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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1879)
NO. 8. IiANOUAOK IT8 OHIOIN. 171 arc absolutely meaningless, hut to you and to mo thoy testify of things Unit have gono, of seething wuves of Arc, of terrible energies, of luxurious vegetation. Wo know that agencies have been at work guided by unfaltering law, which have shaped the universe. With equal assurance can wo say that human speech is a result of law. It is a gradual evolution, a differentiating, a de velopment similar to the development of the embryo within the' egg, it is exempli fied in all progress; in tho growth- of so ciety, government, commerce, language. Although we do not claim to penetrate to tho ultimate starting point and fix tho very first sounds uttered by human tongue, we do claim that a monosyl labic form of language must of necessity have been the first; i. c., primitive words must have consisted ol one vowel joined to one or more consonants. A, u, i, seem to have been the first vowels, from the var ious combinations of wliich others arc de rived; au equals o, ai c, etc. Perhaps these were uttered in imitation of some animal and it seems more than likely that this, tho "bow wow" theory, as some con temptuously call it, along with the oxcla. mation or "pooh pooh" theory, furnish tho key to the origin ot speech. Let us understand this. The first of these views implies, that man, having vo cal organs, exercised them in imitating sounds around him. lie; heard a cuckoo, noticed its peculiar cry; his fellow-being doing the same, the sound cuckoo became at once the name ni the bird. Repeating the sound to each other would recall the picture, the impression, and thus their vo cabulary would have a beginning. Again take such words as buzz, whiz, splash, cling, clang, gurgle, gargle, etc. and you will at once see the close connec tion between tho word and tho object. Thoy coincide in a remarkable dogieo. I have given these words lor illustra. Hon. It is not said that wo can account for all words by this method, but speech evidently might originate, could originate in tills manner. For Ihcro is no possible ground to think that any name was given to any object whatever, which did no1 describe or limit it in some way, just as cuckoo describes the bird, just as moon, mund, men, mouth, monat, mind, man and a host of derivations, dato back to the root ma meaning to measure. Still this would only account for do monstrativo roots or tho names of objects; we must suppose that signs and emotions oxprcsscd our verbs. This indeed seems certain. It is past all reasonable ques tion that in tho earliest communication between human beings, gestures played a considerable if not tho most important part, and only gradually was this mode supplanted by spoken signs. Even now with tho highly developed far-reaching resources in our vocabulary wo employ gestures, with remarkable ef fect; whole sentences are expressed by a single gesture, and sometimes more clo quenlly than with words because tho mean ing would Hash upon tho mind instantan eously. In addition to this, exclamations, such as oh, ah, when pain is born or any simi lar expression uttcrci under various cir cumstances, would naturally supply some roots; these exclamations, I may remark in passing, are the same in all languages. This, I confess, is tho most difficult part of our inquiries, the one wo cannot abgo lutely prove, hence analogical reasoning must bo our guide and this is trustworthy. The causes wliich change and mouify language to-day existed always. This tendency to diverge is plainly seen, its only check is, the uocessity of mental un dcrstanding, that alone prevents too great a doparturc. Taking this for granted that either of these theories would lead us to the start ing point of human speech, tho way bo comes less cumbrous, and direct evidence in regard to the growth and differentia tiou of language can bo supplied. This growth wo will traco at another time; it is sufficient now to bear in mind that tho