172 PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



are those that are most easily formed, viz. semivowels and labial 

 consonants (pa, ba, ma, bru, bra, pro), which require only a single 

 action of the lips that are perfectly formed from birth and capable 

 of function. A little later comes the formation of the alveolar 

 consonants (da, to] which cannot be uttered till the jaws are well 

 developed and the teeth protruding. The palatals and volars are 

 acquired later, both because they are harder to form, and because 

 the development of the soft palate is completed. Ca (Tea) is easier 

 than ga, which does not occur in primitive languages, as g was a 

 later modification of c. The ga sound is often replaced by children 

 with ta. The semivowel r is harder to pronounce than ra, n, and 

 /. Many children and adults lisp, i.e. are unable to utter the 

 alveolar r, and substitute I for it. 



Up to a certain point there is a parallelism between the 

 ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of language in the 

 different races. Some primitive languages are very rich in vowels ; 

 but after a certain point of development they employ many 

 consonants. Up to the present there has been no comprehensive 

 study of the development of primitive idioms, but it may be stated 

 generally that languages, like individuals, evolve until they reach a 

 certain point of development, after which they suffer a slow but 

 persistent transformation, for worse or for better. 



It is well known that the dialects of savage races may undergo 

 such modifications in the course of a few years that they are 

 hardly recognisable. Writing and written language play an 

 important part in checking or hindering the natural tendency of 

 every language to transformation, but this is largely promoted 

 by contact between the several dialects and vernaculars, as well 

 as by intercourse between peoples who employ different idioms. 



The great historical transformation of Latin into the modern 

 Romance languages may perhaps be taken as an illustration of the 

 above. Even before the fall of the Roman Empire it was favoured 

 by the predominating influences of the unlettered popular dialects 

 during the early part of the Middle Ages, over the fixed idiom of 

 the Latin Codices. The metamorphosis took place more rapidly 

 in France than in Italy, which was the centre of Roman civilisation. 

 And French literature was, for this very reason, nearly two 

 centuries ahead of Italian literature. 



But while written literature may check the natural evolution 

 of a language, it can never arrest it, for its development is the 

 work of the people, not of the writers. This is plain from the 

 discrepancy between any language in the strict sense, and its 

 literature i.e. between spoken and written language. The 

 difference is greatest in the English language, in which the written 

 or printed words are not so much a symbolic representation of the 

 different tones and sounds of which they are built up, as mere 

 mnemonic signs a little plainer and more expressive than the 



