Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/243

SECT. VI.] INDIAN LANGUAGES. 207 advanced state of civilization. Notwithstanding the great progress of knowledge during the last four centuries, though new words have been introduced and others become obsolete, though languages have been polished and adorned, the grammatical forms remain the same as they were four hundred years ago, and have been found sufficient for the communication of new ideas and of all that may have been added to our knowledge. The most uneducated men, those who in Europe speak only patois of the written language, deviate from the established rules of grammar, but use grammatical forms to the same extent as the best masters of the language. It seems indeed obvious, that the tendency of a written language is to give it stability, rather than to change its nature; and I believe that experience shows, that the changes have everywhere applied much more to words than to grammar.

Although we cannot say, why or how it happened, that the relations existing between things and actions, the qualifications of the things, and the modifications of the action were expressed, in some languages by new words invented for that special purpose, and in others by changes of termination, insertion of abbreviated particles or words compounded in different ways, we easily understand how the principle, which was once introduced, must gradually have extended its influence over the whole language. Analogy is sufficient to explain all the phenomena, after an innovation suggested by necessity had been generally adopted; and there is no difficulty in conceiving, how a peculiar character was thus impressed on each language from its earliest formation.

Every innovation in language must, in the first instance, have been the work of some one individual, to whom it was suggested by the necessity of finding some new means in order to render himself intelligible. After names, till then inflexible, had been given to visible objects, and to the generality of actions, the man, who first thought of expressing the qualification or modification of either, or their relation, by a mere variation in the word, was an inventor. It is very natural to suppose, that that variation consisted at first in blending together two words, either entire or abbreviated. But, whatever the process may have been, the inventors were not philosophers. The invention was suggested by necessity, adopted on account of its convenience and utility, and extended to similar cases by analogy. The inventors, and those who adopted the innovation, were equally