Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1884-04-09

meaning and THIS attaches 10 them u 81
times, thus producing uniform measure,
which ENABLES us to converse finentiy with
one another, which is the outgrowth of sys.
TEN. A great variety Of sounds, some rad
ical, others notifications Of these. and all
common to one tongue are grouped togeth-
er and called language. Our language is
ma1e up of some primary words, but the
greater part consists of words culled from
the Greek, Anglo Saxon, French, Latin and
various other languages and dialects some
of which are now extinct, and that is what
makes it 80 difficult to learn. 1t was the
need of q mcsps by which men might trans
NIT their thoughts one to another that led
to the forming of language, but for many
centuries tine art OF writing remained undis-
covered. In the course Of time, however.
when civilization had spread far over the
vast continent, when wars of carnage were
being wsged, and great citic, crumbiisg in-
to ruin, the defeat was keenly felt and
many and vague were the attempts made to
devise a way of handing down TO future pos
terity, the history and literature OF man
kind other than by simple tradition. Shrewd
indeed was the man who succeeded in this
enterprise, and lofty the intellect that in
vented the irst characters that were to re-
present primary sounds, and so grouped
these characters as 10 form words, which
were the signs Of thought itself. Though
the first letters used were rude, and the
number of words coined very limited, the
great art had been founded, the chronichler
commenced his useful aud brilliant career,
and all that remained to be completed was
the establishment, and the sccurement of
the range of the language within q larger
scope. Thus we see the essential part was
the sense the word conveyed, and the pro-
nouncistion and spelling of them was a mat
ter OF less import, to which At first was CIV
en- very little attention only so much as was
absolutely necessary TO convey the meaning
OF the writer. Then we have il established
beyond 4 doubt that the defining of words
far surpasses in importance either the spell
ing or the pronunciation of them, for al
though each individual is not compelled to
of his own, be must acquaint himself with
the sense allotted to the words in use or
they will be Is him as so much rubbish, IS
matter entirely void of all Specification, and
consequently of no use whatever. Next in
importance 10 the defining of words would
place the pronunciation Of them, for the rea.
son that they are pronounced oftener than
spelled, and the INSTRUMENTATION of
word j, TO my taste more offensive than the
nunciation of the words of no other Ian
gusgs is SO difficult to acquire as that OF
our own, and this is owing, no doubt, TO
deficiency in our alphabet as We have only
twenty-six letters TO represent about forty
sounds, and even some often have the same
sound as the c and k, the and V. II like
the German We had letter for each PRINT
tive sound, the pronunciation of the words
of the English language would be 4 simple
matter compared with what 1t is, but in
stead of this we sIc told that with the let
ters and combination Of letters as now en-
ployed, some words may be employed in
no less than six hundred different WAYS
1t follows that language So loosely formed
must necessarily be hard TO study and il
being taken from others, it in many in
stances retains the accent peculiar TO the
language from which the words were select
ed, and especially is this the case with
strong trait of our character and We find
this no less true in regard to language than
We do to most anything else. If in the first
place We acquire wrong pronunciation Of
a word, and become familiar with that word
in that light, We are loath to yield to The
decision of photographers and choose 10
follow our own tastes rather than those Of
the majority Of persons. To cite few in-
stances the simple words log, dog, hog, di-
slogue, strong, song, long, loss, SC, are
perhaps more frequently pronounced wrong
than right. The words new, dew, subdue,
endure, newspaper, neutral, numerous, &c,
and the words half, laugh, calm, BALM, and
a host OF others OF the latter class in which
the "a" should be pronounced As in the
word car. are pronounced as though the ga"
were short. 1t is true that the English peo-
pie have their peculiar way of prononncins
certain classes o: words, which we would
not be obliged TO follow, and employ some
few words that We do not have while We
have our Americsnisms, but the great mas.
Of words are made use of in both countries,
and No should aim to have the pronuncia-
ton as uniform as possible, and especially
FOR this reason do think that We should
follow implicitly the directions of the die
tionary, rs any standard dictionary aims to
give the pronunciation of words as used by !
The mass Of the people, and in this Web !
stcr's edition does not come wide Of the |
mark. Even in America the pronunciation
oi certain words differs in different locali- !
ties, and to guard against this evil English |
speaking, people should be careful how they
use the language. do not wish to be &C.
centric, nor would try to persuade Others
10 be so, nor do ihisk | am when recon-
mend close adherence to the rule. aud di- |
rections as given by the best authori,ies.-
The study of language is deep one and he !,
v no would become thoroughly acquainted
with it must apply himself closely to its !
'tudy. then place the spelling Of words as
he least important Of the three, but in this |
point there is not so great an interval be- |
tween the spelling and pronouncing OF them |
as there is between the pronouncing aud de- |
lining of words. Spelling is the systematic !
arrangement of letters into groups, called |
words, and ough We say systematic ar
there are really only few words
that may be spelled according to given
rules, for the orthography of mos, Of the
word, must be learned individually. There