WHAT LANGUAGES DO WE SPEAK?

A congress of English teachers recently assembled in New York found itself discussing whether its members do teach English; whether the language spoken by Americans of the rising generation is merely a dialect, or whether it has attained to the dignity of a distinct "American" tongue. Professor Scott, of the University of Michigan, hails the day when this indigenous language will be officially recognized. It will apparently be composed of our vernacular Esperonto, with a few relics of our Trans-Atlantic heritage as a concession to tradition. Mrs. Smith will extend bids to a dance. Policemen will become cops in the dictionary, even "Lift up your beans, ye mighty gates."

As a matter of fact, it will be long before an American language is established in spite of the "janitors of our speech." Even after three hundred years of geographical separation a Bostonian understands an Englishman's conversation more readily than a Southerner's. We still manage to read English books with tolerable facility. There will be no slang lingua franca as long as the leavening influence of conservative instruction remains. In the words of Professor Palmer: "Look well to your speech."