in confequence of the Irish language abounding, like many others, in afpirates. One probable caufe too of the mistakes they commit in speaking English, may be derived from the fubftantive being placed in the Irish before the adjective, not after, as in the more artificial language of the English. Much has been written by many fages and learned men concerning the origin of language, which has generally been attributed to divinity, and the variety of tongues has been confidered as the effect of the confufion at Babel. I will not pretend to defcant on the fubject, nor to deny fuch authority, but will humbly premife a few obfervations which will be fufficient to authorize a conjecture respecting the formation, and alfo the alterations, without the aid which is to be derived from the great lawgiver of the Jews. We know that men in different countries fpeak different languages. but who does not know at the fame time. that the English language a few centuries ago, would not be understood now? and that if a fmall colony of English had been separated from the nation in general, they would have been taken for a different people? the manufacturers of England, who never go two miles from the place, for generations, cannot be understood by a Cockney. Languages differ fo much in a few years, by the particular circumftances of the people, that there is no occafion for miracles to explain the varieties; and one half of our language is calculated to give ideas of arts and fciences, which have been invented during the memory of man. We have many instances of the invention of terms for new objects in the great South Sea---the Otaheiteans called a gun, tiktik-bou! imitating thereby the cocking and report of the object; and we find among Savage nations, many things fimilar. The languages acquired by imitation are certainly the most natural and expreffive, and I am confident that the the language of man, was originally formed by imitating the objects of nature; and the names of many animals were given by imitating the voice of the individual: we find this even at prefent in all languages, but particularly in the lefs refined. Man, in a favage ftate, imitates birds and beafts to decoy them, and by imitation alone he forms a very extenfive fcale of founds. The founds of the common vowels, with l, m, n, p, we hear daily among cattle and domeftic beafts; the y, z, j, v, Đ, are like the buzzing of beetles; f, f,, s, like the hiffing of ferpents, particularly the s, which might with propriety have fignified the Generic name, till it became part of another appellative, and consequently a letter. In the most ancient alphabets the Phoenicians, Etrufcans, Latins and Goths, adopted the form of the ferpent for the character of s, which would have been a very expreffive Hieroglyphic. The of the Greeks, as pronounced by the English, is exactly like the forcible hiffing of a goofe, and is found in very few languages: the English contains fo many of these buzzing and hiffing founds, that fome Foreigners have called it the language of fnakes. r imitates the fnarling of dogs, and we find nations where there are no dogs that have not the letter r in their languages. The afpirate of * imitates the flight of the partridge and fome other birds, as well as the voice of fome locufts: Gutturals imitate the croaking of frogs or toads: the ftopt vocals and their afpirates are generally joined to fome of the common vowels by animals: bee, the sheep-bou, the dog-kuu, the dove, krook, the raven---kuaak, the duck---piu, the buzzard---tiu-it, the lapwing; kuk-ku, the cuckoo, &c. There are alfo a great variety of founds among animals, which man has had no occafion to adopt, in forming a language of his own wants, as their articulation is too difficult for com *See Page 283. mon mon ufe, and there are already more than fufficient for every useful purpose. Indeed we find few languages which do not contain feveral characters that are useless, and to which the fame founds are appropriated. The English contains the following; c which has fometimes the power of s, fometimes of k; q, which has always the power of k; and x, the powers of ks, of gz, or z*. Language does not require half the number of letters made use of by any nation; because, were ten or twelve letters well arranged, they would be capable of expreffing every idea we have acquired, or should be able to invent. Wachter in his Nature et Scripturæ Concordia, endeavours to show that ten letters are fufficient for a very comprehenfive language. Tacquet the mathematician calculates the various combinations of the alphabet of twenty four letters to be no fewer than 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000. Clavius however only makes them 5,852,616,738,497,664,000: they are both wrong; but the human mind cannot form an idea of fuch apparent infinity of combinations, nor could the inventive faculties of man exhauft them in language. Hence it does not follow that the most extensive alphabet would be required by the most copious language. We find among fome favage nations fuch a paucity of expreffion, that they cannot be faid to have a more extenfive language than fome beafts and upon which would philofophers reason, on the formation of language? on the beautiful, artificial Hebrew, or the confined expreffions of the most stupid of the human race? among whom a few fyllables compofe the whole vocabulary, and express all that VOL. III. PP their Mr. Sheridan hath not only rejected the c, q, & x, but likewife the j, which he ought to have retained instead of the ezb taken from Wilkins, which is really not in the English language; but the j, as pronounced by the French, is a very common vowel, and I am the more aftonished at his not adopting it, as he knew fo well the power of j:-But his error is uniform, never having used the j even in the words occafion, okeejan (occazhun Sher :)—adbefion, adbiijan (adhezhun) decifion, explosion, confufion—Profod: gram: xlviii. their appetites crave. Shew these people new objects, and they will, as every traveller evinces, form new words to express them: and, if the formation of any language can be thus proved, it is vain to look for another origin. I am also of opinion that alphabetical writing took its rife in monofyllables, to which hieroglyphicks could not be applied, and that these marks becoming the fymbols of the founds and not of the things, were regularly put for the fame founds in the compofition of other abstract terms and metaphysical ideas, till the scale of marks increased, and led gradually to a mark for each found. Some authors, whose admiration of the invention bewilders them too much to permit an examination of the principles, declare that the discovery is perfect, but they can only speak relatively; for the alphabets of fome modern languages are fo much more extenfive than many ancient ones, that these are very imperfect if we speak of a general alphabet for human fpeech, and not for particular languages. If a Chinese were to ftudy the English, he would be eafily perfuaded that the alphabetical mode of writing was an invention of the English, and that it was not yet perfected, from the innumerable faults, deficiencies, fuperfluities, irregularities, &c. of the written language. It is fo fhamefully incorrect, that, when read as it is written, an Englishman cannot understand it, and a foreigner reading it becomes the object of his laughter, although, as a good fcholar, he reads it perfectly, according to the orthography. I have often heard the question "do you fpeak French ?" with the anfwer "no fir, but I read and write it." The fame is faid of the English and fome other languages; every stranger to them lamenting, that the learned bodies of men, eftablished in fo many places for the benefit of mankind, should fo Efpecially if the common vowels fhould be read with their various powers misplaced, for there are no marks to determine them. fo long have neglected to facilitate the intercourfe of nations, by rendering the mode of acquiring every language eafy, which might be obtained as well by books as by travelling into the different countries where they are spoken, if those books were correct. SYLLABLES. No word or fyllable in the English language is formed by aspirates alone, but many fyllables are formed by what some of the most ingenious call confonants, and their arguments upon them fall, becaufe built upon falfe data. Th: Sheridan fays "The terminating ble is always "accounted a fyllable though in ftrict propriety it is not "fo; for, to constitute a syllable it is requifite that a vow"el fhould be founded in it, which is not the cafe here; "for though there is one presented to the eye at the end, "yet it is only e final mute, and the bl are taken into the "articulation of the former fyllable; but in pointing out "the feat of the accent I fhall confider it in the ufual way as forming a fyllable.”* If Mr. Sheridan had confidered the true power of either bor, he would have found them both vowels, and that together they form a perfect fyllable, as well as l, zl, vl, ml, nl, gl, dl, fl, fl, kl, pl, tl, m, n, zn, vn, dn, fn, tn, nd, nt, fnt: If a Line of Poetry be scanned which contains any of the above fyllables, the reader will be convinced of their being fuch, by the impoffibility of reading them otherwise. A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifc'ous fhoot, "Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. "Together let us beat this ample field, "Try what the open, what the covert yield; "The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore. Page Pp 2 Pope's Effay on Man line 7th. xliv. Profod: Gram: (prefixed to his dictionary.) |