These observations would also advance our argument to a considerable degree, in that, having seen that all Latin radical and regular verbs have just one radical syllable, we would deduce from this fact that at the beginning the Latin language was entirely composed of monosyllables, as it is probable and natural that all the original languages were (prattling like children who at the beginning never utter anything but monosyllables (such as pa, ma, ta), then just two syllables per word, shortening and contracting or apocopating those that are too long, and finally, but only in stages, they get used to uttering words regardless of their length under the impact, moreover, of imitation and of the example set by those already uttering them which the first creators of languages did not have), and as Chinese is still, a language perhaps less disconnected than any other known language is from its first state, because of the marvelous immutability of that people. Here is how the argument must go.
I have said that by radical verbs I meant, among other things, those which were not compounded and not derived from nouns. But I meant from known nouns and not primitive nouns, because all modern metaphysicians agree that all language began with and derived from nouns, and that the primitive vocabulary of all peoples was always a simple “nomenclature” (Sulzer).1 There can therefore be no doubt that even those Latin verbs which appear to be radical, derive from unknown nouns, since the roots of every language were simply nouns, and when wishing to express actions [1129] they would certainly not invent new roots, which would not have been understood (since much time had to pass before it was thought to create verbs and the language, that is, the nomenclature, was already fixed), but rather they would be derived from the existing roots, that is, from nouns. Now, seeing that the Latin verbs we call radical, that is, those which have no known derivation nor composition, etc., have just one radical syllable, we conclude that their true roots, which certainly were nouns, were all monosyllables and that the original Latin language, the source of the whole of Latin, was entirely monosyllabic. Let us consider, for example, the verbs pacare [to make or come to an agreement], regere [to guide or rule], vocare [to call], ducere [to lead], lucere [to shine], necare [to kill]. These all fit, and fit perfectly with the observations made above: they have just one syllable, just 3 radical letters, 3 syllables in the infinitive, etc. And yet we cannot call them radical because something remains of the nouns from which they were formed, and they are all monosyllabic: pax [peace], rex [ruler, king], vox [voice], dux [leader], lux [light], nex [death]. And note that of these monosyllables some express things that must have been among the first to be expressed in every language, such as vox, lux, and also rex and dux in the earliest societies. Likewise, we know that the ancient precare [to ask, beg, pray] and lacere [to entice], which would fit within the same category, come from the monosyllabic prex [prayer] and lax [fraud]. Likewise sperare [to hope] from spes [hope]. So also arcere [to enclose] from arx which means high place, peak, height (an idea that is certainly primordial in languages) and hence rock, fortress. See p. 1204. So also quiescere [to rest] from quies [rest], partire [to share] and partiri [to share] from pars [a part, share], all primitive ideas. Lactare [to contain milk, to breast-feed] from lac [milk]. See p. 2106 beginning. [1130] If we were to argue in this way regarding other verbs (I mean genuine and ancient Latin verbs, and not ones obviously drawn from Greek, or from elsewhere) that have just one radical syllable and where it is not evident what noun they might be derived from, we could perhaps now and then recover those lost or little-known and invariably monosyllabic nouns. They derive legere [to gather, to collect] from λέγω [to gather, to pick up], and Cicero and Varro derive lex [law] from legendo [choosing].1 But it is in the nature of things that the noun should precede the verb. Aside from the fact that it is simpler, and more consistent with the mechanics of etymology and with the habitual progress of words to derive legere from lex than vice versa. I think that lex is the root of legere and that it originally had a meaning that is now lost, distinct from that of law, and suited to producing those of legere. Fax means torch, and derives, or so it would seem, from the Greek, and it is an altogether different word from the one I mean. I think, in other words, that facere [to do] derives from a very ancient monosyllable fax, which had an analogous meaning, and I find a trace of it, indeed I find it in its entirety in artifex [artist], pontifex [pontiff, high priest], carnifex [executioner], and other such compounds. The first word is composed of ars [skill] and fax, the second of pons [bridge] and fax, the third of caro [flesh] and fax, changed into fex by virtue of composition, just as factus becomes fectus in the compounds adfectus, effectus, confectus, etc., and facere [1131] in the perfect has feci, and likewise iacere has ieci, and jactus makes adiectus, deiectus, etc. Just as one can deduce from the compounds particeps, anceps, auceps, etc., that capere [to seize] derives from an ancient monosyllable caps. Among which anceps [two-headed], which I am rather more inclined to think, like Festus,1 is derived from the old preposition amphi, corresponding to the Greek ἀμφὶ [on both sides], and apocopated to am, and therefore through composition to an (in which all agree), and from caps belonging to capere [to seize], rather than from caput [head] as others, among them Forcellini, like to suppose. Since it would seem to me to correspond literally to the Greek ἀμφιλαφὴς [widespreading, abundant], compounded in fact from ἀμφὶ and λαμβάνω [to take, to seize] capio [to seize], rather than to ἀμφικάρηνος [two-headed], as Forcellini explains it, even though it was later employed with meanings more in accord with this second word. But I further believe that this caps is the root both of capere and of caput (in whose compounds it may also be recognized, as in biceps [two-headed], triceps [three-headed], praeceps [headlong]). Varro derives caput from capere (in Lactantius, De opificio Dei, ch. 5) whereas I, on the other hand, derive capere from caput or from the same root, from which, however, I believe, caput was derived first and then capere, or that this root meant caput from the beginning. Since, setting aside the fact that the latter is a noun, and the former a verb, it is far more natural [1132] for the principal part of the human body to have been named first, and then the action of seizing. And I do not know if it can have anything at all to do with our cappare (or, in vulgar language, capare), which means to pick and choose, and derives from capo [head], as if to choose head by head, that is, thing by thing, or to choose a head, that is, a thing, from other heads or things. And thus from the beginning, capere would have meant to pick by head or to pick a head, that is a thing, naming the principal part for the whole, or taking the metaphor from the head being man’s principal part. And so the Latins (and even today the Italians with testa [head] and the French with tant par tête, that is, tant par chaque personne [so much for each person], Alberti) used to say caput for man, or person, or individual human being. See again §§ 6, 7, and 10 of the entry for Capo in the Crusca, and the French and Spanish, etc., dictionaries. See chef [head], etc., and the Latin caput for the meanings covered in the aforesaid §§ of the Crusca, and also the Greek lexicons. See p. 1691.
The monosyllabic root of the ancient specere or spicere [to look] would similarly be found in the compounds auspex [auger], haruspex [soothsayer], that is, spex or spax. Likewise with iungere [to join together] in coniux or coniunx [spouse], that is, iux or iunx, etc. See pp. 1166, end, 2367, beginning.
And thus one would discover how from a few radical monosyllables either all or almost all nouns, which made up the entire language in the beginning, by lengthening them in various ways and differentiating them through variations in meaning and by means of innumerable inflections, compositions, and modifications of every kind, the Latins managed to extract countless words and countless meanings, to express the most minimal differences between things which at the beginning were confused and heaped together [1133] in each of these few radical words, to draw from them everything that would serve necessity and utility as well as beauty and all the riches of discourse, and extract, in short, from a small monosyllabic lexicon (a nomenclature, indeed)
an entire language, one of the richest, most various, beautiful, and perfect that there has ever been. And all the cultured languages of the world must have been formed in the same fashion, etc. So also Chinese, etc. It would be a useful and intriguing project to draw up a genealogical tree of all the Latin words derived, compounded, etc., from one of these monosyllables, such as, e.g., dux, which would yield a vast progeny even without counting the numerous particular inflections of each of the derived or compounded verbs or nouns, etc., in their various cases, or persons, numbers, tenses and moods, and voices (active and passive). And one would see, on the one hand, how few true roots there are in Latin as in all languages, because of how naturally difficult it is to put them to use and to establish the convention that alone can make them used and understood, and, on the other hand, how immensely fertile a single root may be, and the huge diversity of things and the differences between them that the root adapts itself to express through its descendants, etc., in a judicious and well-cultivated language.
Summing up what has been said so far, I think that if such observations were made in greater quantity and with more diligence than has so far been the case (a diligence and profundity of which the English and Germans have given us the example in these particulars, too, especially in [1134] recent times, like Thiersch, etc.)1 we would massively simplify the classification respecting the derivation of words or their families, the analysis of languages would push forward almost to their ultimate elements, we would perhaps get to know a large part of the earliest languages (see Scelta di opuscoli interessanti, Milan 1775, vol. 4, pp. 61–64),2 the study of etymologies would become infinitely more philosophical, useful, etc., and would reach so much further than the point at which it usually stops, creating a secure and enlightened road to reach almost to the beginnings of words, and particular etymologies themselves would be less frivolous, we would get to know much better the very distant origins of languages and words, their vicissitudes, gradations, progress, and formation, and their original (and often true) nature and properties, and we would discover many very beautiful and useful truths, which would not be just barren and philological, but fertile and philosophical truths, given that the history of languages almost amounts to the history of the human mind (as all modern and genuine metaphysicians agree), and if it were ever perfect, it would also shed boundless and brilliant light on the history of nations. See p. 1263, paragraph 2.
I note that the Latin language is better suited to these speculations than Greek, contrary to how it might appear at first sight, and this because of its lesser real or supposed antiquity.
(1) The infinite number and huge variety of the modifications that the Greek language was able to give its roots and continued so to do in the immensely long span of its literature and its multitude of writers—the principal cause of its potency and richness—constitutes a major obstacle to discovering [1135] the original elements and the true and ultimate roots of that language amid the confusion, the forest of innumerable and utterly different diversifications of meaning, form, etc., which they continually underwent and which have come down to us today. See p. 1242 margin, end.
(2) Another very serious obstacle to our purpose consists in the extremely varied relations that the populations of Greece had with foreigners of every sort through trade, wars, colonies, expeditions of every kind, etc. etc., because they mainly concern relations with peoples whose languages are either completely unknown or very poorly known. Such relations were very ancient and predated the earliest periods that we can know of the Greek language, and they certainly influenced the language a great deal, on the one hand multiplying its riches, while on the other consigning many of its own very ancient roots to disuse and distorting and altering others (see in this regard the passage in Xenophon on the Attic language).1 The Latins had as many and perhaps more relations with perhaps a greater number of peoples, but in more modern times. Which (i) reduces the difficulty of our researches; (ii) the Latin language being already formed, indeed on the point of becoming the most cultured in the world after Greek (I mean once the Latins began to have substantial [1136] and widespread relations with foreigners), it was less liable to be altered by them in its principal resource, if not in other respects; (iii) since we are sufficiently well acquainted with the periods of the Latin language prior to these relations, the alterations which might affect the language subsequently do not jeopardize our researches, which concern the very oldest elements of the language that was spoken when Rome was either not yet born or was in its infancy. Indeed, the English scholars who have set out to prove the affinity of Sanskrit with the ancient European languages, even though they believe Greek to derive from the same origin as Latin, have nevertheless chosen the latter for their observations, saying that “the peninsula of Italy will probably be deemed more favorable (than Greece) to the pure transmission of the original language, on account of its capacity to maintain a greater distance from the intermixture of surrounding nations and of different languages.” (Edinburgh Review, Annali di scienze e lettere, Milan 1811, January, no. 13, p. 38, end.)1 And there is indeed a closer analogy between certain Latin and Sanskrit words, etc., than between the equivalent Greek and Sanskrit words, and it seems that the Latin language preserved its first forms better. The H derived from the Heth in the Phoenician, Samaritan, and Hebrew alphabet, which was a dense or rough aspirate (Encyclopédie, “planches des caractères”) similar to the Spanish j (Villefroy),2 has retained its aspirative character in Latin whereas it has come to denote a long e in Greek when in very ancient times it too had been a sign of aspiration or spiritus. The f and v that were lacking in the Phoenician alphabet (Encyclopédie, loc. cit.) were also lacking in the ancient Latin alphabet as we saw. See pp. 2004, 2329 (and p. 2371, end).
(3) And the principal cause is as follows. Everyone knows, as can also be seen from what we have said, the huge extent to which languages move away [1137] from their first crude form through culture. A language that is uncultured and spoken by a population which has few relations with other populations can be preserved for a very long time either as it was to start with or with sufficiently little change for its original state to be readily recovered. The Latin language was really formed and fixed and perfected toward the end of antiquity. For the time when it was perfected was the time of Cicero. And as well as a number of written records that predated this perfection by some margin, that is, the total transformation of the original Latin language, we still have many writers whose language is much less crude than early Latin and less cultured than Ciceronian Latin. With the help of such things, as if step by step, we can at least climb back up quite close to the beginnings of the Latin language.
Now, conversely, the formation and virtual perfecting of the Greek language belongs not only to the most distant epoch of antiquity that we have definite knowledge of, but indeed to a still shadowy and fabulous time. And the most ancient record of Greek writing that we still have is also perhaps (setting aside the holy books) the most ancient writing [1138] that is known, I mean Homer. And not only is Homer not crude, he is such that there is no one his equal in excellence in any of the centuries that followed. And he could not have been as he was without a language that was either perfect or very nearly so. One must therefore suppose (as everyone does) a long series of ages and writers before Homer in which the language, from being crude and impotent, gradually became such as we see it in Homer. But the Catos, the Plautuses, the Lucretiuses who preceded Homer have not survived, any more than those who preceded Cicero and Virgil have, nor is there even a definite record of any of them. On the contrary, every light on the Greek language beyond Homer is extinguished. You may therefore see what great obstacles preclude our discovering the original Greek language, by comparison with those obscuring the original Latin language. We may say that in Latin we have the same antiquity as in Greek, and yet an antiquity that is less ancient and nearer to us.
So I believe that the search for the latter will aid us in our search for Greek origins. Giv
en that the Latin language is sister to the Greek, and that to arrive at the source of the former would, by the same token, be to reach the source of the latter. Or if Latin was derived from Greek, it was assuredly derived from it at a very early period, and so in proceeding by way of Latin origins we shall succeed in illuminating this very ancient period of the Greek language. See p. 1295.
If Lanzi’s opinion is true,1 namely that the Etruscan [1139] language is simply a mixture of the most ancient Latin and the most ancient Greek, this language and its study could prove highly useful to our researches on this topic.And conversely, the observations made above should prove remarkably useful in understanding and shedding light on the Etruscan language, which is still so shadowy, and, on the other hand, so very interesting. (29 May–5 June 1821.)
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