CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



reason, would impel an individual man to con- 

 struct a language for his own use, they make the 

 unwarranted assumption that, under any circum- 

 stances, even though he grew up from infancy in 

 solitude, the thinking powers of a human being 

 must of necessity develop themselves. The neces- 

 sarily few facts that bear on the case look the 

 other way. Kaspar Hauser, the mysterious German 

 youth, who had been kept in seclusion from child- 

 hood to the age of seventeen, instead of elabor- 

 ating a system of symbols of thought for himself, 

 had forgotten what he had once possessed; his 

 faculties of thought and of speech seem to have 

 been simultaneously arrested. Observation rather 

 favours the opinion, that man in solitude if he 

 could exist in solitude would be as mute as the 

 lower animals. The social nature of man helped 

 to give birth to the germs of speech, no less than 

 his rational nature. An instinctive desire to give 

 a sensible sign of his impressions to his fellows, 

 was perhaps the primary impulse ; the aid thus 

 given to his own thinking powers, a secondary 

 result. 



The main question in this speculation is what 

 determined particular vocal sounds to be first 

 uttered in connection with particular objects and 

 ideas ? One view is, that the conscious nature of 

 man responded to the impressions made upon it, 

 as a solid body does when struck ; and thus pro- 

 duced a number of ' phonetic types,' which formed 

 the roots of language. This is known as the 

 'ding-dong' theory, and is unsupported by any 

 facts or positive arguments. The analogy of the 

 bell does not hold ; unless we could find one that 

 gave out a different note for every object it was 

 struck with. Any mysterious inherent correspond- 

 ence between any one conception of the mind 

 and a particular articulate sound is out of the 

 question. As little can we think of the choice of 

 an audible mark being altogether arbitrary or 

 fortuitous. The sound uttered must have been 

 suggested by something connected with the object 

 or action itself; and by what more naturally than 

 by the inarticulate sound which the object or 

 action emits ? 



Every language contains numerous words formed 

 on this imitative principle, such as cuckoo, Lat 

 cucu(\us) ; pee-wit, Dutch kie-ivit; cock; clash; 

 rap; tap; quack; nimble; whizz; clang. Such 

 words are called onomatopceian or onomatopoetic, 

 from the Greek compound onomatopoieia, signify- 

 ing, literally, the invention of names, and used by 

 philologists to denote the formation of words in 

 imitation of natural sounds. The opinion that 

 all language began in this way, is known as the 

 ' Onomatopoetic Theory.' 



The chief objection to this theory is, that if the 

 first words were merely reproductions of natural 

 sounds, the same natural objects would have had 

 the same names all the world over. To which it 

 is answered, that the mind in its first efforts at 

 naming did not seek an exact reproduction of the 

 sound, but a suggestive imitation ; primitive words 

 were not echoes, but 'artistic representations.' 

 Now, the sounds of nature are not simple, but 

 composite. Like other concrete phenomena, they 



present a variety of aspects ; and according as 

 one or another aspect seemed the most prominent 

 to the observer, a different vocal sound would 

 suggest itself as the appropriate symbol. Thus, 

 when Professor Max M tiller argues (Science of 

 Language, London, 1861), that if the ' bow-wow' 

 theory, as he nicknames it, were true, men would 

 have everywhere spoken of a moo, as is done in 

 the nursery, and not of a cow; it seems a valid 

 answer to say, that the Indian gu, the Teut. huh 

 (Eng. cow), and the Grasco-Lat. bou-, are really as 

 suggestive imitations of the animal's actual voice 

 as moo. To take a more striking instance : few 

 words differ more in sound and aspect than the 

 Eng. thunder (Ger. donner, Lat tonitru, Fr. 

 tonnere) does from the Mexican name for the same 

 thing, tlatlatnitzel; and yet it would be difficult to 

 say which is the more suggestive of the natural 

 sound. 



It is no doubt true that the great bulk of names 

 are derived from roots having a general predicative 

 power ; but this by no means excludes the prin- 

 ciple of onomatopffiia. Thus, to take one of those 

 instances adduced by Professor Max Miiller him- 

 self, that of raven or crow (Sans, k&rava, Lat. 

 corvus, Gr. korone) ; this is derived from the root 

 ru or kru, which means to cry or call, and the 

 bird was called a karava, or crow, not in imitation 

 of his voice, but because he was 'a shouter, a 

 caller, a crier. The name might have been 

 applied to many birds, but it became the tradi- 

 tional and recognised name of the crow.' But 

 how came the articulation ru or kru to be chosen 

 to convey the general meaning of crying or calling? 

 May we not suppose that it was suggested by the 

 voice of birds of the crow kind, whose notes are 

 most markedly cries or calls to their fellows, as 

 distinguished from singing? Once adopted in 

 this particular case, it would naturally be extended 

 to any kind of cry or call, from the harshest to 

 the softest. 



In the case of ideas unconnected with any 

 natural sound, names would readily be suggested 

 in many cases by analogies, real or fancied, with 

 things that were attended by sounds (e. g. a loud 

 colour). 



The imitative theory by no means excludes the 

 view that words may grow out of those natural 

 involuntary exclamations those a/is and ohs and 

 poohs which seem produced by a reflex action 

 of the emotions on the outward organs. It is 

 highly probable that the natural organic expres- 

 sion of disgust, ugh ! gave rise to Eng. ugly, Old 

 Eng. ugsome. Eng. woe, is clearly cognate with 

 the Latin and Greek interjections vae and ouai. 



But although language may have had its first 

 beginnings in this way, it is hopeless to look for 

 traces of onomatoposia in the great bulk of the 

 words of any modern tongue. We have seen how 

 a general name for 'calling' might arise from an 

 imitation of the crow's voice. The operation of 

 this principle, and that of phonetic change, which 

 makes it impossible to say what the very earliest 

 form of a root may have been, are sufficient to 

 account for the absence of such traces, except in 

 comparatively rare instances. 





