Dear Comrade:
We have practically finished the study of the different parts of speech.
We are now in possession of a knowledge of the tools which we need to
use in expressing ourselves. We are ready to make practical application
of this knowledge in writing and speaking. We will find that with our
increasing ability to express ourselves there comes also the power to
think clearly. The analysis of language has meant a growing power to
_think_ on the part of the people.
We sometimes imagine that simplicity of language was a part of primitive
life, but this is not true. Simplicity of language is the product of
high civilization. Primitive life was marked, not by simplicity of
language, but by the scarcity of language. They made one word stand for
an entire sentence, and if they wished to express a little different
meaning, an entirely different word had to be used, as for example, in
the primitive language: _I said to her_, would be one word, and _I said
to him_, would be another, entirely different, word.
But as the power of thought began to develop, we began to analyze our
meaning and we found that this thought was identical except the _him_
and the _her_. So as we analyzed our thought our expression of it became
more simple. In most languages, the different meaning of the verb, for
example, is expressed by an arbitrary change in the verb form. This is
called the inflection of the verb. In English we would use several words
to express the same thing. For example, the Latin word _Fuissem_
requires four English words to express the same meaning; _I should have
been_, we say in English. So instead of having to learn a great number
of different changes in the verb form, we, by the use of auxiliary
verbs, _have_, _shall_, _do_, _be_, etc., are able to express all these
shades of thought much more simply and clearly.
Most other languages also have changes for gender. Every noun has a
gender of its own and sometimes this form gives the wrong gender to
living beings and attributes sex to sexless objects and the only way to
know the gender of the noun is simply by memory. Then the adjectives,
possessive pronouns and the articles _a_ and _the_ have gender also and
have to be changed to suit the gender of the noun; this involves a great
effort of memory. So while the English may seem somewhat involved to
you, it is, after all, much simpler than other languages. It has been
freed from many superfluous endings and unnecessary complications.
Take a little time each day to read something out of the best
literature. The quotations given in each of these lessons are from our
very best writers. A study of these will be a wonderful help and
inspiration to you and bring you in touch with some of the great
thinkers of the revolution. They are our comrades and are putting into
words the thoughts and hopes and dreams of our lives.
Yours for the Revolution,