THE LANGUAGE OP CULTURE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22195, 11 September 1937, Page 18

THE LANGUAGE OP CULTURE

SOCIOLOGY, NOT PHILOLOGY The Tongrues of Men. By J. R. Firth. Watts. 160 pp. (2/6 net.) "The Tongues of Men" is a small book, but it contains enough exciting linguistic matter to provoke and occupy an ordinary mind for more than a few hours. Mr Firth not only recalls the history of philology in the light of the best informed modern opinion and knowledge, he not only defines, perhaps fallibly, present tendencies in language, he not only writes with caustic confidence about various current controversies and institutions, but he relates all phases of his theme, ancient and modern, to their social origins. Language follows the flag, its structure depe ds on the community, the-use of language is determined by society, human nature, and the methods of those who consciously, for leadership, employ language. Mr Firth's chief purpose has been to treat language as a part of cultural history so as to display its sociological background. He stresses, among the influences on European civilisation, the Jews and the Bible, for it was knowledge of Semitic languages which, except Latin and Greek, first enlarged linguistic experience. His method includes five historical topics. First, the beginning of Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese studies. Second, the study of exotic alphabets. At this point there is a most enlightening analysis of the acrophonic development of Egyptian hieroglyphs for nine English letters. Third, the linguistic endeavours of missions, with much praise f">r the College of the Propaganda in Rome and the Christian missions. Fourth, the movement . for an international auxiliary language to replace Latin. Fifth. World English, "the greatest social force in the world." World languages are made by soldiers and traders, by scientists and technicians, not by linguists, and they are built on blood, money, and suffering in the pursuit of power. Language is therefore a matter of sociological problems not to be solved by pseudo-philosophical grammarians, but by those who know speakers and things and the cultural background ot speakers. Another observation on which Mr Firth dwells is that English, German, Italian, and Russian have changed more during the last 25 years than in the previous century. We are moving oo fast and so far in speech and writing from the written language of the nineteenth century that 1900 is nearer to 1800 than 1937 is to 1900. Johnson and Macaulay would have understood each other and most late nineteenth century writings, but they would scarcely have understood more than a few words of Mr Firth's "Revue," a chapter of by no means recondite examples of modern speech habits.

There is an index to this admirable book, which is, in effect, sensational as well as scholarly, but there- is no bibliography. A bibliography is desirable, almost necessary.