TEE GROWTH OF A LANGUAGE 349 



been swamped by the first sentence. When words pass from one lan- 

 guage into another they are put through a transforming process before 

 they can be naturalized. The republic of letters is, however, cosmo- 

 politan and nationality counts for little ; hence a term that is of interest 

 only to savants needs to undergo but slight changes in order to be 

 accepted everywhere. With popular words the case is different. An 

 instructive example of this double genealogy is our familiar term 

 " alms." It came into the English through the Anglo-Saxon from the 

 Greek, in which language it has six syllables and is fairly well repre- 

 sented by our " eleemosynary," the form coined and introduced by 

 scholars. The shorter word is the result of a gradual abridgment until 

 but one syllable remains after it has been handed down by oral tradi- 

 tion through several centuries. If we trace this word in all its ramifi- 

 cations and transmutations in the languages of modern Europe we may 

 see what strange freaks the laws of euphony play among the different 

 nations. In Old Bulgarian it becomes almuzhina, in Polish jalmuzlma, 

 in Hungarian alamizna, in Spanish limosna, in Portuguese esmola, in 

 French aumone. 



The ancient Greek philosophers must have given the phenomena of 

 human speech a good deal of thought. As some of them came in con- 

 tact with many tribes speaking different tongues, it would have been 

 strange if they had not done so. As the problem presented itself to 

 them it was whether language is a natural product of the human psyche, 

 or the result of convention, a sort of social contract. Their speculations 

 are, however, all lost and we have only the dialogue of Plato entitled 

 " Cratylus " to give us an inkling of the discussions that had preceded 

 the time of its composition. 



Plato does not seem to have had a glimpse of the possibility that 

 language might be an organic growth. He was unable to conceive that 

 a work of such artistic excellence could be constructed by people so low 

 in the scale of civilization that they had no conception of art. Too 

 little was known in his day about the primitive instinct of men. Herein 

 there is still much that is mysterious, if facts can be so designated. We 

 know what is ; how it came to be is veiled from our sight. As for Plato, 

 there is no evidence in his writings that he knew any language but 

 Greek. He shared the weakness common to his countrymen. In all 

 Greek literature there are to be found comparatively few words that give 

 the names of objects in other languages. From the era of Alexander's 

 conquests until that of Constantine every intelligent person in the 

 Pioman empire spoke Greek; but not vice versa. Although Plutarch 

 lived for some time in Eome and delivered lectures in that city, he 

 knew Latin very imperfectly. Plato is willing to admit that words are 

 subject to many changes and put on many disguises. 



