Oriental And Linguistic Studies (2nd Series)

Front matter

ORIENTAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES.

THE VEDA; THE AVESTA; THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.

WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY,

Preface

It is at the suggestion and by the advice of friends in whose judgment I have more confidence than in my own, that I put forth this volume of collected essays . 1 The subjects of which they treat are now engaging not a little attention from scholars and from men of reading, and, although much written upon, are yet very far from being exhausted. The paper on the Yedas was, so far as I know, the very first in which the main results of mod¬ em study respecting the most ancient period in. Indian history were made accessible in English. When it was prepared, I had been attending during two seasons upon the lectures and, other instructions of Professor Roth, of Tiibingen, and, to an extent so considerable that it calls for special acknowledgment here, the exhibition of the subject was a digest of his teachings. It, as well as the essays that follow it, is left in the main as it was origin¬ ally drawn up; although there are, naturally enough, passages to which, if, the essays were to be produced anew, I should give a somewhat different coloringi The Avestan article has been rewritten, especially in its bibli¬ ographical portion, so as to be brought down to the pres¬ ent time as regards the notices ‘of European scholars and, their works.

The essays bearing upon the science of language will be found, I trust, not less called for than the rest by the circumstances of the time* Notwithstanding all that has

1 A statement of the places and times of original publication will be found at the end of the volume.

VI

PREFACE.

been doing of late for the furtherance of this science, even its fundamental principles are still subjects of the widest difference of opinion, and of lively controversy. In Ger¬ many itself, where the methods of comparative philology have received an elaboration and a definite and fruitful application elsewhere unequaled and unapproached, lin¬ guistic science remains far behind ; opinions are still in a state almost to be termed chaotic, and one comparative philologist of rank and fame after another comes forward with doctrines that are paradoxical or wholly indefensible. My own system of scientific views respecting language was put forth some years ago in a work entitled “ Lan¬ guage and the Study of Language ” (first edition, New York and London, 1867) ; in the last few essays of this volume I have endeavored to uphold and urge them, in opposition to the discordant teachings of other scholars. These main truths — that, on the one hand, the capacity of speech is an endowment of human nature, not, how¬ ever, the only characteristic one, nor a simple one, but the sum and combined effect of qualities which have other and hardly less characteristic modes of exhibition; that every language, on the other hand, is a concrete result of the working out of that capacity, an institution of grad¬ ual historic growth, a part of the culture of the race to which it belongs, and handed down by tradition, from teacher to learner, like every other part of culture; and hence, that the study of language is a historical science, to be pursued by historical methods — these truths I have attempted to inculcate, persuaded that there is no other sound and defensible basis for linguistic science.

I have not thought it worth while so to recast the dif¬ ferent essays as to take away the special style which the circumstances of first publication impressed on them. A little repetition will be observed hero and there, as the*

PREFACE, vii

result of the same circumstances; but not, I believe, in any important degree. I have, of course, allowed myself some omissions and modifications of expression.

If the reception accorded to this volume be sufficiently encouraging, it will perhaps be followed by another, com¬ posed of essays on another class of themes.

New Haven, Conn., July, 1872.

CONTElsrTS.

. Page

I. Tiie Vedas. 1

II. The Vedic Doctrine of a Future Life ... 46

III Muller’s History of Vedic Literature ... 64

IV. The Translation of the Veda.100

V Muller's Rig-Veda Translation.133

VI. The Avesta .... ... 149

VII Indo-European Philology and Ethnology . . . 198

VIII Muller's Lectures on Language . . . 239,262

IX. Present State of the Question as to the Origin of

Language.279

X Bleek and the Simious Theory of Language , . 292

XI. Schleicher and the Physical Theory of Language . 298

XIL Steinthal and the Psychological Theory of Lan¬ guage .332

XIII. Language and Education. . 376

Index.412