I3H l^KOOMAIJ, : 



among forms within a language itself, but not directly between 

 it and another language. The conflict is among the speaking 

 communities ; it is ethnic, not linguistic. Therefore, even if 

 a language be assumed as superior to another, this superiority 

 in itself gives it no advantage in the chances of domination 

 and survival. If it survive and supplant others, it is due to 

 the superiority of its speakers under the conditions which 

 determine conflicts among communities. Hence, the superi- 

 ority of the language is not an element of the problem further 

 than as an evidence of the superiority of the community 

 speaking it. This eliminates from our discussion the necessity 

 to weigh the relative values of several prominent languages 

 now candidates for universality — a judicial process too exact- 

 ing perhaps for any person having one of these languages as 

 his own. 



Languages, then, prevail neither by their superiority over 

 others nor by the aid of schools or governments. The root 

 and stem of the living language is in the family circle and no 

 race is without such an organization. The family originated 

 in the animal nature of man and in all its various forms it 

 centres in the nurture and primary education of the child. 

 The strength of this family unit is abundantly illustrated in 

 the many local centres of foreign speech in the United States 

 — the Chinese and Italian quarters of our cities, the Spanish 

 towns of the Southwest, and the Pennsylvania Dutch. These 

 cases show how few the families need be to preserve their 

 linguistic integrity, how little political power has to do with 

 the matter, and how a small self-contained community, totally 

 surrounded and outnumbered by atiother, may for generations 

 postpone the surrender of its vernacular. 



The conclusion, from the trite facts we have summarized, 

 is that the conflict of languages is the conflict of the commun- 

 ities speaking them. A vernacular can be eradicated only by 

 extermination, slavery or intermarriage, and the intermarriage 

 must be in due proportion by the foreign woman. lixter- 

 niination and slavcr\- ha^•e already ad\'anced far t(.>ward the 



