LANGUAGE. 



stage of the progress, as \vell as in its 

 termination. 



10. Language would proceed but awk- 

 wardly without those wheels which have 

 been gradually made for it : but all which 

 can be thought necessary for communica- 

 tion, are the noun and the verb; and even 

 of the latter the necessity may be justly 

 doubted. We think it next to certain, 

 that the whole of what is now (by asso- 

 ciation) implied or denoted by the verb, 

 beyond what is denoted by the acknow- 

 ledged noun, was originally mere infer- 

 ence from the juxtaposition of the verb- 

 noun with another noun. J\fen fight, are 

 names, and are still acknowledged as 

 such ; placed together, especially if ac- 

 companied by distinguishing tones of 

 voice, it would be naturally inferred that 

 the speaker intended to raise in his hear- 

 er's mind that belief which exists in his 

 own ; in other words, to direct his hearer 

 to make a connection which circumstan- 

 ces has formed in his own mind. By de- 

 grees, at least in some nations, some of 

 those names which were frequently thus 

 employed with the inference of affirma- 

 tion, became somewhat appropriated to 

 convey this inference, and the inference 

 would then be made whenever such a 

 word was employed ; but in the earliest 

 stages of language, the great body of 

 *~<"rbs must have been merely nouns, and 

 iu the more simple languages many of 

 those words which are employed as verbs 

 (i. e. conveying the inference of affirma- 

 tion) are still immediately recognised as 

 nouns. In the Chinese very few names 

 are appropriated as verbs, but are used 

 indiscriminately, and without any change 

 of form either as nouns or as verbs : in the 

 Hebrew, the root (which docs not, like 

 every part of the indicative in the Greek 

 and Latin verbs, include a pronoun) is a 

 simple name, and is in many cases used as 

 a noun ; and in our own language many 

 names are used either as nouns or as 

 verbs. When we have advanced to the 

 frequent use and gradual appropriation 

 of some names to convey the inference 

 of affirmation, the rest is easy and almost 

 certain. With respect to the simple af- 

 firmation, the subject of it would, in the 

 case of the first and second persons, al- 

 ways be a pronoun, and, in the same dis- 

 trict, the same pronoun. This, where 

 spoken language made material progress, 

 would gradually coalesce with the verb ; 

 and the word so formed would be com- 

 pletely invested with the verbal charac- 

 ter, and never be employed but with the 

 inference of affirmation. The same might 

 also be the case respecting the third per- 



son; but the coalescence would in this 

 instance be more slowly formed, and in 

 some languages, where the coalescence 

 took place in the other persons, it did not 

 in this: it must however be admitted, that 

 in others the contrary is the fact. But 

 we have already enlarged on these points 

 as much as our limits will permit; and we 

 therefore beg our readers to refer to 

 C-iHAMMAR, 29,33, for some additional 

 remarks respecting those changes which 

 the verb has undergone in order to make 

 it more expressive. 



11. We do not think it necessary to 

 enter any farther into the subject of the 

 origin of oral language. It can scarcely 

 be doubted by those who have studied 

 the nature of the other parts of speech, 

 by means of the light which the re- 

 searches of Mr. Tooke have afforded, 

 that all have been derived from the noun 

 and the verb ; and admitting this, all that 

 is incumbent upon those who profess to 

 show the original causes of languag-e is, 

 to present a probable origin of those 

 classes of words. In those procedures 

 which have been here stated, there is 

 nothing which supposes metaphysical 

 research or much observation ; and to 

 render any procedure probable, it must 

 wear the marks of simplicity. In the 

 present period of the language, we see 

 the grammarian pointing out the analo- 

 gies which are found to exist in language, 

 and thence proceeding to the formation 

 of new words upon those analogies: this 

 is art ; but the early formers of language, 

 in their inventions, followed only the dic- 

 tates of circumstances, and whatever re- 

 gularity we may perceive in their inven- 

 tions, must be attributed to the similarity 

 of those circumstances. We see the phi- 

 losopher inventing a new term, agreea- 

 bly to prevailing analogies, to express 

 some power of the mind, or some emo- 

 tion which had not received any denomi- 

 nation ; but those who originally gave 

 names to mental feelings derived them 

 simply from some analogy, fancied or 

 real, between the internal and an exter- 

 nal object : and those names which now 

 suggest to us ideas the most subtle and 

 refined, were originally only the names 

 of objects obvious to the senses. The 

 reasoner, when he uses a word whose 

 meaning has not been accurately ascer- 

 tained, defines the ideas which he in- 

 tends to attach to it, and uses it accord- 

 ingly : in the early, and even in the 

 more refined periods of language, the 

 ideas connected with words have been 

 the result of casual associations, produced 

 by local circumstances, by the customs of 



