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Observations on Original 



[July 



known to the nation, it is natural that the principal word or syllable, of 

 of each word thus compounded, should be distinguished in speaking by 

 a stong emphasis (accent). Nations, on the contrary, who possess a 

 derived language, having more or less lost a distinct knowledge of the 

 meaning of the component parts of the words, which they have re- 

 ceived from their conquerors, place the emphasis (accent) on wrong 

 syllables, or have no accent at all. According to this criterion, the 

 French has, in a high degree, the character of a derived language, 

 because it has no accent : and the highest praise whieti Frenchmen 

 can give to a foreigner, who speaks their language, is, il parle sans 

 accent. 



According to the same criterion, the Teutonic dialects have emi- 

 nently the character and spirit of an original language, as the accent 

 lies invariably on the radical syllable, or the principal elementary 

 word, of a compound ; and if in a compound occur two elementary 

 words of equal importance, they are both equally accented, (e. g. 

 Genugthuung, enough doino-, or satisfying ; Rechtschdffenheit right- 

 shapedness or honesty; Aufrichtigkeit, uprightness. And, likewise, 

 the British nation have preserved, in a high degree, the independently 

 thinking spirit of their Saxon ancestors, and the powerful accent of a 

 free nation, as they place the accent mostly on the radical and principal 

 syllable, even of those words which are derived from the Latin ; thus 

 they say capable, and not capable, as the French ; inviolable (the vi 

 accented, because it comes, from the Latin vis); depositary, and not 

 deposltdire, or {deppossittaire) as the French pronounce it. 



The rules of the Greek accentuation show evidently that this language 

 is not original, and it is strange that the rules of the Bohemian accent 

 (although an original language) are rather analogous to those of the 

 Greek. I greatly doubt whether the Romans had any accent ; and if 

 the Tamiilians can be said to have any, it is certainly very weak, and is 

 not placed on the principal syllable. 



I doubt not a philosophical inquiry, into the causes of this difference 

 of the accent of the various languages, may lead to interesting and 

 curious psychological results. 



1 1. In conclusion, I beg leave to make one general observation, par- 

 ticularly in reference to the four principal vernacular languages of the 

 Madras Presidency. 



Upon a right understanding of the fundamental and essential prin- 

 ciple of the construction of a language, depends, in a very great mea- 

 sure, the clearness andimpressiveness of an address or composition, and 

 if, in an original language, the arrangement of the parts of a period 

 the disposition of the periods, and the whole shaping and moulding of 

 the ideas, be not conformed to the principle laid down in para. 4 ; an 



