LANGUAGE. 



373 



his philosophical language, the substantive verb to 



be: 



Infinitive. 

 Eire = sas 

 Avoir 6'6 = sis 

 Devoir 6tie = BUS 

 Etant sent. 



Indicative I'nstnt. 

 Je suis = josa 

 Tueg = to sa 

 II est =lo a 

 N(mssonitnes= no sa 

 Voiia Stes = vo sa 

 Us sotit = zo sa. 



It is needless to proceed farther : every one will see 

 that the structure of the French language is servilely 

 imitated, with a little of the Latin; and the only 

 improvement, or rather alteration, is a tiresome 

 uniformity in the termination of words. Bishop 

 Wilkins's system is more metaphysical, and of 

 course more complicated. He affects an antithetical 

 arrangement of his words, according to the ideas 

 which they express ; thus he says, if Da signifies God, 

 then ida must signify its opposite, or an idol; if 

 dab be spirit, odab will be body; if dad be heaven, odad 

 will signify /tell. With respect to dissyllables, ifpida 

 be presence . pid-as will be absence; if tadn he power, 

 tadiis will be impotence, &c. His numerals are as 

 follows : 



P..bal, 10; pobol, 20; pobel, 30. 



Pobar, 100; pobnr, 200; pober, 300. 



Pobani, 1000; pobora, 2000 ; pobem, 3000. 



Poban, 100,000 ; pobon, 200,000 ; poben, 300,000. 



One thousand 

 Pobuin 



six hundred 

 poljur 



sixty 

 pobul 



six. 

 pobu. 



His arrangement of words in regular rows of prefixed 

 syllables and terminations, is very different from the 

 order which nature follows in all her works, in the 

 structure of languages as in every thing else. She 

 aims not at a childish uniformity. Hers is not the 

 garden where " grove nods at grove ; each alley has 

 a brother," She delights on the contrary, in " pleas- 

 ing intricacies," and every where introduces an " art- 

 ful wildness," to " perplex" while it embellishes the 

 scene. But not so presumptuous man. Under the 

 mask of a false philosophy, he sets himself up as a 

 rival to nature, which he neither knows nor under- 

 stands. True philosophy, in a more humble spirit, 

 observes and studies her noble works, contented to 

 admire, and not presuming to imitate. 



All those who have attempted to invent a new 

 language, have taken for their models those that 

 they were most familiar with. Father Lami, how- 

 ever, the author of an esteemed French work upon 

 rhetoric, speaking of the possibility of composing a 

 factitious idiom, proposes, as a type, the language of 

 the Mongul Tartars, probably to make a show of 

 some little knowledge he had of that tongue. But 

 none of these writers thought of framing a language 

 on abstract principles, founded on the most natural 

 arrangement and concatenation of ideas : even the 

 transitive verbs of the Hebrew and other Oriental 

 languages, including in one word the idea of the 

 objective as well as of the governing pronoun, does 

 not appear to have occurred to their minds. It would 

 liave been in vain, however, that they should have 

 sought for a system of grammatical forms more natu- 

 ral than another, since, as we have before observed, 

 all the existing grammatical systems, differing as 

 they do from each other, are equally the work of 

 nature, operating through the minds of men, pos- 

 sessing various physical and moral qualities, and 

 producing different results, though all equally tend- 

 ing to the same end the intercourse of human minds 

 with each other, through the medium of the organs 

 of speech. 



We will not, therefore, stop to inquire whether 

 any of the existing languages are more perfect than 

 the others. Perfection is relative to its object. 

 Whatever is adequate to the end for which it was 

 made, cannot be improved but with respect, to some 



new objects, to which the times or circumstance! 

 require that it should be adapted. And that im- 

 provement in language is the work of nature, not of 

 philosophy, literature, or science. Necess-ity some- 

 times, and sometimes caprice, introduces new words 

 into a language, and chance directs the choice. The 

 same process takes place in the improvement of 

 languages, or rather in the additions made to them, 

 as in their formation. Words are borrowed from 

 neighbouring idioms, or framed by analogy from 

 those in common use, by the first man who thinks 

 he lias occasion for them, and they are adopted, or 

 not, by the multitude, as chance or fashion directs. 

 Words are often introduced without necessity, and 

 without much regard to euphony, or the genius of 

 the idiom. It has lately become fashionable to say 

 approval for approbation, withdrawal instead of with- 

 drawing; and many other similar new-coined words 

 are gradually coming into use. These innovations 

 make the language more copious, not more perfect. 

 The synonymes, in process of time, assume shades of 

 difference in their meaning, which are not thought of 

 when the words are first used. But we are con- 

 stantly asked whether the Greek, that enchants us 

 so much in the works of Homer and Pindar, is not a 

 more perfect language than, for instance, the Iro- 

 quois, or the Algorikin. We answer, that it is not. 

 We must not confound perfection with cultivation. 

 The wild rose that grows in our forests is not less a 

 perfect flower than that which adorns our gardens. 

 The latter is more pleasing to our fastidious senses; 

 but will even the most skilful gardener dare to say 

 that he has perfected the work of his Creator? Lan- 

 guages are instruments which have come perfect 

 from the heads of the makers. But they are played 

 on better or worse by different artists. Homer played 

 well on the Greek: he would have played equally 

 well on the Iroquois. If we are to judge of the 

 perfection of a language by the method and regularity 

 of its grammatical forms, that of the Lenni Lenape, 

 of which we have an excellent grammar, by Zeisber- 

 ger, published in the third volume of the new series 

 of the American Philosophical Transactions, is far 

 superior to our own English, the most anomalous of 

 all idioms, made up almost entirely of monosyllables, 

 full of sibilants and inarticulate vowel sounds ; in 

 short, a language which, a priori, would be probably 

 pronounced barbarous and uncouth but hear that, 

 instrument played upon by Milton, Shakspeare, Dry- 

 den, Pope! If you think that it is the superior per- 

 fection of the language that ravishes your senses, and 

 carries you up to the third heavens, you will be much 

 mistaken. It is only the talent of the immortal artists. 

 It is the art of the gardener, who has cultivated this 

 wild tree, and made it produce delicious fruits. But 

 the perfection of a language does not consist in the 

 regularity or in the anomaly of its forms, in its being 

 compounded of monosyllables or polysyllables, or of 

 such or such consonant or vowel sounds predominat- 

 ing in its utterance. Nature in this, as in all her 

 other works, delights in variety. The imperial lily 

 and the humble violet are alike perfect flowers; the 

 barren pine, the stately oak, and the fragrant orange- 

 tree, are alike perfect plants, various in their organi- 

 zation and in their structure, but all adequate to the 

 end for which they were created. Languages were 

 made for the purpose of communication between men, 

 and all are adequate to that end. We have heard 

 that the Chinese language is so imperfect, that men 

 are obliged, in conversation, in order to explain their 

 meaning, to trace, with their fingers, in the air, the 

 figure of written characters. This is exaggerated. 

 We have seen sensible and intelligent Chinese, who 

 have assured us that they never are at a loss to 

 explain their ideas by spoken words. . It happens, 



