San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-01-28
NATIONS AS TAKERS.
LEADING CONVERSATIONAL cHARAc-
TERlSTlcS OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

ual Races-The Jew-Teutonic Peoples.
The Scot, even if he will not converse,
will usually argue, and the Londoner will
tell anecdotes; but the English peasant is,
as rule, a person with gift for empty
meditation. The Irish peasant, on the
other hand, talks readily and pleasantly,
in short sentences usually full of express
sion; SO does the Italian, who knows less
than the Englishman and so does the
Bengalee, who knows hardly more than
the animals around him. The latter, in
deed, talks frequently and with ANNA
ton, though almost always on a single
subject-money. 1t has been said by one
who wrote after years of observation,
that if two Bengalees talk for five minutes
the word paisa pence will always be
heard; but talk they do, with remark,
answer, rejoinder and repartee. What is
the cause of that difference
Professor Mahaffy suggests an answer
which seems to us to SAVIOR Of artificial
profundity, and therefore to be very I'M
like Professor Mahaffy, who usually says
his true thought, even If it is little out
of place: 81 fancy the causes of these So
rial differences are rather recent than
primeyal; they do not depend directly
upon climate or atmosphere, and If may
quote the opinion Of a wise friend on this
large question, should say that one chief
cause of the talking or social ability of
some peasantries over others, is the fact
that their proximate ancestors were
bilingual people. Thus the great major
ity Of west Irish and north Scotch peas
ants are descended from grandfathers
whose talk oscillated between Celtic and
English, and who were, therefore, con-
stantly educated in intelligence by the
problem of translating ideas from one
language into another, not to mention the
distinct inheritance of the special ideas
peculiar to each and every language
This is an education in expression, in
thinking, and therefore in conversation,
wholly foreign to the English midland
boor, who has never heard more than 200
or 300 words of a very rude provincial
dialect Of English, and therefore COM
mands neither the words nor the ideas of
the outlying provinces"
A theory Of that kind should explain the
facts, and this does not explain them. II
II were true, the women would be as ST.
lent as the men, having even less of cul-
ture, but they are not. On the contrary,
the wives of those silent rural folk can
often chat agreeably, and give and take in
conversation. They do not only narrate;
they discuss and are capable even of
rough badinage, which helps the argument
directly on. Moreover, the chattering
peoples-the Neapohtans, for instance
are not bilingual; and the best takers in
the world, the born Parisians, spring of
ancestors who knew no language but their
own. The border peoples, too, are not
exceptionally laxative, as we see in
Wales; and the Swiss peasantry, for all
their linguistic requirements, are ex-
ceptionally taciturn. Nobody would say
that an Alsatian, accustomed from child
hood TO two languages, and those among
the richest in the world, was more con-
versatile than a Lyonnais, who hardly
knows Of the existence of two, while
Partisan seems nimble in talk by the side
of Bruxellois, who IL never for an in
slant out of the hearing Of two tongues.
The man who is bilingual either in fact
or by tradition, has no doubt larger
command of words; but is the command
Of words the key to the secret' II so, why
do the women as we said before, talk bet
ter than the men, and why are not all the
cultivated equally capable of converse
ton? How often can professors COM
paratively ignorant wife talk well, while
the learned husband is incapable of con-
versation And, finally, If the difference
is q question of knowledge Of any Sort
why does wine so often, and up to point
brighten talk and talkers9 1t cannot add
thoughts, or increase limited repertoire
of words. At most, alcohol, in any
form, can but impart courage, ard per-
haps little speed to the movements of
the brain. We should say that the power
of talk, In the sense Of conversing, came
first of all from the wish to talk, the de-
sire to manifest ones self to others, and
that this was in the first instance exactly
what the professor says it is not-a race
popularity. Nothing runs more COM
pletely in families than the habit of con-
versing much, and race is nothing but
big family. Did Mr.. Mahaffy, in his
whole life, ever meet Jew who could not
talk, or who did not wish to talk, or who, If
circumstances favored him, did not talk
little too readily' Persians and Arabs,
who know nothing, chat twice as readily
as Scotch farmers, who know much; and
the populace of Naples, men as ignorant
as the fishes of their bay, talk, aud talk
well all day. The Greeks have been chat
terboxes for 5000 years, and have lived
for 800 of them side by side with Turks,
who In the lower classes scarcely converse
nj ALL IL Is not even True 80 litr as OUT
observation goes, that, outside the leu
tonic race, class makes any perceptible
difference, an italian or Greek or French
workman talking quite as readily rs his
superiors, and enjoying talk quite as
much.
We fear that the truth is one which
Professor Mahaffy's courtesy induces him
only to hint, viz, that the Teuton of all
three branches-German, Englishman and
American-though he is filling the world,
and may possibly master it, is slow
witted being, who does not by nature
enjoy talk, but rather feels it a worry to
be called on to understand words and
make a response TO them so quickly. He
does not take in readily, and therefore
has little pleasure in hearing talk and he
cannot give out quickly, and therefore
suffers In utterinR IT, As to the cause of