398 Atlas Ethnographique du Globe. 



respect to languages, which exists. Each particular table 

 contains a description of the languages which are included 

 and classed in it, specifying for each the names of the nations 

 "who speak it, the countries they inhabit, and the peculiar 

 characteristics of its grammar and its pronunciation; noticing 

 its principal dialects, sub-dialects, and such variations as are 

 important, either in their historical or ethnographical rela- 

 tions :— finally, the alphabet which is employed, and the 

 principal features of its literature and monuments, supposing 

 it to possess either. We are induced to give the following 

 specimen of the manner in which this part of the work is 

 executed, from a sense of the utter inadequacy of any descrip- 

 tion of our own to do it justice ; and we purposely select his 

 description of our own language, as being that by which 

 our readers generally will be best enabled to form their 

 estimate. 



" 180. English. — Spoken in England, in the south and east of 

 Scotland, in parts of Ireland, and of the principality of Wales ; 

 in the principal towns, and by the educated, in the remainder of 

 Scotland, Ireland, and Wales ; in the islands of Shetland, Jersey, 

 and Guernsey ; by the descendants of the English, and by many 

 others in Asia, Polynesia, Africa, and British America ; by the 

 greater part of the citizens of the United States of America. 

 English is also spoken extensively in all nations, in all parts of 

 the world, by reason of its importance in literary, political, and 

 commercial respects ; from the two latter causes, especially, is 

 common in Hanover, the Ionian Islands, Malta, Portugal, Brazil, 

 and in the Republic of Haiti. The English language is a mixture 

 of Anglo-Saxon and of Franco-Norman, with some Celtic and more 

 Romanesque words. Very rich and very energetic, it is the most 

 simple and the most monosyllabic of all the languages of Europe, 

 and is that in which the pronunciation differs most from the writing. 

 It has two inflections only for substantives ; six or seven for the 

 persons and tenses of Verbs : the gender is not distinguished, 

 except where sex exists : the adjectives, participles, and articles, 

 are indeclinable. It did not become the language of the govern- 

 ment until the reign of Edward III., since which time it has been 

 fixed, and has gradually improved. From the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century, this beautiful language may be considered to 

 have been methodically developed, and from the commencement of 

 the eighteenth, to have acquired its fixed and invariable forms. In 

 literature it occupies a place amongst the most eminent in Europe, 

 ceding to none in polisli, and being the first in energy. It admits 

 conciseness, without prejudice to the grace of expression ; it is 

 peculiarly suited to the description of the magnificent or sublime 

 in nature. In political and parliamentary eloquence it is without 



