Localization

“ Men also become differentiated by localization, and the Magdalenean man offers us one of the earliest instances in Europe of this effect. The Solutrean race, whose spear-heads are so finished, and the more recent and more artistic race of the caves of Périgord, whose simple designs and efforts in sculpture we admire, show us the first essays of that spirit of initiative and of relative progress, which, after localization, conducted some of them to material inventions and ideal conceptions, and by these to the region of that supreme culture of all our faculties which we call civilization. ”

“ Much may be accomplished toward a localization of functions in the hemispheres; the time may even come when people at large shall know that most of their stupidity, peevishness, and sin, results from unhealthful brain-activity. The relation between digestion, ventilation, sleep, and morals, may attain general acceptance, to the destruction of a huge load of the world's misery. All this and more may come, but physiology will never remove or investigate a state of consciousness; it will never front the inner side of a single sensation. ”

“ Whether we accept or reject localization of functions in the cerebral hemispheres, we must believe that the cell-modifications which coincide with specific sensations remain permanently, thus furnishing a physical, organic requisite for memory. ”

“ The science of geography attains its highest usefulness when called into the service of man. Having in mind the influence of regional environment upon human societies and particularly upon language and nationality as shown in the foregoing chapters, let us next look at the bearing of our conclusions on the determination of international frontiers. The problem consists in ascertaining the logical or natural limit of the spread of language and nationality. ”

“ It has been observed that each one begins in a region, extending themselves through the neighboring regions to which they arrive with relation to their point of origin, which means the transfer of the same culture. ”

“ The similarity in the art and its mechanism appears to the author to show such resemblance with the like culture in the Eastern Hemisphere, and is so harmonious with the theory of migration or contact or communication, that if there shall be other objects found which either by their number or condition would prove to be a well-authenticated instance of migration from or contact or communication between the countries, the evidence of the similarity of the spindle-whorls would form a valuable addition to and largely increase the evidence to establish the main fact. ”

“ Geography, Maps, &c. The knowledge of the regions and localities inhabited by mankind, or where colonies are sent, empires founded, is needful to history, in order to understand and treat the events and migrations. The physical configuration of the land, the climates, plains, mountains and streams, have a great influence on civilization and communications. Physical geography is constant and invariable: while civil or ethnographical geography is constantly fluctuating in limits and names. ”

“ A people has, therefore, a twofold location, an immediate one, based upon their actual territory, and a mediate or vicinal one, growing out of its relations to the countries nearest them. The first is a question of the land under their feet; the other, of the neighbors about them. The first or natural location embodies the complex of local geographic conditions which furnish the basis for their tribal or national existence. ”

“ All the length to which we are permitted in fairness to go, when we find in any district or country an abundance of names of natural objects, as rivers and mountains, which can with certainty be traced to any particular language, is, that at one time or other, a race of people speaking this language must have passed over and dwelt for some time in that particular district or country. ”

“ Geography was learned by painting skeleton maps—an exercise much delighted in by small fingers—and by putting together puzzle maps, in which countries in the map of a continent, or counties in the map of a country, were always cut out in their proper shapes. I liked big empires in those days; there was a solid satisfaction in putting down Russia, and seeing what a large part of the map was filled up thereby.
The only grammar that we ever learned as grammar was the Latin, and that not until composition had made us familiar with the use of the rules therein given. ”

“ Names of places in a great measure belong to the oldest and most primitive evidences of language, and they are of the highest importance in the history of nations and dialects.—H. Leo.
It cannot be doubted that local names, and those devoted to distinguish the natural features of a country, possess an inherent vitality which even the urgency of conquest is unable to remove.—Kemble.
The geography and history of a nation must be sought in the language of the name-givers of that country, or in a translation of the language of the name-givers of that country.—Pococke. ”

“ I always pre-suppose that we start from the assumption of migration, that tales wandered from land to land. In our research, I would try in the first place to follow geographically in the wake of that journey. Now, it is a remarkable fact that the tales of adjoining countries show much closer similarity to one another, than with those collected in a distant land. Even in cases of totally different races, and some of quite recent origin, but all now living in that neighbourhood, such as Turks and Greeks and Albanians, this similarity is startling. ”

“ In no country is it complete. The lacunae of one region must be supplied from another. Yet in proportion to the geographical distance between the localities where the gaps occur and those whence the missing intervals are supplied, the element of uncertainty in our reading of the record is increased. The most desirable method of research is to exhaust the evidence for each area or province, and to compare the general order of its succession as a whole with that which can be established for other provinces. ”

“ The comparative study of languages shows how races, or nations, now separated by wide regions, are related to each other, and have proceeded from a common seat; it discloses the directions and paths of ancient migrations; in tracing out epochs of development, it recognises in the more or less altered characters of the language, in the permanency of certain forms, or the already advanced departure from them, which portion of the race has preserved a language nearest to that of their former common dwelling-place. ”

“ As there appears to be a spirit of research abroad in respect to our aboriginal antiquities, we would suggest, as a worthy object of enterprise, a map, or maps, of every part of our country, giving the Indian names wherever they could be ascertained. ”

“ One might naturally wish to see the region of such an aggregation of frontiers, where boundaries run like contour-lines on a topographic map—the wavering, imaginary lines upon the earth's Asiatic surface, for which, and to which, literally, millions of lives have been sacrificed—expressions of an "idea" for which many more lives must be given. ”

“ They are natural because they are the result of human intercourse based largely on economic needs. Having developed naturally, they correspond to national aspirations. Such being the case, the task of frontier [333] delimitation can be made to assume a scientific form. Only in the case of uninhabited or sparsely populated regions will an artificial boundary—say, of the straight line type—prove adequate. But in tenanted portions of the earth’s surface where human wills and desires come into play the problem cannot be dismissed so lightly. The ordinary laws of science must then be applied. ”

“ We are not only taught this by the history of the peoples with which we have had the most to do, that is, of the civilized nations, but it is obvious to any one who is acquainted with the lower races. The same practical reasons which urged Europeans to the pictorial representation of geographical facts have also made their influence felt in the prairies of America and the islands of Australasia; and I have seen maps prepared by Polynesian or Indian hands that would compare favorably with mediæval representations of the same kind. ”

“ Growing at first in listless response to environment, natural frontiers eventually attain a stage where intelligent conformity to the same environment becomes necessary. Here the linguistic factor based on a sound geographical foundation acquires practical value though it is not necessarily the only determining element. ”

“ When a people once homogeneous are separated geographically in such a manner that thorough inter-communication is no longer preserved, all of the agencies by which languages change act separately in the distinct communities and produce different changes therein, and dialects are established. ”

“ It is clear then, that geography is essential to all the transactions of the statesman, informing us, as it does, of the position of the continents, seas, and oceans of the whole habitable earth. Information of especial interest to those who are concerned to know the exact truth of such particulars, and whether the places have been explored or not: for government will certainly be better administered where the size and position of the country, its own peculiarities, and those of the surrounding districts, are understood. ”

“ It will doubtless continue a mysterious and unknown region, since we cannot speak its language; but its cities and its villages will no longer be dim shadows merely; substance and reality will replace misty imaginings ”

“ The assimilation of culture within a boundary zone is in some respects the result of race amalgamation, as, for instance, in costume, religion, manners and language; but in economic points it is often the result of identical geographic influences to which both races are alike subjected. ”

“ Why we should adopt a term so local in its original application, out of a cycle of legends with which so few of us are familiar, as the name of a race which is claimed to extend from the north-western border of Europe eastward across continent and ocean, widening as it goes, till it spreads along the whole western Atlantic shore, cannot easily be made to appear. ”

“ The relative positions of the families and the relative size of the areas occupied by them, however, and not their exact boundaries, are the chief concern in a linguistic map, and for the purpose of establishing these, and, in a rough way, the boundaries of the territory held by the tribes composing them, these data are very important, and when compared with one another and corrected by more definite data, when such are at hand, they have usually been found to be sufficient for the purpose. ”

“ In like manner, in preparing the psychological map of the events and sentiments belonging to a certain human civilization, we find at the start five or six well determined provinces—religion, art, philosophy, the state, the family, and industries; next, in each of these provinces, natural departments, and then finally, in each of these departments, still smaller territories [Pg 19] until we arrive at those countless details of life which we observe daily in ourselves and around us. ”

“ In dealing with the varied influences which engage attention in a study of linguistic areas the student is frequently compelled to pause before the importance of economic relations. Inspection of a map of Europe suggests strikingly that zones of linguistic contact were destined by their very location to become meeting-places for men speaking different languages. ”

“ As a general rule, however, the more definite the class, the greater the displacement; displacement which we sometimes know to have taken place on historical evidence, and displacement which we sometimes have to infer. In thus inferring it, the language is the chief test. The greater the area over which it is spoken with but little or no variation of dialect, the more recent the extension of the population that speaks it. ”

“ In view of this constant differentiation on the one hand, and assimilation on the other, the historical movement has made it difficult to trace race types to their origin; and yet this is a task in which geography must have a hand. Borrowed civilizations and purloined languages are often so many disguises which conceal the truth of ethnic relationships. ”

“ If adventurers of various race and tongue combine themselves together in a colony and take up their abode in some wild country, their speech at once begins to undergo a process of assimilation, which sooner or later makes it one and homogeneous: how rapidly this end shall be attained, and whether some one element shall absorb the rest, or whether all shall contribute equally to the resulting dialect, must be determined by the special circumstances of the case. ”

“ They are sanctioned by national aspirations and they conform to a notable degree with physical features. Every linguistic area considered in these pages bears evidence of relation between language and its natural environment. A basis of delimitation is therefore provided by nature. Eastern extension of French to the Vosges, confinement of Czech to a plateau inclosed by mountains, uniformity of language in open plains and river basins, all are examples of the evidence provided by geography for statesmen engaged in the task of revising boundaries. ”

“ Various considerations tend to favour the idea of such a migration, rather than the maintenance of intercommunication and exchange, among a people of the same race, throughout regions so extensive and so geographically distinct. ”

“ To this end each person was provided with a note book, and to prevent duplication of locality numbers, certain locality numbers were assigned with each book. Whenever a party of individuals made collections together in a circumscribed area, as in dredging, or in shore collecting at particular spots, the same locality number was used by all. To enable future workers to find the precise localities mentioned, these places were designated by latitude and longitude. ”