The affinities between languages are sought by philologists in two entirely different di rections ; namely, in their vocabularies, and in their methods of grammatical construction. In comparing the former, it is of course ne cessary to make due allowance for the pos sible influence of conquest, intermixture, or frequent intercourse, iu modifying the original tongues ; but the experienced enquirer may generally eliminate this source of error, by placing his chief reliance on what are termed primary words, i. e. on words which serve to represent the universal ideas of a people in the most simple state of existence. Such are the terms expressive of family relations ; the names of the most striking objects of the visible universe, the sun, moon, stars, trees, rivers, &c. ; terms distinguishing the prin cipal parts of the body, as the head, eyes, hands, and feet ; the numerals, up to five, ten, or twenty ; and verbs descriptive of the most common sensations and bodily acts, such as seeing, hearing, eating, drinking, sleeping. Such primary words are never wanting in the language of any nation ; and it has been ascer tained by observation, that they are the last to undergo change, either in the spontaneous modifications which take place in the course of time, or under the disturbing influence of a foreign idiom ; so that a conformity in primary words affords very strong evidence of a community of origin among the nations which exhibit it.—The evidence afforded by conformity in grammatical construction, re quires a more intimate acquaintance than is needed for the preceding, with what is some times called the genius of the language ; but when it has been gained, it is frequently even more important than that furnished by the vocabularies. For there are many cases in which the latter are so continually under going important changes (the want of written records allowing them to possess no more than a traditional permanence), that the diver gence of tongues becomes so great, in the course of even a few generations, as to prevent tribes descended from a common ancestry from understanding one another ; and yet the system of grammatical construction, which depends more upon the grade of mental de velopment, and upon the habits of thought, exhibits a remarkable permanence.
The following are the principal types of construction, or "methods by which the re lation between the different words that con stitute sentences is indicated," according to a very recent and distinguished authority.* 1. The Aptotic type, of which the Chinese is an example. In this, there is a total ab sence of inflections ; and the words which, in languages of the classical form, do the work of the inflections, that is, express the relations of the principal words to each other, are themselves most commonly the names of objects and actions, i. e., nouns and verbs. " Thus if," says Dr. Latham, "instead of say ing, I go to London, figs come from Turkey, the sun shines through the air, we said I go end London, figs come origin Turkey, the sun shines passage air, we should discourse after the manner of the Chinese." This is the lowest grade of linguistic development.
2. The Agglutinate type, which is carried to its fullest extent in the American lan guages. These possess inflexions, which can be generally shown to have arisen out of the juxtaposition and composition of different words, the incorporation not having been suf ficiently complete wholly to disguise the ori ginally independent and separate character of the inflexional addition. This may be re garded as a decided advance in development.
3. The Amalgamate type, of which the classical languages are the most perfect ex amples. These possess a very complete system of inflexions, which express the relation be tween the fundamental idea denoted by the term, and some other ; and these inflexions are so completely incorporated with the root with which they are conjoined, that their existence as separate and independent words cannot be demonstrated, and can only be sup ported upon the analogy of the agglutinate languages. Thus, " in a word like honzinem,
there are two parts, homin, radical ; em, in flexional. In the word te-tig-i, there are the same. The power of these parts is clear. The tig- and homin- denote the simple action or the simple object. The te- denotes the time in which it takes place ; the i, the agent. In the proposition te-tig-i honzin-enz, the em denotes the relation between the object (the man touched) and the action (of touching). Logically, there are two ideas, e. g. that of the action or object, and that of the super added conditions in respect to time, agency, and relation." 4. The Anaptotic type, of which the English is an example. This designation is given to languages which were once inflexional, but which have in great part ceased to be so. In such we find that the auxiliary words which do the work of the Greek and Latin inflexions, are not names of objects and actions like those of the Chinese language, but possess (generally speaking) a purely abstract value, having a meaning only when in context with other words. Thus, where the Roman said te-tig-i, we say, I have touched; where the Roman said patri, we say to father; where a Roman said tanganz, we say, /wit/ (or shall) touch. In many of these auxiliary words, however, an independent meaning can be clearly seen ; thus have and will are obviously verbs in their own right; and the conjunction if is a corruption of the Saxon Of (give). Moreover, the inflexions are seldom or never wholly disused; so that these anaptotic languages always preserve relations of affinity to those of the two preceding types, of which they may be considered a peculiar development.
To one or other of these types, or to tran sitional grades between them, it is believed that all existing languages may be referred. It is remarkable that the development of a language should not by any means correspond to the advance of civilisation, so far, at least, as this is manifested by progress in the arts of life. The Chinese, for instance, of all known languages, most completely preserves, in a fixed or stereotyped condition, that earliest phase in the development of speech, in which every word corresponded to, or represented, a substantial object in the outward world ; and it cannot be denied that a considerable amount of intellectual development is to be found amidst that people. And from what is known of the ancient Egyptian language, this appears to have been nearly in the same con dition. On the other hand, there are many languages of comparatively barbarous nations, even belonging to the same group with the Chinese, which possess much greater flexi bility. The highest development of language however, is undoubtedly to be found coinci dent with the highest intellectual cultivation ; since this pre-eminently shows itself in the Indo-European tongues, of which the Sanscrit may be taken as the type, the Hellenic pre senting its highest development in the amalga mate form, and the English in the anaptotic. In both these do we find that the general plan of construction tends to give to every single word a fixed and definite meaning, and at the same time, to render it subservient to the general idea that the sentence is to unfold, which is obviously the great end and aim of language; whilst in the Chinese, every spoken word has an immense variety of meanings, and its import being determined, partly by its place in the sentence, partly by the tones or accents with which it is pronounced, and in the written language by an immense number of conventional signs derived from figurative sources, which are destined, not to express sounds, but to suggest ideas, and thus to assist the reader in guessing the meaning of the word.