LECTURES. 



BRIEF ABSTRACT 



OF A SERIES OF SIX LECTURES ON 



r 



THE PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE, 



DELIVERED AT 



9 



THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION IN MARCH, 1864. 



BY \nL! lAM D. WHITNEY, PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN. 



The scientific study of language is of modern date. Only its scanty and im- 

 perfect germs are to be found in ancient times. It lacked that wide and com- 

 prehensive basis of observed and collected facts on which alone such a science 

 can be founded. The active and searching curiosity of the past century, with 

 the facilities for investigation given by trade, travel, and philanthropic effort, 

 could not but call it into being. No single circumstance has so powerfully aided 

 its development as the introduction of Sanskrit to the knowledge of Europe. 

 This, the most ancient and primitive of Indo-European tongues, laid the sure 

 foundation of the comparative philology of the Indo-European family, out of 

 which has grown the general science of language. 



The objects of this science are twofold : To discover the nature and history 

 of language itself, and to elicit information respecting human history. Both 

 are invested with a very high c^egree of importance. The value of language 

 to man, and the absorbing interest of inquiry into its character, are palpable, 

 and attested by the labors and speculations of generations of scholars and 

 thinkers. It has also quite recently been found that language is the principal 

 means of ethnological investigation, of tracing out the deeds and fates of men 

 during the prehistoric ages. Not only does it detei-mine the fact and the de- 

 gree of relationship among nations, but it gives information which can be ob- 

 tained in no other way respecting their moral and intellectual character, and the 

 growth of their civilization. Linguistic science, as a bi'anch of the study of 

 human history, embraces the whole race at every period of its history. All 

 spoken or recorded speech is its material. The dialects of the lowliest as well 

 as the most highly endowed races are its care. It would fain hold up and study 

 every single fact in the light of every other related fact, since only thus can all 

 be fully understood. 



To survey in detail, in these lectures, the whole field of linguistic science will 

 be, of course, impracticable. We can only attempt to lay down and illustrate 

 its fundamental principles, to gain some insight into its methods, to determine 

 the nature and force of linguistic evidence, to see how this is elicited from the 

 material containing it, to note its bearing on historical and ethnological study, 

 and to review briefly the principal results hitherto obtained by its means 

 The method followed will be the analytic, establishing principles from facta 



