Nov. 1, 1885.] 



KNOV\^LEDGE 



27 



question : " Suppose we had no voice and tongue and 

 wanted to communicate witli one another, should we not, 

 like the deaf and dumb, make siy-ns with the hands, the 

 head, and the rest of the body?" a question which he 

 answers in the iiifirmative. "We should imitate the 

 nature of the thing ; raising our hands towards heaven 

 would mean lightness and upwardness ; heaviness and 

 downwardness would be expressed by letting them drop 

 to the ground ; the running of a horse or other animal 

 would be expressed by the most nearly similar gestures 

 of our own frame. . . . The body can only express 

 anything by bodilj- imitation . . . and when we want to 

 indicate our meaning with the voice, tongue, and mouth, 

 is not the indic."otion of anything by means of them iden- 

 tical with their imitation of that thing ? " Hermogenes 

 admits the truth of the statement that the name is a 

 vocal imitation of what is named ; but then Socrates 

 !',stonishes him by saying that they have not yet reached 

 the truth, " because then we should be obliged to admit 

 that the people who imitate sheep, or cock.s, or other 

 animals name that which they imita.te." Here he falls 

 into an error brought about by taking too limited a view 

 of the case. To a certain extent it may be said that 

 those who imitate animals name what they imitate ; "for 

 if the imitation is good, a second per.sou would at tmce 

 recognise the animal imitated. But a distinction ma.y 

 here be drawn between those who imitate without 

 having any intention of thereby communicating an idea 

 and those who imitate with the set purpose of naming 

 with the desire of communicating. The former class 

 may be said not to name, while the latter class are 

 certainly naming. Hence the first position held by 

 Socrates was perfectlj^ tenable, the quibble being evi- 

 dently raised for the purpose of introducing a second 

 proposition which he seems to have considered incom- 

 patible with the first, although, as we shall see, the two 

 are by no means opposed to each other, but probably 

 represent co-operating agencies. 



Still, through the mouth of Socrfttes, Plato goes on to 

 propound the theory that the essences of things are ex- 

 pressed in letters and syllables, which must be classified 

 and analysed in order to understand how the ancients, 

 or, perhaps, the barbarians who preceded them, formed 

 language. Thus he thinks motion is generally indicated 

 by the sound R, because in its pronunciation the tongue 

 is most agitated. " Ph," " ps," "s," and " z," are used 

 to imitate such notions as shivering (psuchron'), seething 

 {:con), to be .shaken (^seisthai'), when it is required to 

 imitate what is windy. The closing of the teeth and 

 jressure of the' tongue in pronouncing "d" and "t" 

 give an idea of binding and rest in a place, the liquid 

 movement of "1" that of smoothness, as in level (leios). 

 " N " sounded from within gives a notion of inwardness, 

 " a " expresses size, " o " roundness, and " oe " (rj) length. 

 Here Plato shows a keen appreciation of the physical 

 aspect of the case, as, for example, in pronouncing " a " 

 (sounded " ah '') the mouth is at its largest capacity, in 

 " o " the lips are rounded, and in " ri ''' (the sound in pale) 

 they are lengthened out. Laying further stress on the 

 idea that the name signifies the nature nf the thing, he 

 continues : — " If the name is to be like the thing, the 

 letters out of which the first names were composed must 

 also he like the things." 



Socrates considers that words were made by the 

 legislator, and so constructed as to express the nature of 

 things ; but this is to attribute a degree of conscious — 

 voluntary action — of deliberate choice and selection to 

 primitive men which is inconsistent with modern views 

 of their mental development. The greater probability is 



that the imitation of nattiral sounds was purely involun- 

 tary, and brought about simply by the fact that they 

 suggested themselves, by being ready for use. Thits, 

 animals get names from the sounds they make, and thus 

 emotional cries are repeated to recall the feelings in 

 which they originated. By a further step, also, just as 

 I have shown that the deaf and dumb, and others who 

 communicate by means of manual and physical signs, 

 make movements corresponding in character to the 

 aspects of the things signified, so by analogy harsh and 

 difficult sounds are used in naming unpleasant objects 

 and ideas, while those easy to pronounce are adopted for 

 pleasing- things and concepts. 



The theory of the origin of language by imitation has, 

 as I have already said, been called the oiiomato]}ietic or 

 name-malcimj theory (Gr. onoma, a name, and poieo, I 

 make), itself a most inexpressive name; its meaning is, 

 however, so well known that it serves as well as any 

 other : for the origin of a word is of little importance 

 provided its present meaning is understood. This is the 

 chief reason why the origin of language is so obscured, 

 for, as I shall show, owing to various circumstances the 

 forms and meanings of words are so changed in the course 

 of years that their original conditions can only be deter- 

 mined with great difficulty. A word having once been 

 adopted, there is no limit to the changes that may be 

 effected in it in accordance with the physical and mental 

 constitutions of the speakers — changes which are accepted 

 by convention : it is, therefore, most unphilosophical to 

 assert, as so many authorities have done, that language 

 could not have had an imitative origin because so few of 

 the words now in use are apparently imitative. 



The changes which take place in language are ex- 

 haustively classified by Whitney as follows : — * 



I. Alterations of the old material of languages. Change 



of words which are retained as the stibstance of 

 expression, and this of two kinds or sub-classes : — 

 1. Change in uttered form. 2. Change in content 

 or signification, the two, as we shall see, occurring 

 either independently or in conjunction. 



II. Losses of the old material of language, disappearance 



of what has been in use ; and this also of two kinds : 

 1. Loss of complete words. 2. Loss of grammatical 

 forms and distinctions. 



III. Production of new material; addition to the old 

 stock of a language in the way of new words or 

 new forms ; external expansion of the resources of 

 expression, 



I. — 1. Changes in the uttered form of language are 

 largely caused by racial and individual peculiarities in 

 the vocal organs. No two people pronounce any word 

 exactly alike, although the difference is frequently so 

 slight that the ear can hardly detect it ; but the difference 

 has a verj^ good reason in the greater or less divergence 

 in the physical constitutions of the speakers. We all 

 know persons who cannot pronounce the letter u-, others 

 who substitute w for r, and others again to whom the 

 Engli.sh sounds of (h, either as in that or in both, are 

 insurmountable difficulties. The last two sounds, which 

 are unpronounceable to but few English people, are almost 

 bej'oncl the powers of the French or German nations ; 

 while the German ch, as in ach, is rarely mastered 

 by an Englishman, and the French r, as iu 

 ijrasicyer, hardly ever. Of the fifty-six elementary 

 sounds known to stvtdents of phonetics, many Euro- 

 pean languages are deficient in fifteen or twenty. 



* " Life and Growth of Language." 187?- Y. H, 



