16 VOCAL SOUNDS OF 



became more perfect. And is not the history of this word a representative of 

 many thousands in every language, now settled and acknowledged as a legiti- 

 mate tongue ? * 



We meet with articulated sounds which are yet in a middle state between a 

 pure interjection and a distinct word, as the German sweet expression, Eiapopeia, 

 pronounced i-a-po-pi-a — the endearing and lulhng sound with which the German 

 mother sings her babe to sleep. Ei and Eia (the ei pronounced «, as in fire) is 

 the German syraphenomenal sound of endearment which accompanies the pat- 

 ting of the rosy cheek of a child, and the maternal desire to bring down slumber 

 upon the infant has drawn out this primative sound into eiapopeia. Now, 

 many cradle songs, as the Germans call the rhymes sung by the cradle side, 

 begin with this — what must it be called, interjection or word.'' It is neither. 

 At times, indeed, a "cradle song" is called an Eiapopeia. In this case it is a 

 perfect noun. And is not the English lullaby much the same ? The syllable 

 by is the same sound by, which, in the gentle nursery idiom, means sleep, when 

 the mother sings by, by, and lull is depictive of the act it designates. The 

 French, when they desire to imitate the sound of the drum, say rattaplan, for 

 which we say rub-a-dub, and the Germans have brumberum. They are imitative 

 sounds, articulated, yet in an undefined state, so far as grammatical classifica- 

 tion is concerned, while drum has become a distinct noun.f It may be observed, 



* This child made other remarkable words. Every one who has studied the languages of our In- 

 dians, and some other tribes, as, for instance, that of the natives of Burmah, is struck with their 

 words which express a number of ideas, indicated in our analytical tongues by a series of words. 

 William von Humboldt called this process agglutination; but as this term would indicate a joining of 

 what has been separate before, which is by no means always the case, I preferred the term holo- 

 phrastic words, in a paper on this subject which I published in the March number, of 1837, of the 

 Southern Literary Messenger. It is for the same reason that I preferred the term to that of polysyn- 

 thetic words, which Mr. Du Ponceau had proposed. 



The child in question had become most impressed with the word Good, when in connection with 

 the noun Boy ; that is to say, when he himself had been called a good boy, which he pronounced 

 Goobboy. It formed one word for him, so much so that his infantine mind could not separate the two 

 parts, in this case actually agglutinated, to use the term of William von Humboldt. When the 

 child, therefore, one day desired to express the idea Good Cow, he said Goobboy Cow. He found 

 the same difficulty of expressing good cow, which many of our missionaries have to contend with, 

 when they desire to express Christian ideas by words which carry along with them numerous asso- 

 ciated ideas of different things and relations. Father Sangermano, if I recollect aright, says in his 

 work on Burmah, published by the Oriental Translation Fund, that he eould not simply translate the 

 passage in which it is related that a woman washed the feet of the Saviour; for, although there are 

 ever so many words for washing in the Burmese language, yet each word carries along with it many 

 conditions and relations of washing inapplicable in this case. 



Similar, so far as the connexion of ideas is concerned, was the case of a little girl who, in my 

 hearlno-, said to a man. Doctor naughty girl, because he had teased her. Her mind had received the 

 idea of bad chiefly in conjunction with girl, that is, herself, when rebuked for some fault or other. 

 "Bad girl" was, in her mind, one term, or a holophrastic word. 



t Thus I wrote; but one of the greatest orators of the age, or any age, has since said in the Senate, 

 (Mr. Webster, on July 17, 1850,) "They have been beaten incessantly, every month, and every 

 day, and every hour, by the din, and roll, and rub-a-dub of the abolition presses." He uses rub-a- 



