These words you learn from your mothers, and so Word language is your mother-tongue. You learn them, also, from your friends and teachers, your playmates and companions, and you learn them by reading; for words, as you know, may be written as well as spoken.
This Word language we may, from its superiority, call +Language Proper+.
Natural language, as was said, precedes this Word language, but gives way as Word language comes in and takes its place; yet Natural language may be used, and always should be used, to assist and strengthen Word language. In earnest conversation we enforce what we say in words, by the tone in which we utter them, by the varying expression of the face, and by the movements of the different parts of the body.
The look or the gesture may even dart ahead of the word, or it may contradict it, and thus convict the speaker of ignorance or deception.
The happy union of the two kinds of language is the charm of all good reading and speaking. The teacher of elocution is ever trying to recall the pupil to the tones, the facial expression, and the action, so natural to him in childhood and in animated conversation.
+DEFINITION.—Language Proper consists of the spoken and the written words used to communicate ideas and thoughts+.
+DEFINITION.—English Grammar is the science which teaches the forms, uses, and relations of the words of the English language.+
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