368 



The Future of the English Language. 



rjuiy, 



of its adoption even when created would be of the very 

 smallest.* 



A few centuries ago, the learned were really in possession 

 of a universal language. Learning, confined then to a com- 

 paratively small number of individuals, was all consigned 

 to the Latin language. In the street the scholar spoke his 

 mother-tongue, but in the study and in the lecture-room 

 Latin alone was heard. He wooed his sweetheart in Eng- 

 lish or in German, as the case might be ; but he wooed the 

 muses in the words which had served Virgil and Cicero. 

 Many circumstances contributed to this result. Latin was 

 the language of the church, and the literary class was for a 

 long period, to a very large extent, made up of the priestly 

 caste. It was not that all priests were literate, the reverse 

 being, unhappily, often the case ; but outside the clerical 

 professions there was no place for the activity and learning 

 of the student. And the most ignorant members of the 

 priesthood would have at least some knowledge of the Latin 

 tongue. Latin was the common universal language of the 

 literati of Europe up to the period of the Renaissance. The 

 Reformation shattered the unity of the western church, and 

 led to the use in various countries of vernacular liturgies 

 and translations of the Bible. The successive development 



Genus. 



Figura. 



Vocal . . . 



• • O 



Guttur . . . 



• • 9 



Lingual .. . 



Z 



Lingual . . 



A 



•Lingual . . 



. . _3 



Dental . . . 



• • n 



Labial . . . 



• • 3 



Labial 

 Labial 

 Nasal 



77 



A 



Potestas. 



a, e, i, o, u. 



k, c, ch, q, g, h. 



I. 



d,t. 



r. 



s. 



b,q. 



m. 



f, ph, v, w. 



Supposing a language existed containing only ten sounds, they might be 

 amply sufficient for the expression of ideas, since it has been estimated that 

 they would form 3,628,800 combinations. — Koops on Paper. 2nd. ed., 1801, 

 pp. 28 and 32. 



* Bishop Wilkins's " Real Character" is hardly known now, except from Pro- 

 fessor Miiller's masterly analysis of it, in his " Science of Language" (vol. ii., 

 p. 47). It was based upon a classification of the attributes of the subjects of 

 knowledge. An idea of Wilkins's, founded on the analogy of the scientific 

 symbols used in the European languages, has been developed into a system of 

 ideographs by De Mas (Ibid., p. 48). 



