Part 24
If Locke is right in considering the having general ideas as the distinguishing feature between man and brutes, and, if we ourselves are right in pointing to language as the one palpable distinction between the two, it would seem to follow that language is the outward sign and realization of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of abstraction, but which is better known to us by the homely name of Reason.
Let us now look back to the result of our former Lectures. It was this. After we had explained everything in the growth of language that can be explained, there remained in the end, as the only inexplicable residuum, what we called _roots_. These roots formed the constituent elements of all languages. This discovery has simplified the problem of the origin of language immensely. It has taken away all excuse for those rapturous descriptions of language which invariably preceded the argument that language must have a divine origin. We shall hear no more of that wonderful instrument which can express all we see, and hear, and taste, and touch, and smell; which is the breathing image of the whole world; which gives form to the airy feelings of our souls, and body to the loftiest dreams of our imagination; which can arrange in accurate perspective the past, the present, and the future, and throw over everything the varying hues of certainty, of doubt, of contingency. All this is perfectly true, but it is no longer wonderful, at least not in the Arabian Nights sense of that word. “The speculative mind,” as Dr. Ferguson says, “in comparing the first and last steps of the progress of language, feels the same sort of amazement with a traveller, who, after rising insensibly on the slope of a hill, comes to look from a precipice of an almost unfathomable depth to the summit of which he scarcely believes himself to have ascended without supernatural aid.” To certain minds it is a disappointment to be led down again by the hand of history from that high summit. They prefer the unintelligible which they can admire, to the intelligible which they can only understand. But to a mature mind reality is more attractive than fiction, and simplicity more wonderful than complication. Roots may seem dry things as compared with the poetry of Goethe. Yet there is something more truly wonderful in a root than in all the lyrics of the world.
What, then, are these roots? In our modern languages roots can only be discovered by scientific analysis, and, even as far back as Sanskrit, we may say that no root was ever used as a noun or as a verb. But originally roots were thus used, and in Chinese we have fortunately preserved to us a representative of that primitive radical stage which, like the granite, underlies all other strata of human speech. The Aryan root _DÂ_, to give, appears in Sanskrit _dâ-nam_, _donum_, gift, as a substantive; in _do_, Sanskrit _dadâmi_, Greek _di-dō-mi_, I give, as a verb; but the root DÂ can never be used by itself. In Chinese, on the contrary, the root TA, as such, is used in the sense of a noun, greatness; of a verb, to be great; of an adverb, greatly or much. Roots therefore are not, as is commonly maintained, merely scientific abstractions, but they were used originally as real words. What we want to find out is this, What inward mental phase is it that corresponds to these roots, as the germs of human speech?
Two theories have been started to solve this problem, which, for shortness’ sake, I shall call the _Bow-wow theory_ and the _Pooh-pooh theory_.(327)
According to the first, roots are imitations of sounds, according to the second, they are involuntary interjections. The first theory was very popular among the philosophers of the eighteenth century, and, as it is still held by many distinguished scholars and philosophers, we must examine it more carefully. It is supposed then that man, being as yet mute, heard the voices of birds and dogs and cows, the thunder of the clouds, the roaring of the sea, the rustling of the forest, the murmurs of the brook, and the whisper of the breeze. He tried to imitate these sounds, and finding his mimicking cries useful as signs of the objects from which they proceeded, he followed up the idea and elaborated language. This view was most ably defended by Herder.(328) “Man,” he says, “shows conscious reflection when his soul acts so freely that it may separate, in the ocean of sensations which rush into it through the senses, one single wave, arrest it, regard it, being conscious all the time of regarding this one single wave. Man proves his conscious reflection when, out of the dream of images that float past his senses, he can gather himself up and wake for a moment, dwelling intently on one image, fixing it with a bright and tranquil glance, and discovering for himself those signs by which he knows that _this_ is _this_ image and no other. Man proves his conscious reflection when he not only perceives vividly and distinctly all the features of an object, but is able to separate and recognize one or more of them as its distinguishing features.” For instance, “Man sees a lamb. He does not see it like the ravenous wolf. He is not disturbed by any uncontrollable instinct. He wants to know it, but he is neither drawn towards it nor repelled from it by his senses. The lamb stands before him, as represented by his senses, white, soft, woolly. The conscious and reflecting soul of man looks for a distinguishing mark;—the lamb bleats!—the mark is found. The bleating which made the strongest impression, which stood apart from all other impressions of sight or touch, remains in the soul. The lamb returns—white, soft, woolly. The soul sees, touches, reflects, looks for a mark. The lamb bleats, and now the soul has recognized it. ‘Ah, thou art the bleating animal,’ the soul says within herself; and the sound of bleating, perceived as the distinguishing mark of the lamb, becomes the name of the lamb. It was the comprehended mark, the word. And what is the whole of our language but a collection of such words?”
Our answer is, that though there are names in every language formed by mere imitation of sound, yet these constitute a very small proportion of our dictionary. They are the playthings, not the tools, of language, and any attempt to reduce the most common and necessary words to imitative roots ends in complete failure. Herder himself, after having most strenuously defended this theory of Onomatopoieia, as it is called, and having gained a prize which the Berlin Academy had offered for the best essay on the origin of language, renounced it openly towards the latter years of his life, and threw himself in despair into the arms of those who looked upon languages as miraculously revealed. We cannot deny the possibility that _a_ language might have been formed on the principle of imitation; all we say is, that as yet no language has been discovered that was so formed. An Englishman in China,(329) seeing a dish placed before him about which he felt suspicious, and wishing to know whether it was a duck, said, with an interrogative accent,
_Quack quack?_
He received the clear and straightforward answer,
_Bow-wow!_
This, no doubt, was as good as the most eloquent conversation on the same subject between an Englishman and a French waiter. But I doubt whether it deserves the name of language. We do not speak of a _bow-wow_, but of a dog. We speak of a cow, not of a _moo_. Of a lamb, not of a _baa_. It is the same in more ancient languages, such as Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. If this principle of Onomatopoieia is applicable anywhere, it would be in the formation of the names of animals. Yet we listen in vain for any similarity between goose and cackling, hen and clucking, duck and quacking, sparrow and chirping, dove and cooing, hog and grunting, cat and mewing, between dog and barking, yelping, snarling, or growling.
There are of course some names, such as _cuckoo_, which are clearly formed by an imitation of sound. But words of this kind are, like artificial flowers, without a root. They are sterile, and are unfit to express anything beyond the one object which they imitate. If you remember the variety of derivatives that could be formed from the root _spac_, to see, you will at once perceive the difference between the fabrication of such a word as _cuckoo_, and the true natural growth of words.
Let us compare two words such as _cuckoo_ and _raven_. _Cuckoo_ in English is clearly a mere imitation of the cry of that bird, even more so than the corresponding terms in Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin. In these languages the imitative element has received the support of a derivative suffix; we have _kokila_ in Sanskrit, and _kokkyx_ in Greek, _cuculus_ in Latin.(330) _Cuckoo_ is, in fact, a modern word, which has taken the place of the Anglo-Saxon _geac_, the German _Gauch_, and, being purely onomatopoëtic, it is of course not liable to the changes of Grimm’s Law. As the word _cuckoo_ predicates nothing but the sound of a particular bird, it could never be applied for expressing any general quality in which other animals might share; and the only derivatives to which it might give rise are words expressive of a metaphorical likeness with the bird. The same applies to _cock_, the Sanskrit _kukkuṭa_. Here, too, Grimm’s Law does not apply, for both words were intended to convey merely the cackling sound of the bird; and, as this intention continued to be felt, phonetic change was less likely to set in. The Sanskrit _kukkuṭa_ is not derived from any root, it simply repeats the cry of the bird, and the only derivatives to which it gives rise are metaphorical expressions, such as the French _coquet_, originally strutting about like a cock; _coquetterie_; _cocart_, conceited; _cocarde_, a cockade; _coquelicot_, originally a cock’s comb, then the wild red poppy, likewise so called from its similarity with a cock’s comb.
Let us now examine the word _raven_. It might seem at first, as if this also was merely onomatopoëtic. Some people imagine they perceive a kind of similarity between the word _raven_ and the cry of that bird. This seems still more so if we compare the Anglo-Saxon _hrafn_, the German _Rabe_, Old High-German _hraban_. The Sanskrit _kârava_ also, the Latin _corvus_, and the Greek _korōnē_, all are supposed to show some similarity with the unmelodious sound of _Maître Corbeau_. But as soon as we analyze the word we find that it is of a different structure from _cuckoo_ or _cock_. It is derived from a root which has a general predicative power. The root _ru_ or _kru_ is not a mere imitation of the cry of the raven; it embraces many cries, from the harshest to the softest, and it might have been applied to the nightingale as well as to the raven. In Sanskrit this root exists as _ru_, a verb which is applied to the murmuring sound of rivers as well as to the barking of dogs and the mooing of cows. From it are derived numerous words in Sanskrit. In Latin we find _raucus_, hoarse; _rumor_, a whisper; in German _rûnen_, to speak low, and _runa_, mystery. The Latin _lamentum_ stands for an original _ravimentum_ or _cravimentum_. This root _ru_ has several secondary forms, such as the Sanskrit _rud_, to cry; the Latin _rug_ in _rugire_, to howl; the Greek _kru_ or _klu_, in _klaiō_, _klausomai_; the Sanskrit _kruś_, to shout; the Gothic _hrukjan_, to crow, and _hropjan_, to cry; the German _rufen_. Even the common Aryan word for hearing is closely allied to this root. It is _śru_ in Sanskrit, _klyō_ in Greek, _cluo_ in Latin; and before it took the recognized meaning of hearing, it meant to sound, to ring. When a noise was to be heard in a far distance, the man who first perceived it might well have said I ring, for his ears were sounding and ringing; and the same verb, if once used as a transitive, expressed exactly what we mean by I hear a noise.
You will have perceived thus that the process which led to the formation of the word _kârava_ in Sanskrit is quite distinct from that which produced _cuckoo_. _Kârava_(331) means a shouter, a caller, a crier. It might have been applied to many birds; but it became the traditional and recognized name for the crow. Cuckoo could never mean anything but the cuckoo, and while a word like _raven_ has ever so many relations from a _rumor_ down to _a row_, cuckoo stands by itself like a stick in a living hedge.
It is curious to observe how apt we are to deceive ourselves when we once adopt this system of Onomatopoieia. Who does not imagine that he hears in the word “thunder” an imitation of the rolling and rumbling noise which the old Germans ascribed to their God Thor playing at nine-pins? Yet _thunder_ is clearly the same word as the Latin _tonitru_. The root is _tan_, to stretch. From this root _tan_, we have in Greek _tonos_, our tone, _tone_ being produced by the stretching and vibrating of cords. In Sanskrit the sound thunder is expressed by the same root _tan_, but in the derivatives _tanyu_, _tanyatu_, and _tanayitnu_, thundering, we perceive no trace of the rumbling noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin _tonitru_ and the English _thunder_. The very same root _tan_, to stretch, yields some derivatives which are anything but rough and noisy. The English _tender_, the French _tendre_, the Latin _tener_, are derived from it. Like _tenuis_, the Sanskrit _tanu_, the English _thin_, _tener_ meant originally what was extended over a larger surface, then _thin_, then _delicate_. The relationship betwixt _tender_, _thin_, and _thunder_ would be hard to establish if the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise.
Who does not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French _sucre_, _sucré_? Yet sugar came from India, and it is there called _śarkhara_, which is anything but sweet sounding. This _śarkhara_ is the same word as _sugar_; it was called in Latin _saccharum_, and we still speak of _saccharine_ juice, which is sugar juice.
In _squirrel_ again some people imagine they hear something of the rustling and whirling of the little animal. But we have only to trace the name back to Greek, and there we find that _skiouros_ is composed of two distinct words, the one meaning shade, the other tail; the animal being called shade-tail by the Greeks.
Thus the word _cat_, the German _katze_, is supposed to be an imitation of the sound made by a cat spitting. But if the spitting were expressed by the sibilant, that sibilant does not exist in the Latin _catus_, nor in _cat_, or _kitten_, nor in the German _kater_.(332) The Sanskrit _mârjâra_, cat, might seem to imitate the purring of the cat; but it is derived from the root _mṛij_, to clean, _mârjâra_, meaning the animal that always cleans itself.
Many more instances might be given to show how easily we are deceived by the constant connection of certain sounds and certain meanings in the words of our own language, and how readily we imagine that there is something in the sound to tell us the meaning of the words. “The sound must seem an echo to the sense.”
Most of these Onomatopoieias vanish as soon as we trace our own names back to Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, or compare them with their cognates in Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit. The number of names which are really formed by an imitation of sound dwindle down to a very small quotum if cross-examined by the comparative philologist, and we are left in the end with the conviction that though _a_ language might have been made out of the roaring, fizzing, hissing, gobbling, twittering, cracking, banging, slamming, and rattling sounds of nature, the tongues with which _we_ are acquainted point to a different origin.(333)
And so we find many philosophers, and among them Condillac, protesting against a theory which would place man even below the animal. Why should man be supposed, they say, to have taken a lesson from birds and beasts? Does he not utter cries, and sobs, and shouts himself, according as he is affected by fear, pain, or joy? These cries or interjections were represented as the natural and real beginnings of human speech. Everything else was supposed to have been elaborated after their model. This is what I call the Interjectional, or Pooh-pooh, Theory.
Our answer to this theory is the same as to the former. There are no doubt in every language interjections, and some of them may become traditional, and enter into the composition of words. But these interjections are only the outskirts of real language. Language begins where interjections end. There is as much difference between a real word, such as “to laugh,” and the interjection ha, ha! between “I suffer,” and oh! as there is between the involuntary act and noise of sneezing, and the verb “to sneeze.” We sneeze, and cough, and scream, and laugh in the same manner as animals, but if Epicurus tells us that we speak in the same manner as dogs bark, moved by nature,(334) our own experience will tell us that this is not the case.
An excellent answer to the interjectional theory has been given by Horne Tooke.
“The dominion of speech,” he says,(335) “is erected upon the downfall of interjections. Without the artful contrivances of language, mankind would have had nothing but interjections with which to communicate, orally, any of their feelings. The neighing of a horse, the lowing of a cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat, sneezing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other involuntary convulsion with oral sound, have almost as good a title to be called parts of speech, as interjections have. Voluntary interjections are only employed where the suddenness and vehemence of some affection or passion returns men to their natural state; and makes them for a moment forget the use of speech; or when, from some circumstance, the shortness of time will not permit them to exercise it.”
As in the case of Onomatopoieia, it cannot be denied that with interjections, too, some kind of language might have been formed; but not a language like that which we find in numerous varieties among all the races of men. One short interjection may be more powerful, more to the point, more eloquent than a long speech. In fact, interjections, together with gestures, the movements of the muscles of the mouth, and the eye, would be quite sufficient for all purposes which language answers with the majority of mankind. Lucian, in his treatise on dancing, mentions a king whose dominions bordered on the Euxine. He happened to be at Rome in the reign of Nero, and, having seen a pantomime perform, begged him of the emperor as a present, in order that he might employ him as an interpreter among the nations in his neighborhood with whom he could hold no intercourse on account of the diversity of language. A pantomime meant a person who could mimic everything, and there is hardly anything which cannot be thus expressed. We, having language at our command, have neglected the art of speaking without words; but in the south of Europe that art is still preserved. If it be true that one look may speak volumes, it is clear that we might save ourselves much of the trouble entailed by the use of discursive speech. Yet we must not forget that _hum!_ _ugh!_ _tut!_ _pooh!_ are as little to be called words as the expressive gestures which usually accompany these exclamations.
As to the attempts at deriving some of our words etymologically from mere interjections, they are apt to fail from the same kind of misconception which leads us to imagine that there is something expressive in the sounds of words. Thus it is said “that the idea of disgust takes its rise in the senses of smell and taste, in the first instance probably in smell alone; that in defending ourselves from a bad smell we are instinctively impelled to screw up the nose, and to expire strongly through the compressed and protruded lips, giving rise to a sound represented by the interjections faugh! foh! fie! From this interjection it is proposed to derive, not only such words as _foul_ and _filth_, but, by transferring it from natural to moral aversion, the English _fiend_, the German _Feind_.” If this were true, we should suppose that the expression of contempt was chiefly conveyed by the aspirate f, by the strong emission of the breathing with half-opened lips. But _fiend_ is a participle from a root _fian_, to hate; in Gothic _fijan_; and as a Gothic aspirate always corresponds to a tenuis in Sanskrit, the same root in Sanskrit would at once lose its expressive power. It exists in fact in Sanskrit as _pîy_, to hate, to destroy; just as _friend_ is derived from a root which in Sanskrit is _prî_, to delight.(336)
There is one more remark which I have to make about the Interjectional and the Onomatopoëtic theories, namely this: If the constituent elements of human speech were either mere cries, or the mimicking of the cries of nature, it would be difficult to understand why brutes should be without language. There is not only the parrot, but the mocking-bird and others, which can imitate most successfully both articulate and inarticulate sounds; and there is hardly an animal without the faculty of uttering interjections, such as huff, hiss, baa, &c. It is clear also that if what puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes is the having of general ideas, language which arises from interjections and from the imitation of the cries of animals could not claim to be the outward sign of that distinctive faculty of man. All words, in the beginning at least (and this is the only point which interests us), would have been the signs of individual impressions and individual perceptions, and would only gradually have been adapted to the expression of general ideas.
The theory which is suggested to us by an analysis of language carried out according to the principles of comparative philology is the very opposite. We arrive in the end at roots, and every one of these expresses a general, not an individual, idea. Every name, if we analyze it, contains a predicate by which the object to which the name applies was known.
There is an old controversy among philosophers, whether language originated in general appellations, or in proper names.(337) It is the question of the _primum cognitum_, and its consideration will help us perhaps in discovering the true nature of the root, or the _primum appellatum_.