HISTORICAL OUTLINES

OF

ENGLISH ACCIDENCE

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CHAPTER I.

FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES.

I. WORDS are articulate sounds used to express perception and thought. The aggregate of these articulate sounds, accepted by and current among any community, we call speech or language.

2. The language of the same community often presents local varieties; to these varieties we give the name of dialects.

3. Grammar treats of the words of which language is composed, and of the laws by which it is governed.

4. The science of Grammar is of two kinds: (a) Descriptive Grammar, which classifies, arranges, and describes words as separate parts of speech, and notes the changes they undergo under certain conditions.

(b) Comparative Grammar, which is based on the study of words, goes beyond the limits of Descriptive Grammar; that is, beyond the mere statement of facts. It analyses words, accounts for the changes they have undergone, and endeavours to trace them back to their origin. It thus deals with the growth of language.

Descriptive Grammar teaches us that the word loveth is a verb, indicative mood, &c. Comparative Grammar informs us, (1) that the radical part of the verb is lov (or luf), denoting desire (cp. Lat. lubeo); (2) that the suffix -th is a remnant of a demonstrative pronoun signifying he, that, of the same origin as the -t in lube-t.

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5. Comparative Grammar has shown us that languages may be classified in two ways: (1) According to the peculiarities of their grammatical structure, or the mode of denoting the relation of words to one another; (2) according to historical relationship.

6. The first mode of classification is called a morphological one. It divides languages into, (1) Monosyllabic or Isolating; (2) Agglutinative; (3) Inflectional or Polysyllabic.

These terms also represent three periods in the growth of languages -that is to say, that language, as an organism, may pass through three stages. (1) The monosyllabic period, in which roots are used as words, without any change of form.

In this stage there are no prefixes or suffixes, and no formally distinguished parts of speech.

The Chinese is the best example of a language in the isolating or monosyllabic stage.

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'Every word in Chinese is monosyllabic; and the same word, without any change of form, may be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, or a particle. Thus ta, according to its position in a sentence, may mean great, greatness, to grow, very much, very.

"We cannot in Chinese (as in Latin) derive from ferrum, iron, a new substantive ferrarius, a man who works in iron, a blacksmith; ferraria, an iron mine, and again ferrariarius, a man who works in an iron mine; all this is possible only in an inflected language." -MAX MULLER.

(2) The agglutinative period. In this stage two unaltered roots are joined together to form words; in these compounds one root becomes subordinate to the other, and so loses its independence.1 Cf. man-kind, heir-loom, war-like, which are agglutinative compounds. The Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, the Tamul, &c., are agglutinative languages.

The Basque and American languages are agglutinative, with this difference, that the roots which are joined together have been abbreviated, as in the Basque ilhun, "twilight," from hill, dead + egun, day. In the Mexican language their compound terms are equivalent to phrases and sentences, achichillacachocan, the place where people weep because the water is red;" from alt, " chichiltic, "red;" tlacatl, " man; and chorea, "weep."

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water;

It has been proposed to call these languages polysynthetic or incorporating. It is remarkable that most of these languages show that the people who speak them are deficient in the power of ab

straction.

I Cp. Hungarian var-at-andot-ta-tok (= wait-and-will-have-you)= you will have been waited for.

(3) The inflectional period, in which roots are modified by prefixes or suffixes, which were once independent words. In agglu tinative languages the union of words may be compared to mechanical compounds, in inflective languages to chemical compounds. In most living languages we find traces of all these processes, and are thus enabled to see how gradually one stage leads to another. Take, for example, the following :

Here the syllable ly

=

=

inflectional.

like, originally a word, has dwindled down to a formative element or suffix.

7. The classification of languages according to historical relationship is a genealogical one.

Historical relationship may be shown by comparing the grammar and vocabulary of any two or more languages; if the system of grammatical inflexions bear a close resemblance to one another, and if there be a general agreement in the employment of those terms that are least likely to have been lost or displaced by borrowed terms (such as pronouns, numerals, words denoting near relationship, &c.), then it may be safely asserted that such languages are related to one another.

Historical relationship, then, rests upon, (1) the similarity of grammatical structure; (2) the fundamental identity of roots.

8. Comparative Grammar teaches us that the English language is a member of a group of allied languages, to which the term Teutonic has been given.

The Teutones were a German tribe conquered by Marius: hence the terms Teutonicus and Theoticus were subsequently applied to all German-speaking people.

The Germans still call their language Deut-sch.1

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The origin of the term is found in Old High German diot, people, duit-isc, national. In the oldest English theod and theodisc people (cf. Umbrian Latin tuticus, from tuta, a city). The Teutons were the people, in contradistinction to the Romans and others, whom they called Welsh, or foreign.

The name German was probably given to the Teutons by some continental Keltic tribes. By some philologists the word German is said to mean howlers, shriekers (from Keltic gairm-a, to cry out), on account of their warlike shouts.

1 Dutch is merely another form of the same word.

9. The Teutonic dialects may be arranged in three groups or subdivisions:

(1) The Low German; (2) the Scandinavian ; (3) the High German.

The English language is a Low German dialect, and is closely allied to the dialects still spoken on the northern shores and lowlands of Germany. This relationship is easily accounted for by the emigration of the Angles, Saxon, and other Low German tribes from the lowlands of Germany situate between the Rhine and Baltic

coasts.

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I. To the Low German division belong the following languages: (1) Gothic, the oldest and most primitive of the Teutonic dialects, of which any remains are known, was spoken by the Eastern and Western Goths, who occupied the province of Dacia, whence they made incursions into Asia, Galatia, and Cappadocia.

The oldest record of this dialect is found in the translation of the Bible by Bishop Ulphiias (born 318, died 388), the greater part of which has perished, though we still possess considerable portions of the Gospels and St. Paul's Epistles, some pieces of the Old Testament, and a small portion of a Commentary.

(2) Frisian. (a) Old Frisian as preserved in documents of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; (b) Modern Frisian, still spoken in Friesland, along the coasts and islands of the North Sea between the Weser and the Elbe, and in Holstein and Sleswick.

The Frisian is more closely allied to English than the rest of the Low German languages.

(3) Dutch. (a) Old Dutch (as seen in documents from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century); (b) Modern Dutch, spoken in Holland and Belgium.

(4) Flemish. (a) Old Flemish, the language of the Court of Flanders and Brabant in the sixteenth century; (b) Modern Flemish.

(5) Old Saxon, or the Saxon of the Continent, spoken between the Rhine and Elbe, which had its origin in the districts of Munster, Essen, and Cleves.

There is a specimen of this dialect in a poetical version of the Gospels (of the ninth century), entitled the Heljand (O.E. Heiland) the Healer or Saviour.

The Old Saxon is very closely related to English, and retains many Teutonic inflexions that have disappeared in other Low German dialects.

(6) English. (a) Old English; (b) Modern English; (c) Provincial English; (d) Lowland Scotch.

II. To the Scandinavian division belong the following tongues: −(1) Icelandic; (2) Norwegian; (3) Swedish; (4) Danish.

The Icelandic is the purest and oldest of the Scandinavian dialects. The Old Icelandic, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, is often called Old Norse, a term that properly applies only to Old Norwegian.

Iceland was colonized by the Northmen, who established a Republic there, and were converted to Christianity A.D. 1000.

III. To the High German division belongs Modern German, the literary dialect of Germany, properly the speech of the southeast of Germany, Bavaria, Austria, and some adjacent districts. It is divided into three stages

(a) Old High German, comprising a number of dialects (the Thuringian, Franconian, Swabian, Alsacian, Swiss, and Bavarian), spoken in Upper or South Germany from the beginning of the eighth to the middle of the eleventh century.

(6) Middle High German, spoken in Upper Germany from the beginning of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century.

(c) Modern High German, from the end of the fifteenth century to the present time.

Luther ennobled the dialect he used in his beautiful translation of the Bible, and made the High German the literary language of all German-speaking people. The Low German dialects of the Continent are yielding to its influence, and, in course of time, will be wholly displaced by it.

10. If we compare English and modern German we find them very clearly distinguished from each other by regular phonetic changes:1 thus ad in English corresponds to at in German, as dance and tanz; day and tag; deep and tief; drink and trink. At in English agrees with an s or z in German, as is shown by foot and fuss;

I See Grimm's Law, p. 13.