2 PROF. BLACKIE OX THE PRINCIPLE OF ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 



be willing to admit, or might be forced to admit, that there was some connection 

 in the way of mimetic reproduction between the sound uttered by that animal 

 and the words 7 g^« in Greek, grunnio in Latin, grunt in English, and grump>hie 

 in Scotch. If, when the sacred chickens were observed by the Roman augurs in 

 their cages to give forth an attenuated indication of the approaching fates, accord- 

 ing to their vocal capacity, and if the speakers of the Latin dialect of the Aryan 

 family agreed to designate the sound then emitted by the root pipi, familiarly 

 known as a verb of the fourth conjugation, pipire, with the variety pipilare, 

 applied to sparrows — in this case also, we presume, those who disown the pic- 

 torial principle would be inclined to concede some pretty mimicry of the small 

 unreasoning by the great reasoning animal. Or, to take an example from an 

 altogether different quarter, in the word " chirumvurumvuru, used by the Africans 

 on the Zambesi river, to designate a sudden violent tornado, with lightning, 

 thunder, and rain, who can refuse to recognise a beautiful imitation of the 

 long-continued roll of peals of thunder in a mountain district?"* But then 

 they would say that in forming such words a man acts as a parrot and not as a 

 man ; and in the philosophy of human speech we can take no account of an 

 element which denies the distinctive character — namely, reason— of the being 

 who forms it. It is against this view of the part played by the imitative principle 

 of our nature in the formation of language that I now submit a few observations. 

 In treating this matter, I shall first state the arguments in favour of the exten- 

 sive operation of this principle, which appear to me conclusive, and then shortly 

 consider the nature of the objections that have been brought against it. But, be- 

 fore making a regular muster of the arguments for or against any position, it 

 appears to me to be of the utmost consequence to see how the presumptions lie. 

 When a man is tried before a jury for a special act of felonious appropriation, 

 the fact that he is habit and repute a thief, although no part of the evidence on 

 which he can be convicted, will certainly operate against him to some extent 

 in the minds of the most impartial jury. In the same way, it must have been 

 observed that in the discussion of the most famous literary, scientific, and philo- 

 sophical questions, there is an under-current of presumption of some kind or other, 

 which secretly determines which side the reasoner will take, more powerfully 

 than all the arguments that are articulately brought forward, — a presumption of 

 which these arguments are sometimes only the servile satellites. So, in the 

 present case, I ask, first, is there any presumption why words should not be formed 

 by the human voice, in imitation of certain sounds emitted by or connected with 

 objects in the external world ? Man has, no doubt, been well defined a reasonable, 

 or at least a reasoning animal ; but he is no less truly, and no less largely, an 

 imitative animal. It may be said that there are more persons in the world who 

 can give true pictures of things by word or line, than there are who can argue 



* On the Zambesi, Notes of a long Journey. By James Stewart. (Good Words, Feb. 1865.) 



