The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-09-04
The Origin Of Language.

At recent meeting of the Royal Ash
attic Society, Albemarle street. Pro-
lessor Abel, of Berlin, read an in
teresting and suggestive paper on the
"Origin of Language" the chair being
taken by Sir Henry Rawlinson, X. C. B.,
and the attendance of prominent MEM
bers being so numerous as to crowd the
council-room. The well-known philol-
ogist commenced his speculation touch
ing the genesis of human speech by
promising that language is commonly
assumed to have been always as intelli-
gible as it is now. By way of laying
the foundation of his inquiry in as re-
mote an age as modern linguistic re-
search has reached, Professor Abel
took the early Egyptian, remarking that
this was anciently language of homo
nyms, confused by the use of one sound
for a multitude of things, and by the
converse phenomenon of great varie-
ty of sounds, all signifying the same
thing. These imperfections of Ian
guage the lecturer identified with what
he termed literature of pictures. And
even as these signs and symbols were
needed to piece Outthe sense of written
words, SO might it well be supposed that
gestures must have accompanied lin
quail speech. The further back we go
in the history of man the more sensuous
must have been the subjects of his dis
course, and the more easily expressed
in pantomime. As ideas became famil-
lar, selective process would gradually
have fixed the meaning of the words,
and would have rejected hieroglyphic
aid. Professor Abel then showed, by
way of illustration, how thirty-seven
words, all signifying the same thing, in
the earliest hieroglyphic writing. were
reduced in number to ten, in the subse-
quent Coptic literature. The same de-
velopment from vagueness of sound to
clearness and precision he considered
by analogy to have been probable in
the Aryan and Semitic tongues, and in
deed in all forms of language whatever
The rank luxuriance of synonyms was
thinned as soon as the systematic proc
ess of planting began. Such ascer-
tanned phenomena as those adduced in
regard to the most ancient of now de-
cipherable languages would, he con-
ceived, negative the idea that speech
originated in an outburst of inspiration.
He then proceeded to notice diversions
of sound, diversions of sense and inver-
sions both of sound and sense. Among
words whose meaning was exactly in
verted in ancient Egyptian literature he
mentioned those which stand antitheti-
cally for strong and weak, to cut to
pieces and to unite, to take and to let
lie, to receive and to give, to hold fast
and to let 90. Vast numbers of homo
phonic words. he commended, were far
from fortuitous; contrasts and antitheses
being necessary to the understanding of
all things The school-boy in scien-
tific age, must know what one kind of
angle is before he can define another
kind. In the childhood of mankind
there was doubtless mental wrestling
after the most elementary meanings. A
thing and its contrary had, therefore a
logical connection so close that in the
infancy Of speech it might very natural
ly find expression in the same word,
slight phonetic DETERMINATIONS distin-
gushing between the several meanings
Of the same word. Contradictory propo-
sitions, compounded of two opposites,
the lecturer observed to be frequent not
only in the ancient Egyptian language,
but in modern German and English.
He instanced notably the words "with-
out" withhold" :" withstand and
withdraw" observing how opposed
each was to the sense OF the monosylla-
BILE word with" On the conclusion
Of his paper, Professor Abel was warm
" applauded.