In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (later made into the musical My Fair Lady), the character of Professor Henry Higgins was based on Henry Sweet, an influential English philologist, phonetician, and grammarian. Sweet advocated a "living phonology"--that is, teaching the spoken language based on principles determined by the emerging science of phonetics. In this excerpt from his textbook The Practical Study of Languages (1899), Sweet first identifies the different functions of grammars and dictionaries, and then considers the challenges of learning a foreign language, especially later in life.
Isolated Phenomena of Language: Grammar and Dictionary
from The Practical Study of Languages: A Guide for Teachers and Learners, by Henry Sweet (1899)
One result of language being partly rational, partly irrational, is that some of its phenomena can be brought under general rules, some cannot. Thus in English the fact that tree is made into trees when we speak of more than one tree is a general one; for we can add s in the same way and with the same change of meaning to nearly all other names of things. But the fact that t, r, e, e expresses the idea 'tree,' and not any other idea, is an isolated one; for, given these sounds, we cannot tell beforehand what the meaning will be, and given the idea 'tree,' we cannot tell beforehand what combination of sounds will express it.
This constitutes the whole distinction between grammar and dictionary. Grammar, like all other sciences, deals with what can be brought under general laws, and relegates all the other phenomena of language to that collection of isolated facts which we call the dictionary. It need hardly be said that there is no absolute line of demarcation between the two; thus the prepositions and many other particles belong both to the grammar and the dictionary. It also follows from our definition that what belongs only to the dictionary in one language may fall--partially, at least--under grammar in another, and vice versa. Thus in that remarkably symmetrical family of languages, the Semitic--of which classical Arabic is the best type--many of the details of the formation of roots and the structure of the primitive vocabulary are rightly included in the grammar. Again, such languages as German and Russian--though in many respects they fall short of the Semitic languages in word-forming power--still have great resources in the way of composition and derivation. In English, on the other hand--which, from the point of view of the vocabulary, must be regarded as a degenerate language--even such a simple matter as the formation of an adjective from a noun is often the business, not of the grammar, but of the dictionary, as in sun, solar, man, human, virile.
We see, then, that the existence of grammars and dictionaries is founded on the nature of language itself.
But many undeniable abuses in the use of these helps have led some reformers to a revolt not only against the use of grammars and dictionaries, but also against all system and method whatever in learning languages. This revolt against method has further led to an advocacy of the 'natural method' by which children learn their own language.
These enthusiasts forget that the process of learning one's native language is carried on under peculiarly favourable circumstances, which cannot be even approximately reproduced in the later study of foreign languages.
In learning our own language, we begin young, and we give our whole time to it. Our minds are perfect blanks, and we come to it with all our faculties fresh and unworn. The fact, too, that we generally learn new words and new ideas simultaneously, and that the word is often the key to the idea, gives a peculiar vividness and interest to the process of word-learning.
But the process has also its disadvantages. It is a very slow process; and the results are always imperfect. Indeed, so imperfect is this natural method, that even with the help of school-training and the incessant practice of everyday life, very few ever attain a really thorough mastery of their own language. When we say that any one is 'eloquent,' or that he 'has a good style,' or 'is a good speaker,' or 'can tell a story well,' we hardly mean more than that his command of his own language is rather less imperfect than that of his fellows. If languages were learnt perfectly by the children of each generation, then languages would not change: English children would still speak a language as old at least as 'Anglo-Saxon,' and there would be no such languages as French and Italian. The changes in languages are simply slight mistakes, which in the course of generations completely alter the character of the language.
Concluded on page two
