New-York daily tribune., 1858-11-25
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MR.. M.RsVs EIGHTH LECTURE.

W M,EsH devoted his Eighth Lecture on the In
ehsh Language, yesterday, princ'rty 20 snow {
that If there wers msny Disadvantages II oa' wing
borrowed many OF our words resiy' 'mS'e RON tie
Romance. Latin and Greek ns. method O. expressing
rev ideas h,s sl.o rs advantages There We're, be
ss.j two classes of langusees one, which, Ike Greek
German. Ic,laud.c ani Ango.S,xon, built np ne"
words 10 rrp,eser, rev -epiioas with words a.
ready in u-e IN ths language while the other, Ike the
Latin and Ro nance Imported lts rev words or 'or'ned
them from, obsolete roots b. .hsse came the En-
esh but nearer the last S. sircrg was ms caaac'er
.tic N the o.Ssxonthat although the Arslo-Sxon
version Of the Bible was translated direct nom me
Latin vulrate. very few Lstin.sms crcpt into the
translation Words which one version Aai copied And
no, translated prophet SCRIBE srp'er, 'fpulrSer on
turon resurrection disciple parable treasure Phar'-
sfs all Latin Greek, or Hebrew, which hal baen
accepted by U.s. were translated in the ADsio-SaNon
version. The pro7i0 was the cisssgyeri the s'PaI-
ehsr bural-p.ace the scribe book mc~ the o'a'u-
sion kuxlrc9-mqn and the disciple 4 IeGrRiFS-
yonb. He could but regard this FAC. "a mater
Of weight in support OF the arsaineat that the
primitive Anglican church was comparative y indepen-
dert Of the Pspal See The o,d AugO-Sax0ns and the
Germans nowadays had this advantage over ~ that
their new words perfectly INTEL -os; these were
the speeches oi man, more expressive AM more
uicors because more alive than the others. L. these
lar euaees na'ivs could AZ once extemporze woni
70 EXPRESS b. idea and hs word would be INTEL
le bic to sl who spoke his language. SO Arstophaues
could IN one Greek word say: rlSeS-eariy-
IN tie .andkurricst0-tic riiHHGl-' l-'bdcHOnRce
another f0rda intracoR Of "a tair-coacsrntRgthe-
ot-hieres. Richter quoted Forster IS
authority for the existence OF sanscrt word OF lo3
syllabes In Icelsndlc, Anso-Saxon and German were
May very important particles. Mr.. Mlshh gave
some striking examples OF their eXpressiveness in
lcean6c and Anglo Saxon Tie writer oho should
restore lie use Of these would do far greater work
for us than he who nauralizei thousands Of Romance
words How much should lose If to'l0rH, forget
and f3rsro,s we're to become Obsolete; but not more
than we hei lost in the obsolescsnce OF for6sd faint
from loss OF blood toyadse, 10 condemn nnjasty t0r-
r.He. 10 waste away to,ckGscd, wear.ed 10y pdrsGt;
and toJ r p exhausted with weeping. Still these were
hy no means irreyocaby lost. Although We were
more scrupuous in the selection OF words that 300
wears ago. when Fuller elped hmsei ta a good word
wherever he could iud it, and in telling the story Of
the man whose yourg wife pulled out his gray hairs,
while his old wife pulled out his black ones until he was
bald said that the young wife "uagray-haire@
lin. Odd a. this word seemed it was not more s.,
than railroad and torboqt. The most awkward ver-
bal forms which one could we'll imagine were those
which indicated gender by prefxng pronouns, as he.
bear, ske.5eay The Germans had fabricated soms
vt1y awkward words to do tho work which We i'm
ported foreign words for. The homogepity Of the
German gave great pathological valae to its study,
ard It seemed 10 have led the Germans to their emit
nence IN philoogy. Yet this led them TO the employ
of forms sciarca loose in their
ing than ours and necessarily SO since our technical
tcrls being impaired expressly, hal to IA only
their technical meaoing while the German words had
other meanings. Latitude md Longitude, meaning
breadth aud lergrh were applied 10 GEOGRAPHY waen
the earth was supposed to be Hat, and longest from
east to west To us latitude and longitude had only
the me az ing of distance in degrees from the equator
and meridian The Germans instead of taking these
technical words, used their wOris for breadth
and hngth, and now they would tell you that ST. Pc
tersburg 10 90 degrees of north breadth aud in %
degrees of east leogth from Paris. Here they lost
more in neainess of expression than they gained in
simplicity to their language. Science had committed
some blunders Of the same kind Chemistry fixed
upon the name Of acd before she had discovered taat
there were acids which we're not sour ami, queerly
enough she called the substance Of which junkbottl-s
and pier-gia.ses were made, salts. Ii the Germans
were able to get along wirh homemade words for tue
nouns Geography aud Astronomy, they were obliged
to take the Greek sdjectives. The German word
g,o,s as we'll as the English word grc0ness and the
Latin magnitude, applicable only to large OBJ
jects and yet the Germans were obliged 10 speak Of
the greatness OF anmacules hundreds Of which could
be the point of pin. We, in speaking Of the
magnitude of such objects, used word which was
lees awkward, because didn't il in the sense OF
greatness. In words too, Ike anatomy, which 60 us
had the precise scientific meaning which We gave
them, and nothing else, he'd decided advantage
over the German way of building from native words
some such structure The dismembtriae art. So such
words carJoa and orygeawere better than kohieaeG
cosshef fl and SduerstQg, acid-shs6. There might be
come advantage in having separate words such a.
Erdkunde and ErdJesehre.bung for Geography, but
yet that question: by dividing We lost the exer-
else in determinations & vocabulary so complete as
never to exercise the sagscity of the reader would
afford him very little training.
Mr.. Marsh will devote his next lecture 10 Il consse-
ration Of the relations between words AMI the moral
and intellectual character ind habits OF those who
used them.
LOCATION FOR THE STEAM FlRE-ENGINES.
The Committee Fire Department Of the Board Of
T. h