The Loom of Language

MoL^êy^
7-5^?-^
HERBERT
MATSEN
S.
'5 West Yakfma Avenue, #203
Digitized by the Internet Archive

in
2010
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THE LOOM
OF
LANGUAGE
Fig.
I.
The Rosetta Stone
This inscription, which came to hght during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt,

made it possible to decipher the ancient picture writing (top third) of the
Egyptian priesthood. The Greek translation is at the bottom. The middle part
is the equivalent in a later form {demotic) of Egyptian writing. The demotic
was an ideographic script of which the symbols had lost their pictorial character (see pp. 44-7).
LAxNCELOT HOGBEN,
Editor
THE LOOM
OF
LANGUAGE
By
FREDERICK BODMER
WW-
NEW YORK
NORTON & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
INC
Copyright, 1944, by
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
Contents
EDITOR
I
FOREWORD
IX
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF LANGUAGE
n
III
IV
THE STORY OF THE ALPHABET

ACCIDENCE THE TABLE MANNERS OF LANGUAGE
SYNTAX THE TRAFFIC RULES OF LANGUAGE
THE CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
33
j6
II 8
1
69
PART TWO
OUR HYBRID HERITAGE

VI
VII
VIII
IX
HOW TO LEARN THE BASIC WORD LIST

OUR TEUTONIC RELATIVES A BIRd's-EYE VIEW OF TEUTONIC GRAMMAR
THE LATIN LEGACY
MODERN DESCENDANTS OF LATIN
257
308
349
PARTTHREE
THE WORLD LANGUAGE PROBLEM
X
XI
XII
THE DISEASES OF LANGUAGE

PIONEERS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING
LANGUAGE PLANNING FOR A NEW ORDER
409
448
487
CONTENTS
VI
PART FOUR
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
II
APPENDIX
III
INDEX
THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES

52 I
BASIC VOCABULARIES FOR THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES
589
GREEK ROOTS IN COMMON USE FOR TECHNICAL
WORDS OF INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY
657
BASIC VOCABULARIES FOR
683
List of Plates
Fig.
1.
Fig.
4.
THE ROSETTA STONE
Frojit'ispiece
Facing page
Fig.
14.
CUNEIFORM TABLET RECORDING BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF THE DELUGE
22
STONE INSCRIPTION FROM PAPHOS (EIGHTH CEN-
TURY
B.C.)
$S
Fig. 27.
THREE VERSES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE

OLDEST DATABLE MS OF THE HEBREW BIBLE, THE
PROPHETEN-CODEX FROM CAIRO
214
Fig. 28.
PAGE FROM THE "cODEX ARGENTEUS"

UPPSALA
NOW
IN
215
Fig. 29.
RUNE STONE
246
Fig. ^4.
THE OLDEST ROMAN STONE INSCRIPTION THE LAPIS

NIGER FROM THE FORUM (aBOUT 60O B.C.)
Fig.
55?.
ID
STONE WITH CELTIC INSCRIPTION IN OGAM SIGNS

FROM ABOYNE NEAR ABERDEEN IN SCOTLAND
422
Fig. 4J.
POSTAGE STAMP OF KEMAL ATATURK TEACHING THE

47O
TURKS TO USE THE ROMAN ALPHABET
Fig. 46.
MONGOLS LEARNING THE LATIN
ABC
47O
Editor's
Foreword
As NEVER before America is now language conscious and will

come more so if she is to make a constructive contribution to
peace commensurate with her role
in the
war.
book of
this
bethe
scope
therefore needs no apolog)' on account of its novelty or break with

traditional methods, which are unsuited to the needs of adults taking
up the study of language for the first time, or, at most, with little
groundwork behind them.
First and foremost The Looin of Language is a book which adults
can use as a basis for sustained study, and a book from which teachers alert to new techniques of instruction to meet the needs of the
ordinary citizen can get helpful suggestions with a direct bearing
on their daily task. Its design is based on the conviction that in the
past the orientation of studies in many of our schools and universities
has not provided a sufficient equipment for the constructive tasks
of the society in which we live, that radical changes in the scope and
methods of education are a necessary condition of continued social
progress, that such educational reforms will not come about unless
vigorous popular demand for them.

Years ago, when Dr. Bodmer w as my colleague on the staff of the
University of Cape Town, we discussed the project in a preliminary
way. Shortly before the war we drew up a detailed plan based on joint
there
is
country pubs during the course of a

via the Yorkshire moors and
district. There I supposed my
finished, at least till I read the page proofs.
discussion, chiefly in English
motor
from Aberdeen to London

back again by way of the Lake
trip
Suffolk,
job as editor of the series

In reality, collaboration has been closer. During the writing of the
book Dr. Bodmer lived in a small croft which I used to rent in the
I held down a chair in Aberdeen. I saw
him during'the week ends continuously. I read the first drafts of
each chapter, and was able to suggest how to get round difficulties
Scottish Highlands while
EDITORSFOREWORD
of ordinary people
who
be grateful for what was
kept
me
As time
Dr.
poor
linguists.
shall
always
highly educative experience and one which

intellectually alive during a period of somewhat discouraging
conditions for
my own
research.
passed the task became
which
fort in
are like myself

a
acted as a sieve, or,
Bodmer submitted
more and more a co-operative efyou like, as a bit of litmus paper.
if
to suggestions for the benefit of readers
find languages as formidable as
do
more
^\ith
who
readiness than those
normal modicum of egotism and a less developed

When the rising cost of paper forced us to curtail the scope to some extent, I took a hand in the job of condensing
and rewriting some sections. Consequently I have had the greatest
of us
M ho have
social conscience.
difficulty in preventing Dr.
book
^îthout
my name
to see that limitations
recognizing the
as a
Bodmer from
refusing to publish the
coauthor on the cover.
which vindicate
difficulties of
my
have got him
editorial qualifications for
ordinary people would make
me
laughing stock in the capacity of joint author with presumptive
We
knowledge which I do not possess.

have compromised on the understanding that I make clear the extent of my
contribution in this foreword. The erudition is the author's. If the
reader takes exception to irresponsible or facetious remarks put in to
strew a few more flowers on the path of knowledge, it is probably
fair to blame the editor.
claims to expert
The
merits of the
two predecessors of
T}?e
Loom
of
Language
in
due in no small measure to the co-operation

of scores of readers \\ho have sent in suggestions for further clarification or have drawn attention to author's slips or to printer's errors. In
a book of this size, produced under exceptionally difficult conditions
for publisher, printer and author, blemishes are inevitable in a first edition. The editor and publishers hope that readers will show appreciation of Dr. Bodmer's achievement by contributing constructive
their later editions are
criticism for use in later impressions or editions.
Because
this
book
is
successor to MatheTuatics for the Million and
Science for the Citizen, its motif is social and its bias is practical. It
does not touch on the aesthetic aspects of language. What aesthetic
merits
some people
home
find,
and
\\'e
may hope
will continue to find,
do with difficulties which beset

the beginner learning a new one or with technical problems of devising ways and means of communication on a planetary scale in an
in their
languages have
little
to
age of potential plenty.
LANr.FLOT
HOGBEN
CHAPTER
Introduction
What
we
language
accident.
It
habitually speak depends
upon
a geographical
has nothing to do with the composition of the
spenn or of the human egg.
home
child
grows up
human
to speak or to write
bom
in a bihngual country
formal instruction
any
it
in either. Alanv Welsh, Breton, Belgian, and South African children
do so. There is nothing to suggest that the chromosomes of the
Welsh, Belgians, Bretons, and South Africans have an extra share of
genes which bestow the gift of tongues. Experience also shows that
adult emigrants to a new country eventually acquire the knack of
communicating inoffensively with the natives. So scarcely anyone
the language used at
mav grow up
to use
can have any rational
two
or at school. If
languafês without
basis for the belief that
incapable of becoming a linguist.
If a
he or she
congenitally
is
language phobia
exists,
it
must
be a by-product of formal education or other agencies of social

environment.
By the same token it is not difficult to understand why the Scandinavians or Dutch enjoy the reputation of being good linguists. In small
speech communities the market for talkies or for specialist textbooks
not economically practicable to produce them. Thus
the Norvv-egian boy or girl \\ ho hopes to enter a profession grows up
with the knowledge that proficiency in English, German, or French
is an essential educational tool. In any part of Scandinavia a visit to
is
small,
and
it is
the motion picture
is
language lesson. Translation of the English,

flashes on the screen as the narrative
German, or French dialogue

proceeds.
To
all
which linguistic
community we have to add
isolation im-
the cultural barriers
poses on a small speech
exigencies of
external trade and a stronger impulse to travel. In short,
members of
European speech communities experience a far greater

study foreign languages and enjoy greater opportunities for
the smaller
need to
doing so.
THE LOOM OF LANGUAGE
Special circumstances
studies
among
those
combine
who
to encourage a distaste for linguistic
One
speak the Anglo-American language.
that the water frontiers of Britain, and
is
more those of the United

States, isolate most British and American citizens from dailv^ experience of linguistic contacts. Another is that formal education fails to
supply a compelling reason for a pursuit which has little connection
with the needs of everyday
life.
still
Reasons commonly given for learn-
ing foreign languages are manifestly insincere, or, to put

charitably, are out of date.
For
instance,
it is
it
more
obviously easy to exag-
gerate the utility of linguistic accomplishments for foreign travel.
Only
relatively prosperous people can continue to travel after
riage;
and tourist
if
them
ever, take
into
mar-
young people of modest means rarelv,

situations where nobody understands Anglo-
facilities
for
American. There is even less sincerity in the plea for linguistic proficiency as a key to the treasure house of the world's literature. American and British publishers scour the Continent for translation rights
of new authors. So the doors of the treasure house are wide open.
Indeed, any intelligent adolescent with access to a modern lending
library can check up on the teacher who expresses enthusiasm over the
pleasures of reading
People
w ho do
Thomas Mann
or Anatole France in the original.
knowledge of Scandinavian
drama, the Russian novel, or the Icelandic sagas from American or
so are content to get their
British translations.
In spite of
all
obstacles,
anyone
who
has been brought
up
to speak
the Anglo-American language enjoys a peculiarly favored position.

It is a
hybrid.
It
has a basic stratum of
words derived from the same
stock as German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages.
It
has as-
similated thousands of Latin origin. It has also incorporated an im-
Greek roots. A random sample of one word from

thousand pages of the Concise Oxford Dictionary
gives the following figures: words of Romance (Latin, French,
pressive battery of
each of the
Italian,
first
Spanish) origin 53.6 per cent, Teutonic (Old English, ScandiGerman) 31.1 per cent, Greek 10.8 per cent. With a
navian, Dutch,
knowledge of the evolution of English itself, of the parallel evoTeutonic languages and of the modern descendants of
Latin, as set forth in the second part of this book, the American or
the Briton has therefore a key to ten living European languages. No
one outside the Anglo-American speech community enjoys this
privilege; and no one who knows how to take full advantage of it
little
lution of the
INTRODUCTION
need despair of getting a good working knowledge of the languages

which our nearest neighbors speak.
Thousjh each of us is entitled to a personal distaste, as each of us is
entitled to a personal preference, for study of this sort, the usefulness
of learning languages
is
not viercly a personal
affair.
Linguistic differ-
ences are a perpetual source of international misunderstanding, a well-
nigh inexhaustible suppl\- of inflammable material which warmongers
can use for their
own
people speak
therefore one prerequisite of keeping the world's
is
evil ends.
Some knowledge about
peace. Keeping the world's peace
keeping the worlds peace

quaeres concerns
all
is
is
the languages
everybody's proper business; but
not the onlv reason
why
study of Ian-
of us as citizens. LinCTuistic differences lead to a
which might be enlisted to make

modern science available to all mankind.
unique in two ways. Man is a tool-bearing animal
vast leakage of intellectual energy
the potential plenty of
Human beings are

and
a talkative animal. In the pursuit
men and women have

such co-operation
speech habits.
is
What
of their tool-bearing activities,
learned to co-operate on
perpetually thwarted
is
by
planetary scale; but
local limitations of their
characteristic of the intellectual achievements
of mankind in the age of hydroelectricity, magnesium-aluminum
and chemotherapy
which encourage scientific research, but nations have no common idiom through which workers
by brain or hand can communicate results of research or collaborate
in applying them to human ^\elfare. Modern technology is a supernational culture which ministers to the common needs of human bealloys, broadcasting, aviation, synthetic plastics,
is
common
ings,
\\
hile
needs which
To
possession of
all
nations
language limps behind the

all
human
human endeavor
to satisfy
beings share.
canalize the interest of intellicrent
men and women into the

medium to
constructive task of devising or of adopting an aitxUiciry
suppleviem existing national languages is therefore one of the foremost needs of our time. This concerns us all, and it calls for a lively
know ledge of the limitations imposed on languages by the laws of
their growth. It will therefore be one of the tasks of The Loom of
Language to trace the history of the languages in which the technical

resources of our age have been recorded. It will not be a record of
deliberate and intelligent prevision.
It is
partly a story of confusion
from a continuous record of slovenliness and of obstinate

complacency toward the mistakes of our grandparents. It is also a
resulting

storv of ancestor worship, and of makeshifts to conserve the inepti-
tudes of a supposedly heroic past.

the fate of the dinosaurs.
the jawbone of the ape
It
It affects
us
more intimately than
unearths remains not
man
of Java.
It
less
points the
dramatic than
way down dim
paths of prehistory from which ^\e return with imagination fired i)y
a vista of future possibilities.
This does not mean that The Loom of Language is first and foremost a plea for language planning. There are other good enough
(D
[D
5^,^^X<, ?)^9>^
Fig.
Inscription
2.
Tracings on
mine shaft
signs himself as
reasons
why
Traveling
its
in
in the
Sinai Peninsula
Number
4 and gives his
readers
facilities are
or time-consuming.
from Mine Shaft
If
may need
the Sinai Peninsula
made by a workman who

name as sahmilat.
or wish to study existino- lanouaês.
becoming cheaper and

the states of Europe
daih' less inconvenient

are ever united
under
common democratic grovernment, with its own air service, many of

us who had never expected to travel far afield may hope to see more
of the world before we die. Inevitably we shall become more interested in the speech habits of our neighbors.
Though
knowledge of
INTRODUCTION
foreign languages is not indispensable to an American or an Englishman who wishes to travel, it adds to the fun and promotes a more
friendly understanding with people one may meet.
The literary arguments for language study are manifestly bogus
when based on the claims of fiction or drama for which cheap translations are readily accessible. Nonetheless,
accessible only to people
volume of
large
who know
scientific
some types of
literature are
languages other than their own.
publications
which record new
dis-
coveries in physics, medicine, chemistry, agriculture, and engineering
appear in
many
accessible in
different languages. Their contents
books
till
do not become
several years have elapsed. Professional scien-
if they have no knowledge

German, French, or Spanish. What is more important from the standpoint of the wider public which The Loom of
Language may reach is this: challenging statistics of social welfare
from foreign countries may never find their way into the columns
workers are therefore handicapped
tific
of such languages
as
of our ne\\spapers. So the only
knowledge of foreign
affairs
is
way
of getting a thorough firsthand
to read yearbooks and periodicals
published in other countries.
For these and other reasons many people who have little or no
knowledge of foreign languages wôuld like to have more; and many
would study them, if they were not discouraged by the very poor
results which years of study at school or in college produce. One
thing The Loom of Language aims at doing is to show that there is no
being discouraged.
real reason for
Though
the difficulties of learning
they are also easy to exaggerate. Generally, the

adult has more to show after a three months' course at a conuuercial
institute than an adolescent after three years' study of a foreign lan-
languages are
real,
secondary or American high school. One reason for

is clear about why he or she is taking the
course. x\nother is that the teacher is usually clear about why he or
guage
in a British
this
that the adult pupil
she
is
is
oivinsr
This
is
it.
not the
\\
hole story.
the positive obstacles
of those
The
who have no
sins of
omission
we have
to add
places in the
all
way
strong personal inclination for linguistic studies.
greatest impediment,
University education,
To
which early formal education
is
common
to
most branches of school and
the dead hand of Plato.
away from education designed
We
have not yet got
for the sons of gentlemen. Educational
Platonism sacrifices realizable proficiency by encouraging the pursuit

of unattainable perfection.
The
child or the immigrant learns a Ian-
guage by blundering
his
way
or her
into greater self-confidence.
Adults accept the mistakes of children with tolerant good humor, and
the genial flow of social intercourse is not interrupted by a barrage of
pedantic protests. The common sense of ordinary parents or customs
officials
by
arts of verbal precision.

if
commonplace communication unhampered
recognizes that
the sting of grammatical guilt must precede real progress in the
Most of
more
us could learn languages
easily
we could learn to forgive our own linguistic trespasses.

Where perfectionist pedantry has inserted the sting of grammatical
of social inferiority rubs
guilt, a sense
salt
to the standards of educated adults, very
wound. According
few adolescents can speak
into the
and write the home language with fluency and grammatical precision
before eighteen years of age.
To
be able to speak more than two
languages without any trace of foreign accent or idiom
So
linguistic polish
is
a perquisite
of prosperous people
new
a lifework.
is
whose formal
education has been supplemented by the attentions of foreign governesses and
by frequent
a leisure class, hidecd
trips abroad. It is the cultural trademark of

no type of knowledge has more ostentation
value.
No
rely
who wants
one
upon
this
to speak a foreign language like a native can
book or on any
of learning for the
home
other. Its aim
student
who
is
is
less
to lighten the
ambitious.
One
burden
of the
world citizeneducational practice, dictated by anti-
useful results of recent attempts to devise languages for
ship has been to

social theories
show how
which gratify the
itch for leisure-class ostentation,
exaggerates the difficulties arising from the intrinsic characteristics
of language.
effort
The
hension bring their

this
depend on the large amount of

compreown reward. Self-assurance depends on reducing
intrinsic difficulties
expended before tangible
results of self-expression or
period of unrequited effort to a minimum. Pioneers of interna-
tional
communication such
English, have
made
a special
as C.
K. Ogden, the inventor of Basic
study of
this,
because the success of their
Mork depends on the ease with which a language for world-wide use
can be learned. Whether their own proposals prosper or fail, they
have revolutionized the problem of learning existing languages.
Tricks discovered in the task of devising a simple, direct, and easily
acquired language for world citizenship have not yet found their
way
into
most grammar books, and the reader
foreign language can get
applying them.
To
all
who starts to learn a

new problem by
the fun of tackling a
understand the essential peculiarities or
similarities
INTRO DUCIION
of lanjTuaires most closclv related to one another docs not demand a

vou compare the following equivalents of
special study of each. If

a request
w hich occurs
in the
you can
Lord's Prayer,
see this for
yourself:
(German)
Gib uns heute unser taglich Brot

Geef ons heden ons dagclijksch brood
Giv OS i Dag vort daglige Brod
Giv OSS i dag vart dagliga brod
Gef OSS dag vort daglegt brau6
(Dutch)
(Danish)
(Swedish)
(Icelandic)
Now
its
same
translations of the
compare these with the following
petition in Latin and
daughter languages:
nobis hodie paneni nostrum quotidianum

Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain quotidien
Danos hoy nuestro pan cotidiano
Da
(Latin)
(French)
(Spanish)
Dacci oggi il nostro pane cotidiano

O pao nosso de cada dia dai-nos hoje
(Italian)
(Portuguese)
By the time you have read through the first five, you will probably
have realized without recourse to a dictionary that they correspond
to the English sentence: Give us this day our daily bread. That the
next five
though
it
the same might also be obvious to a Frenchman,
mean
may
not be obvious to us
if
we do
not already
know
French,
mean
German, Dutch, Swedish,
Danish, and Icelandic share with English common features which
or a lanmiage like French.

the same thing,
it is
not
If
we
are told that
all
ten Sentences
difficult to see that
w ith the other five languages, and that French,

and Portuguese share with Latin common features
which they do not share with the Germanic group.
English does not share
Italian, Spanish,
It is a
common
belief that learning
two languages
calls
for twice as
This may be roughly true, if the two

lamjuaoes are not more alike than French and German, and if the
beginner's aim is to speak either like a native. If they belong to the
same family, and if the beginner has a more modest end in view, it
is not true. Many people will find that the effort spent on building
much
up
effort as learning one.
a small,
workmanlike vocabulary and getting
grasp of essential
grammatical peculiarities of four closely related languages
much
greater than the effort spent
is
not
on getting an equivalent knowl-
edge of one alone. The reason for this is obvious if we approach learning languages as a problem of applied biology. The ease with which
wx remember things depends on being able to associate one thing
many
with another. In
branches of knowledge, a
little
learning
is
difficult thing.
As an
isolated act
it is
difficult,
because extremely tedious, to
bone of
rize the peculiarities of each individual
realize that
memo-
When we
a rabbit.
bones are the alphabet of the written record of evolution
in the sedimentary rocks, the studv' of their peculiarities
is full of
with experience of elementary teaching know that
and therefore more easy to learn the essenit is far more satisfying
tial peculiarities of the bones of representative types from all the
various classes of vertebrates than to memorize in great detail the
skeleton of a single isolated specimen. So it may well be that many
interest. Biologists
people with a knowledge of Anglo-American would benefit by try-
German along with Dutch, which is a halfway house between German and Mayflorccr English. Every grammatical rule then
becomes a fresh layer of rock from \\ hich to chisel vestiges of creation. Each word is a bone labeled with a question mark.
This suggestion may not appeal to everyone or suit every type of
home student. Still, most people who find it difficult to learn a foreign
language can relieve themselves of some of their difficulties, if they
start with a little knowledge of how languages have evolved. Part of
the task which The Loom of Language has undertaken is to bring the
dead bones to life with this elixir. Some people may say that the
difficulties are loo great, because we start with so little raw material
ing to learn
for comparison.
They
will say that
it is
possible to give the general
reader an intelligible account of organic evolution, only because any

intelligent person
who
a textbook definition of such words

maunnal, can already give several exIndeed, most of us can subdivide some of them,
first
meets
as fish, amphibia?!, reptile, bird,
amples of each
as
when we
class.
speak of dogs and cats
as carnivores,
rodents, or sheep and cattle as ruminants.
some outstanding anatomical
peculiarities
species placed in a particular group, as
mice and rabbits
as
Most of us could also give

which serve to distinguish
when we
which chew the cud and divide the hoof.

Admittedly, there is no such common basis of
define ruminants as
beasts
universal
knowledge
about language species and their anatomical peculiarities. Most Britons

and most Americans speak or read only one language. At best, very
few well-educated people can read more than three. Those we usually
learn are not recognizably of a kind; and there are no public language
museums with
attractive
and instructive
exhibits. All the same,
it
is
INTRODUCTION
not impossible for an intelligent person \\ ho has had no training in
foreign languages to get some insight into the way in which languages
SIGN SOUND
SIGN
SOUND
SIGN
SOUND
SIGN
SOUND
lO
which predominate in languages so far apart as Chinese, HunGreek competing for mastery in the growth of AngloAmerican from the English of Alfred the Great.
When \^'e begin to take the problem of language planning for
world peace seriously, we shall have public language museums in our
teristics
garian, and
centers of culture, and they will be essential instruments of civic edu-
meantime we have to be content with somethino- less

comprehensive. For the reader of this book. Part IV is a language
cation. In the
museum
in miniature.
The home
student
who
loiters in its corridors
will be able to get a prospect of the family likeness of languages
closely allied to our
own, and
most
will find opportunities for applying
which lighten the tedium of learning lists, as the exhibits in a

good museum of natural history lighten the tedium of learning names
rules
for the bones of the skeleton.
WHAT
LEARNTNC. A LANGUAGE INVOLVES
supplemented by technical terms which are the same, or almost

all modern languages, a basic vocabulary of seventeen hundred native words is abundant for ordinary conversation and
intelligent discussion of serious subjects in any European language.
According to a recent article in Niiti/re, a new encyclopedia of medicine published recentl\- in the Soviet Union contains eighty thousand
technical terms, and it is safe to say that during his professional training a medical student has to master a new vocabulary of at- least ten
thousand new words. Indeed, the international vocabulary of modern
science as a whole is immense in comparison with the number of
words and rules Mhich we have to master before we can express ourselves in a foreiijn lanouaoe with free use of technical terms in worldIf
the same, in nearly
wide use. This fact does not prevent the publication of a daily growing volume of good popular books which explain for the benefit of
any reader with average intelligence basic principles and interesting
with in natural sciences. With the help of the exhibits in
museum (Part I\') there is no reason why interesting facts about the way in which languages grow, the way in which
people use them, the diseases from which they suffer, and the way
in which other social habits and human relationships shape them,
should not be accessible to us. There is no reason why we should not
facts dealt
our
own
language
use knowledge of this sort to lighten the drudgery of assimilating dis-
INTRODUCTION
connected information bv sheer effort of
II
memory and
tedious repeti-
tion.
Helpful tricks which emerge from a comparative study of language

promoting a common language of world citizenship will
as a basis for
turn up in the following chapters, and will be set forth collectively

at a later stage. In the meantime, anyone appalled bv the amount of
drudgery which learning a language supposedly entails can get some
encouragement from two sources. One is that no expenditure on tuition can supply the stimulus you can get from spontaneous intercourse with a correspondent, if the latter is interested in what you
have to say, and has something interesting to contribute to a dis-
cussion.
The
other
is
that unavoidable
most of us suppose; and
by
scientific curiosity
we
lanCTuagre
it
memory work is much less than

dull, if we fortify our efforts
need not be
about the relative defects and merits of the

its relation to other laneruagres which
are studyingr about
people speak, and about the social agencies which have affected
growth or about circumstances which have molded its character
its
in
the course of history.
In short,
we
can
stiffen self-confidence
by recognizing
set that the difficulties of learning a language,

less
than most of us usually suppose.
learning
that usual
is
fact that learninCT
One
though
at
the out-
real, are far
great obstacle to language
methods of instruction take no account of the
any lanffuaê involves at least three kinds of skill as

and geometry. One is learning to read
different as arithmetic, algebra
One
easily.
third
is
among
is
learning to express oneself in speech or in writing.
The
being able to folloiv the course of ordinary conversation

people who use a language habitually. This distinction helps
some of the
which confront beginners.

on one to the exclusi(m of others in
the initial stages of learning depends partly on the temperament of
the beginner, partly on how the foreign one resembles the home language, and partly on the social circumstances which control opportunities for study or use. \Yt can best see what these circumstances
are if we first get clear about the separate problems which arise in
reading, in self-expression, and in oral recognition, about the several
uses to which we can put our knowledge of a language, and about
to resolve
Whether
it is
greatest difficulties
best to concentrate
the various opportunities for getting practice in usingr
it.
.Most educated people find that oral recognition of ordinary^ conversation
is
the
last stage in
mastering
language, and does not
come
12
unless thev have spent at least a
few weeks or months
where
then comes quickly to anyone
it is
habitually spoken.
can read and write
it.
The
It
reason
why
it
demands
in a
country
who
a skill quite differ-
of learning to read quickly or to write and to speak

no one pronounces distinctly the separate \\ords of
a sentence as one writes it, and as a beginner or a child speaks it. In
speaking, people fuse one word with another, and blur syllables
which form an essential part of the z'jsiial picture of the individual
word. What we recognize is not a succession of separate units, but
a composite pattern of which the character is partly determined by
emphasis and rhvthm.
ent
from the
correctly
skill
that
difficulty does not arise in reading or writing a foreign lan-
This
guage.
is
When we
are learning to read or to write a language,
centrate on the individual
words
we
we
are learning to speak,
as separate visual
we
symbols, and
con-
when
concentrate our attention on the sound
values and stresses of each syllable. So
it is
possible to detect the
mean-
ing or to pronounce flawlessK^ the individual words of / iwi kind of

fond of you, baby \\ithout recognizing it when it impinges on the ear
yTukymmfonavyubaybee. Of course, the extent of the difficulties

which the beginner has to face depends partly on personal make-up,
and partly on that of the language. Some people with histrionic gifts
pick up word patterns quickly, and may therefore benefit more than
others from gramophone records, which are an invaluable help for
getting good pronunciation. Some languages are more staccato than
others. Individual words as spoken are more clear-cut. People who
speak them habitually do not slough off syllables. Stress is evenly
distributed. In this sense, German is more staccato than English, and
English far more so than French. From knowledge of the written
as
language,
it is
a small step for the student of
versation or a broadcast.
From
German
to follow a con-
good reading knowledge of French
what a French taxi driver says when he

poUceman is a much longer road.
to an understanding of
quarreling witli the
Formal instruction
these
difficulties.
is
at best a
The element
very laborious
way
is
of surmounting
of curiosity which plays such a large
part in molding everyday speech
is
stifled
by the certainty
that the
not saying anything particularly interesting, or, if interwhich he or she could not explain with less trouble
anything
esting,
mc
already understand. The same remark also applies to
language
in a
formal instruction in writing, to exercises in translation, or to conver-
teacher
is
sational instruction.
The
teacher then plays the role of critic in a
INTRODUCTION
situation
which proffers no
vital
problem for
13
solution.
Though
this
is
not true of radio, which gives us opportunities for getting a new

slant on foreign affairs, the time we can devote to a foreign broadcast
is
generally short. Radio does not impose on us the sheer necessity of
proficiency, as do the disadvantages of failing to reserve a seat in a
railway car, or the need to replace a broken collar button.

of
all, it
Worst
will not repeat itself for the benefit of the listener.
Since the need for oral recognition does not arise in an acute form
unless
we
are living in a foreign country, these difficulties are not as
arises, anyone who can read

and write or speak can quickly learn to understand a language when
he or she hears it spoken 'nicessa)itly. So the best advice for most of us
is to concentrate on reading, writing, and speaking, with what help
we can get from listening in, till we go abroad. Opportunities for
conversation with children are often reassuring, when we first do so.
discouraging as they seem. If occasion
In large English and American cities there are colonies of foreigners,
many
of them tradespeople,
chases a bit of talk,
From
who do
not mind
however defective
a practical
point of view,
it
in
is
if
we add
to our pur-
grammar and pronunciation.

more important to be clear
about the difference between \\hat is involved in learning to read,

and what is involved in learning to speak or to write a language.
When engaged in ordinary conversation or letter writing the vocabu-
most people, even highly educated people, is very small in

comparison with the vocabulary of a newspaper or of a novel. In his
lary of
professional capacity the journalist himself, or the novelist herself,

uses
many more words
than sufiice for the needs of everyday
the vocabulary of one author differs very

If
much from
life,
and
that of another.
only for these reasons, the vocabulary which suffices for fluent selfis imtch smaller than the vocabulary needed for indis-
expression
criminate reading. There are

is
many
other reasons
why
this
is
so.
One
the fact that ordinary speech rings the changes on a large assort-
ment of common synonyms and common expressions which are for

practical purposes interchangeable. Such equivocations are innumerable. In everyday life, few of us pay much attention to the different
shades of meaning in such expressions as: be irould like to, he ivmits
to,
he prefers
to,
he desires
to,
he ivishes
to,
he ivoidd rather.
Another important distinction is connected with the use of idiom,

i.e., expressions of which the meaning cannot be inferred from the
usual significance of the individual words and a knowledge of the
grammatical rules for arranging them. Hoiv do you do? is an obvious
14
example of idionuitic speech; bur evervdav speech is saturated with

idioms which are not obvious as such. In English, the fact that a cat is
in the room can also be expressed by saying there is a cat in the room.
We
could not infer
there and the other
this from the customary meaning of the word

words in the sentence, as given in a pocket dic-
tionarv.
From
the standpoint of a person learning a foreign languatje, there is

berween the two forms of statement.
can translate
word for word into Dutch, German, Swedish, or Danish. The
We
a big difference
the
first
expression there is must be translated by idiomatic combinations which

do not literally, i.e., in the usual sense of the separate words, mean the
same in any two of them. In FVench we have to translate there is by
which literally means it there has. In the same context, the German
// .V
would write es ist, literally it is, equivalent to the Danish det er. The
Swede would sa\- det fiiins, i.e., it is foimd. We could not use the German
>T,
es
as
ist,
we
could
still
use the Danish det cr,
are no snakes in leelavd.
for es gibt, or literally
To
it
The
if
we had
English idiom there
is
to translate there
would make wav
gives.
read a language with ease
wc
therefore need to have
a relatively
synonyms and idioms with w hich we can dispense in

speaking or writing. To some extent, similar remarks applv to graj/iimtical conventions. In modern English it is never oblioatory
to use
what is called the genitive case form of the words father or day, as
in 7/;y father's hat, or his day's ivages. \M-ien speaking or
writino- Enolish w c are at liberty to say, the hat
of my father, or his ivages for the
big battery of
day. So
how
to
fathers'.
we do
not need to
know
the grammatical rule
form the singular genitive
foreigner
(i.e.,
one
which
father's, or the plural
who
tells
us
frenitive
does not speak the Ânfjlo-
American language) does not need to know that it is our custom to

apply the rule only to names of animate objects, astronomical or
calendrical terms and measures.
To
than
more
this extent,
a
it
looks as
if
self-expression
good reading knowledge of
is
much
easier to
language. In other
master
ways
it
is
On
the debit side of our account we have to reckon

with two other features of the art of learning. One is that our knowledge of the words we use in expressing ourselves is not prompted by
difiicult.
the situation, as our recognition of words on a printed page is helped

the context. Though the number of words and expressions we
by
is feiver, we need to know them so thoroughly,

that we can rethem without prompting. Another circumstance makes readincr
need
call
INTRODUCTION
1$
more easy than writing or speaking. Most languages carry a load of

grammatical conventions which have no more value than the coccyx
(vestigial tail) of the
human
skeleton.
The
rule that
we add
-s
to the
stem of the English verb, if preceded by he, she, or it, as when we say
make no distinction between
he needs, is a convention of usage.
the form of the verb when we say / need, you need, zve need, they
need. Though we should correct a child (or a foreigner), we should
know what he or she meant by saying: the train leave at 11:15. So it
We
contributes nothing to our facility in getting at the meaning of a sentence.

less
From
this
demand than
apostrophe in
point of view, proficient oral self-expression makes
Many grammatical conventions such as the

have no phonetic value. That is to say, we do
sounds. This is specially true of French.
writing.
fathers''
not recognize them
as
What The Loom
of Language has to say about phonetics, i.e., principles of pronunciation, and the practical hints it gives, will be of
little
use to anyone
who
unless supplemented
hopes to speak a foreign language
by other sources of
intelligibly,
We
instruction.
can sur-
mount
the particular difficulties of oral expression painlessly with the
use of
gramophone
(p. 256) records, if
them. Whether speaking or writing

is
available,
mimics
will
is
we
money
to buy
gramophone
People who are good
have the
easier
when
the
depends chiefly on the individual.

make more progress in speaking with the same expendi-
motor types, i.e., those who

on better at writing. For many
of us the choice is limited by whether we can find a willing correspondent or an accessible acquaintance through business connections,
or through some such organization as the educational department of
ture of effort. Individuals of the visual or
learn best
by eye or touch,
will get
Garment Workers in New York. No teacher

can supply the stimulus that comes from communication which is
spontaneously gratifying, because novel, to both parties.
the International Ladies'
We may sum up the essential differences between the skill required

for wide reading and the
skill
required for proficient self-expression
way. To express ourselves correctly we need to have a ready

knowledge of a relatively small number of words fifteen hundred or
two thousand at most and a precise knoivledge of the essential grammatical conventions of straightforward statement. To read widely
without a dictionary, we need a nodding acquaijitance with a relatively large vocabulary (fifteen thousand words may be given as a
rough estimate), and a general familiarity with a ivide range of grammatical conventions, which we can recognize at sight, if meaningful.
in this
l6
We
can waste an immense amount of time, if we are not clear at the

w hat this distinction imphes, or if we proceed on the
outset about
assumption that learning
how
to read
is
the same job as learning to
express ourselves.
THK BASIC VOCABULARY
When we
are reading a thriller or a historical novel,
we
continually
meet unfamiliar words for articles of clothing and inaccessible items

of a menu list. We also meet forbidding technical terms for architectural features, nautical expressions, hayseed dialects, and mihtary
slang. The fact that we should hesitate to attempt a precise definition
of them docs not bother us.
do not keep a dictionary at the bedside, and rareU' ask a friend the meaning of a word w hich we have not
met before. If we do meet a word for the first time, we often notice
it several times during the course of the ensuing week. Sooner or
later the context in w hich \\c meet it will reveal its meaning. In this
w av, the vocabulary of our home lan<>uape continuallv <>rows without deliberate eflort. In the same way we can ac(|uire a good readino
know ledoc
of a foreign
ce
O lanjjuaoe
D f when we have mastered a few essenti'als. It is discomâging and wasteful to torture the meaning of everv
word of a foreign no\el page b\ page, and so destroy the enjoyment
\\ hich the narrative supplies. To get to this stage w ith the minimum of
effort involves rcaHzing clearU' what the bare minimum of essential
We
know ledge
is.
Analogous remarks apply to self-expression. When we realize what

is the essential minimum for one or the other, we can decide on w hat
we have to lucinorlzc dcliheratcly, and what we can leave to look
after itself. For self-expression or for reading, the essentials arc of two
kinds, a minimum vocabulary of individual words, and a minimum of
orammatical rules, i.e., rules about how words change and how to
arrange them in a sentence. 1 ill recently, language textbooks paid
little attention to the problem of how to build up this minimum
vocabulary. More modern ones have faced it and tackled it by basing
selection on words which are used most frequently.
There are several objections to the method of extracting from the
contents of a dictionary the thousand or so words which occur most
often in printed matter. One is that many of the commonest words
are synon\'ms. So while it is true that we can express ourselves clearly
with a little circumlocution if we know about fifteen hundred words
INTRODUCTION
of any language
(i.e.,
about
months' work
five
at
the rate of onlv ten
new words a day), we might have to learn the fifteen thousand most
common words before we had at our disposal all the fifteen hundred
words we actually need. At best, word frequency is a good recipe for
the
first
toward reading,
step
as
opposed to writing or to speaking.
Even so, it is not a very satisfactor\- one, because the relative frequency of words varies so much in accordance with the kind of material
we
intend to read.
Words
such
as hares
and ha'u:thorn, byre and
bilberry, ploiv and pigsty, are the verbal stuffing of
Thev
novels.
Nobel Prize
rarely intrude into business correspondence, or even
news columns.
method used in compiling word lists given in the
most modern textbooks for teaching foreisrn lanouagjes evades the
essence of our problem. If we want to get a speaking or writing equipment with the minimum of effort, fuss, and bother, we need to know
how to pick the assortment of words which suffice to convey the
meaning of any plain statement. An\one who has purchased one of
the inexpensive little books * on Basic English will find that C. K.
Ogden has solved this problem for us. The essential list of only 850
words sfoes on a single sheet. Mr. Ogden did not choose these words
by first asking the irrelevant question: w hich words occur most often
in Nobel Prize novels or in presidential orations? The question he
into the
The
statistical
set himself was: What other nxords do liê need in order to define
something when ive do not already know the right word for it?
For example, we can define a plow as the machine we make use of
to get the ground readv for the seed. For ordinary circumstances this
make
will
sufficiently clear
what we
are talking or writing about. If
can elaborate our definition by using other general words

like machine, or verbs like make and get. which serve for all sorts of
definitions. In Basic English there are only sixteen of these verbs to
we
not,
learn. If
little
still
we
use only
words
in the 85o-^^'ord
longer than otherwise to explain what
list,
it
we mean;
may
take us a
but the result
correct, simple, and lucid English. Indeed, the fact that
is
we have
meaning of words which do not occur in the

compels us to be more precise than we might otherwise be.
It is possible to go so far with so few \\ ords in good English because
a large number of words which belong to the verb class are not essential. We do not need burn, finish, err, because we can make a fire of,
do not need to fly in an
make an end of, make a mistake about.
to examine the precise
list
We
Especially Basic English:
General Introduction and Brighter Basic.

on
on a
go on foot, on a horse, or
in a yehicle. For straightforward, intelligible and correct statement
in other European languages, \ye haye to add between three hundred
and six hundred words of the yerb class to our list of essential words.
This thrifty use of yerbs is a peculiar characteristic of English and
of the Celtic group among European languages. Where a Swede
uses a different yerb, when a child goes in a train, and when a train
goes, or when an ayiator goes up, and when he goes across the road,
one English \\ ord suffices. If we also make allo\yance for the usefulness of haying single ordinary names for common objects not included
in the Basic Word List, a yocabulary of less than two thousand words
is sufficient for fluent self-expression in any European tongue. This
is less than a tenth of the yocabulary w hich we meet when reading
noyels indiscriminately. So reading is a yery laborious way of getting the thorough know ledge of the relatiyely few words we need
w hen speaking or writing.
airplane, drive in a cab, cycle
horse, or
it'^/^. It is
enough
a bicycle, travel in a train, ride
to say that \ye
One of the reasons why Basic is so thrifty in its use of yerbs is

we can do much in Ensflish by combining some yerbs with another class of words called directives. Wq do so when we substitute
that
go ill for enter, go np for ascend, go on for continue, go by for pass,

go through for traverse, go ojf for leave, and go an'ay for depart. In
modern European languages, these words recur constantly. There
is a relatiyely small number of them. Unlike nouns (name words),
such as train or automobile, which are sometimes the same and often
similar in different languages, they are difficult to guess. The same
remarks apply to link words such as and, but, vi-hen, because, or; and
to a large class of words called adyerbs, such as often, again, perhaps,
soon, here, forivard. These three groups of words together make up
the class which grammarians call particles. Since they are essential
words for clear statement, and are not the sort of words of which we
can fjuess the meaning, it is interestingr to know how many of them
there are, and how frequently they occur.
Comparison of two passages printed below illustrates a type of
experiment which the reader can repeat wîth other materials, if or
when able to recognize words put in this class. The first (a) is from
the Dream of John Ball, by William Alorris. The second (b) is from
Elementary Matheinatical Astronomy by Barlow and Bryan. So the
,
sources represent widely different types of expression and charac-
INTRODUCTION
I9
of our language. In describing the arrival of one of Wycliffe's

poor preachers, Morris tries to follow the essentially Teutonic idiom
of the people for \\'hom Wycliffe translated the Bible. The textbook
specimen uses many words which are entirely foreign to the English
of VVycliffe's Bible, or to the later version dedicated to James I. They
come, directly or indirectly, from Latin or Greek sources, chiefly
from the former. In each passage, words which cannot be traced back
teristics
to the blending of Teutonic dialects in English before the
Conquest, are
a)
Norman
in italics.
BUT WHEN John Ball FIRST vioimted the steps OF the cross,
a lad AT someone's bidding had run OFF TO stop the ringers,
AND SO PRESENTLY the voice OF the bells fell dead, leaving ON men's minds that se7?se OF blankvess OR EVEN disapALWAYS caused BY the sudden stopping
pointment which
OF a sound one has got iised TO AND found pleasant. BUT a
that throng, AND
great expectation had fallen BY NOW ON
NO word was spoken EVEN IN a whisper, AND hearts AND
eyes were fixed UPON the dark figure standing straight UP
is
all
all
NOW BY the
tall
white shaft
OF
the cross, his hands stretched
OUT BEFORE him, one pahn laid UPON the other. AND FOR
me AS (I) made ready TO hearken, (I) felt a joy IN my soul
that
b)
AS
had
NE\ÊR YET
the result
OF
OF
felt.
observations extending
lunar months,
it is
found that
OVER
moon
tlu2
a large
nianber
NOT
describe
does
EXACTLY the same ellipse 0\TR AND OVER AGAIN, AND

that THEREFORE the laws stated are ONLY approximate.
EVEN IN a single month the departure FROM simple elliptic
motion
QUITE appreciable, OWING CHIEFLY TO the
is
disturbance called the Variation.
The
disturbajjce
known AS
the
TO
change APPRECIABLY
Evection causes the eccentricity
month
month. FURTHER, the motions described
change its position. The
cause the roughly elliptical orbit
the domain
complete investigation OF these changes belongs
TO
FROM
TO
TO
OF
gravitatiojial
astronomy.
It
enumerate the chief perturbations

part they play
IN
will be
HERE TO
necessary
ON account OF
deter?uining the circumstances
the iinportant
OF
eclipses.
In these selections words belonging to the class called particles are

in capital letters. If
tabulate
your
you count the various
results as follows:
classes of
words, you can
20
Mathematical
Astronoiny
Dreavi of
John
Words
of Latin or
Greek
origin.,
Particles
Though
Ball
ii
per cent
30 per cent
31
per cent
27 per cent
the sources of the figures are so different in content, and
though they use such
of words, they con-
a different stock in trade
same number of
tain almost exactly the
or nearly a third of the
total.
particles,
similar estimate
29
i.e.,
per cent,
would not be
far out
by our nearest European neighbors. Since more

quarter of the words we meet on the printed page are particles,
for languages spoken
than
it is
interesting to ask
how many
essential,
and
many covivwn,
ho^\
we
need or meet. For two reasons it is impossible to cite

absolute figures. One is that people who speak some languages make
distinctions which others do not recognize. Thus a Swede or a
Frenchman has to use different words for the English before according as it signifies at an earlier time than, or in jront of. Apart from
particles
this,
some common
particles are
when ê substitute as or
cause. With due allowance
as
synonymous in a particular context,

more explicit link word be-
since for the
to these considerations,
we may
number of essential particles at less than one hundred, and

number which we connnonly meet in speech or reading at
two hundred.
This leads us to
less
than
very simple recipe for getting ahead quickly with
the task of building up a

expression.
put the
the total
It also sho^\s
us
word
how
list
which \\'\\\ suffice for selfby more than 25 per cent
to reduce
the tedium of continual reference to a dictionary

to read. Our first concern, and it is usually the
w hen we
first
begin
grammar
books help us to do, should be what a foreigner has to do when he
starts to learn Basic English. We should begin our study of a modern
European language by committing to memory the essential particles;
last
thing
a very small class of exceedingly common words, such as /, him,

ivho. called pronouns (pp. 83-90). At the same time we should
familiarize ourselves with the less essential particles so that we recog-
and
nize
them when we meet them. That
is
to say,
we
should begin by
foreign equivalents for the eighty or so most essential

ones, and, since it is always easier to recognize a foreign word we
have previously met than to recall it, the English equivalent for about
learnincr the
hundred and
class.
How we
fifty other most common foreign synonyms of this

should choose our basic particles and pronouns, how
INTRODUCTION
it is
best to set about
will turn
up
21
memorizing them, and what we should then do,
later.
ESSENTIAL
GRAMMAR
we have to decide what to do about grammar, and this means

we must be clear about what is meant by the grmimiar of a language. Having a list of words of which we know the usual meaning
does not get us very far unless we have knowledge of another kind.
First
that
We
cannot rely on the best dictionary to help us out of
all
our
difficulties.
To
begin with, most dictionaries leave out
many words which we
can construct according to more or less general rules from those ineluded in them. A Spaniard who wants to learn English will not find
the words
father''s, fathers,
or fathers'. In their place, the dictionary
would give the single word father. An ordinary dictionary does not
tell you another thing which you need to know. It does not tell you
how to arrange words, or the circumstances in \\hich you choose
between certain words which are closely related. If a German tried to
learn English with a dictionary, he might compose the following sentence: probably ivill the girl to the shop come if it knonj:s that its
sweetheart there be ivill. A German does not arrange words in a
sentence as we do, and his choice of words equivalent to he, she, and it
does not depend upon anatomy, as in our own language. So we should
have some difficulty in recognizing this assertion as his own way of
stating: the girl will probably come to the shop if she knows that her
sweetheart will be there.
There
are three kinds of rules
which we need
to guide us
when
learning a language, whether to read, to write, to speak, or to listen

intelligently.
We
need rules for forming word derivatives,* rules for
the arranoement of words, and rules about which of several related
words we have
to use in a particular situation. Closely allied
pean languages differ very
much with
tance of such rules, the difficulties which they put in the

beginner, and
how
far
they are
Euro-
respect to the relative impor-
way
of a
essential to a reading, writing, or
speaking knowledge. Bible English has very simple and very rigid
* Here and elsewhere derivative means any word derived from some dictionary item according to rules given in grammar books. So defined, its use in
this book is the editor^s suggestion, to which the author assents with some
misgiving, because philologists employ it in a more restricted sense. The
justification for the meaning it has in The Loom is the absence of any other
explicit word for all it signifies.
22
rules about arranging words,
same
the
as those
less
and these
rules,
which
are nearly the
of Scandinavian langjuaires, are totally different froni
simple but rigid rules of
much
not count for so
or Dutch. Word order does

study of Latin and Greek authors.
German
in the
Latin and Greek writing abounds with derivatives comparable to

loves or loved,
from
love, or fathefs
from father
in English.
nection between words of a statement depends
less
than on the idiomatic (p. 195) use of derivatives. Thus
it is
immense number of
to read these lanouaijes without an
The con-
on arrangement
impossible
rules
about
derivative words.
If
we aim
at learning a language with as

one kind or another may be more or
rules of
other point of view. In English

she, or
it,
we
instead of speak after
/,
effort as possible,
important from an-
use the derivative speaks after he,

yoit, ive,
nounce the final -s, it is important for

form to our customs, to know how
When we
little
less
or they. Since
a foreigner,
who
we
pro-
wishes to con-
to use this rule in speaking as
it, we do not add an -s

So the -s is not really essential to the meaning of a statement, and a foreigner would still be able to understand a written
sentence if he did not know the rule. French has more complicated
rules about these endings. Their usefulness depends on w hether we
are talking, writing or reading. If a Frenchman wants to write / speak,
well as in writing.
use he, she, or
to spoke.
yon
speak, ive speak, they speak, he uses different endings for each.
The French
equivalents of
what
is
called the "present tense" (p. 90)
of speak, are:
jc
parle
tu parlf^
il
park'
you speak
nous p2Lr\o?7S
vous parks
he speaks
ils
speak
parlt'7;f
we
speak
you speak
they speak
None of these endino-s adds anything- to the meaninor of a statement.

They are just there as vestiges from the time when Romans did not
as /, ive, they, in front of a verb, but indicated them
As such they are not relevant to a reading knowledge
of French. Four of the six, italicized because they are vestiires in an-
use
by
words such
the ending.
other sense, are not audibly distinct.
They have no
real existence in
Thus some rules about derivative words are imwriting, some for writing and speaking, others for
That many rules about correct writing deal with
the spoken language.
portant only for
reading
as well.
vestiares
which have ceased
CTuage does not
mean
to have
that writing
any function in the livinjT Iandemands a knowledge of 7J7ore
Fig. 4.
Cuneiform Tablet Recording Babylonian Legend of the Deluge

INTRODUCTION
grammar than
reading. It signifies that
it
calls for
23
more knowledge of
Complicated, rules for the use of
a particular type.
many French
we can dis-
derivatives are not essential for self-expression because
pense with them
as
we
dispense with the English derivative
For reading we need a nodding acquaintance with many

we are not compelled to use when writing or speaking.
The
rules
day''s.
which
of learning the essential minimum of rules which

from any point of view have been multiplied a thousandpractice which has its roots in the Latin scholarship of the
difficulties
are helpful
fold
by
Fig. 5.
The
Bilingual Seal of King
Arnuwandas
II,
a Hittite King
was probably Aryan. The seal shows cuneiform syllabic

round the margin and pictograms in the center. (See also Fig. 9.)
Hittite language
signs
and in the teaching of Greek in schools of the ReformaAs explained in Chapter III, Latin and Greek form large classes
of derivative words of two main types called conjugations (p. 95)
himianists,
tion.
and declensions (p. 104). The rules embodied in these conjugations

and declensions tell you much you need to know in order to translate
authors with the help of a dictionary. Grammarians who
had spent their lives in learning them, and using them, carried over
the same trick into the teaching of languages of a different type. They
ransacked the literature of living languages to find examples of
similarities which they could also arrange in systems of declensions
and conjugations, and they did so without regard to whether we
really need to know them, or if so, in what circumstances. The words
which do not form such derivatives, that is to say, the particles which
play such a large part in modern speech, were pushed into the background except in so far as they affected the endings (see p. 258) of
words placed next to them. Any special class of derivatives characclassical
24
teristic
of a particular language was neglected (see
of this was to burden the
memory
p. 269).
The
effect
with an immense store of unneces-
sary luggage without furnishing rules
hich
\\
make
the task of learn-
ing easier.*
When sensible people

preserved
in
dulum from the
by conversation and
alleged justification for this
without any
language,
if
rules,
at all,
is
that children
proportionatcK' small.
is
pictures,
\\
ithout any rules.
tirst
learn to speak
and acquire grammar rules governing the home

when they arc word perfect. This argument is
based on several misconceptions.
vocabulary
method of
perfectionist to the nudist (or direct)
teachino- a language
The
began to see the absurdity of this system, still

books, there was a swing of the pen-
many grammar
child's experience
Its
idiom
is
is
slight.
necessarily
Its
more
com-
its need for grammar is limited by its abilit\- to

municate complicated statements about a large variety of things and
their relations to one another. Apart from this, the child is in continuous contact w ith persons who can use the home language according to approved standards, and has no other means of communicating
intelligibh' w ith them. So neither the conditions of nor the motives
for learning are those of an older person making intcrmittait efforts
to acquire a language which is neither heard nor used during the
stereotyped, and
greater part of the day.
Since The Loom of Laiigiia'jre is not a children's book, there is no

need to dwell on the ludicrous excesses of educational theorists Mho
advocated the direct method t and fooled some teachers into taking
* For the benefit of the reader \s ho alread\
knows some Frencli, the following quotation from Dininet (French CiriVimiar Made Clear) emphasizes lack of
common sense in textbooks still used in the schools:
"Are the four conjugations equally important? Most grammars very unwisely lead the
student to imagine that it is so. In reality there are (according to Hatzfeld and Darmester's
well-known Dictionary) only 20 verbs in -OIR, some 80 in RE, 300 in -IK, and all the other
verbs (about 4,000) end in -ER. Whenever the Freucli invent or adopt a new verb, they
conjugate it like aimer (in a few cases like finir) and for this reason the two conjugations in
-ER or TR are called 'living,' while the less important conjugations in -OIR and -RE are
termed 'dead.' The conjugation in -ER is the easiest of the four, and has only two irregular
verbs in daily use."
this we mav add that there are only four common \ erbs whicii behave
recevoir, the tvpe specimen of the so-called third conjugation of the
"regular" verbs in the schoolbooks. The -re verbs of the fourth conjugation of
"regular" verbs include four distinct tvpes and a miscellaneous collection of
others.
To
like
The
silliness
of the direct
by Henry Sweet
in
method w hen
tried out
on adults
\\as pointed our
1899:
"The fundamental objection, then, to the natural method is that it puts the adult into the
position of an infant, which he is no longer capable of utilizing, and. at the same time, does
INTRODUCTION
25
up. The most apparent reason for its vogue is that it exempts the
teacher from having any intelligent understanding of the language
which he or she is teaching. Common experience shows that adult
it
immigrants
left to
pick up the language of their adopted country
ear alone rarely learn to speak or to write correctly; and adults
by
who
wish to learn the language of another country rarely have the leisure
on time-consuming instruction of the type given in urban
schools where insipid pictures of rural scenes mollify the tedium of
to waste
repetitive conversation.
Because the kind of grammar you most need depends partly on
you intend
to use a langTiage,
it is
how
impossible to give a general recipe
grammar book. The learner who

with as httle inconvenience generally
has to pick and choose from books which contain more than enough.
To do this intelligently is easier if we start with a general idea of how
languages differ. The relative importance of rules of grammar depends, among other things, on ^\ hether the language one is learning
for writing a
compact and
wishes to get as far
more or
and
less
if so,
If
in
useful
as possible
closely resembles one's
own
or another already mastered,
what way.
we aim
at learning to
write
modern language,
the formal
grammar of conjugations and declensions explained in Chapters III

and IV usually boils down to a comparatively small number of rules,
far feêr than those given in most primers. On the other hand, few
except the more advanced textbooks have much to say about other
equally important rules.
One
class of
such rules already mentioned
depends on the fact that each language or group of closely related

languages has its o^\n characteristic types of derivative words. Thus
reader and builder childhood and ixidovchood, reshape, rebuild, restate and fellonship, kingship, illustrate four ways of building new
,
Teutonic languages. Such rules may

forming
such derivatives as father's.
be as useful as the rules for
If two languages are closely related as are Swedish and English, or
Spanish and Italian, it is also helpful to know rules which tell us how
the spelling or pronunciation of a word in one of them differs from
the spelling or pronunciation of a corresponding word in another.
For example, the SH in the English ship becomes SK in the Swedish
words
skep,
is
att
in English
and
in other
which means the same thing. Similarly the Swedish for to shine
skinna. The vowel symbol JU in Swedish generally becomes I
not allow him to make use of his own special advantages. These advantages are, as we have
in short, the power of using a grammar and
seen, the power of analysts and generalization
a dictionary."
26
corresponding English words. Thus
att sfiniga, with the ending -a

Swedish verbs, preceded by att (to) means to sing.
In English, all verbs which change as sing to sang and sinig are old
Teutonic words. So we expect to find them in Swedish, which is also
a Teutonic language, and can guess correctly that the Swedish equivalent of to sink would be att sjunka.
It is essential to know one thing about the use of words before we
can begin to make a basic word list. Correspondence between the use
in
common
to
all
is never perfect. It is more or less

according
the
grammatical
class to which words are
complete
to
assigned. Thus numerals and name \\ ords or nouns such as father,
of \\ords in different languages
when we
bird, or ship, offer little difficulty
consult a dictionary.
greatest trouble arises with particles, especially directives,
i.e.,
The
such
words as ///, on, to, at. There is never absolute correspondence between such words in any two languages, even when they are very
closely related as are Swedish and Danish. The English word in
usually corresponds to the Swedish /, and the English on to Swedish
pa, but the British expression,
Swede
mifrht
ijet
/;/
the street,
into difficulties
if
is
translated
he "ave
word-for-word translation of en kz'inna jag trajjade

pa gatan.
The
dictionary usually gives scxeral
by pa
gatan.
his Engrlish hostess a
synonyms
(a lady
met)
for each foreign
equivalent of an\^ directive, and leaves us to find out for ourselves
when to use one or the other. To tell us how to do is one of the

most important tasks of practical grammar. Thus it is quite useless to
have a list of basic particles unless we know the distinctive use of
each. If
we
are clear about this,
using a particle of our
own
can recognize them
language
in
when we are
If we do
language, we
an idiomatic sense.
not know the correct idiomatic equivalent in another

can paraphrase the expression in which it occurs without using
it
(see p. 130).
When making our word list for another language, we have also to
be wary about one of the defects of English overcome by the small
number
of verbs in Ogden's Basic. Idiomatic English, as usually

spoken and written, has a large number of very common verbs which
we should not include in the English column of our word lists. Try,
which is one of them, means in different contexts the same as {a)
attempt, (b) endeavor, {c) test, (d) judge. Another very common
English verb, ask, can mean: (a) question, (b) request, (c) invite.
So an English-Swedish or English-French dictionary will not give
INTRODUCTION
27
one equivalent for ask or one for try. If you look up these words you
may find for the first four and for the second three foreign substitutes
which are 7iot true synonyms. The moral of this is: do not include
such words as ask or try in the English column of an essential word
In place of them put each of the
list.
foreign language
a fixed
may
word order which
have
is
more
a fixed
words given above.

like our own, or
the order of words is
explicit
word order
quite different. If
very different from what we are accustomed to, rules of word order
are among the most important rules of its grammar; and it is impossible to get confidence in reading, in speaking, or in writing
we
have got used to them. In the
initial
till
stages of learning an un-
makes the task of reading much more

would otherwise be. That is why German and Dutch,
though closely related to English, offer greater difficulties to an Englishman or an American than French. A trick which helps to fix
rules of this kind is to make a habit of twisting an English sentence
into the Germanic word order without translating it. The results are
often funny, and that makes it easier to learn them. In German word
order, the last few words would be: ami that ?nakes it easier them to
familiar pattern of this sort
difficult
than
it
learn.
In the chapters
which follow we
shall first
look
at the
way
lan-
guages differ from and resemble one another. This will help us to get
clearer about the best way to begin learning any particular one.
We
shall
then be in a position to judge whether
it is
best to concentrate
on speaking, writing, or reading in the early stages, and to decide

what course to pursue in writing or speaking in order to fix the
minimum vocabulary and grammatical rules we have to use. In so
doing we shall also recognize defects which we ought not to perpetuate, and merits which we should incorporate, in a language of world
citizenship.
HOW
TO READ THIS BOOK
Among other things, The Loojh of Language aims at giving the

reader M'ho wishes to learn the languages spoken by our nearest European neighbors
working knowledge of the indispensable elements
of grammar, with a basic vocabulary for self-expression.

material relevant to the subject matter of the
IX) primarily devoted to
this
is
in tabular
Much
of the
two chapters (VII and
form.
The
tables illustrate
aspects of the natural history of language discussed elsewhere.
To
THE LOOM OF
28
get the
l)cst
out of
L A \ C U A G E
as a self-educator, the wisest plan
it
to read
is
it
through quickly. After getting a bird"s-e\e view the reader can then
settle dow n to detailed study \\ ith pen, paper, and a book marker for
reference backwards or forw ards to tables printed in some other context, as indicated by the cross references throuohout the succeedinsr
chapters. Pen (or pencil) and paper arc essential help. W'e are most
,
apt to forget
learn
\\
by touch.
hat
we
No
one w ho has
take in
by
ear, least likely to
Icarneii to sw
forget
hat
we
im or cycle forgets the
trick of doing so.
The languages w hich we shall study in greatest detail to

\\a\- in w hich languages grow belong to the Teutonic
the
uiaiicc groups, placed in the great Indo-EiiropCiVi family.
illustrate
Ro-
-.wyd
The
latter
group to w hich Russian belongs, the Celtic,

which Welsh and Erse are placed, and the Indo-lranian group,
which inckulcs Versicin and numerous languages of India. The Teutonic group is made up of German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian
dialects. The Romance languages, such as I'rench, Portuguese, Spanalso contains the Slavonic
in
and
ish,
Italian, are all
descendants of Latin. I'nglish
is
Teutt)nic language which has assimilated an enormous
words of Latin
in
common
origin.
with
languages spoken
number of
So Leutonic or Romance languages ha\
Ijiglish.
b\-
essentially a
Fortunately for us they include
most
all
the
the nearest neighbors (other than Amerindian)
of English-speaking peoples on the continents of Europe and America.
Ihe reader, w ho has not yet realized how languages, like different
from and resemble one another,
species of animals or plants, differ

will find
it
among
helpful to broivse
throughout The Loom. Above
all,
ful to loiter in the corridors of the
the fourth part of the book.
On
its
the exhibits set out as tables
home student will find it helphome museum which makes up
the
shelves tliere
is
ample material for
getting clear insight into the characteristics which French, Spanish,
with their Latin parent, as also of features common

Teutonic family. One shelf of exhibits shows Greek words
w hich are the bricks of an international vocabulary of technical terms
in the age of hydroelectricity and synthetic plastics. The diversion
which the reader of The Loom can get from noticing differences and
detecting essential word similarities in adjacent columns in the light
of laws of language growth set forth elsew here (Chapters \' and \'I)
will help to fix items of an essential vocabulary w ith a minimum of
tedium and effort.
One of the difficulties which besets the home student who starts to
and
Italian share
to the
INTRODUCTION
learn a
new
language
is
the large
29
number of grammatical terms used
is to
most textbooks. The
many
not
know
does
reader
who
the
grow,
and
show how languages
grammatical terms will discover the use of important ones. The
reader who already knows the sort of grammar taught in schools and
object of the four chapters that follow
in
may make the discovery that grammar is not intrinsically dull,

and may learn something about the principles which must motivate
colleges
a rational
judgment about language planning for
The popular mvth
that
it is
more
difficult for
child to learn languages has been disproved
carried out
education
by modern
educationists.
Much
world
at peace.
an adult than for a
by experimental research
of the effort put into early
defeated by the limitations of the child's experience
is
which we remember things depends

largely on the ease with which we can link them up to things we know
already. Since the adult's experience of life and the adult's vocabulary
are necessarily more varied than those of the child, the mental equipment of the adult provides a far broader basis of association for fresh
facts. Thus an intelligent grown-up person approaches the study of a
new language with knowledge of social customs and of history, with
a world picture of change and growth gained by general reading or
and
interests.
The
ease
^\-ith
study, and with a stock of foreign words, foreign idioms or derivatives

of borrowed roots gleaned from daily reading about international
affairs
(cf. canard,
demarche, Qiiai
d'
Orsay,
Wilhebiistrasse, blitz-
krieg), advertisements of proprietary products (glaxo, aspirij?, cutex,
imioxa,
o'valtine),
(cyanainide,
carbide,
calories, vitamins, seleminn).
Children
or technical
hydrogenation, radiotherapy
innovations
language and a foreign one pari passu. The adult can

capitalize the know ledge of his or her own language as a basis for
learninsj a new one related to it. Above all, an adult can visualize a
learn their
own
distant goal
more
easily than a child.
w ith which a child has to contend is the

which we pick up the home language. Children
acquire a vocabulary with little deliberate elucidation from parents
or from brothers and sisters, and they do so in a restricted environment which exempts them from dangers of misunderstanding in a
One
of the difficulties
haphazard
way
in
larger, less intimate one.
Before school age our language diet
is
no-
body's business. So the power of definition and substitution, so essential to rapid progress in a foreign language, comes late in life, if at all.
Indeed most of us never realize the inherent irrationalities and obscurities of natural language until we begin to grapple with a foreign
30
one.
The
discovery
may
then
come
as a
shock, discouraging further
effort.
Many
difficulties
few of us
which
beset the beginner are due to the fact that
are alert to tricks of expression peculiar to our oiivi lan-
guage. In fact
we need
habitually speak before
to
we
know something
we
minimum
about the language
can learn another one
\\
ith
the
of effort.
to the
yet language conscious in this sense.
The
new
The object of Chapter

home student \\ ho is not as
reader
who
intends to use
it
as a
language will find helpful hints
The Loom
of
is
to give first aid
preliminary to the study of a
in
it
to repay
what has been an
exploit of endurance for the publisher and typesetter.
who
The
reader
on the lookout for a bright book for the bedside will do well
to give it the go-by or drink an old-fashioned before getting down
to
it.
is
PART ONE
THE NATURAL HISTORY

OF LANGUAGE
CHAPTER
The
Language
II
Story of the Alphabet
more than learning to signal like a firefly or to talk

means more than the unique combination which we
call human speech. It also includes how man can communicate across
continents and down the ages through the impersonal and permanent
record which we call ivrithig. One difference between speech and
writing is important to anyone who is trv'ing to learn a foreign lanimplies
like a parrot. It
guage, especially
if it is
closely related to a language already familiar.
T he spoken language of a speech community is continually

ing. Where uniformity exists, local dialects crop up. In less
thousand years what was a local dialect may become the
speech of a nation which cannot communicate with
^\ithout the help of interpreter or translator.
spond quickly to
word
\\
is
this process. It
may
languages have
split
It
official
neighbors
Writing does not
not respond
more conseryative than speech.
hich are no longer recognizable
its
changthan a
at
all.
The
re-
written
perpetuates similarities
when people
speak, and
apart in comparatively recent times,
where two
it is
easv to guess the meaning of written \\ords in one of them,
often
if
we
meaning of corresponding words in the other. Indeed we

can go far beyond guesswork, if we know something about the history of sound correspondence (Chapter V, p. 179). To make the
best of our knowledge we should also know something about the evo-
know
the
lution of writing
DO
The
itself.
reader will meet illustrations of this again and again in subse-
quent chapters (especially Chapter VI), and will be able to make

ôod use of rules given in them while wandering
O about the corridors
of the miniature language museum of Part IV. One example must
sufiice for the present. The German word for tvater is Wasser, which
looks like its English equivalent on paper. As uttered, it does not. The
German letter
stands now for our sound v, as the German
in
Vater (father) stands for our / sound. The reason for this is that
34
in older German
the pronunciation of the sound represented by
dialects (including Old English) has changed since what is now called
German became
a written language. Before
German became
a writ-
ten language another change of pronunciation was taking place in

the region of southern and middle Germany. Spelling incorporated
change of the ?-sound to a hiss represented by ss, as also various

other changes (p. 226) which took place about the same time.
Thus the home student of living languages can reduce the difficul-
this
ties
of learning
a)
How
bv getting
know:
to
similarities of spelling
of pronunciation
may
which do not correspond to
conserve identity of words
similarities
in related lan-
guages that have drifted far apart.

to recognize borrowed \\ ords by spelling conventions characteristic of the language from w hich they came.
c) How different ways of spelling equivalent words, once identical,
reflect changes of pronunciation which involve nearly all words
at a certain stage in the divergence of two languages with a
b)
How
common
ancestry.
Broadly speaking,
of writing.
One
we may
distinguish
between two different kinds
includes picture writing and logographic writing,
the others sound or phonetic writing.
We
can divide the
latter into
syllable writing and alphabet wrk'mg. Picture writing and logo-
graphic writing have no direct connection with sounds we make.

That is to sav, people can communicate by picture writing or logo-
graphic writing without being able to understand one another
when
talk. This is not true of Old Persian cimeijonn

writing of ancient Cyprus (Figs. 13 and 14), or of modern Japanese
Kana (Figs. 42 and 43). Such writing is made up of symbols which
(Fig. 3), of the
they
we make
hen we separate words into syllables.

They do not stand for separate objects or directions, as do the symbols of picture or logographic writing. Individually, they have no
significance when isolated from the context in which they occur. The
stand for the sounds
\\
which is a simplified form of syllable

words has gone much further, and the
number of elementary symbols is less. So it is easier to master.
This fact about the alphabet is of great social importance. In comsame
is
true of alphabet writing,
writing.
The
dissection of the
munities which
read what
telligence.
is
now
written
use alphabets, ability to learn to write and to

is
generally accepted as the test of normal in-
We regard people who cannot be
tally defective.
This
is
another
way
taught to do so as men-
of saying that the alphabet has

made
the record of
whole.
The
human knowledge
accessible to
mankind
35
as a
use of picture or logographic scripts, like early syllable
T
ROAD
JUNCTION
36
ble to democratize the art of calculation. Unlike * the invention of
zero, this liberating innovation has only
happened once
show
of mankind. Available evidence seems to
that
in the history
all
the alphabets
of the world are traceable to one source.
They came
into use about three thousand vears ago; but the in-
we now
herent possibilities of an invention which

of the
outstandin<T
cultural
The
slowly during the course of successive millennia.
who
as
one
first
peoples
used alphabetic writing did so for short inscriptions in which
individual letters might be written upside
with
recognize
achievements of mankind incubated
little
lar literature
Greek
or reversed sideways,
Roman
spread through the Greek and
language remained
speech.
down
consideration for the reader (Fig. 38).

a
highly
artificial
Even when
a secu-
world, the written
product remote from daily

to rapid reading, because
Greek writing was never adapted
scribes never consistently separated \\ords.
doinsr so did not

a general
become
universal among-
Roman
The
practice of
writers.
custom about the tenth century of our
own
It
era.
became
When
printing began, craftsmen took pride in the ready recognition of the
written word, and punctuation marks, which individual writers had
used sporadically without agreement, came into their own. Typogfirst adopted an agreed system of punctuation, attributed to
Aldus Manutius, in the sixteenth century. In the ancient world the
reader had to be his own palaeographer. To appreciate the gap between modern and ancient reading, compare the sentences printed
below:
raphers
KINGCHARLESWArKEDANDTALKEDHALFANHOURAFTERfflSHEADWASCUTOFF.
King Charles walked and
talked.
cut
To do
Half an hour after
his
head was
off.
we must start by examinfew technical terms. Word is itself a technical

term. It is not easy to define \\hat Me mean by a separate word in all
circumstances. So let us imagine what a traveler would do if he came
justice to the story of the alphabet
ing the meaning of a
to live with an illiterate tribe in the interior of Borneo.
By
pointing
around he might soon learn which sounds stand for pictiirable objects. By comparing similar things he might also learn to recognize sounds signifying qualities such as red, rough, or round. By
watching people together he could also detect sounds which are signals of action like James! Here! Come! Hurry! All this would not
at things
Mathematics for the Million, pp.
6$, 286, 332.

make
them
as separate \\ords.
37
complete inventory of the elements of a continuous conversation. If the language contained words corresponding to and, during,
meanivhile, for, or according, he would take a long while to decide
how to use them, because thev never stand by themselves. For the
same reason it would also be difficult to decide whether to regard
The
words
difficulty of arriving at a definition of
what we
call
separate
complicated by the fact that languages are not static.

Elements of speech once recognized as distinct entities become fused,
also
is
when we condense
/ a7n to Z'w, or do not to dont. So long as you

form Vin, you signify that it is to be regarded as
two separate words glued together. When you write it in the form
//;;, as Bernard Shaw writes it, you signify that we do not break it
up \v\\tn we say it. Thus we can distinguish between words of three
kinds. Some are the smallest elements of speech of which ordinary
people can recognize the meaning. Some, separated by careful study,
are products of grammatical comparison of situations in which they
recur. People of a preliterate communirs' would not recognize them
as
write
as
avi in the
separate elements of speech.
We
recognize others
as
separate,
merely because of the usual conventions of writing. The missionary

or trader who first commits the speech of a nonliterate people to
script has to use his own judgment about what are separate words,
and his judgment is necessarily influenced by his own language.
For the present, we had better content ourselves with the statement
that words are ivbat are listed in dictionaries. According to the conventions of most English dictionaries, godfather, father, and god are
difiêrent words, and apples is a derivativ-e (footnote, p. 21) of the
word
We
shall see later why dictionaries do in fact list some

and omit other equally common noises, i.e., derivathe sense defined on page 2 1 Since dictionaries are our usual
apple.
noises as words,
tives in
source of accessible necessary information, \^hen

a
language
When
we
shall
highbro\^s
we
set
out to learn
put up with their vagaries for the time being.

^\'ant a
word
for
all
pronounceable constituents
of a printed page, each with a distinct meaning or usage of
they
may
its
own,
speak of them as vocables. Vôcables include words listed
and derivatives which are not. We do not necessarily

pronounce two vocables in a diflrerent way. Thus several vocables
correspond to the spelling and pronunciation of bay, as in dogs that
bay at the moon, a wreath of bay leaves, or the Bay of Biscay. Such
vocables which have the same sound, but do not mean the same thing,
in dictionaries,
30
are called
We
homophones.
do not speak of them
word which once had
derived from the same
as
more
homophones if
mean-
restricted
Thus boy, meaning immature male of the human species, and

boy, meaning juvenile male employee, are not homophones in the
strict sense of the term, as are sun and son.
ing.
To
discuss scripts intelligibly
of words.
When we
tion,
we
call
each brick a syllable.
viariager
-ger, or,
if
you
prefer
have some
A syllable
vowels
pronuncia-
usually contains a vowel.
of the syllables ma-,
otherwise: nian-, -ag-, and
it
labels for parts
a succession of
easily as units of
word made up
a trisyllabic
is
to
word with
which come apart most
into the bricks
Thus
we need
separate a
-er. Syllables
-?ia-,
need
have no recognizable meaning when they stand by themselves. It

is an accident that the syllables 7fja?i and age in the word juanage
have a meaning when they stand by themselves. It has nothing to do
with the past history of the word, of which the first syllable is connected with the Latin mantis for hand, hence mannal. If we break up
manliness into
is
ifian-, -U-,
not an accident.
originally built
It is
up
and
+ ly
manly +
Such
syllables \\hich
word
man
has a
meaning
was
as follows:
man
the whole
-ness, the fact that
the foundation-brick of the word, which
manly
ness = manliness
have
meaning relevant to the meaning of

though root words are not nec-
are called roots,
essarily single syllables.
The
part -ly,
common
comes from the Old English word

stuck to names as compounds signifying
bles,
{lie)
to
many
for
qualities,
English voca-
like.
i.e.,
Originally
manly
is
it
jnan-
like. Later the process extended to many other words (e.g. norjTjal
normally) long after -ly had lost identity as a separate element of
speech.
We
do not
fixes or suffixes
call syllables
according
as
of this sort roots.
they occur
We call
them pre-
like ini- in un?nanly, at the
-ly, at the end. Suffixes or prefixes may be made up

more than one syllable either because they came from words of
more than one syllable (e.g. anti-), or because the process of adding
an affix (prefix or suffix) has happened more than once. Thus manli-
beginning, or like
of
ness has a bisyllabic suffix.

suffix -ly in unmanly reminds us that the line between an
and a root is not a clear-cut one. Affixes are the product of
call one of
growth. In this process of growth three things occur.
The
affix
We
U
<
<
a
O
H
O
o
U^
39
40
them agglutination
analogical extension.
ing words Hke pre or
a/iti
third,
which
is
self-explanatory,
rhe
two
second
is
is
borrozv-
from another language.
The same native word may combine with

class of compound words like churchyard
original
or gluing of native words together.
The
several others to
form
or brickyard, in which
roots contribute to the whole meaning. rKt a later stage, the

meaning of one root ma\- begin to lose its sharp outline. Peo-
ple ma\' then attach
it
without recalling
to other roots
its
precise
which is the beginning

of analogical extension, goes on after the original meaning of an affix
lias ceased to be dimlv recognizable. The affix may tack itself on to
roots merely because people expect by analogy that words of a particular sort must end or begin in a particular way. The large class
of Fnglish words such as durable and co7Jtinendable, or frightful and
meaning
\\
hen
it
stands alone. This process,
soulful, arc in an early stage of the process.
\et lost
its
The
individualitN' as a separate vocable,
suffix -able has
though
it
not
has a less
meaning than it had, w hen the habit of gluing it on to other

words began. The suffix -fifl is still recognizable as a contraction of
[////, which preserves its literal value in handful.
Such words as friendship or horsemanship illustrate a further stage
of the process. They belong to a large class of Teutonic w ords such
clear-cur
German Wissenschaft, Swedish vetenskap, or Danish Videnwhich ha\e glued on them a suffix formed from a common
Teutonic root word meaning shape. Thus the Sw-edish vetenskap,
Danish I'idenskab, or German Mlsscnschaft, for which we now use
the Latin science, is really -iiit-shape. In such words a suffix signifying
shape or for//i in a more or less metaphorical sense of the word has
tacked itself on to roots to confer a more abstract meaning. The
-head in godl?ead and maidenhead has no more connection w ith the
anatomical term than the -ship in lordship has to do with ocean transport. Like the -hood in ii-idozihood, it is equivalent to the German
-heit, Swedish -het, and Danish -bed in a large class of abstract words
for which the English equivalents often have the Latin suffix -ity.
In the oldest known Teutonic language, Gothic, haiduz {manner)
was still a separate word.
The ultimate bricks of a vocable are represented by the z-ou'el
symbols (in English script J, e, /, o, u) and the consonants which
as the
skab,
correspond to the remaining

*
Aggliitiuatiov has also a
important
in this context.
letters of
more
our
restricted
Roman
meaning
alphabet. In
(p. 80)
which
comis
not
a.
Q.
41

42
parison with other European languages, spoken English

ingly rich in simple consonants. In fact
we
simple consonants {b, d,
n of
f,
g, h, k,
I, ??!,
have
siji,
at least
n of
is
astonish-
twenty-two
sing, p,
r, s,
shy
fefl
Fig. 9.
Ancient Picture Writing of the Hittites from an

Inscription at
t,
th of thin, th of the7], r, zv, y,
z,
Hama
in Syria
zh) in the spoken language for
which only seventeen simple symbols are available. Two of them (Q,
C) are supernumerary and two (J, X) stand for compound sounds.
English dialects have at least twelve simple vowels. For these we have
five symbols supplemented by iv after (as in sazv), or y before any one
of them (as in yet). A complete Anglo-American alphabet with a

symbol for each simple vowel and consonant
forty and fifty s\mbols to
accommodate
43
would demand between
the range found in
the
all
dialects taken together.
PICTURE WRITING AND SYLLABLE \yRITING

In so far as the difficulties of
that
we
modern
have too few symbols, the
The
spelling arise
from the
fact
peoples
difficulties of the earliest
of separate symwere therefore excessively cumbersome. These word symbols, of which the earliest Egyptian and
Chinese writing is made up, were of two kinds: pictograTiis and logograins. A pictogram is a more or less simplified picture of an object
which can be so represented. A logogram may be: {a) a pictorial
symbol substituted for something which we cannot easily represent
by a picture; {b) any sign used to indicate an attribute of a group
{red, age, movement, noise, ii'et), or a direction for action, such as
Halt! Major Road Ahead/ or Go Sloiv!
British traffic signs (Fig. 6) for motorists illustrate all such symbols. A thick line for the main road with a thinner one crossing it is
were opposite to
ours.
earliest scripts consisted
bols for individual vocables, and
pictogram for
torch of learning
The
a crossroad.
is
The
conventionalized picture of the
logogram which stands for school.

which stands for Stop.' has no obvious associa-
a pictorial
and circle
any other picturable object. Like the number 4, it is a
pure logogram. We still use some logograms in printed books. Be$
sides numbers, we have signs such as &, , and $. The signs 5
and 5 in books on astronomy stand for Mars, Ve)ius, and Mercury.
In books on biology they stand for male, fe?/iale, and hermaphrodite.
The plural forms are
S (males), etc. Similarly the Chinese use the
sign ^ for tree, and write ^ ^ for forest. Such signs as S
^
9
mean the same to astronomers and biologists all over the world,
whether they do or do not speak the same language.
triangle
tion with
<J
The
expression picture iiriting, in contradistinction to logographic
writing,
is
little
misleading.
Anything which we can properly
call
writing, in contradistinction to cave painting, sculpture, or other
ways of recording events visibly, must be made up of something

more than conventional drawings of picturable objects. When we
speak of picture writing as the most primitive level of script (Figs.
forth in
we mean
more or less explicit record or instruction set

symbols, most of which are either pictograms or logograms
and 7-10),
44
of the School
Ahead
type. If
of speech by simple pictm:es,
it
it is
not possible to represent elements
may
be possible to suggest them repre-
sented by the picture of an object which
we
with them.
with a
building used for scholastic purposes. The Chinese sign for not is
% originally a line drawn over the top of a plant. This suggests that
something got in the way of its growth obstruction, 7iot progress,
Thus we hopefully
associate
associate (Fig. 6) the torch of learning
77ot
getting bigger, just not.
When we speak
of logographic writing,
symbols for picturable objects, general
we mean
for action have lost their explicit pictorial meaning.
guess what they do
mean
least
is
as
that
one
mean
unless
writing in which
characteristics, or directions
we have some
We can no longer
key. This does not
logograms start by being pictures of definite objects. At

logograms (or ideograms, as some people call them)
the art of writing. It seems clear that the chief practical
all
class of
old as
advantages of the art of writing at
One
a primitive level
of
human
culture
on record necessary information which

we should otherw ise forget. The other is to convey directions or
information to a distance when the carrier might forget them or
betray them. The former is almost certainly the older of the two.
The priestly caste, as the custodian of a calendar based on centuries
of precise observation, appear on the scene at the dawn of Egyptian
civilization. Men began to keep accurate records of the seasons as
soon as there was settled agriculture; and it is unlikely that the need
for \\ ritten messages arose before man began to establish settled graingrowinor communities. As man progressed from a primitive hunting
or food-gathering stage to herdmanship and skilled agriculture, the
need for counting his flocks and keeping track of seasonal pursuits
forced him to prime his memory by cutting notches on sticks or
making knots in cords.
We may thus take it for granted that one class of logograms, the
number symbols, are as old as and possibly much older than any other
elements of the most ancient forms of writing. The most ancient
number symbols are pictorial in the sense that the first four Roman
numerals (I, II, III, IIII) are just notches on the tally stick. Comparison of the relics of the temple civilizations of Central America, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, indicates that the impulse to record social events
was mixed up with the primary function of the priests as calendar
makers at a time when the person of the priest-king was the focus
of an elaborate astronomical magic and calendar ritual. Thus picture
are twofold.
is
to put

writing was necessarily the secret lore of
a jealously guarded secret. Since picture
a priestly caste
\\
riting
is
45
and, as such,
too cunihersonie
convey more than the memory can easily retain, its further elaboration to serve the needs of communication at a distance may have
been due to the advantages of secrecy. Whether this is or is not true,
to
io.
Discus of Phaestos showing as yet Undeciphered
PicTOGRAPHic Writing of the Ancient Cretan Civilization
Fig.
the fact that writing was originally a closely guarded secret had
important consequences for
The
its
subsequent evolution.
ancient calendar priesthoods had a vested interest in keeping
knowledge from the common people. The impulse
to preserve se-
crecy possibly encouraged the gradual degradation of conventional

pictures into logograms, which, like the elements of modern Chinese
writing, have lost their power to suggest what they stand for. In Chinese scripts
we have
examples of logographic writing
still
largely the
46
^^
THE STORY OF
monopoly of
ALPHABET
H E
a scholar caste. Scripts of this class share
characteristic with picture writing.
The
47
one important
individual symbols have 110
necessary connection ivith the sounds associated zvith thevi. This
vou
is
logograms \\ hich
still survive on the printed page. The Englishman associates with the
ideogram 4 the noise which we write as jotir with our imperfect
not
difficult to
understand
alphabet, or fj; in
writes
it
if
recall
modern phonetic
one
class of
The Frenchman
The Englishman and
script (p. 70).
standing for the sound katr.
qiiatre,
Frenchman both recognize its meaning, though they associate it

and a Frenchman could learn to interpret the
English traffic signs from a French book \\ ithout knowing a word
of English. In the same wav, people from different parts of China
the
\\ith different sounds,
can read the same books without being able to utter any mutually
intelligible
words.
Eventually the priestly scripts of Egypt incorporated

of signs as phonograms.
The
learned people began to
a third class
make
puns.
That is to say, they sometimes used their picture symbols to build

up words of syllables which had the sound associated with them.
With a code of such pictograms we can combine
for bee with
j^ for leaf to suggest the word belief by putting a frame round them
thus:
is just what the Egyptians soiuetimes did. The constituents of

compound symbol have now no connection with the meaning of
the word. We can know the meaning of the word only if we know
\\ hat it sounds like ^hen spoken.
This
this
trick of this sort
may
be a stage
in the
of phonetic script called syllable ivriting.

lable writing
is
development of one kind
The
characteristic of syl-
that each symbol, like the letters of
stands for a sound
which has no necessary meaning by
our alphabet,
itself.
Syllable
writing in this sense did not evolve directly out of Egyptian picture
scripts.
Whether
the
first
step
toward phonetic combinations of
this
l declare and 7rect>paKa = I have declared). This ph sound drifted towhich takes its place in many Latin words of common Arvan ancestry,
e.g. <l>p(!) = fero (I carry) and ci)paT')]p =frater (clansman, brother). With the f
value it had in late Roman times, in technical terms from Greek roots and in
modern Greek, it went into the Slavonic alphabet. By then the sound corresponding to yg had drifted toward our v, its value in modern Greek. The
symbol p occurs only in early Greek, probably with a value equivalent to w,
though evidently akin to the Hebrew vazi and Latin F.
<t)paô)
ward
4^
kind w
as part of the priestly game of preserving script as a secret

code, whether the highbrow pastime of making puns and puzzles
encouraged it, we do not know. Either because thev lacked a sufficient
social motive for simplifying their script, or because the intrinsic dif-
were too
ficulties
great, the
Egyptian
priests
never took the decisive
step to a consistent svstem of phonetic writing.
There
no reason to suppose that peoples who have taken this

done so because they are particularly intelligent or enter.Many useful innovations are the reward of ignorance. When
is
step have
prising.
iUiterate people, ignorant of its language,
come into contact w ith a

community equipped w ith script, they may point at the signs and
listen to the sounds the more cultured foreigner makes when he utters
them in his own language. In this way they learn the signs as symbols
of sounds without any separate meaning. Imagine
happened
what might have
the English had used public notices in picture Mriting

during the wars of Edward III. Let us also suppose that the French
if
had been wholly illiterate at the time. When a Frenchman pointed to

the pictogram "^^ the informative Englishman would utter the sound
cock, corresponding to the French coq. When he pointed at the
logogram
he would get the response lord, sufficiently near to
the French vocable loiirde, which means heavy. Without knowing
precisely what significance an Englishman attached to the symbols,
the Frenchman might make up the combination "^ û^ standing for
coqueloitrde (meaning a pasqiiefioii-er) in the belief that he was learning the new English trick of writing things down.
Needless to say, this is a parable. We must not take it too literally.
We know next to nothing about what the itviiig languages of dead
civilizations were like; but one thing is certain. Transition from a
cumbersome script of logograms, or from a muddle of pictograms,
logograms, and phonographic puns, to the relative simplicity of syllable writing, demands an effort which no privileged class of scholarpriests has ever been able to make. It has happened when illiterate
people with no traditional prejudices about the correct way of doing
come into contact with an already literate culture.

Whether they can succeed in doing so depends on a lock and key
things have
relation
between the structure of the
living languages involved in
the contact between a literate and nonliterate culture.
They can
and only if, it is easy to break up most words they use
into bricks with roughly the same sounds as ivhole words in the language equipped \\ ith the parent logographic script.
succeed
if,

Our most
is
precise information about this lock and
49
key relationship
based on adaptation of Chinese script bv the Japanese. In order to

it the first thing to be clear about is the range of f)ossible
understand
combinations of elementary sounds. In round numbers, a language

such as ours requires twenty distinct consonants and twenty vowels
if our language were made up
words of the same open type as me, or exclusively of the same open type as at, we could have a vocabulary of
20 X 20, or four hundred words, without using any compound con-
including diphthongs. This means that
entirely of monosyllabic
sonants such as
Slavonic _
St, tr,
or kiv.
To
a large extent Chinese'
vernaculars
50
homophones
enormous, and this

A Chiis inevitable because of the small number
meanings
for
different
less
than
ninetv-eight
nese dictionarv lists no
no
less
ninetv-eight,
these
represented
bv
CHI.
Of
the sound uroup,
number
of
in
the Chinese language
is
of available vocables.
Combined
with
51
for each of them may represent a quahty or an activity common to

two objects. Thus the logogram for the word AUNG, which can
mean bright, is made up of the character for the moon next to the
character for the sun. Originally the characters were recognizable

picture symbols, and the composite sign \\ould then have been some-
thing like
this:
(T
In the course of centuries the basic picture
symbols have become more and more conventionalized, partly owing

to changes in the use of writing instruments (style, brush, wood
blocks), or of materials (bone, ink, paper),
second sort of compound characters (Fig. 41) is a halfhearted

toward sound \\riting, based on the time-honored device of
punning. One member of the pair suggests the meaning of the charstep
acter in a general
way. The other stands for
homophone,
say a
word
word
represented by the pair taken together.
that
fictitious
spectively
Suppose
we
represent the ^\'ords
by the picture symbols
character $
for male.
to
example,
based on two English words which have familiar homophones,

trates this trick.
is
(or originally had) the same sound as the
\\'hich has
What
and
^,
the Chinese do
sini
illus-
and Imoy re-
as biologists use the
by
this
method \\ould
then be equivalent to using the combination $ O for our word son

(which has the same sound as sim) or
for boy. It is not certain
<?
how
One possibility is that it developed in rewhich a word widens its meaning by the process
this practice arose.
sponse to the
way
in
What this means is illustrated by our

word boy, which originally meant a sexually immature male of the
human species, and may also mean a son or a juvenile employee.
All this has led to the accumulation of an immense number of
called inetapborical extension.
complex
signs.
There
common
ones.
Anyone who wants
are
between four and seven thousand
relatively
to be an accomplished scholar of
Among the four thousand used most commonly, about three-quarters consist of a homophone element and a
classifier analogous to the symbol for male in the hypothetical model
cited above. Owing to changes of pronunciation in the course of
centuries, the homophone part, which was once a sort of phonograTii,
or sound symbol, may have lost its significance as such. It no longer
then gives a clue to the spoken word. Today, Chinese script is almost
purely logographic. People who have the time to master it associate
the characters with the vocables they themselves utter. These vocables are now very different in different parts of China, and have
Chinese must learn them.
changed beyond recognition since the
script
came
into use
many
52
centuries back. So educated Chinese \\ho cannot converse in the
same tongue can read the same notices in shops, or the same writinos
of moralists and poets who hved more than a thousand vears a<i().
The remarkable
is
thing about Chinese script
cumbersome according
to
our standards,
is
much
not so
as that
it
is
that
it
possible to
reproduce the content of the li\ing language in this way. This is so

because the living language is not like that of any European people
except the British (p. ii i). The Chinese word is invariable, like omr
"verb"" nmst. It does not form a cluster of derivatives like hists, lusted,
lusting, lusty. A\'hat we call the grammar of an Indo-European languao-e is largely about the form and choice of such derivatives, and
it would be utterly impossible to learn a logographic script with
enouoh characters to accommodate all of them. A large proportion of
the affixes of such derivatives are useless, e.g. the -s in lusts (see p. S4)
So presumably they \\ould have no place in a logographic script. A
large proportion of our affixes do the same job, as illustrated by patern/fy, f-ither J?ood, reproducf/t;;?, guardian^/;/p. The same character
would therefore serve for a single cluster. Hence a logographic script

which Frenchmen or Germans could communicate wkh their
fello\\" citizens would be a code based on conventions quite different
from the grammar of the spoken language.
The Japanese, A\"ho got their script from China, speak a language
^\hich is totally different from Chinese dialects. They use symbols
(Figs. 42 and 4O for syllables, i.e., for the sounds of affixes which go
to make up their words, and not merely for objects, directions, qualities, and other categories of meaning represented by separate vocables. The sounds corresponding to these symbols are more complex
tlian those represented by our o\\-n letters, with four of which (a, <?,
7;;, t) we can make up thirteen monosyllables (mn, at, ate, eat, viate,
in
meat, me,
77iet,
tame,
tea,
team). So syllable writing
larger battery of symbols than an alphabet,
calls
for a
reformed or otherwise.
it is much easier to learn a syllable script than a logographic script in which the words have individual signs. The surprisinc; thing about Japanese script is the small number of characters
Nonetheless,
which make up its s\llabary.

We have examined the essential characteristics of the Cliinesc kew
Let us now examine the Japanese lock, tiint is to sa\-, the word pattern
into which s\'mbols corresponding to Chinese root words had to fit.
We can do this best, if we compare Japanese w itii I'.nghsii. If aU
English words were made up like father, we coukl c(]uip it w ith a

THE
s\ ll.iMc
St.
ripr
roiii
1'
l<
53
the logographic or picture scripts of any language
with a sufficicntiv rich collection of open inonosN llahles like fa: (far)
Mu\ i\> (the). Ihis uovild take at most about four hundred signs.
The same would be true if all F.nglish words were built to the same
design as iiiLi^c (ad ^ af^c) in which two open s\ llables with a tinal
consonant combine. The problem is immensely more complicated if

languaije contains a high proportion of words like baiidsovic or
.1
juaihirill. If
there are twcnt\ consonants and twenty vowels
all
nounceable closed monosyllables then exceed eight thousand.
pro1
his
means that the word pattern of the language which borrows its script
decides w hcthcr the language itself can assimilate a syllabar\- w hich
is
not too cumbersome for use.

Japanese, like Finnish and Hungarian, has
afi;i;;lnti/iatinf^
istics in later
languages are
its
place
in a class called
more about their characterchapters. Here it is enough to sa\- that a{:,^liitiuatin^

languages of which root words can attach to them-
languages. \Vc shall learn
selves a relativel\- small range of affixed s\ llables (pp. 190-194).
significance of the affixes
is
The
easy to recognize, and the affixes them-
few and regular. Thus words derived from the

same roots grow by addition of a limited number of fixed syllables
like the -im^ w hich we add to love, have, 1^0, hind and think, in IcK'inif,
hjving, going, tnndiiig, and thmking. They do not admit of the great
variety among corresponding derivatives of another class such as
loved, had, gone, bound, thought. This, of course, UKans that the
selves are relatively
word pattern of an agglutinating language
is
necessarily
more simple
than that of such languages as our own.
The sound pattern of Japanese words is much simpler and more

regubr than that of Fnglish for another and more significant reason.
Affixes of Japanese words are all simple vowels or open monosyllables
consisting like pea oi a simple consonant followed b\- a simple vow el.
Tlie only exception to this rule
nese words, end in n.
Thus
is
that
some
syUables, like
some Chi-
the familar place names yo-ko-ha-ma or
FU-ji-YA-MA are typical of the language as a w hole. \Vc can split up

Japanese words in this way, and the number of possible s\- llables
all
is
by the narrow range of clear-cut consonants and vowels

former and five of the latter. This accounts for the
existence of seventy-five syllables, to which we must add five
limited
fifteen of the
possible
vowels standing alone,
like the last s\llablc in to-ki-o, and the termicomplete battery of eighty-<jne (Fig. 44).
Thus the Japanese are able to represent all their words by combin-
nal
;/,
making
54
ing the signs for a small

vocables.
a script
Though
number
their writing
is
of Chinese (see Figs, 42 and 43)

based on syllables, the Japanese use
which need not contain many more
signs than the letters of

English simple consonants and
an alphabet reformed to represent
all
vowels by individual symbols.* At
first,
or syllable signs exclusively, and
still
do
the Japanese used their kana
so,
for telegrams or in school-
books for the young. Otherwise (p. 443) they have gone back to the
old school tradition. In books printed today they generally use Chinese characters for root words, with Kana signs for the affixes.
do not certainly know whether the people who first made up
Japanese syllable writing were scholars. Like the Oriental traders
who revolutionized our number system by using a dot for the modern zero sign to signify the empty column of the counting frame,
they may well have been practical men who earned a livelihood in
the countinghouse, or as pilots on ships. Scholars naturally favor the
view that they were men of learning directly skilled in the use of
Chinese. Undoubtedly such men existed in Japan, when it adapted
Chinese symbols to its own use somewhere about a.d. 750; but if it
was a scholar who first hit on the trick, it is quite possible that he
learned it from the mistakes of his pupils. From what we do know
we may be certain of this. Those who introduced Japanese kana
were men who had no sacrosanct national tradition of writing in this
way, and therefore brought to their task the unsophisticated attitude
of the Island Greeks who absorbed the practical advantages of Egyptian or Semitic learning without assimilating all the superstitions of
their teachers. In the ancient world and in medieval times, mankind
had not got used to rapid change. Great innovations were possible
only when circumstances conspired to force people to face new problems without the handicap of old habits. The Japanese had to take
this step because their language was polysyllabic and comparatively
rich in derivative words. They were able to take it because the affixes
We
* "In Amharic (an Ethiopian language) which is printed syllabically there

are 33 consonantal sounds, each of which may combine with any of the 7 vowels.
Hence to print a page of an Amharic book, 7x33, or 231 different types are
required: instead of the 40 types which would suffice on an alphabet method.
In Japanese this difficulty is less formidable than in many other languages, owing
to the simplicity of the phonetic system which possesses only 5 vowel sounds
and 15 consonantal sounds. There are, therefore, only 75 possible syllabic combinations of a consonant followed by a vowel. Several of these potential
combinations do not occur in the language, and hence it is possible with somewhat less than 50 distinct syllabic signs to write down any Japanese word."
Taylor:
The
Alphabet, vol.
i,
p. 35.
Fig. 14.
Stone Inscription from Paphos (Eighth Century
b.c.)
SS
of their derivative \\ords were few, and because the sound values of
individual syllables correspond to those of Chinese words.
up against a situation coniparal)le to that of

w hen they first got their syllabic scripts, he
treats his own characters in the same way. For foreign names the
Chinese use their characters purely as sound syllables, as we might
write 3.40 to suggest the sound tlyree for tea. This emphasizes how
\\'hcn the Chinese
is
the Japanese at the time
favorable combinations of unusual circumstances influence the possi-
advance or retardation in the cultural evolution of

is one of the many reasons why we should
be suspicious when people attribute one or the other to national and
racial genius or defect. The simplicity of the Chinese language made
it easy for the Chinese to develop a more consistent and workable
system of picture writing than any other nation at an early stage in
its history. Since then it has been a cultural millstone round their
bility of rapid
different communities. It
necks.
If the Russians, the Germans, or any other Aryan-speaking people
had come into contact with Chinese script while they were still barbarians, they could not have used the Chinese symbols to make up a
satisfactory battery of affixes for
that the total
number
European language
is
two
reasons.
One
reason for this
is
of affixes in derivative words of an Indo-
far greater than the
number
of Japanese
affixes.
no sounds corresponding to the large

class of closed monosyllables which occur as affixes, such as the -Jiess
in vianliness. A third is that words of the Aryan languages are rich
in consonant clusters. So a European people would have reaped little
advantage by using Chinese characters as symbols of sound instead
of as symbols of meaning. That transition from logographic script
to sound writing depends on the lock as well as on the key is easy to
test. Make a table of English monosyllabic words of the open type
and use it to build up English, French, or German polysyllables with
second
is
that Chinese has
the aid of a dictionary.
of achieving a
You
will then discover this.
more simple method of writing
English, French, or
German
The
possibility
for such languages as
involved another unique combination
of circumstances.
THE COMING OF THE ALPHABET

In the ancient Alediterranean world, syllable scripts were in use
among
Semitic peoples, Cypriots, and Persians.
They
got the bricks.
S6
Japanese got their syllabaries from the Chinese, from their
as the
neighbors of Mesopotamia and Egypt, \yhere forms of picture

ing
made \yay
The
None
appeared.
first
for the alphabet.
dissection of a ^ôrd into syllables
ao-ahitinatinCT lanouasre
Ancient
hiTogtv--
is
not
yery
especially the \yords of an

difficult
achieyement.
yfcfaKts.
Sinai
Sionc
V^Qstsm
Phoeni-
script
sodls
phics
A,cc
U3
v/
V,KY
T
/VWWSA
^y.
4-
Earhr
Oldzst
iMm.
Indhn,
cian-
A\Tit-
of these syllabaries has suryiyed. All haye
The
57
and about looo B.C., archaeologists can trace the

between
transformation of a battery of about twenty Egyptian pictograms
into the symbols of the early Semitic alphabet. This early Semitic
alphabet \\ as not an ABC. It w as a BCD. It was made up of consonantsonly.
this date
One
peculiarity of the Semitic languages gives us a clue to the
unique circumstances which made possible this immense simplihcation. Semitic root words nearly always have the form which such
proper names
recall.
They
Jacob, RachcL David, Moloch, Balak, or Balaam
as
are
made up
of three consonants separated
by two
inter-
vening vowels, and the three consonants in a particular order are

characteristic of a particular root. This means that if cordite (ko:dait)
w ere a Hebrew word, all possible combinations which we can make

by putting different vowels betw een k and d or d and t would have
something to do with the explosive denoted by the usual spelling.
This unique regularity of word pattern led the old rabbinical scholars
to speak of the consonants as the body and the vowel as the soul of
the word. In so far as
we
metaphor
can recognize bodies without theological
appropriate. Consonants are in fact the

most tangible part of the tiritten word. A comparison of the next
two lines in which the same sentence is written, first without consonants, and then without vowels, is instructive from this point of
assistance the
is
view':
.
Then
e e
a e
turn the page upside
p-j
If
.'u
-3
Engrlish
One
-Jiu
-s'*
is
that
it
is
ea y
read
this:
qo'ui
"J"
this
ea
'S'qa
kind you will discover two
easy to read a passage without vowels in
somethino to show where the vowels should be,

other is that it is much less easy to do so if
nothing to show ivhere the vozvels ought to come. Thus it
if
as in the
there
is
down and
you carry out experiments of
things.
would be
there
above.
is
The
difficult to interpret:
ths
Owing
nich
mr
rd
to the buildup of Semitic root words,
dots to give us this information.
hold the key to their meaning.
open monosyllables w
Once we know
Any
we have no need
of
the consonants,
we
syllabary based on twenty-odd
ith a different consonant
would therefore meet
THELOOMOFLANGTJAGE
58
all
the needs of a script capable of representing the typical root
of a Semitic language.
The
words
Semitic trading peoples of the Mediter-
ranean took t\ventv-t\vo syllable signs from Egyptian priestly wrking, as the Japanese
They
took oyer the Chinese monosyllabic logograms.
used them to represent the sounds for \\hich theN- stood, instead
of to represent Mhat the sounds stood for in the parent language.

Because they did not need to bother about the vowels, they used
twenty-one of the Egyptian symbols to represent the consonant
Classical
Thoeniddn
(jrcek.
laiin
(jveek.
latin.
THE
S 1
The Greek word
for
11
man
ALPHABET
OF THE
59
from which we get philan-
is avOpojiro^,
vou write the consonants only in phoThere is nothing in the word pattern
of the Greek kinguage to cxckidc all the possible arrangements which
we can make by filling up each of the blanks indicated below \\ ith
thropy and ajithropology.
netic script (p. 70), this
each of
is
If
ni9rps.
dozen simple or compound vowel sounds:

.
The number
\-o\\cl
sounds
of pronounceable arrangements of twelve different

in
combination with
this
range of consonants
is
about
some of them were not true

vocables. So it is easy to see that the same succession of consonants
might stand for several different Greek \\ords. It is equaliy easy to
see why the syllable script of Cyprus (Figs. 13 and 14) was an unsatisfactory way of dealing with the same difficulty.
To adapt the Phoenician alphabet to their own use, the Greeks had
to introduce vowels, which were probably monosyllables, like our
own words a or /, taken from syllabaries of other peoples, such as the
Cvpriots, with \\ hom they came in contact. This step was momentous. The primitive Semitic alphabets which had no vowels were good
enough for simple inscriptions or for Holy Writ to be read again
and again. They could not convey the irrammatical niceties which
result from internal vowel change of the sort illustrated by sing-saiigsiing. Since Semitic languages abound in tricks of this sort, the ancieht
Semitic scripts were not \\ell adapted to produce the rich secular
literature which germinated in the Greek world.
The Greek alphabet (Figs. 11 and 12) had seven vowel symbols,
three million.
namely, a
It
would be surprising
o.
The
if
Italian peoples
who
got their alphabet
from the Greeks also spoke dialects poor in vowels, and they disand w. Divergence of the form
carded two of the Greek signs, i.e.,
of the symbols which make up the classical Greek and Latin alphabets
came about owing to a variety of circumstances. The first people to
use alphabetic writing did not write at length and were not fussy
about whether they wrote from right to left or from top to bottom.
Quite ephemeral reasons would influence the choice, as for example
the advantage of inscribing a short epitaph vertically on a pole or
horizontally on a flat stone. Thus the orientation of letters underwent
7;
chanse through the whims of scribes or stonemasons, so that

the same symbols were twisted about vertically or laterally, as illustrated in Fig. 16, which shows the divergence of the Greek and Latin
local
T H E
6o
symbols for D, L, G,
L O O
P, R.
O F
While the
L A
NGUA
art of
GE
writing and reading was
the privilege of the few, the need for speedy recognition was
not compelling, and the urge for standardization was weak.
still
In one or other of the earliest specimens (Figs.
and 38) of Island

we can find any
one of the old Phoenician consonant symbols unchanged. The absence of printing type to standardize the use of letter symbols, the
effect of the \\riting materials on the ease with which they could be
Greek writing of the
t,j
sixth or seventh centuries b.c,
written, the limitation of primitive writing to short messages, records, or inscriptions, the small size of the reading public,
and the
fact that pronunciation changes in the course of several generations
and varies among people still able to converse with difficulty in their
own dialects, were other circumstances which contributed to the
divergence of the alphabets. So there is now no recognizable resemblance between the classical Hebrew and Greek alphabets (Figs.
and 12) which came from the same Semitic source. Though Arabic is
a Semitic language with a script written like Hebrew from right to
left, the symbols of the Arabic consonants have no obvious resemblance to those of Hebrew. In the five different Arabic scripts, only
the symbols for L, i\I, and S are now recognizable derivatives of their
1
Phoenician ancestors.
Throughout
the East, an
enormous variety of alphabetic
scripts
do
many
of
service for peoples with languages which, like Persian or
those spoken in India, belong to the great Indo-European family, and

like
Burmese or Tibetan belong to the same family
are also in use
among
as
peoples with other languages,
Chinese.
e.g.
They
iManchu,
Korean, Turkish, or Javanese. These belong to none of the three

which have been the chief custodians of
great lansruaQe families
knowledge and
literature.
Most
scholars
now
alphabetic scripts were offshoots of those used
who
set forth across the great trade routes
^^
ith the
all
these
by Semitic peddlers
bridging the gulf between
Eastern and Western culture in ancient times.

familiar
believe that
To
Western eye,
simple lines and curves of the printed page in contra-
distinction to ordinary writing, they have a superficial resemblance
due to the complex curvature of the symbols.
It is
not likely that any
of these cursive scripts will overcome the direct appeal of the simpler
signs,
which printing and typewriting have now standardized
in
all
highly industriahzed countries.
Toward
of printing
the end of the Middle Ages,
came
into Europe,
several
w hen the Cliincse invention

forms of the Latin alphabet

\\
cre in use in different countries.
The more
6l
rectilinear Italian
sym-
being better adapted to movable tvpe, eventuallv superseded the

more cursive variants such as the German Black Letters (Fig. 1) of
bols,
the
monkish
missals. Partly
perhaps because the Lutheran Bible was
it persisted in Germany, where it has been

by nationalism. Before the Nazis took over, one newspaper
had begun to follow the practice of scientific textbooks, drama, and
modern novels in step with Western civilization. The Brown Shirts
printed in this script,

fostered
brought back the black letters.

Circumstances \\ hich have influenced the choice and character of
scripts in use mav be material on the one hand, and social on the other.
Among
the material circumstances are the nature of the surface
(stone, bone, clav, ivory, wax, parchment, paper),
the instrument (chisel, style, brush, pen,
used for the process of transcription.

first-rate
importance
we
wood
Among
and the nature of
block, or lead tvpe),
social
circumstances of
have to reckon with the range of sounds
speech community habitually uses at the time m hen it gets its

and the range of sounds represented by the parent alphabet.
Intelligent planning based on the ease with which it is possible to
adapt an alien script to the speech of an illiterate people played little,
if an\', part in selection before Kemal Ataturk introduced the Roman
alphabet in Turkey (Fig. 46). Missionary enterprise has been the
single most sisrnificant social aoency which has influenced choice.
which
script,
This circumstance has

speech habits.
Conquests,
permanent impress on the study of
political, religious,
or both, have imposed scripts o>
Burmese and Siamese

even more true of Arabic
which Islam has forced upon communities with languages of a
languages
\\
left
ill
adapted for them. This
hich have Sanskrit and Pali scripts.
script,
is
true of
It is
phonetic structure quite different from that of the Semitic family,
e.g.
The
among
Berber, Persian, Baluchi, Sindhi, iMalay, Turkish, Swahili, etc.
which trading gave to the spread of writing

Mediterranean civilizations of classical antiquity extended to
Northern Europe without having a permanent influence upon it.
secular impetus
the
Before they adopted
Roman
Christianity,
and with
it
the
Roman
some Teutonic peoples were already literate. In various

parts of Northern Europe, and especially in Scandinavian countries,
there are inscriptions in symbols like those which pre-Christian invaders from the Continent also brought to Britain. This Rinilc script
(Figs. 17 and 29) has no straightforward similarity to any other.
alphabet,

<52
Supposedly it is a degenerate form of early Greek writing carried

across Europe by migratory Germanic (Goths) and probably also
by Celtic tribes, who learned it from trade contacts. It probably
reached Scandinavia during the third century
trate the influence of the materials used.
wood
^vhich are easy to chip on
recognize them
existence.
The
h d
a.d.
The
letters illus-
marks
are the sort of
in the direction of the grain.
We can
such in some of the Runic clog almanacs still in

surviving specimen (Fig. 30) of Runic comes
as
first
t r
...
They
!>
...
th
...
i^
.1
If
III
lIJi
(I
JJi
I r^...n
t
m
ng
...
-^^
/,r////////////
Pgam Svmhols'
Ruxic and Ogam Scripts
Scaxidina.viait 'Runic &^

Fig.
17.
Key
to
Compare with Runic and Ogam
The Runic
symbols He above the
and
inscriptions of Figs. 18
Roman
equivalents, the
Ogam
29.
below them.
from Gallehus in Schleswig. It is an inscription on a horn, and is worth

quoting to illustrate the modest beginnings of writing for secular use:
ek hleii-agastir holt'nigar horna taiddo = i luigast the holtixg made
(this) HORN.
There are inscriptions of another type (Figs. 17, 18, and 39) on
stone monuments in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The script is preChristian but probablv not older than the beginning of the Roman
occupation of Britain. This Ogain writing, as it is called, has an alphabet of twentv letters. Each letter
five strokes,
with
is
a fixed
number
usually the edge of the stone. Five letters (b, d,
sented
by one
by one
of
from one to
which was
a definite orientation to a base line

t,
k,
q) are repre-
to five vertical strokes above the line; five (^,
to five vertical strokes
below the
/,
v,
s,
line; five (a, o, u, e, i)
77)
by

vertical strokes across the line;
strokes across the line sloping
mise
is
that the
number of
and
five {in, g, ;/g, s, r)
upward from
63
by one
left to right.
to five
One
sur-
strokes has something to do with the order
Roman alphabet, as the people who made this

What led Celtic peoples to devise this system we
is clear that the Ogam signs are not degenerate repre-
of the letters in the
script received them.
do not know.
sentatives of
script
is
It
as are the Runic letters. Ogam

code substitute for the Latin alphabet analogous to
Roman-Greek symbols,
a sort of
'm
FiG.
18.
Celtic
tiir
Bilingual Inscription in Latin (Roman Letters) and

Signs) from a Church at Trallong in Ireland
(Ogam
The
from right
Celtic reads
to left.
the Alorse code used in telegraphy. Like the latter, it was probably
adopted because it was most suitable for the instruments and for the
materials available.
The meaning
of such inscriptions long remained a mystery like
that of others in dead languages
still
undeciphered.
Among
the latter
Etruscan and Cretan (Fig. 10) are a sealed book to this day. The
story of the Rosetta stone discloses the clues which have made it possible for scholars to decipher (Figs, i, 5, and 18) lost languages. It is
told in the following quotation
from
Griffith's helpful
book.
The
Story of Letters and Numbers:
"There were strange
stories
and
fictions
about the learning of the
men had a strong desire to get back

a clear knowledge of the writings. They had nothing to go on; there were
no word books or other helps. Then in 799, by the best of good chances,
a man in the French Army, working under Napoleon, saw an old stone
Egyptians, so that for a long time
in a wall at
Rosetta on one of the branches of the river Nile, with three

on it. One was the old Egyptian picture writing, which
sorts of writing
was the same as the writing on the walls of buildings; the second was
another of which men had no knowledge, but the third was in Greek,
clear and simple. The reading of this was no trouble to men of letters.
From the Greek it was seen that the stone gave an account of a king named
ptolemaios, and of the good things which he had done as a mark of his
64
The last line of the Greek says that 'a

made on hard stone in the old writing of the
respect for the religion of Eg\^pt.
copy of the writing
men
year
is
to be
of religion, and in the writing of the country, and in Greek.' The

this was done was 196 b.c. So it was certain that the two strange
writings were in Egyptian, but in different sorts of letters, and that the
Greek gave the
sense of the Egyptian.
name ptolemaios comes eight or nine times, someand sometimes with the words loved of ptah in addition.
Part of the top of the stone, where the picture writing comes, is broken
off, but fourteen lines are there, and in these are five groups of letters or
pictures with a line round them, having two long parallel sides and curved
ends with a short upright line at one end. This seems to have been the
Egyptian way of 'underlining' important words. Three of the groups are
shorter than the other two, but the longer ones are started with the
same, or almost the same, letters or pictures. So it seems probable that the
outlined words are ptolemaios and ptolemaios loved of ptah. Ptah was
one of the higher beings of the religion of Egypt.
"On other stones to the memory of the great dead, groups of letters are
to be seen with the line round them, \\hich makes us more certain that
such outlined words are the names of kings and queens. One such name
on an old stone was kleopatra, the name of a queen who was living in
Egypt two hundred years before the Cleopatra of Shakespeare's Antony
and Cleopatra.
"This much and a little more was the discovery of Dr. Thomas Young,
an English man of science, who made, in addition, some attempt at reading
the second form of the Egyptian \\riting on the stone. The reading of the
picture writing in full was the ^ô^k of J. F. Champollion, a Frenchman.
He was able to do this as he had a good knowledge of the Coptic language.
The Copts were, and still are, Egyptian Christians, and in the old days
"In the Greek, the
times by
itself,
was Egyptian. In time small changes came about, as is

Their writing was in Greek, with seven special letters for sounds
which are not in Greek. In Coptic churches to this day the books of
religion are in Coptic, though only a small number, even of the readers,
have knowledge of the language. It went out of common use five hundred
years back. With the help of this language, Champollion was able to make
out the other signs after the name ptolxm:s, and much more, for the Copts
had word books giving Egv^ptian words in the Coptic writing."
their language
natural.
The preceding account

which
stances
tails in
does not expose
led to this discovery.
The
Science for the Citizen (p. 1080).
Napoleon took with him

greatest
men
remote from
the relevant circumfind further de-
^yill
On
expedition to Egypt,
his
a staff of savants, including
of science of that time.

iisejitl
all
reader
knowledge,
if
some of the
discovery \^^hich
may seem
\ve overlook the deplorable social

6$
consequences of arrogantly dismissing the cultural debt of any

favored race or nation to the rest of mankind, was the direct outcome
for greater progress in our
when
a practical end in view. We may hope

knowledge of the evolution of languages
wkh
of encouraging research
there are fewer scholars
who
cherish their trademark of gentle-
manly uselessness, and more real Innuaiiists who, like Sweet, Jespersen,
Ogden, or Sapir, modestly accept their responsibility as citizens, cooperatinij in the task of making language an instrument for peaceful
collaboration between nations. A civilization which produces poison
Semaphore
Morse
lights, written dots i dash-
es.needle movement)
PROBABLY
BRAILLE
Fig.
19.
Semaphore, Morse and Braille Codes
(B)-
kind permission of Mr.
I.
J.
gas and thermite has no need for humanists

marians.
What we now
need
is
the
Pitman)
who are merely gramwho is truly a human-
grammarian
ist.
RATIONAL SPELLING
The
fact that
all
alphabets
come from one source
bearing on the imperfection of
all
has an important
existing systems of spelling. Al-
though there are perhaps about a dozen simple consonants and half
a dozen vowels approximately equivalent in most varieties of human
speech, the range of speech sounds is rarely the same in closely related languages. Thus the Scots trilled r, the U in giiid, and the
CH
braw bricht munelicht nicht the nicht" are abAnglo-American dialects. When a preliterate community with a language of its own adopts the alphabetic symbols of
an alien culture it will often happen that there will be no symbols
for some of its sounds, or no sounds for some of the symbols available.
throatN-
in "it's a
sent in other
English spelling illustrates

I
Scribes
may
invent
\\
hat then happens.
Thus Old English, like modern

two symbols ]> {thorn) and d {etha) for
iieâ- letters.
Icelandic (Fig. 31), had the

the uvo sounds respectively represented bv TH in thin and then. Our
66
letter J
not in the Latin alphabet, which
is
European
is
the basis of
Western
acquired different values in different lan-
scripts. It has
Norwegian and in German)

Yule (Scandinavian Jul). In French it is
the peculiar consonant represented by S or SI in pleasure, treasure,
measure, or vision, incision, division. In English it stands for a comguages. In Teutonic languages (e.g. in
it is
equivalent to our
in
pound consonant made by saying d softly before the French J. The

w (cf. irait) in Teutonic words was represented by uu {ao-ooait). Eventually the two us fused to form a single letter. In Welsh
spelling u" stands for a vowel sound. It is now a signpost pointing to
the Old English origin of a word.
initial
may
Scribes
2)
special value.
This
give arbitrary combinations of old symbols a

is
true of the
and the
in short or nation,
two
TH sounds, the SH or TI sound
NG in singer
with hunger).
(as contrasted
Aside from these arbitrary combinations for simple consonants, we

use ch for a combination of t followed by sh.
These combinations and their vagaries are valuable signposts for
the home student. Neither of the sounds represented by th exists in
Latin or French, the soft one (9) exists only in Teutonic languages
and the hard one (j?) only in Teutonic languages and in Greek, among
languages which chiefly supply the roots of our vocabulary.
sound so
spelt
is
Teutonic.
The SH sound
spelt as
TI
The SH
(e.g. nation) is
ah^-ays of French-Latin origin.
For
There
this
is
many words
way in which
reason
another
carry the hallmark of their origin.

the irregularities of English spelling
help us to recognize the source of

in the course of a
hundred
word. Pronunciation may change
years, while writing lags behind for cen-
This explains the behavior of our capricious
turies.
usually silent and sometimes like an
f.
It
survives
from
GH, which
a
is
period M'hen
more like the Scots licht, in which there

is a rasping sound represented by X in phonetic symbols. In such
words the earlier Enirlish
conventional GH stands for a sound which
o
the pronunciation of light was
wâs
once
common
When we
occurs
is
equivalent
Thus
the
Teutonic languages, and is still common in

meet GH, we know that the word ia which it
of Teutonic origin; and it is a safe bet that the
in the
German.
word *
German word will correspond closely to the Scots form.
German for light is Licht, for brought brachte, for eight
acht, for night Nacht, for right

*
Recht and for might Macht. English
Notable exceptions are haughty (French
ha2it)
and
delight.

is
not the only language w hich has changed in this wav.
the
German
now pronounced hke
\V,
an English
\',
67
At one time
stood for
sound, more like ours. So phonetic spelling would make
a softer
more
it
recognize the meaning of Wind, Wasscr, mid Wetter
difficult to
(wind, water, and weather).
third
w av
nected with
is
con-
same
Aryan
great Indo-European or
ings like the
father's.
family, English \\as once rich in end-
in father's. Separate
's
function of such endings, as

7//V
out of step with speech
evolves. Like other lanQuages in the
in \\hich spelling gets
how fjrammar
Having ceased
words have now taken over the
when we
say of viy father, instead of

use, the endings have de-
any
to have
ca\ed; and because writing changes more slowly than speech, they
have left behind in the written language, relics which have no exist-
ence in the spoken. This process of simplification, dealt with in

Chapter III, has gone much further in English than in her sister
languages. On this account ^\ritten English is particularly rich in
endings \\hich are not audible.
z'oivel
This
way
in
which pronunciation changes in the course of time is

European languages. Two
responsible for spelling anomalies in most
English examples
rule
which
when we
tells
illustrate
us
how
to
On
forcibly.
it
paper there
form the plural
is
very simple
the derivative
we
use
speak of more than one object or person) of the overwhelm-
ing majority of
modern English nouns.
simple paper rule which usual 1\-
most English verbs.
We
add
tells
We
how
us
add -s. There is also a

form the past form of
to
-ed, or -d (if the dictionary
when we make the change from

Nowadays we rarely pronounce the
in -e), as
loved.
(i.e.,
form ends
part to parted, or love to

final
-ED
unless
it
follows
was always audible as a separate

syllable. Sometimes we still pronounce it as such in poetic drama. If
we are church addicts, we may also do so in religious ritual. All of us
do so when we speak of a beloved husband or a learnec? wife. In
Chaucer's English the plural -s was preceded by a vowel, and the combination -es was audibly distinct as a separate syllable. When fusion
d or
t.
Till
comparatively recently
it
of the final -s of the plural, and -ed of the past with the preceding
consonant of the noun or verb stem took place, necessary chaneres
occurred.
sobbed
We pronounce cats as kats
as sobd..
and helped
English would be a
little
as helpt.
and cads
Thus
more complicated,
we pronounce them. We should

-z, and many more past form.s of
have
as kadz.
We pronounce
the grammatical rules of
we
new
if
a large
words
spelt
all
class
of plurals in
the verb ending, like slept, in
-t.
as
68
The
why these changes had to
occur is that certain combinations of consonants are difficult to make, when we speak without
effort. When we do speak without effort, we invariably replace them
by others according to simple rules. Such rules can shed some light
on the stage of evolution a language had reached when master
reason
pubHshing houses, or scholars settled its spelling

conventions. One simple rule of this kind is that many consonants
which combine easily with 5 or i do not combine easily with z or d,
and vice versa. We can arrange them as follows:
printers, heads of
^''^^^l
or T J
th (P)
oro}
^^^
ch (tf)
(^)
?"
('ô)
sh
^^
U)
(5)
''voiceless''
'''^'oiced''
This rule is easy to test. Compare, for instance, the way you pronounce writhed (5d) and thrived (vd), with the way you pronounce
{nxithoiit ejfort) pithed (0t) and laughed (ft). In the same way, compare the pronunciation of the final consonants in crabs and traps,
crabbed and trapped, or notice the difference between the final -s
in lives and ivife's.
Vowels illustrate sources of irregularity in the spelling conventions

of European languages more forcibly than do the consonants, because
Italic-Latin which bequeathed its alphabet to the West of Europe had
a very narrow range of vowel sounds, for which five symbols suffice.
This is one reason why Italian spelling is so much more regular than
that of other European languages, except the newest Norwegian reformed rettskrivning. Another reason is that Italian pronunciation
and grrammar have changed little since Dante's time. In English dialects we have generally about twelve simple and about ten compound
vowels (diphthongs) for which the five Roman vowel signs are
and a Greek Y. The situation is
supplemented by a Teutonic
much the same with most other European languages, except Spanish
which stands close to Italian. Several devices are in use to deal with
shortage of vowel symbols.

1
Introduction of
(Fig. 32) has two, the
new vowel
symbols.
Thus modern Norwegian
of Danish and the a of Swedish.
The
Russian
alphabet, based on the Greek, has eight instead of seven vowel symbols, of which only three correspond precisely to the Greek models.
2) Introduction of accents, such as the dots placed
above
or a in
69
Swedish and German, or those used to distinguish the four French

sounds,
e, e, e, e.
Use of combinations such as aa to distinguish the long a of

father from the short a of jat in bazaar is specially characteristic of
Dutch spelling. On this account Dutch ^^"ords look rather long. The
same plan (see table of vo^\els on p. 71) would meet all the needs
3)
As
of a reformed English spelling.
combinations which
and
oy
oi or
we
things stand
use consistently
(in soil, joy).
The
last is a
\\'e
have onlv three
ju" (in cUrcv), ee (in ineet),
signpost of
Norman-French
origin.
4)
The more
characteristically English trick of using a silent e
after a succeeding
mad-made,
consonant to distinguish the preceding vowel,

pin-pine,
Sani-smiie,
lengthen the preceding vowel in German,

5)
The
vowel is
relies on
as in
silent
may
as in
also
our M'ords ah/ eh! oh!
use of a double consonant to indicate that the foregoing
short.
German and
the newest
Norwegian
spelling (1938)
this consistently.
From rhymes
lish
ii-iii-ivijie.
spelling
in
poems,
was regular
we have good
at the
reason to believe that Eng-
time of the
Norman
Conquest.
present chaos, especially with reference to the vowels,
is
The
partly due
to the practice of Norman scribes when a large number of French

words invaded English during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This coincided more or less with a profound change in the pronunci-
ation of English vowels, and the decay of endings. In other words, the
we now use became current coinage at a time

when the sound values of English words were in a state of flux. The
Norman scribes were responsible for several important changes affecting the consonants as well as the vo\\'els. They introduced J for
a new sound which came \\ith the Conquest. The Old English C
became K. The symbols and 6 for two sounds \\hich do not occur in
spelling conventions
]?
TH
French disappeared in favor of

and Y. After a time the Y (as in
the solecism ye olde tea shoppe) acquired a ne\\' use, and TH served
for both sounds. At a later date the breach bet\\een spelling and
speech \\idened through the interference of classical scholars in the
light of current and often mistaken views about word origin. Thus
debt though derived directly from the French ^ôrd dette, sucked in
a silent b to indicate the common origin of both from the Latin
debitinn. For what regularities do exist we owe far more to the
printers than to the scholars. Printing checked individual practices

70
to
which
scribes
writing was
still
like
(like
stenographers
stenography)
were prone, when the
a learned profession.
ENGLISH CONSONANTS IX PHONETIC SCRIPT

I.
art of
71
sonant signs of different scripts exhibited on page 46 correspond with

one another, and with the equivalent symbols of the international
script devised for all nations. So the symbols for the consonants are
ENGLISH VOWELS IN PHONETIC SCRIPT
72
of scripts
may
serve different ends. Apart
73
from cryptographic
scripts
devised for secret inventions and recipes, political messages or mili-
we can broadly distinguish two types. In books,

and correspondence, the convenience of the reader is the
main desideratum, and ready lisiial recognition is all-important.
What is most important about a script for habitual and personal use
is whether it is adapted to rapid transcription. For this reason an
increasing proportion of transcription in commerce, law courts, and
conference is taken down in scripts which are not based on the alphatary dispatches,
periodicals,
^~-. r
Fig. 20.
y^,-^
W^-'^.V'^^^^cÛ
U-
i^
Facsimile Note in Pitman's Shorthand by Bernard
Mr. Shaw has
Shaw
much
of his writing has been done in trains, and

written in shorthand for subsequent transcription
by a secretary typist. The specimen of his shorthand reproduced here reads:
"This the way I write. I could of course substitute (here follows an abbreviation) with an apparent gain in brevity, but as a matter of fact it takes longer to
contract. Writing shorthand with the maximum of contraction is like cutting
telegrams: unless one is in constant practice it takes longer to devise the contractions than to write in full; and I now never think of contracting e.xcept by
ordijiary logograms."
that practically
told us that
all
of
it
is
and have been designed for speedy writing. For such purposes
ready recognition by anyone except the writer is of secondary usebet,
fulness.
Roman
writers of the age of Cicero
of alphabetic writing
from
this
breviations for particles and other

consistent system of shorthand
were
alive to the
inconvenience
point of view, and used various ab-
is
common
elements of speech.
an English invention.
The
first at-
tempt was made by Timothy Bright, who dedicated his book called
Characterie, the art of short, swift and secret zvriting to Elizabeth
in 1588. Timothy Bright's system, which was very difficult to memo-
74
way for others, notably Wilhs's Art of Stenography

In
(1602).
1837, when Sir Isaac Pitman perfected what is still a
very successful shorthand script "for the diffusion of knowledge
rize,
paved the
among
the middle classes of society," about
sorts of
today
is
two hundred
different
shorthand had been put forward. Shorthand as ^^'e know it

the product of many experiments in which some of the most
enlightened linguists of the seventeenth and eiohteenth centuries
took a hand.
the fruit of close study of the merits or demerits of
It is
different systems of \\Titing
Modern
and typography
shorthand, like Japanese script,
in general use.
a synthesis. In so far as
is
is alphabetic, advantages of speed are due to the

combination of three principles, two of them suggested by characteristics of Semitic scripts. One is that the letter symbols are simple
recognize them by direction as opposed to
strokes, easily joined.
the basic stratum
We
A second
shape.
so that
we
is
that the vowels are detached
from the consonants,
when doing so would lead to no doubt

word. The third is that arbitrary combinations
can leave them out,
about the identity of a

of consonants or vowels give place to a complete battery of single
signs in a consistently phonetic system. This phonetic alphabet is
only part of the setup. There are syllable signs for affixes which constantly recur, and logograms for
common words
or phrases.
No tracts about the Real Presence, treatises on marginal utility

and table turning, or expositions of the Hegehan dialectic and the
Aryan virtues are accessible in Morse code or shorthand editions.
Still,
students of language planning for the
thing to learn from the

inventions and
work
from the
Age
of Plenty have some-
who have contributed to such

those who have worked to make
of those
efforts of
the written record available to the deaf and blind.
Of
the
two
fore-
most pioneers of language planning in the seventeenth century, one,

George Dalgarno, was the inventor of a deaf-and-dumb alphabet;
the other, Bishop Wilkins, put forward an early system of phonetic
One
shorthand systems
in the soundhence
and
was
language
toward
attitude
composition of words. An evolutionary
study
how the
began
to
language
was not possible until students of
shorthand.
result of early controversies over
a lively interest in the defects of spelling,
sound of
word changes
in the course of a
few generations.
we need to supplean international

with
communities
ment the languages of local speech
language will
world-wide
medium of discourse. Whether such a
certain is that
is
What
say.
eventually displace all others, we cannot
To
organize prosperity on a world-wide
scale,
75
change will not happen till many centuries have elapsed. In the
meantime, the most we can aim at is to make every citizen of the Age
such
of Plentv bilingual, that
and
in the
common
is
to say, equally fluent in a
larger than the sovereign states of the present day.
portant
in the
is
home
language,
language of world citizenship, or of some unit
Hardly
less
im-
Few but experts realize the babel of scripts

Many of them are ill suited for their purpose,
another need.
modern world.
laborious to learn and space-consuming. Nonexploitive collabora-
between East and West requires international adoption of the

alphabet, supplemented where necessary by additional symbols. Lenin said this to comrade Agamaly-Ogly, president of the
Central Pan-Soviet Committee of National Alphabets: Rouiamzation,
tion
Roman
lies the great revolution of the East.

Regularization of script on a world-wide scale
there
is
alike prerequisite
and worthwhile spelling

long overdue; but it is not a
to liquidation of illiteracy in the Orient
reform
West. Spelling reform is

affair, nor merely the task of devising consistent rules
priori principles. It must necessarily be a compromise
in the
purely national
based on a
between conflicting claims recognition of language affinities in the
form of the written word, preservation of structural uniformities,
such as our plural -s, which transgress phonetic proprieties, the disadvantage of an unwieldy battery of signs and the undesirability of
setting up an arbitrary norm without due regard to dialect differ-
ences.*
FURTHER READING
GRIFFITH
The Story
LLOYD JAMES
JENSEN
KARLGREN
Oiir Spokcii Language.
Gescbichte der Schrift.
RiPMAN
English Phonetics.
TAYLOR
The Alphabet.
The ABC of our Alphabet.
THOMPSON
Sowid and
of Letters ayid
Numbers.
Syiiibol in Chinese.
* The Intervatioiul hufmtte of Intellectual Co-operation

has published a
report (1934), prefaced by Jcspersen, on the promotion of the use of the Roman
alphabet among peoples with unsuitable scripts or no script at all.
CHAPTER
Accidence
III
The Table Manners

of Language
Men
built hotels for celestial visitors before they
devoted
much
in-
genuity to their own housing problems. The temple observatories of

the calendar priests, and the palaces of their supposedly sky-born
among the earliest and are certainly the most enduring

monuments of architecture. In the dawn of civilization, when agriculture had become an established practice, the impulse to leave a
record in building and in decoration went hand in hand with the need
rulers, are
for a storehouse of nightly observations
on the
the flocks and crops. So writing of some sort

tion has begun.
firsthand
The beginning
of writing
is
is
and a record of
stars
the signal that civiliza-
also the
beginning of our
knowledge of language.
Our fragmentary
information about the speech habits of mankind
extends over about four thousand of the eighty thousand or more

years since true speech began.
speech between the time
when
We
know
nothing about
the upright ape
first
human
used sounds to
when people began to

unwise
draw
conclusions
about the birth of
write. It is therefore
to
language from the very short period which furnishes us with facts.
can be certain of one thing. If we had necessary information for
tracing the evolution of human speech in relation to human needs
and man's changing social environment, we should not approach the
task of classifying sounds as the orthodox grammarian does. The
recognition of words as units of speech has grown hand in hand with
co-operate in
work
or defense, and the time
We
the elaboration of script. In the preliterate millennia of the

story, social needs
would
arise
which prompted men
only in connection with
difliculties
and through contacts with migrant or warring

quite sure that primitive
man
human
to take statements to pieces
of
young
tribes.
children,
We
can be
used gestures liberally to convey his
ACCIDENCE
THE TABLE MANNERS
77
meaning. So a classification of the elements of language appropriate

human communication might plausibly take
to a primitive level of
shape in
fourfold division as follows:*
words used for distinct objects or events

which can be indicated by pointing at things, i.e., such as our
words dog or thtmder, and at a later stage, for qualities of a group,
a) Substmnives, or individual
such as red or noisy.
some response, such as

our words ivhere? stop, rim, coiiie, pull! and names of individuals.
c) Demonstratives, or gesture substitutes which direct the attention of
b)
Vocatives, or short signals used to call forth
the listener to a particular point in the situation,
i.e.,
that, here,
behi77d, in front.
d) incorporatives, or recitative combinations of sound used in ritual

incantations without any recognition of separate elements corresponding to what we should call vsords.
From
last
a biological point of view,
it is
reasonable to guess that the
we
can properly call speech, that they take us

chorus of sundown when the mosquitoes are
antedate anything
back to the monkey
about, that they persisted long after the recognition of separate
words emerged out of active co-operation in hunting, fishing, or

were later refined into sequences of meaningful v.ords by a process as adventitious as the insertion of the vocables
into such a nursery rhyme sequence as "ena, mena, mina, mo, catch
." Perhaps we can recognize the first separate
a nigger by his toe.
signals
in
warning
of the pack leader. If so, the second class,
vocables
building, and that they
Grammarians have oscillated between tv.-o views. According to one, primispeech was made up of discrete monosyllables like Chinese. Under the
influence of Jespersen and his disciples, the pendulum has now swung to the
*
tive
opposite extreme, and primitive speech is supposed to be holophrastic, i.e.,

without discrete words. This singsong view, like nonsense written at one time
about so-called iiicorporative languages (e.g. those of the Mexicans or Greenland Esquimaux), and now disproved by the work of Sapir, is essentially a
concoction of the study. It is the product of academic preoccupation with the
works of poets or other forms of sacred composition. Practical biologists or
psychologists have to give consideration: {a) to how children, travelers, or
immigrants learn a language without recourse to interpreters and grammar
books, ib) to how human speech differs from the chatter of monkeys or the
mimetic exploits of parrots. In contradistinction to such anunal noises, human
speech is above all an instrument of co-operation in productive ivork or mutual
defense, and as such is partly made up of discrete signals for individual actions
and manipulation of separate objects. To this extent (see p. 37) the recognition
of some sounds as vjords is presumably as old as the first flint instruments.
Conversely, other formal elements which we also call words are products of
grammatical comparison. They do not emerge from the speech matrix before
the written record compels closer analvsis.
(Editor)
78
or vocatives, are the oldest sound elements of co-operation in

mutually beneficial activities. What seems almost certain is this: Until
writing forced people to examine more closely the significance of the
sounds they used, the recognition of words was confined to sounds

which they could associate with gesture.
Here we are on speculative ground. It will not be possible to get
any further light on the early evolution of speech till anthropologists
have made more progress in researches for which Professor Malino\^ski has made an eloquent plea:*
"The point
of view of the philologist
who
deals onlv
with remnants
of dead languages must differ from that of the ethnographer who, deprived of the ossified, fixed data of inscriptions, has to rely on the living
spoken language
reality of
general situation,
i.e.,
in
-fliixii.
The former
the culture of a past people,
has to reconstruct the
from the extant
state-
ments; the latter can study directly the conditions and situations characteristic of a culture and interpret the statements through them. Now I claim
that the ethnographer's perspective is the one relevant and real for the
fonuation of fundamental linguistic conceptions and for the study of the
life of languages.
For language in its origins has been merely the
free, spoken sum total of utterances such as we find now in a savage
tongue."
.
is still
in
backward communities from this point of viewits infancy. Many years must elapse before it influences the
of language teaching in our schools and universities. Mean-
Study of speech
tradition
in
while, the infant science of language carries a load of unnecessary

intellectual luggage
from
its
parental preoccupation with sacred texts
or ancient wisdom. Grammar,
as
the classification of speech and writ-
ing habits, did not begin because
equipment.
their social
Hindu
grammar was
Semitic (p. 426),
European
What
(p.
human
beings were curious about
prompted the study of
originally
412) and
to a large extent that of
the requirements of ritual.
Though
the
impact of biological discovery has now forced European scholars to

look at language from an evolutionary point of view, academic
tradition has never outgrown the limitations imposed on it by the
circumstances of its origîn.
Modern European grammar began about the time when the Protestant Reformation was in progress. Scholars were busy producing
an open Bible for the
common
political apologists of the
Sec
The Meaning
people, or translations of texts
Greek
of Meaning,
by
city state.
C. K.
Those who did
Ogden and
I.
by the
were
so
A. Richards.
AC C
F.
N C K
Til
F,
TA B L F
prininril\- iiucrcstcd in finding tricks
A N N
US
79
of expression corresponding to
Creek and Latin uiolIcIs in modern lunopcan languages. Usually they

had no know ledge of non-European languages, and, if thcv also knew
languages now placed in the Semitic group, gained their knowledge
bv appKing the classical yardstick. It goes without sa\ing that they
did not classify ways of using words as they would have done if
the\- had been interested in finding out how English has changed
since the time of Alfred the Great. Since then a language, w hich once
had many of the most characteristic features of Latin or Greek, has
changed past recognition. It now shares some of the most remarkable
peculiarities of Chinese.
What
grammar was
schools used to teach as English
really an intro-
was not concerned with the

outstanding characteristics of the English language; and most educationists in America or England now condemn time wasted in the
mental confusion resulting from trying to fit the tricks of our own
terse idiom into this foreign mold. Without doubt learning grammar is not of much help to a person who \vants to write modern
duction to the idiosyncrasies of Latin.
It
English. Nonetheless, the so-called English
grammar of
thirty years
ago had its use. Other European languages which belong to the same
great Indo-European family as Bible English and Latin and Greek,
have not traveled so far on the road which English has traversed.
So knowledge of old-fashioned grammar did make

to learn
some
peculiarities of French,
it
a little easier
German, or other languages

to learn one of them without
w hich are still used. Anyone who starts

some knowledfje of grammatical terms meets a laroe class of unnecessary difficulties. The proper remedy for this is not to go back
to grammar of the old-fashioned type, but to get a more general
grasp of how English resembles and differs from other languages,
what vestiges of speech habits characteristic of its nearest neighbors
persist in it, and w hat advantages or disadvantages result from the
way in which it has diverged from them. To do this we shall need
to equip ourselves with some technical terms. They are almost indispensable if we w ant to learn foreign languages.
HOW WORDS GROW

None
of us needs to be told that
we
cannot write a foreign
language, or even translate from one with accuracy,

dictionary or learning
its
contents
by
heart.
From
by using
a practical
point
8o
of view,
we
can define grammar
as the rules
ive can use a dictionary ivitb profit. So

as
our foundation stone
in this chapter
we
we need
to
know
before
shall take the dictionary^
and the next.
We have already
seen that dictionaries of languages do not contain all vocables Me

commonly use. Thev include certain classes of derivative * words,
and exclude others. Thus an ordinary English dictionar)^ which

contains behave and behavior, does not list behaved, behaves, or
behaving.
The
part of
how
grammar
called accidence consists of rules
form such derivatives and ho\\' thev affect the

meaning of a dictionary word which shares the same root. Our first
task must therefore be to recall (p. 38) hoM" single words can gron'.
for detecting
First of
all,
7mamngfid
to
they can do so by fusing with one another or wuth
affixes:
a) Because the meaning of the covipoimd liord (e.g. brickyard) so

formed is sufficiently suggested by the ordinary meaning of its
separate parts in a given context. This
a trick specially character-
is
istic of Teutonic languages, Greek, and Chinese.

b) Because two native words constantly occur in the same context
and set srlued together through slipshod pronunciation, as in the
shortened forms dont, n-ont, cant, sbant for do not, ii;ill not, can
not, shall not, as also don (=do on) and doff (=do off).
c) Because an affix (p. 38) borroii-ed from another language is attached

to them, as the Latin ante- (before) is used in antenatal clinic,
or the Greek anti- (against) in anti-fascist, ami- Comintern, and

(j7;f/-anvthing-else-\\"hich-we-do-not-like.
It is
useful to distinguish fusion due to speech habits,
fusion associated with meaning,
i.e.,
{a)
and
{c).
i.e.,
{b)
from
The word
ag-
ghifmation refers to the former, i.e., to fusion arising from context

and pronunciation vcithout regard to vieaning. Once fusion has
begrun another process begins to work. The meaning like the form of
a word part becomes blurred. People get careless about the meaning
of an affix. \\t expect a word to end (or to begin) in the same ^ây,
when we have made

affix in a similar
affix to
a habit of
using similar Mords \\ith the same
context. This leads to a habit of tacking on the same
new words without
regard to
its
original meaning.
Having
is often impossible to sav what is root and what is affix, but many English
words can be derived bv adding affixes like -s, -ed or -ing to the dictionary form.
In what follows the Editor suggests that we should speak of them as derivatives
of the latter. As explained in the footnote on page 21, this is not precisely the
wav in which linguists use the word derivative.
* It
A CC
made
D E N C
T H E
F,
word mastodon, w c add
used to treating animals in
What
<Trammarians
call
up
same
-5
I".
N N
K R
we
of niastodviis because
are
wav.
affix
bv analogy w
ith pre-existing
wa\'. (Children and immigrants
(sec p.
words
r6i),
w av languages change for

l)etter or for worse. For instance, an American or British child w ho
is accustomed to sa\ing / caught, when he means that he has made
as
w ell
in the
the
I,
analogical extension includes this process
of extending the use of an

built
tliis
A B
as native adults, take a
his catch,
may
also sav the
hand
in the
eggs hai/ght for the eggs hatched; or,
being more accustomed to adding -ed,

l^his process
words or
in
may
say
catched for
caught.
immenseK" important (see p. 197) in building up new

changing old ones. We should, therefore, recogni/e its
is
limitations at the outset. Analogical extension
may
responsible for the origin of the Diajority of
word
a particular type. It
cannot explain
how
explain
what
is
derivatives of
the habit of building
them
up began.
People
who make
formed according
of the
word
dictionaries
to simple rules.
do not leave out all derivatives

reason w hy some derivatives
The
bake, such as bakehot^se, baker, or bakery are in English
baked are not, has nothing to do

adding -house, -er, or -ery are more easy
to apply than the rules for adding -s, -ing, or -(e) d. We can tack the
ending -er, now common to an enormous class of Danish, German,
dictionaries, \\hile bakes, baking, or
ith
whether the
rules for
and English vocables, on the dictionary words iirite, fish, sing, or

teach; but we can add the suffix -ed ov\\\ to the second (cf. ivrote,
fished, sajig, or taught). Since the
word
is
affected
by both
affixes
is
are in our dictionaries, and that

in
them, shows that people
who
way
in
which the meaning of
obvious, the fact that -er derivatives
we do
not find the -ed derivatives

compile dictionaries do not decide
meaning of the root or dictionary

form and that of its affix are equally clear. The real reason has to
do with the original job the grammarians had to undertake. Broadly
speaking, it is this: vocables are put in grammar books instead of in
dictionaries because they correspond to the class of derivatives most
to leave out a vocable because the
common
in Latin or
Greek.
Grammarians call such derivatives, or their affixes, flexions. Flexion

is of two kinds, internal (root inflexion) and external (affixation).
The change from bind to bound, or joot to feet illustrates one type
of internal flexion, i.e., root vowel change. E.xternal flexion, or true
02
which
more common,
is simply change of meaning by

do not speak of affixes as flexions
when they are recognizable as borrowed elements or relics of
separate native words, as in the enormous class of English derivatives
with the common affix -ly in happily or probably, corresponding to
-lich in German, -lijk in Dutch, -lik in S\\"edish, -lig in Danish or
Norwegian. Whether derivatives formed by adding affixes are called
flexions depends largely on whether they correspond to derivatives
formed from a root \îth the same meaning in Latin or Greek.
According to the way in which derivatives modify its meaning, or
are dictated by the context of, a root, grammarians refer to different
classes most characteristic of the sacred hido-European languages,
i.e., Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, as flexions of mmiber, tense, person,
coiiiparison, voice, case, mood, and gender. Wt can classify root
words of Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit according to which of two or
more classes of these derivatives they form. Thus nouns and pronouns
have number and case flexion; verbs have tense, person, voice, and
mood flexions. Words which do not have such derivatives are called
particles. The distinction between these classes would be meaningless, if we tried to apply it to Chinese. For reasons which we shall
flexion,
affixes, like
now
in the
We
almost meaningless
see, it is
words
is
the -ed in baked.
when we
try to classify Enolish
same way.
The number
of flexional derivatives in the older languages of the
Indo-European family
is
enormous. In Enghsh comparable deriva-
few, and are chiefly confined to flexions of

number, time, person, and comparison. Formation of the derivative
houses (external) or lice (internal) from house or louse illustrates
tives
are relatively
of number.
flexion
The
derivatives
bound
(internal)
and loved
bind and love illustrate tense flexion. Person flexion
from
up only in the addition of -s to a verb, e.g. the change as from
bind to binds. Comparison is the derivation of happier and happiest,
or vi-iser and -wisest, from happy and vcise. English has a few relics of
(external)
turns
case (e.g. he, hivi, his), and a trace of
mood
(p. io8) flexion. Flexion
of gender has disappeared altogether, and voice flexion never existed

in
our
own
Knowing
language.
the
names for the
flexions does not help us to speak or to
write correct English, because few survive, and we learn these few
in childhood. What it does help us to do is to learn languages in
which the flexional system of the old Indo-European languages has
decayed
far less than in English or in
its
Eastern counterpart,
modern
ACC
The
Persian.
N C
I.
i:
study of liow
which have contributed

acteristics
without
rlicv
have
I".
arisen,
A N N K R
N3
and of circumstances
to their decay, also helps us to see char-
incorporate
t(^
H K T A MI.
in a
world medium which
is
easy to learn
beinti liable to misundcrstandinir.
FLEXION OF PKRSON
It is best to start w ith flexions of person and tense, because we
have more information about the way in w hich such flexions have
arisen or can arise than we have about the origin of number, case,
probably the older of the

cropping up again (p. S5),
began. Unlike tense, voice, number, and
gender, and comparison. Person flexion
two. Since something of the same sort

it
is
easy to guess
how
it
comparison, flexion of person
is
is
is
absolutely useless in
many modern
European languages. All that remains of it in our own language is

the final ^ of a verb which follows certain words such as he, she, it,
or the names of sijii^le things, living beings, groups or qualities, e.g.
in such more or less intelligible statements as he bakes, she types, or
love conquers all. The derivative forms bakei', type^, or conquers
are dictated
by context
The
language.
final -s
accordance with the conventions of our

adds nothing necessary to the meaning of a
in
statement.
This flexion
system
in the
is
our only surviving
relic
of
much more complicated
English of i\lfred the Great, and
European languages.
To
still
extant in most
importance in connection
\\ ith correct usage in many other languages, we have to distinguish
a class of words called personal pronouns. Since the number of them
is small, this is not difficult. Excluding the possessive forms mine,
understand
its
pronouns are: / or ine, i::e or us, you, he or

and they or them. 1 or 7fie and ive or tis are
modestly called pronouns of the first person, you is the English
pronoun of the second person, and he or /;/;//, she or her, it, they or
theyn are pronouns of the third person. The pronouns of the first
ours, etc., the personal
hivi, she
or her,
it,
person stand for, or include, the person making a statement. The

pronoun of the second person stands for the person or persons whom
we address, and the pronouns of the third person stand for the persons or things about \\ hom or about which we make a statement or
ask a question.
To make room
we
for all the flexions of person in foreign languages,

have to go a stage further in classifying pronouns. If the statement
84
about one person or thing, the pronoun which stands for it is

singular; if it is about more than one person or thing, the pronoun is
said to be plural. Thus I and 7J7e are pronouns of the first person
singular; %i'e and ns pronouns of first person plural. He and him, she
and her, together with it, are pronouns of the third person singular,
and they or thein are pronouns of the third person plural. In modern
Enelish or, as we ougrht to say and as we shall sav in future when we
want to distinguish it from Bible English, in Anglo-Aviericav, there
is only one pronoun of the second person singular or plural. In the
Bible English of Mayfloiver days there were t\vo. Thou and thee
were the pronouns of the second person singular, and ye was for
converse with more than one person. Thou is de rigneur in churches
is
as the
pronoun of address for
a threefold deity.
Orthodox members
of the Society of Friends use thee when speaking to one another.

When ordinary people still used thou, there was another flexion of
person.
They
said
thou speakest,
in contradistinction to
you speak or
he speaks.
pronouns in this way would be quite

Anglo-American.
We can appreciate its
everybody
used
pointless if
usefulness if we compare Anglo-American and French equivalents
on page 22. The simple English rule for the surviving -s flexion is
Classification of the personal
we
this:
use
it
only \\-hen
word such
person, quality, group, or thing
as speak, love, type, write,
or the name of any single

which can be replaced by it. The
bake, or conquer follows he, she, or
it,
example on paê 22 sho\\s that there are free dift'erent personal

forms of the French verb, or class to \\'hjch such words as love
belong. In
more old-fashioned languages
the verb root has
all
six
different derivatives corresponding to the singular and plural forms
of
all
the personal pronouns or to the
names they can
replace.
the corresponding forms of the equivalent Itahan verb are:

(io)
Thus
A CC
D K N C
III
i:
discuss eicctricitv with onl\- one,
it
F-
A B L
i:
A N N
1".
85
not obvious that the five of
is
\\ c do not
wish to
It
encourage the acciinuilation of unnecessnr\- hnguistic his^^gagc, it is
therefore instructive to know how people collected them. The first
X'oirairc's I'rciich arc rcall\' ncccssai\" tools.
step
is
to
go back
to the coninion ancestor of
The table on page S6 furnishes a clue.

One thino the table exhibits is this.
the personal
pronoun
equivalent to
was not
It
/,
languacfcs of the Indo-European faniilv.
French and
he, ive,
Italian.
custoniar\- to use
etc.,
The ending
in
the older
attached to the
had to do the job noii- done hy puttino; the

So the ending in modern descendants of such
languages is nierelv the relic of \\ hat once did the job of the pronoun.
This leads us to ask how the ending came to do so. A clue to a
satisfactorv answer is also in the table, which exposes a striking
verb realK- had a use.
pronoun
in front of
It
it.
familv resemblance amonsr the endings of the older verbs of the Indo-
European family. Of the five older representatives, four have the

suffix MI for the form of the verb which corresponds to the first
person singular.* 1 his at once reminds vou of the English pronoun
1/ie, which replaces the first person / w hen it comes after the verb
in a plain statement. Our table (p. 87) of corresponding pronouns
of several languages placed in the Indo-European group, encourages
us to believe that the correspondence between the English pronoun
ME and the ending MI is not a mere accident.
1 he meaning of this coincidence would be more difiicult to
understand if it w ere not due to a process w hich we can see at work
in Anglo-American at the present dav. When wc speak quicklv, we
do not say / ^;//, yon are, he is. We say /V;/, yoiCre, he^s; and
Bernard Shaw spells them as the single words /;//, yoiire, hes. The
fact that the agglutinating, or gluing on of the pronoun, takes place
in this
order need not bother
us,
because the habit of invariabh' put-
pronoun before the verb is a new one. In Bible Enolish we

commonly meet with constructions such as thi/s spake he. Even in
modern speech we say sez yon. In certain circumstances this inversion generally occurs in other Teutonic languages as in Bible
English. It was once a traffic rule of the Aryan family; and it is
still customary in one group of Aryan languages. This group, called
ting the
the Celtic family, furnishes suggestive evidence for the belief that
the personal flexions
in
The
which do the w ork of the absent pronoun
exception is Latin with the terminal -O.

io, Spanish yo.
kalian to
The
Latin
is
in
ego, shortened
86
s
Z
<
ACC
n K N C
TH
V.
r.
FAMILY RI:SI:MBLANCE
M A \ \
S
of ARYAN PRONOLNS
T A W
I.
RUSSI.XN
LATIN
EARLY
GKEEK
ICELANDIC
YA
EGO
EGO
EG or J EG
ME
ME
MIG
Mini
MOI
MJER
TU
TU
TIIU
TE
TE
THIG
SCOTS
GAICLIC
Acc.
Ml
87
II
MENYA
ME
ME
MNE
Dat.
THOU
TU
TI
Acc.
TEBYA
TE
TKBE
Dat.
TIBI
MI
Acc.
Dat.
tri,
The
te,
Italian
tot
were
NOI
NON
NA.NI
forms are the stressed ones

sii,
se, soi.
VJER
K.NOS
NAS
SINN
TIIJER
The Greek
no,
(p. 363).
non
The
later
Greek forms
are dual forms
(p. 97).
of
he
corresponding plural forms in Doric Greek were hemes, hei/ie, hc'/iiin. The first
is comparable to the Russian mi and to the first person plural terminal of the
Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit verb.
Latin or
Greek w
ere originally separate
pronouns placed
after the
verb.
The
Celtic languages,
which include Welsh, Gaelic,
Irish,
and
Breton, have several peculiarities (p. 421) which distinguish them

from all other members of the Indo-European group. In Celtic
languages, words which arc equivalent to a Latin "verb" may or
may
not have personal flexions. In Old
Irish, as, which corresponds

same way in Erse, i.e., modern Irish) has two
forms, one used with the pronoun placed after it, and a contracted
form corresponding to our /V// ( = 'tis me icbo) in which we can
to our
is
(spelt in the
recognize the agglutinated part as
we
still
recognize the not in doiit,
sham, ivont, or cant. The two forms are in the table on page 88.
We must not conclude that the Celtic verb is more primitive than
the Sanskrit. Sir George Grierson has shown that modern Indie
dialects have sloughed olf person flexions and subsequently replaced
them by new pronoun
suffixes.
Since pronouns are the most con-
88
A C C
X
y.
<
05
U
2
o
H
D
tJ
H
I) I.
N CK
i:
AB L t
A N N
11
89
90
FOSSIL
FORMS OF THE PRESENT TENSE OF TO BE
ACCIDENCE
description of
in
A R L E
i:
N X
E R
what the choice of our English present tense form does

we w ant to date the occurrence as present,
she plays the piano. If
we do
not use the so-called present tense form.
We
resort to the
roundabout expression: she is playing the piano. In reality the tense

forms of a verb have no single clear-cut function. To a greater or
less extent in different European languages two distinct functions
blend. One is the tinic distinction between past, present, and future.
The other, more prominent in English, especially in Russian and in
Celtic languages, is what grammarians call aspect. Aspect includes
the distinction between what is habitual or is going on {imperfect)
and what is over and done with {perfect). This is the essential difference involved in the choice of tense forms in the following:
a) the earth /naves
b) he
moved
round the sun
(imperfect)
^ our
the paten to qzieen
(perfect)
The
last two examples micht suijoest that the distinction between

meaning of the simple present and past tense forms of English
is straightforw ard. This is not true. We imply future action when we
use the present tense form in: / sail for Nantucket at noon. We imply
knowledge of the past when we use the present in he often goes to
Paris. The particle often and the expression at noon date the action
or tell us whether it is a habitual occurrence. In fact we rely, and
those who speak other European languages rely more and more, on
roundabout expressions to do \\ hat tense flexion supposedly does.
Such roundabout expressions are of two kinds. We may simply,
as in the last examples, insert some qualifying expression or particle
which denotes time (e.g. formerly, noiv, soon), or aspect (e.g. once,
the
habitually). Alternatively
a
compound
tense
of the verb (e.g.
we may
by combining
/ shall
is
the -ing derivative, as in
is
the corresponding
noun,
e.g. a
form
in /
The
/
known
as
with the dictionary form
sing) or with one of
the present and past participles.
verbs
use the construction
a helper
two
derivatives called
present participle of English
am
singing.
have sung.
The
past participle
We can use both to qualify
singing bird or an oft-sung song. All English verbs
(except some helpers) have an -ing derivative. Verbs which take the
have one form which
-ed or
-t suffix
(e.g. a
loved one)
as
we
can use to qualify
noun
the simple past tense form (e.g. she loved him)
or with helpers (e.g. she had loved
American usage the Chinese
him or she
trick of relying
on
is
loved). In Anglo-
particles often over-
rides the distinction otherwise inherent in the use of the helper verb,
92
am
as in: (a) I
leaving toniorrow; (b)
am
constantly leaving
my
hat behind.
There
is
therefore nothing surprising about the fact that so
of us notice
it
when we have no
tense flexion to lean on.
few
student
statistics finds himself (or herself) at no disadvantage

because the verb in the following sentences lacks present and past
of social
distinction:
Oats cost X dollars

Oats cost y dollars
Indeed, few people
how
list
who
a bushel
today
a bushel last fall
speak the Anglo-American language realize
often they use such verbs ever\^ day of their
of
verb,
common
its
-ing derivative and the
singular present:
bet
lives.
Below
is
verbs which have only three forms: the dictionary

-s
derivative of the third person
ACCIDENCE
The
THE TABLE M A
Sine;.
andswerian + dyde = andszaerede

andswerian + d\dest = audsiveredest
andswerian + dvdc = iVidszaerede
Plural (all persons)
andswerian + dydon = avdszvercdon
English verb of Harold
ac the Battle
corresponding to
\\
hat
is
a particular class
93
of Hastings had personal
flexions of the past as of the present forms. All
up
X N ER
such personal flexions
of time or aspect derivatives
called a single tense. In Slavonic, Celtic,
make
and Teutonic
corresponding
two simple tenses,

more or less to our present and past. Some of the ancient IndoEuropean languages and the modern descendants of Latin have a
much more elaborate svstem of derivatives signifying differences
of time or aspect. The follo^\ing table shows that Latin verbs have
languages, as in English, there are
forms of tense flexion, each \\ ith its own six flexions of person
and number, making up six tenses, respectively called ( ) present,
six
(2) past i?nperfect,
(3) past perfect, (4) pluperfect, (5) future,

and (6) future perfect. French, Spanish, and Italian have two past
LATIN
PERSON
THE TABLE MANNERS
ACCIDENCE
The
viving flexions, sufficicnth' illustrate

irregularities give rise
The forms
t\"picallv
fi-ve,
95
which has few surthe diflicultics to which such
irregularities of the English strong verb,
in
when
a forcigiier tries to learn a
of the English verb (including the
four
in
number
-iiig
language.
derivative) are
(e.g. say, says, sayifig, said),
or at most
strong verbs which have internal flexion (e.g. give, gives,
giving, gave and given).
The
Latin verb root has over a hundred
flexional derivatives.
In English there are
many
verb families such
drink-sing-snjoim, think-catch-teach, of
as
which the
love-shove-prove,
first
includes
more
than 95 per cent. Grammarians put Latin verbs in one or other of

four diflerent families called conjugations, of which the third is a
miscellany of irregularities. There are also
many
exceptional ones
do not follow the rules of any conjugation. So it is not surprising

that the flexional system of Latin bejran to wilt when Roman soldiers
tried to converse with natives of Gaul, or that it withered after
Germanic tribes invaded Italy, France, and the Iberian Peninsula.
Personal endings were blurred, and roundabout ways of expressing
the same thing replaced tense derivatives.
Our last table show^s that we can express the meaning of six Latin
tenses by combining our helpers be, have, shall, with the -ed (loved)
or -en (given) form (past participle), with the combination to and
the dictionary verb, or with the -ing form. Since there can be no
difference of opinion about whether an analytical language, which
expresses time, aspect, and personal relations in this way, is more
that
(i.e., flexional) language, it is important

anything in the process of simplification.
Clearly there is no tragedy in the removal of an overgrowth of
mispronunciation that led to flexion of person. Similar remarks
easy to learn than a synthetic
to ask
w hether Europe
lost
apply with equal force to the
loss
of
tense, flexion.
The
fine dis-
which old-fashioned grammarians detect

in the tense flexions of a language such as Latin or Greek have very
little relation to the way in which a scientific worker records the
tinctions of time or aspect
correspondence of events when he is concerned with the order

in which they occur; and few tense distinctions of meaning are
clear-cut. It is sheer nonsense to pretend that prevision of modern
scientific ideas about process and reality guided the evolution of the
seven hundred or more disguises of a single Sanskrit verb root.
Tenses took shape in the letterless beginnings of language among
clockless people into whose nomadic experience the sundials and
96
clepsydras of the ancient Mediterranean priesthoods had not yet

intruded.
Again and again history has pronounced
its
judgment upon the
merits of such flexions in culture contacts through trade, conquest,

or the migrations of peoples. International intercourse compels those
who
speak an inflected language to introduce the words which make
the flexions useless. If the flexions persist as mummies in the mausoleum of a nation's literature, a large part of its intellectual energy
is
devoted to the pursuit of grammatical studies which are merely

between popular speech and that of
obstructive, while the gap
highly educated people prevents the spread of teclinical knowledge

essential to intelligent citizenship.
all languages of the Indo-European family perconfined to the class of words called verbs; and tense flexcan still recognize as verbs
ion is exclusively characteristic of them.
some English words which have no tense flexion by the personal ending,
In nearly (see p. 423)
sonal flexion
is
We
-s, as in cuts, or -mg, as in hurting, but some helpers {may, can, shall)
have neither -s nor -ing forms. The outlines of the verb as a class of English words have now become faint. In ivritteji Swedish, the verb has one
ending common to the first, second, and third person singular and another ending common to the first, second, and third person plural. This
process of leveling is still going on in Swedish. Only the singular ending
is customarily used in speech or correspondence. There is no trace of personal flexion in Danish and Norwegian.
NUMBER
Owing to accidental uniformities which have accompanied the
down of the personal flexion, grammar books sometimes
refer to the number flexion of the verb. What is more properly
leveling
called
number
flexion
nouns. In most
lustrated
by the
is
words called
number flexion, il-
characteristic of the class of
modern European
distinction
languages,
between ghost and ghosts, or inm and
whether we are talking of one or inore than one

creature, thing, quality, or group. The terms singular and plural
stand for the two forms. The singular form is the dictionary word.
Some of the older Indo-European languages, e.g. Sanskrit and early
Greek, had dual forms, as if we were to write catn'o for two cats, in
contradistinction to one cat or several cats.
me?i, simply tells us
ACCIDENCE
11
T A B E E
MANX
E R
97
In the English spoken at the time of Alfred the Great, the personal
pronoun still had dual, as well as singular and plural forms. The dual
form persists in Icelandic, \\ hich is a surviving fossil language, as the
duckbill platypus of Tasmania is a surviving fossil animal. At one
time all the Indo-European languages had dual forms of the pronouns. The ensuing table shows the Icelandic and Old English
alternatives. At an earK- date the hard Germanic g of English
softened to y, as in man\- Swedish words. The pronunciation of
git and ge became yit and ye. The latter was still the plural pronoun
of address in Mayfloiver English.
98
Mestem Arvân group,
the
in the
Amharic of Abyssinia within
the
Semitic family, and in t\vo remote dialects of the Finno-Ugrian

(p. 190) clan.
Separate dual and plural forms of the pronoun
when manv human

up of Mio
may go back
to a time
beings lived in scattered and isolated households
adults and of their progeny.
the stock in trade of
words
is
small,
At
and
made
this primitive level of culture
a relatively considerable pro-
portion would refer to things which go in pairs, e.g. horns, eyes, ears,
hands, feet, arms, legs, breasts. If so the distinction may have infected
other parts of speech bv analogical extension. The fate of the two proclasses throws hght on the fact that the family likeness of Aryan
pronouns and verb flexions of the singular is far less apparent in corresponding plural forms. In the ever}"day speech of Iceland and of the
Faeroes the dual now replaces the plural form of the personal pronoun,
novm
and one Bavarian
dialect has eiik (equivalent to our
German
the usual
nominative plural ihr

plural
may
form of
reallv be
Greek dual
This means that what is now called the

pronoun or personal flexion of an Ar\*an verb
what was once a dual form.
The number
inc) for
(p. 115).
a personal
720J,
Old English
accusative plural each corresponding to the intimate
and
pliiral
(cf.
Latin plural
770s
(we),
hemeis.)
flexion -s of houses
is
not
useless, as
is
the personal
-s
of bakes, nor pretentious hke the luxuriant Latin tense distinctions.

This does not mean that it is an essential or even universal feature of
language. Some English name ^\ ords, such as sheep and grouse, and
a much larger class of modern Swedish words (including all nouns
of the baker-fisher class and neuter monosyllables) are like their
Chinese or Japanese equivalents. That is to say, they have no separate
plural form. The absence of a distinctive plural form is not a serious
inconvenience. If a fisherman has occasion to emphasize the fact
that he has caught one trout, the insertion of the number itself, or of
the "indefinite article" a before the name of the fish solves the problem in sporting circles, where the number flexion is habitually shot
off
game.
Number
flexion does not give rise to great difficulties for
anyone who does not already know how to write English. Nearly all
English nouns form their plural by adding -s or replacing y and o
by -ies and -oes. As in other Germanic languages, there is a class
and a class with plurals
mouse, goose, man). The
than a dozen. They do not
ivith the plural flexion in -en (e.g. oxen),
formed by
grand
internal
vowel change
total of these exceptions
is
{louse,
less
tax the
memors^ So we should not gain much by
number
flexion.
getting rid of
AC C
D E N C
i:
II
COMPARISON, AM)
A R
ADMRH
I,
A N N
I.
99
R S
DERIVATION
The same is true of another vcr\ regular and useful, though h\- no
means indispensable, tlexion called cunipiiriso)i. This is confined to,
and in English is the onlv distinguishing mark of, some members
of the class of words called ndjcctivcs. The English e(]uivalent of a
German adjective had alreadv lost other flexions before
Tudor rimes. W'c make the two derivatives, respectivclv called the
Latin or
the
coj)ipai\it'tvc
and superlative form of the adjective
as listed
the
in
dictionarv by adding -cr {compiirativc), and -est {sjiperlathe), as

in
kinder and kindest. There are but few irregularities,
better
With
best,
bad
'ivorse
uiany
vjorst,
Dnich
or
e.g.
ôod
more
inost.
these three outstanding exceptions, use of such derivatives
Anglo-American. It is quite possible

for the roundabout expressions
illustrated bv more jinn, or the most firy/i. We do not use a comparative or superlative form of long adjectives which stand for qualities such as hospitable. Since grammarians also use the word adjective
for numbers, pointer words (such as this, that, each), and other
vocables which do not form flexional derivatives of this class,
no clear-cut definition of an adjective is applicable to a rational
classification of the Anglo-American vocal)uIar\-.
The monosyllables inore and inost in the roundabout expressions
that are squeezing out flexion of comparison in Anglo-American are
equivalent to words which have almost completely superseded it in
all the modern descendants of Latin. They are examples of a group
has ceased to be obligatorv in
that thev will eventually
make wav
of particles called adverbs, including also such
words
as 7ioiv,
We
soon,
words
of this class to limit, emphasize, or otherwise qualify the meaning of
a typical adjective such as happy. We can also use such words to
qualify the meaning of a verb, as in to live ivell, to speak ill, to eat
enough, or almost to avoid. The class of English words w hich form
flexional derivatives in -er and -est generally form others by adding
very, almost, quite, rather,
veell, seldoin,
-ly, as in
happily, firmly, steeply.
same \\ay
as adverbial particles.
whom we
can depend
We
and already.
use such derivatives in the
Thus we speak of an
One
is
individual
on
as a really reliable person.
These adverbial derivatives are troublesome

reasons.
use
that the suffix -ly
is
to a foreigner for
occasionally
two
(as originally)
w hich have the characteristics of nouns, e.tj. in

manly, godly, or sprightly (originally spritelike or fairy like). Unlike
attached to words
lOO
happily or fimily, such derivatives can be used in front of

as in
Shaw's manly
the foreigner
is
women
and womanly men. Another
that the adverbial flexion
is
pressions as to silver long, or to run fast, are
Elizabethan grammarians
who
noun,
difficulty for
disappearing. Such exgood Bible English, and
gave their benediction to
goodly
heritage did not put a fence of barbed Aîre around the adverbial
suffix. If
come
we
accept the expression to run
fast,
we ought
not to
resist
Magdalen
the Prince of Wales has been promoted by
quick, or to object to the undergraduate headline,
man makes good
(i.e.,
the death of his father).
No reasonable man wants to
suffer lengthily.
English has never been consistent about this custom.
It is at best a
convention of context, and the complete decay of the adverbial

derivative would be a change for the better. Americans are more
sensible about
it
than the British.
GENDER
At one time
was
had flexions dictated by the noun with
which it kept company. The only trace of this agreement or concord
in English is the distinction between this and these or that and those.
We say that this "agrees" with goose because goose is singular, and
these "agrees" with men because the latter word is a plural noun. In
the time of Alfred the Great, all English words classed as adjectives
had number flexion dictated by the noun in this way. They also had
flexions of case and gender. Gender concord is the diagnostic characteristic which labels the adjective and pronoun when a clear-cut
distinction between adjectives and other words is recognizable.
Grammarians give the name gender to three different characteristics
the adjective (including the "articles" a and the)
a highly inflected word.
of
word
It
two of them are relatively trivial,

anyone who wants to learn the language.
behavior. In English,
and offer no
difficulty to
The third has disappeared completely.

The first is connected with the fact that male and female animals or
occupations may have different names derived from the same stem, as
illustrated
by
lion-lioness, tiger-tigress, actor-actress, or poet-poetess.
Although the EngUsh word distress has the same ending as adulteress,
grammarians do not call it a feminine noun. So far as English is concerned, the distinction implied by calling poet or lion masculine and
lioness or actress feminine nouns, is not specifically grammatical.
It is
purely anatomical.
A c c
i:
xc
Corresponding to
in
!:
we
it
have
i:
a b l
i-
a n n
r.
second distinction connected
the use of the thirii person singular pronoun. \V'lien
we
\\
ith
use the latter
We
we ha\e to taUe sex into account.

say
he instead of heir or nephew, and she instead of heiress or niece.
to replace an English noun,
When we
speak of animals
the sex. as
w hen we
we
are not so particular.
talk of hulls or
cows,
we
are not
Even if we know
hound to choose
hctween the masculine he and the feminine she. More often we

use the neuter form it, w hich always replaces a plant, a part of the
hodv, a dead ohject, a collection, or an abstraction. To speak AngloAmerican correctly, all we need to know about "gender" in this
sense
is:
That the masculine and feminine pronouns are used in accordance

with sex differences w hen referring to human beings.
b) That the so-called neuter form can replace any other singular noun.
a)
So defined, gender is still a biological distinction, and as such offers

no difficulty to an\one who wants to learn our language. What grammarians mean by gender extends far beyond the simple rules w hich
suffice as a guide to correct x\nglo- American usage. We get a clue to
its vagaries in poetr\- and in local dialects, when she stands for the
i}ioov or for a ship. This custom takes us back to a feature of English
as spoken or written before the Norman Conquest, when there was
no universal rule about the proper use of the pronoun. Any general
rules which could be given to a foreigner w ho wished to learn the
English of Alfred the Great would have had more to do with the
endings of names than with the sex or natural class to which an object
belongs. If English had preserved this complication, we might call
distress feminine because it has the same ending as actress, and tractor
masculine because it has the same ending as actor. We should then
have to say: "his distrt'î" was so great that he could not speak of
/ler," or "the management has inspected the tractor and has decided
to
buy
hiin."
These
fictitious illustrations
do not
fulK^
convey the flimsy con-
nection between biological realities and the classification of words as
when such terms are applied to Latin

German and French nouns. Alost nouns have no ending
masculine, feminine, or neuter
and Greek or
to recall anything
like actress.
which
Names
of
is
recognizably male, like actor, or female,
common
animals of either sex
may belong
to
the so-called masculine and feminine categories in most European

languages.
Whether
it
has ovaries or testes, the French frog
(la
I02
grenoidUe)
is
feminine. In French or in Spanish, there are no neuter
nouns, and the foreigner has to choose between two forms of the
pronoun respectively called masculine and feminine. Danish and

Swedish have two classes of nouns, respectively called covniwn and
neuter.
The
sheep
neuter.
is
illustrates
the
quotation from
how much
memory.
of the
Scandinavian child like the Scandinavian or
Mark
he
says,
"Where is the turnip?

She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen:
Wilhebn:
It
is
this
adds to
a conversation in
one
books":
Wilkehii:
Where
"from
German
{A Travip Abroad)
unnecessary and useless luggage
'1 translate this,"
German Sunday-school
Gretche??:
T^^"ain
the accomplished and beautiful maiden?
has gone to the Opera.
Greater feats of memory imposed on the beginner by the gender

concord of the adjective complicate the effort of learning iVryan
lanûaês other than English or modern Persian. Since we have no
sunavins^ vesticre of this, we have to fall back on a fictitious illustration or rely on examples from another language. First, suppose
that we had six forms corresponding to the two this and these: three
singular, thor (to go with words of the actor class), thess (to go with
words of the actress class), thit (to go with words like p/i), and three
corresponding plurals thors, thesses, and thits. This gives you a
picture of two out of three sets of disguises in the wardrobe of the
Old English adjective. The foreigner who tried to speak Old English correctly had to choose the right gender as well as the right number form of a noun, and many so-called masculine, feminine, or neuter
nouns had no label like the -or of actor, the -ess of actress, or the
-it of pit to guide the choice. Below is an illustration of the four forms
of the French adjective.
CORRESPONDING
A C C
forms
D K N C K
Til K
A H
1.
1.
A N N
US
11)3
other l.inguagcs arose because of animistic preoccupation
in
with sex
more primitive level of culture. This is not likclv. A more

will emerge when we have learned something more
languages of backw ard peoples such as the Australian ai)orig-
at a
plausible
view
about the
ines, Trobriand Islanders, or IJantu. Meanw bile, let us be clear about
one thini;. Although manv nouns classified bv grammarians as mascu-
and feminine may share the same suffixes (or prefixes) as neiver
names (e.g. iictor-iictrcss) for males and females, the oUicr sex pairs of
line
the
Aryan
languages, such as jatbcr-iiiotbcr, hull-coxv, horsc-Jihvc,
hoar-soil', ravi-eiic in English,
stand for adult
human
carry no sex
label.
Even when they
beings, the so-called masculine and feminine
forms of the pronoun do not invariably replace nouns of the class

their name suggests. Thus the German word Wcih (w ifc) is
which
neuter,
i.e.,
the pronoun
the feminine
which takes
its
place
is
the neuter
es,
not
sie (she).
Since names for objects carry no gender label such
as the -ess in
most Aryan languages, gender flexion is not necessarily a

characteristic of the noun as such. It is the trademark of the adjective.
When there is no gender flexion, as in English, comparison is the only
basis for a clear-cut distinction between adjective and noun. Since we
can indicate w hich adjective refers to a particular noun by its position
immediately before (English) or after (French) the latter, it goes
without saying tliat gender concord, like number concord, adds to the
labor of learninsr a lanfjuafre without contributing an\ thin<i to the
clarity of a statement. If every adjective has three gender forms (masculine, feminine, and neuter) corresponding to each of three numbers
(singular, plural, and dual), we have to choose between nine different
ways of spelling or pronouncing it whenever we use it; and if there are
no certain rules to help us to decide to what gender-class nouns belon^r,
correct judgment demands memorizing many exceptions.
The pathology of adjectives does not end here. When nouns have
case flexion, which we shall come to next, adjectives may have corresponding case forms. If there are eight cases, as in Sanskrit, which is
fortunately a dead language, case concord implies that an adjective
root may have as many as seventy-tw o derivatives. The entire battery
actress in
is
called the declension of the adjective. In the old
including
declensions,
case;
and
p. 266).
Teutonic languages,
one and the same adjective has two
alternative forms for the same number, gender, and
modern
it
i.e.,
is
Icelandic,
necessary to learn
when
to use
one or the other (see
E04
CASE
The word
declension stands for
noun, or pronoun,
of a verb.
The
as the
all
the flexions of the adjective,
word conjugation
stands for
all
the flexions
declension of an adjective, noun, or pronoun includes
of flexions \\'hich must now be discussed. English pronouns have two or three case forms listed below:
this third class
SUBJECT FORM (NOMINATIVE CASe)

I, we, you, he, she, it, they, who, which
POSSESSIVE
FORM
(GENITIVE OR POSSESSIVE CASe)
'
mine,
ours,
yours,
his,
OBJECT FORM ( OBLIQUE CASe)

me, us, you, him, her, it, them,
Of
'
hers,
its,
theirs,
whose
whom, which
these three case forms one, the genitive, sometimes
fulfills a
use
name, the possessive. The EngUsh genitives

of the personal pronouns other than he and it have two forms, one
denoted by
its
alternative
used in front of the possessed {7ny, your, etc.), the other (mine, yours,
Grammarians usually call the first the possessive adjecmodern Scandinavian languages the genitive -s
flexion is all that remains of four case forms (singular and plural) for
each noun, as for each pronoun and adjective in Old English, Old
Norse, or in modern Icelandic, which does not differ from Old Norse
more than Bible English differs from Chaucer's. This genitive flexion
of the noun has almost completely disappeared in spoken Dutch and
etc.)
by
tive.
In English as in
in
itself.
many German
dialects.
When we
still
use
it
in English,
we add
it
only to names of living things, to some calendrical terms (e.g. day's),

and to some astronomical (e.g. suji's). It is never obligatory, because
we can always replace it by putting of in front of the noun. The
French, Italian, and Spanish noun has completely lost case flexion,
and the fact that Frenchmen, Italians, and Spaniards can do without
it raises the same kind of question which disappearance of other flexions prompts us to ask. Is it an advantage to be able to say Jiiy fathefs
in preference to the more roundabout of my father?
In the
meaning,
tives,
number flexion -s of the noun there is a common element of

e.g. more than one. This is characteristic of all plural deriva-
w^hatever the root represents.
Though
indicates possession, as in father's pants,
the \\ôrd to say that the same
is
it is
the English genitive often
stretching the meaning of
obviously true of uncle's death, jnan's
A CC
N C
F.
Til F
F.
T A
\i
I.
1.
A \ N K R
05
duty, fathers bankriiptcv, or the day's work. In the older Teutonic
was
languages, the genitive
of
tives,
w hich there
modern Scandina\
vivals of this exist in
fots {on foot),
wegian,
til
German
has
manv
also prescribed for use after certain direc-
are fourteen in Icelandic.
sengs {to bed),
til
few idiomatic surc.{t. in Nor-
ian lanu;uaijes,
til
tops {to the top).
ddvcrhial genitives, e.g. rccbts (to the right), links
(to the left), iiachts (at night).
The
use of the genitive He.xion then
depends on the context of the word to
\\
hich
it
sticks.
common
thread of clear-cut meaning which côverned
was
obligatory in Teutonic dialects.
still
dictated
by custom, for reasons buried
The same
It
is
There was no
its
a trick
use
when
it
of language
long-forgotten past.
in a
verdict applies with equal justice to the distinction be-
tween the iwnwiativc and objective (or oblique) case forms of the
pronoun. We are none the worse because it and you each have one
form corresponding to such pairs as he-bivi, tbey-theiii. The grammar
book rules for the use of these two pronoun cases in English, or Dutch
or Scandinavian languages are:
he, etc.)
(/, u'e,
when
the
{a)
pronoun
is
we
have to use the nominative
the subject of the verb; {b)
we
when the pronoun is not the subject of a

is the word which answers the question we make
or ichat in front of the verb. Thus this sentence is
have to use the oblique case

verb. The subject
when we put i:cho
the subject of this sentence

li'hat is
is
short, because
short? This and nothing
more
is
it
ansx\'ers the question
the grammarian's subject.
The
grammarian is not necessarily the agent, as it is in the

sentence, / ivrote this. It becomes the grammanan's object when we
recast the same sentence in the passive form, this iras ivritten by vie.
subject of the
It is
not even true to say that the subject
the verb
ject
is
is
active (p. 109) as in
not the agent
in the
sentence
said so, because Plato believed that the
use cameras,
to
mv
So
know
retina. It
far as
features
is
better. Seeing
not -uhat
tive
is
saw
The
a flash. Plato ^ôuld have
a result of
do to (or
\\
by putting
is
it,
{a) if the
zi-ho in front
v:e,
light.
what the
We, who
flash
does
ith) the flash.
personal pronoun,
{thou), he, she,
when
g^rammarian's sub-
e\e emits the
to such statements are:
or v;ho save?)
form
necessarily the agent
they affect our choice of the case forms
common
question constructed
iirotef'
is
v:rote this.
it
or ?ne, the only
answer to the
of the verb (e.g. ivho
must have the nominaif the answer to
you, or they; {b)
formed by putting v:hovi or v:hat after the verb (/ virote

is a personal pronoun, it must have the objective form
me {thee), him, her, it, us, you, or them. It gets you no further to have
the question
or savD vihat?)
Io6
a
word
subject for (a) and another
and object really had
word
object for (b), as
if
subject
independent of what the verb mea?is.

the nominative case form means as much
a status
To
say that the subject
and
as little as the converse.
is
Neither
is
really a definition of
what we
mean by the subject, or what the choice of the nominative involves.

Only the customs of our language lead us to prefer / to ?7ie for A
or B in such a statement as A saw him or he saw B. We have no doubt
about its meaning when a child or a foreigner offends the conventions
by using'/, as we already use it and yoii for A or for B. Till the great
Danish linguist Jespersen drew our attention to the customs of AngloAmerican speech, old-fashioned pedagogues objected
him, because grammarians said that the pronoun
it^s
also stands for the subject itself.
They overlooked
am?"
i.e.,
"I
am whom,
me
after avi or
or
is
the fact that the
authorized version of the Bible contains the question:

that
to thafs
'"''whoiJi
say ye
say you?"
In the time of Alfred the Great, English pronouns had four case
forms, as Icelandic and
our
German pronouns still
have. Corresponding to
form of the pronoun were two, an

Icelandic nouns still have four case forms,
single object or oblique case
accusative and a dative.
have the adjectives, and there is a distinct dative ending of plural

German nouns placed in the neuter and masculine gender classes. In
as
Old English, in German, or in Icelandic the choice of the accusative or

dative case form depends partly on which preposition accompanies
the noun or pronoun. When no preposition accompanies a noun or
pronoun other than the subject of the verb, it depends on how we
answer questions constructed by putting the subject and its verb in
front of {a) whom or what, (b) to whojn or to what. The direct
object which answers {a) must have the accusative case ending. The
indirect object which answers {b) must have the dative case ending.
A sentence which has a direct and an indirect object
is:
the bishop gave
baboon a bun. The bun answers the question: the bishop gave what?
So it is the direct object. The baboon answers the question: the bishop
gave to who7n? It is therefore the indirect object. The example cited means
exactly the same if we change the order of the two objects and put to in
front of the baboon. It then reads: the bishop gave a bun to the baboon.
When two nouns or pronouns follow the English verb, we can always
leave out the directive to by recourse to this trick, i.e., by placing the
word which otherwise follows to in front of the direct object. What we
can achieve by an economical device of word order applicable in all
circumstances, languages with the dative flexion express by using the apthe
propriate endings of the noun, pronoun, adjective or article.
THE TABLE MANNERS
ACCIDENCE
Two
sentences in English,
illustrate this sort
German, and
Icelandic given
07
below
of pronoun pathology:
a) Fate gave biyn to her in her hour of need.

il.vi ihr in der Stunde ihrcr Xot (German).
Orlogin gafu heinii haiin a stund hennar thurftar (Icelandic).
b) Fate gave her to h'nn in his hour of need.
Das Geschick gab sie ihni in der Stunde seiner Not (German).
Das Geschick gab
Orlogin gafu hoiuivi hana a stund bans thurftar (Icelandic).

If all
nouns had the same dative ending attached to the plural and
would not be an obvious disadvantage. The

Aryan languages, as with all other flexions,
is this: even when they convey a common element of meaning (e.g.
plurality) they are not uniform. In languages which have case flexion,
the affixes denoting number and case fuse beyond recognition, and the
final result depends on the noun itself. Before we can use the Icelandic
dative equivalent of to the baboon or to the bishop, we have to know
\\hich of four diffêrent dative singular and two different dative plural
case endinus
o to choose. Thus teaching or learning: the laniruaoe involves classifying all the nouns in different declensions which exhibit
to the singular forms, this
trouble with case flexion in
boos
the singular and plural case endings appropriate to each.
Latin and Russian have a fifth case respectively called the ablative
and iustnniiental, which viay carry ^\ith it the meaning we express by
0.77/1, as the dative may express putting to, in front of an Engnoun; but Romans used the ablative and Russians use their instrumental case forms in all sorts of different situations. There is some
putting
lish
reason to believe that the directive used to
noun,
fore, the
as
the verb once
nings of Indo-European speech

It is
came before
and
still
come
the
does
after, instead
pronoun
of be-
in the begin-
in the Celtic
languages.
therefore tempting to toy with the possibility that case endings
began by gluing directives to a noun or pronoun. Several facts about

modern European languages lend color to this possibility.
It is a commonplace to say that directives easily attach themselves
to
pronouns
German
as in Celtic dialects (p. 90), or to the definite article as in
or French. In
German we meet
zwn=zu dem
the contractions
i?ii
= in dein
French
du = de le, des = de les (of the) and an = a le, aux = a les (to the).
Almost any Italian preposition (p. 361) forms analogous contracted
combinations with the article, as any Welsh or Gaelic preposition
(to the),
(to the), ani = an den? (at the), in
forms contracted combinations with the personal pronouns. The

directive glues on to the beginning of the \\ ord with which it com-
Io8
bines in such pairs; but

lish
it
up at the end in the small stillborn Engby skynxard, eartbzvard, Godii-ard. One
turns
declension represented
member of the Aryan family actually show-s something like a new case
system by putting the directives at the end of the word. The old Indie
noun
case endings of the H'nidiistani
peared.
(p.
New independent particles like
416) have completely disap-
the case suffixes of the Finno-
Ugrian languages (p. 190) now replace them.

Here we are on speculative ground. What is certain is that, once
started in one ^ây or another, the habit of tacking on case endings
continues
by
the process of analogical extension.
The English
genitive
ending in kangaroo^s got there after Captain Cook discovered Australia. If the -s ever ^^'as part of a separate word, it had lost any trace
of its identity as such more than a thousand years before white men
had any word for the marsupial.
MOOD AND
We
have
classified as
now
dealt w'xxh
all
VOICE
words
two most
the flexions characteristic of
nouns, pronouns, or adjectives, and with the
characteristic flexions of the verb. The six tense forms of Latin already
shown, witli the three corresponding persons in the singular and plural,
account for only 36 of the 10 1 forms of the ordinary verb. Besides
time, person, and number, Latin verbs have two other kinds of flexion.
They are called mood and voice. There are three moods in Latin.
To
the ordinary, or indicative
mood
of a plain statement, as already
mentioned on page 93, Me first have to add four tenses, adding

twenty-four other forms which make up a "subjunctive" mood. This
is reserved for special situations. The only vestige of such purely conventional flexions in Ano-lo-American is the use of njcere instead of teas
after ij^ in such expressions as /"/ / nxere, or the use of be, in be it so,
for conventional situations of rather obscure utility.
Flexions of person, tense, and
mood do
a Latin verb listed in dictionaries
(with the ending
not exhaust
under what
-are, -ere, or -ire).
We shall
is
all
the forms of
called the infinitive
come
to the use of the
form of the
There is no
Euroof
modern
infinitive
English verb. What grammarians call the
translate
the
use
when
we
form
we
pean languages is the dictionary
than
verbs
other
after
helper
or
English verb after to (a book to read)
have or be (I shall read). Latin had several verb derivatives more or
infinitive later (p. 259).
distinctive infinitive
ACCIDENCE
less
THE TAR
L E
A N N E R
109
equivalent to our present and past participles (see p. 274). Another

is the imperatizw in expressions c(]uivalcnt to
form of the Latin verb

C07nc here, or giz-e
me
English equivalent
that. Its
the same as the
is
dictionary form.
X'oice flexion duplicates the flexions already mentioned.
appeared
in the
and English.
modern descendants of
Latin,
and
is
has dis-
It
absent in
German
the Scandinavian languages, as illustrated
It e.xists in
the following Danish e.xpressions with
by
roundabout English
their
equivalents:
Active:
vi kaller
Passive:
vi kallex (ive are called)
The Scandinavian
vi kallcde
(ive call)
passive has
(ii-e
called)
vi kallede^ (ive ivere called)
come
into e.xistence during the last
we know its history. Its origin depends upon the

known as reflexive pronouns to signify that subject and
thousand years, and

use of
what are
you are killing yourself. In

Anglo-American we do not use the reflexive pronoun when the meaning of the verb and its context indicate that the action is self-inflicted.
We can say / have just ivasbed without adding myself. Such expressions often have a passive meaning, illustrated by the fact that / shot
7/iyself implies that / a7U shot. The passive inflexion of modern Scandiobject are the same in such expressions as
navian languages originated in this
way during
\'iking times, or even
from the agglutination of the reflexive pronoun (sik or sig)

with the active form of the verb. Old Norse flniia sik (German fluden
sich; English find themselves) became flnnask, which corresponds to
the modern Swedish flmias or Danish findes (are found). The Scandinavians therefore got their passive flexion independently by the
method which Bopp (p. 182) believed to be the origin of the Greek
before,
and Latin passive.
The Scandinavian model
is
instructive for another reason.
falling into disuse.
Perhaps
speaking quicklv.
Whatever reason we do
is
that passive flexion
is
this
modern Scandinavian
sion.
We
because
it is
give for
The
languages,
passive flexion,
is
two wavs.
or active way, or
above.
Thus we
first is
the
way
already
it,
when
the simple truth
which
is
quite regular
not an essential tool of lucid expres-
can always translate the passive form of
navian verb in
Ir is
not easy to recognize
device of doubtful advantage in the written as
well as in the spoken language.

in
is
Latin or of a Scandi-
We can build up the sentence in the more
direct
we
can use the type of roundabout expression given

can either say / called him or he ivas called by me. The
of the
Frenchman or Spaniard.
It is
what an Englishman
no
prefers
legal education has
if
Table
not encouraged the habit of such preposterous
from a?2 excvnination of Table X.

shows would be more snappy, and would not devitalize the essocial relation between author and reader by an affectation of
alien circumlocutions as
sentially
it
will be seen
impersonality.
DECAY OF FLEXIONS
Our account
reader
who
may
of the decay of the flexions in English
lead a
has not yet attempted to learn another European language
view of the prospect. Let us therefore be clear

about two things before we go further. One is that though AngloAmerican has shed more of the characteristic flexions of the older
Indo-European languages than their contemporary descendants, all
of the latter have traveled along the same road. The other is that many
of the flexions which still survive in them have no use in the written,
to take a discouraging
and even
less in
the spoken, language.
two ways French has gone further than English. It has more
completely thrown overboard nonn-case and a.d]ective-co77ipariso72 in
In
favor of roundabout or, as
we shall henceforth say, analytical or isolat-
tha7i or
ing expressions equivalent to our optional of, and inore
the 77wst. Though French has an elaborate tense system on paper,
.
we can
our / a77i going
The Danish, Norwegian, and the co7iversatio7jal Swedish verb
to
has lost personal flexion altogether; and the time flexion of German,,
like that of the Scandinavian languages, is closely parallel to our own.
The personal flexion of French is 60 per cent a convention of writing,
with no existence in the spoken language. We might almost say the
same about the gender and case flexions of the German adjective,
because they do not stick out in quick conversation. The mere fact
that proofreaders overlook wrong flexional endings far more often
than incorrect spelling of the root itself shows how little they contribute to understanding of the written word.
In Teutonic languages such as Dutch, Norwegian, or German, and
in Romance languages such as Spanish or French, many flexions for
which English has no equivalent contribute nothing to the meaning
of a statement, and therefore little to the ease with which we can learn
to read quickly or write without being quite unintelligible. So we can
some of
its
verb flexions never intrude into conversation, and
short-circuit others
by
analytical constructions such as
THE TABLE MAN
ACCIDENCE
make
rapid progress in doing either of these,
attention
the
first
on the
meaning of
We are going
Syntax
is
rules of
grammar w hich
a statement. This
to look at
it
is
the part of
if
tell
III
\\c concentrate
our
us something about
grammar
called syntax.
in the next chapter.
the most important part of grammar.
The
rules of svntax
are the only general rules of a monosxllabic lantiuatic such as Chinese.
Since Chinese monosyllables have no internal flexion,

7;/J7/
to j/iai or viouse to mice,
all
e.g.
change from
Chinese root words are particles.
Because rules of syntax are also the most essential rules of English,
it is helpful to recognize how English, more particularly AngloAmerican, has come to resemble Chinese through decay of the
flexional system. Three features of this change emphasize their similarities. The first is that English is very rich in monosyllables. The
second is the great importance of certain types of monosyllables.
The third is that we can no longer draw a clear-cut line between the
parts of speech.* In other \\ords, the vocabulary of English is also
becoming a vocabulary of particles.
To say that English is rich in monosyllables in this context does not
mean that an Englishman necessarily uses a higher proportion of
monosyllables than a Frenchman or a German. It means that in speakinsT or in writing- EnoHsh, we can rely on monosyllables more than we
can when we write or speak French or German. The following
passage illustrates
English Bible
first
how
drew on
the translators of the authorized version of the

their native stock of monosyllables. It
ten verses of the fourth Gospel, and the only
more than one
is
the
words made up of
syllable are in italics:
was the Word, and the \\'ord was with God, and
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by him, and xaithout him was not any thing made that was
made. In him was hfe, and the life was the liglit of men. And the light
shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a
men sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a ivitness
to bear ivitness of the Light that all men through him might believe. He
was not that Light but was sent to bear ii-itness of that Light. That was
the true Light which lighteth every man that conieth into the world. He
was in the world, and the world was made h\ him, and the world knew
him not.
In the beginn'mg
the
Word
* Jagger (English in the Future) boldly uses che rwo Chinese categories in
the forthright statement: "English words may be classified into what are known
as
jiill
or empty words."

A word count of the corresponding passage m some other European
112
languages (British and Foreign Bible Society editions) gives these

figures:
LANGUAGE
ACCIDENCE
THE
]{
M ANN
I, J.
K R
those of nouns; and English nouns of this tvpe are often identical with
the verb form
\\
hich serves for the present tense, infinitive and im-
European languages. In very many situations in

which Pjiglish verbs occur, there is therefore no distinction between
the fomi of w hat we call the verb and the form of what we call a
noun. The following comparison between English and Norwegian
perative of other
illustrates this:
a
I
motor
motor
shall motor
en
jeg skal
A pedant niav object to the choice of so

provides
many examples
bil
jeg bilcr
new
bil(?
w ord.
Bible English
of the same thing, for instance jear,
sin, love,
and the day's work supplies

many others w hich have been in use as long as haiinner, nail, screw,
use, dust, fire. When an electrician says he is going to ground a terminal, a bacteriologist says that he will culture a microorganism, or a
driver says that he will park his taxi, each of them is exploiting one of
the most characteristic idiosyncrasies of Shakespeare's English. He is
doing something which would be quite natural to a Chinese but very
shocking to the \'enerable Bede.
We can press the comparison between English and Chinese a stage
praise, delight, prouiise, hope, need, rjater;
further.
By dropping gender
concord, English forfeited the distin-
guishing characteristic of the adjective about the time of Chaucer.
The only trademark left is that certain words equivalent to Latin,

Greek, or German adjectives still have {a) comparative and w/perlative
derivatives; (b) characteristic endings such as -ical or -al in Biblical,
commercial, logical, or -ic in aesthetic, electric, magnetic. These
adjectival words are different from words (e.g. Bible, connnerce,
logic, aesthetics, electricity,
magnetism) equivalent to correspond-
German or Greek nouns. A distinction of this sort was breaking

down before the Pilgrim Fathers embarked on the May(lov:er. Bible
ing:
English contains examples of adjectives identical both with the dictionary forms of nouns such as gold, silver, iron, copper, leather, and
with the dictionary form of verbs such
as clean, dry, ii-arm, free,
open,
loose.
Since Mayflozi-er times the

sen calls
them
number of adjective-nouns,
in recognition of the fact that
or, as Jesper-
they are no longer
tinguishable, substantives, has increased yearly.
dis-
Some pedants who
have forgotten their Bible lessons in Sunday school object to night
114
pwnp, or road traffic signal,

without realizing that they follow such impressive leadership as the
Knight Templar, Gladstone bag, Prince Consort, and our Lady
mother. These objections usually come from the gentry who call a
man a Red if he wants income-tax relief for ivorking-class parents.
What is specially characteristic of Anglo-American is the large and
growing group of words which can be verbs, nouns, or adjectives in
the sense that we nse them to translate words belonging to each of
these three classes in languages which have preserved the trademarks
of the parts of speech. Even in this class, some have the sanction of
Starvation, iceiuan, sex appeal, gasoline
long usage.
For
instance,
we
speak of
ivctter lilies
or water power, and
we
use the
municipal water supply to water the garden, when there is a shortage

of water. If we have too little water, our local representative can put a
grammar when we
question at question time; and does not qziestion our

test his professions
of goodwill
bv making the water shortage
a test case.
Even headmistresses who do not think that sex is a genteel word can
put love to the test by looking for a love match in books they love. Such
words as water, questioii, test, and love in this sequence have a single
flexion -s which can be tacked on the same dictionary form as a functionless
personal
the affixes
affix,
-itig
or as a signal of the plural number.
and
-ed.
Other words of
the knife, a cut finger), or hurt, have
this class,
no -ed
They may
such
also take
as cut (a cut
derivative.
From
with
Chinese,
which has no flexions at all, it is a small step to a language in which the

same root can take on the only three surviving flexions of the AngloAmerican verb, or the single surviving flexion of the English noun, and
can do service as the flexionless English adjective.
LEARNING A MODERN LANGUAGE

Like the story of Frankie and Johnnie, our review of the decay of
It is neither the plan of the textbooks
the flexional system has a moral.
which begin with the declension of the noun on page i, nor the advice
of phoneticians who advocate learning by ear. Though we cannot use
a dictionary
we
can
with profit unless we know something about accidence,

tedium of sretting a reading^ knowledge of a lan-
liCThten the
guage, or of writing
it
intelligibly, if
we
concentrate
{a) flexional derivatives least easy to recognize,
first
when we
on
learning:
look up the
standard form given in a dictionary^; {b) flexional derivatives which

still
affect the meaning- of a statement.
To
the
first class
belong the personal pronouns.
It
should be our
ACCIDENCE
THE
TA B L
]i:
MA N N E R S
ii6
task to memorize them, because we have to use them constantly,

and because they often have case jor?Jts which are not recognizably
like the dictionary word. Fortunately they are not numerous. The
accompanying tables give their equivalents in the Teutonic languages.
Their Romance equivalents are on pages 331, 332, 363, 370, 374. In
subsequent chapters The Loovi will set out the minimum of grammar necessary for the reader who wants to get a reading or writing
first
knowledge of them.
TEUTONIC POSSESSIVES *
ENGLISH
ACCIDENCE
Then
often important.
THE FABLE M
A N N E R
learn to recognize and to recall the helper
verbs, such as the equivalents of shall,
liill, hiii-c,
and
is,
etc.,
how
to
what forms of other \crbs (participles or infinitive) thev keep company. Before bothering about the tense forms
fjiven in other books you mav read, vou should make sure that those
which other books give \()u * arc necessary in ordinary speech or
correspondence. The only useful flexions \\ hich have not come up
for discussion are those of comparison. These have disappeared in the
Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish). In all the Teutonic
languages they are like our own, and \\ ill therefore offer little diffiuse thcni, and with
culty.
i)
Above
Get
all,
stick to the following rules:
a bird's-eye vieiv of the graniniatical peculiarities of a
language
before trying to memorize anything.

2)
Do
not waste time trying to memorize the case endings of the
nouns, or any of the flexions of the adjective (other than comtill vou have made a start in reading. Thev contribute
anything to the meaning of a statement in most European
languages which you are likely to want to learn. It is doubtful
whether they ever had a clear-cut use in the spoken language, and
any use they once had in the written language is now fulfilled by
other rules, which we shall learn in the next chapter.
parisoii),
little if
FURTHER READING
GRAY
Foundation of Language.
JAGGER
Modern
PALMER
English for the Ftitiire.

A71 Introduction to Modern Linguistics.
English.
SCHLAUCH
The Gift
SHEFFIELD
GraniJJiar
They sometimes
Tongues (specially recommended).

and Thinking.
of
divulge this in a footnote,
if
not in the text.
CHAPTER
Syntax
The
IV
Traffic Rules
of Language
What
grammarians M'ho have studied Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit call

(i.e., verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) depends on the
way in which we form derivatives from dictionary words of such
languages. It is helpful to know about how grammarians use these
terms, if we want to learn another Indo-European language, because
the student of Russian, German, Italian, French, or even Swedish has
to deal with flexions which have wholly or largely disappeared in
modern English. This does not mean that putting words in pigeonholes
as nouns, pronowis, adjectives, verbs, and particles has any necessary
connection with what words mean, or with the way in which we have
to arrange them to make a meaningful statement. In fact, classifying
words in this way helps us little in the study of languages which have
pursued a different line of evolution.
There is, of course, a rough-and-ready correspondence between
some of these terms and certain categories of meaning. It is true, for
instance, that names of persons and physical objects are nouns, that
physical qualities used as epithets, i.e., when associated with names of
objects or persons, are generally adjectives, and that most verbs indicate action or reaction, i.e., processes or states. When we have said
this, we are left with several circumstances which blur the outlines of
the parts of speech
a functional definition of the parts of speech in
all
languages of the
Indo-European group.
One
that
Bacon
calls
man's inveterate habit of dwelling upon ab-
names which have the same

and stand for qualities or processes cognate \\'ith the
meaning of adjective or verb forms. Headline idiom breaks through
all the functional fences which schoolbooks put up round the parts
of speech. Thus yesterday's marriage of heiress to lounge lizard
stractions, has created a large class of
flexions as nouns,
SYNTAX
THE
T R A F F
RULES
means exactly the same as the more prosaic statement that an heiress
married a lounge lizard yesterday; and suddi.n df.ath of vice squad
CHIEF is just another wav of announcing the sad news that a vice
squad chief died suddenly.
Such examples show that there is no categors' of meaning exclusively
common
to the English verb, to the I^nglish noun, or to the
English adjective
all
\\
hen foryually distinguishable. This
is
also true of
languages included in the Indo-European group. Similar remarks
applv with equal force to the pronoun.
word which
When we
recognize
as
such
lacks the characteristic terminals of an adjective, a noun,
or a verb in a flexional language like Latin,
we depend
largely
on the
context. For instance, the English particles a or the are signals that
word is not a verb or a pronoun, and the presence of a pronoun usually labels the next word of a plain statement as a verb. A
pronoun usuallv stands for some name word previously mentioned;
the next
in certain contexts personal pronouns may stand for anything

which has gone before, and it has no specific reference to anything
at all, when used in what grammarians call impersonal constructions
such as it seeius. Neither the pronoun nor the verb, which we recognize as such by the flexional -s in the same context as the third person
it, here fits into any tidy definition based on the function of words in
a sentence, i.e., what they mean. Few of us now postulate a force not of
ourselves \\ hich makes for raininess, when we say it rains.
To some extent we select one of several word forms with the same
general meaning in accordance with the process of analogical extension which plays such a large part (p. 198) in the growth of speech. In
literate communities grammarians also take a hand in shaping the
conventions of language by prescribing certain patterns of expression
based on precedents established by authors of repute, or on paradigms
from the practice of dead languages \\ hich have more ostentation
value than vernacular utterance. The most time-honored model of
but
this
type
is
called the subject-predicate relation (see p. 105).
grammar books used to say that every sentence has to

two components, a verb and its subject, which must either
contain a noun or be a pronoun. Accordingly, it is incorrect to write
rainy day, ii-hatF The only intelligible definition which usually tells
us what grammarians would call the subject of a Latin or Greek
sentence is that it answers the questions formed by putting who or
what in front of the verb; and this does not get us far when we replace
the preceding expression by the "sentence": is it not a rainy day?
Till recently
have
at least
I20
Who or ivhat rains, in this context, is less a matter of grammar than of

theological opinion. Buddhists and Christians, atheists and agnostics,
would not agree about the correct answer, and a Scots schoolmistress
of any persuasion would find it difficult to convince a Chinese that the
meaning of the ensuing remarks would be more explicit if we put it is
in front of the
first,
First English
and
thei'e is in
gentleman (looking
what?
Second English gentleman:
old man.
Though
it is
front of the second:

at the setting sun):
No need
to rave about
it
Not
like a
so dust)%
damned
poet,
quite true that the absence of a perceived situation
makes it necessary to be more explicit in writing than in speech, there

are no sufficient reasons for believing that addition of verbs would
improve the proverbial: one man^ one vote; more speed, less haste; or
77mch cry, little ivool. Most of us use telegrams only on occasions
when it is specially important to be rather thrifty with \^'ords. When

we have to pay for the use of words, we get down to essentials. Even
those who can afford to dine habitually in costumes designed to inhibit
excessive cerebration do not spend an extra cent for a verb in: dinner
seven-thirty black
tie. If a
sentence
and a "subject," any issue of
a daily
is
word sequence with
"verb"
paper shows that a coi77plete state-
ment, request, direction, or question, sufficiently explicit for rapid

reading, need not be a sentence. The following examples from the
headlines are in the lineage of the Chartist plea:
more
pigs, less parsons:
CONTROL THREAT TO EXPORT COTTON TRADE: BUSINESS AS USUAL IN SPITE OF

war: CITY CHOIR OF SIRENS ALL IN HARMONY NOW: CHINESE APPROVAL FOR
CONGRESS MOTION: VIOLENT DExMAND FOR VICE PURGE IN VALEDICTORY
SERMON: W^HITES IN CONGO ^VITHOUT MORAL SENSE: NO NEW OFFER FROM
NAZI NAPOLEON: MORE PROSPERITY LESS PETTING PLEA FROM LOCAL PULPIT:
SHOP WINDOW SILK UNDIES PROTEST FROM PRELATE: PERUVIAN WOOLS TRANSFER TO WHITEHALL POOL: FREEDOM RADIO FORECAST OF FIRTH OF FORTH RAID:
ALIENIST ATTACK ON PENITENTIARY FOR PANSY BOY: PLAIN WORDS TO ANTIU.S.
PANTIE PARSON.*
* In his book, The Study of Lajigiiage, Hans Oertel draws attention to the
absence of any pretense at a subject-predicate form in advertisements which
are also composed with due regard for economical use of words, e.g. for sale
A LARGE house WITH GARDEN ALL MODERN LMPRO\T.MENTS SANITARY PLUMBING
SET TUBS, A significant comment on the dead hand of classical paradigms follows
this example:
".Many instances of
this
kind can be found: they seem to be absent in the
literarv remains of the classical languages, or at least excessivelv rare.
do
we
Y N T A X
i:
I<
A F K
c:
U L
I".
12
rrniislnte a language, such as C.hincsc, \\ ith no formal

between words we classify as nouns. veii)s, pronouns,
adjectives, and particles, we have to forget evei\thinu we mav have
learned ai)out the models of F.uropean grammar, in I'.nglish we can
keep close to the pattern of Chinese without using an\- verbs at all.
The following specimens of Chinese poetry (adapted from W'alev's
delightful translations) show that the efTect is not unpleasing, and
the meaning does not suffer, when we retain the telegraphic or head-
If
have to
distinction
line
idiom of the original:
Wedding party on both river

Coming of hour. No boat.
banks.
Heart lust. Hope loss.

view of desire.
No
(b)
Marriage by parent choice

Afar in Earth comer.
Long journev
To King
to strange land,
Wu Sun.
of
Tent for house, walls of
Raw
felt.
flesh for food,
For drink milk of the mare.
Always home hunger,
Envy
of yellow stork
In flight for old
Some
home.
grammar
due to the survival of a

among European
nations are connected with universal principles of reasoning, and that
it is the business of grammatical definitions to disclose them. A complete system of logic which carried on its back the disputes of the
medieval schoolmen started off with a grammatical misconception
about the simplest form of statement. The schoolmen believed that the
simplest form of assertion is one which contains the verb to be, and
that the verb to be in this context has some necessary connection with
of the difficultites of
are
pretentious belief that accepted habits of expression
not recall a single instance excepting list of names ... or superscriptions

Perhaps the reason is that the iiomivatlve
or headings implying dates.
endings (of which the modern languages have largely rid themselves) were
too strongly charged with the 'functional' meaning of the subject relation:
that therefore thev could not well appear outside the sentence without the
retinue of a verb."
.
122
real existence.
They therefore had to have
a suppositious
Realm of
Ideas to
a substance called falsity in
accommodate the
existence implied
in the statement: S7/ch viezis are false.
So the type specimen of argument reduced to its simplest terms, as

given in the old textbooks of logic, was: All men are inortaL Socrates
is a man. Therefore Socrates is uiortal. In similar situations the transAuthorized \'ersion of the Old Testament conscientiously
put such words as is or are in italics. The Hebrew language has no
equivalent for them \\hen used in this way. In Semitic, as in many
other lanouages, e.Q,. Alalav, the connection of a name with its attribute
lators of the
is
indicated
line
idiom
by
also
position, as
when we
shuns the verb be
say: flue paragraph, this.
as copzila linking topic
Head-
and attribute
or as mark of identity, e.^. five cruisers in action, president in

BALTIMORE TONIGHT, NEW TENNIS CHAMPION LEFT-HANDED, OHIO PROFESSOR NOBEL PRIZEMAN.
In a simple statement \\hich calls attention to some characteristic of
a thing or person, the function of the verb to be, when so used, has
nothing to do with real existence; and it has nothing to do with the
recognize it by purely formal
usual role of a verb in a sentence.
criteria in as much as it takes different forms in accordance with the
We
pronoun
that precedes
it,
refers. Its real function,
equally well expressed, as
once ovfonnerly (past),
and with the tijne to which the statement

is merely to indicate time, could be
in Chinese, by the use of a particle such as
which
no\:c
or
still
(present), henceforth or eventu-
ally (future).
From what
has been said
it is
now
clear that there
is
no universal
grammar which deal with how to choose words

and arrange them to make a statement with a definite meaning, in all
languages. In this chapter we shall confine ourselves mainly to a more
modest theme. Our aim ^îll be to get a bird's-eye view of essential
rules which help us to learn those languages spoken by our nearest
European neighbors, i.e., languages belonging to the Romance and
syntax,
i.e.,
rules of
Teutonic divisions of the Indo-European family. To speak, to write,

or to read a language, we need to know many derivative words not
commonly listed in dictionaries. We have now seen what they are,
and \vhich ones are most important in so far as they contribute to the
meaning of a statement or question, an instruction or a request. When
we can recognize them, and can use those which are essential, without
offense to a native, we still need to know in what circumstances a
word in one language is equivalent to a word in another, how the
s \
nicaniiiii
arram^c
<t'
A \
1111
sciukikc of words
tlicni, ;iiui
these three, the
is
lie
K A r
affccrcil
what derivatives to use
last
is
li\
u L
the
\\
1.
iv in uhicli \\c
in a particular
the least important,
123
r s
Of
context.
we merely wish
if
to read
fluently or to make ourselves intelligihie. The second is the most

important both for reading or forsclf-cxprcssion. The third is specially
important onI\" if we aim at w riting correctlw
i4umanitarian sentiment compels the w riter to issue
warning
at
wiiAr follows is not beusiim: rkading. Ihc reader who

giving The Loom the once-over for the first time should scan tiii:
this staije.
is
NLxr iwo sicMONs w ithout undue attention to the examples.

ue shall resume our narrative painlesslw
here-
after
Tin:
Many
anarchy or words
of the difficulties of learning
failure to rcco^ni/e to
foreign language arise through
what extent and
what circumstances words
in
of one language are strictly equivalent to words

start
greatly reduce the tedious
mum
in
another. If
wc
word correspondence involves, wc can

memory worU in\ol\ed in fixing a mini-
grasp of what
ith a clear
vocabulary for constant and reliable
use.
Whether any word in one language corresponds more or less often

to a particular w ord in another depends largely on the class to w hich
Numerals
belongs.
it
qualities also
no
difficultN' in
most
are the
behave well.
If
recognizing the
vents us from assuming that

cal usage in foreign soil.
So
reliable,
and names or physical

we have
such words have homophones,
we
it is
fact,
and
a little
common
sense pre-
are entitled to transplant a metaphori-
unnecessary to point out that
not correctly translate such expressions as a
yello-iv streak,
wc
can-
or a sugar
daddy, by looking up the corresponding name words or epithets in a

small dictionary People w ho are not language conscious are liable to
mishaps of this sort, though few of us arc likely to commit the double
crime of the English lady who said to the Paris cabman: Cocbon, le
printCDips est casse*
The most
capricious
w ords
in a
language
like
our ou n arc
particles,
especialh' those classified as dlrect'rces (e.g. to, liith, for) and the link
words or
w hich
when
using particles are of three kinds.
language particles are specially

*
Cochon
Ihc
One is
conjiDictloiis (e.g. and, because, tboii{^b).
arise
(^pig)
liable to
for cocher (coachman).
(season;. Tl:e spring of a cab
is
le ressort.
idiomatic use.
I lie
word
difficulties
that in
A second
is
any
that
printciups means spring
124
mav embrace
meaning of two or more particles in a second. The
third is that when two particles with the same meaning are assigned to
different situations, we need to know whether a foreign equivalent
the meaning of a single particle in anv one language
the
more
restricted
given in the dictionarv
is
appropriate to the context, before
we
can
translate them.
Anv
use
it
ship.
particle has a characteristic
Thus the
characteristic
movement.
direction of
it
meaning
does not have
its
we can
same kind of relation-
in the sense that
in a large class of situations to signifv the
meaning of the English word
to involves
We mav also use a particle in situations \\here
characteristic meaning. In such situations
common
not be able to detect anv
thread of meaning.
Thus
we may
the direc-
whv we put it in the

whv \\"e must insert
in let me do this. Since
tive significance of to does not help us to see
expression
it
-îtb
in alloiv
particles of
me
all
reference
to
do
this,
to. It
does not
tell
or \\\\\ \\t omit
languages close to our
own
sort, dictionaries usuallv give us the
it
us
have idiomatic uses of
choice of a large
foreign equivalents for one and the same particle.

a particle of
one language corresponds to
language onlv ^^"hen

its
use in
some
FREN'CH
we
are speaking of
particular context.
its
We
this
number
of
can sav that
a single particle in
another
characteristic meaning, or
"S
1"
in
AX
K A K K
three diffcrenr F.nglisli or Sucilisli p.irtick-s.
other
set rcijuircs
Swedish
R U L
;iik1
///
2 5
of the
three different
particles.
clear inajoritw the chtiriictcristic
common
meaning
to use
he liighsh
four different French or Cjcrnian,
Just as the hirgest p;ur\- in Parhanient need not he
the
F,
it.
It
party
a particle neeil
\\
ith a
not be
we have
can recognize more than one large
to the niajoritv of situations in wiiich
niav happen that
class of situations in
meaning of
which
we
a particle has a distinctive significance.
instance, the directive liith turns
up commonly
two
in
For
senses. It has
we can substitute the roundabout exw hen we open a can of peas -j.-ith a can opener.
It has also an associath-e use for which we can substitute in the company of, w hen we go ziith a friend to the theater. The link word as
is another particle w hich we use in tw o w a\s, both common and each
w ith a characteristic meaning. We may use it w hen the word ii-hile
w ould be more suitable, and we often use it w hen because would be
more explicit. It is therefore not a ncccssarv word to put in our basic
list. Its absence gives rise to no difliculr\- if we cultivate the habit of
examining the meaning of the w ords we use, and the range of choice
which our own language permits.
Few. but ver\- few, English particles are above suspicion from this
point (jf view. Even and is not innocuous. It is not always a conjunction (link word). In the peculiarly English class of constructions in
w hich it connects two verbs, it is an instrumental directive equivalent
to /;; order to or simply to. Thus try and do so is equivalent to try to
do so. Similarly jô and see may often signify iô in order to see. To
an iiistnnnciital use for which
pression hy Dicans of
be alert to the peculiarities of our ow n language
we
sential if
We
tedium.
meaning.
lent
intend to learn another one w
can then recognize w hen
If so,
it is
ith a
in this
minimum
a particle
has
its
way
is
es-
of effort and
characteristic
rarely difficult to choose the right foreign etjuiva-
from the synonyms
listed
in
good dictionary which gives
examples of their use. Those of us w ho cannot afford a good dictionary ma\' get a clue 1)\- looking up the ecjuivalcnts for another synon\mous, or nearly synonymous particle.
may then find that only
one equivalent
clue
by the w
is
ise
common
We
We
to both sets.
sometimes get another
precaution of looking up the I'nglish words for each
of the foreign equivalents listed. Dealing with the difficulty in this
way
is
laborious, and
tionary.
it is
never
a real
economy
to
buy
a small dic-
126
<
%
S ^
NT
A X
T H
F.
R A K F
R V
].
2?
128
o
o
-a
(U
ca
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC RULES
129
THE LOOxM OF LANGUAGE
I3f>
If we are clear about the characteristic meaning of our particles, we

can avoid making mistakes in many situations; but we have still to
decide what to do when we find ourselves using a particle idiomatically. The answer we give to this question, perhaps more than to anyother which commonly arises in connection with the learning of a
language, decides how much time we waste before we get to the stage
of expressing ourselves clearly without upsetting anyone. Textbooks
attempt to solve our difficulty by printing lists of idiomatic expressions such as by train, in \vhich particular particles occur. Cursory
study of such lists is useful because it helps us to recognize unfamiliar
expressions
if
\\t
meet them again when reading
book
in a foreign
language; but the effort of memorizing them for use in speech or writing
colossal. Unless
is
we
are content to wait until
them by meeting them often
in
books,
we have
we have
got used to
to seek for another
solution of our difficulty.
The most effortless

on the
solution emerges
from
Air. C.
K. Ogden's work
simplification of English for international use.
The
basic rule
This means that when you

are going to use a particle, you must first decide whether you are
using it with its cbaracteristic meaning. If the answer is yes, your
^^"ord list can supply its correct equivalent. If the answer is no, the
thing to do is to recast the statement without the use of the idiom
in which it occurs. You can best see what this means with the help of
an illustration. Let us suppose that wt want to say in French or in
German: / take no pleasure in skating. The word i?i has one characteristic meaning, and only one. In English, we say that A is in B, if B suris:
always try to be
as explicit as possible.
rounds, encloses, or contains A. Since skating does not surround, enclose, or contain pleasure,
can say the same thing
in
we
have got to ask ourselves whether
we
other words.
We
can get rid of the offending directive by putting this in the

form: skating does not please me. This is not quite satisfactory^ because the English use of the -ing derivative of the verb
and
it is
important to understand
its
proficient in a foreign language.
peculiarities, if
We
is
peculiar;
we want to become
use the -ing derivative of the
English verb in three ways for ^^'hich other European languages require at least
two and
corresponds
ith
languages
A second
\\
is its
is its
usually three different words.
One which
the so-called present participle in other European
use as an epithet in such expression as an erring child.

use as a
name
for a process in the
lowing equivalent expressions:
first
of the three fol-
SYNTAX
Erring
is
To
is
err
Error
When
object
is
T R A F F
human:
human:
human:
so used, griininuir
it is
M E
forgiving
is
RULES
divine.
to forgive divine.
forgiveness divine.
hooks
call
verbal
it
iiuiiii.
If
takes an
it
called a êrwid, as in the dif}ici/ltics of learning
Dutch, or
the dangers of eating doughnuts * To this use as a name word we

have to add the durative construction \\ ith the verb "to be," as in
/
<T7//
ii-alking,
you
he
ii-ere sitting,
be standing,
ivill
etc. In
other
European languages it is impossible to find a single word which corresponds to any -ing derivative in such diverse expressions as a forgiving father, forgiving our trespasses, I am forgiving you. So the -ing
terminal
form:
we
is
is
danger
signal.
We
therefore recast our sentence in the
do not enjoy myself ivhen
also an English idiom.
These examples
We omit
illustrate
it
To
skate.
have to remember that the word do,
(p.
exist
because
-u-e
this
correctly
in translation.
one outstanding
of difficulties which
class
constantly arise in learning a foreign language.
we meet
handle
151) in such a context
Many
of the obstacles
arc not sufficiently alert to the peculiarities
of our oivn language, and fail to seize the opportunity of exploring

ways of saying the same thing. The directives listed in the
different
tables
on pages 126-129
^ê the ones
which
are really essential.
We do
not need equivalents for roundabout directive constructions such
We
one in the phrase: in case of difficulties.

do not need it, if
have the essential link word if. Anyone who knows the equivalent
of if, can paraphrase it in several \\ ays, e.g. if we have difficulties, if
as the
we
there are difficulties.
Our
next difficulty
w hen
dealing with particles
is
that the
common
may
thread of meaning characteristic of a particle in one language
embrace that of two

other language. For
particles each
instance,
w hether
we
with
more
restricted use in an-
use the English
word before
to
of dates such as 54 r..c.,

A.D. 1066, and A.D. 1832, or objects such as the members of a class of
indicate priority,
a series consists
We
boys standing in single file.

can thus dissect w hat we mean by
before into subsidiary categories of meaning such as before {place),
i.e.,
in front of
The Old
and before {time),
i.e.,
earlier than, or
English present participle ended
i-iing or -ing) terminal originally
in
antecedent
-ende, e.g. abidcnde.
The
to.
-wij
belonged to nouns, as in schooli??g. Later it

tacked itself on to verbs, as in beginning. So the same verb might iiavc an abstract
noun derivative and an adjectival one or true participle, e.g. ahidinig and
abidende. Eventually the former absorbed the latter. That is whv the modern
-ing form does the work of a participle and a verb noun (gerund).
132
TEUTONIC CONJUNCTIONS
ENGLISH
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC RULES
ROMANCE CONJUNCTIONS
ENGLISH
133
134
means
either at this place or to this place,
either at that place, or to that place. It
and the
particle there
means
equally correct to say he

equally correct to say he lived
is
stood here, or he came here; and it is

there, or he goes there. In Alayfloicer English, the particles here and
there indicated position alone, i.e., here meant at this place, and there
meant
at that place.
OO
^
When we
tvvô
-wtoa
two Uzuck
to indicate direction,
i.e.,
one vAuiz Ut fvotltorltfrn Blajck

two Uack behwa- one wfiite
SevTsn black
^^^
them
above two Hack

hcLow two Wuls
0^ ^
use
dtOl ula one wKiia

-
each Hack OCSlaC cme. \vluiz

ons vAutu DCtwCCZl tivo black
Hack tnangle
black square
IZt vAuiz drds.
OUtSldC
wiiite circle
diagoaal ^X^TCtfiT square

bottoTTLleft
fi?tt^nrtcp nght
one bcruxntal OH two verticaL

one vertical OppOSltZ- anothizr
TWE DIRECnVET OF PIACE

Fig. 21.
a place, our great-great-grandfathers would therefore

have used hither and thither. An equivalent distinction exists in
motion toward
Swedish or German. The Swede says du dr hdr (yoii are here) or

var ddr {you ivere there) and ko?7i hit {covie here,
or gd dit {go there,
i.e.,
go
thither).
Such
i.e.,
dit
co?fie hither),
distinctions are very im-
portant in connection with the use of correct foreign equivalents for
English directives. For that reason
according
as
it is
helpful to classify the latter
they do or can signify relations of time, place, motion,
and instrumentality (Figs. 21-25).

to clear up one difficulty before our troubles with the
particles are over. It will be easier to understand what it is, if we first
compare the sentences below:
association,
We have
still
SYNTAX
(a)
(b)
He
He
in
T R A F
i:
read after dinner.
(r)
read during dinner.
(J)
I"
He
He
U L
F,
135
read after he dined.

read ivhilc he dined.
incaniiif!^ whether used

hnk word connecting the statement he read with the statement he dined. Though it would be just
as true to sav that diiriiirr has the same meaning as ivhile in the second
pair, it would not be in keeping with the customs of l^nghsh to interchange them. Each has its appropriate context in Enghsh, though the
German can use the same word in both situations. So in classifying one
In the
first pair,
as a directive
the
word
before
and the other as

only to the situations in which
relatively thrifty in
its
as a
a conjnuction, the distinction refers
as a directive
is
has the same
iiftcr
noun or
it is
appropriate to use them. English
use of particles, because
A tram, goes OiT
has relatively
few
wfiistling
a station.
rt'OJlL
it
2LCtVSS i bricige
O^'CV a. rwer flowing
dlon^
and
tKizn
under
the Una,;
goes
another
brud^
down
its trauck '
tD
its
VrnJECYVJES-
OF MOTION
Fig. 2:
w hich
are restricted in this
w av. Eor
can also use
all
we can
why) as
instance,
rogative particles {hoiUj tvhen, ivhere, and
the directives either as prepositions in
or as adverbial particles standing alone.
Some
use
all
the inter-
We
words.
front of a noun,
link
English adverbial parti-
136
cles (such as soon, back,
forward, here, very) never stand in front of
no English words are pure prepositio?is, i.e., cannot stand

alone without a noun. In some languages the distinction between the
two classes is much sharper. In German" we cannot use the same
particle to translate going below (adverb) and gomg below the sura noun, but
face (preposition).
We
have to be equally careful about foreign
words which can be directives or conjunctions. In

Swedish, we have to use var for where when we ask WHERE do you
live?, and dar for where when we say he died WHERE he was born.
When context demands one of two or more equivalents, a good
equivalents of
dictionary therefore prints such abbreviations

interr. In
English
it
may
making
word
in
a basic
word
list it is
each of these classes to
as:
con]., prep., adv.,
good plan to list the same

which it may belong, in case
a
require different foreign equivalents.
It is also
pay
useful to
some of our common English adverbial

particles are BAD ones in the sense that some of our common conjunctions, e.g. as, are bad ones. For instance, we use the English word
quite to signify somewhat (e.g. quite pleasant), or completely (quite
full), and rather to signify somewhat (rather enjoyable), or preferably (he woidd rather). An essential word list for self-expression
would include somewhat, completely, or preferably. It would not
attention to the fact that
give equivalents for qinte or rather.

for our basic vocabulary of hnk
who, whom, whose. The English that
One context is common to that, who,
The most troublesome words

words
are that, which, what,
can occur in four situations.

and which. One is peculiar to
which. They are as follows:
that,
and one
is
peculiar to
a) Relative use of that, ivho, ivhom, whose, ivhich, as link

a 7J0im or preposition following a
This
This
noun,
words
or
after
e.g.:
is
the baboon that the bishop gave a
is
the baboon to
whom
who
bun
to.
(or which) the bishop gave the bun.
In such sentences, that can replace either which or who, and its derivative
whom, but if they come after prepositions, the latter go to the end of the
clause.
The
in our basic
use of that with of rarely replaces whose. So we have to enter

list of link words, ^Hhat (rel.y and ''whose'" as separate items.
b) Cofijunctive use of that as a link

stitute, in
I
such sentences
word
for
which there
as:
do not believe that the creation took only
six days.
is
no sub-
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC RULES
}J
We
have therefore to enter as a separate item in our basic list of link

words, ''that (coTij.).''
cannot replace the English words ivboin, ivho/?/, ivhich, and
c)
ivbat by that when they do not refer to a person or thing in the main
clause, but introduce a clause expressing a note of interrogation, e.g.:
We
do not know
\\'e
expect.
must therefore enter u^bo-ichich
interrogative situations
ii-hich, ivho,
d)
you
li'hoiii
or
when
our basic
list
separateK- for
ii-ho?/?.
We also use our words ii-hich
stratives.
in
that or ivhose cannot take the place of
Whether we put
in
and that
as
or leave out the
pointer words or
word book
is
demon-
immaterial
this stvvnq caon be
by -die
witiv
lOT
reaae-r
knife
d.
tyutg" parcels
THE
DniCr[VH5
Fig. 23.
to our choice of the pointer
word
that in the sentence:
is
present,
and
a different
have read that
we have to use one word when

one when it is left out. This makes it
book. In some other languages
the
name
necessary
draw
a distinction between a demonstrative adjective and a demonpronoun comparable to our own distinction between the possessive adjective (e.g. 7/?y) and the possessive pronoun (e.g. mine). So in
making up a basic list of necessary pointer words, we shall sometimes
need to indicate which pointer word stands in front of a noun (adj.) and
which stands by itself (pron.).
to
strative
Anyone who
is
familiar
\\
ith the
Anglo-American language alone
might yield to the temptation of putting personal pronouns among the

class of words which have a high correspondence value. This is not
138
SO.
Translation of English personal pronouns
difficulties.
One
is
is
complicated by two
the fact that correct choice of pronouns of the
most European languages depends on the gender class,

opposed to the sex (p. 10 1), of the nouns they replace. The other
is that many, including most European, languages have special forms
of the second person for intimate or for polite, i.e., jormal address.
third person in
as
There
are thirteen Spanish substitutes for you.
In languages such as French, English, or German, there were

originally two forms of the pronoun of the second person. One, corresponding to thou of Aiayflozver English, for use when addressing
dt' noon
((
))
^)
SmCCe?iAn.\B\^^/^J
daring
THE
tUl
6p.m.
the day
"DIRECTIVES' OF TiMJE
Fig. 24.
one person; the other, corresponding to ye, was for use when addressing more than one. Thou, thee, ye, and you have now fused in
the single Anglo-American word YOU. In most European languages,
including Finnish which is not an Aryan language, the thou form
persists for use among members of the family and intimate acquaintances. What was originally the plural form, cited in our tables as
you, has persisted in some European languages, e.g. French and
Finnish, both as the plural form and as the singular form when the
is not an intimate friend or member of the family
This formal use of the plural you is comparable to the
royal "we."
person addressed
circle.
some European languages the equivalent of you has made way

pronoun which recalls the obhque idiom of waiters {ivill the
gejitlejjian take soup?) For polite address a pronoun of the third
person, sometimes plural, as in German, or both singular and plural,
as in Spanish, has taken over the function of the pronoun of the
In
for a

THE TRAFFIC RULES
SYNTAX
second person.
373 correctly
To
use the tables
it is
on pages
39
115, 116, 331, 332, 363, 370,
important to remember
this.
The
equivalents for
thou and you respectively correspond to {a) singular and intimate

address; {b) formal or plural address according to current usage.
use one class of English pronouns in two situations for which
some languages require different words. The English pronouns hirn-
We
ebCCOrditlQ toHoiraKa
ona
argujTTizni
Or
vsraLlang UTvdar laildcrs
except to
Ls
SiffiinSt
save
put ha-e OTL
in cAse
the Kabit
life
behalfof
(^Tdiffiaaiias
'With, ordinary
dictiouinAs
on ajccoimt of
the fauct that iruany
WXaXOUJt swc^sx
are
XO roTUva doiibt
concerning choice
of ore. particU UlSteajd
of
//
ariothj^r
vnspibeof^
//
*
ajuthor^
renurks
ASyOCIATlvr "DIREi
Fig.
Note
25.
against
Our
Directive
often means the same as
toward.
ABOVE IS
The
ITS
one
illustrated
Characteristic
Mean-
ing.
self,
do
yourselves,
it,
etc.,
or be reflexive,
may
i.e.,
give eviphasls, as in
not give herself the credit.

this sense
ing, or
who
we
.myself
would never
indicate self-imposed action, as in she does
When
nearly always omit
bathing are personal
an action
it.
affairs
is
commonly
reflexive in
We
assume that cashing, shavunless otherwise stated. People
speak other Teutonic languages, or any
Romance
language,
never omit the reflexive pronoun, and some verbs which do not imply
a self-imposed action
verb se repentir,
have also appropriated one. Thus the French

Swedish equivalent angra sig = to repent, to
like its
140
company with
rue, always keeps
a reflexive
pronoun. Dictionaries
usually print such verbs with the reflexive pronoun, and the t^vo
should go together in a word list. Reflexive pronouns of Romance

languages and of Teutonic languages other than English are not the
same
as
the emphatic ones.

]e
Thus
Frenchman
vioi-vihne
le dis
Je vie lave
says:
myself
say
wash (myself)
it
Romance languages, the reflexive forms of the

and second person are the same as the object (accusative in German)
form; and there is a special reflexive pronoun for the third person singular
or plural which betrays family likeness. The Romance form is se or si,
In Teutonic and in
first
Scandinavian
German
sig,
sich.
Many people who realize the vagaries of prepositions and have no

need to be told about the use of pronouns for polite and intimate
address do not fully realize the anarchy of the verb. The verb (cf.
soak, dig, post) is the most highly condensed and the most highly
abstract element of discourse. Because it can condense so much meaning, it may be impossible to find a foreign equivalent with exactly the
same territory. Because it is so highly abstract it is liable to semantic
erosion
by metaphorical
To
extension.
self-expression in another language
of our English verbs in
common
We have met two examples

tional.
as
Sometimes
when we
common
it is
construct a
list
of
words for
important to reaHze hov' few
use have a single clear-cut meaning.
(p. 26);
but ask and try are not excep-
thread of meaning
is
easy to recognize,
speak of beating (defeating) the Germans and beating
(chastising) a dog. It
when we admit
is less
visitors
in this paragraph.
obvious
why we should use the same word
and admit the
When we make
possibility of a printer's error
full
allowance for metaphorical
extension of meaning and for the peculiarly Anglo-American trick
same verb intransitively and causatively achave not disposed of our difiiculties. If we
leave a train we cease to reinain in it; but ^^'hen we leave a bag in
a train the result of our negligence is that the bag contimies to reviain
in it. Few ordinary primers accessible to the home student emphasize
{see belozv) of using the
cording to context,
we
how much
can waste by trying to learn foreign equivalents

To get by with the least effort, we must have a
for the
effort
wrong
we
verbs.
lively familiarity
with synonyms
at
our disposal. That
is
the explana-
tion for the choice of verbs listed in the basic vocabularies at the end
of The Loom (pp. 521 ef seq.). Many common English verbs are not
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC
there; but the reader will
synonym
p:
141
be able to discover the most
for evcrv one of them; and
may
well lind that
it
is
exfylicit
helpful
them down.
to hunt
One
knoiv
R tU.
English verb
we
is
trickv for a special reason.
have the choice of two different verbs
Where we
in an\'
use
other Teu-
Romance, language. In French they
are savoir and conand kenven. The distinction has scarcely

any semantic value. Correct use depends on a syntactical custom.
Broadly speaking the rule is as follows. We have to use connnitre or
ke7me7i (Span, conocer, Swed. kaima) when the object is a thing,
person, or pronoun equivalent. We have to use savoir or ivissen (Span.
saber, Swed. veta) when the object is a phrase, clause, or pronoun
tonic, or in a
naitre, in
German
Thus
equivalent.
ijdssen
the
statement previously
Frenchman says je le sais (I know it), if le is a

made or some general proposition. If he says
le is a person, book, or other concrete object.

second difficulty in connection with choice of appropriate
equivalents for an English verb is due to the trick mentioned above.
Some English verbs such as design nearly alwâys precede, and a few
such as sleep or come never take, an object (p. 105). It is immaterial
je le
comiais the object
whether the object is present, if the English verb can take one. The
same verb of other Aryan languages cannot be used in situations
where it demands, and in situations where it cannot have, an object.
There are still traces of this distinction between the objectless or
intransitive (neuter) English verb (e.g. lie) and the transitive (active)
verb (e.g. lay) which must have an object. Distinctions such as between lie and lay ( = make to lie) are generally established by the context, which tells us whether cabbages grow (without our help) or
whether we arrange for them to do so, as when we say that ice grow
cabbages. Similarly we say that something increases or that nre increase
it
do
The
so.
(i.e.,
make
it
increase).
Frenchman or a German cannot

words, where we use the same
latter has to use different
verb transitively and intransitively as below:
The management
will increase his wages next month.

Die Leitung wird naichsten Alonat seinen Lohn erhohen.
The
length of the da\' will increase next month.

Die Lange des Tages wird naichsten Monat ziinebvien.
In looking
up
a foreign equivalent for
an English verb in a dic-
therefore essential to pay careful attention to the abbreviations {trans, or v. a.) and {intrans. or v.n.) which may stand
tionary,
it
is
142
one or other of the words given. In Anglo-American usage

almost any verb which used to be intransitive has acquired a more or
after
less
metaphorical transitive, often causative, meaning,
nm me
as in ivill
you
between the two

of Anglo-American
into tov)n? This decay of the distinction
goes with two other peculiarities
classes of verbs
syntax, both pitfalls of translation. In a passive construction the object
of the active equivalent becomes the subject,

tive
form) = she
by him. Only
ivas struck
Aryan languages can
e.g.
he struck her (ac-
transitive verbs of other
participate in passive expressions of the latter
type, and only the direct object (p. 106) of the active equivalent
can become the subject when

Thus we make such changes
a) he gave
b) she told
me
me
In contemporary
it is
changed to the passive construction.
as:
this letter
= this letter ivas gjve?i to
this
-this ivas told
Anglo-American usage
it is
use an alternative passive construction, in

(p. 106) of the active
(a)
was given
?7ie
increasingly
which the
verb becomes the subject,
this letter
by
hi7n.
iJie
(b)
by
hivi
by her
common
to
indirect object
e.g.:
was told
this
by her.
In this form we cannot translate them into other European languages.

The moral is: use active expressions wherever possible. The reader
of The Loom will find relatively few passive expressions in the pre-
ceding chapters.
If it
not be
were permissible
to paraphrase the
meaning of
a verb,
it
would
choosing the right one. UnEuropean peoples, indeed most, depend
difficult to sidestep the pitfalls of
fortunately
it is
not.
Many
more on the use of a largre battery of verbs than we ourselves do.

In fact there are only two safe rules of verb economy for the beginner
who is making a list of verbs essential for self-expression in a Teutonic
or Romance langruaCTe. We need not burden our word list with verbs
equivalent to a construction involving an adjective and either make
far
(trans.) or get (intrans.).
IV
Thus to
The
equivalent adjective with the verb
make or become serves the

make iveary or to become (get)
weary. Similarly to diminish means to make S7Jialler or to become
(get) smaller. To heat is to make hot or to become hot and so forth.
One danger signal attached to a verb root is the suffix -ing men-
listed in
purpose.
Part
as equivalent to either
tire
means
either to
tioned earlier in this chapter.

the helpers, so-called because
The most idiomatic class of verbs are

we commonly use them with other
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC RULES

The
English ones are be,
do, make, must, viay (after
which we never use
verb derivatives {infimtive or participle)

shall, ivill, let, can,
I43
have and dare (after which we sometimes use to), and go, use,
ought (after which we always use to in front of the verb). No general
to),
rule helps us to recognize idiomatic uses of a helper verb in a foreign
language,
we know onlv
we are
if
avoid some
pitfalls, if
own
lancjuaije.
in
our
would be easy
to write a
of the verb to be.
(Some of
It
its
characteristic meaning; but
we
can
clear about the vagaries of helper verbs
volume about the patholog\' (and theologv)

vagaries in current English come up for
its
discussion in Chapter IX, p. 387.) Its use as a copula linking a thing or

person to its attribute or class is an Aryan construction absent in many
other languages, cf. the italics for the absent copula in the original of:
the Lord is my Shepherd. In a large class of English expressions we use
the verb to be where the equivalent in another closely related language
would be the word corresponding to have. The fact that a verb which
means to have or possess mav overlap the territory of our verb to be

To say that something is red means that
it has or possesses the characteristic or attribute which we describe by that
adjective. Thus the literal equivalent of to be right in French, German,
and in the Scandinavian languages is to have rigiot. Similarlv, the literal
also
is
not strange or unreasonable.
wrong
equivalent of to be
ii-arni, hot,
cold.
Be
ivell,
or
/'//,
German gesimd sein,

is
in
is
to have ivrorig.
is
or kra?ik
Swedish, via vdl or
vaere syk {have
seiTi
it
ilia
the\-
is
///
(viay well or
well, or be sick).
(se
:"//);
The
in
is
literal
Norwegian ha
English be sorry
ond
in
French
is
det godt or
equivalent to
Danish).
two descendants
of the same Teutonic root
The meaning of most of them

The only safeguard against the
rarely the same.
this leads us
The
porter bien, or se porter vial)
look alike on paper, the most characteristic meaning
of the helper verbs of
historic times.
equivalent of to be
to have
{be healthy or sick).
the Scandinavian do oneself bad {g0re sig
is
literal
ivarf/i, hot, or
another peculiarly English idiom, equivalent to the
equivalent to to carry oneself well or
Though
The
or cold, either in French or in Spanish,
to recognize
which
are our
most
has changed during

pitfalls
into
which
reliable helpers,
to be quite clear about the various uses of the other English ones.
two reliable ones are can and must. Each

which overlaps that of others.
and
The
has a wêll-defined territory,
The
verb viay can mean two things. Thus he Jiiay do this can mean
is allowed to do this, or {b) it is possible that he will do this.
use our English to have, like its equivalents in other Indo-European
either {a) he
We
languages, to signify possession, and as a helper to indicate past time or
144
completed action
(I have done this), but it can also do the same job as

do this, and replaces the compulsive function of 7nust in
some expressions which involve past time (/ had to do this). It is not safe
to translate have (when it means iniist) by its dictionary equivalent in
7nust in / have to
another language. The combination have bad, has had, etc., can also signify
arranged or allowed (let) where the German uses derivatives of lass e7i,
as in he has had a house built.
When
used in the
first
person after
or we, the verb shall
to a particle indicating the indefinite future. Otherwise
it
is
equivalent
retains
TEUTONIC HELPER VERBS FROM SAME ROOTS

ENGLISH
its
old
Y N
TAX
I.
1 1
R A
l"
RULES
'45
ought, can and must

or anv other Teutonic language. Like
vmst have, ought
have,
(could
form peculiar conibinaticnis nn ith hnr
is have
languages
other
in
equivalent
to have) for ^^hlch the literal
It is
is can
with
deal
to
easiest
could have must, have ought. The
{pouFrench
or
[komien)
German
correct to use the corrcspondini.
the English equivalent
voh) verb in the present or simple past xshere
etc., but / could have
to,
able
to-âs
able
is either can-could or is
It is equivalent to /
to.
able
been
does not mean the same as / have
the best rule of
safety,
with
can
should have been able to. To use
can-could alfor
equivalent
foreign
that the
Romance
thumb
to
is
remember
Nvays corresponds to our
(or
is
u-.n")
able to, but does not correspond
to our can-could before have.
WORD ORDER
Root words, the order
in
^^
hich
we
arrange them, tone and gesture

Next to correct choice of
speech.
are the indispensable tools of daily
xvords, their order
is
grammar.
therefore the most important part of
Comparison of the statement
that i?ien eat fish
with
fish eat
men
suf-
word order as a vehicle of meanficiently illustrates the importance of

sometimes write as
grammarians
Armchair
incT in our own language.
and sophistiof word order is a comparatively late
if "a ritrid
pattern
evidence.
easy to support this view with spurious
for our knowlmaterial
case
furnishes
\\hich
Much of the literature
language is poetry or
edoe of the earlier stages of the histor\- of a
when the gap between the
rhetoric, and such belongs to a period
all
^îder than it now is.
xsritten and the spoken ^ôrd ^âs much
transgressing
know the obscurities into ^^hich poets plunge us by
dictates
of ^ôrd order in conformity to the
cated device.
It is
We
customary conventions
There is no reason to beof meter,' alliteration, rhyme, or cadence.
to violate the speech pattern of
lieve that they were ever less prone
everyday
and it is
daily work,
life,
difficult to see
how human
beings could co-
they took advantage of the license which

suppose that the imporpoets claim. In short, we may reasonably
is as old as speech itself.
tance of word order in modern languages
on page 123 applies especially to the next few
operate
The
'in
suggestion
pacres
made
devoted to
readinrr,
if
be wise to skim it lightly on first

for relevant information as occasion
this topic. It will
and to return to
it
later
arises
Rules of
word order
are like traffic regulations.
The
only thing

1^6
rational about
them
is
the rational necessity for uniform behavior as a
safeguard against congestion.
To
word order intelligibly we

we can speak of con-
discuss
need some fixed points with reference to which

stituent
words or phrases
before or after. Verb and subject (p. 105)

are generally easy to recognize in
as
which
give us such fixed points
any statement other than newspaper
headlines.
Two
others (p, 106)
are respectively called the direct object and the indirect object.
These
terms do not describe any definite relation of a thing or person to the

recognize them by conprocess implied in the meaning of a verb.
We
verting a statement into a question, or vice versa.
The grammarian's
subject
is
the person or thing
who or ivhat in front

way we get the subject of
which answers the
question formed by putting
of the verb in an ordi-
nary statement. In this

iowing sentence from a Chartist pamphlet:
each clause in the fol-
Peoples of
trades and callings forthwith cease
all
document
is
First Clause:
Who
cease
Second Clause: What
The
work
above
until the
the law of the land.
direct object
is
is
work? Peoples
of
all
trades
and
calliiigs.
the law? This docwnent.
the answer to the question formed by putting
who,
We
verb and the subject behind it.

get the
indirect object by putting to whoin, or to what, in the same position. To
get the two objects of the statement: / y/iay have told you this joke once
which or what
too often,
we
What may
in front of the
therefore ask:
1
have told?
To whom may
The
have told
this joke (Direct Object).
this
joke?
you
(Indirect Object).
general rule for an ordinary Anglo-American statement
that the subject precedes the verb.
French, Spanish, or
Italian.
The same
is
rule also applies to
In the Celtic languages, the subject
comes
Teutonic languages it comes before the verb of

a simple statement only when no other word precedes either of them.
In German, Danish, Swedish, or Dutch, the subject of a sentence
which begins with an expression such as two years ago comes immediately after a simple verb, or immediately after the helper of a
compound verb. Thus the Teutonic word order is illustrated by the
after the verb, and in
following:
O"
^1^
Two
'
r~~
years ago left a mine explosion

fatherless.
(left)
fiftv families
SYNTAX
This inversion
the ship.
It
vcr\-
is
111
F.
common
TRAFFIC
in Hiblc
R U L K
English, e.g. then
47
came he
to
survives in a few contcmporarv English idioms such as
here comes the postman, there goes the train, seldom do such inversions occur in our language, the Wellsian ca7?te the danvi, and the
inevitable
pop goes the
Teutonic language w
ill
zi-easel.
find
it
The Anglo-American
student of a
helpful to recall the pious idiom of the
Pilgrim fathers.
In Pjiglish
and
Scandinavian languages the object, A\hcthcr direct
in
or indirect, comes after: (a) the main verb; (b) the subject.
for placing the object of a sentence in
Romance languages
German
The
or Dutch and
rules
in
the
are different. Separate rules apply to the position
of verb and object in simple Dutch or German statements and in

complex sentences made up of two or more statements connected
with link words. We shall come to complex sentences later on (p.
i>4). In simple statements, the English-Scandinavian rule holds good
\\ hen there is onh* one verb. When the verb is compound, the object
comes after the helper; and the participle or infinitive form of the
verb comes after the object at the end of the sentence. Thus GermanDutch \\ord order is illustrated bv the English and German equivalents:
The keeper
Der
given
has
\^'arter hat
the kangaroo candy
dem Kiinguruh Kandiszucker
gegebev.
between German-Dutch and Scandinavian-English

who wants to learn Dutch or
German. To read Dutch or to read German with ease, vou have to cultivate the habit of looking for the main verb at the end of a long sentence.
To speak either of these languages correctly you have to cultivate the
trick of recasting any simple sentence in the form illustrated above, if it
contains a helper verb. The difficultv may be complicated by the presence
This
difference
word order
is
two helper
of
very i7/!portant to anyone
verbs.
The second
helper verb {infwitive) then goes to
the end of the statement immediately after the participle
form of the main

Such sentences usual! v involve shoiild have, could have, etc., and
we cannot translate them literallv (see pp. 144 and 296).
verb.
The
word order
applies to the rela-
tive position of the object or objects, the helper
verb and the parti-
Scandinavian-English rule of
ciple or infinitive
form
of the
main verb, in
is a noun.
Spanish statement, ii-hen the object

is
noun, the equivalent of to precedes
it.
The
French,
If
the indirect object
indirect
Italian,
or
noun object
148
follows the direct object,
command
positive
as
when preceded by
to in English (p, 106).
or both objects are pronouns, they follow the verb in a
If either
or request,
i.e.,
nnperathe form of the
after the
come betiveeu the verb and

compound they come before the helper or
verb. In a statement they
its
the verb
first
is
write or to speak French,
we
or Spanish,
Italian,
subject. If
verb.
To
have to get used to
the following changes:

>F
a)
The keeper
b)
The keeper him gave
W'hen there
are
the indirect object
two
it
gave
to the kangaroo
(it)
{hbn)
sugar candy,
objects, the Scandinavian-English rule
comes before the
is
that
direct object unless the latter
is
preceded by to or its (optional) equivalent {till in Swedish and til in

Danish). No such straightforward rule applies to all statements in
German and Dutch. Usually the direct object comes first. This is the
general rule in Dutch when both objects are nouns; but if both are
pronouns, the shorter comes first, as in the English sentence: / told
him ez'ery thing. German custom is less simple. It can be summed up
in three rules:
a) If
one object
ject
b)
If
comes
is
pronoun and the other
noun, the pronoun ob-
first.
both are nouns, the indirect object precedes the
c) If both are pronouns, the direct object
comes
direct.
first.
The relative position of two pronoun objects is not the same in all
Romance languages. In Italian and Spanish, the indirect precedes
the direct object. The French rule is that the first person or the second
the
person precedes the third person.
If
both objects are pronouns of the

first. The necessary change is
third person, the direct object conies
indicated
a)
by
the following models:
She has sent
me
it
=Elle
She
b) She has sent
you
it
me
me
She has sent him
it
has sent.
= Elle vous Va envoy e.
She you
c)
Pa envoy e.
it
= Elle
She
it
it
has sent.
envoy e.
him has sent.
le lui a
Sy^,,
r^X
TRAFFIC RULES
Till.
149
subject and one or both objects, a siniple

qualihing expressions. 1 hcse
sratenient mav also contain one or more
refer to a noun, and advcrhial if
arc of tNxo kinds, adjectival it the\other word. Adjectives and
thev limit or extend the mcanincr of some
two ways. One is the predicative
adjectival expressions can be used in
baboon ivas carefree. 1 he other is
use after the verb "to be," as in the
and celibate bishop. \n some
the attributive use, as in the perplexed
adjectives have different predicalan<Tuages, e.cr. German or Russian,
position of the predicative adjectival
tive" and attrfbutive forms. The
In addition to
tlê
verb,
its
We
an
recognize whether
expression calls for no special comment.
to one or other of
refers
expression
attributive adjective or adjectival
it qualifies.* The
which
noun
several nouns by keeping it next to the
position of old'and silk
is
sufficient to leave
no doubt about whether
discussing the old iwderivear of the
an American or a Scotsman is
the old merchant.
silk merchant or the silk widerivear of
matter whether drivers keep
not
does
If everybody does the same, it
as in the United States.
to the left as in Britain, or to the right
the adjective usually
whether
does not matter
same token,
By
the
comes
in Teu-
it
in front of it, as
student of a Romance language
Nxhich the
a itw fixed expressions in
NX-ill find it helpful to recall
malice
aforetemporal,
lords
e.g.
normal English order is reversed,
body
general,
cook
courteous,
retort
thought, fee simple, lie direct,
classes of adtwo
to
apply
not
does
rule
politic, knight errant. This
and Romance mimerals precede the
the noun, as in Celtic and

tonic and Slavonic, languages.
ifter
jectives.
Romance
Romance, or
The
possessives
or tres muchachos
noun. Thus a Spaniard says vii amiga (my friend)
(three boys).
this and that,
As in English, pointer words, e.g. words equivalent to
of the atboth
front
in
come
{an),
a
and
the
"articles"
including the
tributive adjective and of the
noun
lanjTuages. In this connection,

classes of English
idioms
we
in
Romance
as well as in
Teutonic
should be on the lookout for two
as pitfalls
of translation: {a) such, almost,
a ^ôman, alviost a
only, and even precede the article, e.g. such
adjective qualified by the
father, only a colonel's daughter; (b) any
a journey. The English
particle so precedes the article, e.g. so long
is not the same as that of
rule for placing a long adjectival expression
often
Teutonic languages. Long English adjectival expressions
other
This
applies to speech
svnthetic languages, writers

to label the adjective.
whether
may
language
take liberties
is
synthetic or analytical. In
by relying on concord
(p.
5")
150
follow the corresponding noun.
German word
We
do not observe the Swedish or

order in a question so sudden and unexpected.
We
use several English words to qualify a noun, an adjective, a verb,

or a particle. Four of the most common are ahnost, even, only, and
enough. The form of these words does not tell us whether they do or do
not refer to a noun, i.e., whether equivalent or not equivalent to an adjective of another language.
English
sition. In
it is
We can indicate which word they qualify by po-
common to
place such particles immediately hi jront
word which they qualify. Unfortunately, this useful device is not

universally observed. The English word etiough, though placed in front
of the
of a noun which it
jective, or particle
long enough).
What
(e.g. sleeping
enough bother), comes after a verb, adenough, a hard enough time, working
word order is: (a) whether we apply

when they do affect the meaning of a statement;
whether we allow freedom when they do not do so. Some lan-
them
(b)
qualifies (e.g.
matters about rules of
consistently
guages have straightforward rules about the order of adverbial particles or qualifying expressions according as they signify tiiJie, place,
maimer, or extent. For instance, when two adverbial particles occur in

Teutonic language, the one which indicates ti?ne comes first. A
vdefect of English syntax is that although the accepted order for any
parcicukr pair of adverbs conforms to rigid custom, there is no simple rule which applies to any situation. Sometimes an adverb of time
precedes, and sometimes it follows another adverb as in:
SL
a)
b)
He often wept bitterly.

He went North today.
is one way of changing a plain stateTeutonic and Romance languages. The

same is true of Bible English. It is true of Anglo-American only when
the verb is a helper, as in can you face reading the rest of this chapter?
Otherwise Anglo-American has its own peculiar roundabout method
of interrogation. We no longer say: say est thou? The modern form
use this roundabout form with all
of the question is: do you say?
verbs except helper verbs other than let. We caii also employ it with
have. In a few years no one will object to did he ought? or did he use?
Inversion of subject and verb
ment
into a question in
all
We
When
translating a question
Swedish, or French,
*
The two forms
Version,
Cor.
vi. 2
we
from modern English
have therefore to recast
it
into
German,
in Bible English.*
of interrogation occur consecutively in the Authorized
and
3.
SYNTAX
III E
T R A F F
RULES
Inversion of verb and subject in Teutonic and R(niance languages, and

Anglo-American expression with do or did, turn a state-
the roundabout
form which implies acceptance or rejection of the

cannot concentrate attention on the identity of
the transaction indicated by the verb itself without either elaborating the
question or using italics. In this general form, the answer to the question
\\ ill be yes, iio, or some noncommittal comment. In English it is immaterial whether we ask it in the positive form {did the
? ) or negative
{didn't he
}). In some languages this distinction is important. The
English yes has to be translated by different French or Scandinavian words
when the negative is substituted for the positive form of the question.
ment
into the general
situation as a whole.
We
The
English Yes, after a positive question, is equivalent to the Scandinavian

and the French Oni. After a negative question, the English Yes is
equivalent to the Scandinavian Jo, and the French Si. The German Ja
and Doch tally Mith the Scandinavian Ja and Jo.
Ja,
The preceding remarks apply

of a question and the
question
is
form of
to the difference
statement in so far
between the form

as the
design of the
to elicit confirmation of the statement as a whole.
also be designed to elicit
new
information.
It
may
It
may
then begin with an
interrogative particle, in English, ivbeu, ii-hy, inhere, boiv.
The
in-
words in the order appropriate to

check the whole situation. Apart from the use
terrogative particle precedes other

a question designed to
of interrogative pronouns or particles, and inversion of subject and

verb, or a combination of both, there are various other
ting a question. If
we want
ways of put-
to ascertain the identity of the subject
have merely to substitute the English interrogative pronouns
we
ivJjo,
and equivalent words in a Romance or Teutonic language without any change of word order. The question then takes
ii'hat, 'u.-hich,
the form: li'ho can face reading the rest of this chapter?
To
ascertain
demands more than the substitution of an

interrogative pronoun. The latter comes at the beginning of the question and the subject follows the verb, as in libat can yon face reading?
the identity of the object
In English
we
can make
statement into
question by putting in front
roughly equivalent to a common

form of French interrogation introduced by est-ce que {is it that). French
permits a peculiar form of interrogation which lays emphasis on the subject without calling for specific interrogation. The following literal transof
it
the clause:
lation illustrates
Is
my
is it
true that? This
is
it:
father here?
Mon
My
pere, est-il ici?
father,
is
he here?
152
we often do without devices on which we comwhen we put a question in writing. A falling and rising
to convey interrogation without change of word order
to plain statement. Emphasis on one or another word in-
In conversation
monly
rely
tone suffice
appropriate
dicates doubt about the identity of subject, object, or activity denoted by the verb.
can do the same in writing by use of italics,
but we have no type convention to signify change of tone in print.
In everyday speech, though less in writing, we can convert a state-
We
ment
into a question
added
is
by
judicious or polite afterthought.
an idiom pecuhar to each language. In English
expressions as eh^'
JiJcht 'zvahr
donH you? or
(not true?).
isiiH it?
The Swedish
is
The German
The formula
we add such
equivalent
is
inte sannt {not true?) or eller
bur (or how?), the French is ifest-ce pas (is this not?) and the Spanis verdad (true?) The English affirmative answer / did, etc., is a
pitfall for the unwary. In other European languages it is more usual
to add a pronoun object, i.e., it. Thus in Swedish / did is jag gjorde
det (I did it = / did so).
ish
One very important

tion.
class of rules about word order regulate negaRules of negation, like rules of interrogation and the rule for
the position of the subject in ordinary statements,
draw
attention to
fundamental difference between the syntax of Bible English and the

syntax of Anglo-American. Subject to a qualification, mentioned later
(p. 155), the rule for Bible English is the same as for Scandinavian
languages. If the verb is single and has no pronoun object, the negative
particles not, Jiever (or their Scandinavian equivalents) come immediately after it. If the verb is compound, they come immediately after
the helper. For compound verbs with helpers other than let, the rule
is the same in modern English; and the same rule applies to the helpers
be and have when they stand alone. Otherwise we now use the peculiarly Anglo-American construction with do or did. Thus a modern
translation of the Bible would not say: / came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It would say: / did not come to
a
call.
When inversion of subject and verb
occurs, as in the negative
form
of question, the English negative particle comes immediately after the

subject, like that of Scandinavian dialects.
The
negative particle of a
Scandinavian statement always comes after the object

is
personal pronoun. This again
English.
Compare
is
the
word order
for instance the following:
when
the latter
of Mayfloiver
s ^
N TA x
He came
a)
unto
in
his
own
V.
and
n a
own
his
(::
b) TIic world was
i-
1-
rules
153
received hhn not
did not receive him).
made bv him and
world knew him vot
rlie
(= did not kncnv him).
This rule docs nor

iritiiess.
;ippl\-
to a
noun
object, e.g.
ative particle
comes
after the subject
and before the noun object.
position with reference to the subject in
We
atorw
yon? The
languages
is
the same: {a) for a negative
The
do not lead
its
The
tence
is
is
Its
not oblig-
iiever
we
command
form
The roundabout Anglo-American
command
stick to
is:
equiv-
We use this roundabout form

w
only
ith not. If
the negative
Mayfloiier idiom.
Dutch or
position of the negative particle in a
not the same
or request; (b) for
Bible English or Scandinavian
into teif/ptatioii.
of the negative request or

particle
is
sometimes sav do you not? and we sometimes sa\' don't

word order in Bible English and in Scandinavian
lead US not into temptation.

is:
Anglo-American
rule of
a negative statement.
alent
yc receive not our
In a negative cjuestion, the Scandinax ian like the English neg-
as in Bible
English or
in
German
sen-
Scandinavian languages.
When it qualifies the statement as a w hole, it comes after the object

whether the latter is a pronoun or a noun. In a ijucstion it comes at
the end of a sentence unless the verb is compound. Then it comes immediately before the participle or
infinitive.
In the
Romance
lan-
guages the negative particle stands before the verb if the latter is
simple, and before the helper verb if it is compound. When one or
both objects arc pronouns, and therefore stand in front of the simple
verb or in front of the helper, the negative particle precedes them.
French fpp. -^^g and ^41) makes use of two particles simultaneous!\'.
7ie which corresponds to the Italian non and the Spanish
no, occupies the position stated. The second (pas, point, jamais, giiere,
que) comes immediately after the single verb, or after the helper.
The
some languages the question form, like negation in Indo-European

is expressed bv means of a particle. Latin had an interrogative particle, -ne equivalent to our ch? The .\nglo-American do or did might almost be called interrogative particles, when used in questions. From this
In
ones,
point of view the rules of language traffic in Finland are specially inter-
because the Finnish way of expressing question and denial is the

mirror image of the common practice in the Indo-European family. Finns
esting,
express interrogation by putting the interrogative particle ko, as

press negation
by putting the negative
particle 7iot, after the
we
ex-
pronoun.
154
To
pronoun suffix which thev put

That is to say, the negative state-
express negation, thev attach e to the
in front of the verb, instead of after
it.
ment involves an inversion analogous

form of French or German:
ole-unne-ko
ole-unne
- are i:i:e?
- n-e are.
to the inversion in the question
evnne-ko-o\e
eiiivie-ole
- are ive not?

- ive are not.
far we have considered simple statements, commands, or queswhich we cannot split up without introducing a new verb. Link
words may connect one or more statements to form compound or
complex sentences. Such link words are of two classes. One class,
represented by only three essential elements of a basic vocabulary for
So
tions
English use, are the so-called co-ordinate conjunctions. In contradistinction to these three essential link
words {and, or, and but) there

The most essential English
are others called subordinate conjunctions.
subordinate conjunctions are:

after
SYNTAX
TRAFFIC
T H E
each part of a complex sentence
is
II
Two
the same.
ULE
55
minor exceptions
are:
a) in
Romance, as in Teutonic languages, the relative proiwiin

comes at the besfinninc^ of a clause even when it is not the
subject, as in: the readers for 'u:hovi be ivrote this novel
b) English, like other Teutonic languages, permits subject-verb

inversion instead of the usual sequence after
dition
is
h\pothetical, as
similar inversion
common
pressing condition
is
by
when
if
he
and
is
complex sentences, Scandinavian

order. In any Scandinavian
a question. In
as
con-
caiiie.
reminiscent of the Chinese idiom of ex-
It is
not precisely the same
/'/,
come -
possible in Scandinavian languages,
is
Germanw
in
ivere he to
in:
English
word
subordinate clause the negative particle and any particle indicating

time stands in front of the verb. Scandinavian
plex sentence
This
is
is
the house that Jack not will
Your passport
The
word order
com-
in a
illustrated by:
difference
a simple sentence
will expire,
you longer
if
between word order of

is
much
{not)
greater in
build.
{longer)
stay
subordinate clause and of
German
or
Dutch than
in
Scan-
dinavian languages.
The
rules for a simple statement apply to the principal clause of a
complex sentence, i.e., {a) the present or past tense form of a simple
or helper verb comes immediately after the German or Dutch sub-
when the latter is the first word in the sentence; {b) when anword precedes the subject the simple tense form of the Dutch
German verb precedes its subject; {c) the infinitive or participle
ject,
other
or
which goes with the helper verb always goes

tence; {d)
if
second helper
there are
two
(infinitive
rules for placing the
helpers (e.g.
form) follows the
German
or
to the
end of the sen-
should have come), the
Dutch verb
infinitive (p. 285).

in a
The
subordinate clause
are:
a)
When
b)
The
the verb
is
simple,
it
is
the
last
word.
helper also comes at the end immediately after the participle
or infinitive which goes with
it.
156
The
following models
illustrate
both
Gemnm-Dntch
English zi-ord order
After I had heard

forgot it again.
When I have seen
member
yesterday,
After
got
it,
shall
\\'hen
re-
I it
order
again.
it
-ivord
yesterday heard had for-
it
seen have, shall
it
re-
member.
it.
It is just as
cially
it
rules:
well to bear in
mind
the fact that conjunctions, espe-
subordinate conjunctions, are
late arrivals in the history
of a
Many
hving people get on without them. Though they

give emphasis to the logical layout of a sequence of statements, they
cannot do much to clarify what the content does not itself disclose.
In short, we can save ourselves endless trouble with a foreign lanlanguage.
we
cultivate the habit of using simple sentences (see p. 166)
our own.
We can short-circuit the embarrassment of changing the
guao'e
in
if
pattern of
word
order,
if
that
is
necessary and
the troublesome choice of correct case
we
can steer clear of
form for the
link
pronoun of
Habitual use of the latter adds to the difficulties of

langruase and leads to a conoested style of writinCT in
a relative clause.
new
we customarily
learnincr a
the one
use.
goes without saying that the use of a diiTerent pattern for different clauses of a complex sentence adds to the difficulties of learning
It
without making the meaning more clear. That it is also a

who are brought up to speak German is clear
if we compare the follo\\ing examples which sho^\ how an Englishman and a German may deal \\ith the problem of separating the
a lancruaije
disadvantage for those
constituents of a lengthy statement:

is an English sentence, it is not difficult to see what
changes are necessary if we want to break it up.
a) Since this
T^
This
is
an Enghsh sentence.
are then necessary.
Thev
We
may want
to break
arc not difficult to see.
it
up.
Changes
"
s ^
h)
D^
A \
dies cin inglischcr S-.uz
i:
isr,
ii
ir
i.
/.u
r.
schcn, wtlchc
~^
cin englischcr Sat/.. W'ir wollcn ihn zcrlcgcn.
ist
sind dann notwcndig. W'elche
ist
schwcr
niclit
157
ihn zcrlcgcn wollcn.
%V
^
schwir
cs niilu
ist
Andcru1iKi.11 notwctulig sind, wcnii
Dies
i-
/.u
Andcrungcn
schcn.
Clearlv wc have to put much more effort into recasting an involved

German sentence as a sequence of simple ones than we spend \\ hen
we do the same with an English one. I'his is important because our
first
impulse
in stating a closclv knit
argument
threads together with conjunctions. In
is
always to keep the
a first draft
we
are therefore
prone to construct cumbersome sentences w hich are not

objectionable
in
speech. I'ffcctive writing
demands
necessaril\-
a different
tech-
from tone and gesture, long and

involved sentences call for excessive attention, and arc less suitable for
rapid reading than a succession of short ones. So we rightiv regard the
use of the short sentence as a criterion of good st\le in French or
nique. Wîthout the vitality thev get
English writing.
The
or French writer to
rules of
make
word order make
it
easv for an English
the neccssar\- changes in a
an intricate piece of reasoning.
The
rules of
first
draft of
German word order
make it difficult to do so. Hence it is nf)t surprising that the stvle of

German technical books and journals is notoriously ponderous and
obscure. It is unlikely that Hegel would have taken in three generations of Germans and one generation of Russians if he had been
trained to write in the terse English of T. H. Hu\lc\- or William
James.
The
followinjT citation
from
book of
German
scholar. Carl
Briickelmann {Grmidriss der vcr^lcichevdcn Giw/n/nrtik dcr Saiiitiscbeii Sprachcii)
is
a, type
to the English translation
with the
last
specimen of Teutonic telescopy. The key

is that the verb arc before K. Voller goes
two words:
Diesc von Th. Noldckc, Gesckicbte dcs Qoraiis, Cottingen 1860, crstmals dargclcgtcn Grundanschauungcn iibcr die Sprachc dcs Qorans sind
150
von K. Vollers, Volkssprache imd Schriftsprache iiJi alten Arabien, Strassburg 1906, durch die falsche Voraussetzung, dass die Varianten der
spatern Qoranleser, statt Eigentiimlichkeiten verschiedener Dialekte viel-
mehr nur solche der

und entstellt.
urspriinglichen Qoransprache wiedergaben, liber-
trieben
These by Th. Noldeke, History of the Koran, Gottingen, i860, for the
time put forward basic views on the language of the Koran are in
K. Voller's Spoken and Written Language in Ancient Arabia, Strasbourg,
1906, by the \^'rong assumption, that the variant readings of the later
Koran scholars, instead of (being) peculiarities of different dialects, rather
only those of the original Koran language reflected, exaggerated, and disfirst
torted.
The
vagaries of
German word
order are not a sufficient reason for
the vast gulf bet\\'een the language
which Germans use
in the
home
and the jargon which German scholars write. Accepted standards of

such scholarly composition are also the product of a social tradition
hostile to the democratic way of life. Intellectual arrogance necessarily fosters long-winded exposition when it takes the form to which
W.
von Humboldt confesses
me
repels
I
"For
in the statement:
my own
part,
it
somebody else when

German work of scholar-
to unravel an idea for the benefit of
have cleared
it
up." If one has to consult a
ship or technology,
it is
reassuring to bear this in mind.
When
the
English-speaking reader meets a sentence like the preceding speci-
men,
it is
unravel
The
speak
its
German
that
readers also have to
benefit.
fact that people often use a native

a
word order when
foreign language sometimes gives
drama or
When
some comfort to know

meaning for their own
rise to
comic
fiction. It also sujjcrests a useful device for the
trying to
effects in
home
student.
we
have to acquire several types of skill,

including the use of the right word and use of the right arrangement.
It is
learning a language,
rarely
good policy
student of a
new
to learn
language
important tricks of syntax
may
two
find
skills at
it
in a foreign
the same time. So the
helpful to practice the
more
language by separate exercises
you are starting Swedish,

come here yesterday? is
cavie you not yesterday hither? If you are learning German, a syntactical translation of /f / don't come soon, don't ivait, is if 1 not sooji
come ivait not. Models \\'hich make use of alliteration or convey
novel information are easier to remember than collections of words
in syntactical translations.
For instance
if
the syntactical translation of didn't yoii
Y N T
AX
TRAFFIC RULES
T H E
59
which have no emotive content. For instance, one of the tricks of

S\\edish
s\
ntax can be
memorized by the
syntactical translation of
the prophets of the Old Testament did not often iL-ash

of the Old Testaineiit irashed thevisehes not often.
\VORD
in
In
Chapter
he
eats,
III
we
learned that
many
fiexional endings, like the -s
contribute nothing to the meaning of a statement. Context,
preference to eat
if
the subject
is
we
choose.
he, she,
it,
Thus we
use eats in
or any noun. In languages
are rich in fiexional derivatives, a large part of syntax, includ-
ing concord and the troublesome uses of the subjunctive
verb
prophets
FORM AND CONTEXT
and context alone, dictates which
which
as the
in
subordinate clauses,
At one time
rules of
is
made up of
mood
of the
rules of this sort.
concord (pp. 100-104) occupied many pages
of English grammar, because familiarity with the flexions of Latin
and Greek was the greater part of a gentleman's education. The

of the English personal pronouns helps us to get a different
perspective. The table on page 160 gives the Old English and modern Icelandic equivalents to emphasize the progressive character of
Anglo-American. It also shows our debt to Old Norse, from which
we derived t]?cy, them, theirs. The objective forms {me, thee, hiru,
w reckage
etc.) often called the accusative, are really survivals of a dative.
The
show where she and its came from. The she probably
came from the Old English demonstrative seo {that). Its was a later
table does not
innovation.
The
161
edition of the English Bible uses his for things
and males. This pronoun
The
it
first
person to use
it
is a good example of analogical extension.

was an Italian in 1598. Englishmen adopted
duriniT the seventeenth century.
Though
personal pronouns have retained
more of
the old flexions
than any other class of English words, and therefore account for a
large proportion of common errors of English speech catalogued in
grammar books used thirty years ago, we now use only seventeen
do the work of thirty-five distinct forms in Old English. In one
way, the use of the pronouns is still changing. Throughout the
the
to
English-speaking world, people
commonly
use they in speech to
avoid invidious sex discrimination, or the roundabout expression he

or she. Similarl\% them
is
common
in
speech for him or her, and their
for his or her. Probably the written language will soon assimilate the
i6o
xn
SYNTAX
practice,
and grammarians
covnnon êndc7-
are
THE TRAFFIC RULES
l6l
them, and their

forms of the third
will then say that they,
singular, as well as plural
person.
We
can already foresee changes which must come, even if rational

arguments for language planning produce no effect. Headmasters and
headmistresses no longer bother so much about whether we should say
the covniiittee meets and the conmiittee disagree, whether we need be
more circumspect than Shakespeare about when we use ivho or irhovi,
whether it is low-bred to say these sort and these kind, whether it is useful to preserve a niche for the archaic dual-plural distinction by insisting
on the comparative better in preference to the superlative best of the
tixo, or whether it is improper to use me in preference to the "possessive
adjective" when we say: do you object to my kissing you?
The conventions
of syntax change continually bv the process of
analogical extension.
to use
them
We
use ^^'o^d forms because
in a similar situation.
Thus our
first
we
accustomed
are
impulse
is
to use ivere
group of children ti-as zvaiting at the

clinic. Whatever old-fashioned grammarians may say about the correct use of "iXas and ivere when the subject is the "collective" noun
group, most of us yield to the force of habit and use loere for the
for u:as in the sentence: a large
simple reason that
it is
we
usual for 'v:ere to follow children. Since
get
used to saying knonx rather than knozvs after yon, most of us say none
of you know, unless we have time for a grammatical post-mortem on
the agglutinative contraction not one = none. So we may be quite
certain that everyone will soon look
tic
on none of yon knows
as
pedan-
archaism.
Habits formed in
this
way
give us
some insight into the meaningless
with rains, and similar expressions, e.g. it is nsnal.

People who speak a language which has equivalents of is, arc, was,
were for the copula connecting attribute and topic (i.e., thing or
association of
it
person) get used to the transition from the explicit statement the
water
is
hot to the more economical form,
it is
hot,
when
the context
The same remarks apply

makes it clear that it
is
the water hot? and is it hot?
to the conventional question patterns,
formula
metaphoricallv when the
It is a short step to apply the same
stands for a real thing.
precise topic
time
make
is
is
less
clearly specified. In spite of the fact that a unit of
not a beatable object,
the
more economical
our habit of dealing with
we
also say the
substitution
a
it is
day
is
hot.
When we
hot, in accordance with
statement with an explicit and relevant
topic, the field of reference of the
pronoun embraces the whole
setup.
62
What now
function as a snappy
our habit of interrogation. The customar)^ inversion demands a subject after the verb in the formula
is it hot? Thus habit and metaphor conspire to encourage intrusion
of the pronoun it into situations where it merely does the job of an
compensates for
loss of its original
substitute for a tangible thing
is
interrogative particle such as eh?
Something analogous goes on with words which have the formal

nouns and verbs, and we can watch it happening in
our own language. Haijnner is the name word for a static object. By
assimilating -J7ig it becomes identified with the process of using it,
peculiarities of
and
attracts
all
process such
the affixes of a
weak
as to sing is associated
verb.
with
The
converse occurs.
person or thing by assimi-
and metaphor works

havoc with any attempt to establish a clear-cut relation between
word form and word function; and we can see both at work in the
most primitive levels of speech. Malinowski sums up the results of
his own studies on speech in backward communities as follows:
lating the affix -er of singer. Interplay of habit
grammar
due to the most primitive

and of
thinking, there took place an indiscriminate and wholesale shifting of
roots and meanings from one grammatical category to another. For according to our view of primitive semantics, each significant root originally
m.ust have had its place, and one place only, in its proper verbal category. Thus, the roots meaning 7na7i, avinml, tree, stone, ivater, are essentiallv nominal roots. The meanings sleep, eat, go, come, fall, are verbal.
But as language and thought develop, the constant action of metaphor, of
generalization, analogy and abstraction, and of similar linguistic uses build
UD links between the categories and obliterate the boundary lines, thus
allowing words and roots to move freely over the whole field of Language. In analytic languages, like Chinese and English, this ubiquitous
nature of roots is most conspicuous, but it can be found even in very
The migration of roots into improper places
primitive languages.
has given to the imaginary reality of hypostatized meaning a special
"The fundamental
uses of language.
outlines of
.
Through
are
later processes of linguistic use
of its own. For, since early experience warrants the substantival

existence of anvthing found within the category of Crude Substance,
and subsequently linguistic shifts introduce there such roots as going, rest,
soIidit\"
77!Otion, etc.,
live in a real
the obvious inference
world of
their
is
that such abstract entities or ideas
own. Such harmless adjectives
as
good or bad,
expressing the savage's half-animal satisfaction or dissatisfaction in a situation, subsequently intrude into the enclosure reserved for the clumsy,
rough-hewn blocks of primitive substance,
are sublimated into
Goodness
SYNTAX
and
and
163
and create w hole theological worlds, and systems of Thought
Badjicss,
Religion.'"
What
THE TRAFFIC RULES
Malinow'ski
of roots and meanings front one

anothcf has multiplied words appropriate
calls '^shifting
graunimtical category to
to situations
common
hich have nothing in
\\
and
is
responsible for
90 per cent of the difficulties of learning a language. One illustration

of this is the nuiltiplicitv^ of word forms connected with the subject-
The lamp illuminates (shines on) the table in the

lamp illuminates (or shines on) me. If so, / see the
lamp. We do not say that the table sees the lamp; and there is a good
enough reason for this distinction. The lamp does not stimulate the
object distinction.
same sense
table as
it
the use of
is
as the
t\\
the goal, and the lamp
we
should
nifies
retina; but this difference does not justify
o pronouns
hvnp. Possibly there
now
\\
and me. In both statements the pronoun
the agent as
is
once
as
/ is
the agent in
a real distinction
verbs were only words for action.
call
moved
of this kind,
Today
the
what
if
sig-
it
To know which is the agent

we need to know the meaning of the
nothing apart from the context.
and which
is
the goal of action
verb. If the verb
object
is
what
is
may
benr the subject
initiates
grammatical object
It
my
stimulates
is
If
it.
is
the verb
the goal of the process and the
is
strike, the reverse
is
true.
The
not necessarily the logical or biological object.
be the actor or the victim of a performance, the stimulus or
a result of a process.
THE HARD LABOR OF GOOD W'RITING
The positive rules of syntax \\'hich remain when we have cleared

away the cobwebs of classical grammar are concerned with the most
explicit use of particles,
\\
ith the rejection
of unnecessarily idiomatic
expressions, with burial of dead metaphors, and with rules of
order to prevent ambiguity or

"semantics" so often forget,
loss
is
word
of interest. Syntax, as writers
on
concerned with far more than the
problem of meaning. The use of language
is
a social activity
which
involves a hearer or reader as well as a speaker or writer. So the art

of writing implies the
power
to grip the attention, and sustain the
interest, of the reader. Prolixity,
pomposity, and evasion of direct
statement are characteristics of writing most inimical to sustained interest;

*
and anyone
Appendix
to
who
is
The Meaning
willing to take the trouble can learn to

of Meani?ig
by C. K. Ogden and
I.
A. Richards.
64
avoid bad
power
the power
the

writing m this sense. Brilliant writing may be a
to write simple, lucid,
thing to
fective and lucid writing
good writer
gift,
lies
biiait
within
who has grown up to speak it.

about the art of writing is that efhard "work. A first draft is never perfect,
of any intelligent person
One important
and
and compelling English
is
is
know
essentially a
good
self-editor. Indiscriminate ex-
than the deliberate application of

rules based on the recognition of standard forms of prolixity to which
even the best authors are prone. If we apply a few fixed rules we can
generally reduce a prose paragraph taken at random from any English
ercises in precis are far less helpful
classic
by 30 or 40 per cent without departing
the meaning.
The important
a hair's breadth
from
ones are: (a) condensation of participial
expressions; (^) elimination of impersonal formulae; (c) translation
of the roundabout passive into direct or active form; (d) cutting

out circumlocutions for which a single particle suffices; (e) rejection
of the, unless absolutely necessary.
One useful recipe for concise writing is to give every participle the oncefirst draft. The sun having arisejj, then invites the shorter substitute, after stmrise. If we are on the lookout for the passive form of
statement as another incitement to boredom, we shall strike out the exover in a
pression
it
snappier,
The
ivill
more
be seen from the foregoing figures, and substitute the

arresting active equivalent, the foregoing figures
show
example suggests another general recipe indicated in the

last paragraph. The remoteness of the college cloister has cumbered the
English language with a litter of iTiipersojial constructions which defeat
the essentially social character of communication in writing by creating
the impression that a statement is for the benefit of the author and the
Deity alone. Thus the intrusive it of the subject-predicate fetish is another danger signal in a first draft. It ivould thus seem that, or it ivoidd
thus appear that, for see77jingly or apparently which do the same job when
you.
last
really necessary, are representative exhibits for the prosecution.
They
should go to the same limbo as it is said that {some people say), it is true
that {admittedly) the completely redundant it is this that, and the analogous circumlocution of which a type specimen is the untrue statement,
,
lave that nmkes the world go rojind.

are other common literary habits of long-windedness. One is
the use of conjunctional and prepositional phrases when a single link
''tis
There
word
or directive
would
suffice.
The Times
Literary Supplement and
British Civil Service Reports specialize in the question as to whether,
when whether by
itself suffices in
the same context. During the time that
generally means the same as while.
At an
earlier date
is
an unnecessarily
SYNTAX
THE TRAFFIC RULES
65
roundabout wav of saving previously With reference to is overworked

where about, or concerning, would do as well, and both the
latter, though no shorter than as to, are more explicit. The reader who
has now grasped the importance of using particles explicitly will be on
the lookout for these. Another trick which makes writing congested is
.
in situarions
indiscriminate use of the definite article the in situations

really necessarv.
of the sentence:
come
For instance, we can

If
tax will rise,
Anyone who
can practice
the
war goes
strike
where
it
is
not
out four inessential articles
on, tbc social services will be cut, the in-
and the prices of commodities will
soar.
wishes to cultivate an agreeable and competent style
how
to recognize signposts of prolixity
from standard authors or
by rewriting
newspapers
without recourse to redundant particles, passive expressions, prepositional and conjunctival phrases, or to unnecessary^ articles. Another
passages
editorial articles in
type of exercise which helps to develop the habit of self-editorship is

to rewrite in simple sentences passages from books by authors able to
manipulate long and complex ones with more or less effect. Sentences
with more than one subordinate clause are nearly always difficult to
follow, and complex sentences in general are best kept to round off a
when the habit of writing in simple

we have to use complex sentences,
the subordinate clause should generally come first. One of the tasks
of self-editing is to see that it does so. The worst type of involved
fusillade of simple statements,
sentences has been well formed. If
sentence
is
the one with a clause starting with that, li'ho, or îvhich,
telescoped into another beginning in the same way. That, ivho, and
which
(like participles, passive verbs, the
signals in a first draft.
One
long and complex sentences
and
it)
are therefore danger
simple trick which helps in cutting up

is
the use of certain adverbial particles or
expressions to maintain continuirv of meaning. Meanzi'hile,
first,
then,
after that, or afterivards, in spite of this, in this ii'ay, thus, for that
reason, consequently, so, therefore, are therefore useful items of a
word
list.
We can reinforce the habit of self-editorship by practicing
the use of such
words
in dissection of sentences
made up to illustrate
The following
each of the subordinate conjunctions of page 154.

example illustrates this type of exercise:
a)
COMPLEX SENTENCES:
Although you cannot learn

well exaggerate
how much
effort
language without hard work, you may

is necessary. Avoidable discouragement
66
many people memorize words and rules which we do not

need irhen we speak or write. There is another thing ivhich adds
to the burden of learning. Many people do not get as much benefit from
reading as they would ij they first got a bird's-eye view of grammar in
order to recognize rules ivhich are not essential for self-expression, when
they meet them in a fresh setting, /f we set about our task as the reader
of The Loom of Language will do, we shall find that the effort required
is smaller than we think. One of our readers, ivho wanted to learn Swedish,
had failed to make much progress, before she read The Looin of Language in proof. S'mce she followed its plan of study, she has gone ahead
quickly. She started reading Swedish newspapers and writing to a bov
friend in Sweden after she had got a bird's-eye view of the grammar and
was thoroughly familiar with about a hundred essential particles, pronouns, and pointer words. Her vocabulary grew without effort, and her
grasp of grammar became firmer, while she went on with her daily reading and continued her correspondence. She now intends to persevere till
arises
because
really
she
is
proficient.
b) SIMPLE SENTENCES:
You cannot
learn a language without hard work.
Still,
you can exag-
Many people memorize words and rules withquestion: Do we really need them for speech and writing?
adds to the burden of learning. Many people read without
gerate the necessary effort.
out asking
this
Another thing
first
getting a bird's-eye view of grammar.
They meet
rules not essential
They have
not met them before. So they do not

recognize them as such. Readers of The Loom of Language will set about
the task in a different way. They will then find the effort less than our
for self-expression.
first
estimate of
it.
One
of
its
readers wanted to learn Swedish, She had
previously failed to
make much
Language
She followed
in proof.
progress.
its
Then
she read
The Loom
of
plan of study. After that she went
ahead quickly. She first got a bird's-eye view of the grammar. She
thoroughly familiar with about a hundred essential particles,
pronouns, and pointer words. Next, she started reading Swedish newspapers and writing to a boy friend in Sweden. She went on reading daily
and continued to correspond. Meanwhile her vocabulary grew without
effort. She also got a firmer grasp of grammar. Though not yet proficient,
also got
she intends to persevere.
SPEECH AND WRITING
difficulty
which
besets
themselves effectively in
many
people
when they
writing would be
less
tvf to express
formidable, if early
YNTA X
111
TRAFFIC
i:
education did more to encounigc the habit of careful
we
speech. \\'irhin the domestic circle
can
F S
I.
aiul
67
thoughtful
on the charity or
rel\-
intelligence of the listener to interpret a half-finished sentence or to
sharpen the outline of

so with impunity,
expression in ever\"da\-
w hom we
we
can usually do
of us never cultivate precise habits of self-
To
life.
write, especially for readers with
We
can-
of domestic associations.
We
are not personally acquainted,
not exploit
Since
a loose definition.
many
common background
is
another matter.
cannot take advantage of associations prompted b\ surrounding objects or current events. For all we can convey by tone or gesture, conventions of punctuation and of t\pograph\^ (e.g. italics) are the only
means
our disposal.
at
narrow
fined to a
If
conversation
habitually trivial and con-
is
social circle, learnino" to write
is
learnintr a
new
language.
Maybe,
tuall\-
sound
libraries of
films or
phonograph records
supersede the bookshelf as the collective
memory
will even-
of mankind.
.Meantime, the art of speech, even public speech, cannot be quite the
same as the art of writing. There must be a region where the written
and the spoken word do not overlap, but we can make it, and should
make it, as small as need be. Whether it is relativeh- large, as in Germany, or small, as in Norway, reflects the extent to which intellectuals
are a caste apart from the aspirations and needs of their fellow citizens.
Homely
writing
closel\-
of the democratic wa\" of
vibrant with
Where
sympathy
popular science and social

fiction deal
akin to thoughtful speech
For
writinfr
cannot
fail
is
signpost
to be effective,
for the difficulties of the reader.
the democratic
Drama and
life.
way
of
life
statistics
prevails, public
demand
for
discourages literary affectations.
more and more with the
ordinary
lives of
people and reflect their speecii habits. Since rhetorical prose based
on
classical
models
is
not adapted to the needs of
to rapid reading in buses
and
a pui)lic
habituated
trains, the vastly increased
output of
printed matter since the introduction of the Iinot\'pc machine has

also
helped to bring the written closer to the spoken word. In our
own
generation broadcasting has reinforced the trend. Publication of
radio talks popularizes a
st\'le
akin to daily speech, and, as one of our
leading phoneticians has said:
"There
are signs that the tyranny of print
since the days of the Renaissance
may
give
under whieh
way
to a
we
have lived
more emancipated
i68
era of the spoken
word which
seminated. Wireless
restore
is
is
now
making of
good spoken English to
broadcast as freely as print
a place of
honour."
FURTHER READING
FOWLER
GRATTON AND GURREY
HERBERT
JESPERSEN
MENCKEN
OGDEN AND RICHARDS
is
us a nation of speech critics, and
The King^s English.

Our Living Language.
What a Word.
Philosophy of Gravmiar.
The American Language.
The Mea?iing of Meaning.
dis-
may
CHAPTER
The
Classification of
Languages
Before there were comparative linguists, practical men already knew

that some European languages resemble one another noticcahlv. The
English sailor whose ship brought him for the first time to Amsterdam, to Hamburg, and to Copenhagen was bound to notice that many
Dutch, German, and Danish \\ ords are the same, or almost the same,
equivalents in his own tongue. Where he would have said
come, good, the Dutchman used the words dorst, komen, goed;
the German Durst, kovivien, gut; and the Dane, T0rst, kovi, god.
The Frenchman calling on Lisbon, on Barcelona, and on Genoa discovered to his delight that a'nner (to love), mtit (night), dix (ten)
differ very little from the corresponding Portuguese words aviar,
as their
thirst,
iioute, dez;
Spanish mimr, nocbe, diez; or Italian ajimre, uotte, died.
In fact, the difference
is
so small that use of the
would often produce the desired
result.
people spoke of related languages.

units
which we now
call
Bv
French words alone
Because of such resemblances,

the sixteenth century, three
the Teutonic, the
Romance
or Latin, and
were widely recognized. If you kno\\' one lanany of these three groups, you will have little difficulty in
learning a second one. So it is eminently a practical division.
When the modern linguist still calls English, Dutch, German, Danish, Xor\\"egian, Swedish related languages, he means more than this.
We now use the term in an evolutionary sense. Languages are related,
if the many features of vocabulary, structure, and phonetics which
they share are due to gradual differentiation of what was once a
single tongue. Sometimes we have to infer what the common parent
was like; but we have firsthand knowledge of the origin of one language group. The deeper we delve into the past, the more French,
Spanish, Italian, etc., converge. Finally they become one in Latin, or,
to be more accurate, in Vulgar Latin as spoken by the common people
in the various parts of the Western Roman Empire.
the Slavonic groups
guage
in
lyo
Like the doctrine of organic evolution, this attitude to the study of

is a comparatively recent innovation. It was wholly alien
to European thought before the French Revolution. For more than
languages
two thousand
years before that time, grammatical scholarship had
existed as a learned profession.
During the whole of
this
period
scholars had accepted the fact that languages exist without probing
Greece the growth of a more

was checked by the prevailing social outlook of
When Christianity became the predominant creed
into the origins of their diversity. In
adventurous
spirit
a slave civilization.
of the Western world,
Hebrew cosmogony
stifled
evolutionary spec-
ulation in every field of inquiry.
Greek philosophers and gramimarians suffered at

They were strictly confined to the homemade idiom. This was the inevitable consequence of
a cultural conceit which divided the world into Greeks and Barbarians. The same social forces which held back the progress of
Investigations of
all
times from one fundamental weakness.
mechanics and of medicine in the slave civilizations of the Mediterranean world held up the study of grammar. To bother about the
taal of inferior people was not the proper concern of an Athenian
or of a Roman gentleman. Even Herodotus, who had toured Egypt
and had written on its quaint customs, nowhere indicates that he had
much knowledge of the language.

The Alexandrian conquest brought about little change of mind
when Greek traders and travelers were roaming far beyond the Medacquired
iterranean basin, establishing intimate contact with Bactrians, Ira-
and even with India. Both Greek and
nians,
Roman
civilization
had
unrivaled opportunities for getting acquainted with changing phases

in the idioms of peoples
They had
light
who
spoke and wrote widely diverse tongues.
unrivaled, and long since
on the mysteries of ancient
cuneiform.
They
lost,
opportunities to get
never exploited their opportunities.
hieroglyphic writing was

nineteenth century.
a sealed
The decoding
some
scripts such as hieroglyphics
book
till
and
The Egyptian
the second decade of the
of cuneiform inscriptions
is
work
hundred years.
Christianity performed one genuine service to the study of language, as it performed a genuine service to medicine by promoting
hospitals. It threw the opprobrious term Barbarian overboard, and
thus paved the way for the study of all tongues on their own merits.
Before it had come to terms with the rulinjr class, Christianity was
of the
last
THE
C LA
S S
I-
C:
ION OF
LANGUAGES
'
and heavy laden, of the proletarian and

fatherland. In C:hrist there was
the 'slave without propcrtv, without
but a new creation."
"neither Scythian, barbarian, bond nor free,
and cultural fronAccordinijly the early church ignored social rank
and the gift of
All Idioms of the globe enjoyed equal rights,
tiulv the faith of the N\earv
tiers.
the apostolic age.

tonyues was in high esteem among the miracles of
the new
understand
To
ciiristian salvatu)n was an act of faith.
vernacuown
their
in
rclioion the heathen must needs hear the gospel
w cnt hand in hand with translating. At an early
lars^So proselvtizin'4
Gospels into Syriac, Coptic, and

the beginning of Slavonic literature, and the
date. Christian schoUirs translated the
\rmcnian.
The
Bible
Ulfilas,
is
is
Testament by the West Gothic Bishop,

Even today the
the oldest Germanic document extant.
translation of the
New
Our Bible societies

Christian impulse to translate remains unabated.
and Polynesian
African
of
have carried out pioneer work in the study
dialects.
The
historical balance sheet of Christian teaching
and language
story of the
study also carries a w eighty item on the debit side. The
the belief
corollary,
as
a
it,
Tow'er of Babel was sacrosanct, and with
emergence
the
So
mankind.
of
that Hebrew was the original language
was not ^followed by any deeper underThroughout the Middle

standing of the natural history of language.
was one already beaten
scholar
Ages the path trod by the Christian
progress in the
significant
no
by his pagan forerunner. There was
and missionventure
mercantile
comparative study of languages, but
and spread of
ChristianitN"
Navigations made a wealth

ary enterprise during the age of the Great
medium of the printed
new
the
of fresh material accessible through
page, and encouraged
European scholars
to break
away from
ex-
the first time, they

clusive preoccupation with dead languages. For
alike than others.
more
are
languages
began to recognize that some
recognized as the
variously
Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540- 1609),
bottomless pit of
the
ivorld,
the
phoenix of Europe, the light of
more, when he wrote his treatise

them all in eleven main
arranged
on the languages of Europe.
seven minor ones. The
and
major
four
classes, which I'all again into
god, into dens-, theos-,
for
words
their
on
four major classes he based
into Latin (Romance)
say,
should
we
as
gott-, and bog- lancuaffes, or,
remaining seven
The
Slavonic.
and
langu'agcs, Greek," Germanic,
Hungarian,
Tartar,
Albanian,
or
Epirotic
up of
hno-^-leii(re,
saw
as
much, and
a little
He
clas^sesâre
made
172
Finnic, Irish {that part of it which today is spoken in the mountainous regions of Scotland, i.e., Gaelic), Old British, as spoken in Wales
and Brittany, and finally Cantabrian or Basque.

During the seventeenth century many miscellanies of foreign languages, like the herbals and bestiaries of the time, came off the printing presses of European countries. The most ambitious of them all
was the outcome of
a project of Leibniz, the mathematician,
who was
bv Catherine II of Russia. The material was handed over to

the German traveler, Pallas, for classification. The results of his labor
appeared in 1787 under the title, Lingiiannn Totius Or bis Vocabiiassisted
Comparativa (Comparative Vocabularies of all the Languages of

The number of words on the list circulated was 285,
and the number of languages covered \\'as 200, of M'hich 149 were
Asiatic and 51 European. In a later edition, this number was considerably increased by the addition of African and of Amerindian
laria
the World).
dialects
He
from the
had put
it
New
World.
Pallas'
compilation was of
little use.
together hastily on the basis of superficial study of his
materials. Its merit
was that
it
stimulated others to undertake some-
thing more ambitious and more reliable.
One
of
them was the Span-
Hervas; another the German, Adelung. Leibniz's suggestions

influenced both of them.
iard,
Lorenzo Hervas (1735 1809) had lived for many years among the
American Indians, and published the enormous number of forty
grammars, based upon his contact with their languages. Between 800
1
and 1805 he
de
also published a collected
las lengiias
clases
de
las
de estas segun
Mork with
the
title:
Catdlogo
naciones conocidas y niimeracion, division y

diver sidad de siis idiomas y dialect os (Cata-
la
all the kno\^n nations with the enumeration,

and classes of these nations according to their languages and
dialects). This linguistic museum contained three hundred exhibits.
It would have been more useful if the author's arrangement of the
specimens had not been based on the delusion that there is a necessary
connection between race and language. A second encyclopedic attempt to bring all languages together, as duly labeled exhibits, was
that of the German grammarian and popular philosopher, Adelung.
It bears the title, Mithridates, or General Science of Languages, "ivith
the Lord's Prayer in nearly joo Languages and Dialects, published
in four volumes between 1806 and 1817. When the fourth volume
appeared, Adelung's compilation had become entirely obsolete. In
the meantime, Bopp had pubhshed his revolutionary treatise on the
logue of the languages of

division,
THE CLASSIFICATION OF LAN'GUAGFS
I73
German.
which
language grows. In the introduction to Mithridates Adekmg makes
a suggestion, put forward earlier bv Home Tooke, without anv atconjiigational svstcin of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian, and
Previously, there had been httle curiositv about the
wav
in
tempt to check or explore its implications. This remarkable Englishman was one of the first Europeans to conceive a plausible hypothesis
to account for the origin of flexion. In a book called Diversions of
Fiirley, published in 1786, Tooke anticipates the central theme of
the task which Bopp carried out with greater knowledge and success
during the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus he w rites:
"All those
common
terminations, in anv language, of
which
all
Nouns
or \'erbs in that language equally partake (under the notion of declension
or conjugation) are themselves separate words with distinct meanings

these terminations are explicable, and ought to be explained."
The work
of
Bopp and other
pioneers of comparative
received a powerful impetus from the study of Sanskrit.

Sassetti,
grammar
Though
an Italian of the sixteenth century, had called Sanskrit a
and had united Dio (God) with Deva, it

book for almost two hundred years. Now and
pleasant, musical language,
had remained
a sealed
then some missionary, like Robertus Nobilibus, or Heinrich Roth, a
German who was anxious to be able to dispute with Brahmanic

made himself acquainted with it, but this did not touch the
priests,
\\orld at large. After Sassetti, the
first
European
to point out the
staggering similarities between Sanskrit and the European languages
was the German missionary, Benjamin Schultze. For years he had

preached the Gospel to the Indian heathen, and had helped in the
translation of the Bible into Tamil. On August 19, 1725, he sent to
Professor Franken an interesting letter in which he emphasized the
similarity between the numerals of Sanskrit, German, and Latin.
When English mercantile imperialism was firmly grounded in
India, civil servants began to establish contact with the present and
past of the country.
An
Asiatic Societv^ got started at Calcutta in
Four years later, a much-quoted letter of William Jones, ChiefJustice at Fort William in Bengal, w as made public. In it the author
demonstrated the genealogical connection between Sanskrit, Greek,
and Latin, between Sanskrit and German, and between Sanskrit,
1784.
Celtic,
"The
and Persian:
Sanskrit language, whatever be
structure;
its
antiquity,
is
of a wonderful
more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the
Latin,
74
and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them
a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that
no philologer could possibly examine all the three without believing them
to have sprung from some common source which, perhaps, no longer
exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a different
idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit."
This happened within a few years of the publication of Hutton's

Theory of the Earth, a book which challenged the Mosaic account
of the creation. Custodians of the Pentateuch were alarmed by the
prospect that Sanskrit would bring down the Tower of Babel. To
anticipate the danger, they pilloried Sanskrit as a priestly fraud, a
kind of pidgin
classic
concocted by Brahmins from Greek and Latin
elements. William Jones, himself a scholar of unimpeachable piety,
had to make the secular confession:

can only declare my belief that the language of Noah is irretrievably
After diligent search I cannot find a single word used in common
by the Arabian, Indian, and Tartar families, before the admixture of these
dialects occasioned by the iMahommedan conquests."
"I
lost.
Together with
tea
and coffee. Napoleon's blockade of England
withheld from the Continent Sanskrit grammars and dictionaries
which English
scholars
were now busy turning
out. Fortunately the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris possessed Sanskrit texts. Paris had in
custody Hamilton, an Englishman who enlivened his involuntary sojourn in the French capital by giving private lessons in Sanskrit. One
of his pupils was a brilliant
1808, Schlegel published a
der Inder
(On
young German, Friedrich Schlegel. In

book, Uber die Sprache mid Weisheit
little
the Language and Philosophy of the Indians). This put
Sanskrit on the Continental map.
Much that is in Schlegel's book makes
us smile today, perhaps most of
the author's dictum that Sanskrit
the mother of
all
languages.
all
None
the
less, it
was
is
turning point in
the scientific study of language. In a single sentence which boldly
prospects the field of future research, Schlegel exposes the

petus
which came from contemporary progress of
new im-
naturalistic studies:
"Comparative grammar will give us entirely new information on the

genealogy of language, in exactly the same way in which comparative
anatomy has thrown
light
upon the
natural history."
THE
C LA
The study
S S
1'
C A
ON
OF
LANGUAGES
75
of Latin in the Middle Ages had preserved a secure basis
for this cvokitionarv approach to the study of other languages, be-
cause the Latin parentage of

kalian,
and Rumanian
histor\' has
is
modern French,
an historically verifiable
Spanish, Portuguese,
fact.
Unfortunately,
not been so obliginor as to preserve the parent of the Teu-
tonic and the Slavonic groups. To be sure, the present di (Terences between Dutch, German, and the Scandinavian languages diminish as
we go back in time. Still, differences remain when we have retraced
our steps to the oldest records available. At that point we have to replace the historical by the coviparative method, and to try to obtain
by inference what history has failed to rescue. We are in much the
same position as the biologist, \\ ho can trace the record of vertebrate
evolution from bony remains in the rocks, till he reaches the point
\\ hen vertebrates had not acquired a hard skeleton. Beyond this, anything we can know or plausibly surmise about their origin must be
based upon a comparison between the characteristic features of the
vertebrate body and the characteristic features of bodil\- orsjanization
amonij the various classes of invertebrates.
THE
BASIS OF
EVOLUTIONARY CLASSIFICATION
Biologists who classify^ animals from an evolutionary point of view

make the assumption that characteristics common to all or to nearly
all
members of a group are also characteristic of their common
ancestor. Similar reasoning is implicit in the comparative method of
who study the evolution of languages

enjoy an advantage which the evolutionary biologist does not share.
studying languages; and those
Xo
large-scale changes in the diversity of animal life
on our planet
have occurred during the period of the written record, but distinct
languages have
come
into being during comparatively recent times.
We can check the value of clues which suggest common

related languages
by an almost continuous
parentage of
historical record of
what
has happened to Latin.
Word similarity
one of the three most important of these clues. It

two closely related languages must have a large
number of recognizably similar words. Comparison of the members
of the Romance group shows that this is so. Such resemblance does
not sifrnify identity, \\ hich may be due to borrowing. Evidence for
kinship is strongest if words which are alike are words which are not
is
stands to reason that
176
TENSES OF THE VERB BE IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES

(pronouns only used for emphasis
ENGLISH
in brackets)
THE
C LA
S S
C A
OF
O N
noting elementnrv qualities such as
L A N
young and
(i
U AG E
old, bifr
and
syrnill,
77
hii^h
and deep; or names which stand for universalK' distributed objects,

such as earth, dog, stone, iiMter, fire, for parts of the bodv such as
head, ear, eye, nose, inoiith, or for blood relationship such as father,
viutber, sister, brother.
If
the
number of words which two languages
confined to
a special aspect
of cultural
life, it is
share
is
small,
and
almost certain that one
word similarities which the

do not share with other Arvan languages.
The common words of this class are all nouns, some of which are
names for metals, tools and vehicles. This does not indicate that there
is a particuhul\- close evolutionar\- relationship between Celtic and
Teutonic in the sense defined above. Other features show that a
wide gulf separates them. Archaeological evidence suggests that the
Teutons took over words w ith the arts thev assimilated from Celtic
communities at a higher cultural level.
Through such culture contacts words have wandered from one
is
indebted to the other. This applies to
Celtic and Teutonic groups
The modern word
lanouaiie to another of a totally different oricrin.
bicycle pedals over linguistic frontiers as the machine used to pedal
over national boundaries before passports were obligatory.
The word
more or less mongrel. Even

in the more exclusive members of the Teutonic group the number of
intruders is manv times larger than the number of words which the
material of
all,
or nearh'
linguist thinks he
all,
languages
is
can trace back to the hypothetical
called primitive Teutonic.
When
common
idiom
dealing with words for numbers, or
w eights and measures, we have always
to reckon with the possibility
of cultural, and therefore ii-ord, diffusion.
If vocabulary is the only

have to give due consideration to geographical
two languages which share a considerable portion of con-
we
clue available,
situation. If
servative root
words
are not geographically contiguous,
it
is
highly
probable that they are related.
Word
similarity
is
good
clue.
second
to grannnatical behavior. French, Spanish
use as our control group, have a host of
such
i)
is
Italian,
common
w hich we may
grammatical features
as:
future tense (see pp. 94 and 339) which

and the auxiliary to have. (Fr.
infinitive
aiiiar-6.
z)
agreement with respect
and
The
combination of the
aiitier-ai, ai7ner-as; Ital.
mnar-ai; Span, amar-e, amar-ds.)
definite article (Fr. masc.
la),
is
le, feni. la,
Span,
and pronouns of the third person (Fr.
il
el
or
or
la, Ital. il
elle,
Span,
el
or
or
178
egli
elLi, Ital.
or
ella)
derived from the Latin demonstrative
all
ille, ilia.
3)
twofold gender system
which the masculine noun generally
in
takes the place of the Latin neuter (Fr.

el
vino;
Ital. //
Grammatical
the wine; Span.
le vin,
vino; Latin vimivi).
may
words,
peculiarities, like
servative. In the \^'idest sense of the term,
be more or
grammar
con-
less
includes the study
of idiom and sentence construction, or syntax, in contradistinction to
by
accidence, ^\hich deals with the modification of individual words
The
flexion or root-vowel changes.
conservative than
the latter type,
it
its
syntax of
When
accidence.
would be far-fetched
\^'e
language
is
much
less
meet with resemblances of

them to chance or
to attribute
to borrowing. All the evidence available tends to
show
that,
while
W'ords and idioms diffuse freely, peculiarities of accidence do not.
Now
and then
language
may borrow
a prefix or a suffix, together
word, and subsequently tack one or the other on to

indigenous \vords, as German did with -ei (Liebelei, "flirtation"),
which is the French -ie (as in la vilenie, "villainy"); but we know of
no language which has incorporated a w hole set of alien endings like
with
a foreign
those of the Latin verb (p. 95).

Absence of grammatical resemblance does not invariably
two
or
more languages
into several
less
new
are unrelated.
Once
species, the different
mean
that
parent language has
split
fragments
may move more
or
swiftly along similar or different paths. For example, French has
discarded more of the luxuriant system of Latin verb flexions than
its
English has experienced catastrophic denudation of
its
Itahan
sister.
Teutonic
flexions.
Consequently
its
grammar
is
now more
like that of
Chinese than like that of Sanskrit. Grammatical comparison

therefore mislead us, and
when
the evidence of
not point to the same conclusion

peculiarities, the latter
A third
is
of
little
as the
word
may
similarity does
evidence from grammatical
value.
clue ^^hich reinforces the testimony of recognizable Aôrd
similarities arises
from consistent differences between
responding meaning.
by comparing
We
can easily spot such
the English
words
tongue and
to,
\\'ords of cor-
a consistent difference
tin
with their Ger-
The resemblance between members of the same pair is not striking if we confine our attention to one
pair at a time, but when we look at the veiy large number of such
pairs in which the initial German Z pronounced ts) takes the place
man equivalents zn, Zimge and
Zinn.
I
THE
C L A
S S
C A
()
X OF
L A N
(1
of our I\nglish T, w c discover an ininicnse stock of

lariries.
The
fact tliat cliaiiges alVccting
U AG K
new word
most words with
79
sinii-
a particular
sound have taken place in one or both of two huiguagcs since they
began to diverge conceals nian\- word similarities from immediate
recognition. This inference is not mere speculation. It is directly
supported b\' what has happened in the recorded historv of the
Romance group, as illustrated in the following examples showing a
vowel and a consonant shift characteristic of French, Spanish and
Italian.
LATIN-
l8o
and the Latin-English word fact or
its
who has been initiated into the sound

recognizes
French equivalent
shifts of the
fait.
Romance
Anyone
languages
two trademarks of Spanish. One is the CH which corIT in words of Old French origin, or CT in modern
responds to
words of Latin descent. The other is the initial

French and Eno-lish
o
which often replaces f, as illustrated by the Spanish (bava)
silent
and Italian (fava) words for bean. If an American or British student
of German knows that the initial German D replaces our TH, there
is no need to consult a dictionary for the meaning of Dhig and Durst.
community of basic vocabulary, simiIf we apply our three tests
larity of grammatical structure, and regularity of sound correspondence to Enohsh, Dutch, German and the Scandinavian lano-uacres,
all
the findings suggest unity of origin. Naturally,
to exhibit the full extent of
it is
word community within
not possible
the limits of
book; but the reader will find abundant relevant material in the
lists of Part IV. Here we must content ourselves with the illustration already given on page 7, where a request contained in the
Lord's Prayer is printed in five Teutonic and in five Romance languages. The reader may also refer to the tables of personal pronouns
printed on pages 115 and 116.
The grammatical apparatus of the Teutonic languages points to the
same conclusion, as the reader may see by comparing the forms of
the verbs to be and to have displayed in tabular form on pages 89
and below. Three of the most characteristic grammatical features of
this
word
the Teutonic group are the follo\^'ing:

i)
Throughout the Teutonic languages, there

table
on
German
2) All
p.
dilnv, diinner, dimvst;
members
sing,
Swedish twin,
tiinnare, tunnaste).
form the past tense and past participle

two ways: {a) by modifying the root vowel (Eng-
of the group
of the verb in
lish
the same type (see
is
184) of comparison (English thin, thinner, thiimest;
sang, sung;
German
synge, sang, siingen); (b)

punish, punished;
German
singen,
sang,
by adding d or
gesungen; Danish
to the stem (English
strafen, strafte, gestraft;
Danish
straff e,
straff ede, straff et).
3)
The
typical genitive singular case
mark
is
-s,
as in
English day^s,
Swedish dags, Danish Dags, German Tages.

If we follow out our third clue, ^^"e find a very striking series of
sound shifts characteristic of each language. We have had one example
of consonant equivalence in the Teutonic group. Below is a single
example of vowel equivalence:
THE
I2
and Latin on the one hand, and the Teutonic languages on the other.
Textbooks usually refer to this discovery as Grimm'' s Laiv after the
German scholar who took up Rask's idea. One item of this most celebrated of all sound shifts is the change from the Latin p to the Teu-
tonic
f;
LATIN
CLASSIFICATION OF
T H K
The
L A N G U A
(;
83
singular of the present optative of the verb to be, correspond-
ing to the use of be in
/|"
it
be, in three
dead languages of the group
SANSKRIT
OLD LATIN
GOTHIC
syam
siem
sijau
syas
sies
sijais
syat
slot
sijai
From
mass of phonetic, morphological and word
similarities,
is:
we
Aryan by
Anglo-American, Indo-European by French, and Indo-Gennanic by
German writers. The last of the three is a misnomer begotten of
thus recognize the unity of the well-defined family called
national conceit. Indeed the family does not keep within the limits
indicated
mous
by
the term Indo-Eiiropean.
belt that stretches almost
\\
It is
spread out over an enor-
from Central
European side
Tokharian, a tongue once
ithout interruption
Asia to the fringes of westernmost Europe.
On
the
is Celtic, and on the Asiatic,

spoken by the inhabitants of Eastern Turkestan and recently (1906)
unearthed in documents written over a thousand years ago.
the terminus
The
undeniable similarities between these lanouares suoêst that
they arc
all
the prehistoric past.
began
which must have

some place and at some time in
representatives of a single earlier one
been spoken by some community,
The idiom
as a rustic dialect
at
Roniamnn
nobody can
of the far-flung Imperiinn
of the province of Latium; but
where the speakers of proto-Aryan lived, whether in Southern

on the Iranian plateau, or somewhere else. If, as some
philologists believe, Old Indie and the Persian of the Avesta have the
most archaic features of Aryan lanfruasjes known to us, it is not necessarilv^ true that the habitat of the early Aryan-speaking people was
nearer to Asia than to Europe. The example of Icelandic shows that
a language may stray far away from home and still preserve characteristics long ago discarded by those that stayed behind. Onlv^ one
thing seems certain. When the recorded history of Arân begins with
the \êdic hymns, the dispersal of the Aryan-speaking tribes had al-
tell
Russia, or
ready taken place.
From
less
the writings of
impression that
some German authors we
we
mig^ht irain the base-
are almost as well-informed about the lan-
we are about Egyptian

pushed audacity so far as to
compile a dictionary of hN pothetical primitive Aryan, and another
has surpassed him by telling us a story in it. Others have asserted that
guage and cultural
civilization.
life
of the proto-Aryans as
One German
linguist has
184

TEUTONIC COMPARISON
ANGLO-AMERICAN
THE CLASSIFICATION OF
L A N
THF TFUTOXIC VERB

A. Strong Type
ANGLO-AMERICAN
(7
C;
F S
85
86
conclusions from words which are aHke and have the same meanine
in all the Aryan languages. They have also speculated about the sig-
words which do not exist. Of itself, the fact that the

has no common term for the tiger does not indicate that
the proto-Aryans inhabited a region where there were no tigers.
Once the hypothetical Urvolk started to move, tribes which went
into colder regions would no longer need to preserve the word for it.
nificance of
Aryan family
If
we
are entitled to
deduce that the East did not use
salt
because the
Western Aryan word for the mineral does not occur in the IndoIranian tongues, the absence of a common Aryan word for milk must
force us to conclude that proto-Aryan babies used to feed on something
else.
LANGUAGE FAMILIES OF THE WORLD

In a
many
insects
modern
classification of the animal
and arachnida (spiders and scorpions)
vertebrates and arthropods.
with
kinsjdom taxonomists unite

mammals, or Crustacea,
small groups, such as fishes, birds and
little
plausibility
Beyond
that point
about their evolutionary
in larger ones
we
such as
can only speculate
past. Besides
about ten
great groups, such as vertebrates and arthropods, embracing the
many small ones made up of few

from one another and from the members of any of
the larger divisions. So it is with languages. Thus Japanese, Korean,
Manchu, Mongolian, each stand outside any recognized families as
majority of animal species, there are
species, isolated
isolated units.
We
have seen that most of the inhabitants of Europe speak languages with common features. These common features justify the
recognition of a single great Indo-Eiiropemi jamily. Besides the Romance or Latin and the Teutonic languages mentioned in the preceding pages, the Indo-European family includes several other welldefined groups, such as the Celtic (Scots Gaelic, Erse, Welsh, Breton)
in the West, and the Slavonic (Russian, Polish, Czech and Slovak,
Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian) in the East of Europe, together with
the Indo-Iranian languages spoken by the inhabitants of Persia and a
large part of India. Lithuanian (with its sister dialect, Latvian), Greek,
Albanian, and Armenian are isolated members of the same familv.
The Indo-European or Aryan group does not include all existing
European languages. Finnish, Magyar, Esthonian and Lappish have
common features which have led linguists to place them in a separate
THE
group
ent,
C L A
called the
S S
C A
Fhnio-Ugrian
Turkish, which
()
fiiniily.
rcscnihlcs
OF
So
several
CUAGE
L A N
far as
\\
Central
(Tartar, Uzbeg, Kirghiz), belongs to neither of the
can judge
Asiatic
two
87
at pres-
languages
families
men-
spoken on the French and Spanish sides of

the P\"renees, has no clear aflinities with anv other language in the
tioned; and Basque,
still
world.
Long before modern language research established the unity of the

Ar\an family, Jew ish scholars recognized the similarities of Arabic,
Hebrew and Aramaic which arc representatives of a Semitic family.
The
Semitic family also includes the
fossil
languages of the Phoeni-
cians and Assyro-Babylonians. 1 he languages of China, Tibet,
Burma
and Siam constitute a fourth Qrcat lan"uaoc family. Like the Semitic,
the Indo-Chinese family has an indigenous literature. In Central and
Southern Africa other languages such as Luganda, Swahili, Kafir,
Zulu, have been associated in a Bantu unit which does Jiot include
those of the Bushmen and Hottentots. In Northern Africa Somali,
Galla and Berber show similarities which have forced linguists to
recognize a Haniitic family. To this group ancient F.gvptian also belonijs. A Dravidian famil\- includes Southern Indian lanouafjcs, w hich
have no relation to the Aryan vernaculars of India. Yet another major
family with clear-cut features is the
ahiy o-Folynesian which includes Malay and the tongues of most of the islands in the Indian and
Pacific Oceans.
Something
like a
hundred language groups, including the Papuan,
Australian and Amerindian (e.g. .Mexican and Greenlandic) vernacu-
Manchu, Georgian, and Korean,
still remain to
This has not been possible so far, either
because they have not yet been properly studied, or because their past
lars,
Japanese, Basque,
be connected
in larger units.
phases are not on record. Below
is
a list
of families which are well-
defined:
I.
'
indo-europf.an:
{a) Teutonic
(German, Dutch, Scandinavian, English)

{b) Celtic
(Erse, Gaelic,
(c)
Welsh, Breton)
Romance
(French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese,
Italian,
Rumanian)
{d) Slavonic
(Russian,
Polish,
Czech,
Croatian, and Slovene)
Slovakian,
Bulgarian,
Serbo-
88
(e) Baltic
(Lithuanian, Lettish)
(g) Albanian
Greek
(h) Armenian
(f)
II.
(/)
Persian
(;)
(c) Esthonian
(b) Finnish
(d) Cheremessian^ Mordvinian
Arabic
(b) Ethiopian
(c)
VII.
VIII.
(d) Maltese
{b) Berber languages
{c) Siamese
{b) Tibetan
malayo-polynesian:
{b) Fijian
{a) Malay
turco-tartar:
{a) Turkish
{b) Tartar
{c)
{d) Burmese
{d) Maori
Tahitian
{c) Kirghiz
dravidian:
Tamil
{a)
IX.
Hebrezv
INDO-CHINESE:
{a) Chinese
VI.
Magyar {Hungarian)
HAMITIC:
(a) Cushite {Somali, Galla)
V.
{e)
SEMITIC:
((7)
IV.
Indie dialects
FINNO-UGRL'VN:
(a) Lappish
III.
Modern
{b) Tehign
{c) Canarese
bantu:
Kafir, Zulu, Bechuana, Sesuto, Herero,
Congo, Dnala,
etc.
GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES

Because oranimatical
nish one of the three
relationship,
it
is
similarities between dilTerent lansfuaCTes furmost important indications of evolutionarv
useful to recognize certain general grammatical
which may be uiore or less characteristic of a language. From

point of view we can classify language t\pes which luay coincide
features
this
%vith
genuine evolutionary
affinity, if the
evidence of grammar
ported by other clues such as the two already discussed.

are not available, the fact that languages are classified in
If
is
sup-
other clues
this
way
does
not necessarily point to common origin, because languages which are

related may have lost outstanding grammatical similarities, and lancruacres which belono" to different families may have evolved similar
grammatical
traits
along different paths.
From
this point of view,
can divide languages into the follo\\ing types:
v.
isolating, flexional,
root-inflected and classificatory.
The
first
embraces
and the
last are
a great diversity
the most clear-cut; and the second,
Mhich
of tongues, depends on grammatical de-
THE CLASSIFICATION OF
w
vices
of
all
hicli
L A N
ha\c no conunon origin. Even w hen w
three to the utmost,
isolated llcxional
we
UACK
(i
89
c stretch the hniits
which
are left with nian\' lannuagcs in
and classilicatorx features m,\y be blended
predominance of
ithout
\\
one of them, and the language of a

single conimunitN' ma\- traverse the boundaries of such groups in a
comparativel\- short period of its historv. Thus the I'.nglish of Alfred
the Great was a txpicallv fiexional language, and Anglo-American is
decisive
an\'
predoniinantK' isolating. Basque, w hich
is
indian dialects, and the speech of the
Esquimaux
law unto
itself,
in
the
Amer-
Cireenland,
fit
no clearlv defined familv based on evidence of common ancestrN

and we cannot classifv them in an\' of the three grammatical groups
mentioned above.
The word of an isolating language is an unalterable unit. Neither
fiexional accretions nor internal changes reveal what part the word
plavs in the sentence, as do the changes from bouse to houses, men to
into
words which we should
vien's^ give to gave, live to lived. All the
call
12), and all the words we call nouns are

fixed like grouse. \'ernaculars of the Chinese famil\-, usuall\- cited as
extreme examples of the isolating t\'pe, have other common features
w hich are not necessarih' connected with the fact that the word is an
unchangeable unit; and the fact that thev are difficult to learn has
nothing to do w ith it.
have alreadv touched on the real difficulties,
i.e., its script, ambiguities of the manv homophones
(p. 38) and
phonetic subtleties of the tone values; and shall studv them at greater
length in Chapter X. Here it is important to emphasize that representatives of other language groups, especiallv languages which have
been subject to hvbridization resulting from culture contacts through
trade, conquest or migration, have evolved far tow ard the same goal.
To the extent that the\- have done so, they are easier to learn than
verbs are fixed like
T)nist (p.
We
closelv related neighbors.
Malay
is
one of the Polynesian language group often described as agMalay Winstedt says: "Nouns have
glutinating languages. In his primer of
no inflexion for gender, number or case

there is no article
the
comparative is formed bv using lebeh (more) before the adjective. The
superlative is formed by putting the word sa-kali (most) after the adjective.
There is no inflexion to mark mood, tense or even voice." To
this it may be added that the adjective is invariant and the pronoun has
no case form. Malav is therefore an isolating language with none of the
peculiar disabilities of Chinese, i.e., tone values and numerous homo.
phones.

190
AGGLUTINATION AND AMALGAMATION
The
flexional type includes languages \\hich
fication of
the same
meaning and grammatical
word
and accretion,
relations
mainly indicate modi-
by
affixes
root, x^ccordin^ to the decree of fusion
we
attached to
between core
can distinguish two sorts of external flexion, agglu-
tination and amalgamation.
The ivords of agglutinating languages such as Finnish, Magyar

(Hungarian), and Turkish are not exclusively independent and mobile particles like those of Chinese. Affixes loosely joined to the unchanging root in such a way that the boundary between the core and
its accretion is unmistakable modify the meaning of the former. In
Coin of Maccabean Times with Early Hebrew Characters
Fig. 26.
On
s-q-1 j-s-r-l s p {shekel of Israel year 2).

j-r-w-s-j-m h-q-d-w-s-h {Holy ]enisalein).
left side:
On
right side:
some agglutinating languages, we can recognize many or most of these

affixes as contracted remains of longer words which still enjoy an
independent existence. In others, the affixes do not correspond to
elements ^hich exist apart. What is most characteristic of such languages is that each affix, like an independent word, has a distincthe
meaning. So derivatives (see footnote p. 21) of an agglutinating language when classified according to case, mood, etc., have clear-cut
uses, and the method of forming them is also clear-cut. Neither the
use nor the form of derivatives described by the same name admits the
perplexing irregularities of a typically avialgamating language such as
Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit.
The term
rivatives
itself
implies that agghitinatiiig languages
by the process of fusion
\vhere. This
guages, but
is
it is
not certainly true of
their de-
all
so-called ag-g-lutinatins lan-
appropriate to those of the Finno-Ugrian family.
Hungarian example
SfuaCTes,
form
discussed in Chapter III and else-
will
make
this clear. In the
Indo-European
lan-
the case endinirs are not recognizable as vestiffes of individual

words, but in Majivar \\c can still see how a directive
noun. From bajo, ship, and hajo-k, ships, we get:
9I
"lued to the
is
PLURAL
SINGULAR
hajo-baii (= hajo ^ beiJ7i), in the ship
hajo-k-biW, in the ships
hajo-bol (= hajo + beldl), out of the ship
hajo-k-bol, out of the ships
bajo-ba (= hajo + bele), into the ship

bajo-hoz (= hajo + hozza), toward the
hajo-k-ba, into the ships

^jjo-^-/?oc,
toward the ships
ship
hiijo-zigk (-
hajo + 72ek), for the ship
hajo-k-vak, for the ships
The origin of the affixes is not equally clear in Finnish, but the
example cited illustrates a feature common to Finnish and Magyar.
Case marks of the singular do not differ from those of the plural in
languages of the Finno-Ugrian family. Signs w hich express plurality
remain the same throughout the declension. In contradistinction to
that of Greek or Latin, \\ here number and case marks are indissolubly
fused, the buildup of the flexional forms of the Finnish or Magyar
noun is transparent. The fact that Finnish has fifteen "cases" does
not make it difficult to learn, because the case endings in both numbers are the same for all nouns or pronouns and for adjectives,*
which mimic the endings of the nouns associated with them. Since an
invariable case mark corresponds to the use of a fairly well-defined
particle in
own
our
language, the effort spent in learning the case
endings of a Finnish noun or pronoun

involved in learning the same
number
is
not greater than the effort
of independent words.
Analogous remarks apply to the Finnish verb, which has two tense
The same personal affixes occur
throuchout, and the chanjre in the final root vowel indicatinjT completed action is the same for all verbs. Here is a specimen:
forms, present and past, like ours.
we go
you go
they go
mem-vime
mene-tte
7}ievi-tte
i7ieni-vdt
Tneiie-v'at
Where we
noun, people
should use
who
speak
separate possessive
a
verb. This personal
(house)
we
affix
the)'
pronoun
in front of a
Finno-Ugrian language use an
tached to the end of a noun as the personal
we went
you went
went
mene-imne
affix
follows the case mark.
is
affix at-
attached to the
Thus from
get:
In other Finno-Ugrian languages the adjective takes no case
affix.
talo
192
my house
your house
talo-ssa-nsa
their house
talo-ssa-vmie
in my houses
in your houses
taloi-ssa-nsa
their houses
taloi-ssa-mvie
in
talo-ssa-nne
taloi-ssa-nne
in
in
in
The
first of the three personal affixes is the same for the Finnish noun
and Finnish verb. In Samoyede, a language related to Finnish and
Magyar, the same pronoun suffixes appear throughout the conjugation of the verb and the corresponding possessive derivatives of the
noun. So the formal distinction between noun and verb is tenuous,
as seen by comparing:
my
lainba-da
lainba-ii
ski
laviba-r
^thy ski
niada-u =
The
(my
cut
cutting)
cuttest (thy cutting)
?nada-da = he cuts (his cutting)
his ski
structure of derivative
Ugrian family
mada-r - thou
not al^-ays
words
in
schematic
languages of the Finno-
examples given might

some languages of the family the vowel of the suffix harmonizes ^\ith that of the root word. The result is that one and the
same suffix may have two or even three different vowels, according
to the company it keeps, e.g. in Finnish aldmd-ssd means in the life,
but talo-ssa means //; the house. The modifying suffixes, particularly
in Finnish, sometimes adhere more intimately to the root, as in the
Indo-European languages. Nonetheless, two essential features are
is
as
as the
suggest. In
common
to
all
the Finno-Ugrian group.
from
arbitrary affixes
statement.
The
Thus grammatical gender
Where we draw
One
great regularity of the
is
comparative freedom
which contribute nothing to the meaning of a
prevailing pattern of derivatives.
other
is
(p. loi)
is
completely absent.
between a language which is predominantly agglutinating or isolating depends on where we draw the line
between a laord and an affix. If we do not know the history of a language, it is not easy to do so. We do not recognize words such as
except or but as separate entities because they are names of things at
which we can point or because they stand for actions we can mimic.
We distinguish them from affixes such as iiiis- or anti-, because ive can
move
thein about
the line
the sentejice.
Now
because of the characteristics of English
this test
word
is
straightforward
order.
For example,
we
put prepositions on the one hand, and pointer words or adjectives

on the other, in front of a noun. A pointer word with two or more
adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions can separate a preposition from
a noun.
in
W^hen the
adjective
French, the distinction
is
comes
after the
noun,
not so sharp, and
as it usually
it is less
does
sharp in some

The Hindustani
Indie vernaculars.
(p.
416) adjective precedes and

we cannot
the directive follozis the noun. If these postpositions
them prepositions
rightly call
would be nothing
never
strayed further afield, there
them from
to distinguish
193
case affixes like those of
Finnish.
pronoun as an independent element of living speech

bv any other criterion. The reader who knows some
French will realize that the pronouns je, vie, tv, te, il, etc., never stand by
themselves. \\'hen a Frenchman answers a question with a single word,
he replaces them bv nioi, toi, liii, etc. We recognize tliem as ivords by
their mobility in the sentence. That je or il do not always stand immediatelv in front of the verb is due to certain accidents of the French language, viz, the fact that the pronoun object and the negative particle ne
precede the verb, and the use of inversion for question formation. By
the same token (p. 191) we ought to call the personal suffixes of the Fin-
Even
is
the status of a
difficult to assess
nish verb, pronouns.
Thus
the distinction between an affix and a particle
when
only
the conventions of
mobility of the
when,
lating
able elements
is
agglutinating,
particle
and
described
tions
\\
by
ith
latter.
as in
characteristic of
we
affix
usually
is
mean
it.
When we
Grimm
first
speak of
language as
that a clear-cut distinction
between
impossible because any of the formal elements
either of these
names occurs
in a small rangre of
e.g.
Some grammarians apply

\\-ith a
those
The
we
combina-
call
nouns,
the epithet agglutina-
highly regular system of
the Bantu dialects discussed below.
as a
mobility of unchancre-
sfreat
recognizably separate words,
any language
clear-cut
is
the independent
are entitled to speak of a language as iso-
Chinese vernaculars,
adjectives, or verbs.
tive to
We
word order permit
affixes,
including
veteran philologist Jacob
emphasized the merits of Magyar and commended it

in language planning. The existence
model to people interested
of such regularity in natural languages has
left a
strong impress on
projects for a constructed world auxiliary.
At an
early stage in the process of agglutination
many words will

vmch
share similar affixes, because the latter have not yet suffered
modification
by
fusion with different roots.
Hence mere
regiilnrity
of affixes has sometimes been used as a criterion of the afjolutinatinsf

type; but regularity
may
also result
After amalgamation has gone
new
\\ords
by the process of
from an
entirely different process.
far, lifeless affixes
tack themselves on to
may be
with an amal-
analogical extension, or old ones
regularized for the same reason. In this
way
a language
194
gamating
past, e.g. Italian,
may approach
the regularity of a language
which few words have yet reached the stase of true external
flexion. So the fact that Turkish or Japanese have regular affixes does
not mean that they have evolved in the same way as Hungarian or
Finnish. Only the last tM'o, together with Esthoman, with the language of the Lapps, and with dialects of a considerable region of
northern Siberia constitute a truly related group within the heteroin
geneous assemblage once called the Tiiraman family.

In a language of the amalgauiating tvpe, e.g. Sanskrit, Greek, or
Latin, modifications of the sense of the word and the place it takes
in the sentence depend on affixes intimately fused with the radical
{root) element. Since fusion between core and affix is intimate, the
build-up of words
by no means
is
can rarely dissect them.

(p. 191),
because
transparent.
Even the grammarian
can always recoarnize which accretions
number or
are characteristic of
yar noun
We
all
case in the various forms of the
Mag-
the plural case forms, as oi hajo (ship),
contain the suffix -k immediately after the root; but comparison of
noun does not
singular and plural case forms of an Indo-European
you which
part of the suffix attached to the root
is
characteristic of a particular case or of a particular
nmnber. There
is
common
all
necessarily
tell
no part of the
suffix
to
all
plural in contrast to
case forms. In a language such as Latin or Sanskrit there
the suffix
common
see this
no part of
to the genitive, singular or plural, in contradis-
tinction to the different
You can
is
number forms
without
case forms of a Latin
of
difficulty, if
all
other case forms.
you compare the following
word with our Hungarian example:

ships
nav;V, a ship
n-^\es,
navzV, of a ship
Wixiinn, of the ships
to a ship
navibiis, to the ships
navi,
singular
English equivalents for different case forms of the Latin for a ship or
ships, as printed above, are those given in textbooks,
and the truth
is
from the beginner. Correct choice

of case endings in a typical amalgamating language does not always
depend on whether the English equivalent would have a particle such
as of or to in front of it. The Latin case ending is much more versatile
than in the corresponding Magyar one. The dative navi turns up in
many situations, where we cannot translate it by to a ship, and there
is no simple rule which tells us what ending to tack on a Latin noun
that textbooks conceal the worst
11
CLASSIFICATION OF
L A X G U A G K
95
one of several dative situations. Compare, for instance, the following \\ ith the preceding examples:
in
portj,
a gate
ponne,
portrtt',
of a gate
portarian, of the gates
portijc, to a gate
gates
to the gates
port/i',
Comparison of the case forms of these two nouns emphasizes
Though
now remarka-
the irregularity of derivatives in an amalgamating language.
Knolibh
is
no
lonirer an amaliramatinu lanijuaffe

its
way
English nouns
which the
no single
way
in
plural of
\\
all
is
is no single
formed; and there is
English verbs is formed.
blv regular in comparison with

in
and
nearest neighbors, there
hich the past of
is
We
all
can arrange English nouns in families like man-vwuse or pan-house,

according to the way in which we derive their plural forms, and
verbs in families such as sing-drink, think-bring, live-bakc, according
to the
way
in
which we derive the
we
many
ing lanouaire
past tense. In a typical amalgamat-
have to reckon with
many noun
families (declen-
and
verb families (conjugations). Each declension has
its own type of case as well as plural formation. Each conjugation
has its own way of building person, time, mood, and voice derivatives.
sions)
The two most
characteristic features
which
distinouish lansruafres
of the amalgamating from languages of the agglutinating type
summed up
may
way. Amalgamating languages have

many derivatives arbitrarily chosen by custom in situations connected
by no common thread of meaning, and many different ways of forming the derivative appropriate to a single context in accordance with
meaniniT or conventional usacie. The table manners of an asffflutinatinsr
language are unassuming. You use a spoon because a spoon is the tool
appropriate for soup, and there is no difficulty about recognizing
\\ hat a spoon is, because all the spoons are produced according to a
standard pattern. The table manners of an amalgamating language are
largely molded bv^ a code of Q-entlemanly uselessness. You have a
therefore be
in this
large assortment of tools before you.
Whether you
use a fork \\ith or
without a knife or a spoon depends on conventions of social class

without regard to the texture of the food.
To all the intrinsic difficulties of learninfj a lansûajje such as Latin,
old-fashioned grammarians and schoolmasters have added the distracting pretense that such table manners have a rational basis. This
is false. The grammar of an agglutinating language such as Finnish (or
ig6
is mainly concerned with meaning. The grammar of an

amalgamating language such as Latin is mainly concerned with social
ritual. If you hope to master a language such as Latin, the question
you have to ask is not what any one of half a dozen different affixes
which grammarians describe as trademarks of the ablative case signify.
They have no unique meaning. Each case affix of a Latin noun is the
trademark of a shelf of diversely assorted idioms. The business of the
learner who succeeds in emerging from the fog of false rationality in
Esperanto)
textbooks of
classical
grammar
or Greek authors use these
is
to find out in
The
affixes.
social habit, like eating asparagus
do
is
is
reason
that the people with
money
fingers.
so.
Like the boundary between
oil
and
\\'ater in a test
ence between amalgamation and agglutination
would be
tube, the differ-
not clear-cut.
is
It
good reasons for describing the personal

verb (or the verb of some Indian vernaculars)
difficult to give
suffixes of the Celtic
as
situations Latin
The only
with the
for making an exception of asparagus
what
use of Latin case forms
amalgamating in contradistinction to agglutinating. Flexions of

kind pass through the stage of agglutination to amalgamation.
this
They
then propagate themselves by analogy, as when we stick the -s

in: he parks his car here. Conventions of script may
on the park
greatly exaggerate or hide regularities or irregularities of the spoken
language.
The
literary language of
of flexions \\'hich are
many Germans. The same
more
is
tion of French speech
would make
a faithful transcrip-
recall the characteristics of
209). Written English
(p.
preserves a luxuriance
true of French. French script con-
ceals a wealth of contractions which
dialects
Germany
not clearly audible in the daily intercourse of
is
more
some Amerindian
Anglo-
isolating than
it, because it frowns on many agglutinative

or negative particle (e.g. irho've, îroiit)
pronoun
contractions of the
American
as
we
speak
with helper verbs.
A larcre proportion
of the languages of the world got script
missionaries bent on spreading the use of sacred texts.
The
from
alien
missionary
who equips a language with its alphabet uses his own judgment to decide
which elements of speech are, or are not, to be treated as separate words,
and his judgment is necessarily prejudiced by the grammatical framework
of his
own
education.
If
he
is
a classical scholar,
he will approach
Greek and the
the task with a keen eye for similarities between Latin or
language which he
is
learning.
197
ORIGIN OF FLEXIONS
value of the distinction between an isohiting type, w hich shuns
The
an ag^hitiimtiug tvpe which favors
affixation,
regular
affixes,
irregular ones,
and an arnalgavmting tvpe which conserves

lies less in
the fact that
it
of highly
a variety
a ^êlter of
dra^s attention to
differences bet\\een different languages, than that
it
essential
emphasizes the
coexistence of processes which plav a part in the evolution of one and

the same language.
Though one
of these processes
given moment, the others are never absent.
modern English or modern French

by thousands of years. It
separated
diviner
prevail at a
exhibits characteristics
is
like a
which
as
are
bus in which the water
next to the trained geologist, and the faith healer next to
sits
the physician.
vâults
may
language such
The vowel chime
of sing, sang, sung, re-echoes
of time before the chanting of the Vedic hymns, while
from
a con-
siderable class of English verbs such as cast, hurt, put, have shed
Aryan
the
Anglogrammar
of
verb as such. In this and in other ways the
American language is far more like that of Chinese than that of Latin
nearly every trace of the characteristics which distinguish the
or Sanskrit.
Nobody
hesitates to call Chinese isolating
and Latin amalgamating,
but neither label attached to French would do justice to

course of the
its
last
it.
In the
moved away from
thousand years or so, French has

and has gradually shifted toward isolation without
flexional origin
French has not gone nearly so far as

English along this path, and Italian has lagged behind French, but
Italian is much easier to learn, because what has happened to the few
surviving flexions of English has happened to the far more elaborate
flexional system of Italian. There has been extensive leveling of the
fully shedding
its
accretions.
endings by analogical extension which continually swells the overwhelming majority of English plurals ending in -s or English past
tense forms ending in -ed. To this extent modern Italian has assumed
a
regularity reminiscent of Finnish, while
battery of
(p. :;6i)
new
it
has also collected a large
agglutinative contractions for the definite article
accompanied by
a preposition.
Like other formative processes, leveling or regularization by anal-
ogy Maxes
in periods of illiteracy
the discipline of script.
remaining flexions will
and culture contact, waning under
The part it has played in the evolution of our

come up for further discussion in Chapter VI.
198
What
applies to flexions, or to derivative affixes such as the -er in
baker, applies equally to pronunciation, to
word order and
in general. Habit, local or personal limitations of
man
laziness continually conspire to
familiar
word
or phrase on those
we
to syntax
vocabulary and hu-
impose the pattern of the more

use less often.
To
the extent that
grammarians have set themselves against the popular drift toward

(pp. 161 and 264) regularity, their influence has been retrograde.
Analogical extension
is
the process
by which
always striving to assume the orderliness of
To
natural languages are
constructed auxiliary.
get rid of the disorder inherent in natural languages was the
cardinal
7720tif
The
of language planning in the latter half of the nineteenth
was not entirely novel. The grammarians of anhad discussed it and ^^'ere of two minds. One party, the anoiiialists, took the conservative view. The other, the analogists, swam with
the stream, and even practiced revision of texts to prune away grammatical irregularities. The controversy ^\ent on for several centuries.
Among others, Julius Caesar took a hand in it. As a oeneral he favored
regimentation. So he naturally took the side of the analogists.
The fact that isolation is the predominant feature of some languages (e.g. Chinese dialects or Malay), regularity of affixes the outstanding characteristics of others (e.g. Finno-Ugrian dialects, Japanese, Turkish) and chaotic irregularity of suffixes the prevailing
grammatical pattern of a third group (e.g. Sanskrit, Greek, Latin or
Old English) has prompted speculations which take us into the t\îlight of human speech, without much hope of reaching certainty.
Some linguists believe that primitive speech was a singsong matrix
from which words emerged with the frayed edges of a Sanskrit noun
or verb. According to this view there has been a steady progress from
amalgamation, through agglutinative regularity to isolation. Others
century.
issue
tiquity
They believe that the speech of our primionce consisted of separate root words which were
probably monosyllabic, like those of Chinese dialects. If so, words
which carried less emphasis than others became attached as modifiers
to more meaningful ones. Finally, these accretions crot intimately
fused, and forfeited their former independence.
Since we can see four processes, isolation, agglutinative contraction, leveling by analogy and flexional fusion, competing simultaneously in English or Italian, these extremes do not exhaust all the
conceivable possibilities of evolution. If we hear less about a third,
and more likely one, the reason is that most linguists still allow far
favor the opposite view.
tive ancestors

too
little t'nne
for the evolution of speech.
grow Archbishop
Ussher's chronology
creation as October
4,
4004
B.C., at
It
99
has taken us long to out-
which
fixed the date of the
nine o'clock in the morning. Al-
though our knowledge of grammar does not extend much further

back than three thousand years, human beings like ourselves have
existed for at least twenty times as long. We now know that the age
of man, as a talking animal, may be as much as a hundred thousand
years, perhaps more; and anything we can learn about Sanskrit, old
Chinese
or even the ancient
than the
last
philologist
schaft
Hittite language
saw the implications of
Von
can
charred pages of a burnt-out bookshelf.

this.
In his
never be more
Long
ago, one
book Sprachivissen-
der Gabelentz (1891) has suggested the possibility that

and flexion may succeed one another in a
isolation, agglutination,
cyclical or spiral sequence:
"Language moves along the diagonal of two forces. The tendency

towards economy of effort which leads to a slurring of the sounds, and
the tendency towards clearness which prevents phonetic attrition from
causing the complete destrnctii)n of language. The affixes become fused
and finally they disappear without leaving any trace behind, but their
functions remain, and strive once more after expression. In the isolating
languages they find it in word-order or formal elements, which again succumb in the course of time to agglutination, fusion and eclipse. Meanwhile, language is already preparing a new substitute for what is decaying
in the form of periphrastic expressions which may be of a syntactical
kind or consist of compound words. But the process is always the same.
The line of evolution bends back towards isolation, not quite back to
the previous path, but to a nearly parallel one. It thus comes to resemble
a spiral. ... If we could retrace our steps for a moment to the presumptive root-stage of language, should we be entitled to say that it is the first,
and not perhaps the fourth, or seventh, or twentieth in its history that
the spiral, to use our simile once more, did not already at that time have so
and so many turns behind? \\'hat do we know about the age of mankind?"
ROOT INFLEXION
While the
distinction
external flexion
is
fluid,
between
ajro-jutination
and amalgamation or
modification of meaning by root inflexion,
such
as in s%v'nn-sv:avi-sv:inii,
that
it
is sharply defined. This example shows

Indo-European group, though it is less typical
than addition of suffixes. Its oldest Aryan manifestation, called Ablaut
by German grammarians, is most characteristic of the verb. We have
exists in the
200
met with examples
in the strong class which includes ^lyzV/?, come,

Ablaut is common in Sanskrit {matum, to measure mita,
measured), and in Greek (trepo, I turn tetropha, I have turned),
but much less so in Latin. Today it is most strongly entrenched in
the Teutonic group.
find,
sit.
Several types of root vowel change are particularly characteristic
of Teutonic, especially German, verbs.

of which one
member
is
intransitive
other transitive in a causative sense.

English, e.g.
but
we
{cause to
lie) a
cause
book on the
it
to
table.
Thus we
fall).
We
a flag on a pole.
Umlaut is the technical word for
is
the existence of pairs
We
fall-fell, lie-lay, sit-set.
fell a tree (i.e.,
One
(cannot have an object), the

still have a few such pairs in
sit
We
fall
lie
down
{iyitrans.);
down; but we
down; but we
lay
set {cause to
sit)
the Teutonic group.

illustrated
by
It is
type of root inflexion peculiar to
specially characteristic of the noun,
and
is
the English plurals man-men, foot-feet. Such pairs
originally had a plural suffix containing the i or j (p.

modified the vowels a, o, u in the stem itself. Thus
German gast-gesti (mod. Germ.
Gast-Gciste).
The
we
sound, which
get
Old High
process began
first
and was already complete in documents of the eighth century. Alfred's English had fot-fet, mus-mys (pronounce the y like
the u of French or the u of German). In the language of Shakespeare
they appear as fut-fit and mous-meis. Old English had other pairs
which have since disappeared. Thus the plural of hoc, our book (German Buch) was bee (German Bilchcr), and that of hnutu, our nut
(German Nuss) was hnyte (German Niisse). This trick never bein English,
ENGLISH

which
20I
retain a plural ending also have a modified stem vowel.
German and Swedish
equivalents of the lucm-uiQU class are
The
shown
on the preceding page.

The same process has affected other types of word derivation in
Teutonic languages, especially German. For instance we distinguish
betw een the adjectival and noun forms ]oiil and filthy or between the
verb and adjectival forms fill and \iill (German fiille?i and voll). Similarly we have noun-verb pairs such as: gold-gild, food-feed (Fiitterfiittern), tale-tell (Zahl-zahlen), brood-breed {Bnit-brilten). Other
related pairs distinguished by stem vowel change are fox-vixen and
elder-older.
In
German the shifting of the
several
hundred years
root vowels went on in historic times,
after that of English. It did not reach
pletion before about a.d.
i i
50.
Once
com-
the pattern became fashionable
words which never had the / sound in the succeeding

drift toward unification had set in before the printing
press mummified the grammar of German. Thus vowel change now
crops up in the comparative and superlative of nearly all monoit
affected
syllable.
No
syllabic adjectives (e.g. hoch-hoher), distinguishes the ordinary past
of
many
verbs from the subjunctive (e.g. ich iiahiii-ich nahme), the
agent from his activity

the basic
tive
word
(giit-Giite),
s7?iooth-to
(e.g.
backeji-B ticker), the diminutive
{Haiis-Hdiischen)
the verb
the noun-abstract from
from the adjective
(e.g.
its
from
adjec-
glatt-gldtteji,
smooth).
In many German dialects such mutation appears where standard

German does without. Thus we meet Hilnd, Arvi, Tag, for Hiinde,
Arme, Tage, and Yiddish opposes tog-teg

GERMAN
to the
Tag-Tage of com-
202
stirb! (die!)
dies)
vjenn
er start (he died)
er stiirbe (if he died).
er
ist
gestorben (he has died)
The backwardness
of
German
root
vowel behavior is particularly impressive if we compare it with both

Old English and Modern English, as shown on the preceding page.
In view of the prevailing ideology of the Third Reich, there is an
element of comedy in this peculiarity which puts German apart from
its sister languages. Internal vowel change, which is subsidiary to
external flexion in the group as a wdiole, is the trademark of the
Semitic familv.
two or
The
Semitic root
four, consonants.
Thus
word
consists of three, less often of
the consonantal group sh-m-r signifies
the general notion of "guarding," and g-n-b the general notion of
"steahng." Into this fixed
framework
fit
vowels, which change ac-
cording to the meaning and grammatical functions of the word.

From the root sh-m-r v/e get sha?nar, he has guarded; shoiner, guarding; shamur, being guarded. From the root g-ii-b we have ganab, he
has stolen; goneb, stealing; gamib, being stolen. Though Semitic languages form derivatives by addition of prefixes and suflixes, such additions have a much smaller range than those of the older Indo-
European languages. It is therefore misleading to lump Semitic

together with the Indo-European languages as flexional types. Semitic
languages constitute a sharplv marked type characterized by root
inflexion, in contradistinction to afualgaiiiation, ^vhich
tic of the old
Aryan languages such
as Sanskrit, Latin,
is
characteris-
or Russian.
student of German will find it useful to tabulate some essenfeatures of the language. Excluding minor irregularities
Semitic
tially
comparatives
as hoch-boher (high-higher), we can distinsuch
and
The
guish the following categories:

i)
In the conjugation of the second and third person singular of the

present tense and sometimes in the imperative of many strong
verbs, e.g.:
sprechen
203
4) Plural derivatives of neuter and masculine nouns with the stem

vowels, a, o, u, an, e.g. Kalb-Kdlhcr (calf-calves), liuch-Buchcr
(book-books), Stock-Stocke (stick-sticks), Haus-Haiiser (househouses )

5) Adjectival
derivatives
for
materials,
(wood-
Holz-holzcrn
e.g.
wooden), Erde-irde?i (earth-earthen).

6) Adjectival derivatives v,ith the suffixes -ig, -icht, -isch, or -Itch, e.g.
Macbt-vidcbtig (power-powerful), Haus-hauslich (house-domes(town-urban).
tic), Stadt-stddtisch
7) Diminutives, e.g. Mimn-Mdnnchen, Frau-Frdulcin.

8) Abstract feminine nouns in -c, e.g. gut-die Giite (good-goodness),
boch-die
Hobe
(high-the height).
9) Collective neuter nouns, Berg-Gebirge (mountain-mountain range),
Wiinn-Getaurm (Morm-vermin )
10)
Feminine nouns which take
Hzmd-Hiindin (dog-bitch).
-in, e.g.
CLASSIFICATORY LANGUAGES
The Bantu
lanmiafres of Africa illustrate features
common
to the
speech of backward and relatively static cultures throughout the

world. One of these gives us a clue to the possible origin of gender in
the Indo-European group.
native tongues spoken
huge
triangle, the
The Bantu
family includes nearly
from the equator
only exceptions are
ail
the
Cape Province. In this

the dialects of the Bushmen,
to the
of the Hottentots, and of the Pygmies of Central Africa.
About
hundred and fifty Bantu dialects form a remarkably homogeneous

unit. Most of them are not separated by greater differences than those
which distinguish Spanish from Italian.
One member has been known to us since the seventeenth century.
In 1624, a catechism appeared in Congolese.
generation later the
two documents show that the lanCTuag-c has chanjred little durinfj the last three
hundred years, and therefore refute the belief that unwritten languages necessarily change more rapidly than codified ones. One Bantu
language already had a script before the arrival of the Christian
missionary and the white trader. It is called Swahili, and was originally
Italian, Bnisciotto,
published a Congolese grammar. These
the dialect of Zanzibar.
Today
it is
the Imgiia jranca of the East Coast
of i\frica. For several centuries before the Great Navigations, Arabs
had been trading with Zanzibar, and the native community adopted
the unsuitable alphabet of the
The
Moslem merchants.
Kafir-Sotho group of Bantu languages (South-East Africa)
204
have a peculiarity not shared bv other members of the same family

In addition to consonants common to the speech of other peoples,
there are characteristic clicks produced
resemble the smacking sound of a
"borrowed" elements from the
by
inspiration of
kiss. It is
air.
They
probable that they are
click languages of the
Bushmen and
Hottentots.
The
existence of the Bantu family as such has been recognized for
a century.
limited
This
number
clusters labeled
is
partly because every
name word belongs
to one of a
of prefix-labeled classes analogous to our small
by such
suffixes as -er, -ship,
word
-hood, -dom, and -ter or
-ther in father, mother, brother, sister, daughter. So also in Greek,
many
animals have names ending in -x, e.g. alopex (fox), aspalax

(mole), dorx (roe-deer), hystrix (porcupine), pithex (ape). The
analogous German terminal -chs also holds together a limited group
of animals,
e.g.
Dachs (badger), Fuchs (fox), Lachs (salmon), Ochs
German names
for animals have another suffix, -er, e.g.

Adler (eagle), Ha?7ister (hamster), Kater (tomcat), Sperber (hawk).
Endings such as these are isolated examples of what is a universal
characteristic of the Bantu languages. The name of any thing, any
person, or any action is labeled by a particular prefix which assigns
it to one of about twenty classes of words labeled in the same
(ox). Several
way.
The
other outstanding peculiarity of the Bantu family
is
that the
noun prefix colors the entire structure of the sentence. Whatever

moves within the orbit of a noun is stamped accordingly. Thus a
qualifying adjective or even a numeral carries the prefix of the pre-
ceding noun which
it
qualifies, e.g. mii-imi,
mu-lotu {man handsojjie
= handsome man), but ba-ntit ba-lotii {men handsome = handsome

men). The pronoun of the third person has a form which more or less
recalls the prefix of the
= he {the
man)
is
In-lede = he (the
noun represented by
asleep,
ii-
baby)
/V
sabila (baby). In Swahili
it.
In the sentence u-lede
reflects the imi- of mii-ntu
asleep,
///-
echoes the
{man), and
classifier hi-
in
of lu-
and many other Bantu languages, the per-
prefixed to the verb even
when
the sentence has a
sonal
pronoun
noun
subject, e.g. ba-kazana ba-enda {the girls they go). This binding
is
too'ether of the various parts of the sentence produces a kind of aliterative singsong, e.g.:
205
The tvpe of concord which occurs in a highly inflected Aryan language produces an analogous but rhyming singsong, e.g. in German:
die hiibschcn avierikauischQn Stiideiitinntn
pretty American coeds
The Bantu
forms.
prefixes of
made
a hit).
most
classes
machten Sensation (the
have distinct singular and plural
singular prefix 7mi- (Subiya), corresponding to a plural prefix
ba-, signifies
human
agents.
Thus
7/m-sisTi
means boy, and
ba-sisu
means
boys. Another singular prefix ki- (Swahili), corresponding to the plural

prefix vi-, is largely used for manufactured things, e.g. ki-funiko, cover,
and vi-fwiiko, covers. The prefix ma- (Sotho) is characteristic of a collectivity, of a big number, a liquid, and also of things which occur in
pairs, e.g. tna-naka (horns of an animal). The prefix ka- (Ganda) corresponding to a plural prefix, tu-, denotes small size, e.g. ka-utu (small man),
tii-ntii (small men). Wîth the prefix bo- (Duala), abstract nouns are
formed, derived from adjectives, verbs and names for things, e.g. bo-nyaki
(growth, from nyaka, grow). The prefix kii- (Ganda) serves for the
formation of verb nouns or infinitives, e.g. ku-lagira (to command, or
commanding).
no precise parallel to this type of concord in our own

fall back on an artificial model to illustrate what it
involves. Let us first suppose that every English noun had one of
twenty prefixes analogous to the suffix -er common to the occupational fisher-writer-biiilder class. We may also suppose that the words
dog and sheep respectively carried the prefixes be- and 7/?'-. If English also had the same concord system as a Bantu dialect, the sentence
hungry dogs sometimes attack young sheep would then be be-hungry
be-dogs sometimes be-they -attack vf-young vf-sheep.
The origin of the Bantu classifiers is not above dispute. It is possible,
though not conclusively proved, that they were once independent
words v.ith a concrete meaning, standing for groups of allied objects,
Since there
language,
is
we must
human beings, trees, liquids, things long or short, big or

Mcak or strong. When associated with other words they originally marked them as members of one class. According to this view,
be-dog and vf -sheep of the parable used above would be what re-
such
as
small,
mains of beast-dog and meat-sheep. Subsequently the outlines of oncedistinct classes
and the
so,
became blurred through contamination and
classifier
fusion,
sank to the level of a purely grammatical device. If
the original plan has survived only in the
first
few exceptions these signify human beings.

Only in a relatively static society at a primitive
two
classes.
With
level of culture
with
2o6
little
division of labor could classificatorv particles retain a clear-cut
function. Migration and civilization bring

situations
which
for
call
new
vocables.
any pre-existing niche of
into
human
beings into
These do not necessarily
new
fall
a classificatory system. In fact, lan-
guages of the classificatory type are confined to communities which

used neither script nor the plow before contact with white men.
The surmise that Bantu classifiers were once concrete words suggests
analogy with the mmieratives which the Chinese and Japanese almost
invariably insert between figures and things counted, as when we
speak of three head of
(
two men),
three
Thus
cattle.
tail fish (
the Chinese say
two
piece inan
= three fish), four handle knife
= four
=five officials): The analogy should

because Bantu classifiers no longer possess a
knives), five ornament officials
not be pushed too far,

clear-cut meaning, nor do they survive as independent words.
Particles or affixes used as classifiers are not confined to the Bantu
languages. Capell * writes as follows about one of the Papuan dialects:
"In the languages of Southern Bougainville nouns are divided into upclasses, and the adjectives and numerals vary in agree-
wards of twenty
ment with
same
it is
which the noun belongs. One
the class to
effect as in the
Bantu languages, except that
gets
in the
something of the
Papuan languages
the e?id of the ivord, not the beginning, that changes."
In Kiriwinian, a language of the Trobriand Islands, demonstratives

as well as adjectives
and numerals are coupled with characteristic
common
to all members of a particular class of

noun, and each noun belongs to such a class. Professor Malinowski,
w^ho has given an illuminating account ** of it, describes its essential
peculiarities in the following passage:
particles
which
are
"Let us transpose this peculiarity of Kiriwinian into English, following

the native prototype very closely, and imagine that no adjective, no
numeral, no demonstrative, may be used without a particle denoting the
nature of the object referred to. All names of human beings would take
the prefix 'human.' Instead of saying 'one soldier' we would have to say
'human-one soldier walks in the street.' Instead of 'how many passengers
were
in the accident?'
'how human-many passengers were
dent?' Answer, 'human-seventeen.'
human-nice people?'
*
we
Or
in the acci-
again, in reply to 'Are the Smiths
should say, 'No, they are human-dull!' Again,
Oceania, 1937.
** Classificatory Particles in Kiriwina

Studies, vol. i, 1917-20).
(Bulletin of the School of Oriental
207
nouns denoting persons belonging to the female sex would be numbered,

pointed at, and qualified w ith the aid of the prefix 'female'; wooden objects with the particle 'wooden'; flat or thin things with the particle
'leafy,' following in all this the precedent of Kiriwina. Thus, pointing
at a table, we would say, 'Look at woodcn-this'; describing a landscape,
'leafy-brown leaves on the wooden-large trees'; speaking of a book, 'leafyhundred pages in it'; 'the women of Spain are female-beautiful'; 'human"
this boy is very naughty, but femalc-this girl is good.'
Thus the habit of labeling all name words with one of a limited
number of affixes is not confined to the Bantu family. It is widely
distributed among unrelated languages spoken b\" static and back\\'ard communities throughout the w orld. The number of such classes
may be as many as twenty, as in Bantu dialects; or it may be as few as
four, as in one of the dialects of the Australian aborigines.
sificatory
cited
by
mark
is
Capell,
it
The
clas-
not necessarily a prefix. In the Papuan language

is
a suffix like the
gender terminal of an Aryan
adjective.
Thus
type
is
the distinction between the classificatory and the flexional
not so sharp as
it first
seems to be.
The trademark
of the Indo-
European adjective as a separate entity is that it carries the suffix

determined by one of the three gender classes to which a noun is
assigned. We know- that what are called adjectives in Aryan languages
were once indistinguishable from nouns, and the example of Finnish
(p. 191) shows us how easily the ending of the noun gets attached to
an accompanying epithet. In each of the three Aryan gender classes
we meet with a greater or less proportion of nouns with characteristic affixes limited to one of them, and the notion of sex which an
American or an Englishman associates with gender has a very flimsy
relation to the classification of Indo-European nouns in their respective
gender
classes.
Though we have no firsthand knowledge about the origin of

gender, we know enough to dismiss the likelihood that it had any
essential connection with sex. The most plausible view is that the
Indo-European family is all that is left of a
Bantu prefixes. If so, the former
luxuriance of such a system has been corroded in turn by nomadic
habits and civilized living as primitive Aryan-speaking tribes successively came into contact with new objects which did not fit into the
distinction of gender in the
system of
suffixes essentially like the
framework of
settled life at a
a classification suited to the limited experience of
low
level of technical
equipment.
2o8
PHONETIC PATTERN OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES
we
Just as
recognize grammatical processes such as isolation, ag-
we can also recognize sound

one or other group. Such phonetic
glutination, amalgamation, root inflexion,
patterns
which predominate
in
patterns furnish us with an additional clue to linguistic
which too
beit a clue
few^ philologists have followed up.
tion illustrates one phonetic type
which
is
affinities, al-
Our
last sec-
distributed over a large
part of the world. In a multitude of unrelated languages, including
Japanese, Malayo-Polynesian, and Bantu dialects, agglutinative regu-
sound pattern quite unlike that of our own lan(Gro^vth and

it. Jespersen
Structure of the English Language) illustrates the contrast by the
larity coexists \\'ith a
guage or of any languages related to
following passage from the language of Hawaii, of which the familiar

place names (e.g. Honohihi) recall the same characteristics as the
Japanese Yokohama^ Fujiyama, etc.: / kona hiki ana akii
ia inai la oia me ke aloha piiniehana loa.
ilaila
ua
hookipa
The
syllable in this
ceded bv
a
sample consists of
simple consonant. That
typical Chinese word.
clusters. In
Aryan
vowel or of
vowel pre-
to say (p. 49) the syllable is like

languages are rich in consonant
is
languages as far apart as Norwegian, Welsh, and Greek,
we may meet
at
the beginning of
many words any
are attuned.
family.
They
also illustrate
Aryan words
bles; and, if
r, t
followed by
of the consonants
by /, t, or tr. For
or
expression, blassprinkle,
sprightly,
words
as
this reason alone such
Zwetschge
(prune),
are quite forelectrical,
the
German
pheme,
or
peoples
of the world
pattern
sounds
to
which
many
of
eign to the
b, d, f, g. k, p,
followed bv
r, s
another characteristic of the Aryan
are comparatively rich in closed (p. 49) sylla-
monosyllabic, are
commonly
of the closed type illustrated
by God and 7/M/7, or cat and dog. We have many English monosyllables which illustrate both these trademarks of Aryan word structure, e.g. breeds, straps, pro-zvled, phmip, sprained, smelts, bhmts,
stinks, floats, proved., stringed.
Firth * points out that certain combinations of

illustrated
by word
ular groups within the
posts of
vey
*
Aryan
family.
word
origin.
common
consonants
We shall find that some clusters,
the Greek PS-, Latin -CT-, and Teutonic
e.g.
initial
counts in dictionaries are characteristic of partic-
Some
SN-
or
SK-
clusters or elements of a cluster
are sisjn-
may
con-
thread of meaning in groups of words which exist in
Speech (Benn's Library)

closely related languages. In English there are about a
twenty verbs
in
ble, ivangle,
riddle, coddle,
which
a final
209
hundred and
suggests repetitive action, as in liob-
bungle, handle, nestle, snaffle, tipple,
sprinkle.
AmontT modern Arvan lamjuaijes Italian has moved furthest from

Aryan pattern, owing to elimination of some Latin medial consonant combinations, e.g. -CT- to -TT- (p. 237), and through the
decay of the final consonant of the Latin terminals. Hence almost all
Italian words end in a vowel. Converselv English is verv rich in words
which end w ith a consonant cluster o\\ ing to the decay of the vowel
the
of a terminal syllable,
e.g.
the short e
still
fairly audible in the plural
and in the past suffix of a learned nônian.

So it may be no accident that a wealth of compound consonants and
closed syllables go with a family whose other diagnostic characterflexion of bouses or princes,
istic, at least
that of
all its earliest
Greek, Latin, of which
representatives Sanskrit,
we have knowledge,
is
Old
Persian,
avialgaviatio7i,
i.e.,
great irregularity of affixation.
At one time comparative linguists distinguished an incorporating

accommodate the Amerindian languages,
which illustrate another peculiarity of sound pattern. It is extremely
difficult to recognize where one word begins and another ends in the
lanouaCTe of the Greenland Eskimo. The same is true of a grreat variety
of indigenous, totally unrelated, vernaculars of the American continent. How far people distinguish one word from the next, especially in rapid speech, varies from one dialect to another within a small
or holophrastic type to
group. In a large family such
as the
Aryan,
we
find examples of
highly holophrastic languages such as French or highly staccato lan-
guages such
The
as
German.
peculiar sound pattern of the
todian of the bulk of
modern
Aryan group w hich is now cusknowledge has one result
scientific
relevant (p. 514) to the design of a satisfactory international auxiliary. People who do not speak an Aryan language commonly distort
words of Aryan origin when they assimilate them. Extraneous vowels
break up consonant clusters, or supplement closed syllables, and familiar more or less related sounds replace foreign ones. Thus the Ro-
man
transcription of football and calciiini after passing through the
phonetic sieve of Japanese

deputizes for the alien
/.
is
fotoboni and kantshinmi in which
Since Japanese does not tolerate a terminal
consonant, assimilated words tack on a vowel,
e.g. inki (ink), naihzi
(knife). In fact, Japanese equivalents for technical terms of
Greek
2IO
origin are reminiscent of
labary (Fig. 14).
by
Italian
Greek transcription in ê Cypriotic sylhas drawn attention to similar distortions
Mencken
immigrants in the United
States,
e.g.
atto
(hat),
orso
(horse), scioppa (shop), bosso (boss).
FURTHER READING
FINCK
Language.
Die Haiipttypen des Sprachbaus.
FIRTH
Speech.
BLOOMFIELD
GRAFF
MEILLET
MEILLET and COHEN
PEDERSEN
The Tongues of Men.

Language and Languages.
Les Langiies dans VEurope nouvelle.
Les Langiies du Monde.
Lmgiiistic Science in the Nineteenth Century.
SAPIR
Language.
TUCKER
Introduction to the Natural History of Language.
WHITNEY
Life and
Growth
of Lariguage.
PART
\\
OUR HYBRID HERITAGE

A COOK'S TOUR ROUND THE TEUTONIC
AND ROMANCE GROUPS
CHAPTER
How
Some
VI
to Learn the Basic
Word
people complain of poor memory, and attribute to
culties of learning a foreign language. If also
it
ing a copious vocabulary of technical terms. So a poor

rarely a correct explanation of
sively
on
remote goal.
to the material
itself.
language conscious.
family
who
It is
To
If
task so far the reader
reader
what holds them back.
that the interest of the beginner
is
diffi-
is
memoriz-
memory is
One of the
focused exclu-
not also directed, like that of the naturalist,
learn with least effort
The Loom
who
the
fond of horticulture or of
natural history, they do not complain about the difficulty of
essential obstacles
List
we
have to become
of Lajigiiage has succeeded in
its
has not studied languages before, and the
them without thinking much about their

now be more language conscious. The four chapters
are for those who are. They contain a more detailed
has studied
traits, will
which follow
treatment of some of the languages referred to in previous chapters

for the benefit of the home student who may want to start learning
to read or to write intelligibly in
intends to give the
method of
one or other of them. Anyone who

book a fair trial must pay careful
this
attention to cross references, including references to relevant tables
Part I. Some practical suggestions which immensely lighten the

tedium of traversing the first few milestones when learnincr a new
language have come from the work of scholars who have contributed
to the international language movement (see Chapter XI). They have
in
made
way
and the reader who

Language
as
an
aid
to the study of a
of
foreign language should recall them at this stage.
The most important is to concentrate on learning a relatively small
class of words before trying to learn any others. This class includes
the particles, pronouns, pointer ivords, and helper verbs. There are
several reasons for doing this. One is that a battery of about one
hundred and fifty of such words for ready use, supplemented by a
not yet
wishes to use
their
into current textbooks,
The Loom
14
nodding acquaintance with about a hundred others, includes a very

high proportion of the words we constantly use or constantly meet on
the printed page. A second is that what verbs, adjectives, and nouns we
commonly meet, especially the nouns, depends on individual circumstances and tastes. A third is that it is easier to guess the meaning of
nouns, adjectives, and verbs when we meet them. This is partly because an increasing proportion of new words of this kind are international, and also because the particles are the most unstable elements
in a lanouage. We do not borrow prepositions or conjunctions, but we
constantly borrow nouns, verbs, or adjectives, and such borrowed
^^"ords
play an important part in modern
or for a
museum
life.
The
telephone
A\"ord for a
recognizably the same in English, Swedish, Serbo-
is
Dane who learns the word rabbit in his

from the English primer commonly used in Danish schools
may live ten years in Nottingham or correspond regularly with a
friend in New York without getting involved in a discussion about
rodents of any kind.
If you learn only ten new words of the group which includes particles, pronouns, and pointer words every day for a fortnight, you
will have at your disposal at least 25 per cent of the total number
of words you use ^\hen you write a letter. When you have done this,
Croat, or Hungarian; but the
first
it is
lesson
important to have
and verbs ready for

a foreign language,
The
a small
use.
it is
vocabulary of
Before you
essential nouns, adjectives,
start trying to \ATite or to read in
best to get a bivcfs-eye vieii- of
its
grammatical
view is easy to get in an hour's reading,

and is not difficult to memorize unless the language, like Russian, has
a large number of archaic and useless grammatical devices. Even so,
peculiarities.
much
bird's-eye
of the effort
commonly put
into learning the rules of
grammar
can be capitalized for use in other \\ays, if you do not

till you have a broad general outlook. It will help )'ou to
remember the essentials, if you see them in an evolutionary context.
start
reading or
writing
Since
it is
relatively easy to recall information
written word, a student
who
first
gets a
when prompted by
the
bird's-eye view of the gram-
new
language will be able to recognize essential rules \\'hen

he meets them in newspapers, letters, or books. In this ^-ay, reading
will help to fix them from the start. Contrari^\ise, the beginner who
mar of
starts readino- ^\ithout the bird's-eye
view may become color blind to
conventions ii-hich are essential for correct self-expression. Facility

in guess\\ork may then become a hindrance to learning how to write
or speak correctly.
*irk* i^^
99m u wi t"
-^
>rmj?3Tonrm
'
dlM^Mft *AJk^^^Ktf MKikttdM iMiAAjMltfft
it'
i v^
M;
'/.
27. Three Verses from the Old Testament in the Oldest

Datable AIS of the Hebrew Bible, the Propheten-Codex from Cairo
Fig.
Fig. 28.
Page from the "Codex Argenteus"
Now
in
Uppsala
New
Testament translated by Bishop

Ulfilas into Gothic about a.d. 350. The characters used are mainly drawn from
the Greek alphabet supplemented bv Roman and Runic letters. Note for
instance the Greek symbol "i' which stands not for ps as in Greek writing but
This
is
a sixth-century edition of the
for P.
The Codex Argenteus now
Uppsala has 187 of the

and Milan libraries
and the Old Testament books Ezra and Nehemiah, together with a part of a Gothic calendar.
These are the basis of our earliest knowledge about the Teutonic languages.
in the University library at
original 330 leaves of the four gospels intact. Wolfenbuttel

possess other fragments of the gospels, the Pauline epistles,
HOW
To
sa\-
WORD
TO LEARN BASIC
that the bird's-eve
view given
in the next
help the beginner to start writing to a correspondent
LIST
215
few chapters
will
who
will correct
rules of
becoming color blind to

grammar, does not mean that they provide an insurance policy
aoainst
all
gross errors, or to besfin reading without
applied.
possible mistakes,
Only
the rules given are conscientiously
if
volumes each nearly
a series of
long
as
as this
one and
each devoted to each of the languages dealt with, could claim to do so.
Their aim is to explain what the beginner needs to know in order to
avoid serious misunderstandings in straightforward self-expression
(see
Chapter IV) or the reading of unpretentious prose, and therefore

home student to start using a language with as little delay
to help the
as
is
possible or advisable.
Beyond
this point,
progress in the home, language depends on
progress in a foreign, like

trial
and error.
more easy to form habits than to break them; and it is more

difficult to learn by eye alone than by eye and ear together. So it is a
bad thing to start memorizing foreign words from the printed page
without first learning how to pronounce them recognizably. The
It is
Chapter II) of different languages are verv^

important to learn sufficient about them to avoid
spelling conventions (see

different,
and
it is
gross mistakes.
Beyond
this,
further progress
personal instruction, travel, or
Linguaphone or Columbia
is
impossible without
gramophone records (such
series) for those
careful attention to foreign broadcasts
if
who
as
the
can afford them, and
such opportunities are not
accessible.
Peculiar psychological difficulties beset individuals of English-
speaking countries
when they approach
the study of a foreign lanOthers are due to geographical situation. English-speaking people speak a language which has
become world-wide through conquest, colonization, and economic
guage.
Some
arise
from
social tradition.
penetration. Partly for this reason and partly because their water
frontiers cut
them
off
from
daily contact with other speech
com-
w hich encourage a Dane or a Dutchproficiency. Though these extrinsic im-
munities they lack the incentives
man
to acquire linguistic
pediments are undoubtedly powerful, there is another side to the

picture. Those who have been brought up to speak the AngloAmerican language have one great linguistic advantage. Their word
equipment makes it equally easy for them to take up the study of any
Teutonic or any Romance language with a background of familiar
associations, because
more than one
modern English
artificial auxiliary
is
hybrid language. Indeed,
language, notably Steiner's Pasilingna
put forward

in 1885, takes as its basis the
English stock in trade of
words for this reason. It is the object of this chapter to help the reader
imphes.
to become more language conscious by recognizing what it
Examples taken from the Lord's Prayer and printed on page 7
show the close family likeness of the common root words in the
Teutonic group, including Enghsh. For this reason sentences and
gramexpressions made up of such words can be used to illustrate
with
Briton
matical affinities and differences which an American or a
recognize
can
no previous knowledge of other members of the group
without difficulty. The resemblance betAveen members of the group
as the Teutonic dialects*
is so close that many linguists speak of them
English stands apart from other members of the Teutonic group in
two ways. Its grammar has undergone much greater simplification,
and it has assimilated an enormous proportion of words from other
lano-uage groups, more especially the Latin. In fact, if we set out to
discover its place in the Indo-European family by merely counting
the Teutonic and Latin root words (see p. 2) in a large dictionary,
we could make a good case for putting it in the Romance group.
This conclusion would be wrong. Though it is true that more than
origin, it is also true
half the words in a good dictionary are of Latin
often the class
7nost
that nearly all the root words which we use
Teutonic. However freely we
speak or write
sprinkle our prose with foreign words, we cannot
Native are (a)
elements.
English without using native (i'ê., Teutonic)
referred to on pages
11
6-1
17 are
the
pronouns, {b) airdemonstrative and possessive adjectives, (c)
prepoall
nearly
verbs,
(f )
articles, (d) the auxiliaries, (e) the strong
of time and place,
sitions and conjunctions, (g) most of the adverbs
inilliard. Native
and
billion,
numerals, except dozen, viiUion,
all
{h) the
few flexions which English has retained. Thus the majority

matters which
of wôrds on a printed page, even if it is about technical
also are the
*The word dialect is used in two senses. In everyday life we associate it

of vocabulary
with local variations of pronunciation and minor local differences
political unit are
within a single political unit. Since the members of a single
local variations, dialect
usually able to understand one another in spite of such
it absolutely impossible
make
not
do
which
differences
differences also signify
dialects overrun national
for people to understand one another. In this sense
Bible Enghsh or from
boundaries. The "Doric" of Robert Burns differs from
convenAnglo-American both with respect to pronunciation and to spelling
can
who
Anyone
Danish.
or
Swedish
from
differs
Norwegian
tions, as much as
Norwegians can understand
read Norwegian can read Swedish or Danish, and
only speak of them
Danes when they speak their own languages.
Swedes or
We
states. It is
languages because they are dialects of different sovereign
dialect differences.
and
language
between
line
hard-and-fast
impossible to draw a
as different
HO
relv on
though
^^
TO
E A R
I.
BASIC
WOKD
LIST
vocabulary of Latin derivatives, are Teutonic; and

^\ rite good English prose in which all, or
ncarlv all, the vocabular\- is based on Teutonic roots, it would be
difficult to write a representative specimen of sustained and intelligible
English containing a bare majoritv of Latin-French words.
The basic stratum, i.e., the most common words, of our English
vocabulary is derived from a mixture of dialects more closely allied
a large
it is
possible to
Dutch than to other existing members of the group, especially to

Dutch of the Frisian Islands. These dialects were the common
speech of Germanic tribes, called Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, w ho came
to Britain between 400 and 700 a.d. The Norse invaders, who left
to
the
their footprints
on our syntax, contributed few
specifically Scandi-
many Norse
words in dialects spoken in Scotland. Norse was the language of the
Orkneys till the end of the fourteenth, and persisted in the outermost
navian words to Southern English, though there are
Shetlands (Foula)
till
the end of the eighteenth century.
in Scots vernaculars recall
Many
current Scandinavian equivalents,
wôrds
e.g.
bra
good), baini (child), and flit (move household effects). Scandinavian suffixes occur in many place names, such as -by (small town),
cf. Grimsby or Whitby, and the latter survives in the compound by(fine,
hni- of
everyday speech
When
Norman
in
South
Britain.
came
in 1066 the language of Enqland

and of the South of Scotland was almost purely Teutonic. It had
assimilated very few Latin words save those ones w hich were by then
common to Teutonic dialects on the Continent. Except in Wales,
Cornwall, and the Scottish highlands, the Celtic of pre-Roman Britain
survived only in place names. After the Norman Conquest, more
particularly after the beginning of the fourteenth century, the language of England and of the Scottish lowlands underwent a drastic
change. It absorbed a large number of words of Latin origin, first
the
invaders
throuorh the influence of the
Norman
influence of scholars and writers.
Norman
It
hierarchy, and later through the
shed
a vast
load of useless gram-
and while this

was happening important changes of pronunciation were going on.
matical luggage.
scribes revised
its
spelling,
This latinization of English did not begin immediately after the

Conquest. For the greater part of two centuries, there were two languages in England.
The
overlords spoke
Norman French, as the

The English serfs still
white
spoke
the language in which Beowulf and the Bible of Alfred the Great were
written. By the beginning of the fourteenth century a social process
settlers
of
Kenya speak modern
English.
2l8
was gathering momentum. There \Aere self-governing towns with a

burgher class of native English stock. There was a flourishing wool
trade with Flanders. There were schools where the sons of prosperous
burghers learned French orammar. In the England of Dick Whittins;ton, English again became a written language, but a written language
which had to accommodate itself to a world of familiar things for
which the Saxon poets had no names. Investment in trading enterprise
fostered a
new
sort of class collaboration
speaking clientele. In
depicted in Chaucer's
new type of litigation with an English1362 Edward III ordered the use of English in
Canterbury Tales, and
the courts, though the ivritten law of the land was French
till
the
eighteenth century.
In contradistinction to
Old
English, the purely Teutonic language
of Alfred the Great, the English of this period, that of Chaucer and of
Wycliff,
is
called
the middle period
Middle English. Scholars refer literary remains to

if written between about a.d.
150 and 1500. The
i
process of assimilating \^'ords of Latin origin received a
from the
of classical scholarship
rise
at the
new
stimulus
end of the middle, and has
been nursed through the modern, period by the growth of scientific

knowledge. One result is that English in its present form has an enormous range of couplets, one member Teutonic like forgive, the other
Latin or French like pardon. Usually the Teutonic one is more intimate, the Latin formal, because Teutonic words are the language of
the countryside, Latin or French words the prerogative of lawyers,
priests, and scholars. Thus Wamba the jester in Ivanhoe points out
that the ungulates (sheep, pig, calf, ox) have native names while it is
still the business of the English people to look after them. When they
reach the table of the Norman overlord they have become imitton,
pork, veal, beef, for \\hich the corresponding French words are
moiiton, pore, veaii,
bceiif.
few people
can connect them with
Relatively
learn
lists
collected a variegated vocabulary
tage of this hybrid character of
conscious in
ties
this
of
new words with
familiar facts,
way we need
is
in a
modern
to
and an adult
ease, unless
who
strong position to take advanEnglish.
To become
know something
and
we
need
few
hints
is
often a sufficient signpost of
last
chapter
when an
This can be done by
which help us
to detect
Anglo-American word is Teutonic or Latin.

following up clues suggested in Chapters II and V. I'he
word
language
about the regulari-
of sound change which have been mentioned in the
(p. 178),
they
has already
its
origin, especially
spelling of a
if
wê
know
HOW
a little
TO
L E A R X
BASIC
WORD
LIST
about the sound changes which have occurred
in the history
of the Teutonic and Latin families.
How
the sound shifts mentioned in Chapter \^ help to build
up
by the German word Tcil {part) or its
derivati\"e verb tcilen (separate, divide, distribute, share). Old Teutonic w ords which begin \\ ith the d sound begin with the t sound in
modern German (p. 226). If \\c applv this rule Teil becomes deily
w hich means the same as the Swedish-Danish del, with the corresponding derivative verbs dcla (Swedish) or dele (Danish). In its new form
it recalls our words dell and deal. The Oxford Dictionarv tells us that
the latter comes from Old English deel, which also meant a part, and
to deal cards still means to divide the pack into parts, to share or
distribute them. The word dell (or dale) has no connection with this
root. It has the same meaning as the Swedish-Danish dal, German Tal,
and Dutch dal, for valley.
If you follow this plan, vou can introduce an element of adventure
into memorizing a vocabularv, and incidentally learn more about the
correct use of English w ords. It mav be helpful to look up some of
the unusual w ords in the Canterbury Tales, or the Faerie Queene.
For instance, the smaller Oxford Dictionary tells us that the Chaucerian eke means also, and compares it with the contemporarv Dutch
{00k) and German (auch) equivalents. The Swedish for also is och
or ocksa. You can also compare the Middle English eke with the
Swedish och and Danish og for our link word and, which we can
word
associations
is
illustrated
sometimes replace by also.

An example w hich illustrates
how to make associations for memowords of Romance origin is hospitable. The Oxford Dictionarv
tells us that this comes from the Latin verb hospitare {to entertain).
The related word hospite meant either guest or host, and it has survived as the latter. Another related Latin word is hospitale, a place
for guests, later for travelers. This was the original meaning of hospital,
and survives as such in Knights Hospitallers. In Old French it appears
shortened to hostel, which exists in English. In modern French before t or p has often disappeared. That it was once there, is indicated
rizing
i"
l)y a
circumflex accent
(")
over the preceding vowel,
French words bote, hotesse,
as in hotel.
The
hotel, hdpital, resolve themselves into
their English equivalents when we apply this rule. Hostelry, hospice,

and hospitality obviouslv share the same lineage. A host of other
similarities come to life if we arc familiar with another sound change.
\Mien an accented
orecedes
t. -0.
or c at the beînninsj of
modern
220
French word
of
Romance
etoffe
it
often takes the place of the Latin s in
origin.
Thus
Enghsh Avords
etat (state), etr anger {stranger, foreigner)
eponge (sponge), epouse (spouse, ivife), Spicier

sells spices), and ecole (school) come to Hfe if
{stuff),
man who
(grocer
we know
this.
Even when
no precise English equivalent containing the

one of the Romance languages, we can usually
lighten the effort of memorizing the latter bv fishing up a related
word which does contain it. In the table on page 244 there are twentysame root
as a
there
is
word
in
two English words of which eight, or one-third of the total, recall the
Romance equivalent. English words of related meaning at once suggest the Romance root in most of the others. Thus our Teutonic
and janiished which suggest the French
fil for our Teutonic thread turns up in
filament. Similarly we associate jiinies with smoke, fugitive with flee,
foliage with leaves, factory production with making things, filial piety
with son and daughter (more particularly the latter), or ferrous metals
with iron. That leaves us with a few Italian and French words which
are self-explanatory to a naturalist, chemist, or anatomist. Thus formic
acid is an irritant emitted by ants, sainfoin is a leguminous hay substitute, and Vicia faba is the botanical name for the common bean.
hunger
word
pairs off
jaim.
with
jaiiiine
The French word
SOUND SHIFTS IN THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES

Before studying further examples of the \\ay in which the hybrid
word equipment helps anyone who is beginning
character of English
Romance language, wo. need to know more

about sound changes such as those mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. The neglect of an enormous volume of relevant research in
textbooks for beginners shows how little education is enlightened by
Bacon's counsel: "We do ill to exalt the powers of the human mind,
when we should seek out its proper helps." *
Let us start \vixh the Teutonic group.
have no direct knowledge
of the sino^le ancestor of all Teutonic lanCTuaês, but our earliest
records lead us to infer that it underwent a drastic change some time
before the beginning of the Christian era. This change, which involved
to learn a Teutonic or
We
in
* English primers of German perhaps because philology has been cultivated

Germany refer to such sound changes, but do not disclose equally relevant
information of the way in which English pronunciation has changed since it

parted company with what is now German. Otherwise it is true to say that the
topic is still taboo in elementary teaching.
HOW
TO LEARN BASIC
WORD
LIST
221
may have come about because tribes speaking an

Indo-European language came into contact with people who spoke
non-Arvan languages such as the peculiar speech still extant among
the Basques. Five of these consonant changes appear below, and we
can recognize them in the difference between the English form of an
Indo-European word and its Latin or Greek equivalent. Thus the
Hrst and second are recognizable in comparison of the Greek or Latin
pater w ith our \\ ord father; the first and last bv comparing the Greek
root pod- or Latin ped- with our foot: the third bv comparing the
Latin oenus and aevu with our kin and knee: and the last r\vo bv
comparing the Greek root kard- or Latin cord- with heart:
several consonants,
p became
I )
became th {]>)
g became k
k became the throaty Scots ch
z)
3)
f\)
in loch,
and subsequently the simple
aspirate h
d became
5)
The
reader
who knows no
Latin and
is
not likelv to acquire more
knowledge of Latin than can be got from the next chapter but one,
should not find it impossible to detect the same root in some English
\\ords of Teutonic and of Latin or Greek origin. Thus we recognize
the same root as foot in pedicure, and the san^ root as heart in cardiac,
the same root in trinity as in three, the same root in fire as in pyrex
glass, and the same root in flat as in plateau or platitude a flat saving).
This primitive or first sound shift in the history- of the Teutonicspeaking peoples equipped English with sounds for which the Latin
alphabet had no precise equivalents. For reasons sufficientlv explained
{
in
our survey of the alphabet,
With
this fact has its practical application.
few words derived from Greek. English

\\ ords containing th are Teutonic. So also are words u hich begin with
u" or y or contain gh. These consonant, or combinations of consonant,
symbols are therefore signals w hich tell us whether we are likelv to
the exception of a
find a recognizably equivalent or related
The
following
is
Words
list
word
in a
Teutonic language.
\\ ord origin:
of five signposts of Teutonic
containing sb,
e.g.
\\'ords containing th, e.g.
sheep, shield, ship

tha-u:,
then, thin
Words containing gb, e.g. Icnigbter, through, rough

Words with initial zi\ e.g. 'u:are, ivasp, wash
Words with initial sk, e.g. skin, skirt, sky
222
These five signposts help us to recognize a vew large number of words

of Teutonic origin as such, and manv more can be identified bv the
presence of characteristically Teutonic prefixes, of which the be- (in
belong or behead) is the most rehable. and suffixes of which the adiectival -some (in lonesome)^ the diminutive -ling and the abstract endings -dom, -hood or -head, -ship, -kind, and -craft are most diagnostic.
WTien we are able to detect \^"ords of Teutonic origin in this way,
we can hghten the task of memorizing our word hst with a httle information about the simultaneous changes of pronunciation which have
occurred since the common parent of the Teutonic f amilv split into
three main groups an eastern represented bv Gothic, a northern or
Scandinavian represented by Old Norse, and a western represented
by Old Enghsh and Old High German. In what follows we must not
confuse sounds with their symbols. The latter mav be arbitrary- conventions peculiar to particular languages, or a hang-over from a period
when the pronunciation was different. Thus the German
is merely
another wav of ^^-riting the sound represented bv our T^; and the
sound \^'e usually represent by F and sometimes bv
(e.g. laugh)
GH
Vater for -father). The letter J

used in Enghsh for the pecuharlv English sound ia jam or Gentile
stands in all other Teutonic languages for a different sound repreis
either
F (^
in Fisch) or
(as in
by our Y in yeast. Our ovrn d-^ sound in jam has no equivalent

German. Danish, Dutch or Swedish. It is confined to Enghsh in the
Teutonic clan.
These different conventions of closely allied languages may be due
sented
in
to the ^^"hims of scribes
who
originally sponsored the svstem of spell-
German W, to changes of pronunciation

If we want to detect word equivalence on the printed
ing in use today, or, hke the

since their time.
page,
what
dialects
is
more important to know is how pronunciation of related
had aireadv diverged before
^^Titing began, or
flected in subsequent speUing reforms.
For
how
it is
re-
instance, the correspond-
ence between the S^^'edish words vind, vader, and iâtten on the one
hand and the German words Wind, Wetter, and Wasser or their
English equivalents ivind, ireather, and irater on the other, is partly
concealed by the fact that Scandinavian spelling incorporates the
Enghsh has resisted.

Enghsh has presented xm-o old Teutonic consonant soimds which
V-shift which
have scarcely
Icelandic.
One
Teutonic dialects other than

sound of thi?], the other is the 3 sound
left a trace in its sister
of these
is
the
J?
HOW
of then.
as
]?
is
TO
Modem
L r A R
Icelandic
is
BASIC
WORD
LIST
more conservative than English
never softened to d (p. 69)
at the
beginning of
223
in so far
word. That
is
illustrated by:
ENGLISH
ICELANDIC
J?ar
there
)?essi
this
J>u
thou
]?inn
thine
J?eirra
their
In other Teutonic languages,
This
is
illustrated
article the,
with
its
]?
has changed directly to
by many common words, such
t,
as
or via 3 to d.
our definite
and Dutch,
plural equivalent de in Swedish, Danish
and die in German; the English that with its neuter equivalent det in
Swedish and Danish, or dat in Dutch; the English they and theirs,
with modern Scandinavian equivalents, de and deras (Swedish), deres
(Danish); or the English thou with its equivalent Swedish, Danish,
and German dii.
German equivalents of English words with the initial consonants
]> or d, i.e., either sound represented by th in English spelling, start
with d:
Dank,
224
HOW
TO LEARN BASIC
important to anyone who aims

They are illustrated by:
ENGLISH
at learning
WORD
LIST
225
Norwegian or Swedish.
226
German. From the phonetic point

from the old Teutonic
of German and English words are less
recognize at sight M'hen the latter

of view,
German
is
has wandered furthest afield
homestead. So the
similarities
easy to recognize than the family likeness of English and Swedish ones.
In the evolution of German, a compact group of changes called the
second sound
shift
are reflected in
took place
German
in
middle and south Germany, and these

The most characteristic are the
spelling.
following:
a)
At
the begimi'mg of a
word
(or in the middle after a consonant)
was followed by a hiss, i.e., became ts (as in cats). This ts sound

is represented by Z in German script.
b) Inside the word after a vowel the t shifted further and became a
hiss,
c)
The
now
initial
spelt SS.
p was followed by
f,
and the result
PF-.
d) After a vowel the
shift
went
further, f replaced
is
represented by
in script FF-.
Another sound change which took place early in the High German
was the shift from k to ch (as in Scots loch) after vowels.
This change is illustrated by (e) below. Besides the preceding, other
sound changes, some of them much later, now distinguish High from
Low German dialects (including Old English). The most important
dialects
are:
f)
g)
The earlv shift of the initial d to t.

The initial s before 7n, n, p, t, usually becomes
SCH except before P and T).
/,
h) Between two vowels v often becomes
ENGLISH
b.
sb as in ship (spelt
()
ENGLISH
T O
1<
BASIC W
()
R D
LIS
227
228
often succeed in identifying an English word \\ith a German one

when we see the two in print, but fail to do so when they strike our
ear. German vowels also shifted bet^veen the Middle High German
and the Modern High German period, and the evolution of two English and German vo^\els runs parallel. In both languages a primitive
long I (pronounced ee as in hee) became the diphthong y in fly. The
German spells it as EI (Middle High German uiin, Modern High
German mew), while English retains the older spelling (Old English
min, Modern English inine). The primitive long ii (like oo in food)
went through
a similar process, but this time the
diphthong
O'u:
as in
The German spells it as

AU (Middle High German hus, Modern High German Hans). In
(Old English 777us, bum, Modem English
English it is OU or
hoii;)
is
indicated as such in both languages.
OW
there \^-ere seven characteristic vowel changes

Middle English, including the two mentioned. Not all of them
extended to Scotland, where house is still pronounced like its Scandinavian equivalent bus and a co\V is a kii. Owing to the chaos of English vo\\"el s)'mbols, these sound shifts are not of xevf great assistance
to the beginner. Like Spanish, modern German spelhng is very regular
compared with our own. The following paragraph summarizes its
mouse., bro'ixn). In
all,
in
At
be wise to skip it, as

deal with pronunciation and spelling of Dutch and Scandinavian dialects.
essential conventions.
a first reading
it \\'ill
also to skip the succeeding ones (pp. 231-232)
The few
symbol
a)
which
exceptions to the rule that one sound has the same
German
are:
The
f-
sound
is
F and V,
represented both by
e.g. fiillen
(fill)
and
vol! (full).
The
c)
sound of flle is represented by EI, e.g. iiiein (my) or AI, e.g.

(May).
The oi- sound of boy is represented by EU or AU, e.g. teuer (dear),
d)
The
b)
/"-
MAI
Haiiser (houses),
ee-
sound
in
bee
is
represented
by IE or IH,
e.g.
Liebe (love),
Ihr (your).
e)
The
use of a silent
/o7zg values of
(more)
Meer
or a double vowel symbol to give A, E,
Ah! Eh! Oh!

(sea),
e.g.
]ahr (year)
bohren (bore)
Aal
the
(eel), iiiehr
Boot (boat).
simple rule decides whether the vowels A, E,
I,
are long or short
when the long value is not indicated as under {d) and (e) above. Before
two or more consonants they have the short values of our word pat-petpit-pot, e.g. kalt (cold), sechs (six),
ist (is),
off en (open).
Otherwise with
HOW
WORD
TO LEARN BASIC
LIST
229
one exception A, E, O, have the ah! eh! oh! values of ]a (yes), dem (the),
iLO (where). The exception is that a final -E (or the -E in -EN) is slurred
-ER in inorker.
The German U has two
like the
sonant
is
like
values, the short
one before
double con-
long one like 00 in pool, e.g.

vowel symbols (A, O, U), with long and short
in pull, e.g. Liift (air), the
II
gut (good). Three
German
values in accordance with the
same
rule have special marks;
not exactlv correspond to an\' of our own sounds.

Lavge (length) is like the short e in pen. The long A,
The
somewhat nearer to the long e in ^cte. The O and U

rounded lips, long O, e.g. in schon (beautiful) rather
are
and they do
short A,
e.g. in
e.g. in
sdgen (saw)
is
pronounced with
like // in \nr, short O,

konnte (could), rather like or in work. The long U, e.g. iiber (over) is
like the u in Scots giiid. To get the short U, e.g. iiini (five), make the
/ in pin with rounded lips.
The pronunciation of German consonants is straightforward. The only
silent symbol is H after a vowel. The English contracted syllable repree.g.
sented by the
exist in
is
initial
KN of
know (= Scots ken), knife, knit, etc., does not

The German KN-, e.g. in Knabe (boy)
darkness. The symbols F, H, K, M, N, P, T, X have
other Teutonic dialects.
pronounced
as in
their characteristic English values. In radio or stage prounuciation the
voiced consonants
b, d, g, shift
toward their voiceless equivalents
p,
t,
k w hen at the end of a word, e.g. the

of des Tages (the day's) is as in
goat, but of der Tag as in coat. The stage German R is trilled like the
Scots.
The main
differences between
German and
English consonant
conventions are:
1)
CH
after a
back vowel (A, O, U), e.g. in Nacht (night) is hard as

but is nearer the sound of h in hew after the front
in Scots loch,
2)
vowels A, E, I, O, U, e.g. in nicht (not).

S alone at the beginning of a word, e.g. See (lake), or syllable, e.g.
lesen (read), is the 2 sound of s in buys. Before P or T at the
beginning of a word, S (= SCH elsewhere) is like sh in ship. A
double SS or a single S at the end of a word is the true s sound of
Fuss (foot), das (the).
bliss, e.g.
Z always
ts in cats, e.g. Zunge (tongue). This is a

convention peculiar to German.
= v in voice, e.g. Wasser (water) and either F or
4) As in Dutch,
= f in find, e.g. Feder (feather) or Vater (father).
5) As in all Teutonic dialects (other than English), ]-y as in year,
3)
stands for the
e.g. in
6)
NG
is
not to
7)
]a (yes).
like
ng
its
CHS = ^^,
in bing, e.g.
e.g. in
(spring).
Finger
is
pronounced by analogy to
singer,
English equivalent.
Ochs, ox and Q\J = kv,
e.g.
in
Quarz or Quelle
230
German, as in all Teutonic languages other than English, the perpronoun of polite address (Sie) in its several guises {Ihnen, etc.)
begins with a capital letter. In German as in Danish and Norwegian correspondence, the same applies to Du, etc. The custom of using a capital
for the nominative of the first person singular is peculiarly Anglo-American. In German as in Danish orthography nouns are labeled by an initial
capital letter, e.g. der Schnee (the snow). This habit, which slows down
the speed of typing, did not become fashionable till the middle of the
sixteenth century. Luther's Bible follows no consistent plan; e.g. the
opening verses of the Old Testament are:
In
sonal
"Im anfang schuff Gott Himmel und Erden. Und die Erde war wiist und
und es war finster auf der Tieffe, Und der Geist Gottes schwebet auf
dem Wasser. Und Gott sprach, Es werde liecht, Und es ward liecht. Und
Gott sahe, dass das liecht gut war. Da scheided Gott das Liecht von Finsternis,
und nennet das liecht, Tag, und die finisternis, Nacht. Da ward aus abend und
leer,
morgen der Erste

Simple
tage."
German words and compound nouns
Result at (result), Fabrik (factory).
Words
are stressed
on the
first
Bierfass (beer vat). Foreign
Kdchin (cook), drbeiten (work),

words usually carry the stress on the last
syllable, e.g.
syllable,
e.g.
Organisation,
beginning with the prefixes
be-, ge-, er-, einp-, ent-, ver-, zer-, miss- accent the basic element, e.g.
begleiten (accompany), erlduben (allow), vergesseii (forget).
The second sound
shift
does not exist in the everyday speech of

It goes without saying that people
ordinary folk in north Germany.
who speak Dutch and North German or Piatt dialects, can understand
one another. Anyone who can read German should be able to read
Dutch. To do so it is only necessary to recall the sound changes cited
above and to know the peculiar spelling conventions of written Dutch.
These
are as follows:
With
the exception of Z, S, and G,
values like the
German
ones.
At
Dutch consonant symbols have
the beginning of a word, e.g. zoon (son),
its characteristic value (as in zebra), but in the middle of a word,

huizen (houses), it is like an s. By itself the Dutch S has its characteristic value in our this or hiss; but IS = 7C. The combination SJ, e.g. in
meisje (girl), is like sh in ship. Except before R, the combination SCH
is pronounced s + ch of loch. Otherwise it is like s. Thus SCHR = sr,
has
e.g.
e.g. in
schrijven (write).
Dutch
G stands for a weaker variety
of ch.
Before a double consonant, e.g. in vallen (fall) or denken (think), and

in monosyllables, e.g. inari or ines (knife) the single vowel symbols A and
E are like their English equivalents in pat and pet. Before a single consonant, e.g. in Kamer (room), or zrede (peace), they have their vowel
values in father and fete.
father.
Thus
the final n in
The
-eji
terminal
-EN
is
pronounced
like -er in
of the verb plural and infinitive (p. 259)
HOW
TO LEARN BASIC
WORD
LIST
23
a paper survival. The single 1 and O,

(under) are respectiveh- pronounced as in
a double consonant, e.g. in zuster (sister)
are like the Scots 11 in guid or the German ii.
The double vowel s\mbols A A, e.g. in maan (moon), OO, e.g. in oovi
(uncle), EE, e.g. fwee (two) are respectively equal to ah! oh! eh! The
vmde?i (find) or 07ider

our pit and pot. The U before
is as in rust. Otherwise U or
e.g. in
is
UU
Y in words of foreign origin), e.g. in niet

AU, e.g. in nawu: (narrow) have the same
combinations IE (equivalent to
(not), EI,
e.g. in
cinde (end),
German. There
values as in
1
IJ, e.g. iiiijn
2)
EU,
is
(my) near
(door)
e.g. deiir
zvonn, pert,
3)
OE,
e.g.
4)
OU,
e.g. Olid
group of combinations peculiar to Dutch:
to
in fde
/'
like the
French
cii
or English u,
o, e,
in jur^
fir
gocd (good) near
to 00 in fool
(old) near to the o in old
5) UI, e.g. huis (house) rather like oi in foil
The
triple
AAI,
001,
and quadruple groups are pronounced
as follows:
e.g. fraai (fine) like
y in fly
hooi (hay) like oy in boy
OEI, e.g. iiioeilijk (difficult) roughly 00-y (as in boot and pity)
EEUW, e.g. leeiiu: (lion) roughly ay-00 (as in tray and too)
lEUW, e.g. ?2ieiru:, roughly eii' in its English equivalent
e.g.
Each of the Scandinavian

Scots Doric contains words
dialects has
words peculiar
to
itself, as
hich do not occur in the daily speech of

proportion of recognizably common or actually
\\
Kent or Kansas. The

words in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish is enormous.
Anyone who can speak or read one of them can be intelligible to
someone who speaks either of the other two, and can read all three
with little difficulty. The difficulty can be greatly reduced by a few
identical
hints about the spelling conventions characteristic of each,
sound
shift peculiar to
Norwegian
and the
Danish.
vowel symbols not in our alphabet. It shares a

Danish) and
with Danish (o in Swedish). The
Sw'edish a is written as e in Norwegian except before r, when it is ê, as
always in Danish. The Swedish ;"// is alwa\"S y in Danish and Norwegian
words. The initial hv of Danish and Norwegian equivalents for English
words which begin with irA; is replaced by v alone in Swedish. The double
Danish or Norwegian kk, which shortens the preceding vowel, is written
as ck in Swedish. The Swedish and Norwegian ;/;/ and // are replaced by
Jid and Id in Danish. In Danish and in Norwegian a soft Swedish g, pronounced like our v, is represented by gj. The terminal vowel a of Swedish
has rsvo
with Swedish (aa
words becomes
in
e in
Danish and Norwegian. The most striking difference
THE LOOM or LANGUAGE
232
of pronunciation reflected in spelling is the shift from a final voiceless

p, t, k in Swedish or Norwegian to the voiced equivalents b, d, g in.
Danish, as illustrated by:
SWEDISH
ENGLISH
skepp
Skib
foot
fot
Fod
speech
sprak
Sprog
The
identity of
used
as prefixes, e.g.
is
DANISH
ship
made
for
is obscured by the spelling of prepositions

Swedish iipp for Danish op. When due allowance
some words
these differences of spelling or of pronunciation,
all
it
is
safe to say that 95 per cent of the words of a serviceable vocabulary are
either identical in any of the three Scandinavian dialects mentioned, or
can be appropriately modified in accordance with the rules above.
Scandinavian symbols usually have the same values
German
in the preceding table.
The
of
as those
notable Swedish exceptions are
as follo\\-s:
a) Before front vowels, (E,
get (goat),
comes sh
h) After
or
as in ship
(chair),
e)
is
Y, A, O),
is
SKJ
(girls)
in
like
softens to y as in yew, e.g.
00
y in bury,
like
or STJ,
e.g. flickor
is
as in locb, e.g. kiira
(dear),
SK
be-
(skepp).
the final
c) SJ, e.g. sju (seven),
d) Before R,
I,
becomes ch
e.g.
berg (mountain).
sh in ship.
e.g. stj'drna (star) is like
and in many monosyllables,
e.g. stol
good.
generally like oa in oar.
The Danish
man-Swedish
a) General
AA replaces the Swedish A; iE and

A and O. Other differences are:
replace the Ger-
tendency of voiceless (P, T, K) to assume the sound values
Thus ikke
of the corresponding voiced consonants {b, d, g).

pronounced like igger in bigger.
b) Terminal G, final
replaces ivh
after L,
and
initial
of the English equivalent,
before
e.g.
is
(where hv
hvad =
\\'\\2.t)
are
silent.
c)
D is silent
after L,
N, R,
e.g.
when it follows a vowel.

d) The combination GJ is soft
holde (hold), finde (find) and like 5
like the
Swedish
before
e.
SOUND CHANGES IN THE LATIN FAMILY

Most English words of Latin origin are of two kinds. First come
words derived from the French of Normandy and Picardv. These
H o
^^
l e a r n
basic
\n'
o k n
M3
were brought in hv the Norman conquerors. When this Nonnan and

Picardian French had ceased to be a spoken language in England, the
influx of French words did not stop. A second and even larger wave
broke over England. This \v as partly due to the influence of Paris as a
literarv' center in medieval times. Thus borrowed French words of the
IGLISH
WORDS DE-
234
sources and indirectly through French, our English vocabulary has a

very large number of doublets, illustrated by the list printed above.
French itself has suffered a similar fate. Legions of classical Latin
words have marched into the French language since the sixteenth
centur>'. The Roman grammarian \âro would have been unable to
identify Old French fih, larron, and conseil with Latin films, latro,
and consilhmi respectively, but would have had no difficulty in detecting the Latin origin of the
(p. 235).
list
noun or
The
There
adjective
is
more modern words of the following

below the printed form of a Latin
as elseii-here
usually the ablative singular*
many French
spelling of
the corresponding words in
loan words is identical with that of

modern French, e.g. figure, front, fruit,
gain, grace, grain, tablet, torre?it, torture, or does not deviate suffi-
ciently to
make
identification impossible, e.g. chain (chaine), charity
(charite), color
(couleur). Furthermore, words which look alike
or similar in French and English have usually an area of
meaning.
On
the other hand, there are
many which
common
betray the be-
ginner.
The reason for this
in the
course of centuries through metaphorical usage, through
is
that the
meaning of words often changes
through generalization. Even since the time of

such words as crafty (originally skilled) and cunning (knowing, ivise), have done so, and many words such as ho?nely {plain in
America, dojnesticated in England) do not mean the same thing on
specialization or
James
I,
both sides of the Atlantic. So
means
If
it is
not surprising that French spirituel
ivitty or that figure refers to the face alone.
we were
to ask for vnitton
(mouton) and rmistard (moutarde),
we
should
indicated our wishes in writing.
Some-
onions (oignons) and vinegar (vinaigre) in a French inn,
not be understood unless

times our
is
own
we
word (e.g. damage)

Frenchman today. Modern
pronunciation of a French loan
nearer to the original than that of a
French has discarded many words which survive
in English, e.g. able,
bacon, chattel, i?nschief, nice, noise, nuisance, pledge, plenty, random,
remember, revel. English is thus a museum in which relics of Old and

Middle French are exhibited; but English words of Latin origin derived from borrowed French words are far less numerous than English words coined directly from Latin roots, and these are the words
which lighten our task in learning a Romance language such as
The
case system had decayed in the daily speech (p. 325) of the lace empire
is often the literary case form nearest to the colloquial
and the ablative or dative

singular.
()
Spiinish.
To
need to
\\ hen it
know
how
split
tnkc
O
full
a little
up
!:
A R N
B A
c:
\\
()
I)
LIST
about
how
the pronunciation of Latin changed
into the daughter dialects
w hich
arc
now
spoken, and
the sound changes arc reflected in the spelling of each.
LATIN
235
advantage of our I.arin Icgacv \vc therefore
236
Words with
7)
GUE,
final
initial
QU, and
final
QUE,
e.g. fatigue,
quarter, brusque.
words in which final S and T are mute, e.g. debris, bouquet.

all words ending in -ANT, -ENT, e.g. age7it, merchant,
Nearly
9)
8) All
student.
Most
10)
words with end
polysyllabic
stress, e.g.
buffoon, compaign,
elite.
At one time the habit of attaching Latin affixes to native words or

words containing a Greek or Teutonic root was frowned on. So other
or numerals used as affixes
signposts are several Latin particles,
(contra-, pre-, a- or ad-, ante-, per-, jmilti-,
Jini-, di-, tri-).
Greek ones {a-,

not mean the same. The abstract noun ending
these are easily confused with
also Latin, as
of the
is
the termination
more common
affixes
meaning of the
acteristic
-it
in deposit.
a?iti-,
peri-)
Some
of
which do
-ion in constipation
The
following
is
is
list
of Latin or French origin and the char-
prefixes:
a) prefixes:
(beyond)
ab- (away)
extra-
ad- (to)
in- {in)
retro-
anibi- (both)
in-, ne-,
semi- (half)
ante- (before)
nan- (not)
inter- (between)
bene- (well)
intra- (within)
sub- (under)
subter- (under)
circum- (around)
pen- (almost)
per- (through)
contra- (against)
post- (after)
trails-
con- (with)
pre- (before)
tri-
de- (from)
preter- (beyond)
ultra-
pro- (for, forth)
vice- (in place of)
bi-
(twice)
ex-, e-
(out of)
re- (again)
(backward)
sine- (without)
super- (above)
(across)
(three)
(beyond)
b) suffixes:
-able
-ance
-esque
-ite
-ment
-acious
-ary
-ess,
-ity
-many
-acy
-ery or -ory
-ette
-ive
-tude
-age
-ent, ant
-ion
-ise
languages have a stock of old words of

from Vulgar Latin, and a newer,
directly
derived
a more familiar type
introduced by scholars, clergy,
Latin
words
classical
larger stratum of
Like French,
all
Romance
lawyers, or technicians.
nize.
The
Words
of the second class are easy to recog-
roots have the same shape as those of our
which belong to the same
class.
The
others, that
is
own
loan
words
to say the older
H o
T o
j:
a r n
basic
ones, arc less easy to recognize, and therefore

rize.
The home
task of
o r d
more
lis
237
difficult to
memo-
student can get some fun out of the otherwise dreary
word
bv noting the sound
shifts
u hich
or even distort bevond recognition the original
I.atin
form.
memorizing
distjuise
\v
a basic
list
examples of this trick \\ ill be the basis of the next few

pages which deal with phonetic changes during the period when
Latin was breaking up into w hat we now call French, Spanish, PortuIllustrative
guese, and Italian.
up into these dialects the H had become

symbol has disappeared in all but four Italian words.
It is soundless in French and in Spanish words, though it survives
in the spelling. Apparently the people of the Roman Empire also
became slack about the use of compound consonants such as ct, pt, st.
When Latin began to break
silent. Initially
The
first
in Latin
the
of these has disappeared in
words reintroduced by
all
the daughter dialects, except
scholars. In Italian
w ords
other than
CT = TT, in Spanish CT = CH (as in

imicb), in Portuguese and Old French CT = IT. In Modern French
usually silent. The combination
the symbol remains -IT, but the T
those of the last-named type
is
the Romance dialects, though

unpronounced p or Z? in script,
as in the modern French sept for the Old French set (seven) or as in
our debt derived from the French dette.
pt becomes
(or
tt) in
old words of
all
scholars have sometimes put back an
LATIN
238
LATIN
HOW
LATIN
TO LEARN BASIC
WORD
LIS T
239
240
Portuguese, and French equivalents of classical Latin words beginning
with ST, SC, SP, SQ, SL, appropriate a vowel, e.g. Latin spiritu,
Spanish espiritu, Portuguese espirito, French esprit, or Latin scribere
(to write), Spanish escribir, Portuguese escrever, French ecrire. This
e- turns up in Latin inscriptions of the second century a.d., and was
once part of the spoken language of the empire. It dropped out in
Italian, e.g. spirito or scrivere. In English words derived from French
or Latin this
initial e is
absent.
esquire, espouse, especially.
and
also sho\\s a
ENGLISH
There
The
are a
following
few
exceptions, e.g. estate,
list
illustrates the contrast
French peculiarity explained
in the next paragraph.
HOW
TO
from its sister languages.

of French.
below.
We
el
have already met
before
specifically
a, o,
orthography
LATIN
tables.
and
Latin words
it
st
LIST
(p. 219)
has
241
one peculiarity
made w av
for
t.
The
then carries a circumflex accent, as in the examples
The change began
preceding
WORD
BASIC
in the eleventh
T persisted in written French
Another
in
A R
The compound consonant
preceding vow
fore
F.
//.
till
ccncurw hut
Old French sound change has
The modern French C
Otherwise
it
stands for
is
s.
mute S be-
also
champagne),
cropped up
hard (k) sound only
Where C preceded
softened to the sh sound in ship, spelt
(cf. chai/iois,
the reforms of 1740.
as in the
CH
in
following:
a in
French
242
get English old-new couplets such

fragile.
as royal-regal, loyal-legal, frail-
(The English pronunciation of royal and
loyal
is
a survival
of the Old French stage.) Examples are in the following table.

LATIN
HOW
TO LEARN BASIC
WORD
LIST
243
till the RevoFrench grammarians disapproved of this pronunciation

below.
are
changes
these
of
Examples
lution pSt its seal on it.
words is loss of body

Wliat is most cliaracteristic of modern French
consonants, and
medial
vowels,
terminal
through successive elimination of
large provery
has
a
French
that
is
consequence
final consonants. The
bisyllabic Latin word
every
almost
Indeed,
monosvllables.
of
portion
is now represented
which has left a direct descendant in modern French
bv the following couplets in which a

lege-LOi (Imc), Mc-voi {faith), videtdisappeared:
has
medial consonant
or patre-PERE (father), matre-MERE
(believes),
credit-cROiT
voiT (sees),
French
fratre-FRERE (brother), sorore-scEUR (sister). In other
by
a single svllable, as illustrated
(mother),
words, as
LATIN
in the last four,
an unaccented
final
exists
only on paper.
244
kss to say about the sound changes in relation to the appearance of

the printed word. For recognizing the similarity of English words of
Latin origin to their Spanish equivalents, the important ones are few.
Some have turned up in the preceding paragraphs. The most misleading one
is still
to
come. This
placed in script by what

LATIN
is
is
the disappearance of the initial
no\^- sileît
H,
cf hacienda,
.
f,
re-
which comes
HOW
and
in
TO LEARN BASIC
Gascony on
the French side.
That
is
WORD
to say,
it
LIST
prevailed
245
where
in closest contact with the

Spanish and French communities ^êre
page
on
words
244 arc a few characteristic
of
f-less Basques. In the list
disappearance of f
examples of the change from f to h, i.e., the
place in all old Spanish
take
not
did
initial
f
The disappearance of
r or m, as is shown in
by
followed
when
words. It remained intact
the following:
LATIN
246
LATIN
Fig. 29.
Rune Stone
This remarkable Rune stone now stands in the national park in Stockholm. It
was placed over the grave of a young man named Vamod by his father Varin.
The rune begins: To the meviory of Vciviod stcwds this stone. But Varin the
father engraved it for his dead son. Then follow many verses of a long e\egy.
now
TO LKARX BASIC W
(Mt
I)
LIST
247
process of clipping similar to what resulted in alms, shortened in the

course of centuries from the same Greek root which \ields cleeinosyimry.
What
decades,
used to take several centuries
not
if
in a
few
vears.
With
is
now
reached
few
which
in a
the same snappiness with
popular parlance has shortened pepper (Greek pcpcri) to pep,
it
has
changed photogriiph to photo, aiitoinobile to mito, telephone to

phone, and stenographer to stenog.
.Most words of Greek origin are easy to recognize in script bv certain peculiar consonant combinations introduced by Latin scribes.
Of these ph pronounced like /, in phonograph, and ch pronounced
like k in a Christian chorus, are infallible. So also is the rh in rheuviatisiii and diarrhea. An initial ps pronounced like s alone, as in psychology or pseudonym, is nearly always indicative of Greek origin, as
is the vowel combinations oe or a y pronounced as in lyre. The combination th for j^ represented in Greek by 9 is common to Greek and
Teutonic root words. Scholars of the Reformation period used Latin
spelling conventions such as C for K in Greek roots. This practice is
dying out. Though we still w rite cycle and cyst, the Greek K is now
used at the beuinnins of some technical words coined from Greek
sources, as illustrated
and French,
by
like English,
kinetic, kerosene, or kleptomaniac.
German
adhere to the earlier Latin transliteration
where Scandinavians, Spaniards, and
Italians
have adopted the
PH
later F.
other than French render TH by T, RH by R

Y by I, as in the Spanish words fotografia, teatro, diarrea, sintoma.
Many words of Greek origin can be recognized at sight by their
Romance languages
and
prefixes, of
which the follow ing
are specially important.
amples given on page 248, the first of each pair

product of the new technical humanism.
To
these
nogamy,
we
is
Of
literary, the
should add the numeral prefixes:
mono-
the ex-
second
(i) as vio-
di- (2), tri- (3), tetra- (4), penta- (5), hexa- (6), in tripod,
tetrahedron, pentagon, hexagoji; hepta- (7) as in heptameter, octo(8) as in octopus and octagon, deka- (10) as in decalogue, kilo-
(1000) in kilo7/ieter or kilogram.

or ec-,
is
like its Latin equivalent
The only
One
and
is
of the foregoing prefixes, ex-
not diagnostic. So also
outstanding Greek suffixes are
-ic
mathejnatics, with the derivative -ical and
or
is
pro-.
-ics in dialectic
is7n, e.g. in
theism.
and
The
exhibit in the language museum (Part IV) of The Loom is a list

Greek words used to build international technical terms.
Both in its ancient and modern form, Greek stands apart from
other languages of the Aryan family. Twenty-five hundred years ago,
last
of
240
II () \\
pirc,
it
()
A K
U A S
\V
OKI)
disintegrated into regional fomis such as the
249
Macedonian
CIrcck of the nuiinlaiul and the Alexandrian (ireek into which the
Old I estanicnt (Septuaginta). l.ven

Western Church relied mainly on Greek.
began to die out in (iaul, Spain, italw and North
Jews of Kg\ pt translated

in the third
centurv
During the fouith,
it
their
the
a.i).
Africa, and Augustine could not read Flato
Constantinople
vived
fell
to the
Turks
in
as a livint;^ lansjuage onl\- in
in
the original.
the fifteenth centurv
When
Greek
sur-
vernaculars restricted to the south-
ernmost portion of the Halkan Peninsula and its vicinitv.

There was little vernacular writing before Greece won its independence from the Turks in 1827. Thereafter classical models had a
strong intluence on the form adopted. As a w ritten language, modern
Greek is therefore a product, and a highly artificial product, of the
last ccntur\'. The gap betw een the w ritten and the spoken language is
greater than in an\- other European language. While Italian spelling
has become more phonetic with the march of time, Greek spelling
has relinc]uished the claims of convenience to cherish an historic
memor\- of departed glory. A modern movement to bring the literary
language nearer to the spoken has met w ith no success. In 191 1, students of the University of Athens demonstrated in public against the
proposal to translate the Bible into folk Greek. Excluding the vocative,
classical Greek had four case forms corresponding to those of Old
Norse, Old English, and Old German. .Modern Greek, as prescribed
in the textbooks used in the schools, retains three case forms of the
adjective, noun, and article, and the three gender classes still exist. It
has dropped two tense forms (perfect and future) w hich are replaced
by anah tical constructions. Otherwise it has not moved far from the
elaborate fle.xional system of ancestral Greek.
PRONUNCIATION OF SPANISH,
From
TAI.IAN,
AND FRENCH
various clues such as the study of puns and of meter in Latin
literature, or of features
scendants,
it
seems
common
to
(juite clear that
two or more of
the Latin of the
its
modern de-
Roman Empire
very regular system of spelling. With few exceptions a parsymbol always stood for a particular sound, or a group of very
closely related sounds. This is almost true of Italian or of Spanish
had
ticular
today. French spelling
The home
student
to be familiar
who
ith its
is
scarcely
more regular than
Romance
that of English.
w ill need
sound patterns and conventions. Other readers
wishes to learn a
laneuafje
THE LOOM OF
250
LA
XGVAG
shoiild skip the rest of tbe cbjptcr. There are notes
Pormguese
tion of
Chapter VIII
in
We have seen that Italian

y, ss.
eixr^
and
it is
is
(^p.
on the pronuncia-
545).
rich in double consonants sodi as
necessarv to iingcr on
vôrd in \iiuch CHie of theni occurs.
One
rfieni in
tt,
prMHMmdng
A,
inconsisrencv. ccHnroon to
and French spelling, involves the pronunciaiicm of

the s\TnboIs C and G. In Latin thev al\v ays had their hard values in
t-jtr and ^cutf. In its nx>dem descendants thev still have them Avhen
thev |êcede the vowels -1. o, and u. Thus we meet the same hard C in
cosim (Itaiisn and âni^), cote (Froich) as in its equivalent cojst.
in govemo (Îtalian), gobicrno
So al>o \i~e iDcex: the same hard
and
Spanish), gomxreemem (French), for g&vemmem. Before
the
soft
/ the Italian C is the CH sound in fiwZi, and the Italian G is
of gem. Before e and i the Spanish C has the same value as the Spanin ?iv, and the Spanish G has the
ish Z before j, o and ,* i.e the
value M^ch Spanish J has before aU vowek, i,e the gutrural sound
of CH in Scots loch. Before e and i the French C is the C in cwJer
and the French
is the san>e as the French J ^p. -35). \vhich is our
S in Traxnanr.
WTien the hard c and g^ sounds precede i and in the Italian wôrd
as in
the svmbois iriuch stand for them are CH as in LbiJiTri and
are
s\-mbols
ÎxMCcio (ice). The corresponding Spanish and French
as in Fr. guide. The svmbois CI and
as in Fr. botupiet and
GI before jl o.aiaxa fcahan word have the same values as C or
before ? or i, coire^jondii^ to our CH in cbocoljte {cioccol^j), and
our J in joarmd (gionude). Italian SC before E or I is pronounced like
SH in ship, elsewhere like SC in ScOpe. SCH has the same value as
SCH in school. Smilariv tite French GE before ^ o, u as in nous
m.2J2gOTS ^wê eat) stands for the soft French J or G alone before e
and i.
aibscxipt mark called the cedillj shows that a French or
Italian, SpanisJi.
c'
TH
GH
GU
QU
Portuguese
C before j, o, w.
as in
lecon (lesson) has the value of
C in
cimder.
These incoossteocies and ccmventions dravr arrention to the chief

.i:r:i. s^-mbols in the
Rocjance group. Thus the Italian CH of cbiJim has the k value in
di^êrenês bervêen the scrand values o:
chsTicier. the Spanish
CH
CH in inucko its value in the equivalent jjmcb,
the sb soond in chamois or cbMmpMgne. Tlie

svmbol J does not occur in naodem Italian. The SpanMi J is the
* The ^ vake for the Spanidi Z and C before e and i b Casnitan. In SpanisbSDeaiins Aioeiica both C and Z have the xûe of the Fieaicii C ia cac&BEmE.
aoMl the
French
is
HOW
CH
in
Italian
TO LEARN BASIC
WORD
LIST
Scots loch, and the French J is the SI sound in ziiion.

usually corresponds to ts, the Spanish-American to
25
The
in
and the French Z to our own in maze. There is no z sound

Spanish.
In Italian and in French an S betueen two vowels as in
in
easy stands for z, otherw isc for the pvre s sîund in silly. The Spanish
S is aluays pure, i.e., a hiss as in case, never a buzz as in rose. The
French and Spanish QL' is the k sound m lacquer. The Italian QL
is the k-j: sound in liquid.
The LLI sound of billiards has cropped up earlier in this chapter,
in Italian w ith the svmtx)I GL, in Portuguese with LH, in Spanish
with LL. Originallv. and todav in some dialects, the LL of a French
word had the same value, which has othen* ise faded to the y sound
in yes. In some French words the LL still stands for an ordinan,'
/ sound, e.g. ^-ille (town) or tillage. The
in some Latin words has
undergone a softening analogous to the LLI sound- For this
sound
as in onion, the Italian and French svmbol is
as in Mignon. The
Spanish svmbol is N, as in canon tube). The mark is called the tilde.
Another feature of the sound pattern of Romance languages mentioned in passing is the total absence of an k sound. Though the s\-mboI
remains, there is no aspirate in a French u ord which begins with H,
e.g. kerbe
grass ), nor in a Spanish one. e.g. hcnnbre man>. The
of
French and Spanish is a dead letter and it has disappeared aJtosêther
in corresponding Italian words, e.g. erba or uomo. The four Italian
words which cling to it are: ho (I have), hoi fthou hast), hi (he
has), hanmo (they have). The initial
of these words distinguishes
citrus,
GN
homophones: o (or), m (to the), a. (to), xnno

(year). Conversely, the s\-mboI R which is often a dead letter in
Anglo-American w ords is alwavs audible in -words of Romance languages. The Spanish and Italian R is an R rolled on the tip of the
tongue. The more fashionable Parisian variant of the French R is less
forcible and some\\ hat throarv.
Italian and Spanish have stuck to the verv thrifrv batterv of Latin
vowels. The simple vowel s\-mbols A, E. I. O. L'. are roughlv equiva-
them from
their
lent to ah. eh. or e in yes, ee, oh, 00 in too. Romance vowels are pure
vow els. Unlike long English vowels thev have no tendencv toward
diphthongizarion. To ^tz the correct value it is necessar\- to keep lips

and tongue tLxed during articulatiorL If vou do, vou \% ill pronounce
the Italian O of do^ce (where) correctly hke the
of In:. Otherwise it will sound like the O of aloTie and be u rons- \Mien in Italian
or Spanish tw o vowels come together, and one of them is or u, the
AW
:'
252
Other vowel
(a, e,
o) takes the stress, and
The vowel equipment
over.
or
ii
are quickly passed
of Portuguese (see p. 345) and of French
from the Latin homestead.

French vowel extWtly corresponds to any English one.
can attempt to do is to give approximate equivalents which
has traveled far
No
All
a
single
we
Frenchman could recognize
as such.
Before a double consonant a is usually as in yuan, e.g. patte (paw). Before a single consonant it is often long as in far. The circumflex (')
written above a vowel lengthens it, and is a sign that at one time the
vowel was followed bv S + consonant, e.g. chateau (castle).
Without an accent E may be short and open like the E of let, e.g. sel
(salt),
or
is
faintly audible like the first
E in
veneer,
e.g.
lecov.
A final
without an accent, e.g. barbe (beard), is always silent in daily

speech, like the e in our word inade. E is pronounced like the AY
in hay, e.g. pecher (to sin). Final -ER and -EZ in verb forms have
the sound value of E, e.g. chasser (to chase), payez (pay!). E sounds
like the ai in affair, e.g. 7?iere (mother). E has roughly the same open
sound of ea in treacherous, but is longer, e.g. pecher (to fish).
O is generally short as in long, e.g. lot (lot). O sounds like O in opal,
The sound represented by U has no equivalent in

vou speak Scots, pronounce it like the U of guid; if you
know German, like the U of Hi'itte. Otherwise, pout your lips as if
vou were to pronounce the U of pool, but without uttering any sound.
Then, with the lips in the same position as before, try to pronounce
the E of ilea, and you may obtain the sound of French U in hine
(moon), or punir (punish).
AI mav either be pronounced like E, as in vrai (true), or like E, as in
e.s.
oter (remove).
English. If
OU
AU
in ought,
and EAU sound like
chamerai (I shall sing).
beau (beautiful). EU resembles the pronunciation of EA
of loot, e.g. doux (sweet).
is like the
in heard, e.g. Europe.
01 sounds like tea, e.g. soir.
Unless the following word begins with a vowel, final consonants, chiefly
je
e.g. cause,
OU
T, D,
S,
X,
Z,
and
less
(nest), vers, yeiix
OO
often C, F, L, are usually
(eves), 72^2
(nose), trop
silent, e.g.
sonnet, nid
(too much), estoinac
(stomach), clef (key), fusil (rifle). Americans and English are familiar
with manv borrowed French words in which the final consonants
are not pronounced, e.g. ballet, gourviand, chamois, piiice-vez. These
silent finals, which preserve continuity with the past of the language,
become vocal under certain conditions. \\'hen a word ending in a
mute consonant precedes one with an initial vowel, French safeguards smoothness of speech by bringing the dead letter back to
life. It becomes the beginning of the following word. Thus on en a
H O
pour
indent
soil
so/T^nri^cnt.
Common
It is
T O
K A K
1.
SIC W
nioiicN
is
it
more
customary between
word or
OR
is
no
sparing]) than those
and noun,
article
I)
pour
rule.
who
e.g. Ics
253
Iv.ird-nnil-fast
proiKniiucd on
this so-cnllcd liji.w/i thcrt'
people use
dren), pointed
W A
worth rhc
(it is
For
eii
atfect culture.
enfants (the chil-
possessive adjective and noun, e.g. noflnnis
(our friends), numeral and noun, e.g. trois autos (three motor cars),
pronoun and verb, e.g. Us arrivcnt (they arrive). The French have
other means of avoiding a clash of two vowels. One is liquidation
of the
first
vowel,
e.g.
roiseau for
(the bird), the other
le oiseaii
is
between the two vowels,

e.g. a-t-il? (has he?). Unlike French, Spanish is not averse to vowel
collision, cf. let obscuridaJ and robscitrite (darkness).
insertion of an auxiliarv consonant
French
is
(t, s, I)
highK' nasal language. At an
the nasal consonants .M and
became
eari\- stage
silent,
of
its
evolution
or almost so, imparting
twang to the preceding vowel. When English-speaking people

pronounce a nasal vowel like the one m tiie French word
sou (sound) they usually say song. To make sure that you actually
nasalize the O instead of producing an ordinary O followed by a nasal
consonant, take the advice of an Fnglisli phonetician and make the
a nasal
first
try to
follow ing experiment:
"Pinch the nose tightly so that no air can escape, and then sa\- the
sound. If the nasalized vowel is being said, then it can be prolonged
indefinitely; but if iig is being pronounced, then the sound will come
to an abrupt ending."
Modern French
has four different nasal vowels
Nasalized
{a), written
w hich
in script arc
vow el-consonant combinations:
represented by a great variety of
AN, EN, AM, EM,
e.g.
dans (in) iJicnsongc
(lie), avibition, inenihre.
2) Nasalized
(e), written IN,
roviain,
chie?2
3) Nasalized
(o), written
EN, AIN, FIN, IM, AIM,
plein
(full),
simple,
faini
e.g.
fw,
(hunger),
(dog).
ON,
OAl,
e.g.
hon (good), corrovipii
(corrupt).
(ce), written UN, UM, e.g. hriiii (brown), Innnblc.

4) Nasalized
IN- has a nasal sound when prefixed to a word beginning with a
consonant, as in injuste. When prefixed to a word beginning

with a vowel or a mute H, as in inutile, inhuniain, it is pronounced like the IN- in English inefficient.
Double
does not cause nasalization of the preceding vowel, e.g.
bamiir (banish).
254
The

always soundless,
an empty symbol. It
French H
but
its
presence at the beginning of some words affects pronunciation of
its
is
is
view we can put French nouns with

an initial
in two classes. In words of the viute-Yi class it is a dummy,
e.CT. its succeeding vowel brings to life an otherwise mute final consonant of the preceding word, or suppresses the vowel of the definite
article. In a second class of words the initial H, though silent on its
own account, protects the following vowel from a tie-up with the
preceding consonant, or the suppression of the final vowel of the
definite article. The second class consists of Teutonic words, largely
those which the Franks left behind them, or of Greek words introduced by scholars.
predecessor.
From
this point of
DUMMY
HOW
TO
I.
i:
A R
K A
from words which look alike and sound alike,

(he gives), Ja (from;
at).
\\
O R
I)
LIST
e.g. c (is), e
'-55
(and), or
Spanish has more words with end
stress,
a trickier s\sfcm of stress marks. Rules of Spanish stress arc as follow
d,i
and
s:
Words ending
e.g. //inrtes,
in a vowel, e.g. salubrc, or in N, e.g. h)iaj::,cn, or S,

and stressed on the last hitt one sellable, do without
the accent.
3)
consonant other than N or S, and stressed on

do without the accent, e.g. espcrar, propricdad.
Words which do not come under these two rules require the acute
4)
The
2)
Words
the
ending
in a
last s\llable,
('), e.g.
f///,
hnaîvaclon.
acute accent also serves to distinguish between words of like
spelling but different meaning, e.g. nuis (more),
With
c7
iiias
(but),
cl
(the)
(he).
regard to stress French stands quite apart from her
as usual, the unstressed part of
sisters.
When,
an original Latin word has disappeared,
we
should expect to find the stress on the final syllable, cf. Latin ai/iico,
French ay/ii. In fact, a rule of this sort gives an exaggerated impression.
Predominance of the final syllable is slight, and a trifling increase in stress
goes with rise of tone. For purpose of emphasis or contrast, stress may
fall on a syllable other than the last.
Since C and G are sources of trouble to the student of any Romance
language, the following table may prove useful:
C
LATIN
AND
Br.FORE
E AND
256
FURTHER READING
BAUGH
jESPERSEN
MENXKEK
MYERS
skx-AlT
History of the Rjiglish Language.

Gro-LVth and Structure of the English Language.
The American Language.
The Foundations of English.
a Concise Ety?nological Dictionary of the English
Language.
The Linguaphone and
Colwjibia Records.
CHAPTER
Our Teutonic
\ll
Relatives
Bird^s-
Grammar
eye View of Teutonic
view of the gramobject of this chapter is to give a bird's-eye

German, for the
especially
mar of four Teutonic languages, more
one of them by
learn
to
wish
benefit of the home student who may
reader who
The
chapter.
preceding
usincT the methods outlined in the
of princitreatment
detailed
more
does not intend to do so will find a
pay
must
does
who
reader
The
V.
ples alreadv stated in Chapter
anin
printed
material
relevant
for
attention to each cross reference
The
other context.
reduction of its
striking peculiarities of English are: (a) great
devices such as
grammatical
useless
of
loss
flexional svstem owin^ to
regularity
great
(b)
adjectives;
of
concord
crender, number, or case
leveling
and
reduction
Both
-s.
plural
the
of remainincT flexions, e.g.
these
have
other
no
in
but
languages,
Teutonic
have taken place in all
Some
the most conservative of those with

beyond the level of English in
which we shall deal. It
it is the most diflicult to
Consequently
Great.
the time of Alfred the
grammar will help
English
of
evolution
the
of
account
processes gone so
far.
German
is
has not gone far
learn.
brief
to bring the dead bones of
German grammar
to
task of learning for the beginner.

schools to
If Alfred the Great had established
life,
make
and lighten the

the
Old English
the common people,

Bible, like the Reformation Bible, accessible to
more grammar
much
had
have
would
girls
and
boys
English-speaking
girls now need to
and
boys
British
or
American
than
to fearn about
highly
know. Like Icelandic and German, Old English was still a
inflected language.
The
reader of
The Loom
has already
met two
between the English of Alfred's time and

jorms of the perthe English of today. Old English had more case
of the verb.
sonal pronoun (p. 104) and more personal forms (p. 84)
examples of
this diflrerence
258
In modern English the personal pronouns and the relative pronouns

(who) have three case forms, at least in the singular: the nominative
(verb subject), the possessive or genitive, and the objective, which
may be
the "direct" or "indirect" object of a verb and
after a directive.
Old English had jour case forms
is
always used
and
in the singular
with corresponding ones of the dual number, which

all modern Teutonic languages except Icelandic.
The original four case forms included a nominative and genitive used
as we still use them, an accusative or direct object form also used after
German diirch), and a
certain prepositions, e.g. piirgb (through
plural, together
has disappeared in
dative or indirect object
form used
after the majority of prepositions.
fate of these two object or preposition case forms has been different in different Teutonic languages. Comparison of the tables printed
on pages 160 and 115 shows that the Old English dative eventually
The
displaced the accusative.

dative,
The Old Norse
which has disappeared
in
accusative supplanted the
Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.
These languages have therefore three case forms like English. The
same is true of Dutch (p. 115), though a trace of a separate dative
persists in the third person plural. German and Icelandic have stuck
to the old four case forms. If you want to learn German it is necessary
to
memorize the
Germans
tive)
still
rules given in small print below.
use the acusative case
as the direct
form of the pronoun (or adjecsome prepositions: durch
object and always after
(through), oh?ie (without), gegeij (against), imi (around), fwV (for).
When the verb expresses motion, the
accusative case
form
also
comes
after
(on), liber (over), imter (under), zivischcji (between), an (at), himer (behind), vor (in front of), 77eben (beside). The
dative or indirect object form follows: (a) these prepositions if the verb
the prepositions
in, auf,
indicates rest, (b)
aiis
(out of), aiisser (except), bei
(at,
near), gegeniiber
(opposite), 7nit (with), nach (after, to), seit (since), von (of, from), zn
(to). Prepositions followed by the genitive are: anstatt (instead of), diesseits
(on
this side of), trotz (in spite of),
ivdhrend (during), luegen (be-
cause of).
What happened
from the
table
to the verb after the Battle of Hastings can be seen
on the facing page.
This table exhibits several features which Old English shares with
(or Dutch) but not with modern English or with modern
Scandinavian dialects. If we leave out of account the ritual thou form
no longer used in Anglo-American conversation or prose, the only
German
surviving personal flexion of
its
verb
is
the third person singular
-s
of
OUR TEUTONIC
the present tense.
The
R E L A T
personal flexion of the
IVES
Old English
259
plural {-ath
and -011 in the past) had already disappeared in Maytimes, but in two \\a\-s the English of the Pilgrim Fathers was
in the present
flo-a-er
more
like Alfred's English.
son singular,
as in the Bible
hmi{rerctb and tbirstetb,

the
Old Teutonic
ANGLO-
tbo7i
The Old
English flexion of the third per-
forms doeth,
etc.,
was
form with
still
its
saitb, loveth, hutcth, findeth,
current in South Britain; and

flexion -st
as still used, as in
26o
dictionarv form of the

of the verb to be)
modern English
verb.
also the present tense
is
than the third singular, and
is
used
as
The
latter
form of
all
an imperative.
Webster dictionarv verb corresponds
(except that
persons other
The Oxford
to the tvpical
Teutonic
or
in-
do this); {b) after

do so mvself, if I cannot
other Teutonic languages require
{a) after the preposition to (e.g. trs' to
finitive:
certain helper verbs (p. 142), (e.g.
shall
make him do it). In such situations

a form with its own characteristic terminal.
tive
ending was
German
To
-ian, -an
(or
-77),
In Old English this infinicorresponding to the Dutch or
-en or -n.
us,
perhaps, the oddest thing about the Old English verb
past participle. Like that of
modern Dutch or German,
it
is its
carried the
had nothing to do with past time. It was atlarsre class of verb roots in all their
derivatives, and survives as such in some current German verbs. Thus
the Old English for to iiin is gewinnan, equivalent to the German
zii geicmnen. If, as is probable, it was once a preposition, it had ceased
to mean anything much more definite than the bein behold, belong,
prefix ge-. Originallv
it
tached to the beginning- of a
believe.
The
past participle pattern of these ge- verbs infected others,
and became its characteristic label, as be- has become an adjectival

affix in bedecked, beloved, be-cigged, beflagged. Before Chaucer's
time the softening process (p. 224) which changed the pronoun ge
to ye had transformed gedon to y-done. The vestigial j -prefix lingered on in a few archaic expressions used in poetrv for several centuries after Chaucer. For instance, we read in Milton, "By heaven
y-clept (i.e., called) Euphrosyne."
In the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales the j-inflected participle
occurs frequenth", as in
It is ful
fair to
been ycleped "madame,"
And goon to vigilies al before.

And have a mantel roialliche ybore.
In the opening lines, "the
vonge sonne hath
in the
Ram
(i.e.,
in the sign
The story tells "of sondry folk, by

The Knight "was late ycovie from his
of x\ries) his halve course yronne."
aventure yfalle in felaweshipc."

viagc."'
Of
the Prioress
we
learn that
At mete wcl ytaught was

She
leet
no morsel from
she with
allc:
hir lippcs falle.
The .Monk "hadde of gold yu-roght a ful curious pyn." Of the Shipman
we arc told that "full many a draughte of wyn had he jirjxi'c." The
UT
K.
"vW of don? ful
Plowman had
()
nunv
(.
F-
I-
V F
fothcr (cartload)."
"was by his crys ful

spccchc, and w ys, and wcl
Such forms
Steward's
Qiunic,
gentle knight was pricking on the plaine

in niightic arnics and silver shiclde
Ycladd
Grammnrical
similarities
when we
allow
in the history
his
ytattaht/^
arc fairly coninion in Spenser's F.wric
occurred
The
round yshornr and the Host was "hoold nf
liair
strikinj^
261
e.g.:
between CJcrnian and Old English arc more

which have
for phonetic changes (p. 225)
of the former
(i.e.,
/>
to
d or
/,
d to
t).
When
ygTgT]^x^Tlr::H5^^Tl^^YiH5^^tFlT^HM
!.-,(;
JO.
Kmuust Til tonic
(Sec p. 62 for translation and
Tig. i; tor
IsscRnnios
code of Runic
signs.)
see that there is only one essential

the German and the Old English
of
difTerence bctw cen the flexion
-en, corresponding to the -on of
ending
verb. Tn German the plural
plural * ending of the
corresponding
the
the Old English past, is also
verb is e.ssenGerman
the
of
behavior
the
present tense. Otherwise
the Great.
Alfred
of
time
the
in
verb
Encrlish
of the
we make
these substitutions,
tiallv like that
ANGLO-
we
262
The
separate pronoun, not always used in the written language,
is
in
brackets.
Thus
gone on throughout the history of the

Dutch and in German it has
stopped short at the stage ^^'hich English had reached at the Battle of
Hastings. In Norwegian, in Danish, and in nonliterary Swedish, it has
verb in
a leveling process has
all
the Teutonic languages. In
OLD ENGLISH AND GERMAN NOUNS

DAY
WATER
TONGUE
BEAR
(masc.)
(neut.)
(fern.)
(masc.)
a) OLD ENGLISH:
r
be
Norn.
Ace.
dacff
Dat.
CO
Gen.
r
Norn.
Ace.
Gen.
Dat.
b)
GERMAN
daeg^
daeg^5
dzgas
bera
tuncre
waeter
tunga72
waetere
waetere^
1-waeter
beraw
beraTZ
J
dagfl
dagM7
waetera
tunge77iT
bereTz^
tungzwi
heiwn
O U R
O \
I-:
L A T
V.
263
German
aiivl nutcli. the Bible English -th of coinctb is hardened

and the plural tOrnis of both tenses have the infinitive ending
-cii tacked on to the stem;
b) In modern Scandinavian languages the ending of the invariant present
tense is -cr or -ar, the past tense is invariant as in I'nglish, and
the infinitive ends in -c (Danish and Norwegian), or -j (Swedish).
a) In
to
-/,
For an American or ninonc born
in
the British
Isles,
the difficulties
noun and the adjective, especiallv the latter. 1 he modern F.nglish noun has four forms in writing.
Of these, onlv t\\ o are in common use, viz., the ordinary singular form
of a Teutonic language begin w
ith
the
(e.g. 7/wthcr), the ordinar\- plural (e.g. luotbcrs) nearl\-
always de-
from the singular by adding -s. Nowadaws ue rarely use the

optional genitives (e.g. mother'' s and mothers') when the noun stands
for an inaninîate object such as chamber or pot. The Old English
noun had four case forms in the singular and four in the plural, making eight altogether, and the rules for using them were the same as
the rules for the corresponding pronouns (p. 258). The nouns chosen
as museum exhibits illustrate sound changes described in the preceding
chapter. The change from daeg to day is an example of the softening
of the Old English (j. and tmige-Zimge, uuieter-VVasser illustrate the
shift from T to Z (initial) or SS (medial).
Our table of Old English nouns \\ ith their modern German equivalents discloses two difficulties w ith which our Norman conquerors
\\ ould have had to deal as best they could, if they had condescended
to learn the language of the people. To use a noun correctly they
rived
ould have had to choose the appropriate case ending, and there ^\as
no simple rule to guide the choice. There were several classes (de-
\\
noun behavior. If the learner had followed the practice

modern schoolbooks, he (or she) would have to know which
declension a noun belonged to before he could decide w hat ending,
clensions) of
of
singular or plural, the direct object, the indirect object, the possessive,
or the form appropriate to the preceding preposition ought to take.
During the
t\\
o centuries after the Conquest these difficulties solved
The
between nominative, accusative, and

it either depends on a quite
arbitrary custom of using one or other case form after a particular
preposition, or does something which can be expressed just as well by
word order (pp. 106 and 147). It had disappeared before the betînning of the fourteenth century. The distinction between the singular
and the plural, and the possessive use of the genitive case forms do
themselves.
dative forms
as
distinction
not essential, because
2^4
have
and a plural flexion together with a genitive have

For reasons we do not know the English people made the
best of a bad job by the chivalrous device of adopting the typical
masculine nominative and accusative plural ending -as (our -es or -s)
a function,
persisted.
to signifv plurality. Similarlv the tvpical masculine or neuter genitive

singular -es (our
have
V or
')
spread to nouns which originally did not
this crenitive ending^.
Perhaps, as Bradley suggests, the growing popularity of the
-s
oround because it
was easiest to distinguish. The result was an immense simplification.
The words -ccaeter, ttmge, and bera \\-ere once representative of large
classes of nouns, and there were others ^\ith plural endings in -a, -u,
and -e. Today there are scarcely a dozen English nouns in daily use
outside the class of those which tack on -s in the plural. Such levehng
also occurred in Swedish, Danish, and Dutch; but standardization of
the plural ending did not go so far as in English. So the chief difficulty
with Teutonic, other than German or Icelandic, nouns is the choice
of the right plural ending. No such leveling of case forms has taken
place in Icelandic; and in German it has not gone so far as in the
modern Scandinavian languages or in Dutch. All German nouns have
terminal ^âs the survival of the
fittest. It grained
ending in -en or -n corresponding to the common dative

Old English nouns. In literary German the dative
singular ending -e, common to Old English nouns, is still in use,
though it is almost dead in speech. German feminine nouns are invariant throughout the singular. Some German nouns still behave
a dative plural
plural ending -7i7n of
much
like
our Old English ber^.. These always tack on

when used as the subject of the verb.
-7i
in the
singular except
student who wishes to learn German, or is learning it, should

more carefully how the German noun as still used resembles the
English noun of the Venerable Bede:
a) Just as all Old English nouns took the ending -u?n in the dative
The
notice
plural, all
German nouns have
the dative plural ending
-EN
or -N.
b) Just as some Old English masculine nouns such as bera (p. 262)
added -N for all cases in the singular other than the nominative,
one
class of
German
masculine nouns add
-EN
in the singular except as subject of the verb.
nouns with the nominative ending -E and
BAR
(bear),
OCHS
(ox),
TOR
(fool),
HERR (gentleman), PRINZ (prince),

SOLDAT (soldier), MENSCH (inan).
-N when
or
This
few
used
class includes
others, notably
DL\AIANT
KAAIERAD
(diamond),
(comrade),
OUR TEUTONIC RELATIVES

c) Other
German,
like
265
Old English, masculine, and German

Old English neuters, take the characteristic
singular ending -ES or -S.
otiier
neuter, nouns, like
Teutonic genitive
d) Just as Old English feminine nouns take the nominative and accusative ending -an in the plural, most German feminine nouns take
the ending -EN in it// cases of the plural.
In our
hist
table the
gender of each noun
is
printed after
simple rules for deciding whether to use he, she or
it
it.
Our
w ould not have
Norman conquerors to decide that a dny is masculine.

For reasons already indicated (p. 102), the gender class of an Old
English noun means much more than how to use pronouns in a reasonable wav, when we substitute he, she or it for a noun. Unlike the
modern English adjective and pointer word, both of which (with
tw o exceptions, this-these and that-those) are invariant, the adjective
or pointer word of English before the Conquest had singular and
plural case endings, not necessarily the same ones, for masculine,
helped our
feminine, or neuter nouns.
Neither the fact that an adjective had these endings, all of them
if we always put it next to the noun it qualifies, nor
quite unnecessary
the fact that there
is
no rhyme nor reason
in classifying a
day
as
masculine, a child as neuter, and a criine as feminine, were the only
grounds for complaint. In the old or less progressive Teutonic languages, the adjective misbehaves in a way which even Greeks and
Romans prohibited. After another qualifying ^\ord such as a demonstrative (the, this, that) or a possessive (7/;y, his, your, etc.)
it
does
not take the ending appropriate to the same case, the same gender, and
number when no such dcterviinative accompanies it. The

museum exhibit is put in to show you the sort of adjective the
Normans found M'hen they landed near Brighton. All the derivatives
in the table on page 266 have been leveled down in modern English,
and now correspond to the single word blind.
The table emphasizes \\o\\ German lags behind. Like the Old
English, the modern German adjective has two declensions, a strong
the same
next
one for use ivithont an accompanying determinative word, and a

iveak one for use when a determinative precedes it. The strong adjective forms have case and number endings like those of the more
typical masculine, neuter, and feminine noun classes. The weak adjective forms are less profuse. German has only two. In Dutch and
in modern Scandinavian languages (excluding Icelandic), the distinc-
266
between masculine and feminine, together with all case differThe weak plural has merged with a single
strong form for use with singular or plural nouns (see p. 276).
tion
ences, has been dropped.
To
write
German correctly we have to choose the right case form of

The rule usually given in grammar books is that the
the adjective.
adjective has to have the same case, number, and gender as the
which
it
goes. Since the strong adjective has
more
distinct case
noun with
forms than
German noun, we cannot always recognize the case of the noun by

What we mean by the case of the noun is the case of the pronoun which can take its place. The pronoun has retained the four case
the
its
form.
forms of the adjective.
During the three centuries after the Norman Conquest grammatical

went on apace. By a.d. 1400 English had
outstripped Dutch, and we might now call Anglo-American an isolating, as opposed to a flexional language. What flexions now persist are
simplification of English
THE OLD TEUTONIC ADJECTIVE
OUR
shiirccl l)v scinic
or
T K U
()
K E L A T
C:
lia\
e alrcad\'
dialects, including
verb
F,
267
of rhc survi\ ing Teutonic dialects. So
all
to sa\" that Antilo-Anicrican graiiiinar
guage. W'e
is
csscntialK" a
met three features
Of
English (p. 180).
common
it is
true
Teutonic
lan-
to
all
these the behavior of the
the most important. I'he Teutonic verb has only
is
Teutonic
two
tense
forms, of which the so-called present often expresses future time
go
(e.g. /
Others
The
London tonwrroiv) There are two ways of making the

Some verbs {strong class) undergo internal vowel change.
to
simple past.
{\i-eak class)
existence of a
add
a sutlix
compact
class
with the d or
sound to the root.
of verbs which undergo comparable
stem vowel changes, and the weak suffix with the d or t sound arc
two trademarks of the Tcuttniic group.
In connection with verb irregularities which confuse a beginner
three facts are helpful.
new
One
er ones belonir to the
manv
\\
is
that
eak
all
strong verbs are old, and
all
which has now incorporated

This has gone furthest in Eng-
class,
verbs which were once strong.
if an English verb is strong, its

another Teutonic languatê will also be
strong. It is often safe to make another assumption. If two verbs
underq-o the same vowel change in English, equivalent verbs in another Teutonic lansruaoe underijo a corresponding change. Thus
lish.
So
it is
usually safe to bet that
ervmolosical eouivalent
in
the German verbs finden and hinden, equivalent to our words find
and bind, have similar past tense forms jand and hand with corresponding past participles gefunde/i and gebiinden. So also the Danish verbs
fijide and binde form their past tense forms {jand and band) and past
participles {fnndet and Irimdet) in the same way. The difference between the weak D and T types (represented by spilled and spelt in
English) is more apparent than real. In the spoken language (see p.
6S ), a D changes to T after the voiceless consonants F, K, P, S, and a T
changes to D after the voiced consonants V, G, B, Z, M. In English
-( E)D is usually, and in German -(E)TE is always the terminal added
to the stem of a
The
weak verb
past participle of
in its past tense.
all
transitive verbs goes \\ith the present or
Teutonic forms of the verb have in combinations equivalent

to have given or had given. The table on page 181 shows the conjugation of have in the Teutonic dialects. The use of other helper verbs
(see p. 144) displays a strong family likeness. In fact, the same root
past of
verbs are used in Danish, Swedish, and

shall or ivill,
Dutch where
the English verbs
should or ivoidd, are used alone or in front of have or
had or any other verb
to express future time or condition.
26'8
We have met M'ith one common characteristic of the Teutonic languages
in
Chapter \' \\here there is a table of the comparison of the

Teutonic languages form three classes of derivatives
adjective. All the
other than those usually called flexions.
For
instance,
it is
less
SIX
(infinitive
ENGLISH
Some
of them are important.
useful for the foreigner to
know
that a gavder
TEUTONIC STRONG VERBS
PAST
TENSE SINGULAR
PAST
PARTICIPLE)
()
we
will cling to a
ki})dly.
vcr\
U R
At
least
much
F.
few
U TON
ailjcctives
one of the
alive,
is
R K L A
such
artixcs in the
not nati\c.
recognizable as such.
It
From about
as
godly, manly, brotherly,
acconipiuning
has no prcci.se
rahle,
I'jigli.sh
the twelfth century
ENGLISH-TEUTONIC AFFIXES
ENGLISH
269
K S
though
eijuivalcnt,
onward Gcr-
270
very
prolific. In fact,
it
can tack
itself
on
to almost
any current
inter-
national root, as of scientific terms, e.g. telefoiiera (Swed.), telefoiiere
(Dan.), telejoneeren (Dutch), telefoiiieren (German). German and

this class have past participles without the ge- prefix,
Dutch verbs of
babe telegrafiert (I have telegraphed).

avoid some errors of self-expression if our bird's-eye
view takes in some of the outstanding differences between English
and other Teutonic languages. One of these, the disappearance of
grammatical gender, and with it of adjectival concord, has been mene.g. ich
It is possible to
tioned
more than once.
English are also
Several syntactical peculiarities of
pitfalls for
the beginner.
English, and to English in
order
its
One common
present stage,
is
modern
to Mayflo-u:er
the identity of
word
of a complex sentence (pp. 154-158). The

to stick to simple sentences when possible, and to
in different clauses
moral of
this
is
recognize the conjunctions listed on page 154 as danger signals when

it is not convenient to do so. The way to deal with some other outstanding syntactical peculiarities of Anglo-American
or speaking
in
when
\^'riting
German, Dutch, Swedish, or Danish has been suggested
Chapter IV. Express yourself in the idiom of the Pilgjim Fathers.

rules to recall are: (a) inversion of the verb and its
Three important
subject unless the latter
is
the
first
word
in a simple statement (p.
147); {b) use of the simple interrogative, e.g. i::hat say yon? (p. 151);
{c) use of the direct negative, e.g. / knoz'j not ho-tv (p. 152).
In the same chapter we have met with four other characteristics of

Anglo-American usage, and the student of any other Teutonic language should recall them at this stage. They are: (a) the economy of
English particles; (b) the peculiar uses of the English
-ijig
derivative
verb-noun or with a helper (p. 130) to signify present time and

continued action; (c) the disappearance of the distinction (p. 131)
between transitive and intransitive verbs; {d) the transference of the
as
indirect object to the subject in passive constructions (p. 142).

It is
only.
important to note the wide range of the two epithets
e.g. all the neater.
separate
words
all the, e.g.
usual
meaning
the ivhole.
meaning
is
Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and
(see table
adjective, or noun.
its
all
and
We can use the former before a plural or before a singular noun

on
The
p.
280) for
English
As an adverb,
is
i.e.,
all
word
before
German
prescribe
a plural
noun and
oidy can qualify a verb,
quahfier of a verb or adjective,
the same as merely.
As an
solitary or sijigle. Swedish, Danish,
adjective
its
usual
Dutch, and German
o u R
prescribe sepanirc
ineaniiig vicrcly
rcutonic
At one time
i:
words
and
o N
(sec pp. ;Ho
r e l a
v.
and ^41) for only
Teutonic
dialects
THIS
Demonstratives
(.sec
pp.
as
adverb
contusing clusters of near s\non\"nis.

had a verb fara or fara?i, meaning to
TEUTONIC POINTER WORDS AND LINK PRONOUNS*
o)
271
as adjective nicanin<i; siiii^lc.
verl)s include several

all
136-137).
272
go or to travel. It survives in set English expressions such as farewell

or "to go far and fare worse." The word foi'd comes from the same
root. Otherwise go and its Dutch equivalent gaaii have taken over its
functions. The Scandinavian equivalent of go is more fastidious. We
can use the Swedish ga when a human being goes on foot or when a
TEUTONIC INTERROGATIVES *
ENGLISH
L R
orientation,
all
()
l)odil\-
the table
a pole.
if
upright or
German
F.
O N
R E L A
Teutonic: stand,
lies if fallen;
and
sit,
we
lie.
set, i.e.,
i:
273
bottle
make
stitinis
sit,
a flag
on
on
preserves these distinctions meticulouslv in the corre-
sponding causative verb forms stcllcii (Swcd. stiilla), setzeii (Sued.

siitta), legeu (Swed. lag!i;a) corresponding to steheii, sitzeii, liegen
Swed. St a, sitta, li\i,ga) for stand, sit, lie. They are not interchangeable
thouoh each ctjuivalcnt to put. The intransitive forms in all Teutonic
lancTuafres are strong, the causative weak.
Cicrman is more exacting than its sister languages in another way.
W'c can combine put w ith a variety of directives. Gcrnran demands
separate derivative verbs, e.g. aitfsetzeii (einen Hut) = to put on (a
hat), aiiziekcn (einen Rock) = to put on (a coat), innhinden (eine
Schiirze) = to put on (an apron). It is important to remember that
(
the English verb

in
make
has a
\\
ider range than
its
specifically English.
For the
dictionary equivalent
Making in the sense of coinpelling

correct word see compel or force.
other Teutonic languages.
is
complete our birds-eye view, we have now to ask how the

members of the Teutonic group differ from and resemble one
another. For this purpose we may draw a line across the map of
Europe corresponding roughly with the fifty-fifth parallel of latitude.
North of it, the Teutonic group is represented by Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, south by Dutch (including Flemish)
and High German. This line now splits the Teutonic group into two
natural clans with highly characteristic grammatical features.
To
several
THF.
The
SCAXDINAVIAN CLAN
Scandinavian clan consists of four
official languages of which

from Old Xorse of the sasras. Icelanders read the
latter as we read Shakespeare, if we do so. The others, Sw edish, Danish
and Norwegian, differ from one another scarcelv^ more than do some
dialects within the British Isles. The first is spoken throughout Sweden
by over six million people, and by a substantial Swedish minority^ in
Finland. Danish is the official language of Denmark, with a population
Icelandic differs
little
The Norwegian dialects arc the

two and three-quarter millions. The official
language of Norway is less highly standardized than that of Denmark.
Till 1905 when Norway seceded from Sweden, it was still Danish.
This official Dano-Norw egian of the ruling clique was then the
medium of instruction in all higher education as well as of adminisof three and three-quarter millions.
vernaculars of about
274
and was far removed from the speech of the masses.

Since secession, the government has introduced successive changes to
make the spelling more phonetic and the accepted grammatical standtrative procedure,
ards nearer to those of
common
intercourse.
To accommodate
local
sentiment of communities separated bv great distances in a vast and

thinly populated territory, the ne\\est official spelling and
grammar
many alternative forms, and as vet no English-Norwegian
books admit
dictionaries incorporate the changes
which came
The
that written Norvvegian
net result of
as close to
all
Swedish
The grammar
these changes
as to
is
into force in 1938.

is
now
Danish.
of Swedish, Danish, and
simpler than that of German.
The word
Norwegian
is
verv'
much
order (see Chapter I\')
is
essentially like that of the authorized English Bible except that the
negative particle or an adverb of time precede the verb in a subordinate clause. Illustrations of this are the Swedish and Danish equivalents
of the sentence: he said that he could not covie:
Han
Han
sade att han inte (or icke)
sagde at han ikke kunde
kunde komma. (Sived.)
komme.
(Dan.)
Personal flexion of the verb has disappeared.
The
present tense
persons singular and (except in literary Swedish) all

persons plural, is the same, -r added to the infinitive form: the only
exception to this rule is that the present tense of some Swedish verbs
ending for
all
ends in -er instead of
-ar.
The infinitive ending is -a (Swedish) or -e

The past tense of weak verbs ends in -de
(Danish and Norwegian).

or
-te (cf. lo'ved
nant (p. 68)
and
when
slept) in
accordance with the preceding conso-
the end vowel of the stem
tense forms are analogous to our
is
omitted.
Compound
own. Thus we have (Swedish) jag
kallar (I call), jag kallade (I called), jag har kallat (I
have called),
jag hade kallat (I had called), jag skall kalla

kalla (I should call). In the Danish equivalent
(7
(e.g. jeg kaller).
and past
The
above.
Any good
(I shall call),
e replaces
dictionary gives a
list
jag skulle
throughout
of the past tenses
participles of strong verbs.
active past participle used with hava or have always ends in
The
passive adjectival
form
is
nearly always the same in
as
Nor-
wegian, often in Danish, but never in Swedish. The Swedish adjectival

form ends in -d (sing.) or -de (plur.) when the verb is weak, or -en
(sing.), -ene (plur.) when it is strong, as in given or givene in contradistinction to givit (given) after hava.
The many Danish
verbs which form a
OUR
r:
o X
r k l a
\'
li
275
contracted past analogous to dreamt (in contradistinction to dreaiucd),

c.f. bctaU'-hctalt (pa\-paid ), have no special adjectival form, and uncontractcd verbs have kept the
d form
(pun-
in the plural only, e.g. strafjct
ished) in the singular, strajjcdc in the plural.
aUur
i
vald
siv
Hojjci-herao
Ifylkjum
Smaskaeruhopar
K
hafa undanfarna manudi
viS
naesta nagrenni hofuSb.
.r
]oki.
jidir
isnaSi,
eSa a5
starf Aalfrettaklu bet5 starfs
âlskrifkaritari
'a aef3a
Saini inokaflion enniid
fyrir oIId Nordnrlaoili
vinna
-tta?ira
'ê
328
h?
A
niatiTL
245 ^
Urn 90 piisund tunnur saltadar
og
511u landinu
200
OlAMI
^^ svo
mokaflinn
ad
'Tordiirlandi,
t
t)us. tn^l ver5i
segja
er
'-oiîveJiiir. stil'ti-
komin^land
iillu
enda hefir veriS
kvold er buistvi5a5
ennl>a
fyrir
alls
a-
braedslu
VerksmiSjan a S61bakk;>
buin a3 fa
"^
af U--
"'"
Fig. î.
Cutting from Icki.andic Newspaper showing the two th sym-
bols
(as in thill)
\>
One
AND 5 (as
in
them).
outstanding odditv of the Scandinavian clan
is
the flcxiona!
mentioned on page 109. Any part of the verb can take

passive meaning if we add -s to the end of it or if it ends in -r, substi-
passive already
tute
for the latter,

att kalla
e.o-.
in
Swedish:
276
which bliva (Swed.), blive

(Norweg.) takes the place of our be, and vara or vaere (be)
replaces to have. This passive auxihary was originally equivalent to the
to substitute a roundabout construction in
(Dan.),
bli
German
bleiben (remain).
Its
present tense
blev (NorMêg. ble); past participle
is
blir
or bliver,
its
past tense
The
verb bliva
takes the adjective participle (p. 274), not the form used with hava in an
active construction, when (as always in Swedish) the two are different,
blivit, blevit,
or
blitt.
e.g.:
jag blir straff ad

vi blir {bliva) straff ade
Similarly
we
I am being punished
we are being punished
vi bliver straff ede
have:
be punished
have been punished
had been punished
jag skall bliva straff ad
T shall
jag dr blivit straff ad
jag var blivit strajfad
The only
jeg bliver straff et
flexions of the
noun
jeg skal blive straff et

jeg er blevet straff et
jeg var blevet straff et
are the genitive -s (see
below) and
the plural ending, typically -er in Danish, Norwegian, and
many
and -or in some Swedish). A few nouns form a

plural analogous to that of our ox-oxen. Two words of this class are
Swedish nouns
common
to
all
{-ar
three dialects:
ear-ears: ora-oron (Swed.), 0re-0ren
(Dan., Norweg.), and eye-eyes, oga-ogon (Swed.), 0je-0J7ie (Dan.),
0ye-0yne (Norweg.).
large class like our sheep, with
no
plural
few
words (p. 201) like our mouse-mice, man-men (Swed. man-man,
Dan. Mand-Maend, Norweg. Mann-Meim) form the plural by internal
vowel change alone. As in German, many monosyllables with the
flexion, includes all
monosyllabic nouns of neuter gender.
stem vowels o, a, have modified

(Swed.), Bog-B0ger (Dan.).
plurals, e.g.
book-books
bok-bocker
The so-called indefinite article (a or an) has two forms in official

Swedish and Danish. Norwegian, like some Swedish dialects, now has
three. One, ett (Swedish) or et (Dan. and Norweg.) stands before
nouns classed as neuter. The other, en, stands before nouns classed as
nonneuter (common gender) in Swedish and Danish, or masculine in
Norwegian, which has a feminine ei as well. Thus we have e?i god
fader (a good father), and et{t) godt barn (a good child). The
adjective has three forms:
a) root
+ the
suffix -a
ated with any plural
(Sw.) or -e (Dan. and Norweg.)
noun or any
strative or possessive, e.g.:
singular
when
noun preceded by
associ-
demon-
OUR TEUTONIC RELATIVES

good women
my
this
young child
good book
b) root alone,
w hich
a
is
DANISH
gode Kvivder
iiiit uvgc Bam
dame gode Bog
associated with a singular iionneiiter
en god hiind
good dog
c) root
young
The
SWEDISH
goJa kvhwor
7iiitt imga barn
deima goda bok
not preceded bv a demonstrative or possessive,
suffix -t,
preceded bv
a
when
277
when
en god Htind
associated with a singular neuter
demonstrative or possessive,
child
ett
noun not
e.g.:
bam
imgt
noun
e.g.:
ungt
et
oddest feature of the Scandinavian clan
is
Bam
the behavior of the
noun is not preceded by an adjective, the

definite article has the same form as the indefinite but is fused to the
end of the noun itself, e.g.:
definite article. If a singular
en bok = a book = en Bog

ett barn = a child = et Bar?!
boken = the book = Bogen

barnet = the child = Barnet
If the noun is plural the suffix -na (Swed.) or -ne (Dan. and
Norweg.) is tacked on to it when the last consonant is r. If the plural
does not end in
-r,
the definite article suffix
(Dan. and Xorweg.),

hundar - dogs
barn
If
= Hiinder
- children =
is
-en (Swed.) or -ene
e.g.:
hnndarna = the dogs
B^rn
bamen
= Hiinderne
= the children = Bornene
an adjective precedes a noun the definite article
is
the demonstrative den (com.), det (neut.), de (plur.)
wise means that. In Swedish
it is still
expressed bv
which other-
accompanied by the terminal
article, e.g.:
de goda hundarna = the good dogs = de gode
The
fusion of the terminal definite article with the
plete that
it
comes between the
latter
and the
Hunder
noun
is
so
a dog's
en bunds
the dog's
the dogs'
hundens
hundarnas
a child's
ett
the child's
barnets
Barnets
the children's
barnens
Bprnenes
barns
com-
o-enitive -s, e.g.:
en Hunds
Hundens
Hundernes
et
Barns
1278
Comparison of the Scandinavian (p. 184) is like that of the Enghsh

form.
adjective. Comparatives and superlatives have no separate neuter
and
much
our
that
fact
A pitfall for the beginner arises from the
we
Thus
forms.
superlative
7}7any have the same comparative and
have:
meget-mere-vieste
much-more-most
many-more-most
viycket-viera-mesta
77imga-ftera-flesta
jnange-flere-fleste
Scandinavian adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the neuter

to Danish and
suffix -t (also by adding -vis or -e??). The -t is not added
Norwegian
adjectives
which end
in -lig.
troublesome than it would otherwise

The
the nonneuter {covmwn) class. The
to
belong
nouns
most
be because
survival of gender
less
is
imidlertid blev
le
'
.
at
ês
det
fant
rederne
,nyttesl0st a fortsette sa lenge de
nor-
jske maskinister stod utenom.
Mange med
-,
biblio-
tekmotet pa Rjukan.
KJUKAN,
august
8.
(AP) Norsk Bibliotekforening holder i

Rjudisse dager sitt arsm0te p& Rjukan.
kan
sitt
offentlige
25
ars
en usedvanlig
mindre
enn
feirer
bibliotek
jubleum.
samtidig
har
fatt
tilslutning,
idet
ikke
bibliotekfolk
fra
hele
stor
120
Arsm0tet
forelandet deltar. Sondag var det apent

Johaa
"
hvor
bus,
Folkets
i
drag-'inckel jr. talte cm Publi-
- med
Pig.
tii
rapporter
og
the Scan32. Cutting from a Norwegian Newspaper showing

AND d.
dinavian VOWEL SYMBOLS
neuter class includes substances, trees,
barn (child), countries,
cojitiiients,
fruits,
and
all
yomig
animals, including
abstract nouns
which end
OUR TEUTONIC
in -aiide or -cnde. Besides these there
R K
is
I.
\'
E S
279
compact group of coninion
words show n below.
The Scandinavian
negative particle
is
quite unHlce the EngHsh-
Dutch-German uot-niet-nicht. In Danish and Norwegian it is

which the hterarv Swedish equivalent (used onlv in books)
In conversation or correspondence
se
honovi
There
of
is
shall
much
Sweden than
of
exist in literature
ENGLISH
Swedes use
iiite, e.g.
ikkc, of
icke.
is
jag shall inte
not see him = jeg skal ikke se bam.

greater gap between the written and spoken language
Denmark and modern Norway. Many
have no existence
in
spoken Swedish or
flexions
in
which
correspond-
28o
booby
Dutch or German,
Scandinavian dialects have special forms of
the possessive adjective of the third person (analogous to the Latin
has
trap for the beginner, because English, like
no equivalent for
it.
TEUTONIC INDEFINITE POINTER WORDS
OUR
T E
UTOX C K
I
Jag bar bans bok (I have his book).

Han bar sin bok (He has his book).
Jag bcsuktc bcnnes hror (I visited
E L A
V E
28
feg bar baiis Bog.

Han bar sin Bog.
her
]cg besogtc bcndcs Broder.
brother).
Hon
clskar sin bar/i (She loves her cliild).
Hn/i elsker
sit
Barn.
THE SOUTHERN CLAN
The
fle.xional
passive of the Scandinavian verb
definite article of the Scandinavian
noun
and the terminal
are features
which the Eng-
and the southern representatives of the Teutonic group have

never had at any stage in their common history. The southern clan,
which includes Dutch and German, also has positive grammatical
characteristics which its members do not share w ith its northern
lish
Three of them
relatives.
The
flcxional
recall characteristics
of Old English:
ending of the third person singular of the present
Dutch or German verb is r. In accordance with the

phonetic evolution of ihe modern Teutonic languages, this cortense of a
responds to the final -tb in Mayflo%i-er English (e.g. saitb, loveth).

infinitive ends in -en, as the Old English infinitive ends in -an
2)
The
3)
The
(e.g.
Dutch-German
finden, Old English, findan).

most verbs carries the prefix ge-, which soft.Middle English, and had almost completely disap-
past participle of
ened to y- in
peared by the beginning of the seventeenth century.
of
When the Roman occupation of Britain came to an end, the domain

Low and High German, in contradistinction to Norse, was roughly
what it is today, and a process of differentiation had begun. In the

Lowlands and throughout' the area w hich is now north Germany
there have been no drastic phonetic changes other than those which
are also incorporated in the modern Scandinavian dialects (e.g. iv to
v,]> to 6 or t and 6 to d). To the south, a second sound shift (p. 226)
occurred before the time of Alfred the Great. The German dialects
had begun to split apart in two divisions w hen west Germanic tribes
invaded Britain.
This division into Loiv or north and Hi{rh or south and middle
first
German
cuts across the official separation of the
Dutch (including Belgian Dutch or Flemish)

its
own
spelling conventions.
language embodies the High
What
is
is
ritten languages.
Low German
ordinarily called the
German (second) sound
elaborate batter\' of useless flexions
w hich Dutch
with
German
shift
and an
has discarded.
It is
282
the written language of
Germany
Throughout
of Switzerland.
as a \Ahole,
the same area
of Austria and of parts
it
also the pattern of
is
educated and of public speech. The country dialects of northern

Germany are Low German. This Plattdeittsch, which is nearer to
Dutch than to the daily speech of south or middle Germany, has its
own literature, like the Scots Doric.

The flexional grammar of Dutch is yery
is
two forms of
that there are
latter
is
The
simple.
chief difficulty
the definite article, de and het.
used only before siugidur nouns classed
as neuter, e.g.
The
de stoel
de stoelen (the chairthe chairs), het boekde boeken (the book

Adjectives haye
the books). There only one
indefinite article, een.
is
two forms,
e.s:.
man is rijk and deze rijke

man respectively. Reduction
deze
rich and this rich
apparatus of adjectival concord has gone
inun for this
man
is
of the troublesome
as far as in the
Chaucer, and the inconvenience of gender crops up only
English of
in the
choice
As in .Middle English, the suffix -e is added to

the ordinary root form of the adjective before a plural noun or a
singular noun preceded by an article, demonstrative or possessive.
\^'hat is true of many of the dialects of Germany and Switzerland
is true of Dutch. The genitive case form of the noim is absent in
speech. It has made way for the roundabout usage with van equivalent
to the German von (of), e.g. de iroiiu- van niijn vrioid (in colloquial
German die Fran von yneijieju Freiind the wife of my friend or
my friend's wife). Thus case distinction survives in Dutch even less
than in English. The onh' noun flexion still important is the plural
of the definite article.
ending. This has been
among
much
less
the Teutonic languages,
regularized than in EngHsh. Alone
Dutch
of nouns with the plural terminal
-s.
shares with English a class
This includes those that end
and -er, e.g. tafel-tafcls (table-tables), kannncr-kanrniers

(room-rooms). The majority of Dutch nouns take -en like oxen, e.g.
in -el, -en,
hiiis-hidzen
W"\X.\\
house-houses).
due rcfrard to the sound
the same as the

zal
(our shall)
German. There
is
tiic auxiliar\-
is
shift, the Dutch verb is essentially

one important difference. In Dutch,
verb used to express future time. In
Cape Dutch or Afrikaans (one of the two official languages of the

Union of South Africa) the simple past (e.g. / heard), habitually
replaced in some German dialects b\' the roundabout construction
with have
(e.g. /
favor of the
German
have heard), has almost complctcis- disappeared
latter.
This alternative construction
is
in
useful trick in
conversation, because the past tense anil past parricijile of
o u R
Teutonic verbs
i:
o n
r.
i.
i:
^H^
often unlike. So the use of the
(cf. iîivc, (riven), arc
informal constniction dispenses with need for memorizing the past

tense forms. The present tense of the .-Xfrikaans verb is invariant and
identical
The
ith tlie infinitive,
w hich
has no terminal.
person singular of the present tense is tlic root (i.e., the infiniremoval of the suffix -en). The second and third person singular
is formed from the tirst bv adding -t, and all persons of the plural arc the
same as the infinitive. The past tense of weak verbs is formed by adding
first
tive after
-re'
or
-lie
in the singular,
Whether we
or -ten and -lien
use the J (as in loved) or
form
the plural, to the root.
in
(as in slept)
is
determined
(see p. 67) in accordance with pronunciation of a dental after a voiced
Ihus we
or voiceless consonant.
The
ik leer
(I
learn)
ik leerde
(I
learned)
ik Lieb
(1
laugh)
ik lachte
(I
laughed)
past participle
adding -d or
ik
have:
-t.
hab geleerd
is
formed
b\'
The compound
(I
putting
tenses arc
have learned)
Passive expression follows the
.ijt'-
in
front of the root and
formed
as in I'.nglish, e.g.:
ik zal leeren (I shall learn)
German
pattern (p. 296) with the
au.\iliar\-
zi'ord-ii'ordt-ii-orden (present), iverd-iierdcn (past).
Owing to
lence of
the case
Dutch
\\
ith
w hich
it is
possible to recognize the equiva-
ords and English words of teutonic stock, as also
to the relative simplicity of
stands near to Tnglish,
its
flcxional
swstem which, with Danish,

a vcrv easy language for
Dutch would be
at home with Anglo-.'Xnicrican if

word order common to English, Scandinavian
anyone already
it
of
dialects,
As we
shall
now
see, the chief difficulties arise in
shared the features
and French.
connection with the
con.struction of the sentence.
GF.R.MAN
WORD ORDLR
The most important difference bctw ecn English and the two Germanic languages is the order of liords. It is so great that half the work
of translating a passage from a German or Dutch book remains to be
done \\ hen the meaning of all the indi\idual words is clear, especially
if it conveys new information or deals w ith abstract issues. Were it
otherwise, the meaning of any piece of simple Dutch prose would be
transparent to an English-speaking reader w ho had spent an hour or
so examining the Table of Particles, etc., elsew here in The Loom of
Language. To make rapid progress in reading Dutch or German, it is
284
word
therefore essential to absorb the
One
suggestion which
mav
pattern of the printed page.
help the reader to apply the rules given in
the preceding paragraph appears on page 158.
How
the meaning of the simplest narrative
may
be obscured by the
is attuned to
unfamiliarity of the arrangement of words, unless the reader
it by the painless effort of previous exercise in syntactical t7\mslatio?J, can

be seen from the following word-for-word translation of a passage from
one of Hoffmann's Tales:
my
"Have vou now reasonable become,
me
dear lord Count," sneered
the money find would.

have you indeed always as a prudent and intelligent man known."
"Indeed thou shalt it have, but under one condition."
"And that sounds?"
"That thou now nor never to the young Count the secret of his birth
betray. Thou hast it surely not perhaps already done?"
"Aye, there must I indeed a real dunce be," replied Rollet laughing.
"Rather had I from me myself the tongue out-cut. No, no, about that
can you yourself becalm. For if I him it told had, so would he his way
to the Lady mother certainh' even without me already found have."
the gipsy. "I thought to
For
To
write
German
indeed that
correctly
it
is
itself
necessary to
know
its
archaic
system of concord between the noun, pronoun, and adjective
know how to
German fluently,
290), as well as to
way.
To
latter
is
read
all-important. So the
arrange
German words
the former
word
pattern of
is
(p.
in the right
unimportant and the
German
is
the
common
concern of the beginner who

does not share the conviction that all learning must and should be
painful. At this stage the reader should therefore read once more the
remarks on pages 143-159. To emphasize the importance of German
denominator, and should be the
(or Dutch) \ôrd order,
we
first
shall
now
bring the essential rules to-
gether:
D
i) Principal clauses, co-ordinate clauses,
a) Inversion of verb and subject
and simple sentences:
when another
sentence element
or a subordinate clause precedes the latter (p. 146):
Ojt kovnjit Tue'm Mann nicht nach Haitse

Often my husband does not come home.
Weil
es
Because
Somitag ist, kochc ich nicht

it is Sunday, I am not cooking.
Note: In colloquial German inversion

to questions.
is
practically confined
OU R
T K U
O NM C
F.
I.
IVES
285
h) Fast participle or infinitive go to the end ot the sentence or

clause:
Die Kiitzc hat die Milch nicht \êtritnkcn

cat hasn't drunk the milk.
The
Dcr Huvd
The dog
c)
The
\\
will
mir folgai.
\\-ants to
follow me.
simple negative follows the object (direct or indirect)
hen
word
AIei7i
My
negates the statement as a whole, but precedes a
it
or phrase which
it
negates otherwise:
Vater hat inir gestern den Schcck
father did not give
me
jiichf
gegeben
the check yesterday.
Mei7i Vater hat mir nicht gesterti den Scheck gegeben
Mv
father did not give
me
the check yesterday.
2) Subordinate clauses:
a)
The
finite
verb goes to the end. immediately after the
ciple or infinitive
when
it
is
parti-
a helper:
Sic kaiii nach Haiisc, ivcil sic kcin
Geld mehr
hatte
She came home because she had no more money.

Meiii Britdcr sagte
Tiiir,
dass er nach Berlin
gehcv
ivolle
(ivill)
My
In
all
brother told
me
that he
wanted to go to
other Teutonic languages, except Dutch, and in
Berlin.
all
Romance
by meaning are placed in close proximity.

German, and not only written German, dislocates them. Thus the
article may be separated from its noun i)y a string of cjualificrs, and
the length of the string is determined by the whims of the writer,
e.g. der rresterii Abend m/f dem AlexcDidraplatz von eineni Last auto
languages, ^\ords connected
iiberjahrene Biichervieister Midler
zmigen
ist
heute niorgen seinen Verlet-
yesterday evening on the Alexandraplatz by a

lorry run over master-baker Miiller has this morning to his injuries
erlefj;eii
= the
succumbed. The auxiliary pushes the verb to the end of the statement, as in ich u-erde dich heme Abend aujsiichen (I shall you this
evening visit). When you get to the end of a sentence you may always hsh up an unsuspected negation, e.g. er befriedi{rtc niisere
Wi'insche nicht = he satisfied our wishes not. The dependent clause is
rounded up by the verb, e.g. er behanptet, dass er ihn in Chicago
getroffen habe = he says that he him in Chicago met had; and w hen
the subordinate is placed before the main clause it calls for inversion of
286
the verb in the latter {da er arbeitslos
bezahlen = since he unemployed
is,
ist, kami er die Aliete nicht

can he the rent not pay). Evxn
may leave its customar>" place before the noun and

march behind it, e.g. der Dame gegeniiber (opposite the lady) as
was possible in Latin, e.g. pax vobisciim (peace be with you).
Other preliminary essentials for a reading knowledge of German are
the preposition
already contained in the tables of pronouns, particles, demonstratives,
and helper verbs, together with what has been said about the common
all the Teutonic languages or of the Germanic clan. Anyone
who wishes to ^\rite German correctly must also master the concord
of noun and adjective. The behavior of nouns, of adjectives, and of
pronouns in relation to one another confronts those of us who are
interested in the social use of lanCTuagê and its future with an arresting
problem.
features of
It is
easy to understand
why
Icelanders can
still
read the Sagas.
The
Norse community in Iceland has been isolated from foreign invasion

and intimate trade contacts with the outside world, while the speech
habits of Britain and some parts of Europe have been eroded by conquest and commerce. The conservative character of German is not
a simple stor\\ The Hanseatic ports once held leadership in
maritime trade. There were famous culture centers such as Nuremberg, Augsburg and Mainz. There wzs the flourishing mining industry
of South Germany and Saxony. There were the sfreat international
such
banking houses of the Fugger and Welser. Still, Germany was not yet
England or sixteenth-century" France.
It had no metropolis comparable to London, Paris, Rome, or Madrid.
The Berlin of today does not enjoy a supremacy which these capitals
had earned three hundred years ago. Till the present generation German was not the language of a single political unit in the sense that
Icelandic has been for a thousand years. When Napoleon's campaigns
brought about the do\\nfall of the Holy Roman Empire, German was
a nation like fourteenth-century
the
common
states \\ith
literary
no
medium
common
of a loose confederation of sovereign
Modern Germany as a
The union of all the
Switzerland did not come
standard of speech.
political unity begins after the Battle of Sedan.
High German-speaking peoples

about
till
In the fourteenth century, that

lish
became the
tariat
outside
Hitler absorbed Austria in the Third Reich.

is
to say about the time
when Eng-
language of the English judiciary, the secreof the chancelleries of the Holy Roman Empire gave up the use
of Latin.
They
official
started to
\\
rite in
German. The royal chancellery of
o u R
r.
TONIC
r k l a t
v.
287
Prague set the fashion, and the court of the Elector of Saxony fell into
step. This ailininistrntive (Icrnian, a lantjiiagc with archaic features
like that of our ow n law courts, m as the only common standard u hen
the task of translating the Bible brought Luther face to face \\ ith a
niedlev of local dialects. "I speak," he
of the Saxon chancellerv
\\
hich
of Gernianw All the imperial
is
"accordin<r to the
tells us,
followed
the courts of princes, write
cities, all
according to the usage of the Saxon chancellerv w hich
ow n
usa<j;c
the princes and kings
l)\' all
is
my
that of
prince."
made
Luther's Bible
German
this archaic
the printed and written
At
lanijuagc of the Protestant states, north and south.
first,
the Catholic
countries resisted. In time thc\' also adopted the same standard.
much
help from the printers
Its
who
had a material interest in using spelling and grammatical forms free from all too obvious
provincialisms. B\' the middle of the eighteenth centurv Germany
alreadv had a standardized literarv and w ritten language. During the
nineteenth centurv what had begun as a paper language also came to
be a spoken lanouaijc. Still, lintruistic unification has never {jone so
spread received
Germanv as in France. .Most German children are nurtured on

Thev do not get their initiation to the spoken and w ritnorm till thev reach school; and those who remain in the country
far in
local dialects.
ten
towns most people

language which stands somew here between dialect and what
habituallv speak a local vernacular. In the larger
speak
is
taught
w ho
but the pronunciation even of educated people,
in school,
deliberatelv pursue the prescribed model, usuallv betravs the part
w hich thev come. There
of the country from
are also considerable
regional differences of vocabulary, as illustrated
between
"A
a Berliner
and
shows him
The
assistant corrects
several.
The
him: 'You want a Rcisekappe,' and
Berliner remarks: 'Die biinten liebe icb nicht^
don't like those with several colors).

into his
own German:
guilty,
all
ist
dicse Miitze?'
says: '^Was kostet das?''
The
is still
is
this cap?
),
and
unduly high
prices.
The Viennese
Berliner looks round for the Kasse
(cash desk) and finds the sign: Kassa.

it
(How much
innocently, of a most crude Berlinism. Tetter, indeed,
applies to prices above the normal, to
merely
(I
assistant turns this sentence
^drbigen ge^ alien Ihnen nicht?'' The Viennese,

only people; he does not love things. Lastlv, the
Berliner says: 'li^/V tetter

is
The
''Die
see, loves (liebt)
again
a conversation
Berliner in X'ienna goes into a shop and asks for a Rcisef/nitze (trav-
eling cap).
you
by
Wiener:
He
leaves the shop saving, since
early in the day: 'Giiten Morgcn," greatly to the surprise of the
N'iennese,
who
uses this
form of words on
arrival onlv,
and not on leaving.

The Viennese
Tagf and this
with the words: Îch babe die Ehre! Guten

is surprised, since he uses the expression
Guten Tag! only on arrival, and not when leaving."
(E. Tonnelat: A History of the Ger?7hvi Language)
in turn replies
time the Berliner
THE GERMAN NOUN

The
usual practice of textbooks
is
to exhibit a staggering assort-
German nouns. This

way of displaying the eccentricities of the German noun is useful if we
ment of
tabulations of different declensions of
want
compare
to
it
with
its
equivalent in one of the older and
highly inflected representatives of the Teutonic family; but
more
it is
not
good way of summarizing the peculiarities which we need to remeviber, because the German noun of today is simpler than the Teutonic
noun in the time of Alfred the Great. For instance, a distinctive genia
ending has disappeared altogether. In the spoken language
tive plural
the dative singular case ending survives only in set expressions such as
nach Haiise (home) or zu Hause (at home). Essential rules we need to

remember about what endings we have to add to the nominative singular
(i.e.,
dictionary)
form
are the following:
A. In the singular:
i) Feminine nouns do not change.
2) Masculine nouns which, like der Knabe (boy), have -E in the
nominative take -EN in all other cases. A few others (e.g.
MENSCH, KAMERAD, SOLDAT, PRINZ, OCHS, NERV) also take -EN.
3) The other masculine nouns and all neuter nouns add -ES or
-S (after -EL, -ER, -EN, -CHEN) in the genitive.
4) Proper names and technical terms derived from foreign roots,
such as TELEFON ot RADIUM add -S in the genitive and do
not otherwise change.
B.
The
DATIVE PLURAL of ALL nouns ends in -(E)N.
C. In ALL OTHER CASES of the PLURAL:
Add -EN
to all polysyllabic feminines (except Mutter and

Tochter) and to all the masculines mentioned under A(2).
2) Masculines and neuters in -ER, -EL, -EN, -CHEN (diminutives), do not change, but many of the masculines and all
feminines and neuters (diminutives) have root- vowel change
(Umlaut) as stated under D.
3) Many monosyllabic masculines, feminines, and neuters take
-E. Some of the masculines and all the feminines have Umi)
laut, e.g.
4)
der Sohn (son)
die
Sohne
The most common monosyllabic
(sons).
neuters
(e.g.
Bild,
Blatt,
OUR
r.
C)
C:
R K L A
IVES
289
Haus, Kind, Kleid, Land, Licht, Loch,

few masculines of one syllabic have -ER (dative
-LRN). All nouns of this group have Umlaut.
5) A small number of masculines and neuters show mixed declension, e.g. -(E)S in the genitive singular and -(E)N in
the plural. None of them has Umlaut. Examples are: alt.e
(eve), UALKR (farmer), BKrr (bed), Dt)KroR (proi r.ssoR,
DiREKTOR, REKTOR, ctc. ), NACMBAR (neighbor), OHR (car),
Buch,
Ei, Feld, Glas,
crc), and
STAAT (state), STRAHL (fa)).

a, o, u, and the diphthong au
The
D.
root vowels,
The
genitive
dcr
may change
to
a, 6,
au in the plural.
ii,
as in
form of the German noun follows the thing possessed
Hut mciues
Vaters
(my
masculine singular noun carries
its
father's hat). In this
example the
genitive terminal. Since no plural
and no feminine singular nouns have a special genitive ending, the

how to express the same relation when the noun is
neither masculine singular nor neuter singular. The answer is that it
beginner will ask
word or adjective w hich does carry the

Thus 7)iy sister's hat is dcr Hut ineiner Schivestcr. The
roundabout method of expression is common in speech, and is easier
to handle, e.g. der Hut von me'mem Vater (the hat of my father), or
der Hut von ineiner Scbwester.
usuallv'
comes
after a pointer
case trademark.
To
in the preceding and in succeeding paraneed to be able to recognize the gender class to iihich a
apply the rules given
graphs
we
Gervhin noun belongs. Each noun

is
so labeled
(f.),
i)
bv
das (n.).
in the
museum
exhibits of Part
The
following rules are helpful:
.MASCULINE are:
a)
Names
of adult males (excluding diminutives), seasons, months,
days, and compass points. Notable exceptions:
Woe he
(night), die
b)
2)
IV
the definite article (nominative sing.) dcr (m.), die
Nouns which end
FEMININE
in
Die \acht
(week), das Jahr (year).
-EN
(excluding infinitives so used).
are:
a)
Names
b)
Weib (wife or woman).

Nouns which end in -EI, -HEIT, -REIT, -SCHAFT, -IN,
of adult females (excluding diminutives). Notable ex-
ception: das
and
-UNG
and foreign words which end
in -IE, -IK,
-TAT.
3)
NEUTER
are:
a) Diminutives
b) Metals.
which end
in
-LEIN
or
-CHEN.
-ION,
290

c) All other parts of speech used as nouns, together with the fol-
lowing comimon words:

EIS
(1
U R T
F.
U TO \
R K L A T
i:
291
do not change. Dciiionsnativcs (table on p. 271), the articles and

posscssives (table on p. 16) always behave in the same way in accordance w ith the nuniher of the noun, its gender class and its case. The
ein)
demonstratives (iliacr, jcdcr,
have
jcjicr,
solchcr, iihvicbcr, xvclcher) be-
like the definite article (JtT, die, das, etc.). In the singular the
292
1.
If predicative,
of any ending.
It
an adjective has the dictionary form without addition

behaves as all English adjectives behave. \Ye do not
have to bother about the number, gender or case of the noun, ^^'e use
the same
word
du/inn to say:
Das ist duumi - this is stupid

Er ist dwmn - he is stupid
2.
If
the adjective
comes
Sie
'
ist
Wir
dwmn
~ she
sind duiinii =
we
is
stupid
are stupid
after a de7U07istrative or the definite article
it
behaves like nouns of the iveak class represented by der Knabe (p. 288).
then have to choose between the two endings -E and -EN in ac-
We
()
u K
I",
o x
c:
R K
I.
r.
-y3
Accordingly wc use the strong forms analogous to the corresponding

absent demonstrative
ohnc
in:
rotes Bint
without red blood

fiir
for
4.
i^ntc
hraiicn
good women
The behavior
of an ordinary adjective
7nit
rotcm
Bltit
with red l)lood
von i^ntcn Fr.uicfi

of good women
when
it
stands alone before
noun and w hen it follow s a demonstrative or the definite article might

be summed up by saying that it does not carry the strong ending if prethe
294
nouns
vie'mer, vieines,
(my). There are
man,
if
the
word
it
mem,
etc.
(mine), and the possessive adjective
(see p. ii6) five v/ays of saying it is inme in Gerrefers to a masculine noun such as Hut: es ist meiner;
vie'm
o u R
er
/.iij
dm
.!,'.7//ctv/
L'
i:
Tnp:
iiii
()
c:
L A T
V.
he
Bctt
cr gcht jcdcn Tiig in dcii I\nk
THF.
the
la\'
\\
V.
liole
295
S
il;i\"
he goes to the park e\
in
hcd
er\' d.iv
CF.RMAN VERB
With one outsrnndiiv^- exception, mu\ w ith due allow nnces for the
second sound shift, the High German verb is hl<e the Dutch. The past
with bahcii can replace the Englisii simple past or the Fnglish past \\ ith
b.nw Tiie past witii batte {cr battc gcbort he had heard) is like the
EnfTJish construction. In parts of
peared
in dailv
<êscbiilt.
this
The
speech.
Context or the
means: {a)
I \\
Germany,
the simple past has disap-
Havarian housewife saws icb babe Kartofjebi
inserti(jn
of
a particle
as peeling potatoes, (/?)
of time show
w hether
have just peeled potatoes.
follow ing table summarizes the formation of the simple present
and simple past by
suffixes
added to the stem of a li't'j^ verb (i.e., what

affix -eii from the infinitive) or by helper
always gives lists of stroji<r verbs and their
remains after removing the

verbs.
parts.
good
The
dictionarx'
reader w
ill
find
some impf)rtant
flexion in the discussion of internal
Chapter \\
irregularities of personal
vowel change on page 201
in
296
ich iverde
er ivird
ivir, Sie, sie
ko7nmen =
kommen
/ sloall
= he
covie
come
ivill
iverden kovnnen - ive shall come, you, they
ivill
come
when should or would are used after a condition (e.g. if he

came I should see him) in contradistinction to situations in which they
signify compidsion {you shoidd know), they are translated by the
past, iviirde. If followed by have, the latter is translated by sein (be),
Similarly,
e.g.:
gehen = he ivoidd go
gegangen sein = he ivoidd have gone
er wiirde
er wiirde
This helper verb werden (worde?!
in
Dutch)
English weorpan which means to become.
an
as
affix in
forward, inward,
in passive expressions
etc. It
is
er
used (like
where we should use
our verb to have,
to be then replaces
wird gehort = he
is
equivalent to the
Its participle
be,
its
Old
has persisted
Dutch equivalent)
and the German verb
e.g.:
is
heard
wurde gehort = he was heard

er ist gehort worden = he has been heard
er war gehort worden = he had been heard
er
Unfortunately it
werden
is
we can always use the parts of

when it precedes a past particonstruction. Sometimes the German
not true to say that
to translate those of the verb be,
what looks like a passive

is more like our own, i.e., sein (be) replaces werden. To
know whether a German would use one or the other, the best thing to
do is to apply the following tests: where it is possible to insert already
ciple in
construction
in an English sentence of this type, the correct
German
equivalent
is
seiii, e.g.:
Unglilcklicheriveise ivar der Fisch (bereits) gefangen
Unluckily the
In
all
fish
was (already) caught
other circumstances use werden.
It
subject of the equivalent active statement
The German
equivalents for
can always be used if the

explicitly mentioned.
is
some English verbs which take
a direct
object do not behave like typical transitive verbs which can be followed
by the accusative case form of a noun or pronoun. The equivalent of the

English direct object has the dative case form which usually stands for
our indirect object.
It
cannot become the subject of the verb iverden
in a
Such verbs include seven common ones: antvoorten

(answer), begegnen (meet), danken (thank), dienen (serve), folgen
passive construction.
OUR
T E U
C)
C;
U E L A
(follow), gehorchai (obey), hctfcn (help).

in
W'c h;uc
297
to use these verl)s
the active form, either bv making the direct object of the English
passive construction the
German
subject
when
the former
is
explicitly
mentioned, or by introducing the impersonal subject i/ia/i, as in ina7i

dMiktc 1/iir fur 7/ici/ic Dienste (I \\ as thanked for my service - one thanked
me for my service). Reflexive substitutes are not uncommon, e.g. plotzlich
offuete sich die Tiir (suddenly the
door was opened). There
is
an alter-
native clumsy impersonal construction involving the passive construction
with the indefinite subject es, e.g. cs liuirde ?///V gfdaiikt. Because of all
these difficulties, and because Germans themselves avoid passive constructions in everyday speech, the beginner should cultivate the habit of active
statement.
true that the German verb haben is alw avs equivalent

when it is used to signif \- past time, the converse is not true.
With many verbs a German uses the parts of sehi (p. 89). \'erbs
Though
it is
to our have
w hich go with
habeii are
given), reflexive, e.g.
sie
all
transitive, e.g. ich
hat sich
'reschiiiJit
habe gegeben
(I
have
(she felt ashamed), and the
helpers sollen, kouncii, ivollen, lassen, e.g. er hat iiicht kovniioi ixol-
want to come). The German uses seiii and its parts

hen our have is followed hv an English verb of motion, such as
koTuvien (come), gehc7] (go),reiseii {travel), stei gen (climb), e.g. /V/:)
bill gegaiigen (I have gone). The verbs bleiben, iverden and seiii itself
also go with sei7i, as illustrated on page 296.
The present tense forms of five English and German helpers are
derived from the past of old strong verbs. They have acquired newweak past tense forms. Thev have singular and plural forms in both,
but no specific personal flexions of the third person singular present.
leu (he did not
\\
Sing.
ka7771
may
mag
Plur.
kd/27iei7
777
could
might
should
would
Sing.
ko7J7ite
77/ochte
sollte
ivollte
V7usste
Plur.
koimte7i
77iochte77
solltei7
ivollten
7777lSSten
can
Though
derived from
English and
will
must
soil
ivill
muss
SOUCTI
zvolle??
777ussen
shall
6gen
common Teutonic
German words do
roots the corresponding
not convey the same meaninir. For
reasons stated on page 143, this is not surprising. Helow is a table to

the correct use of these German helpers, including also dar\-
show
form from
any English auxiliary
diirfe7}-dw-fte, a sixth
that of
root which does not correspond to

298
MUSSEN
MOGEN
necessity (must, have to):
vmss nun packen

have to pack now
ich
I
(cont.)
mochte licber bier bleiben

would rather stay here
ich
WOLLEN
er vmsste Ainerika verlassen
(i) intention (will):
he had to leave America

ich
es 7/iuss interessant geioeseji sein
I
must have been very
it
er
konneji Sie tanzen?

can you dance?
ich ivollte eben gehen als
konnten nicht konimen

were unable to come
was
just leaving
sie zvill
am
kami schon
mis geschen haben
er
on
\"\êdnesday
(3) idiomatic,
ivill nach Holland

he wants to go to Holland
Mittnvoch
(already)
arrive
when
she pretends having seen us
eintreffen
may
dich sprcchen
ivill
(3) idiomatic:
(2) possibility (may):
he
zivingeji
him
he wants to talk to you
(i) capability (can, be able):
er
shall force
(2) volition (wants to, wish to):
KONNEN
we
and
inter-
esting
ivir
und luerde ihn
ivill
will
SOLLEN
(i) obligation (shall, be to, ought
e.g.:
to)-:
kann Spanisch
er
dii sollst
he knows Spanish
nicht stehlen
thou shalt not
steal
ich kann fiichts dafiir

I
can't help
sag ihm, er soil gehen
it
tell
MOGEN
go
to
Geld Icihen
you should not lend him any
Sic sollteii ilmi kein
{i) possibility (may):

Sie
him
nwgen
money
recht haben
you may be
right
Sie hdtten friiher
konnncn
(2) preference (like to):
vou should have come
ich iiiag heute nicht atisgehen

I
don't like to go out today
mo gen
do you
Sie ihn?
like
him?
ich 7/iochte Sic gern besuchen

I
should
like to
look you up
sol-
icit
( 2 )
idioTnatic:
er soil ihr Geliebter sein
he
is
said to be her lover
v.-as soil
w iiat
ich tun?
shall
dor
earlier

L R
()
SOLLEN
()
NIC
R K L A
com. )
krjnk scin?
cr hat riicht koimiicv ciiirfcn
'"^>'
liisscfi.
this
Strcichhoiz
'
^'^'^
f*""
"'''^''^
'^
das diirfte nicht schzi-cr scin
go now?
that shouldn't be difficult
1 he beginner wiio
After
ciii
(2) possibility (may):
Jjrf (kiVin) ich nun gchcn?
use of
11 in
bitten?
^">:
come
he was nor allowed to
ill?
DIRFEN
pcrmiîon (uuy. be allowed
ma\
299
(I'Oflf.
ciarf ich Sic
(i)
K S
DURFKN
sollte er viclUicbt
can he be
w hich
equivalent to
an infinitive
construction
not forewarned
is
is
is
common,
is
nia\-
let in
we
used w here
be confused about one
the sense
/;i7:v
should put
j thinir done.
a participle. 'I'his
e.g.:
= he is havinfi, a bouse built

F.r lasst sieh ein Haus baucn
= he has had a house built
Er hat sich cin Haus bauen lasscn
Er wird sieh cin Haus baucn lassen = he will hair a house built
= he has kept nie ii-aitini^
Er hat mieh \\ arten lasscn
Broadly speaking we can alw ays translate the dictionary form w hich
does service for the present tense or the imperative in English bv
the German infinitive when it is accompanied by a helper or preceded
b\- tu. The latter is equivalent to zii, w hich does not precede the verb
if it is accompanied by a helper. We omit the preposition after two
also
\cri)s {see, hear)
other than helpers
after a third (help).
helfen,
I
and
also
Germans
do so
saw him do
heard him say that
Help mc
am
The
me
to
tive
others.
and sometimes
and
Of
these lernen (learn) and
ich horte ihn sagen, dass
dance
sic lebrte
German
helper verbs (kiinnen,
peculiarit\
Hilf viir doch es find en
it
learning to write
common
144,
ich sab ihn es tun

.
Lissen) together with the last
second
on page
common:
it
(to) find
She taught
few
after a
eh r en (teach) are most
listed
leave out zu after hciren, sehen,
inich tanzen
ich lerne deutsch schreiben
i>/o(j;en,
named
diirfcn, reollen, sollen, iniissen,

(seheii, hore/i, helfen)
In their past
compound
have
tenses the infini-
form replaces the past participle with the (!;e- prefix, whenever
accompanied by the infinitive of another verb, e.g.:
thc\' arc
er bat nicht geii'ollt

er hat nicht
hdren wollen
he didn't
w ant
to
he didn't want to
listen
300
The verb
ii-erdeii
has
meaning
to
a) er
past participles, (a) ivorden
used
ist
er hat
//;
order to the
The same combination
his wife).
adjective before the infinitive
geimg (enough),
li-ar
as
when
it is
used
an ordinary verb
become sour
German
uses imi
deui Bahiihof, inn seine Fran abziiholen (he
meet
when an
the milk has
saner ge^cOrden
the English to signifies
e.g. er ist aiif
station to
used
he has been seen
gesehen ivorden
ist
When
when
become:
b) die Milch
er
nvo
helper in passive expressions, (^)
as a
zu schivach
is
z/7
qualified
is
must be
rz/
by zii
Z7i,
at the
(too) or
e.g.:
mn
Geld gevidg inn
he was too weak to get up
aufzustehen
sich zuruckziiziehen
he has
monev enough
to retire
GERMAN SYNTAX
The rules given on page 284 do not exhaust the eccentricities of German word order. The behavior of verb prefixes reinforces our impression of dislocation. Both in English and in French the prefix of a
verb, e.g. be- (in behold, etc.) or re- (in reconnaitre = recognize)
German
arable verb prefixes; but
it
from the root and turn up

former,
little
needs to be
also
in
Some
English verb prefixes, others are not.

a clear-cut
meaning. This
miss-, z'er, \vider-, zer-.
class
has
another part of the sentence.
said.
is
some ten of such insephas others which detach themselves
inseparablv married to the root.
is
None
made up
The only
Of
the
of them are recognizably like

of
them except
iniss-
has
of: be-, ent, e77ip-, er-, ge-,
useful fact to
know
about them
is
that their past participles lack the ge- prefix, e.g. er bat sich betninken
(he got drunk), er hat meine Karte noch nicht erhalten (he has not
yet received
The
my card), er hat mich verraten
separable
German
(he has betrayed me).
verbs carr\' preposition sufiixes like those of
our words undergo, uphold, overcome, nxithstaud. In one group the

is always detached, and comes behind the present or simple
past tense of the verb of a simple sentence, or of a principal clause, but
sticks to the verb root in a subordinate clause. This is illustrated by
comparison of the simple and complex sentences in the pairs:
preposition
a) Die
The
Dame
lady
geht
is
heme
aus
going out today
Die Dame, die gerade ausgeht,
The
ladv
who
just
went out
ist
is ill
krank
O U K
T K U
()
C:
R K L A
F,
JO I
b) Der Juii^c schrciht doi Brief ab

The bov is ct)p\ ing the krrcr
Dcr
jtniê,
Tlic bov
The
dcr dcv
who
liric\ iibêscbricbcii hat, ist
has copied the letter
past participle of a separable
inserted
between the root and the
erl)
ii-ei\icii
w hich
carries the ^c- prefix
ziiirchisscii
expressing future time the prefix
is
anêbraimt
(admitted). After the
preposition-pre/f.v,
(burnt), bei<rcpflichtct (agreed),
verb
schr bcgabt
vcrv talented
is
e.tr.
the root of the
sticlcs to
infinitixe, e.g.:
icb li-erdc
I
When the
il.vu iiicbt
iiachlaufen
not run after him
shall
preposition zu accompanies the infinitive
the prefix and the root,
it
comes between
e.g.:
Der Knabe hat die Absicbt

The boy intends to copy it
abzuschreiben
es
zuriickzukommen
She asked nie to come back
Sie bat inich
In the spoken language verbs

are recognizable
bv
the stress
ing: an-, j7/f-, alls-, bei-, in
w hich always conform
on the
prefix,
i.e.,
to these rules
any one of the follow-
= in), nach-, vor-, zii-.
Unfortunately, an-
other set of verbal prefi.xes belong to verbs with separable or inseparable forms
which do not mean the same
attached to one root and separable
thing, or are inseparable
when
attached to another.
durchreisen, a separable verb (with stress on the
first
syllable)
when
Thus
means
through iiithout stopping, but durchreisen as an inseparable

verb (with the stress on the second syllable), means to travel all over.
Of such pairs, another example is the separable iinterstehen (seek shelter) and its inseparable cotwin nnterstehen (dare). In nnterscheiden
to travel
(distinguish) the prefix
is
These capricious
inseparable. In tintergehen (sink)
it is
sep-
um-,
itnter-, voll-, ivieder-. The inseparable verbs are usually transitive and
form compound tenses with haben, the separable ones intransitive,
forming compound tenses with sein (be).
One great stumbling block of German syntax to the English-speakarable.
ing beginner
is
durch-,
hiiiter-,
iiber,
the profusion of particles arbitrarily allocated to par-
ticular situations.
in a
prefixes are:
The single English word
temporal sense,
before can be a conjunction
a prepositional directive in a spatial
or temporal
302
sense,
and can replace the adverb previously
German demands
before the
Preposition:
Where one word suffices,
three:
dawn (temporal)
before his eyes (spatial)
Conjunction:
before he saw
Adverb:
you
vor Tagesajibriich
vor seinen Aiigen
ehe er es sah or bevor er es sab
it
Sie hah en es here its gesagt
said so before
Similarly our \\ord after can be either a preposition or a conjunction,

e.g.:
after his birth

after
On
the credit side of the
iL'dhrend, for
7iach seiner
nachdem
he was born
German
which we have
junction (while),
war
German
has one word,
preposition {during) and con-
e.g.:
For each of the English

a separate
account,
a separate
during dinner
while he was eating
is
Geburt
er geboren
German
ivUhrend des Essens

ivdhrend er ass
and over, there

and tnj:o adverbs
directives inside, outside, up,
preposition
{in, aus, aiif, iiber),
the use of which demands an explanation.
The
small
number of
Anglo-American use
is
essential particles in a basic vocabularv^ for
partly due to the fact that
we
have largely
discarded distinctions already implicit in the accompanying verb. For

instance
we no
longer
make
the distinction between rest and motion
(or situation and direction) explicit in archaic couplets as here-hither
or there-thither. The German dictionary is supercharged with redundant particles or redundant grammatical tricks which indicate
whether the verb implies motion, or if so in what (hither-thither)
direction. Corresponding to each of the German prepositions mentioned
last (iji, aus, auf, iiber)
there are here-there couplets: herein-
hinein, heraus-hinaus, herauj-hinauf, heriiber-hiniiber, analogous to
herab-hinab (down) for which there
man
preposition.* If the verb
is
is no precisely equivalent Gerkonnnen (which already indicates
motion toward a fixed point), we use the here form, her-. If the verb
is gehen (which indicates motion away from a fixed point) we have to
use the there
form
hin-, e.g.:
The
adverbial form placed after

preposition, as in
*
er ging den Hiigel binab

er koimnt die Strasse herab
tlie
accusative
noun does the work of the
he went down the hill

he is coming down the street
()
U R
v.
{)
(".
Koiiifucn Sic bcrab - Conic down.
I.
I.
r.
303
Gchcii Sic hi)iab
(ict
dow
n.
W'irh stcii^cn or klcttcni (l)orli of which iiicnn ciniih) rlic use of rhc
two forms depends on u herher rhc speaker is nt the top or at the hottt)ni of the tree. If at the bottom he (or she) sa\s: Klcttcni Sic hiimi/f,
if at the top. Klcttcni Sic hcrjnf. Both mean cliif/h ///>, and the distinction reveal.s nothing w liich is not made exphcit b\' the context.
One wav in which the (ierman language indicates location and
motion has no parallel in other modern Teutonic languages nor in
I'rench and Spanisii. It is a relic from a vcrv remote past. W'c have
seen (p. 25S) that a set of nine prepositions {mi, up, to or at, j///, on,
hifiter, behind, /;/, ncbeii, near to, iiber over or across, inner below or
under, vor before, zra-ischcn between) sometimes precede a dati\e and

sometimes an accusative case form. If the verb implies rest the prescribed case form
The
is
the dative,
implies inotion, the accusative, e.g.:
window
w indow
he stood below the
er trat tnitcr das Fcnster
he stepped below the
distinction
sci/ie
Hosen
is
not alw a\s so easy to detect, as
Joavgen an der
cr hangt das Bild an die

Still
if it
er stand iinter dcin Foistcr
more
subtle
is
Wand
in
hanging on the wall

hanging the picture on tlic wall
his trousers are
}Vand
he
is
the difference between:
Sie tanzte vor ibin
she danced in front of him
Sic tanzte vor ihn
she danced right up to him
when the German signs his name, the case form has to obey the
movement of the penholder, as in er schreibt seiiieu Naifien auf das
Dokmnent (he is writing his name on the document).
Germans often supplement a more or less vague preposition with a
more explicit adverb w hich follows the noun. Such characteristically
German prolixity is illustrated by:
F,ven
er sieht ziim Fcnster hinaiis

er geht inn
Thus
simple direction
at least 50
he
den See heruni
may
per cent redundant,
he
is
is
looking through the
window
walking round the lake
be supersaturated with particles w hich are

voni Dorfe ans gehen Sie auf den M'ald
e.g.
von dort ans iiber die Uriickc himiber, nach dem kleinen See bin.
(You go up toward the forest and thence across the bridge toward the
zn, iind
lake.) The separable combination nacb

bin within the sentence
and the corresponding nacb
ber, both meaning tonard, must be
memorized. The preposition nacb is equivalent to after in a purely temlittle
poral sense, illustrated previously, as
(afterwards).
When
nach precedes
is
the inseparable adverb nachber
a place
name
it
signifies to, e.g.
nach

304
Berlin = to Berlin.
tinction to
ZLi
The problem
in
Thus
77ach Haiise
gehen means go home
in contradis-
Haiise sein (be at home).
of choosing the right
word
also arises in
we
use a verb
which may have
a transitive
whenever
German
most European languages other than Anglo-American
or intransitive meaning.
Since most Anglo-American verbs can have both, the choice
from which an English-speaking beginner cannot

nary meaning of the verb is transitive, we can use
lent reflexively.
This trick
is
useful
when
as
there
is
one
escape. If the ordiits
is
German
no
equiva-
explicit object,
e.g.:
er kiihlt die Luft ab
he
die Luft kiihlt sich ab
the air
is
cooling the air

is
cooling
(itself)
is common to German and other Teutonic dialects,

French or Spanish. More usually we have a choice between
two forms of the verb itself. They may be distinguished by internal
vowel changes as on page 202, or by means of the affix be-. This prefix,
which has lost any specific meaning in English, converts an intransitive
German verb into its transitive equivalent, i.e., the obligatory form
This construction
as also to
when
there
is
a direct object, e.g.:
TRANSITIVE
INTRANSITIVE
anttvorten
(answer)
beantivorten
drohen
(threaten)
bedrohen
herrschen
(rule)
beherrschen
trauern
(mourn)
betrauem
urteilen
(judge)
beurteilen
The German vocabulary

lets distinguished
which
is
burdened by an enormous number of coup-
by one or another
inseparable prefix. Besides the be-
German verb
an object in life, one prefix,

understand misunderstand) has a
clearly defined meaning illustrated by: achten wissachte?i (respect
trauen inisstraiien
despise),
gliicken missgliicken
(succeed fail),
mistrust). Other common prefixes have no single meaning. Both
(trust
ent- and er- may signify incipient action like the Latin affix -esc- in evangives the intransitive
7niss-, like its
English equivalent
(cf.
Thus we have flainmen entfiannnen (blaze burst into flames)

or erroten (turn red), erkalten (grow cold). In some verb couplets of this
escent.
sort er- signifies getting a result.
Thus wt
have:
work)
by begging)
(obtain by fighting)
(obtain by snatching)
arbeiten
(work)
erarbeiten
(obtain through
betteln
(beg)
erbetteln
(obtain
kdinpjen
(fight)
erkci7npfen
has c hen
(snatch)
erhaschen
V R
()
F-:
C)
R K L A
The
prefix ver- attached to nianv verbs
kcrs
may have
meaning,
a p>erfective
(burn)
(work)
vcrbrennev
vemrhciten
schiesse?!
(shoot)
verschicsscii
group of such
hi another
went awry,
their
own
(burn up)
(work up)
(shoot away)
(drink away)
vcrtrinkcn
same prefix indicates that the action
pairs, the
e.g.:
by bending)
bic^cii
(bend)
verbiegen
(spoil
Ici^cn
(put)
%'erlegeii
(misplace)
iprcche?!
(speak)
borcn
(hear)
scbrciben
(write)
The
305
which can stand on
brcnncn
(drink)
e.g.:
arbeiten
tr'mkai
(commit
sichversprechen
sich verborcu
sichverschrciben
a slip
of the tongue)
(hear what has not been said)
(commit
a slip
of the pen)
older Teutonic languages had subjunctive verb forms, past and
present. In English the onl\- traces of this arc {a) the use of -n'crc in
conditional clauses,
or untrue), as in
when
/f / li'ere
the condition
richer,
is
rejected
could buy
it;
(i.e.,
h\"pothctical
(b) in diffident state-
ments such as lest it he lost. As we might expect, the German subjuncbeen more resistant. The verb seiii has present (ich or er sei,
tiir or sie seieii) and past (ich or er \i\ire, zi-ir or sie xiiiren) subjunctive forms. So has ii-erdeii in the third singular er ujeerde of the present,
and throughout the past, ii-iirde--^-iirde/i. If we exclude the intimate
forms (with dii and ihr) the onl\- distinct present subjunctive form of
most other verbs is the third person singular. It ends in -e instead of -t,
e.g. Tiiache for inacht (make) or finde for findet. The weak verb has
no special past subjunctiv e form. That of strong verbs is formed from
the ordinary past b\' vow el change and the addition of -e, e.g. âb
tive has
glibe (gave), flog
floge
(flew).
The
subjunctive of the present of
strong verbs of the nehmen-geben class

fication of the
English,
is
ich etivas ynchr
If
If
had
a little
ich etivas inehr
had had
The German
//;
is
formed without the modi-
(p. 203). Its use in conditional clauses, as in
illustrated by:
Wemi
Wemi
stem vowel
Geld hiittc, zviirde ich ziifriedcncr

more money I should be happier
sein
Geld gehabt hdtte, uedre ich zufriedener geivesen

more money 1 should have been happier
a little bit
subjunctive
is
also used in reported speech, e.g.:
seiner Reichstai^srede erkldrte Hitler, er
werde
bis
zmn
letztcv Bliits-
tropjcn kdinpjen; dieser Krieg entscheide iiber das Schicksal Deiitschlands

aiij taiisevd Jahre hinaus, etc.
306
The
subjunctive
ob er
is
also
used in indirect questions,

asked him
e.g. ich
fragte
he had finished the

job). It occurs in certain idiomatic expressions, e.g. the set formula
for a qualified statement in which we might use very nearly:
ihn,
init
der Arbeit fertig
sei (I
Ich ware fast inns Leben gekoimnen
if
very nearly
lost
my
life
Common idioms are:

da ivdren
ivir ja!
es koste, ivas es ivolle

es sei
denn, dass er gelogen babe
The grammar
of
German
is
it is
we
cost
what
are!
it
may
unless he lied about
difficult;
pages has not been to pretend that
here
and the aim of the
otherwise. If
it
last
we want to file
few
the
innumerable rules and exceptions to the rules in cupboards where we

can find them, the best we can do is to label them as representative
Many of them
anyone who aims at a reading knowledge of the
language, or to anyone who wishes to talk or to listen to German
broadcasts. For the latter there is some consolation. It is much easier to
learn to read, to write, or even to speak most languages correctly than
to interpret them by ear alone. This is not true of German. Germans
pronounce individual words clearly, and the involved sentences of
literary German rarely overflow into daily speech. No European language is more easy to recognize ^^ hen spoken, if the listener has a
serviceable vocabulary of common words. There is therefore a sharp
contrast between the merits and defects of German and Chinese. German combines inflation of word forms and grammatical conventions
exhibits of speech deformities or evolutionary relics.
are not essential to
with great phonetic clarity. Chinese unites a maximum of word econwith extreme phonetic subtlety and obscurity.
omy
FURTHER READING
BRADLEY
DUFF AND FREUND
The Making of English.

The Basis and Essentials
GRUNDY
TONNELAT
WILSON
Brush up Your German.

A Historv of the German Language.
The Students Gidde to Modern Languages
(A Comparative Study of English, French,
German, and Spanish).
of
German.
OU R
The
primers
in
i:
O N
V.
L A
V.
307
simplified Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, and
Dutch published by Hugo's Language Institute; Teach Voiirsclf German,

Teach Yourself Dutch, Teach Yourself Sor-uêgian in the leach \()urselt
Books (English L'niversiry Press).
CHAPTER
The
VIII
Latin Legacy
Four Romance
languages, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian,

theme of the next chapter. Readers of The Loom of Lmigiiage
will now know that all of them are descendants of a single tongue,
Latin. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Latin was the vernacular of a
modest city-state on the Tiber in Central Italy. From there, military
conquest imposed it, first on Latium and then upon the rest of Italy.
Other related Italic dialects, together with Etruscan, with the Celtic
of Lombardy, and with the Greek current in the south of the Peninsula and in Sicily, were swamped by the language of Rome itself.
The subsequent career of Latin was very different from that of Greek.
Outside Greece itself, the Greek language had always been limited to
coastal belts, because the Greeks were primarily traders, whose home
was the sea. The Romans were consistently imperialists. Their con.
are the
quests carried Latin over the

sula, across
North of
Gaul from south
Africa, into the Iberian Penin-
to north, to the
Rhine and
east to the
were
Only the vernaculars of Britain and Germany escaped this
Britain was an island too remote, climatically too unattractive,
Danube. In
all
these parts of the empire, indigenous languages
displaced.
fate.
and materially too poor to encourage settlement. Germany successfully resisted further encroachment by defeating the Romans in the
swamps of the Teutoburger VVald.
In Gaul, Romanization was so rapid and so thorough that its native
Celtic disappeared completely a few centuries after the Gallic War.
The reason for this is largely a matter of speculation; but one thing is
certain, Roman overlords did not impose their language upon their
subjects by force. SprachpoUtik, as once practiced by modern European states, was no part of their program. Since Latin was the language
of administration, knowledge of Latin meant promotion and social distinction. So we may presume that the Gaul who wanted to get on
would
learn
it.
Common
people acquired the racy slang of
Roman
THE LATIN LEGACY

soldiers, pettv officials, traders, settlers,
\\
ere nurtured in the
w hich flourished
more
and
slaves,
309
while sons of chiefs
refined idiom of educational establishments
Autun, Bordeaux, and Lyons.

Gaul came under Prankish domination in the fifth
century a.d., the foreign invaders soon cxchanired their Teutonic
dialect for the language of subjects numerically stronger and culturally more advanced. Change of language accompanied a change of
heart. The Franks embraced the Christian faith, and the official language of the Christian faith was the language of Rome. The impact of
Prankish upon Gallo-Roman did not affect its structure, though it
contributed many words to its present vocabulary. Several hundreds
survive in modern French, e.g. aiiberge (German Herberge, inn),
gerbe (German Garbe, sheaf), haie (German Hag, hedge), hair (Ger-
When
man
in Marseilles,
parts of
hasscii, hate), jar din
(German Garten, garden),
reicb, rich). In addition the

as in I'ieillard (old
Franks imported
few
riche
(German
suffixes, e.g.
-ard
man).
The language
\\hich diffused throughout the provinces of the emwas not the classical Latin of Tom Brown's schooldays. It was
the Latin spoken by the common people. Ever since Latin had become
a literarv language (in the third century b.c.) there had been a sharp
cleavage between popular Latin and the Latin of the erudite. In tracing the evolutionary history of Romance languages from Latin, we
must therefore be clear at the outset about what we mean by Latin
itself. When we discuss French, Spanish, or Italian, we are deahng
with languages which Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Italians speak. Latin
is a term used in two senses. It may signify a literarv^ product to cater
pire
for the tastes of a social
elite. It
may
also
mean
posed on a large part of the civilized world by

beginning of the Christian era.
In the
first sense,
Latin
is
the living language im-
Roman arms
before the
the Latin of classical authors selected for
was always, as it is now, a dead language

was never the language of daily intercourse. It belongs to an
epoch when script was not equipped with the helps \\hich punctuation supplies. Books were not written for rapid reading by a large
reading public. For both these reasons a wide gap separated the written from the spoken language of any ancient people. In ancient times
what remains a gap was a precipitous chasm.
When we speak of Latin as the common parent of modern Romance
languages, we mean the living language \\ hich was the common medium of intercourse in Roman Gaul, Roman Spain, and Italy during
study
in schools
because
it
or colleges.
It
310
For five centuries two languages, each called Latin, existed

Roman Empire. While the language of the ear kept
on the move, the language of the eye remained static over a period as
long as that ^^hich separates the Anglo-American of Faradav or
Mencken from the English of Chaucer and Langland. Naturally, there
are gradations of artificiality ^\ithin the sermo iirbanus, or cultured
manner, as well as gradations of flexibility within the sermo nisticiis,
the sermo vulgaris, the sermo pedestris, the seriiw usiialis, as its opposite ^âs variously called. The Alacaulays of classical prose were less
exotic than the Gertrude Steins of classical verse, and the Biglow
the empire.
side
by
side in the
lPl>>AVM\i\A(|^
Â]13 fyiq^\Yr4
Very Early (6th Century
Fig. 33.
b.c.)
Latin Inscription of a Fibula
(clasp or brooch)
In
N.B.
later
(Reading from right to left)

MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED XUxMASIOI
Manius made vie for Ninnasins
Latin this would read: Manius vie
Papers of the Golden

of a
Roman Burke
Age were more
or a
Roman
fecit
Numasio.
colloquial than the compositions
Carlyle.
Unhappily our materials for piecing together a satisfactory picture

as a living language are meager. A few technical treatises, such
as the Mechanics of \"itruvius, introduce us to words and idioms alien
to the writings of poets and rhetoricians, as do inscriptions made by
people with no literary pretensions, the protests of grammarians, then
as now guardians of scarcity" values, expressions which crop up in the
comedies of Plautus (264-194 b.c), occasional lapses made by highbrow authors, and features common to two or more Romance lanof Latin
guages
alive today.
From
all
these sources
we
can be certain that the Vulgar Latin,
which asserted itself in literature when the acceptance of Christianity

promoted a new reading public at the beginning of the fourth century
A.D., was the Latin which citizens of the empire had used in everyday
life
before the beginning of the Christian
era.
appeal, Christianity helped to heal the breach
the written language.
By doing
so, it
By
the largeness of
between the
gave Latin a
new
living
its
and
lease of life.
Fig. 34.
The Oldest Roman Stone Inscription the

THE Forum (about 600 b.c.)
The
writing
is
from right
to left
Lapis Niger
from
THELATINLEGACY
The
31I
Latin scriptures, or VulgatL', arranged bv Jerome at the end of
made
the fourth century a.d.,

l)arian invasions in
an ^^t
\\
possible for Latin to survive the bar-
it
hen the Christian priesthood had become
hterary craft-union.
spread over North Africa, Spain, and Gaul, this hving Latin
inevitably acquired local peculiarities due to the speech habits of
As
it
whom
was imposed, and to other circumstances. For

and farmers who settled in the various
provinces came from an Italy where dialect differences abounded.
Though the Li/i^/a Romaihi thus developed a Gallic, a Spanish, and a
North African flavor, the language of Gaul and Spain was still essentially the same when the empire collapsed; and it must have had features which do not appear in the writing of authors who were throwing off the traditional code. Where contemporary texts fail us we
peoples on
it
instance, soldiers, traders,
have the evidence of
common to
from
all
the
its
own
offspring. If a phonetic trick or a
Romance languages from Rumania
Sicily to Gaul,
we
are entitled to assume that
speech once current throughout the empire. Thus
must have existed have

t'hire
left
(chase), corninitiare
is
and
already existed in
many words which
no trace in script, e.g. aiiscire (dare), cap(commence), coraticiim (courage), luis-
culare (mix), nivicare (snow).
By
the X'ulgar Latin parent of the

(Italian toccare, Spanish tocar,
When the
it
word
to Portugal
inference
we
can also reconstruct
pan-Romance word
for to touch
French toucher).
from the anarchy, devastations, and miseries

no longer mutually intelligible in the neighboring speech communities of Spain and
Portugal, Provence and northern France, Italy, and Rumania. As a
language in this sense, distinct from written Latin, French was incubating during the centuries follo\\ing the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. The first connected French text is the famous
Oaths of Strasbourg, publicly sworn in 842 by Louis and Charles, two
of the
curtain
Dark Ages,
lifts
local differences separate languages
grandsons of Charlemagne.
To
be understood by the vassals of his
Romance, i.e., French, while his

German. To the same century belongs a
brother, Louis took the oath in
brother pledged himself
poem on
the
Martyrdom
in
of St. Eulalia.
The
linguistic unification of
France took place during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when
the literary claims of local dialects such as Picard, Norman, Burgundian,
succumbed
Paris and
few
its
to those of the dialect of the Ile-de-Fra/ice,
surroundings.
The
i.e.,
oldest available specimens of Italian
lines inserted in a Latin charter
go back to the second half
312
Modern ItaHan, as the accepted norm for Italy

based on the dialect of Florence, which owes its prestige
of the tenth century.

as a
whole,
to the
is
works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio and
the master printers.
and
The
their sponsors,
oldest traces of Spanish occur in charters
in the Glosses (explanatory notes of scribe or reader) of Silos,
dating from the eleventh century.

Cid,
composed about
The
first
literary
monument
is
the
140.
The Romance languages preserve innumerable common traits.

Their grammatical features are remarkably uniform, and they use
recognizably similar words for current things and processes. So it is
relatively easy for anyone who already knows one of them to learn
another, or for an adult to learn more than one of them at the same
time. French has traveled farthest away from Latin. What essentially
distinguishes French from Italian mid Spanish is the obliteration of
flexions in speech.
From
either
it is
separated
by
radical phonetic
changes which often make it impossible to identify a French word as

a Latin one \\'ithout knowledge of its history. As a written language,
Spanish has most faithfully preserved the Latin flexions, but it is
widely separated from French and Italian by phonetic peculiarities as
well as by a large infusion of new words through contact with Arabicspeaking peoples during eight centuries of Moorish occupation. On
the whole, Italian has changed least. It was relatively close to Latin
when Dante wrote the Divina Comuiedia, and subsequent changes of
spelling, pronunciation, structure, and vocabulary are negligible in
comparison with what happened to English between the time of Geoffrey Chaucer and that of Stuart Chase.
Latin did not die with the emeroence of the neo-Latin or Romance
languages. It coexisted with them throughout the Middle Ages as the
medium of learning and of the Church. Its hold on Europe as an interVmgiia weakened only when Protestant mercantilism fostered the linguistic autonomy of nation states. Pedanic attempts of the humanists
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to substitute the prolix pomposity of Cicero for the homely idiom of the monasteries hastened its
demise. By reviving Latin, the humanists helped to kill it. The last
EngHsh outstanding philosophical work published in Latin was

Bacon's Novinn Orgamnn, the last English scientific work of importance Ne\\'ton's Pr'mcipia.
est in the
German
As
a vehicle of scholarship
universities,
then
popular need and sentiment. In the

1690,
more books were printed
as
it
survived long-
ever peculiarly insulated from
German
in Latin
between 1681 and

German, and Latin
states
than
in

T M K
was
srill
rhc
medium
L A
of teaching
in
L
the
1. (;
AC Y
German
universities. In 1687,
Thomasius showed incredible bravado by lecturing in Geriiuin at Ixip/iu on the wise conduct of hfc. This deed w as l)randcd by
his colleagues as an "unexampled horror," and led to his expulsion
from Leipzig. Latin has not \\ hollv resigned its claims as a medium of
international communication. It is still the language in w hich the Pope
Christian
in\"okes divine disappro\
al
of birth control or socialism.
CLASSICAL LATIN
Two
now
conclusions are
well established
by what we
are able to
about the living languauc of the Roman Empire from inscriptions and from w ritings of authors w ith no pretensions to literary or
rhetorical skill. One is that it was not so highly inflected as the Latin
frlean
of the classics. The other is that the word order was vwrc rejîilar. To
emphasize the contrast for the benefit of the reader w ho has not
Romance group
The next few pages
studied Latin at school, our bird's-eye view of the
ill
begin
w ith
shoit account of classical Latin.
and the home student who aims at becoming

more language conscious may take the opportunity of recalling English words derived from the Latin roots used in the examples cited.
Thus the first example in the ensuing paragraph iirLrdiis pujîiant)
suggests gladiator, gladiolus (w hvr ), impugn, and pugnacity.
Like the English noun (p. 104 et seq.) before the Battle of Hastings,
the noun of classical Latin had several singular and plural case forms.
Old English (p. 262) had four: nominative (subject), accusative
are for cursor\- reading,
(direct object), genitive (possessive),
and dative (indirect object).
In addition to four case forms with corresponding names, the singu-
noun of classical Latin sometimes had an ablative case form distinct

from the dative, and occasionally a vocative distinct from nominative.
In reality, w hat is called the ablative plural is always identical with
the dative plural, and the singular ablative of many nouns is not distinct from the singular dative. So a grammarian does not necessarily
signify a specific form of the noun w hen he speaks of the ablative case.
The ablative case refers to the form of the noun used by classical
authors in a variety of situations: e.g. {a) with the participle in expressions such as: the sun having arisen, they set out for home; {b) w here
lar
we
should put in front of an English noun the instrumental directive
vjith (glad/7ji-
movement
pugnant
they fight iîth S\vords); jrom as the origin of
(oppidc" fugit
he fled from touij); at signifying
tiy/ie
314
(medi^ noct^
midnight), or than (doctior Paulo
at
he
est
is
clev-
erer than Paul).
were the living language of a country in close culture conwith the English-speaking \\orld, it might be helpful to emphasize its regularities and to give serviceable rules for recognizing the
proper case affix for a Latin noun. Since it is not a living language, the
chief reason for discussing^ the vagaries of the Latin case system is that
it helps us to understand some of the differences between noun endings of modern Romance languages. Another reason for doing so is
that it clarifies the task of language planning for world peace. For
three hundred years since the days of Leibniz and Bishop Wilkins, the
movement for promoting an interlanguage \\hich is easy to learn has
been obstructed by the traditional delusion that Latin is peculiarly
lucid and "logical."
If Latin
tact
In so far
language
as
as a
the adjective logical means anything
whole,
it sugrorests
that there
is
when
applied to a
a reliable link bet\\'een
the for772 and the fimctio7i of words. If this were really true,
mean
that Latin
it
seriously claim that Latin
as a
is
as
easy to learn as Italian,
classical scholars rarely disclose the implications
The
truth
is
that Italian
is
in the living
of the fact that
it is
simpler to learn, and therefore better
suited to international use, because
was going on
Mould
medium of international communication. Though
for reinstating
no one could
not.
it
an easy language to learn; and there might be a case
is
it is
the product of a process
which
language of Italy and the empire, while
further progress toward greater flexibility and great regularity was

arrested in
Roman
literature.
In textbooks of Latin for use in schools the Latin case forms are set
forth as
if
meaning,
the genitive, dative, and ablative derivatives have a definite
like the Finnish case forms, e.g.:
hominis = of a
hoinini = to a
homine =
ii-ith
In reality no Latin case form has
jSve or
if
we
or by a
a clear-cut
meaning of
this sort.
v.
all
the
The
six possible
which few nouns have more than four
each number, could not conceivably do
English directives. In fact, prepositions
distinct
work
of our
ere constantly used in classi-
Englishmen once had to choose particular case forms

262) of adjective or pronoun after particular prepositions, Latin
cal Latin. Just as

(p.
man
include a defunct locatii'e {see helonx)
distinct case forms, for

affixes in
man
man
II
i:
L A
TIN
L K G A C V
I)
authors had to choose an appropriate case affix for a noun when a

preposition came before it. Thus the use of case was largely a matter
of (rrammatical context, as in modern German or Old F.nglish,
Even w hen no preposition accompanies a noun, it is impossil)le to
the case forms
i;i\ c clear-cut and economical rules for the choice of
which Latin authors used. We might be tempted to think that the

ocnitive case aflix, w hich corresponds roughly to the V or the apostrophe of our derivatives father's or fathers', has a straightforward
meaning. Thus some grammar books called the English genitive the
we have seen (p. 104) how little connection it need

relationship. It is even more diflicult to define
property
have to any
possessive, but
tlie
Latin irenitive in
ion<r a<;o,
rliis
and
all
split
circumstances. Grammarians became aw are of

it
into a possessive genitive (cajiis ptiellae, the
dou of the girl), a partitive genitive {pars corporis, a part of the

bodv), a qualitative genitive (homo inagnae ingemiitatis, a man of
oreat frankness), an objective genitive
{laudator temporis acti, a
doubtful whether such distinctions

help the victim of classical tuition. In Latin, as in the more highly inflected livinfT Indo-European languages such as German and Russian,
booster of bygone times), etc.
the genitive
ist,
defined
It is
Hermann
famous German linguany relation between two
Paul, a
is
so elusive that
it
as the case "that expresses
nouns."
The
functional obscurities of the cases of classical Latin, in contra-
distinction to the well-defined

tinatinsT
even
if
truth
is
language such
meaning of the case affixes in an aggluwould make it a diflicult language,
as Finnish,
the case affixes were fixed as thev are fixed in Finnish.

that the connection betw een
form and context
is
The
as flimsy as
between form and function. The irregularity of classimemory with an immense variety of forms
assigned to the same case. Just as English nouns belong to different
families based on their plural derivatives such as vnm-inen, ox-oxen,
honse-hoiises, Latin nouns form case derivatives in many ways. So if
the connection
cal
Latin burdens the
know
you cannot atwithout courting disaster. According to their endings, Latin nouns have been squeezed into five families or declensions,
each of which has its subdivisions. The first table on page 316 gives
a specimen of the nominative and accusative singular and plural case
\-ou
tach
it
the genitive affix of a particular Latin noun,
to another
forms of each.
Unlike the Finnish or Hungarian noun, that of Latin has no specific
trademark to show if it is singular or plural. In the first declension for
3l6
instance, a word form such as rosae is genitive and dative singular, as

well as nominative plural. In the second declension doinino is dative and
ablative singular,
The
and doin'nn
is
genitive singular and nominative plural.
noun is alwavs identical

while the dative plural of everv Latin noun tallies
accusative, singular and plural, of a neuter
w'lxh the nominative,
T H E
There are
still
I.
truth
when he
I.
who
classical scholars
or "logicar" language. Professor
F,.
{.
A C V
317
speak of Latin as an "orderly"
Morris
P.
writes {Vrluclplcs and
1.
is
Methods
much
"llic impression of svsrcni conies, no doubt, from the
we
nearer to the
in Lathi
Syntax):
way
in
learn the facts of inflexion. F'or the purposes of teaching, the
\\
hich
gram-
mars verv propcrK eniphasi/e as much as possible such measure of system as Latin inflexion permits, producing at the beginning of one's acquaintance with Latin the impression of a series of graded forms and
meanings covering most accurately and completely the whole range of
expression. But it is obvious that this is a false impression, and so far as
\vc retain it we are building up a w rong foundation. Neither the forms
nor the meanings are systematic. ... A glance at the facts of Latin
morphology as they arc preserved in any full Latin grammar, or in Brugman's GrunJriss, or in Lindsay's Lati/i Language, where large masses of
facts w hich defy classification are brought together, furnishes convincing
evidence that irregularity and absence of system arc not merely occasional,
but arc the fu/hia//wntal characteristics of Latin form-building."
When
became a litcrar\- language in the third century b.c, its

was already withering away. The old instrumental if it
ever had a use, had merged w ith the ablative, w hen the latter was
coalescing with the dative. The locative, which used to indicate where
something was, or where it took place, had dwindled to a mere
Latin
case system
shadow.
It
survived onl\'
Rome), and
(in the
e.g. et
few
country).
til
say, pop, differed
One
The
Romae smu
place names, e.g.
such
as doini (at
(I
am
home),
in
riiri
w hich was a kind of noun imperative,

when we use the expression
vocatiye,
Brute (and you,
declension
norcd by
in
fossilized expressions
Rrur/Zi), as
from the nominative onh-
in
nouns of the second

It was often ijr-
{Bnmts or Domimis, Bnite or Doniine).
classical authors.
great difference betw een popular Latin and the Latin of the
and rhetoricians is the extent to which prepositions were used.

While the former made ample use of them, classical authors did so
literati
with discretion
(i.e.,
own
their
discretion). In an illuminating passage
of his Essay on Semantics the French linguist, Brcal, has

the tendency to use prepositions
they should he
left out,
Suetonius
us that the
tells
as
w here
shown
that
literary style dictated that
not confined to plebeian or rustic speech.
Emperor Augustus himself practiced the
popular custom
in the interest
literary pedants
w ho considered
of greater clarity, and
in
defiance of
more "graceful" and well bred
to
dispense with prepositions at the risk of being obscure (the preposiit
tions quae detractae affennit aliqidd obsciiritatis, etsi gratiam aiigent).
In the long run, the prepositional construction was bound to bring

about the elimination of the case marks, because there was no point in
preserving special signs for relations already indicated, and indicated
much more
explicitly,
by
the preposition alone. In literary Latin, de-
cay of the case system was arrested for centuries during which it V\"ent
on unimpeded in the living language, and ultimately led to an entirely
new type of grammar.
The
use of the Latin noun, like the use of the Engrlish pronoun,
involves a choice of endings classified according to case and number.
The
use of the adjective involved the same choice, complicated, as in
Old English or German, by gender. So evers^ Latin noun, like every

German or Old English noun, can be assigned to one of three genders,
masculine, feminine, neuter, according to the behavior of an adjective
it, or of the pronoun which replaces it. This peculiar
gender distinction which the Indo-European (pp. loi and 102) shares
with the Semitic family was not based on sex differentiation. Except
where gender distinguished actual sex, which was irrelevant to the
gender class of most animals, Latin gender referred to nothing in the
real A^ôrld. It was merely a matter of table manners. Nobody, not even
a poet, would have been able to say \\hy the wall {mums) should be
masculine, the door (porta) feminine, and the roof {tectuvi) neuter.
The singular nominative or dictionary form of many nouns carries no
trademark of the gender class to which they belong. Firus (pear tree)
was feminine, hortus (garden) was masculine, and corpus (body) was
coupled with
neuter.
What
Old Enghsh, noun as masculine, femiform of the noun substitute (pronoun) or of the
adjective (including demonstratives) which wtni with it. Excluding
labels a Latin, like an
nine, or neuter
is
the
participles, nearly
two
types.
all
One type
adjectives of classical Latin can be assigned to
has three sets of case derivatives, e.g. the nomi-
bonum (good). The feminines had endings

nouns such as porta (door) placed in the first declension,
the masculine and neuter respectively like dominus (master) and bellinn (war) in the second declension. To say that a Latin noun is masculine, neuter, or feminine therefore means that a Latin writer would
use the masculine, neuter, or feminine forms of such adjectives with it.
The flexional modifications of the second type are modeled on the
native forms bonus, bona,
like those of
nouns of the third declension. Most adjectives of
this
type have
com-
T U
mon gender form
used
I,
\\
I.
irh eirlicr
F.
C A C Y
masculine or feminine nouns, and a
separate neuter, e.g. tristis-triste (sad).
Some
of them, including pres-
ent participles, e.g. aiiiaus (loving), have the same form for
genders, e.g. prudciis (prudent), vclox (quick).

accusative, singular and plural, of the
below
I9
two
all
three
The nominative and
chief ad)ccti\
al
t\pes arc
320
jortissbjuis (strongest).
escaped
few of the most common Latin
this regularization.
They had comparative and
adjectives
superlative
forms derived from stems other than that of the positive, e.g. bonus
(good) vielior (better) opt'nmis (best).
The most backward class of words in modern English is made up of
the personal pronouns. In classical Latin (p. 309) the personal pronoun \\2.s a relatively rare intruder. There was little need for the nomi-
was sufficiently indicated

Thus vendo could only mean '1 sell," and
vend'nmis could only mean "we sell." In modern French, English, or
native forms
by
/,
he, ive, etc., because person
the terminal of the verb.
German we can no longer omit the personal pronoun, except when

we give a command {hurry!) or find it convenient to be abrupt
{coiddu't say). In speech we usually omit personal pronouns of Italian
number
and Spanish, whose verb endings
still
clearly, e.g. parlo a voi, sigiiore (I
am
Latin authors used ego
they did so for the sole

in Wolsey's disastrously ordered
(I), tii
(thou),
indicate person and
speaking to you,
sir).
When
etc.,
purpose of emphasis or contrast as

ego et jneus rex (I and my king). There was no special Latin pronoun
of the third person. Its place was taken in classical Latin by the demonstrative is, ea, id. This was later replaced by ille, ilia, illiid (that
one).
The fundamental
difference between the Latin and the English
verb system has been pointed out
in
Chapter
III (p.
95 et seq.). Like
Old English verb, the Latin verb had four kinds or classes of
flexions, of which three might be described as functional and one,
mood, depended on context. The first class, based on the personal
suffixes, dispensed with need for the pronoun subject, as in Gothic.
These flexions had alreadv disappeared in the plural of the Old English verb, and in the singular they were not more useful than our -s of
the third person singular. Differences between corresponding perthe
sonal forms, classified in different tenses, signffied differences of time
or aspect. In contradistinction to any of the Teutonic languages, including Gothic, classical Latin has
six tenses, present, iniperject,
per-
and future perfect. The conventional meaning attached to these time forms or aspect forms in textbooks has
been explained in Chapter III (pp. 90-96) which deals with the
pretensions of verb chronology in antiquity.
In realitv the terminology of the Latin verb is misleading. The im-
fect, pkiperfect, future,
perfect form, for instance,
is
usually said to express an act or process
THE LATIN LEGACY

as
going on
in
the past
{inonstrabat, he was showing).
to denote habitual action (scribebat, he used to
form stood for
t\\
o things.
as well as the historic past.
wavs:
/ ha've irrittcn,
prior to
some
and
It
321
was also used

write). The perfect
It
indicated completion of an occurrence,
So Latin
iirote.
scripsi
The
may
be rendered
in
two
pluperfect signified an action
past point specified or implied in the statement, as in
CORA/EHOlFbCino
IDHESCOSOKESOK
HONCOi/sÔPl ÎRV/v\COSEA/T|0HTR
DVONOROOpTVAAOFVIiE-VlRO
UVciOrA-SClPiOA/E-FIVlOi"
BARB ATI
^PmETTE N\rt 3TATEB V5AI P E" aaE RE TO

Fig.
35-
-Funeral Inscription ok the Consul L. Cornelius Scipio

IN AN Early Latin Script (259 b.c.)
English he had already dnink his beer ivheii ive arrived. The future
perfect indicated something anterior to some future action, as in he
ii-ill
the
have drunk his beer v:hen v:e arrive. The following table gives
person forms of the tenses of the active voice in two moods:
first
322
express meaning in a passive sense,

its
As
object.
the Latin passive
timeor
am
(I
to replace the active subject
i.e.,
the Scandinavian passive

is
recognized by the
is
recognized by the
suffix -r, e.g. ti7neo (I fear)
feared). Classical Latin has
no synthetic equivalent of
the passive perfect, pluperfect, or future perfect.
form of the perfect was
passive
by
suffix -s,
As
in English, the
roundabout expression,
deleta est (the to^êr has been destroyed).
Thus
e.g.
turns
the passive voice of
when we first meet it was a crack in the

imposing flexional armature of the Latin verb system.
Of mood little need be said. Grammarians distinguish three Latin
moods, the indicative mood or verb form commonly used when making an ostensibly plain statement, the imperative mood or verb form
used in command or directions, and the subjunctive mood which is
variously used in noncommittal statements and in subordinate parts of
the Latin verb at the stage
a sentence. It
is
sufficient to say that there
is
no clear-cut difference
bet^\een the meaning of the indicative and the subjunctive mood. In
modern Romance languages
the distinction
is
of
little
practical impor-
tance for conversation or informal writing.

In Latin as in English there were
manv mansions
in the verbal house,
we
can classify Latin verbs in families as we can classify English

verbs in iveak, like love or shove, and strong types such as the s'mg and
drink class, bind and find, bring or think classes, according to the way
and
they form past tense forms or participles {love-loved, sing-sang-siing,

drink-drank-drunk, bind-botmd, find-foiind, think-thonght, bringbrought). Schoolbooks arrange Latin verbs in jour main families, the
amare, vionere, legere, and audire types, according to the practice of
Priscian, a
grammarian who
lived in the sixth century a.d.
considerable class of Latin verbs are excluded
from the four soThese
called regular conjugations of the schoolbooks as irregular verbs.
include
jero
some which have

carrv,
bring
tenses
tidi, I
formed from
carried,
different roots, such as
brought. This suggests that the
uniformity of the regular verb t\-pe is greater than it is. The forn:ial
similarity of so many Latin verbs placed in the same conjugation is not
greater than that of the present tense forms ( catch and bring ) corresponding to caught and brought. Analogy is as bad a guide to Latin conjugation
as to
Latin declension, particularly as regards the perfect.
destroy) the perfect
same
it
is
class,
it is
aperui.
Zoo,
cf.
is
delevi, but of
monui; of audio
The
(I
nwneo
hear)
it is
list
deleo
(I
in the
audivi, but of aperio (I
open)
third conjugation includes as
the following
Of
warn) which appears
(I
many
of perfect-formations:
different beasts as
T H E
PRKSF.NT
L A
L E G A C Y
3^3
PRESENT
PI-.UIF.CT
PKIU ECT
ro///>o (1 gather)
collegi
^go
carpo(\ pick)
po//o(Iput)
carpsi
fnT//,t,'0 (I
break)
fri'.i?/
posiii
r//7;/po (I
break)
riipi
7/ntto (\ send)
viisi
ciirro {\ run)
/m/o(Iplay)
lusi
M77go
(I
do, drive)
(I
esii
cuciirri
touch)
tetigi
account of the essential peculiarities of Latin would be incomwe left out one of the greatest of all difficulties which confront
the translator. Orthodox linguists sometimes tell a story which runs as
An
plete
if
between Latin words were clearly indicated by

and there w as therefore no need for fixed word order.
Thus the statement the far/ncr leads the gout could be made in six diffollows. Relations
flexional marks,
ferent
diic'it
ditcit
ays, for instance, dipni/;/ agricola diicit
caprain agricohh etc. Wîich one
a question of emphasis. It did
agricola
caprain
you chose was
largely
not vitally affect the meaning. Such
freedom was possible because subject (agricola) and object {caprain)

were labeled as such bv their affixes. Once the unstressed endings were
ruined through phonetic decay, Latin developed auxiliaries and
word order.
Thus far the dominie. Nobody who
a fixed
has wasted a painful youth in
bringing together what Latin authors had torn asunder, or in separating
hat should never have been tooether, will
order of literary Latin was amazingly "free." In

jree
word order was
deny
that the
word
reality, this so-called
the greatest impediment to quick grasp of texts,
modern books,
by working
mention
the
people.
circumstance that the Latin of selected school texts existed on wax or
papyrus. It was not the language which Romans used when they
talked to one another. The crossw ord puzzles of Cicero and his contemporaries, like the English of Gertrude Stein or James Joyce, had
little to do with the character of the language they spoke. It w as the
never composed,
The
as are
for rapid reading
traditional narrative, as told above, omits to
by cadence, mesmerized by meter, and enslaved by Greek models. Classical Latin belongs to a period more than a thousand years before the printing press
democratized reading and promoted systematic conventions of punctuation, and other devices w hich have healed the breach between the
human eye and the human ear. \\c do not know the exact nature of
the word order w hich Cicero used when bawling out to his slave; but
there can be little doubt that it was as fixed as that of colloquial Italian.
exclusive speciality of literary coteries tyrannized
The homely
Latin of the Xûlgate, though not an accurate record of
324
spoken Latin, probably stands nearer to it than the writings of any

classical author. Here is a passage from the parable of the prodigal
son:
Et
And
abiit,
et
adbaesit
iini
joined
one
he went and
c'rSnnn
regionis
in villain siicnn
iit
to his farm
fill
to feed the pigs.
his belly
de
In se aiitem reversus,
servants
said:
in doino patris inei
7}iercenarii
ego
illi
in the
house of
atitein hie javie
am dying
dabat.
gave him anything.
dixit:
After having come to himself he
while
quas
husks which
Et nevio
And nobody
ate.
he sent him
Et cupiebat
And he longed
siliquis
with, the
porci luanducabant.
the pigs
yjiisk illinn
And
pasceret porcos.
iinplere ventrein suinn
to
Et
illhis.
of the citizens of that country.
mv father
qiianti
How many
abzindant panibus,
have bread enough
pereo.
here from hunger.
LATIN AS A LIVING LANGUAGE
By the
time the Western
Roman Empire
collapsed, case distinction
of the noun had almost disappeared. Scholars used to discuss whether

fixed
word order and
the use of prepositions led to the elimination of
the case marks, or whether slurring and decay of case marks
which
brought in prepositions and fixed wôrd order. Undoubtedly the first is nearer the truth than the second. Thus A. D.
Sheffield explains in Gravnnar and Thinking:
were not
stressed
was the proximate cause of the 'decav' of inno mere physical cause can be viewed as acting upon speech
"Phonetic change
flexions; but
regardless of men's expressive intention in speaking. Before the analvtical
means of showing sentence-relations had developed, any tendenc}' to

slur relating endings would be constantly checked by the speaker's need
of making himself understood. The change, therefore, more likely proceeded as follows: Fixed word-order began to appear within the inflected languages simply as a result of growing orderliness of thought.
Relating particles were at the same time added to inflected words wherever the inflexional meaning was vague. After word-order had acquired
functional value, and the more precise relating-words were current, re-
LATIN LEGACY
T H K
325
endings lost their importance, and would become assimilated,

and dropped, from the natural tendency of speakers to trouble
themselves over no more speech-material than is needed to convey their
latino
slurred,
thought."
The
first
case casualty
was the
had written
Italian is pochi dei
genitive. Caesar himself
few of ours), which in modem

Without doubt this w as the way in which common people of
piiifci lie iiostris (a
iwstri.
\'ergirs time talked.
Toward
the end of the empire the use of the
ablative with de had universally displaced the old genitive
ithout a
WRRnWRnVITOG-^klRQI^RR-:]
R(qT^fqTtR^llfT>HVniRII3C]33
^R]VlTra>in^l3-^3^3^WTH]H
nHlvn-aVT2:^FR3>l<]W-^H^lHH33
H3aHlV>|-^R>!3-WVaHC]T^HRIIR
WRHHR^nV:?lVHI>HRTn3IM
^3TTR8VgnWV5|RP5l3^3^
Fig. 36.
OscAN
Inscription
(Reading from
preposition, and
equivalent to the
we come
modern
from Pompeii
right to left.)
across such
modern forms
as
de poviis,
French des pomvies (some apples), or films
de rege, equivalent to the French
le fils dii roi
(king's son).
By
the
beoinnins; of the third century, the noun genitive survived only in set
expressions such as h/nae dies,
which
is
the French hmdi, our
Monday
or lunar day.
The
dative, or case of giving,
early date.
(to).
Thus
cutioner),
The
though more
resistant
had
a rival at
an
accusative had long been used with the preposition ad
Plautus writes ad carmificeiii dabo (I shall give to the exewhere Cicero would have written caniifici dabo if he had
been discussing so familiar a Roman figure; and a temple regulation

of 57 B.C., i.e., during the Golden Era of Latinity, contains si pecitnia
ad id teviphim data erit (if money should be given to this temple).
Eventually a separate dative (as opposed to ablative) flexional form
of the noun disappeared with the genitive, except in Dacia (Rumania),
where traces of it survive toda\-. So popular Latin may be said to have
taken the same road as Teutonic languages such as English and Dutch,
326
which have of and
to,
or vaii and
aaji,
for
deand ad (French de and
a)
of \'ulgar Latin.
Roman
In the later days of the
Empire, phonetic decay of the ter-
final -7/2 which was the accusative

trademark of feminine and masculine nouns, had disappeared at an
earlier date. The unstressed vowels -z/ and -/ of the affixes gave place
to -o and -e. So the distinction bet\^"een accusative and ablative case
forms faded out. Thus canem (accus.), caui (dat.), and caue (ablat.)
minals led to further changes.
of canis (nomin.)
merged
cane (dog). Since the
first
in the single oblique (p. 105) case
century
a.d.
form
the ablative had been confused
SIXGCXAR
NOM.
hnia
cabalhi{s)
lima{s)
lune
(moon)
(moons)
caballu
caballi
caballo(s)
(horses)
(horse)
cani{s)
in
cane
cane(s)
(dog)
(dogs)
with the accusative of plural nouns. In an inscription from Pompeii,

C117JI
discentes (with the pupils)
is
used for the classical cimi dis-
ceiitibiis.
Before the
fall
of the empire the five declensions of our Latin gram-
mar books had dwindled

the
first
to three.
The
fifth
noun family had joined
(Latin fades, figure; \'ulgar Latin facia; French face), and
the fourth had joined the second (Latin fructiis, fruit; \"ulgar Latin
fnictu; Italian frutto), as brother
which had joined the
oxe?] class (pi.
brethren) in Atayfloiver times has no\^- joined the same class as mother
(pi.
of
mothers).
When the
Latin dialects began to diverge after the
Rome, Latin declension
show n
\^"as
probably reduced to the forms
fall
as
in the table above.
In the spoken Latin of Italy a final
s,
had ceased to be
grammarian
of lunas and cabaUos in
like a final
heard long before Cicero's time, and no

could bring it back. Hence the bracketed -s
our table. Partly under the influence of the school, the West preserved
it. In spoken French it became silent before the end of the Middle
efforts of the
Ages. In Spanish
it
survives
till
this
day and
is
now
the characteristic
THE LATIN LEGACY

mark of
the phiral. Further simpHfications followed.
l)ct\\ccn nominative
Romance
languages.
plural disappeared.
327
The
and obhque case has disappeared
On
Italian territory the
in
distinction
all
modern
oblique form of the
Only the nominative survived (Latin nmri [nom.
and in Portugal the nominaand the oblique (originally accusative) form

with a final s took its place (Latin ace. pi. miiros French umrs). Case
distinction died last in Gaul. In the oldest French and Provcngal texts
some nouns still preserve the distinction between a subject and an object case as the following table shows:
pi.]
Italian iimri). In France, in Spain,
tive plural disappeared,
328
nouns which have the nominative singular

their character
was
obliterated
by
affix
-wn were
neuter,
the phonetic decay of the final con-
sonant, -m, like the decay of the distinctive masculine or feminine
accusative case mark. In late Latin the drift
became
from neuter to masculine
Hence most Latin neuter nouns which

modem Romance languages are no\^' placed in the mas-
headlong
survive in
retreat.
anyone who has learned a little Latin can

knowledge of Latin genders with success, i.e., masculine and feminine nouns retain the same gender, and neuters become
masculine. Thus vimmi (wine), imperiimi (empire) and regmmi (a
kingdom) become {le) vin, {un) empire^ and {le) regne in French.
The exceptions to this rule are few, and some of them are explicable.
culine gender class; and
usually apply his
In so far as the nominative or accusative plural ending of Latin neuter

nouns was -a, it was the same as the nominative singular of the more
typical feminine
noun
class
represented
by
porta. If the
meaning of
Latin neuter was such that the plural could be used in a collective
sense, or for a pair (cf. neivs or scissors), it could be used in a singular
context.
Thus
the Latin neuter plural, folia (foliage) becomes the
singular feminine la feuille for a leaf in
The
modem French.
reader has already had a hint about
how knowledge
of the
forms of the noun in Vulgar Latin throws light on the different types
of plural formation in the modern Romance languages. The greater
luxuriance of the Latin adjective also helps us to understand the different types of adjective concord which have survived. Latin adjectives for the most part belong to the three-gender type bonus, -a, -inn,
or to the two-gender class
brevis-breve (short).
The
tristis-triste (sad), fortis-forte
(strong) or
disappearance of the neuter means that sur-
now
have only masculine and femibuenos-buenas (pi.); Italian biiono-buona, buoni-buone; French bon-bonne, bons-bonnes. The
survivors of the two-gender class in French, Spanish, and Italian have
vivors of the three-gender class
Spanish bueno-biieiia
nine forms
only one form.

peared, as for
From this class
all
(sing.),
of adjective, gender concord has disap-
English adjectives.
what grammarians call

modern
European languages, it can be traced back to a demonstrative which
lost its pointing power in the course of time. Thus our English the is
a weakened form of that, and the unaccented der in German der Ochs
Unlike Greek,
classical
the "definite article."
(the ox) began as the der

nite article of
Latin did not possess
Wherever we
modern
we
find this definite article in
have in der
Mann
(that
man). The
defi-
languages, including English, French, and Ger-
330
THE LOOM
THE LATIN
up
name.
On
I.
E G A C Y
man, rarclv
lives
aHzing,
indefinite function, e.g. the dit
we
i.e.,
to
its
the contrary,
is
mmnal. So
we
mean
come down
the Latin demonstrative had not yet

as
embarrassingly rich
in
often has a gener-
a domestic
say that Latin had not yet evolved an article,
ary Latin w
it
33
really
in the
world. Liter-
demonstratives. There were
ROMANCE PERSONAL PRONOUNS

(First
and Second Persons
Unstressed
if
that
For.ms)
is-
332
fine shades of
meaning which grammarians
part in living speech.
At
least this
is
assign to
them played any
When
Latin spread be-
certain.
and was imposed upon conquered peoples, a distinction

ceased to exist. Two of them (is and hie) completely disappeared.
Through use and abuse the meaning of the other pair (ille and iste)
had changed considerably. People used them with less discrimination
in the closing years of the empire. They had lost their full power as
yond
Italy
ROMANCE PRONOUNS OF THE THIRD PERSON

(Unstressed Forms)
THE LATIN
V.
G A C Y
333
pronoun subject, and the nominative pronouns eô, tu, vos, vos,
were used to give emphasis. In \'ulgar as in classical Latin there \\ as
no specific emphatic nominative form of the pronoun in the third
person analogous to ego, tu, etc. When it was necessary to indicate
w hat the personal flexion of the verb could not indicate, i.e., which of
several individuals was the subject, a demonstrative, eventually illc,
the
ilia, illiid (i.e.,
that one) took the place of he, she, or
was therefore
strative
pronoun
it.
The demon-
as well as a definite article at
w hen divergence of the Romance
dialects occurred.
The
the time
result of this
is that Romance dialects now contain a group of

words which are similar in form, but have different meanings. Thus
the w ord equivalent to the in one mav be the word equivalent to her
in another, or to them in a third. This curious nexus of elements, which
are identical in form but differ in function is illustrated in the highly
split personalit\-
schematic diagrams on pages 329 and 330.

Like Scandinavian languages, Latin had two possessive forms of the
pronoun of the third person. One died

sinis, sua,
sumu
left
the Swedish sin,

her, or
the
its.
sitt,
sina,
any of
The gender was
noun w hich
it
replaced,
used with viater or
Only the reflexive

Romance dialects. Like
its derivative forms could mean his,
by the noun it qualified, and not by
intestate.
descendants in the modern

fixed
i.e.,
regiiia, a
the feminine case derivative
would be
masculine with pater or dominus, and a
neuter ^\ith bclhnii or nuperiinn.
Another difference betw een classical and X'ulgar Latin is important

connection w ith the adjective of modern Romance languages. In
classical Latin comparison was flexional. There was only one excepin
tion. The comparative of adjectives ending in -uus (e.g. arduiis, arduous) \\as not formed in the regular way bv adding^ the suffix -ior.
To avoid the ugly clash of three vowels (u-i-o-r) the literati used the
(more arduous) with the corresponding superlative vmxivie arduus (most arduous). Popular
speech had employed this handy periphrasis elsewhere. Thus Plautus
periphrastic construction Tuagis arduiis
used luagis aptus (more suitable), or plus miser (more miserable). In

the living language there was thus the same competition between synthesis
and
isolation as
we now see
in
English
(cf.
pretty -prettier, hand-
sovie-inore handsome). In later Latin the phis and ?uagis trick
became
the prevailing pattern.
Rumania, Spain, and Portugal adopted vmgis (Rumanian mai, SpanPortuguese iJiais), while Italy and Gaul embraced plus (Italian pill, French plus). Latin adjectives comparable to English good.
ish vids,
334
*^
.^
<b
to
<
to
<^
lu
is
i
-.
^\-
^
a
^
f-
el
<
X
^
-^
H
o
^^^
S
O
.>
"
iO
i^
" "
>?
Ui
2 <
hi
'^^
o <^
a-
< P
CO
5;
s ^
C*
S
!lj
!^^ s
b.f
be
T H E
LATIN
L E
(]
A C Y
335
wirh comparative and superlative forms derived from

resisted
this change, and are now islands of irregularity in
roots,
other
They
appear in the table of irregular comparison
of
order.
ocean
an
better, best,
(p. ^^6). In
bv
all
Romance languages
the ordinary superlative
is
formed
putting the definite article in front of the comparative form, e.g.
if his rico (the richest). Spanish and Italforms of the same pattern as the Latin superlative
with the terminal -iss'nmis, but they are not equivalent to superlatives
in the grammatical sense of the term. The terminal -isnno (-a) of
Spanish
iiids
rico (richer), el
ian have adjectival
Spanish or
-issiino {-a)
of Italian signifies exceedingly as in the excla'-
mation bravo bravissiiuo! or in the mode of address used in letters

carissnjia (dearest). These synthetic superlatives reintroduced by the
learned should be used sparingly. Spanish iimy or Italian violto, both
meaning very, replace them adequately in most situations, e.g. Spanish
es limy rico (he is very rich) for es riqttisnno.
The
Spanish and Italian article before the superlative drops out
when
the latter follows immediately after a noun. French retains the article,
e.g.:
man
English
the richest
Spanish
el
Italian
I'uonio piu ricco
French
Thomnie
honibre mas rico

le
plus riche
The comparative particle corresponding to English than is que in

French and Spanish, e.g. French plus tiiiiide qiCim lapin (shier than a
rabbit). Italian uses di (Latin de), e.g. e pit) povero di vie (he is poorer
than I). In Spanish and French de also occurs, but confined to situations in which than is followed by a numeral, e.g. Spanish vienos de
ciiatro dias (less than four days), French phis de trois siecles (more
than three centuries).
REGULAR COMPARISON
33^
may be the same as the neuter

(Scandinavian) or the predicative form of the adjective
(German). English alone is encumbered with a special form (p. 99).
In Teutonic languages the adverb
singular
Classical Latin
In
had several types of adverbs derived from
modern Romance
languages, nearly
all
adjectives.
the irregular ones have dis-
appeared. Notable exceptions are bene and male. In French these have
become bien-mal,
in Italian bene-male,
and
in Spanish bien-mal.
The
previous luxuriance of adverbs formed from adjective roots has given

place to a standardized pattern like the English -ly derivative. French
a'dverbs are
mefit.
formed by adding -mejjt to the adjective, e.g. facile-facileis the same throughout the Western Romance
The procedure
languages. In Italian the corresponding forms are facile-facilmente,
and
in Spanish fdcil-jdcibnente.
IRREGULAR COMPARISON OF ROMANCE ADJECTIVES

ENGLISH
THE LATIN LEGACY
337
The germ of this new structure appears in classical Latin. When the
Roman wanted to indicate that something was done in a certain way,
he sometimes used the ablative {meiite) of vievs (mind), and qualified
it by means of an appropriate adjective, e.g. obst'mata mcme (with an
obstinate mind), or bo7ia vieiite (in good faith). Since vientc always
followed close upon the heels of the adjective, it lost its former independence and became a formative element, eventually used without
involving anybody's viental processes, e.g. sola viente (French scukineiit) in place of sin {riil miter (alone). Finally -mente fused with the
IRREGULAR COMPARISON OF ROMANCE ADVERBS

ENGLISH
338
disappeared, as
it
is
now
disappearing in Scandinavian dialects.
Its
was taken partly by the active, partly by a roundabout expression consistently made up of the past participle and the auxiliary esse,
to be. Where classical authors had used the present tense of the latter
place
{traditus est, he has
authors used
is
been betrayed) to express completed action,
for action in progress (cf. the French,
later
est trahi =
he
being betrayed), and other tenses were used to build up similar conit
il
PRESENT AND IMPERFECT TENSE FORMS OF ROMANCE

\ÊRBS
T H E
L E G A C Y
339
came to he confined
sang). As such it still
to the function of
LAT
synthetic form remained, but

a past definite
French, as
in
{caiitavi =
CiVitavit, F'rench
never use
it
spoken or written Spanish and
in
//
persists in literary
Italian (he sang: Latin
chanta, Spanish civito, Italian canto).
Frenchmen
conversation or informal writing.
Another tense form which disappeared in the later stages of living

While the verb to have kept its independence as a helper to indicate past time, the new anah tical future
Latin was the classical future.
THE FUTURE TENSE OF A ROMANCE VERB

ENGLISH

340
canta. Elsewhere habere,
which usually followed the
infinitive,
got
explained on page 94.

In our outline of classical Latin nothing has been said about nega-
glued to
tion.
as
it,
To
give a statement a negative meaning, ne was used in archaic
Fig. 38.
Stone Slab from Lemnos with Early Greek Lettering
The language
to right,
from
Latin, but
is
it
itself,
possibly Etruscan,
right to
left,
vertically
could also label
replaced by the stronger
is
undeciphered.
upwards or
The
vertically
is from
downwards.
writing
left
a question * as such. In classical Latin, it
11011^
a contraction of
ne and
mmm
(lit.
not
one). In daily speech, Latin-speaking peoples used to strengthen the

particle
* Cj.
by adding another word
You have
not understood
this?
for something small or valueless.
THE LATIN
L EG A C Y
341
cant see a speck (Latin pinictjnn),we haveji't had a crumb

I ivoift drink a drop (Latin {ruttai)i). In the modern
Romance languages the negative particle is still the Latin non (Italian
no)h Spanish no, Portuguese nao, Rumanian ////), to which some such
emphasizing clement may be added; and in French a double-barreled
negation (ne-pas) is obligatory. It arose in the following way. In Old
French, non had just become nen, and later ne. It was often strength-
Thev
said /
(Latin inicam),
ened by other words. Some of them

Latin as above. One was new:
je lie vois point
ne inange vtie
je ne bois gotitte
je ne luarche pas
je
The
tallied
ones used in \'ulgar
ith
don't see a speck
don't eat a
crumb
don't drink a drop
don't go a step
from Latin
negative value of ne in the combinations in this
passiis
infected
list
its
meaning and are now used only

of them, niie and gontte, eventually disap-
bedfellows, \\hich lost their original

as negative particles.
peared.
Two
Two
others, pas
and point, have survived. By the sixteenth
was the rule to use one of them in any negative statement.

century
Today the most common form is ne-pas, and ne-point is only for emphasis. If ne is accompanied by another negative such as persoune
it
(nobody), rien (nothing), or jamais (never), the latter replace pas or

il ne me visite jamais (he never looks me up). In popular
French the process has gone further. While in Old French the pas was
more often omitted than not, you now hear French people drop the
emasculated ne and say j'aime pas ca (I don't like it), or // dort pas (he
doesn't sleep). The French particle ne also keeps company with que
and gitere in a sense which does not implv" negation. When que replaces pas, it signifies only, e.g. je n\v que deux sous (I have only a
penny). When guerc takes its place, it means scarcely, e.g. je ne la
connais guere (I hardly kno\\- her). Corresponding to the French
ne
que for only we have the Italian non
che.
If we recall the wide range of only in English (p. 271) this conpoint, e.g.
As an adverb
struction should not puzzle us.
merely, involves
than,
only, or
a qualified negative. It implies
no better than or not
no
Tiiore
ivith the exception.
man
its
equivalent
{and no
Thus
less)
Frenchhe has only

a
says // n'a qu'iin oeil (he has no more than one e\-e,
one eye) or je ne bois qu'aux re pas (I don't drink except at meals, I
only drink at meals). This adverbial use of only in Romance as in
Teutonic
(p. 271)
languages
is
quite distinct
from
that of the adjec-
342
tival
only meaning sole, solitary, single, alone, or unique. For
adjective
we
have
seiil{e) or, less
common, unique
07ily as
in French, solo or
unico in Itahan (Spanish solo or iinico).

Schoolbook knowledge of Latin does not ahvavs help us to link up
a Romance word with its Latin forerunner. As a living langruaê, Latin
had a large stock of words which classical authors never used. Where
thev would \^Tite equus for horse, iter for journey, as for mouth, ignis
for fire, comedere for eat, a citizen of the empire would sav cabalhis
(French cheval, Spanish caballo, Italian cavallo); viaticimi (French
voyage, Spanish viaje, Italian viaggio); Imca (French boiiche, Spanish
boca, Italian bocca); focus (French fen, Spanish fiiego, Italian fuoco);
7najiducare, lit. to chei:: (French nianger, Italian mangiare). In the
schoolbooks the Latin word for house is domiis, which was the name
for the house of the well-to-do. Beside it Latin had casa, which signified the sort of house with which most Romans had to be content.
French has viaison derived from

Romance languages go
back to diminutive forms which abounded in \'ulgar Latin, e.g. auricula (little ear) for the classical auris (French oreille, Italian orecchio,
Spanish oreja), geniciduvi (little knee) for the classical genu (French
Casa survives in Spanish and
viansio (mansion).
Italian,
Manv words
current in
genou, Italian ginocchio).

their common parentage has equipped the Romance diawith an immense stock of recognizablv similar words, some of
the more common ones are totally different. For the act of speaking,
classical Latin had two words, loqui and fabulari. The first \^-as highflown, the second informal. Loqui has disappeared, while the latter
survives as kablar (see p. 244) in Spanish. Italv and France, on the
other hand, borrowed a word from church language, parabulare
(French parler, Italian parlare). It comes from the Latin word parabida (Greek parobole). Bv metaphor the gospel parables, i.e., Christ"
ivord, came to mean word in general. Its semantic journey did not
Though
lects
its Spanish form (palabra) it degenerated from the

speech of prophets to the speech of natives in the colonies, hence
stop there. In
palaver.
A similar cleavage
Spanish
it is
is
illustrated
bv
the \\-ord for shoulder. In
hovibro, corresponding with the Latin
The French is
word humerus.
epaule, and, like the Italian spalla, goes back to the Latin
equivalent (scapida) for the shoulder blade. Classical Latin had
words
for beautiful.
other, foiiiwsus
from
One was
forina,
pidcher, which was ceremonial.
two
The
might be rendered bv shapely. The for-
mer disappeared everywhere. The
latter survived in
Spain {hervioso)
T H
I-:
and Rununia (frmios).
L A
L K G A C Y
The common
masc,
belle fern.), in Italian
Rome
people of
(pretty), instead of piilcber or ôrmosiis. This

(hcaii
343
word
lives
said
on
in
hclliis
French
and Spanish {bello-heUa).
THF, IBf.RIAN OIAI.l.CTS
Roman
rule extended over
more than
Iberian peninsula. Centuries before
its
six hundred years in the

end the speech of the con-
The
queror had superseded that of the vanquished.

it is
in
the Annals of Tacitus. According to
him
last
reference to
Tarragonian peasant
under torture "cried out in the language of his forefathers." By that

time Spain was completel\- Romanized. Seneca, Quintilian, and Martial were all Spaniards.
which
splinter of an earlier type of speech survives as Basque^
people
still
speak on French and Spanish
soil at
the western end of the
Pvrenecs. Before the planes of Hitler and Mussolini rained death on
them, Basque was the tongue of about half a million people. Spanish
Latin has survived
the fifth century
their
name
to
all
invasions of historic times.
Germanic hordes,
(^')
At
Andalusia, overran the peninsula.
Goths ruled for over
the beuinnine of
includino- the \ândals
t\\o centuries, with
Toledo
Then
the
gave
the
West
as their capital.
After them came the Arabs and Moors from Africa.
who subdued
who
The
Aluslims
whole country with the exception of the Asturian
mountains, did not interfere with the religion or language of the
common under a benign regime. The

Spanish national hero, Rodrigo Diez de Bivar, otherwise called the
Cid, fought both for infidels and Christians. Cruelty and intolerance
people, and intermarriage was
came with
the reconqiiista started
by Catholic princes
in the
unsub-
dued North.
The
Catholic conquest of lost territory slowly spread fan\\'ise
toward the South, ending in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella appropriated Granada for the sacrament of inquisitorial fire. During the
Moorish occupation the speech of the peninsula was still a mixture of
dialects descended from \'ulgar Latin. In the East, and more closely
akin to the Provencal of South France, there
was Catalan;
in the
North, Leonese, Aragonese, and Asturian; in the center Castilian; in

the West, including Portugal, Galician. From Portugal, already a
semi-independent province in the eleventh centur\- and foremost as
a maritime power under Henry the Navigator, what was originally
a
Galician dialect was carried to Madeira and the Azores, later to
344
Brazil. In the
neighborhood of
fifty million
people
now
speak Portu-
guese. This figure includes about forty million inhabitants of Brazil,
which became
In Spain
a sovereign state in 1822.
itself
the emergence of a
common
standard was early.
At
the suggestion of Alfonso X, the Cortes of 1253 made the usage of

Toledo the pattern of correct Spanish. Like Madrid and Burgos,
Toledo was
in Castile. Castilian, at first the vernacular of a
folk in the Cantabrian mountains
what
is
now
handful of
on the Basque border, thus became
the official language of about ninety million people, in-
cluding twenty-three million Spaniards, sixteen million Mexicans,

thirteen million Argentinians, thirty million citizens of other South
or Central American
states,
three millions in the Antilles, and one
American Spanish has some AndaNew World came

mainly from the South, and partly because Cadiz was the commercial
million in the Philippine Islands.
lusian features, partly because emigrants to the
center of the colonies.
The vocabulary
of a territory so repeatedly invaded inevitably has
admixture of non-Latin M'ords. Germanic tribes left fewer

traces than in French, and these few connected with war and feudal
institutions. Many hundreds of Arabic \\'ords bear testimony to what
a large
Spain owes to a civilization vastly superior to its Catholic successor.

printed below shows how Arabic infected all levels of the
The sample
Spanish vocabulary.
glued on to
its
noun.
The ubiquitous al-
of algebra
is
the Arabic article
THE
Othcn\
ise
L A
LEGACY
the verbal stock in trade of the
two
Iberian dialects
345
is
simi-
lar. Needless to sav, a few ver\- common things have different Spanish
and Porrufjuese, as some common things have different Scots, American, and English names, e.g.:
34<5
Spanish remains in Portuguese, e.g. Portuguese filho (son), Spanish hijo.

5) While Portuguese stressed vowels o and e are conservative, they are
replaced in Spanish by the diphthongs ue and ie, e.g. Portuguese penia
(leg), 7701;^ (nine), porta (door), Spanish pierna, Tiiieve, piierta.
6) Portuguese orthography shares
The
^^"itl^
French the accents
' ,
*
,
,.
acute accent labels as such an open and stressed vowel, the circum-
flex a closed
and stressed one,
e.g.
p6,
powder (Spanish polvo),
por, put
(Spanish poner).
Grammatical differences between the two
dialects are trifling.
Por-
tuguese discarded haver (Spanish haber) as a helper verb at an early

date. As such it persists only in set expressions. Its modern equivalent
Hence tenho aiuado (I have loved), tenho chearrived),

for the Spanish he ariiado and he llegado. Both
have
gado
The Spanish favorite is -ho, the Portufavor
diminutives.
languages
is
ter (Spanish tener).

(I
guese
ish,
to
-iiiho.
In one
French, or
way Portuguese still lingers behind modern SpanThe agglutination of the infinitive with habere
Italian.
form the future and the conditional
is
incomplete. In an affirmatii-e
may slip between the infinitive and

dir-ine-as
me you have = you will tell me),
(lit.
tell
auxiliary,
e.g.
the
dar-vos-e?/ios (lit. give you we have = we shall give you).
statement the personal pronoun
FRENCH
The
Romance
have a considerable literature was a

South of France. This Frovengal had a flourishing cult of romantic poetry greatly influenced by Moorish culture.
Its modern representatives are hayseed dialects of the same region.
first
dialect of the Midi,
Closely related to
lonia, including
it is
its
lanCTuasê to
i.e..
the vernacular of the Spanish province of Cata-
capital, Barcelona.
What is now French began as the

Owing
dialect of the Parisian bourgeoisie.
and economic predominance of the

capital, it spread throughout the monarchy, submerged local dialects
and encroached upon Breton, which is a Celtic, and Flemish, which
is a Teutonic language. It is now the daily speech of half Belgium, and
of substantial minorities in Switzerland and Canada. In 1926 a compact body of forty million European people habitually used French,
thirty-seven millions in France itself, excluding the bilingual Bretons,
Alsatians, and Corsicans, three million Belgians and nearly a million
Swiss. Oumde Europe about three and a half millions in the French
to the political, cultural,
THE LATIN
L E G A C Y
347
(or former French) dependencies and a million and a half Canadians

use
it
dailv.
Canadian French has archaic and dialect peculiarities due

and the influence of cnrl\- emigrants from
to lonjT linguistic isolation
Normandv.
French has twice enjoyed immense prestige abroad,
when
twelfth and thirteenth centuries

ried
during the
to Jerusalem, Antioch, C\prus, Constantinople, Kgvpt,
it
Tunis, and again
in the
tions as
theme for
and
seventeenth and eighteenth. Five years before
the Revolution the Roval
Academv
a prize
of Berlin set the follow ing ques-
competition: what has
language universal, wh\' does
made
the French
merit this prerogative, and can
it
The winner was
we
French wit and chaunamed Rivarol. Rivarol's answer to the first and second was
presume that
vinist,
first
the victorious Crusaders car-
that P'rench
it
will
owed
keep
its
it?
prestige to
its
intrinsic merits, that
the order and construction of the sentence.
French.
What
is
not clear
is still
("What
is
is
to say, to
not clear
is
not
English, Italian, Greek, or Latin.")
is nonsense, as is the plea of some interlinguists, including the

Havelock Ellis, for revival of French as a world auxiliary. Its
vogue as a medium of diplomacy w as partly due to the fact that it was
This
late
already a hiijhly standardized lanijuaCTe, but far
of extrinsic circumstances.
till
From
more
to a succession
the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
the collapse of Napoleon, France
as usually in a position to dic-
terms of her treaties on the Continent. Before the period of

enlightenment which preceded the Revolution the Court of X'ersailles
tate the
w as the cultural citadel of Absolutism. The Encyclopedists were the

commercial travelers of English rationalism and the revolutionary
wars emblazoned the fame of French culture in a new stratum of
European society. The empire reinforced its prestige, but provoked
a nationalistic reaction throughout Europe. After the defeat of Bonaparte its influence receded in Scandinavian countries, among the Russian aristocracy in Russia, where official foreign correspondence was
conducted in French till about 1840, and in Egypt under the impact
of British imperialism. Though it still has ostentation value as a female
embellishment in well-to-do circles, unfamiliarity with French no
longer stamps a person as an ignoramus among educated people.
Neither Lloyd George nor Wilson could converse with the Ticjer in
his ow n tongue. That they could discuss the spoils without resource
to an interpreter was because Clemenceau had lived in the United
States.
34^
ITALIAN AND
The
RUMANIAN
few pages have transRumanian are

essentially national, and other Latin descendants, e.g. Romansch in
Switzerland, are local splinters, on all fours with Welsh or Scots
three Latin dialects discussed in the
last
gressed the boundaries of sovereign states. Italian and
Gaelic.
Phonetically Italian has kept closer to Latin than Spanish or French,
and
its
vocabulary has assimilated fewer loan words.
The
oldest availa-
ble specimens of Italian (a.d. 960 and 964) occur in Latin
documents
formulae repeated by witnesses in connection with the specification

of boundaries. Written records are sparse till the thirteenth century.
By then Italy again had a literature of its own. The dominant dialect
as
was
that of Florence,
which owed
prestige less to the
its
poems of
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio than to a flourishing textile industry
and wealthy banking houses.
It
has changed remarkably
little
since
Dante's time. In 1926 there were forty-one million Italians in the

peninsula, in Sicily,
account for
and
in Sardinia. Less than a quarter of a million
Italian minorities either in
Switzerland or in Corsica.
Rumania corresponds roughly to the Roman province Dacia under

the Emperor Trajan. From one point of view its official language is
the English or Persian (p. 414) of the Latin family. Strange-looking
words of Vulgar Latin origin mingle with Bulgarian, Albanian, Hun-
and Turkish intruders. The Slavonic loan words preits hybrid character, comparison with English
or Persian breaks down. Rumanian grammar has not undergone great
simplification. One odd feature mentioned on page 277 is reminiscent
of the Scandinavian clan. In the Eastern Empire, Vulgar Latin favored
garian, Greek,
dominate. Apart from
homo
the postposited article, e.g.

ille
of
Hie, rather
than the more Western
now
agglutinated to the end
Jdonw. For that reason, the article
many Rumanian nouns
(the man), bipul = lupu

Earliest
in
ille
is
such contractions
as
honnil =
(the wolf), canele = ca?ie
ille
homo
ille
(the dog).
Rumanian documents do not go back more than four hundred
years and are ecclesiastical.
Today
fifteen million people speak the
language.
FURTHER READING
BouRciEZ
GRANDGENT
Elements de Linguistique Roinane.

All Introduction to Vidgar Latin.
CHAPTFR
IX
Modern Descendants
of Latin
A RIRD'S-EVE \'IEVV OF FRENCH, SPANISH,

PORTUGUESE, AND ITALIAN GRAMMAR
On
between modern descendants of Latin are

less than differences betw een the two main branches of the Teutonic
familv. The Teutonic dialects had drifted apart before differentiation
the
of the
Romance languages
common
\\
hole, ditfeiences
began.
The Romance
languages have
many
Vulgar Latin, and others

evolution. Because it is the most regular
features \\hich thev share with
hich are products of parallel
representative of the group, Italian offers the least difficulty to a be-
anyone who intends merely
ginner, especially to
know ledge of
it.
Our
Spanish and French.
to get a reading
bird's-eye view will therefore deal mainly with
We
shall discuss
them
together.
The
reader can
assemble information appropriate to individual needs from different

sections of this chapter,
from
tables printed elsewhere, or
vant remarks in other chapters.
With
from
rele-
the aid of a dictionary, the
who is learning Portuguese or intends to do so, will be able

supplement previous tables of essential words (Chapters \' and
VUl or elsewhere) listing only French, Spanish, and Italian items.
reader,
to
The
tion of
ence
standpoint of
grammar
in a
contained
is
is
The
Loo?/? of La}?<r?iage
knowledge
language or for ability to read
practical.
it,
Our
defini-
correspond-
other than information
So we shall not waste space over what

to the idiom of our own lannuajje and to that of those
in a
co??????on
is
essential for intclligil)le
good
dictionar\'.
with in this chapter. What the home student cannot find in a

dictionary are tricks of expression or characteristics of word equivdealt
alence peculiar U) them.

of
word order
There
are illustrations of outstanding features
Romance languages
in Chapter IV (p. 145 et

and hints about pronunciation of French, Italian, and Spanish in
Chapter VI (p. 249 et seq.). All there is need to say about comparison
seq.)
in the
350
is in Chapter Mil (pp. 332-336). Other grammatical

pecuharities of Spanish, Portuguese, French, or Itahan essential for
of the adjective
reading or ^vriting knowledge are included in three topics: (a) con-
cord of noun and adjective, including plural formation; (b) vagaries

of the definite article and of the pronoun; {c) verb flexion.
Of
the
Romance
dealt
dialects
with,
English-speaking people find
Spanish easier than French. Italian is more easy than either. This is so
for several reasons: (a) the sounds of Spanish (or Italian) are much more
like those we ourselves use; (b) the spelling conventions of Spanish and
much more
Italian are
origin of the older
words
consistent than those of French; (c) the Latin
and
therefore
manv
of the
more
familiar
French
hard to recognize, and they are therefore difficult to identify

with English words of Latin origin (p. 232); (d) the entire apparatus of
noun-adjective flexion is immensely more regular in Spanish and in Italian
than in French. Thus the rules for plural formation of nouns admit less
exceptions, and, what is more important, it is easier to detect the gender
is
class of a
noun from
its
ending. Apart from the greater regularity of
their flexions, there are other features
which bring Spanish or
Italian into
with Anglo-American usage. One is a peculiar dnrative construction,

equivalent to our own in expressions such as / 'was ivaiting.
line
NOUN AND ADJECTIVE

The
marks
only flexion of the noun now^

distinction
between singular and
left
in
Romance languages
plural. In
comparison with
that of Teutonic languages other than English, plural formation of
remarkably regular. On paper the typical

and French nouns and adjectives is -s, as in English. This is partly due to the mastery (p. 327) of
the oblique, in competition with the subject, case form. OtheiAvise
the mascuhne singular form of French nouns might also end in -s, as
do a few survivors, e.g. fils (son) and some proper names such as
any Romance language
is
plural ending of Spanish, Portuguese,
Charles.
Luckily for anyone
who
intends to learn the language, the regular-
ity of Italia?! noun-adjective
concord approaches that of Esperanto.
\\'hether singular or plural, native Italian nouns end in a voivel.
The
subject case (see p. 327) of the Latin noun is the one which has survived in both numbers. Thus most Italian singular nouns end in -a,
if
feminine, or -o (cf. imiro on p. 327) if masculine, according as they

Latin ones of the first and second declensions. Most of the
come from
remainder are sun'ivors of the
third,
and end
in -e. In the plur.\l, -a
O D
i:
R N
F.
I".
N D A N
changes to -e (Latin -jt) and -o or

very few exceptions,
llic onlv
-c
()
changes to
LATIN
K
-/.
These
rules
35
admit
notable ones arc:
Three common nouns have irregular plurals: jiortw-uomim (manmen), 7nogitc-inogH (wife-wives), hiic-hiioi (t)x-en).
b) Masculine nouns of which the singular ending is an unstressed -a
a)
take
-;
in
the plural, e.g. pocta-pocti (poct-s), te7iu-tc?/ii (thcmc-s),
drojmua-dravtini
c)
Some descendants
drama-s )
of Latin neuters have singular masculine and
nova (the egg-s). W'c also

have to use the plural terminal -a for braccio, labbro, ginocchio
(arm, lip, knee) as for il Jito-lc dita (the finger-s) when we refer
to a pair. These have alternate masculine plural forms with the
ending -;', as have frutto (fruit), legno (wood), dito (finger),
osso (bone).
d) Monosyllables, and all nouns which end in a stressed vowel are invariant like our sheep, e.g. la citta-le citta (the city the cities).
e) In conformity with the consistent spelling rules of Italian (p. 354)
a hard G before the singular terminals -O or -A becomes
before the plural -I or -E, e.g. lago-laghi (lake-s), luogo-hioghi
(place-s). Likewise the hard C of the feminine singular becomes
CH, e.g. a?fiica-ai/iiche (friend-s). Masculine nouns i?7ay retain
the hard sound, e.g. fnoco-fiiochi (fire-s), fico-fichi (fig-s),
sto?naco-sto?fiachi. Many masculines with final -CO have the soft
plural feminine forms, e.g. Viiovo-le
GH
sound of
before
in the plural, e.g. aimco-ainici
(friend-s),
7nedico-viedici, porco-porci (pig-s).
The
regular types are illustrated by:
corona
anno
fiore
(crown)
(year)
(flower)
corone
(crowns)
anni
fiori
(years)
(flowers)
Plural formation in Spanish or Portuguese

lish.
All plural Spanish nouns end with -S.
irregularity. Singular
accented vowel take

corona
nouns which end
-es, e.g.:
is
as regular as in
in a
Eng-
one noteworthy
consonant, in y, or an
There
is

352
it
usually to oes in the plural, e.g. nacao-nacoes (nation-s).
in -al, -el, -ol, -ul,
(paper-papers).
form the
plural in
Nouns ending
in -7n
Nouns ending
-ais, -eis, -ois, -ids, e.g.
change
it
to -ns, e.g.
papel-papeis
homem-hojuens
(man-men).
There
is
this difference
between French on the one hand and SpanThe French plural -S, like so many
Portuguese on the other.
ish or
other flexional survivals of the written language,
is
often nothing
more than a convention of the printed or written page. Unless the

the plural -S
next word begins with a vowel or a ?mite H (p. 254)
is
a dead letter.
When it does precede a word beginning with a vowel,
Otherwise flexional distinction between singular and

plural in spoken French is usually guaranteed only by the presence of
the definite article le (masc. sing.), la (fem. sing.), or les (plur.); and
the French use their definite article far more than we use our own. In
it
sounds
fact,
it
like 2.
has
become
a sort of jiumber-prefix.
A small group of French
nouns has not yet been brought into line with

singular endings -ail or -al change to -aux in
the plural, e.g. eiimil-einaux, hopital-hopitaux. Apart from these, there are
a few vestiges of audible number distinction. The French word for the
eye, Voeil, has the irregular plural les yeux. The ox, le boeuf, and the egg,
les boeiifs (pronounced bo),
Poeuf, lose their final -f in the spoken plural
les oeufs (pronounced o). You will not be speaking the French of the
textbook if you forget these irregularities and pronounce the plural of
the prevailing pattern.
The
and baeufs like the singular, or say les ceils for les yeux, but you will
be understood. You are merely doing what millions of modest Frenchmen themselves do. All that needs to be added is that nouns with the
singular endings -au, -eau, -eu and -ou take -x instead of -5" in the plural
(e.g. cheveux, hair, eciux, waters, genoux, knees). This again is a paper
distinction. The x is silent before a consonant, and pronounced as if it
were 2 when the next word begins with a vowel.
oeufs
To
noun by the
form of the adjective or the
know the gender class to which it
replace a French, Portuguese, Spanish, or Italian
right pronoun, and to choose the right

article to
belongs.
accompany
Any noun
two gender
classes,
it,
of a
we need
to
modern Romance language
falls
masculine and feminine. Sometimes
into one of
its
meaning
Romance noun. Three rules

apply to the group as a whole: {a) male human beings and male
domestic animals are masculine, female human beings and female
helps us to identify the gender class of a
domestic animals feminine; {b) names of days, months, and compass

bearings are masculine; {c) most metals and trees are masculine, most
MODERN
The
fruits feminine.
F.
CE N D A N T
OF LATIN
353
reader can turn to the exhibits of Part I\' to test
these rules and to note exceptions.
we
Usually,
illustrated
w hat
have to rely
by reference
we can on
as best
to Italian nouns.
the ending, as already
Two clues have turned
up
in
has gone before:
and neuters with the nominative

arc nearly always masculine. In
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, the corresponding terminal is -O.
(b) Descendants of Latin feminines with the nominative singular ending -A are also feminine and retain the same terminal in Spanish and Portuguese, as in Italian. In French it usually makes way
for a mute -E. Portuguese nouns ending in -cao (Latin -tione)
(a) Descendants of Latin masculines
singular endings
-US and -UiM
are feminine.
These two clues tell us how to deal with the enormous class of
and Portuguese nouns which have the singular terminals -O (7/iasc.) or -A (fein.). Among Latin nouns \\hich did not
have the characteristic masculine, neuter, or feminine endings -US,
-UAl, -A in the nominative singular some had terminals which stamp
the orender class of their descendants throughout the group. In the
Italian, Spanish,
following
list
LATIN
the Latin equivalent
is
the ablative case form.
ITALIAN
MASCULINE
-ALE
canale
-ENTE
accidente
FEMININE
-lONE
-AL
-ALE
canal
caiiale
-ENTE
-ENT
accidente
accident
354
M
I.MIN
O D E R X
i:
C E N D A N T
O F
L A T
355

35^
Portuguese, and Italian adjectives of the larger class have the terminals
-O
(masc.) or
-A
(fern.).
gular terminal -E, as have
The genderless Italian adjective has the sinmany genderless Spanish and Portuguese ad-
forms of other genderless Spanish and Portuguese

end in a consonant. The plural forms of all Italian, Spanish,
and Portuguese adjectives follow the same rule: the plural jonn of
the adjective is like the plural form of a nou?i with the same siîgiilar
jectives. Singular
adjectives
ending.
The
following examples therefore
illustrate all essential rules for
use of the Italian adjective:

(a
libri gialli
(yellow books)
una nazione ricca
(a rich nation)
nazioni ricche
(rich nations)
The
im Duce loqiiace
Duct loquaci
una 7naccbma forte
macclmie forti
yellow book)
iin libro giallo
Spanish equivalents for black, poor, and
(a talkative leader)
(talkative leaders)
(a strong machine)
(strong machines)
comvwn
sufficiently
of appropriate forms of the Spanish or Portuguese
illustrate the use
adjective:
Si7ig.
Masc.
negro
negra
Sing. FeiJiin.
Plur. Masc.
_,,
negros
negras
Plur. Femin.
There
is
^^^^^
^^
J
^
comunes
pobres
^
Y
J
one noteworthy exception to the rules
illustrated
by
these
examples. Adjectives signifying nationality take the feminine terminals -a or
-as,
even
if
the masculine singular ends in a consonant,
e.g. ingles-inglesa, espanol-espanola.
Representative exhibits of Portuguese noun-adjective concord are:

o navio novo
the
new
ship
a pessoa simpatica
the congenial
OS navios novas
the
new
ships
as pessoas simpdticas
the congenial
person
persons
o{a) ahmo(a) inteligente
the intelligent pupil
os(as) ahmos(as) inteligentes
the intelligent pupils
Genderless Portuguese adjectives ending in

the plural,
The
e.g. neutral, fdcil,
azul (blue)
have contracted forms in
-/
neutraes, facets, azuis.
genderless class of French adjectives
is
relatively small.
got drawn
About
into the
the time of Agincourt the old genderless adjective

orbit of the two-gender class. It assimilated the feminine ending -E,
gender form, has now

separate masculine {fort) and feminine {forte) singular and corresponding plural forms {forts-fortes). Genderless are brave, large,
so that fort (strong), originally a
common
MODERN DESCENDANTS
(empty),
OF LATIN
357
triste (sad), facile (easy), difficile,
rouge
(red), tiede (lukewarm), terrible, biniihle, capable, and others
which
riche, vide
jtiste,
end in -ble. The plural suffix of all these is -S (rouges, faciles, etc.).
This rule applies to the separate masculine or feminine plural forms
of most French adjectives which do not belong to the genderless class.
If
we want
to n-rite the feminine equivalent of the masculine
most French adjectives, all we have to do is to add -E.

What happens in speech is another story. The final consonant (p.
252) of most French words is silent. When the masculine singular
form of the paper adjective ends in such a silent consonant (-T, -S,
-ER, -N) addition of the -E makes the latter articulate. Thus the
pronunciation of vert (masc.) and verte (fem.), meaning green, is
roughly vair-vairt. Sometimes the final -T or -S is double in the
written form of the feminine equivalent, e.g. uet-uette (clean, dissingular of
(stupid), gros-grosse
tinct), sot-sotte
adjectives ending in -et

coiuplete,
(big), gras-grasse
do not double the
final
(fat).
Six-
consonant {complet-
concret-concrete, discret-discrete, iuquiet-inqidete,
easy, replet-replete, stout, secret-secrete).
to -ere, with change of
vowel
Vowel change
Those ending
in -er
unchange
color, e.g. premier-previiere, regidier-
occurs if the masculine singular terconsonant symbol labels the preceding vowel
as a nasal (p. 253). The vowel of the feminine form is not nasal. A
silent -X becomes an explicit -NE or -NNE, e.g. bon-bonne (good),
reguliere.
minal
is
-N. This
also
silent
Doubling of the
plein-pleine (full).
last
consonant before the final -E

if the masculine sin-
of the written form of the feminine also occurs
gular ends in the articulate terminals -EL or -UL, e.g. cruel-cruelle or

ind-mdle (no). In the spoken language these adjectives belong to the
genderless class.
A few irregularities among gender forms of the French adjective recall

feminine forms of couplets which stand for persons (e.g. Tnasse7ir-i)iasseiise).
Thus
-eiix
becomes -FUSE,
e.g.
glorieiix-glorieiise, jaiiieiix-ja-
we
have a berger-bergere (shepherd-shepherdess) class

represented by preinier-preiiiiere. As -eux becomes -eiise, -mix, and -oiix
become -AUSSE and -OUSE, e.g. faux-fnusse (false), jaloux-jalouse (jealous). As with the couplet veiff-veiive (widower-widow), -F changes to
-\T, e.g. neiif-neuve (new), href -breve. Four apparent exceptions to rules
given depend on the fact that there are alternative masculine singular
vieiise.
forms.
sonant.
Similarly
One which ends in a vowel precedes a word beginning with a conThe other precedes a vvord beginning with a vowel or h. These
masculine couplets are nouveau-vouvel (new), beau-bel (beautiful), vieiixuiou-inol (soft), as in iin vieil hoimne (an old man), un vieux
vieil (old),
358
mur
(an old wall) or im beau gar con (a fine boy), iin bel arbre (a beautiful
The feminine derivatives correspond to the second or older number
of the couplet in conformity with the rules stated, e.g. voiivelle, belle,
vieille, 7/iolle, i.e., ime vieille jeiiwie, or ime belle dame.
tree).
The few
irregular masculine plural forms of the adjective recall those
of nouns with the same singular terminals.

~x there is no change. Thus il est heureux = he
= they are happy.
If
is
the singular ends in -5' or

happy, and Us sont heiireiix
the masculine singular ends in
If
culine plural terminals are respectively
-EAU
-EAUX
or
or -AL, the mas-
-AUX,
as in
beau-
The corresponding femcardinales. The masculine plural
beaux, n Olive au-nouveaiix, or cardinal-cardinaiix.

inine forms are regular, e.g. nouvelles or
of tout
(all) is tous.
toutes).
When
The corresponding
tous stands
by
itself
feminine forms are regular {toutewithout a noun the final s is always
articulate.
The
position of the epithet adjective in
as rigidly fixed as in English.
As
Romance
a rule (^^'hich
ceptions) the adjective comes after the noun. This

if
is
is
is
not
many
ex-
languages
allows for
nearly always so
the adjective denotes color, nationality, physical properDy% or
longer than the noun.
bueno and
the
escritor (a
noun
if it
ubiquitous Spanish adjectives
and the masculine singular forms are
inalo usually precede,
vino (a good wine), iin

bad writer). French adjectives usually placed before
then shortened to biien and

7?2al
The two
iiml, e.g. iin biieji
are:
beau-belle
(beautiful), joli-jolie
(pretty), vilain-vilaine
(ugly), bon-
homie (good), inauvais-mauvaise (bad), inechant-mechante (wicked),

meilleur-nieilleure (better), grand-grande (great, tall), gros-grosse (big),
petit-petite
(small),
jezme
(young), nouveau-nouvelle
vieille (old), long-longiie (long),
Both
noun
in
(new), vieux-
court-courte (short).
Spanish and French almost any adjective
may
be put before the
for the purpose of emphasis, e.g. une fory/iidable explosion, though
is achieved by leaving it at its customary place and stressing

This shunting of the adjective is much less characteristic of everyday
language than of the literary medium which pays attention to such niceties
as rhythm, euphony, and length of words. Sometimes a difference of position goes with a very definite difference of meaning. Where there is such
a distinction the adjective following the noun has a literal, the adjective
preceding it a figurative, meaning. When gran appears before the Spanish
noun it signifies quality, e.g. 7m gran hombre, a great man; when placed
a:fter, size, un hombre grande, a tall man. The same is true of French. In
French un brave homme is a decent chap, un hovmie brave is a brave man;
un livre triste is a sad sort of book, un triste livre is a poor sort of book.
the same effect
it.
I)
R N
1) i:
TMF ARIICll
IN
C E N D A N
nil
KoMWCr
() I
\\(il
359
A(.I S
All fcirnis of the Roinnncc dclinitc airiclc (as also of the Romance
pronoun of the thirJ person) conic from the Latin (.Icmonstrativc
II. LI', etc. (p. ^29). The form of the definite article depends on the
number and gender of the noun, hut the choice of the rigiit form is
complicated hv the initial sound of the noun itself, and 1)\' agglutination with prepositions. When it is not accompanied bv a preposition,
the range of choice
is
as follows:
360
with
vowels,
( 2 )
with Z or with S followed by
table illustrates these rules:
ENGLISH
a consonant.
The
I) V.
R N
I)
E S C K N D A N
OF
I,
5<^
From this point of view, French is a halfw av house between Spanish

and Portuguese. Portuguese is a h;)lf\\;u house between French and
Italian. The aggkifinarion of Portuguese jirepositions to the article,
which has
lost
the
pRKPosrnoN
(Latin et]uivalcnt
in itahcs)
initial l>atin I,,
arc as follows:
362
to put the definite article before an abstract noun, e.g. covoitise est
racine de toz viaJs for la couvoitise est
la racine de tons les maiix

This accounts for its absence in some
set expressions (see also p. 393) such as: in French, avoir raison (be
right), avoir tort (be ^rong), prendre garde (take care), prendre
conge (take leave), deiJiaiider pardon (ask forgiveness); in Spanish,
(envy
is
the root of
all evils).
hohday), dar
onore (do honor), correr pericolo (run a
air iiiisa (hear mass), hacer fiesta (take a
fin (finish); in
Italian, jar
risk),
(take a wife). \"\^here
77ioglie
we
before names of professions and trades,
mance
languages, as in
= he
^ doctor,
is
One
call
prender
use the indefinite article a or an

its
equivalent
is
German. Thus the French say
and the Spaniards say
es
Romedecin
absent in
//
est
medico.
grammar books
Wherever English-speaking people can use
some indefinite quantity of a whole, as in I load
of the pitfalls of French
is
correct use of what
the partitive article.
some or any to signify

some beer, the French
imist put before the object the preposition de
together with the definite article
(e.g.
dii,
de
la,
des).
Thus
the
French say: buvez dii lait (drink milk), fai achete de la farine (I have
bought flour), est-ce que voits avez des poires? (have you pears?),
and even abstractly, // me temoigne de Vamitie (he shows me friendship). This article partitif is a trademark of modern French. The habit
goes back to late Latin. It occurs in the Vulgate and tallies with the
idiom of the Mayftou-er Bible, e.g. catelli edtint de micis = the dogs
eat oj the crumbs (Matt. 15, 27). The partitive article may even be
prefaced by a preposition, as in je le ifiange avec du vinaigre (I eat it
with vinegar). The French de is used alone, i.e., ivithout the definite
article:
(much, many), pen (little, few), pas (no), plus

(more), trap (too much, too many), e.g. je n'ai pas de ynonnaie
(have no money), fai trap de te7nps (1 have too much time).
^) If the noun is preceded bv an adjective, e.g. fai vu de belles viaisons
(I have seen some nice houses).
a) After beaiicoup
The second
of the two rules
is
generally ignored in colloquial
French.
The
partitive article occurs also in Italian, e.g.
NOT compulsory. Spanish and Portuguese
danmii del vino.
usually do without
It is
but
have a peculiar plural equivalent for some, not comparable to that
of other European languages. The indefinite article has a plural
form, e.g.:
it,
MODERN
D E
C E N D A N
SPANISH
a
un
book
libro
()
L A T
PORTVCUESE
U7)i
Ihro
twos lihros
tms livros
a letter
U71J carta
tnna carta
some
twas cartas
tunas cartas
sonic hooks
letters
Tin:
ROM ANCF.
PF.RSONAI.
3^>3
PRONOLN
pronouns (see below and pp. 331 and 33:)

do not give equivalents for IT or ITS. Tlie
reason is that Romance nouns arc cither masculine or feminine. What
is wiven as the Trench, Spanish, or Italian e(]uivalent for SIIK is the
subject pronoun which takes the place of a female human being, a
Our
tables of personal
and possessives
(p. 370)
ROMANCE PERSONAL PRONOUNSStressed
Forms
364
listed as the equivalent
our
it,
when
of he or
The pronoun
she or her
would correspond
to
of Romance, as of other European languages, has
been more
resistant to flexional
the correct
form
Tliis
hi7f2,
the latter refers to anything sexless.
is
decay than the noun, and choice of

one of the most troublesome thinsrs for a besfinner.
so for several reasons:
is
Pronouns of the third person have separate direct object (accusa1

the) and indirect object (dative) forms.
2) Pronouns of all three persons have separate unstressed (conjunctive)
fomis as subject or object of an accompanying verb and stressed (disjunctive) forms for use after a preposition and in certain other situations.
3) The rules of concord for the possessive of the third person have
nothing to do with the gender of the possessor.
4) Pronouns mav agglutinate with other words.
5) Pronouns of the second person have different polite and familiar
forms.
The
are
personal flexions of the Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian verb
still
intact. It
is
customarv to use Portuguese, Spanish, or
Italian
verbs without an accompanying subject pronoun, though the latter

is
handy for emphasis or greater

FRENCH
ENGLISH
he
is
good
//
est
clarit)^, e.g.:
PORTUGUESE
bon
e horn
SPANISH
ITALIAN
bueno
e biiojio
es
We
cannot omit the French subject pronoun. Indeed, it has no

from the verb. In answer to a question, the
Spaniard, Portuguese, or Italian wUl use yo, eii, io. Except in the legal
je soiissigjie, the Frenchman does not use je in answer to a question,
separate existence apart
he uses the stressed 7noi where
Qui Pa
we
Who
Moi.
fait?
usually say ?ne,

did
e.g.:
it?
Me
(=
did).
This rule apphes to French pronouns of aU persons in so far as there

toi, lui, eux). In the same situation the
Italian uses the stressed form for the third person {lui, loro). The Frenchman uses the stressed forms whenever the pronoun: {a) is detached from
its verb, {b) stands alone. Frenchmen never use them next to the verb,
are distinctive stressed forms (inoi,
e.g.:
a) Lui, vion ami!
He,
b) Moi, je lien
sais rien.
c) Je ferai covnne
toi.
my
friend!
(myself)
TU do
as
know nothing about
you (do).
it.
M
There
()
D K R N
hago yo
lo
7;//
ffiujer
form precedes
it.
unless
inirtno
it
inirma
Romance
the
all
L A T
365
French forms of rnyself, bhnself, etc.: moi-mcme,

Spanish equivalent of itthtie is wis7/io{s )-tfiis7na(s).
The
unstressed subject
In
OF
N IS
arc emphatic
Itii-iticjne, etc.
The
DESCEND A
emphasizes
do
ni)-
laniriiaijes dealt
noun,
e.g.:
myself
it
wife herself
chapter the stressed
ith in this
fomis are the ones we have to use after a preposition, and thev take
up the same place in the sentence as the corresponding noun, e.g.:
English
French
Je suis venu sans
Portuguese
Spanish
Ten ho vindo sem
to use
it
question.
does so
el la.
venido sin ella.

Sono venuto senza ella.
unstressed direct or indirect object
the verb,
elle.
He
Italian
The
cenne ziithout her.
form
is
overshadowed bv
w hich it immediately precedes or follow s. We always have

when there is no preceding preposition in a statement or
It
in
(French),
always comes before the French verb, and nearlv always

e.g. Je fahne hecnicoup
avio imicho (Span.), Ti avio luolto (Ital.) = I love vou
Spanish and Italian statevieuts,
Te
Portuguese is out of step w ith its sister dialects. In simple affirmaPortuguese sentences the object usuallv follow s the verb and a
a lot.
tive
hyphen connects them,

ele
e.g.:
prociira-me = he
da-me o
lizro
In negative statements of
the object
all
is
looking for
= he gives
English
the
the four principal
pronoun (whether direct or
e.g.:
me
me
book
Romance
languages,
indirect) precedes the verb,
366
VeiJibrace pas (don't kiss her).
?2e
The
direct object
moi and
accusative unstressed form; but in French,
is
always the
me and
me some
toi replace
donnez-moi de Feau (give
te as the indirect object, e.g.
water)
In French and Portuguese, the hyphen indicates the intimate relation
of the unstressed form to the verb imperative, as in the following examples, which illustrate agglutination of two pronoun objects {me-o = mo)
in Portuguese:
di-nie
= give
tin livro
de-7Jio o
senhor = give
me
book
me
(to)
it
(sir)
It is customary to write the Spanish and Italian imperative,

and participles without a gap between the verb and the object,
SPANISH
ITALIAN
muestrame
mostrami
quiero hablarle
voglio parlargli
ENGLISH
sho-iV
/
me
hhn
ivcmt to speak to
Fusion of verb to
its
finitive (e.g. parlare)
pronoun object goes further

drops the
infinitive
e.g.:
final
in Italian:
E as in the last example;
(j) the in-
{b) the infini-
drops -RE if it ends in -RRE (e.g. condurre) as in condiirlo = to direct

him; {c) there is doubling of the initial consonant of the pronoun if the
imperative ends in a vowel with an accent, e.g. davnni = give me, dillo =
say it. Wîth con (with) the stressed Italian pronouns vie, te, se fuse to
form 7}ieco (with me), teco (with thee), seco (with him or with her).
The three Spanish stressed pronouns 7721, ti, si, get glued to con to form
con7fiigo, co7itigo, consigo. Agglutination goes further in Portuguese..
With co7n we have co7mgo, contigo, consigo, connosco, convosco (with
me, with thee, etc.). Similarly the unstressed Portuguese 77ie, te, Ihe, glue
tive
on to the
etc.,
and
direct object of the third person to
form
7no-77ia-7nos-7iias,
to,.
Iho, ttc, e.g.:
Dd-tos =
He
gives
them
to
you
(thee)
Portuguese direct object forms of the third person have alternaforms lo-la-los-las for use ajter -R, -S, or -Z. If the preceding pronoun is 7205 or vos, the latter drop the S:
The
tive
Dd-no-lo =
Dd-vo-lo =
Thus
He
He
gives
it
to us
gives
it
to
the same rules for the position of
you
two pronoun
objects do nor
apply to French on the one hand and Spanish or Italian on the other:
a)
The
Spanish and Italian direct object pronoun follows the indirect,

no te lo dare = I shall not give it to you = 77077 ti Jo daro. This-
e.g.
R N
() I) i:
C K N D A N
I) i:
()
I.
3<^)7
rule iipplics to sriitcmcnt, ijucsrion, or coiniiiand (rc(]ucst), e.g. in
correct
Spani.sli rorrc{i'iiin/clo,
b)
the French indirect object
If
tor mc.
it
pronoun of the
is
first
or second
person the same rule holds for a simple statement, e.g. jc nc Ic te

do/incmi pas = 1 sh;ill not give vou it.
c) If the French indirect pronoun object is of the third person, it follows the direct object, e.g. jc Ic lui dirai = I shall tell him it.
d) The French direct object precedes the indirect one in a positive
command, and the indirect object has the stressed form, e.g.
eorrii^cz-le-vioi = correct it for me.
e) If both Spanish pronoun objects are of the third person SF takes
the place of the indirect object
se lo dire =
shall tell
Negative commands of
f)
him
\\
hich retains
its
usual place, e.g.
it.
four languages have the same
all
word order
as statements.
Our
list
of unstressed French pronouns should include
forms which are troublesome. These are eii and y.

French the former refers to persons and things (or
whereas the latter is generally used for things (and
only. Both are descendants of Latin adverbs of place,
(thence), y from ibi (there). Both
eii
two
pcculinr
In colloquial
propositions),
propositions)
en from inde
and y may presen-e this old

y for here, there, thither,
locative meaning, en for in, to, from, etc., and

e.g.
en province (in the country), fy sera (I shall be there). In \'ulgar

ibi often replaced the pronoun of the third person, e.g.
Latin inde and

si
potis inde ynanducure, e.g.
lit.
if
oi'wn, e.g. add an egg there (= to
noun
any?
eji
),
v\here
or where
enough of
ifiourir
it),
we
we
say
so7fie
you can
it).
or any,
eat
(from)
The French
e.g.
it;
adjice ibi
often use the pro-
en avez-vous? (have vou
say of it, about it, from it, e.g. fen ai assez (I have
nous en parlerons (we shall talk about it), // en pourrait
(he might die of
it).
Also note: en voila une surprise! = what a
surprise!
As pronouns equivalent
cial class
of verbs.
which do not precede

e.g. se servir
de = to
the English verb,
pronoun object,
class
to IT, en and y keep
The French
a
equivalents for
company with
spe-
some English verbs
preposition al\\a\s go with de {of or froi/i),

inanimate object IT then accompanies
use. If the
we
translate
it
by en w hich always follows another
e.g. je vt'eii sers =
use
it.
Another expression of
this
avoir besoin de, e.g. fen ai besoin = I need it. In the same way
the equivalent for it or to it when the preposition a follows the
is
y is
French verb. Since penser a means to think (about), fy pcnsais means
/ ivas thinking about it.
3^8
The
Italian
descendant of
i?ide
is jie,
as in
how much
quanta ne volete?
do you want (of it)? me ne ricordo, I remember it. For both functions of
the French y, Itahan has ci (Latin ecce-hic), vi (Latin ibi). These are
interchangeable, e.g. ci pensero (I shall see to it), vi e stato (he has been
there). Neither i7ide nor ibi has left descendants in Spanish or Portuguese.
For French fy penserai the Spaniard says pensare en ello.
We have still to discuss the reflexive and possessive forms of Romance personal pronouns. Our own words viyself, yourself, etc.,
have to do two jobs. We can use them for emphasis, and we can use
them reflexively. Whenever we use them reflexively, (e.g. wash yourself) in the first or second persons, the equivalent word of a modern
Romance
dialect
is
the corresponding unstressed direct object form.
For the third person there

or plural use.
flexive
a single reflexive
Italian.
are using a verb

never permissible in Spanish, Portuguese, French,
identity of the reflexive and direct object pronoun is
This
The
is
illustrated
by
use of the
common
the
first
two of
The
the following.
last illustrates
the
singular and plural reflexive of the third person:
FRENCH
I
pronoun for singular
pronoun when the context shows that we
reflexively.
or
is
current Anglo-American habit to omit the re-
It is a
'
wash
SPANISH
me
je vie lave
we wash
7ioiis
they wash
ils
nous lavons
se lavent
Romance languages have many
lava
nos lavamos
se lavan
pseudoreflexive verbs, such as the
French verbs se viettre a (Italian inettersi) to begin, se prouiener, to

go for a walk (Spanish pasearse), sên aller, to go away (Spanish irse),
,
remember (Spanish
se souvenir,
de
s''agit
(it is a
elle se niit a
acordarse), or the impersonal
pleurer
allez-voiis-en
she begart to cry
go away (beat
no me acuerdo de eso
I don't remember that
ella se
The
reflexive
pasea en
it)
parqiie
el
she walks in the park
pronoun may give the verb a new meaning. In French

I doubt whether he will come, and je vi'en
je doiite qiiil
vienne means:
dome means:
The
il
question of):
think
so.
Latin reflexive se of the third person
Spanish, and French.
The Portuguese
The
is
common to
unstressed Italian reflexive
Portuguese,
is si,
stressed se.
reflexive follows the verb like an ordinary Portu-
guese pronoun object,
e.g.
levanto-me
(I
get up).
The
Spanish se
O UE R N
When
does two jobs.
F.
C E N D A N
()
A T
\.
369
the direct and indirect object arc Iwth of the
third person, a Spaniard uses sc for the indirect object (le, les), or for
the unstressed dative form, e.g. se lo liigo
(1 tell it
to
him
sav so
to him).
modern Latin
Possessive pronouns and adjectives (p. 104) of

lects arc
SKKs
(his, her,
its,
their) or of illoniin
dia-
(my), tiius (thy),

(of those), and iioster, roster
descendants of the old Latin forms
ificits
(our, your). French and Italian derive the possessive of the third per-
son plural from the Latin genitive illurimi (French Icur, Italian loro),
Spanish and Portuguese from the reflexive
and French have r\vo
{possessive adjectizês),
{possessive pronouns)
student of the
sives
is
Like English, Spanish
suits.
of possessives (cf. viy-vi'me)., contracted
sets
which accompany a noun, and fuller ones

which stand alone. For an English-speaking
Romance languages
the chief difficulty about posses-
mastery of the gender forms.
Our
single surviving trace of
concord involved in the choice between his-its-her refers

solely to the possessor. Neither the grammatical gender nor the sex
of the possessor shows up in the form of the Romance possessive adjective or pronoun. In French:
possessive
= his or her father
son pere
sa
mere
= his or her
mother
scs parents = his or her parents
form of the Romance pronoun depends on the

The masculine singular French forms 7;/o;7,
ton, soil, replace ina, ta, sa before a feminine noun beirinning with a
vowel (or h), e.g. iiion amie (my girl friend) and nion mni (m\- boy
Thus
the gender
thing or person possessed.
friend). Unlike the unstressed invar iajit dative lein\ the possessive
leiir
has a
house(s).
plural
The
(letirs),
Spanish
sji
e.g.
lenr
inaison
does the job of
lews
viaisous = xhc'w
his, her, its, their,
or yotir
any context unless ambiguity might arise; and countless ambiguities

can arise from this type of concord. If the Spaniard wishes to make
in
it
clear that
sti
casa stands for his house, he says
tradistinction to
sit
casa de ella (her house) or
house). Similarly the
or son pere a
replace
le
elle
mien,
sii
sit
casa de
Frenchman may say son pere
(her father).
The combinations
la sienne, etc., as in
cest a vioi
el, in
con-
casa de ellos (their

a
liii
a vwi, a
(it is
(his father)
liti,
mine),
etc.,
can
cêst a
liti
(it is his).
Both in Italian and Portuguese the possessive adjective has the same
form as the possessive pronoun. When used attributiveh', the possessive
370
mio braccio (my arm), Portuguese

omitted after essere or ser, meaning
belong to, e.g. Italian la casa e mia (the house is mine), Portuguese a casa
e minha. The Spanish possessive adjective has two forms, a shorter which
prefaces the noun without the article, e.g. vii casa, and a more emphatic
one which is put after the noun with the article, e.g. la casa ?nia. The latter
takes the definite article, e.g. Italian
meu
braco.
also acts as
ella
olvido
The
definite article
pronoun, and
el
suyo,
i.e.,
il
is
in this capacity takes the article as in
saco (she forgot hers,
ROMANCE
i.e.-,
POSSESSIVES
bag).
French,
MODK
X DE
C E N DA N
Roman citizens addressed one
another as
Spanish, Portuguese, and Itahan
is
now
1 S
tu.
OF LATIN
The thou form
37
of French,
the one used to address hus-
band or wife, children, close relations, and intimate friends. There

is a French verb tutoyer (German ditzen) which means to speak
fjifiiliiirly,
that
is,
to address a person as tu in preference to the
formal z'ous (French ronzoyer,

In the days of the
Roman
German
more
siczev).
Empire, iws (we) often replaced the em-
The custom
upper ranks of Roman society. Eventuallv z'os percolated through the tiers of the social hierarchy till it reached those
who had onlv their chains to lose. So vous is now the polite French
for you. The verb \\ hich goes with it has the plural ending, w hile
the adjective or past participle takes the gender and number of the
person addressed. Thus the Frenchman sa\s Madeline, vous etes trop
hoinie (how kind of you, Madam), but Monsieur, vous etes trop bon.
In spite of the Revolution of 1789, the French often use Monsieur,
Madajne and Mademoiselle with the third person, e.g. Madame est
phatic ego (I). This led to the substitution of vos for tu.
began
in the
trop bonne.
by substitutform for the original vos (Span.) or voi (Ital.). The

Italian uses lei (or more formally ella) = she, with the third person
singular, e.g. lei e aifiericano? (you are American?). Lei is the pronominal representative for some feminine noun such as z'ossig^noria
(Your Lordship). The plural of lei is loro. In Italian conversation we
can often omit lei and loro. Instead we can use the third person without pronoun, e.g. ha mangiato? (have you eaten?).
Spaniards and Italians have pushed deference further
ing a
less
When
mate or
direct
Spaniard addresses a single individual
a child,
who
is
not an
inti-
he uses usted (written V. or Vd. for short) instead of
The corresponding pronoun for use when addressing more than

one person is ustedes ( Vs. or Vds.). Usted is a contraction of vuestra
inerced (Your Grace). Consequently the verb appears in the third
person, as in Italian, e.g. como se llama usted? (what is your name?),
como se Hainan ustedes? (what are your names? ). In very short statements or questions we can omit usted, e.g. qjie dice? (what do you
tu.
say?).
Portuguese
is
more extravagant than either Spanish or

you when it stands for a male
usual equivalent for our
and for
Italian.
is
The
o senhor,
female a senhor a, or (in Brazil) a scnhorita. So the Portu-
guese for the simple English have you got ink?

a senhora) tinta?
Our
is
tein o
senhor (or
catalogue of polite behavior would be incom-
372
plete without the Balkan equivalent.

is
The Rumanian for the
ship).
polite
you
domina vo stray Your LordThe pohte forms of our invariant YOU in Italian and Spanish
the periphrastic doiimia voastra (Latin
are in the table that follows.
MODERN DESCENDANTS
To
home
help the
OF LATIN
373
student through this maze, there are separate tables
(pp. 374-376) in which the same five English impersonal pronouns turn
up. Capitals or small letters respectively show whether the Romance
equivalent
is:
(a) the
pronoun form which stands alone (e.g. read that, or

form before a noun (read this hook, or ivhich
ii-hat?), (b) the adjective
book?). Italicized capitals signify that the word can be either. Some are
unchangeable, like 'what. Others like this or that take endings in agreement with the nouns they qualify or replace. If so, the final vowel is italicized to
show
that
is
it
choose from one of
all
We. then have to

show which
the masculine singular ending.
four possible regular forms.
ones are irregular, and give appropriate forms in
The
tables
full.
Corresponding to two singular demonstratives tjyis and that of

Anglo-American, some British dialects have this, that, and yon. The
three grades of proximity in this series correspond roughh' to the
Latin sets of which the masculine singular forms were hie, iste, ille.
here) with ecce
Two of them went into partnership (cf. this
(behold), which survives in the French cet (Latin ecce iste) and
.
celle (ecce ilia).
Spanish and Portuguese preserve the threefold Latin Scots distinction: este, esta, estos, est as = this (the nearer one), ese, esa, esos, esas
= that (the further), aqiiel, aqiiella, aqiiellos, aqiiell as = \ on (remote

from both speaker and listener). All three sets can stand alone or with
a noun like our own corresponding pointer words. When they stand
alone (as pronouns) they carry an accent, e.g. esta golondrina y

swallow and yonder one). All three, like the article lo
aqiiella (this
(p. 359)
have neuter forms,
The corresponding
comparable usage.
esto, eso, aqiiello, for
threefold set of Portuguese demonstratives are:
este (-a, -es, -as), esse (-a, -es, -as), aqiiele (-a, -es, -as). Spaniards like
the Germans, reverse the order for the forjner

(the nearer)
qiiesto
The
is
aqiiel (the further).
The
Italian
the latter = este
order quello
the same as ours.
between the adjective and pronoun equivalents of

and that-those in French involves much more than an accent on paper. Where we use them as adjectives the French put ce
distinction
this-these
or cet (masc. sing.), cette (fem. sing.) or ces (plur.) in front of the
noun, and
ci
(here) or
la
(there) behind
it,
as in:
ce petit paquet-ci
this little parcel
ce petit paqiiet-la that
cette bouteille-ci
this bottle
cette boiiteille-ld
that bottle
ces poires-ci
these pears
ces poires-la
those pears
little
parcel
374
In colloquial French the

the
ci
hi
combination has practically superseded
form, and serves in either situation.
ROMANCE POINTER
\\
ORDS
RELATIVE PRONOUNS
and
(see p. 372)
a)
Demonstratives
CELUI-CI (CECl)
CELLE-CI (f)
ci
ce(t)
this
cette
ci
ces
ci
ESTE
ESE
CELUI-LA (ca)
CELLE-LA
that
which
b) Link pronouns
QVESTO
la
cette
la
ces
la
{-A, -OS,
AQUEL
(-LA,
QUELLC
LOS, -LAS)
cual i-es)
(-le, -s, -les)
quello
-I.
{-a, -i, -e)
CHE
QUE
CEQUE
(that)
CIO
(that)
CHE
QUI
QUE
(as subject)
WHOM, -WTIICH
{-A,
-E)
never oinitted
THAT
WHO, WHICH
i-A,-I,
-E)
-AS)
if)
ce(t)
quel
{-A, -OS,
-AS)
QUE
(as object)
WHOM
QUI
(after a preposition)
r IL
WHICH
(after a preposition)
LEQUEL
QUIEN i-ES)
or LA QUALE
or LE QUALI
(laquelle,
lesquels,
lesquelles)
WHOSE, OF WHICH
To
those)
DO NT
(dequi [persons]
DUQUEL, etc,
p. 377 [thmgs])
DE QUIEN {-ES)
(CUYO,
-A, -OS,
IL
I
or LA
or LE
^
f
CUI
-as)
translate the adjective this-these (in contradistinction to that-
we
can use the simpler form
ce, etc.,
ithout
-ci, e.g.
ce joimial
M
(this
K R
I) I)
1) i:
newspaper), cct ouvricr
r.
(this
woman), ccs instrmncnts.

Where we would sa\- here or
()
workman),
I.
ccttc jcinic
N
fillc
375
(this
voiins^
there
is
(-uj.v
or -uvrc), look there
or lo and behold, French people use the invariant pointers void

or voila. Historicallv they arc airghitiiiarions between the singular
(roes
imperative of voir (to see) and the locative particles ci (= ici) and /./.
So void (Old French voi ci) once meant see here, and voila (Old
French voi la) see there. Both occur in modern French, hut conversational language tends toward using voiLi w ithout discriminating between here and there. The following examples show how these gesture substitutes are used: void inon cheque (here is mv check),
la
voila (here or there she
voila deu.x aiis
The
he
is),
The
que
(it is
now two
Italian equivalent
ecco
ini
voila parti (ojj he goes or iie/it),
is), le
years that).
ecco (Latin eccinn),
is
fiavrniifero (here
is
as in
eccolo (here
match).
follow ing French examples illustrate the use of the eight pro-
nouns corresponding to this-these or that-those (see table p. 374),

when they refer to {a) le chapeau (the hat), {b) les chapeaux (the
hats), (r) la noix (the nut), {d) les noix (the nuts):
je prcfcre cclni-la
a) je prcfcre celui-ci
I
prefer this one
prefer that one
Ceiix-la sent trap chers
b) Ceux-ci sent trap chers

These are too dear
Those
c) Casse celli-ci
Casse celle-la
Break
this
Break that one
one
d) EUe a achete celles-ci
Elle a acbete cellcs-la
She has bought those
She has bought these
There
arc too dear
French pronouns, ceci and cela (commonly

corresponding respectively to this and that, e.g. ne
can never use them for persons.
don't say that.
are ,tw o other
ai)i)reviated to ga)
dites pas fa =
Ce
sad.
We
(c') often stands for
it,
e.g. c\'st vrai =
it
is
true, c'est triste =
it is
After the in\ariant ce, the adjective can keep the masculine
may mean either il est bon or elle est

bonne according as // refers to le vin or elle to la biere. This is useful
to know, when we are in doubt about the gender of a noun. The
celui-d.
the latter is cehii-la
French for the former
This is a pointer word pure and simple. That can also be a link
w ord, and as such appears twice in the table of link pronouns. It does
so because we use it in tw o ways:
singular form, e.g. c'cst boii
376
a)
THAT
hope,
know, doubt, deny,
so printed occurs after such verbs as

ivish, fear, dread.
replace
it
We
by who or which.
can usually omit

Its
Romance
it,
but
we
can never
equivalent as given in the
table cannot be left out, e.g.:
know
that he
English
French
je sais qu'il
is
lying.
ment.
que minte.
que miente.
Portuguese
sei
Spanish
se
Italian
so che mente.
may refer to some word in the preceding clause and

can put who, who7n, or which in place of
then replaceable.
(e.g. the house that Jack built -the house which Jack built).
b) that so printed
is
it
We
we therefore need to know

when such words link
and
whose
equivalents for ivho, which, ivhom,
case
forms like whom or
complicated:
{a)
by
two clauses. Choice is
preposition, (^) by
an
accompanying
without
whose for use with or
animals
or things {which
persons
{who)
and
between
the distinction
interchangeable
forms
analogous to
existence
of
or what), (c) by the
For
self-expression
we
need
only know
couplet.
our own that-which
To
translate that in
all
circumstances
ROMANCE INTERROGATIVES
(see p. 372)
a) Adverbial.
M ODER
one correct
i:
N DA N
()
we
shall
iikom or lihich
medico que Die ha curado

que heifios lecbo
el
los libros
= the
377
illustrations
common Spanish
QUE, e.g.:
the invariant
is
= the
IN
confine ourselves to
subject or object of a subordinate clause the
equivalent for 'H'bo,
A T
I.
most common. For
suhstiturc, preferably the
of the use of the tabic on page 374

Spanish and French.
As
doctor w ho has cured me

books (which we have read
)
all circumstances que is the correct Spanish equivalent for the link
pronoun n-hicb or that, but it cannot replace xiho?;/ when a preposition accompanies the former of the t\\(j, 1 he correct substitute for
In
'ivhoj/i is
then
QUIEN or its plural quieiies, e.g. los poitticos de qiiienes

whom we
habhvjios = the politicians of

relative
pronoun
CUYO
{-a, -os, -as)
can refer alike to persons or things,
las islas
QUI
to persons only,
can always replace

/'a
QUE
c)
DONT
ii:ho
dit = the
= the train which
b)
some
and
to persons
follow ing rules apply to persons or things alike:
I'boinine qui
came
or ubicb as subject of a clause,
man who
said
it,
le train
e.g.
qui est arrive
in.
can always replace 'u:ho{in) or u:bicb as object, e.g. Ic medecin que fai considte = the doctor w horn I consulted, les biscuits
que fai manges = the

le
d)
e.g.:
bewildering choice of possibilities for words of
some appropriate
The
special Spanish
whose departure.
the islands, of w hich the rocks.
cuyas rocas =
French offers
this class,
a)
nbosc or of zibich
tren cuya partida = the train,
el
things.
are talking.
equivalent to
biscuits
ate.
can alwa\s replace whose or of which, e.g.

7nari est prisonnier = the woman w hose husband
la fc7]inic
is
dont
a prisoner.
LEQUEL
(laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles) can alwa\s replace whom

or which preceded by a preposition (or, what comes to the same
thing, that followed
by
preposition at the end of the subordinate
clause). Lequel, etc., has agglutinative contractions with a

i.e.,
and de,
auqucl, auxquels, auxquelles (but a laquelle), duquel, desquels,
desquelles (but de laquelle).

la feiinnc
the
pour laquelle
woman
The words
for
\i-bo,
whom
il
donne
he gave his
accompany
life.
'nhoin, ivbose, li-bicb, as also libat, can turn
(juestions as interrogative pronouns.
substitute
sa vie.
Both
ii-bich
and
ii-hat
up
in
can also
a noun in a question. The choice of the correct French

depends on w hether they do or do not. The French inter-
378
rogative adjective
is
QUEL
(quelle, quels, quelle s), e.g. quelle route
(which road must I follow?). Quel, etc., has

exclamatory use (e.g. quel doimnagel = what a pity!). When
dois-je suivre?
tion involves the verb to be followed
by
really predicative (p. 149) adjectives.
So we can
quels sont leurs amis?
The French pronoun

low
\^'hich
a preposition.
or object
stressed
it is
form
substitute for ivhich?
can stand for
The French
QUE.
"ix^hat
or ivhich are
say:
who?
or
whom?
for wh^^t
falls
LEQUEL
is
lequel, etc.,
(etc.).
can
of these pronouns
Diiqiiel parles-tn?
Which of
Of which
Qui Va
Who said so?
Leqiiel de ces enjants est votrc
fils?
dit?
Of whom
De qui parle-t-il?
Que dit-il?
De qiioi parle-t-il?
What
What
fol-
out of step. As subject
After a preposition the correct equivalent
QUOL* The use
an
what is your opinion?

which are their friends?
quelle est voire opinion?
Like QUI,
a noun,
also
a ques-
is
these kids
are
is
is
the
illustrated by:
you
is
your boy?
talking?
he talking?
does he say?
is
he talking about?
The Spanish for who? whom? is quien, for what? que. In conversawe usually replace que by que cosa. Which is cual (plural cudles)
tion
qiden canta?
who
que ha dicho?
ciicil de las vinas?
what did he say?

which of the vineyards?
is
singing?
Cudl takes the place of que (what) before J'er (to be) when the noun
ciidl es su ivipresion? (what is your impression?).
Our list of personal and impersonal pronouns in the tables given
makes no allo\\ance for situations in which the agent is indefimte or
follows, e.g.
generic
say that
(e.g.
.
you never can
.).
tell,
one wouldn't think that
they
In medieval Latin, and perhaps in the popular Latin of
Caesar's time,. the equivalent of our indefinite pronouns one {they or
you), was
homo {man), e.g. homo debit considerare (one must conhomo \\'as unstressed in this context, it shrunk. In French
sider). Since
it
became on, in contradistinction to homme (man). To avoid a

on becomes Von after et (and), si (if), ou (or), and oil
hiatus,
* Both French qui (who? ) and que (what? ) have akernative forms. ^Ve may
ask qui est-ce qui? for qui?, or quest-ce que for que? Spoken French favors
the longer of the two forms, e.g. qui est-ce qui veut vetiir avec nioi? = qui veut
venir avec vioi? (who wants to come with me?), qu' est-ce que vous desirez,
7nonsieur? = que desirez-vous, monsieur? (what do you want?).
() 1)
n r
c: r.
n n a n
RO.MANCI. INDl.llNm. i\)IMl K

KNlillSII
o k
i.
WORDS*
379
380
must always use
it
as subject
of the active verb
when
there
is
following examples
072
no
The
definite agent of the equivalent English passive construction.

illustrate its variegated use:
pourrait dire
on dit
on jenne!
on deviande une bofine
on Sonne
si Von partait
o?7 pardonne tant que Von aime
one might say

they say = it is said
closing time ^we're locking up!
wanted, a maidservant
'
somebody is ringing
what about leaving?
we
forgive as long as
we
love
There is no equivalent idiom in Spanish or Italian. The indefinite pronoun of Spanish or Italian is the reflexive. Thus the Spaniard says se dice
(or simply die en) for
it is
said
(=they say),
se cree (or ere en) =it
lieved (they believe). Similarly the Italian says

si
sa
si
is
be-
crede (one believes),
(one knows).
THE ROMANCE VERB
its
During the breakup of Vulgar Latin and subsequent evolution of

descendants, simplification of the verb did not go nearly so far as
Even today the tense system of the Romance lanmore elaborate than that of the Teutonic languages has ever
been. According to the character of their tense or personal endings,
that of the noun.
guages
is
the verbs of
Romance
jugations (p. 95).
languages are arranged in classes called con.
REGULAR FRENCH VERB TYPES
OD
i:
R \
i:
C K N D A N
()
REGULAR FRllNCH VERB TYPES
L A
{continued)
3S
382
The second
(about 350) embraces verbs like finir

ends in -IR. The third is made up of
fairly large class
which the
(finish) of
infinitive
about fifty verbs like vendre {stW), of which the infinitive ends in
-RE. A small group of about twenty verbs which end in -IR are also
worth considering
as a separate family. It
is
made up
of words like
away), and dovviir (sleep), which are in constant use.

These verbs lack the trademark of the finir conjugation. Verbs of the
finir class have a suffix added to the stem throughout the plural of the
present, throughout the imperfect tense and the subjunctive. This
suffix, -ISS, comes from the Latin accretion -ISC or -ESC which originally indicated the beginning of a process. Thus the Latin verb for
to burst into flower is florescere. The same suffix, which survives in
eva7iescent, putrescent, incandesce?it, adolescent, lost its meaning
through too frequent use in Vulgar Latin.
With the models shown in the table on pages 380 and 381 to guide
him (or her) and the parts listed in any good dictionary, the home student of French can add to the stem of most (footnote, p. 394) irregular verbs the ending appropriate to the context. The overwhelming ma-^
jority of verbs are regular, and fall into one of the conjugations listed.
To write French passably, it is therefore essential to learn a model of
each conjugation as given in the table on pages 380 and 381 and to
memorize the personal terminals of each tense. To lighten the task the
partir (go
home student may

nals
common to
tense of
all
vmch
ivith
tial is
find
all
it
helpful to
make
tables of (a) personal termi-
tenses, (b) personal terminals
common to
the same
conjugations. Fortunately, %ve can get by in real

394). For reading purposes what
less (see p.
is
life
most essen-
to be able to recognize the tense form.
\Mthin the three conjugations a few deviations from the rule occur:
which have a silent E or an E in the second last syllable, change
-er verbs
or
to
before the endings
-e, es,
and
-e?it, e.g.
viener (lead), je
mine
posseder (possess), je possede (I possess). All verbs ending in

instead of having E, e.g. appeler (call), fappelle
-ler or -ter, double L or
(I call), Jeter (throw), je jette (I throw). Verbs in -ayer, -oyer, -uyer,
(I lead),
substitute
jêssaie
for
before
attempt). If
(I
a silent
before
or a consonant,
or
e.g.
essay er (attempt),
has the value of a sibilant, a
percer (pierce), nous percons (we pierce).

in
E unto itself, e.g. manger (eat), rwiis
inangeons (we eat). If the third person singular of the verb in a question
has a final vo\êl and precedes a pronoun beginning with a vowel, a
is
cedilla (3
is
added,
e.g.
the same situation takes a silent
inserted to avoid a hiatus, e.g. aime-t-il, parle-t-on, viendra-t-elle.
M
W'c nun
() I)
V R
also
I)
K S C K
N D A \
()
arrange Spanish, Portuguese, or
I.
3^3
Italian, like I'rcnch
main conjugations, of which there are models set out

in tables on pages 383, 3S4, and 3S5. The largest Spanish group, corresponding to the chanter conjugation in French, is represented by
caiitar \\ ith the infinitive ending -AR. Vender, like the French (third)
vevdrc conjugation, is representative of a second class with the inverbs, in three
REGULAR SPANISH AND PORTLCLESE VERB TYPES

a)
384
ending -ER.
ending -IR.
finitive
The
third, represented
by
partir, has the infinitive
more than the student of French, has

on the correct use of the verb. The terminals of the
student of Spanish, even
to concentrate
Spanish verb are
much
closer (p. 176) to those of
its
Latin parent
than are those of the French or Italian verb; but change of stress has
led to changes of the stem vowel, and irregularities so produced have
been leveled
less
than in French. So the stem of a verb, whose French
equivalent usually has the same vowel throughout,
REGULAR ITALIAN VERB TYPES
may
ring the
MOD
I.
R N
DESCEND A
OF
REGULAR ITALIAN VERB TYPES
L A T
{continued)
385
386
HE LOO
O F
LA
UA
G E
forms corresponding to some of them. Before discussing use of simple tenses, we should therefore familiarize ourselves with the Ro-
To haxt:
FRENCH
in
the romance family
C)
i:
X D
C E N D A N
i:
OF LATIN
387
AUXILIARY VLRBS
Sonic Arviin Kingungcs have no possessive verb to have. Russian has
not.
It is
possible to sidetrack
possessi\ e sense of to
tlie
use of the verb to be with a possessive or
Frenchman can say

in the sense that
is
Thus
mine
(I
et]ui\alent to our hai'e
is
both denote possession
have h\ the
ith a preposition.
c'cst a vw'i (Latin Tinh'i est) = this
That the Latin verl) habere
sess this).
e.g.
habet
diias villas =
is
postrue
he has
two farmhouses). Latin authors occasionally used a past participle

with habere, as when Cicero says cogiiitmn habeo (I have recognized). In late Latin habere was becoming a helper to express perfected action as in Teutonic languages.
corresponds
esse
\\
our verb to be
ith
is
To
say that the Latin verb
also true in so far as
both can:
a) denote existence as in the Cartesian catchphrasc cogito ergo

think, therefore
sum
(I
am)
b) act as a copula (link) between person or thing and a characteristic

of one or the other, as in lea ferox est - the lion is fierce
c) indicate location, as in Caesar in Gallia est = Caesar
is
Gaul
in
d) state class meinbersbip, as in argentwn inctallian est - silver is a

metal
e) go with the past participle in a passive construction such as ah omnibus auiatus
f)
est -
he was loved by ever\'one
pure identity,
peror
state
The
as
Augustus impcrator
est =
Augustus
is
the
em-
a comparatively simple story. Its modern rep(A\'ERE) and in l-'rench (A\'OIR) still have
a possessive significance. The French and Italians also use parts of
avere or avoir as we use havt or had in compound past tense forms of
fate of
habere
is
resentatives in Italian
all
verbs other than:
(a)
those which arc
{b) most intransitive verbs
reflexive),
reflexive
(or pseudo-
(including especially those
which signify motion). This is in keeping (p. 268) with the use of the
habeii and Swedish hava. We can use the Spanish HABER to
build up compountl past tenses of all \crl)S, but it ncxer denotes possession. 1 he Spanish equivalent for have in a possessive sense is
German
TEXER
(Latin tenere = to hold).
territory of the Spanish

alent
its
TER
HABER
sometimes invades the
The Portuguese
equiv-
has completely taken over the function of habere, both in
original possessive sense
The
TENER
as a helper.
and
as a
helper to signify perfected action.
follow ing examples illustrate the use of
habere and te/iere
as helpers:
modern descendants of
388
CONJUGATION OF TENER (SPANISH), TER (PORTUGUESE),

TENERE (LATIN)
u \
I) 1-
F.
c:
n n
i"
o f
i.
a t
3S9
Though
the French cfrc nnd rhc Irahan csserc arc niainlv offspring of
some of their parrs come from stare. The Itahan essere, like its
esse,
Latin parent, keeps
company
\\
the past participle in passive con-
ith
(the child was washed). In

French also it is possible to write // est aline par tout le inoudc (he is
loved bv everybody); but such passive expressions rarely turn up in
daily speech. It is more usual to rely upon:
structions,
e.g.
//
fiVicii/llo
lavato
fii
a) a reflexive construction, e.g. la propriete se vendra samedi (the prop-
be sold on Saturday)
err)' will
b) nn impersonal expression involving the use of
The
French-Italian verb to he has an
Teutonic equivalent. That
of
its
in
compound
past tenses
if
the verb
if it
Eijglisb:
li'ashed ivithoiit soap.
French:
Je
Italian:
Mi sono
The
as
ples
a)
is
it
it
is
reported
use comparable to that
takes the place of to have
rcflexhe or
We
intransitive
if it is
arrived too
Nous
suis lave sans savon.
lavato scnza sapone.
late.
soninics arrives rrop tard.
Sianio arrivati troppo tardi.
Latin and Italian verb stare survives in Spanish and Portuguese
ESTAR. The
tions,
avixiliar\-
to say,
that =
expresses motion):
(especially
me
is
on rapport
o/;, e.g.
Moscow
dc Mosi'ou que (one reports from

from .Moscow that)
latter
one of which
w ill
is
equivalent to our verb to be
calls for
more
suffice to illustrate the
when our
in
three situa-
detailed treatment. Spanish
other two,
exam-
viz.:
be signifies location, ownership, profession,
e.g.:
Budapest esta ev Hungria

b)
w hen our be connects a noun with an accidental or temporary

bute, but never when be precedes a noun complement, e.g.:
la
senora esta enferrna = the lady
is ill
Italians often use stare as the equivalent of

co7?/e staF =
sto
bene
third use of estar or of
its
attri-
our verb to be,
e.g.:
how are vou?

am w ell
I
Italian ecjuivalent stare, involves a
unique and agreeably familiar construction, peculiar to Spanish,

Portuguese, and Italian on the one hand and to Anglo-American on
the other.
duration,
It is a
e.g.:
helper equivalent to be in expressions which imply
390
he
English:
esta
Italian:
sta
']
It
we were working
\^'aiting
is
Fortiigiiese:
fSpajiish:
J
estavamos trabalhando
,,
estabamos trabajando
stavamo lavorando
^,
esperando
^
aspettando
not correct to couple the French verb etre with a present

To emphasize continuity or
is
participle such as etiidiant or travaillant.
duration, French people can use the idiomatic expression etre en

train
de (to be in the process of),
am busy
eating), of
if
the past
is
as in ]e suis
en train de manger
(I
involved, the iinperject tense form,
e.g. elle pleurait quand je suis arrive (she was crying when I arrived).
Customarily there is no distinction between transitory (elle danse
maintenant = she is dancing now) and habitual {elle danse Men = she
dances well) action in French. Only the context tells us when elle
parte au canari means she is talking to the canary or she talks to the
canary.
What
sometimes called the present participle of a Spanish or Portu(e.g. trabajando) is not historically equivalent to the present
participle of a French verb. Latin had two verb forms corresponding to
the single English one ending in -ing. One, the gerund, corresponds to the
use of the -ing form as the name of a process {ive learn by teaching); the
is
guese verb
was
other, the prese?n participle,
Only
a verbal adjective
(she died smiling).
the latter left a descendant in French, always with the suffix -ant
(chanta?it, venda7?t, flmssant).
This French -ant derivative
ways
the English -ing derivative in three of six
is
equivalent to
in whicli the latter
is
used:
a) as an ordinary adjective, e.g. de Veau coiirante (running water)
b) as a verbal adjective,
cet arbre
dominant
i.e.,
le
an adjective with an object following it, e.g.

(this tree dominating the scenery)
pay sage
c) in adverbial phrases, e.g. Videe niest
to
Here
me while
venue en parlant (the idea came
talking)
the correspondence ends.
It is
not correct to use the French "present
participle" to translate the English -ing
form when accompanied bv the
we
cannot use it to translate our -ing derivative when

the latter is an ordinary noun (spelling is difficidt), or a verbal noun with
an object (spelling English zvords is difficult). For the last two French
usage corresponds to the alternative English infinitive construction, e.g.
auxiliarv be; and
to spell (English ivords)
The
is
difficidt
= epeler (des mots ayrglais) est
difficile.
Latin gerund and the Latin present participle had a different fate
in Spain and Portugal. The present participle, which ended in -ans, ens,
or -iens (nomin.) ceased to be a part of the Spanish verb system. Spanish
words which now end in -ante or -iente are, with few exceptions, simple
adjectives or nouns, e.g. dependiente (dependent), estiidiante (student).
M
The
OD
R N
V.
r.
OF
C K N D A N IS
L A T
39
for/n of the Latin gerund survives in the verbal suffix -avdo (for the
regular verb of the

irregular verbs).
first class),
The form
adjective or verbal
noun
and -icndo (for
all
other regular and most
of the verb which ends thus
(see p.
131).
It
leans
is
never
pure
upon another verb and
remains invariant. We can always translate it by the English -ing form,

though the converse is bv no means true.
.\ccompanied b\' cstar, as well as b\' ir (go), and vcvtr (come) it expresses present, past, or future continuity (compare English: be ivcnt on
talking).
It
may
also qualifv a verb, e.g. oia sonricndo (he listened smiling),
as also the subject
plaza (I see the
or object of the verb, veo
boy pla\ing
in
the square).
at
vnicbacbo jtigando en
la
Though never an ordinary
THE SPANISH-PORTUGUESE VERBS SER
and
ESTAR
392
SPANISH-PORTUGUESE VERBS SER
and
ESTAR
(com.)
MO
I)
E R \
1)
i:
i:
N D A N
Sp.inish-Portugucse tense forms,
()
IIABFR
(*i)
i.e.,
I.
or
1"R with the
ESTAR
past participle (to signify perfected action), (b)
393
with the
present participle (to signif\" duration or contiiuiing action). Spaniards, like the
1-
rcnch, a\ oid usinu passi\ e constructions. So the chi)ice
of the right ternunal rarcK crops up at least in conversation.
When
a
(i.e.,
with the past participle of
vcrh of motion) the participle takes
propriate to the subject,

I'hof/n/ie est
the
les
the
P/IRE
or
Italians or l-renchnien use L'.SSI'RE
perfected action
to express
a reflexive
vcrh or
gender-number terminal ap-
e.g.:
venu
la fe?>n/ie est
man came
the
bonnnes se sovt suicides

men committed suicide
venue
woman came
les êinnies se
the
sont suicidees
women committed
suicide
When
coupled with A\'ERF. the Italian past participle (niasc. sing,

form) is invariant. The same is true of the French past participle
w hen conjugated with A\'OIP.
Ciramniar books often
gi\ c the rules: {a)
it is
invariant
w hen the object
follows the verb, (^) it takes the terminal appropriate to the number and
gender of the object if the latter precedes riie verb, e.g. fcii re^K tive carte
(I
have received
card
and
la carte
que
j'ai
recue (the card which
have
received).
In
many common
TRE
or
ESSERE
expressions our verb to be

in
French or
Italian,
nor
is
is
not equivalent to
it
equivalent to the
and ESTAR. The French for to be

ri^ht, ivrontr, afraid, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, sleepy, is avoir raison,
avoir tort, avoir peiir, avoir chaud, avoir froid, avoir faiyn, avoir soif,
Spanish-Portuguese pair
avoir
soiiniieil.
SER
In the Spanish equivalents tener takes the place of the
French avoir and English be: tener razon, no tener razon, tener iniedo,
tener calor, tener frio, tener haynbre, tener sed, tener siieno.
they
comment on
equivalent to the Latin facere (French faire, Spanish hacer)
means
to
do or
to viake.
This usage
// is
cold
il
fait
it is
fresh
il
fait frais
it is
hot
il
fait
il
fait
il
il
it is
ivindy
it is
fine
it is
daylight
When
the weather, Spanish and French people use verbs
(weather)
is
traceable to
froid
Wdgar
which
Latin, e.g.:
hace frio
hace fresco
fait
chaud
du vent
beau (temps)
hace bucn ticmpo
fait
jour
hace luz
hace calor
hace vicnto
394
USE OF TENSES
Anglo-American,
like the
ple tenses, present (e.g.
indicate time or aspect
Teutonic languages, has onlv two sim-
have) and past
by
(e.g. /
had). Otherwise,
particles, ad\ erbial expressions,
we
or com-
pound tenses made up of a participle and a helper verb. Modern Romance languages have at least jour simple tenses, the present, the
fiitj/re, and two which refer to the past, tiie iiii perfect and perfect (or
It is possible, most of all in French, to lighten the
heavy burden of learning such flexional wealth, bv resorting to turns
past de finite).
may not be specially recommended by grammar books, but are

harmon\- with common usage. For evcrvdav French conversation
or correspondence it is usually sufficient to know the present tense
form, the imperfect, infinitive, present and past participle of an ordinary verb, the present and imperfect of etre and avoir, together
hich
\\
in
with the present of the irregular helpers aller (to go)* and veiiir (to
come). Of all tenses the present stands first in importance. Apart
from expressing what its name implies, it serves in situations analogous
to the shoii- opens toviorro\i\ and mav legitimately and eff"ectivcly be
used in narrative, e.g. f arrive a deux heures du matin, et qiCcst-ce
que je decouvre? Elle est luorte, raide y/iorte (I arrive at two in the
morning, and \\hat do I discover? She is dead, stone dead). For the
more immediate future conversational French habitually uses

infinitive (Spanish ir j + infinitive), which reduces flexion to
minimum and
tallies
je vais telefoJierF
past, as in /
have just sivallozved
French and Spanish have
ple)
one
with English be going to -
Spanish voy a telefonar.
To
own
has just gone out =
//
vient de sortir = acaba de
The French
to express ^\hat
is
more remote,
Vai rencontre hier. This construction
is
e.g.
he
salir.
In everyday speech French people always use a
form
French
just + past partici-
expressions.
venir de + infinitive, the Spanish acabar de + infinitive,
is
indicate the immediate
have
a tooth (e.g.
their
infinitive, e.g.
aller
a bare
compound
tense
met him yesterday = je

made up of the past participle
e.g.
and the present tense of avoir (or etre, if the verb is reflexive or signifies motion). This roundabout way of saying / caine, I iJir, / loved
looms as large in French conversation as does the jircscnt, and the
The
Two
conjugation of
ALLF.R
like that of ctre,
is
built
up from several verbs.
derived from Latin raderc, tiie other from

ainhdare, form rlic jircsent tense, e.g., // va (he goes), nojis alloiis (we go). Tiic
third, which is the Latin ire, occurs in the future and the conditional, e.g., //'/.//
(1 shall go).
of thcni, one of
which
is
R N
t) I) 1.
1)
r.
I)
A N T
OK
Student of KrciKh will be wise to use
iMiijlish
ginner must also aci]uaint
it
I.
libcrallv.
395
I
he be-
the so-called i?npcrfcct. This
liiniscit \\ ith
tense implies customar\-, repetitive, or continuous past action in contrast to a
fect
completed process. 1 hus
when we can
it is
used to
sul)stitute
alwavs right to use the imper-
infinitive for the simjtlc past of
w hen we could alter the

form of the verb, e.g.:
an tnijlish statement, or
'liiis
j)
or
li'crt'
'r
the
-iiig
Quand f avals
v'wgt
aiis je
At twenty years of age
l"ni;lish
sciucncc to
ftnnais quarante cifârettes par jour.
smoked
{- used to sinoke) forty cigarettes
a da\'.
Elle faisait la cuisitie qtiaud je suis arrive.
She was cooking w hen
The second
etait
arrived.
of the tw o statements could also be given the form Elle
en train de
fairc la cuisine, etc.
This
is
useful to
know
w
because by
can
round the imperfect form of the verb.
Another tense form, tiic past definite or preterite, has completely
disappeared from conversational I'>ench, and is now the hallmark of
the literary language. It means that the event in question took place
(tnce for all at a certain time, and as such corresponds to the simple
past of spoken and -aritten Tnglish, and to the compound past of
spoken French (e.g. // se rapprocha for il s'est rapproche = he cavie
resorting to etrc en train de (be in the act of, be busv
ith) \()u
fjet
nearer).
In literature
it is
the tense of sustained narration, hence also called
the past historic.
The
French narrative
is
first
impression of the beginner
who
reads a
that alternating use of perfect and imperfect
tjuite capricious. In rcalitv this
is
not
so.
When
is
tw o actions or proc-
going on at one and the same time, the perfect expresses the
For w hat is descripti\ e, explanatorv, or incidental to the
main theme, the imperfect replaces it. A passage from Le Crime de
Syhestre Bonnard by Anatole France illustrates this rule, w hich apesses are
pivotal one.
plies to all the
Romance
languages:
I'approchai (past historic) du foyer ?non fauteuil

(I
pulled niv easy chair and
little
table
up to the
et
ma
table volante
fireside), et je pris (past
historic) au feu la place qu'Hamilcn dci:^)}ait (imperfect) nw laisscr (and

occupied so much of ni\ place b\' the fire as Hamilcar condescended to
allow nie). Hamilcar, a la tete dcs ckenets, sur iin coussin de plume, ctait
(imperfect) coucke en rond, le vez entre ses pattes (Hamilcar was lying
in front of the andirons, curled up on a feather cushion, with his nose
between his paws). Un souffle egal soulcvait (imperfect) sa fourrure epaisse
39'^
et legere (his thick, fine fur rose and fell with his regular breath). A mov
appro che, il coiila (past historic) doucevient ses prunelles d' agate evtre ses
paupwres mi-closes qiCil refen/ia (past historic) presque aussitot en songea?it: "Ce nêst rien, c''est ?non mahre" (At my approach his agate eyes
glanced at me from between his half-opened lids, which he closed almost
at once, thinking to himself: "It is nothing, it is only my master.")
The
elimination of the past definite
from everyday speech
is
con-
fined to French. In Spanish, Portuguese, and to a lesser degree, in

Italian conversation it
who
is still
going strong, and the student of Spanish
some French will therefore feel tempted

to say he coiJiprado un sombrero (French fai achete wi chapeau)
where the Spaniard would use the preterite {coinpi-e un sombrero).
has previously learned
THE INFINITIVE VERB
We
have seen (p. 259) that the Anglo-American equivalent of the

verb form called the infinitive of Teutonic languages is identical with
the first person present, and is recognized as such whenever it immediately follows (a) the particle to, or {b) any one of the helper verbs
may, must, can, let, make (meaning compel), {c) the verbs
and (somewhat archaically), dare. The infinitive of a
modern Romance language, like that of a typical Teutonic language,
has its own characteristic terminal and has the same relation to our
own usage. That is to say, it is the verb form which occurs after a
preposition, or after one of the following auxiliaries, which do not
shall,
ii'ill,
see, hear, help,
take a preposition:
FRENCH
SPANISH
vouloir
devoir
poiivoir
oscr
s avoir
faire
laisser
The infinitive without a preceding preposition can also occur after

other French and Spanish verbs. A second group which do not take a
preposition is made up of verbs such as to come (French vevir, Spanish
third group includes
venir), and go (French aller, Spanish ir, andar).
verbs of seeing and hearing, French voir (see), entendre (hear), se/itir
(feel); Spanish ver, oir, sentir. Of the remainder the more important arc:
()
R N
i:
D K
c:
k n d a n
i,
397
French aiincr inicux (prefer), compter (count on), Jcsircr (desire), cnzoycr (send), cspcrcr (liope), fiiillir (fail to), paraitrc (appear); Spanish
parcccr (appear), cicscar (desire, want), tcmcr (fear), cspcrar (hope).
One
two columns printcil above

comment. The Spanish-French couplet I)F,BER-DE\'OIR,
like the Portuguese DF\'I\R and Italian DOVFRF literaJIv mean to
0\i'c; but the\ can be used as helpers in a compulsive sense by a procof the helper verbs given in the
calls for
ess
word
of metaphorical extension parallel to the formation of our

originally a past tense
oi/ffht,
dais,
mav mean
je devrai,
shall
O'ne or
have
form of
must, the past fai
and the conditional
to,
The French
o'lVC.
dt),
had
je devrais,
present, je
to,
I
use either devoir and poi/voir or their equivalents in other
languages correctly,
we
have to be on the lookout for
the future
ou^bt
to.
To
Romance
a pitfall
men-
tioned in Chapter I\' (p. 144). This is the peculiar Anglo-American

construction / shot/Id have (French j\virais di/), I cot/Id have (French
j\iurais pit).
The French
often resort to
peculiar construction for must.
volves the impersonal verb falloir (to be necessary that),

il
faut sortir
;7
fattt
que
When
our
own
equivalent of
is
immediately before the
always
in-
"]
je sorte
je dots sortir
preposition, the latter
It
e.g.:
must go out
Romance
to.
infinitive
comes
after a
Several prepositions ma\- stand
infinitive of a
Romance
language.
The two
chief ones are descendants of the Latin de (from or of) and ad (to).
Both
French and
in
tively.
The
tence,
which
first
has
in
Spanish thev survive
become more common,
as
de and a or a respec-
as in the
following sen-
pronoun object precedes

voir (I am very happy to see
also illustrates the rule that the
the infinitive: jc syis bien bcweiix de te
you). Correct choice of the appropriate preposition depends arbion the precedivg main verb, noun, or adjective, and we find
trarily
it
in a good dictionary. Where we can replace to by in

Romance equivalents are poiir (French), para (Span.), per
e.g. I am coming to repair it = je viens pour le reparer = vengo
with them
order
to,
(Ital.),
para repararlo = vengo per ripararlo.

dj derived from the fusion of two
it can mean froui, at or ôr.
passive meaning we can usually translate to h\
Italian has a distinctive preposition
Latin ones (de + ad). In different contexts
When
DA,
the infinitive has a
e.c.:
398
Egli ha im cavallo da vender e.
He
has a horse to
Questa
This is
In
all
;,
(= to be sold).
una regola da hiiparare a
by heart
a rule to learn
Romance,
as in
verb (see Chapter IV,
when
sell
the latter
is
vievwr'ia.
(= to be learned
by
heart).
Teutonic, languages the infinitive form of the
p.
30)
is
verb-noun,
the one
which replaces our -mg form

crone (seeing is believ-
e.g. voir, c'est
The Portuguese infinitive has peculiar agglutinative possessive

forms equivalent, e.g., to your seeing (VERes), our doing (FAZERmos), their asking (PERGUNTARem), with the ending -es (your),
-mos (our), -em (their). The following example illustrates this coning).
struction:
passei sein
me verem - 1
me
passed without their seeing
MOOD
Up
till
now
nearly
have appeared
in
all
our
illustrations of
what grammarians
call
Romance verb behavior
the indicative
Two
mood.
other moods, the subjunctive and the conditional, require special

treatment.
The
latter
French, Spanish, or
is still
Italian.
very
tain existence in the spoken, that
given so
much
the beginner
is
both
alive,
The former
is,
in
spoken and written

and uncer-
leads a precarious
the living language, yet
space in introductions to French (or

scared out of his wits.
regain his confidence.
The
first is
few
facts
is
usually
German)
may
that
help him to
that the subjunctive, except
\\
hen
does in Spanish or Italian (p. 402) is

practically devoid of semantic significance, and for this reason alone
it
replaces the imperative as
it
no misunderstanding will arise if the beginner should ignore its exFrench grammars, for instance, are in the habit of telling us
that the indicative states a fact whereas the subjunctive expresses what
is merely surmised, feared, demanded, etc., and then illustrate this
assertion by, e.g., je doute qiCil vienne (indicative vient) = I doubt
that he will come. Now this is^ palpable nonsense. The doubt is not
signaled by the subjunctive form vieiine. It is expressed by je doute,
and the subjunctive of the dependent clause is as much a pleonasm as
istence.
is
the plural flexion of the verb in
themselves). There
is
ils
se grattent
another source of comfort.
(they are scratching
Of the two
subjunc-
tives in French, the present and the past, the latter has disappeared
from the spoken language; the former
survives, but
is
very restricted
MODERN
in its niovcnicnts. If voii

est Jihilade for
F.
F.
N DA N T
()
should sav, for instance,
soit inaladc as
jc
I.
399
ve crois pas qtnl
prescribed bv grammar, you are
merely following w hat is common usage. You should also not feci
unduly intimidatctl when you wish to express yourself in written
French, because it is possible to travel a long distance w irhout calling
in the subjuncti\e, provided \-ou take the following advice: since the
dependent or subordinate clauses

and
use alternatives for expressions \\hich are usually followed b\' this
troublesome mood. The Spanish subjunctive has a wider range than
the French one, in speech as well as in print; besides there are four
different forms for the two in French (a present, two past, and a;
future subjunctive). The reader who wishes to acquaint himself with
all the ways, bywaxs and blind alleys of this mood will have to gooutside The Loom for information. Here it must suffice to say that
subjunctive
say
\\
in all
hat
is
a characteristic of
you have
to say in simple straightforward statements,
Romance languages grammar
ter expressions
prescribes the subjunctive {a) af-
denoting doubt, assumption,
fear, order, desire, e.c[.
French douter, craindre, ordoniier, desirer, Spanish diidar, tevier,

vmndar, desear, Italian dubitare, tetiiere, mandare, desiderare, (b) after
the equivalents of English it is necessary that (French // fatit que,
Spanish es menestcr que, Italian bisogna che), (c) after certain conjunctions of which the most important are:
FRENCH
4<^
he ivoidd covie, Romans would use past tense forms of habere with
the infinitive,
credebam quod venire habebat, or credebam quod
i.e.,
Romance languages (other

based on agglutination of the verb infinitive w ith
venire habuit. Just as the future tense of
than Rumanian)
is
the present of habere, the conditional results from gluing the verb
French) or past historic

forms of the same helper verb. This tells us the original
function of the conditional mood, i.e., that we have to use it when we
speak about a past event which had not yet happened at the time involved in the preceding statement. Its original past-future function
infinitive to iinperject (Spanish, Portuguese,
(Italian) tense
survives in
all
constructions analogous to those cited above.
The
lowing examples show the ordinary future and the past future
fol(i.e.,
conditional)
he says he will come

il dit qu'il viendra
dice que vendra
dice che verra
English:
French:
Spanish:
Italian:
The
conditional has taken
name from
it.
We
when
tional statements
he came
e.g. {a) if
Here,
have to use
I
he said he ivould
il
deci'a
is
que vendria
diceva che venirebbe
on another function, and derives its

it in the main clause of French condi-
fulfillment
is
shoidd go; (b)
if
unrealizable, or at least remote,
he had
come I should have gone.
as in future-past expressions, illustrated
ditional
come
disait qu'il viendrait
above, the French con-
equivalent to our construction involving should or ivoidd
with the infinitive of the main verb. For our simple past tense form
of an ordinary verb of the if clause, as in (^), or of the helper as in
(^), the French equivalent is the ordinary imperfect (or pluperfect).
The following examples illustrate French conditional statements:
a) French:
English:
b) French:
English:
Si
f avals de Pargent
If I
S''il
If
Spanish usage
had money
avait eu de
he had had
is
more
je Pacheterais.
should buy
V argent
money
tricky.
elle
she
it.
Vaurait achete.
would have bought
Where we
it.
use the ivotdd-shoidd con-
always safe to use the conditional in the main clause,

and Spaniards will not misunderstand a foreigner who uses the ordinary (indicative) present or past in the if clause. They themselves
struction,
it is
resort to the subjunctive form, as

Spanish:
English:
La darian el previio si
They would give him
we
fiiese
use vcere for
mas
the prize
ii'as, is,
are:
aplicado.
if
he vcere more industrious.
C)
R N
r.
1)
i:
N D A N
I.
I.
40
Si tuvicra dincro lo comprar'ta.
s;\7/iisl::
r.iy^Hsb:
If
S[K}nish:
Si
I'.iiS^lish:
If
inoMcN-
Iv.ul
hahna
I
Iiad
sIioiiUl l)uy
it.
comprado.
tciiido diiicro lo l)abr'hi

IiluI
nu>nc\
should lia\c bought
it.
Ihc main thing for the beginner to know about the Romance subjuncis how to leave it alone till he (or she) has mastered all the grammar
tive
essential to clear statement.
The
conditional turns up in
many
situations
where
w ith the infinitive in a simple statement. Tor instance, it is a useful form for polite request. In headline idiom the French
conditional may indicate uncertainty or even rumor, as illustrated by
more or
hich
\.
we
imply condition,
less
e.g.
suggestions, and in general
use shoiild-ivonld
the last of the ensuing examples:
Je
lie le
ferais pas
aiiisi.
shouldn't do
it
like that.
Voudriez-vous bien vi'aider un peu? Would you kindh' help

Que i'aiincrais te voir! How I should love to see you!
Darhvi rencontrerait Hitler? Will Darlan meet Hitler?
important for anyone
It is
common
ers, e.g.
expressions
w hich
\\
ho
owe)
should
He
devrait point le faire.
The
several
in the sense ivoiild like to,
to, e.g.:
Je voudrais bien te visiter.
to
know
a bit?
involve the conditional form of certain help-
vouloir (to want) and devoir (to
and ought
II lie
taking up French to
is
me
Latin verb had special forms
express an order or request.
much
like to visit \o\i.
shouldn't do
it.
the so-called nnperative mood
Such
modern F.uropean
French imperative has two forms, one
the verb are rare in
forms of
special imperative
languages.
What
called the
is
identical with the first person
singular of the present indicative, the other with the second person
plural, e.g. attmpc-attrapez (catch!
The
first is
used
the second in the same situation

latter
is
e.g.
de
it
when
in
evervdav speech.
addressing one person,
w hen speaking
to
more than
iiiadaiiie
(take care!). If the verb
is
and
one.
The
plural, e.g.
reflexixe, the re-
pronoun behaves like anv other objective pronoun (p. 366),

comes a^ter the verb in an affirmative command, e.g. oiivriers
toits les
pays, imissez-voiis (workers of the world, unite!
fore the verb in a prohibition, e.g.
awa\!). Another
employing the
e.g.
Both occur
also the imperative of polite address, singular
prenez garde,
flexive
).
in familiar intercourse
wav
11c
vans en
),
and be-
allez pas (don't
of makinir a re(]uest or recommendation
infinitive.
don't lean out of the
This
is
go
b\-
and German method,

French ne pas se peiicher en de-
also the Italian
window
is
402
non
borSy Italian
sporgersi,
iaries avoir, etre, savoir,
sponding to
German
and
subjunctive
the
uicht hiuaiislehnen.
-joitloir
The
auxil-
have imperative forms corre-
{aie-ayez,
sache-sacbez,
sois-soyez,
veuille-veidUez)
Interrogative expressions
venez! (comel), M'e
may
may
take the place of an imperative.
say i-oulez-voiis
i-en'ir?
For
you comer),
(will
(wont you come?), voiis x'iendrez, n'estcome, won't your), etc.

In Spanish, as in French, the form of a command or a polite request depends upon personal relations between speaker and listener.
When speaking to a child, an intimate relation, or a friend, the Spaniard uses an imperative form which is identical with the third person
lie
voidez-'vous pas venir?
ce-pas? (you
\\\\\
singular of the present indicative, e.g. tovialo (take

dresses
more than one he
for the final
imperative
of the infinitive,
is
uses a
it!). If
he ad-
form constructed by substituting d
e.g.
corred. ninos (run, boysl). This
not very important, because the beginner will seldom
have a chance to use
it.
The form w hich
\\t habitually
employ
is
the
by listed,
followed by iistedes
third person singular of the present subjunctive followed
M"hen addressing one person, or the third plural
when
talking to
more than
one, e.g. dispense listed or dispenseu
lis-
ted es (excuse me).
To make
lis be friends again) the

person plural of the ordinary present tense \^"ithout the pronoun, as in the Marseillaise: allons, enjants de la patrie
(let us go forth, children of the fatherland). The Spanish equivalent
requests or invitations (e.g. let
French use the
is
first
the subjunctive
first
person plural,
a walk). If the request involves
to
whom
addressed, the tbird person of the subjunctive
guages, e.g. in French, qiCil attende (let
no entre nadie
(let
nobody come
paseo
e.g. deiJios iin
someone
him
is
it is
(let
us take
not directly
used in both lan-
wait!), in Spanish que
in! ).
NEGATION AND INTERROGATION
The predominant
negative particle of Latin was non, which sur-
The Spanish equivalent is no, Portuguese nao.

Spanish no always precedes the verb and can be separated from
only by a pronoun object or reflexive. In its original form the Latin
vives as such in Italian.
The
it
non (Uke our English no)
survives in French as an answer to a ques-
tion or as an interjection. In Spanish, double negation
is
common. The
()
R N
I)
i:
accompanies rhc
piiiticic 110
other words
I,
\ci"l)
I)
A \
()
L A T
c\cn when the seiueiice contains
hich lia\e an exphcitK' negative meaning, e.g.
\\
403
7iiiiii,ifiio
{no), nadic (nobody), nada (nothing), jamas or iiiuwa (ne\er). Thus
Spaniard savs no
ini porta
iiada
(it
doesn't matter). Similarlw Itahans use
which contains
doesn't signify nothing =
iiofi \\ irli
iicssni/o, iiicntc, nulla.
the \erh of
Such constructions
arc analo-
gous to the ol)hgator\' doul)le-l)arrclcd negation of French (11c

ricii, etc.) explained in Chapter
jjinais, nc
pas, nc
.
(p. ^41
).
Double negations
nor taboo
English:
in
I
(e.g.
don't ivant no
it
sentence
\'1I1
more nonsense) were
Mayfloivcr English. The following are illustrari\e:

do not
sec an\
English: W'liat liocs
l)()d\'.
lie
sav?
Nothing.
Que
Frcnfli:
Je nc vols personnc.
French:
Spanish:
So
Spanish: Q/ic dii\'?-nada.
Italian:
Son
ico a nadic.
iwio ncssnno.
The French words w
Italian:
Che
dit-il?-ricv.
dicc?-niente.
hich go with rhc verb preceded bv ne arc: aucun
(no, none), mil (none), persoune (nobody),
rie7i (nothing), plus (no

more), jamais (never), e.g. il iiavait riev a dire (he had nothing to sav),
anciiT! dcs delegues nest present (none of the delegates is present). When
the\' stand alone in answ cr to a question, ancun, rien, jamais, persoime are
negative, e.g. Who is here? Versonnc! What did he sa\? Rien! \n repiv to
a (juestion
demanding
the question.
1 ),
or
7I0J1
To
a straight
feci (I did not
particle (yes).
).
In Spanish,
French has two,
hoc
ille). Si,
e.Ef.
tu ne m'alnies plus? Si,
or stronger,
si, si,
si!
Romans
yes or no,
you do
fecistine? (did
s'l
si
and
it?),
repeated the verb of
the reply was sic feci (so did
derived from
oiii
sic
(Old French
is
the affirmative
oil,
from Latin
denies a negati\'e sratemenr or suggestion,
(Vou don't love me
an\-
more? Ves,
yes,
do).
Neither Teutonic nor Romance languages have a single clear-cut

and obligatory method of interrogation. Each offers several w ays of
putting
question.
yea or nay, nay, w
as
French or Spanish
by
is
Latin question to
which the answer was yea,
such by one of several particles (ne,

luim, nonne) equivalent to eh? None of these has sur\'ived. In spoken
device which
marked
as
question can be distinguished from an assertion
both primitixe and well-nigh universal, i.e., by

change of tone w ithout change of word order, e.g. French tn ne viens
pas? (you arc not coming?). As in Teutonic languages, yerb-sui)ject
inversion also labels a question, e.g. French Vas-tii z^n? (have you seen
a
him?), Spanish tienc
el
tren
wi sleeper? (has the
train got a sleeper?).
404
Such inversion is not invariably interrogative. The Spanish verb often

comes before its subject in constructions analogous to came the da-îi,
e.g. decia la viadre a sii hija (said the mother to her daughter).
French interrogation has several peculiarities not shared bv Spanish:
is a personal pronoun, it is joined to the verb bv a
hyphen, e.g. /rt'/z desirez-voiis pas? (don't vou v\ant anvr). If the third
person of the verb ends in a vo\^-el, a f is inserted between verb and pronoun, e.g. chante-t-elle? (does she sing?). (2) If the subject is a noun,
(i) If the subject
it
remains
beginning of the sentence, while the interrogative charis indicated by the addition of a pleonastic pronoun,
sceiir, est-elle iiiariee? (is your sister married? ), an ar-
at the
acter of the sentence
e.g. French ta
rangement not unknown to Spanish. French has yet a third wav of expressing a question. It is by the use of est-cc que (is it that), an inversion
of c'est que. The method began to emerge in the sixteenth century, and
is still gaining ground at the expense of simple inversion, e.g. est-ce que
nous sovnues lorn de Londres? (are we far from London? ). The beginner
should use this interrogative form freely because, apart from its popularity, it has the advantage of making inversion unnecessary.
The reader who is learning French may one day meet the common
people of France in the flesh. So it is useful to know beforehand that
popular speech is amazingly rich in complicated interrogative turns, e.g.
oil cest-il qiiU est? for oil est-il? (where is he? ), quest que c'est que vous
voidez? for que voidez-vous? Fortunately, this goes hand in hand with a
tendency of popular French to avoid or to straighten out the irregular
verb and regularize it on the pattern of the first conjugation. In this and
many other ways, French common people speak what their descendants
may
write.
ROMANCE AFFIXES
No
account of the grammar of
language
complete without
is
reference to affixes other than those of the sort usually called flexions.
People
such
who
The French
class
which
Romance
speak
as ivater
languages resort
choiix-fleiir (cauliflower)
is
little
to
noun couplets
po^ver or compounds such as nibbeiiieck or gmnboots.
not gaining
is
a representative of a small
much ground. The same
noun couplets represented by
the French
is
less
compounds
true of verb-
portc-Tiioiiiiaic
(purse), gagne-pain (livelihood) or the Spanish viondadiciitcs (tooth-
pick) and rascacielos (skyscraper).
Where Anglo-American
words together without any intervening

generally require
something
is
preposition.
meant J-Vcnch
To
link,
Romance
puts
indicate the purpose for
uses the particle
a,
two
languages
which
Spanish para, and
Iral-
M
i;in t/.T.
t K N
() 1)
Ihus
1)
a teacup
is
.s
nnc
c;
tiissc
1)
OK
a the in French, hair oil
is
405
aceite para
una viacchiiia da scrivcre in

Iralian. Inserting of prepositions which \\c can omit (e.g. trade
cycle of business) makes headlines bulge. Thus the Trench for
c\ clc
li'orkers' fashion plates is planches lie ffrantres de modes pour ouzrieres. Like noun coupling, prefixation is not fashionable. Frenchmen
or Spaniards do not lightK' make up adjectives like prcdiêsted. Thus
the vocabular\ of French is highly conservative. The same is true of
Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian if we use Anglo-American as a yardstick; but French is far less flexible than its sister languages, because
it has no niachiner\- for deriving words of a class relativeU' common
pelo in Spanish, and a typeiiritcr
el
is
--
in the latter.
Many
languages have special suffixes to indicate dimensions of, dis-
or esteem for the thing or person of the word to w hich

Almost any German noun which stands for a thing or
animal becomes diminutive (and hence endearing or contemptuous)
by addition of -chen, or less commonl\- -Icin, e.g. Hans-Hiiuschcn,
approval
they
of,
stick.
Mann-Mdnnchen. The prevalence of

tives are
not
listed in
German
this trick explains
why
diminu-
dictionaries. In English such couplets
duck-duckling, ôose-goslin^, or river-rividct, hook-booklet, are
as
rare, as are
we
French ones,
e.g. uiaison-niaisonette
have to learn rhcm individually.
More
like
jardin-jardiiiet;
German
and
than English
or French, Spanish and Italian abound with words of which the suffixes signif\- size, appreciation, tenderness,
context; and
wc
are free to
make up new
contempt, according to
ones.
Masculine forms of some Spanish diminutive terminals are -ito, -ico,

recognize the feminine ecjuivalcnt of the last
-itico, -cito, -illo.
one
in guerrilla
We
from guerra (war).
Italian
diminutive suffixes are the
-ino of bamhino, the -etto of libretto, also -ello, -cello, and -cino.
Thus we
get floricita
(cf. floret)
Juan
we
from the
(little
flower) from the Spanish
flor, and fioretto

names Carlos and
(Charlie and Johnnie). Such terminals
Italian fiore.
get Carlito, Jua/iito
From
the Spanish
can attach themselves to adjectives or adveri)s. Hence the Spanish

couplets ahora-ahorita
bye-bye),
pochino
(now
right now), adios-adiosito (good-bye

poor dear), poco-
or Italian povero-poverino (poor
(little
wee).
There
is
scarcely any limit to usage of this
sort.
In Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian alike, the chief augmentative

suffix
(man
comes from the Latin -one. Hence in Spanish hombre-hombron

biij man), in Italian libro-lihrone (book-tome). The Latin
4o6
depreciatory suffix -aceiis (or

in Spanish, -accio in Italian.
-iiceiis)
becomes -acho (or
Thus we have
-iicho)
the Spanish couplet
vmo-v'macho (wine poor wine), or the ItaHan tempo-tempaccio

(weather bad weather). These affixes are fair game for the beginner. Aljred-accio is good ItaHan for naughty Alfred. One prefix deserves special mention. It "is the Italian s-, a shortened form of the
Latin
dis-,
e.g.
sbandare (disband), sbarbato (beardless), sbarcare
(disembark), sjare (undo), sminu/re (diminish).
FURTHER READING
CHARLES DUFF
DE BAEZA
HARTOG
TASSiNARi
The
The
The
and Essentials of French.

and Essentials of Italian.
Basis and Essentials of SpaJiish.
Brush up Your Spanish.
Brush up Your French.
Brush up Your Italian.
Basis
Basis
Also French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish in Hugo's Simplified System,

and Teach Yourself Spanish, Teach Yourself French, Teach Yourself
Italian in the Teach Yourself Books (English University Press).
PART
T H R
F E
THE WORLD LANGUAGE

PROBLEM
CHAPTER
The
Diseases of Language
In the remaining chapters of The Loom we are going to look at language as a nian-niadc instrument \\ hich men and u omen mav sharpen
and redesign for human ends. Before we can take an intelligent interest in the tcchni(]ue of
moved
language planning for
the causes of war,
it
is
society
which has
re-
helpful to recognize the defects and
w hich people now use or have used in

The aim of this chapter is tf) give relevant informatif)n ail)out
some lanijuaues w hich ha\e been mentioned in passing elsewhere, and
abf)ut others w hich have been left out in the cold.
In their relation to the progress of human know ledge we n)a\' divide languages into two groups. In one we mav put those which ha\
a written record of human achievement extending back over hundreds, if not thousands, of \ears. To the other belong those w ith no
merits inherent in languages
the past.
rich or time-honored secular literature
indigenous.
The
first
w hich could be described
as
includes representatives of the Hamitic, Semitic,
and Ar\an families, Chinese and Japanese. The latter is made up of

the Bantu languages, the Amerindian dialects, and members of the
Malayo-Pohnesian group. Though manv of them are by now
equipped w ith scripts through the efforts of Buddhist, Moslem, and
Christian missionaries, such literature as they possess is largely sacred
and derivative. Till quite recently the same remark could have been
made w ith more or less justice about F"inno-Ugrian, Turkish, .Mongolian, Caucasian, and Basque. After the Revolution of 19 17 the edu-
Union made script a vehicle for secular

know Icdire among Mongols, Mordvinians, Turco-Tartars, Caucasians,
and other non-Aryan speech communities.
cational policy of the Soviet
The 2,000 million people on
this
globe speak apprt).\imatcl\- 1,500

them are each spoken by more
different languages. Onl\' about 30 of
than 10 millions.
The
lation belongs to the
popuAnglo-
daily speech of nearly half of the world's
Indo-European family, w
ithin
w hich
its
4IO
American representative takes first rank. Anglo-American is now the

mother lanCTuaê of over 200 millions, not to mention those who habitually use it as a means of cultural collaboration or rely on it for
world communication. If we add to the fioure for Ancrlo-American
120 million people who speak cognate languages (German, Dutch
and Flemish, Scandinavian), we get the enormous total of about 320
millions for the Teutonic group. Next come the Aryan tongues of
India, spoken by some 230 millions, and the Romance languages,
spoken by a total of 200 millions. Then follows the Slavonic-speaking
people, of \\hom there are some 190 millions.
The preceding figure for German does not include Yiddish. Yiddish was
West German dialect taken to Poland and Baltic countries by
originally a
Jewish refugees from persecutions of the
Middle Ages. Its phonetic

Middle High German. Its vocabulary is still predominantly German with a considerable admbvture of
Hebrew words, of Polish words, and of words of languages spoken in
countries to which emigrants have taken it. Yiddish can boast of a rich
pattern preserves
many
international literature, printed in
With
late
characteristics of
Hebrew
characters.
the exception of the splinter-speech communities which use
Basque, Turkish, and Caucasian dialects,
all
European languages be-
long to two great families, the Aryan or Indo-European, and the
Finno-Ugrian
(p.
190).
European representatives of the
latter are
confined to Hungary, Esthonia, Finland, and Lapland. Major contributions to
modern
science are due to the efforts of
men and women
speak languages belonging to the Romance and Teutonic languages, including iVnglo-American, which is the hybrid offspring of
who
both. These have been dealt with in Part
III.
The most
ancient litera-
ture of the Indo-European family belongs to the Indo-Iranian group,
which includes Sanskrit and Old Persian. Of languages spoken in

modern Europe, the Baltic group which includes Lettish and Lithuanian stands nearest to primitive Aryan, and the Slavonic, headed by
Russian, stands nearest to the Baltic group. Classical Greek with its
parochial descendant, modern Greek, occupies an isolated position as
Indo-European languages without
any particular group than to another.
a language clearly related to other

beinfT
At
more
clearly related to
the extreme \\'estern geographical limits of the present distribuwe find remains of the once widespread Celtic
tion of the family,
group with peculiar structural characteristics which separate it from

all others. Albanian and Armenian are also Indo-European languages,
but because both have assimilated many loan words from Semitic,
UK
I)
1.
S K S
()
A N
I.
C.
U A
CJ
4J
F.
ruikish neighbors, linguists did not generally recog-
(Caucasian, or
nize their relation to other
members of
the family
till
the latter half
of the nineteenth century.
THK INDIC
(.KOL
W'idcK- separated branches of the Indo-I'uropcan family have a

litcrar\ past, and \\c arc therefore in a position to rccogni/c
long
similar processes indcpcndcntK' at
work
in
the evolution of different
groups. The early literature of the I'asiern, like that of the Western
members of
the Indo-Furopean famiK', introduces us to a complexity
of grammatical usage in sharp contrast to that of
tionary forms. In the
went furthest
Western branch,
in English.
skrit,
ers,
gone almost
ancient stage of Indic
and
as far.
known
is
as ['cJic
or \'eJic Sjh-
the language of the X'edas, a collection of hymns, litanies, pray-
incantations, in short, the bible of the
part
first
In the Eastern branch, simplification of
Persian began earlier and has
The most
modern evolu-
its
simplification started
is
the Ri;^
\'ciij,
Hrahmanic
cult.
The
oldest
based on oral tradition transmitted for several
w riting. Possibly it is as old as

hundred years before the art of writing reached
India. By that time the Old Indic of the original X'edaistic incantations had made w ay for a lanijuagc w hich became the standard among
centuries before the introduction of
1000
R.c:.
sc\eral
the priestly caste as well as the
medium
of high-class secular
litera-
ture. Perhaps to preserve its purit\- from contamination with lowbrow idiom, priestly grammarians drew up a code of correct usage.
Sanskrit means arranged, ordered, or correct.
In this state of arrested
development
it
continued to
with living dialects, as Latin, the occupational

and universities, coexisted for centuries with its
the
Romance
languages. In the
literature, petrified Sanskrit
rated
from
priests,
it
bv
is
The
Men
of elevated rank, such as kings and
of the Prakrit or Middle Indic dialects
moved
women, speak
became
further.
was carried bv missionaries to Ceylon, w here

guage of the Buddhist cult.
The
Prakrit.
Some
literary languages, that
One form
it
is,
of Prakrit, Pali,
became the sacred
lan-
its present-day form are BenHindi (7:), Bihari (34), Eastern Hindi
chief representatives of Indic in
gali (50 millions), Westerri
side
drama of the classical period of Indian

w irh a newer Pr.ikrit, sepa-
lowly, including
stagnant, while popular speech
by
used, together
a social barrier.
speak Sanskrit.
cxiit side
medium of the church

new evolutionary forms,
4^2
(23), Marathi (18), Panjabi (16), Gujarati (16), Rahasthani (13).

language of the Gypsies, who hail from the northwest of India
The
and invaded Western Europe
first in
Indie origin. Closely related to

stage
is
represented
by two
forms,
cred language of the Zoroastrian
best-known specimen
is
the fifteenth century,
Old Indie
is
Old
Zend or Avestan,
faith,
is
also of
Iranian. Its earliest
that
is,
the sa-
and Old Persian, of which the
rock inscription of Darius
(522-486
b.c.)
The next evolutionary phase of Persian is called Pehlevi

Parthian). Modern Persian begins with the tenth eenturv. It has
at Behistun.
(i.e.,
changed but
little
during the
More than two thousand
last
thousand years.
years ago the Vedie texts had already
burdened the Brahmanic priesthood with competing versions. They

had to harmonize them, to explain archaic forms, and to clarify dim
meanings. The \'edic hymns were inviolable. For centuries priests
had chanted them with punctilious attention to the time-honored
fashion. They believed, and had an interest in making others beUeve,
that correct observance decided whether the gods \\-ould dispatch
bliss or otherwise. So training in priestcraft, as today, included careful schooling of the ear for sound, for rhythm, and for speech melody.
For this reason ritual requirements eventually gave rise to one of the
major cultural contributions of Hindu civilization. The Hindu priests
were pioneers of the rudiments of a science of phonetics. Subsequently
this
preoccupation of the priest-grammarian with the sacred
texts extended to secular literature. It culminated in the Sanskrit
grammar of Panini {ca. 300 B.C.). Panini took a step that went far beyond the trivial exploits of Attic Greece, and had a decisive influence
upon the course of nineteenth-century investigation when it became
known
to European scholars.
were the
their affixes.
He
and presumably
his
forerunners
words to pieces and to distinguish roots from

Hence grammar is called vayakarana in Sanskrit, that is,
first to
take
"separation," "analysis."
0\\"ing to this precocious preoccupation with grammar, we have a
very clear picture of \\hat Sanskrit was like. With its eight cases and
dual number, the flexional apparatus of the Sanskrit noun was even
more
elaborate than that of Latin or Greek, and the Sanskrit adjective
with
its
we
three gender forms reflects the luxuriance of
its
As
partner.
retrace our steps to the earliest source of our information about
the beginnings of
Aryan speech wt
recalls the state of affairs in Finnish
therefore approach
with
its
a staê
^\hich
fifteen sets of singular
plural postpositions defining the relation of a
noun
to other
and
words
in
Hi:
I)
K A
i:
()
1-
I.
A N
(I
UAG
4'
F.
same coiucxt. Ir iii.u' well be that \\c shoiiKl arrive at such a goal
could go back further; but the fact is that the use of Sanskrit
forms
case
\\ as not clear-cut and the case affixes were not, like those
of Finnish, the same for every noun. This is shown by the follow ing
examples of Sanskrit genitive case forms:
rlic
if
we
NOMINATIVK SINGULAR
CENITtVE SINGULAR
dci\isya
JgtJCS
Viirbias
âtros
jds
svasiir
Many
pages of
this
book could be
filled if
we
set
out
all
the flexions
of a single Sanskrit or a single Greek verb w ith respect to time, person, voice, and viood.
The
following example
illustrates
only the
personal flexions of one tense {present) and of both voices {active
and passive). The

statements:
mood
is
indicative,
i.e.,
the
form used
in simple
4H
tives, participles,
and verbal adjectives plus their
ferent forms, as against the 268 of Greek.
verb
we
get the enormous
flexions, has 743 dif-
From
complete Greek
number
of 507 forms, from a Latin one

143, and from a Gothic verb 94. The English verb usually has four,
or at most five forms (e.g. give, gives, gave, giving, given). If we add
seven forms of to be, four of to have, together with shall or voill and
should or would, for construction of compound tenses, we can express with twenty words everything for which Sanskrit burdens the
memory with nearly forty times as many different vocables.
MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE EAST

During the past two thousand years there has been a universal drift
languages toward reduction and regularization of flexion. This tendency toward economy of effort is as striking on the
Eastern front as on the Western, and in no language more than in
modern Persian and Flindustani. After the Islamic conquest, Persian
suffered a heavy infiltration of Arabic words. Consequently its present vocabulary is as Semitic as it is indigenous. Even Semitic grammatical forms crept in, but these affect only Arabic words. There can
be little doubt that the decav of Persian flexions was accelerated by
the Moslem conquest. In fact, Persian and Anglo-American provide
an impressive example of parallel evolution from similar beginnings.
Both have abandoned the distinction of grammatical gender. If the
among Aryan
sex of an animate being
is
to be explicit, Persian prefixes equivalents
words 77ian or tvojjnm for human beings, and 7nale or jeuiale

for non-human beings.
Like Anglo-American, Persian has discarded the case system. In
both languages words which correspond to French or German, Latin
or Greek adjectives are invariant, as in Chinese. The comparison of
the Persian adjective is quite regular. To form the comparative we
have to add -tar, to form the superlative, -tarin, e.g. bozorg (big),
bozorgtar (bigger), bozorgtarin (the biggest). Persian has no distinct
adverbial form. The battery of Persian personal pronouns is even
to our
smaller than ours, because the single
for he, she,
it
alike.
The
z/
(literary) or
a7i
(colloq.) stands
Persian verb has a present and
two simple
past tense forms (past and imperfect), with full personal endings
which ordinarily do the work of the pronoun subject, as in Spanish

and Italian. There is one conjugation, and the personal endings are
with one exception the same for all three tenses. Apart from the third
THE
E A
S E S
LANGUAGE
O F
'
verb to be
person singular they arc like the corresponding parts of the
{hudan).
The
present tense of budan
is:
am
ain,
;,
thou
ast,
he, she, or
art
it
is
arc
"",
^^'c
id,
you
ciiid,
they are
are
prefix vii- attached

present and imperfect tense forms have the
Thus the present tense
to the present stem and past stem respectively.
The
of the verb kharidan (to buy)
is:
iwkharwi
viikbaravi
viikhaud
viikbarand
wikbari
mikbarad
bought,
past tenses are: kbaridam, kharidi, etc. (I
buying,
was
(I
bought, etc.), and mikharldam. viikbaridi, etc.
the
and
time,
were buying, etc.). For perfected action, future
The corresponding
vou
vou
verbs do service: budan

passive voice,' constructions involving helper
and shodan (to befor the first, kbastan (to ^^ ish) for the second,
come)
for the third.
Though
the
modern
Indie languages of
Aryan ongm have not
traveled in the same

covered the same distance as Persian, they have
of the Linginstic
charge
in
direction. Sir George Grierson, who was
Survey of India, w
rites
of the Hindi dialects:
English, others are as synof these dialects are as analvtical as

with every word
grammar,
simplest
the
have
thetic as German. Some
conjugation, but by the use
relationship indicated, not by declension or
more complicated than that
of help words; while others have grammars
"Some
forms not only in agreement with

of Latin, with verbs that change their
object."
the
with
even
the subject, but
flexional features, we
AccordincT to the prevalence of isolating and
standard languages
can divide modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars (17
with 345
dialects,
one
spoken by some 230 millions) into two classes,
the
Midland,
called
of the North Indian plain,
covering the center

other, called the Outer, surrounding
it
in three-quarters of a circle.
Rajasthani,
represented by Western Hindi, Panjabi,
MaraSindhi,
Lahnda,
as
and Gujarati, the latter by vernaculars such
The former
thi, Bihari,
is
Bengali. Grierson says:
stage further in
of the outer sub-branch have gone a
synthetic;
form,
Sanskrit
their
in
once,
were
linguistic evolution. They
out ot
passing
are
stage-some
then they passed through an analvtical
caught
speak
to
so
Kashmiri,
that stage only now, and are, like Sindhi and
"The languages
THE LOOM OFLANGUAGE
4-l6
in the act
and have again become synthetic by the incorporation of the
auxiliary words, used in the analytical stage, with the
main words to which
they are attached.

The grammar of each of the Inner languages can
be written on a few leaves, while, in order to acquire an acquaintance
with one of the Outer languages, page after page of more or less complicated declensions and conjugations must be mastered."
.
Bengali
it,
by
is
spoken
in the delta of the
Ganges, and north and east to

The gap between the
a population equivalent to that of France.
written and the spoken
word
ten
medium
is
the
work
two differfrom the writ-
forces the foreigner to learn
ent languages. This complete separation of the spoken
of the Pundits of Calcutta
who
recently
borrowed an enormous number of Sanskrit words with a spelling

fashionable two thousand years ago. The Bengali verb has eight synthetic tenses. There are but three irregular, but only slightly irregular, verbs (give, co7ne, go). Bengali developed a synthetic though as
yet very rudimentary declension of the noun,
e.g. ghar (house), genigender distinction, but Bengali

gender is a paragon of orderly behavior in comparison with that of
Sanskrit. All male animals are masculine, all female feminine. All inanimate things are neuter. Only masculine and feminine nouns take
tive gharer, agent case ghare. It has
the plural ending.
Hindustani
is
a dialect of
Western Hindi.
It is
the daily speech of a
population slightly larger than that of England; but

as a lingua franca,
current over
all
India.
it is
better
known
According to the Linguistic
such in the bazaar attached to the Delhi Court.

Mogul Empire carried it everywhere. One
form of Hindustani is Urdu. Its script is Persian, and it has a strong
admixture of Persian and Arabic words. Owing to expansion over a
Survey,
it
developed
From there,
officials
as
of the
wide area and hence contact with peoples of diverse speech communities Hindustani grammar has shed many irregularities and superfluities. With few exceptions the verb follows one and the same pattern.
The present and past forms of a single helper (hojia, to be) combine
with two participles to do most of the daily work of a tense system.
Like the Romance languages Hindustani has scrapped the neuter gen*
der; and the case system has completely disappeared. Particles
placed after the noun (postpositions) do the job of our prepositions,
e.g.:
* In spite of this regularity of the Hindustani word, some Indian and European compilers of Hindustani grammar books still stick to the Sanslcrit or Latin
pattern and arrange nouns with their postpositions in seven cases. East and
West meet in the scholarly tradition of making difficult what is easy.
THE DISEASES OK
mard ke
mard ko
mardon ke
mardon ko
of 7)ian
to
L A N G
man
UA
(;
41
oj vien
to
men
THE BALTIC AND SLAVONIC GROUPS
Among modern
Indo-European languages, those of the Baltic and
Slavonic groups have almost entirelv escaped this tendency toward

easing the flexional burden.
The
Thev
still
preserve a welter of flexional
Germany.
two living representatives. Lithuanian is the daily speech of
some two and a half million people, Lettish that of about one and a
half million in the neighboring community, Latvîa. Of the two surviving members of the Baltic group, Lithuanian is the more archaic.
The accompanving table, which gives the singular forms of the Lithuanian \\ ord for son side bv side with the oldest Teutonic (Gothic)
forms.
It
Baltic
group survives
in a
region northeast of
has
equivalents,
shows that Lithuanian actually
also outstrips Latin, in the varierv of
its
outstrips the latter, as
it
case derivatives.
LITHUANIAN
Nom.
Sing.
Ace.
Gen.
Dat.
Instr.
"
Loc.
Voc.
East and south of the Baltic and Teutonic regions we now find the
huge group of Slavonic languages, spoken by some 190 million people. Philologists classify
A.
C.
as follows:
EAST SLAVONIC:
1.
B.
them
Great Russian (100 millions)

Russian (30 millions)
2.
Little
3.
White Russian
(12 millions)
\VEST SLAVONIC:
1.
Slovak and Czech (12 millions)
2.
Polish (23 millions)
SOUTH SLAVONIC:
1.
Bulgarian (5 millions)
2.
Serbo-Croatian and Slovene (12 millions)
4l8
At the beginning of our era the Slavs still inhabited the region
between the Vistula, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Dnieper.
During the fifth and sixth centuries, they swarmed over huge tracts
of Central and Western Europe. At one time they were in possession
of parts of Austria, Saxony, and the North German plains to the Elbe.
During the Middle Ages, Slavonic surrendered all this territory to
Germany; but Polabian, 2 Slavonic dialect, persisted in the lower regions of the Elbe up to the eighteenth centurv% and even today Germany harbors a minute Slavonic language island, the Sorbian of Upper
Saxony. While Slavonic has had to retreat from the West, it is still
gaining ground on the Asiatic continent as the vehicle of a new civilization. Russian
is
now pushing as far north as the White
east as the shores of the Pacific
The
earliest
two Greek
Sea and as far
Ocean.
recorded form of Slavonic is Old Bulgarian, into which

and Methodos, both from Salonika,
missionaries, Kyrillos
translated the Gospels in the middle of the ninth century. This Bible
lan<Tuacre, also called
Church Slavonic, became the
the Greek Orthodox Church.
It still is.
then the exclusive privilege of the priest-scribe

vonic also became the secular
medium
official lano-uao-e
of
Since the art of writing was

class,
of literature.
The
Church
Sla-
Russians did
not begin to emancipate themselves from the literary tyranny of the

Church, and to create a written language of their own, till the end of
the eighteenth century.
of
Moscow. As
Its basis
hangover from
was the speech current

their
church-ridden
in the
region
past, citizens
of
form of the Greek

alphabet (Fig. 12) once current in Byzantium. The Poles and the
Slovaks but not the Serbs or Bulgarians are free from this cultural
handicap. \^'hen their forefathers embraced the Roman form of
Christianity, an internationally current alphabet was part of the barthe U.S.S.R.
still
stick to "Kyrilliza," a modified
gain.
Like the Semitic family, the Slavonic group shows comparatively

internal differentiation. Slavonic languages form a clearly recognizable unit, including national languages which differ no more than
Swedish and Danish or Spanish and Italian. It is easier for a Pole to
understand a Russian than for a German to understand a Swede, or
for a Parisian to understand a Spaniard or an Italian. For a long time
Slavonic-speaking peoples remained cut off from Mediterranean inlittle
fluence.
W^hat reached them
tively late
^\as confined to a thin
and
muddy trickle
Greek Orthodox Church. The comparaappearance of loan words in the Slavonic lexicon faithfully
that percolated through the
419
contact with more progressive
reflects this retardation of culture
communities. Since the Soviet Union embarked upon rapid industrialization there has been a great change. Assimilation of international technical terms has
isolation
is
become
To
a fashion.
this extent linguistic
breaking down. Meanwhile in Russia,
as elsewhere, Sla-
vonic languages constitute a fossil group from the grammatical standpoint. They preserve archaic traits matched only by those of the
Baltic group. Noun flexion, always a reliable index of linguistic progress, is
not the
tem
complicated
as
least
of these. Slavonic languages carr\' on a case sysas that of Latin and Greek; Bulgarian alone has
itself from this incubus.

would be congenial to announce
freed
It
The Loom
that
of
Language
language spoken by more than a

twentieth of the world's inhabitants, and used as the vernacular of a
union of states \\ hich has undertaken the first large-scale experiment
can simplify the task of learning
economic planning. Unfortunately we are not able to do so. It is

commonplace that Russian collectivism originated in a country
which was in a backward phase of technical and political evolution.
It is also, and conspicuously, true that it originated in a country which
was in a backward phase of linguistic evolution. Because other Aryan
in
a
lancruases such as Danish, Dutch, or Persian have discarded so
of the grammatical luggage
\\
much
hich their ancestors had to carry,
it is
working knowledge of
them by summarizing the relatively few essential rules with which
the beginner must supplement a basic vocabulary. There is no royal
road to fluency in a language which shares the grammatical intricapossible to simplify the task of transmitting a
cies of Sanskrit, Lithuanian, or Russian. It
give the reader
who
to take the precaution of being
reader
may doubt
\\
is
therefore impossible to
wishes to learn Russian any good advice except

hether this
born and brought up

is
a fair
in Russia,
Some
statement of the case. Let us
look at the evidence:

1
Like that of Lithuanian, the Russian noun is burdened with locative

and instrumental case-forms which some other Aryan languages
had already discarded

2) Russian shares with
thousand vears
German and
culine, feminine, neuter. Like

it
b.c.
Icelandic the three genders, mas-
German,
Icelandic,
and Lithuanian,
possesses tnxo adjectival declensions, one for use
jective
is
attributive, the other
"the house
is
new"
ularities of adjectival
significance.
when
it
is
when
the ad-
predicative {doui nov,
novij doin, "the new house"). The irregbehavior make those of Latin fade into in-
420
The numbers
4 with fully developed case and gender flexions

own. From 5 to 30 numbers are
declined like certain feminine nouns. From 50 to 80 both parts
of the number are declined. From 5 upward the things counted
3)
form
2, 3,
a declensional class of their
must be put into the genitive plural. The numbers 2-10 carry a
subsidiary set of forms called collectives for use where we would
say, e.g., ive ivere five of us, or she has six sons.
The
4)
essential
Russian vocabulary, like that of German,
a wasteful luxuriance of verb forms.
Thus
is
inflated
by
there are couplets dis-
by presence or absence of an infix which denotes repetior by one of several prefixes which signify completion. For
tinguished
tion,
djelivat signify to do once and to do repeatedly

was ivriting, and ya napisal means / have luritten.
If you say ivrite to hbn (at once) you have to use the perfective
form napishi yenm. If you say write better (in future), you use
instance, djelat
means
and
ya
pisal
its
imperfective cotwin, pishi hishje.
Britain has relinquished the incubus of gender without discarding
who
the bishops' bench, and Americans

still
condone lynching. So
it
have no use for case concord
goes without saying that shortcomings
of the Russian language reflect no discredit on the Soviet system,

less
is
on the
citizens of the U.S.S.R. themselves.
What
still
they do signify
the existence of a powerful social obstacle to cultural relations be-
tween the Soviet Union and other
countries.
The
archaic character
of the Russian language is a formidable impediment to those who

may wish to get firsthand knowledge of Russian affairs through foreign travel. Because such difficulties beset a foreigner, it is disappointing to record lack of revolutionary fervor in the attitude of Soviet
While the Kremlin curbed

Greek Orthodox Church, it made no attempt to
leaders to the claims of language planning.
the
power of
the
itself into line with Europe, America, Africa, Australia, and

Zealand by liquidating the cultural handicap of the Kvrillic
alphabet. That there is no insurmountable obstacle to such a break
with the past is shown by the example of Turkey, which has replaced
bring
New
Arabic by Latin
script.
The
Russian has always been, and

the boundaries of the Soviet
was simplified by the preTurkey.
task of reform
existence of illiteracy in Russia, as in

still
remains, a
Union we
Tower
of Babel.
Within
find representatives of the Indo-
European, the Finno-Ugrian, the Turco-Tartar, the Mongolian, and the

Caucasian families of speech all in all some hundred languages and dialects, most of which are mutually unintelligible. The situation is deplorable
enough if we confine ourselves to the three Russian languages: Great

Russiav, spoken in the northeast, with
Moscow
42
as the center; Little
Rus-
or Ukrainian; and White RjtssiiW, current in the northwest along the

confines of the Baltic group. These languages are separated by such small
sian,
Formerly the written lanthem was Great Russian. But today the White
the Little Russians have written languages of their own.
differences that they are nuitualK' intelligible.
guage
common
to
Russians as well as
all
of
THE CELTIC TWILIGHT

The unequal decay
Indo-European family does not

We can see this by contrasting Russian or Lithuanian with the Celtic languages. Celtic
speech is now confined to the western fringe of Europe. It was once
possible to hear it over a territory as vast as the Holy Roman Empire.
At the time of Alexander the Great, Celtic-speaking tribes inhabited
Britain, most of France and Spain, North Italy, South Germany, and
the valley of the Danube down to the Black Sea. Hordes from Gaul
crossed to Asia .Minor, and established themselves in the district still
called Galatia. Within a short time, Celtic dialects were displaced
everywhere except in Gaul. By the middle of the first century, Gaul
itself surrendered. The Gauls were Romanized, and Latin wiped out
Celtic. Five hundred years later, the Celtic-speaking remnant had
of flexion
in the
directlv reflect the progress of civilization.
reached vanishing point.
Documentary^ remains of
its
former existence are place names, a
handful of meager inscriptions from France and Lombardy, and individual words which lie embedded in French and other languages.
During the four hundred years of Roman rule, the Celtic dialects of
Britain escaped the fate of their Continental kin. They were still in-
when Emperor
Constantine w ithdrew his legions. After this brief

they succumbed to successive w'aves of Teutonic invaders.
Wherever the German hordes settled, Celtic had to make way for the
language of the conqueror. It has persisted only in Wales, in North
tact
respite,
Scotland, and in Ireland.
As
it
now
exists,
the Celtic group can be divided into
the Goidelic (Gaelic) and Brythojiic (British).
two branches,
The former
includes
be spoken by some four hundred thousand people; Scots-Gaelic of the "poor whites" in the Western Highlands,
Irish or Erse, said to
and Manx, an almost extinct dialect of the Isle of Alan. The oldest
Irish documents are the so-called Ogam runic inscriptions (p. 63),
which may go as far back as the fifth century a.d. To the Brythonic
dialects belong Welsh and Breton, each spoken by a million people,
(what?
Fig. 39.
Stone with Celtic Inscription in Ogam Signs from Aboyne

NEAR Aberdeen in Scotland
THE DISEASF. S OF LANGUAGE

Two
which have been
features,
423
illustrated already, cinplusi/c
iliis
essentially agglutinative character of Celtic granuuar:
Among
a)
we
Celtic languages
find a parallel use of a coiitriictcd
or agglutinative form of the verb used without an independent pronoun (p. 87), and an iinchcvii^cablc verb root used
b) In
together ziith a pronoun placed after it,

all Celtic languages prepositions fuse with personal pronouns
so that directives have personal terminals analogous to those
of verbs.
The
between the conjugation of the preposition and the

P and Q representatives of the group, and the
characteristics of each throw light on the origin of the other. For instance,
\\c have no difficultv in recognizing the origin of the personal flexions of
the Gaelic preposition le (with) when we compare them with the corresponding usage of the invariant verb tha when arranged in parallel
verb
parallelism
is
common
to the
columns:
am
lectin,
t}.\i
?/ii,
tha
thii,
thou art
leaf,
tha sinn,
we
icinn,
tha sihh,
you are
L'ihh,
tha
they are
leotha,
iiid,
W'c can invert
are
with
with
with
with
with
me
(=Ie +
7///)
thee
{=\c +
tJîi)
us
(=le+J/7///)
you
them
(=\c + sihh)
(=le + wtf)
by using the personal conWelsh

verbs in the two following examples, which illustrate two tvpes of conjugation corresponding to the two different forms (/; and ;///) of the
Welsh pronouns of the first person:
this process of interpretation
jugation of the preposition as a clue to the personal flexion of
(O
ci.viaf,
(=iian +
fi)
danat,
(=dan
tj)
d.vioch, (= da7i + chivi)
davynt, {= da7i + hivyjit)
under
under
under
under
me
ii'yf,
thee
z:;yt,
thou art
(='wys +
vou
(=ivys chzi-i)
(=u-ys + h%vynt)
\ou ych,
them yut,
me
am
(='u:ys ^fi)
are
they are
was
bn,
(=i +
7ffi)
to
binn,
it,
(=i +
ti)
to thee
biiost,
thou
wen
(=
izvch,
{=
biioch,
(=i + bivyiit)
you were
they were
(=
iddyiit,
vou
to them
+ chzii)
to
buoj?t,
ti)
-i-
{-hii^Tiii)
bn
bu +
-\-
(= bi( +
ti)
chii-i)
hwynt)
The Celtic languages ha\c many substitutes for the very heterogeneous system of roots which we call the verb to be. The Irish as or
is, the Welsh oes (cf. our own ai;/ or is, German ist, Sanskrit asvii), the
Ciaelic bit, VVelsh bod (cf. our be, German bin, Persian biidan, Old

424
Saxon bhmi, Sanskrit bhavami). are common Arvan roots. To these

we must add other peculiarly Celtic roots, such as the Gaelic tha and
Wêlsh mae. The several forms of the verb to be are verv important in
Celtic usaê. Like Basic Enolish. Celtic
of verbs.
is
remarkably thrifty
in its use
Where we should say / jeel, the Celt would say there is a feel-
ing in me. Here
is an Irish example of this characteristic Celtic idiom:

creud adhbhar na nioicheirghe sin ort? In our language this reads:
why
did
rising
you
early? Literally it means ivhat cause of this early

Scots highlander can use expressions containing
rise so
by you?
the equivalent to
is
do the work of almost any other verb. In
to
his
idiom:
it
will surprise
The
vou
to hear this = there
is
a surprise for
Celtic languages have several merits
your
which might commend
themselves to the designer of an international auxiliary.
One
s^reat
There is little
of gender or number concord of the adjective and noun.
virtue they share
trace left
ears
is
that they are not highly inflected.
Case distinction of the latter
is vestiCTial.
A second virtue
So such flexions
as exist are
These
on the debit side,
a characteristic which isolates Celtic dialects from all other members
of the Aryan group and places them among the most difiicult of all
not
diflicult to learn.
conspicuous merits are insignificant
is
a thrifty use of verbs.
when we
place
the x\ryan languages for a foreigner to learn.
The
Aryan languages depend on

accommodate themselves to the convenience
flexional derivatives of other
endings. So they easily
of alphabetical order in a standard dictionary.

of the Celtic languages
change
is
in different contexts.
man" may be
The
special diflicultv
word may
Welsh word for "kins-
that the initial consonant of a
For
instance, the
car^ gar, char, or ngbar, e.g. car
agos "a near kinsman,"

char "her kinsman," fy nghar "my kinsman."
In short, the beginning and end of a word may change to meet the
ei
gar "his kinsman,"
ei
dictates of Celtic grammar. So the use of the dictionary is an exploit

which the foreigner undertakes with imminent sense of danger, and
little confidence of success. A quotation from a book by a Breton
nationalist will scarcely give the reader an unduly harsh statement of
the difliculty: "As for reading, to look up a word in the dictionary, it
is enough to know the few consonants which are interchangeable
K, P, T with CH, F, Z, or with G, B, D; G, D, B, with K, P, T, or
with CH, V, Z; AI with V, and
^îth W."
GW
THE
1,
Tin.
1.
OF
L A N
Ci
U A
(i
42$
SFMITIC LANGUAGES
Nine hundred \e;irs ago, the Moslem world \\ns the scat f>f the
most progressive culture then existing. China could point to a rich
secular tradition of literature coeval with the sacred texts of Aryan
hidia. The Ar\an languages did nor as vet enjoy the undisputed prestige of Anglo-American, French, and German in our ow n age. If we
go back to more remote antiquity, Aryan, Semitic, and Chinese yield
place to the languages of Eg\pt * and Mesopotamia, where the permanent record of human striving began.
Nearly three thousand years ago, when Aryan-speaking tribes
were letterless savages, Semitic trading peoples hit on the device embodied
in
our own alphabet. Fuilv a thousand years before the true

between tiic principal European languages and Indoas recognized, Jewish scholars, who applied the methods of
relationship
Iranian
their
\\
Muslim
dialects then
teachers, had already perceived the unity of the Semitic
known. The
problems was
Brahmanic priest or
rabbi's interest in language
half-superstitious, half-practical, like that of the
was to perpetuate the correct form,

and pronunciation of the Sacred Texts; but there was a difference between the Brahmin and the Jew. Because he often lived in
centers of Muslim learning such as Damascus, Seville, and Cordova,
and also because he had mastered more than one tongue, the rabbi
the student of the Koran. His aim
spelling,
could easily transgress the confines of

he was impressed by similarities
his
own
language. Inescapably
between Aramaic, Hebrew, and
Arabic, and compelled to assume their kinship.
discovery to bolster his belief that
and incidentally of
all
Hebrew was
Though
he used the
the parent of Arabic,
other languages, he planted the seed of covi-
parative graimnar.
The
linguistic
preoccupations of the medieval Jews, and of their

were continued by European scholars of the six-
teachers the Arabs,
teenth century. Protestant scholarship intensified interest in
which took
its
place with the Latin of the Vulgate and
Hebrew,
New
Testa-
Ancient Egyptian was one of the Hamitic languages. They derive their
the Biblical brother of Shcm. Resides Ancicjit Egyptian, they
inckide Cushitic (of which SomaU and Galla arc the chief representatives),
together with the Berber dialects of Northwest Africa. Though the Semitic and
Hamitic group diverge widely, their kinship is generally recognized. The) share
more root words than can be explained by borrowing; and they have sonic
common grammatical peculiarities.
*
name from Ham,
4^6
ment Greek; and Ethiopian joined the scholarly repertory of known

Semitic dialects. Babylonian-Ass\"rian (Accadian) was not deciphered
and identified
derives
its
till
The family as a whole

Noah in the Hebrew myth. It
the nineteenth centur)*.
name from
She??!, the
son of
is
now commonly divided in the following wav: East Se?nitic,
Babvlonian-Assvrian (Accadian); West Semitic, (i) Aramaic, (2)
the Canaanite dialects (Hebrew, Phoenician, Aioabitic); South Sejfiitic, (1) Arabic, (2) Ethiopian.
The Semitic languages form a unit far more closely knit than the
Aryan family and have changed comparatively little during their
recorded histon,'. As a hterary language, modern Arabic stands closer
to the Arabic of the Koran than does French to the Latin of Gaul in
the time of
Mohammed. This
suggests one of the reasons
why
the
Semitic tongues have repeatedly superseded one another. Three Semitic languages have successfully competed for
become current
far
beyond
their original
lonian-Assyrian, Aramaic, and Arabic.
which wt
first place,
homes.
The
They
and have
Baby-
are:
oldest representative of
possess documents, and the first to assume international
importance, Mas Accadian. Accadian was the speech of people
who
inhabited the plains of Arabia before they invaded the fertile lands
of the Euphrates and Tigris. There they came into contact with the
Sumerians, and adopted a superior culture, together

STy*llabic
writing,
known
as
cimeijonn.
^^'ith a
system of
wealth of cuneiform
in-
and libraries of records engraved on cylinders and bricks

of burnt clay have preser\êd the Babylonian- Assyrian language. The
oldest assessable document goes back to the time of the great conqueror. Sargon I (ca. 2400).
For centuries Accadian was a medium of commercial and diplomatic correspondence throughout the Near and Middle East. Wt find
evidence of its wide currency in letters which Palestinian princes
addressed to Amenophis IV in the fifteenth century B.C. They were
unearthed at Tel-el-Amama, in Eg^^pt. By the time of Alexander the
Great, Accadian had ceased to exist as a living language. The medium
that took its place was Ara7naic. The Arameans were a trading people. After relinquishing desert Hfe, they came to occupy the so-called
Syrian saddle to the northeast of Mesopotamia. Thanks to this strategic position, they were then able to command the commerce that
went along the land routes between the Mediterranean and the Middle East. From about the eighth century B.C. onward, they began to
filter into the Babylonian and Ass>-rian empires. With them Ment
scriptions

and
their language
Accadian, but also
script,
and
Hebrew and
in
427
time Aramaic displaced not only
Phoenician.
speaking regions, and became one of the
It
even penetrated Arabiclanguages of the
official
Persian Empire.
Even after the advent of Christianity', Aramaic was an important

medium. The famous Nestorian Stone, discovered in 1625 in
tural
cul-
Sin-
ngan-fu, shows that missionaries carried the Nestorian heresy with later
Aramaic (Svriac) gospel

and reports
in parallel
texts as far as China. It was erected in a.d. 781,

Chinese and Svriac inscriptions the successes and
Nestorian mission. All that survives today of this once
failures of the
might)" lingua franca
the speech of three small
is
communities near
Damascus.
Aramaic, not Hebrew, was the mother tongue of Palestine during

which the gospel narrative deals. When the Evan-
the period with

gelists
quote the words of Christ, the language
brew.
Bv
parts of the
The
is
Aramaic, not He-
which the earlier

Old Testament were written was already a dead language.
that time the local Canaanite dialect in
decline of
Hebrew
set in
\\
ith
the destruction of Jerusalem and
which began in the sixth centur\- b.c. It \\ as soon superseded bv Aramaic, which became the literary as well as the spoken
medium of the Jews after the .Maccabean period. Hebrew survived
the Captivirv'
only as a language of scholarship and ritual, like Latin in medieval

Christendom. It never quite ceased to be written or spoken. Its uninternipted. though slender, continuity with the past has encouraijed
Zionists to increase the difficulties of existence for
revive
it
Jew
by trying
to
as a living tongue.
Another Canaanite
brew. At
dialect. Phoenician,
is
closely related to
He-
very early period the Phoenicians had succeeded in monopolizing the .Mediterranean trade, mainly at the expense of Crete
and Egypt. Phoenician settlements were to be found in Rhodes. Sicily,
a
and countless places along the North African coast. In the

b.c. Phoenician ships were trading with South Britain, and had even skirted the shores of West Africa. As the result of
this vigorous commercial expansion, the Phoenician language, and
w ith it the Phoenician alphabet which became the mother of most of
the world's alphabets, \\ as distributed throughout the Mediterranean
Marseilles,
fourth century
basin.
Only
in
Carthage, the richest Phoenician colony, did
firmly established as a
medium
had ceded place to Aramaic

munities of
Tyre and
Sidon,
it
it
become
of speech. Several centuries after
in the
it
more ancient Phoenician com-
maintained
itself in
the African colony.
4^8
There
it
persisted
Augustine,
till
the fourth or fifth century a.d. According to
who came from North
Africa, Carthaginian Phoesometimes called Fimic, differed little from Hebrew. Phoenician is preserved in many but insignificant inscriptions from the home
country and from its colonies, and in ten lines which the Roman playSt.
nician,
wright, Plautus, inserted in his Poemihis.
During the four centuries
after
of Islam pushed aside nearly
The Koran
Arabic.
Mohammed,
the spectacular spread
other Semitic languages in favor of

had to be read and chanted in the language of the
all
Prophet himself. Unlike Christianitv, Muslims never proselytized for

their faith by translation. The various Arabic dialects now spoken
from xMorocco to the Middle East differ greatly, but a common Hterary language still holds together widely separated speech communities. The Muslim conquests diffused Arabic over Mesopotamia,
Syria, Egypt, the north of Africa, and even parts of Europe. Its impact left Persian with a vocabulary diluted by addition of Semitic,
almost equal in number to indigenous words. Even European languages retain many to testify to commercial, industrial, and scientific
achievements of Muslim civilization. Familiar examples are: tariff,
traffic,
magazme, admiral,
nmslii)!, alcohol,
Aldebaran, nadir, zero,
cipher, algebra, sugar.
Between the beginning of the ninth and the end of the fifteenth
a.d., Europe assimilated the technique of Muslim civilization,
as Japan assimilated the technique of Western civilization during the
latter half of the nineteenth century. Scholars of Northern Europe
had to acquire a knowledge of Arabic as well as of Latin at a time
when Moorish Spain was the flower of European culture, a thriving
center of world trade, and the sole custodian of all the mechanics,
medicine, astronomy, and mathematics in the ancient world. \Vhile
Arabic scholars of the chief centers of Muslim culture, such as Damascus, Cairo, Cordova, and Palermo, refused to deviate from the
classical Arabic of pre-Islamitic poetry and the Koran, the speech of
century
the
common
people evolved further and
split into
the several ver-
naculars of Syria, Tripoli, Iraq, Algeria, Tunis, Egypt,
Their common characteristics
and Morocco.
are a reduction of vowels, the decay of
the flexional system, and heavy admixture of non-Arabic words.
To-
spoken by about forty million people.

About the fourth century a.d., Ethiopia responded to the efforts of
Coptic missionaries, and embraced the Christian faith. Thereafter
Abyssinian Semitic, known as Geêz or Ethiopic, became a medium
day Arabic
is
429
of literary activity- It died out as a spoken language in the fourteenth

century, but like Sanskrit, Latin, and classical Arabic continued to
function as a medium of religious practice, and as such is still the
liturgical
are
language of the /\bvssinian Church.
Amharic,
Tigriiia of
Maltese,
which
munity.
It is
The
is
reader of
change.
descendants
of Arabic origin,
is
Eritrea.
com-
the language of a Christian
transcribed in the Latin alphabet.
two outstanding
triliteralisjn
Its living
Northern Abyssinia, and Tigre of
The
(p. 57).
When
Language
L007/2 of
will
now
be familiar with
peculiarities of the Semitic group.
The
other
is
One
called
is
the prevalence of internal voivel
relieved of affixes and internal vowels the majority of
root words have a core of three consonants. Within this fixed frame-
work
variety
sfreat
is
possible
by
vowel combinations. With only
make
tv\
changes on different
vowels it is possible to
rinîniT the
five simple
enty-five different vocables of the pattern b-g-n, in the
lish triliteral
grouping: be gin-be gan-be gun.
It is
Eng-
scarcely an exag-
geration to say that a Semitic language exhausts most of the conceivable possibilities of internal vowel change consistent with an
inflexible triple-consonant frame.
arrangement of three particular consonants has its charin Arabic, katala means "he
kntila means "he was killed," katil means "murder," and kitl
distinct
acteristic
killed,"
element of meaning. Thus
means "enemy." The range of root inflexion in the Semitic family

vastly exceeds what we find in any Aryan language. Within the
Aryan group internal vowel change always plays second fiddle to
external flexion. Even in German, where it looms large, the variety of
derivatives distinguished by affixes is much greater than the variety of
derivatives distinguished by modification of a stem vowel. Among
the Semitic dialects modification of the vowel pattern is orderly and
all-pervading.
The
Semitic noun has possessive affixes like those of Finno-Ugrian
languages (p. 190). In other ways the grammar of Semitic dialects

recalls features more characteristic of the Ar\ân tribe. The verb has
tA\"o
tense forms, imperfect and perfect, denoting aspect (p. 91).
The noun
has subject and object forms, singular and plural.
older Semitic dialects had dual forms.

in the seventh
century
a.d.
The Arabic
The
dual disappeared
Pronouns of the second and third person,
have endings appropriate to two noun classes, respectively called masculine and feminine, with as much and as little
justice as the so-called masculine and feminine nouns of French or
like adjectives,
^yj
Spanish.
Gender
Thus the
distinction has also infected the verb.
third person of the Arabic verb has the suffixes a (masculine) and at
Cfeminine;.
The
symbols in the old Semitic

grammatical ballast
wishes to learn Arabic or Hebrew,
absence of explicit
script adds to the difficulties
imposes on anyone
who
vo-\\el
which
this load of
CHINESE
Two characteristics make a language more easy to learn than it

would otherwise be. One is grammatical regularity. The other is word
economy. Nearly all the languages previously discussed in this chapter are
overcharged with
necessarily multiply the
ble communication.
langtjages
is
irregularities or with devices
number of word forms
The
difficulty of learning
which un-
essential for accepta-
Chinese and related
of a different sort.
Chinese vernaculars make up one of three branches of the great
two are represented by the 'lihttoKurmese group and the lai languages, including Siarnese and Annwrnese. i he several members of the family are geographically conhido-dhhic'sc family. The other
tiguous and have
two outstanding
tone languages. Otherwise identical
may have
similarities.
v\
One
is
that they are
ords uttered in different tones
do the
vowel differences in such a series as pat, pet, pit, pot,
put. i heir second peculiarity is not etjually characteristic of the
I il>eto-J5urmese group which has agglutinative features. With this
ijuali/ication, it is broadly true to say that all the root words
i.e., all
words excluding coirjpounds njade by juxtaposition of vocables with
an independent existence like that of ak and hoiine in alehouse are
mofiosyllahic. or what we can convey by internal or external flexion
(Chinese languages rely wholly on position, on auxiliary particles and
on compounds.
i'or the coujnion ancestry of all the menibers of the fanjily one
clue is lacking, in their present fonn they have no clear-cut community of vocabulary; and we have no njeans of being certain about
whether they ever had a recognizably common stock of word material, i he literature of CJhina goes back several thousand years, but it
great diversity of meaning. In fact, tone differences
sanje job as the
I'
does not give us the information

graphic script
(p.
43),
It
tells
we
need, Chinese writing
us xary
little
a!>out
is
logo-
sounds cor-
responding to the written synibols when writing first came into use,
Wiien the CJhinese of today read out a passage from one of their
1 1
flassic.il .uitluMS,
the
words of
A S
S V
OF
thc\ proniniiicc the
new spaper
i>r ati ;ul\
A N
\\ or.ls ;is
t; I'
thcN
A G F
4?
wmiUi pronounce
crrisenicnr.
Sonic 400 million people of C^hin;i, Mnnchnrin, ;ind p.irt o\ Monnow speak the vernaculai's which go b\" the name of C^.hincsc.
golia
1
hev include: {a) the MaHiiiiriii dialects, of which the \orth Chiof about :5ti million people is the most importj^tit; {h) the
ih'sc
/\ /.7//,t,o/
dialects; {r) the
llan'4kow);
(./)
the
iSKvmwmJ.
'iv/f /\j/-C.\)i7.v/.j/
South (Chinese
group
dialects
(^Shanghai,
^1\uh-1u>w.
Ningpo,
Annn'-
'
432
would probably prove

back into the
past.
to be
compounds,
Our own
if
language has
we were able to delve

moved far in the same
been wholesale
vowels and assimilation of terminal syllables. The
result has been a large increase of our stock in trade of monosyllabic
words. TJdOiigh it is jar jrovi true to say that all our "iôrds are nov) of
this class, it is by no vieans hard to spin out a long strip of thevi. In
fact, you have one in front of your eyes as you read this. If you try
direction. In the course of a thousand years there has
denudation of
final
Gymponnd
CompoTuaiL
Characbtv
m
J'J^
i
^N
ji
>,
ft
Fig. 41.
pKao^
nuz
to
flood
V dza'
>M^ foot
^K
waicT
Jy
Iwe-
comxnan
suddjoi
yexx
fa
ask
^ S^^^
tT^
i^
io'fry
to cailcSr'
wrap
words
direction or
square
Compound Chinese Characters with Meaning

AND Phonetic Component
(Adapted from
Firth's
The Tongues
of
Men)
will find out that the ones you choose are the
you use, or at least the words that most of us use, most of the
time. The ones ive have most on our lips are just these small words. By
the time you get as far as the next fidl stop you will have met viore
than six score of them with no break', and it would be qtdte a soft job
to go on a long tiiue in the same strain as the old rhyme Jack and Jill.
This is not the only way in which Anglo-American approaches
Chinese. The reader of The Loom of Language no longer needs to be
told that English has discarded most of the flexions with which it was
to
do the same, you
ivords
equipped a thousand years ago or how much we now rely on the use
of unchangeable words. True the process did not complete itself; but
there are now few ways in which we have to modify word forms.
Our stock of essential words includes a small and sterile class with

internal
changes such
terminal
as those
of the plural noun, the endings
-s
433
of s'nig-sang pr foot-feet. Otherwise the

-s,
-ed and
-i/ig
together with the optional affixes -er and -est which
of the verb
we
tack on to
which usage demands. It is a
short step to Chinese vernaculars of which all words are invariant.
With verv few exceptions the Chinese word is an unalterable block
adjectives circumscribe the flexions
of material.
It
tolerates neither flexions
the -er in baker. In general,
denotes an
One and
to another;
form
nor derivative affixes such as

us nothing to suggest that it
tells
act, a state, a quality, a thing,
the same
word may
and what
we
call
or
person.
thus slip from one grammatical niche
the parts of speech have
little
to
do with
SHANG may mean the above

ruler, and then corresponds to an Aryan noun. In SHANG
does the job of an Aryan adjective. In SHANG
(above side)
how
Chinese words behave.
one,
i.e.,
PIEN
its
The word
it
to Diount one)
MA (to above a horse,
on the horse)
MA SHANG (horse above,
it is
i.e.,
i.e.,
it
verb equivalent. In
does service as post-
Here
on familiar around. We down a man, take the down
train and walk down the road. We house our goods, sell a house and
do as little house work as possible. This is not to say that all Chinese
(woinan)
names for things may also denote actions. The word
is never equivalent to an Aryan verb, though JEN (man) may mean
performing the act of a man, a one-sided way of expressing the act of
coitus. Anglo-American provides a parallel. We vian a boat but we
do not woman a cookery class. We buy salt and salt our soup, bottle
wine and drink from the bottle, but we do not as yet mustard our
bacon or cupboard our pants.
Whether a particular Chinese sound signifies thing, attribute, direction, or action depends in part on context, in part on word order, as
illustrated above by
SHANG and SHANG MA. In everyday
speech there is an incipient tendency to mark such distinction by
affixation as we distinguish the noun singer from the verb sing or by
pronunciation, as \\t distinguish between the noun present and the
verb present (i.e., make a present). For example, the toneless TZU
(pronounced d%e), a literary word for child, attaches itself to other
words, forming couplets which stand for things, e.g. PEN-TZU
(exercise book). So TZU is now the signpost of a concrete object in
the spoken language, as -ly (originally meaning like) is now a signpost
posited directive corresponding to one of our prepositions.
asrain
we
are
NU
MA
of an English qualifier (adjective or adverb). In the fourth tone

(p.
438) PEI means the back, and in the
first
tone
it
means
to carry
on
434
one's back. Difference of tone also distinguishes
from
the
CHANG
initial
CH
{to get long,
i.e.,
to
grow).
further distinguishes the
first
CH'ANG
{long)
strong aspiration after
from the second number
of the couplet.
There is no trace of gender in Chinese vernaculars. Thus a single

pronoun of the third person does service (T'A in Pekingese) for male
or female, thing or person
alike.
By
recourse to separate particles,
our words jew, many, several, plurality becomes explicit for

emphasis or when confusion might arise. To express totality Chinese
resorts to the age-old and widespread trick of duplication. Thus
JN-JEN means all men and T'lEN-T'IEN means everyday. One
such
as
plural particle
AIN
HSIEN SHNG
we
have:
WO
{class) attaches itself to
MN
names for persons,
{teachers) or to personal pronouns.
e.g.
Thus
THE
issue
is
closed, the pcrfccri\c
OF L A N G U
particle LA can follow
F.
435
C, V.
the vcrl).
I,
is
and contracted form of LIAO meaning ro7nplctc or finished.

I'liture time can be made explicit: (j) with an adverbial particle
cijuivalcnt to soon, henceforth, later on, etc.; (b) by the helper VAO
w hich has an independent existence ecjuivalent to ivish or ivaj/t, the
f)ri<Tinal meaning of our o\\ n helper ziill. Thus we may say: T'A LAI
he coines, he is coming; T'A LAI LA he has come, he canie; T'A
YAO LAI he irill come. The particle PA (stop) is the signal of a
toneless
peremptory command,
polite to use
in -:///
It
you
^'AO
tell
me
e.g.
exactlv as
CIl'U
we
PA
use
(clear out); but
it
is
more
and the French use vonloir
ziill
or veuillez Die dire.

a language w ith complete absence of
number of ambiguous words must have rules of
goes without saving that
and
flexion
a large
word order no
less rigid
than those of English.
What
is
surprising
is
that so
manv
of the syntactical conventions of Chinese agree with
our ow
n. In a
straightforw ard statement, the order in both languages
is
subject
I
verb object. This
do not
He
is
illustrated
by the following:
V^0 PU
fear him.
P'A T'A.
T'A PU P'A
does not fear me.
WO.
WO
as what we
These sentences show that position alone stamps
the subject of the first and the object of the second. The object is
placed for emphasis at the head of the sentence onl\- where mis-
call
understanding
the subject
is
is
impossible. In such a statement as the following,
still
immediately
CHE-KO HUA
WO
in
front of the verb:
PU hsIN
-^Sîff^'-^^^-^
don believe that)
(i.e.,
The
position of the adjective ecjuivalcnt is the same in Chinese as

Anglo-American. The attributive adjective comes first as in
JN (a good vian). The predicative adjective comes after the noun
means the
but without a copula equivalent to he. Thus JI--X
HAO
in
HAG
man
is
good.
At other
points
Anglo-American and Chinese
rules of s\'ntax di-
verije to frrcater or less degree. Conditional statements
tion are
two
of them. Chinese uses
/f
sparingly.
juxtaposition as in conversational English:
It
ami interroga-
gets along
by mere
43*^
MAN-MAN-TI
T'A-MEN
slowly
they
(i.e.,
There
if
SHUO
WO
CHIU
MING-PAl
speak
the?i
understa?id
they spoke slowly
should understand)
no inversion of word order
in a question of the yes-no

be a plain statement with an interrogative particle equivalent to eh? at the end of it, e.g. T'A LAI iMO
he comes eh, i.e., is he coming? Instead of adding iMO {eh?) to T'A
LAI {he is comtJig) it is possible to add a negation reminiscent of the
type.
is
Chinese question
may
Thus T'A LAI PU LAI

T'A LAI MO. One feature
European languages. What corresponds
nursery jingle she loves me, she loves
me
not.
{he come, not come) means the same as

of Chinese has no parallel in
to a transitive verb
must always
trail
an object behind
it.
In effect the
Chinese say he does not want to read books or he does not ivant to
write characters where we should simply say he does not ivajit to
read or he does not want to write. Omission of an object confers a
passive meaning, e.g.
CHE-KO JEN TA-SSU LA
{this
man
kill
means this mail has been killed.

Everything said so far underlines the likeness of the Chinese to our
own way of saying something, and there would be nothing left to
write about, if the sound pattern of Chinese were comparable to an
English purged of polysyllables. With no rules of grammar but a few
common-sense directions about the arrangement of words, with no
multiplicity of words disguised for different grammatical categories,
finished)
as
we
disguise Bible in Biblical or as
German
duplicates
its
transitive
and intransitive verbs, a Chinese dialect would be the easiest language

to learn. In fact,
The
it is
not.
range of elementary sounds,
i.e.,
simple vowels and con-
So it stands to reason that

cannot be equal to the number
of stars. In Chinese, the possible maximum is reduced by two characteristics of the spoken language. One is that the Chinese syllable
sonants, in
no language exceeds about
the number of pronounceable
forty.
syllables
never tolerates initial consonant clusters other than TS, DS, and CH,
i.e., no Chinese words have the same form as our spree, clay, plea.
The second is that the monosyllable ends either in a vowel or in one
of a small range of consonants. Even in ancient times the terminal
consonants were not more than six in number {p, t, k, in, ?i, ng) and
;
is
to say, nearly
all
two
ng) occur. That

words are monosyllables of the open type like our
in the northern dialect today, only the last
{n,
words by, vie, so. Within the framework of these limitations, the
number of pronounceable syllables which can be made up is very
THE
siiiall
E A S
i:
L A
I^
(]
UAG
437
compared with the size of our vocabulary. Indeed, it is a tiny

what the vocabulary of a monosyllabic language would
fraction of
be
if it
admitted closed syllables,
like stivrips
or clubs, with double or
treble consonants at each end.

\\ill not be slow to draw one inference. At an early
was encumbered with a large number of homophones,
i.e., \\ ords with the same sound and different meanings. When further reduction of final sounds took place, the number multiplied. At
one time the language of North China distinguished between KA
(song), KAP (frog), KAT (cut), and KAK (each). Now the four
different words have merged in the single open monosxllable KO.
This loss of word substance, together with limitations set upon the
character of the syllable, means that less than five hundred mono-
The
reader
date Chinese
now
syllables are
may wish
available for
to express
gren describes what
"A
by
all
single or
the things and ideas the Chinese
compound words.
Professor Karl-
this entails as follows:
small dictionary, including only the very
commonest words of
the
language, gives about 4,200 simple words, which gives an average of ten
different words for each syllable. But it is not to be expected that the
words should be evenly distributed among the syllables; the number of

homophones in a series is therefore sometimes smaller, sometimes larger.
Of the common 4,200 words there are only t%vo that are pronounced jiiii,
but 69 that have the pronunciation
Homophones
exist in
/,
59
shi,
29 hi, and so forth."
modern European languages though we often
overlook their presence because of differences of spelling (to-tootiro), gender, as in the German words der Kiefer (the jaw) and die
Kiefer (the
and
la
fir),
or both, as in the French words
pore (the pore).
They
le
pore (the pork)
are particularly frequent in English.
Even if wê limit ourselves to those homophones which arc made

up of an initial consonant and a vowel, like a typical Chinese word,
we
find such familiar examples as bay (color),
bay (bark);*
be.
sea, see,
See or
so, seii-, sov:,
bay (tree), bay
(sea),
or the following pairs:
43^
This enumeration does not include words which are also homophones because of the silent Anglo-American (as opposed to Scots)
r, e.g. nianj:, more; saiv, soar. In spite of their great number, English
homophones cause no embarrassment in speech because the intended
meaning is indicated by the sentence in which they occur, and by
the situation in which speaker and hearer find themselves. For this
reason, no naval decorator has painted the boys when asked to paint
the buoys.
No
difficulty arises in real life because flag signifies a piece
as a harmless English water flower, or because

an intoxicant and part of a medium's stock in trade.
Though homophones are more abundant in English than in any
other European languages, English homophones are few compared
of bunting, as well
spirit stands for
with the
how
number of words
total
in
common
use. Indeed,
we may
well
communicate \\'ith only little over four hundred monosyllables, most of which stand for scores of unrelated
things. The answer is that Chinese possesses several peculiar safecûards against confusion of sound and meaning^. To began with,
most Chinese homophones are not true homophones of the English
by-buy ty^Q. On this page LI {pear)., LI {phmi), and LI {chestnut)
ask
it is
possible to
Do'
CO
look exactly the same. In speech they are not. Difference of tone
Tone
keeps them apart.
meaning
in a
differences M'hich
exist in other languages, as
matter of
w^hen
go with
a difference of
we pronounce
fact, interrogative, ironical,
yes or yeah
or surprised manner; but
such differences are casual. The- tone differences of Chinese are not
casual intrusions. Its proper tone is an essential part of the word. The
number of tones varies in different Chinese languages. Cantonese is
said to have nine. Pekingese has now only four. It is impossible to
convey the differences on paper; but we can get a hint from the language of music. The first is the high level tone =R=- the second
the high rising
high falling
J-
f~f" the third the low rising

J
In the
first
tone
FU
the fourth the
means husband,
in the sec-
ond fortune, in the third government office, and in the fourth rich.
Nobody knows how this elaborate system arose. It would be naive
to believe that the Chinese ever became aware of the dangerous turn
their language was taking and deliberately started to differentiate
homophones by tone. It is more likely that some tones represent the
pronunciation of old monosyllables, while other tones are survivals of
words which were once disyllabic and as such had an intonation

different from that of monosyllabic words. Though the existence of
II
i:
I)
i:
i:
i-
i.
a \
(;
u a
(;
439
r,
homophones,
disrinct tones grcarK' reduces the nuniljer of genuine
words spoken in one tone cover a bewildering variety of

notions. For instance, / in the first tone means one, dress,
nian\
ferent
dif-
rely
on, cure; in the second barbaricin, soap, doubt, viove; in the third
chair, ant, tail;
and
in the
fourth sense, ivhig, city, translate, discuss.
Evidently, therefore, Chinese must possess other devices besides tone

to
make
effective speech possible.
The most important
is
the juxta-
s\nonvms or near svnonvnis. An example w ill make this

Our ^\ords expire and die would both be liable to misunder-
position of
clear.
standing
if
such
listed as
to live, (b) a metallic
may mean:
Expire
in a
uuy mean:
vocabularv. Die
mold or stamp,
(a) cease
(r) a small toy of cubical shape.
(a) breathe outivard, (b) cease to live.
We
can
meaning of die explicit in our word list, if we write

die
expire. The second meaning of expire comes to life in the same
\\ a\', when we write expire
die. This is what the Chinese do when
rhc\- combine K'AN {see or investigate) with CHIEN {see or build)
to make K'AX-CHIEN \\ hich means see alone. We might clarif\'
the second meaning of die as given above by writing die-mold (jr diestamp in which the second element is a generic term. This is what the
Chinese do when thev make up FU-CH'IN from FU which in one
tone means father, oppose, split, or belly and CH'IN (a kinsman).
The trick of sorting out homophones bv making such couplets per\'ades Chinese speech and asserts itself w hen the laborer speaks pidgin,
make
e.g.
the
first
look-see for see.
we
If
Chinese
rank alehouse and housemaid

is
rich in disvllables.
It is a
as disyllabic words, colloquial

monosyllable laniruaue in the sense
it contains scarcely any trace of syllables w hich have no independent mobility, e.g. the syllables -doin in vcisdom or -es in houses.
In nearly all such compounds as those illustrated above, one part
that
like the syllable
man
few
We
still
man
in
has a verbal
postman may carry a weaker stress, but like

of its own. Daily speech accommodates a
life
which have as
have already met T7.U
syllables
ERH,
a still extant
word
little
autononu'
(p. 433).
Then
as the -ship in friendship.
there
is
a suffix
based on
gave the word w ith

which it went a diminutive meaning, and had the same function as the
-ling in duckling or gosling. As such it became fused in such contractions as
LU'RH
from
FEXG
force,
and
CHU'RH
for boy. Originally
(little ass)
(wind).
from
LU
Nowadays
it
(ass),
it
FERH
or
has lost
its
added to words to indicate that they are

(owner).
is
'
(light breeze)
former "diminutive
^ words e
thino-
ij
440
Another
trick
which
helps to reduce misunderstandings
is
the use
of numeratives, words which usually follow a numeral, pointer word,

or interrogative as head follows the numeral in three head of cattle.
Different classes of words have different classifiers of this sort.
We
Parent
Chinese
Character
KUA
HE
(hiVJ(Tin(r)
i:
OF
LANGUAGE
44
for a necklace, heard, and other suspended objects.
Classificatory particles of this soit are widely current in the speech
of prclircratc communities the world over, and arc highl\- characteris-
of such (p. 310). SeemingU' the nunierative of C>hincsc is not a

new device for dealing with the homophones hut a very ancient
characteristic of human conimunicarion kept alive 1)\' a new need.
If we disregard tone diri'crcnces the number of distinct root words
tic
more than four hundred, or slightly over

make allow ancc for them. These haxx to do the
work of a much larger number of things, actions, and concepts. The
written language (p. 43) is not embarrassed by the plethora of homophones. Each symbol has a particular meaning, and several sxnibols
may therefore stand for the same sound. Thus ten symbols of Chinese
script stand for the various meanings of LI in the second tone. Unhappil\- this advantage has its ow n penalty. To become proficient in
readino- and w riting the Chinese pupil has to learn a minimum of
in
spoken Chinese
twelve hundred
if
is
little
about three thousand to four tiiousand characters. This entails several

\cars of exacting w ork which might otherwise lay the foundations of
more useful knowledge. So much thankless toil tempts us to wonder
w hv
the Chinese do not discard their archaic script in favor of our
own more handy and more
thrift\"
alphabet. Turke\' has already
gi\en the world an inspiring object lesson.
despotism of Ataturk
it
Under
the l)enevolent
has exchanged the involved and unsuitable
Arabic for Latin letters. The result is that Turkish boys and girls
now master the elements of reading and writing in six months instead
of tw o or three years.
Admittedly Turkey's problem is a simpler one. Turkish is an

aoglutinative language, adapted as such to regular conventions of
spelling; but the Romanization of Chinese script would lead to hopeless confusion, if it followed the customary practice of transcription
in
maps and Western newspapers.
raphy has to bring the tones to
life;
satisfactory alphabetic orthog-
and there are several
feasible
ways
We
might distinguish the four Pekingese tones by diacritic marks as in the French series: e, e, e, e. In accordance with the
SN'stem of Sir Thomas Wade we can put a number in the top righthand corner, as in man\' primers for European students. A new and
of doino" so.
much better transcription is the Nat'ioiml Lanfûage Rovianization

(Gwoyeu Romatz\-h) designed by a Chinese scholar for Chinese
use. In the
Givoyeii Roinatzyh the syllable has a basic core which
corresponds to
its
pronunciation
in
the
first
tone,
and
carries a ter-
442
minal element to disting'uish the second, third, and fourth tones respectively.
Where Wade gives TA\ TA-, TA', TxV the Givoyeu

DA, Dx\R, DAA, DAH. Compounds are treated as
RoiJiatzyk puts
and houseivife. Absence of numeral supermarks lightens the job of the stenographer and
keeps down the size of the keyboard. Below is a sentence (/ add yet
nn other horizontal stroke) in Wade's system and in the National
single units like playhouse
scripts or diacritic
Roinanization:
\\oo
THE
to read or
\\
1.
rite their o\\
11
()
L A N
(i
L'
names mastered the use
One common
(]
(f it
44?
after three to
reform of (Chinese
from
China
her literar\ past.
\\
is
tiie mciiium of
classics
through
is
that
truth
The
script has been the prerogative of a \ery small class for whom a
classical education has been the master kev to a successful career in
the service of the iroxcrnment. The C^hinesc masses who toil for a
handful of rice cannot lose w hat thev have never possessed.
Another objection is less eas\ to refute. As \"et, China has no common spoken language which e\er\l)odv everywhere understands.
The onl\- language common to north and south is the u ritten language, in which literate people of Peking or Canton, Foochow and
Shanghai can read the same notices at the railway stations or the same
ad\ ertisements bv the roadside. The fact that the\- can do so depends
upon the fact that the written language is not based directlv on the
diverse sounds thev utter when thev read them aloud. Ilappilv the
northern speech is gaining ground, and a common Chinese is taking
shape, as a common English took shape in the fourteenth centur\', and
six
weeks of
tuition.
would cut
contact w ith the
the plea that
ritinjT
as the dialect
The
it
ol)')ection to
off
of Paris became the lanouasje of France.
disabilities arising
from the existence of the homophones ex-
tend be\ ond the boundaries of the Indo-Chinese group. Throughout

its
historv Japan has continuallv
time
borrowed Chinese words. At one
this chieflv affected discussion
sophic topics.
Of
late
of religious,
artistic,
vears the range of the Chinese loan
and philo-
words has
broadened, because the Japanese sometimes build up technical terms
from Chinese
is
DEX-KI
as
we
build
them from Greek
(light spirit). TItc Japanese
roots.
Thus
vocabularv
charged with monos\llabic sounds which mean
manv
is
electricity
now
super-
different thinirs.
Wiien the Kajia or s\llabic writing (p. 54) was new, Japanese writers
would use it exclusively w ithout recourse to Chinese characters as
such. Gradualh' the habit of introducing the ideogram gained ground
f)wing to the influence of Chinese models. The result is that modern
Japanese is a mixture of two svllabic scripts and a formidable battery
of Chinese characters.
The
s\llable signs represent the
soimd values of
the affixes and particles, the ideograms are used for the core of an inflected
ord.
Thus
the Japanese pupil has to learn the
two
svllabaries
and Katakaim) together with about fifteen hundred (Chinese characters. Educated Japanese acutelv realize their handicap, but
(hiiragaihi
w hich w ould arise from an enormous number of imported homophones are an almost insurmountable obstacle to the
the ambiguities
444
plea for exclusive use of one or other of the syllabaries. Consequently

there is a movement to introduce the Roman alphabet. It is somewhat
more economical than the

Parent
Chinese
Character
syllabaries,
and
it
\\ould have t\vo
more
T H K
subsnintinl advantages.
I.
A S
One
I.
is
L A \
the possibility
C.
<f
L A
(; V.
445
distinguishing be-
tween homophones as we do w hen we zirite, wright, right, and rite.

The other is that it is impossible to represent the compound cf)nsonanrs of Latin or Cireek roots in international technical terms w ith
Kana
signs.
Westernization has brought about a new influx of foreign words,

mainl\- from F.nglish sources, and Japanese has freely assimilated international technical terms in preference to
monos\llables. In doing so
it
distorts
them
compounds
in
of (Jiincse
conformity with
its
44^
Unfortunatelv the ideographic nature of Chinese script prevents

from getting any information about the phonetic pattern of the
lanûaê throus-h its ancient Hterature. Kno^\'led<Te of the structure
us
and pronunciation of ancient Chinese is largely based on the sister

language Tibetan, with literary documents dating from the seventh
century a.d. These documents were transcribed in an alphabetic script
of Hindu origin. From what they disclose, and from evidence based
on rhymes, corroborated by comparison of various modern Chinese
dialects, scholars now conclude that the language of China has a
disyllabic, inflected past. If their reasoning is correct, Chinese and
English may be said to have traveled along the same road at different
epochs of human history or prehistory.
This prompts us to ask whether the future evolution of AngloAmerican may lead to greater similarities between the two languages,
and if so, w'lxh what consequences. We have seen that Chinese has
one gross defect. It has an immense number of homophones, and it
is not sympathetic to the manufacture of new vocables by the use of
affixes,
or to importation of technical terms of alien origin. For-
tunately, there
defects,
if it
is
came
no likelihood that English would reproduce these

still closer to Chinese by dropping its last vestiges
of useless flexions. English has
t^\o
ment of meaning by depletion of

is
constantly coining
new
its
safeguards against impoverish-
vocable resources.
technical terms
One
is
that
it
by combination of bor-
rowed affixes w'lxh. native or alien roots. The other is that its inherent
phonetic peculiarities permit an immense variety of monosyllables.
So its stock of separate pronounceable elements would still be relatively
enormous, even
if all
of them
\\'ere
monosyllables.
CONTACT \T.RNACULARS
In various parts of the world, intercourse between Europeans and
indigenous peoples has given birth to contact vernaculars. The best

known are Beack-la-Mar of the Western Pacific, pidgin English of
the Chinese ports, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia,
etc.,
and the French
patois of Mauritius, Madagascar, and the west coast of Africa.
The
formative process has been the same for each of them. Partly
from
contempt, partly from an ill-founded belief that he

easier for the native, the ^vhitc
cated idiom of mothers
of expression
when
or
talking
man
Some
lovers.
to a
is
making things
addresses the latter in the trun-
foreigner
people drop into such tricks
who
is
not at
home
in their
HI
1)
1 luis
hemic oil p aimer
iiwii Idn<Tuagc.
7//oi,
On
i:
OF
L A \
FrciKhiiuin will
Ics
amcricjun,
their side, natives of subject
sa\'
i.e.,
U A
C,
44-
American
to an
']\iiinc
C;
hicn la
communities react to the
tourist
aiiicricaiiis.
\\
hire
man
bv re-echoing the phraseology in which thev receive their orders.

r\er\ where the new speech product consists of more or less deformed European words strung together with a minimum of grammar.
In pidgin F.nglish. grammatical reduction docs not
because l.nglish has met Chinese halfwa\
amount
to
much,
French, which clings to
more remnants of its flexional past, offers more to bite on. Thus the
noun of French, as it is spoken bv descendants of African slaves in
Mauritius, has lost
its
gender.
If
the adjective has different masculine
and feminine forms, the Creole eliminates one, e.g. enc boii madiVnc
(= line bonne uiadaiiic). The demonstrative ga stands for ce, cet, ces,
as well as for ccci, cela, celiii, celle, cci/x, cclles.
before a verb, and iny before a noun.
Mo
{= lui)
(= itioi) means /
means ke or hhn.
is pushed to the uttermost. The

form most often used, i.e., the past participle or the
imperative, e.g. vini {=vemv). manze (= 7/ianger). To indicate time
or aspect, the Creole relies on helpers. Thus va (or pour) points to tiic
future, e.g.
z'a vini (be ii-ill conic). The helper which signifies the
simple past is te or ti (= ete), e.g. iiio te i7ianze (I ate). In the same
wav fine or fini expresses completed action, e.g. 7)io fine cause (I have
spoken, and won't sav more). The form te or ti, which combines with
Simplification of the verbal apparatus
Creole verb
is
the
/;'
the invariant verb stem,
of etre. There
is
savs ino inalade
is all
that
no copula. For
(I sick).
is
left
of the conjugation (or usage)
]e siiis vialade, the .Mauritian
Since te or
ti
Creole
has no other function, there
is
no literal equivalent for the Cartesian claptrap / think, therefore I aifi.

Orthodox linguists have paid scant attention to these vernaculars.
Consequently there is little available information about them. To the
student of language planning for world co-operation, thev have salutary lessons. Above all, they open a new approach to the question:
w hat are minimal grammatical requirements of communication at a
particular cultural level? Apart from Steiner, the inventor of Pasilingiia (1885), none of the pioneers of language planning seems to
have considered them worthy of sympathetic study.
CHAPTER
XI
Pioneers of Language Planning

Our
one
last
is
chapter was about the diseases of natural languages. This
about the pathology of
languages.
artificial
To manv
people
two words, like interlangiiage or world-aiixiliary are terms

synonymous with Esperanto. In reality Esperanto is only one among
seyeral hundred languages which have been constructed during the
the
last
past three
hundred years; and many people who
world-auxiliary
would prefer
are in favor of a
to choose one of the langua^ês
which
The
a large proportion of the world's literate population already use.
merits of such views will
Language planning
century.
The
come up
for discussion at a later stage.
started during the latter half of the seventeenth
pioneers were Scottish and English scholars. Several
circumstances combined to awaken interest in the problem of international
communication
medium
at this time.
of scholarship. For
One was
more than
the decline of Latin as a
thousand years Latin made
learned Europeans a single fraternity. After the Reformation, the rise
of nationalism encouraged the use of vernaculars. In Italy, which had

the
first
modern
new fashion bv
The scientific
example. From its be-
scientific academ\', Galileo set a
publishing some of his discoveries in his native tongue.
academies of England and France followed his

ginning in 1662, the Royal Society adopted English. x\ccording to
Sprat, the first historian of the Society,
its
members
its
statutes
a close, naked, natural zi-ay of speaking
demanded
.
troiii
preferring
the language of the artisans, countrymen, and merchants before that

of li'its and scholars. About thirty years later the Paris Academic des
Sciences followed the example of
its
English counterpart by substitut-
ing French for Latin.
The
meant that there was no single vehicle of culbetween the learned academies of Europe. Another
contemporaneous circumstance helped to make European scholars
eclipse of Latin
tural intercourse
DO
lanjjuage conscious.
Since the sixtcenth-centurv Swiss

.
naturalist,'
I'
I)
F.
r.
()
A \
{.
(i r.
I>
0)nrad Gessner, had collected samples of
I.
the
A \ \
I.ord\
(,
Pr.i\ci
441;
iti
t\vciu\-t\\o difTerent tonmics, an cvcr-increasiiv' \ariet\ of intormalion about strange languages
and stranger scripts acconipanieil niisand new drugs with cargoes coming back from vo\ages of iliscovcrv. Na\igari<n and niissionar\ferxor f(stcred new knowledge of Near and Miildle l.;i.stern languages, including Coptic, Fthiopic, and Persian, it made samples of
.Amerindian, of Dravidian, of .Mala\ and of North liulic vernaculars
available to Kuropean scholars. In becoming Bible conscious, l"uropc
cellanies of
new
herbs,
new
beasts,
bccanic Babel conscious.
One
linguistic
discoverv of the seventeenth ccnrur\-
is
of special
remed\ for the confusi<n

of tongues. The labors of Jesuit missionaries diffused new know ledixc
about Chinese script. To seventccnth-ccnturv F.urope (Chinese, a
script w hich substituted words for sounds, was a w holl\ novel w av ()f
writing. Still more novel was one consccjuence of doinij so. To the
importaficc. because
reader of
The Loom
it
suggested
it is
now
poNsible
commonplace
that
two people from
China can read the same texts w ithout being able to

converse with one another. To seventecnth-centurv F.urope it w as a
nine da\s' wonder, and the knowledge of it s\nchroni/.cd with a
spectacular innovation. S\"mbolic algebra was taking new shapes. The
invention of logarithms and the calculus of Leibniz, himself in the
forefront of the linguistic movement, gave mankind an international
vocabularv of computation and motion.
Without doubt, the novcltv of mathematical sxinbolism and the
noveltv of Chinese iogographic writing influenced the first proposals
for a s\stem of international communication through script. Leibniz
corresponded w ith Jesuit missionaries to find out as much as possible
about Chinese; and Descartes, the French philosopher-mathematician,
outlined a .scheme for a constructed language in 1629. 1 hanks to our
Hindu numerals, anvone and b\- anyone Descartes meant an\()ne
except the common people of his rime can master the art of naming
all po.ssible numbers which can exist in any language in less than a
dav's work. If so, the ingenuitv of philosophers should be up to the
different parts of
job of finding equallv universal
out
in a
s\
mbols
for things
ami notions
set
s\stematic way- These would be the bricks of a language
m<ire logical,
more economical, more
precise,
and more
cas\- to learn
than any language w hich has grow n out of the makeshifts of daily
intercourse.
his
At
least,
that
is
hat Descartes believed.
conviction to the test by trying to construct
He
did not put
a vmiversal catalot::uc
450
of things and notions. Fortv years later the
dream materiaHzed. In
1668 Bishop Wilkins published the Essay toivards a Real Character
and
a Philosophical
A^îlkins
also
Mas not
Language.
first in
the
field.
George Dalgarno, of Aberdeen,
language for the deaf and dumb, and inventor of a

tvpe of shorthand applicable to all languages, had undertaken
author of
new
the same task a izw years before \\'ilkins. In 1661 Dalgarno published
the Ars Signonnii, or Universal Character and Philosophical Lan-
who
guage. Dalgarno claimed that people
spoke any language could
use his for intelligible conversation or ^^riting after

sentially, this
Art of Syrnbol was
two weeks. Es-
lexicon based on a logical classifica-
what Dalgarno and
tion of "notions." All kno^^'ledge, or
poraries thought ^âs knowledge, \\as distributed
main pigeonholes, each indicated by
consonant,
his
contem-
among seventeen
e.g. 7v = political
matters, .Y = natural objects. Dalgarno divided each of the seventeen
main
classes into subclasses labeled
bol, e.g.
Ke
= judicial affairs,
Ki
by
Latin or Greek
z'ozi-el
sym-
= criminal offenses, Kz/ = war. Fur-
by consonants
pronounceable polysyllable signify-
ther splitting of the subclasses into groups indicated
and
vo\\"els successively led to a
ing a particular thing, individual, process, or relation.
Thus
the four mammals, called elephant, chevah ane, and lunlet in
French, Elefant, Pferd, Esel. and ALiulesel in German, or elephant,

horse, donkey, and nn/le in English, are respectively Nrjka, N-qk,],
Ni]ke, and
Xvko
in
Dalgarno"s language.
The
ambition of
would be speakable
gineer Mas to design something that
as
its
en-
well as
writable; and the grammatical tools he forged for weaving the items
of his catalangnage into connected statements included genuinely

progressive characteristics.
The
verb
is
absorbed in the noun,
as in
headline idiom (p. 120). Case goes into the ash can. The single suffix
-/ shows the plural number of all names. To show how it works, Dal-
garno concludes the book M'ith a translation of the first chapter of

Genesis, five Psalms, and two of Aesop's Fables. Here is a specimen:
Da7n seinii Saz'a sainesa Nam trpi Xo7n = In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.
Two features of this pioneer enterprise are of special

One
is
Dalgarno's recognition that
all
grown
interest today.
languages, including
Latin, are irrational, irregular, and uneconomical.
The
other
is
ex-
plicit in the introduction to his Didascalocophiis or the Deaf and
Dnvib .\Lms Tutor (1680), which contains eloquent testimony

author's Baconian faith in the inventiveness of man:
to the
()
"About
N K
R S
()
r\vcnr\' xcars
IAN
ago
which
all
L"
(i
...
jiuhlislKil
Ciraniiuar and Lc\ic)n, rlicrcl)\ shou

anil absurdirics
(i
iiiir
I.
A N N
S\ nopsis ol
^\ ii>'
languages arc clogged
(i
45
a I'liilosophical
to rcmcily the difliciiltics

\\
ever since the (Jon-
ith
by cutting off all rcdundanc\', rectifying all

anoniaK taking aw a\- all ambiguity and equivocation, contracting the primitives (primary words) to a few number, and even those not to be of a
mere arbirrarw bur a rational institution, enlarging the bountls of derivatit)n and composition, for the cause both of copia and emphasis. In a word,
designing not onh' to remcdie the confusion of language, b\' giving a much
more easic medium of communication than any yet known, but also to
cure even Philosoph\- itself of the diesease of Sophisms and Logomachies;
as also r< provide her w ith more w ield\' and manageable instruments of
fusion, or rather since the Fall,
,
operation, for defining, dividing, demonstrating, etc."
The Council
of the Ko\al SocictN
shared this
1664 the
fairh. In
R()\al Socictv appointed a coniniittce for iniproNing the

lanij;uagc.
"It
I'nuiish
minute of Deceniher 7th runs:
being suggested that there were several persons of the Socictv whose
genius was very proper and inclined to improve the Englisli tongue, and
particularly for philosophical purposes,
it
was voted
that there be a
com-
mittee for improving the English language; and that the\ meet at Sir Peter
\\'\
ches lodgings
What
in
Gray's Inn."
the suggestions of the committee
parentlw no report was handed
in,
but
were we do not know. Apwe know from a letter ad-
dressed 1)V the Roval Chanccllcr\- to Dalgarno that his language was
recommended to the King for support by

Oxford dons, w ho stressed its value
several
Cambridge and
"for facilitating the matter of Communication and Intercourse between

people of different Languages, and consequently a proper and effectual
Means of advancing all the parts of Real and Useful knowledge. Civilizing
barbarous Nations, Propagating the Gospel, and increasing Iraffiquc and
Commerce."
In conclusion the letter ohseryes that
if
the project of the Aber-
donian was properly supported mankind would later on look back

upon his age vyith admiration and, fired by its example, endeavor
"to proceed in a further repairing the Dccayes of Nature,
done its last, or, which is most probable. Nature cease to
newed."
The
limited
letter
is
until
an impressive example of the Baconian faith
power of man over
nature.
Art have
Re-
be, or be
Nearly three hundred
in
the un-
\'ears atô
45^
it
began to dawn upon
being
left to the
a few human minds that language, instead of

hazards of a slow evolution, could be intellioentlv
interfered with and directed to^ârd a desirable goal.
Dalgarno's Ais Signonnn stimulated Bishop AVilkins to undertake

similar, but on a vastly more ambitious scale. The Roval
something
Society published the outcome of his efforts. Wilkins was one of its
founders, an ardent Parliamentarian, husband of Cromwell's sister,
Robina, a
man
first
man
of great versatility and social idealism. Fie \\as the
to popularize Galileo's ideas in England, and did so in a
scientific fantasy,
the
moon by
published in 1642. In
it
he described a journey to
Undoubtedly he was
rocket.
a genius. It
would be
pleasant to add that he ackno\^-ledged his indebtedness to an obscure
Scots schoolmaster.
He
did not.
Bishop Wilkins starts from the fact that we already possess such
symbols as -, -, x, 5
$
O in the language of mathematics and
astronomy. Though pronounced in different ways in different coun,
tries,
these symbols are the same
the same thing to the educated.
on paper, and evers^where signify

this he draws the Cartesian
From
cdnclusion:
"If to
every thing and notion there were assigned
a distinct
Mark, to-
gether with some provision to express Grammatical Derivations and Inflexions; this
might
suffice as to
one great end of
the expression of our Conceptions
Real Character, namely,
bv Marks which should
signify' things,
and not Mords."
Wilkins realizes that if the number of marks is to be kept inside

manageable limits some classification of things and notions is indispensable. He therefore compiles, as Dalgarno did, a systematic catalog-ue as the foundation of his lanouacje. The ^hole body of contemporary knowledge is fossilized in a hierarchy of forty different classes,
such as plants, animals, spiritual actions, physical actions, motions,
possessions, matters naval, matters ecclesiastical, etc.
pigeonholes has
its
subdivisions
^^"ith
Each of the forty
the exception of the fifth class,
encloses HLM. The Bishop aptly remarks that the capitalized

much hymned to) Him is not divisible into any subordinate
which
(and
species.
The world
lexicon of Wilkins
is
potpourri of Aristotelean fiction,
theological superstition, naturalistic fancy, and
The anthropomorphic outlook
much
of the author and the
temporary knowledge embodied
factual matter.
low
level of
con-
in the catalogue are illustrated b\" his
treatment of Szibstafice Inanimate.
He
divides
it
into veQ-etatiz-e
and
()
N K
The
sensitive.
perfect, such
should
now
i:
()
vegetative
I.
splirs into
The
as plants.
imperfect, such
W'iluins divides the
imperfect vegetative distril)utes
and precious.
and more transparent.
hierarchv of knoA\ ledge, Wilkins noM gets
his
the Real Clbaracter, or
l)c al)le
cal
to understand
language
and
hat \vc
labels vulgar, middle-prized,
He
grips with sxnihols for visual or auditory recognition.

ith
into less transparent
last
Having completed
t(
453
as iiiincrals,
the materials of inorganic chemistry between stone
call
and metal. Stones take the
\\
PLANNING
A \ G U A G K
itself.
Ihe
not
signifies a notion,
rittcn language,
how
ithout learning
real
a
character
is
which cvcr\
to speak the Philosophi-
to be like Chinese.
sound. Wilkins
is
l)egins
l)od\' will
Each w ord
two
confident that about
thousand SNmbols w ill cover all requirements. The form of this new
ideographic writing and its relation to the catalogue is best illustrated
bv the connnentar w hich Wilkins appends to the w ord father in his
attempted translation of the Lords Pra\ er into Real Character:
"
>
This next character being of
bigger proportion, must
some Integral Notion. The genius of it, viz. -^ 's

appointed to signific Oeconomical Relation. And whereas the transverse
Line at the end tow ard the left hand hath an affix making the acute angle
tliercforc represent
\\ ith the upper side of the Line, tliercforc doth it refer to the first difference of that Genus, which according to the Tables, is relation of Consanguinitv: And there being an affix inaking a Right Angle at the other end
of tlic same line, therefore doth it signifie the second species under this
Difference, by which the notion of Parent is defined. ... If it were to be
it would be necessary that the Tran)o\ncd to it, being a little hook on the
top over the middle of the Character after this manner
And because the
word Parent is not here used according to the strictest sense but Metaphorically, therefore might the Transcendental Note of Metaphor be put
rendered Father
scendental
in
the strictest sense,
Note of male
siiould be
'.
over the head of
So
it
after this
manner
far the Bishop's catalogue
rational discourse a
grammar
is
and
its
."
")
rittcn
necessary. 1 he
form.
To
use
words
in
minimum requirements
It would be an exaggeration to
made any outstanding contribution to grammatical
of communication must be fixed.

say that Wîlkins
He was still far too much under the spell of Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew. Indeed, he held that flexion is "founded upon the philosoph\' of speech and such natural grounds, as do necessarily belonij to
Language." Nonetheless, he recognized that classical languages were
not the last word; and Latin came in for a veritable troiwnelfeiier of
analysis.
454
criticism.
He
criticized
its
abundance of different
flexions for
the same function, the ambiguities and obscurities of

intrusion of grammatical gender into sex relations,
ceptions to
all
rules of conjugation
one and
prefixes, the
its
its
welter of ex-
and declension, the
difficulties of
concord, and so forth.
Wilkins keeps
by
his
own
grammatical apparatus
\\'ithin
the limits set
forty signs, consisting of circles and dots for particles, and hooks,
loops, etc., for terminals.
For the
time, this wâs thrifty.
Where
the
dictionary form of an English verb such as fear has only three derivative
forms
(fears, feared, fearing), a single
over two hundred, and
The
in
in
over one hundred costumes.
forty grammatical categories of
all
sorts in the philosophical lan-
guage are
a sufficient
superfluities of the
indictment of the irregularities, anomalies, and
two
classical languages.
Though less interested in mere

make his language audible. To do
own
Greek verb may appear
one
a Latin
\\'ay.
Each of
talk,
this
his forty classes or
Wilkins had the ambition to
he apes Dalgarno's plan, in his
genera has
a sim.ple
sound com-
bination consisting of an open syllable of the Japanese sort.
(God)
The
fifth
by the "root" Da, the thirteenth (shrub)

by Gi, the thirty-ninth (naval) bv So, and the last (ecclesiastical) by
Sy. Subdivisions follow the same plan. To form those of the first order we have to add a consonant to the root. Thus we get words such
as Bab, Bad, Bag, etc. If you want to understand what is hitting your
eardrum, you must therefore be an fait with the whole classificatory
setup. You may then have no difficulty in diagnosing De as "elementary," Det as "meteor," and Deta as "halo."
major
To
class
is
labeled
attack the Bishop's project in the light of our incomparably
would be equally fatuous

and unchivalrous. The great defect of it is not that it imposes on the
memory the almost superhuman burden of the Chinese characters.
That would be bad enough. Its greater weakness is at the base, the
catalogue of human knowledge. A Dalgarno or a Wilkins can construct such a catalogue only in the light of information available to
his own contemporaries. Thereafter any addition to knowledge, a
single discover\% a fresh interpretation, calls for a complete overhaul
of the catalogue. The reference symbols of "each thing and notion"
specified after the item added to it would call for revision. Had Wilkins's plan come into use among scientific men, science would have
been fossilized at the level it had reached in 1650, as Chinese culture
greater scientific and linguistic knowledge
wns
o N
I",
i:
()
I.
I-
A N
(.
(;
r.
petrified in a iDjôgmphic script several
W'ilkins
\\'ith
I.arin,
rote.
all
his
awareness of what
W'ilkins failed to appl\' to
is
its
i'
i.
a n n
c;
455
thousand \ears before
"improper and preternatural"
in
gran\niatical categories the test of
functional relexance. So he ne\er grasped the simplest grammatical

essentials of elTectix e
conmninication.
Leibniz, famous for introducing the
lis
Continental contemporary
modern ssnibolism of
the infini-
knew something of Dalgarnian as well

as W'ilkinsian, and rejected both of them for not being "philosophical" enou<)h. Since the age of nineteen he had dreamed of a language
w hich was to be "an algebra of thought" in the service of science and
philosophw He had little concern for its value as a medium of intertesimal calculus, did so. Leibniz
national communication. His

tions,
own
efforts to collect
all
existing no-
analvze them, reduce them to simple elements, and arrange
and coherent system is of no interest to people who

It was another wild-goose chase. What
is more significant to our time are the conclusions he reached. When
he took up the task of providing his dictionary or conceptual cataloo;ue w ith a grammar, he i)roke new ground.
Unfortunately he never put his views into book form. They remained unnoticed by all his successors with the exception of Peano,
a twentieth-centur\- mathematical logician who also invented InterVmijîia. What puts Leibniz far in advance of his time is that he recog-
them
in a logical
live in the
tw entieth centurv.
nized the scientific basis of intelligent language planning.
What
the
inventors of \'olapuk and the Esperantists never grasped, Leibniz saw
with Lcibnizian lucidity.

ning must be rooted
in
The
factual foundations of language plan-
comparative anahsis of natural languages,
liv-
we can learn why

some lanTuages are more easy to master tha<i others. The versatile linguistic equipment of Leibniz supported him w ell in the task. He could
ing and dead.
learn lessons
From
the data such anah
from the lingua franca,
sis
a jargon
street urchins of the .Mediterranean ports;
cjuinea pig to hand.
The
As Leibniz himself
(Guinea pig
sa\'s.
supplies
spoken by
sailors
and
and he had an experimental
was Latin.
the most difficult task for the student of a
foreign language is to memf)rize gender, declension, and conjugation.

So gender distinction goes overboard because "it does not belong to
rational urammar." Besides qrettinjj rid of (jender, Lcii)niz advocates
other reforms. Conjugation can be simplified. Personal flexion is a
redundant device, because person is indicated by the accompanying
45*5
subject. In
all this
Loom, though he
many
of our
own
Leibniz says nothing to startle the readers of The

way in front of Esperanto. He shoots ahead of
is
contemporaries
Peano apartwhen he discusses
number flexion of the noun. What he intended to substitute we

do not know, most probably equivalents to some, several, all, etc. Unlike the Esperantist adjective, which continues to execute the archaic
the
antics of concord, that of Leibniz, like that of English, surrenders a
battery of meaningless terminals which
accompany
Bantu
tribal
chant to the corresponding noun.
What remains for discussion is case, mood, and time flexion. \'erv
properly Leibniz casts doubt on the raison d'etre of the first two with
the following argument. As things are, case and mood flexions are
and mood flexions can do
without prepositions and conjunctions, or prepositions and conjunctions can do A^'ithout case and mood terminal. Besides, it is impossible
for flexion to express the immense varierv of relations ^^'hich \x& can
indicate by m.eans of particles. After some wavering bet\\'een a highly
synthetic medium and an analytical one, Leibniz comes out in favor
of the latter. \Mien all this sanitary demolition is over, the only thing
left with the verb is time flexion. Leibniz considers this essential, but
wishes to extend it to adjectives (as in Japanese), to adverbs, and to
nouns. Thus the adjective ridiciihinis would qualify an object \\hich
irill be ridiculous, the noun amavitio \\ould signify the fact of having
loved, and ainatiiritio the disturbing certainty of going to love. Leibniz's next and most revolutionary step is to reduce the number of parts
of speech. Clearly, the adverbs can be merged with adjectives because
they have the same relation to the verb as adjectives have to a noun,
i.e., they qualify its meaning.
useless repetitions of particles. Either case
For reasons sufficiently familiar to readers of The homn (p. 114),

between adjective and substantive is also "of no great importance in a rational language." The only logical diffêrence between
distinction
the
two
is
that the latter implies the idea of substance or existence.
Every substantive is equivalent to an adjective accompanied by the

word Ens (Being) or Kes (Thing). Thus Idem est Homo quod Ens
hiniiannfn (Man is the same thing as Human Being). Similarly (as in
Celtic idiom) every verb can be reduced to the single verb substantive
and an adjective: Fetriis scribit, id est: est scribens (Peter writes,

writing). So the irreducible elements of discourse boil do^\n to
the single noun Ens or Res, the single verb est (is), together wnth a
congeries of adjectival qualifiers and particles which bind the other
to be
i.e., is
()
i:
r.
I.
A N
(.
I, I.
V L A
\ N
(.
457
parts of n statement together hv exposing relations between thcMii. A

complete vocahularv is exhausted \)V a lexicon of roots and a list of
affixes each \\ ith its o\\ n and sharpK defined meaning.
All this tallies with the fruits of research in comparative grammar
two hundred \cars later. I.cihniz was far ahead of his time in other
wavs. lie was ali\e to what .Malinowski calls "the sliding of roots and
meanings from one grammatical category to another" (p. 1I53), and
anticipates Ogden's Basic (p. 4-9) l)\- embarking on an anaUsis of the
particles to ascertain their meaning and the requisite minimum number. He regarded this as a task of the utmost importance, and carried
out w
Xotablv modern
is a shrewd
expanded the
field of reference of prepositions, all of w hich originally had a spatial
significance. Thus we give them a chronological value, w hen we say:
bet-^-ecii the nineteenth and tw entieth centuries,
the future, before
it
ith
particular care.
in this
context
guess. Leibniz, suggests that metaphorical extension has
/'//
1789, etc.
The
projects of Dalgarno and \\'ilkins had this in
others put forward during the eighteenth and the
Thev
common
first
with
half of the
from a preconceived logical system

As late as 1S58 a committee report
of the French Societc hitcrnationale de Linguisti(]ue denounced the
design of an international auxiliary built of bricks taken from natural
nineteenth century.
started
ithout reference to living speech.
languages.
The
reason given
as that all natural languages, classical
and modern, dead and living, are embedded in cultural levels which
modem man had left behind him. A language "clear, simple, easy,
rational, logical, philosophical, rich, harmonious, and elastic enough
to cater for all the needs of future progress" must also be a language
made out of whole cloth.
1 he vogue of a priori languages conceived in these terms is easy to
understand. Language planning w as cradled b\' the needs of a scholar
caste cut off from the common aspirations of ordinary people, w ithout the guidance of a systematic science of comparative linguistics.
Inevitably the movement initiated by Dalgarno and Wilkins .shared
the fate of proposals for number reform put forw ard b\- Alexandrian
mathematicians from Archimedes to Diophantus, Prt)posals for an international language w ith any prospect of success must emerge from
the experience of ordinary men and women, like the Hindu number
system w hich revolutionized mathematics after the eclipse of Alexandrian culture.
Still it is
not
fair to
say that the efforts of Dalgarno, Wilkins, or
458
fruitless. It may well be true that international reform

of scientific nomenclature initiated by the Sy sterna Naturae of Linnaeus \v2ls catalyzed by controversy \\-hich his more ambitious prede-
Leibniz were
cessor provoked.
The movement which came
to a focus in the Sys-
Naturae encouraged revision of chemical terminologv with

results which its author could not have foreseen. It created an international vocabulary of Latin and Greek (p. 246) roots. In a sense,
though unwittingly, revision of chemical terminolosry realized Wilkins's dream of a real character. Modern chemistry has a vocabulary
of ideographic and pictographic symbols for about a quarter of a
million pure substances now known.
tsimi
The
efforts of the catalinguists
were not
stillborn.
They continued
to stimulate other speculations for fully a century. Diderot and
D'Alembert, joint editors of the French Encyclopedie, allotted an

aiticle to the same theme. The author \\-as no less a personage than
Faiguet, Treasurer of France. Its title was Noircelle Laugiie (1765).
Though merely a sketch, it anticipated and outdistanced proposals of
more than a hundred years later. Like his forerunners in England,
Faiguet recognized the wasteful and irrational features common to
Western European languages, and had enough

to notice the analytical drift in the history of his
outcome was
a highly regularized skeleton of
a posteriori language,
one
knowledge
mother tongue. The
historical
grammar
for a universal
common
to, and
draws on, the resources of existing languages. In contrast to Faiguet's
mother tongue, the New Language had no article and no gender con-
cord.
The
adjective
i.e.,
\^-as
\\
hich shares features
to be invariant, as in English, or, as the de-
signer says, a sort of adverb. Case distinction,

in
which has disappeared
nouns of French and other Romance languages, made way for free
use of prepositions.
In
what
last
Faiguet had a far better understanding of

not relevant than the inventor of Esperanto with
all this
is
of a separate object case (p.
because his
ov\"n lauCTuasre grave
is and
dead bal469) and its adjectival plural. Perhaps
him little g-uidance, Faiguet made no
\^-hat
its
very radical suggestions for simplifying the verb system. It was to

consist of a single regular conjugation without personal flexions. This
cleansing of Augean stables was offset by the terminals -a for the
present, -ii for the future, -e for the imperfect, -/ for the perfect, and
-o for the pluperfect. In addition there were three different infinitive
forms (present, past, future), and a subjunctive which was indicated
by an -r added to the indicative. Still, it \\ as not a bad attempt for its
O N K
I.
()
rime. Perhaps Faiguct
he had heen inspired

eccsst)rs he
was
lAirope" w ith
I.
would
l)\"
AN
(.
A C
liavc used the a\c
more
chiert\' at pains to
new means
N G
4)9
energetically
if
provide "the learned academics of
of communication.
Kaiguer did not compile

of language confusion was
vocabulary, and none of
still
aste
his contemand inconvenience
confined to the scholarly few.
not become acute and widespread
till
new impulse
in a
did
It
steam power revolutionized
transport, and the ocean cable annihilated distance.

a
the needs of hvinianitN" at large. Like his pred-
poraries took up the task. Alertness to the
ning received
\ N
P L A
F,
contracting planet.
Language plan-
Where
the single
aim had been to cater to the needs of international scholarship, the

needs of international trade and internationally organized labor became tenfold more clamorous.
Hmnanitarian sentiment reinforced more material considerations.
The inventor of X'olapiik, and many of its ardent advocates, regarded
linguistic differences as fuel for w armongers and hoped that an interlingua w ould help to seal the bonds of brotherhood between nations.
In lifty odd epliemeral auxiliaries m hich cropped up during the sec-
ond
half of the nineteenth centur\', several
common
features emerge.
With few exceptions each was a one-man show, and few of the showmen w ere sufHciently equipped for the task. With one exception they
were continental Europeans bemused by the idiosyncrasies of highly
inflected languages such as
German, Russian, or one of the offshoots
of Latin. Each of them created a language of his
own
image.
They
did
not look beyond the boundaries of Europe. If the inventor was a

Frenchman the product must needs have a subjunctive; and when
the Parisian votaries of \'olapiJk objected to Schleycr's
a, o,
Teutonic brothers in arms took up the defense with

fitting the custody of the Holy Grail of the Nordic Soul.
their
The
and
w,
a zeal be-
nineteenth-century pioneers of language planning did not ap-
hundred millions contrive to live

and die w ithout the consolation of case, tense, and mood distinction,
indeed w ithout any derivative apparatus at all. Why they ignored
Chinese and new hybrid vernaculars such as Bciich-hi-Mar, Creole
French, and Chinook, etc., is easy to understand. What still amazes
us is that they could not profit by the extreme flexional simplicity of
preciate the fact that China's four
English,
ith
its
luxuriant literature, outstanding contributions to
and world-wide imperial status. They had little or no knowledge of the past, and were therefore unable to derive any benefit from
research into the evolution of speech. Almost alone. Grimm saw w hat
science,
^6o
lessons history has to teach.
A few years before
canted his traditional loyalty to
European languages, and
task for
peremptory
Grimm
his death,
re-
flexional vagaries of the older
down the essential prerequisites

The creation of a world-auxiliary
laid
language planning.
telligent
tlie
of inis
not
decisions:
"There is only one way out: to study the path which the human mind
has followed in the development of languages. But in the evolution of all
civilized languages fortuitous interference from outside and unwarranted
arbitrariness have played such a large part that the
achieve
is
to
show up
the danger-rocks
utmost such
study can
which have to be avoided."
Wise words!
VOLAPUK
The first constructed language

read, wrote,
\\hich
and printed was Volapiik
human
beings actually spoke,
inventor \y^s Johann

Martin Schleyer, a German Catholic priest, zealous alike in the cause
of world trade and universal brotherhood. Hence his motto: Menade
hal piiki bal (For one humanity one language). According to his disciples, he knew an amazing number of tongues. If so, he benefited
(
from his learning. It was evidently

from understanding the difficulties of
little
880)
Its
a handicap. It
prevented him
\''olapiik for less gifted lin-
guists.
The new medium
spread very rapidh*, first in Germany, then in

found an able apostle in Auguste Kerckhoffs, Professor of Modern Languages at the Paris High School for Commercial Studies. There was a French Association for the propaoation of
Volapiik, there ^\"ere courses in it and diplomas. Maybe M'ith an eye
on the annual turnover, a famous departmental store, Les Grands
Magasins du Printemps, also espoused the cause. Success in France
encouraged others, especially in the United States. By 1889, the year
of its apogee, \"olapiik had about two hundred thousand adherents,
two dozen publications, supported by three hundred societies and
clubs. Enthusiastic amateurs were not the only people who embraced
the new faith. Academically trained linguists also flirted with it.
France, where
it
\ôlapiik petered out
much
faster than
it
spread.
When
its
partisans
had flocked together in Paris for the third Congress in 1889, the committee had decided to conduct the proceedings exclusively in the new
language. This lighthearted decision, which exposed the inherent difficulties
of learning
it
or using
it,
\\'as its
death knell.
A year later the
niovcnicnr w
;is
()
R s
1.
A \
u A
c.
c;
r:
in full ilisintcgriirioii. \\'h;it
a faiiiilv i|uancl.
p l a n n
c;
precipitated collapse
lather Schle\ cr had constructed the
461
was
grammar of
product with the redundant embellishments of

language. Professor Kerckholls, supported
his proprietarN"
own
()
hi<^hl\' inflected
his
l)\'
spoke up for the plain man and called

for reduction of the frills. In the dispute which ensued. Schlevcr took
the line that N'olapiik was his private propcrtv. As such, no one could
most of the active
amend
It is
it
\'olapiikists,
ithout his consent.
impossible to explain the amazing, though short-lived success
terms of
its
naY\ctc in the design of
it.
of \'olapiik
in
and xocabularv'
suflnces to
intrinsic merits.
expose
guistic progress. Part of the
There was
short analysis of
monstrous
sounds, grammar,
retreat in the natural line of lin-
its
comedy
its
is
that Schleyer had the nerve to
w ith due regard

any merits of German, French, Spanish, and Italian. The vowel
l)attcr\- of Schleyer's phonetic apparatus was made up of a, e, i, o, m,
together with the German a, o, it, of w hich the last is notoriously difficult for English-speaking people to pronounce. In conformity with
his German bias, the consonants included the guttural ch sound. Out
of chivalrous consideration for children, elderK' people, and China's
four hundred million, Schle\"er discarded the r sound in favor of /
(absent in Japanese) and other substitutes. This happened before anyone drew Sch lever's attention to the fact that the Chinese have an r.
By then he had chansfed our Emrlish red or German rot to led. Simiclaim that he had taken spoken F.nglish as his model,
to
becomes
larly rose
In the
lol.
grammar of
\'olapiik the noun, like the noun of German and

Anglo-American or of any Romance language, trailed
case marks with or w ithout the uniform plural -S. In this
unlike that of
behind
w ay
it
jather becomes:
SINGULAR
PLURAL
Noniin.
fat
Ace.
fati
fatis
Gen.
fata
fat as
Dat.
fate
fates
There w
the simple
fats
no grammatical gender. Where sex raised its ugly head

noun form represented the male, which could assimilate
as
the ladxlikc prefix
y/"-,
as in hlod-jihlod (brother-sister)
(dog-birch). The adjective was recognizable as such

e.g. ;rudik'
(tjood). supplemented
by
-el
when used
and do{r-jido^
b\'
the suffix -ik,
as a
noun,
e.g.
4*^2
giidikel (the good man), jigiidikel (the good woman). Gain on the
roundabouts by levehng the personal pronoun (ob = l, c/ = thou,
obs = we, ols = you, etc.) was lost on the swings, because each person
had four cases (e.g. ob, obi, oba, obe). From the possessive adjective
derived from
you got the
the pronoun
by adding the suffix -ik, e.g. obik (my),

pronoun by an additional -el, e.g. obikel
(mine). Conjugation was a bad joke. In what he had to learn about
the vagaries of the Volapiik verb, the Chinese paid a heavy price for
the liquidation of r. Whether there was or was not an independent
subject, the personal pronoun stuck to the verb stem. So jat lojom
literally meant the father love be. There were six tenses, as in Latin,
each of them with its own characteristic vowel prefixed to the stem,
presumably in imitation of the Greek augment:
lofob
possessive
()
r.
i:
R S
()
I.
C,
V A
<;
I".
I>
A \ N
Sclilc\ cr to italici/c the root itself. lie luul to alter
ended
accommodate
wortls
all
4(^)5
(;
which
and
Clerman
sausajTC machine, L'iio'j.-lcii^c emerged as /lol, dijjiculty as fihtil, and
coi?iprniie)it as pVnii, the German wortl I'cld as ft'/, Licbt as lit, and
Wiindc as X7///. The name of the language itself illustrates the difficulties of detection. I'ven geographical names did not escape punishment. Italy, E/i{rlii;u1, and Portugal became Tal, Xclij, and Budiigdn.
Europe changes to Yiilop, and the other four continents to Mclop,
Silop, Fikop, and Talop. Who would guess that \'ol in Volapiik
comes from ii-orld, and pi/k from speech?
The method of word derivation was as fanciful, as illogical, and as
sillv as the maltreatment of roots, hi the manner of the catalanguages,
there was a huge series of pigeonholes, each labeled w ith some aflix.
For instance, the suffix -el denotes bibabitauts of a country or person-agents. So Parisel (Parisian) wore the same costume as initel
(butcher). The suffix -af denoted some animals, e.g. sitplaf (spider),
tiaf (tiger), but lein (lion) and jez-al (horse) were left out in the cold.
The names of birds had the label -/V, e.g. galit (nightingale), the names
of diseases -ip, e.g. vatip (hydropsy), and the names of elements -in,
e.g. ivm; (hydrogen). The prefix ///- produced something ambiguouslv nastv. Thus Im'at (more literalU' dirty "nater) stood f(jr urine.
in a sibilant
(r,
s,
z, etc.)
cvcrv root had to begin and end
\\
to
ith a
the phn-ai
consonant. l-"rom
s;
this
was a Volapiik ii-asp. Schle\er's technique of

compounds of Teutonic length turned the stomachs of his
most devoted French disciples. As a sample, the follow ing is the openLiihien (a nasty bee)
building
ing of Schle\"er"s translation of the Lord's Prayer:
"O
Fat obas, kel binol
Koniomod monargan
We can
in siils,
ola!
paisaludonioz
Jcnomoz
nem
ola!
vil olik, as in siil,
su tal!"
if we assume that
though still uncritical, longing equally acute in
humanitarian and commercial circles. So it was a catastrophe that a
it
understand the success of Wjlapiik only
satisfied a deep,
German
parish priest provided this longing
tion at such a
low technical
ivetes of Xôlapiik
ficial
and
level.
For
ith
ephemeral
long time to
come
satisfac-
the na-
well-deserved collapse discredited the artilanguage movement. Curiously enough it found many disciples
its
in academic circles, including language departments of universities,

always the last refuge of lost causes. The American Philosophical
Society, founded
by Benjamin Franklin, though sympathetic

was not taken in. It appointed
posals for a world-auxiliaPk',
to proa
com-
4^4
mittee in 1887 to assess the merits of Schleycr's interlanguage. In a
very enlightened report the committee formulated principles of

which some should be embodied in anv future constructed worldauxilian". It rejected Volapiik because its grammatical structure turns
back on the analytical drift of all the more modern European languages, and because its vocabulary is not sufficiently international.
The committee suggested the issue of an invitation to all learned
societies of the world with a view to starting an international committee for promoting a universal auxiliary based on an Arsân vocabulary consonant with the "needs of commerce, correspondence, conversation, and science." About two thousand learned bodies accepted
this invitation of Franklin's Society to a Congress to be held in London or Paris. The Philological Societv of London declined the invitation with thanks, for reasons equally fatuous. One was that there was
no common Aryan vocabulary. The other was that \ôlapiik ^âs used
all over the Aôrld. It ^âs therefore too late in the day to offer a substitute.
After the third Congress of 1889, votaries of Xôlapiik washed their

hands of the whole business, or ratted. Many of those who ratted
followed the rising star of Esperanto. Some regained confidence and
continued to tinker with Schleyer's system. Before the final collapse
St. de Max had proffered Bopal (1887), and Bauer Spelin (1888).
Thereafter came Fieweger's Dil (1893), Dormoy's Balta (1893), W.
von Arnim's Veltparl (1896), and Bollack's Langiie Bleiie (1899).
There wevt several other amendments to \''olapuk with the same
basic defects. The stock in trade of all was a battery of monosyllabic
roots, cut to measure from natural languages, and that past human
recognition, or cast in an even less familiar mold from an arbitrary
mixture of vowels and consonants. The root was a solitary monolith
surrounded by concentric stone-circles of superfluous, if exquisitely

There was declension and conjugation of the traditional type, and a luxuriant overgrowth of derivative affixes. The
essential problem of word economy was not in the picture. Indeed,
regular, flexions.
the inventor of La Langue Bleiie (so-called becavise the celestial azure

has
no
frontiers) boasted that 144,139 different ^ôrds
cally possible within the
framework of
Before Volapiik, far better
market
artificial
were
theoreti-
his phonetics.
languages had appeared on the
^îthout attracting enthusiastic follo\\-ers.
One
^âs
Pirro's
Universal-Spracke, a purely a posteriori SA'stem of a very advanced

type. The noun, like the adjective, is invariant. Prepositions take over
P
an\'
1
\ K
()
F.
O F
L A
NG
funcrion which case distinction
he outward and
isihic
sign of
C F
L A
I.
A N N
is
(i
noniinati\e and an ac-
cusati\e form has no sex ditlerentiation in the third person.

\\
number
ithout person or
-t'l/,
with
a future
babcn. Unlike so
-rai, aiid
many
task of designing a
flexions has
compound
simple past w
tenses built
ith
ith
the auxiliary
xocabularw His lexicon consisted of seven thou-
of affixes for derivatives w as small,
them over from
The
\erl)
the sutlix
before and after him, Pirro did not shirk the
sand words, largeU" Latin, hence international, but partK"
The number
^6^
the article or other
left to
languages.
nia\' iccain in natural
number
The personal pronoun with
ileterniinants.
natural languages the\-
l)ut
Teutonic.
since he took
w ere not particularK
precise.
merits of the follow ing specimen of the Uiiiversal-Sprache speak
for themselves:
Men
senior,
sonde evos un graniatik e un varb-bihel de un nuov glot
nonied universal glor. In futur I scriptrai evos semper

evos responden ad nic in dit self glot.
Though
it
in
did glot.
pregate
discouraged some, X'olapiik also stimulated others to
out along new
paths.
More than one
disillusioned
set
\'olapiikist re-
covered to undertake the task which Schlexer had executed with

maladroit results.
One
MiiiidolbigKe (1890).
ex-X'ôlapiik enthusiast, Julius Lott, invented

It
was
neo-Latin language.
well-educated person can quite easily read
it,
as the
moderately
following speci-
men show s:
Amabil amico,
Con grand
satisfaction mi ha Icct tci letter de le niundolinguc. Lc posde un universal lingue pro le civilisat nations ne esse dubitabil, nam
noi ha tot elements pro un tal lingue in nosrri Ungues, sciences, etc.
sibilita
Another language which owed its existence to X'olapuk renegades

was hiioiij Neutral 1903). It was designed by members of the Akademi Intcrnasional de Lingu Universal. This body came into being at
the Second X'olapiik Congress. When it developed heretic doctrines
inventor) unsuccessfully excommunicated the
the great Datircal
rebels. The claim of Idiom Neutral in its ow n time w as that it had a
vocabulary based on the principle of greatest international currencw
The reader who compares Schleyer's version of the opening w ords
(
of the Lord's Pra\er (p. 7) with the following can see

pletely it had grow n apart from \'oIaplik:
Nostr patr
kcl es in
sieli!
Ke
votr
vcni; ke votr volu es fasied, kualc in
nom
cs sanktifiked;
sicl. talc
ct su tor.
how com-
ke votr rcgnia
4<^6
ESPERANTO
The
collapse of Volaplik left the field clear for Esperanto. Espe-
Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, a RussianJew (1859-1917). He put forward his first proposals when
ranto was the child of Dr.

Polish
Father Schlever's invention was
menhof had spent

Poles,
at the
height of
its
popularity. Za-
youth at Bielostock, where Russians,

Germans, and Jews hated and ill-treated one another. Reinhis early
forced by a humanitarian outlook,
young pioneer
lated the
this distasteful
experience stimu-
to reconcile racial antagonisms
people to adopt a neutral
medium
of
common
by getting
understanding. Incu-
He was still at grammar school when

was natural to seek a solution in revival of
one or other of the two classical languages. Slowly Zamenhof learned
to recognize the chaotic superfluity of forms in natural speech. It was
English which opened young Zamenhof 's eyes:
bation was long and painful.
inspiration da\\ned.
So
it
French and German
as a child, and could not then make comdraw conclusions; but when, in the fifth class at the academy,
I began to study English, I was struck by the simplicity of its grammar,
the more so owing to the sudden change from that of Latin and Greek.
I came to see that richness of grammatical forms is only a historical chance
occurrence, and is not necessary for a language. Under the influence of
"I learnt
parisons or
this idea
began to look through
forms, and
it
became
so small as to
not more than
The
my language
and to
cast out unnecessary
grammar melted away in my hands, till

occupy, without any harm to the language itself,
perceived that the

a fe\^'
pages."
grammar did not detain him long; but

when he began to construct a vocabulary. Then it
damned on him that we can make an unlimited number of new words
by means of derivative aflixes added to a single root. The manufacdesign of a simplified
he was held up
ture of suitable afiixes led
notional relations. His
first
him back to Wilkins's theme, analysis of

was to make up his own stock in trade
idea
He
soon realized the difficulty of learning the arbitrary root

forms of Volapiik and began to see that living languages work with
a high proportion of common or international words. A preliminary
Romano-Teutonic lexicon was born of this recognition. In its final
form the project appeared in 1887 under the pseudonym Liugiio biternacia de la Doktoro Esperanto (International Language by Dr.
of roots.
Hopeful).
Unlike Schleyer, Zamenhof sustained
a sensible humility
toward
P
his
own
()
i:
i:
()
L A N G U A G K
creation. lie did not look
upon
it
\ N
I.
ns final.
Ic
NG
4*^7
invited criti-
cism. His intention was to collect, discuss, and jMihlish the objections
raised, then to amend its shortcomings in the light of the findings.
The public ignored Zamenhof's request for s\nipathetic and enlight-
ened criticism. Kspcranto remained unchanged till 1H94, when its

author himself initiated a drastic reform. It found its first adherents
in Czarist
Russia w here the authorities suppressed
ranthto, because
it
published an article
1)\'
its
organ, La Espc-
1 Olstoi.
From
Russia
it
spread to the Scandinavian countries, to Central Europe, thence to
France, where rt had strong support in university circles. In 1905 the

government of the French Republic made Zamenhof an Oflicer of
the Legion iVHoiniej/r. In 1909 H..M. King Alfonso conferred upon
him the honor of Commander in the Order of Isabella the Catholic.
After a brief eclipse during the Great War of 1914-18, the wave of
pacifist sentiment w hich subsequently sw cpt o\ cr the world gave it
new momentum.
We
should accept figures about
its
spread and pf)pularitv, w hen
given bv Esperantists themselves, with the caution
we
should adopt
toward data about the vitality of Erse or Gaelic w hen those w ho

supply them are Celtic enthusiasts. According to a report published
by the General Secretariat of the League of Nations (but based upon
data provided b\' Esperantists), Esperanto could boast of about four
thousand publications, consisting of original works, translations, textbooks, propaganda items, etc. In x'Mbania it became a compulsorv^
subject in secondary and higher education. In China the University
German towns
on the curriculum of police schools. In Great Britain it was
popular in labor colleges, and got some encouragement from such
publicists as Lord Bryce, H. G. Wells, Lord Robert Cecil, and Arthur
Henderson. In the U.S.S.R., the People's Commissariat for Public
Education appointed a commission to examine its claims in January,
1919, and to report on the advisability of teaching an international
language in Soviet schools. The commission decided for Esperanto,
though Zinoviev favored Ido. Five German towns made I'speranto
a compulsor\' subject in primary schools under the Weimar Repubof Peking offered courses. Madrid, Lisbon, and several
placed
lic,
at
it
and the National Esperanto Institute for the
Leipzig received
terior.
many
June
official
trainino-
of teachers
recognition from the .Ministry of the In-
During the winter 1921-22 there were 1,592 courses in Gerthem w orking-class people. On
for about 40,000 adults, half of

8,
1935, the National Socialist .Minister of Education,
Bernhard
4<58
Rust, decreed that to teach Esperanto in the Third Reich was henceforth illegal. The reason he gave was that the use of artificial lan-
guages such
Esperanto ireakens the essential value of national
as
peculiarities.
Esperanto
just failed to gain
support which might have made
tory. In spite of w'ixq pulling and high-grade publicity
his-
management,
promoters were not able to persuade the League of Nations to
its
come out unequivocally

guage. Whether this was
follows. Let us
at its
first
look
Though Esperanto
in favor of its use as the internadonal lan-
uses
may
calamity the reader
all
judge from what
phonetic buildup.
Roman
the letters of the
alphabet except
three (Q, X, X), its aspect is unfamiliar on the printed page. This is
due to its five accented consonants, C, G, ft, J, S, a novelty open to
more than one
criticism,
more
particularly that such symbols
recognition of international roots and slow
The corresponding sounds are

The H (like h in horn) and
ing.
ment.
down
impede
the speed of writ-
com-
equally open to unfavorable

the
(like
ch in Scots loch) are
difficult sounds for people brought up to speak Romance languages.

Other sounds which cause embarrassment to many nationals are rep-
by such combinations as SC (= sts), KC (= kts), and NKC,

funkcio (function). In contradistinction to the practice of Vola-
resented
e.g.
piik,
fixes,
which had end
stress
appropriate to the importance of
the accent of an Esperanto
word
falls
its
suf-
invariably on the
last
syllable but one, e.g. zirbovo (bull).
With many
other
artificial auxiliaries,
Esperanto shares the dubi-
ously useful grammatical trick of labeling each of the "parts of
speech" with
its
the adjective in
own
-a,
trademark.
The noun
the derived adverb in
-e,
singular
must end
the infinitive in
in -o,
~i.
The
once \^hich words

express the main theme of an Esperanto sentence and which merely
official
defense
is
this:
a reader can.
recognize
at
The ubiquitous vocalic endings of Esperanto,

make the spoken language sonorous and prevent
express qualifications.
like those
of
Italian,
accumulation of consonantal clusters ^\'hich are difficult to pronounce, e.g. in English: economists expect spread of slumps throughout
ci-vilized ivorld.
Zamenhof learned nothing from the obHteration of subject-object

distinction in the English and Romance noun. Esperanto has an object
case form ending in -7? both for noims and pronouns, e.g. ni lernas
Esperanton (we are learning Esperanto). Esperantists claim that people who speak or write Esperanto enjoy greater freedom of word
()
F.
i:
()
L A N
(;
U A
C,
P L A
\ X
^^n)
C,
order. And can therefore rcprcxluce rh:u of the inorher tonmic
out making
Ciihbaê,
;;
stnrcmenr unintelligible
w c can
also
.sa\-
is
ith-
riting. If the troat Ciits the
that the cahhaviê eats the goat, because the
of the Esperanto cabbage shows that
object case form
in
it is
harmless.
The Esperanto
also an accusative of direction in the Latin st\le.
mav use the accusati\ e and sav,

Londonon (nom. Londoiio) = am going to London. Ap-
Instead of the preposition al (to) \-ou

e.g.
;///'
iras
parently the Esperanto for our verb go does not sufficicntU' express
locomotion.
To make
e.g.
the plural of an Esperanto
kato (cat)
noun we add
-y
to tiic singular,
katoj (cats), accus. kato/ikatoj/i. There
is
no t^ram-
some reason difiicult to fathom /amenhof

could not break away from the institution of adjectival concord. LI is
adjective has to trail behind it the case and number terminals of the
matical gender, but for
noun,
e.g.
nomin. hela ruzo or obj. belcm rozov (beautiful rose)
Without regard for

sentiment, names of females come from names for males by
helaj rozoj or belctpi rozojii (beautiful roses).
feminist
interpolation of
-/'/;
before the trademark -o of the noun,
patro
e.g.
(father), patrino (mother), ^rato (brother), (ratiiio (sister).
With-
out deliberate deference to feminine sentiment '/amenhof reverses

the process to manufacture the noxel product jraf/lo
\oung man) by analogy with franimo (German
'Lhc Esperanto verb has, like that of most of the

ficial
languages, a single regular conjugation,
ber or person,
(we
write).
It
e.g.
77?/"
skribas (I write),
//"
present indicative,
We have to learn the

-is
more recent
-/
;//
By
-lis
scribas
and mood, and there
is
no
for the infinitive, -as for the
for the past indicatixe, -os for the future,
the subjunctive and imperative, and
arti-
num-
ithout flexion of
skribas (he writes),
sticks to affixation for tense
shortage of them.
(unmarried
t'ldiikiii = .Miss).
for the conditional.
-ii
for
There
it through the different

and then combining it with
the three active participles {mnaiita loving, aiJinua having loved,
avwma going to love), you can manufacture eighteen different compound constructions, and then double the number by substituting
passive participles for the active ones {aiiiata loved, mitita having been
loved, ainote going to be loved).
Zamenhof's vocabulary consists of a collection of arbitrarih" chosen
roots, which grow by addition of about fifty derivati\e prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. The most glaring defect of the Espcrantist stock of
words is that it is not consistentK- international. To be sure. Zamcn-
is
onh- one auxiliary,
tenses
and moods
esti
(to be).
chasing
{estas, estis, estos, etc.)
470
hof did choose some roots which are pan-European. In this category
find atom, aksiojii, tabak, tiialet. He also chose roots which are
we
partially international,
i.e.,
languages. In this class
we
common
meet,
e.g.
to a large
number of European
ankr (anchor),
einajl
(enamel).
These international and semi-international words had to comply with

Zamenhof's sound and spelhng conventions. Thev also had to take
on Esperanto terminals. As often as not they are therefore unrecognizable, or at best difficult to recognize, e.g. kajo (coffee),
(victory), koni (know), kiiri (run).
What
is
venko
worse, they are often
Thus sesono does not mean season, as we might suppose.

means Giie-sixth. So also fosilo stands for a spade, not for a fossil.
Not even the starchy food called sago escaped mutilation. Its rightful
name was changed to sagiio presumably because sago (Latin sagitta)
was badly needed to designate the Esperanto arro%i\
Zamenhof rejected an enormous number of internationally current
words. He dismissed hundreds ending in -ation, -h'lon, and -sion, or
misleading.
It
distorted them, e.g. nacio for nation, nacia for iiational.
large class
of "U'ords in the Esperanto dictionary are not international in any

sense.
To
coax the
susceptibilities of
Germans, or Russians
who do
not or did not then welcome addition of international terms derived
from Latin or Greek roots, Zamenhof included words which add to

Frenchman or a Spaniard without appreciably
lightening the burden for a Dutchman or a Bulgarian. This compromise was responsible for roots such as bedaiir (German bedaiiern
= regret), fliig (German Fhig = flight), knab (German Knabe = boy),
the difficulties of a
kiigl
(German
/C7/_g-<?/
= sphere).
Striking illustrations of Zamenhof's fear of national susceptibility,
and
his desire to
keep an even balance, are the Esperanto words for
dog, year, haii\ and school. For dog, one naturally expects kano {cane
in Italian, cao in Portuguese, chien in
French) corresponding to our
German and Scandinavian sentiSwedish equivalent is ar, German Jahr,
adjective canine. In deference to
ment, it is hundo. For year the

French an, Italian anno, Spanish aiio, Portuguese ano. There is clearly
no agreement between the Romance and the Teutonic word form;
but the root ami-
is
common
to annual (English), annuel (French),
Amialen (German). Zamenhof selected the German form, jar. The

word for hair illustrates the same absurdity. In S\^'edish it is har, German Haar, Italian capello, Spanish cabello, Portuguese cabelo, French
cheveu. Again we have an international root in our technical words
Fig.
45.
Ke.mal Atatlrk Teaching

oi
Turks to Use the Roman Alphabet
Postage Stamp
Reproduced from
stamp kindly
{v.
441)
the
lent by Stanley Gibbons, Ltd.
say that we cannot change people's language habits bv Act of

Parliament. This picture shows it can be done.
Some people
Fig. 46.
.Mongols Learning the Latin
ABC
()
F.
OF
F R S
L A
NG UA
C. F.
or capillarity, corresponding to the
CiTpilhny
A X \
I.
German
47
C;
Kapillar
Zanienhof chose the purciv Teutonic

form bar. One of the most international words in dail\ speech is
school (Latin schola, ItaHan sciiola, French eculc, German Schiile,
Swedish skola). Zamenhof chose lernejo.
vo\\\ such roots as raw materials of his dictionar\', the Esperantist
(Kapillargcfiiss, Kapillaritiit).
new words bv
builds
simple juxtaposition, as in vaporsipo (steam-
bv adding prefixes and suffixes. Some of

come from other lanfruaês \\ ith a native halo of vaijueOthers are w hims of Dr. Zamenhof himself. Thus the prefix bo-
boat), ferz'ojo (railwav), or

the affixes
ness.
signifies relation
suffix -et
-e^r is
is
through marriage,
as in
bopatro (father-in-law), the
diminutive, as in vent eta, breeze (from vento, wind), and
augmentative, as in ventcjô (gale). Even
The
the prefix vial- has never been popular.
would naturallv assume
that
it
means
///
among
the votaries
uninitiated
or bad, as
in
European
manv
interna-
words. In Esperanto lual- denotes the opposite of, hence such

strange bedfello\\s as Tualbona (bad), malaiuiko (enemv), vialfenm
tional
(to open).
The
derivative affixes of Esperanto have a characteristic
absent from other constructed languages.

lives if
protected bv an ending to signifv
suitable for philosophic abstractions.
philosophers
who
indulge in the
They can
a part
This trick
iii-ness
lead their
own
of speech deemed
is
encouraging to
of a one-ship ichich
fills
the
jis-do?n li-ith anti-ty.
Esperanto claims to be an auxiliary which

an international
One
scale,
yet
is
should think that such
human needs on
any natural language.
satisfies
easier to learn than
claim involves existence of
vocabulary
from redundancies and local oddities. The sad truth is that neither
Zamenhof nor his disciples have ever made an intelligent attempt at
rationalization of word material. Unless one is a gourmet, a hortifree
culturist, or a bird
\\
atcher,
it is
difficult to see
whv
a thirty-six-page
English-Esperanto dictionary should be encumbered by entries such

as artichoke = artisoko, artichoke (Jerusalem) = helianto, nightshade
(deadly) = beladono, nightshade (woody) = dolcavmro. In the same
opus nursing of the sick (Esperanto fiegi, from German p fie gen) is
differentiated from nursing of children (Esperanto varti, from German ivarten) when an Esperanto equivalent of to look after would
have covered both. The Key to Esperanto pushes specialization further by listing kiso = kiss, and smaco = noisy kiss. If I shake a bottle
Esperanto calls it skui, but if I shake my friend's hand it is vianpremi.
472
When
chamois leaps into the Esperanto world
but the stuff with which
pound of chamois and
get the dirt off
leather, as
Esperanto fostered several

rise to anxiety.
The year
think,
'
turns into a cmno,
my window
vou might
rival projects,
it
it is
is
not a com-
samo.
and their appearance gave
1900 saw the foundation of the Delegation
of the Adoption of an International Auxiliarv Language. This bodv,

which had the support of leaders in the academic world, including
the chemist Ost\\ald, the philologist Jespersen, the logician Couturat,
approached a large number of scientific bodies and individual men of

science with the suggestion that some competent institution, preferably the International Association of Academies, should take over the
task of pronouncing judgment on rival claimants. The association refused to do so, and the delegation itself eventually appointed a committee wnth this object in 1907. Initially discussion focused on x.\\o
schemes, Esperanto itself and Idiom Nemral (p. 465). The delegates
then received a third proposal under the pseudonym Ido. The author
of this bolt from the blue M'as Louis de Beaufront, till then a leading
French Esperantist. The committee decided in favor of Esperanto
with the proviso that reforms were necessary on the lines suggested
by Ido. The Esperantists ofhciallv refused to collaborate with the
delegation in the work of reform, and the delegation then adopted
the reformed product which took the pseudonvm of its author. In
some wavs Ido is better, but it has the same defective foundations as
Esperanto. It has dropped adjectival concord but retains the accusative form of the noun as an optional device. The accented vowels of
Esperanto have disappeared. The vocabulary of Ido contains a much
higher proportion of Latin roots, and is well-nigh free of Slavonic
ingredients. The roots themselves are less distorted. The system of
derivative affixes has been pruned of some glaring absurdities, but inflated by a fresh battery based on quasi-logical preoccupations. In
place of the six prefixes and twenty-t\\ o suffixes of Esperanto, Ido
has sixteen prefixes and forty suffixes.
There have been other bitter feuds between orthodox Esperantists
and reformist groups. After Ido came Esperantido by Rene de Saussure.
The
three following equivalent sentences illustrate the family
likeness of Esperanto, Ido,

'-^'
'"''
'=:''
'
^--^
.
Per homo vere
-'
'-
and Esperantido:
ESPERANTO
civilizita, filosofo
au
'>
al alia.
...'.,
:','
kono de la latina linguo

per moderna interkomu-
juristo, la
estas dezirebla, sed internacia linguo estas utila
nicado de lando
--'
PIONEERS or LANGUAGE PLAN
N G
47
IDO
Por
homo vcre civil izita, filozofo od vuristo,

ma linguo intcniaciona csas urila por
la
la
dc/.irinda,
dc
Lin
lando
konoco di Latina esas

komunicado niodcrna
al altra.
rsPt.K
Por homo vere
civilizita, filo/.ofo
WTino
or \uristo,
cstas dczirebla, scd intcrnacia linguo estas utila
nicado dcy un lando
la
kono dc
la
latina linguo
por modcrna intcrkomu-
al alia.
INTI KI.INGUA
No
rival
several of
project
successfullv arrested the spread of Esperanto,
its
made
Coming from
converging to
though
competitors were inimeasurablv superior. Everv

for
more
internationalitv of the basic
word
different directions, pioneers of language planning

a single focus.
Some
resentatives of the Aryan famihnumber of them, and inevitably
new
material.
were
searched the living European rep-
for terms
common
to the greatest
arrived at a vocabulary essentially
Others took the outcome for granted, and went

and straw. A third
group extracted from classical Latin what remains alive, i.e., its vocabular\% and discarded \\ hat is dead, i.e., its grammar. The most interesting, and till now the most enlightened, attempt to modernize Latin
I>atin in its character.
straight to the neo-Latin languages for bricks
is
Lathio sine Flexione {Ivtcrliiiîia), devised by the Italian mathe-
matician, Giuseppe Peano. In
Academia pro
became Director of the

Akademi de Lingu Universal,
1908 Peano
Interlingua, formerly the
and at a still earlier stage in its career, the Kadem bevimetik \'olapiika,
founded by the second and third \ôlapuk Congress. The Academia
was a meeting ground for people interested in applied linguistics. i\ny
enthusiast could join and contribute to its organ in any artificial language which his fellow travelers could easily understand. The aim
was to discover \\ hat is most international among the existing welter
of European languages.
Since 1903 Peano had been publishing his research in a simplified
form of Latin. He did not know that Leibniz (p. 456) had proposed
something similar, till one of his pupils came across the German philosopher's observations on rational grammar and a universal language.
On January 3, 1908, Peano did something quite unprofessorial. He
read a paper to the Academia dellc Scicnze di Torino. It began in conventional Latin and ended in Peanese. Citing Leibniz, he emphasized
474
the superfluities of Latin grammar.
As he
discussed and justified each
innovation he advocated, he incorporated
course forthM
Grammar-book
ith.
it
in the
idiom of
his dis-
Latin underwent a metamorphosis
on the spot. What emerged from the chrvsahs was a language which
any well-educated European can read at first sight.
Interlingua aims at a vocabulary of Latin elements which enjoy
M'idest currency in the living European languages of today. It therefore includes all words with which Me ourselves are already familiar,
together with latini:;jed Greek stems \\hich have contributed to international terminology.
from some other
Of
itself this
auxiliaries.
does not distinguish Interlingua
Five out of
six
words
Esperanto
in the
dictionary have roots taken from Latin, directly or indirectly.
Latin bias of Ido, Occidental, or Romanal

tinguishes Interlingua
is
from Esperanto and
What
even stronoer.
its
relatives
The
dis-
the garb
is
which the international root word \\ears. In Zamenhof's scheme the

borrowed word had to conform with the author's ideas about spelland flexional appendices. After clipping and addend product often defies recognition on an international scale.
Peano followed a difiêrent plan. He did not mutilate his pickings. The
Latin word has the stem form, that is, roughly the form in which mc
ing, pronunciation,
ing, the
meet
it
modem
in
What Peano
is
languages.
regards as the stem of a noun, adjective, or pronoun
the ablative (p. 314) form, e.g. argeiito, campo, arte, came, moiite,
Every one of these words

and Portuguese. We ourselves are familiar
argentine, camp, artist, carnivorous, 7)ioiintain, part,
parte, plebe, principe, celebre, aiidace, novo.
occurs in
Italian, Spanish,
with them
in:
plebeian, principal, celebrity, audacious, novelty.
words preserve
is
their final vowels.
The stem form
\r\
this
the Latin imperative, or the infinitive without -re. So
(amare), babe {habere), scribe

terlingua has
710
(s crib ere),
audi
way
Latin
of the Peano verb
we
(at (dire),
get avia
(ire). In-
mobile derivative affixes to juggle with. It is wholly

we might almost add, Anglo-American.
analytical, like Chinese or,
What
loan
prefixes
and
word with
suffixes
all
remain stick firmly to the Latin or Greek

and
their diversity of meaning, contradictions,
obscurities in English, French, or Spanish usage.
The grammar
Its supreme
miniimim graimiiar
is no gravnnar at all. No pioneer of language planning has been more
iconoclastic toward the irrelevancies of number, gender, tense, and
mood. It is Chinese with Latin roots, but because the roots are Latin
virtue
is its
of Interlingua will not delay us long.
modesty. In Peano's
own
\\'ords, the
()
i:
(or Greek) there

labels
bv
A \ G U A G
()
is
no
surfeit of
I.
F.
P L A
N \
ambiguous homophones.
(;
475
W'iiat Latin
several different genitive case marks, Intcriingua binds to-
gether with the "empty"
word
de, equivalent to
our word
of.
Thus
Latin z'ox popiili, vox dci, becomes voce de popitlo, voce dc Deo.
Number indication is optioihiK an innovation which no future plan-
ner can ignore.
What
is
now
familiar to the reader of
The Loom,
Peano Hrst grasped. He saw that number and tense intrude in situations where thcv are irrelevant, and we become slaves of their existence. Whether we hke it or not, we have to use two irrelevant
Anirlo-American flexions w hen we say: there were three lies in yesis redundant because the number
terday's broadcast. The plural
three comes before the noun. The past ivere is irrelevant because
w hat happened yesterday is over and done with. Interlingua reserves
the optional and international plural affix -s (Latin ?natres, Greek
mcteres, French meres, Spanish viadres, Dutch moedres) for situations in which there is no qualifier equivalent to many, several, etc.,
i'
or nothing
= patre
in the
hate
context to specify plurality,
filios,
but three sons
e.g.
= tres filio. It
is
the father has sons
almost an insult to
Peano 's genius to add that Interlingua has no gender apparatus or that
the adjective is invariant. If sex is relevant to the situation, we add
?j/as for the male, and feniina for the female, e.g. cane femina = a bitch.
There is no article, definite or indefinite. The distinction / 7//e, he
/.////,
etc.,
w hich almost
all
Peano's predecessors preserved, dies an
overdue death. Me stands for / and me, illo for he and hi7?i.
Demolition of the verb edifice is equally thorough. There are no
flexions of person or number. Thus me habe = I have, te habe = you
have, Jios habe = wc have. There is also no obligatory tense distinction. This is in line with the analytical drift of modern European
languages (cf. especially Afrikaans, p. 282) which rely on helpers or
particles to express time or aspect.
escaped yesterday
when we
is
redundant.
The
We
-ed like the
-s in
tivo rabbits
have no need for either of them
say: tivo sheep hurt theif/selves yesterday.
BE
The
Interlinguist
London), hodie illos es

says heri me es in London
in
Neiv York (tomorrow
in
Paris),
eras
te
es
in Paris (today they BE
to
tense
is on all fours with his
Peano's
attitude
New
York).
vou BE in
attitude to number. Where explicit particles, or context do not al(yesterday
in
ready specify past time, the helper e before the verb does so. Similarly
/ (from ire) indicates the future as in the French construction je vais
vte coiicher (I am going to bed). Thus the Interlinguist says me i bibe
=
am going
to drink, or 7ne e bibe =
drank.
47<^
Though one of the most attractive projects yet designed, Peano's

Interhngua has several weak points. Some of them spring from the
fact that its author had his eyes glued on the European mise-en-scene,
and more particularly, on the cultural hierarchy. So he never asked
himself \\'hether Interlingua was free from sounds likely to cause
difficulties to linguistic communities outside Europe. There is another
grave but easily remediable omission. A completely flexionless lanffuasre such as Interlingua calls for ricrid rules of word order. Peano
D
D
bothered little about the necessary traffic regulations. The capital
weakness of Interlingua is that its vocabulary is too large. Its author
ignored the interests of the peoples of x\frica and Asia, as he also ignored the plain man in Europe. Had he had more sympathy with their
needs he would have worked out a miniminn vocabulary sufficient for
everyday purposes. He did not. The 191 5 edition of Peano's Vocabiilario Commune contains fourteen thousand words which have currency in leading European languages. Here is a sample of Interlingua:
CO
Televisione, aut transmissione de imagines ad distantia, es ultimo appHcatione de undas electrico. In die 8 februario 1928, imagines de tres
in
Long Acre apud London
es transmisso
ad Hartsdale apud
uno piano, de 5 per 8 centimetre, ubi

London ad move, aperi ore, etc.
et es recepto super
facies in
homine
New
York,
assistentes vide
NOVL\L
Bacon has
human
life
said that the true
with
and lawful goal of science
new powers and
inventions.
Throughout
is
to
his
endow
long and
distinguished career (i 860-1 943), the great Danish linguist Jespersen

had the courage and originality to emphasize that philology has the
same "true and lawful goal" as any other science. As a young man he
espoused in turn Volapiik and Esperanto. Later he helped to shape
Ido. In 1928 he put forward a project of his own making, but like
many
other Esperanto renegades did not succeed in shedding the
larval skin of his highly inflected past.
Novial
is
the latest arrival.
ning. Naturally,
it is
It is
He
not the
called
last
it
word
Novial.
in
language plan-
better than Esperanto or Ido. Because
advantage of coming
it
had the
could scarcely be otherwise. Besides,

Jespersen was the greatest living authority on English grammar. It
would be surprising if a constructive linguist failed to recognize the
cardinal virtues of a language so dear to him. What Jespersen calls the
best type of international language is one: which in every point offers
later, it
PIONEERS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING

the greatest facility to the greatest vimiber.
When
477
he speaks of the
Europeans ajid those inhabitants of

the other continents li'ho are either of European extraction or ivhose
culture is based on European civilization. This sufHcicntly explains
\\ hv Novial retains so manv luxuries common to Western European
greatest
number he
refers only to
languages.
For instance, the Novial adjective has

endinsf in -uin.
From what
is
a conceptual neuter form,
otherwise the invariant vcr
we
get
which means true thing. In defiance of decent thrift, Novial

has two ways of expressing possessive relations, an analytical one by
means of the particle de, and a synthetic by means of the ending -//.
veruiru
Thus Men patron kontore
is
Novial
for:
my
{mine) father's
office.
conforms to the analytical technique of Anglo-American. This at least is an enormous advance upon
Esperanto, Russian, Lithuanian, and other difficult languages; but is
Jespersen's treatment of the verb
not particularly impressive
if
wc
apply the yardstick of Pekingese or
Peanese. Future and conditi(^nal are expressed
by
the auxiliaries sal
and vud, perfect and pluperfect by the auxiliaries ha and had. Novial
departs from English usage in one particular. The dictionary form
does the \\ork of our past participle in compound past tenses, e.g. me
protekte, I protect, 7/ie ha protekte, I have protected, me had protekte. This recalls the class of English verbs to which cut, put, or
hurt belong.
What
simplification results
superfluous existence of
two
\\
from
this
is
nullified
by the
ays of expressing past time, a synthetic
one which ends in the Teutonic weak -d, e.g. vie protekted (I protected), and an analytical one involving an equivalent nonemphatic
Chaucerian helper did, e.g. me did protekte. There are no flexions of
mood; but the student of Novial has to learn how to shunt tense forms
appropriate to indirect speech.
bulky apparatus of derivative affixes

forms which exist in contemporary European languages; but Jespersen was at pains to give each
a clear-cut meaning. There are many \\himsicalities in the choice of
them. A special suffix denotes action, another indicates the result of
an action, and a third is for use zi-hen the product of the action is specially meant, as distinct from the u:ay in ivhich it is done. (Got it?)
In the list of prefixes we meet an old acquaintance, the Esperanto bo-.
This indicates relation by marriage, e.g. bopatro (father-in-law),
bomatra (mother-in-law), bofilia (daughter-in-law). How long the
mother-in-law will continue to be a menace to monogamy, or how
Like Esperanto, Novial has
for coininij
new words. They
recall
47^
long monogamy will continue to be the prevailing mores of civilized

communities, we cannot say. Meanwhile it is just as easy to make a
joke about the analytical English or Chinese equivalent of Jespersen's
bomatra.
In building up his vocabulary Jespersen aimed at choosing the most
international words. Since there are
many
things and notions for
which there are no full-fledged international (i.e., European) terms

Jespersen embraced the eclecticism of his predecessors. The result is
a mongrel pup. The following story illustrates its hybrid character:
Da G. Bernard Shaw.
Un
amiko de me kel had studia spesialim okulali kirurgia, examinad in

un vespre men vidpovo e informad me ke lum esed totim non-interessant
a lo, pro ke lum esed "normal." Me naturim kredad ke turn signifikad
ke lum esed simil a omni altren; ma lo refusad ti interpretatione kom
paradoxal, e hastosim explicad a
me
ke
me
esed optikalim exeptional e
pro ke "normali" vide donad li povo tu vida koses

akuratim e ke nor dek pro sent del popule posesed to povo, konter ke li
restanti ninanti pro sent esed non-normal. Me instantim deskovrad li
explikatione de men, non-sukseso kom roman-autore. Men mental okule
kom men korporal okule esed "normal"; lum vidad koses altriman kam
li okules de altri homes, e vidad les plu bonim.
(Traduktet kun permisione de autore.)
tre fortunosi persone,
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN REACTION

J. Henderson, who published two proand Latinesce a few years later, none of the
promoters of constructed languages during the nineteenth century
were American or British. With few exceptions, no Continental
linguists of the nineteenth century, and none of the leaders of the
world-auxiliary movement, recognized the fact that one existing
language, that of the largest civilized speech community, is free from
several defects common to all outstanding projects for an artificial
With one
exception, G.
posals, h'mgiici in 1888
medium, before the publication of Peano's biterlmgna.

This is not altogether surprising. Because English spelling teems
with irregularities, and still more because of the vast resources of its
hybrid vocabulary^ learning English is not an easy task for anyone
who aims to get a nj:ide reading knoivledge. So academic linguists
trained in sedentary pursuits overlooked the astonishing ease with
which
;i
O N
1.
K R S
C)
beginner can get
Anierican intcrlanguage
C. K.
Ogden and
L A N G
F
a
U AG E
P L A N N
good working knowledge of
as a vehicle
his colleague,
I.
479
(;
the Angh)-
of unpretentious sclf-cxprcssioii.
A. Richards, arc largely responsible
grow ing recognition of the merits which won high tribute

from Grimm. Ot^den and Richards chose Anglo-American usage as
rhe case material of The Mcaniir^ of Meaning, a handbook of modern logic. What began as an academic examination of how we defijie
things, led one of the authors into a more spacious domain. Hitherto
for the
we had thought of English as the laniûaoe with the large dictionary.

Ogden's work has taught us to recognize its extreme li-ord economy.
To resolve this paradox the reader needs to know the problem
w hich Ogden and Richards discuss in their book. Latent in the theme
The Meaning
of
a[)solute
of
Meaning
is
the following question:
vnnivnmi ninuher of iionis
to give an intelligible definition of
all
-a-e
need to
other words
what
retain,
if
is
the
we
are
Webster's or
about eight hundred, or bein
Oxford Dictionary.' The answer is,

tween two and three months' work for anyone willing to memorize
tzvelve new words a da\'. This great potential word economy of
Anglo-American is due to the ii-itheriiig a^jsay of "word forms dictated
by context ii'ithoiit regard to ineaning. We have had many examples
of this process, especialK' in Chapters III, IV, and \'II. Our natural
interlanguage has shed redundant contextual distinctions between
particles and between transitive and intransitive verbs. We can now
do w ithout a battery of about four hundred special verb forms which
are almost essential to ordinar\- self-expression in French or German.
This is not disputed by critics who carp at the absence of names for
everyday objects in Ogden's 850 Basic Word List, and it is not necessary to remind readers of The Loom that Anglo-American has another supreme merit w hich pioneers of language planning, other than
the great linguist Henry Sweet, were slow to realize.
Academic British grammarians, with few notable exceptions such
the
as
Bradley, have always been apologetic about the flexional "pov-
erty" of English, and disposed to fondle any surviving flexions they
could
fish
up. In fact, there are only three surviving obligatory
which we need to add to our items for a serviceable vocabulary of new words: (a) -s for the third person singular of the
present tense, or for the plural form of the noun, {b) -d or -ed for the
past tense or participle of verbs, (c) -ing, which can be tacked on to
almost any word which signifies an action or process. The genitive -s
flexions
480
is
and -est of essential comparatives or superseven forms of the verb be, four or five forms of a itw
optional, as are the -er
latives.
The
not more than a dozen
common
strong verbs, and half a dozen

irregular noun plurals, round up the essentials of Anglo-American
grammar other than rules of word order.

Thus the essential grammar of Anglo-American is much simpler
than that of the onlv two artificial languages which have hitherto
attracted a considerable popular following. The language itself is the
most cosmopolitan medium of civilized intercourse, and it can boast
of a copious literature produced at low cost. It is the exclusive Western vehicle of commercial transactions in the Far East, and the common tongue of business enterprise on the American continent. It is
also a lingua franca for the publication of a large
bulk of
scientific
research carried on in Scandinavia. Japan, China, and in countries
other than France, Germany, or Italy. For

auxiliary
movement
all
these and for other
promote Anglo-American as a Morldhas eclipsed the enthusiasms with which former generations
reasons, the
to
espoused proposals for constructed languages.
Whatever
everyone
O^den's system of Basic English,

problem must acauthor for clarifying the problem of word
fate has in store for
who
is
interested in the interlanguage
knowledge a debt to its

economy and specifying the
principles for
a satisfactory world-auxiliarv.
What
his particular solution of the
problem
is
making the dictionary of

is whether
not beyond dispute

is
the best one.
To
avoid the
vocabulary with separate verbs, Ogden takes advantage of the enormous number of distinctive elements \\-hich can be
replaced by one of about sixteen common English verbs in combination with other essential words. Thus we can make the following
combinations with go follo^êd by a directive:
inflation of a basic
go around (circumscribe, encircle, surround); go across (traverse); go

aivay (depart); go after (follow, pursue); go again (return); go against
(attack); go before (precede); go Z'r (pass); go down (descend); go for
(fetch); go in (enter); go on (continue); go out (leave); go through
(penetrate); go to (visit); go up (ascend); go n-ith (fit, suit, accompany).
We can also manufacture many verb equivalents by combining

some common English verbs with nouns or adjectives, in accordance
with the precedent of Bible English: make clean, 77iake zvet, make
ii'hole,
viake
ivell, 77iake a fire of, 777ake a fuss
about, 77iake trouble.
C)
i:
O F
I,
A N G U A G E
Reliance on such conihinations
cuHar to Basic Enghsh.
The
co7/fL\ go, get, give, keep,
let,
the
is
Basic
I.
X X
X (
48
method of verb economy pe-
Word
List contains only the verbs:
vhike, put, seem, take, be, do, have, say,
may, ivill. It is possible to say an\thing in effective Knglish

w hich does not offend accepted conventions of grammar w ithoiit introducing any verbs not included in this list.
We could make any language more easy to learn by lopping off its
useless flexions and regularizing those which are useful, and if we
deprived French of its preposterous encumbrance of personal flexions
(50 per cent iiiipronowiced) and the still more preposterous burden
of gender or number concord, Frenchmen might still decipher the
product, as we can decipher pidgin English. It is doubtful whether
this would help a foreigner to read French books, and the great
see, send,
practical advantage of a living, in contradistinction to a constVucted,
ianouatje
is
the amenity of cheap books already available. Besides,
Frenchman would agree
to learn a mutilated
form of
his
own
no
lan-
communication.
Uuajje as an auxiliary for peaceful
which Ogden aims. Spelling reform or simplification of Anglo-American grammar, beyond the elimination of
optional survivals for which accepted isolating constructions already
exist, would lead to something different from the Anglo-American in
w hich millions of cheaply produced books come out yearly. So
Ooden accepts all the few obligatory flexions and irregularities inThis
is
not the result
at
herent in correct usage and rejects only those
(e.g. the optional geni-
which we need not use. He has proved his claims for Basic as a
means of self-expression by translating technical works and narratives for educational use into a terse idiom which is not unpleasing
to most of us. The prose style of J. B. S. Haldane is often almost
pure Basic. Basic is not essentially a different sort of English from
Anolo-American as we usually understand the term. It would be
better to describe it as a system by which a beginner can learn to extive)
press himself clearly and correctly according to accepted standards
with no more effort than learning
The
recently published
New
constructed language
Testament
refutation of the criticism that Basic

list
is
in Basic
is
a pidgin English.
entails.
a sufficient
The word
of the Basic New^ Testament contains some special Bible words
w hich make the total up to a round thousand. The following is a fair

sample for comparison with the King James (Authorized) Bible
{Mark X. 2 1-24 and Acts iv. 32):
482
KING JAMES BIBLE
Then
him loved
Jesus beholding
him, and said unto him,
thou lackest: go thy way,
One
thing
sell
what-
soever thou hast, and give to the

poor, and thou shalt have treasure
and come, take up the

and follow me. And he was
sad at that saying, and went away
grieved: for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked round
about, and saith unto his disciples.
How hardly shall they that have
in heaven:
cross,
kingdom
riches enter into the
God! And
of
the disciples were aston-
NEW TESTAMENT
BASIC
And
on him, and
is one thing
needed: go, get money for your
goods, and give it to the poor, and
you will have wealth in heaven:
and come with me. But his face
became sad at the saying, and he
went away sorrowing: for he was
one who had much property. And
Jesus, looking round about, said to
Jesus, looking
loving him, said, There
his
How hard it is for

have wealth to come
disciples.
who
those
kingdom of God! And the

were full of wonder at his
But Jesus said to them again.
into the
disciples
ished at his words. But Jesus an-
\\'ords.
swereth again, and saith unto them.

Children, how hard is it for them
who
that trust in riches to enter into the
into the
how hard it is for those

put faith in wealth to come
Children,
kingdom of God!
kingdom of God!
And
them
the multitude of
that
believed were of one heart and one
any of them that

ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had
Neither
all
things common.
was there any among them that
lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them,
and brought the prices of the things
that were sold, and laid them down
at the apostles' feet: and distribution Mas made unto every man according as he had need.
soul: neither said
all those who were of the

were one in heart and soul:
and not one of them said that any
of the things which he had was his
And
faith
property only; but they had

things
in
common.
all
And no
one among them was in need; for

everyone who had land or houses,
exchanging them for money, took
the price of them, and put it at the
feet of the Apostles for distribution
to
everyone
Some
as
he had need.
critics of Basic will say that it is tainted with the philosophipreoccupations of Wilkins, Leibniz, and Bentham the armchair
yie\y that the main business of language is to "transmit ideas." To be
cal
sure, transmission of ideas
is
an unnecessarily charitable description
of the everyday speech of people \\ho have to eat, dress,

rettes,
pay
rent, mate, or excrete.
Admittedly
buy
ciga-
a large part of the
daily intercourse of intellectuals themselves deals with situations in
(1
r.
i:
()
A N
I.
(;
u ag
p l a
v.
x n
(;
483
w liich it is not convenient to define a beefsteak as a cut from tlic hack

end of a male cow kept on the fire long enough with the right things
and so forth. Advocates of Basic mav reasonably rcplv that this
concern for our common humanit\' is spurious, that early training by
tlie method of definition would do much to raise the general intellectual level of mankind, and that the main thing for the beginner is
to get self-confidence as soon as possible, at the risk of a little long-
\\
indedness.
The
focus of intelligent criticism
w hich Ogden has chosen. His
is
the
critics point
form of verb economy

out that those
who have
used Basic idiom as a substitute for the more usual t\pe of Anglo-
American in examples such as those cited above already know English

and have no doubt about the meaning of such combinations as get for
or go xvith. Is the correct idiomatic construction for the verb of
another language equally obvious, if we do not already know English? Is it certain that a foreigner will deduce from its hteral meaning
the idiomatic verb in the sentence Martha had her hands full of the
ivork of the house? This difficult\- comes out in three w ays of translating into Basic idiom each of the highly indefinite native verbs {a)
try, (b) ask:
a) attempt
= put to the test
judge
= be the judge of
b) question
Though
request,
= put a question
make
at
about
request
request
invite
= give an invitation
quite correct English to put a qitesttov and viake a
it is
it is
=niake an attempt
test
difficult to see
w hy
Chinese should prefer these forms
to ?fmking a question or putting a request. Indeed the Chinese
be
at
home
attempt,
in his native
test,
idiom
if
judge, request, question can
nouns, and that
we
would
he took advantage of the fact that

all
be used
as
verbs or
when we imvte
of English word
request the presence of a person
him. By exploiting this most remarkable

economy it would be easy to devise a word
feature
list
no longer than that of
the official Basic 850 without recourse to this bewildering multiplicity of idioms.
We
which can be verb
{to purchase),
tive (purchase price),
w hen we have
a few words such as purchase,

noun (the purchase of), or adjec-
could also include
without such periphrases
as
give
money
to refer to an activity of daily occurrence.
This
for
way
484
of solving the problem of verb

Basic construction
It
economv has another

The Chinese trick
long-^\inded.
is
advantage.
is
The
snappv.
goes without saying that any attempt to simplify Anglo-
American
the framework of generally accepted conventions

welcome where there is continuous contact between Brit-
\\-ithin
has a ready
ish administrators
and Oriental or African populations with
titude of local vernaculars.
Owin^
to the influence of
mul-
American trade
and medicine, and to that of American universities and philanthropic

foundations in the Far East, the influence of their
common
lanCTuaije
extends far beyond the bounds of the British Empire or the United
States. As a lingua franca in China and Japan, it has no formidable
European competitor. Esperanto or any form of rehabilitated Ar\'an
would have no prospect of outstripping Anglo-American unless it
first
by general agreement as the official medium of

more than one respect Esperanto is inferior, and
established itself
a United Europe. In
none superior, to English. With its wealth of flexions it limps far

behind several European languages; and it would be a bold boast to
say that its vocabulary is more international than that of Enghsh.
in
There
is
already a large educational publishing clientele for pro-
promoting the use of Anglo-American as the

backward and subject communities. Basic is not the only proposal of this sort. From Toronto
comes West's method. This is based on word counts, and presumably,
therefore, aims to cater for the needs of those whose immediate goal
is rapid progress in reading facihty. Miss Elaine Swensen of the Language Research Institute at Ne^' York University has devised another system, H. E. Palmer of the Institute for Research in English
Teaching in Tokio a third (Iret). In Ainerican Speech (1934), Dr.
Jane Rankin Aiken has put forward Little English, with an essential
vocabulary of eight hundred words, i.e., fifty less than Basic. Others
exist and will come.
posals ^\hich
aim
at
lingua franca of technology and trade in
THE PROSPECTS FOR LANGUAGE PLANNESTG
The
first
desideratum of an interlanguage
people can learn
it.
If
we
apply
is
which
two con-
the ease with
this test to rival claimants,
emerge from our narrative. One may well doubt \\hether

any constructed language with the support of a mass movement is
superior to Anglo-American, especially if we consider the needs of
clusions
O N
F.
O F
K R S
I.
A N G
the Far East or of the awakening

time,
UAG E
N N
P L A
millions of Africa.
485
At the same
would be easv to devise an artificial language \ asth' superior

bv taking full advantage of neglected lessons
it
to Antjlo- American
from comparatix c linguistics and of the shortcomings of our predesame endeavor. If historical circumstances favor the
adoption of a living one as a world language, Anglo-American has
no dangerous rival; and practical reasons which make people prefer
Anglo-American to any artificial interlanguage, however w iscK'
conceived, will inevitably check an\- bid to supersede the AngloAmerican dictionary. Simplified English, whether Basic or ret,
Swensen or Aiken not to mention more to come can scarcely
aspire to be other than a passport to the more ample territor\- of the
great English-speaking community, and a safe-conduct to its rich
cessors in the
treasury of technical literature.
To
these conclusions
interlanguage
sw
amp
the claims of
a neutral
it is
reasonable to add another.
movement sponsored bv voluntary

Anglo-American
in
constructed language stand or
Europe united by
No
artificial
can hope to
the East. Thus our hopes for
fall
effort
ith the
prospects for a
democratic constitution based on intelligent prevision of linguistic problems which democratic co-operation must
surmount. The choice before us may be settled for many decades to
come bv
historical circumstances
historical circumstances
over w hich
do allow us to
cast
we have no control. If
our vote, it will be su-
premely important to recognize the implications of a decision in

favor of Anglo-American or of a new start in language planning.
If advocates of constructed languages have been peculiarly blind
to the intrinsic merits of Anglo-American, those who champion its
claims as a world-auxiliary have been equally deaf to its extrinsic
disabilities. Thouijh Anglo-American is not a national language, it is
not
politically
language.
neutral
English-speaking people attempts to

united Europe,
its
all
ill
perpetuate
munity enjoys
a larger
use will
the discords
victorious alliance of the

it
the official
in a
medium
of a
the British nation a Herrenvolk.
w hich
arise
It
when one speech com-
a privileged position in the cultural
and
social life of
only one basis of equality on which nations

peaceful w orld order without the frictions w hich
group. There
can co-operate
make
If
make
is
from linguistic differences. A new European order, or a newworld order in which no nation enjoys favored treatment will be one
arise
in
w hich every
citizen
is
bilingual, as
Welsh or South African
chil-
486
dren are brought up to be bilingual. The common language of European or \vorld citizenship must be the birthright of everyone, because
the birthright of no one.
History has not yet given

stall disasters
its
verdict. It
may
not be too
of a maladroit decision. For that reason the
late to forelast
chapter
The Loo7n
of Language will deal with principles which must

dictate a wholly satisfactory solution of the world-language prob-
of
lem.
Whatever
final
decision blind fate or intelligent prescience
imposes on the future of the most widely distributed and the only talk-
much is clear. The efforts of the piowork of men like Ogden will not
Ogden's principle of word economy must
ing animal on this planet, this
neers of language planning and the
have been for nothing.
influence the design of any satisfactory artificial language of the

future.
Some
features of the later interlanguages, such as Jespersen's
and Peano's, will inevitably influence the teaching of AngloAmerican, if it is destined to be the auxiliary language of the \\hole
world.
FURTHER READING
couTURAT
GUERARD
Histoire de
JESPERSEN
An hiternational Language.
Word Econoviy.
la
langue iiniverselle.
Short History of the International Language
Movement.
LOCKHART
OGDEN
PAXKHURST
RICHARDS
Basic English versus Artificial Languages.
Delphos or the Future of Language.

Basic English and Its Uses.
CHAPTER
XII
Language Planning
New
for a
Order*
I
As far as \\e can see into the future, there \\ ill always be a multiplicity
of regional languages for everyday use. Those who advocate the
introduction of an international medium do not dispute this. What
is the need for a second language as a common medium
ho speak mutually unintelligible tongues. They envisage
a \\ orld, or at least federations of \\ hat were once sovereign states,
where people of different speech communities would be bilingual.
Everyone would still grow up to speak one or other of existing national languages, but everyone would also acquire a single auxiliary
for supranational communication. This prospect is not incompatible
they do assert
for people
\\
with the mental capacities of ordinary human beings; nor does

involve a total break wxxh, existing practice. Bilingualism exists
ready
in
it
al-
Wales, Belgium, South Africa, and many other parts.

the English-speaking world all secondary-school chil-
Throughout
dren study
at least
German; and
in
one foreign language, that is, French, Spanish, or

pupils \\ ho leave school with a smat-
some countries
tering of a foreign language are in the majority.
Most of the children enter the labor market

know ledge of no language other than their o\\ n. Consequently
In Britain they are not.
with
from direct communication

Postponement of the school-leaving
millions of adult workers are excluded
w ith
their Continental comrades.
age will provide an opportunity for bringing the curriculum for elementary instruction in Britain into line with that of many other countries.
Thus
the adoption of an international auxiliar\' implies no
than regularization of existing educational practice,
The views
i.e.,
more
universal in-
chapter are the outcome of joint discussion

The latter has attempted to give them shape
in a project, I/iterglossa, published recentK' bv Penguin Books Ltd.
expressed
in
between the author and the
this
editor.
4^8
struction in a second language and agreement to use one and the

same second language everywhere. Creation of conditions for uniformity of educational practice by international agreement, as a
prelude to universal bilingualism,
as defined above, is not a language

problem.
Many \^-ell-informed people still doubt whether the social need for
single universal second language will prove strong enough to over-
problem.
a
ride
It is a political
human
laziness.
At
first
sight the plight of
modern language
teaching in Great Britain and elsewhere lends some support to pessi-
mism. Hitherto our schools have produced poor results. After years
of travail the British public-school product may have mastered enough
French to get in Paris what Paris is only too willing to sell \\'ithout
French. This need not make us hopeless. Any society ripe for adopting an interlanguage will be faced with a new set of problems. Pupils
A\ho now take French or German as school subjects rarely have a
clear-cut idea of the purpose for \\hich they are learning them and,
more rarely still, the chance of using what kno^^'ledge they acquire.
The future is likely to provide incentives and opportunities hitherto
unknown. Fantastic delays, misunderstandings and A^'aste due to the
absence of
a single
will impress
common language for international co-operation

who are not knowingly affected by it at
even those
present.
A hundred
years ago, Europe witnessed perhaps less than a dozen
international congresses in the course of a \^hole decade. Delegates
were invariably drawn from the upper
class.
So communication was
easy enough. Deliberations ^\ere in French. \^'hen international congresses
became more numerous, they assumed
more gaudy
linguistic
character. Consequently procedure had often to be conducted in
or more "officiar" languages.

able to
One could choose
delegates
compete with the polyglot attendant of an international
ing car, but the delegate with the best linguistic equipment
rarely be one
^^"ith
two
who were
sleep-
would
the best understanding of relevant issues. This
communication becomes more formidable

ne\\' strata and more diverse speech habits
discover community of interest, and no single language enjoys the
prestige of French during the eighteenth century.
In short, the prospects for language planning depend on the extent
obstacle to international
as
time goes on. People of
to A\hich the impulse to international co-operation keeps in step
the
new
potential of prosperity- for
planning for the
common
all.
with
Socialist planning, that
is
needs of peoples belonging to difiêrent
P L A \ N
XG
FOR
O R D
i:
4H9
nntions or cultural units, will bring about incessant contact between

medical officers of health, to\\'n-planning experts, electrical enijineers,
social statisticians,
and trade-union representatives. Increased
combined with improved traveling
facilities
leisure
will give to a
large
new
social
floating section of the population opportunities to establish
medium of an interlanguage; and its adoption

readv ally in the radio. Even those who stay at home
perpetualK' would be tempted to avail themselves of opportunities to
contacts through the
\\
ould find
learn
more of
large-scale social enterprise in neighboring
of the supranational
The
communities
state.
choice for those of us
\\
ho cherish
this
hope
lies
between
constructed language and an alread\- established medium, either
in its
existing shape or in some simplified form, such as Basic English. The

second involves nothing more than agreement betw een educational
authorities expressing the will of the people.
matical simplicity,
above
wide
its
hv^brid vocabulary,
On
account of
its
vast literature,
its
Tram-
and,
over the planet, the claims of Anorjc)American \\ ould undoubtedly exclude those of any other current
language \\ hich could conceivably have a large body of promoters
in the near future; but political objections to such a choice are forall, its
distrii)ution
It is most unlikely that a socialist Continent would decide

Anglo-American as its interlanguage if Britain remained hostile to
the new order. The chances might improve if a Britain free of its
midable.
for
imperial incubus entered into close co-operation
\\
next door to build up
and want. Even so
there
is
world without
class, ^^'ar,
ith its
neighbors
much
from the
Some
all
to say for the adoption of a ventral medium cleansed

too evident defects of existing natural languages.
meet the plea for a constructed auxiliary with the

is a product of grow th. It is less easy to detect
the relevance than to recognize the truth of this assertion. Admittedly
it is beyond human ingenuit\" to construct a live skylark, but the
airplane has advantages \\'hich no flying animal possesses. Apple trees
and gooseberry bushes are also products of irrowth, and no reasonable
linguists
assertion that language
man
or
woman
advances
this trite reflection as sufficient reason for
preventing geneticists from producing
new
varieties of fruit
bining inherited merits of different strains or allied species.
by com-
The work
accomplished by pioneers of the science of synthetic linguistics shows

that it is also possible to produce new language varieties combining
the inherent merits of different forms of natural speech. In the light of
their achievements and shortcomings we can now prescribe the es-
49
sential features of a constructed
language which would be free from
the conspicuous defects of any natural, or of any previously con-
DO
structed, lanoruage.
'
Professional linguists,
who do
not dispute the possibility of con-
structing a language to meet the requirements of international
com-
munication, sometimes raise another objection. They say that the

adventure would be short-lived, if ever attempted; that no auxiliary
could remain intact for long. Even
rope
itself, it
would
locally impose
its
if
split into dialects.
own
confined to the territory of Eu-
Each speech community would
phonetic habits and
its
and the To\\ er of Babel would come crashing
Only
a perpetual succession of international congresses could thus
prevent a
Wyld
new
disaster.
Such
is
the
gloomy view which Professor
of Oxford takes. There are three sufficient reasons
not intimidate
To
own system of stress;

down on the builders.
why
it
need
us.
begin \\ith there
is
nothing inherently absurd in a suggestion
for setting up a permanent interlinguistic commission to check the
process of disintegration. For three centuries the forty bjunortah of

the
Academie Francaise have
erary French in a
tried,
strait jacket;
and
not without success, to keep
Norway
has changed
its
lit-
spelling
and grammar by three x\cts of Parliament in less than forty years. If

national governments can control the growth of national languages,
an international authority could also maintain an accepted standard
for its own medium of communication. Though international committees to super\ase scientific terminology, e.g. the International
Com-
mission on Zoological Nomenclature, are already in existence, our

universities cling to the conviction that intelHgent language planning
on
world-wide
By
scale
is
out of the question.
the nature of their training academic linguists are unduly pre-
occupied with times when few people could travel beyond a day's
journey on horseback or by cart, when reading and writing, like
stenography today, \\ere crafts confined to a few, when there were
no mechanical means for distributinsr news or information. It is true
that languages have broken up time and again in the past, because of
dispersion over a wide area, geographical isolation, absence of a written standard, and other disintegrating- agencies. Those
the hope of international communication
by an
who
entertain
auxiliary envisage a
we have
customary in
future in which these agencies will no longer operate. Indeed,
experience to sustain a more hopeful view than
is
academic quarters. During the centuries which have followed the
f
P L A N \
X C
FOR
\\'
()
R D K R
49
introduction of printing, the gradual dissolution of illiteracy, and

revolutionary changes in our means of communication, English has
North America and of Australnot true to say that the three main Continental varieties of the
common Anglo-American language are drifting further apart. It is
established itself as the language of
asia. It is
probably more true to say that universal schooling, the film, and the
them closer together. In any case, experience shows
that geographical isolation during several centuries has not made the
speech of New England unintelligible to people in Old England, or
vice versa. Experience should therefore encourage, rather than disradio are bringing
courage, us in pressing for an international auxiliary.
The primary desiderata of an international auxiliary are two. First,

must be an efficient instrument of communication, embracing both
the simple needs of everyday life and the more exacting ones of technical discussion. Secondly, it must be easy to learn, whatever the
it
home language
of the beginner
may
be.
To
be an efficient instrument
must be free from ambiguities and uncertainties

arising from grammatical usage or verbal definition. The vocabulary
must be free from duplication and unnecessary overlapping. It must
shun all that is of purely regional importance. The design of it can
turn for guidance to two diverse sources: the pioneer-work of Ogden
and recognition of defects which vocabularies of hitheito constructed languages share with natural speech. We can best see
what characteristics make it easy to learn a constructed language if we
of communication
first
ask
what
it
features of natural languages create difficulties for the
beginner. Difficulties
may
arise
from
a variety
of causes: structural
ir-
grammatical complexities of small or no functional value,

an abundance of separate words not essential for communication, unfamiliarity with word forms, difficulty of pronunciation or auditory
recognition of certain sounds or sound groups, and finally conventions
regularities,
of script.
Progress of comparative linguistics and criticism provoked by successive projects for a constructed auxiliary have considerably clarified
these difficulties during the past fifty years. Consequently there
wide
is
of general agreement concerning the essential features of

satisfactory design. Though several interlanguages still claim a handful
field
of enthusiastic supporters,
people
who now
advocate an
it
is
probabK^ true to say that most

language approach the pros-
artificial
pect with a ready ear for new proposals. The plethora of projects
touched on in the preceding chapter should not make us despair of
492
unanimit\\
On
the contrar\% failure brings us nearer to accord.
Jespersen remarks in the beginning of his book on his
own
As
con-
structed auxiliary (Novial):

"All recent attempts show an unmistakable family likeness, and may
be termed dialects of one and the same rs"pe of international language.
This shows that just as bicycles and typewriters are now nearly aU of the
same
t>'pe,
which was not the
we are now in
when one standard
case with the earlier makes,
the matter of interlanguage approaching the time
type can be fixed authoritativeh" in such a way that the general structure
will remain stable, though new words will, of course, be constantly added
when need
requires."'
This family likeness will become increasingly apparent in what

shall now examine principles of design with due regard
to the measure of agreement to which Jespersen draws attention and
to later issues yhich haye emerged, more especially from discussion
of the merits and defects of simple English. One of the conspicuous
defects of iVnglo-American in its present form is the difficulty mentioned at the end of the last paragraph but one. Its script, particufollows.
We
larly the spelling of
its
hiherited stock of monosyllables, has
well-nigh ideographic; and this
is
become
the most striking difference be-
tween any form of authentic English and any modern constructed

language. All adyocates of a constructed international auxiliary agree
that
it
must haye
consistent, simple, straightforward spelling rules,
based on the use of the

as Italian, Spanish,
Roman
alphabet. Since existing languages such
and Norwegian furnish models of orderly be-
any practical difficulty about prescribing

system of phonetic spelling. A representatiye international committee of experts entrusted with the task of laying the foundations of
a constructed world-auxiliary would waste few days in reaching
hayior, there has neyer been
a
agreement about its spelling conyentions.

Spelhng raises only one outstanding issue for discussion. Consistent
spelling may mean either or both of twô proposals: (a) that eyery
sound has one symbol and one only; (b) that eyery symbol stands for
a single sound. To insist too rigorously on the first has a disadvantage
touched on in Chapter II. Different languages haye different conyentions of alphabetic script, and the imposition of a rule limiting one
sound to one s\'mbol alone would therefore mutilate otherwise familiar roots beyond easy recognition. For example, we should not recognize the root cbroui- in pmi chromatic or polychrome as easily if we
spelled it with an initial k, and the retention of two symbols for some
P L A N N
CH
sounds, e.g.
ficulties
or
CJ
for k
FOR
i:
O R D K R
would not appreciably add
493
to the dif-
of learning.
ESSENTIAL
GRAMMAR
grammar no longer provides much fuel for

We have moved far since the days
of X'olapiik; and the main outlines of an international grammar are
now clear enough. The reader of The Loom of Language no longer
needs to be told that the multiplication of word forms by flexions is
foremost among obstacles to learning a language. In Chapters III, \\
X, XI, we have seen that the difficulties are of two sorts:
It is also safe
controversy
i)
Some
to sav that
among
interlinguists.
number accord between noun and adno semantic value at all and their existence is an
arbitrary imposition on the memory.
Even when meaningful, flexions which do the same type of work
may show widely diflrcrent forms.
flexions (e.g. gender,
jective) have
2)
Thus language
planners meet on
common ground
in
recognizing
no useless flexions; {b)

regularity of what flexions it retains. About what constitutes regularity advocates of a constructed language do not differ. To say that
flexion must be regular means that if we retain a plural, we must form
the plural of all nouns in the same way; if we retain a past tense every
verb must take the same past tense affix. In short: a single pattern of
that a satisfactor\' auxiliary
conjugation
must have:
{a)
a single pattern of declension.
To
the extent that this
measure of agreement exists, any constructed language offers fewer

grammatical obstacles to a beginner than do such languages as French,
German.
Unanimity with reference to what flexions are useful has come
about slowly; and is not yet complete. At the time when Volapiik
and Esperanto took shape, and long after, planners were enthusiastic
amateurs blinded by peculiarities of European languages they knew
best. Nineteenth-century linguists made the same assumptions as
nineteenth-century biologists. They took for granted that what exists
necessarily has a use. Awareness of the universal drift from flexional
Russian, or
luxuriance tow ard analytical simplicity in the history of Aryan languages was not yet part of their intellectual equipment. None of
them recognized the many similarities between English, which has
traveled furthest on the road, and Chinese, which consists wholly of
unchangeable independently mobile root words. Professional philolo-

THE LOOM OF LANGU'AGE
494
who
could have enhghtened them, were not interested in conit was a bold step to sacrifice gender or mood; and the accepted grammatical goal seemed to be a
language of the agglutinative type illustrated (Chapter V) by Turkish,
gists,
structive linguistics. In this setting
Hungarian, or Japanese,
Intellectual impediments to a more iconoclastic attitude were considerable, and we need not be surprised by the tenacity with which
earlier pioneers clung to grammatical devices discarded by their successors.
The
history of case illustrates their difficulties. Since the Ref-
ormation, generations of schoolboys have been drilled to submit to

instruction
which assumes
a universal subject-order distinction faith-
fully reflecting something in the real world. Since the grammatical
subject
bv
is
often the actor or agent which initiates the process specified
the verb, and the grammatical object
is
often the victim or goal,
a judicious choice of illustrations (e.g. the teacher
presented at an impressionable age, makes

gestion that this
is
always
so. If
it
pmishes the boy),
easy to implant the sug-
the teacher acts in accordance with
the last example, this bestows the reassuring conviction that there
is
simple rule for choice of the nominative or accusative case form of a

Latin or Greek noun.
The
pupil in
whom
the teacher has firmlv im-
planted this suggestion will overlook the fact that the grammatical
subject
and
is
is
is
not the agent which
initiates the seeing
process in
/ see hiiii;
not likely to worry about the fact that the grammatical object
what
really does so. In such situations the pupil
still
applies the rule
correctly, because the nominative-accusative forms of the Latin

tally
with our
own
use of
me and
he
him. In
this
noun
way we come
to accept local likeness of speech habits as a universal necessity of
discourse.
Interlinguists started, like the comparative philologists, with the
handicap of a load of misconceptions inherent in traditional methods
of teaching Greek or Latin. It has taken us long to recognize that
case can be as useless as gender, and we are only beginning to see that
no flexional device is an esse?itial vehicle of lucid expression. While
everyone concedes that a roundabout turn is preferable to passive
flexion,
most
flexional past.
be
interlinguists
Thus
it is
still
cling to the flexional plural and the
common ground
that a world-auxiliary
at least as isolating as English. Indeed, there
is
a close
must
family like-
ness bet^veen Novial and English, each with a hybrid vocabulary of
Romance and Teutonic
roots.
In short, what has happened to the flexional systems of the
Aryan
PLANNING FOR
faniilv
i:
\V
()
I) I.
during the past twentv-fivc hundred years of
torv has happened to the accepted pattern of an
its
495
known
artificial
liis-
interlan-
guage during the past half-centur\-. There has been a drift toward
recognized the parallel. He banned the noun accusative terminal of Esperanto or Ido, as Zanienhof \etoed the dative
of X'olapiik, on the ground tliat it was out of step with lin<);uistic
evolution; and cited the fact that Italian, Spanish, French, Portuijuese,
English, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages have scrapped it. Hv the
same token we ma\ be skeptical about the possessive case terminal
which turns up in Novial. Absent in modem Romance languages, it
is already vestigial in English, and still more so in Dutch and in many
German dialects. Number and tense are the only flexions w hich no
Arv'an language has completely discarded.
Unlike gender or the object-case category, flexion of number has a
clear-cut meaning. Still it is not an indispensable device. We can always use a separate \\ord to forestall doubt about whether the topic
is one sheep or more than one sheep. Indeed it is wasteful to tack on a
plural mark w hen the statement as a w hole, or the presence of a qualifier such as all, many, several, five, makes it clear that tlie word stands
for more than one of a kind. To some extent, Turkish recofrnizes
such uneconomical behavior. The Turkish noun drops the plural affix
{-tar or -ter) when accompanied by a numeral, e.g. ev = house, evter
= houses, dort ev = four houses. The same usage occurs in German,
but remains in a very rudimentary stage, e.g. drei Mann.
Similar remarks apply to tense. We express plurality once and completed action once, and both explicitly, a\ hen we say: tivo deer cut
express plurality twice and comthrough the thicket yesterday.
pleted action twice when we say tii'o rabbits escaped yesterday. The
flexion -s does nothing which the numeral tivo has not already done.
The flexion -ed does only what the particle yesterday does more
explicitly.
can use the singular form of the noun in a collective or
generic sense without the slightest danger of misunderstanding, for
instance, when we say in French le la pin est bon inarche {rabbit is
cheap). Context is often sufficient to safeguard the distinction between singular and plural, past or present. When it is not, we can fall
isolation. Jespersen
We
We
back on an appropriate numeral, pointer w ord, or particle of time.
One
serious objection to flexion as a functional device
miliarity breeds contempt.
context which makes
it
By
is
that fa-
too often using a flexional form
redundant
we become
in a
careless about
its
meaning. This process of semantic erosion has not gone far enough to
49<^
make
the plural flexion a positive nuisance, but clear functional out-
of tense distinction have been blurred in

ing English (p. 90).
lines
Thus
many
languages, includ-
no formidable argument for retaining any flexional

with due regard to the needs
of the Chinese, Japanese, and other non- Aryan speech communities
to which our own fl.exional system is ahen and confusing. In any case,
a plural form of the noun and a past form of the verb are the onlytwo likely to find any large bod)' of supporters among interlinguists
frills
there
is
in a constructed language, designed
other than fanatical adherents of Esperanto.
constructed auxiliary
designed in the light of defects and merits of previous proposals
would therefore be almost, if not quite, as free of flexions as Chinese
now
or Peano's Interlingua. This leaves us with the following question:

it be also free from other types of word modification? An
Would
would not be practicable if it listed as many

Concise Oxford Dictionary or Webster's. Our limited
learning capacities demand something more economical. So there is
another need for which the planner has to cater. Apart from being
international language
words
as the
economical, the vocabulary must allow for expansion made necessary

the incessant emergence of new articles, inventions, and ideas.
by
Many pioneers of language planning have tried to kill two birds

with one stone by composing a restricted set of basic or root words
from which other ^^'ords can be derived by a rich battery of prefixes
and suffixes. They do what we do when we derive bookish from book,
or sy stematize from system. Till now the prevailing attitude toward
such derivative affixes has been on all fours with the attitude of
Schleyer, Zamenhof, and Jespersen toward flexions. They have been
less critical of their functional importance than of their erratic behavior. For instance, the Esperanto suffix -EC for the abstract idea is
an incitement to people the world with new fictions comparable to
the definition of love as the ideality of the relativity of the reality of
an infinitesimal portion of the absolute totality of the hifinite Being.

Irregularities, formal and functional, of English derivative affixes
are typical of other Aryan languages. The prefix re- may, and often
does, connote repetition when attached to a new word; but it is quite
lifeless in receive,
ir-
regard, respect.
The
negative prefixes
iin-, in-,
im-,
attach themselves to a root without regard to phonetic or philo-
impossible, inert con

insenirresponsible. The Teutonic
-dom, -ship and -head or
(wisdo?7i
-hood turn up
abstract nouns of the same general
logical etiquette, as in unable
iin
scions,
suffixes
sitive
in
class
P L A N N
friendship,
wc
roots
F O R
N G
lordship fatherhood).
get a
member
I'.
\V
()
R D
i:
497
tack on -cr to sonic verb
If \\c
of the agent class represented
b\- fisher, iiriter,
\\q ma\' also get a means of transport

{steoTfier) or a compartment in one {sinoker, sleeper). To all these
irregularities we have to add those inherent in borrowed Latin roots
\\ hich contain such uncertain prefixes as e- or ex-, and ifi-, the last of
reader, teacher, inatuifactiirer.
\\
hich
may
enclosure (insert) or negation {innocuous)
signif\' either
Clearh' a language w ith
regular system of derivative affixes for such
clear-cut categories as repetition, occupation, negation, etc.,
would
be free from one obstacle which confronts anyone
out to
learn one of the existing
Aryan
\\
ho
sets
languages.
This advantage does not meet the objection: are such deriz-ative
affixes really necessary? To do justice to it we must distinguish be-
tween
different classes of derivative affixes.
semantic or meaningful.
root to which
it is
Ihe
affixe."?
precedence,
etc.,
sary mobile items already on the
means
po^fnatal
again,
iirongly, and the
One
class
man
accretion -er in baker.
such
as
ma\' be called
modifies the meanincr of the
compound forma-
attached or does the w ork of a
tion. Clear-cut qualifying

tion, negation,
affix either
those
which express
word
list.
to
after birth,
Thus
could do
in bakeiiian
to restate
Compounds such
as
as
means
"-writer,
baker
class,
to state
is
to
judije
much work
as the
////Vjudge
textile zi'orkers, steel
ivorkers, ii-ood ixorkers, etc., are admittedly longer than
the fisher,
repeti-
merch* usurp the function of neces-
words of
but postman, milkman, iceman, dust-
man, dairyman show that compounds made from independent words

need not be more long-winded than derivatives. B\- using derivative
affixes of the Esperanto or Novial type we add a new burden to
learning without much gain of space or any additional clarity.
Affixes of the other class merely label the grammatical behavior of
a word. Thus the -dom in icisdom or the -ment in arrangement respectively endow an attribute which would otherwise behave as an
adjective, or a process which would otherwise behave as a verb, with
the grammatical prerogatives of a thing. For instance, we can speak of
liisdoiu in contradistinction to leise, as it, and we can put the article an
or the, which never stand immediately in front of arrange, before
arrangement. This shunting disguises the fact that ziisdoni remains
within the adjectival world and means nothing more than îise behavior.
affix
At
Some
interlanguages carry this
much
further, having a special
for each of the parts of speech.

first siirht
there seems to be
little
in
favor of this device.
49^
plausible excuse
is that there is a rough-and-ready, if far from percorrespondence between parts of speech in an Aryan language
and the three pigeonholes into which we squeeze the physical world.
fect,
Although we meet many exceptions
to
any functional
definition of
approximately true to say that a noun label

usually points to what is thing or person, an adjective label to what
is a property, a verb label to ^\'hat is action in a statement. Such affixes
the parts of speech,
it is
therefore give the beginner a clue to the layout of a sentence which

contains unfamiliar words. They are signposts of sentence landscape.
One
To
that extent they lighten the task of spotting the meaning.
reply to this
is that isolating languages or near-isolating languages which have no (or few) labels to mark what are the parts of
speech in a flexional language can use other devices for guiding us
through the sentence landscape. Four examples from our own language illustrate them: (a) the articles label an object with or without
accompanying
attributes; (b) the pronoun usually labels the succeedverb in the absence of any flexional marks on the latter;
(c) the copula is, are, ivas, ivere separates the thing or person from
what the statement predicates; {d) without recourse to the adverb
ing
word
as a
terminal -ly, the insertion of and in jast and sinking ship makes
it
clear
that fast does not qualify sinking. All these examples imply the existence of definite irord order. Rules of
word
order, with whatever
safeguards such particles as of, the, and other literally empty words
provide, constitute all the grammar of a language, if its vocabulary
consists exclusively of
Since interlinguists
unchangeable independently mobile elements.

lean far toward the isolating pattern, we
now
might expect satisfactory rules of word order to be a threadbare

is far from true. In the Key to, and Primer of, Interlingiia,
for instance, the subject is dealt with and dismissed in a few sentences,
the first of which contrives to state the truth upside down:
theme. This
"The order of words in Interlingua presents no great difficulties, grammar and inflection having been reduced to a minimum. It is so nearly
similar to the English order of
words
that one
may
safely follow that
usage without fear of being misunderstood or being too greatly incorrect."
In fact, no author of a project for a constructed auxiliary has paid

attention to this problem, and those who advocate simple
methods of teaching Anglo-American with a view to its use as an
much
international language are singularly silent about the pitfalls into
which the vagaries of English word order can
lure the beginner.
X X
P L A X
These vagaries
illustrate
FOR
some of the
issues
F.
O R D F R
invoked
in
499
designing
satis-
factory rules.
\Vhile it is true tlint Anglo-American usage favors the method of
grouping together w hat is thought of together, there is no uniformity about placing the qualifying expression immcdiatelv before or
immediately after ^\ hat it qualifies. Thus we place the qualifier
enough in front of the word it qualifies in enough jat sheep and behind in jat enough sheep. Neither is consistent w ith more common
procedure, the
sheep
fat.
it
first
because enough
qualifies, the
we have some
Unless
is
second because
flexional
not niiniediatcly
it
in
front of the
foUon'S and qualifies the
mark such
as the
word
much-abused
English -ly to label the adverb as qualifier of the succeeding adjective,
concerning the position of two qualifiers is the only way

if one qualifies the other or both may qualify a third.
English has rigid rules of word order, but the rules are not simple. For
every combination of a particular adverb of place with a particular
adverb of time usage is fixed, but no straightforward regulation of
precedence in favor of one or the other covers all cases.
A constructive conclusion which emerges from the preceding discussion is the need for a comparative study of \\ ord order both as a
a rigid rule
of showing
safeguard of meaning and as an aid to ready recognition.
we
have
little
At present
material evidence to guide a decision about:
(a) the
advantages of pre- and post- position of directives or qualifiers; (b)

\\ ay of distinguishing which word is qualified
sequence of qualifiers; (c) how best to express interroga-
the most satisfactory
by each of
tion, in
speech and in script; (d)
pose of emphasis
is
\\
hat latitude of
word order
for pur-
consistent with clarity and ease of recognition;
what empty words are necessary signposts of sentence landThese are themes to clarify before the grammar of an interlanguage pruned of flexional irrelevance and redundancy assumes a
(e)
scape.
firm outline.
In this and other w ays, a more sympathetic attitude toward the
need for a constructed auxiliary would open fields of inquiry \\ hich
have been neglected by linguists in the past. Because they accept languages as products of growth our scholars have for too long sacrificed the study of functional efficiency to the task of recording \\ hat
is irregular, irrational, and uneconomical in speech. A more lively
interest in language planning
tasks.
One which
Edward
is
would
direct their efforts
toward new
of special importance has been formulated
Sapir in International Coiminmication:
by
THE LOOAI OF LANGUAGE
500
"It is highly desirable that along with the practical labour of getting
wider recognition of the international language idea, there go hand in
hand comparative researches which aim to lay bare the logical structures
that are inadequately symbolized in our present-day languages, in order
that we may see more clearly than we have yet been able to see how much
of psychological insight and logical rigour have been and can be expressed
in linguistic form. One of the most ambitious and important tasks that
can be undertaken is the attempt to work out the relation between logic
and usage in a number of national and constructed languages, in order
that the eventual problem of adequately symbolizing thought may be
seen as the problem it still is."
AX IXTERDICTIONARY
Among the many pioneers who have put forward proposals for a
constructed interlanguage, ie\y have undertaken the task of giving to
a skeleton of
grammar
the flesh and bones of a full-fledged vocabu-
lary. Its execution brings us face to face

ties
of memorizing a vocabulary,
i.e.,
with the two major difficulwith the auditors
unfamiliarirv^
or visual shape of words, and superfluity of separate forms. Elimination of unnecessary items came to the fore in the classificatory proj-
Dalgarno and of Wilkins; and it has once more become a live

to the popularity of Ogden's method for teaching and
using a simplified yet acceptable form of Anglo-American. Betwêen
the publication of the Real Character of Wilkins and The Meanhig
of Meaning by Ogden and Richards, no author of a constructed
language has come to grips W'ith the problem of word wastage.
Those who have not shirked the labor of constructing a lexicon have
invariably concentrated on the more immediate and inescapable
problem of word form. Thus Peano's Interlingua accepts the entire
bulk of English words derived from Latin.
To reduce the mnemonic burden of language learning to a minimum, it is essential to work with familiar materials, i.e., with roots
taken from existing languages. Most of the languages hitherto constructed pay lip service to this principle, so stated; but there is less
unanimity about the best way of choosing familiar material, i.e., a
stock of roots with wide international currency. Indeed, there has
been much confusion between two issues proportional representation of different speech communities in the total stock in trade of
roots, and widest possible international currency of each individual
ects of
issue
owing
root.
P L A N
FOR
XG
N E
R D K R
()
501
Up to date no one has consistently foll()\\ ed either plan. Out-andout application of an eclectic solution, on an international scale,
would
suffice to
demonstrate
its
inherent ahsurditv.
vocabulary
dra\\n from Teutonic, Romance, Slavonic, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic,
and Indian vernaculars, Mongolian, Polynesian, and Bantu dialects,

\\ ith due regard to the size of each contributor\' speech community,
would be largely foreign to the eye and ear of individuals belonfrinoj
to any major one; and it would contain scarcely a trace of roots familiar to individuals usinoO dialects of a small one.
The
acid test of
count of heads has never been carried out. The

of
language
planning have been Europeans primarih' conpioneers
cerned with the needs of travel, commerce, and technics. Their outlook has been limited by requirements and difficulties of nations
within the pale of Western civilization. So their tirst concern has
been to accommodate the claims of countries Axhere official speech is
a language of the Teutonic and Romance groups. Within this framework compromise leads to a hybrid vocabulary ver\' much like that
of English. This shows up in comparison of a random sample of English words and their equivalents in Jespersen's Noviiil:
basinsf choice
on
NOVIAL
ENGLISH
danka (Teutonic)
to thank
denianda (Romance)
to
dentiste
diki
(Romance)
(Teutonic)
thick
dishe (Teutonic)
distribu
dome
demand
dentist
dish
(Romance)
distribute
(Teutonic)
thorn
There is a further objection to the eclectic principle. A few, yet by

no means isolated, examples suffice to illustrate \\^hat it is. A Frenchman or an Italian will link up the root alt- with altitude (French) and
altiira (Italian),
alt
(old) and
the root calid- in the Italian
meaning
Even
if
hot.
he
is
The German
suggesting height.
go wrong. The
\\\\\
recall his
own
Italian
or Spaniard will at once recognize
word
caldo and Spanish calievte, both
A German is more likely
to associate
it
ith kalt (cold).
a student of Latin or familiar
or KaJorivieter, a language based on
with such \\ ords as Kalorie

mixture of Romance and Teu-
tonic materials will supply no clue to the correct meaning. Clearly,

there is only one way of getting over the difficulties arising from unfamiliar material
and of makin^
vocabulary with roots which read-
502
meaning to men and women of different nationalities.

concern should be to choose roots present in words which
ily suggest their
Our
first
people of different nations use.

Is this plan practicable? It is possible to answer this question without going to the trouble of making statistical word counts in different languages.
The impact
of scientific discovery on
ciety has affected our speech, as
Though
it
few speech communities
a lesser extent
Germany and
human
so-
has affected other social habits.
in
Europe, notably Iceland and to
Holland, have shut their ears to the
gro\\ing stock of internationally current terms for machinery, instruments, chemicals, electrical appliances, and manufactured products, the
vocabulary of modern technics
is
equally the
word
material
of the United States and of the U.S.S.R., of modern Iran and of Italy.
already invading the Far East and must do so more and more, if
China and India emerge from their present miseries as free and mod-
It is
ernized societies.
The world-wide and expanding
lexicon of
modern
technics follows
grows by combination of roots drawn almost exclusively from two lanûaês

Greek
the dictates of international scientific practice.
It
and Latin.
To
the extent that the lexicon of
Esperanto, Ido, Occidental, Novial,
is
many
projects, e.g.
largely or, like RoiHiWal and
Peano's Interlingua, almost exclusively based on material of recognizably Latin origin,

ness to
recent interlanguages display the family like-
all
which Jespersen
refers in the passage quoted. In fact they
do
include a considerable proportion of words based on roots which individually enjoy a high measure of international currency.
The
international vocabulary of technics contains a large propor-
tion of Latin roots; but
of the uiajority of
iieti'
Greek has furnished for a long time the basis

scientific zvords. For instance, the new ter-
minology which Faraday and

tion of electrochemical
his successors
phenomena
is
designed for the descrip-
exclusively derived
from Greek
and
roots, as in: electrolyte, electrode, cathode, anode, cation, anion,
Yet the Greek contribution to the vocabulary of languages hithOxford Dictionary has a far higher proportion (p. 2) of Greek roots than any
ion.
erto constructed has been small. Indeed the Concise
hitherto constructed lang-uao'e. If interlincruists utilize them at all,

they confine themselves to those assimilated by Latin. In short, none
of the pioneers of language planning has paid due regard to the profound revolution in scientific nomenclature which took place in the
P L A N N
closiiifj
C;
()
()
I) i:
years of the eighteenth and the beuinnin^ of
century.
the
Xor
Enghsh
did they see the implications of a fact
philologist Hradlcy.
tlic
503
ninetcciuh
w hich disturbed
he language of invention
now
hc-
conies the idiom of the street corner before the lapse of a generation.
Bradley gave expression to

tion in
words which the
his
alarm
at this
process of internationaliza-
might well have
partisans of past projects
heeded:
"At present our English dictionaries are burdened with an enonnous

and daily increasing mass of scientific terms that arc not English at all
except in the form of their terminations and in the pronunciations inferred from their spelling. The adoption of an international language for
science would bring about the disappearance of these monstrosities of
un-English English.
."
.
Partly because of the
tempo of invention,
partly because of
more
widespread schooling, partly l)ecause of the expanding volume of

books and articles popularizing new scientific discoveries, this infiltration
of
hat Bradley
was pleased
to call abstruse
words has
in-
creased enormously of recent \ears. Nineteenth-century interlinguists with a conventional literary training
w hen schoolboys w ould
foresee a time
and outlook could scarcely
chatter about heterodyne out-
fits, periscopic sights, or stratosphere fl\'ing as lighthcartedly as they

had discussed kites or marbles. Wherever there are gasoline pumps
and women's journals w ith articles on modern standards of nutrition,
anyone w ith a good school education American or Russian, French
or German will recall and understand words compounded with
The table on
Greek building material in favor of
column lists some forty Greek bricks which
ther77W-, kine-, hydro-, phoii-, phot-, geo-, or chrovio-.
page 504
illustrates neglect of this
The
the Latin one.
first
frequently appear in international words; the second and third exhibit
Esperanto and Novial words which have basically the same meanino
as the Greek element in the first column. With the exception of a few
marked by an
asterisk, all of
them
are of
Romance
origin.
tions (other than iiiikri = small) are neither Latin nor
Thus no
existing project can claim to provide for
recognition or memorization of vocabulary; but

is
W'holly satisfactgry,
solution.
What
discovery of a
it is
if
The
excep-
Greek.
maximum
ease of
no existing project
not difficult to point to the basis of a better

is not an insurmountable task. The
remains to be done
common
international denoininator does not call for
the elaborate and tedious
word counts which have occupied
the
504

GREEK ELEMENT
PLANNING FOR
A N E
O K D
I'.
5^5
timeof some enthusiasts. We can start with

orowing vocabulary of international terms is a bysociety.
product of the impact of scientific invention on modern
which
words
technical
of
synopsis
classified
a
need
is
first
our
Hence
efforts and wasted the

the fact that a
everyday speech of different language commuinto their constituent parts. We can then
resolve
can
we
These
nities.
circulation.
form a picture of which roots enjoy w ide international
The overw helming majority will be Greek or Latin. For constructthere w ill be no lacU of
ing an economical^ yet adequate, vocabulary
have
filtered into the
suitable building material.
What
mto
constitutes an adequate vocabulary in this sense enters
that
say
to
of word economy. For the present it suffices
the
problem
an
international vocabulary need

'
cater only
for
communication
Commerce
within the confines of our common international culture.
samobazaar,
and travel have equipped us with such words as sugar,
internaan
reason why
var, sultanas, fjord, cafe, skis, and there is no
comlanguage should not take from each nation or speech
tional
munity those
\\
ords which describe their
own
specific amenities
and
institutions.
An
from
micrommegaphone,
telegraph,
derived
analysis of the geographical distribution of roots
and technical terms, such as

reveal
microscope, cyclostyle, thermoplastics, will certainly
the
of
roots
Greek
wide international currency of some Latin and
prefer?
we
should
same meaning. This prompts the question: which
than the other, we should
If one enjoys much wider distribution
is not great we
generally decide in its favor; but if the difference
scientific
eter,
instance, the
mi^ht take into consideration other criteria of merit. For
would
meaning
same
existence of a Latin and a Greek root with the
common
is
sol
syllable
enable us to avoid homophones. Thus the Latin
\M-iile there is no equally comto solar, solitary, solitude, and solstice.
mon Greek root to suggest the meaning of alo7ie, there is the sugperihelion, heliotropism, and other
o-estive helio of heliograph, heliimi,
alone and
for the sun. We can therefore keep sol for
technical
words
words which are international, at

sense, have widely divergent
least in the European and 'American
for Latin Me
meanings in different countries. By substituting Greek
xxord
French
the
instance,
could avoid possible misunderstanding. For
take helio for the sim. iMany Latin
and the
often equivalent to our word consciousness,
the
applying
by
consistent
German praises somebody for being
our
influence
well
might
konsequent. Another criterion which
conscience
epithet
is
5o6
decision will come up for discussion later on. We can also take into
account the relative ease ivith zi-bich it is possible for people of different tongues to pronounce a Latin root or its Greek equivalent.
The raw materials of our lexicon will be: (a) a dual battery of
cosmopolitan Latin and Greek roots; (b) a list of the necessar\' items
\\hich make up an adequate vocabulary for ordinary communication.
then have all the data from which a representative body could
Wq
prescribe the details of a satisfactory interlanguage. If free from gram-
matical irrelevancies, people of moderate intelligence and a secondarv-
school education should be able to read

tion and learn to write and speak
it
it
with
little
in far less
previous instruc-
time than any ethnic
language requires. Admittedly, the intervocabulary outlined above
would be almost
exclusively
Western
in origin.
that our Eastern neighbors will reject
it
But we need not fear
for that reason.
The word
invasion of medicine and enCTineeringr need not be a corollary of

political oppression
say to China:
and economic exploitation. Besides, Europe can
you
take your syntax, and
take
my
-a-ord.
WORD FXOXO-MY
The
next question
\\
hich arises
is:
-cshat
n'ords are essential? This
is
what C. K. Ogden and Miss L. W. Lockhart call the problem of ivord

economy. The expression ~<xord economy may suggest two, if not
who meets it for the first

frame different statements, questions, or re-
three, quite different notions to a person
One
time.
ability to
is
quests with the least
number
of different vocables. Another
to frame the same utterance in the

least
number
most compact form,
of vocables, different or otherwise.
sort implies a
minimum vocabulary
of
esse?itial
i.e.,
is
abilirv
with the
Economy of the first

words. Economy of
the second calls for a large vocabulary of available words. Since
not
difficult to
multiply words, the fundamental problem of
it is
word
economy from our viewpoint is how to cut down those which are
not essential for self-expression. There remains a third and more primitive way in \\hich economy may be achieved. \^'e can save breath or
space
by contracting
the
volume of
word
or ^\"ord sequence, as in
U.S.S.R. for Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, or Gestapo for

Geheijue Staatspolizei (Secret State Police).
At first sight it may seem a hopeless task to construct a vocabulary

would cover all the essential needs of intercommunication, yet
contain not more than, say, a thousand basic words. A modern news-
that
A \ \
I.
(.
()
paper assumes ;K(|iiniiuaiKc with perhaps
huniMc
the I'nglish section of a vcr\

irv
some ten thousand
discover that
a large
arc listed.
\\
()
t\\ciii\
I'litrhsh-l
It reijiiires
word
I)
507
thousaiul. atul in
rench pocket dicfion-
no
portion of the material
is
lenLjthv scrutinN' to
not
esiscntial.
ra-
w oukl discard man\' svnoinnis or near

svnoinnis, of w hich Anglo-American is chock-full, e.s^. little small,
tionalK" constructed
hi^
list
hcîn covnnciicc.
overlapping,
hand rihhon
lar^rc,
as
speciali/ation
often done
hodv
1)\-
1)\'
called
is
It
need not tolerate such functional
w ouKI
making one word do what
strip. It
in natural
languages
is
Thus the outer cover of the human

IVench, that of the onion la pcti/rc, and that
la
pcaii in
cottc.
hough
less
ourselves t)vcrl)urden the dictionar\'

skin
also steer clear of over-
three or more.
la
of the sausage
fastidious than the
ith
I'
rench,
we
the corresponding scries
rind jacket pccL When we distiiiguish between thread

curd string rope tva- we are mcrel\- heaping name upon
tii-ine
name
for
hat
is
ultimatclv a difference in
si/e.
Since our interlanguage pursues strictK' utilitarian cnels and seeks

perfection
and
in precision,
falderals of poetic
incorporate
We
large
can do without some of the verbal gewgaws

and "cultured" speech. 1 here is no need to
it
number of words
to express subtleties of attitude.
could safeU' replace the existing plethora of vocables denoting
approval or disapproval bv
w ould not keep
of such
bare handful of names. Hut rejection
us within the thousand-w ord limit.
to look clsew here for help;
and here we can appU* with
We
have
profit, if
we
with temperance, the basic principle of I)algarnf>'s Art of

SyDihols and Wilkins's Real Character. All luiropcan languages have
appiv
it
w ords w hich embrace the meaning of a group. Thus the general term
w ith the bedfellows vesture, gannent, apparel, dress) includes
two main classes: under clothes including vest, shirt, knickers, petticlothes
coat, and ortter clothes including frock, skirt, trousers, coat. In the
same w av hiiildiv^ covers school, theater, prison, villa, hospital, musetmi, and drink or beverage includes nonalcoholic and alcoholic, to
the latter of which we assign v:me, cider, beer, ivhisky, gin.
A careful comparative investigation would probablv reveal that
modern English is far better equipped w ith w ords of the food, drink,
container, instrimient class than French or Spanish for instance. It is
almost self-evident that classifving words of this sort must plav an
important part in the buildup of an economical vocabulary, because
they enable us to refer to
maximum number of different things,

minimum of separate names. In a
operations, and properties with a
5o8
given context or situation drink will usually deputize well enough for
the more specific nxme. It is also self-evident that there are limits to
if we aim at excluding vagueness and
not enough to have a general word animal distinguish-
the use of master key words,
ambiguity.
It is
we need words for cat, cow, dog,

So one important problem which confronts us is this:
which anivials, drinks, gaiinents, etc., have claim to a place on a list
of essential words? The answer is not quite simple.
would not
hesitate to provide a special niche for nxine, cou:, shoe; but can we
ignore cider, bull, or brassiere? Let us see how \vt can extricate ourselves from the difficulty of having no such \^'ords. One way is to
choose a more general term and leave the rest to the situation. Another is to extract a definition or use a substitution by iuCTo-ling with
able as ivild or domestic. In real life
horse, pig.
We
material already to hand.
from
Thus we can
define cider as a drink
apples, a bull as the 7?iale of the coiv,
and
a brassiere as
made
support
for the breasts.
At bottom, word economy depends on

eral
judicious selection of ge?i-
terms and descriptive periphrase for specific uses.
to \\'hat constitutes judicious selection

things. Definition
is
we
reference
often cumbersome, and the aptitude for picking
out features ^hich make for identification in
product of training. In shoit, the

priate definition
With
have to remember two
may
be
much
an extra word. Therefore
it is
given situation
difficulty of fishing out an
is
the
appro-
greater than the effort of memorizing

a
doubtful advantage to cut out single
names for things or processes to which we constantly refer. On the

other hand, we can clearly dispense with separate names for an immense number of things and processes to which we do not continually refer; and the process of definition, when context calls for closer
definition, need not be as wordy as the idiom of English or other
Aryan languages often prescribes. Even within the framework of
acceptable Anglo-American A\e can substitute apple drink and breast
support for cider and brassiere without committing an ofi'ense against
usage. Alakingr compounds of this sort is not the same as exact definition, but definition need never be more fastidious than context requires. From a purely pedantic point of view limewater might stand
for the \A-ater we sprinkle on the soil for the benefit of lime trees, but
it is precise enough in any real context in which it might occur.
In general the combination of a generic
as in
limewater
way which
is
name with another word
suffices to specify a particular object or process in a
easy to recall because sufficiently suggestive.
Here Eng-
P L A
lish
NX NG
F O R
F.
()
R D
I,
usage provides some instructive models. OrdinariK-
private residence, the sort of building to
but
we
hich
509
a hoi/sc
is
refer
most often,
also the generic basis of alehouse, playhouse, greenhouse,
is
it
\\
poorhouse, bakehouse. While
may
it
be
as difficult to
construct a defi-
word for it, it is not easier to

compound as explicit as playhouse,
nition of a theater as to learn a separate
new word
learn a
than to recall a
which both elements are items of an essential vocabularv\ Another

model for the use of such generic words is the scries hainlivear, footin
we could reduce the size of our

vocabulary by adopting the principle of using such generic
-house, -wear, -man, -land, for other classes such as vessels,
ivear, neckixear, headivear. Clearly,

essential
terms
as
With each
fabrics, filainents.
when
for use
context
compounding of
we
generic term
such
ficiently suggestive couplets
as
calls for additional
this sort involvês
could then learn suf-
postmau, highland, or handwear
two
information. Economical
principles. First, the
minimum
ponents must be elements of the basic
of essential
\\
comords.
Second, the juxtaposition of parts must sufficiently indicate the meaning.
We cannot let metaphor have a
free
hand to prescribe such com-
binations as polly seed, rubber neck, or xvaffle bottom.
How much
license
we
allow to metaphor in other directions
is
matter of particular interest in relation to the merits and defects of

Basic English. There is no hard-and-fast line between metaphorical
deinand and generic names such as elastic for rttbcannot eliminate the use of suggestive metaphors w hich
point the wav" to unsuspected similarities. Nonetheless, we have
usaoe
ber;
as in elastic
we
and
may
to set
some
limit,
and one
is
not hard to
see.
Our
essential
list
should
contain separate names for physical and personal or social attributes
with as
himwr.
obvious connection
little
If
we
as
the drought in dry goods and dry
word
prescribe the same
sharp for a tooth, for
for a temper, and for a telling reply,
names of
qualities
by
we might
twinge,
as well replace all
twô vocables respectively signifying general
approval and disapproval. In
economies of Basic English,
this field
as
of
word choice
of Chinese,
may
raise
the apparent
our hopes un-
duly.
The
dictionary of our ideal interlanguage
ternationally current
words such
taxi, post, international,
have two advantages.
would
naturally
list
in-
as cigarette, coffee, train, bus, hotel,
tobacco, soya, valuta. Fixation in print would
might discourage local differences of pronunciation which lead to confusion betw een the French word coco, variously used as a term of endearment, for coconut or for cocaine, and
It
5 lO
word cocoa. It might also promote international acceptance of a single word for such world-wide commodities as petrol
(Engl.), gasoline (Amer.), essence (French), Benzin (Germ, and
Swed.).
the English
One important contribution of Ogden's Basic to the problem of

word economv in a constructed language is his treatment of the verb.
The Basic equivalent of a verb is a general term (operator) and some
quahfying word or expression. By combining the general notion of
space change in go with another word or group of words we dispense
with
all
the various names
now
restricted to particular types of trans-
go on foot, ride = go on a horse, or go on a bicycle,

etc. By the same method we avoid the use of different names for particular manners of moving, e.g. nm = go very fast, zi-ander = go fro7Jt
place to place liithoi/t aim. We can also do without all causativeport, e.g. ivalk =
intransitive couplets \\hich signify prodzicing or acquiring a condition,
by combining
equivalents of jnake or get with one of the basic
make
make or get
adjectives, e.g. increase =
or get bigger, clarify =7nake or get
By combining sixteen fundamental verb substitutes {come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put,
seem, take, be, do, have, say, see, send) with other essential items of
the word list Basic English thus provides an adequate Ersatz for four
thousand verbs in common use.
clear, accelerate =
Before
Ogden
faster.
devised the basic
method of teaching
English, pio-
neers of language planning had paid scant attention to the
minimum
vocabulary required for effective communication. Consequently, the

English pattern has stimulated as well as circumscribed subsequent
discussion. Though it is desirable to keep down the necessary minimum number of verbs by the same device, a constructed lanQ-uaê
could not advantageously incorporate equivalents of Ogden's sixteen
operators and use them in the same way. The word economy of Basic
is a word economy that has to conform with a standard acceptable to
educated English-speaking" people. Otherwise we should be at a loss
to justify the inclusion of
come
in a sixteen-verb catalogue already
equipped with go. With due regard to the economies which are possible if we combine go, make, get, or equivalent "operators" with
other basic elements, it is difficult to recognize some Basic combinations such as go on, make up, get on as subspecies of single classes. In
fact, they are idioms of standard Anglo-x\merican usage. The beginner has to learn them as if they were separate items in a list of verbs.
This raises the possibility of including in our ^ôrd list operators
L A
"P
which have
not coincide
\\
N X
idc range
ith
V O R
C.
()
hke /nakc and
i>,ct
or
cj/'ic
1)
and take, but do
Some verb coup-
are redundant because they express different general relations to
lets
kill,
to get life
is
Thus
economies,
is
if
response
w ord give
to horroiv.
we had
-^n
to iîvc life
So
to he horn.
to take (or get) instruction
to get credit
is
It is
to hear, to take life
to learn.
is
is
to
and
to lend and
to teach
To give credit is
how we might make
easy to see
similar
evcrvda\' equi\ alent for the biological stinnt-
contrast analogous to the acijuisitive give
get.
The
sufficiently covers the operation of stimulating, but Basic
which expresses
implicit in the
somew
ith this
is
also to give instntction
offers nothing
current Anglo-American usage.
the same state or process.
liis
V.
to
make
hat archaic heed.
functional value
would
the response appropriate to
The
addition of an operator
explicitly dispense with the
need
member of such pairs as question ansiver, inforTnation inohedience, defeat surrender, iiriting reading,
terest, command
sell. Thus to ansiver is to make the response appropriate to a
hi/y
for one
to heed a command.
word economy in a constructed auxiliary are
illustrated by the large number of grammatically inflated abstractions
in our language. Since wc do not need separate link-word forms for
the directives after and hefore, we do not need a separate link word
question and to obey
Other
ivhile
possibilities
is
of
corresponding to the directive during. Since
we can
speak of
the above remarks for the remarks printed or written higher on the
page,
we
should also be able to speak of the previous letter as the
before letter without misgiving. Since some people discuss the Be-
yond,
we might
just as well call the sequel the after
before. In fact, ever>" directive
is
and the past the
the focus of a cluster of different
word forms with the same basic function. In a language with rigid
word order and empty \\ ords as signposts of the sentence layout, we
could generalize w ithout loss of clarity a process \\ hich has already
gone far in Anglo-American and much further in Chinese.
Broadly speaking, for every one of our directives
we
can find an
adverbial qualifier, an adjective, a noun, and often even a conjunction,
with the same fundamental meaning. Each of these may itself be one
of a cluster of synonyms. It is merely their different gp-avnnatical behavior which prevents us from recognizing that semantically they
are comrades in arms.
cannot a single word do all the work
Why
of
after,
since,
afterivard,
subsequent {ly), succeed{ing), sequel,
aftermath, or of before, previous{ly), prcced{ing), past, history?

could then make about forr\' temporal, spatial, motor, instru-
We
512
two hundred
words and three or four times as many synonyms or near synonyms
sufficiently distinguishable by context and situation alone. Partly for
this reason, and partly because this class of words covers all the territory of auxiliaries which express time and aspect (pp. 90-92), it
might be an advantage to extend the range corresponding to the Basic
English battery of directives by making more refined distinctions.
Such distinctions may occur in one language, but be absent in another.
For instance, a special word symbolizing physical contact is nonexistent in Anglo-American, but exists in German and would deserve
inclusion in an improved set of directives. For generations we have
had chairs of comparative philology, but investigations dictated by
an instrumental outlook are as rare today as in Grimm's time. If it
were not so we should now be able to specify what relations and
mental, and associative directives do the job of about
concepts tentatively or fully expressed in this or that existing medium

can justify their claim to a place on the essential word list of a
properly constructed language.
Basic English gives us another clue to word economy. As formal
distinction between noun and verb, when both stand for processes or
states, is an unnecessary complication, formal distinction between
noun and adjective is superfluous when both symbolize a property.
If we can go out in the dark or the cold, we have no need of such
warmth, hot heat, dry dryness. If we can
distinctions as v:arm
discuss the good, the beaiitifid, and the true, goodness, beauty, and
truth are too much of a good thing. At the same time, we need a consistent rule about fusion of such word- forms. We cannot endorse
such inconsistencies as exist in Anglo-American. It may or may not
be important to distinguish between good actions and good people
when we speak of the good, but if we do so we should be entitled to
use the uncleayi for
im cleanliness
The misery
existing speech
exploited.
of
all
Grammarians say
as
well as for the uiiclean individuals.

is
that useful devices remain half-
that analogical extension has not
gone
far
enough. English has now a simple and highly regularized flexional

system, but in its linguistic expression of concepts and relations it is
as chaotic as any other language, including Esperanto. This is what
foreigners mean when they say: English is simple at the start, but, etc.
While we can design a language to achieve a high level of word
economy in Ogden's sense, and therefore to lighten the load which
the beginner has to carry, there is no reason for restricting the vocabulary of an interlanguage constructed with this end in view to the
1.
h;irc iiiiniimiiu
A N \
(J
I)
\V
I-
()
I) F.
^t}
of words essential for lucid cominunication; and nvc
ha\c no need ro exclude the possibilit\ of ringing the changes on

ssnonxiiis which safeguard st\le ajjainst in<iioton\'. W'c might well
add to our interdictionarv an appendix coiuai?iing a reserie vocahularv of compact alternatives. F.vcn so, a inaxinnnn vocahularv of
roots, exrlndinir all strictly technical terms and local names for local
thini^s or local institutions, need scarcely exceed a total of three
thousand.
INTKKPHOMTICS
It
would he easv
to formulate the outstanding desiderata of an ideal
language on the naive assumption that phonetic considerations are of

prior importance; and
To
expression.
it
begin w
would not be
ith,
we
difficult to give
them
practical
have to take stock of the fact that the
consonant clusters (p. 208) so characteristic of the Aryan familv arc

almost or completeK absent
and
consonants such
nese. Bantu,
tions as in
in
in
other languages,
e.g. in (Chinese,
Japa-
two or
three
Polynesian dialects. So clusters of
more
quadruple combinamnstnt, are foreign to the ear and tongue of most peoples
as in blinds, and,
serious,
outside Europe, America, and India. Then again, few people have a
range of either simple consonants or simple vowels as great as our

A fivefold battery of vowels w ith \alues roughU' like those of
own.
the Italian and Spanish

ties.
Several of our
\arieties of
ou
.7,
e,
o,
i,
11
suffices for
man\- speech communi-
n consonants are phonetic rarities, and
human speech
mam
reject the voiceless series in fa\or of the
A battery of consonants with very wide currency w ould not include more than nine items /, in, ?i, r, toiêther
w ith a choice betw cen the series p, t, f, /', s, and the series h, d, v, g, z.
voiced, or vice versa.
Even
this
would be
a liberal
would allow
for
between
The Japanese ha\c no /.

eight or nine consonants
hundred and two thousand pro-
all(n\ance.
universal alphabet of five
vow els and of
fifteen
nounceable roots made up of open syllables
like the syllables
of Japa-
and PoKnesian words. Supplemented with fort\-five

monosyllables and a limited number of tris\ llables, this would suppl\enough variety for a maximum vocabulary of sufficient size. The
word material of a language constructed in accordance with this
nese, Bantu,
would be universally, or w ell-nigh universally, pronounceaand recognizable without special training of ear or tongue. It
would ofTcr none of the difficulties with which the French nasal
principle
ble
514
vowels, the English th and
sounds, or the
German and
front the beginner. Against these admitted merits

the fact that a language so designed
petuate one of the greatest of
all
Scots ch conhave to weigh
we
from whole cloth would per-
obstacles to learning a
new
language.
The
its
beginner ^\ould have to wrestle with the total inijamiliarity of

irord vmterial. Each item of the vocabulary^ would be a fresh load
with no mnemonic associations to give it buovancy.

Grammar and memorization of the word list are the two main
difficulties of learningr a new lano'uaCTc, and the only way of reducing
the second to negligible dimensions is to make each word the focus of
a cluster of familiar associations like the
root
tel
common
to tele-
graph, telescope, telepathy. \\t have seen that scientific discovery
is
mankind by distributing an international

vocabulary of roots derived from Latin and Greek. Anything we can
do to simplify the phonetic structure of a satisfactory interlanguage
has to get done ivithin that fra77ie-u:ork. The frameM'ork itself is exacting because Aryan languages in general are rich in variety of
simple consonants and of consonantal combinations Greek more
than most. Thus the greatest concession we can make to the phonetic
ideal is to weio-h the claims of equivalent Latin and Greek roots, with
solving this problem for
due regard to ease of pronunciation and recognition, when both enjoy international currency.
While
it
\\-ould be foolish to
deny the
difficulties
of achieving a
on
Latin-Greek word material, and therefore on sounds and combinations of sounds alien to the speech habits of Africa and the Far East,
universal standard of pronunciation for an interlanguage based
possible to exaggerate this disability. People
it is
witless luxury of laughinfj at the foreigner

slip
condone equally
London and
striking differences
who
who
indulge in the
says sleep instead of
between the vowel values of
Lancashire, Aberdeen (Scotland) and Aberdeen (South
Dakota). Although obliteration of the distinction between the p, t,

f and the b, d, g, -v series makes homophones of such couplets as pup
pub,
iirite
ride,
pluck
plug, proof
Americans discard the voiceless
proz-e, the fact that
in favor of the voiced
very
k,
many
consonants
does not prevent British audiences from flocking to grangster sound

films.
Most of us are not trained phoneticians, and most people without

some phonetic training are insensitive to comparatively crude distinctions, if interested in what the speaker is saying. Fastidious folk,
A\'ho foresee fearful
misunderstandings because people of different
P L A N
nations
\\ ill
XING FOR
N K
()
I)
i:
inevitably give slightly, or even sometimes crudely, dif-
ferent values to the same sound symbols, may well rcHect on the following remarks of the English phonetician, Lloyd James, in Historical liitrodiictioii to French Phonetics:
"A
recent experiment proved that the sounds
guishable to listeners
when
broadcast
Nevertheless, despite this fact, listeners

It
follows, then, that
up to
s, f,
th are often indistin-
by wireless transmission.
understand perfectly w hat is said.
in isolation
a certain
point,
it
is
quite unnecessary to
We
hear each and every sound that the speaker utters.

is so from our experience in listening to speakers in large
If
we
are at
know
that this
halls,
or theatres.
some distance from the speaker, we miss many of
his sounds,
but provided we get a certain number, or a certain percentage of the

whole, then we understand what he is saying. The point to remember is
that there is, or there would appear to be, in language an acoustic niinimum necessary for intelligibility, and provided the listener gets this, it
is all that he requires. The rest is superfluous. The speaker may utter it,
but
as far as the listener
he hears
it
or not.
is
concerned,
The more
it is
quite immaterial to
we are with a
that we require
familiar
him whether
language, the smaller
to catch in order to
the fraction of its sounds, etc.,
understand what is said. Much of the acoustic matter that is graphicalh"
represented in the written language is unnecessar\' for intelligibility, while,
is
on the contrary, intelligibility requires that certain acoustic features of

the language must be present in speech which have no representation whatever in the written language. Educated speech differs from uneducated
speech mainly in providing a greater acoustic minimum."
Although the Greek range of consonants, and more especially
its
consonantal combinations, offers difficulties for most non-Aryan-
speaking peoples and for some people
ho speak Aryan languages,

is not a serious drawback. VVe need only five simple vowels and their derivative diphthongs. As Jespersen rightly remarks: "It is one of the beauties of an
international language that it needs only five vowels, and therefore
\\
the vowel range of a Latin-Greek vocabulary
can allow a certain amount of liberty in pronouncinir these sounds

without misunderstanding arising." Whether different citizens of a
socialist world order pronounce a as in the English word father, as in
the French la, German Vater, or Danish far. is immaterial to easy
communication. In fact, the differences are not greater than between
pronounce it in Dundee and Dorchester,

and Old Kent Road, and far less than bepeople severally pronounce it in Boston and Bir-
glass as people respectively
or between girl
tween toinato
mingham.
in .Mayfair
as
5l6
We may
take
for granted that the difficulty
it
which the Greek
sound presents to people of many nations, the preference of Germans for voiceless and of Danes for voiced consonants, the partiality
of the Scot and the Spaniard for a trilled r, and the reluctance of an
Englishman to pronounce r at all, will not prevent people of different
speech communities from using as an efficient and satisfactory medium of communication an interlanguaCTC liable to Osjet color from
local sound. Indeed, we need not despair of the possibility of reaching
a standard in the course of time. More and more the infant discipline
DO
of phonetics, which has lately received a
new
impulse from the needs
of radio transmission and long-distance telephone conversation, will

influence the practice of school instruction. In an international
munity with
a single official
medium
com-
of intercommunication, the
radio and the talkie will daily tune the ear to a single speech pattern.
We have no reason to fear that discourse through a constructed interlanguage will involve greater
between
difficulties
than English conversation
South African Boer, a iMaori and a

New Zealander of Scots parentage, a Hindu Congress member and a
Bantu trade-union leader from Johannesburg, or Winston Spencer
Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
a
French Canadian and
INTERLANGUAGE LEARNING WITHOUT TEARS
We
may now sum up
the outstanding features of a constructed
language designed with due regard to criticisms provoked by a succession of earlier projects and to the efforts of those who aim at
adapting English to international use:
i) It would be essentially an isolatwg language.
would not have
common
to plod through a
maze of
The beginner
useless
and irregular
Aryan languages such as French or Spanish,

German or Russian. With the possible exception of a plural terminal,
it would have no flexional modifications of word form. Apart from
a few simple rules for the use of operators like our words ?77ake and
get, formation of compounds like toothbrush, and insertion of empty
words like of to show up the layout of the sentence, its rules of grammar would be rules of word order. These would be as uniform and
as few as possible. In short, the grammar of the language could be set
flexions
to
forth fully with examples in half a dozen pages of print.

2)
It
would be
essentially a
language with Latin-Greek word
P L A
XN X
I
FOR
NEW
OR D
material, so chosen that the beginner could associate items of the basic
word
list
with syllables of internationallv current words.
would have ivord economy at least as great as

3)
English. That is to say, the entire list of words essential
It
that of Basic
for ordinary
and self-expression (not counting compound formations, words common to the popular talk of the East as \\ ell as to the
West, and the specialized vocabulary of the scientist and technician)
might be not more than a thousand, and could be printed on one
discussion, news,
sheet of paper.
4) It would have regular spelling based on the characters of the

Latin alphabet. Having the limited range of simple vowels, it would
call for
no
diacritic
marks
(like
"
'
and
')
w hich reduce
the speed
of writing and add to the cost of printing.

5) Because of its great word economy it could be easily equipped
with the type of simplified alphabetic shorthand embodied in R. Dut-
system of Speedivords.
Grammatically such a language would be much simpler than Esperanto, and some other pioneer efforts, though not much simpler
than Novial (if we exclude Jespersen's elaborate machinery of word
ton's ingenious
derivation!). Its syntax
would be decidedly simpler than
that of
Anglo-American, because shedding of flexions and leveling of the

few surviving ones have not been accompanied by a proportionate
simplification and standardization of word order. Its word material
would be far more international than that of any hitherto constructed
language. Unlike Esperanto, Interlingua, Xovial, etc., it \\ould annex
Greek roots \\hich are in general circulation wherever scientific discovery is changrinor human habits. It would be more universal than
Basic English because it would be free from Teutonic roots. Like
Basic English it would not be encumbered \\ ith hundreds of redundant verbs, and the task of learning would not be made unnecessarily
difficult by the fantastic irregularities of English, or French spelling.
Because the word material would be transparent
memorize. Each item would be
it
would be easy
to
peg for attaching relevant semantic
associations.
A language purged of irregular spelling, irregular and irrelevant

grammar, unusual word collocations (i.e., idioms), and redundant
word forms would take its place unobtrusively in a program of general elementary instruction in semantics and etymolog\'. Learning it
would be learning to associate roots common to different words and
5l8
to gain facility in the art of definition. Proficiency
with
little
effort in a small fraction of the time
teaching of foreign languages. Since
its
would thus come
now
devoted to the
adoption presupposes
a stable^
supranational organization in which children and adults are collaborating with a hitherto
unknown
intensity of interest
and
effort,
the
would be very different from that of the

French class in an American or the Latin class in a Scottish high
school. Progress in the world's first true Interlingua would be a passport to a wider international culture made actually or psychologically
ubiquitous by broadcasting, the modern cinema, and air travel.
Of itself, no such change can bring the age-long calamity of war
climate of school tuition
to an end; and
dangerous error to conceive that it can do so.

language obstacles to international co-operation on a democratic footing, while predatory
finance capital, intrigues of armament manufacturers, and the vested
interest of a rentier class in the misery of colonial peoples continue to
stifle the impulse to a world-wide enterprise for the common wealth
of mankind. No langruaffe reform can abolish war, while social agencies far more powerful than mere linguistic misunderstandings furnish
fresh occasion for it. What intelligent language planning can do is
to forge a new instrument for human collaboration on a planetary
it is
We cannot hope to reach a remedy for the
scale,
when
social institutions propitious to international strife
no
longer thwart the constructive task of planning health, leisure, and

plenty for
all.
PART FOUR
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
APPENDIX
Basic \ Ocabularies for the
Teutonic Lanijuaffes
USE OF ROMANCE AND TEUTONIC WORD LISTS
The number
of items in the ensuing
word
requirements of the beginner in search of

expression.
Thev
lists
exceeds the nrinii/mm
battery adequate for self-
common nouns
contain assortments of
meet
to
individual requirements, such as those of the traveler or of the

torist,
together with
many
useful English
mo-
words which share recog-
mzal?le roots with their foreign equivalents.
column of the Romance and Teutonic word
The
lists
items in the English
do not
tally
through-
Teuwords together with English words of Teutonic origin and

Romance Mords together with English words of Latin origin.
out.
One
reason for discrepancies
is
the advisability of learning
tonic
do not follow this plan consistently. The reason for

meaning of an English verb of Latin origin is usually
more sharply defined than that of its Teutonic twin. For many common English verbs less usual but more explicit (see p. 26) synonyms
appear in the column at the extreme left. English verb forms printed
in italics correspond to Romance or Teutonic verbs of the iiitransitiz-e or reflexive type. In the Teutonic word list German verbs printed
in italics take the dative case. For a reason explained on page 17, the
verb lists contain few items which signify acquiring or conferring a
tiuality listed as an adjective. For instance, we do not need a transitive
or intransitive equivalent for iiiden. To widen means to 7f!ake ivide
(trans.) or to hecovie ivide (intrans.). We can use French or Spanish,
German or Swedish equivalents of 7/iake and become \\ ith an adjective in the same way.
The verb
this
is
The
lists
that the
reader
who
turns to these
lists
for case material illustrating
family likeness or laws of sound shift should

listed are
remember
nearly always the ones in covniwn use.
that the
By choosing
words
high-
brow, pedantic, and somewhat archaic synonyms or near synonyms,

it
would be easy
to construct
ture of genetic relationship.
lists
giving a
much more
impressive pic-
TEUTONIC WORD
I.
a)
ENGLISH
LISTS
NOUNS
Climate and Scenery
LANGUAGE M U S E U M
ENGLISH
523
524
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
525
526
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
SWEDISH
S^l
528
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
529
530
L A X G
l-.NGLISH
UAGK
MUSEUM
53'
532
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
533
534
LANGUAGE
536
ENGLISH
538
ENGLISH
SWEDISH
DANISH
DUTCH
cafe
cafe (n)
Kafe
cafe (n)
chemist (phar-
apotekare
Apoteker
apotheker
chemist's shop
apotek (n)
Apotek
apotheek
clergyman
prast
Praest
gcestelijke
clerk
kontorist
Kontorist
klerk
confectionery
konditori :n)
Konditori (n) suikcrbakkcrij
kokerska
Kokkepige
kund
mjolkbod
Kunde
klant
Alejeri (n)
mclkinrichting
Tandlaege
Laege
tandarts
macist)
cook (female)
customer
dairy
dentist
tandlakare
doctor
liikare
keukenmcid
dokter
{see chemist,
druggist
above)
{see chemist's shop, above)
drug store
engineer
gardener
ingenior
Tngeni0r
ingenieur
tradgardsmas-
Gartner
tuinman
hairdresser
harfrisor
I"ris0r
kapper
jeweler
juvelcrare
Juvelcr
juwelicr
journalist
journalist
Journalist
journalist
judge
domare
Dommcr
rechtcr
laundry
tvattinrattning \'askeri (n)
wasscherij
lawyer
advokat
advocaat
tarc
mail
man
Sagf0rer
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
539
540
ENGLISH
SWEDISH
DANISH
DUTCH
GERMAN
France
Frankrike
en fransman
Frankrig
en Fransk-
Frankrijk
Frankreich
ein Franzose
Frenchman
mand
Germany
a German
Tyskland
Great Britain
een Fransch-
man
Duitschland
Deutschland
en tvsk
Tvskland
en Tvsker
een Duitscher
ein Deutscher
Storbritanien
Storbritannien
Groot-
Grossbritan-
Brittanie
nien
Hungary
Ungem
Graekenland
Griekenland
en Graeker
een Griek
Holland
Holland
en Hollaender een Hollander
een Nederlander
Ungam
Hongarije
India
Indien
Indien
Ireland
Irland
Irland
lerland
Irland
an Irishman
an Italian
en irlandare
en italienare
en Irlaender
en Italiener
een ler
een Italiaan
ein Ire
Italy
Italien
Italien
Italic
Italien
Japan
a Japanese
Japan
en japanes
Japan
en Japaner
Japan
een Japanees
Japan
ein Japaner
Norway
Norê
Xorge
Xoorwegen
en norrman
Polen
en polak
Portugal
en portugis
Ryssland
en rvss
Skottland
en skotte
Spanien
en spanior
en Nordmand
Polen
en Polak
een Noor
Polen
een Pool
Portugal
en Portugiser
Portugal
een Portugees
ein Portugiese
Rusland
en Russer
Skotland
en Skotte
Spanien
en Spanier
Rusland
een Rus
Schotland
een Schot
Spanje
een Spanjaard
Russland
ein Russe
Schottland
ein Schorte
Spanien
ein Spanier
Sweden
Sverige
Sverrig
a S^êde
en svensk
Schweiz
en schweizare
Turkiet
Forenta Sta-
en Svensker
Zweden
een Zweed
Schweden
ein Schwede
Greece
a Greek
Holland
a
Dutchman
Norwegian
Poland
a
Pole
Portugal
a Portuguese
Russia
a Russian
Scotland
a
Scotsman
Spain
a
Spaniard
Switzerland
a Swiss
Turkey
United States
Grekland
en srek
Holland
en hollandare
Svejts
en Svejtser
Tvrkiet
de forenede
Stater
terna
Griechenland
ein Grieche
Holland
ein Hollander
Indie
Indien
Zwitserland
een Zwitser
Turkije
de \"ereenigde
Staten
Ungarn
ein Italiener
Norwegen
Norweger
ein
Polen
ein Pole
Portugal
die
Schweiz
ein Schweizer
die Tiirkei
die \'ereinig-
ten Staaten
p) Reading and Writing

address
adress
Adresse
adres (n)
die Adresse
die Anschrift
blotting paper
laskpapper
(n)
Traekpapier
(n)
\loeipapier (n)
das Losch-
papier
SCI ASH
\ C V A
r.
541
542
I.
ENCI.ISH
A N
C;
LAC
i:
K U
543
544
ENGLISH
L A
ENGLISH
NGUAGE
F,
545
546
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
I
ENGLISH
547
54
550
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
55^
55^
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
553
554
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
555
ENGLISH
S\VED1SH
DANISH
DUTCH
GERMAN
smell
lukt
I-ugt
smile
smaloje (n)
das Lacheln
society
sallskap (n)
Smil (n)
Sclskab (n)
reuk
glimlach
maatschappij
song
sound
sang
Sang
lied (n)
das IJed
space
rum
speech (address)
tal
Tale
rcdevoering
die
speed
hasrighct
Fare
snelheid
die Gcsclnvin-
square
fvrkant
Firkant
vierkant (n)
das Rechteck
stare
Stat
Stat
stav (sojourn)
uppehall (n)
Ophold
step (pace)
stcg
Skridr (n)
story
berattelse
Fortacllinj;
strike
strejk
Strcjke
staking
dcr Streik
struggle
kamp
Kamp
strijd
der
study
studium (n)
Studium (n)
studie
das Studium
substance
stoff (n)
Scof (n)
stof
dcr Geruch
die CIcscll-
schaft
Lvd
Ijud
(n)
Rum
(n)
geluid (n)
dcr Laut
ruinite
der Rauni
Rede
digkcit
(n)
staat
der Staat
verblijf (n)
stap
der Aufenthalt
dcr Schritt
verhaal (n)
die Frziihluiig
die Gcschichte
Kampf
der Stoff
die Substanz
success
framgang
Success
succes
der Frfolg
suggestion (pro-
forslag (n)
Forslag (n)
voorstel (n)
dcr \'orschlag
sum
summa
Sum
som
die
surface
vta
Overflade
oppervlakte
die Oberflache
surprise
overraskning Overraskelse
verrassing
die
suspicion
niisstanke
Alistanke
achterdocht
der \>rdacht
swindle (fraud)
bedrageri
Bedrag (n)
bedrog (n)
dcr Betrug
posal)
Sumnie
Cberraschung
der Schwindel
sympathy (com- medlidandc

passion)
Mcdlidcnhcd medclijdcn (n) das
Alitleid
Aufgabe
(n)
task
svssla
Opgave
taak
die
taste
smak
Smag
smaak
tax
skatt
Skat
belasting
der Geschmack
die Stcuer
tendency
tendcns
Tendens
neiging
die
die
tension
spannmg
test
prov (n)
Spaending
Prove
spanning
beproevin|
die
Xeigung
lendenz
Spannung
die Priifung
die
Probe
thanks
tack
Tak
theft
stold
Tyveri (n)
diefstal
dcr Dank
dcr Diebstalil
thing
ting
Ting
sak
ding (n)
zaak
die Sache
thirst
torst
Sag
T0rst
thought
tanke
Tanke
dank
dorst
gedachte
das
Ding
der Durst
dcr Gedankc
55(>
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
557
55
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
559
560

4.
ENGLISH
ADJECTIVES
562
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
563
564
ENGLISH
A \
(.
I'
AC
S K
5^5
S66
ENGLISH
1.
N(.I
ISH
A N C
L'
(;
L S
567
56b
L A N G U A G E
ENGLISH
K.
569
570
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE M U S K U .M
ENGLISH
57
572
LANGUAGE M U S K U M
ENGLISH
573
574
ENGLISH
SWEDISH
DANISH
DUTCH
GERMAN
kick
sparka
sparke
schoppen
mit
dem
Fusse
stossen
km
doda
draebe
dooden
toten
kiss
kyssa
kysse
kussen
kussen
kneel
knaboja
knacka
kanna
knaele
knielen
knien
banke
kende
klopfen
veta
vide
land
landa
lande
last
vara
vare
kloppen
kennen
weten
landen
duren
laugh
laugh
skratta
le
lachen
lachen
knock
(at
door)
know
kennen
wissen
landen
dauern
wahren
at
lead
lean
on
utskratta
udle
uitlachen
auslaclien
fora
f0re
luta pa
laene sig
voeren
leunen op
sich lehnen an
til
fijhren
learn
lata sig
laere
leeren
lernen
leave behind
lemna efter
efterlade
achterlaten
zuriicklassen
lend
lana
laane
leenen
leihen
uthyra
udleje
verhuren
vermieten
Ijuga
lyve
liegen
liigen
ligge
liggen
liegen
lagga sig
laegge sig
gaan liggen
sich nieder-
lyfta
l0fte
tillen
heben
tanda
taende
aansteken
anzijnden
gaarne hebben
gem
houden van
mogen
hinken
toehooren
hinken
zuhoren
(house, etc.)
let
lie (tell lie)

lie
(position)
lie
down
legen
lift
light (cigarette,
etc.)
anstecken
tycka
like
limp
halta
listen to
Ivssna
om
om
synes
hake
till
lytte
til
haben
live (be alive)
leva
leve
leven
leben
live (dwell)
bo
bo
wonen
wohnen
look after (take
se efter
se efter
oppassen
achten auf
look (have appearance of)
se ut
se
ud
uitzien
aussehen
look at
se
se
paa
aanzien
ansehen
aankijken
betrachten
lose
pa
beskada
tappa
tabe
verliezen
verlieren
love (person)
alska
elske
lieben
lubricate
smjora
gora
sm0re
beminnen
smeren
g0re
maken
machen
taea fel
tage Fejl
een fout maken
einen Fehler
skota
lede
besturen
leiten
care of)
make
make
a mistake
betragte
schmieren
machen
manage
(direct)
manufacture
fabricera
fabrikere
fabricecren
fabrizieren
march
marschera
marchere
marcheeren
marschieren
LANGUAGE M
KNGLISH
l.
:>/>
576
57
IAN
f,n(;lish
(;
U A
C.
MLS
579
5oO
LANG
ENGLISH
U A
C.
i:
K U
s8i
5o2
L A \
ENGLISH
C;
UAG E
xM
53
584
LANG
1
NCILISH
U A
C,
585
586
L A N
FNGLISH
(;
U A
C.
V.
V.
587
5^8

7.
ENGLISH
SOCIAL USAGE
N D
P P F
II
Basic X'ocabiilarics for the
Romance Languages
ROMANCE
I.
\\
ORD
NOUNS
LISTS
59^
L A N
Ci
.A ti i:
I.
.\l
59
592
593
594
L A N
Ci
U AG E
MUSEUM
595
596
ENGLISH
FRENCH
SPANISH
PORTUGUESE
walnut tree
willow
le
noyer
el
nogal
a nogueira
il
noce
le
saule
el
sauce
o salgueiro
il
salcio
e) Cereals and Vegetables

artichoke
ITALIAN
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
f)
Materials
597
59
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
599
6oo
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
6oi
6o2
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
ENGLISH
FRENCH
SPANISH
kitchen
la cuisine
la
cocina
a cozinha
la
ladder
I'echelle (f)
la
escalera
a escada
la scala
o candieiro
a fechadura
o colchao
o alcool
desnaturado
o espelho
a despensa
la
lamp
la
lampe
la
lampara
lock
mattress
la
serrure
la
cerradura
le
matelas
el
colchon
methylated
I'alcool
spirit
mirror
pantry
le
le
el
alcohol
denature (m)
miroir
el
espejo
garde-
la
despensa
metilico
cucina
lampada
la
serratura
il
materasso
I'alcool
lo
denaturato
specchio
la
dispensa
manger
paraffin
le
petrole
el
petroleo
picture
le
tableau
el
pillow
I'oreiller
pipe (water,
le
tuyau
el
cuadro
almohada
tubo
poker
le
tisonnier
el
atizador
record (gramo-
le
disque
el
disco
(m)
la
o petroleo
o quadro
a almofada
il
petroHo
il
quadro
il
guanciale
il
condotto
etc.)
o atizador
o disco
attizzatoio
il
disco
il
tetto
phone)
roof
techado
chambre
el
cuarto
la
piece
la
habitacion a camara
sheet
le
drap
la
sabana
shovel
la
pelle
la
pala
sideboard
le
buffet
el
aparador
le
salon
la sala
smoke
la
fumee
stairs
Tescaher (m)
sitting
room
il
salotto
fumo
la
lenzuolo
pala
credenza
humo
o fumo
il
a escada
la scala
el
il
la stufa
commuta-
el
o comutador
I'interruttore
la
tavola
a torneira
il
rubinetto
gabinetto
(m)
table
la
table
la
conmutador
mesa
tap
le
robinet
el
grifo
le
cabinet
mesa
piano
el retrete
o retrete
il
la serviette
la toalla
a toalha
I'asciugamano
Taspirateur (m)
o aspirador
o muro
Taspiratore
el
aspirador
mur
el
muro
la
paroi
la
la
fenetre
la
pared
ventana
wall (house)
le
wall (room)
window
k) Food and
bacon
a sala
il
la escalera
teur
cleaner
la
o andar
le
vacuum
o lenfol
pa
o aparador
a estufa
switch (elec-
(W.C)
stanza
el piso
le
towel
camera
la
la estufa
I'etage
stove
tric)
la
poele
story, storey
toUet
o telhado
o quarto
el
la
le toit
parede
a janela
Drink
il
la
muro
parete
la finestra
(m)
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
603
6o4
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
605
6o6
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
607
6o8
ENGLISH
FRENCH
SPANISH
Greece
la
Grece
un Grec
la
Greek
Grecia
Hungary
un HoUandais
un Hongrois
la Hongrie
un griego
la Holanda
un holandes
un hungaro
la Hungria
Ireland
rirlande
la
an Irishman
un
Holland
a
Dutchman
Hungarian
Hollande
la
(f)
Irlandais
Irlanda
un
irlandes
PORTUGUESE
Grecia
um grego
a
Holanda
um
um
a
holandes
hungaro
Hungria
ITALIAN
la
Grecia
il
Greco
I'Olanda
un Olandese
un Ungherese
rUngheria
a Irlanda
rirlanda
um
un Irlandese
irlandes
Italy
ritalie (f)
la Italia
a Italia
ritalia
an
un
un
um
un Italiano
il Giappone
un Giapponese
Italian
Italien
italiano
Japon
el
reino
o Japao
um Japones
o reino
la
Noruega
Japan
a Japanese
le
Japon
el
le
Japonais
un japones
kingdom
le
Norway
royaume
la Norvege
un Norvegien
un noruego
Norvvegian
Poland
la
Pologne
la
a Pole
le
Polonais
un polaco
italiano
Polonia
Portugal
Noruega
um
noruegues
regno
Norvegia
un Norvegese
il
la
a Polonia
la
um
un Polacco
polaco
Portugal
um portugues
il
Polonia
le
Portugal
el
le
Portugais
un portugues
republic
la
republique
la
republica
a republica
la
repubblica
Russia
la
Russie
la
Rusia
a Russia
la
Russia
um
un Russo
Portugal
a
Portuguese
Russian
Scotland
a
Scotsman
Spain
un Russe
un ruso
I'Ecosse (f)
la
un Ecossais
un escoces
Espana
un espaiiol
I'Espagne
(f)
Escocia
russo
Portogallo
un Portoghese
a Escocia
la
um
uno Scozzese
escoces
Espanha
um
la
Scozia
Spagna
uno Spagnuolo
a Swiss
un Espagnol
la Suede
un Suedois
un Suisse
Switzerland
la Suisse
Suiza
a Suica
la
Turk
Turkey
un Turc
un turco
Turquia
um
un Turco
U.S.A.
les
Spaniard
Sweden
Swede
la
Turquie
Etats-Unis
Suecia
espanhol
a Suecia
la
un sueco
un suizo
um
um
uno Svedese
uno Svizzero
la
los
Estados
Unidos
sueco
suigo
turco
Turquia
OS Estados
Unidos
p) Reading and Writing

address
la
Svezia
Svizzera
Turchia
gli Stati
Uniti
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
FRENCH
eraser (rubber)
la
gomme
la
fountain pen
le
stvlo
la
ink
I'encre (f)
la tinta
SPANISH
(graphe)
PORTUGUESE
goma
o apagador
a caneta de tinta
pluma
permanente
estilografica
la
carta
a carta
le
courrier
el
correo
o correio
mail box, letter
la
boite aux
el
buzon
a caixa
les
grafica
do
il
la
correio
lettres
la
carte
el
nouvelles
mapa
las noticias
gomnia
penna stilo-
la lettera
la lettre
news
la
rincliiostro
letter
map
ITALIAN
la
a tinta
mail
box
609
mapa
as noticias
jorn'al
(f)
corriere
buca da
lettere
la
carta
le
notizie
il
giornale
romanzo
newspaper
le
journal
el
periodico
novela
il
novel
le
roman
la
novela
pagina
la
pagina
page
paper
la
page
la
pagina
o papel
la
carta
le
papier
el
papel
o pacote
il
parcel
le
paquet
el
paquete
pena
la
pluma
pen
la
plume
la
pencil
le
cl lapiz
periodical
la
crayon
revue
postage
le
postcard
la
post office
le
reading
la
lecture
la
sender
I'expediteur
el
remitente
signature
la
firma
timbre-
el sello
le
matita
rivista
o porte
Taffrancatura
port
el
franqueo
o bilhete postal
la
carte
la tarjeta
la
cartolina
postale
o correio
I'ufficio postale
correos
a leitura
la
lecrura
o remetente
il
postal
bureau de
oficina de
(m)
stamp
k
la
revista
poste
la
o lapis
a re^TSta
la
postale
signature
pacco
penna
a assinatura
la
o selo
il
lettura
mittente
firma
francobollo
poste
typewriter
la
machine
la
maquina de
escribir
q)
bathroom
maquina de
escrever
Hotel and Restaurant
la
macchina da
scrivere
6io
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
6ll
6l2
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
613
6i4
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
FRENCH
SPANISH
November
December
novembre
dccembre
noviembre
Monday
lundi
el
Tuesday
mardi
mercredi
el niarres
\\'ednesday
diciembre
el
lunes
miercoles
PORTUGUESE
615
ITALIAN
novembro
dezcmbro
Novembre
segunda-fcira
Lunedi
Dicembre
terya-feira
Alartedi
quarta-feira
Alcrcoledi
quinta-feira
Thursday
jeudi
el
jueves
Friday
vendredi
el
Saturday
samedi
el
sabado
sabado
Giovcdi
Venerdi
Sabato
Sunday
dimanche
el
domingo
domingo
Domenica
iernes
sexta-feira
NUMERALS
one
6i6
THE
L O O AI
OF
LANGUAGE
617
6l
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
FRENCH
duration
la
duty
edge (border)
effort
I'effort
electricity
Telectricite
eniploviiicnt
I'emploi (m)
encounter
(meeting)
end
la
le
SPANISH
PORTUGUESE
619
ITALIAN
la
durata
il
dovere
esfuerzo
duragao
o dever
a borda
o esforô
la
electricidad
a electricidade
Tclettricita
el
empleo
o emprego
mipiego
rencontre
el
encuentro
o encontro
'incontro
bout
el
extremo
enemigo
empresa
o inmugo
le
duree
devoir
el
le
bord
el
duracion
deber
borde
el
la
(m)
(f)
extremidade
I'orlo
lo sforzo
I'estremita
(extremity)
enemy
I'ennemi (m)
el
enterprise
I'entreprise (f)
la
entrance
I'entree (f)
la
entrada
a entrada
I'entrata
environment
envy
le
milieu
el
ambiente
o ambiente
I'ambiente (m)
Tenvie
la
envidia
a inveja
rinvidia
equality
I'egalite
(f)
la
igualdad
igualdade
I'eguaglianza
error
Tcrrcur
(f)
el
error
Terrore (m)
event
I'evenement (m)el aconteci-
o erro
o aconteci-
(f)
miento
empresa
il
nemico
I'impresa
Tavvenimento
niento
examination
example
exchange
I'examen (m)
el
examen
I'exemple (m)
el
I'echange (m)
el
ejemplo
cambio
a troca
il
exiiibition
I'exposition (f) la exposicion
a exposiâo
Tesposizione
existence
I'existence
a existencia
I'esistenza
(f)
la
existencia
o exanie
o exemplo
Tesame (m)
I'esempio
cambio
The correspondence
English -ence, French -ence, Spanish -encia, Portuguese

-e/iciii, Italian -e/iza also occurs in the Romance equivalents to experience, impudence, indifference, patience, etc.
(m)
expense
Ics frais
explanation
I'explication
los gastos
la
OS gastos
le
spese
explicacion
a explicagao
la
spiegazione
(f)
fact
fall
el
hecho
o facto
il
fatto
baisse
la
baja
a baixa
la
caduta
la
peur
el
paura
crainte
el
temor
miedo
la
la
le
il
volo
la
le fair
(of price,
la
temperature,
etc.)
fear
vol
el
vuelo
fold
le pli
el
pliegue
food
la
nourriture
cl
alimento
o receio
o medo
o voo
a dobra
o alimento
force
la
force
la
fuerza
a forâ
friend
I'ami (e)
el(la)
friendship
I'amitie (f)
la
front
le
front
el
frente
a frente
il
frontier
la
frontiere
la
frontera
a fronteira
la
fuel
le
combustible
el
combustible
o combustivel
il
flio-Iit
(air)
la
il
piega
cibo
forza
amigo(a) o(a) amigo(a) I'amicoCa)

amistad
a amizade
I'amicizia
fronte
frontiera
combustibile
6io
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
621
622
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
623
024
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
ENGLISH
FRENCH
thanks
les
SPANISH
remerci-
las
gracias
62
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
as gra9as
le
grazie
nients (ni)
theft
le
vol
el
robo
o furto
il
furto
thing
la
chose
la
cosa
a coisa
la
cosa
thirst
la soif
la
sed
a sede
la sete
tone
touch (sense of)
le
ton
toucher
el
tono
tono
el
tacto
o torn
o toque
il
le
il
tatto
toy
le
jouet
el
juguete
giuocattolo
le
commerce
el
comercio
o brinquedo
o comercio
il
trade
il
commercio
translation
la
traduction
la
traduccion
tradu9ao
la
transport
le
transport
el
transporte
transporte
il
trasporto
treatment
le
traitement
el
tratamiento
treaty
le traite
el
tratado
el
o
o
o
o
proccs
truth
la verite
la
proceso
verdad
use (employ-
Temploi (m)
el
uso
trial
(law)
le
traduzione
tratamento
il
trattamcnto
tratado
il
trattato
processo
il
processo
a verdade
la verita
Tuso
ment)
valeur
value
la
vessel
le vaisseau
el
o valor
o vaso
valor
la vasija
il
il
valore
vaso
(receptacle)
victory
la
victoire
la
victoria
a vitoria
voice
la
voix
la
voz
wages
walk (stroll)
want (lack)
le salaire
el salario
la
promenade
el
le
manque
la falta
war
la
guerre
la
paseo
guerra
voz
la vittoria
la
voce
o salario
o passeio
la
a falta
la
mancanza
la
guerra
ricchezza
guerra
il
salario
passeggiata
wealth
la
richesse
la
riqueza
riqueza
la
weapon
I'arme (f)
el
arma
arma
I'arma
weight
width
le
poids
el
peso
o peso
il
la
largeur
la
a largura
la
will
la
volonte
la
anchura
voluntad
word
work
le
mot
la
palabra
a palavra
la
obra
il
lavoro
il
mondo
lo zelo
(achieve-
I'oeuvre (f)
(f)
vontade
obra
peso
larghezza
la volonta
la
parola
I'opera
ment)
work
(exertion)
world
youth (early
el
trabajo
le
monde
el
mundo
la
jeunesse
la
juventud
o trabalho
o mundo
a juventude
el
celo
o zelo
le travail
la
gioventu
hfe)
zeal
le zcle
4.
ADJECTIVES
able (capable)
capable
capaz
capaz
capace
absent
absent^
ausente
ausente
assente
626
TriE
LOOM
OF
LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
627
62
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
629
630
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
631
632
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
633
634
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
635
636
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
637
638
639
640
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
641
642
644
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
645
646
THE LOOM
L A N G U A G E
647
64
LANGUAGE M
ENGLISH
weigh
iL-eigh
"I
649
FRENCH
SPANISH
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
pcser
pcsar
pesar
pesare
whisper
6.
AD\T.RBS
6sO
ENGLISH
FRENCH
hither
home (home-
SPANISH
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
aqui
aqui
qui
par
ici
qui
qua
a la
maison
a casa
a casa
in casa
ward)
a la maison
en dedans
en casa
dentro
em
inside
dentro
dentro
near
pres
cerca
perto
vicino
nowhere
nulle part
en ninguna
em nemhuna
in nessun
at
home
parte
on the left
on the right
on top
gauche
a la izquierda
derecha
casa
parte
luogo
esquerda
a sinistra
a direita
a destra
encima
em cima
sopra
la-bas
alli; alia
acola
colla; laggiu
opposite (facing)
vis-a-vis
enfrente
defronte
dirimpetto
outside
dehors
quelque part
fuera
fora
fuori
en alguna
em algum
in qualche
parte
lugar
a droite
a la
dessus
over there (yon)
somewhere
desde
luogo
dali
di la
alli
all
li
alia
acola
la
ahi
la
la
alli
para
all
li
alia
para
la
la
through, across
a travers
a traves
atraves
attraverso
underneath
dessous
debajo
debaixo
disotto
upward
en haut
hacia arriba
para cima
insu
thence
de
there
la
y
thither
la
b)
after, after-
ward
alli
Time
LANGUAGE MUSE U M
ENGLISH
FRENCH
at present
at the latest
same
at the
present
SPANISH
al
presente
maintenant
ahora
au plus tard
en
meme
temps
time
at times
quelquefois
before
avant
daily
tous
mas tardar
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
presentemente
adesso
agora
ora
o mais tardar
al
mesmo
piu tardi
en mismo
liempo
ao
a veces
as
antes
antes
prima
diariamente
diariamente
ogni giorno
tcmprano
cedo
di
siempre
sempre
sempre
alio stesso
tempo
tempo
qualche volta
vezcs
parfois
talvolta
innanzi
jours
les
journcllement
early
buon' ura
de bonne heure
ever (at
all
toujours
times)
ever
(at
any
jamas
time)
finally
finalement
finalniente
finalmente
finalmente
formerly
autrefois
antes
antigamente
altre volte
jadis
from time to
de temps en
antiguamente
de cuando en
de quando
temps
de temps a
time
cuando
em
di
quando
quando
quando
in
de vez en vez
autre
from
on
that time
henceforth
dcs lors
desde entonces desdc entao
desormais
en adelante
em
de hoje
sin d'allora
d'ora innanzi
diante
hitherto
jusqu'ici
in future
a I'avenir
in the
evening
in the
le soir
matin
le
hasta ahora
en lo venidero
por la tarde
por la manana
ate agora
finora
para o futuro
de tarde
per I'avvenire
de manha
di niattina
di sera
morning
in
time
temps
tiempo
anoche
la semana
a
last
night
hier soir
last
week
le
semaine
derniere
pasada
tempo
in
a noite passada
a
semana
tempo
icri sera
la
passada
settimana
passata
late
tard
tarde
tarde
tardi
lately
dernierement
en attendant
par mois
mensuellement
ultiniamente
ultimamente
reccntcnicnte
entretanto
entretanto
frattanto
mensualnicnte
mensalmentc
al
nunca
no
ya no
no
nunca
nao
ja nao
nao
meanwhile
monthly
jamais
no longer
ne
ne
jamais
plus
nunca
mas
mese
mai
nunca non
mai
non
piu
mais
652
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
653
ENGLISH
FRENCH
SPANISH
PORTUGUESE
ITALIAN
aprcs-demain
pasado
dcpois de
posdomani
the day after
d'aujourdhui
manana
de hoy en
tomorrow
week from
en huit
today
What
is
quelle heure
the
it is
one o'clock
est
il
five o'clock
est
il
es?
a oito
dcmi
cinq heures
quarter to five
moins un
quart
quarter past
fiv e
twenty to
five
five
c)
cinco y
las
que horas sao?
che ora c?
uma
e la
cinco
nicnos cu-
las
sono
cinco e meia
Ic
cinco menos
um quarto
cinco y
quarto
cinq heures
moins vingt
las
cinco me-
nos veinte
las cinco y
cinco e
um
quarto
cinco menos
all
actually
a little
almost
aloud
also, too
as (like)
were
much
cinque e un
quarto
venti minuti
le
cinque
cinque e
alle
le
venti
veinte
circa
verso
surtout
sobre todo
sobretudo
sopratutto
en
fait
en realidad
na realidade
infatti
en
realite
un peu
un poco
um pouco
un poco
prcsque
a haute voix
casi
quasi
quasi
em voz
aussi
en alta voz
tambien
comme
como
pour
por decirlo asi por assim dizcr per cosi dire

tanto
tanto
tanto
ainsi dire
autant
a lo
badly
au moins
tout au plus
mal
besides (more-
d'ailleurs
at least
most
over)
un quarto
vinte
cinco e vinte
peu prcs
it
meno
cinque
le
arto
las
environ
as
cinque e
mezzo
Manner, Quantity, Affirmation and Negation
about
as
una
le cinque
sao cinco
media
cinq heures
un quart
cinq heures
vingt
twent\' past
above
oggi a otto
dias
ociio dias
que hora
unc hcurc cs la una

son las cinco
cinq
heures
cinq heures et
half past five
at
de hoje
est-il?
time?
it is
amaniia
menos
mas
alta
tambem
como
pelo
menos
ad alta voce
anche
come
almeno
ao mais
tutt' al
mal
rnale
ademas
de mais
inoltre
por
mal
lo
piu
en outre
todo o custo
by all means
by no means
a toute force
sin falta
en aucune
manicre
dc ningun
de
by chance
by heart
par hasard
par coeur
por suerte
dc memoria
modo
nenhum
ad ogni
in
modo
modo
por acaso
de cor
modo
nessun
a caso
a
memoria
654
PORTUGUESE
FRENCH
SPANISH
certainly
en passant
a propos
certainement
de paso
a proposito
ciertamente
certamente
chiefly
principale-
principal-
principalmente principal-
completely
mente
ment
completement completamente
directly
directement
ENGLISH
bv
the
way
directaniente
a proposito
ITALIAN
a volo
a proposito
certamente
mente
completa-
completa-
mente
mente
directamente
direttamente
enough
assez
bastante
bastante
assai
even
meme
aun
ainda
perfino
evidently
evidemment
exactly (just so)
justement
evidentemente
justamente
giusto
extremely
extremement
evidentemente
justamente
extremamente
primeramente
en primer
first (in
the
first
d'abord
en premier
place)
for instance
par exemple
fortunately
heureusement
hardly (scarcely) a peine

a la hate
indeed
in general
in vain
less
and
less
little
little
by
little
en
en
en
de
em
lugar
lieu
hastily
extremamente
primeiro
vente
general
vain
moins en
moins
peu
peu a peu
more and more

more or less
plus
mostly
pour
much
beaucoup
de plus en plus
ou moins
la
plu-
primeiro
lugar
por exemplo
evidentemente
estremamente
prima
in primo
luogo
per esempio
por ejemplo
por fortuna
felizmente
per fortuna
apenas
apenas
appena
precipitada-
precipitada-
in fretta
mente
mente
verdadera-
verdadeira-
mente
mente
davvero
de veras
generalmente
en vano
de-veras
geralmente
em vao
generalmente
invano
menos y
menos
poco
poco a poco
mas y mas
mas o menos
en su mayor
menos
menos
di
pouco
pouco
pouco
poco
poco
part
meno
mcno
a
in
poco
di piu in piu
mais e mais
mais ou menos
piu o
pela maior
per lo piu
meno
parte
parte
muito
molto
no
no
below)
nao
nao
no
non
de ningun
de
mucho
bien
fort
namely
no
non
not
ne
not
at all
(see viz.,
pas
pas du tout
modo
meme
aun
not even
pas
of course'
naturellement
naturalmente
sans doute
sin
ni
duda
nenhum
modo
nem mesmo
niente affatto
neanche
neppure
naturalmente
naturalmente
sem duvida
si
capisce
LANGUAGE MUSE U M
655
656
APPENDIX
Greek Roots
Common Use
in
III
for Technical
Words
of International Currency
What follows are
Greek words with roots which survive in words of

in scientific terms which are international. The
latter include especially medical words and names of classes or genera
of animals and plants, many of which will be familiar to the reader
who has an interest in natural history. Greek abounded in compounds
and words with derivative affixes. Loan words often come directly
from a combination of elements indicated separately by the reference
number of each item. The most important Greek affix which does not
occur as a separate word is a- (without). Generic and class names
listed below have an initial capital letter, as do proper names.
Use of a Greek dictionary in order to find the origin of a technical
term involves know ledge of the conventions of Romanized spelling;
and the order of the signs of the Greek alphabet: a, /?, y, 8, c,
7;,
K, A,
6,
i, o, TT, p, cr(), T, V,
Xi 4'i ^'- The Greek aspirate is
written before an initial letter. Thus
the transposed apostrophe
'a = ha, 'p = rh. Dictionaries do not separate words with aspirated
from words with unaspirated initial vowel. The transcription of the
= ps, x = ch, ^ = s, <^ = ph,
peculiar Greek consonants is as follows:
^ = X. If y comes before a guttural (y, ^, x) it is equivalent to n.
Thus yy = ng. The Latin transcription of k is C, but some modern
words render it as K. The equivalents of the simple vowels are e = e,
our
own
language and
(;,
I,
[J.,
I',
(j),
'
i{/
ri
= e or
a,
a =
a,
double vowels are

of
many Greek
When
the
i,
or w = o and
ov =
ii,
ti
substantives
ste77i
i,
The
= y.
at = ae,
becomes y
and
ol
conventions for the
= oe or
e.
The
final ta
in English.
of other case forms of
noun or
adjective
is
longer
than, or difiFerent from, the nominative the following rule holds good.
The nominative form

Thus from (232)
occurs in a
fiyjal
syllable,
nominative)
elsewhere the stem.
and ao-TrtSo? (aspidos

genitive) we get the zoological names Hemiaspis and Aspidocotyle.
From the nominative 6pi^ (thrix) and genitive rptxo? (trichos) we get
ao-Trt-;
(aspis
658
the o-enera Opbiothrix and Trichina.
Where
the nominative and genitive forms of a

asterisk (*)
marks the
The number
genitive,
if
confusion misht
arise,
noun appear below.
An
given alone.
is small, because the root which turns

words is more transparent in the corresponding abstract noun. Greek prepositions have widely different values depending
ô with them. The ones C
Sfiven are those
w on the case forms which C?
which thev usuallv have in technical terms.
Man\- Greek words transcribed in accordance ^^'ith the foregoing
conventions have come into use with little or no change. These in-
up
of verbs listed
in technical
clude:
a)
Mvthical persons such as Medusa, Hydra, Gorgon, Titan,

Andromeda, Morpheus, Nemesis, and nectar (the drink of
the CTods). The mvths have furnished many technical terms
for zoological or botanical genera, constellations, etc.
b) Medical terms of
apdpiTis
which the following
are samples:
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
a)
I)
GENERAL NOUNS
659
66o
662
83)
a/CTis,
aKTifos
87)
(actis,
sunbeam
actinos)
aiOrjp
(aether)
sky
avefios
(a7ieinos)
wind
affTTjp
{aster)
star
'I3)
663
664
666
e)
HUMAN SOCIETYLAW
199)
aoX(iios
{adelphos)
brother
200)
apSpos *
{ajidros)
rriale
201) avdpuTTos
(ajithropos)
and FAMILY,
human
being
202) apx'î'
(arcboii)
ruler
203) ôvKoXos
{biikolos)
herdsman
igenete)
birth
205) 7^P7os
(georgos)
farmer
206) yvvTi^
yvvaiKos
(gyiie,
woman
gynaecos)
207)
^rifios
(demos)
people
208)
5e(TiJios
(des7}!0s)
fetter
204)
209)
'ffviTj]
OCCUPATIONS
126)
T-ptc^vi
ipresbys)
an old
man
presbyopia
667
(338),
presby-
terian
227) irpotprjT-ns
228) rfKTwr
229) TVpavvof
(prophetes)
interpreter
(tectoii)
builder
(tyrannos)
dictator
230)
i/iroKpirrjs
{hypocrites)
actor
231)
01'^'?
(phyle)
tribe, clan
prophet
architect (202)
tyrant, tyrannical
hypocrite
phylum, phyletic,
(10)
f)
232)
ARMY
AND
NAVY
phylogeny
668
252)
6eos
253) iepevs
(theos)
god
LANGUAGE MUSE U M
/)
aSrjn
ANA! OMICAL
and
MEDICAL TFRMS
669
670
Kapdia
L A
0(f>pvi
(ophrys)
o/'H
(opsis)
NG UA
(;
evebrow
appearance,
eyesight
irapeia
(pareia)
cheek
ntXfia
(pch/ia)
sole
ipepsis)
digestion
TTtXoS
ipilos)
wool
irXtvpa
(pleura)
side, rib
TTjerâ
E U
67.
6;:
aTOfia
(stoma)
mouth
Gnathosto7nata
stoviata,
(293), Bdellosto7!?a (392)
arofiaxos
istoiiiacbos)
opening of
stomach
stomach
ffl-flTTTCCfla
{symptoma)
svmptom
<T<pvyfj.os
isphyginos)
pulse
symptomatic
sphygmoid, sphygmo77ianom-
{soma)
body
somatic,
eter (566, 629)
centrosovie
Fyrosoma
soma (62)
( 1 1 1 )
(31),
Sphaero-
rpaxeicL
(tracheia)
windpipe
rpavfia
(train /la)
wound
- trazn/ia,
(thrix,
hair
-Folytrichum (593), Trichina,

Ophiothrix (429), Tricho-
rpixos
trichos)
tracheal, tracheate, tracheide
77 last ix
trauDiajiasty
(628)
iryieia
(hygiia)
health
Vfirtv
(hymen)
membrane
-Hy7}ie7ioptera
(348),
77ieno77iycetes
(504),
hygie7ie, hygie7iic
HyHy-
77ienophyllaceae (517)
(pakayi
(phalanx)
joint of toe
phalanges, phalangeal
or finger
(pappiaKov
(phallos)
penis
phallic
(pharmakon)
drug
pharmacist,
phar77iacology
(36)
(papvy^^
(pharynx,
throat
glossophary7igeal
292
Fharyngobra7ichii (287)
(phleps,
phlebitis
phlebos)
c6Xe)3os
XOLiTT]
pharyngos)
(papi'yyos
(chaite)
long
hair,
-Folycbaeta
mane
tubercle,
7iatha
(593),
(293),
Chaetog-
Chaetocladiimi
(495)
-chalaza, chalazoga77iic (617)
Xo.\aâ
(chalaza)
xv'^v
(chele)
talon
-chela, chelate, chelicera (309)
Xei-Xos
(chilos)
lips
-Chilognatha (293), Chilodon
(chir)
-Chiroptera, chiropodist (346)

- glycocholate
(536), 77ielan-
pimple
(328)
Xo\v
(chole)
hand
bUe
XOj'Spos
(chondros)
cartilage
Cho7idrial, Cho7idrostei
Xopiov
(chorion)
skin, leather
chorio?i, chorionic, choroid
skin
Chrotella
ooge7iesis
cholia (610)
(331), Chojidrichthyes (402)
XpaJTOS
chros,
chrotos)
(oon)
ocov
(9),
(11), oospore
ors.
wros
(oilS,
Otos)
oogoiiiimi
(512)
-periotic (666), otolith (188),
otocyst (315)
LANGUAGE MUSEUM
j)
89)
ANIMALS
673
674
)
offTpeov
LANGUAGE MUSE U M
Ajl)
vapKicao%
(narcissos)
daffodil
473)
'>PX^^
(orchis)
orchid
peperi)
pepper
474) viwepi
^yj) TTtcroj
476) TrXaTOj-oj
{pisos)
pea
(platanos)
plane tree
477)
pa</)a'is
{rbaphanis)
radish
478)
O-tCTJTTt
(si lie pi)
mustard
(sycon)
fig
479) fflKOV
480)
i'a.Kiv6os
(byacinthos)
J.81)
I'ffffoijros
(byssopos)
hyacinth
hyssop
(acamba)
spine
(ant bos or
flower
482) oKaj'Sa
^83)
ai'ôy,
avOtfxov
484)
/JXao-TTj
485)
fioravT}
^95)
Kapvuiv
antbe7non)
(
blast e)
{car yon)
bud
675
6:6
678
LANGUAGE M U S
^8:)
opOos
(orthos)
straifjiu
583
TraXatoj
(paLuos)
old,
aged
584
Trav
(pan)
all
585
Trail's
(pachys)
thick
586
TrXa"/ LOS
(plagios)
587
TrXaoTos
iplastos)
crooked
modeled
,-88
wXarvs
(pLitys)
flat
589
F.
68o
m)
606) epvdpos
(erythros)
COLORS
erythrocyte
red
{li^^)
erythema,
erythrophore (649)
607) Kvavos
(cyafios)
cyanosis,
azure
Cyanophyceae
(516)
coetdris
(ioedes)
violet
609) \evKOS
(leiicos)
white
610) /xeXavos
{i7ielanos)
black
611) âv6os
(xantbos)
yellow
612) ojxpos
(ochros)
sallow, pale
(phaeos)
dusky, gray
(chloros)
green
608)
iodine, iodoforvi
leucocyte (143), Leucosolenia
?nelanic, melanophore (649),
Melampy rum
xanthia, xanthoderjna (295),
( 1 1 1
xantbophyll (517)
613)
(paios
614) x^wpoy
ochre, ochreous
Phaeophyceae (516),
sp or ales (512)
chlorine, chlorophyll
Chloropbyceae (516)
Phaeo(517),
682
655) ano
Index
Ablaut, 199
African languages, 187
Academia pro
Interlingua, 473
accents, 254-5
circumflex, 219, 240-1, 252
Afrikaans, 282
agglutinating languages, 53, 190
agglutination, 40, 80
in Celtic languages, 423
Portuguese, 346
accidence, 80, 178
agreement, 100
Albanian, 186, 188, 410
accusative, 106, 258, 313, 326

active, 105, 109, 142
alphabet, 33
address
amalgamating languages, 190, 19^

Amerindian languages, 187, 209
Amharic, 429
Accadian, 426-7
formal and intimate,
138, 230, 259 n.,
265, 370-2
Romance,
polite, in
230, 259 n.
189, 409-10
advantages of, 2, 215
as auxiliary language, 476-86, 489-90
future of, 446
position, 327-8, 355-8

Scandinavian, 276-8
Scandinavian, 278
adverbial expressions, position, 150
adverbial particles, 135
advertisements, language of, 120
affirmative particles. Romance, 402-3
in
Rspcranto, 469-72
in
Novial. 477
ff.
59-61
Arabic words
in Europe, 428
German, 294-5
Romance, 336
in interlanguage, 496-7
anomalists, 198
script,
99
borrowed, 178
Latin and Teutonic elements, 216

Annamese, 430
Arabic, 187, 188, 425
comparison
affixes, 38, 40, 53, 80, 190
flf.,
269
in Spanish, 344
Aramaic, 187, 425-7

Armenian, 186, 188, 410
article, 149, 165, 177-8
agglutination with prepositions, 107,

360-1
Dutch, 282
German,
291
partitive, 362-3
Portuguese, 345, 346
Romance, 404-6
Romance, 329-30, 359-63

Rumanian, 348
Teutonic, 221-2
Scandinavian, 276, 277
in Volapiik, 463
182,
Anglo-American,
Romance,
18,
161,
\197-8
analytical languages, 95
German, 265-6, 290-4

Latin, 318 ff., 327
predicative, 149
adverb,
extension, 40, 81,
ff.
ana'ogists, 198
adjective, 99, 113, 265-7

attributive, 149
Dutch, 2S2
see also
4:7
origins, 55-7,
analoQ;ical
370-2
pronouns of, German,

Adelung, 172
ff.,
ff.
INDEX
684
Scandinavian (continued)
see
definite
also
Celtic languages, 186, 187, 410, 421

indefinite
article;
person
in, 85,
meaning
characteristic
article
Aryan languages,
182, 183, 208, 209,
410
125
of
particles,
ff.
aspect, 91
associative directives, 159
Chaucer, 218, 260

chemical terminology, 458
Assvn)-Bab\l()nian, 187, 426

Ataturk, Kcnial, 61, 441
Chinese, 187, 1S8, 430-46

characters, 431, 432, 440, 441
and English, compared, in,
attributive adjectives,
149
Australian languages, 187

auxiliar\- language, 448 tf.
need
121, 432,
script, 39
Hacon,
F., 312, 476

Baltic languages, 188, 410, 417
188,
187,
194,
Basic I'nglisb, 17-18, 457, 480
circumflex accent, 219, 240-1, 252

203-6,
ff.,
510
Bas(]uc, 187, 188, 343
Breton, 186, 187, 346, 421

73
Br\thonic, 421
Buluarian, 186, 187, 417, 418, 419
()ld,
418
in
German, 230
case, 104-7, 258, 263, 494

case forms, in Latin, 313-17, 320-1
cases
in
in
Scandinavian,
Teutonic, 184
184, 278
in Teutonic languages, 180

complex sentences, 154 ff., 164-5
compound tenses, 91
compound words, 40-2,
80
concord, 100
187
C, in Romance languages, 255

Canaanite dialects, 426 if.
Canadian French, 347
Cape Dutch, see Afrikaans
letters,
336, 337
Romance, 404
187, 188
Bushman language,
capital
Romance,
Latin, 319
Braille code, 65, 72
Burmese,
comparative method, 175

comparison, 99
irregular,
Bopp, F., 173, 182

borrowing, 37
Timothy,
classifiers, 51
clog almanacs, 62
188, 425 n.
Old French, 327

Romance, 327
Latin, decay of, 324
ff.
Castilian, 343, 344

Catalan, 187, 543, 346
causative verbs, 142, 200
ff.
classificatorv languages, 188, 205-7
clicks, 204
Bible translations, 171

Bopal, 464
Bright,
classification, basis of, 175 ff.

classification of languages, 2S, 169
(Chinese, 440-1
Beach-La-Mar, 446
Bengali, 411, 415-16
Berber languages, 187,
13-14,
of, 441-2
writing, 43, 49 ff., 449
Christianity
and language, 170-1
and Latin, 310-11
Church Slavonic, 418
Cid, 312, 343
Avcstan, 412
Bantu languages,
446
Romanization
of, 3
auxiliary verbs, see helper verbs
Aztec
ff.
87
rules of, 159

conditional, Romance, 398 ff.
conditional clauses, German, 305
congresses, international, 488
conjugations,
French, 24
Italian,
23,
n.-,
195
380-1
384
Latin, 95
Portuguese, 583
Romance, 380
Spanish, 383
conjunctions, 123, 154 ff.
co-ordinate, 154-5
Romance and Teutonic, 132-3
subordinate. 154 ff.
consonant
clusters, 208, 513
INDEX
consonant symbols, phonetic, 70
consonants, 43, 46, 57 If.
English, 220 ff.
contact vernaculars, 446-7
contracted words, 506
co-ordinate conjunctions, 154-5
copula, 143, 161
Cornish, 422
correspondence between words, 123
Creole patois, 447
Cretan writing, 45, 63
9, 23, 34,
durative construction, 131, 350, 389-90

Dutch, 187, 217, 280 ff.
Dutch, Cape, see Afrikaans
Dutch grammar, 281-3

Dutch spelling, 230-1
editorship, self-, 164-6
education,
auxiliary
language
and,
487-8
Egvptian, ancient,
187, 425 n.
Egvptian writing, 47
Eîcyclopedie, 458
English, 187
culture-contacts, 177
cuneiform,
685
426
peculiarities of, 257
cursive scripts, 60
Cushite, 188, 425 n.
Cypriot writing, 34, 50, 59
Czech, 186, 187, 417
Anglo-American
why bad
see also
English speakers,
I1
linguists,
Erse, 186, 187, 422
Dalgarno, G., 74, 450 fit., 500

Danish, 273 ff.; see also Scandinavian
Danish spelling, 231-2
dative, 106, 258, 313, 325
German, 288
declensions, 23, 103, 107, 195, 263, 326
Latin, 315-16, 318-19
definite article, 177-8
French, 352, 361-2
Romance, 177-8, 328, 361-2
see also article
demonstratives, 77, 137, 1491 33'

Latin, 329-32
Romance,
372
Teutonic, 271
Descartes, R., 449

dialect, 216
dictionary, use of, 21, 80
difficulties, in natural languages, 491
Faiguet, 458-9
families of languages, 185
characteristics, 188 ff.
ff.
Fijian, 188
191
Flemish, 281, 346

flexional languages, 188, 190, 303
flexions, agglutinative character of, 182
no- 11
of,
in interlanguage, 493
diminutives, 405
direct method, 24-5
direct object, 106, 146-7
ff.
origin of, 197 ff.

Sanskrit, 412-14
form and function, relation of, 162
directives, 18, 26, 107, 123
Franks, 309
associative, 139
classification of, 135
French,
187,
196,
346-7, 349
instrumental, 137
in interlanguage, 511-12
232-4
script, 63
evolution of languages, 9
decav
Dil, 464
dual, 97-8, 258, 429
Etruscan
Finnish, 153-4, 186-8, 190-2, 412-13

Finno-Ugrian languages, 187, 188, 190,
ff.
of motion, 135
of place, 134
of time, 138
see also prepositions
doublets, Latin-French,
Esperantido, 473
Esperanto, 448, 458, 466-73
Esquimaux, language of, 189, 209
Esthonian, 186, 188, 194
Ethiopian, 188, 426, 428
Etruscan, 340
197,
232
ff.,
308
ff.,
ff.
Canadian, 347
early, 311
German
elements in, 309

Latin book words in modern, 232-5
see also
in
English,
Romance
French elements in English, 232-4

French pronunciation, 249-55, 357-8
French vowels, 252
INDEX
686
502-6, 657
ff.
Greenlandic, 187, 209

Grierson, Sir G., 415
Grimm, J., 193, 459
French and Spanish, 394
German,
and technics,
roots,
future, 93, 94, 177
295-6
Romance, 338-40
Rumanian, 339-40
Latin and
Grimm's law, 182

grow th of words, 80
future perfect, 321, 339
Gujarati, 412, 415
G,
in
Romance
Gwoveu Romatzvh,
languages, 255
Gypsy
sounds, 224
GaeHc, Scots,
187, 421
186,
French, 254
Hamitic languages,
Galician, 343
Gaul, Latin in, 308-9
Ge'ez, 428
l.\
187, 188, 425 n.
lawaiian, 208
headline language, 118, 120
I
gender, 100-3, '3^1 177-8, 203, 207, 265
German,
441
language, 412
Hebrew,
289-91
1S8, 425
187,
ff.
Latin, 318-19, 327-8
Hebrew
Romance,
helper verbs, 91, 112, 142-3

German, 297-300
Romance, 585 ff., 396-8
Teutonic, 144-5
and word order, 147-8
Hervas, L., 172
328, 352-7
Scandinavian, 278-9
Semitic, 429-30
generic words, 508-9
genitive, 104, 258, 264, 313, 325
Dutch, 282
ciiaracters, earlv, 190
German, 289
Latin, 315
objective, 315
Hindi
partitive, 315
qualitative, 315
Hindustani.
F.astern, 411
Western. 411, 415
Teutonic, 180
Georgian, 187
German,
187,
259
196,
199-203,
224
ff.,
and High,
38, 49-50, 51
Chinese, 437-8
Hottentot language, 187
226-9, -81
reasons for conservative character,

286-7
Hungarian, see Magyar
stress in, 230
Iberian dialects, 343

Icelandic, 183, 258, 273, 275
German
German
dialects, 2S2, 286-8
ideograms, 41, 44
idiom, 13
Idiom Xeutral. 465
idiomatic use of particles, 130
spelling, 22S-30
gerund. 131, 390-1

Gessner, Conrad, 449
gesture, 72
Goidelic, 421
Gothic.
Ido. 472-3
88, 92
Gothic verb. 261

grammar, of auxiliary language, 492
ff.
comparative, 79
essential.
21
gramophone
records. 15
Greek,
187,
1S6,
413, 657
246,
248,
308,
letters, 58, 334,
410,
imperative. 109, 112

Romance, 396-7
imperfect, 91, 320, 338, 394-5
impersonal constructions, 1 19
impersonal pronouns. Romance, 372

impersonal verbs, 162, 164
incorporating languages, 209
indefinite article, 332, 362
ff.
contribution to English, 246
modern,
ff.
holophrastic languages, 209
homophones,
ff.
capitals in. 230
Low
416
Hittite writing, 23, 42
280
ff .,
193,
Hiragana s\llabarv, 443, 444

history of language studv, 169
340
248-9, 410
ff.
Indie, Old, 183
Indie dialects, modem, 188

Indie languages, 411-16
ff.
INDEX
indicative, 108
Kirghiz, 187, 188

Kiriwinian, 206-7
koine, 248
indirect object, 106, 146-7

position of, 146-8
indirect questions,
German,
Indo-Chinese languages,
306
187, 188,
Indo-European languages,
687
182,
430
186
Koran, 428
Korean, 186, 188
Kyrillic alphabet, 418, 420
Indo-Iranian languages, 186

infinitive, 108,
language study, uses
259
agglutinative, Portuguese, 398

Dutch and German, 281
ff.
Lappish, 186, 188, 194

Latin, 194-5, 3o8 ff-
of request, 401-2
Romance,
of, 3
Langue Bleuc, 464
396-7
classical, 313
fif.
mutations, Celtic, 424

instrumental, 107
instrumental case, 317
instrumental directives, 137
disuse as language of culture, 448

in Gaul, 308-9
interdictionary, 500 ff.

interlanguage, essential features, 516-17
Interlingua, 455, 473-6
and Interlingua, 473-4

and Italian, compared, 314
languages, sound changes, 232
international language, 74
interphonetics, 513-16
interrogation, 150, 153, 162
letters, 58
initial
inscription, early, 310

as interlanguage, 312-13
"logicality" of, 314-18

popular, 309-10
pronunciation, 250
roots in English, 232-4, 313-14
Romance, 403-4
interrogative particles, 150, 153
interrogatives, 137
Romance,
372
^Teutonic, 272
vulgar, Romance words from, 341-3

Latinesce, 478
latinization of English, 217-18
Latino sine flexione, see Interlingua
376
tf.,
intransitive, 141, 142
and
transitive, in
German, 304
Latvian, 186, 410, 417

League of Nations, 468
learning a language, and flexions, 127
three skills required, 11-12
what it involves, lo ff.
inversion, 150-1
Iranian, Old, 412
Irish, see Erse
irregular verbs, French, 382

Latin, 322
Leibniz, 172, 449, 454

Lenin, V. I., 75
isolating languages, 189

Italian, 187, 194, 197, 209, 237
348, 349
early, 311
fF.,
308
ff.,
ff.
Romance
Italic dialects,
ff.,
308
James, Llovd, 515

Japanese, 186, 188, 194, 209
Japanese writing, 49, 52 fF., 440, 443-4
473
Lettish, see Latvian

liaison, 253
Linnaeus, 458
and nonliterary languages, 409
Lithuanian, 181, 186, 188, 410, 417
literary
locative, 314, 317

Lockhart, IMiss L.
W., 506
Jespersen, O., 106, 208, 472, 476-7, 492,
logograms, 44 ff.
logographic writing,
Luther, A I., 287
495. 515
Jones, Sir \V., 173-4
Magyar,
34,
43-4
186, 188, 191, 193
Kafir-Sotho languages, 203
Malay, 187, 189

Mala'vo-Polynesian languages, 187
Malinowski^ B., 162, 163, 206, 457
Kana, 34, 54, 443

Katakana syllabary, 440, 443, 445
Manchu,
Joyce,
J.,
ff.
link words, 18; see also conjunctions
and Latin, compared, 314

see also
ff.
323
Maltese, 188, 429

186,
188
INDEX
688
Manutius, Aldus, 36
numeratives, 206
Chinese, 440-1
Manx,
421
iMaori, 188
Marathi, 412, 415
Maya
object, 105, 141, 163

indirect, 106, 146-8
writing, 41
meaning, changes of, 234

metaphor, 509
metaphorical extension, 51
missionaries and script systems, 196
objective, 104, 258

genitive, 315
Moabitic, 426
Ogam
Mongolian, 186
monosyllabic languages, 430
Ogden, C.
ff .,
446
in
monosyllables, 49,
mood, 108-10
oblique case. 104, 326

Occidental, 474
script, 62, 421
Latin, 322
German,
258, 302
negation, 152-4
double, 402-3
Latin and Romance, 340-2
Romance, 403-4
Scandinavian, 279
Nestorian stone, 427
neuter, Latin, disappearance of, 327-8
Nobilibus, Robertus de, 173
nominative, 104, 105, 258, 313
Norwegian, 273 flf.; see also Scandinavian
spelling, 231-2
Novial, 476-8, 501
noun
500,
Pali, 411
Panini, 412
Panjabi, 410, 415
187, 206, 207
participle, 91, 109, 130, 164

past. 260
Dutch and German, 260

Romance, 390-3
present,
particles. 18-20, 123
If.
interrogative, 150, 153

partitive article, 362-3
partitive genitive, 315
parts of speech, 1 18
Pasilingua, 215, 447
passive, 105, 109, 142, 164
French, 388-9
German, 296
Latin. 321-2
Latin and Romance, 337-8

Scandinavian, 109, 275
past, immediate, in French and Span-
Dutch, 282
Finnish, 192
262-5, 288-90
Latin, 3131!.
Old English, 262-5
Romance, 350-9
Scandinavian, 276
495
Latin, 315-16
in Romance, 350-2
number of languages, 409
number symbols, 44-7
numerals, 185
Russian, 420
ff.,
Pallas, 172
Papuan,
French, 253
83, 96-8,
479
origin of language, 76-7

Oscan writing, 325
Mundolingue, 465
museums, language, 10
Muslims in Spain, 343
number,
130,
of, 135
expression of, in
German,
17,
in, 12-13
motion, directives
Norwegian
6,
operators, 510
oral recognition of language, difficulty
Romance, 398-402
Morse code, 63, 6^
nasals,
K.,
506
ish,
394
past definite, 395, 396

patois, French, 446-7
Peano, G., 455, 473-6
Pehlevi, 412
perfect. 91
and imperfect, 320-1, 338-9
synthetic, disuse of, 338
Persian, 181, 183, 188, 410, 412, 414-15
Old, 412
person, 83 ff.
in Celtic languages, 85, 87
INDEX
personal pronouns, see pronouns, personal
Phoenician, 187, 426, 427
689
pronouns, 20
emphatic, 139
French, 193
Phoenician letters, 58-9

phonetic patterns, 208-10
phonetic symbols, 70, 71
phonetic writing, 34
impersonal, Romance, 372

indefinite, Romance, 380
as link words, 47-8
phonetics, 15
personal, 83-7, 97-8,
phonograms,
fused,
Romance,
changes
47, 51
pictograms,
23, 42-3
picture writing, 34, 39, 42
pidgin English, 446-7
138-9,
159-61
Icelandic, 160
Latin, 320
ff.
Old
English, 160
Persian, 414
place, directives of, 134
Romance,
Plattdeutsch, 282
pluperfect, 322, 338
Teutonic, 115
331, 332-3, 563-9
reflexive, 140, 333, 372

relative, 136, 372
Romance,
350-2
pointer words, indefinite
stressed, 364-5
Romance, 379
pronunciation, French, 249-55, 357-8
Teutonic, 280
Italian, 249-51
see also demonstratives
Latin, 249-50
Polabian, 418
Polish, 186, 187, 417
Portuguese, 187, 237(1.,
349
ff.
in use, 159
Pitman, Sir Isaac, 74
plurals,
366-7
308
ff.,
343-6,
Portuguese, 345
Spanish, 249-51
pronunciation changes, and
speUing,
66-8
ff.
spelling
and pronunciation, 345-6
proto-Aryan, 183-4
see also
Romance
Provengal, 343, 346

punctuation, 36
Punic, 428
possessive, 104; see also genitive

possessive genitive, 315
possessive pronouns, Romance, 369
possessives (reflexive), Scandinavian,
279-81
Teutonic, 116
predicative adjectives, 149
questions, 15 1-2
indirect, in German, 306
negative, 152
see also interrogative
prefixes, 38
classificatory, 203-5
Rask, R. K., 181
Greek, 247-8
verbal,
German,
reading,
304-5
agglutination with articles, 107, 360-1

Celtic, fusion with pronouns, 423
German, and case forms, 258
Romance, 372
related languages
relative pronouns, 136
128-9
Romance,
372
reported speech, German, 305
primitive speech, 198

principal clause, 155
prolixity, German, 303
objects, position,
German, 304
reflexive pronouns, 140, 333
learning, 6-7
Teutonic, 126-7
366-7
for, 13-14
correspondences, 25-6
after infinitive, 397

Latin, 317
pronoun
needed
reflexive construction,
prepositions, 193, 416
Romance,
skill
reflexive, 109
see also affixes
request, infinitive of, 401-2

Richards, I. A., 479 ff., 486
Romance,
Rig- Veda, 411

Rivarol, 347
INDEX
690
Romanal, 474
Romance
languages,
349
186,
187,
308
ff.,
ff.
common
features, 312
Latin and, 175

Romance speakers, number, 410
Romanization, desirability of universal,
75
Romansch, 348
of Teutonic origin, 221-2

Sindhi, 415
Slavonic languages, 186, 187, 417-21
Slavonic speakers, number, 410
Slovak, 186, 187, 417

Slovene, 187, 417
Somali, 187, 188, 425 n.
Sorbian, 418
sound changes, 33-4
root-inficcted languages, 188, 199-203
Latin, 3:5
roots, 38, 162-3

Greek, and technics, 502-6
in Latin languages, 232
international, 500
ff.
Semitic, 57, 428-9

Rosetta stone, 63-4
Royal Society, 448, 452
rules in language learning, 21-3
Spanish, 187, 237
German, 229
rational, 65
Sassetti, 173
171
187, 273
ff.
ff.
terminology, 246
Scots, 217
Scots Gaelic, see Gaelic
script
in
ing, 61
missionaries and, 196
needed
for, 13
semaphore code, 65
Semitic languages, 57-8, 187, 188, 425-9
sentence, complex, 154 ff., 164-5
separable verbs, 300-1
Septuaginta, 249
Serbo-Croatian, 186, 187, 417
serjjio
ff.
Scandinavian, 231-2
Spanish, 385
spelling changes, English, 69-70
spelling reform, 75
Strasbourg, Oaths of, 311
stress
forms, circumstances influenc-
self-expression, skill
of auxiliary language, 492

comparative, 33-4
Danish, 231-2
Dutch, 230-1
192
Sanskrit, 173-4, 410, 411-14
Sapir, E., 499
scientific
ff.
344
Spclin, 464
spelling
Samovcde,
Scandinavian languages,
281
343-6, 349
speech communities, small,
417, 421
Schlegel, F., 174

Schleyer, J. A I.. 460
ff.,
in, 312,
ff.
pronunciation, 249-51
Little, 417, 421
J. J.,
237
spelling, 385
see also Romance
Russian, 186, 187, 410, 419-21

Great, 417, 420-1
Scaliger,
308
ff.,
Arabic elements
Rumanian, 187, 348

Runic script, 62-3, 261
White,
ff.,
sound replacement, 178-9, 181

sound shifts, 219 ff., 226, 230,
sounds and symbols, 222
urbamis and senno rusticus, 310
sex and gender, 102

short sentences, advantages, 157
German, 230
Romance
languages, 254-5
stressed pronouns, French, 364-5
strong verbs, 95
in
subject, 105-6
subject-object distinction, words and,

163,
494
subject-predicate relation, 119

subjunctive, 108
German, 305-6
Romance, 398
subordinate clause, 154
subordinate conjunctions, 154
substantives, 77, 113
Suetonius, 317
shorthand, 73, 74
Siamese, 187, 188, 430
suffixes, 38; see also affixes
signaling, 72
signposts
of Latin origin, 235-6
superlative, 99
Swahili, 187, 203
Sumerians, 426
ff.
INDEX
Swedish, 200, 272
691
Universal-Sprache, 464-5
Urdu, 416
ff.
literan', 279
spelling, 231-2
see also Scandinavian languages

syllable writing, 34, 47
syllables, 38, 56, 208
synonyms, in conversation, 13
'
unnecessar)', 506-7
syntax, iii, 118 ff., 178
changes
Vandals, 343
Vedic, 411, 412
Vedic hymns,
183
V'eltparl, 464
verb, 17, 108-10, 140
ff.
in Basic English, 510-11
causative, 142, 200
in, 161
Celtic, 422-4
German, 300 fF.

and good writing,
Dutch, 282
164
Finnish, 191
French, 380-2
synthetic languages, 95
German,
295
ff.
Tahitian, 188
Gothic, 261
Tamil, 188
Greek and
Tartar, 187, 188

Tasconian, 248
technical terms, 10, 502
telegraphic codes, 72
impersonal, 162, 164
Sanskrit, 413
in Interlingua, 475
flF.
Telugu, 188
Italian,
384
Latin, 320
ff.
Persian, 414-15
tense, 90, 93-6, 320, 495
Portuguese, 383-5
tenses
Romance,
compound, 91
Romance, 337-8,
394-6
Teutonic language, parent, 175, 180-1

Teutonic languages, 187, 200-3
and English, differences, 269-70
Teutonic speakers, number, 410
Tibetan.
187, 188,
446
Tibeto-Burmese group. 430

Tigre, 429
Tigrina, 429
380
ff.
Russian, 420
separable, 300-1
Spanish, 383-5
strong and weak, 92, 95, 267
Teutonic, 180-1, 185, 200-3, 267

vagueness of meaning, 140
see also irregular verbs
verb economy, 480-1, 483
verb flexions
Dutch and German,
tiir345
English, 258-61
tilde, 251
Gothic, 261
Scandinavian, 274
time, directives of, 138
Tokharian. 183
tone, interrogative, 152
tones, 49. 430, 438-9
Tooke, Home,
173
traffic signs, 35, 43
transitive, 141
and intransitive, in German, 304

1
tricks of language learning, 6,
429
Turco-Tartar languages, 188
Turkish, 187, 188, 194, 495
triliteralism, 57,
Turkish
script, 420, 441
Ukrainian, 421
Ulfilas, Bishop, 88, 171, 261
Umlaut, 200
ff.
281
verb prefixes, German, 300

verbal noun, 131
vernaculars, rise of, 448
vestiges, grammatical, 22-3
vocabular>', for auxiliary
500
languages,
ff.
basic, 16
ff.
number
of words needed,
10,
10-
17
conversational and written,

vocative case, 313, 3^7
13
vocatives, 77
voice, 108-10
consonants, 68,
voiced and voiceless
267, 513-15
Volapiik, 459-65
INDEX
692
Anglo-American, 499
vowel change
German, 201
Chinese, 435
conjunctions and, 154-8
Semitic, 429
vowel symbols, phonetic,

vowels, 43, 49, 57
ff.,
German-Dutch,
71
word
similarity, 175-8
writing, good, 163 ff.
kinds of, 34
separation of words in, 36
writing and speech, 166-7
Vulgate, 311, 323, 362

Sir T., 441
war, and interlanguage, 518
weak
88, 90, 186, 187, 421
Wilkins, Bishop, 74, 450
word economy,
word lists, how
making, 20
word
Yiddish, 410
verbs, 92
Welsh,
ff.
Scandinavian, 154-5, 274
English, 227 ff.

French, 252
in interlanguage, 515
Romance, 251-2
Wade,
155-8, 283
Latin. 323-4
68
ff.,
Zamenhof, L.
500
506-13
to learn, 213
Zoological
ff.
tional
ff.
order, 27, 145
ff.,
L.,
466
ff.
Zend, 412
270, 498
ff.
Nomenclature,
InternaCommission on, 490
Zulu, 187, 188

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MoL^^ey^

Digitized by the Internet Archive

The Rosetta Stone

This inscription, which came to hght during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt,

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE STORY OF THE ALPHABET

OUR HYBRID HERITAGE

HOW TO LEARN THE BASIC WORD LIST

THE DISEASES OF LANGUAGE

THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES

THE ROSETTA STONE

CUNEIFORM TABLET RECORDING BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF THE DELUGE

STONE INSCRIPTION FROM PAPHOS (EIGHTH CEN-

THREE VERSES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE

PAGE FROM THE "cODEX ARGENTEUS"

THE OLDEST ROMAN STONE INSCRIPTION THE LAPIS

STONE WITH CELTIC INSCRIPTION IN OGAM SIGNS

POSTAGE STAMP OF KEMAL ATATURK TEACHING THE

MONGOLS LEARNING THE LATIN

As NEVER before America is now language conscious and will

therefore needs no apolog)' on account of its novelty or break with

vigorous popular demand for them.

country pubs during the course of a

discussion, chiefly in English

from Aberdeen to London

job as editor of the series

Scottish Highlands while

be grateful for what was

highly educative experience and one which

passed the task became

are like myself

acted as a sieve, or,

more and more a co-operative efyou like, as a bit of litmus paper.

to suggestions for the benefit of readers

find languages as formidable as

readiness than those

normal modicum of egotism and a less developed

difficulty in preventing Dr.

to see that limitations

refusing to publish the

coauthor on the cover.

have got him

editorial qualifications for

ordinary people would make

laughing stock in the capacity of joint author with presumptive

knowledge which I do not possess.

due in no small measure to the co-operation

criticism for use in later impressions or editions.

successor to MatheTuatics for the Million and

will continue to find,

do with difficulties which beset

age of potential plenty.

habitually speak depends

has nothing to do with the composition of the

spenn or of the human egg.

the language used at

can have any rational

basis for the belief that

incapable of becoming a linguist.

be a by-product of formal education or other agencies of social

the motion picture

language lesson. Translation of the English,

German, or French dialogue