TONGUES, CONFUSION OF 467 TONGUES, CONFUSION OF
external guise, in age, and in geographical position as Sanscrit and English, Celtic and Greek. It has done the same for other groups of languages equally widely extended, but presenting less opportunities of investi- gation. It has recognised affinities between languages which the ancient Greek ethnologist would have classed under the head of " barbarian" in reference to each other, and even in many instances where tlie modern philologist has anticipated no relationsliip. The lines of discovery, therefore, point in one direction, and fa- vor the expectation that the various families may be combined by the discovery of connecting-links into a single family, comprehending in its capacious bosom all the languages of the world. But, should such a result never be attained, the probability of a common origin would still remain unshaken; for the failure would probably be due to the absence, in many classes and families, of that chain of historical evidence wiiich in the case of the Indo-European and Shemitic families enables us to trace their progress for above three thou- sand years. In many languages no literature at all, in many others no ancient literature, exists to supply the philologist with materials for comparative study : in these cases it can only be by laborious research into existing dialects that the original forms of words can be detected amid the incrustations and transmutations with which time has obscured them.
In dealing with the phenomena of language, we should duly consider the plastic nature of the material out of which it is formed, and the numerous influences to which it is subject. Variety in unity is a general law of nature, to which even tlie most stubborn phys- ical substances yield a ready obedience. In the case of language it would be difficult to set any bounds to the variety which we might a priori expect it to as- sume. Eor, in the tirst place, it is brought into close contact with the spirit of man, and reflects with amaz- ing fidelity its endless variations, adapting itself to the expression of each feeling, the designation of each ob- ject, the working of each cast of thought or stage of reasoning power. Secondly, its sounds are subject to external influences, such as peculiarities of the organ of speech, the result either of natural conformation, of geographical position, or of habits of life and associa- tions of an accidental character. In the third place, it is generally affected by the state of intellectual and social culture of a people, as manifested more especialh^ in the presence or absence of a standard literary dialect, and in the processes of verbal and syntactical structure, which again react on the very core of the word and produce a variety of sound -mutations. Lastly, it is subjected to the wear and tear of time and use, obliter- ating, as in an old coin, the original impress of the word, reducing it in bulk, producing new combinations, and occasionally leading to singular interchanges of soinid and idea. The varieties resulting from the mod- ifying influences above enumerated may be reduced to two classes, according as they affect the formal or the radical elements of language.
(I.) Widely as languages now differ from each oth- er in external form, the raw material (if we may use the expression) out of which they have sprmig appears to have been in all cases the same. A substratum of significant monosyllabic roots underlies the whole struct- ure, supplying the materials necessary, not only for or- dinarj' predication, but also for what is usually termed the "growth" of language out of its primary into it's more complicated forms. It is necessary to point this out clearly in order that we may not be led to suppose that the elements of one language are in themselves endued with any greater vitality than those of another. Such a distinction, if it existed, would go far to prove a specific difference between languages, which could hardl}- be reconciled with the idea of their c(mimon origin. Tlie appearance of vitality arises out of the manipulation of the roots by tiie human mind, and is not inherent in the roots themselves.
1. The proofs of this original equality are furnished by the languages themselves. Adopting for the present the threefold morphological classification into isolating, agglutinative, and inflecting languages, we shall find that no original element exists in the one which does not also exist in the other. With regard to the isolat- ing class, the terms " monosyllabic" and '• radical," by which it is otherwise described, are decisive as to its character. Languages of this class are wholly unsus- ceptible of grammatical mutations; there is no formal distinction between verb and noun, substantive and ad- jective, preposition and conjun>2tion; there are no in- flections, no case or person terminations of any kind; the bare root forms the sole and whole substance of the language. In regard to the other two classes, it is necessary to establish the two distinct points— (1) that the formal elements represent roots, and (2) that the roots both of the formal and the radical elements of the word are monosyllabic. Now it may be satisfactorily proved by analysis that all the component parts of both inflecting and agglutinative languages are reducible to two kinds of roots, predicable and pronominal— the for- mer supplying the material element of verbs, substan- tives, and adjectives; the latter that of conjunctions, prepositions, and particles; while each kind, but more particularly the pronominal, supplies the formal element, or, in other words, the terminations of verbs, substan- tives, and adjectives. Whether the two classes of roots, predicable and pronominal, are further reducible to one class is a point that has been discussed, but has not as yet been established ( Bopp, Compar. Gram. § 105; Muller, Lectures, \). 269). We have further to show that the roots of agglutinative and inflecting languages are monosyllabic. This is an acknowledged character- istic of the Indo-European fatnily: monosyllabism is, indeed, the only feature which its roots have in com- mon ; in other respects they exhibit every kind of va- riation, from a uniliteral root, such as i (ire), up to com- binations of five letters, such as sound (scandere), the total number of admissible forms of root amounting to no less than eight (Schleicher, § 20(5). In the Shemit- ic family monosj'Uabism is not a piima facie character- istic of the root; on the contrary, the verbal stems ex- hibit bisyllabism with such remarkable uniformity that it would lead to the impression that the roots also must have been bisyllabic. The bisyllabism, however, of the Shemitic stem is in reality triconsonantalism, the vowels not forming any part of tlie essence of the root, but being wholly subordinate to the consonants. It is at once apparent that a triconsonantal and even a quad- riconsonantal root may be in certain combinations uni- syllabic. But, further, it is more than probable that the triconsonantal has been evolved out of a biconso- nantal root, which must necessarily be nnisyllabic if the consonants stand, as they invariably do in Sliemitic roots, at the beginning and end of the word. With re- gard to tlie agglutinative class, it may be assumed that the same law wliich we have seen to prevail in the is- olating and inflecting classes prevails also in this, hold- ing as it does an intermediate place between those op- posite poles in the world of language.