93 



LANGUAGE. 



LANGUAGE. 



with thin consonants, the one or other must change its character. For 

 example, in Greek you may prefer the thin consonant and say eitTa, 

 OKTU, or you may prefer the thick and say e&Bofios, 078005 ; but adapta- 

 tion, at any rate for the voice, is required. So again labials and den- 

 tals refuse to coalesce. A German says lende, ' loins,' a Roman said 

 : in Greek we have ava-Sev-ea>, or for an ^Eolian av-&fv-(iv, " to 

 wet for the first time ;" in Latin im-bti-ere is preferred. But the most 

 important, yet most neglected, law of assimilation in the composition 

 of words, is that which concerns the vowels. No doubt the Sanscrit 

 grammarian dwells at sufficient length, on the effect produced by the con- 

 tact of two vowels, as when he tells us that the meeting of a final a 

 with an initial i leads to the substitution of the intermediate vowel e, 

 and similarly that the junction of a with u produces the intermediate 

 vowel o. But a far more material point is the adaptation of vowels, 

 more or less, when they are separated by consonants. In all dealings 

 with vowels, whether in this Sanscrit habit of combining a and t into 

 e, or a and M into o, or in the larger question now opened, the main 

 guide of the philologer is the vowel law, established by the experiments 

 of Professor Willis, namely, that the kind of vowel-sound produced 

 by the vibration of a reed, depends solely on the length of the tube 

 that intervenes between the reed and the point of opening into the 

 outer air ; and that, as the reed is lengthened, we have a succession of 

 Bounds in the same invariable order, i, e, a, o, it, aa pronounced by an 

 Italian, not that the sound jumps from one of them to the next, but 

 passes by imperceptible degrees through other sounds intermediate 

 between them, which our alphabet is utterly unequal to denote, and 

 indeed no alphabet could in perfection. But for the full comprehen- 

 sion of the question, the paper, or rather two papers, should be read in 

 extauo, as given in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society for Nov. 24, 1828, and March 16, 1829. Now as the character of 

 the vowel depends, for the human voice, solely on the distance between 

 the chorda mcales in the laryiuc, which act as the musical reed, and 

 the margin of the lips, and is otherwise in no way dependent on the 

 form taken by the organs of speech ; and as on the other hand the 

 character of the consonants depends solely on the form and relative 

 position for the time of these organs, the length of the vocal tube being 

 immaterial, it follows that it is an easier matter to produce the sound of a 

 polysyllable.all the vowels of which are the same or similar ; and in this, 

 as in all the labours of man, the saving of trouble is a paramount conside- 

 ration; Hence, in savage nations, the abundant supply of such geogra- 

 phical terms ag Miuisnppi, Tenneaee, Alabama, Oronoco, in America, 

 or of Kamtdiatka, Japan, Palawan, Saraieak, Sambawa, Samarang, 

 Jlalambaiigan, Banco, Java, Malacca, Andaman. M'iilii<i<i.icar, Loorhoo, 

 Siou-ion, tinnloo, Comoro, Ac., in Asia. Hence too in the formation of 

 secondary words there is a constant tendency to assimilate the vowels 

 of united syllables, when they happen to be discordant. This may be 

 effected in several ways, by the adaptation of the first vowel to that 

 which follows or the converse, or thirdly by an approach of one or 

 both to some intermediate sound. It is commonly by a modification 

 of the first syllable that the object is attained in the German, Scandi- 

 navian, and Keltic languages, and so far as the principle prevails in 

 Greek and Latin, all of which are members of the great Indo-European 

 family. On the other hand, in the languages of Tartary, Turkey, and 

 Hungary, as well as those in northern Europe and Asia, spoken by the 

 Finns, Lapps, ftc., it is the suffixed syllable that is compelled to take 

 a vowel more or less similar to the vowel of the preceding syllable. 

 Hence,'in languages of this class, for all that have been just enumerated 

 belong to one family, we find suffixes to a great extent running in 

 pain, which, with a common power, have no other difference in form 

 than the interchange of a strong and weak vowel. Thus, in Turkish, 

 kalpak, a cap, has nom. pi. kalpak-lar : but 4e, a house, has a nom. pi. 

 fc-ler ; and again the datives pi. of these nouns are respectively kalpak- 

 lar-ah and (vler-eh. Or, to take an example from the Hungarian, 

 the verbs rdr, " wait," and timer, " know," form the following 

 persona: 



varok, I wait, 

 virunk, we wait. 

 vaHok, ye wait, 

 varnak, they wait. 

 varatok, ye waited. 



ismerek, I know, 

 ismeriink, we know, 

 ismertek, ye know, 

 ismernek, they know, 

 ismere'tek, ye knew. 



Nay to iuch an extent is this law of assimilation carried out in the 

 Mongolian, that it is turned to account in economising the number of 

 alphabetical characters. As the first occurring vowel decides the 

 character of those that follow, a common symbol is used in all syllable* 

 after the first for a and e, a second common symbol for o and 6. 



But in the other divixiun of languages, as was just said, it is the first 



syllable that adapts itself to those which follow. If we look to the 



n languages, the familiar modification called " umlaut " is for the 



most part made in the direction of exchanging strong for weaker 



vowels. Thus a, o, n, if followed by a syllable containing either / or c, 



are apt to become ii, o, U respectively, where the two dots represent, 



and indeed have grown out of, an e, and ae, oe, ue, severally denote 



i weaker than those which they displace. One of the most 



nting cases of the umlaut to be found in German,-is seen in the 



I and third persons of many so-called irregular verbs, as tchlaf-en 



'/ tchlafeit, er Khlaft; itou-en, "to push," dn itottet, er 



Hut. But it may be aiked why the same modification is not found 



in the other persons, ich schlafe, wir schlafen, &c., and the answer in 

 only to be found in the formation of the old German, where the suffixes 

 of the several persons are : 1. u, 2. is, 3. it ; pi. 1. ames ; 2. at, 

 3. ant ; so that the only persons which by the weak vowel of their 

 suffixes were originally entitled to the influence, are precisely those 

 for which it is claimed. But it is not merely the a, o, u, which are 

 subject to the influence of the umlaut ; to the same cause must be 

 attributed the modification which occurs in the second and third 

 persona of brechen, " to break," whence dn bridist, er bricht; essen, " to 

 eat," du issest, er isst ; geschehen, " to happen," es geschieht. 



But while the weakening of stronger vowels is the phenomenon so 

 common in German, the Norse, over and above this, abounds in 

 examples of the converse action. Thus kulla, " to call," has kSllum, 

 " we call," where o has a sound more nearly akin to u than to o itself. 

 Again, drecka, " to drink," has a past tense sing, drack, pi. druckum, 

 while the subjunctive is drycki. Similarly dor, " a spear," has in the pi. : 

 n. dtrir, ac. dm, dat. dorum, gen. darra. Nay the influence of the 

 added suffix often extends over two syllables. Thus from the same 

 verb, kalla, is deduced a past tense, which hi the singular has for its 

 first two syllables kalla'S ; but taking a in the three suffixes of the 

 plural, presents us with l>er kotlu'tSum, i>er koUiifticS, Jjeir kollttftii. 

 Similarly among the adjectives, the form hagaat, " most handy," /<;' 

 ( = Lat alter), have for the^dat. pi. hot/tutum, WrvM> Still more effec- 

 tive is the attraction in ketil, a " kettle," which has pi. : n. katlar, ac. 

 kulla, dat. kotlitm, gen. katla. 



In the Keltic family the following examples of modified plurals are 

 taken from the Breton : baz " stick," bizier ; la.ro, " bull," tirri ; fatch, 

 " scythe," jilchier ; mab, "son," miftien ; dred, "starling," dridi ; lestr, 

 " boat," lixtri ; and even with the influence extending through two 

 syllables : kalrez, " carpenter," kilrhien ; enez, " island," inizi. In some 

 of the examples the suffix of plurality, whether it was en or er, after 

 effecting the modification of the previous vowel, is itself dropped ; no 

 doubt because the modification itself gave a sort of notice that the 

 plural suffix was about to appear, and so by anticipation rendered 

 that suffix superfluous, the consequence being that, what was thus 

 useless, was dropt. Similarly we find dant, " tooth," pi. dent ; oan, 

 "lamb," tin; ilanrad, "sheep," dtiired ; abostol, "apostle," abestel ; 

 azrouand, " devil," ezrevend ; eacob, " bishop," esquebyen, or esqeb. The 

 Breton verb is even more instructive in respect of this law. Thus 

 gall-out, " to be able " (ral-ere), has for its future : 1. gellinn or ijillimi : 

 or ijilli ; 3. galli or ge/16; pi. 1. ijtllimp or uillimp ; 2. t/allot or 

 yellut ; 3. gellint or yillint where it may be observed that yell has to 

 contend with a rival, gill, whenever the weak /' follows, and with gall 

 before a suffix containing a strong o. In the verb tavar-out, " to say," 

 the assimilation runs through two syllables, as lavarann, " I say ; " 

 leverez, " thou sayst ; " limrit, " ye say." It should be added that when 

 the vowel thus subjected to " umlaut " is ou (u, oo), a trace of the oo 

 sound is preserved by the substitution of we. Thus from gouzout, " to 

 know," comes a future, ijicez-inn. In English the principle has a more 

 extensive sway than is commonly supposed. A few examples are : 

 old, elder; good (Germ, yut), better (for gwetter cf. gwezinn, just dealt 

 with) ; cat, kitten ; foal, filly ; one, any ; fox, vixen ; shake, shiver ; quake, 

 . /n-i/thee ; cock, chicken; Jane, Jenny; Kate, Kitty. And not 

 unfrequently the modification extends beyond what the written form 

 denotes, as in Greenwich ; grass, grazier ; one, any ; brother, A'nglish, 

 women. In our plurals, such s&geese,feet, uitmen, we have what was just 

 seen in the Breton, the modification of the root vowel (of goose, &c.) 

 by the weak vowel of a plural suffix, and then the loss of that suffix. 



We may occasionally trace the action of the same principle in the 

 classical languages, as vofi.o-(n. ropos) and venr-(n. vcpos), from the 

 verb v(i^-fif ; yom-(n. 701/05) and yfvtav-(n. yens), from yf of yiyvfiv ; 

 arpiaipa- and vu/ta-, as secondary verbs, from o-Tpe<f>- and ,u-, while in 

 opoipo- beside the verb tpf<t>-, we see two syllables subjected to the 

 influence. For Latin we may quote bene beside bonus ; velim, vettem, 

 relle beside volo, volam, volant ; and in the conjugation of the verb i- 

 " go " and the pronoun t- (n. is) the law holds that whenever the 

 following vowel is a, o, or u, the t of the base gives way to the stronger 

 vowel e, as earn, eo, eunt for the verb, ea, eo, eum for the pronoun. 

 The instances now quoted are few, but must not be taken as in any 

 way a fan- measure of the extent to which the law of vocal assimilation 

 holds in Greek and Latin. Other examples will follow, and more be 

 hinted at. 



The principles which have been enounced, oi consonantal and vowel 

 assimilation, together with the general doctrine that man endeavours 

 to lessen the labour of speech by every species of curtailment and 

 abbreviation, are not sufficient to explain the anomalies of word forrn- 

 atiou. We must further allow for the interchange of convertible 

 letters, on which subject we may refer to the article ALPHAHET, where 

 the general relations of the letters to each other are considered, and to 

 the separate articles on the individual letters. But it is scarcely more 

 important to lay down true principles than to guard an inquirer against 

 prevailing fallacies. No field more abounds in weeds of this character 

 than the learned pages devoted to the subject of the so-called gram- 

 matical figures. To such of them as denote the loss of letters, whether 

 initial, internal, or final, the only objection is, that they are often 

 thought to carry with them an explanation, whereas their only use can 

 be to serve as labels for a given class of changes. But all those pseudo- 

 learned terms which are so freely used by philologers to account for 



