alike, are a far stronger bond than an artificial language which a few can read, still fewer can write, and the great majority cannot understand.
To my mind there is no reason why the dialects of Egypt, Syria or Morocco, should not be elevated to the rank of written languages with as good results as those produced by the substitution of the Romance languages for Latin. Reasoning by analogy, we may safely predict that the result would be an enormous spread of knowledge, among the people of those countries, and the rise of a more original and more permanent literature without in any way impairing the respect in which the Koran and the Arabic classics are at present held.
No one can maintain that the diffusion of knowledge in Europe has suffered since Latin has ceased to be the common language of the educated. The fact that an Englishman or a Frenchman to-day addresses himself intelligibly to millions of his countrymen where before he could only be understood by an elite of scholars, scattered over Europe more than compensates for any extra labour involved in translating works of science for the benefit of the foreign readers.
A dead language, like Latin, though not without its practical value as a common medium of coffespondence could never give rise to a great literature. The historian and the novelist who wish to excite the interest of their readers - still more the poet, the dramatist and the orator, who appeal to the feelings - can only succeed in their object if they speak in the tongue which is familiar to all from childhood, the language of the home and of daily intercourse - if they use the common words in which everyone is accustomed to express joy, soffow, and all the other emotions of life.1394 Minute of Dissent
