An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language/Chapter 1
CHAP. I.
I. The Introduction.II. The Original of Languages.III. The first Mother-tongues.IV. Their several Off-springs.
§. I.
N the handling of that subject, I have here proposed to treat of, I shall digest the things which to me seem most proper and material to be said upon this occasion, into four parts; according to this following Method.
In the first Part I shall premise some things as Præcognita, concerning such Tongues and Letters as are already in being, particularly concerning those various defects and imperfections in them, which ought to be supplyed and provided against, in any such Language or Character, as is to be invented according to the rules of Art.
The second Part shall contein that which is the great foundation of the thing here designed, namely a regular enumeration and description of all those things and notions, to which marks or names ought to be assigned according to their respective natures, which may be styled the Scientifical Part, comprehending Universal Philosophy. It being the proper end and design of the several branches of Philosophy to reduce all things and notions unto such a frame, as may express their natural order, dependence, and relations.
The third Part shall treat concerning such helps and Instruments, as are requisite for the framing of these more simple notions into continued Speech or Discourse, which may therefore be stiled the Organical or Instrumental Part, and doth comprehend the Art of Natural of Philosophical Grammar.
In the fourth Part I shall shew how these more generall Rules may be applyed to particular kinds of Characters, and Languages, giving an instance of each. To which shall be adjoyned by way of Appendix, a Discourse showing the advantage of such a kind of Philosophical Character and Language, above any of those which are now known, more particularly above that which is most general use in these parts of the World; namely, the Latine.
Lastly, There shall be added a Dictionary of the English tongue, in which shall be shown how all the words of this Language, according to the various equivocal senses of them, may be sufficiently expressed by the Philosophical Tables here proposed.
I begin with the first of these.
§. II.The design of this Treatise being an attempt towards a new kind of Character and Language, it cannot therefore be improper to premise somewhat concerning those already in being; the first Original of them, their several kinds, the various changes and corruptions to which they are lyable, together with the manifold defects belonging to them. This I shall endeavour to do in the former part of this Discourse.
There is scarce any subject that hath been more throughly scanned and debated amongst Learned men, than the Original of Languages and Letters. ’Tis evident enough that no one Language is natural to mankind, because the knowledge which is natural would generally remain amongst men, notwithstanding the superinduction of any other particular Tongue, wherein they might be by Art. Nor is it much to be wondred at, that the ancient Heathen, who knew nothing of Scripture-revelation, should be inclined to believe, that either Men and Languages were eternal or, that if there were any particular time when men did spring out of the Earth, and after inhabit alone and dispersedly in Woods and Caves, they had at first no Articulate voice, but only such rude sounds as Beasts have; till afterwards particular Families increasing, or several Families joyning together for mutual safety and defence, under Government and Societies, they began by degrees and long practice to consent in certain Articulate sounds, whereby to communicate their thoughts, which in several Countries made several Languages, according to that in the Poet,
Horat. lib. i. Sat. 3.
Mutum & turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter
Unguibus & pugnis, deinfustibus, atque ita porro
Pugnabant armis, quæ post fabricaverat usus,
Donec verba quibus voces sensusque notarent
Nominaque invenêre; dehinc absistere bello,
Oppida cæperunt munire, & ponere leges,
Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter, &c.
But to us, who have the revelation of Scripture, these kind of scruples and conjectures are sufficiently states. And 'tis evident enough that the first Language was con-created with our first Parents, they immediately understanding the voice of God speaking to them in the Garden. And how Languages came to be multiplyed, is likewise manifested in the Gen. ii. i, 6.Story of the Confusion of Babel. How many Languages, and which they were that sprang up at that Confusion, is altogether uncertain; whether many of them that were then in being, be not now wholly lost; and many others, which had not the same original, have not since arisen in the World, is not (I think) to be doubted.
The most received Conjecture is, that the Languages of the Confusion were according to the several Families from Noah, which were 70 or 72 though there be very strong probabilities to prove that they were not so many, and that the first Dispersion did not divide mankind into so many Colonies. But now the several Languages that are used in the world do farre exceed this number. Nat. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 5. Strabo, lib. II.Pliny and Strabo do both make mention of a great Mart-Town in Colchos named Diosouria, to which men of three hundred Nations, and of so many several Languages were wont to resort for Trading. Which, considering the narrow compass of Traffick before the invention of the magnetic Needle, must needs be but a small proportion, in comparison to those many of the remoter and unknown parts of the world.
Mr. Cambden's Remains.Some of the American Histories relate, that in every fourscore miles of that vast Country, and almost in every particular valley of Peru, the Inhabitants have a distinct Language. Purchas Pilg. lib. 8. sect. 4. chap. I.And one who for several years travelled the Northern parts of America about Florida, and could speak six several Languages of those people, doth affirm, that he found, upon his enquiry and converse with them, more than a thousand different Languages amongst them.
§. III.As for those Languages which seem to have no derivation from, or dependance upon, or affinity with one another, they are styled Linguæ matrices, or Mother-tongues. Diatribe de Europæorum linguis.Of these Joseph Scaliger affirms there are eleven, and not more, used in Europe; whereof four are of more general and large extent, and the other seven of a narrower compass and use. Of the more general Tongues:
Brerewood's Enquiries, chap. I.I. The Greek was anciently of very great extent, not onely in Europe, but in Asia too, and Afric, where several Colonies of that Nation were planted; by which dispersion and mixture with other people it did degenerate into several Dialects. Besides those four that are commonly noted, the Doric, Ionic, Æolic, Attic , Herodotus doth mention four several Dialects of the Ionic. The inhabitants of Rhodes, Cyprus, Crete, had each of them some peculiarity in their Language. And the present Coptic or Ægyptian seems, both from the words and the character, to be a branch of this family, and was probably spred amongst that people in the days of Alexander the Great, upon his conquering of them: Though some conceive that there were at least 30000 families of Greeks planted in that Country long before his time.
2. The Latin, though this be much of it a derivation from the Greek, (of which the now French, Spanish, and Italian are several off-springs and derivations) had anciently four several Dialects, as De honesta disciplina, lib. 3. cap. 3.Petrus Crinitus shews out of Varro.
3. The Teutonic or German is now distinguished into Upper and Lower. Versteg(illegible text) chap. 7.The Upper hath two notable Dialects. I. the Danish, Scandian, or perhaps the Gothic, to which belongs the Languages used in Denmark, Norway, Swedeland, and Island. 2. The Saxon, to which appertain the several Languages of the English, the Scots, the Frisians, and those on the North of Elve.
4. The Slavonic is extended, though with some variation, through many large Territories, Muscovia, Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Gesner. Mithridates, cap. 21.Vandelia, Croatia, Lithuania, Dalmatia; and is said to be the vulgar Language used amongst 60 several Nations.
The Languages of a lesser extent are, 1. The Albanese, or old Epirotic, now used in the mountainous parts of Epirus.
2. The Europæan Tartar, or Scythian, from which some conceive our Irish to have had its original. As for the Turkish Tongue, that is originally no other but the Asiatic Tartar, mixed with Armenian and Persian, some Greek, and much Arabic.
3. The Hungarian used in the greatest part of that Kingdom.
4. The Finnic, used in Finland and Lapland.
5. The Cantabrian, used amongst the Biscainers, who live near the Ocean on the Pyrene hills, bordering both upon France and Spain.
6. The Irish, in Ireland, and from thence brought over into some parts of Scotland. Though Mr. Camden would have this to be a derivation from the Welsh.
7. The old Gaulish or British, which is yet preserved in Wales, Cornwall, and Britain in France
Enquiries, chap. 4.To this number Mr. Brerewood both add four others, viz.
1. The Arabic, now used in the steep mountains of Granata; which yet is a Dialect from the Hebrew, and not a Mother-tongue.
2. The Cauchian, in East-Friseland.
3. The Illyrian, in the lsle of Veggia.
4. The Jazygian, on the North side of Hungary.
§. IV.Besides this difference of Languages in their first derivation, every particular Tongue hath its several Dialects. Though Judæa were a region of а very narrow compass, yet was it not without its varieties of this kind: witness the story concerning Judges 12.
Judges 18. 3.
Matth. 26. 73.Shibboleth and Sibboleth; and that of the Levite, who was discovered by his manner of speech; and S. Peter's being known for a Galilæan. ’Tis so generally in other Countries, and particularly with us in England, where the Northern and Western inhabitants do observe a different dialect from other parts of the Nation, as may appear from that particular instance mentioned by Verstegan. Whereas the inhabitants about London would say, I would eat more cheese if I had it. A Northern man would speak it thus, Ay sud eat mare cheese gyn ay had et. And a Western man thus, Chud eat more cheese an chad it.
Every one of these reputed Mother-tongues, except the Arabic, (and perhaps the Hungarian) was used in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire. But whether they were all of them so ancient as the Confusion of Babel, doth not appear; there wants not good probability to the contrary for some of them.
Georg. Hornii Epist. in Boxhornii Origines Gallic.It hath been the opinion of some, particularly Boxhornius, that the Scythian Tongue was the common mother from which both the Greek, Latin, German and Persian were derived, as so many Dialects; and 'tis said that Salmasius did incline to the same judgment. And Philip Cluverius conjectures, that both Germans, Gauls, Spaniards, Britans, Swedes and Norwegians, did anciently use one and the same Language. One principal argument used for this is, the agreement of those remote Nations in some radical words. Joseph Scaliger observes that the words, Father, Mother, Brother, Bond, &c. are used in the Persian tongue, with some little variety, in the same sense and signification as they are used with us. In Epist.And Busbequius relates, that the inhabitants of Taurica Chersonesus have divers words in the same sense common with us, as Wine, Silver, Corn, Salt, Fish, Apple, &c. But this might be merely casual, ог else occasioned by a mixture of Colonies, and will not argue a derivation of one from another. Boxhorn. Origin. Gallic. cap. 6. & 8.So there are several words common to the Turks, Germans, Greeks, French, sometimes of the same, and sometimes of several significations; which is not sufficient to argue that all these were of the same Original.
Besides these European, there is likewise great variety of Languages in other parts of the world. As for the Hebrew Tongue, which is by many learned men supposed to be the same that Abraham learnt when he came into Canaan, to which that expression Isai.19.18. The language of Canaan, is thought to allude; this is supposed to be the first Mother tongue amongst all those that are now known in the world, from which there are sundry derivations, as the Chaldee, Syriac, Punic, Arabic, Persian, Æthiopic.
Brerewood's Enquiries, chap. 9.When the Jews were in Captivity at Babylon, mixed with the Chaldeans for 70 years, in that tract of time they made up a Language distinct from both, which is sometimes called Syriac, and sometimes Chaldee, and sometimes Hebrew. Those passages in the Gospel, which are said to be in the Hebrew tongue, as John 5.2 & John 19.13, 17.
Acts 21.40.
Bochart. Geog. l. 1. cap. 15.Talitha Kumi, Elohi, Elohi, Lamma sabachthani, are properly Syriac; onely they are called Hebrew, because that was the Language which the Hebrews then used. A great part of this Syriac tongue is for the substance of the words Chaldee, and Hebrew for thefashion, so degenerating much from both. After the Captivity the pure Hebrew ceased to be vulgar, remaining onely amongst learned men, as appears by that place in Nehem.8.7,8. where we find the Priests, upon reading of the Law to the people after their coming out of Babylon, were fain to expound it distinctly to them, and to make them understand the meaning оf it; the common people, by long disuse, being grown strangers to the Language wherein ’twas written. So in our Saviour's time, the unlearned Jews, whose vulgar Tongue the Syriac was, could not understand those parts of Moses and the Prophets read to them in Hebrew every Sabbath-day. Which was the reason of those public speeches and declarations of any learned men, who occasionally came into the Synagogues, after the reading of the Law: Luke 4.15,16.
Acts 13.13though neither Priests, nor Levites, nor Scribes, yet was it ordinary for them to expound unto the people the meaning of those portions of Scripture that were appointed to be read out of the Hebrew, which the people did not understand; and to render their meaning in Syriac, which was their vulgar Tongue.
As for so much of the pure Hebrew as is now in being, which is onely that in the old Testament, though it be sufficient to express what is there intended, yet it is so exceedingly defective in many other words requisite to humane discourse, that the Rabbins are fain to borrow words from many other Languages, Greek, Latin, Spanish, &c. as may appear at large in Buxtorf’s Lexicon Rabbinicum, and a particular Discourse written to this very purpose by David Cohen de Lara. And, from the several defects and imperfections which seem to be in this Language, it may be guessed not to be the same which was con-created with our first Parents, and spoken by Adam in Paradise.
What other varieties of Tongues there have been, or are, in Asia, Afric, or America, I shall not now enquire.