Connected with these radical differences of type, is one of the higher and more specu lative pro:diens of the science—the question as to the common origin of all languages. The inherent and apparently ineffaceable difference of structure in the three orders above described, as well as the absence of all sure marks of genealogical affinity even between the two families of the inflectional type, the Aryan and the Semitic, are considered by sonic as insuperable objections to the theory of a common origin. But although it may lie fruitless to loci; for extensive identifications of the roots and grammatical forms of the Aryan tongues, even in the oldest forms to which we can trace them, with those of the Semitic, still more with Chinese'or Turkish elements; it seems rash and unscientific to affirm that, going back to the radical stage, the development of n11 could not have begun from a common stock of monosyllabic roots. The wonderful transformations exhibited by language in the course of its known history, seem sufficient ground for m•zintaining the possibility of a common origin. On the other hand the nature of the case forlflds all hope of ever being able to prove it; for the co teidences that occur (e. g., Ciieese let, Tibetan plat, Let. and Gr. pa-ter, Eng. father; Chin. mu, Egyp. Lat. aml Gr. ma-ter, Eng. mo-ther), even though they were much more numerous than they use, might well arise from the mind and vocal organs of man being everywhere essen tially the same.
Languages, like living organisms, are in a state of continual flux or change, and an essential part of the science consists in investigating the laws according to which these changes take place. It is because there are such laws that a science of language is possible. In tracing words to their origin and identifying them with words in other lan guages, we are no longer guided by mere similarity of sound; on the contrary, identity of sound is often a proof that a proposed etymology is wrong. It has been established, 1.3r instance, by induction (see Gamut's LAw), that c in Latin is regularly represented by i. in Gothic and English; while for Gothic or English e, the corresponding letter in Latin is g. Accordingly, we readily recognize Latin corn-nand English horn as cognate words; while a suggestion to c, nneat Sic English corn with corm/ is immediately rejected. If corn has a representative ....Latin it must begin with g, which points out graham as the word. Grath is not the English representative of gntooni; it is granum, borrowed from the Latin through the French. The expert etymologist can often identify with certainty two words, although not it letter remains the same. In simple cases this is done by every one. for instance, doubts that Aberdeenshire fa, jilk, are merely dialectic varieties of English who, which. Yet the same persons who readily admit such cases are skeptical when it is proposed, for instance, to identify Fr. dorms with Eng. tear. Tho grounds of identification, however, are similar in both instances; the only difference being that with regard to [acme and tear they require to be traced historically, No one will dispute that locate is a corruption of Let. lacrima; in fact, it can be followed through the successive stages of change. Now we know that the Ilomaus had a peculiarity of letting d in some positions degenerate into 1. Nor is tins unaccountable when we con sider that the contact of organs which produces d differs from that which produces 1, chiefly in being more energetic; a slovenly d slides into /. Thus the Greek mune, Odys seus, became, in the mouth of the Romans, Ulysses; they said odor (a smell), but oleo (I smell); and instead of impedimentunt, dedieare, we sometimes find impelimentam, delleare. These and other instances would warrant us to conclude that lacr1-nto was a corruption of dacri-ma (corresponding to Gr. c Ilene), even if we had not the express statement of Festus that docriton was the older form. After this there is no difficulty in recognizing duct/ or dokru as identical with Gothic tagr, Eng. tear.
In order to give a rational account of the phonetic changes now exemplified, the nature of articulate sounds, and of the organs that produce them, must be carefully investigated, The most valuable contributions in English to this important preliminary branch of the study (called phonetics), are those of Mr. Alex. J. Ellis and of Mr. Melville Pell, in his book entltled Visible Speech. See PHONETIC WRITING and VISIBLE SPEECH. A resume of lhe subject, with diagrams of the organs of voice in the position of pronoun cing the different articulations, is given in the second series of Max Maces Lectures on tae Science of Language. ' The transformations that words exhibit as they are traced down the stream of history, are of the nature of phonetic decay, and are due to a natural tendency to economize mus cular energy by pronouncing two syllables in one. The dropping of inflections, tho shortening, of words by internal elision and otherwise (Fr. pere, from Lat. pater; Eng. fair, from A. S. ,firger; stranger, from old Fr. estrangier, Let. extrancus). arc all owing to the action of this force, and the uniformities observable among such changes, can be explained on physiological principles. Dialectic diversification is not so easily accounted for; it is difficult to say why sister nations—as in the case of the Ayran family, or of the nations speaking nonionic ton•ues—should have given such different forms to the same stock of primitive mots; why, e.g., Gr. pente (zEol. pempe), pepo, should be in Lat. guinque, corm. Max Muller thinks it necessary to go back to a lime when many of the articulations were not yet sharply defined; and appeals, in illustration, to the confu Mon children make between such sounds as tat and cat; and, what is still more in point, to the analogy presented by languages like the Polynesian. In the language of the Sand wich islands the Iwo consonants le and t run into one another, " and it seems impossible for a foreigner to say whether what he hears is a guttural or a dental. The same word is written by Protestant missionaries with le, by 'French with t. It takes months of patient labor to teach a Iiawaian youth the difference between k and t, g and d, 1 and v. . . . If colonies started to-morrow for the I-law:dun islands, the same which took place thousands of years ago, when the Hindus. the Greeks, and the Romans left their common home (see AnviN, would take place again. One colony would elaborate the indistinct, half-guttural, half-dental contact into a pure guttural; another into a pure dental; a third into a labial." Much light is thrown on tlds question by those phonetic peculiarities llmse deficiencies and predilections of articulation which characterize whole tribes and nations, as they often do individuals. They may have originated. perhaps. iu the idio. synerasies of individual ancestors (a lisping patriarch might produce a tribe of lispers without their inheriting the physical defect which caused the lisp in him), or in aeom mon habit of the organs of speech produced by external circumstances; but once estab lished they are very persistent and influential. The Mohawks and several other Ameri can tribes have no p, b, m, f, v, or w; they never articulate with their lips. In China there is no d; r is also wanting; and as the habit of the language requires a vowel after every consonant, the nearest approach they can make to the sound of Christ. is An analogous habit of articulation transforms the English word gold in the mouth of a Kafir into On this principle can be explained the Fr. opercr, from Lat. sly rare,' cstablir or itablir, from rtabilire; ecole (creole). from rehol«, etc. In the Celtic tongue an initial s with a consonant after it was an unwonted combination; when it would have occurred a vowel was always prefixed; and, on adopting the Latin language, the Celtic peoples carried their old habit of pronunciation with then'. The effects upon a language of tints coming in contact with another arc importaut elements in its history. See ENG 1ASU LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.