Category: Language & Communication
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. PAGE The faculty of speech.--Definition of language.--Importance of philology.--Three main theories on the origin of language--1. That language was innate and organic.--Curious errors.--Objections to this view.--2. That language was the result of imitat...
We have seen that philology offers no proof of a universal primitive language. The question now arises, Is there any probability of a universal future language? Does it seem lik...
17. CHAPTER VI.“Die Sinnlichkeit erzeugt, auf der ersten stufe der Wortschöpfung, ein _Abbild_; die Einbildungskraft, auf der zweiten, ein _Symbol_; der Verstand, endlich, auf der dritten, ein...
12. CHAPTER I.Of all the faculties wherewith God has endowed his noblest creature, none is more divine and mysterious than the faculty of speech. It is the gift whereby man is raised above th...
15. CHAPTER IV.Since the human voice is at once a _sound_ and a _sign_, it was of course natural to take the sound of the voice as a sign of the sounds of nature.[104] In short, to recall a so...
18. CHAPTER VII.“It may lead us a little,” says Locke, “towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and h...
19. CHAPTER VIII.The history of almost every language points to the action of certain general law’s of progress, which laws are psychological as well as linguistic, _i.e._ they correspond and ar...
20. CHAPTER IX.It has been considered by many that language has passed through four[236] stages. 1. A period in which words succeed each other in the natural order of the thought, with nothing...
13. CHAPTER II.From abstract and _à priori_ considerations, we have arrived at the conclusion that language was achieved or created by the human race, by the unconscious or spontaneous exercis...
16. CHAPTER V.The most brilliant of modern philosophers, M. Victor Cousin, in endeavouring to refute the conclusion of Locke that all words draw their first origin from sensible ideas, adduce...
14. CHAPTER III.From the general question as to the manner in which sounds acquired significance as _words_, we proceed to the longer and wider inquiry as to the causes which led to the choice...
21. CHAPTER X.Besides the immense number of languages now spoken over the surface of the globe, we must remember that hundreds have now died away altogether, and left no trace behind them. Ev...
8. CHAPTER VIII.These laws psychological.--1. Languages advance from exuberance to moderation by eliminating superfluities.--Unity of speech the result of civilisation.--Redundancy marks an ear...
1. CHAPTER I.THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. PAGE The faculty of speech.--Definition of language.--Importance of philology.--Three main theories on the origin of language--1. That language was innat...
2. CHAPTER II.Germinal development of language.--How came words to be accepted as signs?--The inquiry not absurd.--What is a word?--Words only express the relations of things.--Connection of...
10. CHAPTER X.Immense number of languages dead as well as living.--Three irreducible families.--Arguments in favour of an original language.--1. All may be derived (not from each other, but)...
4. CHAPTER IV.Sounds naturally used as the signs of sounds; as among infants, and savage races.--Wide application of this law overlooked.--The imitation modified organically and ideally.--Adm...
6. CHAPTER VI.We know nothing absolutely.--Language an asymptote.--Necessity of analogy to express things.--All words ultimately derivable from sensible ideas.--Instances in the Semitic langu...
11. CHAPTER XI.1. Destinies of the Arian race.--The future of the English language.--The distinction of nations a design of Providence.--2. Advantages which result from diversities of language...
3. CHAPTER III.Words never _purely_ arbitrary.--They _become_ conventional in time.--Corruptions produced by the dislike of mechanical words.--Inappropriate corruptions.--Words, significant at...
5. CHAPTER V.Roots supposed to be primitive and irreducible.--Words derived from sensible images; the personal pronouns; and even the numerals.--The verb ‘to be,’ in all languages, from a ma...
9. CHAPTER IX.Stages of Language.--The logical order not the historical.--1. The Indo-European and Arian family.--Its unity and importance.--Life of the early Arians.--“Linguistic Palæontolog...
7. CHAPTER VII.Inferences drawn from the derivation of all words from ‘sensible ideas.’--Gradual degeneracy of the Sensational School.--Condillac.--Helvetius.--The Diversions of Purley.--Real...