Download or read book A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 written by John Miller Meiklejohn and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 By John Miller Meiklejohn 1. Tongue, Speech, Language.-We speak of the "English tongue" or of the "French language"; and we say of two nations that they "do not understand each other's speech." The existence of these three words-speech, tongue, language-proves to us that a language is something spoken, -that it is a number of sounds; and that the writing or printing of it upon paper is a quite secondary matter. Language, rightly considered, then, is an organised set of sounds. These sounds convey a meaning from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the hearer, and thus serve to connect man with man. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.