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more exact Jocations are often added.
For example, sorne differentiate between
what is near him but nearer than you,
and what is near him but farther than
you. Sorne tell whether the pronominal
subject is visible or not! (See
Race,
Lang11age and Ctdlure,
p.
223.)
Aborigine Speaks Hís Mind
You would hardly think there could
be
a more culturally limited people than
the Austral ian aborigines. Most anthro–
pologists would put them very near thc ·
bottom of the cultural development list,
if not on the bottom. But if we judged
an ethnic group's development by lan–
guage alone, we in "advanced" cul–
tures might find ourselves taking a
back seat.
Says one authority on their language:
"Our Australian verb ... rivals and
exccls thc Greek and the Sanskrit, for it
thus has four futures, and, for time
past, it has three forms, marking thc
past time as instant, proximate, and
remote. Corresponding to these tenses,
there are nine participles, each of which
may be used as a finite verb. Besides an
lmperative mood and a Subjunctive
mood, there are reflexive and reciproca!
forms, forms of negation, forms to
express continuance, iteration, immi–
nence, and contempo r ary c i rcum-
TIJe
PLAIN TRUTH
August-Seplember 1970
J< ing Leopold Photo
Sorne would consider these South American lndians near the bottom of the
cultural ladder. Yet sorne of these jungle tribes hove apparently "developed"
a langua ge in many ways more complex than the "modero" languages of
Western civilization.
stances. . . . And, in Australian , this
copiousness of diction is not confined to
the verbs: it shows itsel
f
also
in
the
building up of other words" (
An Arts–
tralian Lang11age,
edited by John Fraser,
p. xlvii) . Now, that
is
a complex
language!
E-volution or DE-volution?
According to evolutionary theory,
language began very simply and gradu–
ally evolved the grammatical com–
plications of number, case, tense, gender.
8111
the exacl opposite is tme: lan–
g11ages
tend Jo
simplify.
An examination of the history of
practical ly any Janguage shows this.
A notable examplc, of course, is the
English language. The o.rig inal Old
Englísh o r Anglo-Saxon possessed a sys–
tem of noun declension almost as com–
plicated as Latín or Russian. Today this
has almost disappearcd, except for a
few pronouns and the adding of an
's
to show possession. Othcr elements of
grammar have simplified in a simi lar
manner.
German, the Romance languages,
Scandinavian languages and others have
followed the same pattern as English:
"... the languages of the more civ–
ilized groups appear to be more com–
plex and involved the farther we go
back into their h istory, and tend to sim–
plify as we approach their modern
stage." They were once quite complex
but "sorne of thcm, like Chinese and
English, then wcnt through a histori–
cally attested process of simplification
and reduction to a more analytic,
monosyllabic structure" ( Pei,
The Votees
of
Man,
p.
21).
Chinese? Oíd you see "Chinese" in
that quote? That's interesting because
the Chinese maintained one of the
leading cultures for mi llennia. Yet
their language is very simple. You
might say it is the ideal ''primitive"
speech in many ways. It has almost no
grammar - sorne have even gone so far
as-to state it has
none
-
and only a
small vocabulary of monosylLables.
Which Carne First ?
One writer of the last century built a
wholc book around the theory that Chi–
nese is the closest to the "primeva["