Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/856

834 precedes their introduction, while in the argot the birth of a new word is a chance. Thus in the last three years there have been three different words for watch—super, thimble, and yellow and white—each of which was, in its turn, the only term used.

Every writer on the subject has noticed that the argot is very rich in expressions to denote certain common actions. This is a peculiarity shared by all primitive languages, the only difference being in the selection of the common acts. Thus in Sanskrit there are nearly one hundred roots which express the idea of killing or wounding, without counting secondary derivations. Some of these roots are embodied in our language to-day. In the dialect of the thieves there are nearly one hundred expressions to signify theft. It was necessary for the pickpocket to describe the various pockets in a man's clothing and in a woman's dress. The average man does not often need to specify a particular pocket; when he does, he lays his hand on it to assist the poverty of his language; the thief has a separate name for each separate pocket.

It is a curious and instructive study, full of interest to the metaphysician, the philosopher, or the scientist.

But in spite of this richness in synonyms, which is in itself a very marked sign of degeneracy, for the tendency of a language is to eliminate its synonyms, giving to each a different shade of meaning, the argot is a poor language. It has not a single expression for abstract emotion; to attempt to render a philosophic thought, a moral emotion, a synthetic or æsthetic idea into the dialect of the thief would be like attempting to translate "electricity" or "steam engine" into Latin. It is impossible, because the words do not exist. They are not needed. The criminal has no more conception of abstract emotion than a blind man has of color.

A fact which does seem to ally the argot to a primitive language is its ability to form additional words from its own resources, a power of self-development which we find in the old Anglo-Saxon and especially in the German of to-day. This trait is the more striking, as it seems in direct contradiction to the impotence of the English language in this respect. The English has little formative power; it relies on the Greek and Latin languages for the extension of its vocabulary.

Dr. Laurent states, in his work on the French criminal, that some authors have claimed that the slang of the criminal was a kind of international language for thieves, a Volapük of crime. It is unfortunate that the names of these authors were not given. Were it not for the reputation of the learned doctor it might be suspected that he was creating men of straw that he might