96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN' IXSTITCTE. 



as the Chinese, and yet differ totally from it in vocables, and some- 

 times in that which constitutes the only graramai" of this form of 

 speech — the collocation of words. To maintain that all these lan- 

 guages, with their numerous dialects, spoken in many cases by bar- 

 barous or semi-barbarous populations, have been produced by the 

 simplification of polysyllabic tongues, through a long course of 

 development and reflection, would be a bold assumption, for which 

 there are no historic or scientific grounds whatever. 



The necessary conclu.sion from all the facts within our knowledge is 

 that the mother-tongues of the various linguistic stocks were of 

 widely difterent types, some monosyllabic, others agglutinative, and 

 others inflective in different forms. This conclusion, which at first 

 sight seems not to accord with the opinions either of Grimm or of 

 Renan, is not pei'haps entirely at variance with the theories of either. 

 The former held that language began with monosyllables, and grew 

 by gradual development to the inflective state. The latter, to use his 

 own words, "regards language as framed at a single stroke (d'lui seul 

 coirp,) issuing instantaneously from the genius of each race."* It 

 may aj^pear, singularly enough, that the two views, seemingly so ir- 

 reconcilable, are both to a certain extent justified by the facts. A new 

 language arising in one generation would doubtless be deemed by M. 

 Renan to have been " formed at one stroke." Yet this language 

 might, in the pi-ocess of its foi-mation, have conformed to the theory 

 of the German philologist, and have grown by gradual develo]jment 

 from the monosyllabic to the inflected stage. 



If every new mother-tongue began, as we suppose, in the lips of 

 very young children, its fii-st form would necessarily be in the main 

 XQonosyllabic. No child in its fii'st utterances willingly pronounces a 

 dissyllable, unless it be a simple repetition, like pnpa, mama, dada. 

 Some years ago the author took special notice of this fact in the early 

 speech of a little boy of his household. He was a very intelligent 

 child, with good vocal organs, and, as it subsequently appeared, with 

 rather unusual aptitude for language. At the age of two years, he 

 could say many words, but (except in a few cases of repetition, like 

 those just referred to) they were all monosyllables, composed either 



* " Je persiste done, apres dix ans de nouveUes etudes, a envisager le lang-age coinme forme 

 d'un seul coup, et comme sorti instantanement du genie de chaque race." — De I'Origine du 

 Langage ; preface to .^th edition, p. 16. 



