Anthologist

“ Not only are corollary subjects forced to yield important illuminations, but subjects which at first glance seem foreign to linguistics, also bring forth light.
Physiology, physics, psychology, history, ethics, anthropology, phonetics, politics, war, geography, archeology, ethnology, etc., are called on, each in turn, to contribute some useful information bearing on linguistics. Studies are going forward in audition, phonation, and in the formation of acoustic, muscular, and conceptual images. Even the human anatomy is playing its rôle. ”

“ A good linguist will have an advantage here, by being able to trace the words through the original language up to nature; for every word is, in the last analysis, either a picture, whose original in nature is its definition, or a poem, which can be recognized by the general imagination. A child whose vernacular is English will easily see that a bit is something bitten off, and so is smaller than the mouth; but that morsel means a bit is not so obvious to one who does not know that morsus, also, is the perfect participle of the Latin verb for bite. ”

“ Philology, or the science of language, is the most seductive; and that branch of it known as Etymology, which traces the derivation and combination of the words of a language from its primary roots, possesses an interest—one might almost say a fascination—for all, when once the attention has been arrested by it. ”

“ In all but a very few instances I have procured and searched [xiii] the original volumes even where I have ultimately selected poems which previous anthologists have chosen before me. They do not always, be it understood, choose the worst and leave the best for other people. But good work is not the only thing to which interest attaches, and while looking for poetesses I have come across many odd things. ”

“ But I was reassured on this point by learning that Philology, as the subject of this Section, was intended to be taken in that larger and undoubtedly fitter sense of the word which it bears in other countries, and to which the usage of scholars ought certainly to fix it in our own—that is to say, the study of language and of literature without distinction between ancient and modern, and without exclusion of anything which is needed for the full comprehension and illustration of either. ”

“ In regard to the philologist, it will help his inquiries into the theory of human language generally; and in respect of the metaphysician, he will not be displeased if we offer to his notice the structure of a language which has advanced in its progress up to the present time, among a people who have no conception of any method of noting down their ideas, and yet pride themselves upon the uniform accuracy with which they speak and pronounce their language. ”

“ The linguist asks the physiologist to investigate the laws of phonation and to study accents, analyze the quality of the sound of the vowels, and the sounds that correspond with each consonant, among different races and in different provinces and cities; while the physiologist insensibly acquires the skill and erudition of the philologist. ”

“ The science of comparative philology would seem to be far removed from that of medicine. Still, it is based upon an ultimate analysis of parts of speech, and men like Professor Whitney were, not only the comparative anatomists, but even the histologists—if I may use the phrase—of words. Comparative philology then is to medical terminology what embryology and comparative anatomy are to a study of the structure of the human body. The philologist loves to dissect words and trace them back through rudimentary stages and roots to their earliest forms. ”

“ If now we turn away from the purely philological results of the Science of Language, in order to glance at the advantages which other sciences have derived from it, we shall find that they consist mostly in the light that has been shed on obscure words and old customs. This advantage is greater than, at first sight, it might seem to be. Every word has its history, and the beginning of this history, which is brought to light by etymology, leads us back far beyond its first historical appearance. ”

“ An antiquarian study of philology will enable us to trace the history of words and forms, to group languages into families, and to discover the empirical laws of phonetic change; to interpret and verify these laws, to correct our classifications and conclusions, to learn what sounds really are, we must examine the living idioms of the modern world. The method of science is to work back from the known to the unknown, and if we are to study glottology to any purpose and to extend and confirm its generalizations, it must be by first observing and experimenting on actual speech. ”

“ The mistake made by philologists, however, has been in assuming that philology is the principal means of understanding the phenomena of linguistics; whereas in truth it is only one means of studying them. ”

“ LINGUISTICS Linguistics as a department of Anthropology may be regarded from many points of view. To the evolutionist language forms one of the tests dividing the Hominidæ from the other anthropoids; the somatologist is interested in correlating the phonetic system with the structure of the organs connected with the mechanism of speech; and the ethnologist studies language for the evidence it affords of ethnic affinity or social contact, or as a means of determining the grade of culture to which a particular people has attained, or, again, as a reflection of their character or psychology. ”

“ Scientific methods applied to linguistic research have separated the abstract entities from the concrete: the soul of a word no longer is confused with its form in sound or with its graphic sign; the spirit of a tongue is not confounded with its sustentacular principles. Many difficulties have been cleared away, which formerly obscured the unities of the concrete and the abstract phenomena of linguistics. Modern methods have enabled some of the more intelligent of our specialists to discuss, with a semblance of reason, such things as values, realities, entities, and identities. ”

“ A word, a sentence, a grammatical form, consists of two elements, one, the articulate utterance, the other, the signification or thought which the utterance symbolizes. Sound and sense are the two factors which make up speech, and it is, therefore, in respect of both sound and sense that our comparisons have to be made. Comparative philology divides itself into phonology and sematology, to which, perhaps, we may also add morphology. Phonology is the science of sounds, sematology the science of meanings, and morphology the science of grammatical forms. ”

“ We express in language, by means of verbs, adjectives, and equivalent expressions, what, as to their qualities, things are, what they do, and in what relation they stand. But in addition to such expressions, by which we qualify, describe, compare, and distinguish the various objects that we observe and think about, we have certain other expressions by means of which we assert that given objects are, or are real, rather than are not, or are unreal. Now, in technical phrase, we shall hereafter call the expressions of the latter type the ontological vocabulary of our language. ”

“ But, though our modern philosophy did not know it, the ancient poets and framers of language must have known it. For in Greek language is logos, but logos means also reason, and alogon was chosen as the name, and the most proper name, for brute. No animal thinks, and no animal speaks, except man. Language and thought are inseparable. Words without thought are dead [pg 384] sounds; thoughts without words are nothing. To think is to speak low; to speak is to think aloud. ”

“ And the case of linguistic research has been specially hard. This study has, if the metaphor may be allowed, a very extended frontier. On one side it touches the domain of literature, on other sides it is conterminous with history, with ethnology and anthropology, with physiology in so far as language is the production of the brain and tissues of a living being, with physics in questions of pitch and stress accent, with mental science in so far as the principles of similarity, contrast, and contiguity affect the forms and the meanings of words through association of ideas. ”

“ When, therefore, I propose modern language-study instead of ancient, as a chief instrument of school education, I mean much more than the mere substitution of the study of some modern language as language, for some ancient language as language—German, for instance, instead of Greek, as has sometimes been suggested. ”

“ Philosophy can not deal with the origin of language as a simple phase since at this point roots in linguistics the science has many divergent roots leading to biology, physiology, comparative anatomy, the gregarious instincts, anthropology, and the basic principles of psychology. But philosophy may deal with the origin of the parts of speech, or other factors of a tongue, as a relatively simple phase of an equally complex phenomenon. ”

“ But, whatever may be said to the contrary, there are weighty, and, we think, irrefutable arguments for continuing the use of Latin and Greek terms in medical writings,—even in recipes. Since it should be so, and certainly is so, we insist here, as elsewhere, that all technical terms, proper names, or any words on which the context can throw but little, if any, light, should be written not with ordinary, but with cardinary care,—which new word we hazard, that our meaning may make a deeper impression. ”

“ In language there are three things:—Names, which are primarily the symbols of conceptions, and by consequence also of subjects. Second, there are Conceptions, which are the likenesses and impressions of the subjects. Whence in all, the conceptions are the same; in consequence of the same impression being produced by the subjects in all. But the names are not so, on account of the difference of languages. And thirdly, the Subject-matters by which the Conceptions are impressed in us. ”

“ Novel and ingenious he may, perchance, become; but he can never be philosophical, and he can never be Scientific. So it is with the Etymologist. Whenever, in a dead Language, he presumes a Process, which he has looked for in vain in a living one, he outruns his data. The basis of Etymology is the study of existing Processes. ”

“ The investigations must then comprehend their somatology, their language, their psychology, their culture and their archeology, which runs into paleontology and so into geology. Now who but one soaked in linguistics is really competent to handle the language end of the problem? But where, think you, is the man thus prepared who is equally soaked in comparative anatomy and thus made equally fit for the somatological end of the problem? He simply does not exist, nor can he. ”

“ To clear the obscurity of race-problems, as viewed from the anatomical standing-point, we naturally seek the help of language. Of late years the anthropology of the Old World has had ever-increasing help from comparative philology. In such investigations, when the philologist seeks a connection between the languages of distant regions, he endeavors to establish both a common stock of words and a common grammatical structure. ”

“ It is especially philology which is the most efficient instrument demonstrating the existence and the superiority of a distinct race. Just as anatomy reveals to us the structure of the cranium, so philology reveals to us the structure of the mind. ”

“ Another science, cultivated with great zeal and success in modern times, compares the languages of different countries and nations, and by an examination of their materials and structure, endeavours to determine their descent from one another: this science has been termed Comparative Philology, or Ethnography; and by the French, Linguistique, a word which we might imitate in order to have a single name for the science, but the Greek derivative Glossology appears to be more convenient in its form. ”

“ Phrenology claims to be a science in which the relation of the functions of mind to the material of the brain substance is observed. It asserts that just as speech, taste, touch, &c., have their centres in certain convolutions of the brain, so have benevolence, firmness, conscientiousness, &c., and that by studying the configuration of the brain, as indicated by that of the skull, a man's character may be approximately discovered. ”

“ But to prove of how little consequence a knowlege of etymology is to most people, let me mention a few words. The word sincere is derived from the Latin, sine cera, without wax; and thus it came to denote purity of mind. I am confident that not a man in a thousand ever suspected this to be the origin of the word; yet all men, that have any knowlege of our language, use the word in its true sense, and understand its customary meaning, as well as Junius did, or any other etymologist.
Yea or yes is derived from the imperative of a verb, avoir to have, as the word is now spelt. ”

“ To take the most patent instance of all, that of our language, it is not too much to say that nearly every word is either directly derived from a classical source or can be shown to have etymological affinities with either of the two ancient tongues. ”

“ In connection with the training of the modern philologist the influence of the science of linguistics should be mentioned and judged; a philologist should rather turn aside from it . the question of the early beginnings of the Greeks and Romans should be nothing to him . ”

“ I will only say that I believe that it is precisely the change which the progress of modern philology is bringing about; that it is fitting modern languages, and preeminently our own, to become the instrument of a true mental discipline, so far as language-study can serve as such an instrument. ”

“ I think I have recognised in my examination of the question that all our philology—that is, all its present existence and power—is based on the same foundation as that on which our view of antiquity as the most important of all means of training is based. Philology as a means of instruction is the clear expression of a predominating conception regarding the value of antiquity, and the best methods of education. ”