Many people, having regard to the very numerous
population of the British Empire and the United States, cherish a
belief that English will presently be cock of the world's walk. But we
have to consider that English is an immensely odd and irregular
language, that it is accounted very difficult by even the best foreign
linguists, and that even among native writers there are few who can so
wield it as to make their meaning clear without prolixity--and among
these few none who has not been well-grounded in Latin. By its very
looseness, by its way of evoking rather than defining, suggesting
rather than saying, English is a magnificent vehicle for emotional
poetry. But foreigners don't much want to say beautiful haunting
things to us; they want to be told what limits there are, if any, to
the power of the Lord Mayor; and our rambling endeavours to explain do
but bemuse and annoy them. They find that the rewards of learning
English are as slight as its difficulties are great, and they warn
their fellows to this effect. Nor does the oral sound of English allay
the prejudice thus created. Soothing and dear and charming that sound
is to English ears. But no nation can judge the sound of its own
language. This can be judged only from without, only by ears to which
it is unfamiliar.
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