122 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



attention or design men may be in the case of the natural production of new 

 verbal modifications, yet in general those modifications are in the same dialect 

 similarly made for similar alterations of the sense ; partly from the instinctive 

 predilection of the mind for uniformity, and partly perhaps from some indistinct 

 reference to older forms. It is this analogy in their formation that, afterwards 

 presenting itself to notice, gives room for the application to them of grammatic 

 rules of classification, determining how each word is to be inflected for the 

 several varieties of its primary signification, in polysyllabic tongues ; or how its 

 elementary sounds are to be changed in composition or in connexion with other 

 words of a sentence, in the languages which admit of such permutations. In all 

 those modifications of a word, when arising from a natural source, one common 

 property is observable ; namely, that the root is scarcely ever wholly changed ; for 

 it is impossible that the expression for the principal part of the meaning of a term 

 should entirely disappear without arresting the attention of the person who intro- 

 duced so striking a transformation. Hence the instances of total alterations of 

 the kind in the construction of sentences are few and anomalous in, I believe, 

 every known language except the Sanscrit ; while in this latter tongue the dhCitu 



and the modern language of Italy would probably have been much greater than it now is) ; but as 

 soon as the art in question again came into use among the upper classes of society, all great changes 

 of Italian ceased ; it has, indeed, since received gradually improvements, but its grammatic frame is, 

 in the main, unaltered from what it was at the earliest period to which it can be traced. On the 

 other hand, however barbarous in other respects were the Turkish invaders of Greece, they still had 

 an alphabetic writing of their own distinct from that of the Greeks ; which circumstance effectually 

 prevented any blending of the languages of the two people. The consequence is, that Greek never 

 underwent a total change in its inflexions ; and it is not perhaps too much to say, that the modern 

 language scarcely differs from the diaJects which were spoken in Greece three thousand years ago, 

 more than those dialects differed from each other. Compare now with those two examples the case 

 of South-Eastern Asia and of America. In the former district, — where alphabetic writing is probably 

 not of very ancient standing, and where its use has been considerably deteriorated by the pre- 

 dominance of hieroglyphic practice, — ^great numbers of languages have started up, many of them 

 even since the formation of the Sanscrit, from which they obviously are in part derived. In the 

 latter range of countries, — into which it is certain that the alphabetic art was not introduced till the 

 time of the Spanish invasion, and which the state of their population affords reason to think, were 

 not then very long peopled, — there have been found no loss, it is said, \X\a.nJifleen hundred dif- 

 ferent dialects spoken by the original inhabitants. — See Pritchard's Supplement, &c. p. 11. 



