402 LAXGUAGE AND EACE. 



analytic in character. The simplification in grammar thus 

 effected is highly important ; and it is the chief reason why 

 English is the easiest of all languages for a foreigner to learn 

 to speak. It would be equally easy to icrite it, if only we 

 had returned to the true mode of spelling, i.e. the phonetic. 



In studying a language we have to consider its vocabulary^ 

 grammar., syntax^ and idioms. 



The Vocabulary of a savage is never large. A compara- 

 tively few words suffice to express the workings of his mind ; 

 but in proportion as he adopts civilised habits and ideas 

 does his stock of words become larger. Extensive social 

 and commercial relationships with other peoples also favour 

 very greatly the adoption of new w^ords ; and an analytic 

 language, like ours, borrows far more readily than a synthetic 

 one does. Cases are known in which almost the whole voca- 

 bulary of a tribe or nation has been derived from abroad. 

 These remarks apply to all languages, but the vocabularies 

 of some are held far more tenaciously than those of others. 

 The Aryan family especially is marked by much less ten- 

 dency to change, than the other groups, in both lexicon and 

 grammar. 



The Grammar is a far more important item in a language 

 than its words for determining its affinities. In comparing 

 languages, we must begin with the nature of the sentence, 

 and then proceed to the grammar, the idioms, and lastly the 

 vocabulary. However great the change in this last, the 

 manner in which the mind views objects and their relations 

 — that is to say, the structure and grammar of the language 

 — remains, as a rule, unaltered. When, as is not unfrequently 

 the case among savage tribes, two neighbouring villages be- 

 come nearly unintelligible to one another, it is on account of 

 changes in pronunciation, in idiom, and in vocabulary, not in 

 the grammatical forms. Seeing then that grammar is so 



