OF LANGUAGES. 



5 



are words expressing ideas, agglutinated to the end of the 

 roots which have lost their original meaning, being in fact 

 only simple indications of their relations. Grimm acknow- 

 ledges in consequence three periods in the development of 

 language. The first is the period of simplicity and poverty, 

 of which type Chinese still preserves the essential quali- 

 ties. The second is the period of synthetic inflections ; in it 

 the relations of the idea are represented by parasitic words 

 attached to the root and forming only one word ; this is the 

 case in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. In the third period, 

 when the people have become unable to follow such a 

 scientific grammatical system, the unity of the inflected 

 word is broken, and an inverse arrangement of the parts of 

 expression is preferred. In the second period the meaning- 

 less word which serves to express the relations, has pro- 

 duced the inflection by placing itself after the root ; the 

 inflection now drops and the particle is placed as a dis- 

 tinct word before the term it modifies ; this is the procedure 

 in the Romance languages and in the analytic languages 

 in general. 



Wilhelm von Humboldt, the elder brother of Alexander 

 of Humboldt, and the famous author of the renowned work 

 on the Kavi language of Java, 8 proposed a division arranged 

 in four classes, which he described as isolating, inflectional, 

 agglutinative and incorporative. 9 



The late Professor August Schleicher, one of the most 



faisant qu'un avec lui,'comme cela a lieu en Sanscrit, en Grec, en Latin ; — un 

 troisieme age ou le peuple incapable d' observer une grammaire aussi savante, 

 brise l'unite du mot flechi et prefere 1' arrangement inverse des parties de 

 l'expression. Dansle second age le mot vide, qui sert d' expression aux 

 rapports, a produit la flexion en se rangeant a la suite du radical ; maintenant 

 la flexion tombe, et la particule se place comme un mot distinct devant le 

 terme qu'elle modifie ; ainsi procedent les langues romanes et les langues 

 analytiques en general." 



(8) Ueber die Kawisprache auf der Insel Java. Berlin, 3 Vols. 1836-40. 



(9) In the introduction to the above-mentioned work, which appeared also 

 separately under the title " Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen 

 Sprachbaues." Berlin, 1836. 



