had thus exercised these powers, perhaps the eyes, the most eloquent eyes, would continue to be the medium of the communication of ideas; but eloquent as they are, they would not continue to be so much longer; for an attempt to emit sound would be made, and thus would arise the first words.
10. I beg my reader to attend to the beings of the animal creation. He cannot suppose man, though inferior to them in many respects, to be much inferior to them in those which we are considering. How long is it before the dove or the partridge learns to call its mate with the voice of love, or its young about it, when it has found a nest of ants? Has man any language more significant than that which these birds possess? When the hen chucks her first chickens around her, can any language be more intelligible?[1] and she has no profound philosophers to make grammars for her, or divines to write creeds for her. Can the animal man be supposed to have been worse endowed than these fowls? I think not. Grant but these advantages of the animals around him, and it is all which I ask for my system, and I think it must be established.
11. If these philosophers had undertaken to prove that all languages might be resolved into one, consisting of a certain number of monosyllables or roots, they would have undertaken to prove what I am persuaded is perfectly true; and they would, I doubt not, have succeeded in their undertaking. But I think neither of their theories tenable. If their theories had been well founded, the abilities which they have displayed would not have failed to establish them. But though I think they have both failed, I beg to be understood not to have any wish to detract from their merit. Nor do I wish to enter into controversy with either of them. I should not have noticed their treatises but that I felt it would be a great reflection on myself to let it be supposed that I was ignorant of them.
12. I now take my leave of these two gentlemen, to whom, with Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and Tooke, we are all under great obligation. I enter not more into their systems, because my object and theirs is different. Their systems are only auxiliary to mine. I feel perfectly confident that it will not be long before some ingenious man, with the assistance of Mr. Tooke, Mr. Whiter, and Mr. Gilchrist, will, upon the foundation which I have laid, erect the edifice of the true philosophy of grammar. If in this I am mistaken, I shall be only like hundreds of my predecessors.
13. Perhaps it will be said that my system depends too much on the explanation of words. The observation does not cause me much uneasiness. For if my system be founded in the truth, it must shew itself in the words of all languages, in an infinite variety of ways; in which case the observation will never do it any injury, or be able to prevent its reception when it comes to be known. If it be not true, it will fall, as others have done before it, whether depending on explanation of words, etymology, or not. As among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the modern Europeans, we have a great number of systems, in like manner there was the same variety among the Orientalists; but I feel confident I shall be able to shew that they all flowed from one fountain; that one refined and beautiful system was not only the foundation, but that, however varied the systems which branched from it might be, yet in many respects the parent, the original, is every where to be seen, even in the Western systems of the present day.
14. It will probably also be objected by those who wish not to discover truth, but to throw discredit upon this work, that I often make etymological deductions in one word from two languages. This would have been more plausible if I had not first proved, most unquestionably, (as I believe,) the intimate connexion—indeed, I feel I am quite justified in saying the absolute identity, of the Western and Oriental languages in a very remote period. And this observation will apply to all the languages in which the sixteen-letter system has obtained. It is impossible to doubt that one original language has extended over all the old world, which is the reason that we find Hebrew and Hindoo words in Britain, and words of the most remote countries and climates intermixed, in a manner in no other way to be accounted sixteen for. All the sixteen-letter languages are but dialects of an original language.
15. But my practice of explaining words from what are at this day two languages, will be objected to by enemies of inquiry, because it has a tendency to discover hidden truths. But if there have been one language upon which several have been founded or built, what is so natural as that the roots of a compound word should be found in several of them? Suppose two colonies emigrated, the one to Europe and the other to Africa, from Chaldea, and that each carried a certain word; this word might change, by being compounded with other words, in both cases, so as to become in each case a new word. Is it not evident that the roots of the word may reasonably be sought in either or both the new languages?
16. In etymological inquiries a mere corruption no doubt may sometimes be admitted; but this must be done with great caution, and when there is strong extra evidence to support it. For proof of this, our own language affords innumerable examples. Of this kind of corruption I need to produce only one instance from our Liturgy—prevent us in all our doings. Here we have not a change in one or two radicals only, but in a whole word. Again in the Latin word hostis.
- ↑ The common barn-door hen has at least two clear and distinct words, one which she commonly uses to her chickens, and another when she calls them to her on having discovered any unexpected hoard of food.
