ON ETHNOLOGY. 
283 
of the article makes such formations still more clumsy, as, in order to express 
vision, they say sapwmt, actio (rov) videre. 
Those who understand the principle of the formation of words in the Semitic 
and Indo-Germanic languages, will immediately perceive that the first have 
some, and the latter an inexhaustible ahundauco of terminations, variously 
Reeling the root, and indicating all the shades of tlm different modes of ex¬ 
istence and action, which the Coptic expresses very inconiplctely and cluinaily 
by mere agglomeration. The di*cmn[>usijtg principle which we observed in 
the formation of the new Komanic wonls, especially the particles, prevaiU 
throughout in the Coptic. But it acted differently, Ijccausc the Latin was 
a developed, perfect, inflexional language ; ilip ancient Egyptian was a form 
of sp^U only just emerging from the monosyllabic statu and the absolute 
isolation of woids. 
The intnwion of foreign elements, fnim the time of Alexander, lielped to 
destroy what there was of organic power in the Egyptian language; but 
It was not the origiual cause of that destruction. It was the effect of the 
slowoeas of the Egyptian mind, which had long beru mtnnnufled, acting upon 
the 
re- 
. . _«:ftpoiiBiu. 1 bis slow action upon an almost 
unpenetrable raateriul produceil, for the mi’s of common life, a secondary 
nnnation, the country-tongue, written in the less idiographic, demotic or 
Wchorial character. This aocnndary formation is of the same kind as the 
econdary formation of later languages; in degree it differs there is 
of the destruction of forms, because only a germ of forms existed 
Egyptian language. 
^ follows from the same circumstance, that there can be, in tlie ordinary 
‘SO Qf fjig word, no sccondury I’onuution iu tlm modern Chinese, or the 
gj j familiar style, as compare<l with the. old style. The modern 
ami fbe use of words which correspond to the expletive particles 
in of our languages : but it must not bn overlooked, that, even 
accor^r ° these .sounds still represent nouns or verh.s, or full roots, 
speak' terminology of the Chinese grauiniarians. Strictly 
f'hiue*^^'- - exclusively grammatical words or forms in tin; modern 
oiean' ‘uoi'f than in the old ; tho roots may in mast ca.9eB lyse their 
their itnlicaling what our particles uiid coimectlojis express, but not 
what it is, inoni)able of change: it loses 
accent. It is merely used as a conventional expression 
ft>ward8 th langungo did nut express nt all. Not a step is made 
The rji‘ affixes or suffixe.'*, tuucli less toward.** inflexions. 
** ^Vilhfii language, with .some similiar structures in Eastern Asia, forms, 
•^nntrastt'” Humboldt has been the lirst to establish in all its extent, a 
fact of ita languages, not so mucli by any debrct, or from the external 
aitainj- »'*'8 n)ono;«yllabic, as by its totally opposite view of the means of 
ff*® exnr • language. Tin.', end is the construction of a sentence, 
''■‘fh all '* lygicui proposition by a subject, jiredicate, and copula, 
All otir*^'i 
pin* or f^'^S'iagcs not only express more or less perfectly, the component 
(p^rtiel*. t but have also words deputed solely for that purpose 
reW- destined to hring audibly before ’the hearer the mu- 
have fiouna and verbs to each other. Besides, all other languages 
. a/fk^ distinct forms for those clifl’cront component parts of a sen- 
fopTk^"® for the subject, the verb for the predicate, and generally 
copula. The old Chinese has no such tendency whatever ; and 
