522 



PHILOLOGY. 



and peculiar structure. See Eltmens de la Gram- 

 maire Japonaise, par le P. Rodriguez, traduits du 

 Portugais, par lit. C. Landusse (Paris 1825.) 



It would be exceeding the limits of this article, 

 were we to Uike notice of all the varieties that exist 

 in the structure and grammatical forms of the numer- 

 ous languages of the old world. It is sufficient to 

 have pointed out the most striking diversities, and 

 to have marked out the way for those who are dis- 

 posed to inquire further into this interesting subject. 

 It is a wide field, which has as yet been but super- 

 ficially examined, and from a more particular investi- 

 gation of which most important results may be ex- 

 pected. Hitherto, tile classification of languages by 

 philologists has only had regard to their etymologi- 

 cal affinities. They have been divided into families, 

 supposed to have been derived from a common stock, 

 or from each other. No objection can be made to 

 tin's distribution, which has been followed by Ade- 

 lung, Vater, Klaproth, Balbi, and all the other emi- 

 nent linguists. But languages are also susceptible 

 of being classed according to their grammatical struc- 

 ture, which is not the least prominent feature in their 

 external appearance; and such a classification will 

 considerably aid in tracing idioms to their respective 

 sources. Mr Duponceau has given us an outline of 

 his ideas upon the subject. He has only noticed 

 the great divisions, and sketched out a few genera, 

 leaving the species and varieties to be described 

 hereafter. He divides the languages of the old hemi- 

 sphere into four classes, the first consisting of the 

 Chinese and its cognate idioms, which he calls 

 asyntactic. The Scandinavian and Teutonic langua- 

 ges form a second class, which he calls analytic, " be- 

 cause," says he, " their forms are so organized that 

 almost every idea lias a single word to convey or ex- 

 press it." The third class consists of those langua- 

 ges in which several ideas are combined into one 

 word, by means of inflections, affixes, suffixes, and 

 other grammatical forms. Such are the Oriental lan- 

 guages, the Latin, Greek, Slavonic, and others of 

 the same description. These he calls synthetic, 

 Of the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, with 

 their various dialects, in which conquest has, in a 

 great degree, intermixed the modes of speech of the 

 second and third class, he forms a fourth, which he 

 calls mixed. Of the American languages, the most 

 complicated of all, he makes a fifth class or genus, 

 under the name of poly synthetic. (See the corres- 

 pondence between Mr Duponceau and Mr Hecke- 

 welder in the first volume of the Historical and 

 Literary Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society, pp. 400, 401.) It is easy to perceive that 

 this is not a complete classification of languages in 

 respect to their forms. The Basque does not ap- 

 pear to be included in any one of the five classes ; 

 nor is the Coptic noticed, nor the Finic, and others 

 of the family called Tschudish, though all those idioms 

 and others, such as, for instance, the Malay and its 

 numerous family, have peculiar characters, which 

 philology will hereafter more accurately define. The 

 languages of the interior of Africa, will also be a 

 subject of particular investigation in this point of 

 view. The ideology of languages, as we have al- 

 ready observed, is yet in its infancy, and waits the 

 hand of genius to methodize and elucidate it. If, 

 however, it shall continue to advance, as it has done 

 within the last thirty years, there is no doubt but 

 that it will, in time, throw considerable light on the 

 history of man. 



PHILOLOGY, in a narrower sense. At the begin- 

 ning of the preceding article, the various meanings 

 of the. word philology have been given, and the sub- 

 ject has been treated in its widest acceptation. We 

 shall now give a few words on philology in a more 



limited sense, meaning the knowledge and criticism 

 of the ancient languages and the works written there- 

 I in, in which sense the word is commonly used by the 

 Germans, who give to the science in its wider sense 

 the designation of Linguistik or Sprachenkunde (sci- 

 ence of languages.) 



History of Philology. Eratosthenes (270 230 B. 

 C.) was first called philologus. He was famous as an 

 astronomer and geographer, and was, at the same 

 time, superintendent of the Alexandrian library. The 

 philology of the early Alexandrians embraced anti- 

 quities, in its wider sense, especially mythology, gram- 

 mar, hermeneutics, grammatical and philosophical 

 criticism, rhetoric and prosody. (See Alexandrian 

 School.) Through their means chiefly the most im- 

 portant monuments of Greek literature have descend- 

 ed to us ; and our power of understanding and re- 

 lishing them is, in a great measure, owing to the in- 

 vestigations of the Alexandrians into the use of 

 words, the construction of language, the genuine- 

 ness of whole works and single passages, and to 

 their learned commentaries and compilations. Creu- 

 zer, in his learned and ingenious work On the Academ- 

 ical Study of Antiquity (in German, Heidelberg, 

 1807), thinks that traces of this philology are per- 

 ceptible as early as the age of the Pisistratides, 

 whose merits, in respect to the collection of the Ho- 

 meric poems, are known ; also in the establishment 

 i of libraries after the time of Pisistratus, in the spirit 

 I of inquiry which marked the Sophists, and the marii- 

 | fold learning and literary accomplishments of Aris- 

 ! totle ; but Alexandria he justly calls the first centre 

 ! of a learned life and activity. In Asia Minor, also, 

 i where Pergamus was distinguished whose kings, par- 

 j ticularly Attalus II. (died 153 B. C.), were patrons 

 j and cultivators of literature : in Greece Proper, 

 j particularly in Athens and Rhodes ; in Magna Grse- 

 cia, and more especially, in Syracuse, literati and 

 philologists in the narrower sense arose. Scholiasts 

 and lexicographers are found among the Greeks as 

 late as the fifteenth century, since the influence of 

 Greek literature in the Eastern Roman empire never 

 ceased entirely. 



The Romans were first led to a scientific study of 

 the Greek language by the Greek Crates of Mallus 

 (169 B. C. ). Philological or grammatical science 

 embraced, according to Cicero, also the critical study 

 of the Greek poets, the knowledge of history, the 

 explanation of words, and correct pronunciation. 

 Besides the Greek, the Roman language and Roman 

 I antiquities were also cultivated by M. Terentius 

 Varro, a celebrated historian and multifarious writer 

 (116127 B. C. ), M. Verrius Flaccus (under Au- 

 gustus), Asinius Pollio and others ; and the princi- 

 ples of the Greek language were applied to the La- 

 tin. Lucius Plotius taught Latin grammar in Ci- 

 cero's time. M. Fab. Quintilian and Aul. Gellius 

 were philologists in a wider sense. The most con- 

 siderable libraries were carried to Rome. Roman 

 literature strove to imitate the Greek. Then ap- 

 peared commentators on Roman authors (as Asconius 

 Pedianus on Cicero's speeches, ./Elius Donatus on 

 Terence and others) after 50 A. D., of whom many 

 delivered lectures on the Roman classics. Donatus 

 (354 A. D.) and Priscianus (524 A. D.) are among 

 the chief writers on Latin grammar. 



In proportion as Christianity extinguished pagan- 

 ism, the study of the Greek and Roman antiquities and 

 literature was discouraged, especially by the earliest 

 teachers of Christianity, who considered every thing 

 connected with paganism injurious and corrupting, 

 and thus contributed considerably to the decline of 

 ! learning and science. It was not, indeed, to be ex- 

 pected that the early Christians should have contem- 

 plated the excellences and defects of pagan antiquity 



