Le MeschaceÌbeÌ. [volume] ([Lucy] La.) 1853-1942, 1910-04-09
THE PHILOSOPHY and EVOLUTION OF
) LANGUAGE.---By A. c. Bernard.
Concluded.

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display, initiates those sounds for the ex
preston of his own emotions. if they
bring relief. The function of imitation
as a means of communication between
animals, appears as soon as animals begin
to live in packs or herds or other social
groups. Nor is this activity confined to
sounds. The frightened animal which
starts stampede does not consciously
purpose to communicate its fright to the
other members of the herd. 1t is perform
ing natural act of its life. incidentally
it arouses all others into violent form
of initiative activity. Sounds work the
same way. Call to mind the tendency of
dogs to all bark III community at once,
or roosters to crow together when one
gives the signal. The result wi nbe more
likely to follow il the two animals are
closely related in their organization and
type of activity. This form of reaction
however may be termed by recent psy-
biologists as "Suggestion. But is all
this language? Does it express thoughts
Then language it must be.
Now the question arises, why has sound
or vocal language become the medium
for communicating ideas? The reason is
simple. We have pictorial language, we
have written language, we have language
by signs. and language by sounds or
spoken or vocal language; and language
by sound is more used because language
by signs, pictures or written can be cut off
by wall, it can be obscured in the dark,
and by turning of the head. But sound
travels wherever there is air: it is as easy
to produce in>the darkness as in the day
light, and can be varied in intensity.
Inc result is that the vocal chords and
the ability to discriminate sounds, are
more highly developed long before the
development of language proper. Sounds
become language in the proper sense
through association of ideas. hence hu-
man mental development was and is of
the ideational rather than the perceptual
type.
Thus language from its primitive and
crude stage, has come up to highly de-
veloped form of speech. The pictorial
methods of ancient times were found too
slow and complicated, and were then mo-
dified and simplifed to mere symbols,
which we today. call letters. For instance.
the first letter in our alphabet originated
with the Chinese picture of bird, which
picture having to be drawn each time the
idea bird was written, was found too
lengthy, so. the body was cut off. and left
a picture of birds leg and toes; after
wards the joint was cut out, and left on
ly the three toes, and finally the middle
toe was removed, and put as cross bar
to the other two, forming our beautiful
"a" The picture of an eye was Used as
the first personal pronoun. The early al
phabets seem to have been in the form of
the rebus type of pictures. The first
three letters of the Hebrew alphabet, for
instance, are named respectively, aleph,
which means OK, beth which means house
and gimmel which means camel. The
Egyptians seem to have established some
such relation; but Of course the Phoeni-
clans are credited with the invention Of
the forms and relations which we now use
To give the origin here Of all English
words would mean to take four fifth OF
all English words and give the good old
Latin and Greek Origin; but it is not
the intention of the writer to present a
dictionary here, simply to discuss the nat
ural development OF languages. whether
English, French, Spanish. German,
Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Latin, Greek
or Hebrew.
The question with us, 10, do these
combinations Of sounds, or external ex-
pressions convey thought or ideas! Then
we have language. since language is the
expression Of thought. 1t is not necessary
for US to speak the language of the lower
animals, in order to understand and know
when that domestic pet cries for some
thing to eat. We understand its desire
for want of food. But language and es-
pecially words are undergoing changes
constantly. The word gossip comes from
sGod" and the word 3Sib', which is to-
day used in Scotland to mean relative,
hence the sponsor, or God kin, but it is
supposed that the sponsor communicated
the baptismal news 80 much that the
word gossip arises. That grand and
beautiful old word which made the hearts
beat glad in olden days, the word -trust',
has lost all that beauty it once contain
ed, and now means q combination Of ig-
noble personnages for the acquisition of
vast fortunes, at the expense OF the poor.
Words then change in form and meaning.
The term democracy" had meaning
to Cicero which would not have been re-
cognized by disciple of Jefferson. A
Celt Of the middle ages, turned loose now
in ireland, could not secure drink Of
water unless he got il through pantomine.
The earliest Saxon version Of the Lords
Prayer, was ..Fader ure thu the cart on
Hoefenum, So thin mama gehagod.
"Three hundred years later it ran thns:-I
azure fader, that rat in Hevenes. Hale.
wid be thin Name etc.
And when Columbus came to America:
sou Fadir that art in Hevenis, Halowid
be fhi Name" etc. Our great, great grand
children will hardly understand the
language Ne now speak. 90 rapid = the
language evolution.
But society plays 1 large part q this
point. So fer-reaching d this social IN
lInence that Il i quite proper % say chat
6n individual = ID large measure, the
crestaon of bic social relafions. q least h