NATURE OF LANGUAGES. 357 



former belonging to the individual who is making the experiment, and 

 the other arising from the air which his companion is blowing into the 

 tube. There is no kind of difficulty in constructing a simple kind of in- 

 strument from which the sounds of the vowels can be produced by gen- 

 tly blowing air into it. 



The consonants are of two kinds, the explosive and continuous. The 

 former arise from an abrupt and momentary action, and dis- Explosive and 

 appear at once; as examples of these, the letters b, d,p, in continuous con- 

 which it may be remarked that the characteristic of the 

 sound disappears in an instant ; hence the term explosive ; and if any 

 attempt be made to continue it, it issues in the utterance of the vowel e ; 

 but in the continuous consonants this does not take place, as in the let- 

 ters n,f, s. In the case of the consonants, as in that of the vowels, the 

 peculiar arrangement of the parts of the mouth, though difficult to de- 

 scribe, may be readily ascertained by personal experiment. 



Of vocal sounds thus originating, it may be remarked, .that in the low- 

 er tribes of animals, their chief use seems to have reference to Use of the 

 the perpetuation of the race. Even in the highest, the changes voice of ani- 

 of the reproductive and vocal organs often occur contempora- 

 neously ; but, though this may be true of mere sounds, the modulated 

 variations thereof have a far more general use. Of languages it may be 

 said that they are the creation of groups or nations of .men, not of indi- 

 viduals, and hence they reach beyond the compass of indi- of languages: 

 vidual life, in some instances having endured for thousands their duration, 

 of years. Moreover, if critically considered, each often contains the his- 

 tory of the race by which it is spoken, and even manifests the broader 

 features of its character ; so our own tongue contains the indications of 

 the two chief political events which have befallen the English nation, at 

 least so far as foreign relations are concerned the conquest of Britain by 

 the Komans, and, a thousand years after, by the French. In conse- 

 quence of the first of these events, the language became, so far as com- 

 mon expressions are concerned, almost bi-lingual. Such simple illustra- 

 tions as the words God, deity ; fatherly, paternal ; motherly, maternal ; 

 heavenly, celestial ; earthly, terrestrial ; hellish, infernal ; womanly, fem- 

 inine, may serve as examples. So well recognized are these principles 

 among linguists that they are resorted to for the decision of pre-historic- 

 al questions. The best and most precise evidence that we have of the 

 Indian origin of the German nations is derived from the occurrence of 

 Sanscrit roots in their vocabulary, and analogies in their grammar. The 

 names of many domestic animals, of farming implements, and of many 

 common objects, are the same in Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, and German. 



Nay, even more than this, from the structure of a language, collated 

 with the history of the people by which it is spoken, we can often judge 



