Some years back it was announced that the Armenian language contained translations, made during the earlier centuries of our era, of certain classical writings, of which the originals had been lost—lost in the interval. This did not exactly make the Armenian, with its alphabet of six-and-thirty letters, a popular tongue; but it made it, by a fraction, more popular than it was in the days of Whiston and La Croze, when those two alone, of all the learned men of Europe, could read it.
Translations tell in another way. Whatever is worth reading in the Danish and Swedish is forthwith translated into German. E. g. Professor Retzius of Stockholm wrote a good Manual of Anatomy. He had the satisfaction of seeing it translated into German. He had the further satisfaction of hearing that the translation ran through five editions in less time than the original did through one.
Now, if the Germans were to leave off translating the value of the language in which Professor Retzius wrote his Anatomy would rise.
Upon the whole, the French is, perhaps, the most important language of the nineteenth century; yet it is only where we take into consideration the whole of its elements of value. To certain special savans, the German is worth more; to the artist, the Italian; to the American, the Spanish. It fell, too, in value when nations like our own insisted upon the use of their native tongues in diplomacy. It fell in value because it became less indispensable; and another cause, now in operation, affects the same element of indispensability. The French are beginning to learn the languages of other nations. Their own literature will certainly be none the worse for their so doing. But it by no means follows that that literature will be any the more studied. On the contrary, Frenchmen will learn English more, and, pro tanto, Englishmen learn French less.
If all this have illustrated a difference, it may also have done something more. It may have given a rough sketch, in the way of classification, of the kind of facts that regulate the value of special languages as special objects of study. At any rate (and this is the main point), the subject-matter of the present Address is narrowed. It is narrowed (in the first instance at least) to the consideration of that branch of study whereof the value is constant; for assuredly it is this which will command more than a moiety of our consideration.
This may be said to imply a preference to the study of Language as opposed to that of Languages—a singular preference, as a grammarian may, perhaps, be allowed to call it. It cannot be denied that, to a certain extent, such is the case; but it is only so to a certain extent. The one is not magnified at the expense of the other. When all has been said that logic or mental philosophy can say about the high value of comparative philology, general grammar, and the like, the lowest value of the least important language will still stand high, and pre-eminently high that of what may be called the noble Languages. No variations in the philological barometer, no fluctuations in the Exchange of Language, will ever bring down the advantage of studying one, two, or even more foreign languages to so low a level as to expel such tongues as the Latin, the Greek, the French, or the German, one and all, from an English curriculum—and vice versâ, English from a foreign one.
Now, if this be the case, one of the elements in the value of the study of Language in general will be the extent to which it facilitates the acquirement of any one language in particular, and this element of value will be an important—though not the most important—one.
The structure of the human body is worth knowing, even if the investigator of it be neither a practitioner in medicine nor a teacher of anatomy; and, in like manner, the structure of the human language is an important study irrespective of the particular forms of speech whereof it may facilitate the acquirement.
The words on the diagram-board will now be explained. They are meant to illustrate the class of facts that comparative philology supplies.
The first runs—