular and natural syntax. Euphony, finally, depends not only on the selection of consonants and vowels utilized in the language, but on their harmonious combination, the general impression of the language being more important than any details capable of being analysed.
These, then, are the criteria by which Greek and Latin and a number of living languages are compared and judged. The author displays great learning and a sound practical knowledge of many languages, and his remarks on the advantages and shortcomings of these are on the whole judicious, though often perhaps too much stress is laid on the literary merits of great writers, which have really no intrinsic connexion with the value of a language as such. It depends to a great extent on accidental circumstances whether a language has been or has not been used in elevated literature, and its merits should be estimated, so far as this is possible, independently of the perfection of its literature. Jenisch’s prejudice in that respect is shown, for instance, when he says (p. 36) that the endeavours of Hickes are entirely futile, when he tries to make out regular declensions and conjugations in the barbarous language of Wulfila’s translation of the Bible. But otherwise Jenisch is singularly free from prejudices, as shown by a great number of passages in which other languages are praised at the expense of his own. Thus, on p. 396, he declares German to be the most repellent contrast to that most supple modern language, French, on account of its unnatural word-order, its eternally trailing article, its want of participial constructions, and its interminable auxiliaries (as in ‘ich werde geliebt werden, ich würde geliebt worden sein,’ etc.), with the frequent separation of these auxiliaries from the main verb through extraneous intermediate words, all of which gives to German something incredibly awkward, which to the reader appears as lengthy and diffuse and to the writer as inconvenient and intractable. It is not often that we find an author appraising his own language with such severe impartiality, and I have given the passage also to show what kind of problems confront the man who wishes to compare the relative value of languages as wholes. Jenisch’s view here forms a striking contrast to Herder’s appreciation of their common mother-tongue.
Jenisch’s book does not seem to have been widely read by nineteenth-century scholars, who took up totally different problems. Those few who read it were perhaps inclined to say with S. Lefmann (see his book on Franz Bopp, Nachtrag, 1897, p. xi) that it is difficult to decide which was the greater fool, the one who put this problem or the one who tried to answer it. This attitude, however, towards problems of valuation in the matter of languages is neither just nor wise, though it is perhaps easy to see how students of comparative grammar were by the very nature of their study led to look down upon those who compared languages from the point of view of æsthetic or literary merits. Anyhow, it seems to me no small merit to have been the first to treat such problems as these, which are generally answered in an off-hand way according to a loose general judgement, so as to put them on a scientific footing by examining in detail what it is that makes us more or less instinctively prefer one language, or one turn or expression in a language, and thus lay the foundation of that inductive æsthetic theory of language which has still to be developed in a truly scientific spirit.
[CHAPTER II]
BEGINNING OF NINETEENTH CENTURY
§ 1. Introduction. Sanskrit. § 2. Friedrich von Schlegel. § 3. Rasmus Rask. § 4. Jacob Grimm. § 5. The Sound Shift. § 6. Franz Bopp. § 7. Bopp continued. § 8. Wilhelm von Humboldt. § 9. Grimm once more.
II.—§ 1. Introduction. Sanskrit.
The nineteenth century witnessed an enormous growth and development of the science of language, which in some respects came to present features totally unknown to previous centuries. The horizon was widened; more and more languages were described, studied and examined, many of them for their own sake, as they had no important literature. Everywhere a deeper insight was gained into the structures even of such languages as had been for centuries objects of study; a more comprehensive and more incisive classification of languages was obtained with a deeper understanding of their mutual relationships, and at the same time linguistic forms were not only described and analysed, but also explained, their genesis being traced as far back as historical evidence allowed, if not sometimes further. Instead of contenting itself with stating when and where a form existed and how it looked and was employed, linguistic science now also began to ask why it had taken that definite shape, and thus passed from a purely descriptive to an explanatory science.
The chief innovation of the beginning of the nineteenth century was the historical point of view. On the whole, it must be said that it was reserved for that century to apply the notion of history to other things than wars and the vicissitudes of dynasties, and thus to discover the idea of development or evolution as pervading the whole universe. This brought about a vast change in the science of language, as in other sciences. Instead of looking at such a language as Latin as one fixed point, and instead of aiming at fixing another language, such as French, in one classical form, the new science viewed both as being in constant flux, as growing, as moving, as continually changing. It cried aloud like Heraclitus “Pánta reî,” and like Galileo “Eppur si muove.” And lo! the better this historical point of view was applied, the more secrets languages seemed to unveil, and the more light seemed also to be thrown on objects outside the proper sphere of language, such as ethnology and the early history of mankind at large and of particular countries.
It is often said that it was the discovery of Sanskrit that was the real turning-point in the history of linguistics, and there is some truth in this assertion, though we shall see on the one hand that Sanskrit was not in itself enough to give to those who studied it the true insight into the essence of language and linguistic science, and on the other hand that real genius enabled at least one man to grasp essential truths about the relationships and development of languages even without a knowledge of Sanskrit. Still, it must be said that the first acquaintance with this language gave a mighty impulse to linguistic studies and exerted a lasting influence on the way in which most European languages were viewed by scholars, and it will therefore be necessary here briefly to sketch the history of these studies. India was very little known in Europe till the mighty struggle between the French and the English for the mastery of its wealth excited a wide interest also in its ancient culture. It was but natural that on this intellectual domain, too, the French and the English should at first be rivals and that we should find both nations represented in the pioneers of Sanskrit scholarship. The French Jesuit missionary Cœurdoux as early as 1767 sent to the French Institut a memoir in which he called attention to the similarity of many Sanskrit words with Latin, and even compared the flexion of the present indicative and subjunctive of Sanskrit asmi, ‘I am,’ with the corresponding forms of Latin grammar. Unfortunately, however, his work was not printed till forty years later, when the same discovery had been announced independently by others. The next scholar to be mentioned in this connexion is Sir William Jones, who in 1796 uttered the following memorable words, which have often been quoted in books on the history of linguistics: “The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic ... had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.” Sir W. Jones, however, did nothing to carry out in detail the comparison thus inaugurated, and it was reserved for younger men to follow up the clue he had given.