West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1898-09-29

Il uA6E AND OItDER OF STUDY
Human Society is the offspring OF
the social sentiment i'm man. Ian
guage is the instrument by which
man satisfies his great desire for
compromising, association and ex
change of ideas. Langu go is Of
divine origin, bat the different
word used in different places to
express the same idea gave rise to
the present 5000 languages and
dialects of the world.
Every person is born with the
power of communicating to his
fellow men. his thoughts, emotions
and sentiments by means of tears,
smiles, groans, frowns, laughter,
signs and gestures, which consti =
tute Natural, Universal or action
Language. Man, however, soon
found this natural language made
quate for the full expression and
complete interchange of ideas and
necessarily turned to an artificial
language as a medium of satisfying
his want. The articulate. oral or
spoken branch of artificial language
was used, but in a short time
proved insufficient to preserve the
experience of n generation for
the benefit of the next, and the
silent, i~narticulats or written branch
of artificial language was introduced
to meet this want. Written Lam
guage from a crude and imperfect
form by improvement has develop.
ed into - perfect medium for the
exact transmission and the COM
pIete preservation of thought, emo
tlon and sentiment. This complete
Development has come through four
successive stages or systems.
l.. topographic or picture writing
system.
2. Verbal or symbol writing sys-
tenn.
3. Syllable or numerous writing
system.
A. Alphabetic or brief character
writing system.
The Alphabetic system was in
script at first, ami its cost prevent
ed it reaching the masses until type
was invented and the printing press
gave 1t to the world.
Our alphsbetlc systems are equiv
ocal, as a letter represents more
than n elementary sound. While
an unequIvocal slphnbetic language
would have "A letter for each ele-
mentary sound. The alphabets
vary in number of letters, the ltal-
ian having but 20 and the Hindoo
using 240 letters. In artificial Ian
guage the signs of ideas are of two
kinds, and ench kind is composed
of two elements.
Kinds-Spoken words. Written
words.
Elements-Vocal and 81 bvocal
sounds. Yowels aud consonants.
The English language had its
origin in the Anglo Saxon tongue,
was built up by Latin words
through the Norman French. Add
ing W to the Roman alphabet, it
makes its &c letters represent the
elementary sounds of its spoken
language, which placed it at from
3S to Al by different authorities.
The English IS a composite and
flexible language. Its short words
are principally Saxon. it's long
words mostly Latin, while words
arc added from oyery other Ian
guage.
II. ORDER OF STUDY.
The order Of study Of the Fog.
lish language should follow the
natural method Of acquisition which
is As follows /:
/. To understand the spoken
language.
2. To speak the spoken language.
3. To understand the written
language.
a.. To write the written language.
Ideas must be received befor,
they can DO communicated. Curl
osity is the motive TO understand
and imitation is the mean b,
which reproduction in words Of
writing is secured. in spoken laa
guage we pass from ideas TO sounds
and IN the written we pass frop
sounds to written signs to follow
ideas.
ITO be Cont1nucdD