Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1913-10-28
Language Problem Viii Be Solved
by immigration.
High Dutch Is the One Used In Writ
Ing by Preachers and ParIlamen-
tarians But Has No Popular
ity With the People.

London.-The Boars nave always
been one of the most conservative of
people. Good colonists, they bullied
and enslaved the natives with ruth
less harshness, and then at the APP
proach of the British rather than mix
with them they sullenly trekked back
ward into the hinterland.
It is this dourness which, now that
the two nations are inevitably and I'M
deniably joint proprietors of the coun-
try, in alliance with the flash and
parish patriotism Of the Hertzog
| school, stands strongly against the
| supremacy of the English language in
British South Africa.
Botha is a far seeing and a tolerant
man. While he speaks Dutch in par
| lament and in elections, he can and
does speak fuently in the English
tongue, and is never averse to carry
on a conversation through that me-
| dunn.
Hertzog, on the contrary, never
loses an opportunity to stir up en-
thusiasm for the Dutch tongue All
! official documents, likewise all menu
| cards and programs, are printed in
both languages. But the general in
finitely prefers q document written
in bad Dutch tnan one penned in per-
| feet English
| 1t is .smong the back veldters,' or
the old farming classes Of the plains.
| that the Dutch language holds chief
| sway, and it is there that HertZog is
most in favor. IN the big towns Eng
lish has a clear preponderanCe, and
! Britishers in johannesburg wolld re-
! pudiate with scorn the suggestion that
the Dutch language was adva 1cing
! toward supremacy. While it has TO
| be noted that the Dutch spoken among
| the lower classes is not the written
language, the language Of church and
! state, but what is called Natal"
sort of corruption, it must be remem-
| bered as a significant fact that while
the top dressing of society adheres
! proudly TO the English language, the
| backbone is every whit as enthusiast
tic, and in more logged fashion, for
/ the Dutch.
| High Dutch is the written language,
! the preachers language, the parlia-
| mentary language, but it has no popu-
| larity whatsoever among the people.
In school British children are now
| being taught serviceable mixture of
| high and low. One generation may
! speak one tongue, the next both and
! the next again win be able 70 con-
| verse only In one.
You will meet among the govern
! ment officials a Mr.. MacCallum, obvi-
ously of Scottish descent, and even
suggesting IT in his physiognomy, who
| will converse pleasantly with you in
/ Dutch but soon become confused and
! fuddled If you greet him in English.
| Then, again there is the phenomenon
| OF Mr. Davies, say, who will speak
| Dutch to a Boer even although he is
! perfectly we'll aware that the Boer
would speak English This may be
! complimentary to the English tongue,
! but 1t is scarcely likely to prove so
| serviceable TO It as General Hartzog's
fervid admiration fer Dutch does to
| that tongue.
II is well known in what contempt
the Kaffirs are held by Beers and Brit
| ish-it Is a matter which Ambrose
| Pratt emphasizes very strongly in his
recent work on THE Real South Afri-
Ca" And here there is another signifi-
| cant fact to be noted-English is new
/ er spoken to the Kanirs
There is an interesting analogy to
| this problem in our own history.
When the Normans conquered the
Saxons and settled in England It might
have been expected that the French
language and not the Anglo-Saxon