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cultivation ever ceased to be so? The very fact that at the first dawn of history we see the languages of the earth already fully formed and developed, is the best evidence that we know nothing of the whole period, during which they first arose and were fashioned. We must not forget that language and history are alternating faculties of the human mind. The one must be made and perfected, before the other is thought of or begun. Moreover, both Schlegel and Humboldt agree, that there was a certain epoch in the history of the human race given to the creation of idioms, as Geology has her periods for other forms and creations. This utter absence of information, this complete want of material even, by which to judge, will ever prevent us from determining with precision, what course of development languages originally passed through, to assume their present form.

CHAPTER XL,

THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGES,

Their first origin unknown-Their early development ante-historical-No new languages formed.

THE history of the first origin of language we have seen to be a matter of speculation only; nor does history itself give any account of the growth, the building up of an idiom. That part of their development is ante-historical. As far, at least, as we know the history of the world, we meet with no absolutely new formation of a language, nor even with any essential addition

made to the radical elements by means of which language is formed. Even the Romance languages of our day, and the English, are not genuine, new formations, but at best only the budding of new, vigorous shoots from an old decaying trunk. But there is, nevertheless, a history of every idiom traceable: it is the history of all the changes which a complete and fully developed language has undergone in accordance with and under the influence of the fate of that nation by whom it was spoken. This forms the second period in the history of every idiom; this can be ascertained and studied, because it is contemporaneous with that of nations.

This period has, heretofore, been almost universally considered a period of decay, and this opinion has been apparently supported by the fact, that languages appear richer in words and forms the farther we can trace them back to their early ages. The idioms derived from the Sanscrit are poor in proportion to their age; the abundant inflections and ingenious combinations of the Latin have almost entirely disappeared in the Romance languages of our day. The meaning of radical parts is lost; the correspondence of sounds, their signs and letters, entirely disregarded. The simple analytic construction is substituted for the complicated and fastidious synthetic arrangement of ancient languages.

Another evidence in favor of such an opinion has been found in the well established fact, that the fuller of life and action the history of a nation is, the greater is the loss of original perfection in its language. The eventful history of all Indo-European races, and the comparative poverty and simplicity of modern languages, are easily accessible instances. Idioms are rich in propor

THE OLD NORSE TONGUE.

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tion as men lead a calm and impassionate life. There is known to Linguists a language which they consider one of the most perfect spoken by man; it possesses an almost unlimited flexibility; it is expansive, copious and systematic, soft, plaintive, and pleasing to the most fastidious ear. It is the Poongevee, spoken on the Gaboon river in Africa! Of Indo-European idioms, also, the Lithuanian passes for one of the richest and noblest; it still possesses the original Sanscrit terminations, which all other European tongues have long since lost—but the race who speak it, is almost unknown; it has no history, and both nation and tongue are rapidly disappearing. Most of the savage and uncultivated dialects of Africa and North America are among the most complex in organization and elaborate in structure—but where is their literature, and where are the great deeds of their men? The same is observed in branches of the same languages. The Old Norse, a rich and beautiful tongue, survives still, dwarfish in form and impoverished in estate, in modern Scandinavian languages. One of the sisters, however, left early their common home and sought refuge in distant Iceland. A few independent, noble families, unwilling to bear the yoke of the tyrant Harold Harfagr, left Sweden in 875, and settled the barren, lonely island; whilst the Old Norse in the mother country was subjected to violent changes and the influence of almost constant implication in continental strife and excitement, divided into various branches, and lost so much as to make its ancient sagas a mystery to modern readers, it remained pure and rich beyond measure in the far-off colony. There peaceable, intelligent men, animated by ardent patriotism and a warm attachment to their old legends, kept themselves and their tongue entirely free from

historical commotion, and their children can now read their eddas, their songs of Odin, Helge and Sigurd, far better and easier than the German could read his Ulfilas, the Englishman his Chaucer, or the Frenchman the edicts of his earlier monarchs. The Icelandic has thus remained pure and undisturbed, whilst the Swedish has lost most of its riches, and the Danish has suffered in proportion to its success during the wars with England and the Continent. The conquest of England by Canute was a death-blow to the Norse of Denmark.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE DECAY OF LANGUAGES.

The older a language the richer-The decay only apparent-The material reduced-The sounds simplified-The inflections lost-Remarkable instances in English.

THIS SO-called decay, however, is but apparent; it is, in reality, a progress and an improvement. For the perfection of languages does not consist in their number of words, their variety of forms, or in consistent regularity. If it were so, the lowest idioms would be the best, and the Abiponese, which has a different pronoun for a third person, according as he or she is absent or present, standing or sitting, at rest or walking, would be infinitely superior to the German or the English.

Language, being a spiritual manifestation of the mind, tri es, like the mind itself, to rise above matter; it has a tendency,

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ever active and ever progressive, to strip off all forms with which thought is encumbered; it strives to free itself more and more.

All the changes by which languages indicate this apparent decay, are mainly attributable to this desire; hence their two principal manifestations in filing down roots, forms and inflexions to the utmost simplicity, and in a constant advance from materialism to formatism, from natural to metaphorical expressions, from the physical to the intellectual, from the concrete to the abstract. Languages follow, in this, but the universal law to which all faculties of man are subject; the immortal soul longs to break through its earthly prison, the mind strives to rise unfettered to on high, and seeks utterance in freest, simplest sounds. What is thus lost in forms, is gained in clearness and directness. Hence it is that in ancient languages, Grammar, the doctrine of yрajjaтa or mere forms and words, is by far the most important feature; in modern languages, on the contrary, greater attention is paid to the Syntax; that is, to the arrangement of words according to their precise meaning, and to the peculiar use made of words under the delicate influence of mental efforts. The languages of antiquity bound the mind down to fixed and rigid forms, as the Mythology of those days bound the soul to gods and demi-gods innumerable. As soon as the mind of nations became free, free from ignorance and superstition, free from hindrance by war and daily want, it rose above mere form, it needed no longer a meaning to each letter, but seized at once and by a higher, more powerful effort, the general idea expressed in a compound. Modern languages, therefore, live not so much in and by visible forms, as by tone and action, and by peculiar combinations of sounds and expres