THE INADEQUACY OF SPEECH 437 



we read an author like Voltaire we feel that in his hundred volumes 

 he said about all he had to say. He puts his thoughts before us 

 lucidly and vigorously, but not profoundly. In the case of Goethe, on 

 the other hand, who could think both scientifically and poetically, we 

 often realize that in spite of the enormous extent of his works his 

 language is not infrequently an indication of his thoughts rather than 

 the expression of the thoughts themselves. The existence of Dante 

 Societies, and Shakespeare Societies, and Goethe Societies has its justi- 

 fication in the conviction that the thoughts of these master minds can 

 be fully understood only by the cooperation of many of inferior caliber. 

 By thus combining and comparing the individual and partial views of 

 a number of separate intellects, they may gain at least an approximately 

 adequate grasp of the psyche of these prodigies. 



Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon exhibited by all the lan- 

 guages of the world is a process we can hardly call by any other name 

 than deterioration. Take, for example, the Greek. Many of its oldest 

 words are both longer and more sonorous than the later ones. But 

 often even the earliest form shows evidence of weakening, abrasion 

 and contraction. At least one consonant was lost in the period lying 

 between the prehistoric and the historic. In many words two syllables 

 are drawn together into one, or a shorter takes the place of a longer 

 word. Sometimes the longer form existed for a time alongside the 

 shorter, eventually to displace it entirely. Often the attenuated vowel e 

 takes the place of the more sonorous a. It would almost seem as if 

 when a word of two or more syllables having a traditional signification 

 had for a time been in use it dawned upon the primitive mind that 

 it could be shortened without losing its meaning. In Greek and Latin 

 this process is not carried very far, but in French all the words derived 

 from the latter language consist only of that portion that precedes and 

 includes the accented syllable. We know that when an uneducated 

 person tries to reproduce the pronunciation of a long foreign word or 

 one that is foreign to him, he usually gets only a part of it and that 

 part often incorrectly : education becomes " edication," sitting " sit'n," 

 somewhat " sumet," the other " t'other," and so on with innumerable 

 examples. This is the every-day process. But where and when shall 

 we place the era of upbuilding? When were the fuller forms in use? 

 The procedure that falls within our ken furnishes us with no answer 

 to the question, not so much as an approximation thereto. Even those 

 languages of which the study began only a generation or two ago 

 exhibit the same phenomenon. The Bantu, the most widely dissemi- 

 nated speech of South Africa, presents many instances where two or 

 more syllables are contracted into one, and where former syllables have 

 left but a single letter as evidence of their one-time existence. As 

 soon as a language is reduced to writing, or becomes a matter of study, 

 and the rising generation is taught to pattern after its predecessors, the 



