The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1895-01-26
ENGLISH LEADS.
The Languages with the Largest
and the Shortest vOcabularies,

The Languages with the Larsest
and the Shortest vocabularies.
OF modern languages there IS no
doubt that English stands at the head
of the list - 'he extent of it's vocabu.
larry. 1t has borrowed from all other
civilized tongues, living or dead, aid
even from barharous ones, and has
coined for it's express necessities many
conglomerate, scientific and other terms
SO that whereas in the infancy of lex
Biography 2O,OW words were thought
to be the extreme limits a complete
dictionary could reach, ordinary school
dictionaries now boast of 100000, while
the great publications, such as the En-
cyclopedic," the Century" and the
"New English HISTORICAL" stain to
exceed 2JO,OOO. and it's growth does not
cease for a day. French and German
may be counted as coming next. Going
farther atield, Arabic is next, of East.
ern tongues, by far the richest in vo-
cabulary. At the other end Of the
scale many savage races have extreme
" limited vocabularies. Possibly the
Bushmen have the poorest. Letour-
neau says they are unable to talk in
the dark, their scanty speech having
to be eked out with gestures. The We'd
dahs Of Ceylon have only words which
express the simplest acts of their daily
life and the things they see around
them. The Tasmanians have no ad-
jectives and are SO far from any knowl-
edge of abstract terms that they have
no word for tree, though they have
names for various kinds Of trees. Pc
culiarly enough, the Chinese, with ali
their ancient civilization, have O very
limited vocabulary. Prof. Whitney es-
Inmates it at 1900 words. ; Being
monosyllabic, 1t is infiexible and per-
mits of no growth. Still, by the use
of varied tones and accents, they are
able to express many different mean
ings by the same word. This Huxley
illustrates by the word Chow which
may mean, according to tone, ship
hun" "loquacity," 'basin," or click
ering," each meaning being expressed
In the topographic writing by the adj
dition of various lines to the simplest
forms.--Brooklyn Eagle.
Awkward.
During the progress of the search x
petition in the Sinatic desert for Prof.
ID. H. Palmer, who, with his two Eng.
lish companions, was basely murdered
by native tribes, a strict watch was
kept about the camp Mt night to avoid
a surprise from the tr~eacherous Arabs.
The search party consisted Of three I'm
glishmen and their escort, composed
mainly OF Bedouins. The author Of
"Man-Hunting in the Desert relates
an incident connected with the night
guard.
One Of our number, being little hi.
clined to sleep, strayed somewhat away
from the camp into the moonlight,
when he was suddenly approached by
n of the Bedouin.sentries. who. bring.
Ing his Remington rife to his shoulder,
presented the muzzle at our friend.
and shouted some challenge In Arabic,
The victim Of this display OF vigilance
grasped the situation, and at once real
ICED his danger. Not q word Of Arabic
could he. recall and the fellow
was liable to shoot the next instant.
"Here, you fellow! Don't be a fool!
Don't shoot!' the Englishman shouted.
The Bedouin understood not a word
Of this, but remained m0tion1ess, finger
to trigger, the plainly revealing
the precision OF his. aim.
The situation was awkward: our
friend felt anything but comfortable
as he stood facing that ugly-looking
muscle, not daring to retreat or ad-
vance. Racking his brain for an Ara
bic word, he at last succeeded In pr6-
ducing the sentence:
Ana ~Inglize'-in pigeon Arabic.
me Englishman.n
TO his infinite relief, the guard low
ered his rifle with the ejaculation, "Wa-
had Kawadja,a which friend con-
strued % q permit to paas on.