284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



middle ages are as out of the question as the "modern" Latin which 

 for want of a better medium is forced to serve in a multitude of scien- 

 tific classifications and descriptions of the present day. This too is in 

 regard to Latin as a written language. Speaking it is a still more diffi- 

 cult problem, one before which even the Latin specialist is ill at ease. 

 It is evident that the idea of bringing Latin in any shape into real use 

 as an auxiliary language in the busy modern world is absolutely hopeless. 



What is true of Latin is equally true of Greek, with its own peculiar 

 alphabet, used by no other language, and its even greater remoteness 

 from present European tongues, in spite of the many derivatives from it 

 in modern vocabularies, especially in technical terminology, and in spite 

 of the fact that the idiom developed from ancient Greek is a spoken 

 language to-day. The languages of the past can not serve the peoples 

 of the present in any immediate and practical capacity. 



The next alternative is the consideration of the modern and living 

 languages. For French was the accepted language of European courts, 

 in times not yet remote, as well as the language of diplomacy and of 

 polite literature ; although, as in the case of Latin, this language too was 

 semi-universal among chiefly the educated and politically powerful 

 classes. Is it feasible to restore French to that high estate from which 

 it has now fallen ? Hardly so, with English a powerful competitor, and 

 German vying with both. From this very competition it is clear that 

 neither French nor any other national speech can to-day or to-morrow 

 become the accepted auxiliary language. This idea, untenable now, 

 may find acceptance in the far future, after the establishment of inter- 

 national unity and understanding, and after the forgetting of inter- 

 national jealousies and struggles for political preferment and commer- 

 cial supremacy. But at present it is plainly Utopian. No nation of 

 to-day will yield to any one other nation the immense commercial and 

 political advantage given by permitting the mother-tongue of that 

 nation to become the accepted medium for international dealings. No 

 American or Englishman would consent to an attempt to have German 

 used exclusively, in his intercourse with Spanish-speaking peoples, or 

 any other peoples, nor would he consent to French for such a sole 

 medium. No German would accept French in this capacity, or 

 English; nor would the Frenchman be a whit more generous. This 

 same feeling, intermingled with a host of ancient grudges, would extend 

 to the lesser nations whose languages meet with still less consideration 

 in such theorizing. 



In days of old, that nation politically most powerful might some- 

 times thrust its language upon conquered peoples, by sheer force of 

 arms. This method is rather impracticable to-day, although a hint of 

 it remains in the ineffectual struggles of the Poles to retain their own 

 idiom in spite of the " official " tongues established among them, or of 

 the Boers against the "official" English. Clinging to the native 



