Philosophies of language in eighteenth-century France 9783111352114, 9783110997194

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PHILOSOPHIES OF LANGUAGE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

J ANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA M E M O R I A E N I C O L A I VAN W I J K D E D I C A T A

edenda curat

C. H. VAN S C H O O N E V E L D INDIANA UNIVERSITY

SERIES MINOR 18

1970

MOUTON THB H A G U E • PARIS

PHILOSOPHIES OF LANGUAGE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE by

PIERRE JULIARD LEHIGH UNIVERSITY

1970

MOUTON T H E H A G U E * PARIS

© Copyright 1970 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 77-111622

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

In memory of my Linda who died before her time . . .. She was everything.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge the many professors and friends who have helped in the completion of this thesis. It gives me great pleasure to thank Professor Henry Guerlac for his helpful suggestions and guidance. I would also like to express gratitude to Miss Martha Landis of the reference department of the Cornell University Library for her assistance in obtaining microfilm and several obscure works, as well as David Moore for the many hours he spent helping re-edit the text. Last but most important I wish to thank my wife, Linda, for the moral support she provided in addition to typing the text several times.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments I. II.

7

Introduction The Origins and Development of Language

11 . . .

21

III.

Language and Ideas

45

IV.

Language and the Idea of Progress

59

Language and the Ideas of the Times

78

A Science of Language

90

V. VI. VII.

Conclusion

101

Bibliography

105

Chronology of Major Works Cited

108

Index

109

I INTRODUCTION

The death of Louis XIV, the greatest symbol of divine right absolutism, was more an occasion for hope and relief than for sorrow. With the demise of the Sun King, French society escaped from a crushing domination of all aspects of life. As soon as the regency was established, works of social and political criticism began to appear and rapidly acquired great popularity. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment had fully blossomed and these early satires had developed into militant denunciations of the existing order. Armed with reason as the key to the hidden secrets of nature, the philosophes had as their goal the solution of all the problems of society. Just as Newton had unlocked the secrets of the physical universe, these thinkers hoped to demonstrate the rational structure of the social realm. Their optimistic aim was to eliminate mystery and superstition and to better man's life on earth by creating a just and rational society. In every way possible the philosophes tried to discredit the theological interpretation of the universe to which the Church adamantly adhered. They grasped every opportunity to prove with reason what the Church had maintained by faith. One area in which these apostles of reason challenged orthodoxy was the study of language. Opponents of the religious doctrine that language is a gift of God, they were among the first to describe language as a creation of man and to emphasize that it is not a static system but one that develops simultaneously with man's ideas and knowledge. Some authors, such as Charles de Brosse,

12

INTRODUCTION

even tried to study language as a science in the eighteenth-century sense of the word, that is, as an organized field of study based upon facts and observations. The philosophes were by no means the first to be concerned with the problem of language. From the earliest times man has wondered about the origins and nature of language. Evidence of this concern can be found as early as the writing of Genesis in the belief that "whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof".1 During classical antiquity, the emphasis on the art of persuasion accentuated the importance of rhetoric and eloquence. Scholars of the Middle Ages evinced great interest in language for the purposes of Biblical exegesis, interpretation of patristic texts and investigation of Roman law. The philosophes, however, were the first to treat language as an evolving phenomenon fluctuating with the vicissitudes of societies. The purpose of this work is to examine eighteenth-century theories on the origins and development of language in order to see how their authors applied to this topic the familiar elements of Enlightenment thought. Consideration will also be given to the role assigned to language in the individual philosophical systems of these authors. This is by no means the only work dealing with questions of language during the eighteenth century. It is, however, to the best of my knowledge the only study which treats the philosophies of language of that period in the context of the intellectual climate of the Enlightenment. In 1944 Paul Kuehner wrote a thesis for the University of Pennsylvania entitled Theories of the Origins and Formation of Language in the Eighteenth Century in France. This thesis comprises for the most part a list of theories put forth during the Enlightenment by various philosophers. Kuehner himself admits that he is not dealing with the philosophical aspect of the period. He treats these theories as if they had been written solely out of an interest in language and fails to recognize that in most cases they represent but small parts of intricate philosophical systems. Edouard Claparede published an article in the Annales Jean1

Genesis 2:19.

INTRODUCTION

13

Jacques Rousseau in 1935 on "Rousseau et l'origine du langage". This article proclaims Rousseau an innovator in his presentation of the emotional aspect of the origin of language. Claparède is primarily interested in Rousseau's influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century linguists. The Annales Jean-Jacques Rousseau of 1909 contains an article by Jean Morel entitled "Recherches sur les sources du discours de l'inégalité". Morel's second section deals with the influence of Condillac on Rousseau and shows that this influence is most evident in Rousseau's passages on language. There is no need to mention the numerous works that linguists and philologists have devoted to the history of the French tongue. These men have been more interested in the language itself than in the intellectual implications of theories concerning its origins and development. The attitude of nearly all modern linguists towards eighteenth-century works on language is exemplified by Guy Harnois when he writes: "Aujourd'hui tous les linguistes sont d'accord pour proclamer que ce n'est pas un problème d'ordre linguistique."2 He then proceeds, as Kukenheim was to do in 1962, to summarize the work of the philosophes in a mere list of names and titles accompanied by very few comments. The present work aims at discussing the theories of language of the Enlightenment in the intellectual framework of that period. In all cases, these theories reflect the positions of their authors on many of the leading questions of the day. In the philosophies of Condillac and Turgot language even assumes a central role. The eighteenth-century approach to the problem of language had its genesis in a famous work published in 1660 by Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot: the Grammaire générale et raisonnée contenant les fondements de l'art de parler, expliqués d'une manière claire et naturelle, les reasons de ce qui est commun à toutes les langues et des principales différences qui s'y rencontrent, et plusieurs remarques nouvelles sur la langue française. 2

Guy Harnois, Les théories du langage en France de 1660 à 1821 (Paris, 1929), p. 10. (.Études Françaises, Vol. XVII.)

14

INTRODUCTION

The title of this work indicates the approach taken by its authors. La Grammaire de Port-Royal, as it became known, is one of the first attempts to treat language as an invention of man. God had endowed man only with the ability to make sounds. In the attempt to establish this entirely new concept, Arnauld and his followers were "merely occupied in proving the logical relation between reason and language".3 The Grammaire de Port-Royal adopted a completely rational approach to the formation of language; it attempted to demonstrate that language could be explained rather than merely observed. The Grammaire de Port-Royal enjoyed great popularity and laid the foundations for nearly all works on language during the eighteenth century. Its disciples can be divided into two groups. The first of these is composed of grammarians like Dumarsais who produced innumerable grammars theoretically based on reason. The second group, with which the present work deals, consists of the philosophes and other authors who were attracted by the philosophical implications of Arnauld's theory. The suggestion that language had been invented and developed by man quickly became the backbone of the Idea of Progress and the key to the sensationalists' theory of the origins of knowledge. It must be remembered that the philosophes were devoted to providing an explanation for the universe based on reason and completely devoid of supernatural elements. Any way in which they could discredit revelation as a source of knowledge of the universe was useful to them. It is from this point of view that the philosophes wrote about language. It is difficult to assess the degree to which the philosophes and other authors of the period were interested in language for its own sake. None of them can be considered a full-time student of language. Yet the fact that nearly all of these writers discussed the topic indicates a growing awareness of the importance of the question of the nature and structure of language. In fact the philosophes not only put forth their own views but 3

Paul Kuehner, Theories on the Origin and Formation of Language in the Eighteenth Century in France (Philadelphia, 1944), p. 13.

INTRODUCTION

15

engaged in lively discussion and criticism of the theories of their contemporaries. Condillac's Essai des connaissances aroused Rousseau, who aimed the comments on language in his Discours sur l'inégalité directly at the abbé. Condillac retorted in turn in his grammar for the Prince of Parma. The author of the article "Langue" in the Encyclopédie referred directly to Rousseau's discourse; Turgot wrote a refutation of Maupertuis' work on language; Voltaire's article "Langues" in his Dictionnaire philosophique is a sarcastic attack on Charles de Brosse's treatise. There are even cases in which authors borrowed each other's arguments almost verbatim. For example, the author of the Encyclopédie article "Langue" used the very same arguments presented by Frain du Tremblay at the beginning of the century, and a passage from this article was in turn quoted by Charles de Brosse wordfor-word without reference. Evidence of this interest in language was also found in Germany. In 1769 the Prussian Royal Academy chose as the subject of an essay contest "The Influence of Opinions on Language and of Language on Opinion". In 1782 the same academy held another such contest, the subject of which was "Qu'est-ce qui a fait la langue française la langue universelle de l'Europe?" One of the two winners of this competition was Antoine Rivarol for his celebrated essay De l'universalité de la langue française. The philosophes were interested in various aspects of language. In addition to searching for its origins in the natural development of man and society, they were aware of the obvious fact that the transmission of thought depends entirely on language. They therefore realized its importance in their search for solutions to the problems of mankind. The relation of language to progress was one of their central themes. Condillac, for example, who considered language to be the basis of the sciences, put forth the theory that progress in Europe could be traced by following the order in which nations had accepted and advanced in science. This geographical path of science could in turn be discovered through observation of the order in which nations developed adequate languages.

16

INTRODUCTION

Those who approached the topic of language were unanimous in giving attention to the problem of its inadequacies. They seemed to feel a pressing need for linguistic reforms to render the vehicle of thought more adequate to its function. It is in wrestling with this problem that the philosophes indulged in their Utopian dreams of one universal community with one universal language. Enlightenment authors of works on language of course reflected the influence of those who came before. Practically all of the eighteenth-century ideas on the subject are foreshadowed in the works of the great minds of the preceding century. Mention has already been made of the Grammaire de Port-Royal. Among philosophers the outstanding precursors of Enlightenment thought on language were Bacon, Locke and Leibniz. Francis Bacon, who wrote more than a century before the philosophes, included in his works several influential passages on language. In the first part of his Essay on the Dignity and the Advancement of Learning (1605) Bacon put forth the idea that all languages, oral and visual as well as written, are means of conveying thoughts among men. Bacon never showed any interest in the origins or development of language. Instead he was troubled by the thought that the only existing system of communication had become entirely inadequate. Bacon expanded this notion in the Novum Organum (1620). In his opinion languages had become a barrier rather than an aid to the communication of thought. Men had unfortunately fallen into the habit of trying to express new ideas and sentiments in terms which applied to already existing notions. The few new words formed, too often by uneducated people, were inadequate and obstructed clear thinking. Bacon rejected the common assumption that languages are conditioned by reason. Instead he reluctantly concluded that, since man can think only in terms of existing words, language limits reason. As a result, reason becomes increasingly fallible. The question of the inadequacies of language as the vehicle of thought was to become of pressing importance to the eighteenth century.

INTRODUCTION

17

John Locke, whose works contained the seeds of the Enlightenment, devoted an entire section (Book III) of his Essay concerning Human Understanding to the problem of language. In it he introduced many of the ideas which would be pursued by the philosophes. Locke adhered to what Paul Kuehner calls in his thesis the conventional theory of the origin of language. That is, he believed that man was intended by his Creator to live in society and was therefore endowed with language "which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society".4 Nevertheless, Locke did not assert that a complete language had been given by God at the time of the creation. Instead he explained that man was so equipped as to be able to form articulated sounds. The mere combination of these sounds into words does not suffice to create a language. Words must be made to represent 'internal conceptions' of ideas. Locke, however, was not interested in the origins of language, but rather in language as the means of communicating human thought. Language is for him the visible aspect of an abstraction; that is to say, language is the only way man can let his ideas be known. He did not attempt to explain how language was formed but tried to show how it is used to represent ideas and to share them with others. Ideas are given specific signs or names completely at random. General terms simplify this process, as it would be impossible to give a different name to every individual tree or bird on earth. Locke explained the difference between specific and general ideas in the following manner. An idea becomes general when it is separated from "the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence".5 Since general ideas are more common, general terms are more numerous. The individual ways in which peoples expressed certain complex ideas erected, according to Locke, a major barrier between 4

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in The Philosophical Works of John Locke, ed. J. A. St. John (London, 1906), Vol. II, p. 1. 5 Locke, p. 11.

18

INTRODUCTION

human communities. Most complex ideas are untranslatable. Complex ideas are formed by fusing a number of simple ideas. Each people does this in a unique manner. The sign which they attribute to each complex idea is therefore untranslatable into any other language. One might illustrate this with the French 'sympathique' which has no English equivalent. In his Essay, Locke also dealt with the shortcomings and abuses of language. Again his argument focused entirely upon the ability of language to express ideas precisely and with minimum effort. The confusions created by language are often the result of the nature of language itself. For example, a man cannot understand a word for which he has no idea. Speaker and listener often fail to communicate simply because they have not defined their terms. Locke illustrated this point with the story of the doctors disputing whether liquors pass through the nervous system. After much debate the learned men were made aware of the fact that they did not all refer to the same idea in their use of the word 'liquor'. The abuses of language, according to Locke, are primarily imprecisions and inconsistencies in the use of words, reliance on usage established by great authors and the application of old words to new ideas. To remedy these abuses, Locke suggested that man only use words with matching ideas and that he make known the precise meanings of his words. Ironically enough Locke's own language in his philosophical works is far from being that precise. Locke's chapters on language contain the seeds of ideas which were to flower during the following century. Language as the means of expressing ideas became of the greatest importance to the Enlightenment authors whose search for natural truth depended greatly on precision of expression. Many of their works on language visibly reflect the influence of Locke. Another philosopher whose influence can be seen in the works of the philosophes was Leibniz. In the section on words in his New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, a discussion of Locke's Essay, Leibniz disagreed on several points with his English contemporary.

INTRODUCTION

19

According to Leibniz, it was man's desire to make himself understood which originally led him to develop language. In addition to serving this purpose, language also allows man to reason with himself. Like many of the philosophes after him, Leibniz believed that all existing languages were descendants of a single mother tongue. This primitive language consisted of words based on the sounds man heard in his environment and not, as Locke had suggested, on a random correspondence between signs and ideas. Human migrations were responsible for the proliferation of this parent language into numerous daughter languages. Although he was aware of the fact that languages could be divided into families, Leibniz never specified the criteria according to which these divisions should be made. Almost prophetically he recommended a comparative study of language based on the roots of words. "In time", he wrote, "all the languages of the world will be recorded and placed in the dictionaries and grammars, and compared together . . .".6 One of Leibniz' cherished projects was the creation of an international written language. This language was to aid man in his quest for truth by establishing absolute precision in reason. It would consist of small figures for tangible objects accompanied by various marks representing the intangible qualities. Like Locke, Leibniz was very often referred to by the eighteenth-century authors who wrote on language. One other author deserves mention. The ideas of Bernard Mandeville, although never acknowledged, were of great importance to the sensationalists, in particular Condillac. It soon becomes evident that the French abbé was familiar with Mandeville's Fable of the Bees and borrowed liberally from it.7 The Fable, which appeared in 1714, contained an outright denial of the theological interpretation of the origins of language. The author presented a three-stage theory of the development of society: man uniting against animals, man uniting against his 9

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human ing, trans. Alfred Gideon Langley (New York, 1896), p. 372. 7 Kuehner, p. 22.

Understand-

20

INTRODUCTION

fellow man and the formation of writing. According to Mandeville, men need governments; governments require laws; and laws, in order to be effective, must be written down. Before learning to write, however, man very slowly developed spoken language. A limited number of signs and gestures between two uncivilized individuals comprised the first language. These signs eventually acquired the function of stimulating in the mind of the observer ideas corresponding to objects not immediately at hand. After several years this pair began to replace signs with sounds. The longer they lived together, the more sounds they adopted. Each successive generation accelerated this process. Until man had completely mastered the use of speech, he employed a combination of sounds and gestures. In a few pages, Mandeville introduced the ideas that would form the nucleus of Condillac's philosophy of language. The Fable of the Bees seems to be the earliest bold refutation of the orthodox interpretation of the origin of language as well as the first work which presented the idea of a slow evolutionary process in its development. In his final passage on language, Mandeville put forth an idea which would later be taken up by Rousseau. In complete contrast to most of the authors who wrote on language, Mandeville believed that speech was not invented for the purpose of communicating thought. In his own words: The first design of speech was to persuade others, either to give credit to what the speaking person would have them believe; or else to act or suffer such things as he would compel them to act or suffer, if they were entirely in his power. 8

With these men as their most influential predecessors, and within the intellectual climate of the eighteenth century, the philosophes and their contemporaries expressed their opinions on language.

8

Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees or Private Benefits, ed. Irwin Primer (New York, 1962), p. 262.

Vices,

Public

II THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

A rapid glance at the titles of works written during the eighteenth century would unquestionably reveal an interest during that period in discovering the origins of various aspects of human society. Condillac's Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, Rousseau's Essai sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, Fontenelle's L'origine des fables, Poisinet de Sevry's L'origine des premières sociétés are just a few examples of this effort to find the beginnings of man and of his environment. The quest for 'origins' was in itself an embodiment of the philosophes' search for new answers to a new problem. Heretofore Christianity had compelled man to accept the belief that all truth and all knowledge was derived directly from God through revelation. Although some still adhered to this solution, the majority of the eighteenth-century philosophers could no longer accept revelation as a source of man's knowledge about the many aspects of the universe. Rejection of this theory, however, created the problem of finding an appropriate substitute, one which depended on reason rather than faith. In most instances the philosophes turned toward nature to search for this alternate origin of all knowledge. During the eighteenth century nature came to be regarded as a creative force and as the general source of all things in the cosmos. It was thought to contain the solution to all of the problems of mankind. The primary difference between revelation and nature was that man could probe into the latter and thereby rationally explain in detail the precise origin and order of things. It was believed that like everything else language must have

22

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

had natural origins. But nature proved to be too vague a substitute for revelation. The many men who undertook the search for origins raised numerous questions to which they could provide only vague answers. These questions dealt with subjects ranging from the actual reasons for the existence of language to the more intricate problem of the sources from which it was drawn. Efforts were even made to speculate as to the properties of the first language or languages. The conclusions reached by those men who investigated the problem of the origins of language varied a great deal, primarily because they were the product of individual theories based only on contemplation and personal point of view. Seldom if ever did any of these philosophes base their arguments on concrete facts arrived at through genuine research or experimentation. Whether they believed in language as a gift of God or whether they thought it to be a creation of man, the eighteenth-century philosophers were convinced that there must have been a reason for its existence. As to what this reason was there was widespread disagreement. One of the conclusions stated simply that language arose out of man's desire to communicate, to relate his emotions and feelings to his companions and to describe his surroundings.1 Rousseau maintained that this yearning, limited to the communication of inner feelings or emotions, was one of the first real desires experienced by man once he recognized other men as beings similar to himself. The idea of an innate yearning to communicate with others was pursued further by Court de Gébelin who considered man's urge to speak to be part of his very essence. The necessity to talk was as natural a reaction in humans as the need to see, to walk and to hear. "Ainsi", Court de Gébelin concluded, "dès qu'il y eut deux personnes sur la terre, elles parlèrent." 2 Another explanation for the existence of language was provided 1

Charles de Brosse, Traité de la formation mécanique des langues et des principes physiques de l'etymologie (Paris, 1801), Vol. I, p. 196. 2 Antoine C o u r t de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole (Paris, 1776), p. 17.

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

23

by a number of writers who considered it to be the response to needs first felt by men as they began to congregate and establish societies. The exponents of this social interpretation claimed that as long as primitive man lived alone in the forest he had no language, but could only utter a limited number of cries similar to those produced by animals. It was the desire and the choice to live with others like himself which led man to the formation of society in which communication became a necessity. In the Discours préliminaire to the Encyclopédie d'Alembert related the origins of language to his own utilitarian interpretation of civilization. According to him, man, whose primary purpose is to increase pleasure and minimize pain, discovered that he could better achieve his end through joint efforts. He thus united with others in an attempt to combat the destructive forces of nature more effectively and further enjoy the beneficial ones. The necessity of a language to such a union becomes immediately apparent. D'Alembert wrote: T h e c o m m u n i c a t i o n of ideas is the principle and support of this union, and necessarily requires the invention of signs. . . . 3

Voltaire, Condillac and B.E.R.M., author of the article "Langue" in the Encyclopédie, accepted necessity as the real reason for the existence of language.4 For Condillac, however, it arose from an instinctive need similar to the need felt by two 3

Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, trans. Richard N. Schwab and Walter E. Rex (New York, 1963), p. 11. 4 Throughout my text the author of the article "Langue" in the Encyclopédie is referred to as B.E.R.M. The keys to the authors of articles found at the beginning of several of the volumes of the Encyclopédie do not include this signature. The unidentified author, however, refers to several other articles which he has written, all of which bear the signature B.E.R.M. Yet the article "Grammaire", which he also refers to as his own, is signed E.R.M. This article, according to the key, was written by the two grammarians Douchet and Beauzée. We can therefore conclude that one or both of these men are the author of the article "Langue". Modern authors such as Piron in his edition of Turgot's article "Etymologie" admit that the author B.E.R.M. is unknown. Since I have only been able to limit him to one of two names, I have, for the sake of brevity, referred to him as B.E.R.M. throughout the text.

24

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

children abandoned in the desert to ask for help from each other and to provide it. These basic actions were accomplished without any reflection. Jean-Jacques Rousseau seemed unable to solve this particular problem; each time he approached the topic he provided a different solution. Because he believed that man was created to live in a state of nature, Rousseau in the Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes denied that languages had resulted from need. In this wonderful state man had only occasional and accidental associations with anyone and therefore required no language. Whatever language did then exist came from the relationship between parents and children. Rousseau explained, however, that in the state of nature the family was not the formal institution of the eighteenth century. Men wandered alone; when man and woman met by chance they acted according to their desire without need for words. They then separated to continue on their way with the same indifference with which they had met. It was the mother who later developed some system of communication with her infant. Once capable of providing for himself, the child left his mother. In the Essai sur l'origine des langues Rousseau again rejected necessity as the mother of language, maintaining that man was capable of fulfilling completely all his physical requirements without the aid of any communication. Rousseau suggested that passions were the true sources of language, for love, hate, anger, joy, etc. could only be expressed in screams and groans. Rousseau argued in the Essai that rivers, streams and wells where water was obtained had been the places where men first congregated. These became the sites of feasts as well as private 'lieux de rendez-vous' between shepherds watering their cattle and girls collecting the water for the household. From these meetings languages emerged. Rousseau wrote, "Les premières langues, filles du plaisir et non du besoin, portèrent long-temps l'enseigne de leur père." 8 Yet in the same work he makes the contradictory statement that: 5

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur l'origine des langues in Œuvres complètes de J. J. Rousseau (Paris, 1826), p. 119.

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

25

Les langues se forment naturellement sur les besoins des hommes; elles changent et s'altèrent selon les changements de ces mêmes besoins.6

Rousseau therefore provided three different answers to the question of the reasons for the existence of language: expression of the passions, discovery of the pleasures of companionship and the needs of man. In any discussion of the origins of language it soon becomes evident that its beginnings are related to the establishment of society. The French authors of the eighteenth century who wrote on our topic were aware of this inevitable connection and wrestled with the problem of finding the exact relationship between the two. The most obvious question with which they were faced was that of priority, the famous chicken-egg riddle. Most of the philosophers seemed to agree that it was the formation of society which created the need for language. Two important exceptions are to be noted: Condorcet and Rousseau. Condorcet wrote: L'homme nait avec la faculté de recevoir des sensations; d'apercevoir et de distinguer les sensations simples dont elles sont composées, de les retenir, de les reconnaître, de les combiner, de comparer entre elles ces combinaisons; de saisir ce qu'elles ont de commun et ce qui les distingue; d'attacher des signes à tous ces objets pour les reconnaître mieux, et faciliter des combinaisons nouvelles.7

According to him, even in this first stage of civilization when man was primarily a wandering hunter, he was already in possession of a language with which to express his needs. Although Concordet admitted that man had always been in society even if only that of the family, he added, "La formation d'une langue a du précéder ces institutions."8 Condorcet concluded, however, that it was society which through time and at a slow pace improved and developed language. He wrote: • Rousseau, p. 124. 7 Antoine Nicolas Caritat Condorcet, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, Œuvres, eds. A. C. O'Connor and H. F. Arago (Paris, 1847), Vol. VI, p. 11. 8 Condorcet, Esquisse, p. 28.

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

26

L'invention de l'arc avait été l'ouvrage d'un homme de génie: la formation d'une langue fut celui de la société entière. 9

Once again Rousseau creates a difficulty. He seemed unable to fit a theory on the origins of language into his concept of society, and put forth several conflicting ideas before finally abandoning the problem. He believed that man had no need for language. In the state of nature he was meant to be a noble savage and to remain isolated rather than seek the company of others. The only social ties were those between mother and child; but Rousseau did not consider this bond to be the beginning of society, for he maintained that it was only temporary. Whatever means of communication had been devised between mother and child disappeared as soon as they were separated. Although these individual dialects were used by no more than two people and only for a short time, and in spite of the fact that they never became established languages, they were the first to be used. Thus they appeared before the establishment of society, itself a slow and complex process. Rousseau suggested that men were brought together as a result of natural disasters. Such calamities as floods, earthquakes and fires ignited by lightning, intended by the Creator to disperse men, only incited them to unite in an effort to repair their common losses. Social bonds were further strengthened by the revolution of seasons. Men were forced to work together while the weather permitted in order to better prepare for the winters. During the long cold months they remained inside, boredom drove them to seek each other's company. Another activity which contributed to drawing man into society was the cooking of food: men liked to gather around the fire. Rousseau found other reasons for the establishment of societies in regions which enjoyed a warmer climate. In these areas man's dependence on water provided the impetus. Rivers and streams were generally places where they encountered each other while in search of water. In arid countries, men combined efforts in order to dig wells which then provided meeting places. The men and »

Ibid.

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

27

women who met there did not live in society; they could speak only the languages of their families. In this case Rousseau did not recognize these individual dialects as real languages. In describing the various reasons for the birth of society, he explained how in congregating men must have developed a common means of communication, i.e. language. Rousseau illustrated this point with his discussion on the digging of wells. Such gigantic enterprises demanded agreement on both the method of construction and the use of the finished product. "Telle", wrote Rousseau, "dut être l'origine des sociétés et des langues dans les pays chauds." 10 Once again Rousseau has contradicted himself. Having once established that the first languages were formed within the family before the founding of society, he then explained that language was an outcome of the fact that men were forced to join together for one of several reasons. The outcome of Rousseau's inquiry into this aspect of the question is aptly summarized in the Discours sur l'inégalité, in which he admitted that: Quant à moi, effrayé des difficultés qui se multiplient et convaincu de l'impossibilité presque démontrée que les langues aient pu naître par des moyens purement humains, je laisse à qui voudra la discussion de ce difficile problème. Lequel a été le plus nécessaire de la société déjà liée à l'institution des langues, ou des langues déjà inventées à l'établissement de la société.11 Although the Essai sur l'origine des langues, published posthumously, represents an effort on Rousseau's part to answer this question, it failed to do so. The other philosophes involved agreed that language grew out of and along with society. De Brosse maintained that as long as man roamed alone in the world, he used only a few emotional cries and gestures to express surprise or fear. It was the uniting of men in society that promoted new and profitable ideas. These ideas, essential to the new organization, had to be communicated. De Brosse wrote: 10

Rousseau, Origine des langues in Œuvres complètes, p. 118. Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité les hommes in Œuvres complètes, p. 41. 11

parmi

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

Mais supposons deux ou plusieurs enfants mis ensemble; alors le naturel, le besoin, l'habitude mettent en jeu les facultés chacun profite des inventions de l'autre, et les accroît en continuant d'operer sur ce premier fond . . . parcequ'en effet une société plus étendue leur donne plus de connaissance. 18

In society man acquired entirely new concepts and greatly increased his knowledge, all of which demanded an ever-developing language. Condillac considered his two abandoned children roaming in the desert as the beginning of society. The two at first instinctively developed a language in order to help each other. In the opinion of the Chevalier de Jaucourt and d'Alembert, man chose to form society because he enjoyed the company of others and found it advantageous to his pursuit of pleasure. D'Alembert wrote, "Such is the source of the formation of societies, with which must have come the birth of language." 13 Once formed, languages became the bases for and strengthened the bonds of the societies that had created the need for them. According to Court de Gébelin, "les effets de la parole sont inappréciables; elle est la base de la société et la source des douceurs qu'on y éprouve".14 Voltaire agreed with these thinkers and believed that the earliest language was simply that spoken by the first group of men to unite and escape conquest. In addition he stressed the point that there had not been one first society but rather as many as there were groups that united, and that "chaque espèce a sa langue".15 A compromise solution to this problem was provided by B.E.R.M. This author in accepting the Biblical interpretation of creation avoided facing the question head-on. According to his definition of the word, language is the sum total of all usages particular to a nation. It follows then from this interpretation, he pointed out, that language presupposes an existing society which needed a means of communication and so formed one. Constant 12

De Brosse, Mécanique des langues, Vol. I, pp. 11-12. D'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse, p. 11. 14 Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 3. 15 F. M. A. Voltaire, "Alphabet" in Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Gamier (Paris, 1878-1883), Vol. XVII, p. 15. 1S

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

29

utilization of this system created usages which became language. On the other hand, B.E.R.M. claimed that a society formed by men presupposes an existing language with which the members involved assigned themselves their respective duties and demanded from each other that they be properly executed. To the author of the article "Langue" of the Encyclopédie, any attempt to prove that a first society was created by man was in itself contradictory. If, as he explained, language presupposes society and vice-versa, the implication is that the earth is eternal and never had a beginning. This conclusion in turn eliminates the possibility of either a first society or a first language. The only solution left for B.E.R.M. to adopt was that God created man in society and with a language. Man, however, could both develop this language and imitate it to produce others. This argument, with which B.E.R.M. refuted the empiricists, is not without subtlety. While it provided a compromise solution to the question of language vis-à-vis society, it also presented an extremely dangerous idea: that of the infinite duration of the universe. The problem created for the historian is that of deciding whether B.E.R.M. truly intended to reject this possibility or whether, having presented it, he refuted it with tongue in cheek. Perhaps he hoped to satisfy the censors by opposing this heretical notion with the Biblical approach. Rousseau also implied that God created man with language when he wrote, as mentioned above, that he could not deal with the difficulties arising from the assumption that language was created entirely by man. The passage of the Essai sur l'inégalité in which Rousseau discussed these problems was addressed directly to Condillac, whose theory of the formation of language totally excluded any divine inspiration. Rousseau, who was not an atheist, could not accept Condillac's materialistic approach to the problem. On the other hand, he was too tied to the ideals of the Enlightenment to accept the Biblical interpretation openly. For this reason he left the question unanswered. It must not be forgotten that even during the eighteenth century some purely orthodox interpretations can be found. For

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

example, Jean Frain du Tremblay, whose arguments B.E.R.M. copied practically verbatim, wrote: Nous n'avons pas besoin nous autres Chrétiens de grandes recherches pour trouver l'origine de toutes les langues; assurés que nous sommes que Dieu avait crée l'homme avec toutes les perfections qui appartiennent à sa nature; nous ne devons pas douter que l'homme n'eût reçu de Dieu le don de la parole et la parole même au moment de sa création.16

The search for the origins of language reflects to a great extent the philosophes' attitude toward the creation of the universe. The majority of them were either atheists or sceptics. The party of the philosophes split over this very question. Voltaire was the leader of those who would not completely deny the existence of God. According to this group, however, God had simply set the universe in motion and no longer played an active role in it. Both the atheists and the sceptics, therefore, had to formulate a solution to the problem of the origins of language in which man alone played a role. In typical eighteenth-century fashion, they turned to nature and tried to build a logical argument based on what they believed to be the essence of man and society. Some, like Rousseau, were too emotional to divorce themselves entirely from the mysterious and the romantic interpretations of the universe. Although Rousseau tried to agree with the philosophes, he could not, for he was unable completely to exclude the supernatural. After they had argued about the reasons for language and its place in time in relation to society, the eighteenth-century philosophes turned to the question of the actual ways in which language could have been formed. The men who argued that language was not instituted by God were forced to rely upon some other source for all the necessary raw materials. Condillac, for example, could not picture man formulating a language at will. To perform such a task the mind could not have remained in a passive state as the abbé claimed it had done. The creative force toward which these philosophers all turned in one way or another was Nature; the 16

Jean Frain du Tremblay, Traité des langues (Amsterdam, 1709), p. 18.

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31

raw materials were the objects men saw and the sounds he heard. Turgot claimed that the signs used by primitive men were not necessarily connected in any way with the objects they represented. Nevertheless even he admitted that man in uttering a sound was not consciously trying to add a new word to his language, but simply wanted to express a specific extemporaneous desire or sensation derived from nature. According to Condillac, languages were formed by groups of two children, one of either sex, lost in the desert after the deluge. These children, acting according to basic instincts, developed signs with which they could request and provide mutual help. The language itself merely consisted of gestures and inarticulated cries completely disassociated from either the discomfort felt or its remedy. Up to this point, no distinction can be made between Condillac's and Turgot's views. The differences arise when we find Condillac discussing the beginnings of articulated sounds and words. Whereas Turgot claimed no relationship between the sign and the designated object, Condillac emphasized that man's first words were mere imitations of the sounds made by the objects he wished to portray. In this sense Condillac was able to write, "La nature qui commence tout, commence le langage des sons articulés.. .'\ 17 The greatest exponent of the idea that language depended entirely upon nature was the Président de Brosse; but he contended that nature had a limiting effect on language as well as being its principal source. Speech was produced by natural physical organs and was stimulated by man's reactions to his environment. Of greater importance to de Brosse, however, was the conviction that language is also limited by these same factors. The number of sounds man can produce is restricted by the structure of his speech organs and his expressions are confined to familiar sensations. The specific sounds or phonemes available to man de Brosse called 'germs'. This physical limitation was completely independent of intelligence or choice. In order to form words man 17 Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, La langue des calculs in Œuvres de Condillac, ed. Houel (Paris, 1798), Vol. XXIII, p. 2.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

could only repeat, assemble and arrange these germs in various combinations. Nature even restricts this grouping of sounds. Man must combine them in such a way as best to reproduce with his voice the object he wishes to describe. First, the speaker must try to imitate the sound made by the object in question. Second, with his speech organs he must create a sound that resembles the object; that is to say, a hollow object must be represented by a hollow sound. The speech organs themselves, de Brosse claimed, were named according to the sounds they produced. "Gorge", for example, is the organ which produces the 'g' sound. In his own words, de Brosse tried to prove: Que le système de la première fabrique du langage humain et de l'imposition des noms aux choses, n'est donc pas arbitraire et conventionel, comme on a coutume de se le figurer; mais un vrai système de nécessité déterminée par deux causes l'une est la construction des organes vocaux qui ne peuvent rendre que certains sons analogues à leur structure; l'autre est la nature et la propriété des choses réelles qu'on veut nommer. Elle oblige d'employer à leur nom des sons qui les dépeignent, en établissant entre la chose et le mot un rapport par lequel le mot puisse exiter une idée de la chose.18

Yet, the author did not elaborate this point sufficiently; he never discussed fully the nature of sounds or what he meant by a hollow sound; neither did he explain how man made words to describe objects of many qualities: fat, tall, heavy, etc. Finally he carefully selected his illustrations from languages to which his individual theories applied. For example, in explaining that "gorge" was named because it produced the sound 'g', he does not consider the corresponding English and German words. Rousseau proposed still a different solution. In Emile he suggested that there is a language which is natural and common to all men, that spoken by infants before they learn to talk. This language consists entirely of loud accentuated sounds accompanied by facial expressions and bodily gestures. It is clearly intelligible without the need for words. Since the infant cannot differentiate between various types of pain but only recognizes discomfort, he 18

De Brosse, Mécanique

des langues,

Vol. I, pp. xii-xiii.

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

33

has only one way to express it: he cries. The quality of the cry aided by bodily motions describes specifically the intensity and nature of the pain. The regrettable fact, according to Rousseau, is that once he learns to talk the child forgets his natural language. Fortunately, however, nursemaids are still very skillful at communicating with children in that language. Although these nursemaids use words, they add to them the proper intonation, which is what the child understands. Rousseau's 'natural language' was not unlike Condillac's 'langage d'action'. The former, however, was considered by its author a more precise language than Condillac thought his to be. Regardless of the value of their arguments, most of the writers created a theory of the origins of language entirely independent of the supernatural. If faith in mankind is accepted as one of the key ideas of the Enlightenment, it is not surprising that in every field of knowledge the eighteenth-century philosophes tried to exclude all irrational elements. Strangely enough one of the most ardent defenders of the Biblical interpretation of creation as applied to language was the author of the article "Langue" in Diderot's Encyclopédie. There are several possible explanations for his apparent orthodoxy. It is entirely plausible that B.E.R.M. wanted to give the impression of conformity and thereby conceal his true beliefs. In his refutation of the secular point of view he was perhaps making a special effort to present all the ideas which one would expect to find in the Encyclopédie. Another possibility is that "Langue" was an entry likely to be read by the censors. Diderot, fully aware of B.E.R.M.'s views on the subject, may have intentionally chosen him to write this particular article. There is enough evidence to lead to the conclusion that during the Enlightenment the Biblical interpretation was still very popular. The philosophes who opposed it, careful to avoid an outright refutation, attempted to skirt the issue. Condillac, for example, began his section on language in the treatise on the origins of knowledge by writing: Adam et Eve ne durent pas à l'expérience l'exercise der opérations de

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

leur âme, et, en sortant des mains de Dieu, ils furent, par un secours extraordinaire, en état de réfléchir et de se communiquer leur pensées. Mais je suppose que, quelque temps après le déluge, deux enfants de l'un et de l'autre sexe, aient été égarés dans des déserts, avant qu'ils connussent l'usage d'anciens signe. . . ,18

Similarly the Chevalier de Jaucourt contended that even two priests had tried to confirm the fact that man had invented language when he founded society. He concluded by saying, "mais la révélation devait les instruire que Dieu lui même enseigna le langage aux hommes".20 B.E.R.M. tried to prove that the first language came directly from God by asserting, as Frain du Tremblay had done, that if men had been unable to speak when created, they could never have learned to do so. The only possible way for man to form a language is to copy another one. Furthermore B.E.R.M. was not satisfied with the theory that God had given men the ability to speak and could in this way be called the creator of language. He emphasized the fact that the speech organs remain completely useless unless provoked by the sense of hearing. He claimed that a man raised in the wilderness could not possibly produce articulated sounds and would have great difficulty in learning to do so, for he could only reproduce the sounds heard in his environment. In this maimer B.E.R.M. refuted the possibility, which he found humiliating, that man ever lived like a savage, a savage who evolved gradually through time, slowly formed a society and gradually developed a language. B.E.R.M. still had to eliminate the possibility of a 'natural language', as proposed by de Brosse and Rousseau. This he did by suggesting that, if there were a language intrinsic to the nature of man, this language would be the same for all men regardless of time, climate, government, religion or any other external variables. This argument was ad19 Condillac, Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines in Œuvres philosophiques de Condillac, ed. George LeRoy (Paris, 1947), Vol. I, p. 60. 20 Le Chevalier de Jaucourt, "Langage" in Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, eds. Diderot and d'Alembert (Paris, 1751-58), Vol. IX, p. 534.

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35

dressed directly to Rousseau, for in refuting the notion of a natural language B.E.R.M. wrote using Rousseau's words: C'est la pensée de ceux qui effrayés des difficultés du système que l'on vient d'examiner sur l'origine des langues, ont cru ne devoir pas prononcer que la première vînt miraculeusement de l'inspiration de Dieu même. 21

Nevertheless it must be made clear that B.E.R.M. did not exclude the possibility of man's developing or modifying language. He merely specified that God gave man the first language. In addition to this, however, He also endowed man with all the necessary means to imitate this language and if need be to create new ones: desire to communicate, eyes with which to recognize objects, ears with which to hear sound, the art of forming set analogies to prevent needless multiplication of words and the intelligence with which to recognize the most necessary abstractions. The important part of this argument is that whatever languages men might have created, they could only be imitations of previous ones ultimately going back to one original language bestowed directly upon man by God. The best compromise solution was provided by Antoine Court de Gébelin. He recognized that the new approach to the problem of origins of language, according to which man plays the principal role in its formation, was more probable than the Biblical interpretation. Nevertheless, Court de Gébelin wanted to reconcile reason and faith. He intended to formulate a solution in which the idea of man creating his own language could be included within the realm of orthodoxy. He began by rejecting man as the sole creator of language and wrote, " . . . c'est Dieu qui fit de l'homme un être parlant, sans doute la parole vînt de Dieu".22 He then proceeded to qualify this statement: only God could have given man the organs requisite to speech; in addition, He also gave him the need to use this apparatus and the urge to establish an accurate relationship between words and the objects they were 21 22

B.E.R.M., "Langue" in Diderot's Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 252. Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 15.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

to describe. In this manner Court de Gébelin remained within Biblical tradition. But he combined with it the eighteenth-century concept of the human creation of language by giving man a limited role in the creative process. Court de Gébelin accepted the idea that language was drawn from nature in the manner proposed by de Brosse. Nevertheless, it was man who developed the full range of his speech organs, became capable of imitating the sounds of nature, and selected the right combination of these sounds to create language. Basically Court de Gébelin and the Président de Brosse followed Condillac in their theories on the origins of language.23 They differed from him, however, in their emphasis. Condillac allotted to man the most important role in language formation. De Brosse regarded nature as the ultimate source, while Court de Gébelin attempted to combine nature and man without divorcing them entirely from divine inspiration. Court de Gébelin was perhaps closer in his thinking to Rousseau. Both of these men refused to exclude God completely as had been done by the materialistic Condillac. Court de Gébelin found a way to include Him within his theory proper; Rousseau never did. Instead Rousseau refuted the entirely logical approach of the empiricists and added to it, "l'importance de l'irrationel et de l'élément musical de la langue".24 He described the first language as melodious and passionate rather than methodical. In addition to speculating on the origins of language, the eighteenth-century philosophers attempted to describe the first dialect or dialects. Some writers, such as B.E.R.M., de Brosse and Court de Gébelin, adhered to the belief that there had originally been one language from which all languages were derived. In his Origines des premières sociétés, Poisinet de Sivry tried to prove that the Celts had been the first to form a society. They had been brought together as the result of a great fire which had almost en88

Louis Kukenheim, Esquisse historique de la linguistique française et de ses rapports avec la linguistique générale (Leiden, 1962), pp. 31-32. " Kukenheim, p. 32.

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tirely destroyed the forests in which they lived. All other societies, claimed this author, had formed under the direct or indirect influence of the Celts. Poisinet de Sivry based his entire theory on the fact that all the existing languages contained many words which, according to him, were derived from Celtic, especially those words referring to fire and heat. Charles de Brosse explained that it was impossible to recover the primitive language because it had existed too far in the past and had in all likelihood been destroyed at Babel. He then adopted Condillac's theory that after the deluge new languages were conceived by children lost in the desert. Although Condillac and Rousseau believed that there were as many first languages as there were groups of men joining together, they never overtly denied the possibility of a first language. The only bold refutation of the idea of a single mother tongue came from Voltaire who firmly stated, "H n'y a pas eu plus de langue primitive, et d'alphabet primitif que de chêne primitif et que d'herbe primitive." 25 Whether they believed in one or several primitive languages, the Enlightenment thinkers attempted to describe them. Condillac, in his suggestion about the formation of language, maintained that the first was 'le langage d'action'. This language consisted for the most part of bodily gestures accompanied by a few cries. It spoke primarily to the eyes rather than the ears of the listener. Although the 'langage d'action' did not include any articulated sounds and was extremely crude and imperfect, it was nonetheless a somewhat effective means of communication. Condillac claimed that "Tous les sentiments de l'âme peuvent être exprimés par les attitudes du corps." 26 His disciples, Court de Gébelin and the Président de Brosse, did not agree entirely with their master on this point. Both accepted the idea that gestures played a part in the first language. They contended, however, that articulated sounds imitative of nature were invented and used simultaneously " Voltaire, "Alphabet", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres, Vol. XVII, p. 15. 26 Condillac, Cours d'étude pour l'instruction du Prince de Parme, Œuvres philosophiques de Condillac, ed. LeRoy, Vol. I, pp. 117-18.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

with these gestures. These sounds were of course few and crude, for the simple reason that man had not yet developed his organs of speech to their full potential. This concept probably grew from the observation of children learning to speak. From this notion came a theory which even Buffon accepted. This theory held that "ba-ba", "pa-pa", and "ma-ma" had been the first sounds produced by man since 'a' was the most natural of the sounds and labials the easiest sounds to articulate. B.E.R.M. attributed an additional characteristic to the primitive language; he labeled it analogous in contrast to transpositive. An analogous language, according to this author, is one in which the order of words in an utterance follows directly the flow of thought. In a transpositive language such as Latin, on the other hand, the words can be arranged in a variety of ways for emphasis or aesthetic reasons regardless of the sequence of thoughts in the speaker's mind. Up to this point there have been very few basic differences in the many descriptions of the first language. It was crude; it included gestures and sounds; it drew its words from nature and it was simple. Turgot, on the other hand, wrote, "Des hommes grossier ne font rien de simple." 27 This philosophe claimed that language becomes simple only when words become pure symbols and not inaccurate imitations of nature. It was also generally recognized that sensations were expressed before ideas since men can form ideas only after they have experienced sensations. As can be expected of the eighteenth-century philosophers, they had created a picture of the first language based primarily on reason; they had tried to follow a step-by-step logical system. Although Condillac and his followers went beyond Descartes and accepted sensation rather than thought as the first sign of consciousness, their approach to the problem was truly Cartesian. As usual, Rousseau objected to this description of a first language; it was too rational for him. An artist and a musician, 27 Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Remarques critiques sur les réflexions philosophiques de Maupertuis sur l'origine des langues et la signification des mots, Œuvres de Turgot et documents le concernant, ed. Gustave Schelle (Paris, 1913), Vol. I, p. 160.

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39

Rousseau saw language as a form of art which could not be void of irrational elements. Man's first language was entirely the result of passions. It was love, hate, anger, fear and the like which led man to speak. As a result, that language was melodious and passionate rather than simple and rational. It consisted of beautiful unarticulated sounds whose aim was to paint rather than to reason. Not until men began to have ideas and to try to persuade others, did words become articulated and grammar rules regularize language. Of the first language Rousseau wrote: N o n seulement tous les tours de cette langue devaient être en images, en sentiments, en figures; mais dans sa partie mécanique elle devait répondre à son premier objet, et présenter aux sens, ainsi qu'à l'entendement, les impressions presque inévitables de la passion qui cherche à se communiquer. 28

Since the first language was simple and crude, it depended more on words than on elaborate grammatical structure. For this reason the men who wrote about language invariably were forced to investigate the characteristics of the individual words in the first language. It was generally accepted that men had not invented words at random. Instead they had tried to picture as best they could with their voice the objects to which they wished to refer. Even the 'langage d'action' specified the object desired by means of gestures which pointed toward it. In speaking of words, however, the philosophes generally referred to the first articulated sounds. According to Condillac, men began to pronounce words in order to describe their most urgent needs and, in addition, when it was important that all those present relate the word to the same object. They had names only for tangible objects. On this question, Turgot differed slightly from Condillac. He claimed that words were not always meant to paint the picture of an object, but often rather to recall the sensation which it had created within the speaker. Later, however, he did acknowledge that many words were imitations of the sounds made by certain objects, i.e. onomatopoetic words. This, according to Turgot, ex28

Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité, Œuvres complètes, p. 41.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT O F LANGUAGE

plains why in many languages the same object is frequently designated by similar words. This theory appears rather strange indeed coming from Turgot who otherwise seemed to have a much more sophisticated knowledge of etymology, as he demonstrated in his article "Etymologie" in the Encyclopédie. B.E.R.M. asserted that the first words expressed only sensations; they were what are now called interjections. This point of view was shared by Rousseau, who stated that tangible objects were designated by gestures and that passions were the first to be assigned vocal signs. Another speculation accepted by almost all those who wrote on the problems of language was that the first languages had no general terms, i.e. each oak tree or each woodchuck had a different name. In Rousseau's early languages each word stood for a full statement and therefore reflected all the emotions involved within this statement. Maupertuis maintained that the first words represented perceptions rather than sensations. For example, according to him, a man in encountering a tree would experience the perception, "I see a tree." He would then designate this entire perception with one word. The pure concept 'tree' did not exist. As Rousseau wrote: Si une chêne s'appelait A, un autre chêne s'appelait B; car la première idée qu'on tire de deux choses, c'est qu'elles ne sont pas la même.28 General terms are the result of some reflexion. According to the Enlightenment philosophers who discussed language, man in his most primitive period did not think; he was only affected by sensations. As a result his language consisted of sounds describing his surroundings as well as his inner feelings at a given moment. Primitive man could not analyze or interpret what he saw or felt; he could only express it. Although Rousseau admired this primitive stage, mankind was not to remain in it indefinitely. As man began to acquire memory, he became capable of learning from experience and gradually of 29

Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité, Œuvres complètes, p. 41.

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thinking. As he emerged a more rational being, his language began to develop. The mechanisms through which language evolved seemed to interest the writers of the eighteenth century, in particular the empiricists. These men, led by Condillac, were concerned with the origins of language. In dealing with this concern they hoped to trace at the same time the beginnings of thought. Knowing how language developed could help explain the birth and growth of ideas. The original 'langage d'action' was an instinctive language used to express desires or sensations at a given moment. It was neither remembered nor necessarily applied similarly to identical circumstances. Memory provided the first source of progress in the development of language. After repeatedly experiencing a given sensation man began to remember it and to express it in similar fashion. Once memory began to act, he could recall a sensation by the sign which expressed it and was then able to communicate it. Thus language which had previously been instinctive became the result of simple reflection. Reflection, of course, demands a more sophisticated means of communication. The now inadequate cries and gestures were slowly superseded by articulated sounds. According to Condillac, the 'langage d'action' became a great obstacle in the path of the development of spoken language. In his Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, he emphasized that the change was a very gradual one and that words were first used to accompany gestures. Many centuries were required before spoken language replaced completely the 'langage d'action'. The prophets of the Bible, according to Condillac, provide an excellent example of this combination of speech and gestures. As they spoke they agitated their bodies in what was called a 'danse' and, wrote Condillac, "Voila pourquoi il est dit que David dansait devant l'arche."30 Rousseau, in his attack on Condillac in the Essai sur l'inégalité, refused to accept the notion of a spontaneous change from 'lan30

Condillac, Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 63.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

gage d'action' to spoken language. Such a change, claimed the 'citoyen de Genève', could only have been made by a conscious common agreement among men and would have been extremely difficult to execute. Rousseau saw no need for a change. His natural language already consisted of words and gestures and simply kept developing gradually. In the grammar of the Cours d'étude, Condillac was forced to vindicate himself. Obviously, he countered, men did not sit down and decide to form a language. They needed a word and therefore created one. They did realize, however, that this language was much more efficient and very gradually adopted it as a replacement for the 'langage d'action'. The development of articulated language was further restrained by the crudeness of the speech organs. All the writers involved, even Rousseau, agreed that man had had to refine his ability to articulate. Only then could he invent more words to designate not only tangible objects but also relationships between them, their qualities and additional general terms. New words, according to the empiricists, were formed by analogy. That is to say, man identified new objects or relationships according to their resemblance to familiar ones already named from nature. Such new objects or relationships were named accordingly. It was commonly believed during this period that, in order to discover how language was formed and developed, one should observe infants learning to talk. This led to an interesting argument over the role of the child in the growth of language. It was generally accepted that children helped to invent new words. According to Rousseau, when the child first left his mother's side, he stayed within sight of her. Upon returning, it was he who needed a language to tell her all that he had seen; the mother herself had no reason to speak to the child. Condillac, on the other hand, suggested a mutual process. The child, desirous of comfort, made a sound and stirred. After the parents had interpreted the symbols and satisfied the need of the child, they then adopted the sound to refer to that particular discomfort. In short, the child invented the word and the parents made it part of the language. De Brosse, Court de Gébelin, B.E.R.M., Turgot and

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

43

Buffon all agreed that just as a baby's first words were "ba-ba", "pa-pa", and "ma-ma", so they were the first words of men because they are the easiest to pronounce. B.E.R.M., in his statement that labials were the first sounds produced by human beings, maintained that infants stutter and the parents, imitating the sounds made by them, accepted the words "ba-ba", "pa-pa", and "ma-ma". De Brosse gave further support of the "baba-papamama" theory by claiming that in practically all languages the words for mother and father were approximations of these labial sounds. As usual, however, his examples were selected with extreme care. It was Voltaire in his fervent refutation of de Brosse who denied the whole idea of children inventing languages. He pointed out clearly that the author of the Traité sur la mécanique des langues had utilized isolated examples drawn from languages with which he was not well acquainted. Voltaire realized that children learn to speak only by means of imitation; he wrote: L'expérience nous apprend que les enfants ne sont qu'imitateurs; que si on ne leur disait rien, ils ne parleraient pas, qu'ils se contenteraient de crier.31 Although the eighteenth-century philosophers devoted much of their time to the attempt to discover the origins of language, they were not interested in the discovery for its own sake. The empiricists, for example, were trying to explain not only how the mind operated but also how man acquired knowledge. It was obvious to them that language played the key role in the development of consciousness in man. In Condillac's philosophy, language was the essential factor. In order to transform pure sensations into reflective thought in a completely inactive mind, man depended on language. Once he had developed memory through repetition of sensations, he could recall various sensations with the aid of signs. It is from this ability to recognize and name the various 31

Voltaire, "Langues", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres complètes, Vol. XIX, p. 553.

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THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

sensations without directly experiencing them that reflection emerges.32 In their search for an original language, the philosophes were more philosophical than scientific. Their main interest lay in finding a place for language in their individual systems rather than in creating a purely linguistic theory. Even those who attempted, with partial success, to make a science of language were unable to solve the problems of its origins in any way other than through philosophical speculation. With few exceptions, they were not attempting to establish any one specific language as the oldest but dealt rather with a hypothetical first language which could never be reconstructed. Nevertheless, no serious anthropological explanation of the origin of language emerged from their speculations. This can be explained, in part, by the fact that the eighteenth-century philosophers, while denying revelation, had no real concept of how man came to be. They invariably referred to primitive man as physically similar to modern man. They had no concept of evolution, no notion of man's ever having been other than man as they knew him in their time. However, with a rational theory of the origin of languages, the eighteenth-century thinkers could in yet another way challenge revelation and superstition.

32

Charles Frankel, The Faith of Reason

(New York, 1948), p. 52.

in LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

It has been said that the French empiricists of the eighteenth century were too much concerned with the origins and development of the mind to produce any significant theory of language.1 This accusation is at best only partially valid. It is true that the philosophes' concern with language was not motivated by a pure interest in the topic for its own sake or by a desire to establish it as a separate field of study. Although a few attempts were made during the eighteenth century to create a science of language, the primary reason for the interest in the subject manifested by the empiricists was its usefulness in tracing the origins and development of the mind. In their effort to discover the very first ideas of men, philosophers such as Condillac and Maupertuis were forced to rely heavily on language. Condillac's thesis that all knowledge comes from sensations and evolves in a completely passive mind depended entirely on his treatment of language. To suggest therefore that these men had no real theory of language is indeed a great error. At most it could be maintained, and not without reservations, that the eighteenth-century empiricists developed no serious linguistic theory. The eighteenth-century French philosophers saw several obvious connections between the development of ideas and that of language. Most evident were: that ideas can only be communicated through language of one sort or another, and that with language existing ideas are transformed into new ones. Language and ideas were believed to be interdependent in their develop1

Harnois, Les théories du langage en France, p. 51.

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

ment; one could not advance if the other ceased to progress. If, as the philosophers believed, the entire process of thought depends upon language, then it follows that to arrive at truths with any precision, language must be extremely accurate. Nearly all the authors concerned with the problem dealt with the shortcomings of language and the reforms necessary to correct them. It was generally felt by these men that language had become a very inadequate vehicle for ideas. Through carelessness and force of habit words had lost their original meanings and were used only approximately correctly. This unfortunate turn in the development of language was thought to be one of the major obstacles to the progress of ideas and one of the principal sources of error. Many of the French philosophers of the Enlightenment agreed with Condillac that the first ideas came from sensations. Through the five senses man received impressions which were "conserved in the organs" and distinguished by signs. Man could recall these sensations only through words and images.2 The Président de Brosse wrote: Son usage [language] consiste à rendre par la voix ce que l'âme a reçu par les sons; à représenter de nouveau au dehors ce qui est au dedans, et qui y était déjà venu du dehors. 8

Once man was able to recall his sensations and to communicate them, he could begin to think and to formulate simple ideas. In order to express them, however, he had to develop language. As Voltaire expressed it: Il est évident que ce sont nos cinq sens qui ont produit toutes les langues, aussi bien que toute nos idées. 4

In discussing the relationship between language and ideas, ignoring the Biblical interpretation, the eighteenth-century philosophers were forced to decide which of the two preceded the other. 2

Denis Diderot, De la poésie dramatique, Œuvres complètes, eds. J. Assézat and M. Tourneux (Paris, 1875-77), Vol. VII, p. 334. 3 De Brosse, Mécanique des langues, Vol. I, p. 2. 4 Voltaire, "Langues", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres complètes, Vol. X I X , p. 565.

LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

47

Most of these writers agreed that ideas came before language. One interesting argument developed, however, out of Rousseau's misunderstanding of Condillac. In his Essai sur les connaissances humaines, Condillac argued that language was an absolute prerequisite for reasoning. Until man had developed language, he acted entirely through instinct and had no real need for any sophisticated means of communication. In his refutation of Condillac, Rousseau was not satisfied with so simple an assumption. According to him, if man needed language before he could reason, he must have developed it without reasoning. This seemed absurd to Rousseau who wrote: Car si les hommes ont eu besoin de la parole pour apprendre à penser, ils ont eu bien plus besoin encore de savoir penser pour trouver l'art de la parole; . . .5

He then attempted to show that man had no need for language until his ideas became more complex. As long as he remained in the state of nature, man could survive perfectly well with no other language than that which Rousseau called 'le cris de la nature'. These cries were only used when a man found himself in danger, pain or need of help. As society developed and human interdependence increased, man's ideas became more numerous and more complex. Only then did cries and gestures multiply and develop into a more sophisticated form of language. Man truly needed language only when he began to form general ideas. Rousseau illustrated this point using a triangle as an example. When man first referred to a triangle, according to Rousseau, he could either see or imagine a specific one; therefore he did not need a word for it. However, when men attempted to deal with the concept triangle as an abstractly defined entity with no specific picture in mind, they had need of terms with which to express this concept. As Rousseau stated it, "sitôt que l'imagination s'arrête, l'esprit ne marche plus qu'à l'aide du discours".6 The fallacy in Rousseau's argument is very apparent, and it s 8

Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité, Œuvres complètes, p. 40. Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité, Œuvres complètes, p. 41.

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

soon becomes obvious that he was disagreeing with Condillac solely for the purpose of argument. What Rousseau referred to as 'le cris de la nature', was nothing more than what Condillac called 'le langage d'action'. The abbé argued that this primitive language gave rise to simple ideas. Rousseau further failed to recognize that when Condillac suggested that language was necessary for reasoning, he meant language after it was formed. Condillac treated reasoning as a more sophisticated mode of thinking. Whereas the author of the Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines had tried to explain the manner in which ideas were actually formed, Rousseau never did. In replying to Rousseau in the Cours d'étude, Condillac further elaborated his point. Words are the signs of our ideas, and ideas are absolutely necessary if man is to arrive at knowledge through reason. He added: Les besoins précèdent les connaissances puisqu'ils nous déterminent à les acquérir, les connaissances précèdent les mots, puisque nous ne faisons des mots que pour exprimer des idées que nous avions déjà.7

In essence, what Rousseau had misunderstood and what Condillac then clarified was the difference between forming ideas and reasoning. Regardless as to which came first, it was evident to the eighteenth-century philosophers that language and ideas were completely dependent upon one another in their development. An abundance of ideas must give rise to a more developed language, if such ideas are to be expressed. On the other hand, the more a language evolves, the easier it becomes to produce new ideas out of existing ones. Court de Gébelin maintained that this interrelation between language and ideas had existed from the very beginning. In his words, "Les langues toujours relatives aux idées, durent nécessairement naître et s'accroître avec elles."8 This author saw no need to speculate on whether man spoke before he 7

Condillac, Cours d'étude, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 434. Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif analisé et comparé avec le monde moderne, considéré dans son génie allegorique et dans des allegories auxquelles conduisit ce génie (Paris, 1787), Vol. I, p. 84.

8

LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

49

had ideas or whether he had ideas first. Condillac believed that ideas came first. Once man had begun to talk, however, his use of words enhanced his ability to think and his reflection in turn helped create additional words. In his direct reply to Rousseau he wrote: Ainsi les signes et la réflexion sont des causes qui se prêtent des secours mutuels, et qui concourent réciproquement à leurs progrès . . . En effet, combien n'a-t-il pas fallu de réflexion pour former les langues, et dequels secours ne sont-elles pas à la réflexion.»

Turgot, who agreed with Condillac as to the beginnings of language and ideas, nonetheless seemed to contradict himself when he discussed their development. In his work on the development of language, a direct reply to Maupertuis, he explained that words are never invented without an existing corresponding idea or sensation. In other words, the ideas came first. In a later work, however, Turgot argued that it had been the progress of languages which through time had infinitely multiplied ideas. "On sent", he wrote, "que les idées se multiplièrent à proportion que les langues se perfectionnaient."10 Condorcet presented a slightly conflicting point of view. According to him, it is utterly useless for man to invent words to express his ideas unless these words are shared by others. Before man can formulate fixed ideas he must have signs which are understood by his companions. To be understood, these signs must be consistently applied to the same object or circumstance. Man was therefore forced to form specific ideas as a result of this 'fixing' of language. Condorcet added: Ainsi cette fixeté des idées, impossible sans le secours des signes, est le premier degré de perfectionnement réel que l'esprit humain donne à l'usage d'une langue et à la société qui leur en a fait connaître le besoin. 11

Condorcet seemed to imply that an idea is not really an idea 9

Condillac, Cours d'étude, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 733. Turgot, Plan du discours sur les progrès de l'esprit humain, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 300. 11 Condorcet, Esquisse, Œuvres de Condorcet, Vol. VI, p. 310. 10

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

until it is understood by someone other than the one who has formulated it. If a man makes up words to express his thoughts and sensations but cannot make others attach the same meaning to these words, then he has no idea. In other words, as far as Condorcet is concerned, man could not formulate ideas until he had developed his language. It must not be forgotten that the empiricists were interested in language primarily as a means to discover the origins of the ideas of men. The sole purpose of language is to analyze and communicate ideas. To the philosophers of the eighteenth century the study of language was a means of tracing the ideas of mankind back to their origins. Turgot wrote: L'étude des langues bien faite serait peut-être la meilleure des logiques: en analysant, en comparant les mots dont elles sont composées, en les suivant depuis la formation jusqu'au différentes significations qu'on leur a depuis attribuées, on suivrait ainsi le fils des idées, on verrait par quels degrées, par quelles nuances les hommes ont passé de l'une à l'autre; on saisirait la liaison et l'analogie qui sont entre elles; on pourrait parvenir à découvrir quelles ont été celles qui se sont présentées les premières aux hommes et quel ordre ils ont gardé dans la combinaison de ces premières idées. 1 2

Turgot never attempted to follow this path back to the first ideas in great detail. Condillac, on the other hand, tried to retrace ideas and to show in what parts of speech they were first manifested. Man's first simple ideas were stimulated by the concrete objects which concerned him most directly, the animals he had to fight and the fruit he ate. Thus the first ideas were expressed by using only general nouns. That is to say, at first man had a name only for a tree. Only after some reflection was he able to reduce the sign for tree to more specific terms such as trunk, leaves, branches, etc. The ideas next developed were those of quality. Thus adjectives became part of the language. Later man began to express 'words of emotion' or verbs. In considering verbs, Condillac referred only to a limited 12

Tlirgot, Reflexions

sur les langues, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 347.

LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

51

number of transitive verbs. Intransitive verbs were not mentioned. The first verbs, he wrote, had no tenses, only infinitives. In addition, the object desired always came before the verb, while the nominative followed. To use Condillac's own example, primitive man would utter the following sentence when he wanted something: "Fruit vouloir Pierre." Later words to express person and time were added, for example "Fruit manger à l'avenir moi." Man then became capable of expressing abstract qualitative terms such as size, color and weight. Condillac pointed out that no word was ever invented unless man needed it. For this reason, adverbs and pronouns were the last to become parts of the language since they were the last to be needed. In this manner Condillac was satisfied that he had traced man's ideas back to their very origin. This argument was accepted almost verbatim by Diderot. The eighteenth-century philosophers believed that the function of language was to express ideas. However, they claimed that language could not paint thought itself but could only analyze it and in this way express it. This belief led to a most amusing and almost ridiculous discussion, that of inversions. B.E.R.M. had divided languages into two categories: transpositive languages such as Latin and German which had no set word order, and analogous languages such as French and English in which words in a sentence were restricted to a certain order. Analogous languages, in this author's opinion, were the more efficient and precise of the two. They analyzed thought and reproduced it in the same order in which it had been formulated in the mind. This was considered to be the 'natural order' of thought, and was in turn the factor which regulated syntax in every language. "Mais cet ordre", wrote B.E.R.M., "est immuable... il est fondé sur la nature même de la pensée.. .'V s According to this argument, a language could be judged by the proximity with which it followed the natural order of ideas in its reproduction of thought. To men like B.E.R.M. and Rivarol, French was the ideal "

B.E.R.M., "Inversion", Encyclopédie,

Vol. VIII, p. 853.

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

language. It followed the natural order of thought almost perfectly without any inversion. Diderot, on the other hand, maintained that French was full of inversions. As examples he used adjectives, which usually followed nouns when they should precede them. As an illustration of his argument, Diderot chose the definition of the word 'corps' which was "une substance étandue, impénétrable, figurée, colorée et mobile". Without adjectives the definition no longer made sense. To Diderot, the natural order of thought should reflect the order in which an object affects the senses, that is, the eyes first and then the touch. He argued that the merit of French lay not in the fact that it had no inversions, but in that it had consistent constructions. Certain adjectives always followed, while others always preceded the substantives. The most ridiculous part of this argument was that the authors involved believed that their own particular way of thinking reflected the only natural order possible. According to their arguments, all men thought in the same manner, but expressed themselves differently because their language could not properly analyze thought. It never occurred to these thinkers that what they called 'natural order', and what Diderot called 'uniform constructions', tend to limit the order in which ideas can be expressed. It seems that in a language without set word order a speaker is more capable of arranging his words in the order of their importance. In fact, this is probably the order in which they occurred to him. However, for these philosophes there was only one natural order and that was the French order. All other languages were either inadequate or their speakers incapable of thinking logically. Since the sole purpose of language was the communication of ideas, it was in the best interest of progress that language attain a very sophisticated level of precision and clarity. Without this extreme level of accuracy, man could never fully express his thought. Nearly everyone who wrote on language during the eighteenth century was concerned with its shortcomings. Some, like Diderot, claimed that even at its best language was only a medio-

LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

53

ere reproduction of thought. Men such as Rousseau and Turgot were inclined to believe, in addition, that language deteriorated in accuracy through time. Others, like Voltaire, were extremely concerned with spelling reforms which would make writing more consistent as well as more closely related to spoken language. The inadequacies of language were attributed to two causes: human abuse of language which made it more and more inaccurate, and the inherent shortcomings which rendered it incapable of ever reproducing exactly the processes of the mind. One aspect of the inherent deficiency of language was expressed by both Court de Gébelin and Voltaire. These men believed that no single language could possibly express all of man's ideas and sensations. Voltaire wrote: Il n'est aucune langue complète, aucune qui puisse exprimer toutes nos idées et toutes nos sensations; leurs nuances sont trop imperceptibles et trop nombreuses . . . Ainsi toutes les langues sont imparfaites commes nous.14 Court de Gébelin agreed almost verbatim with this statement. He further argued that one of the reasons why all languages were imperfect was that they could not multiply words rapidly enough to keep up with the proliferation of ideas. The primary intrinsic fault of language lay in the divergence between language and thought. Diderot believed that it was impossible to reproduce thought accurately through language primarily because of the instantaneous nature of a total sensation. During a single instant the mind simultaneously perceives all aspects of a sensation. Language, on the contrary, can only express them one at a time in sequence. Diderot wrote: L'état de l'âme, dans un instant indivisible, fut représenté par une foule de termes que la précision de langage exigea, et qui distribuèrent une impression totale en parties; et parce-que ces termes se prononçaient successivement et ne s'entendaient qu'a mesure qu'ils se prononçérent, . . .15 14

Voltaire, "Langues", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres complètes, Vol. XIX, p. 553. 15 Diderot, Lettre sur les sourds et muets, Œuvres complètes, Vol. I, p. 369.

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

Furthermore, according to him, thought is a continuous process consisting of indivisible instants which can not be expressed in a series of words. He continued: Notre âme est un tableau mouvant, d'après lequel nous peignons sans cesse: nous employons bien du temps à le rendre avec fidélité; mais il existe en entier, et tout à la fois: l'esprit ne va pas à pas comptés comme l'espression.18 To add to these shortcomings of language, Diderot pointed out that there are certain emotions that cannot be put into words, one's personal feelings especially. This holds particularly true in the field of the fine arts. He once said: J'avoue que je n'ai jamais su dire ceque j'ai senti dans l'Andrienne de Térence et dans la Venus de Médicis. C'est peut-être la raison pour laquelle ces ouvrages me sont toujours nouveaux. On ne retient presque rien sans le secours des mots, et les mots ne sufficent presque jamais pour rendre précisément ceque l'on sent.17 These shortcomings were inherent in the nature of things. Although language was the best way to express thought, there were too many differences between the two to allow one to create a perfect image of the other. No matter how man tried to improve his language and succeeded in doing so, he would never be able to surmount this obstacle. His expression would always remain an approximate reproduction of his impressions. Even the best possible form of speech would always remain, in Diderot's words, "une froide copie de ce qui ce passe". In contrast to these there were the weaknesses of language created by man through abuse and carelessness. The vagueness of meanings attributed to words was believed to be a great source of misunderstanding. Condillac maintained that not only were the meanings of words imprecise, but that in speaking people readily assumed that their listeners would all understand words similarly. Helvétius went so far as to say that this faulty usage of language "

Ibid. Diderot, Pensées détachées sur la peinture, Œuvres complètes, Vol. XII, p. 77. 17

LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

55

played an important part in many of the great man-made catastrophies of history. On this point he wrote: On voit quel germe éternel de disputes et de calamités renferme souvent l'ignorance de la vraie signification des mots. Sans parler du sang versé par les haines et les disputes théologiques, disputes presque toutes fondées sur un abus de mots.18 This dilemma was attributed to poor analogies and weak metaphors in the creation of new words. Diderot claimed that children as well as primitive man have a mental image for each of the words which they learn. As they grow up, however, through force of habit they begin to repeat words without their images. These words as a result become more and more meaningless. Condillac, in contrast, did not give children any particular credit for proper use of language. He was of the opinion that they did not form a specific image for every word. Rather they repeated continuously certain words in certain contexts, never really learning the exact meanings of the words. According to Turgot, a growth of meaningless words is especially dangerous when applied to abstract terms. The metaphors used in creating names for abstractions become increasingly remote. As a result those words lose all direct relationship with the idea they represent. Diderot, on the other hand, believed that all abstractions were nothing but signs void of ideas. In the Rêve de d'Alembert he explained that abstractions are the product of signs and that abstract sciences are only a combination of empty signs. Still another reason for inaccuracies in the meaning of words was pointed out by Turgot in a letter to a friend. In this letter he explained that the development of language was not as rapid as the growth of ideas and that people were not aware of the change of meaning which words undergo through time. "L'esprit c'est renouvelé", he wrote, "et c'est toujours la vielle langue qu'on parle." 19 Condillac and Diderot emphasized the carelessness with which 18

Claude Helvétius, De l'esprit, Œuvres complètes d'Helvétius (Paris, 1795), Vol. I, p. 168. 19 Diderot, Lettres à Falconet, Œuvres complètes, Vol. XVIII, p. 232.

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LANGUAGE AND IDEAS

man speaks as another abuse of language. People cannot accurately express ideas because they are too easily satisfied with an approximate expression of them. Those listening likewise do not make the effort to listen carefully to what is being said. It was Diderot who best summarized this dilemma in the following dialogue between Jacques and his master in Jacques le fataliste: Jacques:... N'a-t-on pas son caractère, son goût, ses passions, d'après quoi l'on exagère ou l'on atténue? Dis la chose comme elle est: . . . Cela n'arrive peut-être pas deux fois en un jour dans toute une grande ville. Et celui qui vous écoute est-il mieux disposé que celui qui parle? Non. D'où il doit arriver que deux fois à peine en un jour, dans toute une grande ville on soit entendu comme on dit. Maître: Que diable, Jacques, voila des maximes à proscrire l'usage de la langue et des oreilles, à ne rien dire à ne rien écouter et à ne rien croire.20 One solution to this problem of language deficiencies was suggested by both Diderot and Condillac. They advocated that people be taught the true meaning and the true idea which stood behind every word. However, neither of the two ever pursued this theory at any great length. The other solution which acquired a certain amount of popularity during the Enlightenment was that of a universal language. This idea was not new to the eighteenth century. It had been studied and popularized by Bishop John Wilkins in England and by Leibniz in Germany during the latter half of the seventeenth century. The notion of a universal language was even older than that. As early as 1629 Descartes referred to such a project as the work of an unknown man.21 Basically this language was to be a philosophical one through which man could reduce every simple idea to a symbol and then combine these symbols to express complex ideas. Leibniz, who hoped to create this philosophical calculus, was more interested in it for its accuracy than for its 20

Diderot, Jacques le fataliste, Œuvres complètes, Vol. VI, p. 59. Preserved Smith, A History of Modem Culture, Vol. II, The Enlightenment (New York, 1963), p. 155. 21

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57

international potential.22 It is not surprising that, in an optimistic era such as that of the Enlightenment, the idea of an international language should again attract a great deal of interest, and that speculation on its adaptability should be widespread. Condillac, who believed that sciences were nothing but precise languages, advocated a universal language for each individual science. His model was the language of mathematics, algebra. He thought that every science could be reduced to simple truths for which signs could be created. With the aid of such signs true propositions could be arrived at through a logical sequence of ideas. Condorcet, on the other hand, pictured a universal language for all learned men. This language would consist of signs to designate objects, concepts which though composed of simple ideas were common to all men and relationships between these and the operations of the human mind. The men who understood and read this language could then translate it into their native dialects for the benefit of all mankind. This language, however, would be superior to a purely scientific language in that it would include many commonly accepted idioms and could easily be learned without a knowledge of science. Jean Baptiste de la Chappelle, whose work was primarily a plea for the continued use of Latin as a learned language, advocated one universal language for the various fields of knowledge and a separate one for commerce. This author did not see the point to inventing new languages when dead ones were so convenient. In addition to being already in existence, these languages were fixed and invariable. Time would no longer change them. Furthermore the choice of a dead language would avoid national rivalry since it belonged rightfully to no one. La Chappelle failed to understand that these languages were fixed and invariable only because they were dead. Should they become widespread again, they would no longer be dead languages and would therefore be once more subject to the same rules of change as all the others. Some of these authors were actually convinced that such a universal language would eventually be invented and used. 28

Smith, p. 156.

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Condorcet wrote of the hope for a future in which there would be but one large nation and one language. B.E.R.M. similarly thought that languages should be studied only "en attendant que les savants soient convenus entre eux d'un langage de communication".23 The Utopian dream of those who saw universal language as the ultimate weapon against all error and injustice was shattered by a few more realistic men. Helvétius and the Chevalier de Jaucourt concluded that such a language would itself be subject to errors since words and meanings multiply and change so rapidly. The latter concluded that, since the number of existing languages was the result of the different thought processes of the people of the various nations, and that since these thought processes were influenced by outside factors such as climate, there could never be a universal language. In essence, the philosophies of language of the eighteenth-century thinkers were used to a great extent to formulate theories on the origins of ideas and on their development. It is not at all surprising to find such an interest in language during a century which had as its goal the annihilation of all sources of error and the discovery of a way to reach truth in the form of a natural order of things. The philosophers were very conscious of the role of language in the formation of ideas. They felt that prejudice, injustice and other human errors were caused partially by a language which failed to communicate existing ideas accurately and which did not attain its fullest potential in the creation of new ones. The eighteenth-century thinkers placed their faith in reason as the key to nature. With reason they hoped to discover natural laws for practically all phases of the universe. Reason, however, would be completely useless if language were not adequate enough, i.e. broad and precise enough, to support it. This then was the basis for the interest in language manifested by the eighteenth-century philosophers. a

B.E.R.M., "Langue", Encyclopédie,

Vol. IX, p. 264.

IV LANGUAGE AND THE IDEA OF PROGRESS

The Idea of Progress is an optimistic one. Using it one can interpret the past, present and future as a continuous forward movement of civilization. The eighteenth century is usually credited with the formulation of this idea. The late Preserved Smith considered that "the establishment of the Idea of Progress as the key to the philosophy of history" 1 was one of the three great achievements of Enlightenment historians. J. B. Bury, in his important work The Idea of Progress, pointed out that men were not intellectually prepared to formulate the Idea of Progress until the eighteenth century. He surveyed the ancient world's belief in the decline of humanity, the medieval world's concern for the afterworld and the Renaissance period's orientation towards the past rather than the future. In his view, two major factors stood in the way of a theory of progress: reliance on the past and an interpretation of the universe according to which Providence played the leading role and man had little or nothing to say in the unfolding of history. Descartes broke through both these barriers. Cartesian philosophy did not allow Providence to play the dominant role in the universe, but advocated invariable rules of nature and the supremacy of reason. At the same time Cartesianism showed little respect for antiquity. The bonds of the past were further shattered in the battle between the Ancients and the Moderns which was waged by such men as William Templeton, Jonathan Swift, Fontenelle, and their contemporaries at the turn of the century. 1

Smith, p. 202.

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The time was ripe for a new theory of history to replace the old. The main inspiration for the developing awareness of the Idea of Progress came from the advancement of science. Newton's discoveries portrayed an ordered universe governed by natural laws, and men were quick to conclude that similar laws must rule the social and political spheres. Sufficiently careful analysis of nature would reveal these laws, and the shortcomings of society would be remedied by their application. The eighteenth century saw great strides in nearly every field of science and those achievements contributed to the growing faith in the scientific approach. Together these developments created a great optimism about the future. The final step in the formulation of the Idea of Progress, according to Bury, was taken by Voltaire, Turgot, Condorcet and their disciples who asserted that this anticipated progress had in fact been realized in history. They maintained that throughout time, in spite of many setbacks or periods of less rapid advance, the general movement of civilization had been forward. The eighteenth-century philosophers sought to relate this new optimistic concept of history to their philosophy of languages. They established such a connection in two ways: the use of language as the means for measuring the progress of a people, and the actual demonstration of progress at work in the development of languages throughout time. The first approach raised the question whether progress demanded the improvement of languages or whether the development of languages was an impetus to progress. The second suggested an evolutionary interpretation. Language was regarded as an ever-changing system which evolved from a few gestures and screams to a sophisticated instrument for communicating ideas. There is abundant evidence that the eighteenth-century writers who dealt with languages were conscious of some kind of relationship between the development of language and that of mankind. Nonetheless they were unable to provide precise answers to the questions they asked. They seemed to be searching blindly for some connection between languages and the progress of the

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peoples using them. One thing they all agreed upon was that languages reflect the historical and cultural development of nations and that analysis of language at any given point in the history of a people would reveal a great deal about the level of civilization prevailing at that time. Court de Gébelin wrote: . . . elle [l'analyse des langues] nous donne l'histoire même de l'esprit humain et de ses développements chez chaque nation. Par la masse des mots d'un peuple, on découvre la vraie étandue de ses connaissances et de son génie; sa manière de voir et de s'énoncer; son occupation dominante, s'il fut une puissance maritime, militaire ou agricole: son caractère principal, ses mœurs, la nature même de son sol, et ses productions propres, ses vertus et ses vices. D'après la langue d'une peuple, en un mot, on peut peindre d'une manière plus exacte que d'après ses monumens historiques: on y suit sans peine les progrès des sciences et des arts, et la route qu'ils ont tenue.2

For Court de Gébelin, tracing the progress of mankind becomes an end in itself, a reason for studying etymology. Turgot, who formulated the Idea of Progress and established it as a philosophy of history, was also highly aware of the importance of language. If mankind was able to move forward, it was only because through language the past could be retained and the present preserved. For Turgot "language was not only a means of communication for new ideas, it was also a repository for the history of progress".3 His definition of language as "la mesure des idées des hommes" appeared in almost all of his works dealing with the topic. Earlier he had referred to language as "la mesure exacte de nos connaissances",4 a definition later adopted almost to the letter by the Président de Brosse. In the first volume of his Traité de la formation mécanique des langues et des principes physiques de l'étymologie, which appeared in 1765, de Brosse stated that language is "la mesure de l'étendue de sa [une nation] logique et de ses connaissance". In order to grasp fully the progress of man, whether within the sphere of ideas or of the entire reach of his knowledge, it becomes 2 s 4

Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, Vol. I, pp. 82-83. Frank E. Manuel, The Prophets of Paris (New York, 1965), p. 30. Turgot, Réflexions sur les langues, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 351.

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necessary to look carefully at his language. This new use of language as the yardstick of man's knowledge became even more important when it was no longer applied to a given nation only at a specific time but rather to the entire span of its history. Only then did it become a real barometer of progress; as de Brosse put it: L'histoire des colonies et de leurs P A R C O U R S sur la surface de la terre, tient de fort près à l'histoire des langages. Le meilleur moyen de découvrir l'origine d'une nation est de suivre, en remontant, les traces de sa langue comparée à celles des peuples avec qui la tradition des faits nous apprend que ce peuple a eu quelque rapport.5

Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, the most eclectic enunciation of the Idea of Progress, provides the best example of the use of languages as mirrors of progress. Condorcet explained how each new stage of the development of civilization during the first few periods of history brought with it improvements in languages. According to him, man was originally a hunter. He remained alone, had very few social ties and therefore needed only a very primitive language. During the next epoch, the pastoral era, the sedentary life of farming brought him into closer contact with other men. Under these circumstances social relationships became more necessary and increasingly complex. Languages reflected these changes. They came to be used to create laws with which to regulate society, and ceremonies to formalize contracts as well as standardize religious worship. In his presentation of the relationship between languages and progress, Condorcet was aware of the fact that civilization did not move continuously forward at a constant pace. The general flow was in a desirable direction but during any specific period civilization might advance relatively slowly, remain dormant or even regress temporarily. The same was true of languages. They developed rapidly in their early stages, underwent periods of little change and even degenerated to a certain extent as, for example, when two peoples speaking different languages united or 5

De Brosse, Mécanique des langues, Vol. I, p. xlviii.

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intermingled for any of a number of reasons. During the coming epoch, that of the Atlantide, on the threshold of which mankind stood, Condorcet predicted that the vague and obscure languages of the sciences would improve to the point of perfection. The superfluous complexities of these languages stood as the primary obstacle to the popularization of science. Court de Gébelin best summarized the concept of language as a mirror of progress in the following statement: L'histoire naturelle de la parole est donc la base des connaissances humaines. Elle commence avec le genre humain; elle le prend au berçau et dans la première famille; elle le suit dans ses dispersions et dans l'accroissement de ses connaissances; elle n'aura d'autres bornes que les siennes . . . «

The question which the philosophes raised in seeking the relationship between progress and language was whether progress stimulates the improvement of language or whether a language in becoming a more precise tool with which men express themselves gives rise to new ideas which in turn generate progress. Condillac and his followers reached the latter conclusion, while Condorcet defended the former. The position taken by Condillac and other philosophers who believed that languages were the driving force of progress was accurately expressed by Court de Gébelin when he wrote: C'est par ce moyen de communication que l'espèce humaine parvient au degré de perfectionnement dont elle est susceptible . . t o u t devient par la parole commun aux hommes; les connaissances de l'un sont les connaissances de tous: ainsi en ajoutant sans cesse découverte à découverte; lumière à lumière, notre esprit s'aggrandit; rien ne lui parait au-dessus de ses forces, il ose tout et tout parait s'applanir devant son audace; . . . 7

To Diderot there could be no doubt that a nation could not possibly emerge from its savage stage until its language had attained a certain level. He wrote: " . . . il faut qu'elle [une nation] 9 7

Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, Vol. I, p. 5. Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 3.

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reste ignorante et presque barbare tant que sa langue est imparfaite".8 Morellet placed languages at the helm of progress in a different manner; in his opinion, it was not languages but men who were the innovators of civilization. Yet the individuals who contributed the most to progress depended on languages as a source of their knowledge. They acquired this knowledge primarily through verbal communication. In his article on language in the Encyclopédie, the Chevalier de Jaucourt presented still another view on the indispensability of languages to progress. His was a more practical suggestion and one that was always applicable. He argued that the knowledge of various languages, especially those of the "peuples savans", would promote the advancement of the sciences. By means of this knowledge man could untangle and sort out all existing ideas and notions; without it he would remain entrapped in a maze of constant repetition of already existing discoveries. The Chevalier de Jaucourt wrote: Tant qu'on les ignores, on ressemble à ces chevaux aveugles, dont le sort est de ne parcourir qu'un cercle fort étroit, en tournant sans cesse la roue du même moulin. 9

Condillac himself had the greatest faith in languages as practically the sole source of progress. He treated language as an analytical method through which man expressed all the "operations of his soul". The precision of a language depended entirely on the accuracy of the analogies drawn by its speakers. In the words of Condillac: Une méthode plus parfaite, je ne saurais trop le faire remarquer, n'est qu'une langue plus simple, substituée à une langue plus compliquée. 1 0

The author of La langue des calculs was convinced that the sciences were the keys to progress and that each science was entirely dependent on language. He pursued this belief to the point of asserting that "une science bien traité n'est qu'une langue 8 9 10

Diderot, Lettre à Falconet, Œuvres complètes, Vol. XVIII, p. 232. Chevalier de Jaucourt, "Langage", Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 534. Condillac, La langue des calculs, Œuvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 387.

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bien faite." 11 As an example Condillac offered mathematics, the science whose language, algebra, was the most perfect in existence. It followed therefore that only in improving languages by simplifying them and making them more precise could men ever hope to perfect the sciences. "Ainsi il est démontré que l'origine et le progrès de nos connaissances dépendent entièrement de la manière dont nous nous servons des signes."12 According to Condillac, the sciences represented the major factor in progress. If, therefore, each one of them in turn were nothing but a language, then scientific accuracy would be linguistically determined. Thus Condillac drew the conclusion that all the errors of mankind were simply the result of the inefficiency of languages and that this stood as one of the major obstacles to progress. Until a people had developed its language to a certain level, it could not begin forward movement. However, once a primitive language had begun to develop, it was a more suitable vehicle for progress than present-day French, i.e. the French of the eighteenth century, because it still reflected the generation of knowledge. The speakers of such a language, being aware of the methods through which they had advanced their learning to a particular level, would also be able to perceive the ways in which they might continue to build upon it. Since learning was acquired and transmitted with the aid of language, "pour éviter l'erreur, il ne faut donc que savoir nous servir de la langue que nous parlons. H ne faut que cela mais j'avoue que c'est beaucoup exiger."13 It was easy for Condillac to demonstrate in this manner that language was the source of progress. The conclusion that progress depended solely on language in turn raised the question of how the development of language came about. Condillac and several of his contemporaries found the solution to this problem in an investigation of the works of the so-called geniuses. These gen«

Condillac, La langue des calculs, Œuvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 7. Condillac, Origine des connaissances humaines, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, pp. 117-18. i» Condillac, Cours d'étude pour l'instruction du Prince de Parme, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 760. 11

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iuses, according to Condillac, knew their language so thoroughly that they could push it to greater heights than the average speaker by drawing better analogies. The exact role played by the genius in the improvement of language will be investigated in detail below. First our attention must turn to the second group of writers, those who saw progress as the driving force of language. Condorcet's concept of the development of society is the best example of this doctrine. According to him, man advanced to a higher level of civilization in each of nine successive periods. During the first epoch, when man was a hunter, his only contacts were the few he had with his family. His language therefore consisted only of enough words to satisfy his needs at that primitive stage. From a hunter, man emerged as a farmer and began to settle down in agricultural communities. There he became involved in many more relationships. He now needed laws, bookkeeping facilities and a fixed set of rituals both to accompany his religious beliefs and to formalize his business contracts. As a result his language became much broader. The new ideas arising from his new role in a more complicated setting demanded more words and better ways to combine them. As society continued to grow in complexity and man acquired more and more knowledge, his progress emphasized the shortcomings of his language. Speech was temporal; it lasted only a few moments and vanished into the air. In addition, it was dependent upon the hearer's remaining within seeing or hearing distance of the speaker. At this stage a need for a means of communicating ideas which depended on a basis more reliable than memory became apparent. It was this situation, according to Condorcet, which led to the invention of a pictoral language. This early form of writing in turn became incapable of meeting the ever-growing demands imposed upon it by a progressing society. As a result it developed until eventually perfected by the discovery of an alphabet based on sounds. In the development of society as it was envisioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau, languages played a similar role; they changed with the growing needs of men. "Les langues se forment naturelle-

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ment sur les besoins des hommes; elles changent et s'altèrent selon les changements de ces mêmes besoins." 14 There is, however, one major difference between Rousseau and Condorcet. This lies in their definition of progress itself. Whereas progress was generally accepted as the forward motion of civilization, the citizen of Geneva saw only the motion of civilization, not necessarily in a desirable direction. In his Essai sur l'origine des langues, Rousseau stated that languages had contributed to progress, be it either good or bad. Since he recognized that changes in language paralleled man's development, he felt that languages had followed the same path of degeneration as had mankind and all other human institutions. Ever since the fall of man, which to Rousseau was synonymous with his decision to live in society, language had become increasingly decadent. A s society drew man further and further away from his state of nature, so did it destroy his language. The first languages were natural, melodious and poetic. Through the ages and with the movement of civilization they became monotonous, cold, weak and regulated merely in order to gain an inexpressive precision. The primary contributors to this continuing deterioration were the invention of writing and the establishment of academies, both of which only served to bar any natural development of language. Rousseau wrote: " . . . pour rendre une langue froide et monotone, il ne faut qu'établir des académies chez le peuple qui la parle." 1 5 Thus languages, according to Rousseau, had been altered by the progress of society. However, this progress had been in an undesirable direction, for it had gone against nature and had deprived man of the happy independent existence which he once enjoyed as a "noble savage". In direct contrast with Rousseau, Voltaire considered the refinement of manners which promoted the advancement of art and society to be the principal sign of the progress of a people; improvement of language followed this development. "C'est quand

14 15

Rousseau, Origine des langues, Œuvres complètes, p. 124. Rousseau, Essai sur l'origine des langues, Œuvres complètes, p. 115.

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les mœurs se sont adoucies qu'on a aussi adouci la langue",16 he wrote. Those nations which devoted the greatest attention to arts and society would have the most perfect and refined languages. The argument, however, was not always as clearcut as it seemed. On the problem of language and progress there seemed to be a great deal of incertitude which often manifested itself in writers' taking a stand on an issue but occasionally shifting position. Frequently the same author who argued one side of the question could be found utilizing the other side as well in an effort to illustrate a point. Court de Gébelin provides a good example of this lack of consistency. His general theory was that language was the prime mover of progress. However, when he discussed the refinement of society he admitted that: Chez un même peuple, la prononciation change avec les mœurs; nous ne pourrions soutenir celle de nos pères du quinzième siècle; elle nous paraîtrait infiniment trop rude.17 The man who suggested a compromise solution was Turgot. Although in most of his works the economist argued that as languages developed, ideas multiplied and these ideas in turn were the source of progress, he also wrote: L'usage habituel de la parole amène sans cesse de nouvelles combinaisons d'idées, fait remarquer entre elles de nouveaux rapports, de nouvelles nuances, et fait sentir le besoin de nouvelles expressions.18 Turgot was aware that the relationship between language and progress was not at all one-sided. His conclusion was that "les langues aident les progrès, mais seules ne les fonts pas naîtres."19 The next question to be considered is that of the Idea of Progress as it was applied by the French philosophes to language. Lan« Voltaire, "Langues", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres, Vol. XIX, p. 567. 17 Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 77. 18 Turgot, Tableau philosophique des progrès successifs de l'esprit humain, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 223. 19 Turgot, Remarques critiques sur les réflexions philosophiques de Maupertuis, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 161.

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guage came to be considered as an ever-changing system which began with cries and gestures and developed through time into a sophisticated method for communicating ideas and sensations. The invention of writing furthered the efficiency of language by making it a means of retaining past knowledge and adding to it during each generation. The first chapter of this work dealt in part with the first languages and the fact that they were not necessarily vocal. Many Enlightenment thinkers believed that gestures and images played as great a part in primitive languages as did speech, if not a greater part. Spoken language was itself the result of an attempt to find the best method for relating ideas and sensations between members of a group. In the words of the Chevalier de Jaucourt: Après avoir essayé plusieurs sortes d'expressions, il [man] s'en tint à la plus naturelle, la plus utile et la plus étendue, celle de l'organe de la voix. 20

According to this author the choice of voice was an early conscious development in the history of language. In the beginning the use of the vocal cords was limited to cries and groans in a general effort to show sensations with monosyllabic noises of various sorts. Although this was still a long way from articulated sound, arrival at this stage had entailed a very slow process. In Condillac's 'langage d'action' the two children gradually used a greater number of vocal signs and fewer gestures. Only as man improved in his ability to multiply sounds, only as he refined the usage of his speech organs did spoken language prevail over signs and cries. "Chez toutes les nations du monde le langage des sons articulés n'a prévalu qu'autant qu'il est devenu plus intelligible pour elles."21 It was at this point that language began a long slow upward movement and became increasingly independent of visible signs. Diderot divided the evolution of a language into three periods: its birth, its formation and its perfection. During the birth process, 20 21

Chevalier de Jaucourt, "Langage", Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 531. Chevalier de Jaucourt, "Langage", Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 532.

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language consisted of cries and gestures. A t this stage it did not differ from the language of animals; it had no tense, no case and only the bare minimum of sound and motion necessary to communicate the most primitive sensations and ideas. During the formative period language developed a structure; it acquired tenses, cases and terms to express quality, i.e. adjectives and adverbs. In brief it accumulated all the equipment necessary for man to express completely all of his thoughts, no matter how complex. The final period, that of perfecting the language, consisted in rendering it beautiful, that is to say as pleasant to the ear as it was instructive to the mind. When carried to extremes this last stage in the development of a language could result, according to Diderot among others, in its downfall. For, in trying to be too eloquent, men often lost all coherence in the expression of their ideas.22 It was the consensus of opinion of the men involved that the greatest event in the progress of language was the invention and development of writing. It has been mentioned above that the improvement of language became more necessary with the growth of numerous new relationships which accompanied the increasing complexity of society. Whether or not they recognized this interpretation of the growth of society as progress, nearly all the eighteenth-century philosophers agreed that therein lay the need for an invention such as writing if language were to be at all useful to posterity. "Bientôt on s'aperçut que si le langage était d'une utilité admirable pour vivre en société pour se perfectionner, il était cependant d'un usage borné." 23 Whether it was to record laws or to keep track of contracts and possessions, writing arose out of new needs created by a new situation. Not until man settled down to an agrarian society was writing a necessity to him. Like speech, writing developed slowly. Early written languages consisted of images representing the various objects to be mentioned as, for example, in Egyptian hieroglyph22

Diderot, Lettre sur les sourds et muets, Œuvres complètes, Vol. I,

pp. 372-73. 25 Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.

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ics. As soon as men found this system too inaccurate and inconvenient, they developed symbols such as the Chinese characters to represent different ideas. Through time and because of habit these signs came to be used devoid of any connection with the idea they had originally been intended to represent " . . . et l'écriture devint l'art d'attacher un signe conventionnel à chaque idée, à chaque mot, et par la suite à chaque modification des idées et des mots".24 Mankind now needed some kind of connection between written and spoken words. This link was provided, according to Condorcet, by the geniuses who discovered that all words could be reduced to a certain number of sounds for which symbols could be invented. From this discovery developed our alphabet based on sounds. This was the path of the development of writing as seen by de Brosse and Condorcet; each system improved and became more efficient. For Rousseau on the other hand, all three methods: hieroglyphics, Chinese symbols and the alphabet, developed separately as independent inventions in different nations. Each system reflects the character of the people who use it. To the men of the eighteenth century concerned with the progress of languages, the invention of writing was not only the greatest advancement in the evolution of language but also in the entire progress of civilization. " . . . ce dernier pas", wrote Condorcet referring to the creation of the phonetic alphabet, "assura pour jamais les progrès de l'espèce humaine".25 Turgot claimed that as long as the languages in which books were written endured, and as long as there were educated men, past knowledge could not be forgotten.29 As has been mentioned above, for Rousseau the invention and development of writing were part of progress, but in an undesirable direction. To this author, writing, while rendering language more useful, had further corrupted it. "Il n'est pas possible qu'une langue qu'on écrit garde longtemps la 24

Condorcet, Esquisse, Œuvres, Vol. VI, p. 17. Condorcet, Esquisse, Œuvres, Vol. VI, p. 16. 26 Turgot, Recherches sur les causes des progrès et de la décadence des sciences et des arts, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 119. 25

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vivacité de celle qui n'est que parlé."27 Writing then was generally considered by thinkers other than Rousseau as an advance. Nevertheless they did acknowledge the fact that in many cases it had halted the evolution of languages by fixing them at an early stage in their development. Various factors have exerted a strong influence on the progress of languages. Two such factors were (1) the coming together of peoples who speak different tongues and (2) the work of the geniuses. Whenever two or more languages were brought together as the result of trade or conquest, the progress of each ceased until a new language slowly emerged. This new language, according to Turgot, reflected most strongly traits of that parent language spoken by the more advanced of the peoples. Condorcet believed that in time a language formed in this manner would become far better and richer than any of the languages which had contributed to it. The second important factor in the progress of language widely discussed by the eighteenth-century philosophers was the role played by the geniuses. Little is known about the concept of genius held by eighteenthcentury thinkers in France. The writings on language contribute a great deal of evidence in favor of the theory that geniuses played an important part in the creation of the "Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-century Philosophers". What was a genius? Could anyone be one, or was he a specially gifted individual? What were his functions? These questions seemed to puzzle the writers of the period. Some attempts were made to answer them as they applied to languages, for it appears that to the philosophes geniuses held a key position in the development, growth and at times even the destruction of languages. For Condillac a genius was a man who analyzed precisely all he saw, whether in the field of physics or theater. Since, as was mentioned earlier, this author regarded language as a purely analytical process, the superiority of the genius must have lain in his ability to draw more and better analogies. This allowed him 27

Rousseau, Essai sur l'origine des langues,

Œuvres,

p. 113.

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to formulate new ideas, for Condillac claimed that men did not invent anything but only found facts already in existence.28 "Qu'est-ce donc que le génie? Un esprit simple qui trouve ce que personne n'a su trouver avant lui." 29 For geniuses to emerge, argued Turgot, it was necessary for a nation to attain a certain level in the development of its language. Once the language had been formed poets could improve it, but not until it had been used in the works of the greatest geniuses did it become fixed in form. Their usage of language established a standard on the basis of which the language could be judged.30 Condillac accepted this point of view: Les circonstances favorables au développement des génies se rencontrent chez une nation, dans le temps ou sa langue commence a avoir des principes fixes et un caractère décidé.31 He proceeded to push this idea to the limit. If a nation was unable to produce great men until its language had become sufficiently advanced and had developed a decisive character or genius, then it followed that these men owed their greatness to the language. Their ability to use it and with it to draw far better analogies than other men was the sole factor in their superiority. Condillac wrote: Les succès de Newton ont été préparés par le choix qu'on avait fait avant lui des signes, et par les méthodes de calcul qu'on avait imaginées, s'il fut venu plus tôt, il eut pu être un grand homme pour son siècle, mais il ne serait pas l'admiration du nôtre.82 Condillac, however, did not stop there. The progress of a language had fostered geniuses. Their success in turn depended almost entirely on the further development of the language within their particular lifetime. It was they, however, who were expected to give of their talents to the language. Most important of all they 28

Condillac, Langue des calculs, Œuvres, Vol. XXIII, p. 235. Condillac, Langue des calculs, p. 234. 30 Turgot, Recherches sur les causes des progrès, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 118. 31 Condillac, L'origine des connaissances, Œuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 99. 32 Ibid., pp. 99-100. 29

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gave to their language its peculiar genius, that is to say its own particular way of expressing ideas. Condillac wrote: Si le génie des langues commence a se former d'après celui des peuples, il n'achève de se développer que par le secours des grands écrivains.33

This notion of languages originating with the people but being perfected by great men was shared by Voltaire. In a letter to a M. Deodate de Tovazzi of January 24, 1761, he wrote, "Si le peuple a formé les langues, les grands hommes les perfectionnent par les grands livres."34 It was in this manner that Condillac placed the genius at the center of a cycle in which language created geniuses and was further developed by them. He wrote: Si les grands talents doivent leur développement aux progrès sensibles que le langage a faits avant eux, le langage doit à son tour au talents de nouveaux progrès qui l'élèvent à son dernier (sic) période.35

It remained to be shown exactly how the genius was expected to improve language. Both Turgot and Condillac agreed that great men had the ability to grasp the character of their language. They were thereby able to express themselves with extreme clarity and exactitude in it. They used their language to its greatest potential and stood as an example for other men. Good writers avoided an arbitrary choice of words and tried to use only those which created definite images in the mind. At the same time, while conforming to the genius of the language, they sensed and interpreted in a manner particular to them what they saw and felt. As a result they drew different analogies which contributed to the already existing characteristics of the language. Although great men were given credit for the advancement of languages, they also were accused of contributing to their decline. Condillac maintained that these men tried too often to surpass 33

34

Condillac, L'origine des connaissances,

p. 98.

Voltaire, Correspondance, ed. T. Besterman (Geneva, 1953-65), Vol. XLI, p. 171. 35

Condillac, L'origine

p. 101.

des connaissances,

Œuvres

philosophiques,

Vol. I,

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themselves by drawing new analogies which were, in many instances, far ahead of the language. This resulted more frequently in the destruction than in the development of the language. Turgot, who had stated that geniuses crystallized languages, now emphasized that this was the worst thing that could happen to the languages. He claimed that once a language was set it could no longer progress. This crystallizing was especially detrimental to the language if it was too thorough or happened too early in its history. Progress regardless of its causes is a slow and continuous process. The philosophes of the eighteenth century realized that languages, like the rest of civilization, did not change in a rapid and sudden manner; rather they required time to develop through gradual but constant transformation. Rousseau and Court de Gébelin pointed out that the gap between the formation of words and actual speech must have taken centuries to bridge. Turgot and de Brosse argued that man constantly changed his language by building, destroying, adding to or subtracting from it. Turgot even presented the idea that, independent of all outside influences, a language had its own built-in mechanism for change. In his own words: Ainsi à considérer un langue indépendament de ses rapports avec les autres langues, elle a dans elle même un principe de variation.39 Pronunciation was constantly changing and meanings multiplied or replaced one another. New ideas constantly arose which required variations in the primitive meanings of words. To these changes Turgot added the influence of external forces. He wrote: L'usage habituel de la parole amène sans cesse de nouvelles combinaisons d'idées, fait remarquer entre elles de nouveaux rapports de nouvelles nuances, et fait sentir le besoin de nouvelles expression. De plus par les migration des peuples, les langages se mêlent comme les fleuves et s'enrichissent du concours de plusieurs langages.87 36

Turgot, Etymologie, ed. Maurice Piron (Bruge, 1961), p. 33. Turgot, Tableau philosophique des progrès successifs de l'esprit humain, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 223.

37

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Condorcet, on the other hand, disagreed with the idea that languages developed slowly. According to him, just as children learned their native languages rapidly through the habit of hearing certain sounds always associated with certain objects, ideas or reactions, so primitive man developed his language quickly. According to Condorcet: C'est l'intérêt soit d'entendre ou d'être entendu, que accellère les progrès des enfants, et dans les sociétés naissantes cet intérêt était commun à tous.88 During the eighteenth century there was a definite attempt to discover some relationship between progress and the development of languages. It seems, however, to have been a blind search yielding only indefinite results. Yet, the conclusions which the eighteenth-century thinkers drew all point in one direction. If languages reflect the progress of civilization and in so doing progress themselves through constant change, creation and improvement, then the Idea of Progress, especially as it dealt with languages, can be regarded as an early evolutionary idea. The eighteenth century saw the advent of a new outlook on the physical universe. With the rapid development of every branch of science it became apparent that Genesis was no longer an adequate explanation for the present state of the cosmos. Men began to look at the earth and its inhabitants as ever-developing. Although it appeared never to change, the earth actually was moving in a constant slow evolutionary path. Buffon presented a bold theory of the formation of the earth. He divided the life of the earth, which he calculated at 75,000 years, into six stages which began with the formation of the planets and led to the period of man's existence. More daring yet were the works of Buffon himself, Linnaeus, and Lamarck dealing with species. Although Buffon never agreed with Linnaeus' nomenclature, both men were struck by the resemblances between species such as the horse and the donkey. Buffon's classification was more irrational than that of Linnaeus. 38

Condorcet, Esquisse, Œuvres, Vol. VI, p. 315.

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Yet in their awareness of these similarities, they clearly implied something deeper than mere resemblance. Lamarck went so far as to consider man the final product of an ever-changing animal world.39 Evolutionary ideas were becoming more popular and the philosophes began to apply them to social institutions as well as to the physical universe. Their treatment of the development of language serves as an example of the new attitude. As Evolution applies to the development of the physical beings in the universe, so the Idea of Progress applies to the development of the achievements of mankind.

»• An excellent treatment of early evolutionary ideas can be found in John C. Greene's book The Death of Adam published in 1959 by Iowa State University Press and in 1961 as a Mentor paperback book.

V LANGUAGE AND THE IDEAS OF THE TIMES

The idea that climate has a definite influence on the temperament and organs of man was not original to the eighteenth century. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, had already in his day proposed it by suggesting that different climates could cure certain ailments. More closely related to the Enlightenment was the English doctor and author John Arbuthnot (1675-1735). Toward the end of his life, Arbuthnot published a work entitled The Influence of Air on Human Bodies which dealt with this problem. It is Montesquieu, however, whose name had become closely associated with climate theory. No doubt this association results from the popularity of L'esprit des lois. In 1707, before either of the books mentioned appeared, Frain du Tremblay published his Traité des langues. In this work, the author introduced the climate theory as applied to languages. According to him, differences between languages are partially caused by climatic variations. The temperature of the air influences the temperament of men "et par conséquence ne pouvant pas manquer de causer du changement dans les organes de la voix et de l'ouie".1 The casual manner in which Frain du Tremblay introduced his chapter on climate seems to indicate that this theory was already common in his time. He made no effort to explain or defend it in any way but treated it as if it were common knowledge and as if his only innovation was the fact that changes in the organs of speech result in variations in language. The idea that climate affected speech became very popular 1

Frain du Tremblay, Traité des langues, p. 37.

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among nearly all the writers who treated language. Some like de Brosse and B.E.R.M. discussed it in a very superficial manner. Court de Gébelin tried to be very scientific and show why speech was affected. Rousseau, on the other hand, showed his romantic tendencies by interpreting the entire idea in terms of the influence on the passions. Charles de Brosse and B.E.R.M. used an identical quotation as part of their arguments on language. It appears in both their works as follows: Le climat, l'air, les lieux, les eaux, le genre de vie et de nourriture produisent des variétés dans la fine structure de l'organisation. Ces causes donnent plus de forces à certaines parties du corps, o u en affaiblissent d'autres. Ces variétés qui échapperaient à l'anatomie, peuvent être facilement remarquées dans les organes servant à la parole, en observant quels sont ceux dont chaque peuple fait le plus d'usage dans les mots de sa langue, et de quelle manière il les emploie

It becomes obvious that the Président plagiarized B.E.R.M. or that both copied the same work. The ninth volume of the Encyclopédie, in which the article "Langue" is found, was published in 1761 while de Brosse's treatise did not appear until 1765. Court de Gébelin adopted a more biological approach to the problem. According to him, climate affected the flow of blood which in turn affected the organs. In warmer climates the blood flows faster than in the colder regions. The flexibility of the fibers of the vocal organs is directly proportional to the speed at which the blood flows. As a result men in warm regions articulate more easily and use the exterior extremities of the articulatory organs, while their cold-weather counterparts find it harder to articulate and therefore speak from the backs of their mouths. Altitude as well as temperature was purported to have an influence on speech. According to Court de Gébelin, because the lungs work harder in high altitudes, men who live in mountainous regions articulate faster. His conclusion is exactly the opposite of de 2

De Brosse, Mécanique des langues, Vol. I, pp. 58-59 and B.E.R.M., "Langue", Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 262.

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Brosse's. The latter maintained that people in warmer climates speak from the backs of their mouths while those in cold climates tend to use sounds produced at the extremities of the articulatory organs. In addition to its direct effect on the organs of speech, climate also influences language in an indirect manner. The eighteenthcentury philosophes believed that the temperament of people was conditioned by their climatic environment. Temperament in turn was reflected in languages. The sentimental Rousseau was the greatest exponent of this variation of the climate theory. Although he did not entirely ignore the effect of climate on the physical being of man, Rousseau emphasized the reaction of man to his environment. We have seen earlier that Rousseau had two interpretations of the origins of language: one in warm climates and the other in cold regions. In cold climates men unite for survival; they work hard for what they have and are always striving against nature. They are rugged and strong. The inhabitants of warmer climates join together for pleasure; their struggle for existence is minimal. They are more passionate people. These characteristics are reflected in their languages. The northern tongues are harsh, monotonous and clear because of their precise words. The southern languages are melodious, lively, eloquent and obscure because of the passions they reflect. The Chevalier de Jaucourt, who had already outlined this argument in the Encyclopédie, concluded that French was the best language because it was spoken by a people who lived in the middle of the two climatic extremes. Modern historical theories which view history as the actions and reactions of man in and to his environment reflect the eighteenth-century climate theory as applied to government by Montesquieu and to language by the above-mentioned authors. In their works on language, the authors often reflect their political and social theories as well. Politically the philosophes dreamed of an enlightened monarch under whom men could enjoy more liberty. For the most part they were very conscious of social status and had little faith in the lower classes. Although they advocated less oppression of these classes, the philosophes

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would not have them play any role in government. The obvious exception to this philosophy was Rousseau. The contempt of the philosophes for the lower classes is well demonstrated by Voltaire and de Brosse. "C'est le peuple ignorant qui a formé les langues",3 wrote the patriarch who maintained that educated men had finally learned the best way to use the haphazard language created by the people. It must be emphasized here that the way in which Voltaire used the word 'peuple' is equivalent to the English 'populace'. Charles de Brosse implied the existence of two different languages: the proper one of a nation and the vulgar one of the populace. After quoting the Italian author Gravina, who stated that a language is corrupted when the vulgar speech becomes dominant enough to be used by the nobility, de Brosse added, "il pourrait ajouter ou lorsque les gens sans éducation tiennent dans le monde la même place que les gens de naissance".4 The corrupted language will in time become a new one which will also eventually be divided into noble and vulgar dialects. While Voltaire made his division of classes between 'peuple' and men of genius, he seems to exclude the possibility that these men of genius could come from the 'peuple'. It is once more in his choice of words that he reveals his opinions. His use of "le peuple ignorant" in the quotation above implies that the 'peuple' as a whole is ignorant. De Brosse on the other hand separates the vulgar from the noble. His emphasis is on the 'gens de naissance' or the birthright nobles as the intelligent group of society. In spite of their lack of consideration for the ability of the lower classes, and in spite of their affiliation with nobility, the philosophes were opposed to unjust and unenlightened rule. Their works are full of comments expressing their dislike for the existing order. In writing on language, the philosophes used to say the Académie represented absolutism in that it was attempting to establish set rules for the French language. Sentences similar to s Voltaire, Lettre à Deodati de Tovazzi, January 24, 1761, de Voltaire, Vol. XLI, p. 166. 1 D e Brosse, Mécanique des langues, Vol. II, p. 77.

Correspondance

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the following are often found in works on language. "Les langues, à mon gré, sont comme les gouvernement: les plus parfaits sont ceux ou il y a le moin d'arbitraire."5 The political ideals of Rousseau are also reflected in his works on language. Unlike the greater number of the philosophes, the author of the Social Contract was more democratically inclined. He wanted to show that certain languages, unlike French, were suited for liberty; he wrote: Il y a des langues favorables à la liberté; ce sont les langues sonores, prosodiques et harmonieuses, dont o n distingue le discours fort loin. Les nôtres sont faites pour le bourdonement des divans. 6

Rousseau illustrated his point by maintaining that a Frenchman addressing a crowd on the Place Vendôme would not be noticed by any one; yet Herodotus reading his history in public was applauded by the Greeks. Even in the Académie the speaker is not heard at the back of the room. Rousseau concluded with the following statement: Or, je dis que toute langue avec laquelle on ne peut pas se faire entendre au peuple assemblé est une langue servile; il est impossible qu'un peuple demeure libre et qu'il parle cette langue là. 7

Rousseau was further convinced of the unjust aspect of society as evidenced by the use of 'tu' and 'vous'.8 This phenomenon would never have bothered the more aristocratic-minded Voltaire. In Emile Rousseau also maintained that there was a difference between the languages of city and country children. His argument reflects a preference for the more natural and free existence of the farmer. City children, according to him, do not learn to speak as well or as early as their country cousins. They are always kept inside and granted what they want by their parents who guess rather than understand the voiced desires of their offspring. In addition to this handicap, once they learn to speak the city 5 Voltaire, Lettre à Guyot, August 7, 1767, Correspondance de Vol. XLV, p. 340. 9 Rousseau, Essai sur les langues, Œuvres complètes, p. 125. 7 Rousseau, Essai sur les langues, Œuvres complètes, p. 125. 8 Kukenheim, Esquisse historique de la linguistique, p. 32.

Voltaire,

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children have to memorize many things. Reciting from memory is conducive to mumbling. The country children, on the other hand, are always outside and have to speak loudly and clearly to make themselves understood by their parents. Rousseau did admit that these children speak too loudly and with a rough articulation; yet he felt that their language was clearer. Although they had fewer ideas, they understood them fully and could express them accordingly. It seems far-fetched to try to relate the structure of a language to the existing order of government, especially in light of the fact that throughout its history any given country changes forms of government, but seldom changes its language. On the one hand, the philosophes tried to prove that French was the best language. Voltaire claimed that a language was judged by the number of good authors that it had produced; thus French was obviously the best. Other authors such as Diderot and B.E.R.M. claimed that French was the best language to express ideas because of its natural order of words. Conversely however, these same men invariably associated French with political totalitarianism. The Greeks, Italians and Germans were usually referred to as free independent people. This baseless assumption of a relationship between language and government seems to demonstrate the extreme dissatisfaction among the philosophes with the existing order. They tried hard to show in every way possible that the French monarchy as it existed was an ineffective and oppressive order and that this fact was evident in all external aspects of French society. In many cases, their examples were absurd, as when they cited language as a reflection of the political order. Apart from tangible external influences such as climate and government, the philosophes were conscious of a less definable factor which accounted for the differences between languages. They called it the genius of a language; genius in this case can best be translated as character. While they were aware of its existence, none of the authors concerned could properly define it. Voltaire attempted to do so when he wrote:

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On appelle génie d'une langue son aptitude à dire de la manière la plus courte et la plus harmonieuse ce que toute les autres langues expriment moins heureusement.9 Basically the philosophes tried to show that a language reflected the character of the people who speak it. As Rousseau put it: Les têtes se forment sur les langages, les pensées prennent la teinte des idiomes. La raison seule est commune, l'esprit en chaque langue a sa forme particulière.10 B.E.R.M. argued that each man could find in his language the necessary equipment to express all of his ideas. It thus becomes important that each man learn his own language well for he will not be able to express himself in another tongue. The implication here is that man is limited or guided in his emotions and ideas by his language. An Englishman therefore could never express exactly the same ideas as a Frenchman or a German. This hypothesis is still accepted and defended by some modern scholars. There is no doubt a certain amount of truth to this belief. By comparing languages, one can easily see that certain ideas cannot be expressed in any two of them. For example, the French concept expressed by the word 'sympathique' has no English equivalent, while English 'nice' {i.e. 'how nice!') has no French equivalent. The question raised here, which has already been discussed above, is whether ideas are limited by language or whether language is limited by the number of ideas. The philosophes never pursued the notion of genius of language very far. They concluded that it was this indefinable attribute of a language which made it difficult to translate any language into another. Yet they did take the idea of character of language and try to apply standards to it so as to determine what character is most desirable in a language. In all cases the conclusion was obviously that French was superior. Diderot, who believed that the sole purpose of language was the communication of ideas, held French up as the example of a perfect language for reason9

Voltaire, "Langues", Dictionnaire philosophique, Œuvres, Vol. XIX, p. 557. 10 Rousseau, Emile, Œuvres complètes, p. 154.

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ing and science; any other language was suitable for arts. He wrote: D'où il s'ensuit . . . Que nous pouvons mieux qu'aucun autre peuple faire parler l'esprit et que le bon sens choisirait la langue française, mais que l'imagination et les passions donneront la préférence aux langues anciennes et à celle de nos voisins . . . que notre langue sera celle de la vérité, si jamais elle revient sur la terre; et que la grecque, la latine et les autres seront les langues de la fable et du mensonge. Le français est fait pour instruire, éclairer et convaincre; le grec, le latin, l'italien, l'anglais, pour persuader, émouvoir et tromper, parlez grec, latin, italien au peuple; mais parlez français aux sages. 11

Even authors who tried to be slightly more rational about the subject came to the same conclusion. B.E.R.M., for example, tried to show that certain languages were more appropriate to certain fields. Thus he pointed out that for the study of church offices, Latin was necessary, for Biblical study Greek, for medicine and public law German and for math and physics English. His argument was based primarily on the works done in the various fields of study by different nations. Having made his point, however, B.E.R.M. concludes that in all these fields of study an abundance of excellent works have been produced in French. It is in the same spirit that Voltaire and Condillac suggested that the quality of a language could be judged by the number of great men who had written in it. They were, of course, convinced that France had produced a greater number of geniuses, themselves included, than any other nation. This idea of quality of languages and the conviction of the superiority of French reflects the attitude which the philosophes had toward themselves and the role they played in their own time. The Enlightenment was a period during which men hoped to arrive at truth through reason; it was a period of optimism and hope for the future. Eighteenth-century writers were conscious of their efforts toward the over-all end, an enlightened society. Furthermore, the Enlightenment was primarily a French movement, although its seeds had been sown in England. Armed with 11

22.

Diderot, Lettre sur les sourds et muets, Œuvres complètes, Vol. I, p. 321-

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reason the philosophes were convinced that they were arriving at the truth. The praises of the French language which they sang were mainly praises of themselves. If Diderot exalted French as the language of learning, truth and reason, it was because he and his contemporaries were writing in French. When Condillac and Voltaire wrote of the number of great authors who used a certain language, they considered themselves among the group. They all wrote French and they all believed that they were standardbearers of the truth. Therefore French was the language of truth. Had the Enlightenment bloomed in another country such as Germany or England, and had the philosophes been natives of either of those two countries, the praises of French would have been sung to either English or German. Although time and history have been kind to the philosophes, in their own day they were their own greatest admirers. Whether they praised the language they used or the men with whom they associated, they were displaying self-approval as a group and as individuals. With the new evolutionary ideas of the Enlightenment, man came to be classified as an animal. His supremacy over other animals raised the question of the reason for this position. The philosophes joined the search for the differences between man and the lower forms of animals. The Church claimed it was man's soul which separated him from the animals. It is not surprising that this solution should not satisfy the philosophes. Although anthropology did not yet exist and had not yet provided man with more concrete and reassuring theories about his exclusiveness in the animal kingdom, eighteenth-century philosophers began to look for more reasonable or tangible answers than those of the Church. It must have been obvious to them that it took more than a soul to elevate man to such a high position above the animals. Many of the philosophes turned to language as the main factor separating man from other creatures. All the philosophes concerned with the problem agreed that language was the main, and sometimes even the only, dividing line between man and animals. Court de Gébelin called speech:

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. . . la partie fondamentale de l'essence et de la gloire de l'homme, elle le distingue des êtres avec lesquels il partage les fruits de la terre et avec qui lui sont commun tous les phénomènes de la vie animale.12 Man, like all animals, eats, drinks, sleeps, reproduces, experiences sensations and dies. Yet somehow man had obtained superiority over the rest of the animal world simply through language. On the other hand, the philosophes were all aware of the fact that animals make sounds which serve as methods of communication, although in no way comparable to man's languages. To deal with this problem, the authors concerned claimed that there were two kinds of language. The first was the language of sensations which consisted of inarticulate cries; this language was common to both man and animals. The second was the language of ideas which was unique to man since he alone was capable of formulating ideas. Buffon discarded any notion that man's speech organs were any different from those of animals. As proof he cited a dog referred to by Leibniz which could say words in both German and French. Animals, according to Buffon, were incapable of creating a single idea, much less a sequence of ideas to be expressed. Even if Leibniz' dog could repeat a few words, he would never be able to create the idea expressed by these words. Julien Offray de la Mettrie presented the extreme viewpoint that language was the only difference between man and animals. In his work L'homme machine, la Mettrie put forth the notion that the body is nothing but a complex machine which keeps running as long as it is refueled and rested. La Mettrie's man has no soul, spirit or any other supernatural aspect. Man like animals is a completely materialistic organism. He wrote: Des animaux à l'homme, la transition n'est pas violente; les vrais philosophes en conviendront. Qu'était l'homme, avant l'invention des mots et l'invention des langues?18 La Mettrie acknowledged the fact that he did not know how or 18

Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 2. La Mettrie, L'homme machine, éd. Aram Vartanian, La Mettrie's l'Homme Machine (Princeton University, 1960), p. 162. 15

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where language originated. However, he felt that language precedes intelligence; man's intelligence was acquired via his ability to remember experiences through the aid of signs. Furthermore man was educated strictly because of language. Animals are even superior to man when it comes to instinct. T o demonstrate this, la Mettrie argued that, whereas animals abandoned by their parents can survive by instinct alone, man cannot. A n infant would immediately perish if left alone. It is only through language that man compensates for his inferior instincts. Unlike Buffon, la Mettrie was convinced that animals could be taught to talk like man. Jean-Jacques Rousseau provided a different answer. H e realized that even some animals have languages. For him the difference lay in man's ability to create general ideas with his language. Rousseau then presented a rather irrational idea, yet one that is characteristic of the advocate of a return to nature. First he explained that the real reason behind man's ability to speak is will. That is to say, while both man and animals have the physical apparatus and ability to speak, the desire to use these is peculiar to man. Then Rousseau acknowledged the animals which work together, i.e. beavers, bees and ants. These animals, he claimed, also have a language, but theirs is a natural language, one that is born within, a part of instinct. Man's language, on the other hand, is acquired and artificial; it is against nature. This is the idea which Lord Monboddo later tried to develop and defend. Condorcet denied that language played such a big role in separating man from animals. A l l animals that make sounds, according to Condorcet, have some sort of language. These languages vary in degrees of perfection according to how well they imitate sounds of nature. Because of his ability to create more articulated sounds and because of his better memory, man has created the most perfect language. T o Condorcet, man differed from animals when he established articulated sounds and moral ideas which accompanied the beginning of social order. Unlike Rousseau, Condorcet makes no allowance for the animals that live and work in societies.

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Modern science has proved that some animals, especially bees, have a very intricate system of language and that language can no longer be regarded as the dividing line between man and the animals. Modern anthropologists have provided better defined criteria with which man can be assured of his superiority over animals. The eighteenth-century philosophes, however, did not have the aid of modern science or anthropology. Their efforts were aimed at finding a new solution with which to repudiate the Church's answer. No doubt the philosophes believed they had arrived at the true answer, but more important they had once more shown that reason would prevail over superstition.

VI A SCIENCE O F LANGUAGE

One outstanding characteristic of the Enlightenment is the growing awareness of science. Science spread both vertically and horizontally; that is to say, more areas of study came under the realm of science and science was made accessible to more people. Fontenelle and Voltaire stand out as the two giants most involved in the popularization of science. Their aim was to make it comprehensible to a wider public. The advances of both the physical and the biological sciences during the eighteenth century resulted in an unfaltering faith in man's ability to subdue the physical universe. This faith was best manifested in the Idea of Progress which was based on the continuous development of civilization primarily through technological advancement. So great was the faith in science that man tried to bring every field of knowledge under scientific discipline. Montesquieu's Esprit des lois and Quesnay's works on economics are examples of attempts to study various aspects of the universe scientifically. It must be emphasized that during the eighteenth century science was not the highly specialized and technical discipline of the twentieth century. To the eighteenth-century amateur, a science was a field which was studied in an organized systematic manner, frequently based on nothing firmer than assumptions and reason. Facts were often secondhand or simply traditional beliefs; very little effort was made to verify them. Of course these generalizations do not apply to genuine scientists such as Lavoisier. The belief that the social universe could be reduced to scientific law in much the same way as the physical world encouraged men

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to attempt to bring every field of investigation under a scientific method. It was in this context that language too came to be studied. Modern linguists give very little credit to the eighteenthcentury attempts. They usually consider a group of students of language at the beginning of the nineteenth century as the initiators of linguistics, which was to flourish as a science during the whole century. Most modern linguists either ignore the efforts of the eighteenth century or label them as part of the prehistory of linguistics.1 Although the eighteenth century produced no real linguists in the twentieth-century sense of the word, there were serious scientific studies of language. Charles de Brosse and Court de Gébelin stand out above the rest for their work on language. Both are very much underestimated by modern linguists. The Traité de la formation mécanique des langues of Charles de Brosse is truly an early linguistic work. After a few opening chapters of a more philosophical nature, the author embarks on a step-by-step analysis of language. He begins with a chapter on articulation in which he discusses the influence of the various speech organs on sounds. He divides the consonants into groups according to the organ used in producing them, writes about consonant clusters in different positions in words and also includes chapters on accents, diphthongs and nasalization. De Brosse even proposed two different phonetic alphabets which he called 'alphabets organiques' since they were based on the human organs involved in producing sounds. The first of these alphabets was very pictorial, the second more graphic. In the second volume of this work de Brosse makes an attempt at a structural grammar. De Brosse illustrated his arguments with samples drawn from many languages. Unfortunately he selected these examples very cleverly and avoided those that might not fully fit his pattern. Furthermore, the author of this treatise chose words from languages with which he was not acquainted. Despite these facts, Kukenheim, Esquisse historique de la linguistique française. The expression "Préhistoire de la Linguistique" is the title of the section dealing with language studies from their origins to 1800. 1

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and allowing for the more philosophical aspects of language included in the work, it is difficult to deny that de Brosse's method and intentions were similar to those of modern linguists. His results were naive and inexact but the principle of systematically studying language as a mechanism was obvious in his treatise. Less than a decade later Court de Gébelin issued the first volumes of his Monde primitif. The second volume, entitled L'histoire primitive de la parole, is another serious effort at a scientific approach to language. In it Court de Gébelin deals primarily with sound changes and the biological mechanism of speech. In the first part of the book, he advocates the use of a comparative method. He realized that, in order to go back to an older language, one must compare as many related languages as possible and in this manner trace all the forms and sound changes through which this language had passed. According to this author, the three major principles of etymology are vowel changes, consonant changes and the place changes of letters in words. Using these as a point of departure, he proceeded to give numerous illustrations. Although he did not use a phonetic alphabet, he was concerned with sounds and not with orthography. This is illustrated in many of his examples: i.e. to demonstrate how Latin 'a' changed to 'ai' he used among other words 'mare' which becomes 'mer'. After he had established his rules of sound changes, Court de Gébelin concluded by writing: Ces principes ou lois ont lieu dans toutes les langues, quelles qu'elles soient et en tout temps et en tout lieu: ils sont la base de toute recherche étymologique et de toute comparaison de langue.2 The laws established by the author of the Monde primitif are primarily etymological. He did not attempt to reconstruct the syntax of an older language, only the vocabulary. These laws are not all-inclusive; yet some are still in part valid today. In other words, they are general; they do not include all the irregularities and exceptions which modern linguists have worked out in minute 2

Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 33.

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detail. Court de Gébelin's approach was scientific and he claimed that he was working in the science of language. One section of Court de Gébelin's book is devoted to a study of the physical aspects of speech. The author gives a complete explanation of the biological organs involved in speech as well as of their respective functions. He explains the process in which the diaphragm raises the rib cage, thus filling the lungs with air. The lungs he compares to bellows which release the air when the raised rib cage falls again under its own weight. The air is then forced through wind pipes and finally through the larynx in which the vocal chords are located. Court de Gébelin gives a fairly good, detailed description of this entire process, and his work is illustrated with many diagrams. In 1776 when the Histoire naturelle de la parole was re-edited as a single volume, it was accompanied by an extremely detailed colored chart of the organs of speech drawn by Dagoty. Although much more primitive and less scholarly than those of modern linguistics, the works of Court de Gébelin and Charles de Brosse were early attempts at a science of language. The Traité de la formation mécanique des langues and the Histoire naturelle de la parole are both similar in character to modern works on general linguistics. This is not to say that they compare in content or scholarliness with their followers, but basically their purpose and their approach was the same: to study language as a mechanism in a scientific manner. A study of the biological aspect of language even found its way into the Royal Academy of Sciences. In 1741 a Docteur Ferrein read a paper to the Academy in which he claimed to have proved that the voice was created by the vocal chords and not the glottis. Docteur Ferrein's intricate study of the physical aspect of the voice was based on actual experiments which he had personally conducted. He reported that he had arrived at his conclusion after blowing through the larynx first of a dog and then of a human being. He discovered thus that the vocal chords could still be activated after death. He further concluded that the pitch

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of the voice depended strictly on the tension of the vocal chords, not on the mouth or nasal cavity. One further work which deserves to be mentioned is Turgot's article "Etymologie" in the Encyclopédie. In this article Turgot established twenty rules of etymology. These rules, however, are of a more general nature and deal with a method rather than with actual sound changes. Nevertheless they do represent another attempt at scientific investigation of language. In addition to this, some authors, including Court de Gébelin and de Brosse, devoted much time to attempts to prove such things as the influence of climate on the speech organs. They also hoped to discover the first sounds made by men. These efforts (mentioned in more detail in previous chapters) were for the most part very unscientific and unsuccessful. Another problem with which modern linguists are concerned and which was already being investigated during the eighteenth century is that of the generation of languages. This sort of investigation relies heavily on a knowledge of general 'linguistics'. The men who attempted to reconstruct earlier languages usually had a motive other than that of pure scholarly curiosity; yet they tried to base their arguments on facts. These facts, needless to say, were not always very accurate. The filiation of languages is a problem which still remains unsolved by modern linguists. There are two basic answers to the question prevailing today. One sets up families of languages on neat diagrams not unlike genealogical charts. Such a chart might show, for example, how the Romance languages all descended step by step from Vulgar Latin and how Latin itself finds its origins in Indo-European. In setting up such charts, the linguists deal primarily with the parts of a language which can be related to both the parent and the derived language. Other parts are treated separately as borrowed words or structures. The effects of the external history of a language are thus not directly considered; a purely evolutionary interpretation remains the basis of this approach.

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The other solution, adhered to by scholars such as James W. Marchand, is an attempt to unite the effects of both internal and external history into one system. These men see linguistic changes as waves influenced simultaneously by all contributing factors. For example, they cannot accept the solution that French is derived from Latin. Rather they see French as a language which consists of some Latin derivations, but which also includes many linguistic factors remaining from times before the Roman invasion and others acquired through the centuries from languages with which it has come into contact.3 The problem of filiation was of great importance to the eighteenth-century authors interested in language. They saw in it a manifestation of the idea of constant natural change. This early evolutionary idea was gaining popularity during the eighteenth century. To the philosophes it was another way of refuting the orthodox viewpoint. Having shown that language found its origin in nature, they could also demonstrate how it changed naturally without the aid of any supernatural power. Success in this endeavor was another triumph of reason over superstition. To men like Poisinet de Sivry, de Crandval and Jacques le Brigand, the interest in derivation of languages was motivated by nationalistic pride. These three men wanted to prove that French was more related to Gaelic or Celtic than to Latin. They even tried to prove that Gaelic was the original language from which all others are derived. They did admit that Latin had greatly influenced the original French language, but without annihilating it completely. The invasions of the Romans and Franks were unfortunate events in history. The Gauls, however, finally rallied and expelled the Romans, while the Franks adopted almost entirely the Gaelic way of life. The nationalistic overtone of their argument is best exemplified by a short article written by de Crandval in the Mercure. He begins by glorifying the Gauls in order to demonstrate that Frenchmen could not find more illustrious ancestors than these people. The only superiority which 3

James W. Marchand, Private interview, Cornell University, February 10, 1966.

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could be attributed to the Franks and the Romans was that they were victorious. Crandval concludes this section of his article by writing: Partout où des preuves certaines ne nous montrent point de changements introduits par les Romains ou par les Francs, nous devons reconnaître dans nos lois et dans nos coutumes celles de nos premiers ayeux: règle de critique, qui eût épargné au savants bien des embarras, et tant de difficultés qu'ils n'ont fait naîtres, que parce qu'Us ont voulu puiser dans des sources étrangères nos différentes origines.4 The following section of the article is an attempt to justify his position through analyses of language. Jacques le Brigand maintained that 'Bas Breton', still spoken in France even today, is really Celtic. The interesting point about the works of all those who treated the problem of derivation is the methods they used. In all cases these men attempted either to establish fixed rules of etymology or to reconstruct a dead language by means of comparisons of several languages. They made a definite effort to approach the problem scientifically. Unfortunately they never used enough examples to succeed in their attempts and the ones which they did use were too often carefully selected in defense of a specific argument. During the eighteenth century, the idea of all languages being derived from a single parent language was dominant. The difficulty lay in deciding what the first language had been. Frain du Tremblay thought the original language had been that given to man by God at the moment of creation. A few nationalists such as those mentioned above tried hard to prove that Celtic was the mother language from which all others descended. The Président de Brosse and Court de Gébelin argued that man's first language had been a 'langage naturel'. This last supposition is completely in character with the Enlightenment concept of nature, the source from which all is derived. Only Court de Gébelin and the writers trying to establish 4

M. de Crandval, "Discours historiques sur l'origine de la langue française", Mercure de France (Paris, Juin, 1757), p. 101.

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Gaelic as the first language attempted to actually recreate the first language. Crandval and Poisinet de Sivry tried to explain that all external factors which had influenced the language should be filtered out in order to reconstruct pure Gaelic. Apart from a few word comparisons, these men depended primarily on the history of the language to prove its ancestry. They did very little work with the language itself. Court de Gébelin, however, published a dictionary of the primitive language based on certain rules and sound changes. Needless to say, he often made use of very poor assumptions as the basis for his works. He argued that all dialects of a country were daughters of that country's principal language. This language in turn was one of many daughters of another language. There could be no doubt that in spite of their differences all languages could eventually be traced back to their common origin, because "la langue primitive puisée dans la nature, ne put jamais s'anéanter en aucun lieu;..." 5 The four basic differences between languages were: pronunciation, value or meaning, composition or the way in which sounds were joined together to form words, and arrangement or order of sounds in words and of words in sentences. It was by taking these into consideration that Court de Gébelin was able to create his dictionary of the mother of all languages. He wrote: J'ai vu que toutes les langues qu'on nomme mères, n'étaient que des sœurs caractérisées par l'air de famille le plus frappant, qu'elles formaient également la Langue Primitive, ou qui toutes étaient filles de celle-ci, que cette langue se trouve dans toutes.6 What Court de Gébelin failed to do, however, was to show the intermediate steps in the process. Although he stated that each language was derived from another and ultimately from the 'Langue Primitive', he never gave a step-by-step derivation showing what languages fell between Latin and Greek and the 'Langue Primitive'. The main obstacle encountered by those who tried to recon5 6

Court de Gébelin, Histoire naturelle de la parole, p. 37. Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, Vol. I, p. 34.

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struct parent languages was their failure to establish a clear definition of a mother language. They agreed that all languages were derived from earlier ones, but failed to distinguish between the derived parts of a language and those parts borrowed through external factors. Court de Gébelin considered vocabulary the key to reconstruction. Careful analyses of words within a certain framework would reveal their ancestry. B.E.R.M. believed that the genius of a language was the all-important factor. He argued that the way in which ideas are expressed in a language never changes radically from parent to derived language. No matter how much pronunciation varies and vocabulary changes, the fanlily tie between languages was their genius. With this argument, B.E.R.M. thought he could relate French to Celtic rather than to Latin, for Celtic and French were both analogous languages. He did not, however, claim that Celtic was the original language. Turgot, Condillac and Voltaire represent the opposing school of thought. They had a holistic view of language change. To these philosophes, there had been more than one original language. Wherever men had established a society, they had developed a language. Their languages changed when nations began to come into contact with each other for any of several reasons such as commerce, conquest or transmigration. Each language borrowed so much from the others that it is now impossible to determine any one language to be the mother tongue of all others. Turgot once wrote: Presque toutes les langues sont un mélange de plusieurs langues et lorsqu'elles se mêlent, celle qui en resuite prend une partie de l'autre.7 In spite of these attempts at an organized rational approach to the problem, there were still men who defended the orthodox explanation of the multiplication of languages. The Biblical interpretation was best presented by Frain du Tremblay and B.E.R.M., the latter of whom once more based the greater part of his argument on that of the former. To B.E.R.M. the story of the Tower of Babel is upheld by historical evidence; he accepted the fact, 7

Turgot, Recherches sur les causes des progrès, Œuvres, Vol. I, p. 117.

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which he attributes to Noël Pluche, that historians had established that all humanity had at one time gathered in the Chaldaic region. According to this argument, civilization itself emerged from the Orient. A further proof of the sudden confusion of languages at the hand of God is man's commemoration of it in the name of a monument. According to B.E.R.M. Babel means confusion. Frain du Tremblay explained that God was fully in command of man. As a result, at Babel he controlled the speech organs in such a way as to force man to utter a different word from the one he had intended to pronounce. This word, of course, had the same meaning and was understood by a limited number of the men at Babel. B.E.R.M. then tried to show that the confusion of languages at Babel was a logical part of the Divine plan. God first gave man one language so that he might establish a society. Once man had understood how to achieve this end, God, whose plan was to disperse man throughout the earth in order to bring it all under His domain, confused the languages so that several groups could go forth and settle in different regions. At this point in his argument, B.E.R.M. added a few sentences which once more make the reader wonder just how sincere he was in his orthodox interpretations. According to him, the changes in language manifested by a sudden stroke of God's will were similar to changes which would have occurred naturally through time because, he writes: Dieu n'agit point contre la nature, parce qu'il ne peut agir contre ses idées éternelles et immuables qui sont les archetypes de toutes les natures. 8

With this statement B.E.R.M. had both presented the Biblical interpretation of language generation and implied an evolutionary process in the development of language. It soon becomes evident, however, that the Biblical answer to the problem is valid only up to a certain point. Frain du Tremblay himself admitted that the confusion at Babel created a certain number of languages and these languages then changed through 8

B.E.R.M., "Langue", Encyclopédie, Vol. IX, p. 256.

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time. He attributed these changes to climate, interrelationship of nations and the inconsistency of man. The latter will cause language change even under similar stable conditions. The real problem here is to decide how much of what Frain du Tremblay and B.E.R.M. wrote reflected their beliefs and how much was written to bypass the censors. Frain du Tremblay was most likely sincere in his orthodoxy while B.E.R.M. was partially unconvinced. The latter therefore used the Biblical interpretation when he had no substitute answer and occasionally added a more unorthodox idea. Although during the eighteenth century there were no scholars who devoted their entire energies to the study of language, and although those men who dealt with language did so to illustrate their philosophical systems, it cannot be denied that some of them tried to establish a science of linguistics. The works of Court de Gebelin and de Brosse stand out as genuine attempts at understanding the systems of language. These men, and especially the latter, had all the materials needed to establish this new science. Had they devoted more time to language, it is almost certain they would have arrived at a genuine science. As it was, they treated language in the scientific manner typical of the eighteenth century. They tried to study language in an organized manner based on observed facts. They failed in this attempt for several reasons. First, they never properly defined their terms or agreed on a definite set of terms and rules within which to work. Instead they all worked as individuals rather than as students of a scholarly discipline. Secondly, they worked on pre-established assumptions, such as Court de Gebelin's certitude of the existence of a primitive language. Finally, as Voltaire pointed out in an attack on de Brosse, they illustrated their arguments with selected words from languages which they really did not know. In spite of these failures and in spite of the fact that their conclusions were mainly incorrect, the idea and the method were there. It cannot be denied that these men tried to create, even if secondarily, a science of linguistics.

VII CONCLUSION

It is customary for historians of the Enlightenment to emphasize the liberalism, the religious scepticism and the optimism of that period. There can be no doubt as to the importance of these factors, which certainly characterize that century. Neither can there be any question as to the influence of such ideas on the French Revolution. The 'desertion of the intellect', as Crane Brinton called it, was the first step towards revolution. Yet one further characteristic motif is usually neglected, probably because it was not fully exposed until the middle of the next century. The idea of evolution, in a vague sense of the word, seems to dominate the Enlightenment. It was first manifested in the formulation of the Idea of Progress, which implies a development or constant change for the better in the cultural achievements of man. Later in the century, the idea of constant change was applied to the earth, to animals and human beings. Man was even considered an animal. This new manner of regarding the universe was a direct result of the influence of modern science. In less than a century, science had brought about unprecedented advances in many fields of knowledge. By the eighteenth century, man was trying to apply the new method to the investigation of all aspects of the physical, social and moral universe. The rapid increase in knowledge and understanding led men of the eighteenth century to believe that man could rely on himself rather than God to improve human existence. It was this century which initiated the concept of a man-controlled world. The liberalism and religious scepticism of

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the philosophes aimed at destroying the old orthodoxy and hastening the evolution of their culture. Their entire life work was devoted to the formation of a better future. They were trying to accelerate progress. From the Idea of Progress, Enlightenment thinkers began to develop the explicit idea of evolution. Men began to deny the Biblical account of Creation and became conscious of an evolutionary process in the history of the physical universe, especially the earth and its inhabitants. Classification of species, as in the work of Linnaeus and Buffon, revealed that man was himself an animal and therefore also involved in a process of evolution. It is in this context that the philosophes wrote about language. Language too had undergone gradual change; language too was to be studied scientifically. For the first time in Western Christendom, language was presented as a man-made phenomenon. Language was of the utmost importance to the Idea of Progress itself. Progress depends on an accumulation of knowledge passed on from one generation to the next. This transmission of knowledge is entirely dependent on language. If the philosophes expected their ideas to remain alive for posterity, they needed a language precise enough to accomplish this as well as to facilitate the formation of new ideas. In brief, language was the vessel of progress. Condillac showed how ideas could be developed in a passive mind through use of signs; Turgot showed how important language was to the proliferation of knowledge. Condorcet emphasized that language developed in response to the increasing complexity of community life and was necessary for the progress of society. Language was of first importance to those who began to develop the evolutionary idea and classified man as an animal. It was one of the factors with which they were able to explain man's domination of other species. Through the study of language the eighteenth-century thinkers hoped to retrace the history of mankind. The influence of the eighteenth-century authors who wrote on language was immediately felt in the works of philosophers of

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other countries. Two excellent examples are the works of Lord Monboddo of Scotland and those of Johann Gottfried Herder of Germany. Both men wrote during the second half of the eighteenth century. James Burnet, Lord Monboddo, started with Rousseau's concept of man's creation in a state of nature and his enjoyment of the same existence as his fellow creatures. Language, according to Monboddo, is an invention of man not intended by his Creator. Like Rousseau, this philosopher thought that man had regressed in his formation of society; he was no longer the natural being that he was intended to be. Johann Gottfried Herder, unlike the philosophes, still considered language a Divine gift to mankind. However, Herder believed that language alone gave man his superiority over other animals. Language was the key to reason; without it man could not exercise his superiority. In direct opposition to Diderot, Herder tried to prove this assumption by claiming that mute people could not produce reasonable ideas even with the use of signs. Herder implied, as did Rousseau, that language conditioned man's reasoning. Like most of the French authors, Herder thought that the progress of man, his art, his science, his ideas and his passions could be traced through the study of language. Even if he claimed Divine origin for language, he gave man credit for developing it. Like Rousseau, he could not discard God from the story of language. Perhaps the ultimate recognition of the philosophes' work came from one of their own countrymen, the great chemist Antoine Lavoisier. Among Lavoisier's many contributions to chemistry was a substantial improvement in terminology and notation. The introduction of his Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789) was an appeal for language reform in his science. Taking his cue directly from Condillac, Lavoisier emphasized the need for more precise terminology in the field of chemistry if it was to progress. He set an example by establishing certain reforms which he used in his treatise. In addition to its importance for eighteenth-century thought,

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the study of language left its traces also in the following centuries. It is this new approach to language which led ultimately to the science of language known today as linguistics. Although most modern linguists do not recognize the efforts of the eighteenth century as being within the realm of a science of language, they still discuss some of the philosophes' ideas. We find early linguists discussing what are now referred to as the Bow-wow and Poohpooh theories of the origins of language. The Bow-wow or onomatopoetic theory, which finds the origins of words in imitations of the sounds of nature, is a mere repetition of the ideas of Turgot and de Brosse. The Pooh-pooh theory, which states that man's first words were interjections in the presence of certain external stimuli, is a reiteration of Rousseau's 'cris de la nature'. Although the eighteenth-century philosophes never approximated the sophistication of modern linguists, they had already discussed such ideas as the comparative method, structural grammar and phonemes. A t the very least, they should be given credit for laying the groundwork upon which modern linguistics thrives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES: Bacon, Francis, Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum (New York, 1899). Batteux, Charles, Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe (Paris, 1746). Buffon, George Louis Ledere, Compte de, Œuvres complètes, ed. J. L. de Lanessan. 19 vols. (Paris, 1884), Vols. I and X. Condillac, Etienne Bonnôt de, Œuvres, ed. Houel (Paris, 1798). Œuvres philosophiques, ed. George LeRoy, 3 vols. (Paris, 1947), Vol. I. Condorcet, Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de, Œuvres, ed. A. C. O'Connor and F. Arago, 12 vols. (Paris, 1847-49). Court de Gébelin, Antoine, Histoire naturelle de la parole (Paris, 1776). Monde primitif analisé et comparé avec le monde moderne, considéré dans son génie allégorique et dans les allégorie aux quelles conduisit ce génie, ed. Durand, 9 vols. (Paris, 1787). D'Alembert, Jean le Rond, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, eds. and trans. Richard N. Schwab and Walter E. Rex (New York, 1963). Danet, Pierre, Grand dictionnaire françois et latin (Lyon, 1737). De Brosse, Charles, Traité de la formation mécanique des langues et des principes physiques de l'étymologie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1801). De Crandval, M., Discours historique sur l'origine de la langue françoise, Mercure de France (June, 1757). Diderot, Denis, Œuvres complètes, eds. J. Assézat and M. Tourneux, 20 vols. (Paris, 1875-77), Vols. I, II, VI, VII, VUI, X, XI, XII, and XVIII. Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisoné des sciences, des arts, et des metiers, ed. Diderot and d'Alembert, 35 vols. (Paris, 1751 ff.), Vols. VII, V m , and IX. Ferrein, M., "De la formation de la voix de l'homme", Memoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Vol. 57 (1741). Frain du Tremblay, Jean, Traité des langues (Amsterdam, 1709). Grimm, Friedrich, Correspondance littéraire philosophique et critique, 16 vols. (Paris, 1812-13). Helvétius, Claude, De l'esprit, Œuvres complètes, Vol. I (Paris, 1795).

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Herder, Johann Gottfried von, Idées sur la philosophie de l'histoire de l'humanité, trans. Edgar Quinet (Paris, 1834), Vols. I and II. La Chapelle, Jean Baptiste de, L'art de communiquer ses idées (London, 1763). La Mettrie, L'homme machine, ed. Aram Vartanian (Princeton, 1960). LeBrigand, Jacques, Observation fondamentales sur les langues anciennes et modernes (Paris, 1787). Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, ed. and trans. Alfred Gideon Langley (New York, 1896). Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The Philosophical Works of John Locke, ed. J. A. St. John, Vol. II (London, 1906). Mandeville, Bernard, The Fable of the Bees, ed. Irwin Primer (New York, 1962). Maupertuis, Reflexions philosophiques sur l'origine des langues et la signification de mots. Les œuvres de Maupertuis (Dresden, 1752). Michaelis, Johan David, A Dissertation on the Influence of Opinions on Language, and of Language on Opinions (London, 1769). Morellet, André, Melanges de littérature et de philosophie du ISème siècle (Paris, 1818). Poisinet de Sivry, Louis, Origines des premières société des peuples des sciences, des arts, et des idiomes anciens et modernes (Amsterdam, 1770). Rivarol, Antoine, De l'universalité de la langue française, ed. Th. Suran (Paris, 1930). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Œuvres complètes de 1. J. Rousseau citoyen de Genève (Paris, 1826). Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques, Etymologie, ed. Maurice Piron (Bruge, 1961). Œuvres complètes de Turgot et documents le concernant, ed. Gustave Schelle, 5 vols. (Paris, 1913). Voltaire, F. M. A., Correspondance de Voltaire, ed. T. Besterman, 59 vols. (Geneva, 1953-65), Vols. XLI and XLV. Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 52 vols. (Paris, 1878-1883), Vols. XI, XVII, and XIX. SECONDARY SOURCES: Anderson, Fulton H., Francis Bacon, his Career and his Thought (University of Southern California Press, 1962). Bury, J. B., The Idea of Progress (New York, 1955). Claparède, Edouard, Rousseau et l'origine des langues, Annales JeanJacques Rousseau (Geneva, 1935). Frankel, Charles, The Faith of Reason (New York, 1948). Greene, John C., The Death of Adam (New York, 1961). Harnois, Guy, Les théories du langage en France 1660 à 1821 (Paris, 1929). Knight, William, Lord Monboddo and Some of his Contemporaries (London, 1900). Kuehner, Paul, Theories on the Origin and Formation of Language in the Eighteenth Century in France (Philadelphia, 1944).

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107

Kukenheim, Louis, Esquisse de la linguistique française et de ses rapports avec la linguistique générale (Leiden, 1962). Manuel, Frank E., The Prophets of Paris (New York, 1965). Morel, Jean, Recherches sur les sources du discours de l'inégalité, Annales Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Geneva, 1909). Smith, Preserved, A History of Modem Culture. The Enlightenment 16871776, Vol. II (New York, 1962).

CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR WORKS CITED

1703 1746-54 1747 cl749 1750 1751 1754 1756 1758 1761 1765 1767 1769 1775 1782 1793 1798

Frain du Tremblay, Traité des langues. Condillac, Essai sur l'origine des connaissances. La Mettrie, L'homme machine. Maupertuis, Réflexions philosophiques sur l'origine des langues. Turgot, Remarques critiques sur les réflexions de Maupertuis. Turgot, Tableau philosophique des progrès successifs de l'esprit humain. Turgot, Plan du second discours sur les progrès de l'esprit humain. Turgot, Réflexions sur les langues. Diderot, Lettre sur les sourds et muets. Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité. Turgot, "Etymologie". Diderot, Discours sur la poésie dramatique. B.E.R.M., "Langue". De Brosse, Mécanique des langues. Voltaire, "Langues". Diderot, Rêve et entretien de d'Alembert. Condillac, Cours d'étude. Rousseau, Essai sur l'origine des langues (posthumous). Condorcet, Esquisse. Condillac, La langue des calculs (posthumous).

INDEX

Académie, criticism of, 81-2 Annales Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 12-13 Arago, H. F., 25 Arbuthbot, John, 78 Arnauld, Antoine, 13-14 Assézat, J., 46 Atlantide, 63 Bacon, Francis, 16 Beauzée, 23 B. E. R. M., 23, 28-30, 33-6, 38, 40, 42-3, 51, 58, 79, 83-5, 98-100 Besterman, T., 74 Brinton, Crane, 101 Buffon, George Louis Leclerc, Compte de, 38, 43, 76, 87-8, 102 Bury, J. B., 59-60 Celts, 36-7, 95-6, 98 Chevalier de Jaucourt, 28, 34, 58, 64, 69, 80 Claparède, Edouard, 12-13 climate, 26, 34, 78-80, 94, 100 Condillac, Etienne Bonnôt de, 13, 15, 19-21, 23, 28-31, 33-4, 36-9, 41-3, 45-51, 54-7, 63-6, 69, 72-4, 85-6, 98, 102-3 Condorcet, Antoine Nicolas Caritat, 25, 49-50, 57-8, 60, 62-3, 66-7, 71-2, 76, 88, 102 Cours tf etude pour l'instruction du Prince de Parme, 37, 42, 48-9, 65 Court de Gebelin, Antoine, 22, 28,

35-7, 42, 48, 53, 61, 63, 68, 70, 75, 79, 86-7, 91-4, 96-8, 100 'cris de la nature', 47-8, 104 Dagoty, 93 D'Alembert, Jean-le-Rond, 23, 28, 34 The Death of Adam, 77 De Brosse, Charles, 11, 15, 22, 27-8, 31-2, 34, 36-7, 42-3, 46, 61-2, 71, 79-81, 91-4, 96, 100, 104 De Crandval, M., 95-7 De la poésie dramatique, 46 De l'esprit, 55 De l'universalité de la langue française, 15 Descartes, 38, 56, 59 De Tovazzi, Deodate, 74, 81 Dictionnaire philosophique, 15, 28, 37, 43, 46, 53, 68, 84 Diderot, Denis, 33-5, 46, 51-6, 63-4, 69-70, 83-6, 103 Discours préliminaire, 23 Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, 15, 24, 27, 39-40, 47 Douchet, 23 Dumarsais, 14 Emile, 32, 82, 84 empiricists, 29, 36, 41-3, 45 Encyclopédie, 15, 23, 29, 33-5, 40, 51, 58, 64, 69, 79-80, 94, 99 L'esprit des lois, 78, 90 Esquisse d'un tableau historique

110

INDEX

des progrès des l'esprit humain, 25, 49, 62, 71, 76 Esquisse historique de la linguistique française, 36, 82, 91 Essa/ l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, 21, 29, 41 Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines, 15, 21, 34, 41, 47-8, 65, 73-4 Essai sur l'origine des langues, 24, 27, 67, 72, 82 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 17-18 Essay on the Dignity and the Advancement of Learning, 16 Etymologie, 75 evolution, 44, 60, 76-7, 86, 94-5, 99, 101-2 Fable of the Bees, 19-20 The Faith of Reason, 44 Falconet, 55, 64 Ferrein, Docteur, 93 filiation, 94-5 Fontenelle, 21, 59, 90 Frain du Tremblay, Jean, 15, 30, 34, 78, 96, 98-100 Frankel, Charles, 44 French Revolution, 101 Gamier, 28 geniuses, 65-6, 71-5, 81 Grammaire de Port-Royal, 16 Gravina, 81 Greene, John C., 77 Guyot, 82

13-14,

Harnois, Guy, 13, 45 Helvetius, Claude, 54-5, 58 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 103 Herodotus, 82 hieroglyphics, 70-1 Hippocratus, 78 Histoire naturelle de la parole, 22, 28, 35, 63, 68, 87, 92-3, 97 Histoire primitive de la parole, 92 A History of Modem Culture, 56

L'homme machine, 87 Houel, 31 The Idea of Progress, 59 The Influence of Air on Human Bodies, 78 inversions, 52-3 Jacques le fataliste, 56 Kuehner, Paul, 12, 14, 17, 19 Kukenheim, Louis, 12, 36, 82, 91 La Chapelle, Jean Baptiste de, 57 Lamarck, 76-7 La Mettrie, Julian Offray de, 87-8 La Mettrie's l'Homme Machine, 87 Lancelot, Claude, 13 'langage d'action', 33, 37, 39, 41-2, 48, 69 'langage naturel', 96 Langley, Alfred Gideon, 19 language, analogous, 38, 51; transpositive, 38, 51; genius of, 74, 83-4, 98 La langue des calculs, 31, 64-5, 73 'langue primitive', 97 Lavoisier, Antoine, 90, 103 Le Brigand, jacques, 95-6 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 16, 18-19, 56, 87 Le Roy, George, 34, 37 Lettre sur les sourds et muets, 53, 70, 85 linguistics, 93, 95, 100, 104 linguists, 91-2, 94 Linnaeus, 76, 102 Locke, John, 16-19 Louis XIV, 11 Mandeville, Bernard, 19-20 Manuel, Frank E., 61 Marchand, James W., 95 Maupertius, 15, 40, 45, 49 Mécanique des langues, 28, 32, 46, 62, 79, 81 Monboddo, James Burnet, Lord, 88, 103

INDEX

Monde primitif, 48, 61, 63, 70, 92, 97 Montesquieu, 78, 80, 90 Morel, Jean, 13 Morellet, 64 'natural language', 33-6 New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 18-19 Newton, Isaac, 11, 60, 73 Novum Organum, 16 O'Connor, A. C., 25 onomatopoetic words, 39 L'origine des fables, 21 Origines des premières sociétés, 21, 36 Parma, Prince of, 15 Pensees détachées sur la peinture, 54 philosophes, 11-17, 20-2, 27, 30, 33, 38-9, 44-5, 52, 63, 68, 72, 75, 77, 80-2, 84-7, 89, 95, 98, 102^1 The Philosophical Works of John Locke, 17 Piron, Maurice, 23, 75 Plan du discours sur les progrès de l'esprit humain, 49 Pluche, Noël, 99 Poinset de Sivry, 21, 36-7, 95, 97 Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, 23, 28 Primer, Irwin, 20 progress, idea of, 14, 59-77, 90, 101-2; relationship to language, 15 The Prophets of Paris, 61 Prussian Royal Academy, 15 Quesnay, 90 Recherches sur les causes des progrès, 71, 73, 98 Réflexions sur les langues, 50, 61 Remarques critiques sur les reflexions philosophiques de

111

Maupertius, 38, 68 Reve de d'Alembert, 55 Rex, Walter E., 23 Rivarol, Antoine, 15, 51 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 13, 15, 20-2, 24-7, 29-30, 32-42, 47-9, 53, 66-7, 71-2, 75, 79-84, 88, 103-4 Royal Academy of Sciences, 93 Schelle, Gustave, 38 Schwab, Richard N., 23 sensationalists, 14, 19 sensations, 31, 38, 40-1, 43-4, 46, 49-50, 53, 69, 87 Smith, Preserved, 56-7, 59 Social Contract, 82 St. John, J. A., 17 Swift, Jonathan, 59 Tableau philosophique des progrès successifs de l'esprit humain, 68, 75 Templeton, William, 59 Les théories du langage en France de 1660 à 1821, 13, 45 Theories of the Origins and Formation of Language in the eighteenth Century in France, 12, 14 Tournex, M., 46 Traité de la formation mécanique des langues et des principes physiques de l'etymologie, 22, 43, 61,91,93 Traité des langues, 30, 78 Traité élémentaire de chimie, 103 Turgot, 13, 15, 23, 31, 38-40, 42, 49-50, 53, 55, 60-1, 68, 71-5, 94, 98, 102, 104 Vartanian, Aram, 87 Voltaire, 15, 23, 28, 30, 37, 43, 46, 53, 60, 67-8, 74, 81-6, 90, 98, 100 Wilkins, John, 56

JANUA

LINGUARUM

STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WUK DEDICATA Edited by C. H. van Schooneveld SERIES MINOR 1.

Fundamentals of Language. Gld. 8.— EMIL PETROVICI: Kann das Phonemsystem einer Sprache durch fremden Einfluss umgestaltet werden? Zum slavischen Einfluss auf das rumänische Lautsystem. 1957. 44 pp. Gld. 5.— NOAM CHOMSKY: Syntactic Structures. Eighth printing. 1969. 117 pp. Gld. 8 — N. VAN WIJK: Die baltischen und slavischen Akzent- und Intonationssysteme: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der baltisch-slavischen Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse. 2nd ed. 1958. 160 pp. Gld. 19.— AERT H. KUIPERS: Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe). 1960. 124 pp. Gld. 2 0 — A. ROSETIT: Sur la théorie de la syllabe. Deuxième édition, refondue et augmentée. 1963. 43 pp. Gld. 9.50 DWIGHT L. BOLINGER: Generality, Gradience, and the All-or-None. 1961. 46 pp. Gld. 7 — WALERIAN SWIECZKOWSKI: Word Order Patterning in Middle English: A quantitative study based on Piers Plowman and Middle English Sermons. 1962. 114 pp. Gld. 2 0 — FINNGEIR HIORTH: Zur formalen Charakterisierung des Satzes. 1962. 152 pp. Gld. 19— E. F . HADEN, M. s. HAN, and Y. w. HAN: A Resonance Theory for Linguistics. 1962. 51 pp. Gld. 9 — SAMUEL R. LEVIN: Linguistic Structures in Poetry. Second printing. 1964. 64 pp. Gld. 9.50 IVAN FONÂGY: Die Metaphern in der Phonetik: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des wissenschaftlichen Denkens. 1963. 132 pp., 5 figs. Gld. 18— H. MOL: Fundamentals of Phonetics, I: The Organ of Hearing. 1963. 70 pp., 28 figs. Gld. 11 — PUNYA SLOKA RAY: Language Standardization: Studies in Prescriptive Linguistics. 1963. 159 pp. Gld. 20.— GEORGES MOUNIN: La machine à traduire: Histoire des problèmes linguistiques. 1964. 209 pp. Gld. 3 2 — ROBERT E. LONGACRE: Grammar Discovery Procedure: A Field Manual. 1964. 162 pp. Gld. 12— SEYMOUR CHATMAN: A Theory of Meter. 1965. 229 pp., many graphs, 2 plates. Gld. 23.— ROMAN JAKOBSON

1956. 97 pp.

3. 4. 5. 8.

9. 14. 19. 20. 22. 23. 25. 26. 29. 32. 33. 36.

and

MORRXS HALLE:

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 49. 50. 51. 52. 54. 55. 56. 58. 59. 60. 62.

Syntactic Translation. 1965. 162 pp., 58 figs. Gld. 2 3 — NOAM CHOMSKY: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 1964. 119 pp. Gld. 12— D. CRYSTAL and R. QUIRK: Systems of Prosodic and Paralinguistic Features in English. 1964. 94 pp., 16 plates. Gld. 14— FERENC PAPP: Mathematical Linguistics in the Soviet Union. 1966. 165 pp. Gld. 2 4 — s. K. SAUMJAN: Problems of Theoretical Phonology. 1968. 224 pp. figs. Gld. 2 6 — ISTVAN FODOR: The Rate of Linguistic Change: Limits of the Application of Mathematical Methods in Linguistics. 1965. 85 pp. some figs. Gld. 13.— THEODORE M. DRANGE: Type Crossings: Sentential Meaninglessness in the Border Area of Linguistics and Philosophy. 1966. 218 pp. Gld. 2 3 — WARREN H. FAY: Temporal Sequence in the Perception of Speech. 1966.126 pp., 29 figs. Gld. 19.50 A. CAPELL: Studies in Socio-Linguistics, 1966. 167 pp., 2 tables. Gld. 2 2 — BOWMAN CLARKE: Language and Natural Theology. 1966. 181 pp. Gld. 2 6 — SAMUEL ABRAHAM and FERENC KIEFER: A Theory of Structural Semantics. 1966. 98 pp., 20 figs. Gld. 15.— ROBERT j. SCHOLES: Phonotactic Grammatically. 1966. 117 pp., many figs. Gld. 15.— HOWARD R. POLLIO: The Structural Basis of Word Association Behavior. 1966. 96 pp., 4 folding tables, 8 pp. graphs, figs. Gld. 16.— JEFFREY ELLIS: Towards a General Comparative Linguistics. 1966. 170 pp. Gld. 2 2 — RANDOLPH QUIRK and JAN SVARTVIK: Investigating Linguistic Acceptability. 1966. 118 pp., 14 figs., 4 tables. Gld. 15— THOMAS A. SEBEOK (ED.): Selected Writings of Gyula Laziczius. 1966. 226 pp. Gld. 2 6 — NOAM CHOMSKY: Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar. 1966. 96 pp. Gld. 12— LOUIS G. HELLER and JAMES MACRIS: Parametric Linguistics. 1967. 80 pp., 23 tables. Gld. 10— JOSEPH H. GREENBERG: Language Universals: With Special Reference to Feature Hierarchies. 1966. 89 pp. Gld. 18.— CHARLES F . HOCKETT: Language, Mathematics, and Linguistics. 1967. 244 pp., figs. Gld. 21 — B. USPENSKY: Principles of Structural Typology. 1968. 80 pp. Gld. 14— WAYNE TOSH:

63. v. z. PANFILOV: Grammar and Logic. 1968. 106 pp. Gld. 16.— 64. JAMES c. MORRISON: Meaning and Truth in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. 1968. 148 pp. Gld. 18— 65. ROGER L. BROWN: Wilhelm von Humboldt's Conception of Linguistic Relativity. 1967. 132 pp. Gld. 16.— 66. EUGENE j. BRIERE: A Psycholinguistic Study of Phonological Interference. 1968. 84 pp. Gld. 12— 67. ROBERT L. MILLER: The Linguistic Relativity Principle and New Humboldtian Ethnolinguistics: A History and Appraisal. 1968. 127 pp. Gld. 16— 69. i. M. SCHLESINGER: Sentence Structure and the Reading Process. 1968. 172 pp. Gld. 18— 70. A. ORTIZ and E. ZIERER: Set Theory and Linguistics. 1968. 64 pp. Gld. 10— 71. HANS-HEINRICH LIEB: Communication Complexes and Their Stages. 1968. 140 pp. Gld. 17— 72. ROMAN JAKOBSON: Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals. 1968. 104 pp. Gld. 12— 73. CHARLES F . HOCKETT: The State of the Art. 1968. 124 pp. Gld. 14— 74. A. JUILLAND and HANS-HEINRICH LIEB: "Klasse" und "Klassifikation" in der Sprachwissenschaft. 1968. 75 pp. Gld. 13.— 75. jifti KRÄMSKY: The Word as a Linguistic Unit. 82 pp. Gld. 12.— 76. URSULA OOMEN: Automatische Syntaktische Analyse. 1968. 84 pp. Gld. 16— 80. JON WHEATLEY: Language and Rules. 1970. 113 pp. Gld. 14.— 82. RICHARD L. VENEZKY: The Structure of English Orthography. 1970. 162 pp. Gld. 17— 84. RITA NOLAN: Foundations for an Adequate Criterion of Paraphrase. 1970. 96 pp. Gld. I 4 86. SIDNEY GREENBAUM: Verb-Intensifier Collocations in English: An Experimental Approach. 1970. Gld. 14.—

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