Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/204

190 that linguistic classifications are usually in harmony with geographical conditions. The Pushtu (Afghan language) forms a medium between the Indian and the Iranian; the Arcadian (ancient Greek), between the three Æolian dialects; the Greek, an intermediate point between the Persian and the European languages. The Sardinian is halfway between Italian and Spanish.

There is no absolutely pure dialect. Every population is mixed, has relations with its neighbors, and receives immigrations from abroad. A nation is never isolated, or a province, or a village; but, on the other hand, the closer the boundaries are drawn up, the more frequent are the exterior relations, because the distances to be traversed are less and the means of making one's self understood are easier. Unity is not found even in the family, whose members are in contact with the outside world, but not all in the same way. And finally, when we come to the individual, we have unity of pronunciation and phonetics no more, for we do not speak or pronounce in the same way when we address a single one or many, when we are cool or under the control of passion, when in full vigor and freshness or at the end of a day's work. Nor do we do so when addressing a superior or an equal, for conversation is essentially a work of collaboration, and our interlocutor must have his part in it. We sometimes hear it said of some one that "he knows how to speak to a crowd." All these circumstances modify pronunciation. The supposed phonetic purity of dialects will therefore have to be considered one of the fancies of linguistics.

The words of the same dialect do not all obey exactly the same phonetic laws. The matter is controlled in part by the principle of frequency. Words which we pronounce more frequently are by that very fact pronounced with greater facility; and pronouncing them more easily, we give less attention and effort to them. Examples of this effect of recurring use of words are furnished in the names of persons and places and in exclamations. Words become more subject to alteration as we pay less attention to the meaning of the different elements of which they are formed. As long as we perceive clearly the significance of the two parts of a compound, that compound remains intact. But from frequency relaxation of attention results, or rather the several parts cease to be distinct to the mind, and the whole takes on the value of a single sign, and phonetic alteration has free scope.

Agglutinative languages, like the Hungarian, are less exposed to alteration than inflectional languages, for each element has a distinct