Introduction to an Introduction - Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie

Comparative Linguistics (formerly Comparative Philology) is the study of the relationships between two or more languages and the techniques used to find out whether the languages have a common ancestor. The study was enthused by the Sir William Jones’ (1746-1794) discovery in 1786, that Sanskrit was related to Latin, Greek, and German. The comparative method, inspired by the principle of the Neogrammarians, assumes that the laws governing sound change are regular and have no exceptions that cannot be explained by some other regular phenomenon of language.

An important aspect of the comparative study was unveiled by the formulation of the ‘Stammbaumtheorie’ by August Schleicher (1821-1868). Schleicher, in his book ‘Die Sprachen Europas’ (1850) came to this conclusion that the history of Indo-European language development could best be demonstrated in a ‘Stammbaum’ or family tree model. He believed all languages that exist or ever existed, are all related to one another, and are a part of a huge language family. The relationship between languages, that Schleicher showed, are based on two assumptions,

- Regularity Hypothesis – As per Regularity Hypotheses, language change doesn’t happen haphazardly but in regular ways.

- Relatedness Hypothesis – As per Relatedness Hypothesis, if a significant amount of similarity is observed between two languages, it has to be concluded that they are related to one another.

How the Regularity Hypothesis and the Relatedness Hypothesis work effectively together, could be demonstrated through an example,

Say we have two languages A and B, which show a good amount of similarity between them. Applying the Regularity Hypothesis, we can conclude that the basis of similarity isn’t superficial, but has risen through regular change, following the norms of sound change. We can next apply the Relatedness Hypothesis to conclude that since the languages A and B show a good deal of similarity between them, hence, their source is the same.

For a practical study, we could now consider language A to and B to be German and English respectively, and draw an example of their similarities,

A	B
artikel	article
ball	ball
bier	beer
familie	family
literatur	literature
lernen	learn
studieren	study
kommen	come
hören	hear
bilden	build

According to Schleicher’s ‘Stammbaumtheorie’, ‘Languages change in regular recognizable ways (Regularity Hypothesis) and because of this similarities among languages are due to a ‘genetic’ relationship among those languages (Relatedness Hypothesis).’ Schleicher’s concept of a ‘genetic relationship’ among languages was inspired by Charles Darwin’s concept of ‘Tree of Life’, which he demonstrated to show the evolution of species, in his book ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) (Fig. 1). Through his demonstration, Darwin pictured the evolution of ‘higher species’ from ‘lower species’. In ‘Deutse Sparche’ (1860), inspired by Darwin’s tree, Schleicher brought out the concept of ‘Stammbaum’ to show the origin and development of languages. Initially, following the norms of language reconstruction, Schleicher reached the idea of a ‘parent language’, i.e. the origin, from which several ‘daughter languages’ evolved (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Fig .2

Although ‘Deutse Sparche’ was published in 1860, Schleicher had shown an initial tree model in as early as 1853 (even before Darwin’s work was published) (Fig. 3) in which he portrayed the origin and evolution of the Indo-European (Indo-Germanic, as per Schleicher’s work in 1853) languages. Schleicher viewed language in its entirety. His ‘Stammbaumtheorie’ worked as an inspiration to several linguists and philologists of the later era. However, Schleicher’s family tree model isn’t beyond questioning. 

Fig. 3

Schleicher had shown the similarities between sister languages, coming from the same parent language, such as,

ENGLISH	GERMAN
father	vater
mother	mutter
age	alter
widow	witwe
widower	witwer

English and German being sister languages as per Schleicher’s find-outs, the similarities can be reasoned through the ‘Stammbaum’ model.  However, English and French too, despite not being sister languages as per Schleicher, show a good deal of similarities,

ENGLISH	FRENCH
father	le père
mother	la mère
age	âge
widow	veuve
widower	veuf

Even Chinese shows several similarities with the English language,

ENGLISH	CHINESE
tank	坦克 (tǎnkè)
ballet	芭蕾舞 (bālěiwǔ)
coffee	咖啡 (kāfēi)
humor	幽默 (yōumò)

Even the language of the distant Vietnam bears certain similarities with English,

ENGLISH	VIETNAMESE
tank	xe tăng
ballet	vở ballet
guitar	đàn ghi ta
coffee	cà phê

In this case, the comparison between English and French, Chinese, and Vietnamese, makes it clear that language development happens both vertically and horizontally. ‘Stammbaumtheorie’ regards the vertical development of language only. In reality however, loanwords, borrowings, blending, occur in almost all languages, despite the possible distance between the origins. It isn’t possible for language to remain detached from ambit it’s being used in.  Schleicher’s theory doesn’t regard the association of language with the socio-cultural ambit.

If we picture the evolution and development of the English language through the ‘Stammbaum’ model, we see,

PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN

˅

PROTO-GERMANIC

˅

OLD ENGLISH

˅

MIDDLE ENGLISH

˅

MODERN ENGLISH

In reality, however, this picture is largely incomplete. The history of the English language clearly shows how, at different stages of its development, and at different times, the English language has been influenced by several other languages. At large, the influence has been effective in two ways,

-          Direct Contract – In case of specific languages like Celtic, Norse, Norman, and French.

-          Loans – From several languages of the world.

Fig. 4

Modern linguists have been able to give a more complete picture of the development of the English language (Fig. 4), though the completeness of the concerned picture too, isn’t beyond question.

Schleicher’s model doesn’t define language mixture and language convergence. The model clearly shows only the divergence of its branches, and convergence in such a diagram can’t be depicted. Though in reality, several languages have originated from more than a single source (most often through language contact).  Unsurprisingly, one can’t define Pidgimisation and Creolisation through the ‘Stammbaum’ model. The ‘Stammbaumtheorie’ doesn’t consider dialects as well. If we to take the theory as an ultimate, we would have to assume that each language has a uniform speech community. In reality though, this doesn’t stand true. As per Schleicher’s model, daughter languages evolve from a parent language. We could, for instance, consider the evolution of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (daughter languages) from Latin (parent language). If these languages were to indeed, directly evolve from Latin, whether the languages would have been any different from one another, is a question. The obvious intermediate stages (Fig. 5) between the evolution of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese from Latin, are not considered by the ‘Stammbaumtheorie’.

Fig. 5

‘Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity… It is a part of nature’

-          Charles Darwin (1871)

The progress or development of language too, happens naturally, following norms of sound change. Schleicher’s ‘Stammbaumtheorie’, though no longer influential due to its evident drawbacks, was definitely far ahead of time, as an early attempt to incorporate the study of languages.

Bibliography :-

1. Darwinism Tested by the Science of Language (translated from German); Professor August Schleicher; John Camden Hotten, 74 & 75 Piccadilly
2. Essays in The History of Linguistics; E.F.K. Koerner' John Benjamins Publishing Company
3. Advances in English Historical Linguistics; Jacek Fisiak, Marcin Krygier (Editors); Mouton de Gruyter
4. The Linguistic Creation of Man : Charles Darwin, August Schleicher, Ernst Haeckel, and the Missing Link in Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Theory; Robert J. Richards; The University of Chicago
5. Papers in the History of Linguistics; Hans Aarsleff, L.G.Kelly, Hans-Josef Niederehe (Editors); John Benjamins Publishing Company