way of them by explaining them through general symbols.
When I could read the Martian writing, I found there was another, as on earth, phonetic mode of writing, short and simple as your shorthand, which represented sounds, and was in common use. By this I was soon able to learn the spoken language, and thereby to converse with my instructor by word of mouth.
The spoken language was very simple. Each syllable conveyed an idea, the consonant sounds representing the idea in its special sense, the vowel sound the part of speech or grammatical inflection. Thus all roots were consonants, all inflexions vowel sounds. By this the idea was in the consonants, and the part of speech, the form of the idea, was in the vowels. Thus, supposing we were to adopt this system in England, man would represent the thought man, m..n meaning humanity, and a marking a noun Mān would be "men." Men would be " manly."
Min "to man," or "provide with men." Mon
"to manly." Mun would be "manliness."
And so the idea would be altered through some score of vowel sounds.
"Have you many languages in your world, as they have on earth?" I asked my instructor.
"We had them once, but we agreed to abolish
