Part 15

If the explanation just given of some of the cases in Greek and Latin should seem too artificial or too forced, we have only to think of French in order to see exactly the same process repeated under our eyes. The most abstract relations of the genitive, as, for instance, “The immortality of the soul” (_l’immortalité de l’âme_); or of the dative, as, for instance, “I trust myself to God” (_je me fie à Dieu_), are expressed by prepositions, such as _de_ and _ad_, which in Latin had the distinct local meanings of “down from,” and “towards.” Nay, the English _of_ and _to_, which have taken the place of the German terminations _s_ and _m_, are likewise prepositions of an originally local character. The only difference between our cases and those of the ancient languages consists in this,—that the determining element is now placed before the word, whereas, in the original language of the Aryans, it was placed at the end.

What applies to the cases of nouns, applies with equal truth to the terminations of verbs. It may seem difficult to discover in the personal terminations of Greek and Latin the exact pronouns which were added to a verbal base in order to express, _I_ love, _thou_ lovest, _he_ loves; but it stands to reason that originally these terminations must have been the same in all languages,—namely, personal pronouns. We may be puzzled by the terminations of _thou lovest_ and _he loves_, where _st_ and _s_ can hardly be identified with the modern _thou_ and _he_; but we have only to place all the Aryan dialects together, and we shall see at once that they point back to an original set of terminations which can easily be brought to tell their own story.

Let us begin with modern formations, because we have here more daylight for watching the intricate and sometimes wayward movements of language; or, better still, let us begin with an imaginary case, or with what may be called the language of the future, in order to see quite clearly how, what we should call grammatical forms, may arise. Let us suppose that the slaves in America were to rise against their masters, and, after gaining some victories, were to sail back in large numbers to some part of Central Africa, beyond the reach of their white enemies or friends. Let us suppose these men availing themselves of the lessons they had learnt in their captivity, and gradually working out a civilization of their own. It is quite possible that some centuries hence, a new Livingstone might find among the descendants of the American slaves, a language, a literature, laws, and manners, bearing a striking similitude to those of his own country. What an interesting problem for any future historian and ethnologist! Yet there are problems in the past history of the world of equal interest, which have been and are still to be solved by the student of language. Now I believe that a careful examination of the language of the descendants of those escaped slaves would suffice to determine with perfect certainty their past history, even though no documents and no tradition had preserved the story of their captivity and liberation. At first, no doubt, the threads might seem hopelessly entangled. A missionary might surprise the scholars of Europe by an account of that new African language. He might describe it at first as very imperfect—as a language, for instance, so poor that the same word had to be used to express the most heterogeneous ideas. He might point out how the same sound, without any change of accent, meant _true_, a _ceremony_, a _workman_, and was used also as a verb in the sense of literary composition. All these, he might say, are expressed in that strange dialect by the sound _rait_ (right, rite, wright, write). He might likewise observe that this dialect, as poor almost as Chinese, had hardly any grammatical inflections, and that it had no genders, except in a few words such as man-of-war, and a railway-engine, which were both conceived as feminine beings, and spoken of as _she_. He might then mention an even more extraordinary feature, namely, that although this language had no terminations for the masculine and feminine genders of nouns, it employed a masculine and feminine termination after the affirmative particle, according as it was addressed to a lady or a gentleman. Their affirmative particle being the same as the English, _Yes_, they added a final _r_ to it if addressed to a man, and a final _m_ if addressed to a lady: that is to say, instead of simply saying, _Yes_, these descendants of the escaped American slaves said _Yesr_ to a man, and _Yesm_ to a lady.

Absurd as this may sound, I can assure you that the descriptions which are given of the dialects of savage tribes, as explained for the first time by travellers or missionaries, are even more extraordinary. But let us consider now what the student of language would have to do, if such forms as _Yeśr_ and _Yeśm_ were, for the first time, brought under his notice. He would first have to trace them back historically, as far as possible to their more original types, and if he discovered their connection with _Yes Sir_ and _Yes Ma’m_, he would point out how such contractions were most likely to spring up in a vulgar dialect. After having traced back the _Yesr_ and _Yesm of_ the free African negroes to the idiom of their former American masters, the etymologist would next inquire how such phrases as _Yes Sir_ and _Yes Madam_, came to be used on the American continent.

Finding nothing analogous in the dialects of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, he would be led, by a mere comparison of words, to the languages of Europe, and here again, first to the language of England. Even if no historical documents had been preserved, the documents of language would show that the white masters, whose language the ancestors of the free Africans adopted during their servitude, came originally from England, and, within certain limits, it would even be possible to fix the time when the English language was first transplanted to America. That language must have passed, at least, the age of Chaucer before it migrated to the New World. For Chaucer has two affirmative particles, _Yea_ and _Yes_, and he distinguishes between the two. He uses _Yes_ only in answer to negative questions. For instance, in answer to “Does he not go?” he would say, _Yes_. In all other cases Chaucer uses _Yea_. To a question, “Does he go?” he would answer _Yea_. He observes the same distinction between _No_ and _Nay_, the former being used after negative, the latter after all other questions. This distinction became obsolete soon after Sir Thomas More,(209) and it must have become obsolete before phrases such as _Yes Sir_ and _Yes Madam_ could have assumed their stereotyped character.

But there is still more historical information to be gained from these phrases. The word _Yes_ is Anglo-Saxon, the same as the German _Ja_, and it therefore reveals the fact that the white masters of the American slaves who crossed the Atlantic after the time of Chaucer, had crossed the Channel at an earlier period after leaving the continental fatherland of the Angles and Saxons. The words _Sir_ and _Madam_ tell us still more. They are Norman words, and they could only have been imposed on the Anglo-Saxons of Britain by Norman conquerors. They tell us more than this. For these Normans or Northmen spoke originally a Teutonic dialect, closely allied to Anglo-Saxon, and in that dialect words such as _Sir_ and _Madam_ could never have sprung up. We may conclude therefore that, previous to the Norman conquest, the Teutonic Northmen must have made a sufficiently long stay in one of the Roman provinces to forget their own and adopt the language of the Roman Provincials.

We may now trace back the Norman _Madam_ to the French _Madame_, and we recognize in this a corruption of the Latin _Mea domina_, my mistress. _Domina_ was changed into _domna_, _donna_, and _dame_, and the same word _Dame_ was also used as a masculine in the sense of lord, as a corruption of _Domino_, _Domno_ and _Donno_. The temporal lord ruling as ecclesiastical seigneur under the bishop, was called a _vidame_, as the Vidame of Chartres, &c. The French interjection _Dame!_ has no connection with a similar exclamation in English, but it simply means Lord! _Dame-Dieu_ in old French is Lord God. A derivative of _Domina_, mistress, was _dominicella_, which became _Demoiselle_ and _Damsel_. The masculine _Dame_ for _Domino_, Lord, was afterwards replaced by the Latin _Senior_, a translation of the German _elder_. This word _elder_ was a title of honor, and we have it still both in _alderman_, and in what is originally the same, the English _Earl_, the Norse _Jarl_, a corruption of the A.-S. _ealdor_. This title _Senior_, meaning originally _older_, was but rarely(210) applied to ladies as a title of honor. _Senior_ was changed into _Seigneur_, _Seigneur_ into _Sieur_, and _Sieur_ soon dwindled down to _Sir_.

Thus we see how in two short phrases, such as _Yesr_ and _Yesm_, long chapters of history might be read. If a general destruction of books, such as took place in China under the Emperor Thsin-chi-hoang-ti (213 B. C.), should sweep away all historical documents, language, even in its most depraved state, would preserve the secrets of the past, and would tell future generations of the home and migrations of their ancestors from the East to the West Indies.

It may seem startling at first to find the same name, _the East Indies_ and _the West Indies_, at the two extremities of the Aryan migrations; but these very names are full of historical meaning. They tell us how the Teutonic race, the most vigorous and enterprising of all the members of the Aryan family, gave the name of _West Indies_ to the country which in their world-compassing migrations they imagined to be India itself; how they discovered their mistake and then distinguished between the East Indies and West Indies; how they planted new states in the west, and regenerated the effete kingdoms in the east; how they preached Christianity, and at last practised it by abolishing slavery of body and mind among the slaves of West-Indian landholders, and the slaves of Brahmanical soulholders, till they greeted at last the very homes from which the Aryan family had started when setting out on their discovery of the world. All this, and even more, may be read in the vast archives of language. The very name of India has a story to tell, for India is not a native name. We have it from the Romans, the Romans from the Greeks, the Greeks from the Persians. And why from the Persians? Because it is only in Persian that an initial s is changed into _h_, which initial _h_ was as usual dropped in Greek. It is only in Persian that the country of the _Sindhu_ (_sindhu_ is the Sanskrit name for _river_), or of the _seven sindhus_, could have been called _Hindia_ or _India_ instead of _Sindia_. Unless the followers of Zoroaster had pronounced every _s_ like _h_, we should never have heard of the West Indies!

We have thus seen by an imaginary instance what we must be prepared for in the growth of language, and we shall now better understand why it must be laid down as a fundamental principle in Comparative Grammar to look upon nothing in language as merely formal, till every attempt has been made to trace the formal elements of language back to their original and substantial prototypes. We are accustomed to the idea of grammatical terminations modifying the meaning of words. But words can be modified by words only; and though in the present state of our science it would be too much to say that all grammatical terminations have been traced back to original independent words, so many of them have, even in cases where only a single letter was left, that we may well lay it down as a rule that all formal elements of language were originally substantial. Suppose English had never been written down before the time of Piers Ploughman. What should we make of such a form as _nadistou_,(211) instead of _ne hadst thou_? _Ne rechi_ instead of _I reck not_? _Al ô’m_ in Dorsetshire is _all of them_. _I midden_ is _I may not_; _I cooden_, _I could not_. Yet the changes which Sanskrit had undergone before it was reduced to writing, must have been more considerable by far than what we see in these dialects.

Let us now look to modern classical languages such as French and Italian. Most of the grammatical terminations are the same as in Latin, only changed by phonetic corruption. Thus _j’aime_ is _ego amo_, _tu aimes_, _tu amas_, _il aime_, _ille amat_. There was originally a final _t_ in French _il aime_, and it comes out again in such phrases as _aime-t-il?_ Thus the French imperfect corresponds to the Latin imperfect, the Parfait défini to the Latin perfect. But what about the French future? There is no similarity between _amabo_ and _j’aimerai_. Here then we have a new grammatical form, sprung up, as it were, within the recollection of men; or, at least, in the broad daylight of history. Now, did the termination _rai_ bud forth like a blossom in spring? or did some wise people meet together to invent this new termination, and pledge themselves to use it instead of the old termination _bo_? Certainly not. We see first of all that in all the Romance languages the terminations of the future are identical with the auxiliary verb _to have_.(212) In French you find—

j’ai and je chanter-ai nous avons and nous chanterons. tu as and tu chanter-as vous avez and vous chanterez. il a and il chanter-a ils ont and ils chanteront.

But besides this, we actually find in Spanish and Provençal the apparent termination of the future used as an independent word and not yet joined to the infinitive. We find in Spanish, instead of “_lo hare_,” I shall do it, the more primitive form _hacer lo he_; _i.e._, _facere id habeo_. We find in Provençal, _dir vos ai_ instead of _je vous dirai_; _dir vos em_ instead of _nous vous dirons_. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Romance future was originally a compound of the auxiliary verb _to have_ with an infinitive; and _I have to say_, easily took the meaning of _I shall say_.

Here, then, we see clearly how grammatical forms arise. A Frenchman looks upon his futures as merely grammatical forms. He has no idea, unless he is a scholar, that the terminations of his futures are identical with the auxiliary verb _avoir_. The Roman had no suspicion that _amabo_ was a compound; but it can be proved to contain an auxiliary verb as clearly as the French future. The Latin future was destroyed by means of phonetic corruption. When the final letters lost their distinct pronunciation it became impossible to keep the imperfect _amabam_ separate from the future _amabo_. The future was then replaced by dialectical regeneration, for the use of _habeo_ with an infinitive is found in Latin, in such expressions as _habeo dicere_, I have to say, which would imperceptibly glide into I shall say.(213) In fact, wherever we look we see that, the future is expressed by means of composition. We have in English _I shall_ and _thou wilt_, which mean originally _I am bound_ and _thou intendest_. In German we use _werden_, the Gothic _vairthan_, which means originally to go, to turn towards. In modern Greek we find thelō, I will, in thelō dōsei, I shall give. In Roumansch we meet with _vegnir_, to come, forming the future _veng a vegnir_, I shall come; whereas in French _je viens de dire_, I come from saying, is equivalent to “I have just said.” The French _je vais dire_ is almost a future, though originally it is _vado dicere_, I go to say. The Dorsetshire, “I be gwâin to goo a-pickèn stuones,” is another case in point. Nor is there any doubt that in the Latin _bo_ of _amabo_ we have the old auxiliary _bhû_, to be, and in the Greek future in σω, the old auxiliary _as_, to be.(214)

We now go back another step, and ask the question which we asked many times before, How can a mere _d_ produce so momentous a change as that from _I love_ to _I loved_? As we have learnt in the meantime that English goes back to Anglo-Saxon, and is closely related to continental Saxon and Gothic, we look at once to the Gothic imperfect in order to see whether it has preserved any traces of the original compound; for, after what we have seen in the previous cases, we are no doubt prepared to find here, too, grammatical terminations mere remnants of independent words.

In Gothic there is a verb _nasjan_, to nourish. Its preterite is as follows:—

Singular. Dual. Plural. nas-i-da nas-i-dêdu nas-i-dêdum. nas-i-dês nas-i-dêtuts nas-i-dêduþ. nas-i-da —— nas-i-dedun.

The subjunctive of the preterite:

Singular. Dual. Plural. nas-i-dêdjau nas-i-dêdeiva nas-i-dêdeima. nas-i-dêdeis nas-i-dêdeits nas-i-dêdeiþ. nas-i-dêdi —— nas-i-dêdeina.

This is reduced in Anglo-Saxon to:

Singular. Plural. ner-ë-de ner-ë-don. ner-ë-dest ner-ë-don. ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

Subjunctive:

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don. ner-ë-de ner-ë-don. ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

Let us now look to the auxiliary verb _to do_, in Anglo-Saxon:

Singular. Plural. dide didon. didest didon. dide didon.

If we had only the Anglo-Saxon preterite _nerëde_ and the Anglo-Saxon _dide_, the identity of the _de_ in _nerëde_ with _dide_ would not be very apparent. But here you will perceive the advantage which Gothic has over all other Teutonic dialects for the purposes of grammatical comparison and analysis. It is in Gothic, and in Gothic in the plural only, that the full auxiliary _dêdum_, _dêduþ_, _dêdun_ has been preserved. In the Gothic singular _nasida_, _nasidês_, _nasida_ stand for _nasideda_, _nasidedês_, _nasideda_. The same contraction has taken place in Anglo-Saxon, not only in the singular but in the plural also. Yet, such is the similarity between Gothic and Anglo-Saxon that we cannot doubt their preterites having been formed on the same last. If there be any truth in inductive reasoning, there must have been an original Anglo-Saxon preterite,(215)

Singular. Plural. ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon. ner-ë-didest ner-ë-didon. ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon.

And as _ner-ë-dide_ dwindled down to _nerëde_, so _nerëde_ would, in modern English, become _nered_. The _d_ of the preterite, therefore, which changes _I love_ into _I loved_ is originally the auxiliary verb _to do_, and _I loved_ is the same as _I love did_, or _I did love_. In English dialects, as, for instance, in the Dorset dialect, every preterite, if it expresses a lasting or repeated action, is formed by _I did_,(216) and a distinction is thus established between “’e died eesterdae,” and “the vo’ke did die by scores;” though originally _died_ is the same as _die did_.

It might be asked, however, very properly, how _did_ itself, or the Anglo-Saxon _dide_, was formed, and how it received the meaning of a preterite. In _dide_ the final _de_ is not termination, but it is the root, and the first syllable _di_ is a reduplication of the root, the fact being that all preterites of old, or, as they are called, strong verbs, were formed as in Greek and Sanskrit by means of reduplication, reduplication being one of the principal means by which roots were invested with a verbal character.(217) The root _do_ in Anglo-Saxon is the same as the root _thē_ in _tithēmi_ in Greek, and the Sanskrit root _dhâ_ in _dadâdmi_. Anglo-Saxon _dide_ would therefore correspond to Sanskrit _dadhau_, I placed.