aids, no Chinese would understand the pres- cay and barbarism. He expresses daylight ent spoken language,-still less the old one, by two words, signifying exactly in the same which very seldom uses grammatical parti- order, dáy light; but he cannot condescend cles, without the help of repetitions, ex- to subordinate the second to the first, by pletives, pauses, and finally of gestures. saying with one accent day'-light." How reThe place of these, however, is supplied, markable do we here find the psychical charin writing, by an immense number of con- acter of this strange people displayed in the ventional signs, derived from figurative sour- isolation and inflexibility of their language! ces, which are destined not to express sounds, In saying, however, that the Chinese nation but to suggest ideas, and thus to assist the preserves the most ancient form of language reader in guessing the meaning of the word. now existing, it must not be supposed that The Chinese is thus by far the most inflexi- we assert that that language is itself the ble of all languages; and has preserved, in a original stock, of which all others are offsets. fixed or crystallized state, that earliest stage In fact, there is strong reason to regard it as in the development of speech, in which every being itself an offset from one of the great word corresponded to, or represented a sub- Asiatic stocks, the separation having only stantial object in the outward world. taken place at a very early period; and the severed branch having preserved the original character more completely than the main trunk and its other ramifications have done. This is by no means an unusual occurrence; since we actually find the original Scandinavian language much better preserved in Iceland than in Sweden. The law of progress in all languages appears to have been from the substantial isoÎated word, as an undeveloped expression of a whole sentence, towards such a construction as makes every single word subservient to the general idea which the sentence is to unfold; and shapes, and modifies, and combines it accordingly. The mind starts with forming sentences; and tends to break the absolute isolating character of the words first devised by it, by making them subservient to the whole of a developed sentence, and changing them into "parts of speech." But this it can only do, in the first instance, by using the full roots it already possesses, namely, nouns and verbs. To such roots, as is now well known, all other "parts of speech," in all languages, are to be referred; not merely adnouns and adverbs, but also conjunctions, prepositions, and other particles, whether separate or affixed. And, finally, the syllables thus added to the original roots frequently take the form of inflexions; which now appear, at first sight, as mere modifications of the sound of the word, but which have been shown in most cases to have their origin in syllables that once had a separate and substantial meaning. 66 The only preparation," says Bunsen, (Report, p. 290,) which, after a literature of four thousand years, the Chinese presents for such a change, is the use of some of its unchangeable roots as signs of grammatical relations. A nation which canie into separate existence in such a state of the language, could as easily make that great step which leads to affixes and then to inflexions, as the mummified Chinese is unable and unwilling to do it. It is the feeling of the absolute independence and isolating substantiality of each word in a sentence, which makes him contemplate such a change as a decided de Such is the theory of the progressive development of languages propounded by Wilhelm von Humboldt in his Letter to Abel Rémusat, "On the Nature of Grammatical Forms in general, and on the Genius of the Chinese Language in particular," and since. ably advocated by, the learned Chevalier Bunsen. To our own minds it is most satisfactory; from its accordance on the one hand with the phenomena which history enables us to trace in the construction of languages, and also from that a priori probability of its taking such a course, which a philosophic view of the human faculties would suggest. For as ideas are formed, in the first instance, by the impressions of outward objects on the mind, and as all the higher operations of the mind consist in the development of the relations of ideas,- --so does it seem natural, that in the first stage of the formation of language every word should answer to some object in the outward world, whilst every future stage of progress consists in the mere connection of these words, by a mechanism expressive of their purely mental relations. Now between the Chinese and the Sanskrit group of languages, which have been taken as types of the two extremes of development, there is a vast number of intermediate degrees; and there are also several different courses of development,—the same end having been sought to be attained, more or less successfully, in various modes. And by a careful analysis and comparison of different languages, it appears possible to Semitic and Japetic groups; and that it must have consequently been of Asiatic origin,— its divergence having taken place at a period when as yet those two groups had not become isolated from each other. The Egyptian language is much less pliable and full determine, not merely the primitive stock to which each should be referred, but also the stage of advancement at which it became detached from its parent, and took an independent development. Thus when we find dialects of the same language agreeing in almost every essential particular of construc-grown than either the Semitic or Sanskrit ; tion, and having also in the main the same Vocabulary, each dialect, however, being distinguished by words peculiar to itself, and still more by peculiarities in the pronunciation of the words common to all,-we are justified in assuming the close affinity of the nations which speak them; and in regarding their separation, however wide it may be geographically, as having taken place at a time subsequent to the full development of the language. If we find, on the other hand, a greater variety of words peculiar to the individual tongues, and a smaller number of words common to all, with a decided dissimilarity of the inflections, while the same general principle of construction is yet retained, the common origin of the languages may be still predicated-though the separation must be held to have taken place at a much earlier period. Proceeding in this manner, we should recognize several distinct gradations of difference, marked by an increasing dissimilarity of words and inflections; the organic structure, as it may be termed, or the mode of composition of the sentences, as well as the roots of many primitive words, still remaining essentially the same. Such is the state of those languages which are held to belong to a common dynasty or family,-to the Indo-European, for example, or to the Semitic. But can any still more remote conformity be discovered between these or other stocks, in which there is a total dissimilarity in the mechanism of the language? Even here the philologist is not altogether baffled, but looks for a resemblance in the roots of the primitive words. And the results of recent comparisons would seem to show, that some such community may thus be traced between the Indo-European and Semitic families themselves, as indicates that they too are but branches of one common stock,--their divergence having taken place at a period. anterior to the epoch at which the totally different construction respectively characteristic of these families was developed. In like manner the Chevalier Bunsen considers himself justified in concluding, from his profound study of the ancient Egyptian language, that it presents indications of a strictly historical connection with both the and yet it admits the principle of those inflections and radical formations, which we find carried to a higher development, sometimes in one and sometimes in the other of those great families. The necessary conclusion from this fact would seem to be, that Egypt must have been a colony from the undivided Asiatic stock; and that its language points to a more ancient Asiatic formation, since extinct in its native country,— just as the Icelandic points to the old Norse of Scandinavia. This stock accordingly must be regarded as the common origin of both the Semitic and Japetic dynasties of languages. Notwithstanding the stronglymarked differences which exist between them, there would appear to be a certain degree of conformity, not merely, as just stated, in their roots, but also in the direction of their development. By Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his "Universal View of Languages," the two families are treated as one in essential character; the Semitic, however, only tending towards what the Japetic perfectly accomplishes. The system of inflection in the former is limited; while the latter, on the other hand, possesses an inexhaustible variety of terminations, indicating all the shades of the different modes of existence and action; and is, therefore, eminently the language of a progressive people. The Egyptian language was a form of speech only just emerging from the monosyllabic state and the absolute isolation of words; and it expressed very clumsily and incompletely, by mere agglomeration, that to which the Semitic and Japetic tongues could give much more distinct utterance by the system of inflections. The Egyptian mind,' mummified" like the Chinese, was not fitted to carry forward this development; and the original language gave way, therefore, before the intrusion of foreign elements. The Turanian or Ugro-Tartarian family of languages, spoken by most of the nations of Asia and Northern Europe, whose geographical distribution and physical characters connect them with the Mongolian stock, entirely differ in their mode of construction from the Japetic and Semitic; the direction of their development being altogether opposite. The following are enumerated by Dr. Prichard, as some of the principal char- | by a more profound knowledge of the roots, acteristics of their grammatical structure:- and by the application of the principle of secondary formation, overgrowing, sometimes, luxuriantly, the ancient stock of "1. Nouns are nearly or wholly incapable of inflection. They admit of no variations of case, number, or sex-which can only be expressed by appending an additional word, as a noun of multitude or of gender. roots.' The Malayo-Polynesian languages, clearly shown by Wilhelm von Humboldt to be branches of the Malayan stock, are through it connected with the great Turanian fam "2. All auxiliaries to composition, such as prepositions and other particles, and the possessive and even relative pronouns of other lan-ily; and thus the inference deduced from guages, are in those idioms uniformly suffixed, or placed after the words of which they modify the meaning. "3. In many of these languages the principle of vocalic harmony prevails through the entire vocabulary, and extends to the grammatical system, such as it is. According to it, only vowels of certain sets can occur in the same words; and this extends to words compounded with particles or appended syllables." (Report, p. 245.) Notwithstanding this apparently complete discordance, we are assured by Chevalier Bunsen that there are too many "positive and material vestiges of original connection" between the Turanian and the Iranian or Indo-European languages, to allow us for a moment to doubt the existence of an original relation between them. He even proposes to include them both under the general designation of Japetic; more particularly as the most ancient traditions of Persia and India indicate that the two branches, the Iranian and Turanian, though always in opposition to each other, are to be considered but as diverging lines from one common centre. The Iranian family of nations appears to have been agricultural from the first; whilst the Turanian has remained nomadic to the present time. There are indications of an early and wide extension of the Turanian branch: and from it would seem to have originated the whole American family of nations. The similarity in the structure of the skull, (especially shown in the Esquimaux and other northern tribes,) together with obvious geographical considerations, always made such an affinity highly probable; and it is confirmed by the remarkable analogy between the peculiar grammatical structure common to the American languages and that of the Turanian tongues of Asia. "We believe," says Chevalier Bunsen, "that the curious and, at the first appearance, startling problem, of the apparent entire diversity of the lexicographic part of these American languages, by the side of that grammatical affinity, will receive a satisfactory solution VOL. XVI. NO. I. 6 the gradual modification which we may trace, through the people of Malacca, Sumatra, and Java, from the Mongolian type to the Polynesian varieties of complexion and eónformation--an inference which is in obvious accordance with the geographical probability that the Malayo-Polynesian Archipelago, if peopled from Asia at all, received its first human inhabitants from the Malayan peninsula is found to be in perfect accordance with glottological indications. Whether the languages spoken by the Pelagian Negroes, and by other races which seem to have had the earliest possession of these islands, be a primitive type of the same stock as the Malay, which afterwards in many parts superseded it, must remain uncertain until more complete information regarding them has been supplied. It has been ascertained, however, that the language of the aborigines of Australia has many points of resemblance with the Tamulian; which seems itself to be a detached offset of the Turanian stock, still preserved in the Deccan. Another very curious "outlier" of the Turanian stock seems to exist in the Basque provinces of Spain; which are inhabited by descendants of the ancient Iberi, still distinguished by their very peculiar language. Of this language, now termed the Euskarian or Euskaldune, the relationship is much closer to the Turanian group than to any branch of the Indo-European stock. Now the Iberi formerly extended along the Mediterranean coast, not only through Spain and the south of France, but also into Italy and Sicily; and it seems probable that they were a Turanian race, which had occupied the south of Europe, as the Ugrian part of that race had occupied the north, at a period anterior to the north-western extension of the IndoEuropean races from their Asiatic centre. Many circumstances attest that when that colonization took place, Europe was by no means uninhabited; and it seems natural that the original Iberian races, gradually giving way before the superior intelligence and power of the Iranian, should at last be pent up in a remote south-western corner of Europe; whilst the Ugrian were driven towards the opposite corner, henceforward to be confined to the northern and north-eastern region. However probable it may seem, from geographical considerations, and from conformity in physical characters, that the Chinese and other people speaking monosyllabic and inflexible languages, are descended from the Turanian stock, no very decided indications of relationship have yet been traced between those languages and any others of the great dynasties which have been enumerated. But it must be remembered that Chinese philology, in a scientific point of view, is still in its infancy. The language has hitherto been too much studied with a view merely to the exigencies of commercial intercourse; and such philological investigation as it has received has been from men too exclusively imbued with the forms and categories of the grammars of the rest of the world. Little is yet known, moreover, of those languages in which traces of connection with other Asiatic forms of speech may be expected to remain imbedded; especially the Burmese and the Bhotiya of Thibet, which last would appear, from the researches of Abel Rémusat, to have much in common with the Mongolian. "It would be presumptuous," says Chevalier Bunsen, "to anticipate the issue of such well-prepared and sifted comparisons; but we have no hesitation in saying that we incline to believe it will be in favor of the existence of a primitive connection. There is a gap between that formation and all others; and that gap probably corresponds to that caused in the general development of the human race by great destructive floods, which separate the history of our race from its primordial origines. In this sense, the Chinese may be called the great monument of antediluvian speech. Indeed, the first emigration from the cradle of mankind is said in Genesis to have gone eastward." (Report, p. 299.) Thus it appears that glottological considerations afford a strong presumption in favor of the origin of the nations of Asia, Europe, America, and Polynesia, from one common stock; and in this respect they go beyond those anatomical, physiological and psychological indications on which we have already dwelt; the only conclusion which could be safely drawn from the latter, being, that these nations all possess the same constant characters, and differ only in those which can be shown to vary from generation to genera tion,-so that they may have all had a common origin, or, that their original stocks, if not identical, must have still been analogous in all essential particulars. Now it is curious to observe that, where glottological evidence is the weakest, anatomical evidence is the strongest, and vice versa. Thus the hiatus between the Chinese and the Turanian languages is very wide; but the physical conformity is so strong between the Chinese and the nations of High Asia, that no ethnologist has ever thought of assigning to them a distinct origin. So also the nations speaking the Semitic and Japetic languages bear such a near physical relationship to each other, that they have been almost invariably arranged together, under the Caucasian type. On the other hand, among the Malayo-Polynesian and the American nations, whose physical characters are most diverse, the glottological bond of grammatical affinity is peculiarly close. It only remains for us, then, to consider the connection of the proper African languages with the foregoing: and here, again, the knowledge derived from recent inquiries into the ancient Egyptian seems likely to supply a most important link in the chain of inquiry. The following is a sketch of the present state of our acquaintance with the languages peculiar to this continent. It has been chiefly obtained through the efforts of various enlightened missionaries, who, in the hope of preparing the way for the propagation of Christianity among the African nations, have labored successfully to make themselves familiar with their forms of speech. These researches have entirely destroyed all previous unfounded notions respecting the prevalence of a vast number of rude and poor tongues among the nations of Southern Africa. Excluding the Hottentots and Bushmen, for reasons already given, it appears that the nations peopling nearly all that vast region of Africa which lies south of the Equator, may be glottologically considered as forming but a single family; the Kafir tongue of the south having close relations of affinity both with the Kongo dialects, which it joins on the west; and with the Galla language, which stretches down to meet it along the eastern coast. Now these languages are stated by Chev. Bunsen to retain vestiges of primitive relationship with the great tripartite stock whence originated the Japetic, Semitic, and Chametic (or Egyptian) tongues; but they evince a much higher development than the last of these, and this development is rather in the Japetic other, in the skill displayed in their formation, and in the mode of it; but their very than in the Semitic direction. Whether these languages have passed through the form which has remained stationary in the Egyp-roots, full or empty ones, and all their words, tian, or whether they were derived from that still earlier Asiatic formation in which the Egyptian itself originated, is a question on which Chev. Bunsen considers that no definite opinion can at present be formed; although the combined progress of the study of the languages of Egypt and of Central and Southern Africa will probably in a few years lead to a decided answer. Of the languages of the woolly-haired tribes inhabiting Central Negroland, Senegambia, and Guinea, too little is yet known to justify any positive assertion of their relationship to each other and to a common stock. The comparative researches instituted by Dr. Latham, however, which form the subject of a very elaborate Report accompanying those of Dr. Prichard and Chev. Bunsen, all tend to establish the conclusion that philological isolation does not exist among the African tongues. Characters of approximation to the Semitic group are indicated by him in several instances; and indeed he goes so far as to say, that the Galla language is becoming more and more a branch of Semitic philology. There is, then, so far as our present knowledge extends, no glottological reason for separating the nations of Central from those of Southern Africa. And as we find the true Negro characters among the latter, as well as in the former, there is every probability, on physical grounds, of their common origin. We cannot better express the general conclusions to which we are conducted by the study of the various forms of human language, than in the words of Chev. Bunsen. After stating the two possible hypothesesfirst, that there has been a great number of beginnings, out of which different tribes have sprung, and with them different languages, each doing originally the same work, and continuing and advancing it more or less according to its particular task, its natural powers, and its historical destinies; and second, that the beginning of speech was made only once, in the beginning of human time, in the dawn of the mental day, by one favored race, in a genial place of the earth, the garden of Asia,-he thus continues: "If the first supposition be true, the different tribes or families of languages, however analogous they may be, (as being the produce of the same human mind upon the same outward world by the same organic means,) will nevertheless offer scarcely any affinity to each whether monosyllabic or polysyllabic, must needs be entirely different. There may be some similar expressions, in those inarticulate bursts of feeling not reacted on by the mind, which grammarians call interjections. There are besides some graphic imitations of external sounds, called onomatopoetica, words the formation of which indicates the relatively greatest passivity of the mind. There may be, besides, some casual coincidences in real words; but the law of combination applied to the elements of sound, gives a mathematical proof that, with all allowances, such a chance is less than one in a million for the same combination of sounds signifying the same precise object. What we shall have to say hereafter about the affixing of words to objects, will show that this chance is still considerably diminished, if the very strict and positive laws are considered which govern the application of a word to a given object. But the ordinary crude method suffices to prove that if there are entirely different beginnings of speech, as philosophical inquiry is allowed to assume, and as the great philosophers of antiquity have assumed, there can be none but stray coincidences between words of a different origin. Now, referring to what we have already stated as the result of the most accurate linguistic inquiries, such a coincidence does exist between three great families, spreading from the north of Europe to the tropic lands of Asia and Africa. It there exists, not only in radical words, but even in what must appear as the work of an exclusively peculiar coinage, the formative words and inflections which pervade the whole structure of certain families. of languages, and are interwoven, as it were, with every sentence pronounced in every one of their branches. All the nations which, from the dawn of history to our days, have been the leaders of civilization in Asia, Europe, and Africa, must consequently have had one beginning. This is the chief lesson which the knowledge of the Egyptian language teaches us." (Report, p. 294.) This statement, having especial reference to the Semitic, Japetic, and Chametic languages only, is, of course, equally true of those still more widely-diffused forms of speech which are referable to the Turanian stock, that stock being itself, in Chev. Bunsen's estimation, a branch of the Japetic. And thus, in a very unexpected manner, we find that Egyptological researches have |