Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-12-14
What Statistics Show the Increase I'm
Present Century to Have Been.
From the St. Louis Globe Democrat

From the St. Louis Globe Democrat.
! We all know that the English Jangua 90
tas been growing at remarkable rate
| during this century. and that il has been
| spreading over the whole globe. But few
however, really comprehend how rand this
growth has been. At the opening of the
century French was spoken by 81 900 oOC
People. German by 3OODOOoO. Russian bv
"ooD.o0. Spanish by 27,O1.OOO. English
by Zi'to,SU and Italian by 1GOG0OOO. To-
day English is the language of 1870 600 900
french OF i5,oW.0t0, German of 10000 600
RUSSIAN OF IoOUO.0o0. Spanish of 1900 uoC
ana Italian of 35,OO00W. In other words
ouiihs the present century English has moi
ouiy risen from the fifth lNace to the first
put mas gained enormously on the rest in
relative magnitude, expanding from about
thirteen per cent of the total to over ;hir.
~ per cent. With this increase of The
Enslsh-speakinS people the language it,
SELF has kept pace
Concurrent with this growth of tho To-,
guage there has been an equal. if not
greater, increase in knowledge Three
hundred years ago one man could know all
there was to be known. Today one man
Van Know thoroughly only one small
nrahch or one science. This increase of
knowledge has been most rapid during
TIE last part OF the present century.
more than any other cause. the progress
u hiouSiL Invention and science baS
drought about an enormous extension of
the language. Thousands of technical
words and expressions now in common use
would never have heen coined hut for IN
lnnumerable parts OF the never-ending list
OF new inventions i'm mechanics and diS
coVerleS IN science. In no better way can
TINS ralid increase in knowledge and
thereby in the number of words used he
realized than by comparison of the FIRST
rcterehce works with those of the pres
ent day.
The earliest English dictionary published
was Dr. Bullokar's, which appeared i'm
1916 Ii is little bit of a book. with some
100 Pages. and having about 5000 head-
ings. This is the beginning of works of
reference In the English language One
page which Illustrates the march of nro-
sfess is that which has meteor metropoli-
tan, mimic, mineral, &C. on it, Mineral
is defined by Dr. Bullokar as "anytbinp
aug out of the ground" According to
TINS pebble, a worm or a mole dug out
OF the earth would be a mineral Some
of the omissions are still more interesting
There Is no mind minister, mill. milk.
mile.~ might, mighty, mid or middle. and
apparently, If We can judge by the omis-
sions here, they had no mind cure and no
;aiiilenaires in those days. Now this one
page OF Bulfokar's work covers all the
words in the language from meteor to
miniver.
When Dr. johnson wrote his celebrated
dictionary. $50 years later. 1t took fifteen
best work of the present day-the Century
Dictionary and Cyclopedia-requires forty
seven pages to cover this alphabetical
range, which shows how enormous has
been the increase of the past 2S0 years.
In Bu1lokar's work there is but one
micro word, microcosmus. In DIR. john
sons work, written a century and a half
later. the micro words had increased so as
to cover one column. Microscope, which
was not in DR.. Bullokars work. appears
for the first time in DR.. Johrson's. In
the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
these micro words cover over six pages
Another word which may be quoted as
very good illustration is take. DIR. Bullo-
kar omitted 1t entirely The Century de-
votes to it exactly four pages. and In the
course Illustrating its vArious uses the
latter work contains $50 quotations.
Comparisons of this description will be
interesting to every one to whom they
may be possible Unfortunately, but very
few public libraries contain any of those
old reference works. Publications in those
days were few and far between, and but
few examples Of the old-time presswork
are Now extant.