mere dialects, but are now become languages, having many dialects of their own. Primitive Origin of the English Language. By C. S. RAFINESQUE. The best work on the philosophy and affinities of the English language is, at present, the Introduction, by Noah Webster, to his great dictionary. Yet although he has taken enlarged views of the subject, and by far surpassed every predecessor, he has left much to do to those future philologists and philosophers who may be inclined to pursue the subject still farther: not having traced the English language to its primitive sources, nor through all its variations and anomalies. But no very speedy addition to this knowledge is likely to be produced, since Mr. Webster has stated, in a letter inserted in the Genesee Farmer of March, 1832, (written to vindicate some of his improvements in orthography,) that no one has been found in America or England able to review his Introduction! although many have been applied to! But I was not one of those consulted, few knowing of my researches in languages, else I could have done ample justice to the subject and Mr. Webster. It is not now a review of his labors that I undertake, but merely an inquiry into the primitive origin of our language, extracted from my manuscript Philosophy of the English, French and Italian languages, compared with all the other languages or dialects of the whole world, not less than 3000 in number. The modern English has really only one immediate parent. The old English, such as it was spoken and written in England, between the years 1000 and 1500, lasting about five hundred years, which is the usual duration of fluctuating languages. Our actual English is a natural deviation or dialect of it, begun between 1475 and 1525, and gradually improved and polished under two different forms, the written English and the spoken English, which are as different from each other as the English from the French. These two forms have received great accession by the increase of knowledge, and borrowing from many akin languages words unknown to the old English. They are both subject yet to fluctua tions of orthography and pronunciation, which gradually modify them again. The old English existed probably also under these two forms, and had several contemporaneous dialects, as the modern English, of which the Yorkshire and Scotch dialects are most striking in Europe, while Guyana, Creole and West-India Creole, are the most remarkable in America. Another dialect, filled with Bengali and Hindostani words, is also forming in the East-Indies. A complete comparison of the old and modern English has not yet been given. A few striking examples will here be inserted as a specimen of disparity. As late as the year 1555, we find the English language very dif ferent from the actual, at least in orthography; for instance, This old English is supposed to have sprung from the amalgamation of three languages: British-Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, between the years 1000 and 1200. This has been well proved by many, and I take it for granted. But the successive parents and the genealogies of the Celtic, Saxon and Norman, are not so well understood. Yet through their successive and gradual dialects springing from each other, are to be traced the anomalies and affinities of all the modern languages of western Europe. By this investigation it is found that these three parents of the English, instead of being remote and distinct languages, were themselves brothers, sprung from a common primitive source, having undergone fluctuations and changes every 500 or 1000 years. For instance, the Latin of the time of Romulus, was quite a different. language from that spoken in the time of Augustus, although this was the child of the former, this of the Ausonian, &c. The following table will illustrate this fact, and the subsequent remarks prove it. I. Old English sprung partly from the British-Celtic. 2d Step British Celtic of Great Britain, sprung from the Celtic of West Europe. 2d Step. This Celtic from the Cumric or Kimran of Europe. II. The Old English partly sprung from the Anglo-Saxon of 2d Step. The Anglo-Saxon sprung from Saxon or Sacacenas of Germany. 3d Step. The Saxon from the Teutonic or Gothic of Europe. 4th Step. The Teutonic from the Getic of East Europe. 5th Step. The Getic from the Tiras or Tharaca of West Asia. (Thracians of the Greeks.) 6th Step. The Tiras from the Cutic or Saca of Central Asia, called Scythian by the Greeks. 7th Step. The Saca was a branch of the Sanscrit. III. Old English partly sprung from the Norman French. 2d Step. The Norman French was sprung from the Romanic of France. 3d Step. The Romanic from the Celtic, Teutonic and Roman Latin. 4th Step. Roman Latin from the Latin of Romulus. 5th Step. The Latin from the Ausonian of Italy. 6th Step. The Ausonian from the Pelagic of Greece and West Asia. 7th Step. The Pelagic from the Palangsha or Pali of Central Asia. 8th Step. The Pali was a branch of the Sanscrit. Thus we see all the sources of the English language concentrating by gradual steps into the Sanscrit, one of the oldest languages of Central Asia, which has spread its branches all over the globe. Being the original language of that race of men, fathers of the Hindus, Persians, Europeans and Polynesians. All the affinities between English and Sanscrit, are direct and striking, notwithstanding many deviations, and the lapse of ages. While those between the English and other primitive languages, such as Chinese, Mongol, Arabic, Hebrew, Coptic, Berber, &c., are much less in number and importance; being probably derived from the natural primitive analogy of those languages with the Sanrcrit itself, when all the languages in Asia were intimately connected. Many authors have studied and unfolded the English analogies with many languages; but few if any have ever stated their numerical amount. Unless this is done we can never ascertain the relative amount of mutual affinities. It would be a very laborious and tedious task to count those enumerated in Webster's Dictionary. My numerical rule affords a very easy mode to calculate this amount without much trouble. Thus, to find the amount of affinities between English and Latin, let us take ten important words at random in each. m ††Soul One God Deus Sol Anima Uahn Unum ††House Haus Domus Muhn Luna Star Aster Good Bonus Star ++Good We thereby find three affinities in ten, or 30 per cent; as many analogies or semi-affinities, marked †, equal to 15 per cent more; and four words, or 40 per cent, have no affinities. This will probably be found a fair average of the mutual rate in the old English, but the modern has received so many Latin synonyms as to exceed perhaps this rate. Of these analogies it is remarkable that most are not direct from the Latin, or even through the French; but are of Saxon origin, which had them with the Latin previously. Thus the affinities between the English and Greek or Russian, are derived through the Pelagic and Thracian, unless lately adopted. Boxhorn and Lipsius first noticed the great affinities of words and grammar between the Persian and German dialects. Twentyfive German writers have written on this. But Weston, in a very rare work, printed at Calcutta, in 1816, on the conformity of the English and European languages with the Persian, has much enlarged the subject, and has given as many as 480 consimilar words between Persian and Latin, Greek, English, Gothic and Celtic: but he has not stated the numerical amount of these affinities. All this is not surprising, since the Iranians or Persians were also a branch of Hindus, and this language a child of the Zend, a dialect of the Sanscrit. Hammer has found as many as 560 affinities between German and Persian. But the late work of Col. Kennedy, "Researches on the Origin and Affinity of the principal Languages of Asia and Europe," London, 1828, 4to., is the most important, as directly concerning this investigation; notwithstanding that he has ventured on several gratuitous assertions, and has many omissions of consequence. Kennedy states that the Sanscrit has 2500 verbal roots, but only 566 have distinct meanings; while each admitting of 25 suffixes, they form 60,000 words, and as they are susceptible of 958 increments, as many as 1,395,000 words may be said to exist in this wonderful language. Yet out of these 2500 roots, as many as 900 are found by Kennedy in the Persian and European languages, although the Greek has only 2200 roots, and the Latin 2400. Of these 900 affinities 339 are found in the Greek, |