in-law, Crassus said, 'When I hear Lælia (for women keep old fashions more readily, because, as they do not hear the conversation of many people, they will always retain what they learned at first); but when I hear her, it is as if I were listening to Plautus and Nævius.'

But this is not all. Dante ascribed the first attempts at using the vulgar tongue in Italy for literary compositions to the silent influence of ladies who did not understand the Latin language. Now this vulgar Italian, before it became the literary language of Italy, held very much the same position there as the so-called Prâkrit dialects in India; and these Prâkrit dialects. first assumed a literary position in the Sanskrit plays where female characters, both high and low, are introduced as speaking Prâkrit, instead of the Sanskrit employed by kings, noblemen, and priests. Here, then, we have the language of women, or, if not of women exclusively, at all events of women and domestic servants, gradually entering into the literary idiom, and in later times even supplanting it altogether; for it is from the Prâkrit, and not from the literary Sanskrit, that the modern vernaculars of India branched off in course of time. Nor is the simultaneous existence of two such representatives of one and the same language as Sanskrit and Prâkrit confined to India. On the contrary, it has been remarked that several languages divide themselves from the first into two great branches; one showing a more manly, the other a more feminine character; one richer in consonants, the other richer in vowels; one more tenacious of the original grammatical terminations, the other more inclined to slur over these terminations, and to simplify grammar by the use of circumlocutions. Thus we have Greek in its two dialects, the Eolic and the Ionic, with their sub

divisions, the Doric and Attic. In German we find the High and the Low German; in Celtic, the Gadhelic and Cymric, as in India the Sanskrit and Prâkrit; and it is by no means an unlikely explanation, that, as Grimm suggested in the case of High and Low German, so likewise in the other Aryan languages, the stern and strict dialects, the Sanskrit, the Æolic, the Gadhelic, represent the idiom of the fathers and brothers, used at public assemblies; while the soft and simpler dialects, the Prâkrit, the Ionic, and the Cymric, sprang originally from the domestic idiom of mothers, sisters, and servants at home.

But whether the influence of the language of women be admitted on this large scale or not, certain it is, that through a thousand smaller channels their idioms everywhere find admission into the domestic conversation of the whole family, and into the public speeches of their assemblies. The greater the ascendency of the female element in society, the greater the influence of their language on the language of a family or a clan, a village or a town. The cases, however, that are mentioned of women speaking a totally different language from the men, cannot be used in confirmation of this view. The Caribe women, for instance, in the Antille Islands,* spoke a language different from that of their husbands, because the Caribes had killed the whole male population of the Arawakes and married their women; and something similar seems to have taken place among some of the tribes of Greenland.† Yet even these isolated cases show how, among savage races, in a primitive state of society, language may be influenced by what we should call purely accidental

causes.

Hervas, Catalogo, i. p. 212.

† Ibid. i.

p. 369.

But to return to the Kafir language, we find in it clear traces that what may have been originally a mere feminine peculiarity-the result, if you like, of the bashfulness of the Kafir ladies-extended its influence. For, in the same way as the women eschew words which contain a sound similar to the names of their nearest male relatives, the men also of certain Kafir tribes feel a prejudice against employing a word that is similar in sound to the name of one of their former chiefs. Thus, the Amambalu do not use ilanga, the general word for sun, because their first chief's name was Ulanga, but employ isota instead. For a similar reason, the Amagqunukwebi substitute immela for isitshetshe, the general term for knife.*

Here, then, we may perceive two things: first, the influence which a mere whim, if it once becomes stereotyped, may exercise on the whole character of a language (for we must remember that as every woman had her own male relations, and every tribe its own ancestors, a large number of words must constantly have been tabooed and supplanted in these African and Polynesian dialects); secondly, the curious coincidence that two great branches of speech, the Kafir and the Polynesian, should share in common what at first sight would seem a merely accidental idiosyncrasy, a thing that might have been thought of once, but never again. It is perfectly true that such principles as the Te pi and the Ukuhlonipa could never become powerful agents in the literary languages of civilised nations, and that we must not look for traces of their influence either in Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin, as known to us. But it is for that very reason that the study of what I call NoAppleyard, l. c. p. 70.

*

mad languages, as distinguished from State languages, becomes so instructive. We see in them what we can no longer expect to see even in the most ancient Sanskrit or Hebrew. We watch the childhood of language with all its childish freaks, and we learn at least this one lesson, that there is more in language than is dreamt of in our philosophy.

One more testimony in support of these views. Mr. H. W. Bates, in his latest work, 'The Naturalist on the Amazons,' writes:-' But language is not a sure guide in the filiation of Brazilian tribes, seven or eight languages being sometimes spoken on the same river within a distance of 200 or 300 miles. There are certain peculiarities in Indian habits which lead to a quick corruption of language and segregation of dialects. When Indians, men or women, are conversing amongst themselves, they seem to take pleasure in inventing new modes of pronunciation, or in distorting words. It is amusing to notice how the whole party will laugh when the wit of the circle perpetrates a new slang term, and these new words are very often retained. I have noticed this during long voyages made with Indian crews. When such alterations occur amongst a family or horde, which often live many years without communication with the rest of their tribe, the local corruption of language becomes perpetuated. Single hordes belonging to the same tribe, and inhabiting the banks of the same river, thus become, in the course of many years' isolation, unintelligible to other hordes, as happens with the Collínas on the Jurúa. I think it, therefore, very probable that the disposition to invent new words and new modes of pronunciation, added to the small population and habits of isolation of hordes and tribes, are the causes

of the wonderful diversity of languages in South America.'-(Vol. i. pp. 329-30.)

As I intend to limit the present course of lectures chiefly to Greek and Latin, with its Romance offshoots; English, with its Continental kith and kin; and the much-abused, though indispensable, Sanskrit, I thought it necessary thus from the beginning to guard against the misapprehension that the study of Sanskrit and its cognate dialects could supply us with all that is necessary for the Science of Language. It can do so as little as an exploration of the tertiary epoch could tell us all about the stratification of the earth. But, nevertheless, it can tell us a great deal. By displaying to us the minute laws that regulate the changes of each consonant, each vowel, each accent, it disciplines the student, and teaches him respect for every jot and tittle in any, even the most barbarous, dialect he may hereafter have to analyse. By helping us to an understanding of that language in which we think, and of others most near and dear to us, it makes us perceive the great importance which the Science of Language has for the Science of the Mind. Nay, it shows that the two are inseparable, and that without a proper analysis of human language we shall never arrive at a true knowledge of the human mind. I quote from Leibniz: 'I believe truly,' he says, 'that languages are the best mirror of the human mind, and that an exact analysis of the signification of words would make us better acquainted than anything else with the operations of the understanding.'

I

propose to divide my lectures into two parts. I shall first treat of what may be called the body or the outside of language, the sounds in which language is clothed, whether we call them letters, syllables, or