What makes one language more perfect than another? What is a philosophical language? We judge a language by the way in which it fulfils its purpose: its great purpose being to express thought. Every language is a means of expressing thought by words. In one tongue we express certain thoughts easily and conveniently, which in another we have to express in a cumbrous manner. Thus instead of saying “inapplicabilities,” we might have to say “the-plural-condition-of-not-being-able-to-fold-one-thing-into-another”. To express thought words must be used in a particular way: the words themselves are the vocabulary, the particular way in which they are used is the grammar. In estimating a language, we must consider (A) its vocabulary, (B) its grammar.

A. THE VOCABULARY.

1. The Number of Words.—(a) A language may have too many words. In English, multitudes of words have been taken from other tongues. Thus we have the numeral one, and also unit (Latin) and monad (Greek). Unless such words are necessary, there is a loss of simplicity, which is felt by a foreigner trying to learn the language; and which we could make apparent to ourselves by introducing from three other languages three additional words for one, with all their derivatives. So long as such new words indicate different shades of meaning, their presence shows fertility in thought; but where they do not each indicate a separate and necessary meaning, they encumber the language. As writing is the chief means of giving permanency to unnecessary words, we find that an unwritten language like Yao is not thus burdened, and seldom uses two or three words where one might do. There are, however, cases of apparent excess. We have a word for his elder brother, and quite a distinct word for his younger brother. Many such cases, however, arise really from deficiency—there is no word in the language for brother. Again, we have words for my younger brother, your younger brother, &c., but no word for younger brother.

(b) A language may have too few words. I have never seen Africans of the same tribe trying to talk with each other and breaking down for want of vocables. They have always language enough to express their ideas. But they have often to use circumlocutions. Instead of saying a pen they speak of a (thing) with which to write or mark. It would be unfair to expect the Yao to have a name for ice, any more than the English have a name for anything they don’t know of, but every language should have easy methods of forming new words where they are wanted.

While sufficient for ordinary purposes, the words of a language may be too few for exact translation. The English vocabulary enables us to speak of: (1) Objects (and actions) in the material world. (2) Relations between these objects; such relations are numerous. (3) Things and relations in the mental world, which are named through analogies in the material world, for material things are more readily named than mental. (4) Besides there are the names of Science. In names of the 1st kind, Yao is as full as English. In names of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th kinds, where a greater abstraction is implied, it falls short. An African, while able to perceive all such relations, &c., does not find it necessary to name many of them. Even though he named all that he observed, his names would be lost, for in the absence of writing, few words acquire fixity except those in general use. Take the word grey; present a grey object to a Yao, and he calls it black or white, but as a matter of fact, he knows perfectly that it is different from either of these colours. In English we speak of a man as being good, upright, straightforward, true, honest, honourable, just, strict, religious, pious, holy, pleasant, courteous, &c.; but in Yao there are not names for so many shades of character, and one or two words must do service for the whole list. We shall not wonder at this if we consider how many of the above epithets have been taken into the English language from other tongues. A modern mission to our Saxon ancestors would have found their vocabulary as poor as we find the African.

2. The Nature of the Words.—Where one language has an easy word, another may express the same idea (a) by a word dreadful to pronounce—“a vocable sufficient to splinter the teeth of a crocodile”; or (b) by a cumbrous combination of words.

(a) The Yao words are easy to pronounce, the rule being that every consonant is followed by a vowel. But they are longer than English words. If a Yao had to say transubstantiations, he would say tiransubisitantiation(i)si. Again, where we say “You believed him,” he prefers to say “You-him-believed,” in one word.

(b) A language may have a cumbrous combination of words. When the Romans had to work with their numerical notation of IX. and XI., we can excuse them for not making much of simple multiplication and division. So when the Yao express 99 by makumi msanu ni makumi mcheche kwisa msanu ni mcheche,[14] we may expect that their numerical system will not care to go any farther!

B. GRAMMAR.

What parts of speech are first used? Interjections like ah! and imitations of sounds like “crow” come very soon. Now, when children utter the word “crow” what is its nature? Is it a noun meaning the sound, or is it a verb in reference to the production of the sound, or is it too indefinite to be classed? When it does become definite, it is certainly more like a noun or a verb than anything else. The only other part of speech that might come into competition is the adjective; but if we look at what the adjective does in Grammar, we see that it already implies the noun.

The noun and the verb are the parts of speech that are most readily obtained,—that lie nearest to hand in nature. But the nouns and verbs that we meet with generally go far beyond the individual. Such a word as house, though denoting a single object, could not have been formed without abstraction. This position is illustrated in any text-book on Logic under the Logical notion. The word “house,” while denoting a special object, implies that this object has certain characteristics. Yet the degree of abstraction is greater for other parts of speech. To take an illustration. We know that “John built houses,” and that “John did not enter these houses”. Now, we might state these two ideas without anything farther; but most languages bring in another idea, thus, “John built houses but he never entered them”. The new idea marked by but arises from contrasting the other two ideas, and could not exist till both of them existed. So we cannot speak of a good house till we know of a house, neither can we speak of “building well,” or “building for a friend” till we first know about “building”.

Thus, the more concrete words are the nouns and verbs; adjectives and pronouns are less so, while adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions are very abstract, and are often so few in many languages as to be classed together as particles. The concrete words describe the easier thoughts, the primary modifications of thought, the abstract words describe secondary or more abstract modifications of thought. Hence, as we might anticipate, we find the Yao language well supplied with nouns, verbs, and even pronouns, but as we go beyond these to adjectives, the supply is less, and still less as we pass on to adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. The scarcity of prepositions and conjunctions often discourages the European who studies the language. It is a great shock to discover that the English words to and from are represented by one and the same native word!

We shall now show how the Yao language deals (1) with the principal parts of speech, (2) with the subordinate.

1. The chief thing to note regarding the principal parts of speech is their inflexion. The fewer the inflexions, the greater is the simplicity.

(a) Inflexion for Concord.—We have

The change in the adjective (like good-us, a, um) is cumbrous, and is seldom necessary. A boy trying Latin at school mistakes in saying bonus arbor, but he has little chance of being misunderstood. Yao gives ten concords of this kind with their plurals. This is a severe infliction, although we can generally tell by inspection what concord is required.

(b). Inflection for Government.—English nouns have one inflexion for case, Latin nouns have six. The Yao noun has no inflexion of the same kind, but it modifies the verb so as to indicate its relation to the noun. These modifications correspond in number (ten) with the concords.

The advantage of many inflexions is that related words are marked so clearly that they may be separated from each other or have their order changed. The Yao could speak of ten nouns and say that is hard, that is soft, &c., without ambiguity, where our word that (which never changes) is powerless. Again, in English we cannot say “the sire the son addressed”. In Latin, sire and son are so marked that the meaning is unmistakeable in any order. But such advantage is small. So great explicitness as inflected languages mark at every step, is seldom necessary. The Yao, then, as compared with English, takes too much trouble with the principal parts of speech. Its process of fitting out nouns and verbs (which affects also adjectives and particles), is too minute and cumbrous.

2. Coming now to the more abstract and subordinate parts of speech, we find that while the English language has many of these, the Yao language has not; and to make up for the want it throws more work on the principal parts of speech. In English we say, “to build a house for him”; the Yao modifies the verb “build” till it means “build-for,” and dismisses the preposition. In most of these cases the English language has an advantage like that which arises from the principle of division of labour in other matters.

We shall now sum up these results, and add a few more in the following table:—

We select Latin and Hebrew, because the one is of the Aryan family of languages and the other of the Semitic.

What is a family—and when are languages said to belong to the same family?

Languages, like everything else, are classed with reference to similarity. The similarity may be in grammar, or in vocabulary, the former kind of agreement being the more decisive. Let us take an example of agreement in vocabulary. In the Aryan group of languages the word for five is pantshan in Sanscrit, pente in Greek, quinque in Latin, pump in Welsh, funf in German, and fif in Anglo-Saxon. Agreements of this kind go to prove that the languages belong to one great family. Next we reach the conclusion that the races that used them had a common ancestry who dwelt in an old “Aryan home”. But can we prove that the Semitic languages have any kinship to the Aryan? Some try to do so by looking for coincidences in certain words, as in the numerals. For instance, the Hebrew for five is chimasha. Has this any relation to pantshan? In looking at the Yao language we often find certain coincidences. If the Yao had ever derived a word for five from pantshan, they would have put a vowel at the end, and further, they would have treated the beginning of the word as being less important (just as the Greeks treat the end of the words as of less importance). Now, it is singular that the Yao word for five is msano, the Swahili tano, the Chinyasa sanu, and the Nyamwesi nhanu!

Resemblances of this kind, if numerous and not accidental, would point us towards a time when all “the earth was of one language and one speech”.

As we have already hinted, the Bantu family of languages, to which the Yao belongs, fills nearly the whole of Southern Africa. Besides the Bantu people there are the Hottentots. As early as 1850 we find Dr. W. H. J. Bleek writing, “The Hottentot language is to me at this moment of greater interest than any other. The facts have now so increased upon me and offer such strong analogies, that there is no further doubt in my own mind, that not only the Coptic but also the Semitic and all other languages of Africa (as Berber, the Galla dialect, &c., &c.), in which the distinction of the masculine and feminine gender pervades the whole grammar are of common origin”. Although the Yao is a genderless language, much of its folk lore resembles the Hottentot. Dr. Bleek has published 42 Hottentot tales. I have heard amongst the Yao, tales corresponding to 16 or 18 of these.