COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY and its RELATION TO POLYNESIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

CO MPARATIVE PHILOLOGY and its RELATION TO POLYNESIA.

The following is the paper o» the above subject read before the Auck'snd Institute by Professor Tucker . PRINCIPLES AND HISTORY OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. The purpose of this paper is to bring beneath the attention of .this Society at one and tbe same time the value of the newlyrecognised phyfiieal science called comparative philology, and also the use that might be made of it in relation to one of the specified objects of the Institute, namely, the elucidation of tbe history of the Maori race and that oil the allied races of the South Pacific. Inasmuch as but little is generally known of thin science, partly owing to the usual contempt 'for anything new and partly due to the fact that it is generally believed that a comparative philologist must necessarily be a grant linguist, it may be well briefly to explain its principles and something of its history. Like all the inductive sciences, it h:i;i had its empirical and its classificatory stages, but it has at leneth reached the state at which it may be called theoretical. It is a physical science, inasmuch as language is not a creation of man's volition, but is a force and product of nature. Man adds nothiug to the body of language, however much: he may alter what already exists. Being,, then, a physical science, it has proceeded according to the method of such sciences. Certain facts have been collected, they have been arranged in a certain order, and important deductions have been drawn, tested, and verified. The earliest attempts in philology were made by Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Iu the Cratylus, Pis,to takes a Ureek word and compares it ")?ith > other Greek words possessing some resemblance to it in form, and from this comparison he derived etymologies, ingenious, but absurd in the light of the modern science. To him, as to the Greeks, outside nations were barbaroi, or babblers, and. he hid no notion that perhaps etymologies sould be discovered better by comparing bis Greek words with their babblings than with other words of his own language. Besides this, he started in the most unscientific spirit, inasmuch as he was only seeking to substantiate his preconceived idea, or Co confirm the results of his own cogitation. This was the beginning of philology, but not of comparative philology, for the comparative science requires a collation of several languages, a scrutiny of their grammar and their etymology, and cautious scientific deductions from the comparison. After him came the Alexandrians, who were somewhat more cautious, but still had no definite restrictive principle o , so that | 'their derivations and explanations became merely an exercise of ingenuity. Then followed th' 3 European scholars, Scaliger, Stephanus, Toss, who did great service in the way of fortunate guesses and collection of material, but who were outside the p ile of science, inasmuch as they took a radically wrong view of human speech, regarding its changes and developments as conscious and artificial inttcad of natural, and who were also wrong, inasmuch as they thought there was no penetrating further back than Greek. Such students as these, it is well said, were devoted rather to the architecture than the chemistry of language—i.e., to the usage of word 3 rath«r than their analysis. In fact, they had no t so mucli as discovered that there were families of speech radically distinct, and they were as ready to derive from Hebrew as from Greek. The first to give a true bent to the study was the alraont omniscient Leibnitz, who made the simple remark thai; we should commence with'the known, and not with the unknown. We ought, he says, to take the modern languages which are close* at hand, to compare them, note their affinitiea and their differences, and «o proceeding to their immediate predecessors to show their filiation and origin, and to mount, step by step, to the more ancient, until wo arrive at acceptable conclusion;). Buttmann was perhaps the first to'regard language as a force of nature, and to perceive that phonetic change was unconscioH3 and naturally produced. Sanskrit, or old Indian, being discovered at the end of last century, gave the important, essential keystone to the arch. This newfound language proved on examination to hpve, despite the geographical structure, a stronger infinity to both Latin and Greek, in roots of words, and in forms of grammar also, than could have been produced by mp.ra acnitlent: and it was impossible to believe but that they sprang irum common uurce which no longer existed. From thin dates the science of comparative philology. The connection between the European, languages had been already observed, and also their connection with the dead languages, Latin and Greek, and now people were surprised to find that Sanskrit, or old Indian, and Persiau also were closely related to them all. Beyond this they discovered that no other language could be found which did not differ in essential points from this group. Hence a family of languages was marked off, and called wrongly Aryan, or Indo-Germanic, and more correctly Indo-European. The first comparative grammar of this family was produced by Pott, who proceeded in the true scientific: method. Ho did not, as others had done, derive Greek from Sanskrit and Latin from Greek, but he sought for an original language from which they all derived. Calling Latin M.S. A, Greek M.S. B, Sanskrit M.S. c, and so on, he, by collating these various copies, or codices, sought to reproduce the archetype of which these wure copies ; that is to say, he hoped to reconstruct the original words spoken by the early people who were the common ancestors of modern Europeans, Russians, and Hindoos!. From this discovery—one which is irrefragable—philology can, as Farrar puts it, "prove the vast series of years necessitated to achieve her positive Tesults : with her languages and dialects she can throw light on one of the most important problems of science, by showing iu actual process the origin of species from genus : she can reconstruct extinct and original forms by the comparison of divergent yet closely relat-d dialects; by examining a speech subjected to foreign influence, she can exemplify the phenomena of hybridism : pointing to a.n immense number of languages widely separated and mutually unintelligible, and which have existed in this condition us. far back as history can go, she can prove that those species are not primitive; she can ahow that the apparently barbarous dissonance and boundless change is the result oE well understood laws acting with perfect and admirable regularity.

KESULTS OP THE SCIENCE. The results of this Btudy, so far as it has yet been pursued, are as followsWe know of the exact limits, the exact connection, and the probable origin of one family, the Indo-European : of another family called Semitic we know the limits and Garment ion : we have some sort of classification of a family called Turanian ; and we finally have an unclassified number of languages, which may be partially connected, closely connected, or wholly dissimilar, and which we call conveniently, if unscientifically, Allophylian. Among this last class is included the Polynesian. The Semitic";, family includes Hebrew, Arabic, Syoriae, and; cognate dialects. The Turanian includes*; Mongolic, Turkic, Finnic, and Asiatic,' Central and North; the Indo-European > includes the tongues I shall mention hereafter. .Now, what is most important to us in denJing Dhilologically with the history of peoples, is to observe what kind of results are attained by this sort of philological research. In regard to the Indo-European family there have been discovered beyond all reasonable doubt (a) The geographical position of the cradle of this family. (6) The connections which are closest between its sub-divisions, (c) The chronological order of their migrations and dispersions from the centre. And these are the results at which we wish to arrive in regard to the Maori and Polynesian races. To explain my meaning— It io ascertainepl that the original ancestors of the family iwere inhabitants of the plain of Tibet, in Central Asia; and from the fact: that certain words are alike for all the family, we discover that they had houses, cattle, and the ordinary family relations. As they increased in number, a certain body moved off to the west, whom we will call the Sclavo-Teutonic body—i.e., the! ancestors of the Sclavs and the Teutons, who were then ono and the same people. Approaching Northern .'Europe the Teutons divided from the Sclavs, and a common Teutonic body proceeded to the north-west, Thin body divided later into the German and Scandinavian, tho one body afterwards separating into Germans, Dutch, English, and the latter into Danes, Swedes, Norwej[ians. In tho migrations of the AngloSaxons we have the fact vouched for by history," Meanwhile the plateau of Tibet was still filling, and unable to satisfy needs. Accordingly another body moved westward, one body in speech and manners, which wa

I will call the Gr«co-Italo-Keltic. This body moved along Southern Europe, and during the time between their departure and olti- ' mate sub-division they developed some few common words and common, grammatical forms, which are not to bo found either among the still remaining body or the body previously departed. On reaching Central Europe the Kelts w.Jnt their way, northwest, and became ancestors of the Irish, the Welsh, the Gael, and the_ Breton; while tbe future Greeks and Italians were still a homogeneous body. Again on the original ground remained a body which afterwards went, part into the valley to the weat, and pa t into the rich land to the souSh. This Aryan body represents the ancestry of Persians and Hindoos. This may seem too interesting for the supposed dryness of science ; but the proofs are overwhelming. We cannot, of course, tell how many centnries elapsed between these. various migrations, but we can coincide with the geologist in the opinion that the world must be Much older than is generally supposed. I have given this well-ascertained account of the original source of the Indo-European family, l 'because it is the family in which students have been most interested, and in which there exists the greatest literary material to assist in investigation. But there is no reason why such investigation should be oonfined to this family ; and it behoves us, who are interested in the South Pacific, and who make it one of our objects to elucidate their origin, to carry on a similar work in this particular branch of the Allophylian tongues.

ITS APPLICATION TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC. It appears to me that, apait from eth- 1 nology, if we are to learn the origin, history, and relationship to each other of these South Pacific Islanders, we cannot proceed more safely than by examination of their languages. Ethnology, of course, will do much; and it may be said that the study of traditions and mythology will do much. But a tradition is often evolved from a word, and in the solving of mythological ridilles iDgenuity is apt to be led astray; whereas, in dealing with language, the results would be purely those of scientific induction. If in New Zealand, the islands of the South Pacific in general, the Malayan Group, and Madagascar, there were some competent persons to draw np a dictionary and grammar of tho several languages or dialects, we should have all the apparatus necessary. Of course, there is tho danger to be guarded against of faulty repre-s-ntation of sound in written characters; but intelligent persons working together can always manage to reproduce in writing even the indistinct articulation of a savage. This work should be done forthwith, before European influence, education, and the dying out of the natives have put an end to it altogether. Now, if some persons versed in the science of comparative philology, were to receive a collection of the dictionaries and grammars, he could, by assiduous comparison, by observation of the regularity or irregularity of divergences, by constantly testing and verifying his inferences, and proceeding in alt this with sobriety and judgment, come to some wellgrounded conclusions, however few, on the general or particular connection oi the several languages, aud the probable archetype of them all. And to do this he need ] know nothing of the languages himself : all he requires is that the written characters should adequately represent the sounds as uitered. Let such work be taken up by various scholars, and I have no doubt at least a satisfactory theory might be advanced. The first aim would be to discover whether the languages so submitted could be considered of one family, or whether they belonged to distinct families. This question would depend upon whether there existed among them (1) a similarity of grammatical structure; (2) a fundamental identity of word roots. As to the word roots, it is obvious that the words most likely to be common to a family are tha words expressing the commonest objects and sensations, as the names of earth, sun, water, father, mother, and the personal pronouns. If. had a common origin, it wonld bo incredible that they should not have the word expressing these ideas, common to all, so far, that is to say, as the root iB concerned. If languages 1 neither possess these comtpon roots nor yet, a similarity of grammatical process, they may be considered as unrelated, and separated accordingly. By Bpeaking of a root, I mean that, though we might not find precisely the same simple word in cognate iaug..<«goo, yot, by observing their phonetic peculiarities, we might be aWe tu udd«oo * common form from whieh they could have been equally devised. I will take one instance trom the Indo-European family. The words hippos, acras, equus appear at first sight to be little connected; but when we discover a dialectical form of hippos as hikkos then we find that hikkos, by phonetic assimilation, represents hikros, and tho connection of ikroß, ac-ras, eq-uus, leads us to postulate an archetype, ak-ras, ak being the root from which ik, ac, eq are alike derived; This principle, being tested, and never found to fail, is necessarily put down as a scientific truth. The languages that are really cognate being discovered, we have to find what ia really common to them all, what is peculiar, and what is shared by'one or two languages, though unknown to the rest. And a caution is here requisite. We must be careful to separate from these languages any words which represent things which have b. en introduced by Europeans, or any words winch represent things imported by Europeans. If a foreigner lands with an article of which natives know nothing, they must either adopt its name or invent one themselves, and it is not to be expected that the same word will have any existence in the cognate languages. These words, and also words describing some object peculiar to a special place, must be eliminated. ..Having the field somewhat narrowed, and feeling sure that there is a family connection between the languages remaining, the next step is to discover which of these are cldsest related—i.e., to form the family into groups. Examining one of these groups in itself, we can discover the principles of divergence. As an instance of my meaning, it may be observed that in the Teutonic group of the Indo-European family we have English and German as separate languages. English has a closer connection with German than either

baa with another group, and yet there is a difference regular and consistent. Grimm's law conveys tho information required on thiß point. A German th, for instance, stands for English d; a German s for an English I. I do not know enough of the Polynesian languages to say whether similar divergences exist in them, but I have reason to believe that there is something analogous. I am told, for instance, that a Maori cannot pronounce a sililaut, .while a Tongan can, and that the Maori has to supply its place with au aspirate. By such comparisons, groupings, and observations aa these at whioh I have hinted, a philosophic scheme might be formed to reconstruct in theory the original language of the .wliolo family. . By separating root from inflection, or increment, or phonetic change, we might discover a form of the root which would account for all subsequent forms and divergences. There would remain a number of roots expressing .certain ideas, and from these it would bo as transparent as day, what words the original race possessed before', the separation, and, therefore, what feelings, objects, relations 'they were acquainted with ; whether they were an inland or a seafaring people, whether they possessed a religion or not, and so on. If we found that the names given to sundry common things were diverse, we should presume that those things were unknown to them before their separation; if we found that two or three languages.had a similar word for an object, while the cognate languages had another or several others, we should say that those two or three peoples ■Here in company with each other and in separatiou from the rest at the time o£ first meeting with the object in question. We could, by marking o£F the geographical positions of these peoples, and by grouping their languages, draw an inference as to the probable common source of the whole body, inasmuch as we could inductively lead up to it by examining tho dispersion of the groups more intimately related in point of language. We should, I believe, if this scheme were carried out, find a satisfactory theory (1) of the point of departure of the family ; ; (2) of -the order in which they migrated; (3) of the more immediate connexions between them. Whether anyone will find it worth their while to follow out such a plan I cannot say. I would gladly do it if the material and time were at my disposal; but I.feel that I have been, as it is, crippled in my attempts to give definiteness to my scheme, owing to the fact that I know nothing of the structure or vocabulary of the peoples of whom X have been treating, i except that certain of them are closely related. If it iB the case, then lam convinced there can be no great difficulty is discoveri ing the extent of that relationship.