PURPOSES OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. 109 are as well known, and the additional knowledge is brought to bear upon the great principles of the science. CHAPTER XVIII. PURPOSES OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. General Rules-Laws of Language. SMALL, however, and scanty as the material is, and imperfect and incomplete as the knowledge it has afforded must necessarily be, the youthful science has, at least, established these two great truths: That languages are subject to laws, rational and philosophic, like all other manifestations of the mind of man, and That languages have their history, which may be traced from the first indefinite sound of the infant to the last sigh of the expiring giant; that they grow, prosper and spread, decline and finally succumb with the nations by whom they are spoken, and with the mind of which they have been, at once, the ехроnent and the evidence. To establish these laws, and to trace the History of Languages through their various stages, is the main purpose of Comparative Philology. To accomplish this end, we follow language to the earliest times, where History is silent and Man in his childhood, but where language itself appears yet as the immediate expression of thought, proceeding directly from the soul of man, fresh and full of life, true and unrestrained, a pure mirror of his undisturbed existence and primitive reflection. We view Language, in these researches, as in constant and direct connection with the ever active mind of man, and we find that the plan of making it and the progress in forming it are not in the hand of man alone, but, like his own fate, subject to the will of the Most High. We consider, moreover, a language not merely as given and ready at a certain time, nor as standing by itself, subject to laws of its own, but we trace all idioms back to the period when their oldest forms are still apparent, and then compare these one with another. For only when we have found these primitive forms, which alone are proper objects of comparison, and by comparison afford valuable results, a systematic science of language can be said to begin. It will, then, receive aid from the three branches, which, for such purposes, are indispensable to each other: Lexicography, or the mere knowledge of words; Comparative Grammar, which investigates their structure and inflexions; and a Comparative History of all the various idioms which belong to the same great family. By such means it has already been ascertained that the IndoEuropean languages actually show, and all languages probably will show, in their general outline and in special phenomena, an essentially corresponding history, which, once ascertained for all idioms, would be the history of language itself. The laws to which language has been found subject, partake necessarily of the double relation it bears to matter and spirit. Words have a body, and that body, though the very lightest on earth, a mere breath and a sound, is subject to the same laws that rule over all matter. But words have, also, a meaning, express an LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 111 idea, and thus are brought under those rules which control even the heaven-born mind of man. Some of these laws are, therefore, based upon such influences as affect language from without; others arise from the inner nature, the spiritual life of language. Even physical influences are found to produce certain effects and to leave their mark upon the most powerful idioms, because language, though it be the product of our divine mind, is still bound, like it, to outward nature, and subject to her laws. The influence of locality does not, of course, extend to the actual creation of a peculiar character in languages; it is important only as far as it promotes and matures certain properties, like harmony, richness or flexibility, the germs of which are necessarily co-existent with the nation itself. Such causes operate indirectly but not the less powerfully, and if we find languages remarkable for euphony and beauty, in rugged, inhospitable countries, or harsh jarring accents amid the natives of a genial climate, we may generally look for the overwhelming influence of mightier causes, like migration or subjugation, that have produced such unexpected results. Even the soil on which a language grows marks it with its own indelible stamp. Dwellers on lofty chains of mountains or the elevated plains of hilly districts, use broad vowels and guttural consonants. The Doric was as harsh as the Ionic soft. Sparta's elevation was more powerfully felt in her dialect than her position south of Athens, with its milder dialect. The English of Northumberland and Newcastle contrasts with that of the level counties and of Coventry, in the same striking manner that the German of the Tyrolese and the Swiss differs from the dialects of Westphalia and Mecklenburg. The Abruzzi resound with deep, guttural sounds; in Sicily soft vowels abound until they become wearisome. As the mountain air, sharp and rough, loves diphthongs and aspirates, the lowlands produce narrow, thin vowels, and the flat shores broad but loud sounds, now chiming in, and now contending with, the music of the ocean waves. CHAPTER XIX. PHYSICAL INFLUENCES OPERATING ON LANGUAGE. Climate and geographical position-Decline of idioms when removed to unfavorable regions-Remarkable instances. PROFOUND studies, like those of F. von Schlegel on Portuguese poetry, and on the influence of climate and locality on the formation of dialects, teach us that the geographical position of an idiom affects it the more powerfully and permanently as the organs of speech are on this side subjected to direct and lasting influences. The larynx, and, in fact, every one of those most ingenious and complicated instruments which enable us to speak, are susceptible of dilatation and compression, from the effects, not only of our will, but also of cold and heat, denser and thinner currents of air, and the general state of the body. Hence it has frequently been asserted that the climate of a country has been the main agent in producing the original variety of its dialects. These once produced, tradition and cus PHYSIOLOGY OF LANGUAGES. 113 tom would soon perpetuate them, and the regularity with which the climate first and most affects guttural sounds as the most sensitive, next the palatial, which are determined by the position of the well-protected tongue, and, least of all, the more delicate labials and liquids, has given additional force to such opinions. General effects of this kind are readily observed in the North and South of all great continents. The languages of the South and the East are more or less limpid, euphonic and harmonious, as if impressed with the transparency of southern skies. They seem to repeat, in their soft accords, the sounds produced by the palm-tree waving in the breeze, the low, sweet rustling of the long grass of the savannahs, and the gentle, harmonious murmuring of a thousand small voices of living and enjoying beings. The clear blue sky of the sunny South is reflected in the clear, open vowels of southern languages, the natural result of free, generous breathing, which produces sounds ringing full and clear through the pure atmosphere. Nor is the energy and austerity of vigorous northern climates less distinctly expressed in northern tongues. The misty, murky clouds of an insular world produce a reluctance to open the lips, and thus to admit the foul air; the words are clipped and uttered with great rapidity through closed lips, or hissed through firmly compressed teeth. In still more northerly regions languages seem to re-echo the crash of falling trees, the noise of tumbling, rumbling rocks, or the roar of tremendous cataracts, if they do not sink to a whisper, fearing to freeze the very air in the lungs, or to arouse the spirits that dwell in brook and forest. The same language may even change its nature when transported to distant regions, and many a colony bears witness to |