New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-03-05
UNCfvILIZED ORTHOGRAPHY'
What Might Be Done TO Save the
English Tongue.

To tie Editor % The Tribune.
sir: In yesterdays Boston SUNDAY IloD'
Profe sor Brander Matthews, IN An illuninat-
ing article on the future rivalry between
English and German speech. deplores lhe
"uncivilized photography Of the EhgIish
language. as we'll as the inhectional dihcul-
ties and puritsnical tendencies OF the Ter
man tongue. .o.-,.
Men like Walter Rippmann late Of Queen. $
College. London and Theodore Roosevelt
nave given phonetic spelling healthy I'M
petus in England and America. spelling re-
form, though often oXtravsgsnt ana eN,ien
i-t. l. slowly but surely making head"sy'
especiallv In this progressive couIitI.'
where traveller" and labor" have long neen
The recognized photography. Professor MAJ
thews advanced phoneticisn that ne is "'s"e
70 sec the SCRIPT OF thru" and "ruf," instead
OF the od-fashioned Through and rough
In general usage Moderation Is perhaps inc
uisest course 10 be adopted in all spelling
reforms. II the New York press unanimously
decided on tho elimination Of silent conso-
nauts in print II would be step IN the righl
direction indeed. Silent consonsnts, as On
fl the word through" have not even an
chronological value. since sound IS the WAL
rart OF speech and alone subject 20 eNoiu.
zion. whereas script is but dead letter ana
an artificial invention. Al first II might iooA
queer If "g" were omitted in "forein,' On
+, "dauter." tx" in NEE" "p" and ~ IN
sam" or PSYCHOLOGY" But the eye will grad
ually get accustomed to the simpler FORM
lust a. "traveler" and labor" no longer look
queer 10 al Englishmsn who has become
resident in America.
To come 20 the second point: An elaborate
infection is not necessarily an obstacle 70
linguistic expansion. The best proof is the
superabundance of classical and even post
classical infections. Yet imperial Latin and
Hellenistic or Alexandrisn Greek, as the Ian
guage Of the Gospels and Epistles is called,
spread and ruled over the Western World.
n an article which The Tribune published
on May :, 1915, fully dealt with the gres,
movement Of eliminating foreign elements
from the German language. The movement
ie not without precedent m history one
thousand years ago Persian was overgrown
with a profuse Semitic vocabulary. tirdusl,
he equal Of Shakespeare and Homer, weeded
Pehlevi, or medieval Persian. The sublime
poet Of the Shah-Nameh nationalized and re-
organized the ancient tongue Of Zarathustra.
Goethe. treading in Lessing's footsteps, acted
similarly with regard TO French which had
so profusely crept into the German language.
His work is efficiently continued in the pres
ent war which is the most gigantic national
movement in German history.
There are German historians who define
the eighteenth century as the French CEN
turv. the nineteenth ss the English century
and the twentieth as the German century. In
the nineteenth century they reason, French
and English swsyed the world of thought and
commerce; in the twentieth English and Ger
man will be the keenest linguistic competl-
tors.
il is not orthography which imperils the
purity OF the English tongue, but the care
lessness of its use, especially in the United
States of America, where motley crowd OF
immigrant races have adopted that splendid
vehicle OF thought II is the duty and privi-
lege more particularly OF the New York press
to guard most scrupulously against any cor
rupton and decay OF the noble English
tongue ERNEST p. H0RRWITZ,
Sometm. Professor of Sanskrt at Trinity
College, University of Dublin.
New York. Feb. u, 1915.