VOICE, LANGUAGE, PHONETIC SPELLING. 159 



when using the hundreds of words in our language, which, 

 with different meanings, have nevertheless the same sound 

 and spelling. To be consistent, these objectors ought to use 

 different spellings to indicate the eight different meanings 

 of the word hox^ and the six different meanings of the word 

 hay^ etc. 



One of the advantages of phonetic spelling is that it 

 would serve to distinguish between words, which, with 

 different sounds and meanings, are now spelled alike, e.g.^ 

 how^ teavj rtiinute^ ivound, read, etc. Several of the objec- 

 tions urged against spelling by sound are very trivial ; and 

 time does not allow of their consideration. 



In spite of our corrupt and chaotic spelling, which is the 

 great difficulty foreigners have in learning it, our language 

 is making its way into all parts of the world. This is 

 partly owing to our world-wide distribution and commercial 

 influence ; partly to the fact that, apart from its spelling, our 

 language is one of the most easily acquired by other races ; 

 and it is, as many foreign philologers have remarked, the 

 best vehicle of communication the world has ever seen, 

 freed as it is from grammatical forms, declensions, genders, 

 and the like. No other tongue can compete with it, not 

 even that extraordinary production of continental jealousy 

 of Britain and her world-wide influence, Volapiik, which is 

 destined to die a natural death ere long. 



When the day comes, as come it will, when truth and 

 reason shall have prevailed, and our " corrupt and effete " 

 orthography, as Max Miiller terms it, shall have been dis- 

 carded in favour of spelling by sound, then the last barrier 

 will have been levelled which at present hinders our " pure 

 language ^' attaining the goal it is approaching, and which 

 delays the fulfilment of its manifest destiny as the lan- 

 guage of the world. , 



