"ROMANCE OF WORDS"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 79, 24 November 1931, Page 7

"ROMANCE OF WORDS"

ADDRESS TO ROTARY HOW LANGUAGES CHANGE An interesting address on "The Romance of Words" was given to the Rotorua Rotary Club at their weekly luncheon yesterday by Professor • Dickie, D.D., of Knox College, Dune.din. At the conclusion of his address he was thanked on behalf of the members by Rotarian Hay. "There is not much. known about the origin of speech," said Dr. Dickie. "It sprang from the past and its origins are not traceable." He then gave a. brief outline of how a language changed and grew, especially by the means of conquest, when two eountries -blended their tongues. "There are some raees who maintain that they have always occupied the land they now live in," Dr. Dickie continued, but this he disproved by quoting examples of races who, Tj though they claim this distinction, have come from other parts of the world in years gone by before finally settling In their present eountries. "A race never dies out as a result of being conqueled," Dr. Dickie continued, "but becomes intermingled with the conquerors and their speech becomes assimilated into the language of the invaders until to some extent the language is changed. In these cases traees of the original tongues usually survive." Sometimes, he said, several orig=J inal tongues went to make up the I present existing language and he gave as an example of this the English language, which was influenced by sev- • eral invasions from the Continent. He traced the effect of some of these outside influences in the speech of Scotland illustrating his point by giving some of the words adopted from other languages that were foreign to the Celtic tongue. Dr. Dickie then referred to dia- . lects which, he said, to a great extent A preserved old sounds, old words and old idioms, that were no longer used in the common speech of the country. Another influence at work to change a language, he said, was the getting rid of sounds difficult to pronounce and there was also the present tendency to shorten words. He then spoke of how children learned to tallc and how pupils were | taught foreign languages. They did % not imitate the sound, but used the | eye as a guide and imitated the plac- | ing of the vocal organs used in rnak- | ing that sound. I In conclusion Dr. Dickie traced the change of meaning of some words in g common use.. Words once used as a | * compliment might now be taken as an | • insult. ^ » I