Chapter XI: Section II

_Second Source of Synonymes. Imitative Origin of the Elements of
Human Language. Imitative Character of Ancient Languages.
Imitative Origin of Language consistent with the Unity of the
Human Race. Supported by Analogy. Adam Smith’s Opinion that the
first Elements of Language were Nouns, considered. Progress of
Language in Infancy. Illustration, from Campbell’s Hohenlinden, of
the Influence of the Imitative Faculty on the Imagination.
Progressive Growth of Language. Important Exception to the
Principle of the Imitative Origin of Language. Origin of the Harsh
and Open Sounds of Ancient Languages._

In its infancy, Language was metaphorical, but it was directly Imitative of surrounding objects at its birth! Hence, as will now be explained, another source of the synonymes in which Human Tongues abound!

Did man derive his language from the direct instruction of his Creator, or from the natural exercise of those faculties with which he has been endowed? For the former opinion no argument, either Scriptural or Philosophical, has ever been advanced. In favour of the latter, proofs deducible from Language, Analogy, and the actual features of the Human Mind, conspire.

In the Hebrew, and other ancient languages, Man’s first imitative efforts are distinctly traceable,(88) and as we ascend from modern to earlier eras in the history of Human Tongues, and extend our comparison by including within its range a greater number of kindred dialects, we shall find—not only the features of a descriptive or metaphorical character, as already noticed—but also the vestiges of an imitative origin progressively increase. Thus, for example, the English words for two common birds, the “Owl” and the “Crow,” have no other effect on the ear than that of mere arbitrary or conventional terms; they have been too much abbreviated any longer to suggest distinctly the source from which they have sprung. But in the Swedish “Ul-u-la,” and the Sanscrit “Ul-u-ka,” the reiterated screams of “the bird of night” are plainly mimicked, as is the harsh guttural croak of the crow in the German “Krähe!”

Those writers who have espoused, and those who have impugned, the conclusion that language is the natural fruit of the endowments which have been conferred on our species, have, for the most part, mutually assumed that conclusion to be irreconcilable with the common origin of the different nations and languages of the globe. Each ancient sept, they take for granted, must in that case be inferred to have had a distinct origin, and to have invented a distinct language for itself. But there is no necessary connexion between the premises and the conclusion. All nations may have emanated from one parent sept, and all languages may have sprung from one parent tongue, and yet the parent speech may, notwithstanding, have been the product of Man’s own native energies in the earliest era of his existence! Our species may have been invested with the faculty of constructing a language adequate to meet all its first wants, and yet that faculty may have been exercised only once!

The conclusion adopted above is supported by the dictates of Analogy, as traceable in the instance of provisions made for wants analogous to those which language is calculated to supply. Destined to pass successively through various phases of civilization, and to push his colonies into every clime and country, Man required and has received, both in his physical and mental constitution, powers of adaptation that enable him to conform to those marvellous changes which are incident to his condition as a Progressive Being. His first infantine feelings are expressed by imitations of surrounding objects, and as his higher moral and intellectual faculties are developed, they find utterance in metaphors derived from the organs of sensation. In those advances which he was mysteriously intended to make from age to age, he would have been fettered and not aided by the gift of an immutable language! His wants in this respect have been more wisely provided for by the power which has evidently been conferred upon him of framing in the first instance a language calculated to express his earliest wants as they successively arose, and of subsequently moulding it to suit the emergencies of his condition.

It was the opinion of Adam Smith that the elements of language consist of Nouns or Names of things. From this opinion, M. Du Ponceau dissents. Nor is this conclusion confirmed by an analysis of languages, which serves to show, on the contrary, that these elements or roots partake less of the character of Nouns or Names of Objects than of that of Verbs or terms descriptive of their actions and qualities. This result appears to be a necessary consequence of the imitative origin of language, for it is only their characteristic sounds or other salient qualities that admit of imitation, it is impossible to copy by the voice the objects themselves! The English word Cuc-koo furnishes an excellent example. This word is now used as a Noun or Name. But it is quite manifest that originally it was a mere imitation of the characteristic cry of the bird, in other words it was descriptive of a single quality or action!

But though they partake of the character of Verbs rather than of that of Nouns, it will, I conceive, appear that the roots or elements of language do not in reality belong to any existing class of grammatical terms. In the Hebrew and the Sanscrit the “Root” is neither a Noun nor a Verb, but the common basis of both. Nor is the application of this maxim confined to ancient languages; it may be shown to apply extensively to modern languages also, as in the following examples, derived from the English:

Root. Noun. Verb. Burst. Burst. I burst. Thrust. Thrust. I thrust. Crack. Crack. Crack-er. I crack. Wrench. Wrench. Hiss. Hiss. I hiss. Rumble. Rumbl-er. It rumbles. Break. Break. Break-er. I break, &c. Croak. Croak. Croak-er. I croak.

The previous examples will serve to illustrate at once the proposition they are intended to support, and also the imitative character of the roots or elements of language. This character, it will be observed, does not occur exclusively in terms primarily descriptive of sounds, it is displayed in an equally unequivocal manner in terms descriptive of other physical qualities, as in “Thrust, Burst, Wrest,” &c.

It is obvious that the human voice possesses the power of copying sounds more perfectly than other external impressions. But the _attempt_ at imitation is not more conspicuous than it is in other cases, in which the imitation is necessarily more imperfect. Thus Kōōm, used in Persia and Wales for “a hollow circular valley,” “Coop” (_English_), are attempts by means of the motion of the lips, &c. to imitate the _shapes_ of the subjects of description.

The evidence furnished by language in support of the proposition suggested above, viz., that its roots or elements do not consist either of Nouns or Verbs, but of sounds which constitute the common basis of both, will be found, I conceive, to derive direct confirmation from an examination of the faculties employed in the formation of language, and the order of their development.

Man is endowed with two faculties of a very different nature, of which language seems to be the joint product, viz., with powers of imitation and powers of reflection. Now the elementary sounds, or roots of language, may be viewed as exclusively the work of the imitative propensity; the steady appropriation of these elements as recognized descriptions of actions and objects seems, on the other hand, to be the result of the progressive growth and of the reiterated subsequent exercise of the functions of Memory and Abstraction. Thus we find infants mimic sounds long before we can suppose their minds to be sufficiently developed permanently to associate such sounds with particular objects; afterwards, as their faculties are gradually unfolded, these imitations are appropriated as names. Accordingly we find that almost all children are in the habit of using a certain number of words thus formed, which are understood and employed by the guardians and companions of their infancy.(89) An instructive example of the natural activity of those mental qualities to which language first owed its existence—an activity which is repressed by no other cause than by the maturity of languages in use, which fully meet all the exigencies of the social state!

The vehement gesticulations of uncivilized tribes is another manifestation of the imitative propensity. Nor are the vestiges of its influence among civilized nations altogether confined to the period of childhood. They may be recognized in the marked, though generally unconscious, disposition we feel to select words imitative of the ideas we seek to convey, and in the pleasure we derive from works of imagination, in which the sound is rendered “an echo of the sense,” in conformity to the critical rule of classical antiquity. Of the sublime associations called forth by a happy appeal to the imitative faculty, we possess a fine example in the lines of the great living Poet, which, with a fastidiousness as marvellous as the genius by which they were conceived, he proposed to cancel, as being “Drum and Trumpet lines!”(90)

“On Linden when the sun was low
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser rolling rapidly.

“But Linden saw another sight
When the trump blew at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery!

“By torch and trumpet fast array’d
Each warrior drew his battle blade,
And furious every courser neigh’d
To join the dreadful revelry!”

(Campbell’s “Hobenlinden.”)

The progressive appropriation of elementary sounds or Roots to the various purposes of language, and the consequent development of grammatical forms, remain to be explained.

In the first instance these Roots were, it would seem, employed alike both as Verbs and Nouns, &c.; the requisite distinction, it may be inferred, was made by Signs. In the course of time the Noun was distinguished by characteristic additions identical, as may be proved, with terms for “Man.”

This tendency to personify appears, as Du Ponceau observes, to be “according to nature!” The English word Smith, and the German Schmidt, are nouns of the primitive kind, being mere transcripts of the Root. On the other hand, in the English “Join-er, Break-er,” we have examples of Nouns distinguished as such by a grammatical suffix, “Er,” which, in German, means “He,” and in Turkish means “A Man.” In the Pehlwi, an ancient dialect of Persia, which is intimately connected with the English, and other Gothic languages, we actually find the English word “Man,” used for the same purpose as “Er,” in the above example. Thus we have Ruis-man, “A Head,” (_Pehlwi_,) Ras (_Arabic_), and Rosh, “A Head,” (_Hebrew_,) Lager-man, “The Foot,” (_Pehlwi_,) Lagyl (_Wogul_), Leg (_English_).

The Verb, and its different persons, were distinguished by pronouns, annexed in various modes.(91)

Finally, it may be noticed, that since all other branches of Human Language have been shown to be derivable from terms originally applied to Material actions and objects, (see pages 11, 12, 13;) and since these have been proved to be products of the imitative faculty, it follows that all the elements of language are ultimately traceable to the same source. There is, however, an important exception.

There is a class of terms, including many of those expressive of domestic relations, which cannot be traced to imitation, but seem to consist of those sounds which are most easy to pronounce. They may, in fact, be viewed as the fruits of the first essays of the organs of articulation.(92)

Hebrew. A.m. A Mother. Also, the lower Amee A Father, (_Mangree_, a arm (with the hand) by which a Negro Dialect.) child is supported. Mamma, Mother, a Teat, a Breast, (_Latin._) A.m.e. A Maid Servant. Mamma.(93) A Father, (_Georgian._) A.m.n. A Nurse, To support, A.m.e. A Nurse, (_German._) nurse. A.m.ou.n. A Child, &c. &c. Mam. A Mother, (_Welsh._) Mamma (_English_).

It will be perceived that the application of terms from this “Root” was not confined to parents, but was extended to other objects familiar in childhood.

Other examples of the principle just noticed occur in Abba, “Father,” (_Hebrew_,) Ab-avus, Av-us, and Papa (_Latin_). These words are clearly traceable to sounds which may be readily pronounced in infancy.

The Hebrew, and some other ancient Oriental tongues, are distinguished by the frequent occurrence of harsh aspirates and gutturals, and of vehement and discordant tones, which, in many instances, are utterly incapable of representation by means of any sounds in use among the nations of modern Europe. Now if language had an imitative origin, and if these ancient Oriental tongues can be viewed as specimens of language near its source, and the European tongues as specimens more altered by time, these features of contrast will be satisfactorily explained. This will be evident from the following considerations.

As Language in its incipient state must have been an imperfect medium of communication, it may be concluded that the auxiliary aid of Signs was commonly resorted to; violent motions of the hands and the feet were probably combined with intonations of the voice, expressive, even to exaggeration, of the ideas intended to be conveyed. Now the influence of this cause was obviously calculated to give to language in its infancy the very qualities which are ascribed to the Hebrew and some other ancient languages, viz., fulness, distinctness, and in some respects extreme harshness.

On the other hand, the natural progress of language will account also for the opposite qualities displayed by the dialects of modern Europe. As Society advanced, the severe features that belonged to Language at its first commencement must have gradually softened down. Words originally intelligible only as imitations of the qualities of objects, or by reason of the signs with which they were accompanied, must have gradually acquired conventional meanings, calculated to render the use of signs and of rough and painful articulations unnecessary. Compare, as examples, the words already noticed, viz., the English word “Crow,” and the German guttural word “Krä-he,” the English “Owl,” and the Swedish and Sanscrit “Ulula,” and “Ulu-ka.”

Many writers on subjects of this nature appear to fall into considerable confusion of thought in the eulogies which they are prone to bestow on those particular languages to which their studies have been chiefly directed. In some instances we find a language extolled for the fulness and clearness of its sounds, while another is eulogized for its softness. These different qualities cannot with consistency be regarded as merits in languages that belong to the same stage of society. A more judicious view of the subject would involve the conclusion to which the previous considerations must give rise, viz., that a full and distinct language is the result of necessity in the infancy of society, and that a soft and abbreviated language is the joint product of the dictates of convenience and taste that influence its later stages.

It is probable that in the features under discussion the ancient Oriental Tongues do not differ from the languages of Europe more widely than the earliest differ from the latest specimens of the latter class of languages. The difference in this respect between the Anglo-Saxon and the modern English has already been noticed. The abbreviated pronunciation of the French, compared to the parent Latin, is another instance of the same kind. The following is an example of similar variations in three Celtic dialects, showing a progressively contracted pronunciation:

Welsh. Irish. Manx.
Arm. Braich. Brak -Ri.
(obsolete).
Raigh.
Gold. Ayr. Or. -Eer.
A Year. Bluyddyn. Bleadhain. Blien.

The Isle of Man was not occupied by the Irish until the fourth century. Yet the Manx differs from the Irish perhaps even more widely than the Irish differs from the Welsh.

The desire to render language a more rapid and convenient medium of thought may be regarded as the principal source of changes of this nature.