Lectures on The Science of Language Part 13

XII. _sev-ish-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love one another, becomes XXIV. _sev-ish-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be brought to love one another.

Some of these forms are of course of rare occurrence, and with many verbs these derivative roots, though possible grammatically, would be logically impossible. Even a verb like "to love," perhaps the most pliant of all, resists some of the modifications to which a Turkish grammarian is fain to subject it. It is clear, however, that wherever a negation can be formed, the idea of impossibility also can be superadded, so that by subst.i.tuting _eme_ for _me_, we should raise the number of derivative roots to thirty-six. The very last of these, x.x.xVI. _sev-ish-dir-il-eme-mek_ would be perfectly intelligible, and might be used, for instance, if, in speaking of the Sultan and the Czar, we wished to say, that it was impossible that they should be brought to love one another.

_Finnic Cla.s.s._

It is generally supposed that the original seat of the Finnic tribes was in the Ural mountains, and their languages have been therefore called _Uralic_. From this centre they spread east and west; and southward in ancient times, even to the Black Sea, where Finnic tribes, together with Mongolic and Turkic, were probably known to the Greeks under the comprehensive and convenient name of Scythians. As we possess no literary doc.u.ments of any of these nomadic nations, it is impossible to say, even where Greek writers have preserved their barbarous names, to what branch of the vast Turanian family they belonged. Their habits were probably identical before the Christian era, during the Middle Ages, and at the present day. One tribe takes possession of a tract and retains it perhaps for several generations, and gives its name to the meadows where it tends its flocks, and to the rivers where the horses are watered. If the country be fertile, it will attract the eye of other tribes; wars begin, and if resistance be hopeless, hundreds of families fly from their paternal pastures, to migrate perhaps for generations,-for migration they find a more natural life than permanent habitation,-and after a time we may rediscover their names a thousand miles distant. Or two tribes will carry on their warfare for ages, till with reduced numbers both have perhaps to make common cause against some new enemy.

During these continued struggles their languages lose as many words as men are killed on the field of battle. Some words (we might say) go over, others are made prisoners, and exchanged again during times of peace.

Besides, there are parleys and challenges, and at last a dialect is produced which may very properly be called a language of the camp, (Urdu-zeban, camp-language, is the proper name of Hindustani, formed in the armies of the Mogul emperors,) but where it is difficult for the philologist to arrange the living and to number the slain, unless some salient points of grammar have been preserved throughout the medley. We saw how a number of tribes may be at times suddenly gathered by the command of a Chingis-khan or Timur, like billows heaving and swelling at the call of a thunder-storm. One such wave rolling on from Karakorum to Liegnitz may sweep away all the sheepfolds and landmarks of centuries, and when the storm is over, a thin crust will, as after a flood, remain, concealing the underlying stratum of people and languages.

On the evidence of language, the Finnic stock is divided into four branches,

The Chudic, The Bulgaric, The Permic, The Ugric.

The Chudic branch comprises the Finnic of the Baltic coasts. The name is derived from Chud (Tchud) originally applied by the Russians to the Finnic nations in the north-west of Russia. Afterwards it took a more general sense, and was used almost synonymously with Scythian for all the tribes of Central and Northern Asia. The Finns, properly so called, or as they call themselves Suomalainen, _i.e._ inhabitants of fens, are settled in the provinces of Finland (formerly belonging to Sweden, but since 1809 annexed to Russia), and in parts of the governments of Archangel and Olonetz. Their number is stated at 1,521,515. The Finns are the most advanced of their whole family, and are, the Magyars excepted, the only Finnic race that can claim a station among the civilized and civilizing nations of the world. Their literature and, above all, their popular poetry bear witness to a high intellectual development in times which we may call mythical, and in places more favorable to the glow of poetical feelings than their present abode, the last refuge Europe could afford them. The epic songs still live among the poorest, recorded by oral tradition alone, and preserving all the features of a perfect metre and of a more ancient language. A national feeling has lately arisen amongst the Finns, despite of Russian supremacy, and the labors of Sjogern, Lonnrot, Castren, and Kellgren, receiving hence a powerful impulse, have produced results truly surprising. From the mouths of the aged an epic poem has been collected equalling the Iliad in length and completeness, nay, if we can forget for a moment all that _we_ in our youth learned to call beautiful, not less beautiful. A Finn is not a Greek, and Wainamoinen was not a Homer. But if the poet may take his colors from that nature by which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives, "Kalewala"

possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Iliad, and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side by side with the Ionian songs, with the Mahabharata, the Shahnameh, and the Nibelunge. This early literary cultivation has not been without a powerful influence on the language. It has imparted permanency to its forms and a traditional character to its words, so that at first sight we might almost doubt whether the grammar of this language had not left the agglutinative stage, and entered into the current of inflection with Greek or Sanskrit. The agglutinative type, however, yet remains, and its grammar shows a luxuriance of grammatical combination second only to Turkish and Hungarian. Like Turkish it observes the "harmony of vowels," a feature peculiar to Turanian languages, as explained before.

Karelian and Tavastian are dialectical varieties of Finnish.

The Esths or Esthonians, neighbors to the Finns, speak a language closely allied to the Finnish. It is divided into the dialects of Dorpat (in Livonia) and Reval. Except some popular songs it is almost without literature. Esthonia, together with Livonia and Kurland, forms the three Baltic provinces of Russia. The population on the islands of the Gulf of Finland is mostly Esthonian. In the higher ranks of society Esthonian is hardly understood, and never spoken.

Besides the Finns and Esthonians, the Livonians and the Lapps must be reckoned also amongst the same family. Their number, however, is small.

The population of Livonia consists chiefly of Esths, Letts, Russians, and Germans. The number of Livonians speaking their own dialect is not more than 5000.

The Lapps, or Laplanders, inhabit the most northern part of Europe. They belong to Sweden and Russia. Their number is estimated at 28,000. Their language has lately attracted much attention, and Castren's travels give a description of their manners most interesting from its simplicity and faithfulness.

The Bulgaria branch comprises the Tcheremissians and Mordvinians, scattered in disconnected colonies along the Volga, and surrounded by Russian and Tataric dialects. Both languages are extremely artificial in their grammar, and allow an acc.u.mulation of p.r.o.nominal affixes at the end of verbs, surpa.s.sed only by the Bask, the Caucasian, and those American dialects that have been called Polysynthetic.

The general name given to these tribes, Bulgaric, is not borrowed from Bulgaria, on the Danube; Bulgaria, on the contrary, received its name (replacing Moesia) from the Finnic armies by whom it was conquered in the seventh century. Bulgarian tribes advanced from the Volga to the Don, and after remaining for a time under the sovereignty of the Avars on the Don and Dnieper, they advanced to the Danube in 635, and founded the Bulgarian kingdom. This has retained its name to the present day, though the Finnic Bulgarians have long been absorbed by Slavonic inhabitants, and both brought under Turkish sway since 1392.

The third, or Permic branch, comprises the idioms of the Votiakes, the Sirianes, and the Permians, three dialects of one language. _Perm_ was the ancient name for the country between 61-76 E. lon. and 55-65 N. lat.

The Permic tribes were driven westward by their eastern neighbors, the Voguls, and thus pressed upon their western neighbors, the Bulgars of the Volga. The Votiakes are found between the rivers Vyatka and Kama.

Northwards follow the Sirianes, inhabiting the country on the Upper Kama, while the eastern portion is held by the Permians. These are surrounded on the south by the Tatars of Orenburg and the Bashkirs; on the north by the Samoyedes, and on the east by Voguls, who pressed on them from the Ural.

These Voguls, together with Hungarians and Ostiakes, form the fourth and last branch of the Finnic family, the Ugric. It was in 462, after the dismemberment of Attila's Hunnic empire that these Ugric tribes approached Europe. They were then called Onagurs, Saragurs, and Urogs; and in later times they occur in Russian chronicles as Ugry. They are the ancestors of the Hungarians, and should not be confounded with the Uigurs, an ancient Turkic tribe mentioned before.

The similarity between the Hungarian language and dialects of Finnic origin, spoken east of the Volga, is not a new discovery. In 1253, Wilhelm Ruysbroeck, a priest who travelled beyond the Volga, remarked that a race called Pascatir, who live on the Yak, spoke the same language as the Hungarians. They were then settled east of the old Bulgarian kingdom, the capital of which, the ancient Bolgari, on the left of the Volga, may still be traced in the ruins of Spask. If these Pascatir-the portion of the Ugric tribes that remained east of the Volga-are identical with the Bashkir, as Klaproth supposes, it would follow that, in later times, they gave up their language, for the present Bashkir no longer speak a Hungarian, but a Turkic, dialect. The affinity of the Hungarian and the Ugro-Finnic dialects was first proved philologically by Gyarmathi in 1799.

A few instances may suffice to show this connection:-

Hungarian. Tcheremissian. English.

Atya-m atya-m my father.

Atya-d atya-t thy father.

Atya atya-se his father.

Atya-nk atya-ne our father.

Atya-tok atya-da your father.

Aty-ok atya-st their father.

DECLENSION.

Hungarian. Esthonian. English.

Nom. ver werri blood.

Gen. vere werre of blood.

Dat vernek werrele to blood.

Acc. vert werd blood.

Abl. verestol werrist from blood.

CONJUGATION.

Hungarian. Esthonian. English.

Lelem leian I find.

Leled leiad thou findest.

Leli leiab he finds.

Leljuk leiame we find.

Lelitek leiate you find.

Lelik leiawad they find.

A Comparative Table of the NUMERALS of each of the Four Branches of the FINNIC CLa.s.s, showing the degree of their relationship.

1 2 3 4 Chudic, Finnish yksi kaksi kolme nelja Chudic, Esthonian iits kats kolm nelli Bulgaric, Tcheremissian ik kok k.u.m nil Bulgaric, Mordvinian vaike kavto kolmo nile Permic, Sirianian otik kyk kujim ujoli Ugric, Ostiakian it kat chudem njeda Ugric, Hungarian egy ket harom negy

5 6 7 Chudic, Finnish viisi kuusi seitseman Chudic, Esthonian wiis kuas seitse Bulgaric, Tcheremissian vis kut sim Bulgaric, Mordvinian vate koto sisem Permic, Sirianian vit kvait sizim Ugric, Ostiakian vet chut tabet Ugric, Hungarian ot hat het

8 9 10 Chudic, Finnish kahdeksan yhdeksan kymmenen Chudic, Esthonian kattesa uttesa k.u.mme Bulgaric, Tcheremissian kandaxe endexe lu Bulgaric, Mordvinian kavsko vaikse kamen Permic, Sirianian kokjamys okmys das Ugric, Ostiakian nida arjong jong Ugric, Hungarian njolcz kilencz tiz

We have thus examined the four chief cla.s.ses of the Turanian family, the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, and Finnic. The Tungusic branch stands lowest; its grammar is not much richer than Chinese, and in its structure there is an absence of that architectonic order which in Chinese makes the Cyclopean stones of language hold together without cement. This applies, however, princ.i.p.ally to the Mandshu; other Tungusic dialects spoken, not in China, but in the original seats of the Mandshus, are even now beginning to develop grammatical forms.

The Mongolic dialects excel the Tungusic, but in their grammar can hardly distinguish between the different parts of speech. The spoken idioms of the Mongolians, as of the Tungusians, are evidently struggling towards a more organic life, and Castren has brought home evidence of incipient verbal growth in the language of the Buriats and a Tungusic dialect spoken near Nyertchinsk.

This is, however, only a small beginning, if compared with the profusion of grammatical resources displayed by the Turkic languages. In their system of conjugation, the Turkic dialects can hardly be surpa.s.sed. Their verbs are like branches which break down under the heavy burden of fruits and blossoms. The excellence of the Finnic languages consists rather in a diminution than increase of verbal forms; but in declension Finnish is even richer than Turkish.

These four cla.s.ses, together with the Samoyedic, const.i.tute the northern or Ural-Altaic division of the Turanian family.

The southern division consists of the Tamulic, the Gangetic (Trans-Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan), the Lohitic, the Tac, and the Malac cla.s.ses.(305) These two divisions comprehend very nearly all the languages of Asia, with the exception of Chinese, which, together with its neighboring dialects, forms the only representative of radical or monosyllabic speech. A few, such as j.a.panese,(306) the language of Korea, of the Koriakes, the Kamchadales, and the numerous dialects of the Caucasus, &c., remain uncla.s.sed; but in them also some traces of a common origin with the Turanian languages have, it is probable, survived, and await the discovery of philological research.

Of the third, or inflectional, stage, I need not say much, as we have examined its structure when a.n.a.lyzing in our former Lectures a number of words in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, or any other of the Aryan languages. The chief distinction between an inflectional and an agglutinative language consists in the fact that agglutinative languages preserve the consciousness of their roots, and therefore do not allow them to be affected by phonetic corruption; and, though they have lost the consciousness of the original meaning of their terminations, they feel distinctly the difference between the significative root, and the modifying elements. Not so in the inflectional languages. There the various elements which enter into the composition of words, may become so welded together, and suffer so much from phonetic corruption, that none but the educated would be aware of an original distinction between root and termination, and none but the comparative grammarian able to discover the seams that separate the component parts.

If you consider the character of our morphological cla.s.sification, you will see that this cla.s.sification, differing thereby from the genealogical, must be applicable to all languages. Our cla.s.sification exhausts all possibilities. If the component elements of language are roots, predicative and demonstrative, we cannot have more than three combinations. Roots may either remain roots without any modification; or secondly, they may be joined so that one determines the other and loses its independent existence; or thirdly, they may be joined and be allowed to coalesce, so that both lose their independent existence. The number of roots which enter into the composition of a word makes no difference, and it is unnecessary, therefore, to admit a fourth cla.s.s, sometimes called _polysynthetic_, or _incorporating_, including most of the American languages. As long as in these sesquipedalian compounds, the significative root remains distinct, they belong to the agglutinative stage; as soon as it is absorbed by the terminations, they belong to the inflectional stage.

Nor is it necessary to distinguish between _synthetic_ and _a.n.a.lytical_ languages, including under the former name the ancient, and under the latter the modern, languages of the inflectional cla.s.s. The formation of such phrases as the French _j'aimerai_, for _j'ai a aimer_, or the English, _I shall do_, _thou wilt do_, may be called _a.n.a.lytical_ or _metaphrastic_. But in their morphological nature these phrases are still inflectional. If we a.n.a.lyze such a phrase as _je vivrai_, we find it was originally _ego_ (Sanskrit _aham_) _vivere_ (Sanskrit _jiv-as-e_, dat.

neut.) _habeo_ (Sanskrit _bha-vaya-mi_); that is to say, we have a number of words in which grammatical articulation has been almost entirely destroyed, but has not been cast off; whereas in Turanian languages grammatical forms are produced by the combination of integral roots, and the old and useless terminations are first discarded before any new combination takes place.(307)

At the end of our morphological cla.s.sification a problem presents itself, which we might have declined to enter upon if we had confined ourselves to a genealogical cla.s.sification. At the end of our genealogical cla.s.sification we had to confess that only a certain number of languages had as yet been arranged genealogically, and that therefore the time for approaching the problem of the common origin of all languages had not yet come. Now, however, although we have not specified all languages which belong to the radical, the terminational, and inflectional cla.s.ses, we have clearly laid it down as a principle, that all languages must fall under one or the other of these three categories of human speech. It would not be consistent, therefore, to shrink from the consideration of a problem, which, though beset with many difficulties, cannot be excluded from the science of language.

Let us first see our problem clearly and distinctly. The problem of the common origin of languages has no necessary connection with the problem of the common origin of mankind. If it could be proved that languages had had different beginnings, this would in nowise necessitate the admission of different beginnings of the human race. For if we look upon language as natural to man, it might have broken out at different times and in different countries among the scattered descendants of one original pair; if, on the contrary, language is to be treated as an artificial invention, there is still less reason why each succeeding generation should not have invented its own idiom.

Nor would it follow, if it could be proved that all the dialects of mankind point to one common source, that therefore the human race must descend from one pair. For language might have been the property of one favored race, and have been communicated to the other races in the progress of history.

The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered most seriously from being mixed up together. The cla.s.sification of races and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change their languages, and history supplies us with several instances where one race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different races; so that any attempt at squaring the cla.s.sification of races and tongues must necessarily fail.