X 873-J The Future of the English Language. 367 



VIII. THE FUTURE OF THE ENGLISH 

 LANGUAGE.* 



By William E. A. Axon, M.R.S.L., F.S.S. 



UNIVERSAL language has been the dream of many 

 minds. It has been a subject of frequent aspiration, 

 hope, and despair. That the civilised earth should 

 one common dialect is indeed a " consummation 

 devoutly to be wished." The number of languages in 

 existence at the present moment is unknown, but, as Pro- 

 fessor Muller has said, they cannot be less than 900. 

 Adelung has'estimated the number of known dialects at 3664, 

 of which 937 belong to Asia, 587 to Europe, 276 to Africa, 

 and 1624 to America. Balbi has enumerated 860 languages, 

 forming about 5000 dialects. Of these languages 53 belong 

 to Europe, 153 to Asia, 115 to Africa, 422 to America, and 

 117 to Oceania. There can be no doubt that this estimate 

 very greatly underrates in every particular the number of 

 existing methods of speech. 



If we contemplate the amazing variety of this Babel of 

 sounds, the first sentiment is one of wonder at the sanguine 

 hopefulness of those who expect to see this chaos reduced 

 to order and symmetry. Some, dismayed perhaps by the 

 great number of dialects, have thought it impossible that 

 any one language should ever conquer all its opponents, and 

 remain in undisputed possession of the field, and have 

 therefore sought for a method by which the same symbol 

 should represent one idea and many sounds. That such a 

 scheme is absolutely impossible would be too much to say, 

 for a plan of this kind is already applied in the case of 

 numerals. The figure 1 is called by the Italian uno, by the 

 Welshman tin, by the German ein ; but to all three it 

 conveys the idea of unity. The Frenchman's quatre-vingt- 

 douze is very unlike in sound to the English ninety-two, but 

 the figures 92 represent them both.f The construction of 

 an artificial philosophical language, if not beyond the 

 bounds of possibility, is too far from the realms of the prac- 

 tical to need more than passing mention, and the chances 



* A considerable portion of this paper was originally delivered as a 

 Presidential Address, April, 3rd, 1873, before the Manchester Eclectic 

 Society. 



t By a false analogy Wachter. who saw that ten figures were sufficient for 

 all calculations, was led to suppose that all writing might be managed by an 

 alphabet of ten letters, and this is what he proposed: — 



