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Updated: June 9, 2025
27. -Litterator- and -grammaticus- are related nearly as elementary teacher and teacher of languages with us; the latter designation belonged by earlier usage only to the teacher of Greek, not to a teacher of the mother-tongue. -Litteratus- is more recent, and denotes not a schoolmaster but a man of culture.
It should be, further, that of the people which has been least subjugated, or which, having been subjugated, has civilized its conquerors. And in this respect, it is constant that Chinese and Arabic are the most ancient of all those that are spoken to-day. There is no mother-tongue.
Probably a considerable majority of its inhabitants spoke Greek as a lingua franca, if not as their mother-tongue. Nearly all the great industrial and commercial centres were in the Greek or Hellenized provinces. Possibly, during the first two centuries of the Empire, more Greek was spoken than Latin by the proletariat of Rome itself.
"I am not easily put off," said he, with firmness. "I am moved to remark upon the astonishing facility with which you speak English. Now do your worst." Susanna smiled. "It would take more than that to provoke me to do my worst," she said. "English is as natural to me as my mother-tongue. I always had English governesses. Everyone has English governesses in Italy nowadays, you know."
McWha saw her coming, and, growing self-conscious, he hurriedly started up a song with the full strength of his big voice. The song was a well-known one, and nothing in it to redden the ear of a maiden; but it was profane with that rich, ingenious amplitude of profanity which seems almost instinctive among the lumbermen a sort of second mother-tongue to them.
Another force the force clerical the power of clerks, arises; the might of educated mind measuring itself against brute violence; a force embodied, as often before, as priestcraft the strength of priests: craft meaning, simply, strength, in our old mother-tongue. This great force, too, develops itself variously, being sometimes beneficent, sometimes malignant.
"Do you all speak French?" asked the Countess in that language which, be it remembered, was in the reign of Edward the Third the mother-tongue of the English nobles. She received an affirmative reply from all. "That is well. See to my sumpter-mules being unladen, and the gear brought up hither. What a pretty child! whose is it?" Alina brought the little girl forward, and answered for her.
He saw her clever, spirited, high-bred a woman of the world, familiar with literature and arts, and speaking at least one language besides her mother-tongue. In dress she should be exquisite, in conversation tactful, in manner sympathetic. As mistress of the house she should be thorough; as a hostess, full of charm; as a mother but his imagination hardly went into that.
"I caught the vile thing," said a feeble voice, in my mother-tongue; "I caught it in the very act!" She was alive! she spoke! I dared not yield to my transport lest I should terrify her. "What creature?" I breathed, rather than said. "The creature," she answered, "that was biting you." "What was it?" "A great white leech." "How big?" I pursued, forcing myself to be calm.
Upon my first two points, the right to privacy and the mother-tongue, I have lingered long, feeling these to be not only of prime importance and wide application, but also to be quite beyond my power to make lucid in short compass. I trust that they have been made lucid.
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