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Universe of Language, Uniform Notation and Classification of Vowels
Universe of Language Uniform Notation and Classification of Vowels Author:George Watson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: n. UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF SPEECH. The views just given of the origin of human language—that it is native to man, and, under favorable circumstances, may be... more » originated anew independently of pre-existing speech, as illustrated in the authentic instance related of its formation by children,—taken together with the great diversity of the present existing dialects—might confirm in some minds the theory of a various origin also of the human race; that it has not, therefore, necessarily proceeded from a single type. The latter idea, however, does not logically follow from the other; or rather the one theory does not necessitate the other, as is seen in the very instance referred to. Here were children in immediate descent from a long existing type, yet originating a language independently of every other member of it. And the modification, change, or even in a great measure creation of new dialects is constantly observed at large, in modern times, among the primitive, roving inhabitants of our own and other conntrios. The remarkable discovery was made by one of the earliest travelers in North America, that, among the tribes of the Hurons, hardly one Tillage spoke the same language with another, and that even two families of the seme village, did not speak exactly the same language. And it is asserted still later, that, within the last fifty years, a dictionary, formed with great care, of the language of some of the tribes of Central America, became in ten years completely useless, so great had been the change of dialect. Probably the same might be said, originally, of the numerous varieties of speech among all our aboriginal tribes. The same process has been witnessed going on in tho wilds of Africa. Parents, it is related, of ten go far from their native village, for weeks...« less