[92] Engl. Lang. i. p. 356, 4th ed. St. Aldhelm’s Head, in Dorsetshire, is always pronounced and generally written St. Alban’s Head, although St. Alban had no connection with it. Penny-come-quick was a very natural corruption of Pen, Coombe, and Ick, the former name for Falmouth. These words form a curious chapter in the history of language. There is no doubt that the mythological legends of a later period are largely suggested by the corruption of names, as in the case of Aphrodite, Dionysus, &c. The fiction of an Oriental nation provided with a two-fold tongue (Diod. Sic. ii.) might easily spring from the word δίγλωσσος. See many such instances in Lersch. iii. 6 fg. The Greek Ἱεροσόλυμα presents a double instance of this, being corrupted from יְרוּשָּׁלַיִם, which is itself probably a corruption of the old Canaanite name for Jerusalem. Dict. of Bibl. Ant. s. v.

[93] The instance is a pure supposition, for sherbet, syrup, and shrub are from the same Arabic root, coming to us from three different sources.—Latham.

[94] We know of very few words invented on simply arbitrary grounds. “Sepals” was devised by Neckar to express each division of the calyx (Whewell, Hist. Ind. Sc. ii. 535), and yet we see at once that it is only a very slight alteration of the word “petals,” and this no doubt was the reason, not only for the choice of it, but also for the ready currency which it obtained. The term “Od force” is another instance. Chemistry at one period affected to give to simple bodies only such names as were destitute of all significance; but it abandoned this practice in consequence of the absurdities and impossibilities which it involved. (v. Renan, p. 148.) Thus, “sulfite” and “sulfate” are due to Guyton de Morveau. (Charma, p. 66.) “Ellagic” acid is the name given by M. Braconnot to the substance left in the process of making pyrogallic acid, and it is derived from Galle read backwards (Hist. Ind. Sc. ii. 547); but such terms are justly reprobated by men of science. Even proper names, which some have supposed to be often arbitrary, are in almost every case found capable of a real etymology. “Ils n’ont pas, plus que les autres mots, été imposés sans cause, ni fabriqués au hasard, seulement pour produire une bruit vague.”—De Brosses. This was noticed very early; see Schol. ad Hom. Od. xix. 406.

[95] Renan, p. 122.

[96] Nodier, p. 39. See, too, Garnett’s Essays, p. 89.

[97] Bunsen, Outlines, s. ii. 84. 78.

[98] Essais de Phil. Morale, p. 344. (The word שָׁמַיִם comes from a root signifying height.) Several of the instances in this paragraph are from M. Vinet.

[99] “Augustus himself, in the possession of that power which ruled the world, acknowledged that he could not make a new Latin word.”—Locke, iii. 2. 8.

[100] Renan, p. 143. “Though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolised the world to the speaker and the hearer.... As the limestone of the Continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images and tropes, which now in their secondary use have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.”—Emerson, Ess. on the Poet.

[101] Take, for instance, the word “fal-lals,” borrowed from the burden of a song, and often used to describe female vanities. Does not this word afford a curious analogy to the word “falbala,” the origin of which (to express similar articles) has occupied the attention of distinguished philosophers? It has been explained as follows. It is said that a witty prince of the eighteenth century once entered an elegant shop, and determined to try to the utmost the assurance of the (probably pretty) milliner. He therefore asked for a falbala, inventing the oddest vocable he could think of. With admirable but unconscious insight into the principle of language, the undisturbed female at once brought him the garniture de robe called volant, which ended in light floating points. She instinctively caught the notion involved in flabella, flammula, &c.—Nodier, p. 211. The story is told differently by De Brosses, Form Méch. ch. xvi. § 14. The word has excited much discussion. Leibnitz connects it with fald-plat, and Hoffman with furbelow. Charma, p. 306. The murderer, Pierre Rivière, invented the word ennepharer for the torture to which he used, when a boy, to subject frogs; and the word calibène for the instrument which he constructed to kill birds. Charma, p. 66. Du Mérit notices the purely musical names which children instinctively give to those who inspire them with strongly marked feelings of love. “Rumpelstiltskin,” the name of the imp in the fairy tale, is a good instance of the reverse.

[102] It is mainly among the people, rather than with philosophers, that the power of inventing names has lingered. Some write the name Plonplon, and make it a familiar abbreviation of Napoleon; but accomplished Frenchmen give differing accounts of the word.

[103] “Ὄνομα ποίεω. Ὀνοματοποιΐα est dictio ad imitandum sonum vocis conficta, ut cum dicimus hinnire equos, balare oves, stridere valvas.” Charis. iv. p. 245. Lersch, i. 129-232. The Latins call it “fictio nominis.”

[104] Renan, p. 136. We have already endeavoured to guard against the misconception that language is in any sense a result of imitation: a mere power of imitating the sounds of nature belongs to animals as well as to man.—Heyse, s. 91, and supra ch. i.

[105] Wedgwood’s Etym. Dict. p. v. It is necessary to be cautious, of course, in deducing the processes of language from the observation of children. See Heyse, s. 47. The word moo-cow is a mixture of pure onomatopœia, and onomatopœia after it has become conventional.

[106] See the lists of such vocabularies in the Transactions of the Philol. Soc.

[107] Wedgwood, p. v.

[108] L. 45. “Proprium tigridis, a sono. Alii leg. raucant.”—Forcellini, Lex.

[109] Wedgwood, p. vi. The name is not native probably, for the native tribe-names mostly end in qua; as Griqua, Namaqua, &c.

[110] Nodier, p. 79 seq. Dr. Pickering quotes an account of the original people of Malay, in which it is said that “their language is not understood by any one: they lisp their words, the sound of which is like the noise of birds.” (Races of Man. Bohn ed. p. 305.)

[111] Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 82. The poet Shelley implied the same thought in Alastor:

[112] Locke on the Human Understanding, iii. I. § 1, 2.

[113] Harris’s Hermes, bk. ii. ch. 2, 3rd ed. p. 325.

[114] Renan, p. 139, quoting Adelung, Mithrid. i. p. xiv. Grimm, Über die Namen des Donners. (Berlin, 1855.) If the words “tonitru,” “donner,” &c., be not originally onomatopœian, as some assert (who derive them from tan, Gr. τείνειν), they became so from a feeling of the need that they should be.—Heyse, s. 93.

[115] Wedgwood, p. 5. The word “pouf” is also used of falling bodies, as in the Macaronic verse, “De brancha in brancham degringolat atque facit ‘pouf.’” It would be interesting to trace the causes for the divergencies in sound of obvious onomatopœian words in various languages: e.g. it is clear that “ding-dong” could only be used to denote the sound of a bell in a country possessing large heavy bells, and therefore churches. The sound bil or bell (Cf. tintinnabulum), expressive of a clear sharp tinkle, would naturally be used by a people, like the Galla, only accustomed to the small bells sold as trinkets by foreign traders. Among the Suaheli languages (out of five words given in Krapf’s vocabulary), no word for a bell at all resembles the sound. I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Garnett, for these remarks, as well as for other ingenious suggestions.

[116] Wedgwood, Etymol. Dict.

[117] Nodier, p. 41. Even when the sound is no guide, different characteristics are chosen by different nations to furnish a name. The names “fledermaus,” “flittermouse,” are suggested like “chauve souris,” by the structure of the bat; νυκτερὶς and vespertilio by its habits; if the differentia of the animal be very marked, its name will probably be derived from it in all languages, as noctiluca, glow-worm, lucciolato, ver luisant, &c.; yet even then not in all, as Johannis-wurm. Compare again σεισιπυγὶς, motacilla, cutretta, wagtail, with Bachstelze, hoche-queue, &c. If the bird be rare, it is much more likely to have numerous names, because the observation of each casual observer as to its chief attribute is not liable to so much revision. Take as an instance the night-jar, which is also called fern-owl, churn-owl, goat-sucker, wheel-bird, dorhawk, &c. See, too, Garnett’s Essays, pp. 88, 89.

[118] “The physiognomy, however, of a group of languages remains unaffected by the divergency of their vocabularies; e.g. almost every word in the Ethiopic family of languages contains a liquid generally in connection with a mute as its most prominent and essential feature.”—R. G.

[119] It is represented as a punishment in some legends, as in the fragment of Abydenus, &c., quoted by Euseb. Præp. Ev. ix. 14. Joseph. Antt. I. iv. 3. Plat. Polit. p. 272. Plin. vii. 1. xi. 112. But see Abbt’s Dissertation, “Confusionem linguarum non fuisse pœnam humano generi inflictam.” Hal. 1758.

[120] καὶ περιΐστα δὲ κατ’ ὄλιγον εἰς τυραννίδα τὰ πράγματα.—Joseph. Antt. I. iv. 2.

[121] 1 Cor. xiii. 8; Rev. vii. 9; Zach. viii. 23; Zeph. 9, &c.

[122] “Trotz alle dem,” is Freiligrath’s rendering of Burns’ “for a’ that.” I may remark here, that many of these instances are borrowed from Mr. Wedgwood’s Etymol. Dictionary, of which the first part only is yet printed. This work, although not free from errors, has the merit of having put forward some very clear and original views on this subject.

[123] Abridged from Mr. Wedgwood in the Phil. Transac. ii. 118.

[124] Latham on the Engl. Lang. 4th ed. p. xlix. Heyse, System, s. 73 fg.

[125] Traces of this feeling are found in Quinctilian (Instt. Orr. i. 5). “Sed minime nobis concessa est ὀνοματοποιία.... Jamne hinnire et balare fortiter diceremus, nisi judicio vetustatis niterentur?” See, too, viii. 6. Other passages quoted by Lersch (Sprachphilosophie, i. s. 130), are Varro (L. L. v. p. 69); Diomed. iii. p. 453, &c. Plato calls it ἀπείκασμα, and the Grammarians ἀπὸ ἤχους.

[126]

The verse seems to me too laboured and unnatural.

[127] “Many at least of the celebrated passages that are cited as imitative in sound, were, on the one hand, not the result of accident, nor yet on the other hand of study; but the idea (?) in the author’s mind spontaneously suggested appropriate sounds.”—Archbp. Whately’s Rhetoric, iii. s. 2.

[128] Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie. The same psychologist in his Essay on the Origin of Language says of those who maintain a revealed language, that they give us “comme article de foi une hypothèse arbitraire et amphibologique.”—Œuvres Inéd. de Maine de Biran, iii. pp. 229-278.

[129] See some admirable remarks to this effect in Mr. F. Whalley Harper’s excellent book on the Power of Greek Tenses.

[130] Donaldson’s New Cratylus, p. 220, 4th ed.

[131] Donaldson’s Greek Grammar, s. 67-79.

[132] For the development and more clear enunciation of these views, we must refer to the works quoted.

[133] Donaldson’s New Crat. ch. ii. Plato (Crat. p. 435) thought the numerals offered a proof that at least some part of language must be the result of convention and custom (συνθήκη καὶ ἔθος).

[134] Bopp’s Comparative Grammar, § 311.

[135] Dr. Donaldson aptly compares (New Crat. § 154) the vulgarism “number one” as a synonym for the first person, and “proximus sum egomet mihi.”

[136] Bopp’s Comparative Grammar, §§ 309, 323. Donaldson’s New Crat. ch. ii.; Greek Gram. § 246. For the Hebrew numerals see Maskil-le Sophir. pp. 41 sq. by the same author. Other works are Pott, Die quinäre und vigesimale Zählmethode. Halle, 1847. Mommsen, in Höfer’s Zeitschr. für die Wiss. der Spr. Heft 2, 1846. In Greenland the word for 20 is “a man,” (i.e. fingers + toes = 20); and for 100 the word is five men, &c.! It might have been thought that particles were eminently (what Aristotle calls them) φωναὶ ἄσημοι, and yet even their pedigree may be traced; and in fact no clear line of distinction can be drawn between them and the φωναὶ σημαντικαί.—Heyse, s. 108 ff.

[137] For instance, we find M. A. Vinet (Essais de Philos. Morale, p. 323) speaking of the verb as the word which founds, or, so to speak, creates an ideal world side by side with the real world, and of which the real world is either the expression or the type. The word “verb” has often been dwelt on as showing the importance attached to this part of speech; the German “zeitwort” is more to the purpose. The Chinese call it ho-tseu, or the living word (Silvestre de Sacy, Principes de Gram. Gén. i. ch. 1.)

[138] Compare the Italian stare, Spanish estar. Prof. Key (Trans. of Phil. Soc. vol. iv.) quotes an anecdote of a lady who had to tell her African servant, “Go and fetch big teacup, he live in pantry.” We cannot, however, accept his derivations of “esse” from “edo,” and “vivo” from “bibo.”

[139] See Renan, p. 129. Becker, Organism der Sprache, p. 58. In point of fact, the conception of existence in untaught minds is generally concrete, and often grossly material. Vico mentions the fact, that peasants often say of a sick person “he still eats,” for “he still lives.” “In the Lingua Franca the more abstract verbs have disappeared altogether; ‘to be’ is always expressed by ‘to stand,’ and ‘to have’ by ‘to hold.’

This shows the tendency of language to degradation when not upheld by literary culture and elevated thought. Barbarism proved as efficacious in materialising the conception of the Latin races, as in sweeping away the niceties of their grammar. To this day the Spaniards say, tengo hambre, for esurio.”—R. G.

[140] See Wedgwood, p. xvii.

[141] Who would have thought à priori that the word “stranger” has its root in the single vowel e, the Latin preposition for “from”? Yet we see it to be so, “the moment that the intermediate links of the chain are submitted to our examination,—e, ex, extra, extraneus, étranger, stranger.”—Dugald Stewart, Philos. Es. p. 217, 4th ed.

[142] Adelung, Mithridates, iii. 6, p. 325.

[143] Benloew, De la Science Comp. des Langues, p. 22.

[144] Essay on English Dialects, p. 64.

[145] Still more strange are the variations presented by the root ἄω. See Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. sur l’Entendement Humain, iii. 2. 2; and Donaldson’s New Crat. p. 476.

[146] New Crat. p. 80.

[147] The “lucus à non lucendo” principle, which explained various positive words as though they were derived from the absence of the quality they attributed, has long been given up by all sound scholars. Of course such names as Euxinus, Beneventum, Εὐμενίδες, “good folk,” “crétin,” “natural,” &c., arise in a totally different manner, as well as the name Parcæ, absurdly derived “a non parcendo.” The supposed instances of “Antiphrasis,” as the grammarians called it, are eminently absurd, e.g. Varro, L. L. iv. 8: “Cœlum, contrario nomine celatum, quod apertum est.” Donat. de Trop. p. 1778: “Bellum, hoc est minimè bellum.” They confused it with irony and euphemism. See Lersch, i. s. 132, 133.

[148] Essays, p. 284 sq.

[149] Dict. des Sciences Philosoph. p. 646. Locke on the Under. III. ii. 6.

[150] Thus the long opposition to the Newtonian theory in France rose mainly from the influence of the word “attraction.” See Comte’s Pos. Philos. (Martineau’s ed.) i. p. 182. For the tremendous consequences of the introduction of the term “landed proprietor” into Bengal, see Mill’s Logic, ii. 232. It caused “a disorganisation of society which had not been introduced into that country by the most ruthless of its barbarian invaders.” “Fetish,” as adopted by the negroes from the Portuguese, “feitição” (sorcery), is an instance of a word changing meaning with the feeling of the speakers.

[151] ἤθους χαρακτήρ ἐστι τ’ ἀνθρώπου λόγος.—Stob. The language of a people expresses its genius and its character.—Bacon, De Augm. Scient. vi. i. Cf. Diog. Laert. p. 58. Quinct. xi. p. 675. Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 16.

[152] Ἔστι μὲν οὖν τὰ ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ παθημάτων σύμβολα.—Arist. De Interp. I. i.

[153] Nodier, p. 65.

[154] Victor Cousin, Cours de Phil. iii. Leçon Vingtième.

[155] Φύσικα, i. 1. The name alligator (Spanish, el lagarto, the lizard) is another instance of the same kind of thing, as indeed is the Greek κροκόδειλος.

[156] See Renan, 120 sqq. Theocrit. ii. 18. The French word colère is from χόλος, bile; our word anger, from the root “ang” (ἄγχι, ἀγχονὴ, angle, angina, angustus, &c.) implying compression. The Greek στόμαχος explains itself.

[157] πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιεῖν. For abundant instances of Hebrew metaphors see Glassii Philologia Sacra, where there is a long chapter on the subject.

[158] Emerson’s Nature.

[159] Compare ἐφιέμαι, ὀρέγομαι.

[160] Three derivations have been proposed: re-lego, Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 28; re-ligo, Lact. Div. Inst. 4; re-eligo, Augustin, de Civ. Dei, x. 3. See Fleming’s Vocabulary of Philosophy.

[161] See Bunsen’s Outlines, ii. 142 seqq. Dyaus, θεὸς, deus, &c., from the root div, to shine. The derivation of our English word “God” is doubtful; but I fear the beautiful belief that it is deduced from “good” must be abandoned. Grimm (Deutsch Myth. p. 12) shows that there is a grammatical difference between the words in the Teutonic language signifying “God” and “good;” if the Persian “Khoda” can be derived from the Zend “qvadáta,” Sanskrit “svadata,” à se datus, increatus, a very appropriate etymology would be given.

[162] See Dugald Stewart’s Philosoph. Essays, p. 217, 4th ed. Compare the widely different conceptions of happiness involved in the derivations of two such words as “beatus” and “selig.” Or take the word “poet;” if in these days of wider knowledge and shallower thought, we find it nearly impossible to frame a satisfactory definition of poetry, how should we have been able to invent the word itself, which goes to the very root of the matter, by at once attributing to “the maker” that divine creative faculty whereby he is enabled “to give airy nothing a local habitation and a name?”

[163] χαλκαίνω, πορφύρω.

[164] “Une lumière éclate, des couleurs crient, des idées se heurtent, la mémoire bronche, le cœur murmure, l’obstination se cabre contre les difficultés.”—Nodier, p. 45.

[165] For the facts alluded to in this passage, see Herod. iii. 46, iv. 132. Liv. i. 54. Jerem. xix. 10, &c.

[166] Arist. Rhet. iii. 10.

[167] ἤστραπτ’, ἐβρόντα, κἀνεκύκα τὴν Ἑλλάδα.—Aristoph. “Proinde tona eloquio.”—Virg. Æn. xi.

[168] Sartor Resartus, ch. x. Compare Heyse, s. 97. “Die ganze Sprache ist durch und durch bildlich. Wir sprechen in lauter Bildern ohne uns dessen bewusst zu sein.” He gives abundant instances, classified with German accuracy. See, too, Grimm, Gesch. d. d. Sprache, s. 56 ff. Pott, Metaphern vom Leben, &c. Zeitschr. für Vergleich. Sprachf. Jahrg. ii. Heft 2.

[169] Luke, xii. 27.

[170] Mr. Kingsley has compared the ancient ballad,

with the modern adaptation,

The expression of Herodotus about the Libyan wild asses, ἄποτοι, οὐ γὰρ δὴ πίνουσι, contrasts forcibly the two styles.—R. G.

[171] “Verborum translatio instituta est inopiæ causâ.”—De Orator. iii. 39.

[172] Dr. Whewell’s Philos. of the Inductive Sciences, ii. 460. Mill’s Logic, ii. ch. iv. p. 205.

[173] Take, for instance, the botanical description of the Hymenophyllum Wilsoni; “fronds rigid, pinnate, pinnæ recurved subunilateral, pinnatifid; the segments linear undivided, or bifid spinulososerrate.”—Philosophy of Ind. Sci. i. 165. This is the perfection of scientific terminology, but how would it answer the purposes of common life? And how would poetry be possible with such clumsy terms as these? At the same time, in Science, dry precision of nomenclature is better than poetical terms like the mediæval “flowers of sulphur.” Fancy would only mislead in terminology which requires accuracy; e.g. δίπους, the Greek name for jerboa might easily have led to mistakes.

[174] Sir Thos. Browne, Christian Morals, ii.

[175] Berkeley, Principles of Hum. Knowledge, xxxv.

[176] “It is remarked by a great metaphysician, that abstract ideas are, in one point of view, the highest and most philosophical of all our ideas, while in another they are the shallowest and most meagre. They have the advantage of clearness and definiteness; they enable us to conceive and, as it were, to span the infinity of things; they arrange, as it might be in the divisions of a glass, the many-coloured world of phenomena. And yet they are ‘mere’ abstractions, removed from sense, removed from experience, and detached from the mind in which they arose. Their perfection consists, as their very name implies, in their idealism; that is, in their negative nature.”—Jowett on Romans, &c., ii. 88.

[177] Ecclus. xlii. 23.

[178] Nodier, p. 58 sqq.

[179] Ἔοικεν ὁ τὴν Ἴριν Θαύμαντος ἔκγονον φήσας οὐ κακῶς γενεαλογεῖν.—Plato, Theæt. p. 155.

[180] Mr. Mill was the first to point out the soliloquising character of poetry.—Essays and Dissertations.

[181] Coleridge, Aids to Reflection.

[182] Nodier.

[183] See Précieux et Précieuses par Ch. L. Livet. 12^o, 1860. Masson’s Introduction to French Literature, ch. iv.

[184] “And the regeneration of a people is always accompanied by a rekindled interest in its early literature.” We can hardly overrate the effect produced by the publication of Bishop Percy’s Reliques, and much may be hoped from the reproduction of the old romancers, &c., in Spanish, of late years.

[185] Essay on Human Understanding, III. i. 5.