Language : an Introduction to the Study of Speech. By
Edward Sapir. (H. Milford. 8s. 6d. net.)—This clever little
book, which is commendably free from the tiresome symbols of the phoneticians, aims at giving " a certain perspective " on ihe subject of language. The author touches on sounds, grammatical processes and types of linguistic structure, and then considers the changes which languages are continually undergoing by a species of drift or by external influence. He
takes as an example " whom," and points out to the purists that this objective case is steadily giving place to the nomin- ative. " It is safe to say that within a couple of hundred years from to-c17).y not even the most learned jurist will be saying,
Whom did you see Y' No logical or historical argument will avail to save this hapless ` whom.' " The " drift," he thinks, is replacing " quickly " and similar adverbs by the shorter and more vivid " quick," and so on—a special case of the general principle that " as soon as the derivation runs danger of being felt as a mere nuancing of, a finicky play on, the primary concept, it tends to be absorbed by the radical word." Mr. Sapir protests strongly against the current tendency to assume that race and language must correspond, and that culture and language are causally related. Style, he says, is merely the language itself. He quotes an English versa written by a young Chinese living in Canada-
" Wu-river stream mouth evening sun sink, North look Liao-Tung, not see home,
Steam whistle several noise, sky-earth boundless, Float float ono reed out Middle-Kingdom "
—to illustrate the conciseness that comes naturally to the Chinese poet but is clearly impossible in English.
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