649. Anapestic Monometer .... 731 651. Anapestic Trimeter .....
650. Anapestic Dimeter...... 731 652. Anapestic Tetrameter...
653. Amphibrach Monometer 732 655. Amphibrach Trimeter.... 733
654. Amphibrach Dimeter. 733 656. Amphibrach Tetrameter.. 733
657. Dactylic Monometer, with 659. Dactylic Trimeter
the Dactylic Formula.. 734 660. Dactylic Tetrameter...
734 661. Dactylic Hexameter..
662. The Spenserian Stanza ... 736 672. Terza Rima.
664. Elegiac Octosyllabics. 736 674. Ballad Stanza.
665. Octosyllabic Couplets..... 737 675. Rhombic Measures
HISTORICAL ELEMENTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
GENERAL RELATIONS OF LANGUAGE.
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DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE.
§ 1. LANGUAGE, from the Latin word lingua, the tongue,
through the French word langage, speech, is the utterance of
articulate sounds of the human voice for expressing the thoughts
and emotions of the human mind. These articulate sounds
are, to the hearer, signs of what is in the mind of the speaker.
This is the primary meaning of the term language.
In a secondary sense, the term is applied to certain external
bodily signs of the internal movements of the mind. These,
sometimes called natural signs, are:
1. Modifications of the features of the face, as when a frown
expresses anger.
2. Variations of the limbs, or gestures of the body, as when
the upraised clinched fist expresses a threat.
3. Modulations of the voice, as when a groan expresses pain.
These three classes of signs, however, constituting what Cice-
ro calls sermo corporis, though uttered and understood by all
men, furnish a mode of communication but little above what
brutes enjoy. In the use of them, much, indeed, was accom-
plished by the ancient pantomimists, as likewise much has been
done by actors, and, recently, by the teachers of deaf mutes.
But how entirely inadequate are they, even in their most im-
proved mode of use, to answer the ends to which speech is sub-
servient!
On the other hand, in the articulate sounds of the human voice
are materials, furnished by nature, for forming a collection of
signs fit to express the most subtile and delicate thoughts and
emotions of the human mind. Brutes, indeed, utter certain
sounds indicating their feelings, but these are merely vocal, not
articulate; they are not divided by consonants, as those of man
are, and are the same in every division of the globe. This dis-
tinctive characteristic of human speech is alluded to in the
Homeric phrase, Il., B. i., 250, μeрóñwv åvoρúñwv, “articulate-
speaking, or speech-dividing men."
Of written language we shall speak hereafter. See § 179.
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.
§ 2. As to the origin of language, three opinions have been
maintained :
1. That language was the pure gift of God, conveyed in vocal
sounds to the listening ear, as from a teacher to a pupil.
2. That it was the invention of man, contrived for the purpose
of communication.
3. That it was neither the pure gift of God, nor an invention
of man, but the spontaneous result of his organization, just as
reason is.
The argument for this last opinion is physiological. It is de-
rived from the structure of the organs of speech, and from the
adaptation of the soul to every part of the body, to the tongue as
well as to the hand. In thus creating the soul to act in and
through the body, the Deity conferred on man, from the first, not
only the power of thought, but also, as related to it, that of speech,
so that language is the necessary result of the constitution of
man, and human speech and human nature are inseparable.
Thus in his very constitution endowed by his Creator with the
gift of speech, the first father of our race was qualified, from
the first, to bestow names on the animals, which his Creator
"brought before him to see what names he would give them."
These animals received their names immediately from man, not
immediately from God; and, inasmuch as speech is but the
image of the mind, we may believe that, impressed by some
prominent attribute in each animal, he gave a name imaging his
impression.
According to this view, language is not the result of compact
on the part of many, nor of inventive contrivance on the part of
some individual, nor of an audible communication from the
Deity, as from a teacher to a pupil, but is a natural phenome-
non of the race, produced by an inward necessity.
It is an
emanation from the common soul of man, through the organs of
the body, in obedience to laws as necessary as the laws of any
other mental operation.
Whether language was thus developed, as from a germ or pre-
existing type, within the soul, or, according to the first opinion,
was a pure gift supernaturally bestowed upon man at some pe-
riod subsequent to his creation, are questions that have not been
settled to the entire satisfaction of every competent inquirer.
That, according to the second opinion, it was the invention of
man, contrived for the purpose of mutual communication, is in-
credible. On the contrary, the declaration of William von Hum-
boldt we can readily admit as the true view. "According to
my fullest conviction, speech must be regarded as naturally in-
herent in man, for it is altogether inexplicable as a work of his
understanding in its simple consciousness. We are none the
better for allowing thousands and thousands of years for its in-
vention. There could be no invention of language unless its
type already existed in the human understanding. Man is man
only by means of speech; but, in order to invent speech, he must
be already man."
We can, at least, safely assert that language is natural to man,
inasmuch as he is capable of articulate sounds fitted to express
thoughts and emotions, and has thoughts and emotions to be ex-
pressed, and his social nature prompts him to express them.
THE GROWTH OF LANGUAGE.
§ 3. Language ever grows with the growth of thought.
Thus the father of our race, even when he was "alone," was
endowed with the faculty of speech as he was with that of rea-
son, and he used it in giving names to the animals that came
before him, as the expression of his thoughts. And when, in ac-
cordance with the wants of his social nature, a help-meet was
created for him, we can readily believe that his language would
grow in its vocabulary and its constructions with the growth of
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