06 PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 



witbiu every onc't? apprehension, and proceeding from that which is well known 

 or obvious, to that ^hich is more obscure. Ilhistrations will be sought, mainly 

 from ami)ng the ])henomena of our own familiar speech, since every living and 

 growing language has that W'ithin itself which exemplifies the facts and princi- 

 ples of universal application in all language. We shall also avoid, as nuich as 

 possible, the use of ligurative, philosophical, and technical phraseology, and 

 talk the language of plain fact. 



Our j)reliminary in(|uiry may properly be. Why do Ave, ourselves, speak Eng- 

 lish? Though a simple question, its correct answer will clear our way of 

 many dilliculties. The general reply is obvious : We learned English from 

 those among whom our earliest years were passed. We did not produce the 

 words we use by an internal impulse, by the reflection of phenomena in our 

 consciousness, and the like. As soon as we were able to associate an idea 

 and its uttered sign, we were taught to stammer the names of the most familiar 

 objects, and our instruction advanced with our capacities ; our notions and con- 

 ceptions Averc brought into shapes agreeing Avith those they took in the minds 

 about us, and Avere called by the names to Avhich these were accustomed. Cer- 

 tain liquids Avhich Ave saAv, colorless and white, had not to be studied and com- 

 pared by us in order to the iuA-ention of a title for them. We Avere informed 

 that they Avere " Avater " and "milk." The one of them, in certain modes of occur- 

 rence, Ave Avcrc made to know as " puddle" and " river." The Avords crjj, strike, 

 bite, eat, drink, lore, hate, and so on, Avere taught us by being applied to acts 

 and states of Avhich Ave made experience. Long before any mental analysis of 

 our own Avould have given us the distinct ideas of true and Jfilse, they Avere im- 

 pressed upon our minds by admonition, or something stronger. The ap- 

 pellations of hosts of objects, places, beings, Avhich Ave had not seen, and per- 

 haps have not yet seen, were fixed in our minds, Avith the means of attaching 

 some distinctive idea to them. The amount and kind of this training A^aried 

 greatly in different cases, but we all had it, and by it alone could learn to talk 

 as we do. Language was the first step in our education. It came by educa- 

 tion, and not by inheritance. English blood would never have given us Eng- 

 lish speech. We could just as easily have learned to say wasser or eau as 

 " Avater," viilcJi or laitas " milk," liehcn or aimer as '■' love," &c. An American 

 child is brought up by a French nurse in order that it may speak French first, 

 and' it does so. The infant cast on shore alive from a wreck learns the tongue 

 of its foster-jDarents, and no outbreak of natural speech ever betrays whence it 

 derived its birth. The imported African forgets, in a generation, his Congo or 

 Mendi, and is able to use only a dialect of his master's speech. 



It is already clear, then, that English people do not, as some liaA'e paradoxi- 

 cally maintained, speak English by inherent natural gift, because they are 

 English, just as all SAvallows tAvitter, all bears growl, all lions roar, and so 'on. 

 The special forms of spoken language are matters of imitation. They are kept 

 up by usage, and transmitted by oral tradition. 



We thus learn, not English simply, but the particular kind of English Avhich 

 is spoken by our instructors. A fcAv, perhaps, get nothing from the outset but 

 the purest style of the language; but hardly any can escape some tinge of local 

 dialect, of the slang of caste or calling, even of individual peculiarities of our 

 teachers, inelegancies of pronunciation, pet phrases, colloquialisms and A'ul- 

 garisms, and tlu; like. Ofteu en-ors and infelicities thus acquired in early life 

 are ineradicable by all the care of after years. 



Again, this process does not give us universal command of the resources of 

 the language. A child's A'ocabulary is A'ery scanty, and goes on incrcasiiig to 

 the end of life. The encyclopedic English tongue, as we may call it, contains 

 over one hundred thousand Avords. Of these, the most uninstructed classes ac- 

 quire only three to five thousand, a frugal stock of the most indispensable Avords 

 and phrases. To such a nucleus every artisan, in every walk of labor, must 



