part. Language is primarily a cultural or social product and must be understood as such. Its regularity and formal development rest on considerations of a biological and psychological nature, to be sure. But this regularity and our underlying unconsciousness of its typical forms do not make of linguistics a mere adjunct to either biology or psychology. Better than any other social science, linguistics shows by its data and methods, necessarily more easily defined than the data and methods of any other type of discipline dealing with socialized behavior, the possibility of a truly scientific study of society which does not ape the methods nor attempt to adopt unrevised the concepts of the natural sciences. It is peculiarly important that linguists, who are often accused, and accused justly, of failure to look beyond the pretty patterns of their subject matter, should become aware of what their science may mean for the interpretation of human conduct in general. Whether they like it or not, they must become increasingly concerned with the many anthropological, sociological, and psychological problems which invade the field of language. WORDS FOR WORLD, EARTH AND LAND, SUN BY CARL DARLING BUCK UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO [Three sample items from a projected Dictionary of selected Indo-European synonyms described in the Introductory Note.] INTRODUCTORY NOTE For the student of linguistic history work of this kind has its intrinsic linguistic interest and needs no further justification for its pursuance. It brings out the loss of old words, the substitution of others, the shifts in meaning, and the resulting dislocations in vocabulary. With some exceptions (the numerals, words of close family relationship, and others here and there), a group of IE synonyms has little resemblance to a group of IE formal cognates, such as we find in the etymological dictionaries. The disparity, though less, is considerable within the Romance languages, or the Germanic, or even the Slavic.' But such investigation may also claim a wider interest as a contribution to the history of ideas. The kind of thinking that distinguishes man from brute has been built up by and is dependent upon the use of symbols, and, since vocal utterance has prevailed over gesture, these symbols are the words, the names of objects, actions, qualities, etc. In the views now prevailing among psychologists, and by no means confined to those who call themselves behaviorists, thought is simply 'language behavior'. The 'idea', 'notion', 'concept', 'mental image', any one of which terms we may continue to use for the sake of brevity, is conceived as a pattern of reaction answering to a given stimulus, which is normally the word or group of words. It is this pattern of reaction, the application made by the speaker and understood by the hearer, that constitutes the meaning of a word. The history of ideas is, then, embodied in the history of words used to express them. The study of synonyms, their etymology and semantic history, shows the various sources of a given concept, the trails of its evolution. That is, within the languages chosen for observation, and even in these with some limitations. We cannot pretend to be pene trating the mysteries of the earliest human speech, nor should we do so if it were feasible to include in the observation all the languages of the globe. But we can observe what has happened in a linguistic family of long and varied history, like the Semitic or our own Indo-European family. True, even here, there will be many words which reflect forms of the same meaning in the parent speech, and for which any further analysis is beyond our reach. Yet there is scarcely any group of synonyms which does not show at least some new expressions of known semantic origin. Or again, quite apart from the question of origin, the lists bring to one's attention the shifts in application of the same form and the frequently recurring associations, as for example between 'mountain' and 'woods, forest' or between 'mountain' and 'rock, stone.' It is needless to remind the readers of LANGUAGE that this type of investigation is one that is familiar in numerous monographs, dissertations, and journal articles. A few of these deal with certain groups of synonyms in a non-Indo-European family, as Semitic or Finno-Ugrian. Most of them cover the Indo-European or some branch of it like the Romance or the Germanic languages. Some of those covering the general IE field are cited by Hirt, Idg. Gram. 1. 164, and the list could be considerably augmented. But such studies are scattered, and moreover cover but a small number of even the commonest concepts. Only if multiplied many thousand fold would they furnish the basis for an exhaustive linguistic history of ideas. A 'Dictionary of Ideas' (a title that would suggest to laymen the point of such studies) in a truly comprehensive sense is a dream. Nevertheless some form of synthesis is worth attempting. The present plan is to work out a tentative and skeleton dictionary covering a limited number, perhaps a thousand, of representative groups of synonyms in the principal IE languages. Some of the minor IE languages, as Albanian and Armenian, and all modern forms of Indic and Iranian, are excluded from the survey, except for incidental mention, since to include them systematically would increase the labor out of all proportion to the results added. Whoever deals with 'synonyms' has to face the fact that these are generally only roughly synonymous. Words from different languages do not often coincide in all their applications, they rarely cover quite the same ground. To treat every application separately, comparing words only in specific fully equivalent phrases, is a counsel of perfection which would so complicate matters as to wreck any comprehensive project. The combination of applications may be so nearly the same for different languages that they are best united under one head, with indication, where required, of differentiation. Only from a study of the material in a given case can one decide, and then often doubtfully, whether it is better to combine it in one item or break it up into several. The difficulties and complications of this kind are illustrated in the discussion below of words for 'world' and for 'earth and land.' The arrangement will be by semantically congeneric groups, like 'parts of the body, bodily functions', 'food and drink', 'dwelling', 'sense perceptions', 'emotions', 'quantity and number', etc.-so far as such grouping is feasible, otherwise with recourse to several 'miscellaneous' groups. A satisfactory complete classification along such lines is hopeless, so complex are the relations. Cf. the remarks of Jespersen, Philosophy of Grammar 33. The more ambitious attempts at a 'topical' or 'notional' classification, like Roget's Thesaurus or that given in Bally, Traité de stylistique française, vol. II, have proved of little practical help for our purpose. In the former work the parallelism of opposites and some of the minor subdivisions are convenient. But the main groups and larger subdivisions are so comprehensive as to have no obvious coherence. What may one not find under Matter (e.g. hear, see), Motion (e.g. eat, food), Volition (e.g. clean)! Our own classification will also be an easy mark for criticism, and an alphabetical index according to the English words will be a necessary complement. But to abandon all classification because of its difficulties would be to sacrifice the advantages of a semantic grouping in the many cases where this is feasible and useful. There will be much that is frankly arbitrary both in the classification and in the selection of synonyms to be included. The project is being carried on with the help of some paid assistance, provided for out of the research grant of the General Education Board to the University of Chicago, and the cooperation of colleagues, which will be acknowledged at the proper time. Much of the raw material has been gathered for upwards of a thousand items (some of these will be discarded and others substituted), and rough etymological notes prepared for a part. Dr. Preveden has worked especially on the BaltoSlavic material. Others whose mother tongue or special field of study is one or another of the languages cited have assisted in filling out the words from such languages on the blank form that is used for the tabular presentation. The words listed in the tables are intended to be the most usual ex pressions of the given idea in the accepted written and spoken language.1 But the choice is in some cases difficult, even the best informants and dictionaries disagreeing. To try to include all obsolete and dialectal forms would be folly, though such as come to one's attention and offer interesting parallels in semantic development may be mentioned. The specialist in any given language will always find facts of pertinent interest to supply. The existing monographs and others that may appear, dealing with the words for any given concept, may be turned to account by citation and brief statement of the results. The standard etymological dictionaries and the journals are of course consulted, but to save space the references are, so far as possible, concentrated on the new Walde-Pokorny, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, where other discussions are cited. What has been accomplished thus far, though considerable, is a small matter compared to the necessary verification, study, and condensation which nearly every item requires and which must be done by one person. Where many an item is a proper subject for an elaborate monograph and yet must be treated here with some brevity, this is a slow process. No prediction is ventured as to rate of progress or accomplishment. The items given below belong to a group comprising 'the physical world in its larger aspects', and are chosen to illustrate, the first two a complicated situation, the third a simple one which admits of brief treatment. For most of the words for 'sun' belong to the same etymological group, and a discussion of the distribution of the various grades of the root and the parallel suffixes is not required for the purposes of this enquiry. 1 For Modern Greek (abbr. NG) the words of most interest are those of the spoken language (ônμoruń) and the new literary type based thereon. But ancient words prevailing in the κavapevovoa and still considerably used beside the more colloquial are also cited. As it happens, in the three items discussed here the ancient words are still colloquial as well as literary. |