Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1896-04-17
Our Wonderful Language.

Cosmopolitan.
The sun does not go down to leave
us in silent hemisphere, but is con.
stantly shining on some land where
our noble tongue, the grandest vehicle
OF human thought, is ever pouring
forth its wealth OF words in stream.
OF eloquence and social discourse, and
like a beautiful song making melody
all the day.
Recent stirring events of the worlc
are bringing our language, year by
year, more prominently to the front
Every day it is cutting larger figure
in civilization and enlightenment
Ever since the Chicago exposition
strange desire for learning English
amounting almost to infatuation,
seems to have fastened upon many oil
the remote and obscure nations OF the
earth represented at that immense
6otHCIIuS vi TIE CLANS.
Commerce is doubtless the princi
pal dissemination of our language. Blu,
there are many other important fac
tors at work. The spread of art and
science, government and private ex.
plorations, missionary laborers. and
the streams of immigration are all
vastly increasing, every year, the num-
Der of English-speaking people.
British and American newspaper cor.
respondents are to be found in every
corner OF the habitable globe; and
whithersoever they wander thousands
OF copies of the periodicals they repre-
sent are daily being scattered like
leaves in autumn.
A couple of centuries ago, Latin wa.
the court language of Europe. From
about the inception of that famous
period known as the Renaissance to
the beginning OF the eighteenth GEN.
fury, an educated person on the con-
tinent was supposed to be able to
speak, read and write the language oil
the C@ sars with ease and. as a lace
bedecked courtier, he Familiarity con.
versed in that tongue with the sover-
eigns, the nobility and Lterati in those
chivalrous times. But as rigorous
medieval customs gradually gave
way to refinement and gentility
French supplanted Latin and became
the petted language of diplomacy
The prestige of even this beautiful
and euphonious tongue, however, il
so waning that to-day its supremacy
is barely nominal.
English, in point of fact, is the pop
ular medium of social communication
in cosmopolitan and aristocratic cir
cles. Few scholars, not to say casual
observers. have an adequate idea OF the
remarkable growth and geographical
scope of our language. Its present
progress can be recorded only by long
and rapid strides. Like the gigantic
Saul, Israel's initial king, it is head
and shoulders above every other cult
waited language. Ruling as with a sort
OF absolute monarchiam, while all
other tongues are tributory to it, IT,
self pays tribute to none. Every sue
cessive edition of its vast dictionaries
is more and more ponderous through
sheer increments of newly coined and
newly adoped words.
From some late British statistics
for which distinguished member Of
Parliament is authority, it appears
that at the beginning OF the present
century. the French language was
spoken by thirty-one millions of peo-
Pile; Russian by thirty millions
Spanish by twenty-seven millions |;
English by twenty-one millions
italian by sixteen millions, and Portu-
guese by nine millions.
At the end OF the ninth decade, or
at the opening of the year 1890, the
list stood in numerical order as fol.
lows: English was spoken by 12O
millions ofpeople; Russian by seventy
five millions; German by seventy
millions; French by forty-fve mil
lions; Italian by thirty-five millions,
and Portuguese by thirteen millions.
Thus will it be seen that in consider.
ably less than hundred years, while
the Russian, German and italian have
little more than doubled, our own
language has grown nearly six-fold.
From the fifth place in list of seven
OF the dominant languages of civiliza-
ton, it has risen to the first place and
now proudly leads them all.
Three generations ago, the best
English dictionaries defined only be-
tween 10000 and $4,000 words. To-
day, our unabridged lexicons spell,
pronounce, define and give the deriva.
ton OF quarter of a million words,
to say nothing of the thousands of ele.
CANT illustrations they contain.
Truly, our language is not only the
flower. but it is destined to become the
matured fruit Of all the languages of
the earth. Those who most clearly
discern the signs of the times are pre-.
dieting the advent of a universal Ian.
guage upon the earth. Will that
master language be the final evolution
of our own tongue 81?
The Oynspian is driven to the con-
temptible alternative of taking ad.
vantage of typographical error-the
transposition of line-in the STAND
ARDS article of last week explaining