The Experiment of Psammetichus: Fact, Fiction, and Model to Follow

Author(s): Antoni Sułek

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas , Oct. - Dec., 1989, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec.,
1989), pp. 645-651
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709802

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 THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS:
FACT, FICTION, AND MODEL TO FOLLOW

BY ANTONI SUEEK

In the middle of the fifth century B.C., during his peregrinations in Egypt
Herodotus was told by priests in a temple in Memphis the story of Pharao
Psammetichus's attempts at establishing "who were actually the primitive race.

Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king Psammetichus, believed them
selves to be the most ancient of mankind. Since Psammetichus, however, m
an attempt to discover who were actually the primitive race, they have been of
opinion that while they surpass all other nations, the Phrygians surpass th
in antiquity. This king, finding it impossible to make out by dint of inquiry wh
men were the most ancient, contrived the following method of discovery:
took two children of the common sort, and gave them over to a herdsman
bring up at his folds, strictly charging him to let no one utter a word in their
presence, but to keep them in a sequestered cottage, ... see that they got th
fill of milk, and in all other respects look after them. His object herein was to
know, after the indistinct babblings of infancy were over, what word they wo
first articulate.... The herdsman obeyed his orders for two years, and at t
end of that time, on his one day opening the door of their room and going in,
the children both ran up to him with outstretched arms, and distinctly s
"Becos. " When this first happened the herdsman took no notice; but afterward
when he observed, on coming often to see after them, that the word was c
stantly in their mouths, he informed his lord, and by his command brought th
children into his presence. Psammetichus then himself heard them say the wor
upon which he proceeded to make inquiry what people there was who calle
anything "becos," and hereupon he learnt that "becos" was the Phrygian na
for bread. In consideration of this circumstance the Egyptians yielded the
claims and admitted the greater antiquity of the Phrygians.'

The story told by Memphis priests is the only extant evidence of this test.
It is known, however, that Herodotus was not the only one to record it. H
a century earlier it was noted by Hecataeus of Miletus, who heard it in Egy
possibly from the same source. Other ancient writers copied the story fr
them. It was rather well known in those days, just as it is today, even in those
disciplines in which Herodotus is not read. In sociology Psammetichus's e
periment is cited as the first instance of using the experimental method in the
study of social phenomena,2 and in psychology-as the prototype of resear
on the relative role of heredity and environment in the development of
individual.3

1 The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson (New York, 1956), II, 2.
2 See e.g. Stanislaw Ossowski, "Contemporary Sociology in the Processes of Soc
Change," Polish Sociological Bulletin (1962), 9-16.
3 See e.g. Wayne Dennis, "Infant Development under Conditions of Restricted Pr
tice and of Minimum Social Stimulation," Genetic Psychology Monographs, 23 (194

645

Copyright 1989 by JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INC.

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 646 ANTONI SUEEK

The authors who cite the story

rhetorical value, and the problem of
The present note, however, intend
show that the story told by Hero
although, needless to say, many of
if in Herodotus's story we see only t
it without going into its historic
description of the application of the
In the literature we encounter v
story of Psammetichus's experiment
origin of the theoretical backgrou
very idea of the experimental inquir
of Psammetichus's experiment: "the
human beings are placed in a state
the same language as their forbea
("one language was invented and
it.")4 These circumstances may speak
story, but they hardly prove it. I
tichus's experiment has yet another
are identical," though the Greeks
Psammetichus's study is "an experim
un-Greek problem formulation" (ein
ganz ungriechischen Fragestellung).5
It is understandable that Psamm
should have been interested in the g
figure in the history of Egypt in th
throwing off the Assyrian yoke rem
rule on the whole country, which h
He initiated the so-called Saite re
renewal of the national spirit. One o
rule was a great admiration for Egy
opening Egypt to the Greeks: it was
appeared in Egypt for the first time
nationalism among native Egyptians
past.
Psammetichus's genealogical interests would then be in full accord with the
spirit of the time. It may also be suspected that his attempts were directed not
so much at finding out "who were actually the primitive race," but rather at
proving that "the primitive race" were Egyptians and not some other people.
According to the testimony of his descendants, Psammetichus was not only
curious about the world but also eager to explore it, possibly having been
influenced by the Greeks. Herodotus heard another story about the Pharaoh's
passion for research, this time from some scribe in Sais. The scribe told him
that Psammetichus had tried to sound the fountain where the river Nile was
said to begin: "he had a rope made, many thousands of fathoms in length, a

4 Allan B. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II. Commentary 1-98 (Leiden, 1976), 5-10.
5 Aarno Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel. Geschichte der Meinungen tiber Urspru
und Vielfalt der Sprachen und Vilker (Stuttgart, 1957), I, 39.

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 PSAMMETICHUS 647

sounded the fountain with it; but did

how much truth may be in this story
the facts concerning the locality turn
was made up, it was not by accide
passion for exploration was well kn
The idea of experimenting with inf
was the original one proves Psamme
not naive at the time. The expectation
day will speak a natural language and
hopelessly naive today. We know t
viction, apparently so obvious, becam
It is also worth noting that Psamm
intentional, followers who wanted
primary human language or some k
wanted to learn whether children w
start to speak by themselves.
The best known experiment is the
(1194-1250). He took infants from t

"bidding foster-mothers and nurses t

but in no wise to prattle or to spea
whether they would speak the Hebr
Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perch
they had been born. But he laboured
could not live without clappings of
countenance, and blandishments.9

A similar experiment was perf

(1473-1515).10 A less known fol
Great, Emperor of India (1556-1

that several suckling infants should

tations, where they should not hear a
to be placed over them, who were to
in speaking, so as to test the accura
that is born is born with a natural te
sect these infants would incline to, a
To carry out this order about twenty
for a consideration in money, and
the name of "Dumb-house." After thr

6 The History of Herodotus, II, 28.

7 See A. G. Wainwright, "Herodotus
Hellenic Studies, 73 (1953), 104-7.
8 Robert E. Park in: R. E. Park and Er
of Sociology (Chicago, 1921), II,II,A,3.
9 Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam
torica, Scriptores, XXXII), ed. Oswald
George G. Coulton, Medieval Panoram
10 See Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie, Th
J. G. Mackay (Edinburgh, 1899), II, 23

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648 ANTONI SUZEK

and the appellation of the place tu

became the nurselings of mother ear

Those experiments render Psamme

ply prove that he was not the only
From a certain point of view the e
to be considered naive even today,
seen as a search for traces of the
followers among contemporary lin
expect to hear a natural language f
The beginnings of human speech ar
use various methods in studying the
apes because they believe that the
their "language." Others turn to
languages in order to find the m
developed into rich natural language
speech who are of the greatest impo
the speech of children. "The form
on physiological facts, and we who a
the history of man is largely repe
might reasonably expect to find tha
first speech sounds of men," Arth
men-are born wholly without the
degrees to co-ordinate and adjust th
and language. "12
Empirical studies on children's s
consistent not only with the resu
human languages but also with the r
panzees and with theoretical studi
indicate below). Even for a layma
Diamond's theoretical conceptions
ological doctrine") to language see
organs differ from the speech organ
day human speech. Secondly, childre
human mind with the capability of
however, Haeckel's law is indeed cu
guage and Psammetichus's experim
history of linguistics as "somethin
the science of language." 13
The most important question, ho
Psammetichus had reasons to und
absolute monarch, he could do as h
described it. This question should

" 'Abd al-Kadir Bada'uni, Muntakhab

1898), II, 296.
12 Arthur Diamond, The History an
'- Adam Heinz, Dzieje jzykoznawstwa w
(Warsaw, 1978), 12.

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 PSAMMETICHUS 649

have been conducted in that way,

obtained?

The first question may be answered in the positive. If the infants were not
newborns, with some luck they could have survived in favorable climatic con-
ditions and under the care of the shepherd for whom this task was certain to
have been a hundredfold more important than running after his goats.
Yet, it is not possible to accept the result of the experiment, although it must
be admitted that the image of the infants leaping to the shepherd and calling
"bread!" with their hands stretched out is very picturesque and appeals to an
unenlightened imagination. There is no need to persuade anyone that this was
to add color to the story. Let us, however, look for the facts in it, too. That is,
let the question be: what were the first speech sounds that the poor infants could
have uttered "after the indistinct babblings"?
The first sounds that a child utters are the simplest ones, the ones easiest
to make, sounds which require minimal coordination of the vocal organs and
their application to speech. They are the sounds which simply utilize the stream
of air in breathing and the lip compression developed in sucking. This is how
the complexes are formed composed of repeating syllables consisting of labial
consonants m, b, p, and the vowel a, e.g., mama, baba, papa. Those sound
complexes and their transformations acquire the same meaning in the later stages
of the child's development-they designate the persons whom the child sees
most often: mother and father. This meaning is, at least partially, independent
of the social tradition, which only regulates and sanctions it, as evidenced by
the fact that it appears in nearly all the known languages of the world.'4 Ac-
cording to Diamond, the first "words" produced by man which then developed
into rich languages were also like that. The "radical words" established by him
are of the same structure as that of the child's first words.
The first sounds produced by the child also depend on the influence of its
environment. The child imitates the sounds which it hears, including those
uttered by humans and animals alike.
It follows that the poor infants in Psammetichus's experiment could at the
most utter primitive meaningless sounds such as ma, ba, pa and their combi-
nations. Moreover, the sound ba being similar to the goats' baa did not have
to be natural but imitated and brought about by the experiment itself (in the
language of modern methodology that imitation would be called an experimental
artifact).' If then, there was some truth in the just analyzed part of Herodotus's
story, the infants' first sound would be ba. It is very far indeed from that
primitive syllable to the word becos!

14 See Otto Jespersen, Language: its Nature, Development and Origin (London, 1922),
154-60; Tadeusz Milewski, Introduction to the Study of Language (The Hague, 1973),
14-15.

'5 Apparently the so-called Irish Boy, one of the "wild children," reared among sheep
and, as a teenager, studied in Amsterdam by the famous (Rembrandt's "The Anatomy
Lesson"!) Doctor Tulp, "destitutus voce humana, balabat instar ovis" ("destitute of
human voice, bleated like a sheep"); see Nicolaus Tulpius, Observationes medicae, editio
nova (Amsterdam, 1672), 297.

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 650 ANTONI SUXEK

This, however, does not mean that

In the sounds uttered by the children
for, i.e., a word that could be poss
language that he knew at least a little
have heard even the word becos. More
which meant nothing to him at first
of the Greek language, which was pro
assessed as most similar to the Phry
it may also have influenced the deci
What is most interesting is the all
experiment by Psammetichus and h
becos existed in the Phrygian langu
Asia Minor in the times of Psammetic
It is difficult to imagine, however,
concrete names, there were no word
the strange word becos in the first
whatever they may have been, woul
dence" that it was the Egyptians w
But why should Psammetichus and
doubtedly pleasant conviction under
nealogical myths are not so easily aban
ideologies, resist even stronger argu
chologically improbable.
Moreover, the conclusion drawn by P
error. On the grounds of the tacit pre
the conditions in which the first hum
same language as their ancestors, it fo
Phrygians are "the most ancient of m
more ancient than the Egyptians. It d
rank second in the line and as such sh
the Phrygians. The latter part of th
from the same source from which their antecedence arose earlier. It is the
attachment to this faith that underlies this formal error.
Nonetheless, Psammetichus's behavior, as Herodotus described it, shows
exceptional beauty and honesty. Psammetichus abandoned a conviction so im-
portant to himself and the Egyptians under the influence of a single empirical
counterargument. He could have resorted to various loopholes. In the infants'
utterings he could have heard native words rather than the alien word becos.
He could have invalidated the whole experiment by pointing out that becos was
not a natural but an imitated sound. He could have also stated that one exper-
iment was not sufficient to have drawn a verdict concerning the antecedence of
the peoples of the earth. Present-day experimenters sometimes resort to such
strategies. They tend to interpret ambiguous results of their studies in a biased
way to prove their own hypotheses. When the results contradict their hypotheses
in an obvious manner, they maintain that the conditions of experimental control
have not been fulfilled and that the study is invalid. They also make us wait
for the final rejection of the hypothesis until many replications of their experiment

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 PSAMMETICHUS 651

have been carried out, while acce

experiment proves it, though the lo
Thus the intellectual honesty of
become the patron of present-day e
inventiveness, but of his honesty as
survived, they ought to stand in th

University of Warsaw.

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