A RETROSPECT AND A FORECAST. 33 
of people, and that its use is daily spreading in all quarters of the globe. “TI hold,” says 
Professor Max Müller, “that language is meant to be an instrument of communication, 
and that in the struggle for life, the most efficient instrument of communication must 
certainly carry the day, as long as natural selection or, as we formerly called it, reason 
rules the world.” He then cites a computation, according to which, in the ordinary course 
of events, at the end of 200 years Italian will be spoken by 53,370,000; French, by 
72,571,000 ; German, by 157,480,000 ; Spanish, by 505,286,242, and finally English, by 
1,837,286,153. This forecast is said to be based on the populations and known rate of increase 
of those who speak the languages specified. The very nature of things would, of course, 
make any claim to accuracy on such a point out of the question, but the reckoning may be 
accepted as indicating, with some approach to probability, the position of the languages 
mentioned in the race for supremacy at the close of a couple of centuries. * Whatever may 
happen in the old world, on this continent English and Spanish are plainly destined to be 
the ruling tongues. In the East they have also a foothold, with, in some places, French, 
Dutch and Portuguese for rivals. But there the opportunities of English for asserting 
predominance exceed those of the other languages of Europe as much as they do in North 
America. It has all Australia, it is the language of the Hawaiian kingdom, it has been 
adopted by many educated Hindoos for literary purposes, and is every day extending its 
conquests through Hindostan, not to speak of its advance in China, Japan, and many other 
countries in the eastern hemisphere. That French will become more and more the lingua 
franca of continental Europe and the hither East may be taken for granted, as there is no 
rival likely to displace it; and that it will retain its influence in North America the 
experience of the past gives a fair guarantee. German and the other Teutonic tongues will 
not surrender their heritage in Central and North-Western Europe, but there are no signs 
at present of any great extension abroad. The destiny of the Slavonic group is an interest- 
ing problem, butit is hardly likely to do more than hold its own in the competition with 
European civilization, though great literary triumphs may yet await it. That it may 
become the rival of English in Asia is possible, but not probable. 


* A forecast which gives to Western Europe and this continent (the present homes of the languages to which 
. “WH: . . (Bio 
it relates) a population of over two billions and a half suggests serious questions for the economist, as well as the 
philologist. 
Sec. IL, 1882. 5. 
