[…] there is a movement in the whole vocabulary of language from the designation of what is coarser, grosser, more material, to the designation of what is finer, more abstract and conceptional, more formal. Considered with reference to the ends rather than the methods of expression, there is no grander phenomenon than this in all language-history.
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 89-90

If every tongue had from the beginning its own structure and material complete, then language-history would run back only in parallel lines, with no indication of convergence.
- Whitney (1875), Pag. 269