An alteration of my domestic arrangements is afoot, and that caused me to have to relocate a bookcase today, so to do this, I had to empty the case of its books. Deep in the depths, I came across a tattered dictionary.
Because I am the sort of idler that will do anything to avoid work, even to the extreme of reading a dictionary, I opened it. In faint pencil, the name ‘Jack Wickstein, Port Augusta, 1928’ was written. It had been my grandfather’s. I wonder if it was a gift. Those were different times when you would give a young man of 20 a dictionary. However because he’d spent much of his childhood interned on the family farm, he never got a complete education, and he was the sort of fellow that never stopped trying to improve himself. So maybe the dictionary was not so illogical a gift after all. In the wake of the Great War, Jack’s Father had issued a family edict that henceforth the family was to avoid looking or sounding German, and an excellent command of the English language was a good way to go about this.
The dictionary itself is rather odd. The first pages are a series of colour plates devoted to underwater sea life. Then a list of worthies who contributed to the articles in the dictionaries. The names mean nothing to me, but the Universities were, and are, the cream of New England learning. I read the Introduction. One passage sprang out at me.
Every word, every term in this Dictionary is standard; that is, classic, or, in other words, adapted for use by the best speakers and writers. None other has been admitted, consequently the work will commend itslef to not only those who want to keep abreast of the times, but to all those who wish to have a thorough working knowledge of the language in which they are constrained to express their thoughts, ideas, and requirements. This is the language spoken today by almost 200,000,000 of the human race. It is believed that it is destined to become the universal language of mankind, as it is spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth, and even supplanting other tongues in their native strongholds.
Thus wrote the editor, Joseph Devlin, in 1925. Eighty years into the future, and his optimism about the future of the English language seems, if anything, to have been restrained. However, it is also a sign of the times that it is rare, if not impossible, to see such rampant optimism about the future in print.
Oh well. Blogging about it will not get the chores done. Back to work I go…
Cultural confidence is something that has been eroding in the English speaking world for many years, at the same time that the language has been spreading, and the basic institutions have become the envy and aspiration of the world. Remarkabe, and regrettable. But we should do what we can to push back.
Thanks to the outcomes of the Second World War & Cold War, and now the internet, he was quite correct. English is not just the global language of today, it is the language of tomorrow.
The universal language of mankind will ultimately be Esperanto. Still, I understand the passage. People seems to have a mystical reverence for their native language, or at least English speakers (among others) do.
Sure, other than the fact hardly anyone actually speaks it.
I bet you could find contemporaneous French writing which would make the same claim.
Given that French was much more prominent in international affairs then it is now, I’m quite sure that is true.
Serves them right for 1940, I say.
Scott,
With respect: reading a dictionary is NOT “extreme” behavior.
Especially if it’s to get out of work.
Cutting off an arm with a chainsaw to avoid work: now that’s extreme.
Given the choice between education and physical labor, I’d pick the education thing, any day of the week.