708 | REPORT—1904. 
MONDAY, AUGUST 22. 
The following Papers and Report were read :— 
1. A Plan jor a Uniform Scientific Record of the Languages of Savages. 
By Sir Ricuarp Tempre, Bart., C.LEL. 
During the last thirty years the careful record of ‘savage’ languages has been 
frequently undertaken, and a serious difficulty has arisen owing to the accepted 
European system of grammar, which is based on a system originally evolved for 
the explanation of highly inflected languages only, whereas in many, if not in 
most, ‘savage’ languages inflection is absent or present only in a rudimentary 
form. The European system has therefore been found to be unsuited for that 
purpose. During attempts to provide a suitable system a theory of universal 
grammar was evolved. 
The root idea is that, as speech is a convention devised by the human. brain 
for intercommunication between human beings, there must be fundamental 
natural laws by which it is governed, however various the phenomena of those 
laws may be. 
The theory starts with a consideration of the sentence, 7.e., the expression of a 
complete meaning, as the unit of all speech, and then seeks to discover the natural 
laws of speech by a consideration of the internal and external development of the 
sentence. 
In explaining internal development the sentence is ultimately divided into 
words, considered as components of its natural main divisions, in the light of their 
respective functions. This leads logically to a clear definition of grammatical 
terms. 
From the consideration of the functions of words the theory passes to that of 
the methods by which they are made to fulfil their functions. It shows how 
words can be divided into classes according to function and explains their transfer 
from class to class. This leads to an explanation of connected words and shows 
how the forms of words grow out of their functions. The growth of the forms 
is next considered, involving an explanation of roots, stems, and radical and 
functional affixes. This explanation shows that the affixes determine the forms 
of words. This is followed by a consideration of the methods by which the 
affixes affect the forms. 
The sentence, 7.e., the unit of speech, is then considered as being itself a com- 
ponent of something greater, z.c., of a language. This consideration of its external 
development leads to the explanation of syntactical and formative languages, the 
two great divisions into which all languages naturally fall—z.e., those which 
depend on the position of the words, and those which depend on the forms of the 
words, in a sentence to express complete meaning. 
Syntactical languages are then shown to divide themselves into analytical, or 
those which depend for comprehension mainly on the position of the words, and 
into tonic, or those which combine tone with position for the same purpose. So 
also formative languages are shown to divide themselves into agglutinative and 
synthetic, according as the affixes are attached without or with alteration. Forma- 
tive languages are further divided into premutative, intromutative, or postmutative, 
according to the position of the affixes. 
The theory further explains that, owing to a fundamental law of Nature, no 
Janguage can have ever been left to develop itself alone, and how this leads to the 
phenomenon of connected languages, and thus to groups and families of languages. 
It also explains how—again according to a law of Nature—no language has ever 
developed in one direction only or without subjection to outside influences, leading 
to the natural explanation of the genius, or peculiar constitution, that each language 
possesses. 
It is believed that every language must conform to some part or other of the 
theory, and it can be shown that children and untutored adults in learning a 
language act on the instinctive assumption of the existence of such a theory. 
