Article (linguistics)

“ Language is a social institution of a special nature; and its peculiar province is to express ideas by means of a nicely organized system of signs. Thus the science of language embraces the study of signs employed by the intellectuality of mankind with reference to social necessities. We learn what the signs are, what governs them; and by this means we perceive the more definite boundaries of linguistics, which occur inside the general scope of the science of signs. ”

“ For him a foreign language is only his own, with another vocabulary; and so, when he does a piece of translation, he carefully replaces on his paper each word of his English text by one of the equivalents that he finds for it in his dictionary, rarely failing to choose the wrong one, as I have already said. ”

“ How annoying and perplexing it is, and how it complicates the use of language, and makes the acquisition of foreign languages difficult, no student needs be told. For it creates an ever present and far-reaching perplexity. It dominates the construction of [249] the sentence and binds it up in bonds of iron. For every adjective, and in French and other languages having articles, every article which is applied to a noun must be of the gender of that noun. You can not say in Latin bonus penna, a good pen, without “bad grammar,” you must say bona penna. ”

“ In their power of taking up foreign words into healthy circulation and making them truly their own, languages differ much from one another, and the same language from itself at different periods of its life. ”

“ A new language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue of learning a totally new grammar and vocabulary. ”

“ In a word, linguistics is receiving careful attention in its various aspects, or from different points-of-view. Language, tongue, graphic and oral speech, with their subdivisions and relations, are regarded with some consideration for perspective.
The elements of language are sought both internally and externally to its organic structure; and progress has been made in the appreciating of their reciprocal relations or interdependent laws. The phenomena of written and phonetic language are compared and weighed; their systems have been analysed and deductions have been made from the analyses. ”

“ They are only a man-made language, a conceptual shorthand, as someone calls them, in which we write our reports of nature; and languages, as is well known, tolerate much choice of expression and many dialects. ”

“ When a student who has acquired a knowledge of the English sentence comes to the translation of a foreign language, he finds his work greatly simplified. If in a sentence of his own language he sees only a mass of unorganized words, how much greater must be his confusion when this mass of words is in a foreign tongue! ”

“ The first fact to be accepted in considering Translation is that it is impossible exactly to render into one language what has been written in another. The race that has made each tongue has impressed its own character upon it in every syllable, in every idiom. ”

“ This means that we ought to consider a little the whole subject of written as distinguished from spoken language. Why should we have two languages—as we practically do—one to be interpreted by the ear and the other by the eye? ”

“ The linguist, as we have already seen, is frequently or usually unable to discover the exact meaning of the word in the original language, and hence is uncertain as to the degree of development of any art or technique. ”

“ The unconsciously formed categories found in human speech have not been sufficiently exploited for the investigation of the categories into which the whole range of human experience is forced. Here, again, the clearness of etymological processes in many American languages is a great help to our investigation.
The isolation of formal elements and of stems, or of co-ordinate stems, whichever the case may be, is easily performed, and the meaning of every part of an expression is determined much more readily than in the innumerable fossilized forms of Indo-European languages. ”

“ In order to learn to write and read our own modern living language, which we have spoken from childhood—in order to appreciate the system employed in representing it upon paper, we are to acquire a considerable knowledge of two foreign ancient dead languages, the pronunciation of which no one knows, and all dispute about!! ”

“ And as I cannot suppose words to represent external things, I have said "A Word is one or more syllables spoken or written as the sign of some idea." But of what ideas are the words of our language significant? Are we to say, "Of all ideas;" and to recognize as an English word every syllable, or combination of syllables, to which we know a meaning is attached? No. For this, in the first place, would confound one language with an other; and destroy a distinction which must ever be practically recognized, till all men shall again speak one language. ”

“ One great task of linguistics should be to clear away the popular misconceptions springing like mushrooms from the fantastic errors of specialists, and to displace absurd speculations and dry lingos with reasonable deductions alive with human interest.
Already a great deal has been done. The relations existing between effects of linguistic energies at play, have been discovered to be orderly. Wherever order is established, successful investigation is possible. The science of philology has not been idle ”

“ I indulge in a hope that my readers may consider the circumstances under which a word was added to our language as curious or interesting, especially when they are apprised that it was not taken from any other language, ancient or modern, and yet it has become ubiquitous. ”

“ Now every person at all acquainted with Philology, knows that foreign language to be easiest to himself which bears the greatest resemblance to his vernacular tongue in its structure, syntax, the sequence of its words in sentences, and the identity or similarity of many of its terms with corresponding ones in his own language. It will be evident to any individual, that in these particulars the French resembles our language much more than the Latin. ”

“ The analogies which guided the first men in such cases entirely escape our power of perception. Philology in its present state has not sufficient materials to decide how can it be that a few essential elements in a vocabulary should be nearly the same in two languages, while yet they differ totally in so important a particular as the flexions of the noun and verb. ”

“ Besides the greater or lesser development of categories that are parallel to our own, many new ones appear. The groups of ideas selected for expression by formative elements are quite distinctive, and they belong to the most important features in the characterization of each language. In some cases they are poorly developed, but most American languages possess an astonishing number of formative elements of this type. ”

“ But whatever necessity there may be for a great variety of modes and tenses in dialects, constructed upon arbitrary principles, it does not appear that any more than one is needful for a natural language, or that the modes of conjugating verbs or any other, are in fact expressible by human speech any otherwise than by the whole form or order of inflection and things. ”

“ Thus on the whole, the endless variety in vocabu lary and structure among the languages of the world affords important evidence as to the mental diversities of the nations speaking those languages. But the unity of the faculty of speech in man stands as the primary fact, while the character of the grammar and dictionary belong ing to any one nation represents only a secondary fact, such as might be fairly set down as resulting from their parti cular stage and circumstances of linguistic development. ”

“ A foreign language rouses our attention, and all the more in proportion to its strangeness. The modern tongues are modern and in part already ours; Greek and Latin, by their strangeness, more pervadingly quicken the attention.
And what becomes of the finger in the dictionary—a very different thing from a glance into a glossarial index—if our language study be English? Conceding that the same diligent attention might gain as good results from the English dictionary, how are we to drive students to give it such use? Driven they must be, for they think they know already. ”

“ Let me, dismissing them and their innovations, call your attention now to those changes in spelling which are constantly going forward, at some periods more rapidly than at others, but which never wholly cease out of a language; while at the same time I endeavour to trace, where this is possible, the motives and inducements which bring them about. It is a subject which none can neglect, who desire to obtain even a tolerably accurate acquaintance with their native tongue. ”

“ The historical grammar of a single language or dialect, which traces the grammatical forms and usages of the language as far back as documentary evidence allows, affords material to the comparative grammarian, whose task it is to compare the grammatical forms and usages of an allied group of tongues and thereby reduce them to their earliest forms and senses. ”

“ We are aware that many of them imagine the language of their country to be the standard as to idiom, pronunciation, and spelling, and any English variation from their golden rule as erroneous and heterodox; but such critics are entitled to no consideration whatever. ”

“ The learner is supposed to be unacquainted with all but his own native [xii] tongue; and in what other, consistently with reason and common sense, would you go about to explain it to him? When he has a competent knowledge of the main principles, the common terms, the general rules, the whole subject and business of Grammar, exemplified in his own Language; he then will apply himself with great advantage to any foreign language, whether ancient or modern. ”

“ V. Dialectal and Popular Words.
Whether words may, by conscious effort, be preserved in colloquial usage is an unsolved question, though perhaps our Society may help to solve it; there is, however, another and more certain benefit which its members, or at any rate such of them as are writers, may confer upon the language. There are many excellent words spoken in uneducated speech and dialect all about us, which would be valuable additions to our standard vocabulary if they could be given currency in it. ”

“ They are careful in the use of words, and are regarded as standards of purity in the language. They appear to have an accurate ear for sounds, and delight in rounding off a period, for which the languages afford great facilities, by their long and stately words, and multiform inflexions. ”

“ One of the advantages of having accurately studied a plurality of languages, especially of those languages which eminent thinkers have used as the vehicle of their thoughts, is the practical lesson we learn respecting the ambiguities of words, by finding that the same word in one language corresponds, on different occasions, to different words in another. ”

“ Number, case, mood, tense, &c., can be indicated by particles, while the value of the word which does duty impartially for noun, preposition, or verb can generally be discovered by a study of the context. The real difficulty in the comprehension and use of the written language for anything beyond the simplest purposes lies in the fact that it abounds in metaphor and allusion. ”

“ Again, if you desire to elicit a language of which you know nothing, from a savage who cannot explain it and who does not understand your language, there are certain processes with which some linguists, no doubt, are familiar, and others commend themselves in practical experience ”

“ Languages are termed rough and smooth, weak or expressive, frequently without reason.—As these are comparative terms, they change their application according to circumstances. The French is said to be a smooth or rough language, when compared with the German 17 or Italian. ”

“ I wish you would use yourself to translate, every day, only three or four lines, from any book, in any language, into the correctest and most elegant English that you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will insensibly form your style, and give you an habitual elegance ”

“ The countenance of the wonderful linguist is full of intelligence, his manner well-bred, unaffected and highly agreeable. His facility and felicity in speaking French, German, and English, is most extraordinary, and I am told it is not less so in various other languages. ”

“ In every language grammatical correctness is obligatory. Here we see a distinction between mere conversation, which is loose, fragmentary and often, even in the lips of highly educated persons, slightly ungrammatical; and prose, which is bound to weed away whatever is slovenly and incorrect, and to watch very closely lest merely colloquial expressions, which cannot be defended, should slip into careful speech. ”

“ The unrestrained use of foreign words, whether from the ancient or from the modern languages, savors of pedantry and affectation. The ripest scholars, in speaking and writing English, make least use of foreign words or phrases. Persons who indulge in their use incur the risk of being charged with a desire to exhibit their linguistic attainments. ”

“ What is still stranger, this doctrin is pertinaciously maintained by the men who make pretenses to exquisit taste and refinement in polite literature. And if any thing can add to the contradictions which such a principle involves, it is that the same men, who object to the minutest alterations of orthography, are the most active in effecting changes of pronunciation; thus aiding to destroy the use of letters, by creating new differences between the written and spoken language. ”