Lectures on the Science of Language: Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in April, May & June, 1861, Volume 1Longman, Green, 1864 - Comparative linguistics |
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Common terms and phrases
Agni alphabet ancient Angiras Anglo-Saxon Aryan languages aspirates Asvins breath bright called conception consonantal consonants cows Curtius dawn deity dental derived dialects distinct divine doubt Dyaus earth English etymology express father French German glottis gods Gothic grammar Grammatik Greek Grimm Grimm's law guage guttural Hawaian heaven hence Hesiod Homer horse hymn idea Indra Italian Kafir Kuhn Kuhn's Zeitschrift labial Latin letters likewise Maruts meaning meant originally metaphor mind modern mother myth mythology nations nature never night noun Old High-German Old Norse philosophers phonetic poets Polynesian pronounced Rig-Veda Roman root Sanskrit Saramâ Saranyû Savitar Saxon Science of Language sense Slavonic soft sonant sound speak speech spiritus asper spiritus lenis spoken supposed syllable tenuis Teutonic things thought tion tongue trace Tuisco twins Varuna Veda verb vibrations Vivasvat vowels words Yama Zeus δὲ καὶ τῶν
Popular passages
Page 573 - ... this difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble ; in others like freestone ; and in others, little better than sand, I shall not here inquire : though it may seem probable, that the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory ; since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever, in a few days, calcine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting, as if graved in marble.
Page 539 - Barnakles, in the north of England Brant Geese, and in Lancashire tree Geese ; but the other that do fall upon the land, perish and come to nothing : thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.
Page 71 - For this purpose nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those articulate sounds which, with so much ease and variety, he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose...
Page 559 - I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live : I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. 34 My meditation of him shall be sweet : I will be glad in the LORD.
Page 339 - I doubt not but, if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names which stand for things that fall not under our senses to have had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess what kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds who were the first beginners of languages, and how nature, even in the naming of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and principles of all their knowledge: whilst, to...
Page 72 - For a child knows as certainly, before it can speak, the difference between the ideas of sweet and bitter, (ie that sweet is not bitter) as it knows afterwards (when it comes to speak) that wormwood and sugar-plums are not the same thing.
Page 66 - ... for wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agree.. able visions in the fancy...
Page 420 - They sacrificed unto devils, not to God ; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Page 340 - ... their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words all their other ideas, since they could consist of nothing but either of outward sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about them ; we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all, but what originally came either from sensible objects without, or what we feel within ourselves from the inward workings of our own spirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within.
Page 81 - I called root or radical whatever, in the words of any language or family of languages, cannot be reduced to a simpler or more original form. It has been pointed out, however, with great logical acuteness, that, if this definition were true, roots would be mere abstractions, and as such unfit to explain the realities of language. Now, it is perfectly true, that, from one point of view, a root may be considered as a mere abstraction.