Language and the Study of Language/Preface

by William Dwight Whitney

PREFACE.

The main argument of the following work was first drawn out in the form of six lectures "On the Principles of Linguistic Science," delivered at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, during the month of March, 1864. Of these, a brief abstract was printed in the Annual Report of the Institution published in the same year.^[1] In the following winter (December, 1864, and January, 1865) they were again delivered as one of the regular courses before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, having been expanded into a series of twelve lectures. They are now laid before a wider public, essentially in their form as there presented. But they have been in the mean time carefully rewritten, and have suffered a not inconsiderable further expansion, as the removal of the enforced Procrustean limit, of sixty minutes to a lecture, has given opportunity to discuss with greater fulness important points in the general argument which had before come off with insufficient treatment. The chief matter of theory upon which my opinion has undergone any noteworthy modification is the part to be attributed to the onomatopoetic principle in the first steps of language-making (see the eleventh lecture). To this principle, at each revision of my views, I have been led to assign a higher and higher efficiency, partly by the natural effect of a deeper study and clearer appreciation of the necessary conditions of the case, partly under the influence of valuable works upon the subject, recently issued.^[2] In the general style of presentation I have not thought it worth while to make any change—not even to cast out those recapitulations and repetitions which are well-nigh indispensable in a course of lectures meant for oral delivery, though they may and should be avoided in a work intended from the outset for continuous reading and study.

More than one of the topics here treated have been from time to time worked up separately, as communications to the American Oriental Society, and are concisely reported in its Proceedings; also, within no long time past, I have furnished, by request, to one or two of our leading literary periodicals, papers upon special themes in linguistic science which were, to no small extent, virtual extracts from this work.

The principal facts upon which my reasonings are founded have been for some time past the commonplaces of comparative philology, and it was needless to refer for them to any particular authorities: where I have consciously taken results recently won by an individual, and to be regarded as his property, I have been careful to acknowledge it. It is, however, my duty and my pleasure here to confess my special obligations to those eminent masters in linguistic science, Professors Heinrich Steinthal of Berlin and August Schleicher of Jena, whose works^[3] I have had constantly upon my table, and have freely consulted, deriving from them great instruction and enlightenment, even when I have been obliged to differ most strongly from some of their theoretical views. Upon them I have been dependent, above all, in preparing my eighth and ninth lectures;^[4] my independent acquaintance with the languages of various type throughout the world being far from sufficient to enable me to describe them at first hand. I have also borrowed here and there an illustration from the "Lectures on the Science of Language" of Professor Max Müller, which are especially rich in such material.

To my friend Professor Fitz-Edward Hall, Librarian of the East India Office in London, I have to return my thanks for his kindness in undertaking the burdensome task of reading the revise of the sheets, as they went through the press.

It can hardly admit of question that at least so much knowledge of the nature, history, and classifications of language as is here presented ought to be included in every scheme of higher education, even for those who do not intend to become special students in comparative philology. Much more necessary, of course, is it to those who cherish such an intention. It is, I am convinced, a mistake to commence at once upon a course of detailed comparative philology with pupils who have only enjoyed the ordinary training in the classical or the modern languages, or in both. They are liable either to fail of apprehending the value and interest of the infinity of particulars into which they are plunged, or else to become wholly absorbed in them, losing sight of the grand truths and principles which underlie and give significance to their work, and the recognition of which ought to govern its course throughout: perhaps even coming to combine with acuteness and erudition in etymological investigation views respecting the nature of language and the relations of languages of a wholly crude or fantastic character. I am not without hope that this book may be found a convenient and serviceable manual for use in our higher institutions of learning. I have made its substance the basis of my own instruction in the science of language, in Yale College, for some years past; and, as it appears to me, with gratifying success. In order to adapt it to such a purpose, I have endeavoured to combine a strictly logical and scientific plan with a popular mode of handling, and with such illustration of the topics treated as should be easily and universally apprehensible. If, however, the lecture style should be found too discursive and argumentative for a text-book of instruction, I may perhaps be led hereafter to prepare another work for that special use.

Yale College,

New Haven, Conn.,

August, 1867.

Notes

1. Report for 1863, pp. 95—116.
2. I will refer only to Mr. Farrar's "Chapters on Language" (London, 1865), and to Professor Wedgwood's little book, "On the Origin of Language" (London, 1866).
3. As chief among them, I would mention Steinthal's "Charakteristik der Hauptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues" (Berlin, 1860), and Scheicher's "Compendium der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen" (Weimar, 1861; a new edition has appeared this year): other writings of both authors, of less extent and importance, are referred to by name in the marginal notes upon the text.
4. I should mention also my indebtedness, as regards the Semitic languages, to the admirable work of M. Ernest Renan, the "Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques" (seconde édition, Paris, 1858).