Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

que nous mettons a apprendre ces langues est la seule. cause pourquoi nous ne pouvons arriver à la grandeur d'ame et de cognoissance des anciens Grecs et Romains." Friedländer, Bratuscheck, Ostendorf and Breymann, all agree, from the point of view of scientific philology, in urging that the study of the classical tongues should be preceded by that of the modern ones. As Ostendorf remarks,3 “a satisfactory organization of a higher system of education in schools is inconceivable so long as instruction in foreign languages in gymnasia and polytechnic schools of the first rank has to begin with Latin." The whole question was fully discussed at a conference held under the presidency of Councillor Wiese at Dresden in the autumn of 1873, and answered on the side of science and reason.

The teaching of Latin and Greek must itself be reformed, not only in the matter of grammar, but still more in the matter of pronunciation. Our insular pronunciation of Latin is at once incorrect, inconsistent, and perplexing. By the help of comparison and induction, the pronunciation of Latin, as observed by the upper classes of Rome under the Emperors, has been recovered, and Corssen's great work on the "Aussprache, Vokalismus und Betonung der lateinischen Sprache," contains a full account both of it and of the mode in which it has been restored. The pronunciation of ancient Greek is a matter of greater difficulty, and we know that it changed very 1" Ueber die Reformbestrebungen auf dem Gebiete des höheren Schulwesens für die männliche Jugend in Deutschland" (1874). 2" Ueber den Unterricht in der französischen Grammatik.” 3 "Mit welcher Sprache beginnt zweckmässiger Weise der fremdsprachliche Unterricht" (1873).

considerably between the age of Plato and that of Dionysius Thrax. In the time of the latter, for instance, 9, and x had become single sounds, whereas their compounded character appears plainly in the works of the tragedians where 7' and ' before an aspirated vowel become (that is, t+h) and x (k+h). During the centuries of political decay and disruption that followed, changes in pronunciation went on rapidly, and there can be little doubt that in some respects even our English way of pronouncing Greek is more correct than that of the modern Greeks, who confound most of the vowels and diphthongs together under the same monotonous sound of e (). Nevertheless, since Greek is still a spoken language, and the classical revival at Athens has made it possible for an English scholar to converse freely with a Greek when once the obstacle of a divergent pronunciation is overcome, it is desirable that we should forego our own prejudices and adopt that pronunciation which would allow us to turn to practical use the long hours and labours we have spent at school over the Greek tongue. The same difficulty does not meet us in the case of Latin. Here there is nothing to prevent us from employing the pronunciation which is approximately the right one, and it is much to be hoped that the movement in favour of a reformed pronunciation will speedily spread and prevail. At present, it is impossible for the comparative philologist in England to lecture upon Latin without the help of a black board and chalk. When he speaks of i in Sanskrit or other tongues, the ordinary student thinks of e (as in English); when he refers to e and ai the audience writes down a and i; and so long as agis and

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

cecidi are pronounced ejis and sesīdai, it is impossible to show that they have any connection with ago and cadere.

But the reform of Latin and Greek pronunciation, which is one of the practical results of a more extended acquaintance with comparative philology, would be incomplete without the more crying reform of our own. English mode of spelling. It is needless to enlarge here upon the practical evils of this curious system of symbolic expression, which obliges a child to learn by heart the spelling of almost every separate word in the dictionary, the consequence being that at least forty per cent. of the children educated in our board-schools leave school unable to spell, and so, little by little, neglect to read or write at all, and fall back into the condition of their illiterate forefathers. Dr. Gladstone calculates that the money cost of teaching this modicum of learning in the · elementary schools "considerably exceeds £1,000,000 per annum," and that in Italy, where the spelling is phonetic, a "child of about nine years of age will read and spell at least as correctly as most English children when they leave school at thirteen, though the Italian child was two years later in beginning his lessons."1 Nor need we do more than allude to the vicious moral training afforded by a system that makes irrational authority the rule of correctness, and a letter represent every other sound than that which it professes, or to the difficulty thrown in the way of learning to speak a foreign language by the dissociation between sound and symbol to

1 See his excellent little book on “Spelling Reform from an educational point of view" (1878), pp. 14, 20.

which the child has been accustomed from his earliest

years. The language of the ear has to be translated into the language of the eye before it is understood, and this it is which makes the English and the French notoriously the worst linguists in Europe. The inadequacy of English spelling is exceeded only by that of Gaelic, and in the comparative condition of the Irish and Scotch Gaels on the one side and the Welsh Cymry on the other, we may read a lesson of the practical effects of disregarding the warnings of science. Welsh is phonetically spelt, the result being that the Welsh, as a rule, are well educated and industrious, and that their language is maintained in full vigour, so that a Welsh child has his wits sharpened and his mind opened by being able to speak two languages, English and Welsh. In Ireland and Scotland, on the contrary, the old language is fast perishing; and the people can neither read nor write, unless it be in English.'

29 66

1 The following books and papers may be consulted on the subject of the reform of English spelling :-A. J. Ellis: "Three Lectures on Glossic;" "Pronunciation for Singers ;" "Orthography in relation to Etymology and Literature;" Early English Pronunciation;" Bikkers: "The Question of Spelling Reform;" J. H. Gladstone: "The Spelling Reform;" "Spelling Reform from an educational point of view;" Hadley: "Is a Reform desirable in the Method of Writing," in "Philological and Critical Essays;" Haldeman "Analytic Orthography;" E. Jones: "Spelling and School-boards;" "The Revision of English Spelling a National Necessity;" "The Pronouncing Reader on the Anglo-American System;" Latham: "A Defence of English Spelling;" Fleay: "English Sounds and English Spelling;" March: "Orthography," in the "Cyclopædia of Education and Yearbook of Education, 1877; 'Opening Address before the International Convention for the Reform of English Orthography;" Max Müller: "Spell

99 66

:

But the practical evils of our present spelling must be left to others to deal with. To the scientific philologist it is at once an eyesore and an incumbrance. What he wants to know is, not how words are spelt, but how they are pronounced. His object is to trace the gradual changes that sounds undergo, and so determine the laws which they obey. A corrupt or antiquated spelling only misleads and confuses. The whole fabric of comparative and historical philology is based on the assumption that Hindus, Greeks, Romans, Goths, and others, spelt their words pretty much as they pronounced them. The objection that a reformed spelling would destroy the continuity of a language or conceal the etymology of its words, is raised only by ignorance and superficiality. ing" (reprinted from the "Fortnightly Review," April, 1876); Pitman: "A Plea for Spelling Reform " (a series of tracts compiled from periodicals, &c., recommending an enlarged alphabet and a reformed spelling of the English Language); Sweet: "A Handbook of Phonetics;" Whitney: "How shall we Spell," and "The Elements of English Pronunciation," in "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," 2nd series; Withers: "The Spelling hindrance in Elementary Education;" Alphabetic and Spelling Reform an Educational Necessity;" The English Language Spelled as pronounced;" "On Teaching to Read;" the "Proceedings of the American Philological Association," 1874-8 (containing Addresses by March, Trumbull, and Haldeman); Burns's "Spelling Reformer; " Pitman's "Phonetic Journal;" "The Bulletin of the Spelling Reform Association" (1877-9); Ellis, Sweet, and Spedding in the "Academy," Feb. 24, March 3, March 10, March 17, June 2, June 9, June 16, June 23, and July 9, 1877; Skeat in the Athenæum," April 29 and May 27, 1876; Spedding in the "Nineteenth Century," June, 1877; "Report of the Conference held in London, May 29, 1877." For Spelling Reform in Germany see "Reform," published monthly at Bremen (1877-9), and the "Verhandlungen der Konferenz zur Herstellung grösserer Einigung in der deutschen Rechtschreibung," Jan. 1876.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »