Humboldt speaks continually of languages as more perfect or less perfect. Yet “no language should be condemned or depreciated, not even that of the most savage tribe, for each language is a picture of the original aptitude for language” (Versch 304). In another place he speaks about special excellencies even of languages that cannot in themselves be recognized as superlatively good instruments of thought. Undoubtedly Chinese of the old style carries with it an impressive dignity through the immediate succession of nothing but momentous notions; it acquires a simple greatness because it throws away all unnecessary accessory elements and thus, as it were, takes flight to pure thinking. Malay is rightly praised for its ease and the great simplicity of its constructions. The Semitic languages retain an admirable art in the nice discrimination of sense assigned to many shades of vowels. Basque possesses a particular vigour, dependent on the briefness and boldness of expression imparted by the structure of its words and by their combination. Delaware and other American languages express in one word a number of ideas for which we should require many words. The human mind is always capable of producing something admirable, however one-sided it may be; such special points decide nothing with regard to the rank of languages (Versch 189 f.). We have here, as indeed continually in Humboldt, a valuation of languages with many brilliant remarks, but on the whole we miss the concrete details abounding in Jenisch’s work. Humboldt, as it were, lifts us to a higher plane, where the air may be purer, but where it is also thinner and not seldom cloudier as well.
According to Humboldt, each separate language, even the most despised dialect, should be looked upon as an organic whole, different from all the rest and expressing the individuality of the people speaking it; it is characteristic of one nation’s psyche, and indicates the peculiar way in which that nation attempts to realize the ideal of speech. As a language is thus symbolic of the national character of those who speak it, very much in each language had its origin in a symbolic representation of the notion it stands for; there is a natural nexus between certain sounds and certain general ideas, and consequently we often find similar sounds used for the same, or nearly the same, idea in languages not otherwise related to one another.
Humboldt is opposed to the idea of ‘general’ or ‘universal’ grammar as understood in his time; instead of this purely deductive grammar he would found an inductive general grammar, based upon the comparison of the different ways in which the same grammatical notion was actually expressed in a variety of languages. He set the example in his paper on the Dual. His own studies covered a variety of languages; but his works do not give us many actual concrete facts from the languages he had studied; he was more interested in abstract reasonings on language in general than in details.
In an important paper, Ueber das Entstehen der grammatischen Formen und ihren Einfluss auf die Ideenentwickelung (1822), he says that language at first denotes only objects, leaving it to the hearer to understand or guess at (hinzudenken) their connexion. By and by the word-order becomes fixed, and some words lose their independent use and sound, so that in the second stage we see grammatical relations denoted through word-order and through words vacillating between material and formal significations. Gradually these become affixes, but the connexion is not yet firm, the joints are still visible, the result being an aggregate, not yet a unit. Thus in the third stage we have something analogous to form, but not real form. This is achieved in the fourth stage, where the word is one, only modified in its grammatical relations through the flexional sound; each word belongs to one definite part of speech, and form-words have no longer any disturbing material signification, but are pure expressions of relation. Such words as Lat. amavit and Greek epoíēsas are truly grammatical forms in contradistinction to such combinations of words and syllables as are found in cruder languages, because we have here a fusion into one whole, which causes the signification of the parts to be forgotten and joins them firmly under one accent. Though Humboldt thus thinks flexion developed out of agglutination, he distinctly repudiates the idea of a gradual development and rather inclines to something like a sudden crystallization (see especially Steinthal’s ed., p. 585).
Humboldt’s position with regard to the classification of languages is interesting. In his works we continually meet with the terms agglutination[9] and flexion by the side of a new term, ‘incorporation.’ This he finds in full bloom in many American languages, such as Mexican, where the object may be inserted into the verbal form between the element indicating person and the root. Now, Humboldt says that besides Chinese, which has no grammatical form, there are three possible forms of languages, the flexional, the agglutinative and the incorporating, but he adds that all languages contain one or more of these forms (Versch 301). He tends to deny the existence of any exclusively agglutinative or exclusively flexional language, as the two principles are generally commingled (132). Flexion is the only method that gives to the word the true inner firmness and at the same time distributes the parts of the sentence according to the necessary interlacing of thoughts, and thus undoubtedly represents the pure principle of linguistic structure. Now, the question is, what language carries out this method in the most consistent way? True perfection may not be found in any one language: in the Semitic languages we find flexion in its most genuine shape, united with the most refined symbolism, only it is not pursued consistently in all parts of the language, but restricted by more or less accidental laws. On the other hand, in the Sanskritic languages the compact unity of every word saves flexion from any suspicion of agglutination; it pervades all parts of the language and rules it in the highest freedom (Versch 188). Compared with incorporation and with the method of loose juxtaposition without any real word-unity, flexion appears as an intuitive principle born of true linguistic genius (ib.). Between Sanskrit and Chinese, as the two opposed poles of linguistic structure, each of them perfect in the consistent following one principle, we may place all the remaining languages (ib. 326). But the languages called agglutinative have nothing in common except just the negative trait that they are neither isolating nor flexional. The structural diversities of human languages are so great that they make one despair of a fully comprehensive classification (ib. 330).
According to Humboldt, language is in continued development under the influence of the changing mental power of its speakers. In this development there are naturally two definite periods, one in which the creative instinct of speech is still growing and active, and another in which a seeming stagnation begins and then an appreciable decline of that creative instinct. Still, the period of decline may initiate new principles of life and new successful changes in a language (Versch 184). In the form-creating period nations are occupied more with the language than with its purpose, i.e. with what it is meant to signify. They struggle to express thought, and this craving in connexion with the inspiring feeling of success produces and sustains the creative power of language (ib. 191). In the second period we witness a wearing-off of the flexional forms. This is found less in languages reputed crude or rough than in refined ones. Language is exposed to the most violent changes when the human mind is most active, for then it considers too careful an observation of the modifications of sound as superfluous. To this may be added a want of perception of the poetic charm inherent in the sound. Thus it is the transition from a more sensuous to a more intellectual mood that works changes in a language. In other cases less noble causes are at work. Rougher organs and less sensitive ears are productive of indifference to the principle of harmony, and finally a prevalent practical trend may bring about abbreviations and omissions of all kinds in its contempt for everything that is not strictly necessary for the purpose of being understood. While in the first period the elements still recall their origin to man’s consciousness, there is an æsthetic pleasure in developing the instrument of mental activity; but in the second period language serves only the practical needs of life. In this way such a language as English may reduce its forms so as to resemble the structure of Chinese; but there will always remain traces of the old flexions; and English is no more incapable of high excellences than German (Versch 282-6). What these are Humboldt, however, does not tell us.
II.—§ 9. Grimm Once More.
Humboldt here foreshadowed and probably influenced ideas to which Jacob Grimm gave expression in two essays written in his old age and which it will be necessary here to touch upon. In the essay on the pedantry of the German language (Ueber das pedantische in der deutschen sprache, 1847), Grimm says that he has so often praised his mother-tongue that he has acquired the right once in a while to blame it. If pedantry had not existed already, Germans would have invented it; it is the shadowy side of one of their virtues, painstaking accuracy and loyalty. Grimm’s essay is an attempt at estimating a language, but on the whole it is less comprehensive and less deep than that of Jenisch. Grimm finds fault with such things as the ceremoniousness with which princes are spoken to and spoken of (Durchlauchtigster, allerhöchstderselbe), and the use of the pronoun Sie in the third person plural in addressing a single person; he speaks of the clumsiness of the auxiliaries for the passive, the past and the future, and of the word-order which makes the Frenchman cry impatiently “J’attends le verbe.” He blames the use of capitals for substantives and other peculiarities of German spelling, but gives no general statement of the principles on which the comparative valuation of different languages should be based, though in many passages we see that he places the old stages of the language very much higher than the language of his own day.
The essay on the origin of language (1851) is much more important, and may be said to contain the mature expression of all Grimm’s thoughts on the philosophy of language. Unfortunately, much of it is couched in that high-flown poetical style which may be partly a consequence of Grimm’s having approached the exact study of language through the less exact studies of popular poetry and folklore; this style is not conducive to clear ideas, and therefore renders the task of the reporter very difficult indeed. Grimm at some length argues against the possibility of language having been either created by God when he created man or having been revealed by God to man after his creation. The very imperfections and changeability of language speak against its divine origin. Language as gradually developed must be the work of man himself, and therein is different from the immutable cries and songs of the lower creation. Nature and natural instinct have no history, but mankind has. Man and woman were created as grown-up and marriageable beings, and there must have been created at once more than one couple, for if there had been only one couple, there would have been the possibility that the one mother had borne only sons or only daughters, further procreation being thus rendered impossible (!), not to mention the moral objections to marriages between brother and sister. How these once created beings, human in every respect except in language, were able to begin talking and to find themselves understood, Grimm does not really tell us; he uses such expressions as ‘inventors’ of words, but apart from the symbolical value of some sounds, such as l and r, he thinks that the connexion of word and sense was quite arbitrary. On the other hand, he can tell us a great deal about the first stage of human speech: it contained only the three vowels a, i, u, and only few consonant groups; every word was a monosyllable, and abstract notions were at first absent. The existence in all (?) old languages of masculine and feminine flexions must be due to the influence of women on the formation of language. Through the distinction of genders Grimm says that regularity and clearness were suddenly brought about in everything concerning the noun as by a most happy stroke of fortune. Endings to indicate person, number, tense and mood originated in added pronouns and auxiliary words, which at first were loosely joined to the root, but later coalesced with it. Besides, reduplication was used to indicate the past; and after the absorption of the reduplicational syllable the same effect was obtained in German through apophony. All nouns presuppose verbs, whose material sense was applied to the designation of things, as when G. hahn (‘cock’) was thus called from an extinct verb hanan, corresponding to Lat. canere, ‘to sing.’