Evening star., 1915-02-21

" NGLISH is the conquering language.
If. according to the opinions of many
~ scholars who have tried to divest
themselves of racial linguistic and national
bias, though the increase in the number
Of persons speaking German and Russian
has been remarkable. and French. Italian.
Spanish and Portuguese continue to be
growing languages. The prophecy has
been made that a century from now Eng
lish will be the supreme language of
northwestern Europe and North America.
while 1t will be the general language of
the other parts of the world to which the
influence of the British empire and the
American republic extends. Spanish will
rule over South America. Russian will be
the speech Of eastern Europe. and central
Asia and German will be the language
guages will be modified or improved in
the direction of greater regularity, direct
ness and accuracy, and will be affected
by the influence of the less widely spoken
languages which they are absorbing. and
by their own dialects or variants which
they are consolidating. But that is
merely a prophecy. and most prophecies
are very dangerous speculations on the
future.
The estimate has been made that at
the beginning of the nineteenth century
English was spoken by something over
2O,000.00 people, while at present it is
the language of 160.O0O.000. Then Ger
1t is spoken by 130,000,000 people. In the
same period the number of persons speak
ing Russian has risen from 100000 to
100.000.000. French from 30.000,000 to
100000. Portuguese from 100000 to
25.000.00O. Italian from 100000 to 50,-
100000 and Spanish from 100000 to
50.o0O.000.
In the period covered by these fig
ures. embracing a few years more than
a century. the percentage of people
whole body of persons speaking Euro
pean languages rose from 13 per cent
to 81 per cent, and on the same basis
of comparison the percentage of per-
sons speaking German rose from 19 to
20, the French percentage fell from 10
to IL, the Italian percentage fell from
to s and a major fraction. Spanish
fell from 16 to and Portuguese re-
manned practically stationary.
There are spoken in the world about
1000 languages and dialects. or dis
tinct variations of a parent language
English in its present state of devel-
opment is one of the richest. noblest.
most pliable and effective mediums for
the expression of human thought that
the human race has known. There are
scholars who will maintain that the
English is the most wonderful of all
the forms of human speech. but of
course there are also scholars who will
contend that their language is the best.
Perhaps there is no best language. So
much depends on the knowledge. pow
er. facility, poetry and genius of a
speaker of a language. Any language
is a stin and barren medium of express
sion in the mouth of a man who knows
only the surface of his language. who
has a mediocre mind and who is not
an artist in expression.
English has drawn to itself riches
from all tongues. Prof w. w. Skeat.
In a collection of 10000 useful words.
has determined the source of those
words. and has written that 1851 are
Anglo-Saxon and English. while 4.S42
come from Latin. s2S from late Latin
and 1872 from Italian through French,
1850 from Latin direct. 2.493 from
Greek direct or through Latin. late
Latin, French or other sources: 333
from German. 693 from Scandinavian,
297 from Dutch. 126 from low German