Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/114

104 love; sèvinmèk, to love one's self; and so on, in which the derivative elements indicate, in the various forms, negation, causation, the reflexive quality, and other ideas, which in our language have to be expressed by separate words.

The larger number of languages are in the secondary or agglutinative stage. Among them are the negro, Malay, Polynesian, Dravidian, Altaic, Basque, and American languages or families of languages. But community of structure is no sign of relationship; it only indicates that two or more languages are in the same stage of evolution.

Some languages have made but little progress in agglutination, while others have advanced a great way in it. Some of the Western African negro languages still use, with agglutinative forms, processes that appertain to the monosyllabic structure. These are not cases of return to ancient forms, but are survivals of ancient forms in the midst of more complex formations. Some idioms, also, perpetually betray the evidences of the passage from monosyllablism to agglutination. Such languages have no literary value, and are not at all prominent; but they are like those obscure vegetable or animal species which are frequently richer in facts for the botanist or zoologist than other species that are usually esteemed much more useful or beautiful.

It is not quite so easy to explain the phenomena of the evolution from agglutination to flexion. The principle by which the evolution takes place is that of a phonic modification of the root. In the Indo-European languages, among which are included the Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, etc., evolution took place, according to M. Victor Henry, not only in this way, but by an agglutination of infixes also. But this point is not yet cleared up.

If we consider the ancient languages of the Indo-European family—Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin—we shall find that they are in different degrees synthetic; while, if we examine the characters of the modern branches of the family, we shall discover that they are analytical. This effect is the work of linguistic decadence, which has been less rapid in the Slavic languages than in the Germanic, in the Germanic than in the Romanic languages.

This decadence, which constitutes a new phase of evolution, is not brought about by chance. Regarding it phonetically, we see in it the results of the least effort. Diphthongs are condensed, as when in Latin veicos and deivos become vicus and deus. Assimilation takes place among the consonants, as when noctem, night, becomes notte, or septem, seven, sette, or when the earlier s-sound is softened into a simple aspirate. A considerable number of phonetic variations, which baffle persons not familiar with linguistic studies, are justified by comparison with other words.

Grammatical decadence also corresponds with a simplification. The