VARIETIES OF HUMAN SPEECH SAPIR. 595 



it possible definitely to associate these three typos with particular 

 formal processes. It is clear, however, that on the whole languages 

 which make use of word order only for grammatical purposes are isolat- 

 ing in type, further, that languages that make a liberal grammatical 

 use of internal vowel or consonant change may be suspected of being 

 inflective. It was quite customary formerly to look upon the three 

 main types of morphology as steps in a process of historical develop- 

 ment, the isolating type representing the most primitive form of 

 speech at which it was possible to arrive, the agglutinative coming 

 next in order as a type evolved from the isolating, and the inflective 

 as the latest and so-called highest type of all. Further study, how- 

 ever, has shown that there is little to support this theory of evolution 

 of tvpes. The Chinese language, for instance, so far from being t3'p- 

 ical of a primitive stage, as used to be asserted, has been quite con- 

 clusively proven by internal and comparative evidence to be the re- 

 sultant of a long process of simplification from an agglutinative type 

 of language. English itself, in its historical affiliations an inflective 

 language, has ceased to be a clear example of the inflective type and 

 may perhaps be said to be an isolating language in the making. Nor 

 should we be too hasty in attaching values to the various types and, 

 as is too often done even to-day, look with contempt on the isolating, 

 condescendingly tolerate the agglutinative, and vaunt the superiority 

 of the inflective type. A well-developed agglutinative language may 

 display a more logical system than the typically inflective language. 

 And, as for myself, I should not find it ridiculous or even paradoxical 

 if one asserted that the most perfect linguistic form, at least from the 

 point of view of logic, had been attained by Chinese, for here we have 

 a language that, with the simplest possible means at its disposal, can 

 express the most technical or philosophical ideas with absolute lack 

 of ambiguity and with admirable conciseness and directness. 



