-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/cee4a9a55db6b42ee4a60986261fc3d4.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=A0rGULPBPz76Mu0F0xFRC6GVB1vIEF7rXFii17MFu6ngb4ZZOeJDbk00fKUnzYdJCqHKPUxZFX7otEwHKE92eFsb1X0166ASQfbWnNZu0jwaQTBArF0R%7Egk8JDVueQW87s4v7O5ftz4DKW4vPN8Ia2veba8N0wCen0-Zd0YNT3csjuQLufdU44AP0HkYY7X%7EOftuPY3n-HwUhG4gisek2rrt0lfItQ%7EBqoiIF0egbSh-rO1BaKsNklLWiY1cPGmzbKq8DaLVl%7EGArGkAgnMazVrrTEZphK%7EdDjM1DKe9XRUJgqft5DKwKCAM9OBUHkOOt9i2XFQGs6ctZB%7E%7EN80wbg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
103329a3fd6d3f2bb3260f18450b7af8
PDF Text
Text
f t
FIRST ANNUAL ADDRESS
OF
THE PRESIDENT
TO THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
Delivered
at the
Anniversary Meeting, Friday, 17th May, 1872.
By ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, Esq.
Introduction.
Gentlemen,—It was, as you are aware, the intention of our
late lamented President, Professor Goldstiicker, to make our
Anniversary conform to those of other learned Societies, by
delivering an annual address. We have been hitherto ac
customed to make our anniversaries in no respect differ from
ordinary meetings, except in the passing of accounts and
election of officers. In other Societies the retiring President
usually delivers an address, referring to the work performed
or the losses sustained during the preceding year, thus
giving the proceedings on that occasion a distinctive cha
racter. Prof. Goldstiicker considered that it would greatly
contribute to the vitality of our Society, and especially
increase the interest which the new members who have joined
ns take in our proceedings, if the President, on his retiring
either altogether or for re-election, were to deliver an address
which should contain a report of what had been effected
in each part of Philology during the preceding year. He
conceived that no President would be able from his own
resources to furnish such a report, but that different. members
1
�2
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
of the Society could contribute an account of their own par
ticular branches, and that from these quota the President
should endeavour to construct an interesting general view.
The conception was one worthy of its author, and strikingly
shewed his great interest in the continued vitality of this
Society. There will always be a time of pressure in Societies,
when the original members have died out, or have been re
moved from active participation by various avocations, often
calling them to a distance, or making imperious demands on
their time. This plan of inducing numerous members to work
for the common good, thus creating a general interest in the
objects of the Society, preventing it from becoming too one
sided, and shewing the points to which attention should be
directed, was altogether happy, and we awaited its fulfilment
with much interest. Unfortunately, as you know, just about
the time when he would have commenced his preparations
for the first of these addresses, Prof. Groldstiicker was removed
from the scene of his labours. The Council having requested
me to act as President until the anniversary election, it
devolved upon me to carry out our late President’s intentions
as far as possible. But the work which I already had before
me did not permit me to attempt anything requiring so much
preparation. I have therefore hastily put together some
thoughts which have long floated through my mind, in the
hope that they may prove a sort of introduction to such a
series of reports.
Bespeaking your indulgence, then, for an attempt which I
am acutely conscious of not possessing sufficient knowledge
or time to carry out in a manner befitting the occasion, I
venture to lay before you the best general view which I have
hitherto been able to form, of the connection of all those
numerous investigations into the nature, origin, and use of
language, which are comprised under the common name
of Philological Research.
�3
DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
On
the
Relation of Thought to Sound as
Philological Research.
the
Pivot
of
Professor Blackie began a recent lecture (26th April, 1872)
on modern Greek by defining Philology as “ cracking about
words.” He said that every one now-a-days, “ ladies and
all,” understood what it meant, thanks to Archbishop Trench
and Prof. Max Muller. How perhaps Archbishop Trench
would not object to having his pleasant gossiping, books
called “ cracks ” about language—in the Scotch sense, not of
course in a rather common family slang sense, where “ cracks”
mean “ fibs ”; though I am afraid that at present no one even
with the best will can tell many “ cracks ” about words with
out innocently perpetrating many “ fibs ” by the way. But
Prof. Max Muller, though he has cast his remarks in the
popular form of lectures, delivered to those singularly and
provokingly mixed audiences, which crowd the theatre of the
Royal Institution when a “ crack ” man has to “ crack ”—
whether about words or anything else,—certainly claims a
somewhat higher aim, when he styles his subject the Science
of Language. For my own part I fear that we have no real
science of language at present; that despite the enormous
labour already bestowed, it has only resulted in a collection
of materials, and that these materials, utterly insufficient not
withstanding their huge proportions, are mostly of the wrong
sort, and when not of the wrong sort are mostly of the wrong
shape, for a really scientific investigation.
The extent of philological inquiry is something appalling.
The second edition of Pott’s Etymological Researches—still
incomplete—extends, excluding prefaces, to 5656 pages, of
45 lines each, or more than a quarter of a million of lines,
containing more than two millions of words. And this only
represents part of the printed labours of one man. Add the
books he quotes, especially in his wonderfully comprehensive
“ scientific arrangement of the science of language,” prefixed to
the fourth division of the second part of the work just named,
�4
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
and dated Christmas, 1869, and these “cracks” about words will
sound like the very “crack” of doom ! And then venture for a
moment to imagine that almost all of the work will have to
be done over again when the really scientific method has been
discovered ! The prospect is not refreshing, and perhaps the
Philological Society will not thank me for suggesting such
an idea. But why so ? If a learned Society exists, it exists
essentially as a learning Society, and in this case it is well to
know that there is much for it to learn. And I hope to show
that there is much for each individual member to do, however
amateurish he may feel. The lions are. few, but they want
troops of jackalls, and the great body of such Societies as the
present consists of “lions’ providers,”—shewn in the present
case more especially by your having supplied the place of a
dead lion by a living jackall.
It is quite useless to trace the changes of meaning which
the word Philology has undergone, from the mere gram
matical range which it once possessed, to the immense sphere
which it now arrogates. But it is as well to consider roughly
what studies are usually comprised under this loose term,
before inquiring what is the pivot round which they all
turn,—on which of course will depend the formation of the
corresponding science,- if it be indeed formable. These seem
to be:—
The actual existing vocabulary and grammar of living
languages, considered independently.
The same considered historically.
The same considered comparatively.
The same considered at once historically and comparatively,
so that the comparisons relate to past as well as present.
The genesis of the words by descent and initially.
The similar genesis and relation of the constructions.
The contrast (or resemblance) of words and constructions
for objects and relations apparently similar (or dissimilar).
The relations of whole languages historically, and geogra
phically, including ethnology.
The complete study and comparison of dead Eterary
languages, and their literature.
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
5
I exclude a priori theoretical relations which have wasted
reams of paper, and amused no one but their inventors,—
if them.
Now my acquaintance with all these matters is very much
like a butterfly’s with honeys—he has not made any, but he
has tasted many, and perhaps from not being a bee himself,
he has no very marked apiarian prejudices. To drop meta
phor, though I have had the good or ill fortune to go through
one private and two public schools, where of course Latin and
Greek were the staple products,—where the usual imperfect
methods resulted in the usual imperfect fabric,—yet the
greater part of my life has been spent away from words ; and
when I have recurred to them, as I have over and over again
(for they have always had a certain fascination for me), I
have rather looked at them as a mathematician or a physicist,
than as a so-called scholar. Hence I have never been con
tent with the sound and fury of commentators,—“Sic Smithius,
perperam! Absurde correxit Jonesius! ” with other amenities,.
—where downright contradictions are bandied about with the
sole effect of rendering it probable that there was no solid
foundation for either opinion. Nor have I been content with
the etymological explanations which are so confidently and
variously given by different writers. I never could see how
in the world they found it all out, and had disagreeable sus
picions that it might be all guess work—wherein I almost
fear I was right. Now it so happened that the particular
little part of the study of letters which from an early time
attracted my attention was letters literally, or rather that
which letters seemed meant to recall, and after floundering
about hopelessly after the usual fashion, I saw that speech
sounds must be studied in the living speaker, and not in the
dead alphabet. And thus by degrees the thought grew up
in me, that the whole of language was also a thing to be
studied in the living speaker, and not in fossil books. The
form which this conception ultimately took was, that the
turning-point of all philological research is the relation of
thought to sotind. I should be much surprised if this con
ception were new. The relation has indeed been already
�6
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
considered, but mainly, if not solely, in connection with the
origin of language, and has then been treated far too per
functorily, and with far too many d priori assumptions, to be
very fertile or certain in results. That is not by any means
the view I take. To my mind the relation of thought to
sound is the scientific matter of philological investigation,
connecting all its parts, suggesting the methods to be em
ployed, and indicating the ultimate Utopia of its intention.
But when stated thus laconically and baldly, it will probably
not be understood as I conceived it. It is therefore necessary
to enter into some detail.
In the first place, the formula appears too comprehensive.
Should sound in general be understood, or only speech sounds
in particular ? Surely philology does not deal with music,
for example, not to mention other descriptions of sounds pro
duced by the organic and inorganic world ? But is not sing
ing a species of speech sound, and is there not an intimate
connection between alterations of pitch and significations of
words ? How can vowels, accents, especially Chinese tones,
be understood without reference to music ? And do not the
inorganic and organic sounds so react on thought as to call
forth imitative speech sounds ? Hence it seems to me that
the domain of philology embraces the whole of the domain of
sound, not merely those parts which are commonly included
in physical text-books, but all those more recondite physio
logical sections which are considered in Helmholtz’s Lehre
von den Tonempfindungen, together with other extremely diffi
cult and complex researches into the production and dis
crimination of vocal sounds, by the organs of man and other
animals. We are thus led to consider phonology as embrac
ing only a portion of the sounds to be studied or allowed for
by the philologist. Certainly a very important part, and
divisible into two distinct branches, the production of sound,
and the appreciation of sound, but still not the main part,
which for philology is, the cerebral effect produced first by
the sound itself, and next by the attempt to imitate it. It is
needless to say that few even professional philologists are well
or even moderately well informed upon these points. In fact,
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
7
the amount of acquaintance with phonetics on their part is
ordinarily so small that we cannot feel surprised at their
generally confusing letters with sounds, which amounts to
taking pictures for men. Yet these sounds are the first rude
elements of the subject which they profess to treat.
Next, thought appears too limited, and certainly is so, if the
word is to be confined to the intellect. I use it however
here as a convenient abbreviation for the whole result of
cerebral action, whether merely perceptive and reflective, or
moral, whether due to the senses and intellect, or the emotions
and will. In order to understand the relation between thought
thus conceived and sound, it would seem necessary to begin
by a profound philosophical a priori analysis of the human
mind and its powers, with their laws. But such a beginning
would infallibly end in misfortune. A thinker who makes
such an analysis works from his own limited surroundings,
and is fettered by his own limited acceptation of his own
limited language. Hence he leaves out of consideration in
numerable relations which to him may be either incompre
hensible or ridiculous, but which rise spontaneously in other
minds affected by other circumstances, and find their expres
sion in language. The special analysis of thought required
is that of untutored men, uneducated peasants, savage tribes,
growing children. It is extremely difficult to conduct, eVen
rudely, owing to the contrast between these minds and the
highly cultivated investigator’s, and to the absence of any
well-understood medium of communication. If it is difficult,
or rather impossible, to translate faithfully from one cultivated
language into another,—that is to use phrases covering pre
cisely the same ground, neither more nor less,1—what must
1 As it would be rash to assume that
the new edition of Pott’s Etymologische
Forschungen is in every one’s hand, I
take the liberty of citing the words
in the original (2ten Theiles, lte
Abtheilung, 1861, p. 24): “ Was ware
erst von ITebersetzungen zu sagen ?
d. h. Umgiessung eines gedanklichen
Stoffes in verschiedene Formen je nach
Sprachen (Systemen), derenkeins (auch
6elbst dann nicht immer, wo es sich um
nahverwandte handelt) dem anderen,
vollends nach der subjectiven Seite
hin, weder im Ganzen, noch, hochstens
mit geringen Ausnahmen, in den Einzelnheiten, sich streng congruent
zeigt. (Als augenfalliges Beispiel diene
etwas Kleuker’s Uebertragung des
Zendavesta aus Anquetil’s Franzosischer ins Deutsche, wenn man
bedenkt, dass Anquetil seinerseits auch
nicht eigentlich das Zendische Origi-
�8
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
it be to transfuse shapeless thoughts into shapely words ! But
until we can form some conception, however rude, of the
germinal thoughts of the untutored, we cannot advance far
in understanding the relations with which language deals.
Now having defined the two matters compared—thought
and sound—more precisely, we are prepared to deal with their
relations, which are mutual, thought reacting on sound to the
full extent that sound acts on thought.
The first relation is physiological and solitary, due to the
termination of the auditory and vocal nerves in the brain,
whereby these organs are brought into connection with the
organs of thought, and influence and reflect it, as the motions
of the body and face influence and reflect our feelings and
intentions. That this is the fact we know roughly well
enough, through ordinary lesions. But it would be desirable
not only that philologists should have some notion of phy
siology, but that physiologists and medical men generally
should be more or less acquainted with some of the principles
nal, sondern meist nur durch die vermittelnde Zwischenform des Pehlwi
wiedergab!) Nicht genug, dass jeder
Sprache ein. mehr oder weniger eigenthiimliches und individuelles grammatisches System (noch von Verschiedenheit des lexicalen Stoffes Absehen
genommen) zum Grunde liegt, und die
Besonderheit ihrer Stilart eine ganz
unnachahmliche zu sein pflegt, wie
sollten sich zwei Sprachen einander
decken, wenn selbst in stammgemeinsamen die Worter, ja oft einander etymologisch gleiche Wdrter, selten auch
nur noch lautlicb vollig zusammenstimmen, und, begrifflicher Seits, der
Einheit ihrer Genesis zum Trotz, in
ihrer weiteren Geschichte sich haufig
auf ausserst divergenten Entwickelungshahnen dahin reissen liessen ? Vgl. z.
B. Lat. chore Viehhof (frz. basse-cour,
Hiihnerhof), wie noch in dem Salischen
Gesetze curtis (der Hofraum bei dem
Hause), das militarische cohors u. s. w.,
und dagegen nun der fiirstliche Hof,
frz. cour, mit seinen Sprosslingen courtoisie (aus curtensis), wie bourgeoisie
(aus burgcrisis'), courtis-ane (mit neuem
Suffix: eig. aulica), cortege (Gefolge)
u. s. w. nebst ihren germanischen Gegen-
bildem Mhd. hovesch, hofsch, Nhd.
hoflich, hofisch, hiibsch. Hieher
gehort auch die Frage, ob und in wie
weit es in einer Sprache sinngleiche
oder gleichbedeutende Wortergeben
konne. . . . Geht man von dem unlaugbar richtigen Satze aus, dass, was
seinem Ursprunge nach grundverschieden, es auch inseinem Wesen sein
miisse: dann kann man nicht umhin,
Sinnes-Gleichheit
etymologisch
auseinanderlaufender, ja selbst zwar
wurzelgleicher, aber in den BildungsZusatzen ungleicher Worter schon
prinzipiell in Abrede zu stellen.
M an wird zwar behaupten diirfen:
etymologisch, d. h. ja nun eben schon
a principio ungleiche Worter oder
Formen konnen zwar einander (nach
dem zu bezeichnenden Objecte hinwarts) gleich-geltend sein oder werden, Gleiches bedeuten, wenn man
diesen Ausdruck auf den inneren subjectiven Sinn derWorter einschrankt,
—niemals.” (Translating the last re
mark into Mr. Mill's language, “radi
cally distinct words may come to have
the same denotation, but will never have
the same connotation.”)
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
9
and practice of philology. The relation of cerebral condition,
of auditory condition, of vocal condition, would then be better
studied. The interaction and counteraction of the other
senses would also be better understood. Thus the language
of the blind must be totally different from that of the deaf.
And the effect of different degrees of blindness and deafness
must be important.1 The phenomena of voicelessness, of
stammering, stuttering and so forth, have all strict bearings
upon philological studies, and require careful record by per
sons who are at once physiologists and philologists. The
effect of disease, especially cerebral disease, upon vocal power
as well as mental conceptions, and the expression of concep
tion by speech, ought to be well watched. Some beginnings
have been made in this direction, but the records are usually
in medical journals which are beyond the range of philologists,
and the medical recorders seem often strangely ignorant of
the very rudiments of philological knowledge which would
make their observations valuable. Thus the remarks on the
powers of uttering vowels and consonants in the remarkable
cases of a severed epiglottis and a closed glottis which I lately
brought before your notice from an American medical journal,
as pointed out to me by Prof. Max Muller, were deprived of
half their interest and value by the rudimentary ignorance of
their recorder. Lately there were some curious observations
and plates on the contact of parts of the mouth in producing
sounds laid before the Odontological Society (Transactions,
Feb. 1872), but I have failed to elicit any valuable result
from them, owing to the same rudimentary ignorance in the
experimenter. It might be worth while to ransack medical
records for years back in this country, America, France, and
Germany, for cases bearing on this point. When the index
of subjects in the Royal Society’s Catalogue is published (it
is not yet commenced), we may have some means of grouping
and studying these cases, which lie at the root of all philology.
The second relation between thought and sound is again
solitary or individual, and is partly medical, but principally
1 All consideration of gesture language
is here-omitted, although it is always
of importance as accompanying spoken
language between “ sighted ” people.
�10
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
such as can be more or less accurately observed by persons
without a medical education. It consists in the influence of
sound upon individual thought and feeling, and the expres
sion of feeling or thought by spontaneous exercise of the
powers of producing sound, without reference to any listener.
Waves of air arising from the same source actually affect
different organisms very differently, and those from different
sources affect the same organisms in different ways. This is
a matter of common observation.1 But to be of use philologically it should become a matter of scientific observation.
It is not enough,—it is often entirely misleading,—to say,
“ a child I knew did so and so,” “ a baby I was told of shewed
such and such feelings.” This is mere gossip; possibly
founded more on inference than on observation. In fact the
great difficulty in making observations is to abstain from
inference. I am afraid it is a difficulty which pervades all
departments of ordinary observation, and is especially felt in
such as are here contemplated. Another difficulty is that of
eliminating the habits of the observer himself, so as to record
as much as possible the habits of the person observed without
alloy. A third difficulty arises from the necessity of putting
oneself in the place of another, of feeling with another’s
nerves, and of evolving from confused expression the sensa
tion actually experienced. Then comes a fourth difficulty in
expressing those sensations or interpreting them to others.
This is attempted chiefly by analogies, often misleading. One
says a sound grates, another that it beats, another that it is
sandy, another that it is scratchy, another splashy,—do these
indicate the same sensation from the same source, or different
sensations ? Observe the difficulty that a patient has in
making the doctor understand his sensations, and the gene
rally perfunctory way in which different doctors will arrive
at totally different conclusions from the same indications.
Now all these sensations are the elementary ground of
most explanations of the formation of language. Take the
three principal theories, irreverently termed Poohpooh ! Bow1 Compare Merchant of Venice, act
4, scene 1, speech 8, respecting the
effect on some frames of mind of the
“ bagpipe singing in the nose.”
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
11
wow ! and Dingdong ! The Doohpooh! or interjectional
theory, is based on the natural phonetic expression of various
sensations, feelings, thoughts; an expression of an involun
tary character, and quite irrespective of a listener. But till
we have something like a scientific record of what these
“ natural ” expressions are, among persons of different ages,
and degrees of culture, especially under different social and
geographical conditions, and in the rudest and most primitive
states of existence, we have really no proper basis for this
theory. It will mean one thing in England, another in
China, another in Caffreland, and so on. It is evident that
in order to record the cries, we should require an instrument
very much more refined than any which we now possess,—
although Mr. Melville Bell’s Visible Speech1 goes a great
way towards supplying it, further indeed than most people,
perhaps than ten or a dozen people in the whole world, are
at present capable of following him. All records hitherto
given must consequently be looked upon with suspicion.
They are only makeshifts of the vaguest possible kind.
They are similar to the answers one gets to the common
question: What is Miss Brown like ? “ Oh ! she’s a fair girl,
one of those bright complexions you know, not a coarse
dairymaid’s red, but a splendid colour, and bright eyes,
darkish, hair reddish brown and warm, fine figure, and
middle height, and magnificently dressed ! ” I believe that
would give a much better idea of Miss Brown, than most
representations we have of sighs, and groans, and cries of
delight and horror, and other oh! ah ! and poohpooh ! sounds.
1 Inaugural Edition, London, 1867,
4to., pp. 126, and 16 plates. As Mr.
Bell’s symbols are not “ cast in type ”
for ordinary use, it is as well to remember
that my own Paleeotype allows of their
transliteration into the commonest existenttypes of all sizes, asshewninmy^arZy
English Pronunciation, p. 15. Other
recent attempts are those of Prof. Ernst
Briicke, Ueber eine neue Methode der
phonetischenTransscription, Wien, 1863,
8vo., pp. 65, which has been adopted
and somewhat modified by Dr. H. B.
Bumpelt, in his Das natiirliche System
der Sprachlaute und sein Verhaltnis zu
den wichtigsten Cultursprachen, Halle,
1869, 8vo., pp. 227; and that appended
by Dr. C. L. Merkel to his Physiologie
der menschlichen Sprache (physiologische Laletik), Leipzig, 1866, 8vo.,
pp. 444. But both systems are far in
ferior to Mr. Bell’s in comprehensive
ness, arrangement, and form of symbol.
Rumpelt and Wilhelm Scherer (Zur
Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, Ber
lin, 1868, 8vo., pp. 492) both apply
Briicke’s phonology philologically.
�12
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
I should be sorry to propound a theory of femininity upon
the above description of Miss Brown. I fear that interjectionalists have been led too far in propounding a theory of
speech upon written representations of these cries in different
languages, having scarcely any closer connection with the
original.
The Bowwozo ! or onomatopoetic or imitational theory is
liable to even greater sources of error. The vocal organs of
animals vary extremely from those of man ; the forms of the
resonance cavities especially, on which distinct vocality
mainly depends, and of the closing portions, the teeth, lips,
tongue, cheeks, are so differently disposed that the vowels
and consonants must be physically distinct from anything
producible by ordinary man. Some persons with great power
of mimicry get out imitations which may be lauded as more
natural than nature—as in the well-known fable of the
squeaker versus the pig. But this is not usual, and we may
safely say that the cries of animals, when not conventionally
dished up to children by nurses and grannies, are v.ery
differently conceived by different children, especially in
different countries. I have myself listened over and over
again to one of the most distinctive cries, which we hear
repeated so often in England, the cuckoo’s note, and have
failed to make out the consonant or the first vowel. Again I
have listened carefully to sheep and goats, which have an
interest to us from the Greek /3t?, and Phrygian /Se/cos,1 to
try and discover the initial consonant. Seldom or ever could
I detect any approach to a labial. In fact the animal gene
rally opens its mouth before commencing the sound, so that
the labial glide is impossible. The effect seems to me purely
in the glottis, and resembling the Arabic ain. Even the
celebrated bowwow itself is seldom labialized; though the
dog does sometimes make a glide which recalls a sort of lip
effect, and ends his cry with a bastard oo, which is I believe
1 Of course I take the word jBe/cbs,
said to be Phrygian, but also said to
have been uttered by children who had
never heard any but goats cry (Her.
2, 2), to be a mere imitation of that
cry in Greek letters fiex, with a Greek
termination added. The
is the
sheep’s cry in Cratinus, Dionys. 5 J
/j.r)Kdo/j.ai, ($Krix<kop.ai, were the verbs
for bleating.
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
13
to be made without any labial action. The old Greeks have
/3av /3ctv, which of course in modern Greek becomes (bhabh)
or (bhaph),1 and this last maybe compared with the “ waffing
cur ” of Yorkshire, shewing how slender a foundation the
natural cry gives for fixing the diphthongal sound. In pass
ing, I may call attention to the resolution of the diphthong in
the verb
which those who can may pronounce, and to
the guttural form of the modern Greek
I do not
dispute that many words are intended to recall the sensations
experienced in hearing sounds, but how far they are imitational or not I have no means yet of determining. Here
observations on savages are much to be desired, but these
should be conducted by people who have at least some inkling
of how to exhibit the sounds used by the savages, and have
taken some care to compare these with the cries actually
made by the animals. It would be also desirable to compare
these imitations with the range of speech sounds used by the
different imitators in ordinary language, as it is evident that
their power of imitation will be materially limited by the
sounds at easy command. This will probably give a key in
many cases to the different ways in which different nations
conceive or represent the cries, believed to be the same,
although perhaps even animal cries are geographically differ
entiable. I pass over the non-animal sounds represented,
as their consideration would lead me too far.
The Dingdong ! theory has, so far as I know, received no
other name; let us call it symphonesis. It is that advanced
by Prof. Max Muller, and christened I believe by Prof.
Whitney. “There is,” says Prof. Max Muller (Leet. Sci.
Lang. 1, 370, first ed.), “a law which runs through nearly
the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings.
Each substance has its peculiar ring. ... It was the same
with man, the most highly organized of nature’s works.”
The theory is, we are told in a note, originally Heyse’s, and
was published by Steinthal. The “ ringing ” is stated to be
used, “ of course, as an illustration only, and not as an
1 Read (a) the short of a in father
and (ph, bh) as/, and v, sounded with-
out bringing the lower lip against the
teeth.
�14
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
explanation.”1 I am afraid that as an illustration it is very
defective, presenting scarcely the vaguest analogy to any one
who thinks on the subject physically. Prof. Max Muller’s
notion is that in obedience to this ringing, “ each conception,
as it thrilled for the first time through the brain,” received
“ a phonetic expression,” but that the instinct by which this
was effected has long become extinct.2 He considers roots to
be these phonetic expressions. But I pass them over for the
present, as they seem to me to belong more naturally to the
relation next considered. Of course if this instinct no longer
exists, it cannot be at all investigated. But I am inclined to
attach some reality to symphonesis, and to think that it is at
least as active now as ever. It is certainly overridden among
people who speak a cultivated language, to whom words have
long been counters, and in watching the gradual evolution of
language in a child the influence of this disturbing environ
ment has to be carefully allowed for.
In attempting to trace symphonesis in adults, association
of various kinds also presents a great difficulty, and may
exist in numerous cases where not only the observer but the
observed (often one and the same person) are unconscious of
its influence. Thus the names Lydia, Rhoda, Millicent,
Ernestine, Lilias, will “ ring ” to the last degree romantically
in many an ear, partly from romantic associations, but also
probably from their “sweet sounds.” We can hardly per
haps associate them with earnest, thoughtful, resolute, though
thoroughly feminine women, pledged to carry out a principle
of justice to their own sex, and fully equal to the task. Of
course this is mere absurdity. Names are given long before
1 See this theory rather severely
handled by Prof.William Dwight Whit
ney, on pp. 268—270, and 282, note, of
his “ Oriental and Linguistic Studies.
The Veda; the A vesta; the Science of
Language,” New York, 1873, sm. 8vo.,
pp. 417, a republication of reviews of
these subjects, which criticises various
other theories of language under the
headings of “ Bleek and the Simious,
Schleicher and the Physical, Steinthal
and the Psychological Theory of Lan
guage.”
2 The “ thrill ” of pleasure, or what
ever else it may be called, which passes
through the whole nervous system
when pleasurably excited by some new
thought, feeling, conception, or recog
nition of the justness of an analogy, of
success in any way,—this is certainly
not extinct, and its frequent experience
probably gave its origin to the whole
theory, and has made that theory so
readily received. As to the extinction
of root-formative power, see below, p.
28.
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
15
qualities are developed, and fortunately are not now supposed
to have a meaning, although Humpty Humpty, whom the
last wondrous fairy tale, Through the Looking Glass, has
raised into a great authority on language, declares that a
name must mean something, and that Alice, with a name
like hers, “might be any shape, almost” (p. 116). How
what shape would you give to the five ladies I have just
named ? I assure you that I had no romantic notions rung
in to me, but on the contrary a most satisfactory impression
of the potentiality of womanhood, when I heard the speeches
delivered in Parliament against the Women’s Disabilities
Removal Bill, on the first of this month, criticised this
day week by Miss Lydia Becker, Miss Rhoda (Jarrett, Mrs.
Millicent Fawcett, Mrs. Ernestine Rose, and Miss Lilias
Ashworth. The “ ring ” of these names will henceforth
be to my ears no “uncertain sound” (1 Cor. 14, 8), but
a most enlivening peal of welcome to more than half of
the human race. Thus do associations interfere with ob
servation.
But take another instance. A young artist, writing to me
from the Pyrenees the other day, pronounced the new-fallen
snow to be “ scrumptious ” (skronrshos). The word is not in
the dictionaries. I fling it down before the Society to make
what they can of it. Ho one will fail, I think, to grasp its
meaning. I had not the slightest difficulty. Is it interjectional, imitational, or symphonetic ? Does it imitate, the
sensation created by the sight of the new-fallen snow to an
artistic eye in the atmosphere of Southern France ? The
word, which I believe is not uncommon among young men
at the present day, is probably some school or college slang
revivified, but it can scarcely have been thus applied before.
Was it a direct application? or associative? or analogical?
Was there ever a root to the word ? Had it a history, a
descent ? Was it, when invented, a pure fancy of the
moment, with nothing but absurdity and freakdom to gene
rate it ? These questions, at any rate, are not absurd or
freakish. They are questions which the philologist has to
ask himself over and over again, with little chance of success
�16
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
in answering them, till he has been able to register numerous
observations carefully made and corrected for possibilities of
error. That we have none such yet to speak of, shews how
far we are from a science of philology. That there are so
many to make, shews what a wide field lies open to the
amateur, whose essential use to science is to collect scattered
facts in off-regions for professors to sort and appreciate.
The third relation between thought and sound is the most
important to philology, and the two preceding are in fact
merely introductory. It is the social relation, the most
mysterious and least understood, but the most active of all.
The pith of it is this, that one sound suggests a single
thought in two minds, and that one thought suggests to one
mind a sound, which on being uttered excites the same thought
in another mind. The fact that this is approximatively true,
makes language possible. The fact that this is not exactly
true, makes language ambiguous. My own impression, one
that has grown upon me with years and experience, is that
this is very far from being precisely true. So far from the
same sound calling up the same thought in two minds simul
taneously, I believe that it frequently calls up irreconcilably
different thoughts. So far from one man being able by
words to convey his thought to another, I believe that he
frequently only succeeds in exciting an irreconcilably dif
ferent thought. So far from every man understanding every
other man who speaks what we are accustomed to call the
same language, I believe that no man does precisely under
stand any other man, and that every man occasionally
egregiously misunderstands every other man. I am sorry
to say, too, that at present I do not see any direct way out of
the difficulty. Heaven protect us from an eruption of philo
sophical language! Its burning lava would soon settle the
business. Thought would have to take lodgings in Her
culaneum.
Let me refer again to that great authority whom I have
already quoted, Humpty Dumpty, as he discoursed when
sitting on a wall, before that stupendous tumble which vainly
called in requisition all the king’s horses and all the king’s
�’ DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLTS, ESQ.
17
men,—bating two horses wanted in the game, and two mes
sengers, as we subsequently learn (p. 139).
“ There’s glory for you! ” [cries he, after putting in a clincher,
p. 123.]
“ I don’t know what you mean by 1 glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “ Of course you don’t—
till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you ! ’”
“ But ‘ glory ’ doesn’t mean ‘ a nice knock-down argument,’ ” Alice
objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful
tone, “ it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean
so many different things.”
“ The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “ which is to be master—
that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute
Humpty Dumpty began again.
“ They’ve a temper, some of them, particularly verbs,—they ’re the
proudest; adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs; how
ever, I can manage the whole lot of them ! Impenetrability 1 That’s
what I say ! ”
“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, “what that means ?”
“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, look
ing very much pleased. “ I meant by ‘ impenetrability ’ that we’ve had
enough of that subject, and that it would be just as well if you’d men
tion what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop
here all the rest of your life.”
“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a
thoughtful tone.
“ When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty
Dumpty, “ I always pay it extra.”
“ Oh ! ” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other
remark.
“Ah, you should see ’em come round me of a Saturday night,”
Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side,
“ for to get their wages, you know.”
(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with ; and so you see
I can’t tell you.)
I make no apology for introducing this exquisite fooling
into a grave argument. The whole question of language and
philology is so charmingly touched that I recommend all
interested in them to read the whole dialogue, and especially
the subsequent explanation of the nonsense words in the song
2
�18
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
of the Jabberwock. Humpty Dumpty is a perfect type of
your philosophical-language-monger. If he does not make
words himself on an individual classification, he gives new
meanings to old words till he loses the social character of
language entirely, and locks himself into a box as effectually
as the poor bride in the “ Mistletoe Bough ! ” leaving future
generations to find bare bones and wonder how they got
there.
Language teems with life. It is born of two, by the inter
action of the instincts of each. The ball of sound and sense
is driven like a shuttlecock from one to the other in quick
alternation. The individual corners and projections are
broken off by the repeated blows. A. something, a residuum,
rather battered and worn, but still available, remains. And
this forms the medium of communication. It recalls in each
something of the separate individuality of each. Perhaps
each thinks too much of his own crooks and crotchets, and so
misunderstandings arise, but the shapeless lump is bigger
than all its broken warts, and so it serves—somehow. Bather
“a lame and impotent conclusion” truly. But then “suck
ling fools and chronicling small beer” (Othello 2, 1, sp. 59)
is the chief end and aim of language ; the wise men and the
dainty drinks are too rare to be much regarded by the “ com
mon drudge twixt man and man” (Merch. of V. 3, 2, sp. 12).
These vague metaphors are certainly not scientific, but they
may serve to convey to you in some rude way a thought which
is not very distinct in myself, and by their very roughness
will illustrate the difficulties under which we labour in con
veying and receiving conceptions by the highway of speech.
But I wish strongly to impress on you the social genesis of
language. The usual theories of the origin of language are
too individual. The Poohpooh ! the Bowwow! and the Dingdong ! theories might serve for Bobinson Crusoe. With Man
Friday would begin real language—attempted and partially
effected interchange of thought by mouth and ear. It is my
own belief that no two hearing and speaking persons could
be thrown together on a desolate island without inventing a
language; whereas no length of time would evolve a language
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
19
from the consciousness of a solitary.1 The very conditions of
the vitality of the race, reproduction and maternal care, secure
sociability—secure therefore the genesis of language. Every
mother and child have probably a language of their own for
some time, and occasionally some words of it remain through
the overwhelming floods of national speech. But cut off this
disturbing element. Let the parents have no great voca
bulary of their own, and see how enriched and altered it may
become by the additions of the new life. Let these words
pass on to other children. Let a little society be formed by
the addition of a few strangers. Let the local wants suggest
local terms. And a new variety, a new dialect, a new lan
guage arises. I am told that along the Italian Riviera, about
San Remo and that way, nearly every bay has its own dialect,
and these dialects rapidly become mutually unintelligible. I
also learn that the Erse of Kerry is not understood in Donegal.
In Norway every valley seems to have a peculiar spoken
dialect, but all learn a uniform written language, which of
course greatly controuls the change. In nomad tribes we
hear of language rapidly changing. In large and thinly
peopled districts, languages vary with great suddenness.
These little speechlets die unchronicled. They are worth
nothing for what they convey. But they are worth much
for shewing how the great languages of the world were
formed. It is often by studying the lowest animals that we
gain the key to the highest. The great complexity of culti
vated languages, products of various mighty causes, over
whelms us. We run a risk of omitting essentials in artificial
abstractions. We must discover the genesis of language, if
at all, in the continuous genesis of patois, dialects, jargons,
lingue franche, camp speech, savage talk. The peasant’s
1 It is possible that he might create
a system of signs to recall facts, as an
aid to memory. A man at one time
(remembering himself or conceiving of
himself as existing or thinking at some
past or future time, is in a certain re
spect doubled and forms a retrospective
or prospective society, so that he notes
something now for himself to under
stand then, or reads something now
written then. In this respect memory
replaces sociability. But though this
may affect sign language, it does not
affect speech language in its origin,
which is all that is here coiisidered.
Practically, however, both memory lan
guage and gesture language tend to
modify speech language. But for writ
ing and action our speech would be
materially different.
�20
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
words must be carefully noted, and compared with the pea
sant’s habits of thought. The wild man’s untutored utterance
must be mastered and contrasted with his untutored con
ceptions. It is hard, very hard. The observations hitherto
made are, I am afraid, in many, perhaps in most instances,
often little better, and often much worse, than waste paper.
The missionary is so anxious to convert that he perverts
everything by the way. He begins by translating the Testa
ment (which must be at best a fairy tale of an enchanted
region to the mind of a savage), long before he has mastered
the rudimentary notions of the mind he addresses, the point
of view, the colour, under which it sees everything. Even in
collecting European patois, a cultivated man converses with
the people, and almost necessarily misconceives their thoughts
and misrepresents their words. At best he is not familiar
with their speech, so as to be able to tell a story in it as the
peasant would. And yet stories written by such persons,
rarely from oral tradition (and if so, too often doctored), in a
conventional orthography which may recall the speech some
what to him, but has little phonetic meaning to an outsider,
are about the best representatives of growing living organic
speech that we possess. Here is a vast field for the observer
who is faithful and will give us facts and not foist in his own
semilearning. It is really lamentable to read the etymologies
in our provincial glossaries. They are no part of the glossary
maker’s business. Let him give the words faithfully as re
gards sound (in construction as well as isolation), let him
illustrate the words extensively by phrases collected from
actual hearing (not invented for the occasion by himself), let
him endeavour as well as he can to convey the meaning
by careful analogies (not by mere synonyms often grossly
misleading), and he has done his part. The rest belongs
to a man with wider knowledge, having hundreds of such
glossaries and other vast resources at his command.
Of course I do not stay to consider the use of all this. I
suppose we have to base the science of philology. I try to
indicate one of its most important means, the study of freely
developed speech, the illiterate organism. We are to study
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
21
language as a phenomenon, not as an instrument. But this
is a comparatively modern idea. Language was studied only
for its applications. Latin contained all the learning in the
world, and was the language of its religion. Hence it was
acquired, just as French and sometimes German are now ac
quired by most of us, as a means to an end. If we could get
ideas from Latin and convey them by Latin, that was enough.
Whether the Latin we learned was the same in form as that
which Cicero spoke or wrote was a trifle. We assumed it to
be. Then Greek was, as it were, rediscovered. Latin and
Greek books went through the crucible of scholarship. Their
orthography was improved, their errors amended. Learned
men—not shams, really learned men of the time—pruned
them, till they resembled the yew-trees of fantastic shape.
Hebrew was of course not forgotten, and,, thanks to> Jewish
persistence, never really died. But then religion played mad
pranks with language. Adam was assumed to have spoken
Biblical Hebrew—just as most English children supposed (I
did for one) that he spoke English, and that dog, cat, lion,
and so forth, were the names Adam gave- We English
children were not more absurd than our fathers, when they
made all languages descend from Hebrew. But there was
one advantage in this; it turned thoughts from the mere
application of language, to the examination of language per
se. This age has shifted. Almost in our own days came the
discovery of Sanscrit, and philology proper began—but, alas !
at the wrong end.
Now here I run great danger of being misunderstood.
Although for a scientific sifting of the nature of language I
presume to think that beginning at Sanscrit was unfortunate,
yet I freely admit, that had that language not been brought
into Europe,—had not the exigencies of Indian government
forced open its locks, and given the precious book within to
the philologists of the world,—our knowledge of language
would have been in a poor condition indeed, and philology
could hardly have hoped to rise above the dilettanteism im
plied in its name. The effect of the discovery of Sanscrit
has been to raise into existence a set of ingenious and labo
�22
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNEAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
rious men, who have determined to unearth the secret of
language, who have toiled night and day with an industry
and a disinterestedness beyond anticipation to accomplish
their mighty task, and who have actually succeeded in bring
ing to light a variety of most astounding facts, shewing an
historical connection hitherto unsuspected, and an aptitude
of language to accommodate itself to circumstances, to new
conditions and new influences, under definite laws,—which
at once dissipates the ridicule of -those who, with Voltaire,
would define etymology as a science where the consonants go
for next to nothing and the vowels for nothing at all. It
would especially ill become one that unworthily occupies a
chair just left vacant by a distinguished Sanscritist, whose
loss not only our own limited circle but the whole world of
letters must deplore, to speak disparagingly of Sanscrit
studies. We are under the greatest obligations to those dis
tinguished men whb have undertaken to unravel its secrets
and to shew its connection with the languages of Europe.
Yet I must repeat, that for the pure science of language, to
begin with Sanscrit was as much beginning at the wrong
end as it would have been to commence zoology with palaeon
tology,—the relations of life with the bones of the dead.
And I am afraid that one of the consequences will be an ex
treme unwillingness to undertake that long and troublesome
living examination of living speech wherein alone, as it
seems to me, can we hope to find the key to the mystery.
Laborious as it may be to pore over manuscripts, to compare
letter by letter, to exhume, as it were, bone after bone of
long interred skeletons, and place them side by side for com
parison, carefully studying every little projection and de
pression, the labour is as nothing compared to the patient
watching of habits, registering of usages, slow acquirement
of uncongenial thought, accurate appreciation of living
changing sounds, in thousands of thousands of instances, on
which we must base our real science of language. The
change is like that which converted conchology, the mere
classification of the hard shells, into malacology, the study
of the living mollusc, by which alone the shell received its
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
23
explanation. But it is harder. The conchologist was at least
a naturalist, that went forth to the sea-shore to collect, or
gathered spoil through sailors in every quarter of the globe.
The malacologist had to become the hardy dredger, the
careful dissector, the painful microscopist, the patient aquariumist, yet he remained a naturalist. But, in this case, the
bookman has to be converted into a natureman; the chair
and library have to be forsaken for the horse and hut; lite
rature has to become science. Had we not a kind of inter
mediate creature called an ethnologist, we might despair of
the attempt ever being made. But the intimate connection
of ethnology with philology on the one hand, and biology,
including sociology, on the other, lets us hope that future
generations will rejoice in a light we can only prognosticate.
In the first place, we cannot read Sanscrit. It is almost
like the first reason for not firing a salute—having no can
non. But we have the cannon here—it is the powder which
fails. I shall be told that I could not bring a more ground
less accusation against Sanscrit, which has a model alphabet.
But that alphabet is not primitive. The great works' ex
isted for ages in the mouths of men alone before they were
written down, and the great works were certainly not the
first efforts of the language. By the time that these works
were written,—in an alphabet which of course surprises Euro
peans very much, used as they are to a mere bludge (it’s the
only word with which my mind would “ ring ” in this con
nection, and so I present it to you for analysis,1—I never
heard it before),—by that time I can feel no doubt that the
pronunciation had materially changed, and that the alphabet
. 1 It was suggested that the word
must have arisen from a kind of NorthAmerican-Indian-incorporation of bl-ot
and sm-udge. I can’t recall any such
words having passed through my mind
at the moment when this suggested it
self so forcibly that I could not find any
synonym, and felt forced to commit it
to paper. No doubt the associations
with bl-ot, bl-otch, blu-r, and perhaps
blu-nt, blu-ster, blu-sh, together with
po-dgy, sl-udge, f-udge, sm-udge,
worked upon my mind, but I could not
point out any two words precisely which
more than any other two worked upon
me to make the compound. But has
not some such eclecticism always worked
after a few words have become current ?
How else could Murray’s and Adolf
Wagner’s extravagant notion — that
nine principal roots and nine after-roots
sufficed for all languages—have arisen ?
(Pott, Et. F. Theil 2, Abth. 1, p. 76.)
But to refer bludge to the “ roots ”
bla-\-ag or ba-\-la-\-ag, would be a
cerebral lesion, absolute brain-split
ting, in my own case.
�24
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
was meant to secure an artificial sacerdotal recital. Again,
the pronunciation of that comparatively late alphabet itself
is not understood. No one can for a moment agree with (ee,
oo, ri, rii, lri, lrii, tsh, dzh, nj)—(I employ my paleeotypic signs
as usual). Two letters are called (sh), which cannot be true.
The sounds of the letters called (h) and (v) are disputable.
The real distinction between the dental and cerebral t, d, n,
is not understood here, and seems to be falsely laid down by
Bopp and others. The Anus vara and Visarga are stumblingblocks. Moreover, no one in England seems to think it worth
while to attempt to pronounce these Sanscrit letters according
to any definite theory. Who thoroughly comprehends the
system of accentuation and quantity? Who practises the
chant in which the long verses were certainly uttered ? What
ear knows the rhythmic effect of the quantity? Who can
tell the difference between the extremely artificial language
of the poems and the language of common life which gene
rated the Pracrit, and was the real existing organism from
which the Sanscrit was sublimed ?
Then for the sister dialects. Zend I put aside as a mass
of conjectured pronunciation. Greek is a subject of dispute
at almost every stage. There is hardly a point on which
opinions do not differ. Thus it, t, k, may have had (as Rapp
appears to think) those strange middle sounds heard in
Saxony, which are “bats” to the German ear itself; /3, 8,
7, may have hovered between the modern Greek sounds and
the ordinary English b, d, g. What pages and pages of dis
sertation do not </>, Q,
recall! Who can declare the value
of t ? What was cr itself ? Rapp makes it a sound inter
mediate between (s) and (sh). For the vowels, if a, i, are toler
ably secure, who can precisely give the distinctions between
e, y, and between o, co ? Who knows v ? Among the diph
thongs, not to mention ov, who knows av, ev, gv, wv ? Who
can clearly distinguish at, et ? What of vt ? And as for the
diphthongs with t subscript, what is to be said ? Then the ac
cents—the terrible accents; so important that the grammarians
had to invent them in order to assist foreigners in distress;
—what distress have they caused to us poor foreigners !
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
25
The Latin pronunciation is a subject of controversy at this
moment.1 And then, remember, all these troubles turn upon
a fixed orthography, invented ages after the time for which
we want really to know the pronunciation of Greek and
Latin,—the time of change. In fact, although we are com
paring Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin (I pass over the other
languages for brevity), for the very purpose of seeing their
growth, we are comparing full-grown skeletons bone by bone,
and the foetal system escapes us ! Can we hope, out of this,
to get at those principles and laws which make a science ?
Could Darwin have drawn his theory of evolution from geo
logical data ? Geologists all exclaim that geology furnishes
no transitional forms. Would geologists recognize them as
transitional if they found them? I am afraid that the
history of the salmon would lead us to think otherwise.
Can we then see the transition between these languages ?
It is easy to invent transitional sounds and forms. This has
been done, in a very remarkable way. But what we want is
to find real transitional forms between living languages, and
then we shall, for the first time, have some ground for the
former, which are at present mere “bottomless fancies.”
One merit of the investigations introduced by Sanscrit, is
the conception of a root. As Pott has shewn, the term root
is due to Varro;2 but the present conception goes far beyond
Varro’s hint, good as it is. Pott’s latest extremely careful
and guarded definition is as follows : “ Roo^ whether verbal
1 An allusion to the new interest
excited in the subject by the mooting
of a proposition to alter our strange
insular pronunciation of Latin in schools,
and introduce one more consonant with
what we can glean from Cicero and
Quintilian.
2 Pott, ibidem, p. 188, note, says:
“ Radices lingua; Ov. M. 6, 557, bezeichnet, auch bildlich, den Theil der
Zunge womit sie fest sitzt, also nicht:
Sprachwurzeln. Allein in Varro, L. L.
vii. 4, kommt eine recht brave Stelle
vor, worin er von der Unmoglichkeit
spricht, wegen des hohen Alters der
Worter noch immer durch alle genealogische Verbindungs-Arten hindurch zu ihren letzten Etymen vorzu-
dringen. Darin sagt er nun z. B. auch
vergleichsweise : ‘ Igitur de originibus
verborum qui multa dixerit commode,
potins boni consulendum, quam qui
aliquid nequiverit, reprehendendum ;
prcesertim cum. dicat etymologice non
omnium verborum dici posse causain.
. . . Neque si non norim radices arboris,
non possem dicere pirum esse ex ramo,
ramum ex arbore, earn ex radici bus quas
non video: quare qui ostendit equitatum esse ab equitibus, equites ab equite,
equitem ab equo, neque equos unde sit
dicit, tamen hie docet et plura et satisfacit grato. Quern imitari possimusne,
ipse liber erit indicio.’ Ganz unser
eigenster Fall! ”
�26
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
or pronominal, differs from letter or syllable in being, not
merely a phonetic, but also a conceptional unit,1 of words and
forms genetically related, which was present in the mind of
the framer of language as a prototype when he created them J
nay, which is more or less clearly felt, when not entirely
obscured, by every speaker with respect to the language he
uses (generally his mother tongue). Or, conversely if you
will, these words and forms, carrying this unit within them,
being again divested by the investigator of language of all
their multifarious, internal or external, phenomenal forms,
thereby revert in their nakedest simplicity and truth (ctv/zof in
Greek signifies the real cause, or base of words) to the root, as
to their respective common origin, to the intellectually further
indecomposable atoms of speech.” Translating this from
metaphysics into physics, we may say that words can be
separated into classes, each characterised by its separate con
stituents possessing a phonetic portion, either identical in all,
or related according to certain known individual or national
habits and analogies in the use or substitution of speech
sounds; and each characterised also by some fundamental
conception to which the individual conceptions of its con
stituents can be with more or less difficulty referred. The
fact is, that the determination of roots is extremely difficult;
that different men determine the phonetic original differently,
and also differ in its conceptional interpretation. When
strictly exhibited, as the kernel of the verbal nut, it is a
something which is nothing—a mere philological figment,
1 The italics correspond to Pott's
spaced letters. The following is the
original passage: “Wurzel (und das
gilt nicht bloss Von Verbal-, sondern
auch z. B. von Pronominal-Wurzeln) ist, nicht wie Buchstabe oder
Sylbe, die bloss lautliche, sondern auch
begriffliche Einheit genetisch zusammengehoriger Worter und Formen,
welche dem Sprach-Bildner bei deren
Schopfung in der Seele als Prototyp
vorschwebte, ja, wo nicht ganz verdunkelt, mebr oder minder deutlich von
jedem Bedenden gefiib.lt wird mit
Bezug auf diejenige Sprache (zumeist
die Muttersprache) deren er sich bedient.
Oder, umgekehrt wenn man will,
diese Worter und Formen mit einem
solchen Einheits-Punkte in ihrem
Schoosse, durch den Sprach-For sche r
erst wieder entkleidet von aller Mannigfaltigkeit, aussern wie innern, ihrer
Erscheinungs-Formeri, somit in
ihrer nacktesten Einfachkeit und Wahrheit (Etymon im Griech. bezeichnet
den wahren Grund, die Base der
Worter) kehren zu der Wurzel gleichwie zu je ihrem gemeinsamen Anfangspunkte, zu den nach r iickwarts g e i s t i g
nicht weiter zerlegbaren Atomen der
Sprache zuriick.” Pott, ibid, p. 224.
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
27
which no speaker ever knew, and which, even with the best
intention, it is difficult to comprehend. The phonetic unit
undergoes so many transformations in its various incarna
tions, that it is often recognizable only by the eye of faith.
Wherever the help of Sanscrit fails, and the root has to be
divined or collected from other sources, the difficulties in
crease so rapidly, as Pott himself points out (ibid., pp. 246—
g52), that perhaps no such root can be regarded as univer
sally accepted by philologists. Nay, even in Sanscrit, such
a man as Lepsius has called in question the originally mono
syllabic character of the roots.1 With the conceptional
portion, matters are still more unsettled. To suppose that
the extremely abstract notions which radicarians (if I may
coin the term, to avoid the ambiguous ‘ radicals ’) assign to
their phonetic quintessences, were really in the minds of rude
men beginning to speak, is contrary to all experience as to
the formation of abstract notions in the living growing
minds of to-day. Recognizing, however, broadly the exist
ence of phonetic units and conceptional units among at least
the Aryan languages, is it possible to propound any theory
which could be put to the test of observation ? I throw out
the following for examination.
The word simply, as a sound conceptionally affecting two
human beings at one time in practically the same manner,
being the first social product of the relation of thought to
sound, let us suppose the circle of society to become extended.
Both sounds and senses vary in different mouths and brains.
Different acts and objects are performed and viewed re
sembling in some vague manner the acts and objects denoted
by the accepted but slightly variable speech sounds. The
I 1 Lepsius’s words (Palaog. S. 63,
91, 92), as quoted by Pott (Et. F. Th.
2, Abth. 1, p. 217), with his inserted
[? !], are : “ Um die Gunirung rich
tig zu erkennen und die namentlich in
der Sanskritconjugation so sonderbaren,
anscheinend willkiirliehen Einschiebungen von Vocalen und Consonanten
auf ihren Begriff zuriickzufuhren, miissen wir uns zuerst wieder darauf berufen, was wir oben erkannt hatten, dass
die Sprache durchaus auf urspriingliche
Lautabtheilung hinweist, und dass,
wenn diese auch spater verletzt werden
musste, dies doch am wenigsten von
den Stammen anzunehmen ist.
Nothwendiger Weise werden daher [?!] alle jetzt anseheinend
consonantisch auslautenden
Stamme urspriinglich zweilautig oder zweisylbig.”
�28
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
resemblance and the variety, as accepted by at least two per
sons at once (that is, suggested by one and acknowledged
with more or less certainty by the other), are expressed by
sounds resembling with a difference. This differentiation of
sound and sense is readily carried on, and to an observer ages
afterwards furnishes a presentiment, rather than an image,
of a phonetic and conceptional unit. If we watch the growth
of general conceptions in children at school (which is a real
forcing house in this respect) and of our own selves in after
life, we shall not find much difficulty in acknowledging the
readiness with which obscure resemblances are seized, and
the extreme diversity of the points of connection. The con
ceptional unit, with its great vagueness, and, to a subsequent
philosophical eye, wondrous abstraction, is a phenomenon for
which we ought to be prepared. That this conceptional unit
should be accompanied by a correspondingly Protean phonetic
unit, will occasion no difficulty to any one who hears new
words grow up among children or in cliques. But both
points are matters for living observation. That the root
creative power is dead, I, for one, cannot believe, although
this is affirmed by all radicarians.1* That it ever lived in the
sense which radicarians assign, I, for one, also cannot believe.
True, if there are about 1000 original languages, each with
about 1000 roots, as Pott estimates,3 it may be difficult for
1 Pott {ibid, p. 230): “ Das Zeitalter
der eigentliehen Ur-schopfung, d. h.
worin ihr Grundstock an Wurzeln und
sonstigen streng-primitiven Elementen
(wie meist die Pronominalstamme und
Anderes dieser Art) sich zuerst bildete,
haben die Sprachen, soweit menschliche
Erinnerung reicht, langst im Riicken.
Seit aber jene ganz eigentlich schopferische Urkraft der Sprache erlosch
(und wir begegnen ihr, wie gesagt,
historisch nirgends mehr oder kaum)>
von da ab beschrankt sich alles weitere
Schaffen in den Sprachen nur auf ein
U mbilden, abgegranzt im Verandern
jenervorhin erwahnten Grundelemente,
theils an sich, theils durch combinatorische Zusammenfugung derselben,
unter einander. Ein Schaffen mit und
in lediglich altern (ererbten), zum
hochsten von fremdher (tralaticisch)
erborgtem Materiale: es wird keinem
Werderuf mehr ins leere Nichts hinein
durch die That geantwortet. . . . Nach
einer Seite hin also ist, wir miissen es
unweigerlich bekennen, in den Sprachen •
ein Stillstand, eine offenbare Ohnmacht, namlich im Schaffen von unbedingt Neuem, singetreten.”
2 Pott {ibid, p. 73): “ Es mag aber
schon an dieser Stelle gesagt sein, dass,
wie keine Sprache leicht das Maass von
einem halben Hundert buchstablicher Grundelemente (d. h. wenn
man nicht im Mitzahlen aller feineren
Unterschiede, nach Ton, Quantitat und
sonstigen leisen Farbungen etwas zu
frei verfahrt), so etwa ein Tausend
die Mittelzahl abgeben darf fiir die
Wurzeln, deren sieh auf und ab je die
eine oder andere Sprache bedient.”—
And again {ibid, p. 83): “ Die Zahl
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
29
any sound to be uttered by one man and understood by an
other, which a thorough radicarian could not assign to some
one of these million original roots already established to his
own satisfaction. But this would not in the slightest degree
impugn the creation of the root among the new speakers.
It is indeed only the cultivated whose vocabulary is limited
by the immense resources at their command. The unculti
vated have constantly to form new words, and in doing so,
most probably, as their use of them extends, proceed from
this first social product, the word, to the second social pro
duct, the root, the connecting phonetic and conceptional core
of differentiated words.
There remains a third and extremely important social pro
duct, bearing indeed a great resemblance to the second, so
great a resemblance in fact, that until Sanscrit radicarianism
was current in Europe, it took its place; I mean differentia
tion according to the mutual relations of the duo (the speaker
and the listener), and of each or both of the duo to the non-duo
(that is, all which is neither speaker nor listener), considered
generally as divisible. Having already drawn too largely on
your patience, I must touch very briefly upon a section of my
subject, well fitted to absorb my whole time. The first por
tion of this product relates to what we denote by pronouns
der Wurzeln in den Verschiedenen
Sprachen der Erde zu finden ist, wir
sahen es, ein Problem, dessen einigermassen ausreichende Losung nocb die
sorgfaltigste und unermiidliche Arbeit
von Jahrhunderten verlangt. Eben so
unsicher steht es aber aueh zur Zeit
mit der wirklichen Zabl menschlicher
Spra,chen; und will ich in dieser
Betracht auf meine Rassen, S. 230 fgg.
verweisen, um die Schwierigkeiten die
ser Frage (860, die von Adrian Balbi
gegebene Zabl, ist noch die annaherungsweise zutreffendste) nicht hier
aufs neue erortern zu miissen. Wir
wollen statt obiger 860 Sprachen als
runde Summe 1000 setzen. Auf jede
von diesen dann weiter durchschnittlich
ebenfalls 1000 Wurzeln gerechnet,
ergabe dies fur die Gesammtheit all er
Erdensprachen ungefahr die Summe
von Einer Million an Sprachwurzeln.
Eine Million Wurzeln (man verstehe
mich wohl: Wurzeln; indem hier die
Legionen von W or tern ausser Acht
bleiben, die aus jenen entspringen)
welches Gedachtniss (sicherlich nicht
derer, ‘die wir j etzt leben,’ das unsere)
vermbchte sie zu tragen ? Wie aber ?
hattedennoch—wunderbareWeise—das
Urvoik, eine solche Last in seinem
Hirn nicht nur zu tragen, sondern sogar
schopferisch zu erzeugen, die Fahigkeit
besessen? . . . Selbst indess das Vorhandensein einer einzigen Ursprache,
die von alien ubrigen Idiomen die erste
Grundlage ausmachte, eingeraumt, . . .
so miisste doch zum mindestens die
Auffindbarkeit einer solchen an der
grossen Menge von Wurzeln scheitern,
welche iiberdem zum grossten Theile
unter einer geradezu unabsehbaren
Fiille von Wortern und Wortformen
versteckt liegen.”
�30
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
and prepositions, affixes and inflections, which, however, in
different languages assume extremely different forms, and
often I believe are originally mere differentiations of sound
and sense in the original word, and not at all new words first
monosyllabically coordinated or subordinated, next agglu
tinated, and thirdly fused or chipped into inflexions. Whether
this order, which corresponds to Prof. Max Muller’s theory
of languages, be established by historical documents in any
single case, or not, I do not know.1 But the two former
stages do not appear necessary for the evolution of the third.
They may all three be perfectly independent formations.
The extremely different character of the Aryan and Semitic
inflexional systems seems to point to such a diversity of origin.
The American incorporative arrangement is also quite dis
tinct in its nature. With these relations I would group the
whole of the accidence and syntactical construction of lan
guage. They are merely developments of the relations of
the duo to the non-duo, or the interrelations of parts of the
non-duo as viewed by the duo, either with or without distinct
reference to themselves. To these syntactical relations belong
all the etymological part of grammar, with composition and
ordinary formative syllables and letters, the result of a con
scious grouping of conceptions consciously expressed.
With this terminates the general view of philology as
centering in the relation of thought to sound, where thought
expresses all cerebral action and sound all acoustical phe
nomena. The first relation was physiological and nervous.
The second was individual, arising from the thoughts excited
or expressed by sounds in human beings taken separately,
and led to the interjectional, imitational and symphonetic
theories, all more or less imperfect. The third relation was
social, characterised by a common thought excited in at least
two persons by the same sound; and its first product was the
word, the second the root, and the third the inflection and its
representatives. Thus the whole of philological research is
reduced to one conception, which I propose to term meropy,
1 Humboldt’s classification of languages as: isolating, agglutinating, incorpo
rating, and inflecting (Pott. Et. F. Th. 2, Abth. 4), is another matter altogether.
�DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
31
as the nucleus of a real science which has long outgrown any
meaning radically or derivationally attachable to either philo
logy or etymology,—the love of words, or the science of the
true. The word meropy is not in the English vocabulary,
nor, in its abstract form, in the Greek, that great well whence
we bucket up our abstract terms. But it is Greek and very
ancient Greek in its origin, though what old Homer exactly
meant by his yepoives •avdpcoiroi is matter of dispute. That
the word was distinctive of man, and that it related espe
cially to his power of speech, there is little doubt. The first
syllable mer is usually connected with yepos, and supposed
to refer to articulate utterance—an opinion defended by Pott
(Et. Forsch., Theil 2, Abtheil. 3, p. 527). Benfey (Griech.
Wurzellex. 2, 39) throws out the suggestion that yap- and
yep- in yap-rvp, yep-cyva, yep-yep-os, yep-oires (the singular
is not found), signifies thought. If so, meropy would express
my conception with sufficient nearness. As a new form of
an old word there will certainly be no harm in imposing
this meaning upon it,—of course, with Humpty Dumpty’s
permission.
The view that I am seeking to urge upon you is that
language is a living thing, the outcome of the social con
nection of two or more beings capable of hearing and pro
ducing sound, and that it must be watched and registered
as it now grows; that, in short, our only hope of really
catching the laws of its formation is to study it in its present
life, and not, as hitherto almost exclusively, in its past death.
And in reference to the applications of comparative philo
logy, let me ask: Have we not been too eager to infer social
connection, such as emigrations and immigrations, tides of
invasion, ethnological conclusions in short, from resemblances
of sounds of words, especially names of places, from the more
recondite resemblances of root admitting such varieties as are
roughly indicated by Rask’s or Grimm’s law, and from the
still more seducing resemblance of grammatical construction ?
Taken altogether, when pointing the same way, these resem
blances are certainly very overwhelming to one who hears
them for the first time as propounded by scholars whose very
�32
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872
names have a religion in their sound, by means of picked
instances, dexterously manipulated, and sweeping over regions
where poor Ignoramus can only wonder that mortal eye ever
peered. But has sufficient attention been paid to the infinite
diversities which are thus quietly backgrounded? Is not
diversity an element, and a most important element, in the
comparison ? Again, has sufficient attention been paid to
the spontaneous evolution of similarities (I exclude identities,
as altogether dubious), through the similar constitution of
thought and sound influenced by more or less similar con
ditions of environment ? Ought we not rather to reverse the
conclusion hitherto drawn, and instead of inferring contact
from, linguistic similarity, to require some historical proof of
contact before admitting that the resemblance in speech may
be more than casual, that is, before admitting that we have a
vera causa for the resemblances? The bearing of this on
ethnology is very evident, and, as before said, it is to ethno
logy that philology must here look for help, rather than
conversely.
Now what influence would be exerted on philological re
search by such a view as mine, if generally adopted? It
would I think, in the first place, fix great and marked atten
tion on existing forms of speech, not merely on those possess
ing a literature, — for all philologists must join in Pott’s
hearty reprobation of Lachmann’s incapacity to see the use
of studying any other languages,1—but especially on those
1 Pott (Et. F., Theil 2, Abth. 3, p.
vii): “Der Kritiker Lachmann gestand
blankweg seine Unfahigkeit zu begreifen, wie man sich mit Erforschung
einer Sprache abgeben konne, welcbe
keine Literatur besitze. 0 uber euch
armen Tropfe: v. d. Gabelentz,
Castren, Schiefner, Hodgson,
Gallatin, Kolle, und wer sonst zu
eurem Gelichter gehort, auch W.
v. Humboldt nicht zu vergessen.
Vemehmt euer Todesurtheil und
lasst euch hinrichten. Der grosse
Kritiker hats gesprochen; und—was
ware denn auch die Lachmannische
Philologie ohne das Sichten von Lesarten, wozu es natiirlich der Perga
ment e bedarf, und die dazu nothige,
empirische Kenntniss von Sprachgebrauch? Wer nur Kritiker und
nichts als Kritiker ist und sein will
(oder: kann), wie kame dem leicht eine
Ahnung davon, dass es, ausser dem
philologischen Sprachstudium oder
dem, wie es Schaub nicht unpassend
genannt had, schlechtweg instrumentalen, noch eine andere Art
Sprachforschung gebe, welche, nicht
begniigt mit der Spracherlernung als
dienendem Mittel, als Selbstzweck
sich zur Aufgabe setzt—wissenschaftliches Begreifen der Sprachen, hoher
wie niederer, mit oder obne Literatur,
als ebenso vieler Ausschnittedesallgemeinen und volklich-besonderten
Menschengeistes?” Bravelysaid!
�3.3
DELIVERED BY ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
not possessing a literature, and the peasant dialects of those
which do possess one, as the real fermenting mass whence
language grows. In the next place it would lead to a greater
appreciation of efforts, fortunately already begun, to investi
gate the descent of literary languages historically. There is
not much chance at present of the fossil literary languages
being forgotten, but it is only by the living observation, and
the historical affiliation, that we can hope to re-compose them,
and see them as we now picture to ourselves the wondrous
geological re-creations of the scientific palaeontologist.
Now the studies requisite for this purpose are, first and
most essentially, a general acquaintance with comparative
phonology. This is a branch of philology which has lately
attracted considerable attention. German philologists are apt
to consider that the subject has been exhausted by Johannes
Muller, Lepsius, and Briicke,—few seem to know the laborious
Merkel, to whom we owe the most thorough physiological
examination of the vocal organs yet published. So far from
this being the case, these writers have not succeeded in
explaining the cultivated sounds of English and French.
Frenchmen seem even in a worse condition; but Volney for
merly, and Edouard Paris just now, have made a beginning.
In England we have worked hard, and Melville Bell has
laid a noble foundation. But every one, so far as I can see,
labours under nationality. Till this nationality is thrown
off by dealing with many nationalities, we shall not make
much progress towards the general relations of speech sounds
on which meropy, as a science, must be based.
The next step is, with the best phonology we have, to study
living speech. The missionaries, as already hinted, are very
doubtful assistants. I am afraid their natural eagerness to
transplant the savage mind to Judaea, or to give it neo
platonic abstractions, or even their denominational exiencies,
however ecclesiastically praiseworthy, greatly interferes with
the purity of the native dialect, and that all Scriptural trans
lations and missionary tracts and hymns must be looked upon
ethnologically and philologically with suspicion. And the
worst of it is, they not only give a false representation, but
3
�34
THE PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS FOR 1872.
they actually corrupt the native organic action and poison the
stream of meropy at its source. Then we have peasant
dialects, gathered under great disadvantages and often with
faulty tools. Let me, however, note with peculiar pleasure
Schmeller’s Bavarian labours, and congratulate the Philo
logical Society in having given rise to Mr. Murray’s Lowland
Scotch and Prof. Haldeman’s Pennsylvania German studies.
After this we have the historical investigations, of which
Grimm and Diez are our present models. But I must not
omit to mention the great impetus which the historical study
of our own language has received from the labours of Koch,
Stratmann, Matzner and others in Germany, and the publica
tions of our own Early English Text and Chaucer Societies
in England, already bearing fruit in Dr. Morris’s Historical
Outlines of English Accidence. And sometime before the
arrival of the Greek Kalends, our own Society may perhaps
contribute its long-announced, actually conceived, but unfor
tunately still embryonic Historical Dictionary of the English
Language. But all these studies are necessarily preliminary.
Until trustworthy reprints, not doctored, not corrected, not
re-spelled according to a system, have been for some years
before the world, not merely in English, and Anglo-Saxon
(for which we are so much indebted to our Secretary, Mr.
Eurnivall), or Old Saxon (as in that splendid model Schmeller’s
Heliand}, but in all the languages of Europe, and especially
in those classical tongues which most of us only know in a
mediaeval orthography and a scholar’s recension,—until that
good time has come, we, and our children to the third and
fourth generations, will not be able to trace languages his
torically upwards either in sound or thought. We ’have
hitherto been forced to build on the sand, and all our erec
tions must be looked upon as temporary lodgements, mere
shelter for the navvies before whom stands the rock they have
to pierce.
Such is my butterfly view of philological honey.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First annual address of the President to the Philological Society delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday 17th May 1872
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ellis, Alexander John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 34 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[The Philological Society]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1872]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5277
Subject
The topic of the resource
Language
Philology
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (First annual address of the President to the Philological Society delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday 17th May 1872), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Language
Philology
Phonology