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thought and emotion, in his communications to one gifted like
himself. In the words of Cicero, it is the nature of man not
only quærere socium sibi, sed velle tum docere, tum discere,
tum audire, tum dicere.

Whatever was the origin of language, it is not to be supposed
that the vocabulary possessed by the first generations was more
extensive than was necessary to express the simple ideas which
they wished to communicate. In the progress of society, as new
ideas were originated, new words would be invented, just as
words are now invented when they are needed to express new
ideas.

That, from the first, a connection may exist between the ob-
jective word and the subjective idea, though we do not under-
stand the nature of that connection, is just as evident as that
there is a connection between the body and the soul, though the
nature of this connection is not understood. Indeed, we know
that there is a natural connection in the case of those words,
namely, onomatopoetic, which in pronunciation imitate the
sounds which they indicate, the sounds being, in such cases,
an echo to the sense; and we can infer some such a connection
as to large classes of other words. In the growth of language
in the ordinary course of nature, the "only mode in which the
voice could be made effective in raising the thought of a certain
animal in the mind of a person ignorant of our language, would
be to imitate the sound of the animal in question. There is a
story of an English gentleman who, being desirous of knowing
the nature of the meat on his plate at a Chinese entertainment,
turned round to the native servant behind him, pointing to the
dish with an inquiring quack, quack? The Chinaman replied,
bow-wow. Thus the two parties were mutually intelligible,
though they did not understand a word of each other's lan-
guage." In this way we can account for the existence of many
words, like the roaring of a lion, the mewing of a cat, the
clucking of hens. Upon the same principle we can account
for such words as to sob, to sigh; to tramp, to ring; to dash,
to drum; to rattle, to bubble; and a great many words where
the resemblance between the sign and the thing signified is

more remote.

Thus language, in its successive stages, is not made, but

grows. As new ideas germinate in a fertile mind, they often come forth in new forms of expression, which sometimes become permanent portions of the language. Foreign terms are imported. New terms are applied to new inventions in art or new discoveries in science. An old term applied to a single object is transitively applied to other objects. A language thus grows by grafts from without and by germs from within.

This law of growth in the English language is more strikingly seen in some epochs than in others; as, for instance, in the time of Chaucer, when the language became rich in expressions of sensible objects and simple feelings; as in the age of Shakspeare, when the "imagination bodied forth the form of things unknown;" as in the time of Locke, when the language was more fully developed as an instrument of reason; as in our own times, when it grows with the rapid growth of knowledge in the domains of natural science, mental philosophy, and the arts.

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF LANGUAGE.

§ 4. The birth-place of language is the birth-place of the hu

man race.

Sir Humphry Davy surmised that this locality must be somewhere near the tropics, in a genial climate. Sir William Jones fixed upon Persia or Iran. Adelung has concluded in favor of a contiguous locality, viz., the regions of the Indus, the borders of Cashmere and Thibet. Adelung's grounds for selecting the central Asiatic regions of Cashmere and Thibet are,

1. Their geographical position and high elevation, and the direction of their mountains and rivers, which render these countries a natural source for the diffusion of population over the globe. The high land of this region does not sink on one side only, but on all sides, and toward every point of the compass, and toward different oceans, to which there is access by extensive river systems.

2. Their climate and natural productions. At his first creation man needed a paradise. To this appellation no country in Asia can assert a better claim than the lovely land of Cashmere. Owing to its high elevation, the heat of the south is tempered into a perpetual spring, and Nature here puts forth all her powers to bring all her works, plants, animals, and man, to the

highest state of perfection. Cashmere is a region of fruitful hills, countless fountains and streams, which unite in the River Behut, that, like the Pison of Paradise, "compasseth" the whole land. The men of this country are distinguished among the nations by superior natural endowments, mental and physical. The contiguous region of Thibet also presents in a native state the various plants and animals which have been domesticated by man. Here are found for their use in the wild state, the vine, the rice-plant, the pea, the ox, the horse, the ass, the sheep, the goat, the camel, the pig, the cat, and even the reindeer, "his only friend and companion in the polar wastes."

3. The ancient Indian accounts, which are corroborated by the Scriptural narrative. The Indian accounts, equal in antiquity, it is believed, to the scriptural narrative, actually fix the first abode of man on Mount Meru, on the borders of Thibet and Cashmere. Now from Mount Meru spring four rivers, the Ganges, the Burampoota, the Indus, and another stream which flows into Thibet. Now Michaëlis, Adelung observes, translates Genesis, ii., 10, "Four rivers flowed out of Eden, and they separated continually more and more widely from each other."

4. In these regions is the line which separates from other Asiatic races the nations who exhibit the Mongul or Tartar physiognomy.

5. The same line separates the monosyllabic languages and the polysyllabic languages. The former begin in Thibet, the latter in Cashmere.

6. The astronomical reasonings of Bailly. The theory of this astronomer is, that the various nations of the ancient world were descendants of emigrants from a primeval community superior to them in knowledge, and of which he places the locality in Central Asia. See JOHNE's Philological Proofs of the Unity of the Human Race.

THE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE.

§ 5. Linguists formerly sought to discover the primitive language as earnestly as alchemists sought for the philosopher's stone, and as vainly. The claims of several different languages to this pre-eminence were advocated by different writers, but the Hebrew was generally the favored one. If all languages de

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scended from a common parent, according to the current doctrine of the present time, then the question, which of them is the primitive language, can be dismissed as unworthy of investigation.

The affiliation of languages is one thing, their parentage another. Now the older linguists, when they found certain words to be the same in two languages, concluded that one must be the parent of the other, when, in fact, they were only sister languages, moving along side by side from a common source, developing themselves under the influence of various causes found in nature and society. Instead of endeavoring to discover whether the Hebrew, or the Dutch, or some other was the primitive language, Grotius seems to have adopted the true view, namely, that the primitive language is not extant any where in a pure state, but that its remains exist in all languages. Which of the languages is nearest to the primitive language is an open question worthy of examination.

On the supposition that all languages have a common origin, we should expect that words of prime necessity, being brought into use before the dispersion of mankind, would still, if any, be found existing in the several languages; and such is the fact. Thus, words used as numerals and personal pronouns, and those used to express the nearest and dearest relations, like father, mother, brother, sister, extensively resemble each other. See § 14.

It should be added that, as out of the vain search of the alchemists for the philosopher's stone grew the science of Chemistry, so out of the search of the older linguists for the primitive language grew the modern science of Comparative Philology.

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§ 6. The gift of reason to the human race derives its great value from the gift of speech. Each is a complement of the other. Each would be nearly valueless without the other.

Just conceive for a moment of a soul swelling with large thoughts and strong emotions in the body of a man without the gift of utterance. Such a soul, thus confined within walls of flesh, struggling in vain to come forth into communication with others, must, to a large extent, be isolated from human kind.

In native intellect he may be angel-bright, in affections angellovely, but the workings of that intellect and those affections must be the workings of one in solitary confinement; and the consciousness of this impotence must be as is the ineffectual struggle to speak when the nightmare sits brooding on the sleeper. A single instance, however, furnishes but a faint illustration of what would be the wretched condition of the human fam

ily if they were all so many mutes. Mutum et turpe pecus would they be. Being mute, they would, of course, be degraded.

Speech is the deliverer of the imprisoned soul. It brings it into communion with another soul, so that the two become one. It leads the thoughts and the emotions into light and liberty. Words reaching from the speaker's tongue to the listening ear are the links of that electric chain upon which thought flies from mind to mind, and feeling from heart to heart, through the greater or the smaller circles of human society.

THE PERMANENT VALUE OF LANGUAGE.

§ 7. The gift of speech to the human race derives its permanent value from letters; or, to use equivalent terms, spoken language derives its permanent value from written language.

Summon to your memory some tribe of men gifted like others with reason and speech, but without the aid of letters. However correct and bright their thoughts may be, however strong and graceful their emotions, however distinct and eloquent their expression, they must all die with the individual, or be but faintly transmitted to future generations, at last to fade entirely from the memory of man, or be mingled up with fables. But let those same thoughts, and emotions, and expressions be recorded by letters and transmitted to the future, and they become the seedcorn in the minds of the next generation, to bear a glorious harvest of new thoughts and new emotions, or, at least, a profitable harvest in the application of knowledge to those arts of life which minister to human improvement. Vox volat. The voice flies from the lips to mingle with the winds, to be lost without an echo to the thought which it conveyed. Scripta manent. Written down, it may continue sounding on, as from a trumpet-tongue, through all time, speaking still to the common heart of man like Homer, or to the conscience like Paul.

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