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Title: On the Evolution of Language
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 1-16

Author: John Wesley Powell

Release Date: July 13, 2006 [EBook #18818]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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* * * * *

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

J. W. Powell, Director.

ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE,

As Exhibited In

The Specialization of the Grammatic Processes,
the Differentiation of the Parts of Speech,
and the Integration of the Sentence;
From a Study of Indian Languages.

By

J. W. POWELL.

* * * * *

ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE

* * * * *

Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for
every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary.
The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with
comparatively few words.

Again, in the evolution of any language, progress is from a condition
where few ideas are expressed by a few words to a higher, where many
ideas are expressed by the use of many words; but the number of all
possible ideas or thoughts expressed is increased greatly out of
proportion with the increase of the number of words.

And still again, in all of those languages which have