OF LANGUAGES. 



25 



fact remains to be proved by future researches. The 

 majority of Semitic roots display a dissyllabic form, and 

 learned Semitic Grammarians have even assigned to them in 

 ancient times a dissyllabic character, but many of the most 

 important words in Semitic dialects are monosyllabic 25 and 

 it is not beyond the range of possibility that the dissyllabic 

 or triliteral and quadriliteral roots are based on and derived 

 from monosyllabic roots, though the cause which effected 

 this change, if any took place, and the principle followed in 

 this transformation, have not yet been ascertained. 



The monosyllabism of roots belonging to the Aryan 

 languages has been clearly proved, and need not be further 

 commented upon. 



Even when upholding the principle that every dialect 

 has a monosyllabic beginning, one must not lose sight of 

 the fact that this principle is affected as soon as single ideas 

 are combined. However loosely thoughts are linked 

 together, this juxtaposition must influence them. But this 

 composite idea is still maintained in monosyllabic languages 

 by separate and unmodified symbols. 26 



(25) On the other hand we ought also to bear in mind that monosyllabic 

 words have been occasionally formed by contraction of dissyllabic and poly- 

 syllabic roots. 



(26) Compare : The Principles of Comparative Philology, by A. H. Sayce, 

 second edition, page 74. "No canon is so of ten laid down by glottologists as 

 that the roots of all languages are monosyllabic. And yet this assertion rests 

 simply upon the fact that such is the case in the Aryan family. It is true 

 that Chinese may sometimes be called in to corroborate, or rather to illustrate, 

 this belief ; but then we are too little acquainted with the primitive form oi 

 Chinese to say what was the original nature of its radicals." Dr. Caldwell 

 takes a decidedly different view of this question. In the introduction to the 

 second edition of his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, he 

 says on pages 74 and 75 : " Not Chinese only, but Sanskrit and Hebrew are 

 now known to have been originally monosyllabic, and the monosyllabic 

 character of most Dravidian roots, if not of all, will appear in every section 

 of this work." These two quotations, coming as they do from learned 

 scholars, and containing opinions so diametrically opposed to each other, 

 are sufficient evidence of the backward state of our knowledge respecting 

 questions about the primitive state of speech in general and of special 

 languages in particular. 



4 



