CHAPTER XIII

. ORIGIN OF THE ARYAN LANGUAGES

242 : 5. The following notes on languages were taken mostly from the _History of Language_, by Henry Sweet, and were supplemented by the writings of W. D. Whitney, and an article on “Indo-European Languages,” by Peter Giles.

All languages may be roughly divided into two great groups, _isolating_ and _agglutinative_.

The isolating languages are constructed on the principle of single, distinct words for each idea, and do not employ forms which add or drop syllables, or letters, in order to obtain variety of expression, tense, mode, person, number, etc. However, the element of intonation frequently plays a large part in multiplying the number of possible forms, and therefore of ideas, in isolating languages, by imparting to otherwise identical words different meanings through pitch, rising or falling inflection or accent.

To the isolating languages belong most of those of southeastern Asia,—Chinese, Burmese, Siamese, Thibetan, Annamite, Cochin-Chinese, Malayan, etc. The term isolating does not necessarily imply words of one syllable, although there is a tendency in this direction since the roots are stripped of all incumbrances of a modifying nature so common in agglutinative or synthetic languages. The Chinese, Burmese, Siamese and Annamite are classed as monosyllabic, the Thibetan as half-monosyllabic, while the Malay is polysyllabic.

Because languages are isolating in structure does not mean that they necessarily all belong to one family. They merely have this structural principle in common. To establish family relationships it is necessary to investigate the sets of phonetics used, the root forms, the types of ideas expressed, the composition of the sentence and various other important points included under the psychology of habit and growth forms of speech. No one of these alone is ordinarily sufficient to prove that two languages are of one common stock, since extensive borrowing of all kinds has occurred since time immemorial.

Nevertheless, in point of fact, taking languages as they now exist, only those have been shown related which possess a common structure, or have together grown out of the more primitive radical stage, since structure proves itself a more constant and reliable evidence than vocabulary. But, on the other hand, since all structure is the result of growth, and any degree of difference of structure, as well as of difference of material, may be explained as the result of discordant growth from identical beginnings, it is equally inadmissible to claim that the diversities of languages prove them to have had different beginnings.

In isolating languages, word order is very important, but here again the peculiar character of any tongue of this type depends upon the order selected, or the relative importance of ideas (general, specific, etc.). The employment of particles makes possible a freer word order.

The _agglutinative_ languages are those which combine roots or parts of words or elements into new wholes to express other related ideas than those imparted by the single forms, or else entirely new concepts. Frequently these combinations are still separable on occasion into their original elements, or, if inseparable in their secondary meanings, their original parts with their derivations are still recognizable as such. Again, the component parts are no longer independent, but form a firmly knit whole.

In some languages certain classes of elements have arisen which may be added in a perfectly formal manner to other fixed roots or elements, with or without slight phonetic modifications of either or both parts. Since this occurs in conformity with fairly fixed rules, the meanings of the resultant combinations are, according to the class of the attached elements used, fairly analogous. Thus in English many verb roots obtain the present participle by the addition of the formal element _ing_, in itself now meaningless, but once, no doubt, a separate root.

The process of agglutination may be accomplished in many different ways, any of which may be characteristic of whole groups of unrelated languages. These may be roughly divided first into mono- or oligo-synthetic and polysynthetic. The former very nearly approach the isolating languages, since usually only one element may be added at a time, but the process of addition may be accomplished in any of the ways possible to agglutination.

Agglutination includes prefixing, suffixing and infixing in all degrees of complexity and fixity. Thus languages may be spoken of as agglutinative only in a relative sense. Some are much more so than others, both in point of the number of elements which it is possible to add, and their dependence upon one another and the root, denoting a higher or lower degree of inextricability in blending.

Many languages are only loosely agglutinative and the component parts of the compounds readily resolve. In others, as in the inflecting languages, the combination is inextricable.

Thus under the head of agglutinative we have the merely agglutinative or synthetic, readily resolvable combinations, which are often hardly distinguishable from isolating languages, and the less easily divisible inflectional and incorporating types. Any or all of the three processes of infixing, prefixing and suffixing may be employed in simple agglutinative combinations.

In inflectional languages the root is attended by prefixes or suffixes which form inseparable modifiers. At times phonetic changes occur which render the complex unlike the simple joining of its component parts.

As Mr. Sweet says: “If we define inflection as ‘agglutination run mad’ we may regard incorporation as inflection run madder still, for it is the result of attempting to develop a verb into a complete sentence.” In some languages, such as the incorporating, a verb is sufficiently distinct in its meaning not to require an independent pronoun. French and Spanish, though not belonging to this category, contain words with the incorporating idea, as in Spanish _hablo_, I speak, and French, _pluit_, it rains. Where polysynthesism is the prevailing character, the verb may be sufficiently comprehensive to include the objective pronoun as well as the subjective, so that it is possible to find in one word a transitive, as well as in others an intransitive, sentence. But this is only rudimentary incorporation, and borders on inflection. Some American Indian languages carry it to a very high degree, appending to or inserting into this simple complex not only nouns which may stand in apposition to the implied or actual pronouns, but particles and modifiers of every description. (See the _Handbook of American Indian Languages_, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology at Washington.) Frequently during this process various parts undergo phonetic changes in accordance with fixed laws, so that the final complex may not at all resemble a string of the original elements, but becomes a new, inseparable and fixed word containing a whole sentence of ideas. This sentence, in some languages, may carry throughout certain modifiers for all noun elements—for instance, as to whether the objects under discussion are visible or invisible. These modifiers bear definite relationships to the nouns, and the “sentence word” in each of its parts must then be conjugated as a verb in an even more complicated manner. This is agglutination par excellence, and is frequently so complex as to be utterly bewildering to the Indo-European mind, even though the Indo-European languages themselves employ agglutination to a limited degree and of certain varieties, particularly of the inflectional order.

Compared to the most complicated Indian tongues, English is in the position of Chinese to Indo-European languages in its structural simplicity, though of course in Chinese we have an added complexity in the use of pitch, etc.

There are certain types of speech which secure changes (plurals, etc.) by internal vowel modification. English itself makes use of this device, but it is the outstanding feature of Semitic tongues.

Sweet says: “There are many other minor criteria of morphological classification. The most important of these is perhaps that of the agglutinative or inflectional elements before or after the word or stem [modified]. In Turkish and in other Altaic languages, as also in Finnish, these are always post-positions, so that every word begins with the root which always has chief stress. The Bantu languages of South Africa, on the other hand, favor prefixes.... The Semitic languages favor prefixes and post-positions about equally. The Aryan languages are mainly post-positional, with occasional use of prefixes, most of which, however, are of later origin.”

It must not be supposed that languages fall into absolutely distinct categories because of their structure. No language to-day is purely of one type or another. There have been too many centuries of borrowing and change for that condition to now be possible for any language, nor are there any longer what might be called primitive tongues. They have all long since outgrown that state, whatever it may have been, even the Botocudo of Brazil, which is generally ranked as the most primitive.

Languages may now be classified only according to their prevailing tendencies. Thus, modern English is in part isolating, in part inflectional and in part agglutinative, as that term is generally applied. Basque is an incorporating language, far removed geographically and linguistically from any other of that character. The Indo-European family may be considered as inflectional, because that process is a prominent feature, but it is by no means the only one present, nor is it exclusively typical of that family.

There is no doubt that all languages pass through certain stages in their development, but it is not at all true that they all have eventually the same or even similar histories. There are endless possibilities of growth and decay, and this fact alone excludes any set evolutionary scheme. Nor are the isolating languages the most primitive. On the contrary, they are as complex in their way as the most agglutinative North American tongues, and as expressive, for some psychological categories.

There is little doubt that all languages have begun on an isolating principle of simple roots for single ideas, from which they have diverged in endless variety. Probably all inflectional languages had an isolating and agglutinative stage, although this is by no means proved. The Chinese seems to have undergone an agglutinative past of some sort, but to have resolved again into simple roots, with only traces of fuller forms, but with the added complexity of tone, accent, and order, to give, as Sweet puts it, “that extreme of elliptical conciseness and concentrated force of expression, which excites our admiration.”

English has become analytical, for many older inflected words have now been worked over into combinations of independent words, but this is far from a complete or consistent process. Probably it will never become like the Chinese, for to do away now with its inflectional system entirely would necessitate a complete upheaval of structure which is not likely to happen in the course of normal inner development, particularly with a vast literature to assist in stabilizing present forms.

As regards polysynthesism, or amount of agglutination, the Aryan tongues are intermediate; they allow affixes, but only within certain limits.

Languages undoubtedly differ from one another in their richness and power of expression, but may not be used as a test of the intellectual capacity of those who now speak them. In fact, men of any race can learn any language, unless abnormal. To account for the great and striking difference of structure among human languages is beyond the power of the linguistic student, and will doubtless always continue so. We are not likely to be able even to demonstrate a correlation of capacities, saying that a race which has done this and that in other departments might have been expected to form such and such a language. Every tongue represents the general outcome of the capacity of a race as exerted in this particular direction, under the influence of historical circumstances which we can have no hope of tracing, but there are striking anomalies to be noted.

“The Chinese and the Egyptians have shown themselves to be among the most gifted races the earth has known; but the Chinese tongue is of unsurpassed jejuneness, and the Egyptian, in point of structure, little better, while among the wild tribes of Africa and America we find tongues of every grade up to a high one or the highest. This shows clearly enough that mental power is not measured by language structure. On the whole the value and rank of a language are determined by what its users have made it do—a poor tool in skilful hands can do vastly better work than the best tool in unskilful hands, even as the ancient Egyptians, without steel or steam, turned out products which, both for colossal grandeur and for exquisite finish, are the despair of modern engineers and artists.” In other words, we must not underestimate the important part played by habit or inertia. “The formation of habit is slow, and once formed it exercises a constraining as well as a guiding influence.”

The Indo-European language is one of the most highly organized families of tongues that exist, and its greatest power lies (in modern English, etc.) in its mixed structural and material character. So to the Indo-European family belongs incontestably the first place, and for many reasons,—the historical position of the peoples speaking its dialects, who have now long been the leaders in world history, the abundance, variety and merit of its literatures ancient and modern and, most of all, the great variety and richness of its development. These have made it an illustration of the history of human speech, which is extremely valuable and the training ground of comparative philology.

W. D. Whitney gives the following linguistic groups in order of their importance from a literary standpoint:

1. Indo-European (Indo-Germanic). 2. Semitic. 3. Hamitic. 4. Monosyllabic or Southeastern Asiatic. 5. Ural-Altaic (Scythian, Turanian). 6. Dravidian or South Indian. 7. Malay-Polynesian. 8. Oceanic— _a._ Australian and Tasmanian. _b._ Papuan and Negrito, etc. 9. Caucasian— _a._ Circassian. _b._ Mitsjeghian. _c._ Lesghian, Georgian. 10. European Remnants— Basque. Etruscan? Lydian? 11. South African, Bantu. 12. Central African. 13. American.

The first ten groups are families. So little is or was known about the last three groups that the author of the article classed together what are now known to be vast agglomerations of families. For instance, the American languages include several hundred distinct stocks, of which fifty are found in California alone. These are all, according to our present knowledge, utterly unrelated. It is known that the central African tongues belong to a different group than the southern, and it would be advisable to consult Sir Harry Johnston’s recent large work on the Bantu languages.

The subdivision of the Indo-European family into cognate languages is given here to show the great diversity of tongues that may spring from one ancestor. Not all the dialects, nor even languages, have been included, but only those best known:

I. Centum (European). 1. Greek.

ANCIENT MODERN { Latin. Portuguese { Oscan. Spanish. 2. Italic. { Umbrian Catalan. { Minor dialects of Provençal. { ancient Italy. French. { Tuscan. Italian. { Calabrian. Friulian. Ladin. Romansch. Rumanian.

{ { Irish. { _Q._ Celtic { Manx. { { Scotch Gaelic. 3. Celtic { { { Ancient Gaulish. { _P._ Celtic { Welsh. { { Cornish. { { Breton or Armorican.

{ Gothic. { { Swedish. { { Danish. { Scandinavian { Norwegian. { { Icelandic. { { Old Norse. { Germanic or { Teutonic { { { { English. { { Frisian. { West { Low Frankish { Dutch. { Germanic { { Flemish. { { Low German. { { High German.

5. Armenian. [6. Tokharian?]

II. Satem. (Eastern Europe and Asia.)

{ { Zend. { Sanskrit { Old Persian. 1. Aryan or { { Modern Persian. Indo-Iranian { { Hindu, and nearly all the modern languages { of India [and of the Pamirs].

{ { Lithuanian. { { Lettish. { _a_ { Old Prussian or Borussian, extinct { { since the 17th century. { { { { Old Bulgarian. { { { { Great Russian { { 1. S.E. { { and White Russian. 2. Balto-Slavonic { { Slavic { Russian. { Little Russian or { { { Ruthenian. { _b_ { { Servian. { { { Slovene. { { { { 2. West { Polish. { { Slavic. { Czech or Bohemian. { { { Sorb. 3. Albanian.

242 : 16. _Cf._ S. Feist, 2, p. 250. On the archaic character of Lithuanian, see Taylor, 1, p. 15, and the authorities he quotes. Also Schrader, Jevons translation.

242 : 20–243 : 4. Deniker, 2, p. 320, sums up Hirt’s position on this question in the footnote: “According to Hirt the home of dispersion of the primitive Aryan language would be found to the north of the Carpathians, in the Letto-Lithuanian region. From this point two linguistic streams would start flowing around the mountains to the west and east; the western stream, after spreading over Germany (Teutonic languages), left behind the Celtic languages in the upper valley of the Danube, and filtered through on the one side into Italy (Latin languages), on the other side into Illyria, Albania, and Greece (Helleno-Illyrian languages). The eastern stream formed the Slav languages in the plains traversed by the Dnieper, then spread by way of the Caucasus into Asia (Iranian languages and Sanscrit). In this way we can account, on the one hand, for the less and less marked relationship between the Aryan languages of the present day and the common primitive dialect, and on the other hand, for the diversity between the two groups of Aryan languages, western and eastern.”

If this were so, Sanskrit should more closely resemble the Slavic than the western languages. As it is, the old Vedic speech, the earliest form of Sanskrit, is said to show more affiliations with Greek than with any other of the Aryan tongues (see Taylor, 1, p. 21, and authorities quoted), a fact which merely adds another proof to our hypothesis that sometime between 2000 and 1500 B. C. the Nordics filtered down the Balkan peninsula in their earliest wave and about the same time other branches found their way into northwestern India. The Sanskrit alphabet is more closely related to the Phœnician than to any other. At the time of the first Nordic expansion their language was not reduced to writing. The alphabet used for early Sanskrit, was, according to Professor Bühler, probably introduced into India by traders from Mesopotamia about 800 B. C. Another authority on the relations of Greek and Sanskrit is Johannes Schmidt, _Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Indo-germanischen Sprachen_, Weimar, 1872.

243 : 4. Prof. J. D. Prince, correspondence, in discussing the kinship of prehistoric Ugrian to Aryan says that, although it is a temptation to believe in it, there is insufficient data for proving it. As careful a scholar as Szinnyei, in his _Vergleichende Grammatik der Ugrischen Sprache_, is careful not to commit himself. But see Zaborowski, 3; also the notes to p. 236 : 26; and Deniker, 2, pp. 349–351.

243 : 12. Deniker, 2, p. 320 and the authorities he quotes.

243 : 20. See the notes to pp. 158 : 21 and 159.

243 : 25. See p. 158 and also the notes on languages to p. 242 : 5.

244 : 1. See p. 157 and the notes.

244 : 6. Latin derivatives. Zaborowski, 1, p. 2. See table of languages, in the note to p. 242 : 5 of this book.

244 : 12–28. Ripley, pp. 423–424; Freeman, 2, p. 217; Obédénare, p. 350; Ratzel, vol. III, p. 564; and the articles on the Balkans and Hungary in the _Geographical Review_, by Cvijič and Wallis. _Cf._ G. Poisson, _The Latin Origin of the Rumanians_.

244 : 29–245 : 3. Freeman, 1, p. 439.

245 : 3. Jordanes, _History of the Goths_; Procopius, _The History of the Wars_; Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, chaps. I and XI; Freeman, _The Historical Geography of Europe_, pp. 70–71; also the notes to pp. 143 and 156 : 10.

245 : 12. Sarmatians. See the note to p. 143 : 21. The same for the Venethi. Under the Roman dominion Latin speech appears to have spread from the Adriatic coast eastward over the Balkans replacing the native dialects except along the shores of the Ægean and in the large cities.

246 : 9. Freeman, 1, pp. 440–441.

246 : 15. Ripley, p. 425.

246 : 24. See the note to p. 173 of this book.

246 : 27. Rhys and Jones, _The Welsh People_, pp. 12, 13.

247 : 3. See the note to p. 174; Oman, 2, pp. 13, 14; Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 409–410; 2, pp. 319–320; Rhys and Jones, pp. 1, 2.

247 : 9. Goidels. Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 227, 291 and 455–456.

247 : 16. Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 229, 456; Oman, 2, p. 16. See also p. 174 of this book.

247 : 23. Ripley, p. 127; Feist, 4, p. 14; Ridgeway, 1, p. 373; and pp. 195 and 212 of this book.

247 : 27. See the note to p. 247 : 3.

248 : 3. Fleure and James, pp. 146, 148; D’Arbois de Jubainville, 2, p. 88.

248 : 6. Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 319–321; Taylor, 2, pp. 138, 167–168; Beddoe, 4, p. 20.

248 : 12. Neo-Celtic. D’Arbois de Jubainville, 2, p. 88; Fleure and James, p. 143.

248 : 14. Rice Holmes, 2, p. 12.

248 : 29–249 : 4. See the notes to pp. 177–178 of this book.

249 : 16. Beddoe, 4, p. 223.

249 : 20. The same, pp. 241–242; Ripley’s maps, pp. 23 and 313; but consult Beddoe, 4, p. 66, for criticisms of evidence derived from place names; Taylor, 2, p. 119.

249 : 27–250 : 1. Beddoe, 4, pp. 139, 241–242.

250 : 1 _seq._ Taylor, 2, p. 173; Palgrave, vol. I of _The English Commonwealth_; Oman, 2, pp. 158 seq.

250 : 6. Taylor, 2, pp. 170–171.

250 : 14. Ripley, p. 22; Taylor, 2, pp. 137–138.

250 : 20. Jordanes, XXXVI; Gibbon and others.

250 : 24. Ripley, pp. 531–533.

250 : 28 _seq._ _Cf._ Ripley, pp. 101, 151 _seq._

251 : 7 _seq._ _Cf._ Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 309–314.

251 : 18. See the note to p. 182 of this book.

251 : 26. Since the Belgæ were the last wave of the Celts, and Cymric was the later Celtic, this deduction is inevitable, even if there were no facts, such as place names, history, etc., to prove it. See the note to p. 248 : 6.

251 : 28–252 : 2. Beddoe, 4, p. 35; Ripley, pp. 101, 152; Taylor, 2, pp. 95, 98.

252 : 5. See the note to p. 196 : 7.

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