The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-01-08
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
What Statistics show the Increase in
Present Century to Have Been.

Present century to Have Been.
From the St. Louis Globe Democrat.
We all know that the English Ian
guage has been growing at a remark
able rate during this century, and that
1t has been spreading over the whole
globe. But few, however, really COM
prehend how rapid this growth has
been. At the opening of the century
French was spoken by $1,000, 900 people,
German by 30,00O,OOO. Russian by 3O-
100000, Spanish by 2700O,O 900, English
by 21,0O0000 and Italian by 10000, 600.
Today English is the language of 130,-
100000, French of $4,000 900, German Of
70000,000, Russian of 75,000000, Spanish
of 100000 and Italian of $4,000. 600.
In other words, during the present
century English has not only risen
from the fifth place to the first, but
has gained enormously on the rest in
relative magnitude, expanding from
about thirteen per cent. of the total to
over thirty per cent. with this in
crease of the English-speaking people
the language itself has kept pace.
Concurrent with this growth of the
language 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 can know thoroughly
only one small branch of one science.
This increase of knowledge has been
most rapid during the last part of the
present century.
More than any other cause, the prog
ress of modern invention and science
has brought about an enormous extern
sion of the language. Thousands of
technical words and expressions now in
common use would never have been
coined but for the innumerable parts
of the never ending list of new inven-
tions in mechanics and discoveries in
science. In no better way can this rapid
increase in knowledge, and thereby in
the number of words used. be realized
than by comparison Of the first ref
erence works with those of the present
day.
The earliest English dictionary pub
lished was DR.. Bullokar's. which ap-
peared in 1916. 1t is a little bit of a
book, with some 200 pages, and hav-
ing about 5000 headings. This is the
beginning of works of reference in the
English language. One page which il
lustrates the march of progress is tl~st
which has meteor, metropolitan, mimic,
mineral, etc, on it, Mineral is defined
by Dr. Bullokar as anything dug out
of the ground" According to this a
| pebble, worm or a mole dug out of
the earth would be a mineral. Some
of the omissions are still more interest
ing. There is no mind. minister, mill,
milk, mile, might mighty, mid or
| middle, and, apparently, if we can
| judge by the omissions here, they had
| no mind cure and no millionaires in
those days. Now this one page of Bull
lokars work covers all the words in the
language from meteor to minivef.
When DR.. Johnson wrote his cele-
| brated dictionary, $50 years later, it
took fifteen large pages to cover the
same space. The best work of the
| present daY-the Century Dictionary
| and yclopedia-requires forty-seven
pages to cover this alphabetical range,
which shows how enormous has been
| the increase of the past $50 years.
| In Bullokar's work there is but one
| micro word, microcosmus. In DR..
Johnson's work, written a century and
a half later, the micro words had in
| creased so as to cover one column.
| Microscope, which was not in DIR. Bull
! lokar's work, appears for the first time
in Dr. Johnson's. In the Century Die
| tionary and Cyclopedia these micro
] words cover over six pages. Another
word which may be quoted as a very
| good illustration is take. DR.. Bullo-
kar omitted ii entirely. The Century
devotes to it exactly four pages, and
in the course illustrating its various
uses the latter work contains 2S6 quo
| tations.
| 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. Pub
| lications in those days We're few and
far between, and but few examples of
the old-tims presswork are now eX-
tant.