EABI/T HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



163 



of language. Insomuch that, while English, French, 

 and German are each spoken with little variation by 

 many millions, there are islands in the Indian archi- 

 pelago, probably not inhabited by one million, but in 

 which there are hundreds of languages, as diverse as 

 are English, French, and German. It is easy to see 

 how this should be. There are peculiarities in the 

 vocal organization of every person, tending to produce 

 peculiarities of pronunciation ; for example, it has 

 been stated that each child in a family of six gave the 

 monosyllable fly m a different manner, (eye, fy, ly, 

 &c.,) until, when the organs were more advanced, cor- 

 rect example induced the proper pronunciation of this 

 and similar words. Such departures from orthoepy are 

 only to be checked by the power of such example ; but 

 this is a power not always present, or not always of suffi- 

 cient strength. The able and self-devoted Robert 

 Moffat, in his work on South Africa, states, without the 

 least regard to hypothesis, that amongst the people of the 

 towns of that great region, " the purity and harmony of 

 language is kept up by their pichos or public meetings, 

 by their festivals and ceremonies, as well as by their songs 

 and their constant intercourse. With the isolated villages 

 of the desert it is far otherwise. They have no such 

 meetings : they are compelled to traverse the wilds, often 

 to a great distance from their native village. On such 

 occasions fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a 

 burden, often set out for weeks at a time, and leave their 

 children to the care of two or three infirm old people. 

 The infant progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp, 

 while others can just master a whole sentence, and those 

 still further advanced, romping and playing together, the 

 children of nature, through the livelong day, become ha' 

 bituated to a language of their own. The more voluble 

 condescend to the less precocious, and thus, from this in- 

 fant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a host of mon- 

 grel words and phrases, joined together without rule, and 

 in the course of a generation the entire character of the 

 language is changed."* I have been told, that in like 

 manner the children of the Manchester factory workers, 

 left for a great part of the day, in large assemblages, under 

 the care, perhaps, of a single elderly person, and spending 

 the time in amusements, are found to make a great deal ol 

 * Missionary Scenes and Labors in South Africa. 



