Both invention, which is the genius of adaptation, and the blending influence of mere intercourse, may have their appropriate place as auxiliaries, in the reconstruction of human speech, in accordance with the exigencies of the new era which is dawning on the world; but there is another and far more basic and important element, which may, and perhaps we may say must, appear upon the stage, and enter into the solution. This is the element of positive Scientific Discovery in the lingual domain. It may be found that every elementary sound of the human voice is inherently laden by nature herself with a primitive significance; that the small aggregate of these meanings is precisely that handful of the Primitive Categories of all Thought and all Being which the Philosophers, from Aristotle up to Kant, have so industriously and painfully sought for. The germ of this idea was incipiently and crudely struggling in the mind of the late distinguished philologist, Dr. Charles Kreitser, formerly professor of languages in the University of Virginia, and author of numerous valuable articles in Appletons' 'Cyclopædia;' the most learned man, doubtless, that unfortunate Hungary has contributed to our American body of savans. This element of discovery may, in the end, take the lead, and immensely preponderate in importance over the other two factors already mentioned as participating in the solution of a question of a planetary language. The idea certainly has no intrinsic improbability, that the normal language of mankind should be matter of discovery as the normal music of the race has been already. There was an instinctual and spontaneous development of music in advance of the time when science acted reflectively upon the elements and reconstituted it in accordance with the musical laws so discovered. Why may we not, why ought we not even to expect, analogically, that the same thing will occur for speech?
Setting aside, however, for the present occasion, the profounder inquiry into the inherent significance of sounds, and into all that flows logically from that novel and recondite investigation, we propose at present to treat in a more superficial way the subject indicated in the title of this article—A Universal Language; its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics.
The expansion of the scope of science is at this day such that the demand for discriminating technicalities exceeds absolutely the capacity of all existing language for condensed and appropriate combinations and derivations. Hence speech must soon fail to serve the new developments of thought, unless the process of word-building can be itself proportionately improved; unless, in other words, a new and scientifically constructed Language can be devised adequate to all the wants of science. It would seem that there should occur, in the range of possibilities, the existence of the Plan in Nature of a New and Universal Language, copious, flexible, and expressive beyond measure; competent to meet the highest demands of definition and classification; and containing within itself a natural, compact, infinitely varied, and inexhaustible terminology for each of the Sciences, as ordained by fixed laws preëxistent in the nature of things.
This language should not then be an arbitrary contrivance, but should be elaborated from the fundamental laws of speech, existing in the constitution of the universe and of man, and logically traced to this special application. This knowledge of the underlying laws of speech should determine the mode of the combination of Elementary Sounds into Syllables and Words, and of Words into Sentences naturally expressive of given conceptions or ideas. Such a language would rest on discovery, in that precise sense in which discovery differs from invention, and would have in itself infinite capacities and powers of expression, and again of suggesting thought; and might perhaps come to be recognized as the most stupendous discovery to which the human intellect is capable of attaining. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' The Word, or the Logos, is the underlying or hidden Wisdom of which speech is the external utterance or expression. Who can say how profoundly and intimately the underlying and hitherto undiscovered Laws of Speech may be consociated with the basic Principles of all truth embedded in the Wisdom-Nature of God himself? The old Massonites had a faith, derived from certain mystical utterances of the Greek Philosophers, that whosoever should discover the right name for anything, would have absolute power over that thing. The Wisdom of Plato and the deeper Wisdom of Christ meet and are married to each other in the conception of John when he makes the startling assertion that the Logos, the Logic, the Law, the Word, is synonymous with God himself.
The possibilities of the existence of such a language, divinely and providentially prepared in the constitution of things, and awaiting discovery, begins to be perceived, if the conception of the existence of an absolutely universal analogy be permitted fairly to take possession of the mind. Such an infinite scheme of analogy, rendering the same principles alike applicable in all spheres, must itself, in turn, rest upon a Divine Unity of Plan reigning throughout the Universe, the execution of which Plan is the act or the continuity of the acts of Creation. The Religious Intuition of the Race has persistently insisted upon the existence of this Unity, to the conception of which the scientific world is only now approximatingly and laboriously ascending.
If there be such Analogy in Nature furnishing an echo and an image in every department of Being of all that exists in every other department of Being, certainly that Analogy must be most distinct and clearly discoverable as between the Elements, or the lowest and simplest Constituents of Being in each Sphere. The lowest and simplest elements of Language are Oral Sounds, which in written Languages are represented by Letters, and constitute the Alphabets of those Languages. The Alphabets of Sound must be clearly distinguished from the mere Letter-Alphabets by which the Sounds are variously represented. The Sound-Alphabets (the Scales of Phonetic Elements) of any two Languages differ only in the fact that one of the Languages may include a few Sounds which are not heard in the other, or may omit a few which are.
The Mouth, the Larynx (a cartilaginous box at the top of the windpipe), and the Nose—the compound organ of speech—constitute an instrument, capable, like the accordeon, for instance, of a certain number of distinct touches and consequent vocal effects, which produce the sounds heard in all existing Languages. The total of the possible sounds so produced or capable of production may be called the Crude or Unwinnowed Alphabet of Nature, or the Natural Alphabet of Human Language generically or universally considered. Thus, for instance, the sound represented in English and the Southern European Languages generally, by the letter m, is made by the contact of the two lips, while at the same time the sounding breath so interrupted is projected upon the sounding board of the head through the nose, whence resounding, it is discharged outwardly, this process giving to the sound produced that peculiar effect called nasal or nose-sound; and precisely this sound can be produced by the voice in no other way. This sound is, nevertheless, heard in nearly all Languages, although there are a few imperfect savage dialects which are destitute of it. The production of this sound, as above described, will be obvious to the reader if he will pronounce the word my, and will attend to the position of the lips when he begins to utter the word. Let him attempt to say my, without closing the lips, and the impossibility of doing so will be apparent. The production of the sound is therefore mechanical and local; and the number of sounds to be produced by the organ fixed and limited, therefore, by Nature herself. The very limited number of possible sounds may be guessed by the fact that of sounds produced by completely closing the two lips, there are only three, namely, p, b, m, in all the Languages of the earth (as in p-ie, b-y, m-y).
It is the same with all the other vocal sounds. They are necessarily produced at certain fixed localities or Seats of Sound, in the mouth, and by a certain fixed modulation or mechanical use of the Organs of Speech. At least they are produced in and are confined to certain circumscribed regions of the mouth, and so differ in the method of their production as to be appropriately distributed into certain Natural Classes: as Vowels and Consonants; Labials (Lip Sounds); Linguo-dentals (Tongue-Teeth Sounds); Gutturals (Back-Mouth or Throat Sounds), etc., etc.
From the whole number of sounds which it is possible to produce—the whole Crude Natural Alphabet—one Language of our existing Languages selects a certain number less than the whole, and another Language doing the same, it happens that while they mainly coincide, they, so to speak, shingle over each other at random, and it follows: 1. That the Number of Sounds in different Languages is not uniform; 2. That of any two Languages compared, one will chance to have several sounds not heard in the other; and, 3. The erroneous impression is made upon the casual and superficial observer that in the aggregate of all Languages there must be an immense number of sounds; whereas, in fact, the total Alphabet of Vocal Sounds in nature, like the Gamut of Colors or Musical Tones, is quite limited, if we attend only to those which distinctly differ, or stand at appropriate and appreciable distances from each other.
Further to illustrate: Assume that there are, capable of being clearly discriminated by the human ear, say sixty-four or seventy-two distinct Elementary Sounds of the human voice, in all—as many, for example, as there are Chemical Elements; some existing Languages select and make use of twenty, some of twenty-four, some of thirty, and some of forty of these sounds, omitting the rest.