PERMUTATION.
The principles of reciprocal interchange of sounds, which are actively at work whenever new languages are coming into being, or old ones are splitting, or falling into decay, can only be adequately apprehended by obtaining a general but clear view of the entire scheme of philology. The annals of H would, however, be glaringly in default if no mention were made of its relations to foreign letters.
Philologyis a modern science. Leibnitz rescued it from the domain of pure fancy; Sir William Jones supplied it with ground to work upon; Bopp (a great authority on ancient Aspirates), Pott, and a host of others, began to build. The Greeks had been impressed with the idea that their language came from their gods; this made the study of alien tongues appear unimportant; hence, Greek philological research ended where it began. Analogous convictions shut the gates of progress on the most civilized of the Shemitic races. The Romans, again, when seeking to discover the origin of tongues, looked eastward for inspiration; butthey did not look far enough. Long generations of their successors burrowed, like moles, in the Plains of Shinar. Grimm came, and there was light. The name of this great German philosopher has become so inseparably associated with the sudden strides made by modern linguistic science, as to have raised him from the ranks of philological pioneers, and placed him—in popular estimation—at the head and front of the whole enterprise. Whatever be the exact degree of his merit as a discoverer or thinker, as a successful propagator of rational views he stands a colossus and a marvel. Labeled fragile by the sceptic, and dangerous by the orthodox, his theories out-lived both grimaces and frowns, and within a few years of their birth aroused Europe to the fact that a “Babel” had been, and still was, both within and around her; and, seemingly by miracle, they even succeeded in carrying conviction and recognition of a truth that confuted tradition, to the very centres of some of the ecclesiastical circles of the day. Grimm’s discoveries, while pointing out the slow but constant changes that languages undergo, showed also that all the languages of Europe and half those of Asia had sprung from a common origin—and that, notthe Hebrew one dogmatically assigned to them by the Early Fathers. Fortunately for Grimm, he published in the beginning of the nineteenth century; had he been a contemporary of poor Galileo he might have been subjected to some inconvenience and censure.
Grimm—who, by-the-bye, was a bigoted patriot—devoted himself chiefly to an investigation of the Teutonic tongues, and to a study of the German language; but the result of his labours has shown the changes that sounds undergo when a word is being distributed among different peoples. TheLawbearing his name is tabulated below:—
These rules are not without exceptions, but, especially in the case of sounds that begin words, the exceptions are not numerous enough to nullify the rule.
The following are some examples of permutation affecting the H:—
Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin hard sounds become Aspirate sounds in English; example:—
The true English Aspirate corresponds to the Sanskrit K, and has nothing to do with the old AryanH. The Latin H inhaberehas no Aryan root, and remains unexplained. Englishhaveis related to the Latincapere, nothabere.
Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin Aspirates, represented by g:—
Some of the other changes that H undergoes in Indo-European languages may be briefly summarized:—
That H =f, has been shown in a Sabine and a Spanish example (page24), and the same may be seen in a few French words—e.g., Lat. foris, Fr. hors; and Lat. fabulari, Fr. habler. But the descendants of the Gauls are not chargeable with having reduced this last word to its present stunted condition; the mutilation offabulariwas another act of vandalism perpetrated at an early date in Spain, the word having (according to Brachet[14]) crossed the Pyrenees, disguised as “hablar” in the sixteenth century.
Disguises still more extraordinary happen in the Gothic languages. H is exchangeable withc. This substitution, together with the subsequent disappearance of the H, are causes of confusion, and often effectually conceal the relationship of cognate words. At first sight the English wordrawseems to be considerably less than kin to the Italiancrudo; but on collating the several synonymous words—English,raw; (Dutch,raauw); Saxon,hreaw; Latin,cruorandcrudus; (French,cru), and Italiancrudo; their family likeness and community of origin become a little more discernible.
The things of the Present are born of the Past, and are moulding the things of the Future; the deeds of to-day show events of to-morrow reflected in shadowy outline. Conjectures concerning the future of H may be built on data afforded by its history. The Aspirate has grown enfeebled in Low German tongues, and in Latin ones is almost discarded. It would bode evil to the continued existence of H, if either of these classes were to furnish the “universal language.” But, probably one of them will. Thestrong breathingseems to be a remnant of that stage of transition which, at one time, may have formed a link between gesticulatory speech and the language of articulate sound. Then it was that every available accessory to the expression of the emotions will have been brought into use. And,per contra, in a highly developed state ofcivilization, with its accompanying highly developed speech-code, the tones and modes of expression that constituted nature’s primitive eloquence must fall gradually into disuse. The strong breathing and the guttural breathing, having been the most expressive emotional interpreters of the early savage, are repugnant to the artificial sedateness and studied reserve of the modern speaker. In the speech of the well-bred Englishman, the hale old English H has melted into a soft Aspirate, and even this is likely to be soon altogether lost. The French say, “We regard aspirated H’s with horror!”—Littré[15]declares they hurt his chest. Whatever be the language spoken by Macaulay’s New Zealander, it is highly probable that he will drop his H’s.
Another omen unfavourable to H is this. Any letter doomed to die out of a word or a language, generally attempts to depart gracefully by first acquiring the nature of an aspirate-consonant, and then turns into a perfect H; under this form it relies upon h-dropping mortals to give it quiet burial, and unobtrusively confide it to Oblivion.