Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1903-03-20
CHICAGO THE MODERN BABEL.
Forty Foreign Tongues, 1t Is Declared.
Are Spoken There.

ConstantinOple, with it's mature re
putation as the first cosmopolitan city
of the world. will now please pass the
palm to Chicago.
81 says University of Chicago pro
fessor. Carl Darling Buck, of tie com
parative philology department, in a
pamphlet the publication of which is
announced as a part of the series OF
decenniaI publications. The pamphlet
is ntitled IA Sketch of the Linguistic
Conditions of Chicago" and awards
first honors in cOsmOpolitanism to this
city ON the score of there being IA
languages besides English spoken by
permanent colonies of more than 10,-
900 persons each, in all some 40 differ
ent tongues.
Professor Buck disposes of the claims
of Constantinoplea and Cairo in a asingle
paragraph. Their cosmopolitanism is
merely transient, be says. while that
of Chicago is enduring. Travellers
who have gone into ecstasies over the
spectacle of the hordes of strange
visaged races trampliug all day the
r1chety old bridge of the Golden Horn
between Stamboul and Galata may
know that Chicago holds dozen such
quarters where the confusion of
tongues is the worst since Babel.
In fact, Professor Buck calls the
linguistic situation which obtains in
Chicago ian unparalleled babel of for
eign tongues He continues
Il say unparalleled babel with all
due regard to the claims of CONSTANT
nople, Cairo and other cities of the
Orient, past and present. In Constan-
tlnople, with the heterogeneous con.
stituency of the army and the harem,
augmented by the ranks of European
officials and visitors, the number of
languages represented may on occa
sions be as great as IN New York or
Chicago. But it must be remembered
that only few of these languages are
spoken by large bodies of the popula-
tion, while in Chicago there are some
IA languages besides English, each of
which is spoken by 10000 or more per-
sons. Newspapers appear regularly in
10 languages and church services may
be heard in about 20 languages.
Chicago is the second largest Bob
emian city in the world, the third
Swedish, the third Norwegian, the
fourth Polish. the fifth German New
York being the fourth). In all there
are some 40 foreign languages spoken
by numbers ranging from half a dozen
to half million and aggregating over
one million"
Here are the nationalities which |
Professor Buck found in the city and |
the approximate number of persons
speaking their native tongues
German, 100000; Polish, 5000;
Swedish, 100000; Bohemian, 10000;
Norwegian, $4,000; Yiddish, $4,000;
Dutch, $4,000; italian, $4,000; Danish,
10000; French, $1,000; Croatian and
Servian, 10000; Slovakian, 10000;
Lithuanian. 10000; Russian, 1000;
Hungarian, 5000; Greek, 1000; Frlsi
an, 1000; Roum anian, 1000: Welsh,
2,OGO; Slovenian, 1000; Flemish, 1000;
Chinese, 1000; Spanish, 1000; Finnish,
500; Scotch Gaelic. 500; Lettic, 500;
Arabic, 250; Armenian. 100; Manx,
100; Icelandic, 100; Albanian, 100;
Bulgarian, less than 100; Turkish, less
than 100; Japanese, less than 100;
Portuguese, less than 100; Breton, less
than 100; Esthonian, less than 100;
Basque, less than 100; Gypsy, less
than 100
Professor Buck carried on his inves-
LEGATIONS by temporary residence in
the colonies in Chicago, which are
really little cities within the metro
polls, each speaking its own language,
clnging to its hereditary customs and
in large part governing itself.