The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-03-25
LONG RANGE LANGUAGES
why Russians. Poles. and HunGnrinns aro
the Best L'nguists.

In conversation with n Frcnchman the other
evening n SuN reporter asked the following
question: How comes 1t that among the for.
cign population in Paris the Russians are cred
ted with the gift of speaking the best Frenchi"
THE Russians. the Poles. and. | think |
may add the Hungariars," replied the French
man, speak French with wonderful facility.
Their accent is perfect. and they acquire al the
tincsse Of the language with marvellous rapid
its. One can account for their capture of pro.
nunciation and accent easily enough, but their
ability TO get down into the depths Of a Ian
guage In n comparatively short time is a little
mysterious. You have often seen n common Ger.
man concertina. and the other thing that ia
called the English concertina. You can only
play n limited number of tunes on the former.
because il has no semi-tones or half notes,
while with the latter you can play anything.
Well, the Russian language is an English con
certina. 1t has all sorts of notes. There is no
sound that the human tongue can utter that
Is not included in i.s repertoire. Consequently
n Russian hears no discordant note in n for
eign language. He masters its pronunciation
with ease. Now, when a man acquires a cor
rect pronunciation Of Il foreign tongue he can
get the accent with little difficulty. especially IL
he has IA good car, and that is something which
Almost every Russian has.
THE same can be said of the Poles and Hun
xarians. The Hungarian and Polish languages
have a compass probably as extensive as that
Of the Russian language. The theory that n man
must be possessed of ii good musical ear In
order to be able to get over all the difficulties
of pronunciation and accent is interesting. and
there may be something IN It. But II must he
remembered that some of the best linGuIsts.thc
world has ever seen were men without any ear
for music. Bismarck. for instance. who can
speak hnlf n dozen languages %fuently and Gle
Eantly. has no ear for music; IN fact. he can't
understand why anyhCdy should like 1t. For
him il is all damned noise
Among Engllsh. speaking people americans:
T. not generally known that there is II marked
difference. between the accents Of Americans
matte language. There is what we call the
American accent. and there is the British ac-
either. we are bound to admit that the former
is preferable. Moreover. the average Amerl-
age Englishmnn. He catches on quicker, rs
we say automatically. if indeed that phrase is
not a specimen Of what may be called the ar;
everything that IL expressive is good.
As rule. French-speaking people and Eng
but the rule holds good, The ~icrnans on tho
may be >ct down as good lingnists; They have
great difficulty in putting their BIS and p's IN
of them on account Of tlat weakness, but In
time they manage TO get over that defect.
Moreover. they always attack q ian%nage
=: icv make. and douhtle 3 that is II good plan.
1T is, of course, well known that the Jews
have u wonderful power of picking up lam
guares. Thaa isa gift which they received
from the prosecutions that compelled them To
become n nomadic race, hut the fact that they
IRE great traders, hard students, and keen OBJ
servers with good ears must also have come
thing To do with It.
iii has been said that the ability to GRASP
many languages does not necessarily denote
u high order OF intellect: but that is a question
which had better be left with the philosophers.
All we know for II certainty is that It gives
poor evidence OF stupidity.'