If I ask myself why I put off the fulfillment of my [pg 134] promise from year to year, the principal reason I find is, that really I had nothing more to say than what, though in few words, I had said before. Every thing that can be said on this subject has been said, and well said, not only by Mr. Pitman, but by a host of writers and lecturers, among whom I might mention Mr. Alexander J. Ellis, Dr. Latham, Professors Haldeman, Whitney, and Hadley, Mr. Withers, Mr. E. Jones, Dr. J. H. Gladstone, and many others. The whole matter is no longer a matter for argument; and the older I grow, the more I feel convinced that nothing vexes people so much, and hardens them in their unbelief and in their dogged resistance to reforms, as undeniable facts and unanswerable arguments. Reforms are carried by Time, and what generally prevails in the end, are not logical deductions, but some haphazard and frequently irrational motives. I do not say, therefore, with Dean Swift, that “there is a degree of corruption wherein some nations, as bad as the world is, will proceed to an amendment; till which time particular men should be quiet.” On the contrary, I feel convinced that practical reformers, like Mr. Pitman, should never slumber nor sleep. They should keep their grievances before the public in season and out of season. They should have their lamps burning, to be ready whenever the right time comes. They should repeat the same thing over and over again, undismayed by indifference, ridicule, contempt, and all the other weapons which the lazy world knows so well how to employ against those who venture to disturb its peace.
I myself, however, am not a practical reformer; least of all in a matter which concerns Englishmen [pg 135] only—namely, the spelling of the English language. I should much rather, therefore, have left the fight to others, content with being merely a looker-on. But when I was on the point of leaving England my conscience smote me. Though I had not actually given a pledge, I remembered how, again and again, I had said to Mr. Pitman that I would much rather keep than make a promise; and though overwhelmed with other work at the time, I felt that before my departure I ought, if possible, to satisfy Mr. Pitman's demands. The article was written; and though my own plans have since been changed, and I remain at Oxford, it may as well be published in discharge of a debt which has been for some time heavy on my conscience.
What I wish most strongly to impress on my readers is that I do not write as an advocate. I am not an agitator for phonetic reform in England. My interest in the matter is, and always has been, purely theoretical and scientific. Spelling and the reform of spelling are problems which concern every student of the science of language. It does not matter whether the language be English, German, or Dutch. In every written language the problem of reforming its antiquated spelling must sooner or later arise; and we must form some clear notion whether any thing can be done to remove or alleviate a complaint inherent in the very life of language. If my friends tell me that the idea of a reform of spelling is entirely Quixotic, that it is a mere waste of time to try to influence a whole nation to surrender its historical orthography and to write phonetically, I bow to their superior wisdom as men of the world. But as I am not a man of [pg 136] the world, but rather an observer of the world, my interest in the subject, my convictions as to what is right and wrong, remain just the same. It is the duty of scholars and philosophers not to shrink from holding and expressing what men of the world call Quixotic opinions; for, if I read the history of the world rightly, the victory of reason over unreason, and the whole progress of our race, have generally been achieved by such fools as ourselves “rushing in where angels fear to tread,” till, after a time, the track becomes beaten, and even angels are no longer afraid. I hold, and have confessed, much more Quixotic theories on language than this belief—that what has been done before by Spaniards and Dutchmen—what is at this very moment being done by Germans, namely, to reform their corrupt spelling—may be achieved even by Englishmen and Americans.
I have expressed my belief that the time will come when not only the various alphabets and systems of spelling, but many of the languages themselves which are now spoken in Europe, to say nothing of the rest of the world, will have to be improved away from the face of the earth and abolished. Knowing that nothing rouses the ire of a Welshman or a Gael so much as to assert the expediency, nay, necessity, of suppressing the teaching of their languages at school, it seems madness to hint that it would be a blessing to every child born in Holland, in Portugal, or in Denmark—nay, in Sweden and even in Russia—if, instead of learning a language which is for life a barrier between them and the rest of mankind, they were at once to learn one of the great historical languages which confer intellectual and social fellowship with the whole [pg 137] world. If, as a first step in the right direction, four languages only, namely, English, French, German, Italian (or possibly Spanish) were taught at school, the saving of time—and what is more precious than time?—would be infinitely greater than what has been effected by railways and telegraphs. But I know that no name in any of the doomed languages would be too strong to stigmatize such folly. We should be told that a Japanese only could conceive such an idea; that for a people deliberately to give up its language was a thing never heard of before; that a nation would cease to be a nation if it changed its language; that it would, in fact, commit “the happy despatch,” à la Japonaise. All this may be true, but I hold that language is meant to be an instrument of communication, and that in the struggle for life, the most efficient instrument of communication must certainly carry the day, as long as natural selection, or, as we formerly called it, reason, rules the world.
The following figures may be of use in forming an opinion as to the fates of the great languages of Europe:[68]—
Portuguese is spoken in
Portugal, by 3,980,000
Brazil, by 10,000,000
Total: 13,980,000
Italian, by 27,524,238
French, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, etc., by 40,188,000
Spanish, in
Spain, by 16,301,000
South America, by 27,408,082
Total: 43,709,082
[pg 138] Russian, by 51,370,000
German, by 55,789,000
English, in
Europe, by 31,000,000
America, by 45,000,000
Australia, etc., by 2,000,000
the Colonies, by 1,050,000
Total: 79,050,000
According to De Candolle, the population doubles in
| England, in | 56 years |
| America, among the German races, in | 25 years |
| Italy, in | 135 years |
| Russia, in | 100 years |
| Spain, in | 112 years |
| South America, in | 27-½ years |
| Germany, in | 100 years |
| France, in | 140 years |
Therefore, in 200 years (barring accidents)
| Italian will be spoken by | 53,370,000 |
| French will be spoken by | 72,571,000 |
| German will be spoken by | 157,480,000 |
| Spanish will be spoken in | |
| Europe, by | 36,938,338 |
| South America, by | 468,347,904 |
| Total: | 505,286,242 |
| English will be spoken in | |
| Europe, by | 178,846,153 |
| United States, and British Dependencies, by | 1,658,440,000 |
| Total: | 1,837,286,153 |