I873-] The Future of the English Language. 385 



and the Spanish, surely we may hope for success also in the 

 same undertaking.* And when that day comes on which 

 we have swept away what Max Miiller has well called " our 

 corrupt and effete orthography," we shall have destroyed 

 the last and only barrier which prevents English from being 

 the language of the world. t 



Surely that is a future so great and glorious that we need 

 not hesitate at any trouble which will hasten the day. We 

 have already achieved much. The flowers that first grew 

 beside the Avon, now bloom alike on the banks of the 

 sacred Ganges, and by the margin of the broad Mississippi. 

 The lays of merry England are heard alike in the fair 

 Derbyshire dales and on the plains of the Far West. The 

 thoughts of our great thinkers, the songs of our poets are 

 no longer bounded by the narrow seas that hem in our 

 island home. They fly to every point of the compass, and 



* One of the first undertakings of the Real Academia Espanola was to 

 reform the Spanish spelling, to make it uniform in principle and easy in 

 practice. The first of the rules laid down was, that "the pronunciation of a 

 word should be the sole and universal rule for its orthography, when it is 

 sufficient to determine the various letters." The result is that " the ortho- 

 graphy of Spanish at the present day leaves little for the phonetician to 

 desire, as it suffices to determine the pronunciation of every word with ease 

 and certainty." Dutch spelling was re-modelled by Professor Siegenbeek, and 

 since 1806 it has been required by the Government that all public documents 

 should be written by his system. Polish, Bohemian, and Magyar have modern 

 alphabets, and are constructed on strictly phonetic principles. — Ellis, 

 " Plea," pp, 59, 60. 



f The literature of spelling-reform is already extensive. The following 

 represent the most important proposals : — 



" A Plea for Phonetic Spelling; or, the Necessity of Orthographic Reform." 

 By Alexander John Ellis, B.A. Second edition. London, 1848. 8vo. 



" The Essentials of Phonetics, containing the theory of a universal 

 alphabet, together with its practical application as an ethnical alphabet to the 

 reduction of all languages written or unwritten, to one uniform system of 

 writing." By Alexander John Ellis, B.A. London, 1848. 8vo. This is 

 printed in the "Phonetic Alphabet" of 1847. 



" On Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to Shakspere 

 and Chaucer, containing an investigation of the correspondence of writing 

 with speech in England from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day, pre- 

 ceded by a systematic notation of all spoken sounds by means of the ordinary 

 printing types." By Alexander J. Ellis, F.R.S.,F. S. A. 1869-71. Parts 1 to 3. 



" A Defence of Phonetic Spelling, drawn from a history of the English 

 alphabet and orthography, with a remedy for their defects." By R. G. Latham, 

 M.A., M.D., F.R.S. Bath, 1872. 8vo. 



" The Universal Language," an argument for the reformed orthography, as 

 a means of aiding the universal diffusion of the English language. By 

 William White, Bath. i2mo., pp. 16. 



Mr. Isaac Pitman has for thirty years printed a Phonetic Journal, which 

 has now become a repository of nearly everything of importance that has been 

 issued on the subject. He has also issued numerous tracts in advocacy of his 

 proposals. 



" Visible Speech the Science of Universal Alphabetics," or self-interpreting 

 physiological alphabetics for the writing of all languages in one alphabet. By 

 Alexander Melville Bell. London, 1867. 



