Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-06-12

quenchng of hot metals to the letter a snarng of dogs
to the letter the noise of screechows to the letters M
voice Of cats the dpong and the sounds Of strings
with the dpthongsng" These remarks Of Bacon may be
widely generazed and the instances Of such smiltude
greatly multiplied Let verify the statement by an
appeal to the poets. The letter hkened to the
snarng of dogs by the old Roman critics. but it evil
IDENTIFY symbozes by its pronunciation any harsh Earring
sound, which see exempfed in the following lines
The hodrse night rapen, trump of doleful dr9e"
Speasr.
- On a sudden, open fly
With impetuous recoil and Earring sound
TIL internal doors; and on their hinges CRATE
Harsh thunder. MILTON.
Or who can read the following lines and doubt that the
kissing snakes has been mainly regarded in the various
applications they have received? Did all these sibants
originate by chance, and "aganst the of nature?"
- Dreadful was the din
OF kissing through the hail. thick swarming now
With complicated monsters, head and tail,
Scorpion and asp, and amphisbona dire,
Cerastes, horn'd hydras, and elops drear,
And dipsas not SO thick swarmed once the soil
Bedropt with blood Of Gorgon. "-Miton.
IT. still further we look at the names which the organs
of human speech have given to themselves find an un
misakabe connection between their nomenclature and the
seat of the sound Why is it that gtara are uniformly
employed by the English French, German, and Latin
tongues to name gttv gorge, gos, hehl, gula, gule
coum, &C.? Why are abals used by the same languages
to name the lips? Why is the tongue SO active in the
naming ITSELF if there be not natural and instructive
fitness in the things Why does the deaals name the
ess And why is it in languages that have preserved
their native simplicity that find those objects which
are metaphorcally signifed by the lips, throat,
tongue, teeth, invariably expressed by laba gura
tnguals and dental? It should, moreover, be remem
bered in considering this subject that the natural element
in all those languages which employ the Roman alphabet
that is, in all the ndoGermanic languages, has been
greatly obsructed and obterated by the nsucency flor
them of this alphabetical notation. The letters we
are, with few additions Phenician; and though they
very well for the Scientific tongues they become
inadequate to the representation of tongues embracing
sounds which did not exist in the Phenican language
The Deua nGgari "Divine alphabet Of the Sanscri
tongue containing thirty three consonants and FIVE
els pronounced by the distinguished Hungarian philo
ogst Dr. Kratsir, the only scheme of writing perfect
y adapted to represent to the eye the European
tongues" The conrarety between English photography
and English orhoepy is the just of the deficiency
and mperfection of aphabetic system The Arabic
letters, says the authority just named, phono
graphic that the writing of the vowel points is deemed
unnecessary; and Arab of education would consider
himself nsuted should he receive letter with the vowel
points inserted He would take it as an ntimaton that
he could read To render the English language in
its present stage and structure, photographic would
however be equivalent to its destruction for it is in the
written forms that it chiefly preserves its connection
with Nature and it is by these also that it shows its rea
onshp with the tongues from which it has received such
copous contributions Destroy the photographic spelling
of words and the splendid composite tongue of which
boast would deteriorae into miserable argon bad
as the TalkeeTakee" of negro-quarter in the West
India Islands If the Photographed dictionary
and the teachers Of the "scence of photography bent
reforming the language let them just reverse the pro-
proposed and instead of altering the spelling Of
words to suit their sound let them alter the pronuncia
ton of words express their proper and establish
ed photography ~
There is always class of very good-hearted but very
weak headed who perpetuay disposed to object
against any doctrine discovery in science to them
selves on the of fancied incompatby with the
Scriptures, and especially the Mosaic history For all
such men we hardly know whether have more pity
contempt the who start aghast at the successive
discoveries of modern philosophy though after ALL hu
science were destined to explode theyeries Of re-
veation Believing ourselves that the God of Nature is
also the God Of the Bible do not indulge any such APP
prehensions for the safety of the ark which the ocious
zeal Of many Uzzah thinks to keep from topping to its
fall do not fear that the Book which speaks in voice
that peas through the nnermost Of mans spr
ua nature which prophecy has conpred establish and
resplendent miracles to adorn with prodgaity Of evil
dence is in any danger of being proved sold wifes
fable by neophyte biologists positive philosophers,
wordy ethnologiss historical builders-each
mumbling over like many old and toothless crones
their insane pratngs and senseess drve against the
truths Of Christianity True science must confirm the
truths Of inspiration while science falsely called,
destined to be decduous in its generations the
fungi which spring up in night and disappear in day
But the morbdy sensitive among such good Christians
have educated the heart at the expense of the head
may be inclined protest against theory of language
being intended to for the diveres Of human
speech by reference solely to the natural operation Of
corrupt usage separate nationality diverse impressions
Of nature &c., thus practically ignoring the statement in
Genesis respecting the confusion Of tongues the tower
Of Babel Now, far from this imputaton being fair
one unhesitatngy belief that the theory Of
the natural origin of language is utterly untenable with
out the supposton that there has been miraculous
fusion Of human speech The rapprochen connected
view Of different branches Of modern science win set
this subject in strong light Geology has settled no
fact conclusivey than that of the comparative
cency Of mans advent the EARTH and in this coincid
ing with the Scriptural chronology Philoogy has as
concusvey asceraned that linguistic changes take place
with great sowness and by almost mperceptibe rada-
tons how slow and gradual for instance under every
variety Of modifying circumstances has been the change
Of Angoaxon into English Of ancient Greek into mo-
dern Romaic Now, supposng any thing like similar
80 .hanoa In ~ NAV Jnr:x