ENGLISH.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 104, 15 April 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

ENGLISH.

THE COMMERCIAL LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD.

There is a story w tric-h < onvey.s a phiio-«->phi -al truth about;; candidate for Parliamentary honours in Hungary. Thin gcntkuiin. it is said, being a Magyar. Leg.-m to address a meeting of Slovak" villagers in his native tongue, which not one of them could understand. At la ,t someone suggested to the speaker that he should try English, and the candidate adopted the hint with satisfa.iory ri-sult-. for quit.- a nnmlt-r r.f iiis a'idien e had been to the l"ni> I States, and had there ar quired t, »■ ' rudiments of our dialect. In Italy. ( • recce. Spain. Scandinn-'in. and many other parts of the Old Wor-1 this extraordinary nro-ess of cmigr ttson to North America and ••migration home has carried a s-ritt. mg of broken Enghsl’ into the most remote i iilagcs. and the English tourist who Las left the beaten track is often rt.-.rt-led to find himself addr-ss-d in J,i« native tongue.

In India again. English is the rr.eciiim of exchange, when the eJm.nltd representatives of the varir. is i.vcs meet in their national Congross Lord Moidcy. ;n his brilliantly -«nggr;ti-,.» -,.J_ die<s to the English Asso i.’.ri m rocentlv prophesied that uir i:;i ,a .. would prove, in fact, to ie .-e gie.'.t unifying agent of the Indi m peop’r's. Eten in Japan not so many years ago -u tunlly projjosed. in view of the terro le difti-ulties nf the luvini-" 1 phalu-t that th- national | ;i , )Jil; .ge * nnuid U> abandoned in favitirr < f E<» - iish. •■ It the unrhl is r, e r 1 , -<.~o unnersal language” ( . av< tIII . w,..,,,,.,,,*: ist> English has a big start in the rase.