THE CONFLICT OF LANGUAGES. 



Al)Slract of Lecture before the Institute, 

 BY IIKNKV L. BROOMALL. 



Of the arts and doings of a community some are known 

 or practiced by all its individuals and some by only a part of 

 tlieni. The arts common to all the individuals of a commun- 

 ity are acquired in childhood and the social status of the child 

 protects them generally against foreign influence. Language, 

 personal morals and domestic customs are so acquired and their 

 essential elements transmitted mainly within the family circle. 

 The arts, business, coiumerce and politics, are the practice of 

 only a part of the community and the acquisition of the indi- 

 vidual later in life. The former are necessary to the individual 

 as a member of society : they are easily acquired by him from 

 his early environment : they are continued in practice through- 

 out the individual's life. The others are but an advantage to 

 the individual's career : they are studied and practiced with 

 definite purpose by the adolescent and mature : they may be 

 laid aside or interchanged. The first are rarely forgotten : the 

 others are easily lost. 



And, of all these things, speech is the first acquired, the 

 easiest mastered and the most necessaiy to the individual. As 

 these facts are the basis upon which our conclusions must rest, 

 our first consideration should be given to the circumstances 

 attending the acquisition of his language by the individual. 



The child does not become a member of the community 

 until he speaks and understands its language. If he is men- 

 tally or physically so defective as to be unable to acquire the 

 language, he is socially outbarred : he is a part but not a 

 member of the community. If he does not learn the vernac- 

 ular, he never learns any language. Born with inherited ten- 

 dencies to express feeling and thought by speech, the partic- 

 ular langaiage he acquires is determined by his environment. 

 In the early part of his life this environmetit is limited to his 

 family and its infltien<^e npon him is exerted mainly by the 



