Comparative philology, a new science, sprung up within the last thirty years, but already grown to an unforeseen perfection, has fixed the principles by which the affinities of languages may be known, even among the apparently irregular disparities which various circumstances and revolutions of the different nations have created. This would have been impossible, if there did not exist a fundamental philosophy of language, however concealed, and a certain consistency, even in the seemingly most irregular modification of dialect, for instance, in that of pronunciation. But, even the permutation of letters in different and the most rude dialects, has its rules, and follows, within its own compass, a spontaneous analogy, such as is indispensable for the easy and common practice of a society more or less numerous. Thus sounds, grammatical forms, and even graphical signs of language have been subjected to analysis and comparison; the significant radical letters have been distinguished from the merely accidental letters, and a distinction has been established between what is fundamental, and what is merely historical and accidental.
From these considerations I conclude:
First—That the forgery of a language is in itself highly improbable;
Secondly—That, if it had been attempted, comparative philology is perfectly capable of detecting it.
Taking a large historical view of this subject, we cannot suppress the following reflection: The formation of mighty and civilized states being admitted, even by our strictest chronologers, to have taken place at least twenty-five centuries before our era, it can but appear extraordinary, even after taking in account violent revolutions, that of so multitudinous and great existences, only such scanty documents should have come down to us. But, strange to say, whenever a testimony has escaped the destruction of time, instead of being greeted with a benevolent although discerning curiosity, the unexpected stranger is approached with mistrustful scrutiny, his voice is stifled with severe rebukes, his credentials discarded with scorn, and by a predetermined and stubborn condemnation, resuscitating antiquity is repelled into the tomb of oblivion.
I am aware that all dialectical arguments which have been or may be alleged against the probability of forging a language, would be of no avail against well-proved facts, that languages have been forged, and that works, written in them, exist. We may remember the example adduced by Richardson[34] of a language, as he said, “sufficiently original, copious, and regular to impose upon persons of very extensive learning,” forged by Psalmanazar. This was the assumed name of a an individual, whom the eminent Orientalist calls a Jew, but who, born in 1679, in Languedoc or in Provence, of Christian parents, received a Christian, nay theological education, as good as his first instructors, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans could bestow. This extraordinary person threw himself at a very early age into a career of adventures, in the course of which, at the age of seventeen years, he fell upon the wild project of passing for a native of the island of Formosa, first as one who had been converted to Christianity, then, as still a pagan, he let himself be baptized by a Scotch minister, by whom he was recommended to an English bishop; the latter, in his pious illusion, promoted at once the interests of the convertor, and the fraud of the neophyte.[35] This adventurer who was bold enough, while on the continent, to set about inventing a new character and language, a grammar, and a division of the year into twenty months, published in London, although not twenty years old, a translation of the catechism into his forged language of Formosa, and a history of the island with his own alphabetical writing, which read from right to left—a gross fiction the temporary success of which evinces the then prevailing ignorance in history, geography, and philology. But pious zeal and fanaticism had changed a scientific discussion into a religious quarrel, and for too long a time rendered vain the objections of a few truly learned and clear-sighted men; until the impostor, either incapable of supporting longer his pretensions or urged by his conscience, avowed the deception, and at last became a truly learned good and estimable man.[36] We see this example badly supports the cause of forged languages.
In 1805, M. Rousseau, since consul-general of France at Aleppo, found in a private library at Baghdad a dictionary of a language which is designated by the name of Baláibalan, interpreted “he who vivifies,” and written in Arabic characters called Neshki; it was explained in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. The unknown author of the dictionary composed it for the intelligence of mysterious and occult sciences, written in that language. The highly learned Silvestre de Sacy had scarce been informed of this discovery, when he sought and found in the Royal Library, at Paris, the same dictionary, and with his usual diligence and sagacity published a short but lucid Notice of it.[37] What he said therein was sufficient for giving an idea of the manner in which this language participates in the grammatical forms of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Silvestre de Sacy, as well as M. Rousseau, have left it uncertain whether the language be dead or living; by whom and at what period it was formed, and what authors have made use of it. The former adds, that some works written in Baláibalan are likely to be found in the hands of the Súfis of Persia.
This language deserves perhaps a further examination. All that is positive in the just-adduced statement of the two great Orientalists may be said of any other language, which is not original but composed, as for instance the English or the Dutch, of more than one idiom. We can but admit that, at all times an association of men for a particular purpose, a school of art, science, and profession may have, has, and even must have, a particular phraseology. Any modification of ancient, or production of new, ideas, will create a modified or a new language; any powerful influence of particular circumstances will produce a similar effect; this is a spontaneous reproduction, and not the intentional forgery of a language.
Such a forgery, even if it could remain undetected, which it cannot in our times, would but furnish a curious proof of human ingenuity, to which no bounds can be assigned; but the true and sole object of a language could never be attained by it; because, never would a great number of independent men be disposed, nor could they be forced, to adopt the vocabulary, grammar, and locutions of a single man, and appropriate them to themselves for the perpetual expression of their inmost mind, and for the exchange of their mutual feelings and ideas.[38] To effect this, is a miracle ascribed to the Divinity, and with justice; being the evident result of the Heaven-bestowed faculty of speech, one of the perpetual miracles of the world.
Of this a prophet must avail himself who announces to the world the important intelligence of a heavenly revelation. The great purpose of his sacred mission implies the widest possible proclamation of his doctrine in a language generally intelligible, which a forged language never can be. If, as was surmised,[39] the Desátir be set up as a rival to the Koran, it must have been written in a national language for a nation; the Persians owned as theirs the Mahabadian religion, the identical one which history, although not under the same name, attributes to them in remote ages, as will result from an examination of the doctrine itself.