Jax. 1, 188G.] 



♦ KNO\VLEDGE ♦ 



87 



(fee, pronounce the corresponding soft check, the old 

 High- Germans the corresponding hard check. 2. If in 

 Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Slavonic, and Celtic, 

 we find a soft check, tlien we find a corresponding hard 

 check in Gothic, a corresponding breath in Old High- 

 German. 3. When the six languages n?.ined aLove show 

 a hard consonant, then Gothic shows the corresponding 

 breatli. Old High-German the corresponding soft check. 

 In Old High-German, however, tlie law only ap])lies to 

 dentals, // and / generally appearing in documents instead 

 of the soft consonants r/ and h. The following table* 

 clearly shows the changes which take phice under 

 Grimm's Law, and I reprint it not only because it is one 

 of the best illustiv.tions of how words may be altered by 

 change in the uttered sotmds. but also because the law 

 is so often referred to in variotis works, that it is useful to 

 know exactlv what it is. 



C&mskrit ch (111 illi (li) lili(li) 



IGrcek ih Ih pli 



f Latin hf (gv) f (il h) 



I Old Irish e d 



I Old Slaronic ' gB d 



tLithuanian :! gz d 



Gottiic g d 



Old Higli-GeTman .. k t 



Il 

 b 



1. 

 P 



e 



g» 



g* 



t 



b cq« t p 



h? c (fh)ll(tli) (p)- 



1, k I p 



1> 1» t r 



(p)? hg(f) Ih .1 

 f pli h s k .1 



f 1. 



Thus, 1, garden, Gothic gards, Latin liortiis, Greek 

 churtos ; 2, deer, Anglo-Saxon deor, Gothic dius, Greek 

 ther ov 'phrr, Latin /eca, Old High- German tior : 3, beech. 

 Old High-German pnocha, Gothic boka, Latin fag}i,s, 

 Greek phegds (meaning oak) ; 4, corn. Old High-German 

 cJiorn, Gothic Jcanra, Lithuanian girnis, Slavonic :r'no, 

 Latin granum, Sanskrit (/I'nia (meaning ground doivii); 

 5. timber, Gothic thnr or tirabr, from which tinrjrn to 

 build, German ziiiimer a room, Latin domus house, 

 Greek domos hou.se, demein to build, Sanskrit dama a 

 room ; 6, few Saxon words begin with p, and no Gothic 

 words, unless foreign importations. In Sanskrit, also, b, 

 which ought to correspond to Gothic p, is seldom an 

 initial sound, being replaced by the labial breathing i' ; 

 7, heart, German her;:. Old High-German herza, Gothic 

 Aafr/o, Latin cor, Greek /rarrfia ; 8, iAree, High-German 

 drei, Gothic thrais, Latin tres, Greek treis, Sanskrit 

 trayas ; 9, fare, as in v:elfare, German trollfaJirf, Greek 

 porog, a passage. 



" Sound etymology," as Max Miiller has epigram- 

 matically remarked, " has nothing to do with sound, " and 

 the following rules laid down by him should never be 

 forgotten in an inquiry such as the present : — 



1, The same word takes different forms iu different 

 languages; 2, The same word takes diftVreiit forms in the 

 same language ; 3, Different words take the same form 

 in different languages ; 4, Different words take the same 

 form in the same language. Tlie time has gone by for 

 etymologies based purely on analogies of sound, such as 

 we find, f<ir instance, throughrmt Webster's magnificent 

 dictionary, where Chaldee is stated to be the original 

 language, and the Greek para and English over are 

 connected with Hebrew ngabar, to pass over ; Greek 

 agailios, English gond, li-c, with Arabic gada, to be 

 useful, profitable ; English Ulce, German gleich with 

 Hebrew hhahil- and Arabic hhahil-a. to be smootli ; and 

 so on. The study of Sanskrit and the consequent dis- 

 covery of Grimm's Law jiut an end to this kind of loose 

 etymological guesses, and placed the science of language 



* Taken from MiiUer's "Lectures on the Science of Language," 

 vol. n., Lect. v., which see for further information on this subject. 



upon a firm foundation. We can now trace the unity of 

 words through great diversity of sounds, and we can do 

 this to such an extent that some writers have maintained 

 that all the words in all the Indo-European languages 

 can be traced back to as few as nine original roots — 

 a sttbject to which I shall refer hereafter. To see 

 how far words may differ from their originals, look 

 at our word lord, from Anglo-Saxon hJ-aford, sevton 

 and sacristan, French sacrisfnith, from the Latin sacris- 

 tani's ; bishop and French ereque from Latin epis- 

 copns. Endless other examples might be quoted, but 1 

 have said enough to illustrate the power of phonetic 

 decay in changing the form and sound of words. 



Among the various causes to which stich changes iit 

 language may be attributed, two of distinctly oppo- 

 site natures arc fotiud to be preeminent : — 1. Eco- 

 nomj- of effort, by which the mass of the people 

 conveys its thoughts in the easiest possible way. 

 2. Elaborate expression with extreme distinctness 

 of utterance, necessary to great orators and pliilo- 

 sophers as a means of leading tlie masses, and con- 

 veying to their hearers in not-to-be-mistaken phrases the 

 ideas they wish to disseminate. By economy of effort 

 difficult sotiuds are slurred over and dropjied, the ends of 

 words are chipped oft', and sentences are left incomplete 

 when it is apparent that they are understood ; hence 

 changes of this sort are especially liable to occur in 

 families where the intercourse between the different 

 members is constant, and thoughts are understood almost 

 before they are expressed. The same thing, on a larger 

 scale, takes place in the formation of dialects. The greats 

 object of language is to be understood, and so long as 

 words are understood they may be iironounced in as 

 slovenlj- a way as is convenient. We individuals are con- 

 scious that we speak in a ditt'ereut way to our own 

 families to what we do in society. When we go entirely 

 amongst strangers we use greater effort in order to be 

 distinct in speaking, for if we addressed them as we do 

 those with whom we are in constant intercourse, we 

 should probably fail to be understood. This point 

 becomes still more apparent if we have to address a 

 large concourse of people. Our audience necessarih' 

 consists of a crowd of minds whose range of ideas and 

 whose vocabtilaries differ greatly from onr own, and it 

 becomes necessary to make considerable effort in order 

 that they shall understand every word we utter. Our 

 words are, therefore, carefully chosen and emphasised, 

 and every consonant is distinctly articulated. Thus, the 

 necessity of being understood by those who are not in 

 intimate communion with the individual speakers acts as 

 a kind of break on tliat phonetic decay which takes place 

 on the principle of economy of effort. These two appa- 

 rently contradictory principles become recoiu-iled by the 

 great power of imitation, tlie mass being raised thereby 

 to approach the level of the orators who lead them, while 

 the orators themselves are not entirely free from the 

 power of the principle of least effort, which influences 

 even them, since much of thtir time is necessarily spent 

 in familiar intercourse with their kindred. 



Interesting and instructive as is the study of phonetic 

 changes, it is far distanced iu importance from a psycho- 

 logical point of view by the sttidy of the changes of the 

 sense of words. We have so far dealt with the purely 

 anatomical evolution of language, but I hope iu my next 

 to di.scuss its intellectual growth, for in the changes of 

 the meanings of words we find the history of the mental 

 development of their speakers. We shall see how great 

 things come from small beginnings, and how the noble 

 abstractions of science have grown up from the gropings 



