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11. Children and the Origin of Language. 
The acquisition of speech by the “Speechless one” ( Infans , 
Nepios ) has long been considered a phenomenon of great 
importance in the study of the origin of language ; and various 
celebrated experiments have illustrated the universality of the 
imitative element in children, who learn one dialect as easily as 
another. Thus, according to the famous story in Herodotos, the 
Egyptian king, Psamethik (Psametichos), “made an attempt 
to discover who were actually the primitive race,” and “ finding 
it impossible to make out by dint of inquiry what men were 
the most ancient,” he had two children brought up with goats 
by a herdsman, “ charging him to let no one utter a word in 
their presence. His object was to know, after the indistinct 
babblings of infancy were over, what word they would first 
articulate ” ; it being apparently a very general, but most 
illogical, assumption that any such word would belong to the 
most ancient of languages. After two years “ the children dis- 
tinctly said c Bekosf ” and the king finds on inquiry that this is 
“ the Phrygian name for bread,” on which the Egyptians 
admit “ the greater antiquity of the Phrygians.” * Into the 
question of the historical truth of the story we need not enter, 
and despite various learned conjectures respecting bekos (i. e. 
bek , with a Greek termination), we may, I think, undoubtedly 
agree with Larcher, Canon Farrar, and Dr. Tylor,f that the 
children were imitating a goat’s bleat. 
This is confirmed by the result of the experiment attributed 
to Akbar, whose ruling passion was “desire of knowledge,” and 
who “ had heard that Hebrew was the natural language of those 
who had been taught no other.” Here, again, we encounter the 
view that people, if uninfluenced, would speak the primeval 
language, and also the ancient and possibly not yet extinct 
opinion that such language was Hebrew. “To settle the 
question, he had twelve children at the breast shut up in a 
castle and brought up by twelve dumb nurses.” At twelve 
years of age the children are brought before him and a great 
assembly of linguists. “ Every one was astonished to find that 
they did not speak any language at all. They had learnt from 
their nurses to do without any, and they merely expressed their 
thoughts by gestures, which answered the purpose of words.” 
* Herod,, ii. 2. Canon Bawlinson’s translation. 
t “ Bek bek is a good imitative word for bleating, as in (3\r)xaoycu ” 
{Early Hist, of Mankind , 79). 
