represented many ideas, of the most opposite ‘signification. Tone, 
grimace and gesture then largely determined the meaning of the 
infantine babble of mankind at large, and supplied the place of the 
absent pronouns and adverbs. At that epoch language consisted mainly 
of one word. Whether that word was a single word of one syllable, 
like the Chinese root-word, or a sentence word or “ bunch word” of the 
polysynthetic or “‘ much putting together” type philologists are by no 
means agreed, nor can they be said to be unanimous in opinion as to 
whether that primeval monosyllable or sentence word was noun or verb 
Probably both schools are right and it partook largely of the nature of 
tho noun, the adverb and the verb. In Polynesian dialects almost 
every verb may be used without any change of form as noun or 
adjective. This is equally true of the speech of the African Bushmen. 
In Chinese the root-word shi means “food” and ‘to eat ” also. 
Bunsen states there is no formal distinction in the ancient Egyptain 
language between noun, verb, and particle. There are survivals of this 
primitive condition of things in our own language. We still employ 
adjective nouns as chestnut-horses” “ black-board,” or qualifying 
substantives as iron stone” and “ feather-grass.” We speak 
also of giving a present, we present a gift, and of the 
present time; stress and the position of the word in the 
sentence determining the sense. Languages in the earlier stages 
of their development are devoid of prepositions and auxiliary verbs. 
Dr. Brinton states that no conjunction occurs in any of the native 
American languages. Evidently primitive man did not connect his 
sentences. On consideration he was not singular in that respect. 
Perhaps we may look on modern examples of this habit as interesting 
cases of reversion. Some American tongues have no adjectives ; others, 
like the “ Cree,” but few. In some as many as 18 pronouns have been 
developed,—“ the rank growth of a new soil.” Many, on the contrary, 
have none at all, personal, relative, or possessive. But there are large 
numbers of individuals even in so-called civilized countries that have 
not yet learnt to distinguish between mewm and tuum. No grammatical 
gender was developed for a long period. Objects and ideas were 
divided into living things and non-living things—the animate and the 
inanimate conjugations which prevail alike among uncivilised tribes 
in Asia, Africa, America, and Polynesia. Or gender was a 
relative affair, and did not depend upon sex, as in the case of 
the Ongobs of West Africa, who place everything great, noble, 
and desirable, and of value, including Man, in the masculine, 
and all things small, insignificant, and of no value, including 
Woman, in the feminine gender. To the savage at this epoch of 
mental development there was “no time like the present,” and 
the verbal nouns of “epicene words” were devoid of distinctions of 
tense, person, and number ; emphasis, tone, and gesture eked out their 
vocabularies, and the pause often changed the whole meaning of a word 
or placed it in another class, as in the Guarni of South America, 
wherein ‘ Peru o ’u” meant “ Peter ate it,” but ‘* Perw ow” meant 
“ Peter came.” The oldest known language is the hieroglyphica' 
language of ancient Egypt, which can be traced back more than five 
thousand years. When compared with its direct descendant, the 
