The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm Part 2

Nor is this referable to the contrast between an Aryan and an American language. The same immiscibility is shown between themselves. "Even where many radically different languages are located closely together, as in Mexico, I have not found a single example where one exercised a constructive or formative influence on the other. But it is by the encounter of great and contrasted differences that languages gain strength, riches, and completeness. Only thus are the perceptive powers, the imagination and the feelings impelled to enrich and extend the means of expression, which, if left to the labors of the understanding alone, are liable to be but meagre and arid."[16-]

-- 9. INTERNAL FORM OF LANGUAGES.

Besides the grammatical form of a language, Humboldt recognized another which he called its _internal form_. This is that subtle something not expressed in words, which even more than the formal parts of speech, reveals the linguistic genius of a nation. It may be defined as the impression which the language bears of the clearness of the conceptions of those speaking it, and of their native gift of speech. He ill.u.s.trates it by instancing the absence of a developed mode in Sanscrit, and maintains that in the creators of that tongue the conception of modality was never truly felt and distinguished from tense. In this respect its inner form was greatly inferior to the Greek, in the mind of which nation the ideally perfect construction of the verb unfolded itself with far more clearness.

The study of this inner form of a language belongs to the highest realm of linguistic investigation, and is that which throws the most light on the national character and capacities.[17-*]

-- 10. CRITERIA OF RANK IN LANGUAGES.

Humboldt's one criterion of a language was its tendncy[TN-3] to _quicken and stimulate mental action_. He maintained that this is secured just in proportion as the grammatical structure favors clear definition of the individual idea apart from its relations, in other words, as it separates the material from the inflectional elements of speech. Clear thinking, he argued, means progressive thinking.

Therefore he a.s.signed a lower position both to those tongues which inseparably connect the idea with its relations, as the American languages, and to those which, like the Chinese and in a less degree the modern English, have scarcely any formal elements at all, but depend upon the position of words (placement) to signify their relations.

But he greatly modified this unfavorable judgment by several extenuating considerations.

Thus he warns us that it is of importance to recognize fully "that grammatical principles dwell rather in the mind of the speaker than in the material and mechanism of his language."[17-]

This led him to establish a distinction between _explicit_ grammar, where the relations are fully expressed in speech, and _implicit_ grammar, where they are wholly or in part left to be understood by the mind.

He expressly and repeatedly states that an intelligent thinker, trained in the grammatical distinctions of a higher language, can express any thought he has in the grammar of any other tongue which he masters, no matter how rude it is. This adaptability lies in the nature of speech in general. A language is an instrument, the use of which depends entirely on the skill of him who handles it. It is doubtful whether such imported forms and thoughts appeal in any direct sense to those who are native to the tongue. But the fact remains that the forms of the most barbarous languages are such that they may be developed to admit the expression of any kind of idea.

But the meaning of this must not be misconstrued. If languages were merely dead instruments which we use to work with, then one would be as good as another to him who had learned it. But this is not the case. Speech is a living, physiological function, and, like any other function, is most invigorating and vitalizing when it works in the utmost harmony with the other functions. Its special relations.h.i.+p is to that brain-action which we call thinking; and entire harmony between the two is only present when the form, structure and sounds of speech correspond accurately to the logical procedure of thought. This he considered "an undeniable fact."

The measure of the excellence of a language, therefore, is the clearness, definiteness and energy of the ideas which it awakes in the nation. Does it inspire and incite their mind? Has it positive and clear tones, and do these define sharply the ideas they represent, without needless accessories? Does its structure present the leading elements of the proposition in their simplicity, and permit the secondary elements to be grouped around them in subordinate positions, with a correct sense of linguistic perspective? The answers to these queries decide its position in the hierarchy of tongues.[18-*]

As its capacity for expression is no criterion of a language, still less is the abundance or regularity of its forms. For this very multiplicity, this excessive superfluity, is a burden and a drawback, and obscures the integration of the thought by attaching to it a quant.i.ty of needless qualifications. Thus, in the language of the Abipones, the p.r.o.noun is different as the person spoken of is conceived as present, absent, sitting, walking, lying, or running, all quite unnecessary specifications.[19-*]

In some languages much appears as form which, on close scrutiny, is nothing of the kind.

This misunderstanding has reigned almost universally in the treatment of American tongues. The grammars which have been written upon them proceed generally on the principles of Latin, and apply a series of grammatical names to the forms explained, entirely inappropriate to them and misleading. Our first duty in taking up such a grammar as, for instance, that of an American language, is to dismiss the whole of the arrangement of the "parts of speech," and, by an a.n.a.lysis of words and phrases, to ascertain by what arrangement of elements they express logical, significant relations.[19-]

For example, in the Carib tongue, the grammars give _aveiridaco_ as the second person singular, subjunctive imperfect, "if thou wert."

a.n.a.lyze this, and we discover that _a_ is the possessive p.r.o.noun "thy;" _veiri_ is "to be" or "being" (in a place); and _daco_ is a particle of definite time. Hence, the literal rendering is "on the day of thy being." The so-called imperfect subjunctive turns out to be a verbal noun with a preposition. In many American languages the hypothetical supposition expressed in the Latin subjunctive is indicated by the same circ.u.mlocution.

Again, the infinitive, in its cla.s.sical sense, is unknown in most, probably in all, American languages. In the Tupi of Brazil and frequently elsewhere it is simply a noun; _caru_ is both "to eat" and "food;" _che caru ai-pota_, "I wish to eat," literally "my food I wish."

In the Mexican, the infinitive is incorporated in the verb as an accusative, and the verb is put in the future of the person spoken of.

Many writers continue to maintain that a criterion of rank of a language is its lexicographical richness--the number of words it possesses. Even very recently, Prof. Max Muller has applied such a test to American languages, and, finding that one of the Fuegian dialects is reported to have nearly thirty thousand words, he maintains that this is a proof that these savages are a degenerate remnant of some much more highly developed ancestry. Founding his opinion largely on similar facts, Alexander von Humboldt applied the expression to the American nations that they are "des debris echappes a un naufrage commun."

Such, however, was not the opinion of his brother Wilhelm. He sounded the depths of linguistic philosophy far more deeply than to accept mere abundance of words as proof of richness in a language. Many savage languages have twenty words signifying to eat particular things, but no word meaning "to eat" in general; the Eskimo language has different words for fis.h.i.+ng for each kind of fish, but no word "to fish," in a general sense. Such apparent richness is, in fact, actual poverty.

Humboldt taught that the quality, not merely the quant.i.ty, of words was the decisive measure of verbal wealth. Such quality depends on the relations of concrete words, on the one hand, to the primitive objective perceptions at their root, and, on the other, to the abstract general ideas of which they are particular representatives; and besides this, on the relations which the spoken word, the articulate sound, bears to the philosophic laws of the formation of language in general.[20-*]

In his letter to Abel-Remusat he discusses the theory that the American languages point to a once higher condition of civilization, and are the corrupted idioms of deteriorated races. He denies that there is linguistic evidence of any such theory. These languages, he says, possess a remarkable regularity of structure, and very few anomalies. Their grammar does not present any visible traces of corrupting intermixtures.[21-*]

In a later work he returns to the subject when speaking of the Lenape (Algonkin Delaware) dialect, and asks whether the rich imaginative power, of which it bears the evident impress, does not point to some youthful, supple and vigorous era in the life of language in general?[21-] But he leaves the question unanswered.

-- 11. CLa.s.sIFICATION OF LANGUAGES.

The lower unit of language is the Word; the higher is the Sentence.

The plans on which languages combine words into sentences are a basic character of their structure, and divide them into cla.s.ses as distinct and as decisive of their future, as those of vertebrate and invertebrate animals in natural history.

These plans are four in number:

1. By Isolation.

The words are placed in juxtaposition, without change. Their relations are expressed by their location only (placement). The typical example of this is the Chinese.

2. By Agglutination.

The sentence is formed by suffixing to the word expressive of the main idea a number of others, more or less altered, expressing the relations. Examples of this are the Eskimo of North America, and the Northern Asiatic dialects.

3. By Incorporation.

The leading word of the sentence is divided and the accessory words either included in it or attached to it with abbreviated forms, so that the whole sentence a.s.sumes the form and sound of one word.

4. By Inflection.

Each word of the sentence indicates by its own form the character and relation to the main proposition of the idea it represents. Sanscrit, Greek and Latin are familiar examples of inflected tongues.

It is possible to suppose that all four of these forms were developed from some primitive condition of utterance unknown to us, just as naturalists believe that all organic species were developed out of a h.o.m.ogeneous protoplasmic ma.s.s; but it is as hard to see how any one of them in its present form could pa.s.s over into another, as to understand how a radiate could change into a mollusk.

-- 12. NATURE OF INCORPORATION.

Of the four plans mentioned, Incorporation is that characteristic of, though not confined to, American tongues.

It may appear in a higher or a lower grade, but its intention is everywhere the effort to convey in one word the whole proposition. The Verb, as that part of speech which especially conveys the synthetic action of the mental operation, is that which is selected as the stem of this word-sentence; all the other parts are subordinate accessories, devoid of syntactic value.

The higher grade of incorporation includes both subject, object and verb in one word, and if for any reason the object is not included, the scheme of the sentence is still maintained in the verb, and the object is placed outside, as in apposition, without case ending, and under a form different from its original and simple one.

This will readily be understood from the following examples from the Mexican language.

The sentence _ni-naca-qua_, is one word and means "I, flesh, eat." If it is desired to express the object independently, the expression becomes _ni-c-qua-in-nacatl_, "I it eat, the flesh." The termination _tl_ does not belong to the root of the noun, but is added to show that it is in an external, and, as it were, unnatural position. Both the direct and remote object can thus be incorporated, and if they are not, but separately appended, the scheme of the sentence is still preserved; as _ni-te-tla-maca_, literally, "I, something, to somebody, give." How closely these accessories are incorporated is ill.u.s.trated by the fact that the tense augments are not added to the stem, but to the whole word; _o-ni-c-te-maca-e_, "I have given it to somebody;"

when the _o_ is the prefix of the perfect.

In these languages, every element in the sentence, which is not incorporated in the verb, has, in fact, no syntax at all. The verbal exhausts all the formal portion of the language. The relations of the other words are intimated by their position. Thus _ni-tlagotlaz-nequia_, I wished to love, is literally "I, I shall love, I wished." _Tlagotlaz_, is the first person singular of the future, _ni-nequia_, I wished, which is divided, and the future form inserted. The same expression may stand thus: _ni-c-nequia-tlagotlaz_, where the _c_ is an intercalated relative p.r.o.noun, and the literal rendering is, "I it wished, I shall love."

In the Lule language the construction with an infinitive is simply that the two verbs follow each other in the same person, as _caic tucuec_, "I am accustomed to eat," literally, "I am acustomed,[TN-4] I eat."

None of these devices fullfils[TN-5] all the uses of the infinitive, and hence they are all inferior to it.

In languages which lack formal elements, the deficiency must be supplied by the mind. Words are merely placed in juxtaposition, and their relations.h.i.+p guessed at. Thus, when a language constructs its cases merely by prefixing prepositions to the unaltered noun, there is no grammatical form; in the Mbaya language _e-tiboa_ is translated "through me," but it is really "I, through;" _l'emani_, is rendered "he wishes," but it is strictly "he, wish."

In such languages the same collocation of words often corresponds to quite different meanings, as the precise relation of the thoughts is not defined by any formal elements. This is well ill.u.s.trated in the Tupi tongue. The word _uba_ is "father;" with the p.r.o.noun of the third person prefixed it is _tuba_, literally "he, father." This may mean either "his father," or "he is a father," or "he has a father," just as the sense of the rest of the sentence requires.