LANGUAGE. 



ing numbers, carry their ideas of number 

 no farther than ten ; those who take in the 

 toes, go as far as twenty. The Kamschat- 

 kans can count no farther; and when they 

 have advanced to this limit, they say, 

 " where shall we go now ?" It is difficult 

 to conceive what circumstances coaid 

 bound the arithmetic of Lord Monboddo's 

 Indians to three, or rather what should 

 induce them to choose so troublesome a 

 mode of procedure; but it appears high- 

 ly probable, that they joined together the 

 names of three different men or other ani- 

 mals, and if they had proceeded further 

 (which however Condamme informs us 

 they did not) they would have joined four 

 together, ike. Perhaps their tribe origi- 

 nally consisted of three only; and then, 

 in order to speak of three, they might use 

 thethree names combined together, which 

 combination, losing its primary applica- 

 tion, would become a general denotement 

 of three. 



16. If Lord Monboddo had looked into 

 the vocabulary of the Mexicans, he would 

 have thought that his theory derived 

 great confirmation from their words. Cla- 

 v'r/,ego informs us, that they had words of 

 fifteen or sixteen syllables : but he ex- 

 pressly says they are compounds. He 

 gives one as a specimen of their combina- 

 tions, viz. not^omahuitzteopixcatalzin ; 

 this signifies my very -u-orthii father, or re- 

 vtred priest, and is compounded of seven 

 words. The language of the Mexicans is 

 very copious ; and one cause of the length 

 of their words is probably the deficiency 

 of consonants, which renders a combina- 

 tion of sounds necessary for distinctness. 

 After all, we may admit that the languages 

 of the American Indians favour the hypo- 

 thesis of long words without any injury, 

 for among them alphabetical writing never 

 existed ; and we should have enlarged 

 less on this point, if it had not led us to 

 notice some curious procedures of lan- 

 guage : but it seems reasonable to admit, 

 as an inference, that the original or rather 

 the secondary words in language might 

 be Iqng, though not to the degree that 

 Monboddo supposes. When, however, 

 we advance further, and inquire of what 

 kind the original words of man really 

 were, we see sufficient reason to conclude 

 them to be short. Language was first 

 used in the east, and there too writing 

 was invented. Besides the evidence to be 

 derived from the ancient Egyptian ( 13), 

 we may cite the following. The Chinese, 

 Which as far as oral language is concern- 

 ed, uppears to have undergone very little 

 alteration, and to be wear I v an original 



VOL. IV 



language, is composed entirely of what 

 are at present monosyllables. The origi- 

 nal words of the Hebrew, Greek, &c. (that 

 is, those which have not been varied by 

 the addition of other words) are short, 

 frequently only of one syllable, seldom of 

 more than two. And to conclude, of the 

 various vocabularies which we have had 

 an opportunity of consulting, of the un. 

 civilized nations of the east, the words are 

 generally monosyllabic or dissyllabic. 



17. Our last object is to consider the 

 position, that, in the early languages, con- 

 sonant sounds were at least generally ac- 

 companied by vowel sounds : but though 

 this is a material point in tracing the tran- 

 sition from hieroglyphics to alphabetical 

 writing, it will not be necessary to en- 

 large much upon it. We think this posi- 

 tion proved by the following, in some 

 measure unconnected, considerations. 1. 

 Vowel sounds are by far the most easy ; 

 and consequently they constitute the 

 earliest vocal sounds of children, and a 

 large proportion of the vocal sounds 

 of uncivilized nations. Several words 

 among the South Sea islanders are com- 

 posed entirely of vowel sounds ; and so 

 great is the difficulty which these people 

 find in pronouncing consonants together, 

 that they called Sir Joseph Banks Opa- 

 no. From this consideration we may 

 fairly infer, that vowel sounds would be 

 frequent in the original words of the early 

 languages, which were formed before ar- 

 ticulation was become easy. Yet, 2. as 

 the shades of distinction between them, 

 when employed alone or together, are 

 too nice to furnish, at least to the un- 

 practised ear, many obviously different 

 words ; and as man was not at first in that 

 low state of intellect in which he has 

 sometimes appeared, a vocabulary form- 

 ed of such sounds would be very inade- 

 quate to his wants; and therefore we 

 must suppose that in the early languages 

 there would be very few words without 

 consonant sounds. 3. Some of the first 

 articulations of man were, without doubt, 

 employed in naming those of the inferior 

 animals with which he was. concerned. 

 Now their names would almost certainly 

 be given from their distinguishing cries ; 

 and the cries of such animals consist of 

 consonant sounds, each followed by a 

 vowel sound. 4. As ai'ticulation would 

 at first be nearly as difficult as we now 

 perceive it to be in children, the first 

 words would be composed of simple arti- 

 culations, that is, of consonant sounds 

 following each by a vowel ; and new 

 words would be formed by the combiua- 



I 



