From: derek gatherer (dgatherer2002@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri 13 Feb 2004 - 13:24:31 GMT
Here's a passage from Darwin's Descent of Man 2nd Ed.
Chaper 3:
"The formation of different languages and of distinct
species, and the proofs that both have been developed
through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.[Sir
C. Lyell in The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity
of Man, 1863, chap. xxiii] But we can trace the
formation of many words further back than that of
species, for we can perceive how they actually arose
from the imitation of various sounds. We find in
distinct languages striking homologies due to
community of descent, and analogies due to a similar
process of formation. The manner in which certain
letters or sounds change when others change is very
like correlated growth. We have in both cases the
re-duplication of parts, the effects of long-continued
use, and so forth. The frequent presence of rudiments,
both in languages and in species, is still more
remarkable. The letter m in the word am, means I; so
that in the expression I am, a superfluous and useless
rudiment has been retained. In the spelling also of
words, letters often remain as the rudiments of
ancient forms of pronunciation. Languages, like
organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups;
and they can be classed either naturally according to
descent, or artificially by other characters. Dominant
languages and dialects spread widely, and lead to the
gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like
a species, when once extinct, never, as Sir C. Lyell
remarks, reappears. The same language never has two
birth-places. Distinct languages may be crossed or
blended together.[Rev. F. W. Farrar, in an interesting
article, entitled Philology and Darwinism," in Nature,
March 24, 1870, p. 528] We see variability in every
tongue, and new words are continually cropping up; but
as there is a limit to the powers of the memory,
single words, like whole languages, gradually become
extinct. As Max Muller[Nature, January 6, 1870, p.
257.] has well remarked:- "A struggle for life is
constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical
forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the
easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand,
and they owe their success to their own inherent
virtue." To these more important causes of the
survival of certain words, mere novelty and fashion
may be added; for there is in the mind of man a strong
love for slight changes in all things. The survival or
preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle
for existence is natural selection.
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