The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-05-08
sLAvs ARE THE BEsTLINouIsTs
Russians, Poles and BungarIans Learn
Any Language with Ease.

Any Language with Ease.
From the New York Sun.
In conversation with a Frenchman
the other evening, reporter asked the
following question: How comes 1t
that among the foreign population in
Paris the Russians are credited with
the gift of speaking the best French p"
The Russians, the Poles, and
/ think / may add, the Hungarians," re-
piled the Frenchman, speak French
with wonderful facility. Their accent
Is perfect and they acquire all the
finesse of the language with marvellous
. rapidity One can account for their
capture of pronunciation and accent
easily enough, but their ability to get
down into the depths of a language in
comparatively short time is a little
mysterious. You have often seen a
common German concertina, and the
other thing that is called the English
concertina. You can only play linn
tied number of tunes on the former be-
cause 1t has no semitones or half notes.
There is no sound that the human
tongue can utter that is not included
In its repertoire. Consequently, a Rus
sian hears no discordant note in a for
eign language. He masters its pronun-
citation with ease. Now. when a man
acquires correct pronunciation of a
foreign tongue he can get the accent
with little difficulty. especially II he has
a good ear. and that is something
which almost every Russian has
The same can be said of the Poles
and Hungarians. The Hungarian and
Polish languages have a compass prob
ably as extensive as that of the Rus
sian language. The theory that a man
must be possessed of a good musical ear
in order to be able to get over all the
difficulties of pronunciation and accent
is interesting, and there may be some
thing i'm IT, But IL must be remembered
that some of the best linguists the
world has ever seen were men without
any ear for music Bismarck, for in
stance, who can speak a half dozen
languages fiuently and elegantly. has
no ear for music; in fact. he can't un-
derstand why anybody should like it,
For him, it's all damned noise
Among English-speaking people,
Americans, especially the ladies. talk
the best French. 1t is not generally
known that there is a marked differ-
ence between the accents of Americans
and Englishmen when they speak the
diplomatic language. There is what we
call the American accent and the Brit
ish accent and while we Frenchn1en
cannot admire either, we are bound 10
admit that the former is preferable.
Moreover. the average American tray
eler is more observing than the average
Englishman. He catches on quicker.
as we say. automatically II indeed that
phrase is not specimen Of what may
be called the argot of New York. But
IL Is expressive, and everything that Is
expressive is good.
las a rule. Participating and En-
glish-spcahng people are not good lin
gusts. or course. there are conspicu-I
GUS exceptions. but the rule holds good.
The Germans. on the other hand
though inferior to the Russians NAV
be set down as good lnguists. They
have great difficulty in putting their bis
and p's I'm their proper places. and the
Frenchman makes fun OF him on ac-
count Of that. but i'm time they manage
TO get over that defect. Moreover they
always attack language boldly. with
out caring hg for the blunders they