St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1903-10-17
OUR ALPHABET FOR JAPAN.
in the schools of the
Mikad0's Kingdom.

important or all ner steps toward mar
monizing herself with the highest civ
ilization of Europe and America. Tha1
is nothing less than the adoption o.
Roman script-our own English alpha
bet-pari passu with, if not as sub
stitute for, her own ancient system Of
biography, says the New York Tri'
bune. For the last dozen years 9
knowledge of Roman script has been
increasing in Japan among the most
highly educated. But now 1t is pro-
posed by the most influential educa.
tional organization in the empire tc
make the teaching of our alphabet and
of our mode of word formation COM
pulsory and universal in the public
schools. It seems probable that the
government will adopt the proposal
in which case, of course, all private
schools will have to do the same, with
the result that all the children Of
Japan will presently be learning, NOT
necessarily an English language, but
at least to write and read their own
language in English fashion.
~ That will be great thing for Amer
leans and Europeans who want to
learn the Japanese language. 1t will
make that language little harder to
learn than French or German and will
enable people to learn 1t in the same
way that they learn the European
tongues At present the great stumb-
In hA 0t vvnAcfar3n0
Japanese Is the necessity Of learning
a multitude of different ideographs.
Once Japanese words are expressed in
letters like our own the task OF learn
ing will become immeasurably' easier.
It will then also be much easier for the
Japanese to learn our language, for Of
course our alphabetically formed
words seem as strange to them as their
ideographs do to us. Moreover. it will
cause change amounting almost to
Transformation in the Japanese mind,
or in the linguistic functions Of that
mind. The Japanese will for the first
time regard words not as indivisible
integers of speech, but as composite
things formed of letters. Perhaps we
can partly realize the. magnitude Of
that change by ourselves trying. to re-
gard words as not formed of letters,
but as indivisible units.
Nor is that all. Dual systems of
languages are denominations. Where
fore it is to be expected. having
adopted alphabetical script by the side
of biography, the Japanese will soon
substitute the former for the latter
altogether. 1t will be greatly to their
advantage to have them do it. But
it will none the less be an extraordi-
nary thing. For the mother tongue,
in all It's details, is one of the things to
which men cling most tenaciously. We
need, to convince ourselves of that, to
recall only the language controversies
in Canada, In Bohemia, in South
Africa, in Malta and elsewhere, not
mentioning the recent clamori about
the teaching Of German In New York
public schools We may also recall
Bisma-ck's inexorable opposition to
the inl reduction of Roman script into
Germany in place of the far less legi-
bic German characters. That the Japan
csc should voluntarily make this revo-
lutionary change in their national
script indicates their possession OF an
exceptionally high ambition to place
themselves abreast of the best civili-
zation of the woodland all this emer-
gence from a savage seclusion within
the memory of men not yet grown old!
Bulldogs Grip.
Lady" began the tattered tramp;
II am tourist.
"Well," snapped the fiery little wom-
an; "if you are a tourist you should
have a grip. After him, Bull!
cago Daily News. III
Curious Use of Word.
Popular" is one of the most abused
wordBein the language. Now it is an
nounced that carbolic acid is becoming
popular" as q means of suicide.
Heel and Toe.
It is coming to pass the women who
"trip the light fantastic toe are out