Next go yourself, thinking all will understand you, and say, _horse_;
but, lo! none unacquainted with your language are the wiser for the
sound you utter, or the sign you suspended before them; save, perhaps, a
little old Saxon, who, at first looks deceived by the similarity of
sound, but, seeing the sign, is as demure as ever, for he omits the _e_,
and pronounces it shorter than we do, more like a yorkshire man. But
why are you not understood? Because others have not entered into an
_agreement_ with you that _h-o-r-s-e_, spoken or written, shall
represent that animal.

Take another example. Place the living animal called man before them.
Less trouble will be found in this case than in the former, for there is
a nearer agreement than before in regard to the signs which shall be
employed to express the idea. This word occurs with very little
variation in the modern languages, derived undoubtedly from the
Teutonic, with a little change in the spelling, as Saxon _mann_ or
_mon_, Gothic _manna_, German, Danish, Dutch, Swedish and Icelandic
like ours. In the south of Europe, however, this word varies as well as
others.

Our language is derived more directly from the old Saxon than from any
other, but has a great similarity to the French and Latin, and a kind of
cousin-german to all the languages of Europe, ancient and modern. Ours,
indeed, is a compound from most other languages, retaining some of their
beauties and many of their defects. We can boast little distinctive
character of our own. As England was possessed by different nations at
different periods, so different dialects were introduced, and we can
trace our language to as many sources, German, Danish, Saxon, French,
and Roman, which were the different nations amalgamated into the British
empire. We retain little of the real old english--few words which may