Language is changed by two different forces-one extrinsic, the other intrinsic. The one changes, modifies by additions from other sources, the other creates by inherent power. Among the many examples of this extrinsic force, are the two words, dictionary and mitten. They are additions from other languages. In the German, the words synonymous with them are Wörterbuch, a book of words, and Handschuh, a shoe for the hand, both creations of that forcible language. The English, as rapacious in acquiring words as in the conquest of territory, stepped out of itself and borrowed. The German, true to itself, created out of the store-house of its own treasures.

In a state of barbarism, neither of these methods can have any scope. For the activities of a people, in other directions, are required to effect changes in this. A barbarous people scarcely come in contact with other nations, have no trade, no commerce, and need no new words to describe new commodities. They have no mechanic arts, no agriculture, consequently, no use for terms to represent inventions in those pursuits. They have no science, no philosophy, and, therefore, require no means to delineate new modes of thought or argument. Iceland was settled in 875 by a colony of brave, independent, liberty-loving spirits from Norway, who fled from what they deemed despotism, to find freedom elsewhere. They carried with them the old Norse tongue, which their descendants speak to-day almost in the same manner as a thousand years ago. A modern Icelander can read the old Scandinavian Sagas, written more than ten centuries ago, better than the Englishman of this day can read Chaucer, or even Spenser. The inhabitants of Iceland have been shut up in that barren, far-off island, removed from the rest of mankind. Their language has not suffered by being submitted to the corrupting influences of trade or contact with other tongues. The Manks who reside in the Isle of Man speak the Manks language, a branch of the Keltic family. The eastern part of the island has been visited by tourists, travelers, and merchants from England. In consequence, the language of the inhabitants of that section has been corrupted, while that spoken by those who live on the western side remains more pure. It

does not follow, however, that a language used by barbarians is always rude and uncultivated. Strange to say, the contrary is frequently the case. A tribe of negroes, on the Gaboon River, on the western coast of Africa, speak one of the most beautiful languages in the world. It is soft and mellifluous, abounds in inflections, and allows modifications and combinations entirely unknown to the family of languages used by the civilized people of Europe. The speech of some savage people permits the strangest inflections. In one of these, participles may be used, derived from the same verb, expressing almost every position as standing, running, walking, sitting, and the like. Max Müller, in his "Survey of Languages," says that an inflection of the verb to love, in the Turkish, may be used in one word, expressing this meaning, "they cannot be made to love one another." The English is meager in inflections, and will not permit such formations. Although rapacious in seizing and appropriating foreign words, it always subjects them to its own rules of variation and change. When once the borrowed word becomes an acknowledged member of its vocabulary, it never permits any rules to control its movements, other than those of its own creation. In this respect it is inflexible. The word pure is borrowed from the Latin purus. When the Latin grammarian compared this adjective, he said “purus, purior, purissimus;” but the English say, "pure, purer, purest," the endings, the suffixes, and the comparison are all English. It would seem as if the theft was to be hidden by giving a new dress to the thing stolen. There are, it is true, some words and phrases which have never received their English garments. These are not yet recognized as embodied into the language, and are always ear-marked as foreigners. Such words as rendezvous, rapport; such phrases as point d'appui, esprit de corps, tête du pont, are instances. They have not found their way into the spoken vocabulary, certainly, not into common speech, being confined as yet to the written language. When they become used as part of the spoken tongue of the country, they will be obliged to submit to the universal and inevitable rule.

Language, before possessing the means of preservation through writing, perpetuates itself by one very important

mode, which seems to be its first approximation toward a tangible form. This is in the shape of poesy and song. Every nation, however rude and uncultivated, possesses ballad and song, tossed to and fro among its people. In process of time these metrical compositions are incorporated into the very being of society, and are cared for and guarded as the property of the whole community. They are associated with the tenderest emotions, the dearest sympathies of a common humanity. They become household words. Strolling minstrels sing them in peasants' cottages, and high-born bards chant them in nobles' halls to the accompaniment of the harp. Homer, in all probability, was a wandering poet, and recited, or, it may be, sang his poems to his countrymen. So little of his birth is known, that his biographers differ five hundred years as to its date. Despite the obscurity of the poet, after his death, more than seven cities claimed to be his birth-place, and at least seventeen desired that honor. The influence of his poems, the Odyssey and Iliad, upon the language of the Greeks cannot be estimated. No insight could, possibly, be obtained from any other source into the manners, customs, habits of life and thought, of the Grecians. Our knowledge of the geography, arts, science, philosophy, and, especially, of the mythology of the Greeks, is very largely increased by these productions. He used such precision in his description of places, that it is said that, centuries after his death, disputes as to boundary lines between Grecian States were settled by reference to his poems. And yet these poems were but ballads, published simply by the voice, not written, bearing the name of an author whose birthday and birth-place were unknown, whose name is now even doubted, and whose very existence some excellent authorities question. The Roxburgh Ballads, a compilation of songs in use by the common people of England, two and three centuries ago, impart more information of the manners and customs and modes of reasoning of the lower classes of that period, than all the histories that have ever been written. Mr. Percy has laid the literary world under obligations lasting as time, by his unwearied and painstaking labors in collecting the "Reliques of English Poetry."

They contain additions to history and linguistic learning, which we find nowhere else.

Another manifestation of language is in the modeling of laws. Society, in a rude and barbarous state, is not subject to law. Each man acts as seems right to him. But, when men bind themselves into communities, then government becomes established; not the transient will of different rulers as they obtain power without order, but the permanent enactments of salutary statutes, which have their origin in wisdom and their power in the consent of the governed. To make enactments binding, they must be written in a language understood by those for whose guidance they are made. These laws may be ever so rudely written, or barbarously expressed, still language is employed, exercised in a new field, and force and energy added, necessarily, to it by the exercise. These laws teach, too, their lessons, and are impressed strongly with the peculiar idiosyncrasies, not only of their framers, but of those who were subject to their rule. That Saxon statute which graded the punishment for murder, by different penalties, from a simple fine up to death, according to the rank in life of the murdered, affords an estimate of the value given by that people to human life, and the distinctions in society then made. So, too, the laws for the preservation of horses explain how the quick organization of large bodies of cavalry could so readily be obtained. That law of later times, Saxon too, which doomed the scolding wife to the cold baptism of the nearest pond, gives an insight into their domestic concerns.

After the consolidation of a people into communities, other forces begin their work. As the civilization of a people increases, their wants are enlarged, trade and commerce are encouraged, at first from the necessity of the case, afterward by enhanced views of the wants of society and the duties of man to himself. It has been remarked, and with truth, that the more energetic a people become, the more does their language change and modify. Living languages are ever active; dead ones, although preserved and used as means for teaching, and for other purposes, cease to move and are dormant. Nations, generally, show their greatest energy in commercial pursuits. None could be prosperous, or increase

in wealth or power, without the aid of commerce. In quest of gain, seas are traversed, foreign countries are visited, contact is sought and gained with other nations, and, necessarily, with foreign tongues. New scenes are witnessed, new objects seen, and new ideas created. To describe all these, new words and phrases must be used, which are soon incorporated into, and form ultimately a part of, the common speech. The first struggle of a people is for simple existence. In time, by the force of industry, through the increase of manufactures, and the influx of wealth, through successful commerce, the struggle to preserve life is relaxed, and the attention of man is turned in other directions. Man's present and future physical wants are satisfied and provided for. Higher needs now meet him, and he finds he has a mind craving for other food. His intellect is awakened and sharpened. Then it is that art and science, philosophy and literature, begin to receive that culture which their worth demands. The combination of these with successful commerce and true civilization influences languages with irresistible force.

War is another agent in promoting changes in speech. It is, however, only occasionally active, the others are constantly in motion.

Religion is a power directing language which must not be overlooked. It does not, however, forcibly control language, except at those important epochs when it is itself most active in the events which produce those eras. It is then that language comes, necessarily, within the sphere of the power of religion. The turning of a whole people from one form of religion to another, diametrically opposed, is most radical in its effects. New ideas are introduced, old ones banished, new forms and ceremonies established, conditions which belonged to the everyday life of the people cease and new ones are substituted. To meet these important changes, language must be active, must change and become modified to meet the new order of things.

These are not the only forces which affect language. It is acted upon, more or less, by influences which are bounded by everyday existence. Words grow up in a day, are created by