Page:On the Stratification of Language - Muller - 1868.djvu/11

6 we have, at the present day, at least 100,000 words, arranged as on the shelves of a Museum, in the pages of Johnson and Webster. But these 100,000 words represent only the best grains that have remained in the sieve, while clouds of chaff have been winnowed off, and while many a valuable grain too has been lost by mere carelessness. If we counted the wealth of English dialects, and if we added the treasures of the ancient language from Alfred to Wycliffe, we should easily double the herbarium of the linguistic flora of England. And what are these Western Isles as compared to Europe; and what is Europe, a mere promontory, as compared to the vast continent of Asia; and what again is Asia, as compared to the whole inhabitable world? But there is no corner of that world that is not full of language: the very desert and the isles of the sea teem with dialects, and the more we recede from the centres of civilisation, the larger the number of independent languages, springing up in every valley, and overshadowing the smallest island.

We are bewildered by the variety of plants, of birds, and fishes, and insects, scattered with lavish prodigality over land and sea;—but what is the living wealth of that Fauna as compared to the winged words which fill the air with unceasing music! What are the scanty relics of fossil plants and animals, compared to the storehouse of what we call the dead languages! How then can we explain it that for centuries and centuries, while collecting beasts, and birds, and fishes, and