192 REPORT 1861. 



once spoken in Spain, in France, and in Italy itself. A lan^iage of Gei-nian origin 

 had nearly displaced not only all tlie native languages of Britain and Ireland, but 

 the numerous ones of a large portion of America. Some eight millions of negi-oes 

 ■were planted in the New World, whose forefathers spoke many African tongues, 

 which tongues had nearly disappeared, having been supplanted'by idioms derived 

 from the German and Latm languages. It necessarily followed that man, when 

 he first appeared upon earth, was destitute of language. Each separate tribe formed 

 its own language ; and there could be no doubt that in each case the framers were 

 aiTant savages, which was proved by the fact that the rudest tribes ever discovered 

 had ah-eady completed the task of forming a perfect language. The first rudiments 

 of language must have consisted of a few articulate sounds, in the attempts made 

 by the speechless but social savages to make then- wants and wishes known to each 

 other ; and from those first efforts to the time in which language had attained the 

 completeness which it was foimd to have reached among the" rudest tribes ever 

 known to us, countless ages must be presumed to have elapsed. The Eg^^tians 

 must have attained a large measiu-e of civilization before they had invented 

 symbolic or phonetic printing, and yet these were foimd in the most ancient of 

 their monuments. Dr. Adam Smith" di\-ided all languages into two classes, com- 

 plex and pimple ; the complex being considered the primary foi-m of all languages, 

 and the simple but derivations, the products of the intermixture of nations speakino- 

 different tongues, and striving to make themselves intelligible to each other. In 

 this case, one tongue would be adopted ; and, to make it easy of mutual use, it would 

 be stripped of its inflections, easy prepositions, &c., being substituted for them. It 

 was certain, however, that the principle could not be of imiversal or even general 

 application, and that there were many languages of simple stiaicture just as primi- 

 tive as those of complex formation. One language might receive even a consider- 

 able infusion of another without imdergoing any change of stmctm-e. There were 

 cases in which, from several causes, even the conquest of one people by another, 

 and the long possession of the conquered tenitory, might produce no change in the 

 structure of language. In some cases the invaders might be so overwhelmmg as to 

 be able to supplant the lajmiage of the conquered by their own, without the latter 

 imdergoing any change. In this way the Saxons substituted their own language 

 for the native idioms of Britain, that language not losing its inflections imtil it after- 

 wards came to be intermixed with the speech of a new set of conquerors. The sub- 

 stitution of the languages of Em-ope for those of the New World was a case of the 

 same description — even a stronger one. It was quite certain, however, that many 

 languages existed which never coidd have been formed by inflections. It appeared 

 that the structural character which languages originally assmned would in a great 

 measure depend on the whim or fancy of the fii-st rude founders. No doubt there 

 were facts in reference both to pronunciation and structure very difficidt to accoimt 

 for, and which might possibly have some relation to physical' differences of races. 

 No monosj-Uabic language, whether in the Old or New World, seemed ever to have 

 existed west of the nations whom we called Hindu-Chinese. Consonants, and 

 especially gutturals and other rough sounds, aboimded in the languages of North 

 Europe. The structure of the ancient languages of Em-ope, and perhaps of Central 

 Asia, appeared to have been formed by inflections, while the Malayan and Poly- 

 nesian tongues were invariably of very simple structiu-e. The American tongues, 

 even the language of the Esquimaux, were formed by agglutination — the combining 

 in one_ word an aggregation of several words — often to the formation of a word 

 comprising the meaning of an entire sentence. Adam Smith supposed (and he, 

 Mr. Cravrfiird, thought justly), that the fii-st attempts to foi-m language would con- 

 sist in giving names to familiar objects ; that was, in forming noims substantive. 

 Words expressing quality would naturally be of later invention. A'erbs, or words 

 expressing affirmation, must (according to the writer he had quoted) have been 

 nearly coeval with nouns themselves, since without them nothing could be affii-med; 

 and pronouns were not likely to have existed at all in the earlier period of language. 

 The same author said that number, considered in general, without relation to any 

 particular set of objects numbered, was one of the most abstract and metaphj-sical 

 ideas which the mind of man was capable of forming, and consequently was not an 

 idea which " would readily occm* to rude mortals who were just beginning to foi-m 

 a language," The truth of this view was cowoborated by our observatioa of rude 



