The Origin of Language 517 
written Beitrdge zu einer Kritik der Sprache! give some reason to 
hope that, on one side at least, the future may be better than 
the past. 
Where Charles Darwin’s special studies came in contact with the 
Science of Language was over the problem of the origin and develop- 
ment of language. It is curious to observe that, where so many fields 
of linguistic research have still to be reclaimed—many as yet can 
hardly be said to be mapped out,—the least accessible field of all— 
that of the Origin of Language—has never wanted assiduous tillers, 
Unfortunately it is a field beyond most others where it may be said 
that 
Wilding oats and luckless darnel grow. 
If Comparative Philology is to work to purpose here, it must be on 
results derived from careful study of individual languages and groups 
of languages. But as yet the group which Sir William Jones first 
mapped out and which Bopp organised is the only one where much 
has been achieved. Investigation of the Semitic group, in some 
respects of no less moment in the history of civilisation and religion, 
where perhaps the labour of comparison is not so difficult, as the 
languages differ less among themselves, has for some reason strangely 
lagged behind. Some years ago in the American Journal of Philo- 
logy Paul Haupt pointed out that if advance was to be made, it 
must be made according to the principles which had guided the 
investigation of the Indo-Germanic languages to success, and at last 
a Comparative Grammar of an elaborate kind is in progress also [for 
the Semitic languages. For the great group which includes Finnish, 
Hungarian, Turkish and many languages of northern Asia, a beginning, 
but only a beginning, has been made. It may be presumed from the 
great discoveries which are in progress in Turkestan that presently 
much more will be achieved in this field. But for a certain utterance 
to be given by Comparative Philology on the question of the origin 
of language it is necessary that not merely for these languages but 
also for those in other quarters of the globe, the facts should be 
collected, sifted and tabulated. England rules an empire which con- 
forschung, Strassburg, 1901, with a rejoinder by Wundt, Sprachgeschichte and Sprach- 
psychologie, Leipzig, 1901; UL. Siitterlin, Das Wesen der Sprachgebilde, Heidelberg, 1902; 
von Rozwadowski, Wortbildung und Wortbedeutung, Heidelberg, 1904; 0. Dittrich, 
Grundzilge der Sprachpsychologie, Halle, 1904; Ch. A. Sechehaye, Programme et méthodes 
de la linguistique théorique, Paris, 1908. 
1 In three parts: (i) Sprache und Psychologie, (ii) Zur Sprachwissenschaft, both 
Stuttgart 1901, (iii) Zur Grammatik und Logik (with index to all three volumes), Stutt- 
gart and Berlin, 1902. 
2 Brockelmann, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1907 ff. 
Brockelmann and Zimmern had earlier produced two small hand-books. The only large 
work was William Wright’s Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic 
Languages, Cambridge, 1890, 
