Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c12.8

Language: English

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To be able to estimate the views of these writers at their true worth, it is necessary that we should try to fix the meaning of the word dialect, which is the source of some confusion, and endeavour to form some idea of the origin and growth of dialects generally. If little differences are to be regarded as sufficient to constitute a dialect there are as many dialects as human beings. For just as no two human faces are exactly alike, no two men speak exactly alike. Every one has his peculiarities of pronunciation, and is fond of particular words or turns of expression. The principle of individuality is strong in human nature, but its effects are counteracted by the principle of community, which guides the development of human life; and the necessity of communication compels a man to drop peculiarities in speech and to conform himself to the prevailing model. Thus then, the individual differences come to be minute and insignificant, and hence the language of a community becomes practically one language. But, coustituted as communities generally, but not necessarily, are, they are composed of classes; and there is not as much communication between separate classes as within the limits of a class, and hence there come to be class languages, or varieties of speech in the same community. There may be many such classes;

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but the smaller ones may be neglected, and we may distinguish between two large ones, generally called the lower and the higher, or the uneducated and educated classes. The languages of these differ, that of the lower class being more subject to those laws of development, growth, or corruption which I traced in the first lecture. Thus an uneducated Englishman uses many such forms as "I knowed," "you says," formed upon the prevailing analogies; and his pronunciation of a good many words is corrupt, as "genlman" for "gentleman," "wot" for "what," "guvner" for "governor," &c. And in the same way the language of the Marâthî, Gujarâtî or Hindî lower classes is not the same as that of the higher. But still the word dialect is not used in speaking of these two varieties, one principal reason being that the language of the lower classes is not acknowledged to have an independent existence. Again, when a community comes to have a literature, the style that is used, as a rule, differs from the ordinary conversational style. There are certain words, turns of expression, modes of construction, and even solitary forms which, though used in conversation, do not appear in books. Even these two varieties are not called dialects.

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The dialects of a language therefore or kindred dialects, as they may be called, are the languages of kindred communities, which, while they possess a large body of common words and forms, have also many others which are different, though in most cases the roots from which these are derived are common to all. And according to the proportion in which the similar and dissimilar elements are mixed, the dialects are more or less distant from each other. The causes that divide men into distinct communities are the causes that create dsitinct dialects. The laws of change and development are always in operation in a language, in a changing condition of society, and the processes of destruction or disappearance of old words and forms and the construction or appearance of new ones, are constantly going on. Hence, when after the separation of men into distinct communities, communication between them is lessened, these processes go on in a varied and dissimilar manner. The conditions of life in their new habitations may also be different, and when they are so they bring about a varied linguistic development. But though the processes of destruction and construction are always going on in a language, they suppose that the society, whose language it is, is moving and not stationary. The life of a community may, however, be even and unvaried, in which case there will be little change in its language. Or certain races may be very conservative, and cling to the past with tenacity.

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Thus the Lithuanian peasants of the present day have through a number of ages, though they possess nothing like a literature, preserved a good many old Aryan words and forms in a purer condition than all their European neighbours. So that even after men are divided into distinct communities it is by no means necessary that distinct dialects should grow up. They may or they may not. But the possibility of slight differences, such as those which exist in the speech of the different classes of a community, even when the dialect is the same, is not denied. Now, if for the various reasons above indicated dialects have come into existence, these continue until by the development of civilisation and by political events kindred communities come to form a nation; and then by increased communication and the growth of a common literature these dialects are fused together, and one harmonious language is formed; though, however, in remote quarters they may continue to have an independent existence. The writers whom I have quoted pay exclusive attention to this fact, of which there are several instances in modern European history, the most notable of which is the development of the modern German; and lay it down as a universal proposition which requires no proof, that in an early condition of society there must be a plurality of dialects, and there could be no such thing as a common language. This seems to be the opinion of Professor Max Müller also.

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But if there was not one common original dialect, whence are the common portion of the words and forms of kindred dialects, and the common roots derived? And does not comparative philology itself, in its comparisons and classifications, go upon the assumption that there was such a language? Thus then, since the creation of dialects depends on causes and the causes may not exist, it will not do to assume that there were several dialects in Vedic times without positive proof or even positive indications. Several independent Aryan communities or tribes may not have migrated into India, but only one. Or even if more than one tribe came over they may have been, like the Lithuanian peasants, very conservative as regards their language. The circumstances we know about the language of the period do not necessitate the supposition of a plurality of dialects. Besides, if according to Professor Weber these originally existing dialects went on in their own isolated course as the idioms of different provinces, and became the Pâli and the Prâkṛits, we should expect to find much greater divergences between them, produced in the course of the many centuries that elapsed between the Vedic period and that in which they were as we now find them. But the distinction between the dialects of the inscriptions of As'oka and even between the different Prâkṛits is by no means great, and concerns chiefly the pronunciation of individual letters.

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The plea of linguistic conservatism which I have before used in a certain case, cannot be brought in here, since those early dialects resembling the language of the Vedas, as they must have done if they existed, were already very greatly corrupted in passing into the Pâli or the Prâkṛits. Surely such very extensive changes as from the Vedic to the Prâkṛit form, if carried on in different provinces by different communities, must occasion very great divergences, greater even than we find between the modern vernaculars. For the degree of departure from the old Prâkṛits which these last exhibit is not so great as that which the Prâkṛits do from the Vedic dialect. The divergence ought to be at least as great, but it certainly is not so.