Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES /, LANGUAGE A HEAYEN-BOEN GIFT. BY DR. K. P. TER REEHORST, * MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS, QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, LONDON, AND AUTHOR OF "THE MARINER'S FRIEND," IN TEN LANGUAGES. LONDON : SOLD BY THE AUTHOR, 44 COLEMAN STREET, CITY; JUDD & GLASS, GRAY'S INN ROAD. THE HAGUE : BELINFANTE. ANTWERP : MA; KOBNICKEB. 1855. Price One -Shilling. LONDON : PRINTED BY JUDD AND GLASS, GBAY'S INN KOAD. r /o3 PREFACE. REPAIR to the Crystal Palace, and behold what the genius of man. has wrought ! Go to the French Exhibition, and see the wonders the mind of man can produce ! The language man has there gifted the mute objects with, speaks for the heavenly sublimity of his own. The language of Roebuck, of Layard, of Disraeli, and of others, made the un- British Aberdeen government tremble and fall asunder. Such language will once sweep the British Parliament clean of Puseyism, Jesuit- ism, and Romanism. It was such language that caused the brave in the East to plant their banners on the shores of Azof, and to level down the Russian strongholds. Because I lack the means to encounter the expenses, justice in Holland is denied me ; because I lack protection, a position in England I cannot gain ; yet my heart and my tongue shall announce the theme : it is engendered in heaven, it re-echoes on earth ; it emanates from above, it resoundeth below ; language is a heaven-born gift. The courteous reader will perceive that I have not only con- sulted Chevalier Bunsen's, Humboldt's, and De Vere's works, but even here and there copied a few passages from the latter ; which liberty, I think, is not only allowed to one, anxious to enlighten all classes, and to sweep away the dark veil which, for ages back, hung over the mental eye of the lower order ; but such a liberty may be accounted to him, a very humane and plausible one. My thirst after true wisdom and sub- stantial learning is unquenchable. My desire to trace God .H . IV PREFACE. in His handiwork is unsatiated. Every object in nature, the humble dry leaf of a tree, fallen upon the ground unobserved and trodden underfoot, as well as the sublime milky way on high, equally attract my attention and command my admira- tion. Both are the handiworks of Jehovah, both invite me to worship ami to adore God in spirit and in truth, both imbue me with charitableness and love towards my fellow - man. Wisdom is not acquired by the dry study of books ; no ! wisdom is acquired by the study of living objects in nature, it is acquired by the study of man. I study, con- stantly study to know myself, my Creator and His handiworks, and make it my rule of life, never to interfere with the defects and imperfections of others, as long as others do not wilfully obstruct my studies. My thirst after knowledge is unquench- able, my desire to become generally useful and beneficent to all is unsatiable ; therefore T have been persecuted, ill-used, slandered, and nearly murdered ; therefore they have wickedly stolen away all my possessions upon earth ; therefore they have robbed me of my child, and when I came to claim it back, deception, added to the abuse of influence and of authority, has maltreated me, and made me miserable for life. But, O God, in thee have I trusted, let me not be con- founded ! My biography, descriptive of the mal- treatment I experienced at Kampen, and at the Hague in Holland, through the abuse of influence and of authority, will soon appear in print, when enabled to encounter the expenses attending its publication ; every copy of this Lecture, there- fore, that is sold, contributes to enable me to do so. DR. K. P. TER REEHORST, Member of the Royal College of Preceptors, 42 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, and Author of the Mariner's Friend, in ten languages. LONDON, 44 COLEMAN STREET, CITY, JUNE 15, 1855. LECTURE. LANGUAGE A HEAVEN-BORN GIFT. I. EVERY book needs a preface, expressive of the author's motives and intentions in publishing it, every public discourse de- mands an introduction, explanatory of the speaker's address and views in delivering it. The word language is a derivation from the Latin word lingo, to lick or to lap with the tongue. By heaven, we under- stand the invisible, spiritual, and ever-blessed abode of God, where departed souls continue to live, where a never-ending Hosannah and Hallelujah is intoning to the glory of Him, who is, was, and ever shall be. As well as the heavens is a collective for the visible firmament and the starry host on high, so heaven is a collective to signify God and the invisible creation above. By the word born is understood proceeded from, or engendered. Gift, is a spontaneous endowment; so that language, a heaven-born gift, means the speech of man, engen- dered in the spiritual world, spontaneously endowed to him. Although entitled by birth to claim the rights of an English- man, yet being educated and having resided in Holland nearly all my lifetime, the English language must, in a manner, be considered a foreign tongue, an acquired language to me; your forbearance, therefore, I humbly beg ; in grateful return for which I shall strain every nerve to call forth such evi- dences as words will admit and language grant success, as the subject will demand and time will allow, to substantiate facts unknown, to unveil truths seldom or never heard before. It is but recently that we have learned that each language has a life of its own, and that a history of that life might be written. Language also obeys the universal law of all that God has created and made subject to the will of man. With the language of man, however, it is not as with the language of nature around us, where changes are as consecutively regu- lar as they are frequent. The language of nature, namely, it always returns in the same circle to the primitive immutable form. One generation of plants is like the other, though variously progressing from a humble seed to a gigantic tree ; the tufted summit and fruit-laden branches of which invitingly attract the fledged host of the air to come and feed, to come and shelter. The bird builds its nest to-day with as mar- vellous skill as of yore, but no wise more skilfully ; the bee gleans and gathers the golden honey from flower to flower, aud sets the most able architect at defiance in the construction of her hive, the same as she did from time immemorial ; the industrious ant toils and strives to lay up her winter stores with no other improvement than for ages gone by. The skill of animals is not progressive; it is instinctively stationary. It has no history, it has no articulate language. However harmonious the skilful accents, the sweet liquid notes of the nightingale may sound to our ears; however melodious the soft melting tones of the canary bird, and the varied warblings of the feathered host, may re-echo through forests green, no progressive improvement can be retraced ; from generation to generation it has been the same. In nature, therefore, we admire skill, but it is instinctive skill ; in man, we are struck and perplexed to view the constant progression in art, science, knowledge, and intellect, in man, we admire the progressive skill, the progressive intellect, emanating from his divine mind, from the indwelling spark of God, which we call the soul. Language is engendered in heaven, and re-echoed on earth; it emanated from above, and resounded below ; it is a heaven- born gift. I shall divide the present lecture into four points, and consider : 1. WHAT is LANGUAGE, now DID WE COME BY IT, AND TO WHAT PURPOSE ? 2. HOW DID ALL THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES COME TO EXIST- ENCE ? 3. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THE RUSSIAN COMPARED. 4. THE NECESSITY OF ACQUIRING LANGUAGES THE DIS- HEARTENING INGRATITUDE EVINCED BY THEIR COMPE- TENT TEACHERS AND VOTARIES. I. WHAT is LANGUAGE, HOW DID WE COME BY IT, AND TO WHAT PURPOSE? The earth-iound Materialist may deride; the inconvertible Atheist may mock ; the sceptic may vacillate ; the unwise infidel may reject; the Romanist may first consult his confessor ; a man of common sense, however, unbiased by ill-founded principles, unprejudiced by sophistry, unobscured by ignorance, will readily admit, that man absolutely cannot be placed upon this earth, merely by chance to tarry awhile, and then vanish away to no purpose; but that he is a free agent, capable of receiving progressive mental improvements, to fit him out for a higher sphere ; and, this once admitted, it naturally follows that certain means must have been handed down to him, to enable him to attain that end. Therefore my object is, to fix your attention to one of these means. By a well- arranged and consecutive order, by the regular assemblage of modulate and articulate sounds, emitted by means of the organs of speech, we form words, expressive of our thoughts and of our feelings ; and while thus intelligibly communicating those thoughts and feelings by words to one another, it has been conventionally agreed upon to call such a communication, a language or tongue. By the will of the Almighty, the divine immortal spirit of man, dwells in a frail earthly body; that spirit, a vital spark of the Omnipotent Light itself, seated in our brains, as a king upon his throne, seeks utterance for its thoughts, conceptions, and productions ; and this compulsory desire to find an outward form for each mental effort, is as inseparable from thought as the body is from the heaven-born soul. Whatever progress speech might have made in the course of ages, yet there are still emotions, forebodings, thoughts, and feelings, in the human mind, un- utterable, too ethereal for human language. In vain the poet looks for words to express, in vain the orator searches for expressions to depict, in vain art seeks for colours to pour- tray, all the thoughts and feelings vibrating in the human soul, language is still too poor to give entire utterance to. They remain fettered within. They are feelings untold, thoughts unprofaned by words ! Behold the young widowed female bewailing her husband ! Cast your glance upon the tender- loving mother, weeping on the tomb of her infant ! See the father, mourning for his son, the only support and joy of his old age ! Picture before you, the numberless orphans, widows, and unprotected, disowned, ill-used and wronged with im- 8 pmrity ! Think of the flower of England's pride in the Crimea, slaughtered and butchered for^their country's sake, and the rest left to privation and starvation i Where where is the language fully to describe the feelings, the thoughts, the emo- tions ? Only a silent sigh we can send up to heaven, and say, " Abah ! father!" Thus, as far as the power of a well- arranged speech goes, it is a clear conception, capable of improvement, springing forth from the mind, embodied in some or other tangible shape, expressive of impressions uttered to others. True, it is mere air, but air moulded by the power of the Divine Spirit into an expression of its thought, to vibrate through the modulating space and the articulating organs, and so one soul is enabled to commune with another, one mind to converse with another, one thought to infuse itself bodily into another, and set forth the manifestation of that Vital Spark of God in man, which we call the Soul. Ideas are embodied in words, and the divine mind granted to man, creates and fashions these words by a mysterious power fit for utterance. Speech is therefore a faculty, planted in the inmost nature of man, and connected with him as intimately as the reasoning faculties of his mind, or the perceptive facul- ties of his senses. Faculties, man cannot give himself; they are gifts granted to him by the Almighty; not merely by theological or by logical expostulations alone, we can con- clude, that, if the Creator granted distinct faculties to man different to those of the animals, He must have had a certain object in view ; but that proposition may also be proved by mathematical and philosophical demonstrations. And that object in view, could not be anything else but to give utter- ance to our thoughts and feelings, the object of which again was to impart learning, improvement, morals, edification, and things unseen ; or, in other words, to make men beneficent ; and so it becomes clear to us, that language was first taught to man by 'a powerful, invisible Being by divine inspiration; for, it is engendered in heaven, it re-echoes on earth, it emanates from above, it resoundeth below, language is a heaven-born gift. It is that powerful inspiration alone that can carry us back to ages gone by, and make us conversant with the dead. By speech alone we are enabled to be proper receptacles of the balmy infusions of education, of the salutary manifestation of religion. It makes us glance in the future, and look back into the past. Speech is an indelible mani- 9 festation of the indwelling vital spark of God, to respond to the noble purposes for which man was placed on this globe. Sad it is to think how all the kindly- gifts of God are con- stantly abused. Speech is often perverted to answer very low, brutal, criminal, profane, and desecrating purposes. Repair to princely courts, diplomatic circles and assembly houses, and hear the unmeaning flattery, see the well-studied trap, observe the insidious circumlocution, listen to the artful concealment of thought ! An empty but pompous verbosity of glossy words is recurred to; a well measured and cut-out speech, in gorgeous attire, is delivered, with a sweetness as if issuing from a maiden's lips, to hide the feelings of the heart and the thoughts of the mind ; to hail mal-administration, to confer favours and distinctive orders upon undeserving fools, to pur- chase or corrupt promotions, to trample upon the unprotected, to wrong the just, to eulogise the hypocrite, and crush the simple-hearted ! Think of a certain religious sect, fictions and fables, downright falsehood and blasphemy, surreptitiously invented and under the cloak of piety, nicely told, invisible and supernatural powers> wickedly assumed to mislead others and enrich the mystical story-teller. Mix among various classes and attentively observe the deceitful words, the cunning and foul devices to impose upon others, to deceive the unguarded, and to ruin the next-door neighbour. Hear the blasphemer the very God who created him and overloaded him with bless- ings unspeakable, is cursed and blasphemed ! Think of the liar ! think of the slanderer, knowingly he shapes falsehood and calumny in artful, truthlike forms, and sends them into circulation; merely to commit murder with his viperous tongue. The heaven-born gift is thus wickedly perverted to a curse conducive to our doom. To resume. Besides the images and the ideas presenting themselves in our mind, independent of external matters, we know that nature, that is, outward objects, produce an impression upon the mind through our senses ; that Spirit, that is, the divine intellect of man, perceives it and becomes conscious of it, and that sound, that is, the Word, reflects the thus created thoiight back to the outward world, and this complicated production is called Language. There is only one God or First Cause, there is only one universe, there is only one language. The visible universe represents the invisible, yet they are one. The human language repre- sents the celestial, yet they are one. God, that is, Jehovah, alone cannot be represented. Jehovah, that is, He that is, was, and ever shall be, is the only esse, all the rest are the essere. This is multum in parvo. In whatever country, land, or climate, among whatever na- tion, people, or human race, a child is born, the first attempts it makes to speak, are always and invariably the same sort of certain imperfect sounds. The first words every child can utter distinctly are ma and pa; no matter among what nation, no matter in what country. These two words, which I afterwards shall have occasion to ex plain, are not taught by those around the child, much less by mere chance; for they are each, full of pri- mitive meaning, full of expression, they have each a tangible, God-attributing signification they serve, each, as a root to many inflections or words. It is God who taught the child in its cradle to pronounce these two first words in its unconscious state, leaving the rest to the parents to complete. Look with the eye of a philosopher, and you will find the same principle laid down in all sciences, arts, and acquirements. The Latins or Romans called a child infans, from their in not, and fans speaking. As thinking improves, and thought progresses, so words increase ; therefore, the clearer the thought, the better the speech. We cannot dive into futurity and prophesy, but we may look back into the past and prove facts. Who would credit the ac- counts given of Nineveh, were it not for the remains dug up ? Who would believe thenarrative given of Sodom and Gomorrah, were it not that the Dead Sea kept their remains uninjured ? Who would have faith in Christ, were it not that his doctrines show their divine origin ? Who would accept my tale, were it not that I gave proofs and substantiated facts? My bosom swells when I can do good to my fellow-man; and though ever so crushed by ingratitude and calumny, I hope to find my re- ward in God, " O God, in thee have I trusted, let me not be confounded I" God was it, who taught the whale to cleave the waves and to navigate the ocean. He was it, who taught the humble trout to swim along the deep, and to glide upon the water. It was God who taught the noble lion to direct his strides through woods impenetrable, It was Jehovah who taught the indus- trious ant to lay up her winter stores, the busy bee to build her chambers, the nightingale to sing, the fledged host to warble. He taught the birds of the air to soar on their art- 11 wrought pinions, and tune a theme to His endless praise and glory. He taught the stars of the heavens to run the course set before them. He taught the whole universe to proclaim His name and nature's harmony, it was the same God who taught man to speak. All nature bears the stamp of the in- spiration of God ; but man alone possesses the power to show Him forth in words and in deeds. Every word is an idea; idea is the production of thought, created by thought and fashioned by the organs- God created the universe and all that is therein. He created man a|fjne after His own image. Man creates ideas, and every idea is a world of thought, pro- ductive of things unknown. By language alone, and by lan- guage only, we prove to be the images of God ; by the power of language the mental sun is enabled to dart forth his dazzling beams into the human mind ; by the power of language, science and art, knowledge and enlightenment are enabled to progress ; by the power of language we become beneficent to nations buried in the dark. It is that power which opens our eyes, our hearts, and understanding ; by that power we break the fetters of thraldom, and make tyrants tremble ; by that power our minds and thoughts are lifted up and set on tilings above. It was that power that made Festus tremble and cry out, " Go thy way, Paul, for this time, when I have a more convenient season I shall send for thee \" Such a power the animals possess not, the brute has not ; it is a power unseen, but felt, for it is engendered in heaven ; it re- echoes on earth ; it emanates from above ; it resoundeth below. Language is a heaven- born gift ! Now, the Bible, we know, is a book of poetry, of prophecy, and of history. A person may deny faith to the two first at- tributes, but the historical facts therein contained, admit of no refutation. We may just as well refuse to give credit to Zoroaster, Confucius, Herodotus, Flavins Josephus, Hume, &c. When Moses says " God created the world in six days," he there does not make use of the word fnitf day or daylight, but of oi\ that is, day or period. Therefore, God created the world in six periods. This fact has been proved by theologians. II. Secondly. How DID ALL THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES COME TO EXISTENCE ? Orthography means to spell and write correctly ; 12 Etymology signifies the derivation of words ; Philology is another word for the love of languages ; and by Ethnology we understand the classification of languages into families or groups, by comparison. The devout believer will, of course, attach the very greatest importance to the fact that, the Word of God distinctly states, that man and language were both created by the Maker of all things, and found together in Paradise ; and that, consequently, thewhole earth was of one language and of one speech. He refers naturally, with all the foijce derived from his faith in the in- spired character of these writings, to the curse which, at a later period, drove man from the Garden of Eden, and compelled him to work. Thus the descendants of the first pair found themselves, as they multiplied and spread over the face of the earth, in new homes and in constant struggle with a nature everywhere different. This led them to form, each race in its own portion of the globe, a new world of thoughts, and for these, new expressions and words. These differences became more marked and permanent when the people, still speaking only one language, became corrupt and presumed to be like unto Him, were punished. God defeated their self-conceived, material unity, which they mistook as the remnant of the Jews still continue to do for the higher spiritual unity. God scattered them abroad from Babel to the far East and the far West ; to the frigid North and the icy South ; to the scorching tropic and the milder zones, confounded their language, so that they might not understand one another's speech. The human race was thus divided into distinct nations or families, dispersed into far, distant, and detached localities, which, of course, gave cause and scope to the formation of new lan- guages. The different zones or climates, the difference of food, habits, dress, and living gradually caused different im- pressions on the skull, the hair, features, skin, and colour the latter varying from the most dazzling white to the most coal- black jet. Some of these races stand, seemingly, isolated in origin, and independent of such an early connection ; but all show more or less that even their bulk is but a part of the same stock, from which, circumstances have separated them ; but with which they are still connected by a thousand delicate fibres, tender ties, and irresistible affections. The devout be- liever, I say, is easily satisfied with the above scriptural quota- tions ; but as the unbeliever is ready to reject scripture, and 13 sticks up for facts, I shall, in support of those quotations, endeavour to give him facts, and nothing but facts, unconta- minated by Popish miracles or immaculations, unstained by hypothetical speculations, facts, traceable to their origin, supported by history, substantiated by experience, facts which will unveil hidden truths, they will confound his unbelief ! From the palpable affinity and close analogy prevalent among the ancient tongues, the attention of philologers was not only directed to mere etymological researches, but also to ethno- logy, and the results obtained fully corroborate the history set forth in holy writ. Your particular attention, if you please ! In the Hebrew, God is called El and Eloah ; in the Sanscrit, Elh ; in the Chaldee, Eli ; in all other Eastern tongues He is called Al or Allah. All these words show the same origin. It is here to be observed, however, that as the words El, Elh, Eli, and Al, in those languages mean God and mean Judge, just the same as Theos in Greek, and Deus in Latin were used for God and occasionally for Judge, the Jews, to signify God by excellence, wrote Jehovah ; but considering that word too holy to be pronounced, whenever they met it written, pronounced it Adonai, which is Lord ; therefore, when Thomas exclaimed to Christ, "Adonai and Elohim!" he evidently meant : my Lord and my Judge, and not my Lord and my God, as the translation of our Bible gives it. Though the New Testament was originally written in Greek, yet the apostles and disciples never spoke Greek to Christ, they generally addressed him in Hebrew, Syriac, or Palish, which are closely connected. In the Egyptian tongue, for instance, we find the word Me or Mei for love, and Ma or May for mother. In the Hebrew we find Em for love and for mother. In the Arabic and Chaldee, Am means mother and means love. Transposition of consonants and vowels, transmutation of cognate sounds, is too preva- lent in all languages to escape the observation of linguists and philologers. The one prefixes the consonant M to either of the vowels A or E ; while the other prefixes the vowels A or E to the same consonant M ; which transposition or transmu- tation, according to mathematical rules, we would call the in- verse ratio. Now, when looking into the Latin language, there we find the very same words again, bearing the very same meaning ; for the Latin word amare, to love, is evidently composed of the Chaldee and Arabic word Am, love or mother, and of the verb agere, to do or to make ; consequently, am- 14 agere means to make love, and this compound word has been contracted into amare, to love, in a similar manner as the En- glish through for thorough; breakfast, for the breaking of fasting, &c. As the first object of a child's love is the mother, the first word God himself teaches the child to pronounce is, Am, by transmutation, Ma ; which means, in the celestial language, my love, my mother. The second word God himself teaches every child is Pa, from the Sanscrit and Chaldee Ba or Aba, or the Arabic Baba, meaning father and love. Thus from the Chaldee Ma or Am, love and mother, the Romans or Latins formed their amare, the French their amour and aimer. From the Arabic baba or ba, the Greeks made their traryp . the Latins their Pater the French their Pere the Spaniards their Padre the Germans their Vater, and the English their Father. The word Sack is to be found in all the known lan- guages, bearing the same meaning. Crimea means in the San- scrit, in the Arabic, in the Syriac, Hebrew, and in the Celtic languages, an island, or peninsula ; from Crim, almost, and ie or ea, isle, almost isle. Time and space will not allow me to quote more instances in support of the unity of all possible languages. By the assistance of ethnology, we not only have been enabled to trace back nearly every European language as to belong to the Sanscrit mother-branch ; but even to classify them into groups : 1st. The Pelasgic group, containing : 1. Greek, Romaik, Albanese, &c. 2nd. The Latin group, containing : 1. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Wallachian, lingua Romana, &c. 3rd. The Sclavonic group, containing : Lithuanian, Lettic, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Illy- rian, Croatian, &c. 4th. The Germanic and Gothic group, containing : German, Dutch or Hollands, Swedish, Danish, Ice- landish, Norwegian and all the Scandinavian dialects, English, Broad Scotch, &c. 5th. The Celtic or Britannic group, containing : "Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, the Basbreton of Little Britain in France, the Iberian of Northern Spain, &c. Nearly all the European languages flow from the Sanscrit. The Celts or Cymrics are now banished over the hills, and far 15 away in Wales, in the Scottish Highlands, in North Ireland, in Cornwall, and in French Bretagne. If it therefore be any pride to vaunt of an undegenerated pedigree, then the Welsh and Highlander, the Cornishman and the North Irishman, have a right to claim that pride; for their language is an undegenerated, unmixed offspring of the pure Sanscrit, still spoken from there where the Ganges washes the shores of Coromandel, to there where the Bramaputra disembogues its waters into the Ocean. The Celts, no doubt, must have been one of the first Sanscrit groups which emigrated and settled in Europe, and periodically pushed on by the invasions of the other Sanscrit groups, the Greeks, Latins, Germans, Goths, and Sclavonians, to the very utmost parts of Europe, where impenetrable mountains alone could protect them. In the pure Sanscrit, Celtic or Welsh, we find the Sanscrit word cara, Welsh kare, in Latin earns, in Spanish and Italian caro, French chere, English charity; all meaning love, dear, or affection. The French word jour, appears to have little in common with the Latin dies for day ; and still it is the same word. Both are derived from the Sanscrit word div, which means clear, bright, or spotless. The Sanscrit word div was applied to their God, which was the Sun, just the same as the Scandinavians called their God Woden, who was supposed to reside or to be present in a sacred wood called the Walhalla ; such as the ancient Greeks supposed their Gods to sojourn on Mount Olympus, and there past their time in festivities and drinking nectar. From the same Sanscrit word div, the Greeks formed their fe; the Latins their Deus, dies, dives, and diurnus ; the French their Dieu and jour ; the Italians their Dio and giorno ; the Welsh their Diu. Besides the recently invented, or, properly said, discovered, and therefore still incomplete science of Ethnology, languages are generally divided by the following denominations : 1. Ancient and modern. 5. Civilized and uncivilized. 2. Original and derived. 6. Popular and clerical. 3. Cognate and not cognate. 7. Compound and simple. 4. National and provincial. 8. Vernacular and foreign. The question is still unsettled, which of the five has an indis- putable right to claim anteriority, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, the Sanscrit, the Syriac, or the Arabic; but this we know, from very recent researches, that they all plainly show their 16 affinity, and that the common mother must have descended from Mount Ararat, near Erserum in Asia ; where the Russians now are drenching the soil of the covenant with the blood of man, as Noah had drenched himself with the blood of grapes. We are told that there are now-a-days 3065 diiferent lan- guages and dialects extant upon this little globe. From that vast number of 3065 languages, they allot 487 to Europe, 846 to Asia, 286 to Africa, 1282 to America, and 164 to Australia or Polynesia. Again, from this number of 3065, only 700 have been admitted as regular national tongues, whilst the rest are set down as mere dialects or party twangs. They say that the Lord's prayer has already been translated into more than 800 languages and dialects, and the Bible into 600 of them, all exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London. We understand by ancient languages, those which have irretrievably lost their proper national character, and the vital and quickening parts of their existence, that is, have ceased to live, ceased to have a further history, so that they can only be acquired theoreti- cally or grammatically. They are stagnant, they are dead languages; their indisputable mode of pronunciation having died away with their nationality, the after nations pronounce them each after his own vernacular tongue. I will be allowed to observe here, that the Italian being the eldest and least degenerated daughter of the Latin, she has a right to tell all nations to pronounce the Latin as the Italians do ; and by so doing all the learned could intelligibly converse with one another. The English pronunciation of the Latin is decidedly the most spurious of all. Modern languages are those of which the nations are still extant ; they are in current use ; they progress and improve daily according to their civilized state ; they fluctuate and change, reject and adopt ; they keep pace with the floating tide and the undulating waves. There are two ways of acquiring them ; the one is the common, the mechanical or irrational way ; when isolated, only fit for the low and the illiterate; the other is the philosophical or rational way ; when isolated, only adapted for the learned and mere literary pursuits : the former being the part of the memory, the latter that of the understanding ; the former has mere practice for its object, the latter only theory ; whereas, when happily combined by qualified and competent teachers in uni- son, they are productive of the most salutary results. It is 17 theory and practice combined. Then alone, and then only, we can feel and know, we can with heart and soul join the theme. It is engendered in heaven ; it is re-echoed on earth ; it emanates from above ; it resoundeth below. Language is a heaven-born gift ! We call original languages those wherein the greater part of words can be traced back to their roots in those very languages ; while derived languages mean, such as oblige grammarians or linguists to have recourse to other languages to find the roots nearly of every word. Cognate languages plainly, almost in every word, show their close affinity and recent digression, only differing in pronunciation or terminations ; only the philologer and ethnologer can detect the remote affinity in un- cognate languages, as shown before. When various countries, provinces, or detached people, unite into one bulk, and each has its own tongue, there is generally one among that bulk which is most predominant, and that language is generally adopted as the national one; the rest are called provincial dialects or patois. A civilized language has its history, its own life, literature, and progressing features, which an un- civilized language lacks. Popular languages, as the word itself efficiently describes, is understood and spoken by the people of the respective coun- tries^ while clerical languages are those only used by the clergy, such as the RomanCatholics, who use Latin in thePopish mass, the Russians use Sclavonic in their mass, the Jews use Hebrew in their prayers, the Turks use Arabic in their wor- ship, &c. Compound languages are such as the English, having flown from various and diverse sources ; whereas simple lan- guages claim only one genuine mother. The advantage or prerogative of a compound language must be obvious to every linguist ; for its character and construction allow it to go about like the busy bee, gathering from the best sources, gleaning from the noblest buds, refining her collection into the noble golden honey, to lay up and entwine her exquisite storehouse with the most attracting and fragrant wreaths. The German, is the language for modern learning, the French for princely courts and diplomacy, the English is the language of com- merce, the Italian of music ; the Russian language is for the oppressed and the illiterate, for slaves and prisoners, for bar- barians and savages. Vernacular tongue is that wherein we are born, the tongue of oar native soil, imbibed from our c 18 mother's breast. That language is foreign to every one, which differs from the one spoken in his native country. III. The third point of my consideration is to compare the English and Russian languages. No Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard, or Portuguese, can know his own language in per- fection without some knowledge of Latin. To an Englishman the knowledge of Latin, Greek, German, and Celtic, is indis- pensable ; for it is in our own mother tongue that we are apt most sensibly to feel the advantage of a more thorough and general knowledge of the science of language. It is thus only that life is given to mere forms, and that we learn the meaning of words, we have used from infancy by mere imita- tion. It cannot be expected here that I should expatiate upon the English grammar or literature, from Chaucer and Caxton down to our days; for it is merely my object to draw some few comparisons between the English and the Russian lan- guage, more in a political view than anything else, As the thoughts of a man are embodied in his words, so the charac- teristics of a nation are often embodied in their language. Let us for a moment consider one of the most daily expressions. The Englishman in meeting or greeting a friend, the first question he puts to him is : how do you do ? By a logical analysis, we immediately find the ever-busy Englishman, the true John Bull, always thinking of business. For, the words how do you do ? are, properly said, other words for how are you doing? how is business? It was always supposed that when business was doing well, everything else must also be well. The ever-busy, hard-working and commercial charac- teristics of the industrious Englishman are prominent, it lies embodied in these very words. Such as the nation, such is the language. The Frenchman's expression, responding to the English how do you do, is, comment vous portez vous ? literally or verbatim, how do you carry yourself? The Frenchman's restlessness and sprightliness is here immediately detected; for he fancies, when a person could carry himself lively about, that all was right. The characteristic of liveliness in the Frenchman is deeply marked. The German says : |$jj> frjftnfojn jH? Sitjj? literally: how do you find yourself? which shows that the German in putting the question in a more proper, direct, and straightforward manner, alludes more to the indi- 19 vidual feeling, more to the inward man, to the senses and the soul, than to outward contingencies. Both deep thinking and philosophy are here embodied. The Dutchman or Hollander says : hoe vaart gy ? verbatim : how do you navigate ? All at once we perceive the water-born Dutchman, always contending against the sea, not to swallow up the rich soil he inhabits, which his industrious forefathers ushered out of the sea, and protected by astounding mountain-like dikes and dams. The Italian says : come sta la salute ? verbatim : how does stand the health, or how does health stand ? while the Swede says : hur star det till med helsan ? that is, how stands it with the health, or how is health ? These two last-mentioned nations show therein a high degree of feeling. The Russian says: Kaui Bti noiKHBaeie? verbatim: how do you live about, how do you wander about, as a freeman or as a bondsman ? A silent meaning of a wandering serf is embodied. So we find, in the respective languages, the very characteristics of every nation embodied. The English, a nation of commerce and industry, made their language that of commerce ; the French, a nation of flattery and courtesy, made their language that of princely courts, diplomacy, and politeness ; the German, a nation of deep thought and penetration, made their language that of learning ; the Dutch or Hollanders, a nation of indus- try and watery habits, made their language that of navigators; the Italians and the Swedes, two nations of extreme feeling and the pleasure of tickling the senses, made their language that of music. Cast your glance over the globe ! where is the nation that can compete with England in commerce? Over her commerce and possessions the sun never sets, and shall set no more ; but, at the same time, think of the first great navigators ! think of Mynheer Van Tromp, of De Ruyter ! they were Hollanders, Dutchmen ! All that the English know of navigation, they learned from the Dutch, from the Hollanders, therefore respect your masters ! He who does not know German, is considered no man of literature or learning. Deficiency in the French language, is considered a lack of refinement and of accomplished education. Both the Italian and the Swedish languages, having almost all their words ending in vowels, producing a melodious euphony, are the most adapted for poetry and music. While the Swedish nightingale sets us in ecstacy by her celestial accents, the Italian troubadour enraptures us by the heavenly tones of his 20 light guitar. While the lyre of Termosiris tames the tiger and the lion in the south, the Orpheus of the north makes the trees partake of the feelings of man. Paganini's tones immortalized musical Italy, in Jenny Land's accents Sweden will ever live ! Thus, from the simple expression alone of how do you do ? we may trace many of the characteristics of nations back. The English language, as I have shown, sprung from various sources, as a compound language, pos- sesses a great advantage above many others. At pleasure it adopts and rejects; it coins, shapes, inflects, and smoothes foreign words to its own standard, and embodies them in its vocabulary. Both the author and the orator, the gazetteer and the speaker, the sublime and the humble, the noble and the rustic have wide scope, an unbounded field. The English language, a highly civilized language, is not only spoken by a highly civilized nation at home, but also by millions abroad ; that language, so carefully gathered together by an ever-busy nation, as the busy bee gleaneth her exquisite golden honey, is the language of a free, bold, daring, substantial, and highly civilized people. The characteristics of industry, boldness, liberty, civilization, and freedom, which constitute the pro- minent parts of the English national character, lie also soundly embodied, deeply engrafted in the language. That same lan- guage, springing forth from Albion's snow-white coasts, has made its way over the towering waves of the ocean, to unknown and far distant shores ; it has spread blessings and liberty, knowledge and freedom, wherever it came; it has levelled the way for civilization and enlightenment, in countries where barbarity and darkness dwelt before ; it has broken the chains of thraldom and set nations free ; as the rejoicing language of salvation it has been hailed with exalted joy. It is the free production, the free seed, planted in the land of the free, nourished by the free, grown up as the tree of freedom, spreading forth its inviting branches round the free, unfolding its shady foliage to protect the sons of the free, offering shelter to those who may dash the fetters of bondage and beg the assistance of the free ; therefore Rome sends out an Index of forbidden books, printed in the language of the free, there- fore the Moscovite tyrants, therefore the oppressors of the Poles, the manslayers of the Hungarians, the butchers of man- kind, banish the language of the free, and why? Because the English language has proved to Rome and to Moscovia 21 its high divine origin; for it was engendered in heaven; it re-echoes on earth; it emanates from above; it resoundeth below. Language is a heaven-born gift ! If the Jews have any right to call the Hebrew a holy lan- guage, because the books of Moses and of the prophets were made known to them therein, the Hottentots and the Kaffirs, the Indians and the Malays, the Ethiopians and the Malabars, the Chinese and the Burmese, have a double right to call the English language the holy one ; because the Glad Tidings, because God and Christ have been firstly announced to them in the English language. The spirit of the Hebrew language, under the old dispensation, was fettered under the bonds of prejudice and carnal interpretations, the spirit of the English language, developed under the balmy beams and the salutary infusions of the new dispensation, is free and renovating. From the far east to the far west, from the very fair to the very dark of hue, the English language finds access, and is welcomed with exalted joy. Over the English dominions the sun never sets, and shall set no more ; and therefore " Britannia wants no bulwarks, No towers along the steep ; Her march is o'er the mountain wave, Her home is on the deep." Let us now cast a similar glance on the Russian language. As I said before, it is classified among the Slavonic group. Slavonic is derived from Slava, meaning glory; consequently, Slavonians, mean people of glory. This name that group assumed when they became acquainted with the Teutonic or Germanic group. Germans, mean, men or people able to bear arms. The Slavonians, however, who used to make inroads at night, and treacherously carry off the wives and daughters of the primitive Germans, gave them the name of HijMeut, that is, not speakers, or mute people ; just as the Latins called a child infans, simply because the Germans could not speak Slavonic. The Russian letters, or types, partake more of the Greek characters than of ours. One Russian consonant sometimes represents three or four of ours in sound. It is no compound language. In Russia, the lower class of the people, although not downright slaves, still not much better treated, are serfs ; for although their hospodar or master cannot sell them as slaves, such as brother Jonathan does in the southern parts of the United States, yet, when, through Unfavourable harvest or misgivings, the rents, hire, or tithes, are not duly 22 paid, instead of going to law, the lash is applied. Education, civilization, and enlightenment, are among the middle and lower classes unknown things. Freedom and liberty, speech and writing, printing and publishing, are there punished with death. In a country where liberty and civilization are thus bridled, the progress of the language and of its literature, must of course also be checked ; such as the Pope of Rome, assisted by numberless fables, fictions, miracles, and immaculations, makes the Romanist fall down and worship him as an infal- lible Roman God, so the Czars of Moscovia, assisted by tyranny, oppression, and barbarity, make their subjects adore them as infallible Russian Gods. And so the life and the history of the Russian language, being smothered by a most execrable sys- tem of government, is lost; for the language itself, being considered as that of thraldom, is everywhere hated and cursed. Ask it of the Poles, ask it of the Circassians, ask it of those in Siberia ! IV. From what has been said, it now requires very little to show the great necessity of acquiring languages, to which I shall add a few experimental remarks as an outline of the ungrateful returns paid to competent and well- qualified linguists, teachers, and talented men, when they lack protection. A man now a-days, understanding only one language, must necessarily confine himself to a certain place, among a certain number of people ; for, when travelling, he will often find himself in in- conveniences and frequently misled, misunderstood, imposed upon, and very uncomfortable indeed. An interpreter is required, who also takes every advantage of him, whenever he sees an opportunity; a merchant without the knowledge of foreign languages must suffer himself to be guided by his clerks or others with respect to foreign markets, intelligences, or cor- respondence ; a man of literature can find no scope enough to extend his studies nor to disseminate his acquirements without the aid and the knowledge of foreign languages. In one word, the knowledge of foreign languages is daily becoming more and more essential and of great importance. Finally, having shown you all the advantages of acquiring languages, it now only remains to consider the other side of the question. The dis- advantages do not lie embodied in the acquirement or the languages themselves; but they are contingencies flowing from outward circumstances. St. Paul very emphatically says, " to 23 one is given the power of wisdom, to another the power of knowledge, to another faith, to another the gifts of healing, to another prophecy, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretations of tongues." In other words, not only are we, each, individually, gifted by God with a cer- tain prevalent or predominant propensity and aptitude to some or other acquirement or profession ; but we, in a free country, generally ought to choose and fix upon one certain branch of acquirement or profession, take it to heart, and study it deeply, if possible attain proficiency therein. Compatible with this golden rule, when a house is to be built, a suit of clothes to be made, a foreign language to be taught, religion to be in- structed, a good dinner to be dressed, we ought to look out for such a person, in each of the above-named necessities, who has given, or is able to give proofs of his proficiency therein, to look out for one who has made some of these things his earnest study ; therefore he must be a competent well -qualified person. This rule, I confess, is generally adhered to when it concerns the comforts of life ; but when the question is of learning, tuition, useful knowledge, and, more especially of languages, this rule, then, is contemptuously looked upon and wilfully neglected. Look in the newspapers, the enormous high wages tendered to gentle- men's cooks, waiters, servants, grooms, and the like, and see the indignantly low salaries offered to competent teachers, linguists and governesses ! What well-educated, competent, and well-qualified person will willingly stoop to such insults, to such unworthiness and brutality ? No one of character, education and self-confidence ! only the refugee, the adven- turer or parasite ; he who never studied grammar before ; who hardly knows his own native tongue properly ; who never thought of teaching before; who, though aware of his incapacity to go through a regular examination, though feeling his incom- petency, he however rushes out of his former profession (if he ever had any), and accepts the insulting compliment. As little as every Englishman, merely because he was born in England, is qualified or competent to teach English so little every foreigner merely because he was born in such or such a country, is qualified or competent to teach his native tongue. Teaching is a branch of science to itself, and requires a special training. Go about all over the metropolis, among those who pretend to teach languages, and put them to a regular exami- nation, and not one-fourth will be declared competent ! Go about 24 among those notaries who audaciously write before their doors and windows with huge characters : " Languages Translated," and address 'them in those languages they pretend to under- stand and to translate, and not one, I say not one, out of the ten, understands a full sentence in any foreign language. Abroad none are allowed to teach or educate without previously parsing a public examination, and being approved of by a well- qualified Royal Board of Examiners. None is allowed to translate without a similar examination and appointment. In London, however, every one teaches that is the reason that very few learn to speak the languages well. In London every one translates that is the reason of double charges and mis- interpretations, all to the disadvantage of him who must pay. On the Continent we have sworn translators. Now, you know the reason that makes many a competent teacher, many a clever translator, either starving in the streets of London or bid farewell to Old England. Such is the reward of a profession, wherein I have been brought up from my childhood, such is the re- muneration to my Mariner's Friend, which, after a long and painful study, I published in ten languages for my own ac- count ; and though admired by every one, has been the cause of my destruction. Where is the heart prone to sympathize ? where is the hand stretched out to grant relief? where is the rich and opulent, weltering in his affluence, inclined to lift up the talented linguist who ruined himself by enlighten- ing the world ? show me the man, and I am redeemed ! Such was the recompense for ten years' toil, labour, and anxiety, that book so much applauded, has ruined me, and I resolved to contribute to the enlightenment of the world no more ; and yet my heart and my lips shall ever join in the angelic theme : It is engendered in heaven; it re-echoes on earth; it emanates from above; itresoundeth below. Language is a heaven-born gift! DR. K. P. TER REEHORST, Member of the Royal College of Preceptors, Author of " The Mariner's Friend," in ten languages. 44 COLEMAN STREET, CITY, LONDON, JUNE 15TH, 1855. COPYRIGHTS FOR SALE: 1. " The Mariner's Friend, or Nautical Diction- ary; and Merchant's Friend, or Commercial Dictionary." Both in ten languages. 2. " Watch and Clock Makers' Technical Terms." In English, French, Dutch, and German. 3. " Lecture : Language a Heaven-born Gift." 4. " My Biography ; or, Cruelties to a Father for his Child." THE Impnrhemmt of (Snglbh