Imatges de pàgina
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may expect. The prospective etymology is more conjectural; but, with the present deficient record, there is plenty of conjecture in our retrospects. Neither is there much difference between the amount of acquired knowledge and mental aptitudes required for the respective studies of the prophet and the historian. It is possible that the prophetic may be the higher faculty. It is manifest, however, that the etymologist who looks in both directions is a better judge of what is good and bad in an alphabet in respect to its application or non-application to his subject, than the etymologist who sees only what lies behind him. I may do the objectors injustice; but the faculty of looking both towards the past and the future has not yet made itself conspicuous in their objections.

SECTION XXXVII.

REPRESENTATION AND FIXATION.

When the phonetic system is carried on to its ultimate results there is nothing to be said about such a thing as the Fixation of a language. Representation is the sole function of phoneticism. It is representative or nothing: and, when it is exclusively representative, fixation is simply a contradictory term. On the other hand, if representation mean, purely and simply, the reproduction to the eye of the sounds that fall upon the ear; and that without respect to the number or the influence of the speakers that utter them; and, also, without respect to their permanence, we can scarcely call this the representation of a language. Those who most love individuality well know that for a language to be worth spelling at all, it must possess some unity and some permanence. With fluctuating pronunciations it will have something to do with transitional ones much. Ephemeral ones it will treat as such. Obsolete ones it knows how to deal with. With premature ones it has a difficult task. The general tendencies of a language will, sooner or later, get their own way. What comes from interference with them them is better shown than I can show it, in the following extract; which gives us the opinions of two critics. There is more in Dr Ingleby's notice than in Morgan's letter (for it is founded, partly, on one to the Athenœum); but I have the best authority for saying that, while.it represents the opinion of the author of the notice, it does not misrepresent that of the subject. A premature stereotype of a transitional pronunciation has a re-action as well as an action; for it helps to fulfil its own accomplishment. It interferes with the natural tendencies of the language-in all cases, I believe, for a time only. But the interference, itself, is an interruption. It is not, however, an unmixed evil. It gives, as a set-off, a register of the change. This, however, is a sacrifice to etymology.

I think that, with this admission, the pro's and con's of this very perplexing case are fairly weighed against one another. The extract is from "Modern Logicians-The late Augustus de Morgan," by C. M. Ingleby, and it runs thus

The practical had a charm for De Morgan. Many projects he viewed with favor, to which, however, he would give no support, because he regarded them as impracticable. The decimal system of coinage received his advocacy because he believed it was feasible, as well as theoretically good. To duodecimals, he gave no encouragement, because he believed that they could never be made to supersede decimals, notwithstanding his conviction that, if adopted, they would prove more convenient than the prevalent numerical system. Though strongly given to the archæological parts of literature, he was no blind opponent to the system of phonetic spelling, inaugurated by the Phonetic News. As a practical man he recognized but one objection, viz., the existence of the present system. His way of explaining himself was that on the theoretical side of the question there were no objections; if the thing could be got it should be got. He not only looked with favor on the scheme of visible speech put forth by Mr A. Melville Bell, but joined with Sir David Brewster and Mr Alex. J. Ellis in recommending its adoption. He was not imposed upon by the extremely shallow objection to any phonetic scheme, that its adoption would endanger the historical continuity of the language it is employed to represent. De Morgan saw plainly that the English language is undergoing a revolution of the worst kind; not so much from the introduction of vulgarisms, Americanisms, or neologisms, as from pedantic orthoepisms. Every child who is taught to read augments the prevailing tendency to pronounce strictly according to the spelling in vogue, i.e., to introduce arbitrary sounds never heard before in any stage of development of the language. Such sounds are not determined by the laws of speech, but by a remote chain of causes, acting through the laws of combination of certain written symbols, and therefore not adapted for the purposes of speech. The only two courses by which this mischievous tendency can be arrested are these-to prevent children from learning to read; or to give them a phonetic literature.

Now in cases of this kind the Man for the Hour is the one who looks forwards as well as backwards. He cannot tell us, for the actual moment, which pronunciation prevails. But he can tell us which (if we must do anything in the way of fixation) is the one to choose. One gives us the language of, at least, some of our contemporaries, and, perhaps, some of our ancestors; the other gives us that of our posterity. Neither may be permanent. Which, however, will last the longest is self-evident.

SECTION XXXVIII.

THE EARLY ALPHABETS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS.

Here begins a new division of our subject; one mainly historical It treats of the conditions of time and place when the first alphabet of Latin origin was introduced into Western Europe. We must look for the country of its introduction in the west and north, rather than in the south and east; because, in the latter, the language or at least the literary one, was more or less Latin. This brings us to Germany and the British Isles. The oldest German alphabet (of which more will be said in the sequel) was Greek: but this applies only to the German of the continent. In the British Isles there was a British Church, and this, whatever else it may have been, was earlier than the Anglo-Saxon.

We may, then, safely begin with the statement that the language of Western Europe which has the oldest alphabet, exclusively of Latin origin, is either the Welsh or the Irish; in other words, the oldest alphabet of this class that we know is that which is due to the British Church in its most general form; i.e., the church of the British Islands, the church of the insular Kelts, the church of the Britons or the Gaels-one or both. This is, in the first instance, (save certain exceptions standing over for notice) an inference from the universal connection between the introduction of Christianity and the introduction of the alphabet, but it is strengthened by the evidence of history, and by the agreement between the Keltic and the Anglo-Saxon alphabets. In continental Germany we find the letter k instead of c. In the British Isles, whether Great Britain or Ireland, we find e in the place of k. We find the same in the earlier Icelandic manuscripts; though, at present, as the result of German influences, k has superseded it. Whether this Anglo-Saxon alphabet was taken from the Latin direct or from one of the British forms of it is a question upon which we may profitably pause a little; for it suggests a distinction. The actual form of the letters is one thing, the principle upon which they were extended from the Latin to the Keltic is another. The first of these points is unimportant: for the independent existence of the Irish as a separate alphabet had not lasted long enough to engender any notable discrepancies between the copy and the prototype. The principles, however, of of its application to either the Irish or the British language are matters upon which much depends.

We must not, now, be surprised if the two irrepressibles again display themselves-k and c: if between two alphabets of Latin origin there may be a difference: inasmuch as one may have been formed upon a model so purely and exclusively Latin as to ignore the k altogether, whereas the other may have been formed under circumstances where the recognition of the k was possible.

Now it is submitted that it was upon a Latin model of the extreme and exclusive character that rejected the k, that the Anglo-Saxon alphabet was founded; while that of the Germans was founded upon one which contained it and this means that what we may call a false start at the very beginning is one of the main causes of the bad conditions of the English orthography in the present advanced stage of its history. It was framed upon the worse of two imperfect models, the Greek and the Latin; and, in the Latin group, from the least fit of its members. This was the case whether the Anglo-Saxon alphabet was derived directly from the Latin, or indirectly, i.e,, through the alphabet of what we may call the Keltic Church; British or Irish as the case may be.

Now, at the present moment, both the Irish and the English have, as far as the details connected with the shape of the letters go, two alphabets-one old, the other new. There are Anglo-Saxon works, which institutions so modern as the Society of Antiquaries and the Record office, have printed in the Anglo-Saxon characters; though the less conservative publishers write Anglo-Saxon with the exception of the two distinctive letters, p=th, and=dh; and print in the ordinary English letters; just as some of the Germans and Danes print in both the old black letter, and the more modern italic. The Swedes, however, have nothing to say to the black letter, and use the italic either exclusively or as the rule. The Irish do the same as the Germans and the Danes; and sometimes print in the older, sometimes in newer type. It is, I believe, a sign of nationality to use the former; and sometimes we may see the strange contrast in nominally English printing, of the words common to both languages in the modern, or Saxon, and the proper names, characteristic of Ireland, in the old, or native type. Whether the result be a handsome page or the contrary is another question. The fact to which attention is directed is that of the old Irish type and the Anglo-Saxon being convertible. It would not, perhaps, be difficult to say whether a work of King Alfred were printed in type meant for the meridian of Dublin, or in one for that of London. The general form, however, of the letters is so nearly identical, that Anglo-Saxon may be read in Gaelic and Gaelic in Anglo-Saxon types. The native Irish, Erse, or Gaelic alphabet has

1. No h. No Irish word begins with it; and, though we find more than enough of it, in the Anglo-Irish type as a sign of the so-called aspiration, it is only in this equivocal character that it presents itself. What the Anglo-Irish type gives as bh, etc., the true Irish of the manuscripts gives as b. This, at first, looks like the Greek ('): but this it is not. It came in by degrees; i.e., some letters took it before others.

2. Noj.

3. No approach, from first to last, to a k. 4. No q.

5. Nothing beyond u.

This, which reduces the Irish letters to seventeen, suggests that the framers of the alphabet took from Latin just the unequivocal and unambiguous letters; just the letters they could not do without; the letters which they could manage, without difficulty, and without either refinements or expedients. This, though a good principle to begin with, is a bad one to go on with. We have seen how the () over certain consonants, came to pass as a sign of aspiration, and out of this the later grammarians devised a class of mutable consonants, from which only l, n, and r were excluded. Then came the distinction between broad and small vowels; and then the law of assimilation: upon which we have already enlarged. Then came, what has also been enlarged on, the expedient of ecthlipsis : in all of which we see the elements of a very complicated orthography. The necessity of the alternative between phonetic spelling and some such expedient as the one just mentioned was the misfortune rather than the fault of the Irish orthography. It was due to the nature of the language. But the worst of all was the particular form of the vocalic assimilation. The law of assimilation for the vowels of different syllables, following or preceding one another, was Small and Small, Broad and Broad. If this only meant that one vowel was to be substituted for another the case would have been neither better nor worse than that which we illustrated from the Finlandish. But instead of simple substitution the original vowel was, in many cases, retained, and an adventitious or supererogatory vowel added to it. The effect of this was to convert half the vowels in the language, so far as the eye was concerned, into diphthongs: and when, at point of contact between the two syllables we get, at the same time, an ecthlipsis, the result is startling. Thus lam, or lamh = hand; while geal=white; and the Gaelic for white-handed is laimheal. The effect of this was, (so to say) to make vowels cheap: one or two more or less in a syllable being of no great consequence. No wonder, then, that in an Irish grammar (Neilson's is the one I quote from, which, for this purpose, is all the better for being an old one) we have such entries as the following.

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Now, as the short vowels are not counted in the thirteen, the whole number amounts to twenty-one.

Then, there are five triphthongs, aoi, eoi, iai, iui, and uai: the great merit of which is that they are always long.

The vowel part is the worst part of the Irish alphabet. There are no rules for it. Ecthlipsis, indeed, is bad enough; but

there are rules.

but for this

The cause of all this imperfection is manifest. There was no misappropriation of letters. There was no sacrifice to the etymological principle as taken in its ordinary sense. There was simply incompleteness of the alphabet. Yet, as compared with the English, the Irish is almost a well-ordered orthography, and this is mainly because the etymological principle was eschewed. It took e no doubt; but it excluded, and still excludes, k. In this it has its advantage over the English. In having no antiquated forms to retain, it has the advantage over the French.

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