ROOTS OF LAXGUAGE. 2/3 



unmistakably referable to semi-civilized as distinguished 

 from savage life, what guarantee can we have that the 

 remainder are "original"? Obviously we can have no such 

 guarantee ; but, on the contrary, find the very best, because 

 intrinsic evidence, that they belong to a more or less high 

 level of culture, far removed from that of primitive man. 

 In other words, we must conclude that these 121 concepts 

 are " original " only in the sense that they do not now 

 admit of further analysis at the hands of comparative 

 philologists : they are not original in the sense of bringing us 

 wiihin any measurable distance of the first beginnings of 

 articulate speech.* 



Nevertheless, they are of the utmost value and significance, 

 in that they bring us down to a period of presumably 

 restricted ideation, as compared with the enormous develop- 

 ment since attained by various branches of this Indo-European 

 stock — -SO far, at least, as the growth of language can be 

 taken as a fair expression of such development. They are 

 likewise of the highest importance as showing in how 

 presumably short a period of time (comparatively speaking) 

 so immense and divergent a growth may proceed from such 

 a simple and germ-like condition of thought.f Lastly, they 

 serve to show in a most striking manner that the ideas 

 represented, although all of a general character, are neverthe- 

 less of the lowest degree of generality. Scarcely any of them 

 present us with evidence of reflective thought, as distinguished 

 from the naming of objects of sense-perception, or of the 



liundred ; there is no general Indo-European word for 'thousand.' Some of the 

 ^tars were noticed and named ; the moon was the chief measurer of time. The 

 rcli;;ion was polytheistic, a worship of the personified fxjwcrs of nature" 

 (Wiiimey, Language and the Study of Language, pp. 207, 208). For a more 

 detailed account of this interesting [^ople, see I'oescher, Die Arier. 



* " UnscrcWurzeln sind die Urwurzeln nicht ; wirhihen vicUcicht, von keiner 

 einzigen die erste, urspriingliche Laut-form mehr vor uns, cbensowcnig wohl die 

 Urbefleutung" ((ieiger, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 65). And this opinion, so far 

 as I know, is adopicd as an axiom by all other philologists. 



t '* It is imjHjssible to bring down the epoch at which the Ary.in tribes still 

 lived in the same locality, and spoke practic.illy the same lani,'uagc, to a date 

 much later than the third millennium before the Christian era" (Sayce, littrodtu- 

 ttoH, C-c, ii., p. 320). 



