THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. lOT 



entirely their own speech, and to learn in their rude way the language 

 of their subjects, merely dx'opping many of the forms, and altering the 

 pi'onunciation of the words to suit their own habits of \itterance. 

 Such and no other was the oi'igin of the Italian, Spanish, and French 

 languages, in which there is certainly no evidence of conscious analy- 

 sis or of intellectual progress. 



The other influence to which the loss of inflection and of vocal 

 elements is due, is that of migration. A colony which leaves the 

 mother-colony to found a new community is usually composed mainly 

 of young people, and often of persons belonging to the lower orders. 

 It will comprise comparatively few individuals advanced in years or 

 belonging to the Avealthy and governing classes. These, however, are 

 the natural conservators of language. They remain at home, where 

 the speech is preserved pure and unchanged. The emigrants, few in 

 number and occupied by the toils and anxieties of their new life, have 

 little regard for the accuracies of speech. The easiest utterance by 

 which they can make themselves understood suits them best. If one 

 past tense will answer as well as two, they will be satisfied with one. 

 If any case-endings can be dispensed with, they will cease to use them. 

 If any consonantal elements seem to them diflicult of utterance, and 

 not needed for the scanty vocabulaiy of their ordinary intercourse, 

 they will dro]) them. The language will thus become gradually 

 simplified and impoverished, both in its grammar and in its lexicon. 

 The difference between the alteration produced in this manner and 

 that arising from conquest is chiefly apparent in the fact that the 

 change produced solely by emigration is mere loss, and is not compli- 

 cated by the introduction of new wox'ds and forms, or by the distoi-- 

 tion of those which are retained. 



It is evident that in most cases these two causes of change, — mi- 

 gration and conquest, — will be acting together. Conquerors are 

 usually emigrants, and emigrants are frequently conquerors. It is 

 not always easy to judge how far the alteration of language is due to^ 

 one cause or the other. There is, however, one legion in which we 

 are fortunately freed from doubt on this point. The islands of Poly- 

 nesia have been settled within comparatively recent times ; and in 

 almost every case the uniform tradition of the natives affirms that the 

 groups or single islands at which their colonizing ancestors arrived 

 were uninhabited. 



