Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/37

Rh East Bengal may to a great extent be explained by climatic conditions as well as by the social life of ease or difficulty; but the influence of the tribes of different localities among whom the speakers of the Bengali language had to place themselves, must not be either minimised or ignored. It should be remembered that a man of the so-called Aryan descent may lose the power of uttering such sounds as are generated, for example, by "sh" or "bh" because of the dominant environing influence of the people of other races. That the disability is not organic and cannot invariably be considered to be a racial characteristic has been partly demonstrated.

It is desirable, that I should here clearly define what I mean by a racial character of speech.

All phonetic or linguistic peculiarities that mark off one race or stock from another are not necessarily racial characters in the scientific sense of the term. By a primary racial character I mean only such of the linguistic peculiarities, or marks of a people as have an organic or physical basis in the cerebral or vocal mechanism and as are also transmitted from parent to offspring under the operation of the principles of Heredity and Variation. The capacity for speech, for example, is such a primary character for the human race. But I am free to admit that over and above such hereditary organic characters, there are secondary characters of speech, racial peculiarities, which, though not embedded in the physical conformation, are accompanied by what Wundt has called inheritable predisposition and which, therefore, appear in individuals from generation to generation under the normal conditions of existence though, no doubt, in the absence of suitable stimulus or under very marked changes of environment they do not persist but give place to acquired or induced variations. I am inclined to think that the forms and