Linguistic Change; An Introduction to the Historical Study of Language - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII THE TREND OF LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT Since language is a reflection of thought, a really perfect language is impossible until all the arts and sciences have been perfected. Dalgarno, who in 1661 invented the first artificial language, was right in trying to make his words express the exact nature of the ideas they stood for; but his classification was necessarily based ur)on the science of his day and would not serve us at all. In his system de means "element," deb is "fire," one of the four elements, while deba is "flame," the first subdivision of fire; which did very well as long as fire was thought to be an element. A language built on this principle can be permanently useful only after science and philosophy have ceased to change, although one must admit that a perfect language would have to do just what Dalgarno tried to make his language do. Under existing conditions we can scarcely demand more of a language than that it shall represent the thought of its speakers adequately, clearly, economically, and with due regard for aesthetic effect. Even this demand is not met by any known language; and those which come nearest to the goal differ from one another in their excellences; one language is beautiful, another has'a large vocabulary, and another is easy to learn. It is not even certain that a language tends to improve in all respects with the advancing civilization of its speakers. There is no general agreement as to what constitutes aesthetic excellence in language; but, whatever the standard, we do not find that the languages of the most highly civilized peoples are the most beautiful, or that languages tend to approach the standard more closely with lapse of time. The numerous vowels of Ancient Greek have been...

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