Usage and Custom are the Rules and Measures of every Language, and the Rules of Grammar have nothing more to do, than to teach it. The Grammar is to be fashioned from the particular Language, it treats of, and not the Language from the Grammar. For want of following this regular Plan, our Modern GRAMMARIANS have introduced the Grammar Rules of other Languages into their own; as if all Language was founded on Grammar, and the Rules in one Language... more...

RHAGYMADRODD. Mae yr awyddfryd cynyddol sydd yn mhlith y Cymry i ymgydnabod yn fwy â’r iaith Saesoneg yn un o arwyddion gobeithiol yr amserau.  Am bob un o’n cydgenedl ag oedd yn deall Saesoneg yn nechreuad y ganrif hon, mae yn debyg na fethem wrth ddyweud fod ugeiniau os nad canoedd yn ei deall yn awr.  O’r ochor arall, y mae rhifedi mwy nag a feddylid o’r Saeson sy’n ymweled a’n gwlad yn... more...

1. INTRODUCTION. Hwen evvery oddher language, and at last our own, haz been reduced to' science; rendered accountabel to' natives, and accessibel to' straingers; hwence iz it, dhat our practice, growing daily more a contrast dhan an exemplificacion ov our theory, tempts ignorance to' speak, az blind habbit spels; raddher dhan to' dream ov spelling, az propriety exhibbits her unremitted harmony, hweddher in word or writing? For propriety,... more...

The language which I have endeavoured to illustrate in the following pages is the Malay of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, some knowledge of which I have had the opportunity of acquiring during sixteen years’ service in Penang, Province Wellesley, Malacca, Singapore, and Perak. Dialectical peculiarities are so abundant in Malay that it is impossible to teach the colloquial language of the people without imparting to the... more...

THE VALUE OF LATIN "Latin is the most logically constructed of all the languages, and will help more effectually than any other study to strengthen the brain centres that must be used when any reasoning is required." —Dr. Frank Sargent Hoffman The Latin Language. Mosaics in History. Arthur Gilman. Chautauqua. Vol. ii, p. 317. Illustrated History of Ancient Literature. John D. Quackenbos. P. 305. A Short Story of the English... more...

INTRODUCTION. The following paper from the pen of Dr. Prior was read at a Conversazione of the Society at Taunton, in the winter of 1871, and as it treats the subject from a more general point of view than is usually taken of it, we print it with his permission as an introduction to our vocabulary:— On the Somerset Dialects. The two gentlemen who have undertaken to compile a glossary of the Somerset dialect, the Rev. W. P. Williams and... more...

To the Reader. PHTHONIVS a famous man, wrotein Greke of soche declamacions, to en-structe the studentes thereof, with all fa-cilitée to grounde in them, a moste plenti-ous and riche vein of eloquence. No manis able to inuente a more profitable waieand order, to instructe any one in the ex-quisite and absolute perfeccion, of wisedome and eloquence,then Aphthonius Quintilianus and Hermogenes. Tullie al-so as a moste excellente Orator, in... more...

INTRODUCTION The Use of Punctuation.—Punctuation is a device for marking out the arrangement of a writer's ideas. Reading is thereby made easier than it otherwise would be. A writer's ideas are expressed by a number of words arranged in groups, the words in one group being more closely connected with one another than they are with those in the next group. An example will show this grouping in its simplest form: He never convinces the... more...