sounds, but ideas themselves; if they were intended to correspond directly
with anything, it was with the rude gestures that signified ideas and had
nothing to do with their vocal expression. It was not until later that
these written symbols came to correspond to vocal sounds and even to-day
they do so imperfectly; languages that are largely phonetic are the
exception. The result is, as I have said, that we have two languages--a
spoken and a written. What we call reading aloud is translation from the
written to the spoken tongue; while writing from dictation is translation
from the spoken to the written. When we read, as we say, "to ourselves,"
we sometimes, if we are not skilful, pronounce the spoken words under our
breath, or at least form them with our vocal organs. You all remember the
story of how the Irishman who could not read made his friend stop up his
ears while reading a letter aloud, so that he might not hear it. This
anecdote, like all good comic stories, has something in it to think about.
The skilful reader does not even imagine the spoken words as he goes. He
forgets, for the moment, the spoken tongue and translates the written
words and phrases directly into the ideas for which they stand. A skilful
reader thus takes in the meaning of a phrase, a sentence, even of a
paragraph, at a glance. Likewise the writer who sets his own thoughts down
on paper need not voice them, even in imagination; he may also forget all
about the spoken tongue and spread his ideas on the page at first hand.
This is not so common because one writes slower than he speaks, whereas he
reads very much faster. The swift reader could not imagine that he was
speaking the words, even if he would; the pace is too incredibly fast.

Our written tongue, then, has come to be something of a language by
itself. In some countries it has grown so out of touch with the spoken
tongue that the two have little to do with each other. Where only the
learned know how to read and write, the written language takes on a
learned tinge; the popular spoken tongue has nothing to keep it steady and