The St. Johns herald., 1893-05-11
2 The Future of American Speech.

much favored in the discussions ol debating societies and the orations
 of college commencements. With
 anyone born to our English speech
 1t must, indeed, be a matter of pride
 that the language of Shakespeare
 should have won a secure foothold
 in North America and South Africa,
 in India, in Australia, and in the Iisles of the sea. But the pride thus
 gratilied by superficial view of the
 growth already achieved a:.d the
 growth probably to be recorded in
 the years 10 comeis tempered when,
 upon closer observation, we realize
 that this extension in area of the
 English language is likely to have
 deterioration in quality for a con-
 comitant. However desirable may
 be the increased use of ourlaDguage
 by the nations of the earth, we can
 not tregard with equanimity the ten
 dency of the language, in its terri
 torial extensions, to assume corrupt
 dialectic forms.
 The power of literature to give
 fxity to speech is very great, but
 we cannot blindly count upon it for the impossible. The language of
 Italy was cast in definite mold by the genius of Dante, and it still re.
 tains the impress given it six cen turies ago, but we must recollect that this language has never been
 called upon to meet the test of transplantation to another soil, and adoption by q mixed. and in part, therefore, an alien race. So the English language, in Its native en- vironment, is still substantially the language created by Chaucer and Shakespeare, but observers are not wanting who declare that the Eng fish language, transplanted to the American continent, is undergoing radical changes, and becoming a dialect of the parent form of speech. Of course we are not to expect any thing like repetition of the pro- cess by which the Latin language, crossing Alps and Pyrenees, under went first corruption and then trans formation. The solidarity of mod. ern civilization makes that impos- sible. All countries having a com mon language are linked together by bonds that will never permit the speech of one to become unintellig- ible to the inhabitants of the other.
 But, while retaining a common intelligibility, it is quite possible tor the offsets of our language to become so differentiated one from the other that they may fairly be described as dialects, and this is a danger which everyone familiar with what is best and noblestin our common literary inheritance will be quick to appreciate. We do not now refer to the incorporation of those new words made necessary by a new environment, and illustrated | by the Pacific coast stories of Mr. Harte, the Indian tales of Mr. Kip ling, and the novels and poems of Australian writers. Nor do we re- fer to those developments of idiom taken on by all living languages, and the necessary sign of their Yi tality. But we do refer to the mush- room growths of speech that spring up everywhere among us, the modes of expression that result from mere slovenliness of mind, and find no warrant either in the genius of the language or in the necessities of the These linguistic abor- tions are encouraged by a press un- worthy of Its function because un- faithful to its trust, and accepted by an easy going and uncritical public, to eager in it's desire for the new thing, and too needless in its tolerance of the short cut which generally means incomplete expres sions, of the barbarism which usu- ally defeats the very purpose of ex- pression--The Dial (Chicago).