The Existence of Mixed Languages

Abstract

THE existence of mixed languages is one of the vexed questions of Comparative Philology. By a mixed language is meant a language in which the grammars of two or more different languages have been fused together, not one in which the vocabulary is of a heterogeneous character. Mixed languages in the latter sense are, of course, plentiful enough; in fact there are languages like the Basque or the Telugu, in which the proportion of borrowed words is larger than that of native words. But though words may be borrowed, it is a grave question whether the expression of grammatical relations can be, and modern philology has been inclined to deny the possibility of such an occurrence. The grammar of one speech may be influenced by that of another, existing machinery being adapted to express grammatical conceptions introduced from abroad, or foreign modes of forming the sentence being imitated, and the idioms of one language may even be adopted by another, but anything beyond this is extremely unlikely. It is in grammar and structure that languages differ from one another; the expression of the relations of grammar embodies the mode in which a particular community thinks, and a change in their expression is equivalent to a change in the mode of thinking. And this mode of thinking is the result of a long succession of past experiences and stereotyped habits of thought. The Existence of Mixed Languages. By J. C. Clough. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1870.) On the Comparative Method of Learning Foreign Languages. By L. J. V. Gerard. (Leicester: 1876.)