OF LANGUAGES. 



17 



differs from its daughter-language as a mother from 

 her daughter. This difference is essential and ought not to 

 be overlooked. If Chinese should one day lose its peculiar 

 monosyllabic character, it will be then no more the Chinese 

 of our days, but a new language, however nearly it might be 

 related to the other. 



Latin and German, though differing in words and syntax, 

 belong to the same branch of languages, to the Aryan, their 

 mutual position before coming in contact and amalgamating 

 together is therefore not the same as if two totally 

 heterogeneous languages, as Sanskrit and Tamil, 20 or English 

 and Chinese, were to coalesce into one idiom. The result 

 of such a union it would be difficult to foretell ; one might 

 be inclined to think that whichever is the more developed 

 and more highly endowed must gain the ascendency over 

 the other ; but mental superiority does not win the victory 

 if not backed by pre-eminence of actual power and number. 

 It is thus not surprising that the grammar of some of the 

 modern Indian vernaculars, though subjected to Aryan 

 influence, is non-Aryan. A language can adopt and create 

 as many words as it pleases without changing its character, 

 but it cannot alter its grammar, its syntax, without becom- 

 ing another ; for grammar represents the innate mode of 

 thought over which the individual person or nation has no 

 real control. A man's limbs are subject to his will, but 

 though he seems to have perfect command over them, this is 

 true only within certain limits. Well-defined laws regulate 

 all his movements. As it is with the movements of the 



(20) In South India the Aryan influence not being overwhelming, Sans- 

 krit words only found admission into the Dravidian languages. In North 

 India on the contrary the Aryans became really rulers, and the consequence 

 was that the so-called G-aurian languages changed their primitive concrete 

 character and reappeared as new distinct tongues, the modern abstract Bengali, 

 Gujarati, Marathi, &c. They retained in fact of the original Gaurian only a 

 part of its Vocabulary, and adapted themselves to the grammatical system of 

 their conquerors. 



3 



