qualified to meet and converse intelligently with others who claim the same title, upon matters of import to us all, I may have my speech marked more or less strongly with local or personal peculiarities; it may exhibit unusual tones of utterance, or unusual turns of phrase, which, if I would be readily and thoroughly understood, I must endeavour to avoid. Now all these differences of speech, limited as their range may be, are in their essential nature dialectic; the distinction between such idioms, as we may properly style them, and well-marked dialects, or related but independent languages, is one, not of kind, but only of degree. For I also possess a considerable portion of my language in common with the Netherlander, the German, and the Swede, to say nothing of my remoter relations, the Russian, the Persian, and the Hindu; and if, in talking with any one of them, I could only manage to leave out of my conversation such words as belong to my dialect alone, and moreover, not to pronounce the rest with such a local peculiarity of tone, nor give them such special shades of meaning, he and I might get along together famously, each of us understanding all the other said. I can, indeed, make calculations and compose mathematical formulas with him all day long; or, if we are chemists, we can compare our views as to the constitution of all substances, organic and inorganic, to our mutual edification; since, as regards their mathematical and chemical language, their systems of notation and nomenclature, all who share European civilization form but a single community.
There is room, then, for all that diversity which was shown in our first lecture to belong to the speech of different individuals and different classes in the same community, along with that general correspondence which makes them speakers of the same language. The influence of community works in various degrees, and within various limits, according to the nature and extent of the community by which it is exercised. The whim of a child and the assent of its parents may make a change in the family idiom; the consent of all the artisans in a certain branch of mechanical labour is enough to give a new term the right to stand in
