Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/535

Rh Persians, and Indians. He retraced their manner of life, and, although they left no historical data, he has shown almost in detail the point of civilization at which they had arrived.

I cannot, you know, enter into details relative to this science, at once so recent and already so immense that it has been called comparative linguistic science. I can only indicate the great divisions, because, perhaps I shall, by-and-by, have to refer to them.

All the languages spoken on the surface of the earth have been divided into three fundamental groups; these are the monosyllabic languages, the agglutinative languages, and the flexible languages.

The monosyllabic languages are the most imperfect. Each of their words consists of one syllable. As an example, I will name the Chinese, which is a monosyllabic language, par excellence. In this language each word presents itself with a sense perfectly absolute, and the delicacies of our language, even the distinctions of time, of place, of going, of coming, etc., can be translated only by a kind of paraphrase.

The agglutinative tongues form the second stage of language; here there are words, placed after the fundamental conception, which serve to modify the primitive sense—roots, to employ the expression in use. As examples of agglutinative languages, I will name the negro languages, and those spoken by yellow people, and also by very small numbers of white people.

Finally, the highest development of language is that of flexible language, so named because, by simple changes in the termination of a word, we can change and modify the absolute sense, and make it express divers shades of meaning, thus: I speak now; I shall speak to-morrow. Almost all the white races speak flexible languages.

II. Writing.—Speech is evidently the first element in the formation of societies; writing is the most essential element of the progress of these societies. It is speech fixed. This alone permits the transmission of the results of our efforts to the most distant descendants—of the accumulation of the treasures that each generation has separately acquired. I should like to dwell upon its history; but I should be drawn too far, and so, for writing as for language, I can only indicate a few facts.

Almost with the lowest savages we find means to aid the memory, and serve as souvenirs of events to which more or less importance is attached. These are called mnemonic signs. They are sometimes stones, sometimes pieces of wood shaped in divers ways. A mode of appeal to the memory, found in both the Old and the New World, consists in uniting packages of strings of different colors, on which are made knots of divers forms. These are called quippus. Ton make, so to speak, a quippu every time you tie a knot in your handkerchief to enable you to recall something.

Picturing objects, men, events, in a more or less faithful manner,