Earl R. Anderson, in A Grammar of Iconism (1998), includes an historical sketch of linguistic theories, which we barely summarize here. The 18th century saw the formulation of theories of etymology that avoided divine origin as an explanatory engine. Rousseau was not the first to suggest an onomatopoetic origin for many words (Essai sur l'origine des langues, 1782). This principle of imitation continued to influence the discussion: Gerard Manley Hopkins saw it as the reason we have words like crack and creak.
Edward Burnett Tyler, in Primitive Culture (1871) compares various words in certain cultures to enforce his theory of an onomatopoetic origin to many aspects of emotional and imitative languages. These in turn he thought, influenced later languages.
An example Anderson gives is Tyler's comparison of the word pu to express, and we quote now:
an evil smell as in Zulu pu "stink," Timorese poop "putrid," Quiche puh, poh "corruption, pus," Tupi puxi "nasty," and these may be compared with Latin putridus, Sanskrit putika "civet-cat," French putois "pole-cat" ... Tyler, calling his method "generative philology," relates Latin putrides to the expressive association of pu in "primitive" languages, rather than to the reconstructed Indo-European form as historical philologists of the school of Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm would do.
End quote. Not surprising that Franz Bopp (September 14, 1791 to October 23, 1867) would turn away from imitative sound as an explanatory mechanism.
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