Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1912-04-24

point In their literary forms Dan
ish, Swedish and Norwegian are so
nearly alike that those who know one
can get on fairly well with the 9TH
ers. Scientific efficiency, of course,
would prescribe the Standardization
Of one language for this entire Scan
dinavian group. But what happens
is the reverse. Just as Ireland cul-
tivates the Erse and works for home
rule, so Norway splits off from Swed-
en-, sets up its own king and proposes
to raise its own dialect, the speech
Of the unlettered people, to the pri-
macy as a national language.
''This is the program of Premier
Konow, and it is in protest against
this program that six ministers, in
Guiding the minister of culture and
public education, have resigned. Their
protest is said to be shared by the
authors and scientists, as we'll as by
the conservatives in general. Thus
the movement for elevating the peas
ant dialect, like the movement in
Greece for the vulgar speech, is a
popular movement. It may be taken
to represent in part a growing spirit
Of nationalsm, and in part the dem
ocratic tendency which is to be seen
everywhere, and which is adverse to
literary languages, to authority, to
standards Of all sorts. If we have
seen less Of it in this country it is
because the literary language and the
spoken language are Identical and
there has been nothing to revolt
against. A homely idiom has never
been a handicap in public life, and
the writer's of fiction have had free
hand to use dialect or slang. A STAN
dard English Of course exists, but it
shades off into the colloquial and the
provincial SO imperceptibly that no
opposition or controversy is pos
sible.
1T is difficult, in fact, for an Am
erican to realize how large a part
of the people Of Europe have two
distinct languages, one formal, COR
rect, literary, the other local and ia
miliar. 1t seems to us abnormal, but
the contrary is tile case; it is the
correspondence between literature
and everyday speech which is the
exception. The earliest masterpieces
of Greece, the Homeric poems are in
a mixture Of dialects and archaic
forms which would be understood
anywhere but was spoken nowhere.
The literature of Rome was written
in an artificial language, and even
Cicero, classic Of classics, relapsed
into a colloquial idiom when not
writing books or orations. How un-
settled Italian was when Dante wrote
may be seen from his discussion, in
Latin, Of the various dialects and
their fitness for literary use. In most
Of Italy there has always been a
sharp contrast between the local i'd
iom and standard Italian, the Ian
guage Of literature. The lack Of UNI
| ity and the local rivalry which the
Italians call "campanilismo" have, of
course, increased this divergence, but
Spain, too, has its great linguistic
:;r'its. France is more unified, for
various reasons, but through Aus
tria and Germany plenty Of dialects
hold out unweakened by the pressure
Of the great languages. The pictur-
esqueness Of local customs and CO.'S
tunes is going, as communication
increased, but the minor languages
show no signs Of yielding to the
pressure Of civilization. Here and
there, no doubt, local dialects are
perishing, and the movement, lately
begun in Paris, to record them by
photograph was undertaken none too
soon, but the secondary languages,
little known to the world at large,
but spoken by considerable bodies of
people, never showed more vitality
than at present. This revival has
gone side by side with critical ten
dency to exalt the local, the indig-
enous, the popular, and to depreciate
the academic, the literary, the con-
|ventional."