A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c4.62

Language: English

v1.c4.62.1

In the absence therefore of strict historical data, we are driven to fall back upon the argument derived from analogy, and especially the analogy of the Romance languages. The accent affords one example of the method in which this analogy may be made useful. The Sanskrit accent is not in all cases known, but here again, arguing from the analogy of those words in which it is known, as well as from the great similarity of the Greek accent, which has fortunately been preserved, trustworthy results may be obtained. I now pass on to the mention of another point which it is necessary to bear in mind in taking a survey of the whole subject. A Desaja word may, like an early Tadbhava, be derived from a word which though not Sanskritic is yet Aryan, and such a word may not be found either in Sanskrit or in Prakrit. It would be then necessary to search for it in all the branches of the Indo-Germanic family before giving it up. This undertaking lies beyond the scope of the present work, but the modern Aryan languages will not have been completely investigated till some one works out this portion of the inquiry. Such a word, though not used in Indian literature, may have been in use in the mouths of the people, and may be current under some slight disguise in the mouths of Lithuanian peasants even yet.

v1.c4.62.2

To refer once more to Latin, it is well known that most of the words forming the present Romance languages are derived from what is called "low Latin," which is merely the speech of the vulgar as distinguished from that of the higher classes and from the literary style. Thus, to take one instance out of many, the word for "horse," *cheval*, *cavallo*, *caballo*, is from the Latin *caballus*, a word used by the peasantry, and only occasionally admitted into the higher style. The classical equivalent *equus* has left no direct descendant, though in modern times the words "equipage," "equitation," and so forth, have been coined from it. We are not so much concerned with the general fact as with the reasons of it, and these are so important to our subject that they must be noticed in full. The first reason is this. It is well known that the modern French, Spanish, etc., were originally mere colloquial languages, and took their rise from the corruptions introduced into the Latin spoken by the lower classes in Italy by the barbarous Teutonic tribes, who invaded and overran the countries which owned the Roman sway.

v1.c4.62.3

The inability of Lombards, Burgundians, Goths, and Franks, to accustom themselves to the correct use of the inflectional terminations of the Latin arose, not, as some have thoughtlessly said, from their newness to the system of synthetical construction in the abstract, because we know that the inflections of the early Teutonic languages were in some respects even more complicated than those of the Latin, but from their rudeness and the as yet undeveloped state of their mental powers. They were too rough and careless to substitute the Roman grammatical system for their own, in spite of the close resemblance between the two. Men in a low state of civilization see distinctions sooner than resemblances. They differentiate more readily than they generalize. The difference between their own language and that of the Romans¹ struck them forcibly, while it has been reserved for a much later generation to discover the fundamental unity of both. They therefore not only made havoc of the inflectional terminations of the Latin language,—in doing which they were doubtless aided by the tendency already beginning to develope itself among the Romans themselves towards an analytical form of speech,—but they also rejected such Latin words as they found any difficulty in pronouncing, substituting for them their own German words. It must also be remembered that for centuries before her fall Rome had been propped by foreign spears.

v1.c4.62.4

Briton, Spaniard, and Gaul had fought in her legions, and guarded the palaces of her capital. Juvenal's "barbara quæ pictis venit bascanda Britannis" is only a type of a large class of words familiar to the later Romans, but which were quite unknown to writers of the Augustan age."² Just as we English have borrowed loot,