142 TJNIVEESAL LANGUAGES. 



brilliant development of commercical and intellectual 

 life, the Dutch or JSetherlandish nation, whose language 

 might just as well have gained a universal position, not 

 only on account of its simple construction, but also 

 especially because it holds an intermediate place between 

 English, German and the languages of the North of 

 Europe, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. It would 

 consequently have well been adapted for a wide circu- 

 lation, and as moreover just at the time mentioned, 

 Dutch literature, art and culture had gained a very 

 prominent position, all conditions were given to develop 

 it into a universal tongue. But the florescence of the 

 Dutch nation was of a comparatively short duration only, 

 too short for giving it time to gain root among other 

 nations and to spread. The astonishingly rapid develop- 

 ment of the English nation pushed the Dutch back and 

 placed the language of the former in the foreground. 



The defeat of the Armada, the deliverance from 

 Catholicism and Spain, marked the political and intellec- 

 tual development of Great Britian, and hand in hand 

 with this went the exceedingly rapid spread of the 

 Anglo-Saxon race which, carried by an unsually high 

 self-consciousness, forced other nations in a way never 

 experienced before to adopt the English idiom. In more 

 than one case it was actually a struggle for life : adopt 

 our language or go down, and nowadays we can witness 

 all over the earth that wherever the English establish 

 their rule, they bring their language with them ; not 

 contented to use it among themselves, they force it 

 upon the natives who have no chance whatever to choose. 

 Thus Anglo-Saxon culture and English language emi- 

 grated into its second great realm. North America, with 

 those stout-hearted men, the Puritans, who left England 

 after the revolution ; in English ships their language 

 came to the Cape Colony ; English seamen transplanted 

 it to Australia, and to East India, the possession of which 



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