MOST USEFUL LANGUAGE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 3

MOST USEFUL LANGUAGE.

I have often, out of pure curiosity, asked globe-trotters and men whose business has taken them into all parts of the world, which they have found the most useful language to he able to talk. In Europe, of course, English, French, and German carry a man everywhere except in the out-of-the way parts of Spain and Portugal. I am not sure, however, that the order in which I have put the languages should not be altered, for the hotel servants and shopkeepers in the far-away spots of Europe are learning that the German of to-day is becoming a greater traveller than the Englishman, and the first language they now learn is addition to their is the German one.

But for world-travel, next to English, Spanish is the most useful language to have at the tip of one's tongue. In the days of her power Srain conquered many lands, and though she has been ousted from all her over-seas possessions, she hag left her language, her dances, hei songs, and her cookery in them all. All South America talks Spanish, and on some parts of the coast ol India, in the Philippines, in Cnba, and in scores of other islands, Spanish, or its twin-language, Portuguese, is the talk of the white population .—' 'Sketch.''