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Abraham Mylius on Historical Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

George J. Metcalf
George J. Metcalf*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago 37, IIlinois
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Extract

The fame of Abraham Vander-Mylius (Abraham van der Myl, 1563-1637) as a linguist persisted through many generations. The Lingua Belgica of the Dutch theologian, which appeared at Leiden in 1612, had a clarity, freshness, and persuasiveness which were vital factors in establishing its reputation. Even today, the work has value as revealing, both explicitly and implicitly, views on language that were current in the author's time. This article is particularly concerned with the attitude which Mylius displayed toward the historical, diachronic aspects of language. The primary aim is to present as clearly as possible Mylius' own views on this phase of language; only incidentally are we concerned with his sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , June 1953 , pp. 535 - 554
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

page 535 note 1 Among the contemporaries who praised him were Grotius, Heinsius, Vulcanius, and Lipsius; recognition was accorded him later by Eccard, Schottel, Morhof, ten Kate, Leibniz, and Ypey. Ct. van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, XII, 1203-07.

page 535 note 2 Subtitled: De Lingua illius communitate tum cum plerisque alijs, tum presertim cum Latind, Grœcâ, Persicâ; deque communitatis illius cousis; tum de Linguœ illius origine & latissimâ per nationes quamplurimas diffusione; ut side ejus prestantiâ. Quâ tum occasione, Hic simul quœdam tractantur consideratu non indigna, ad linguas in Universum omnes pertinentia. References without other identification are always to this work, copies of which are available in the libraries of the university of Chicago and the university of Michigan. I have resolved the usual abbreviations (-q;=que, the tilde for nasals); æ is regularly ligatured in the original; citations are corrected according to the “Errata.” The occasional translations of Mylius into English are my own.

page 535 note 3 The clarity and freshness may have been due in pert to the speed of composition (the work was written in two months, Mylius tells in his preface to the reader, p. [x]). The work undoubtedly gained in persuasiveness through a spirit of tolerant cordiality toward scholarly opponents: Mylius stressed their learning and personal integrity (p. 214); he emphasised points of agreement as well as disagreement (p. 254); he admitted and retracted an error when it was called to bis attention (pp. 227-229: ascribing to Ovid himself Geropius Becanus' dasstic emendation of Ovidian lines).

page 535 note 4 The terminology is often confusing to the modern reader. Mylius, in referring to languages which be considered members of the Germanic family, used a bewildering array of synonyms. As will be noted later, this was not a result of carelessness or confusion, but a deliberate attempt to emphasise the unity of the group through interchangeability of terms. The same designation at one time referred to the collective group of dialects and at another to a specific dialect; at one time to a dialect in the past, at another time to a dialect in the present For the collectivity of dialects or entire family (the “lingua matrix,” p. 15), Mylius employed without discrimination “lingua Teutonics” (pp. 118, 239), “lingua Celtics” (p. 254), “lingua Belgica” (pp. 87, 95, 97), “linges Cimbrica” (p. 116), and “lingua Germanica” (p. 18). These terms were sometimes combined as in “lingua Cimbro-Belgica” (p. 97), sometimes specifically referred to as alternates: “[lingua] Germanica, sive Teutonics, sive Belgica” (p. 15); Mylius speaks of scholars “[periti] linguae Belgicae, aut Germanicae, aut priscae Celticae” (p. 87); the inhabitants fIceland used a language “cujus fundamentum est Cimbricum, id est vetus Germanicum aut Belgicum” (p. 18). At the same time Mylius used “lingua Belgica” to refer specifically to the language of the Lowlands in his own time (p. 147), and “lingua Germanica” to refer to High German (pp. 256-257); but “lingua Alemanica” also referred to High German (p. 224), while “[lingua] Climbrica” (p. 147) designated German, both High and Low.—I shall use the term Teutonic in this paper to refer to tie collective or generic sense of the Germanic family; Belgian will be reserved for the language of the Lowlands in Mylius' day, while High German and Law German will be need in their usual present sense. Such a terminology, of course, inevitably involves a distortion: an emphasis on distinctions which Mylius chose to ignore.

page 537 note 5 The devil and his minions provided, of course, s further possible agency, but Mylius does not even mention them. Presumably he would have felt it blasphemous to even suggestthem as the source of human speech, one of men's noblest possessions.

page 537 note 6 “Attamen homo quoque in hoe fabricationis vocabulorum opere, non tam peculiari Dei influxu, quam oidinaria sui intellectus facultate, que semel a Deo est praeditus, aliquid agit” (p. 61).

page 537 note 7 The individual child, in acquiring speech, did not repeat the process of creation which first brought speech to men. On this premise, Mylius rejected the famous experiment of Psammeticus (as recorded by Herodotus II.2) as based on false assumptions; the child's “Bee” was really “b, b, bec” in imitation of the goats (p. 82).

page 537 note 8 Page 56. Koppalah and na are undoubtedly Sanskrit kapla and na, Prof. G. V. Bo-brinskoy assures me. That the “Chinenses” of whom Mylius speaks were really an “Indies gens” is indicated by the distinguished historian and geographer Philipp Clüver (1580-1623) in hit Germaniae Antiquae libri tres (Leiden, 1616—four years after the Lingua Belgica). Clüver cites all the instances mentioned by Mylius (and many more), mentioning “summa pars hominis diciturSinis, Indicae genti, Koppalak” (p. 73). Clüver, It is interesting to note, uses these exemples, not as Mylius dees to show chance correspondences, but to prove the survival in all languages of certain elements from the common prediluvial tongue. I have net located the undoubtedly common source of these examples. The authorities cited by Mylius himself discuss only Theut; I have checked “In Cratylum, uel de recta nominum ratione, epitome” by Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) in the Opera (Basel, 1561), II, 1309-10; the Etymologicum Teutonicae, Linguae siveDictionarium Teutonics-Latinum of Cornells Kiel (Kilianus: 1528-1607), 3rd ed. (Antwerp, 1599) under “Deudisch,” p. 750; and the “Propriorum Nominum Germanicae Originis Etyma” of Ludolph Potter (d. 1611) under “Deud.” This last I consulted onle in the Hasselt edition of Kid's Etymologicum (Utrecht, 1777), II, 909, but the careful relegation to the bottom of the page, in this edition, of additions and revisions makes it likely that the entry was essentially in the form in which Mylius saw it.

page 538 note 9 “vix millesima res nomen, naturam suam indicans, gerit” (p.68).

page 538 note 10 In his Mithridates (Zürich, 1555), p. 3r. This work, as we'll as several others, apparently came to the attention of Mylius only after he had completed the main part of bis book; for it is not once mentioned in this portion but is cited specifically thirteen times in the “Additamenta” (pp. 194 ff.). Apparently Mylius was thinking of such books when he wrote the “quaedam” in Us introduction to the “Additamenta”: “Postqum liber hic meus justam suam formam accepisset. interea dum impressio ejus parabatur, succurrerunt occurreruntque nobis quaedam, omnino ad argumentum ejus pertinentia” (p. 194).

page 539 note 11 Words common to Hebrew and to other languages might well have come into the latter “a progenitrice ad sobolem” (p. 86): “quod, cum certum sit unam fuisse inmundo linguam primogeniam, a qua omnes linguae aliae sunt derivataein proclivi sit, hic illic in sequentibus remanere aliquid simile aut idem, quod tractum sit s prima” (p. 57).

page 539 note 12 “simile ingenium, similem characterem, similem idolem” (p. 72).

page 539 note 13 “mutuus populorum usus, cohabitatio, conversatio, frequentatio, & consuetudo” (pp. 68-69).

page 539 note 14 “Consuetudo ususque igitur &praecipua &maxime certa est, pleraeque communitatis, quae in linguis est, causa” (p. 71).

page 540 note 15 Thus Hebrew Ben ‘filius’ and Belgian Ben ‘sum’ could not be considered related despite their similarity in form (p. 20). In his theoretical discussion, Mylius nowhere touched on the issue of proper names; it was precisely in this field, however, that semantic checks en imaginative etymologizing were weakest. Mylius, in his own speculations on proper names, matched in boldness any of his contemporaries whose lack of caution he felt called on to condemn.

page 540 note 16 Johannes Goropius Becanus (1518-72), physician and linguist extraordinary, had exposed himself to considerable ridicule by the wild etymologies he employed in exalting his native Belgian, even presuming it, as we shall see, to have been the language of Paradise. Mylius, who frequently referred to Becanus' Origines Antwerpianae (Antwerp, 1569), approved the goal but often deplored the means.

page 540 note 17 Metathesis, metaplasm, aphaeresis, syncope, and apocope (p. 21).

page 541 note 18 “Biese, Belg, juncus, a supk Hebr. per inversionem, quae obvie est legentibus Hebraicum a sinistra dextram versus, ut legunt Teutones; sic erit phus, verte ph in b, & u in y, erit bys”(p. 205).

page 541 note 19 Cf. Theodoras Bibliander, one of Mylius' admired sources: “Mutantur in tempore homines, variantur & mores: mutantur animi, variantur &vestes: linguarum alteratur simplicitas, & prisca variatur idiometum, proprietas, & nihil stabile reperitur in humanis ”De ratione communi omnium Linguarum & literarum commentarius (Zürich, 1548), p. 49.

page 542 note 20 “Ac nescio profecto, quid illud arcanae virtutis sit, aut quid solicitudinis in Providentia divina, quod, in incredibili multarum linguarum mutatione, ab ipso forte exordio suo, usque huc inter paucas linguas, tam firma & immota lingua nostra Belgica constiterit, suo adhuc initio parum dissimilis” (p. 146).

page 542 note 21 Thus Belgian was “suo adhuc initio parum dissimilis” (my italics; p. 146).

page 542 note 22 “si non toto habitu, saltem ipso corpore.” (p. 90); “stirps, & character sermonis idem” (ibid.).

page 542 note 23 Thus the Bergomates were analyzed as Berge-maets ‘mountain comrades’ (p. 92), while the Galatae were derived from the Ga-laters, i.e., those ‘let’ to 'go'from the remaining Celts (p. 94).

page 543 note 24 The Targum to Genesis xi.1 had claimed Hebrew as the original tongue, and this theory persisted among Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages. Cf. Encyclopedia Biblica, II, “Hebrew Language,” col. 1987, Sec. 5; Eduard König, Hebräisch und Semitisch (Berlin, 1901), pp. 113 ff; . Berliner, Beiträge sur hebräischen Grammatik im Talmud und Midrasch (Berlin, 1879), p. 9. (I am indebted lor these references to Prof. Raymond A. Bowman, who was also kind enough to check Mylius' citations of Hebrew forms) Typical of the views held by the Church Fathers (end of course widely influential in the ages following) is that expressed by Augustine in his De Civitate Dei XVI.11. Dante also adhered to the tradition in his De Vulgari Eloquentia I, 6 and 7.

page 544 note 25 Nomadic proclivities of the patriarchs furnished a welcome escape for partisans of a particular language. Net only were Eber, Japheth, and Gomer to exculpated; the British Architect John Webb (1611-72) assumed a pre-Tower migration of the Chinese, who consequently preserved and maintained the original tongue, in An historical Essay, endeavoring a Probability that theLanguage of the Empire of China is the Primitive language (London, 1669), passim.

page 545 note 26 Franciscus Junius (1545-1602), Netherlandish theologian end father of the noted editor of old Germanic texts, had a high reputation as a student of Oriental languages, and had published s Hebrew grammar in 1590.

page 545 note 27 “non mediocris,” p. 19. Mylius' views thus differed from the well-known verdict of Joseph Scaliger, who insisted in his “Diatriba de Europaeorum Linguis.” Opuscula Varia Antehac non Edita (Paris, 1610), pp. 119-122, that there was no relationship at all among the major “matrices” (“quae per omnia inter se discrepant”). Scaliger, dealing only with Europe, did not include Hebrew, but did include the Slavic group, as well as seven languages which were “minores” There is no evidence that Mylius was acquainted with this statement of Scaliger, published only two years before his own work.

page 545 note 28 Luke xxiii.38 and John xix.20. Cf. Julius Schwering, “Die Idee der drei heiligen Sprachen im Mittelalter,” Festschrift August Sauer (Stuttgart [1926]), pp 3-11.

page 546 note 29 Page 122. But earlier, Mylius had etymologized the name from its later form (citing Plutarch, Diodorus, and Strabo, he declared: “prius Cimmerij, temporis lapsu, Cimbri dicti”) at Cum and beer, beur, or beare ‘vix ferendus’ (p. 118).

page 546 note 30 The Sarmatae, e.g., were etymologized, following Becanus, as Saure-maeten 'acerborum aequales socij“” and hence, by this derivation, Teutonic, and incidentally the husbands of the Amazons (p. 121).

page 547 note 31 Mylius was more vigorous later: “Virilia Cimbri, Celtae, Belgae facinora patrare, cum nondum Graeci satis firmo talo incedebant” (p. 145).

page 547 note 32 Scholar, reformer, and statesman in the Low Countries (1539-98).

page 547 note 33 “quod vocabula communia magis referent Celticum quam Graecum genium & indolem” (p. 81); “Quia [vocabula communia) magis referunt germanam linguae Belgicae, quam Graecae, indolem, genuinumque ingenium” (p. 98).

page 548 note 34 “quam mutilata, quam adulterata, quam jugo summae Barbariae pressa, quam misere serva? quam velut cadaver, utens domo suo pro sepulchro?” (p. 157).

page 548 note 35 In attempting to prove that the victor imposed his language on the vanquished, Mylius remarked : “Testes devictae Hispania & Gallia, quarum lingua etiamnum nihil aliud est, quam corrupta Latinitas” (p. 99).

page 548 note 36 Joachim Périan (Ioachimu. Perionius) had published in 1555 at Paris his Dialogorum de linguae gallicae origine, eiúsque cum graecacognatione, libri quatuor.

page 548 note 37 French lasche was thus declared to be derived from Latin laxus rather then Greek bs ‘stupid’ (genitive case) (p. 221).

page 548 note 38 Mareschal was thus denied to Greek o-os ‘war leader’ and assigned to Celtic Mam ‘horse’ and schale ‘experienced’ (p. 220); Ammiral was likewise denied to Greek Halmyrarcha ‘briny leader’ and interpreted as An- Mer-Al'the one to whom all things on sea are entrusted' (ibid.).

page 550 note 39 “in Frisia orientali: ubi rustici, maxime antiquum adhuc Saxonicum loquentes” (p. 102).

page 550 note 40 Britannia=Vri-dania 'libera Dania,' an etymology emphasizing the Danish origin of the population; the later Danish invaders would support this view by their re-use of an ancient route of attack (pp. 131-133). The Scots derived their name, as did the Scyths, from Scutten 'hurlers' or “shooters' (p. 131).

page 550 note 41 Frislandia (Frislanda, Frisland), the largest of numerous mythical islands in the North Atlantic, attracted wide interest in the later 16th century through the account then published (1558) of a voyage to Frisland (and other mythical islands) by two Venetian brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, at the end of the 14th century. Although the whole account was s clever forgery, it influenced not only contemporary cartography but even navigation to such an extent that Martin Frobisher not only sighted “Frisland” on all three of his voyages to the Northwest (1576, 1577, 1578), but landed there on the third voyage, calling the country “West England” and taking possession of it in the name of the Queen (he was presumably on Greenland). The island still appeared on maps of the 17th century. But the Zeno account is not the first mention of the island. “Frislanda,” due north of Scotland, appears on the map of Alberto Cantino of 1502; it is possibly s misreading of another mythical island “Stillanda” on the famous map of Juan de la Cosa in 1500 (a misreading continued by many modern editors), bat the tradition also derives fasst a variously named “Resland,” “Wrisland,” “Fixlanda,” of the 14th and 15th centuries. The most extensive account is given by Fred W. Lucas, The Voyages of the Brothers Zeni (London, 1898), pp. 105-119 et passim; cf. also Konrad Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas (Berlin, 1892), pp. 248-253. “Friseland” is mentioned at one of a number of Northern islands in “a little rhyming cosmography, written [in the vernacular] about 1385,” according to E. G. R. Taylor, who does not, however, cite his source (“The Northern Passages,” The Great Age of Discovery, ed. Arthur P. Newton, London, 1932, p. 206).

page 551 note 42 It is interesting that Mylius nowhere mentioned the Gothic character of Crimean speech, although he elsewhere was concerned with the role of the Goths, and his acknowledged source, Gesner's Mithridates, emphasized the Gothic element (pp. 27, 42-43). Presumably Mylius was more interested in establishing early pre-Christian connections (such as the supposed Galatian invaders) than in treating the Teutonic invasions of the Christian era, which—however much better attested—were certainly later. Since he did mention the later Saxons, however, there is no obvious reason why be should not have mentioned the Goths.

page 551 note 43 Cf. Wilhelm Streitberg, “Zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft : 1. Persisch und Deutsch,” Indogermanische Forschungen, XXXV(1915), 182-186.

page 551 note 44 Frans Raphelingius (1539-97), Hebrew and Arabic scholar, printer, professor at Leiden. Cf. ADB.

page 552 note 45 Mylius acknowledged his indebtedness to Goropius Becanus (pp. 117-118),with whom he shared the belief in the far-flung distribution of the Teutonic languages in sncient times. But he maintained his independence in the details of this thesis, and in his argumentation

page 552 note 46 Thus Mylius had claimed Thracian as Teutonic through its derivation from Thiras, son of Jspheth. He then cited Strabo to support the claim that Phrygian was the same as Thracian (p. 123), that Gothic was the same aa Thracian (p. 122), and that Scythian was the same as Gothic (p. 122). Hence Phrygian, Gothic, and Scythian could he edded to the Teutonic list. The Getas belonged then also, since Claudianus and Julius Capitolinus had asserted the identity of Gates and Goti (p. 119).

page 552 note 47 The Sarmatae wen the Saure-maeten 'sour mates,' the Scytae wen scutters 'shooters' or ‘huriere’ (pp. 121, 122). Cf.notes 30 end 40.

page 553 note 48 He introduced his Teutonic interpretations of these New World terms with the facetious “Becanus aliquis diceret...” (p. 104).

page 553 note 49 Tendue, which Mylius listed as the extreme northeast tip ofAsia, and etymologized as T'en[d]-den-houc ‘at the end of the hook’ (p. 113), appears in this position on the map of Abr. Ortelius (Theatrum Orbie Terrarum, Antwerp, 1570), and also on the very similar Mercator map of 1587 (both reproduced in A. A. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile.Atlas, Stockholm, 1889, as plates XLVI and XLVI). Both mens likewise show the kingdom of Anian on the American side, which Mylius interpreted at a corruption of An-ganck ‘entry.‘ Cf. Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas, pp. 438-443, concerning the streit and kingdom of Anian. The contemporary possessors of the region of Tendue, the Tartars, wen surety successors of the Cimbrir Sacae and Scytae, Mylius felt, tome of whom had pressed across to colonize the New World (p. 115).

page 554 note 50 There is no hint that Mylius wu referring in any way to the Viking voyages to Vinland. But he was much interested in theattempt to interpret Plutarch's fable of the Isle of Saturn (Sec. XXVI of the “De Facie quae in Orbe Lunae apparet,” Opera Moralia) as referring to an early colonisation of the New World by way of Iceland and Frislandia (pp. 106-112). It was obvious to Mylius that the fable was badly distorted-but it did contain a kernel of troth: the migratory westward movement of the Teutonic speakers across the Atlantic islands. That the fable had spoken of Greek colonists was merely a testimony of Greek vanity and arrogance.

page 554 note 51 Pages 244-245. Chulcas, which Bibliander explained as a freight boat and connected with Greek, was linked by Mylius to Belgian hulc.