dunbar03
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Essay III

Of the Criterion of a Polished Tongue

The connexion of language and manners is an obvious connexion. They run parallel with each other, through different periods of their progress. Yet language, from various causes, may arrive at a pitch of refinement, unauthorised by the tone of public manners. And, on the other hand, public manners may acquire a superior cast of refinement, which the language alone would not authorise us to expect.

So various and equivocal are the marks either of rudeness or refinement in the language and manners of a people, that to form, on such subjects, a consistent theory, is no easy talk. In both cases, however, a man of taste and observation must feel and recognize distinctions, though he were unable to specify them, or to assign with precision the laws by which they are governed.

We have attempted to approach the common fountain of all languages, but pretend not to pursue the meanders of their course.

Articulation, if not an universal attribute of human speech, is an excellence at which it soon arrives.[A] Of rudeness, therefore, or refinement, this particular can form no criterion. Language too, in both extremes may be subjected to rules of syntax nearly similar; and by consequence the principles of grammar will not carry us far into the origin of these distinctions. Is there an appeal to the ear? some distinction is perceived, and a rougher tone and cadence are found to correspond best with the temper and manners of Barbarians.

At first perspicuity is chiefly or alone regarded. Nothing conducive to that end is offensive to the organ; but afterwards perspicuity is in part sacrificed to ornament. Some indulgence is shewn to the ear; and its perceptions acquire refinement, as well as all our other perceptions. Hence arises, by insensible gradations, a new system of sounds.

Words fluctuate with the modes of life. They are varied, or exterminated as harsh and dissonant, upon the same principle that any mode or fashion is varied or exterminated as rude and vulgar. And the prevalence of this principle ultimately tends to establishment of a general distinction. Hence the smoothness of the Ionic dialect, rather than the roughness of the Doric, recommends itself to a polished age.

Peter the Great considered the German as a smooth and harmonious tongue, and ordered it as such to be used at court. In proportion as the court of Petersburgh became more polished, the German was discarded, and the French substituted in its room.

In general the superior refinement of the French established its currency in all the politer circles of the North of Europe. And upon the same principle the Greek, which had no charms for the Romans in the ruder ages of the republic, ravished the ears of imperial Rome.

Hoc sermone pavent; hoc iram, gaudia, curas,

Hoc cuncta essundunt anime secreta.

Juv. Sat. vi.

In the production of the sounds of language, climate [B] is concerned, as well as the degrees of civilization. But this natural cause operating upon manners also, and through that medium upon speech, its direct and simple influence upon the organs ought not to be confounded with its reflex and more complicated operations.

Climate, in both ways, may favour or obstruct refinement in sounds, or derive to them a peculiar character.

If the language of the Malais, a people barbarous and fierce, is however rightly celebrated as the softest in Asia, [Voyez Les Voyages d’un Philosopher, par M. Le Poivre.] the climate, in such instances, by an irresistible application to the organs, acts in opposition to manners and controuls their natural tendency. If the jargon of the Hottentots is, on the other hand, the harshest jargon in the world, it seems an effect rather chargeable on manners, with which the climate is not immediately concerned. But the smoothness of the Russian tongue, under such barbarity of manners, and in climates so various and unpromising, forms, it must be owned, and exception to all general theory.

In periods, however, of equal refinement, the articulation and accents of the North, are, in our hemisphere, distinguishable from the articulation and accents of the southern regions. Inarticulate sound is governed by similar rules, and a different style and composition in music are found best accommodated to the genius of different nations.

The French music accordingly, as well as the Italian, is universally exploded among the Turks; and whether from the texture of their organs, or from climate, or from certain habitudes of life, possesses no power to ravish their ears with harmony, or to interest the passions.

In general, European music is disrelished, or exploded in the East. “Your music,” said a native of Egypt to M. Niebuhr, “is a wild and offensive noise which a serious man can hardly endure.” Nor is this an anomalous example. When Ismenias, the greatest master of music at the court of Macedon, was commanded to perform before the king of Scythia; the king [C] having heard the performance, far from acquiescing in the public admiration, swore that to him the neighing of a horse was more agreeable: so little acceptable to Scythian ears, and to a barbarous monarch, were the most admired compositions of the Greeks.

Even among nations of equal refinement there is to each appropriated a style in music resulting from local circumstances, or from certain peculiarities of character; and national music, because more intelligible, will ever be more acceptable than foreign, [D] to the inhabitants of every country. Thus the same sounds though in some respects intelligible to all, excite perceptions which are merely relative, and therefore variable with the mechanism of our organs, with the associations of fancy, and with the cultivation of taste. It is the same with words. Words adopted into language, in the age of barbarism, and whose harshness then is either not discernible and cultivated period. And by consequence, sentences constructed with such different materials, though the vehicle of the same ideas to the understanding, will impress our organs with characteristical and distinct perceptions.

It is a remark of Voltaire, in celebrating the illustrious founders of Helvetian library, that the difficulty of pronouncing such names had injured their fame with posterity.

A similar remark might be formed with regard to certain sciences and arts, where technical terms abound, and a discouragement arises from the coarseness of the language in which they are delivered. Not to mention the useless jargon of the schools, grown so justly offensive to the public ear, the barbarism of its scientific terms proves in the present age, at least in the fashionable world, rather unfriendly to the Linnaean system. This naturalists confess. The late Mr Gray, whose musical parts were so delicate and correct, was so struck with this deformity in a system in other respects so worthy of admiration, as to have attempted to make a German Latin of Linnaeus purely classical: [See Gray’s Works by Mason] a talk which perhaps Gray alone was able to perform. But though this species of deformity may be an object of regret, fastidious surely, or rather to the last degree fantastical, is the taste which can be diverted, by such frivolous considerations, from the study of nature.

The sense of harmony in a well-constituted mind, dispenses with its objects, in favour of more liberal and manly indulgence. And in the expression of sound, in the intimation it brings, in the sentiments and feelings, which, independently of arbitrary appointment, it calls up in the human understanding, or impresses on the human heart, consists the chief importance of those modulations which prevail in different systems of language.

When the Emperor Charles the Fifth [E] so pleasantly characterised the several languages of Europe, this general effect of sound alone exhausted the criticism. He insinuated no other comparison, nor enquired into their artificial fabric. The criterion, however, of a polished tongue seems principally to reside there.

Idiom and analogical texture present considerations of far greater importance than can be drawn from any general theory of sound. In the Greek, in the Latin, in the Eastern tongues, is eminently displayed the connexion of language with the genius and character of nations. And, perhaps, it is no paradox to affirm, that the most intelligent and enlightened people will be found, in their peculiar idioms, and modes of speech, to have approached the nearest to the standard of perfection.

After a language has arrived at considerable refinement, there may be remarked in provincial phrase, or in the variety of its dialects, the characteristics of primitive barbarism. In this variety, its alliance with manners cannot escape the most superficial observer. For, in the progress of a state, the lower ranks often fall back; or at least not moving forward in exact proportion with their superiors, their language, like their manners, remains long nearly stationary. The vulgar, accordingly, of the same country, almost as widely differ in their vocabulary from the more polished, as the more barbarous differ in theirs from the more polished nations; or as the same language differs from itself in its successive stages. And hence a presumption arises, that the distinction in question lies not so much in sound, or in grammatical texture, as in the analogy of terms which, in different periods of society, are engrafted on a different stock. At one period there is a coarseness and rusticity which govern the idioms, run through the etymology, and adhere to all the allusions. At another period the allusions carry more immediately and directly to the arts of life. In circumstances so dissimilar, the vocabulary is extended in opposite lines, and pursues its progress through a different series of analogy.

Suitable to this tendency of things, the rough, the boisterous, and the loud, the true representatives of barbarians in a cultivated age, are peculiarly averse from refinement in speech, and discover an aptitude and predilection for vulgar allusions.

Even when the accidents of birth and fortune lead to its more polished forms, it is difficult for art to file off, in this respect, the roughness of nature; and they relapse into barbarisms better adapted to their mode of thinking, and to the constitutional indelicacy of their moral frame. To persons of an opposite description, the gross allusions of the vulgar are peculiarly offensive. A reformation in this point is more or less the aim of the civilising part of society; till at length the reigning propensities of one become reigning antipathies in another age.

The system of allusions, therefore, the course of etymology, or the filiation of words, must be variable, in every tongue, with the manners, with the arts, with the turn of thinking among mankind. And besides these intrinsic differences, which rise up systematically out of the prevailing scheme of thought, words acquire dignity or meanness from accidental combinations, and even from the organs through which they pass. They are sanctified, if one may say so, by venerable lips, or contract a sort of ideal debasement in the mouths of the vulgar. And hence the poets of all nations, the first refiners of the elements of speech, depart the farthest from vulgar phrase, and even affect a dialect of their own, consecrated, in a peculiar manner, to the Muses.[F]

Such causes directly tend to discriminate languages, and to fix the degrees of their refinement.

But refinement in language, as in manners, may be excessive, or ill governed. And comparative excellence is by no means included in comparative refinement.[G]

Language, in its earliest forms, has been taxed with an obscurity, from which it is afterwards exempt. This obscurity, which reigns in some degree in all the languages of antiquity, has been more particularly objected to those of the East. It seems principally to arise from the want of those connected particles whose introduction is of a later date. And from hence it should seem that perspicuity is a growing virtue. But the criticism, if not destitute of foundation, must be confined, in a great degree, to written composition. For, in the act of speaking, the superior vivacity, which accompanies a rude tongue, often supersedes the occasion of particles, or scorns their aid. If then particles, in the fulness of their dominion, give only to perspicuity what a inferior animation takes away, there is upon the whole no absolute gain: and, according as you fix the proportion, you refer the virtue to rude or cultivated speech.

Without instituting a minute comparison, it may in general be maintained, that the great excellence of a rude tongue consists, if not in perspicuity, at least in vivacity and strength. In these modes of excellence our most remote progenitors far surpassed us. And the advantages of a cultivated tongue, when opposed to these, will consist chiefly in copiousness of expression, in the grace of allusion, and in the combination of more melodious sound.

An entire union of these qualities, with those others, would constitute the utmost perfection. But the existence of the former, in an eminent degree, is rather incompatible with the latter; and consequently there is a certain point of refinement from which all languages begin to decline.[H]

In forming a particular estimate, the inherent advantages and disadvantages of grammatical texture would also deserve attention. It is the genius of some to admit of inflexion, and consequently of transposition, and a vast latitude of arrangement. Others, circumscribed by particles, admit of no variety of order.

The one system is more fertile of harmony and elegance, and even of strength; and, by operating more successfully on the imagination, seems better adapted to the purposes of eloquence and polite literature. The other system, more allied to perspicuity and precision, is, on that account, more approved by the understanding, as a commodious vehicle for philosophy and the sciences. Any greater latitude of arrangement, than that permitted in the Greek and Latin, might probably be destructive of perspicuity. Any closer confinement, than that required in the French and Italian, might be destructive of elegance and force. In perspicuity, the English tongue is perhaps superior both to the Greek and Latin, while it falls considerably short of the French. In elegance and force it is more perfect than the French, while infinitely inferior to the Greek and Latin.

The German is an example of a language which admits of large transposition, while custom exacts much uniformity in the arrangement of words. Should the Germans then ever arrive at that elegance and taste which distinguished the politer ages of Greece and Rome, their writers would indulge in a variety of arrangement hitherto unprecedented, and which, though not repugnant to the fundamentals of their grammar, must wait the slow variation of idiom, the sanction of custom and established use.

Quem penes arbitrium est, & jus, & norma loquendi.

Such innovations, however, would be justly numbered among the ornaments of speech, and the refinements of a polished age. And other languages, more melodiously constructed, equally adorned, and susceptible, perhaps, in other respects, of superior refinements, may be debarred, by the fundamental laws and constitution of their grammar, from such eventual transitions.

But the critical examination of such particulars, or of the comparative excellence of antient and modern tongues, belongs to the grammarian, or philologist, not to a writer who looks through their province into the progress of manners, and the vicissitudes of civil life.

NOTES.

Note [A], p. 116

The language of the Hottentots, though not absolutely destitute of articulation is, however, defective in this quality. And, the language of the Trogoldytes, a savage people, who subsisted in antient Egypt, resembled, according to Herodotus, the shrieking of bats, and consisted of no articulate sounds. But in this instance, as in that of the Hottentots, and other savage nations, it is probable there is not a total absence of the quality, but only a more imperfect articulation, which requires some acquaintance with the language to render it palpable to sense.

Note [B], p. 118

The celebrated Signora Gabrieli, whose power of voice is so various and bewitching, is conscious of the irresistible influence of physical causes on her exertions. They disarm her occasionally of the power to excel, and account for that reluctance to perform, which is generally ascribed to caprice alone.

See Brydone’s Tour.

Note [C] p. 121.

The anecdote of Atheas king of Scythia is thus related by Plutarch:

‘Ateas – isminian de, ton apiston aulitin, laxon, dichmaloton, exeleuson aulnsai. Phaumaxonton ce ton allon, autos omosen idion axgein to ippa Chremetixontos.

Plut. in Apophth.

It may be even questioned, whether the accomplished king of Macedon himself, though susceptible of musical gratification beyond the reach of a Scythian, had a full relish of the performances of the great master he affected to admire. But it was the policy of Philip to countenance, at his court, a degree of refinement in the elegant and polite arts, which was little adapted to the circumstances of Macedon, though highly worthy of a prince who had annexed his kingdom to the Hellenic body, and aspired to the sovereignty of nations highly civilized.

The Macedonians held a sort of middle station between the Grecian and Barbarian world. Rude, when compared with the Greeks; cultivated and refined, when compared with the Scythian nations.

NOTE [D], p. 121.

Though musical expression is certainly relative to the peculiar ideas of a people, it cannot hence be inferred, that there is no ground of absolute preference in judging of the music of nations. All languages, in their peculiar idioms, have such a reference, yet a judgment may be formed concerning their comparative perfection. But to institute such comparison belongs not to the crowd.

“The admiration,” says a late popular Writer, “pretended to be given to foreign music in Britain is, in general, despicable affectation. In Italy we see the natives transported at the opera with all that variety of delight and passion which the composer intended to produce. The same opera in England is seen with the most remarkable listlessness and inattention. It can raise no passion in the audience, because they do not understand the language in which it is written.”

The same Writer, after enumerating several causes which conferred pre-eminence on the music of the antients, proceeds to observe, “That if we were to recover the music which once had so much power in the early periods of the Greek states, it might have no such charms for modern ears as some great admirers of antiquity imagine.”

Gregory’s Comparative View

The extent of these charms, we will presume to add, even for the ears of Greeks, is magnified beyond the truth. It can hardly be imagined, that their musical education was essential to public morals, or to the frame of their governments; though it might contribute, in some degree, to sway the genius of the youth, to counterbalance the tendency of their gymnastic exercises, and to heighten the sensibilities of that refined and ingenious people.

NOTE [E], p. 124.

Francese ad un amico — Tudesco al suo cavallo — Italiano all sua signora — Spagnuolo a Dio — Inglese a gli uccelli.

This apothegm, like an imperial edit, has been rung, for above two centuries, in the ears of Europe. Though rather pleasant than serious, it intimates from high authority the general effects of sound. Serious criticism, on the structure of the European languages, leads to more important distinctions, founded in the diversity of national character.

“It is certain,” says Addison, “that the light talkative genius of the French has not a little infected their tongue, which might be shewn by many instances; as the genius of the Italians, which is so much addicted to music and ceremony, has moulded all their words and phrases to those particular uses. The stateliness and gravity of the Spaniards shews itself to perfection, in the solemnity of their language; and the blunt, honest humour of the Germans sounds better in the roughness of the high Dutch, than it would in a politer tongue.”

Spectator, No. 135.

NOTE [F], p. 128.

The embellishment of a poetic dialect is eminently conspicuous in the Greek and Italian; the languages antient and modern most eminent for every species of refinement.

Whatever theory is embraced concerning the origin of this dialect among the Greeks, the advantages hence derived to the Greek muse are universally acknowledged. And the advantages derived to the Italian muse, from the same fountain, are thus described by Mr Addison in his Remarks on Italy.

“The Italian poets, besides the celebrated smoothness of their tongue, have a particular advantage above the writers of other nations, in the difference of their poetic and prose language. There are indeed sets of phrases that in all countries are peculiar to the poets; but, among the Italians, there are not only sentences, but a multitude of particular words that never enter into common discourse. They have such a different turn and polishing for poetical use, that they drop several of their letters, and appear in another form when they come to be arranged in verse. For this reason, the Italian opera seldom sinks into a poorness of language, but, amidst all the meanness and familiarity of the thoughts, has something beautiful and sonorous in the expression. Without this natural advantage of the tongue, their present poetry would appear wretchedly low and vulgar, notwithstanding the many strained allegories that are so much in use amongst the writers of this nation.”

Thus far Mr Addison. Suitable to the design of this note, it may farther be observed, that the Provencal tongue, embellished by the happy genius of the Troubadours, was, during a period of two centuries, the most approved of any in Europe. It was the forming hand of Dante, that first gave so fine a polish to the Italian as rendered it superior to the Provencal, at a time when the Spanish and French were emerging more slowly from barbarism.

See Millot’s History of the Troubadours.

The English tongue cannot indeed boast of a poetic dialect of equal advantage with that of the Greek or Italian, yet it is not unacquainted with a similar species of refinement. The merit of such refinement is eminently Dryden’s, who selected, with peculiar delicacy, so many flowing and sonorous words, and appropriated them exclusively to the Muses.

“There was,” says his Biographer and Critic, “before the time of Dryden, no poetical diction, no system of words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from the harshness of terms appropriated to particular arts. Words too familiar or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions or delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves, which they should convey to things.

Those happy combinations of words, which distinguish poetry from prose, had been rarely attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of speech; the roses had not yet been plucked from the bramble, or different colours had not been joined to enliven one another.”

Waller and Denham, it will readily be owned by every cultivator of English literature, claim, on the same account, a due proportion of praise. But Dryden, certainly, has eclipsed their fame.

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine.

NOTE [G], p. 129.

The simple and original qualities of style, considered as an object to the understanding, the imagination, the passions, and the ear, are reduced by Dr Campbel, in the Philosophy of Rhetoric, to five, perspicuity, vivacity, elegance, animation and music.

If of these qualities perspicuity be, as it surely is, the most essential, the aptitude of a language to promote perspicuity, would seem to constitute its chief perfection. But we may apply, perhaps, to perspicuity, which is the first end of speech, what is applicable to some of the moral virtues. The absence of the virtue implies the most palpable defect; its presence is no capital excellence.

Besides, the cases of style and of a language are not exactly parallel. In judging of the one, we pronounce on the execution; in judging of the other, rather on the materials. The architect may not always be responsible for the materials with which he builds. A language full of perspicuity, within a narrow province, may, from the scantiness of the vocabulary, be without variety, or compass, or extent.

As to the analysis of style, it is foreign to this discussion. But, if so curious a subject should appear interesting to the reader, we can refer him with pleasure to the work above mentioned, which enters into minute as well as important distinctions, and which entitles its author to no inferior rank among the critics and metaphysicians of the present age.

NOTE [H], p. 131.

When a language has touched the highest point of attainable perfection, it is open to corruption from various sources, which no human sagacity is able fully to explore.

It can be shown from the doctrine of combinations, that it is possible, in the nature of things, for a language to exhaust itself, so as to be utterly incapable of presenting any new idea to the human understanding.

In any system of words, the various combinations, and combination of combinations, cannot be infinite. But though not infinite, they are, it must be owned, indefinite; and therefore, the supposition we had made, is barely possible in the conception of the mind. Something, however, actually approaching to this, takes place, to a certain degree, in a highly cultivated tongue, and is a principal cause of its decline.

Modes of speech, the most elegant and adorned, by returning often upon the ear, are liable to be anticipated, or cease to afford their wonted gratification. To aim therefore at new, though inferior forms of excellence, becomes an object in an age of refinement. Words of singular fabric, foreign idioms, and combinations less familiar to the public ear, are sought after with avidity. The genius of the language is tortured; and the love of novelty and variety produces a constant deviation from the purest models.

The corruption arising from this principle, was realized among the Romans after the Augustan age, and begins perhaps to be realized in the present period of English literature.