746 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
in some the verb to be, or predicant, has been slightly developed, chiefly to 
affirm existence in a place. 
It will thus be seen that by the criterion of organization Indian 
tongues are of very low grade. 
It need but to be affirmed that by the criterion of sematologic content 
Indian languages are of a very low grade. Therefore, the frequently- 
expressed opinion that the languages of barbaric peoples have a more 
highly organized grammatic structure than the languages of civilized 
peoples has its complete refutation. 
It is worthy of remark that all paradigmatic inflection in a civilized 
tongue is a relic of its barbaric condition. When the parts of speech are 
fully differentiated and the process of placement fully specialized, so that 
the order of words in sentences has its full significance, no useful purpose 
is subserved by inflection. 
Economy in speech is the force by which its development has been 
accomplished, and it divides itself properly into economy of utterance and 
economy of thought. Economy of utterance has had to do with the phonic 
constitution of words; economy of thought has developed the sentence. 
All paradigmatic inflection requires unnecessary thought. In the clause 
‘Gf he was here,” “if” fully expresses the subjunctive condition, and it is 
quite unnecessary to express it a second time by using another form of the 
verb ‘‘to be,” and so the people who are using the English language are 
deciding, for the subjunctive form is rapidly becoming obsolete with the 
long list of paradigmatic forms which have disappeared. 
Every time the pronoun he, she, or it is used it is necessary to think of 
the sex of its antecedent, though in their use there is no reason why sex 
should be expressed say one time in ten thousand. If one pronoun non- 
expressive of gender were used instead of the three, with three gender 
adjectives, then in nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases the 
speaker would be relieved of the necessity of an unnecessary thought, and 
in the one case an adjective would fully express it. But where these inflec- 
tions are greatly multiplied, as they are in the Indian languages, alike with 
the Greek and Latin, the speaker is compelled in the choice of a word to 
