THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.

Evening Star, Issue 4160, 27 June 1876, Page 4

THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.

(From the Contemporary Review.)

The German language, as socially spoken, does not sound musical, but the .opera-singers, so modify the- pronunciation as to make it soft and agreeable. I am acquainted with no language, however, 'which sounds'sp differently from different lips as does this German. The Saxon pronunciation, though by no means the harshest, is the : most demoralised of all; and those, foreigners who have formed their accent, on Saxon models have, humanly speaking, disqualified themselves forever getting it right. In its perfection, German is eminently a masculine tongue, but Dresden has emasculated it. She clips it, whines it, undulates it, sing-songs it, lubricates it, until it becomes a very eunuch of languages. The hard, clear, delicate Hanoverian prohiinciation compares with hers as chips of . ice shaken in a crystal goblet, with lukewarm dishwater ■ filliped in a greasy slop-bowl. My feeling with regard to the pronunciation of foreign languages is perhaps curious, but observation inclines me to believe : that it is not altogether unique. 1 never imitate the native accent without feeling a little ashamed of myself, and the closer my imitation, the greater my loss of self-respect. On the other hand, an execrably English twang, or, still more, a few English words thrown in here and there, revive my drooping independence like a tonic. I may be as correct in my grammar, and in the placing of my verbs and participles, as my knowledge' will admit, without a tflaisper of self-reproach y but the moment I attempt to disguise my nationality 1 am degraded. Moreover, supposing such disguise possible, what is gained by it 1 Is it so groat a triumph to. be mistaken for a Saxon, for instance 1 There is surely nothing intellectual in mimicry, and our : best success amounts to nothing higher than that. No; a foreign accent is to he shunned rather than sought ; It is as demoralising as to wear another man’s clothes." It cannot hip attained without doing violence to the inner nature—to . those fiuo perceptions of. modesty and decorum which give ; character its wor';h. A person who speaks a foreign language so well as to deceive a native, is rarely a delicate-minded man. He will either be subtle, deceitful, sly,. with a talent for intrigue, or else superficial, coarse, and vain, He can seldom possess a sensitive and nicely balanced individuality.' -Besides, what is called a broken accent is not displeasing to the native hearer; rather it impresses him as a sort of indirect compliment to the supreme refinement of his tongue. And at best we find ourselves saying things in a foreign language which we should never dream of uttering in our own. We feel .it to be a veil upon our real ; selves, and so venture upon unaccustomed liberties, like scurrilous critics iwho write anonymously. There is a point beyond which cosmopolitanism become unwholesome.