They spoke in the
native language, of which I had learnt but half a dozen words, and it sounded as though the world would shortly come to an end; but presently peace was restored and Tiare gave the cook a cigarette.
Let me also pray, that you will excuse my speaking to you in my
native language, and that you will reply in the same if your knowledge of it permits; if not, I sufficiently understand Norman to follow your meaning.''
Among our still more modern and dashing young gentlemen -- who are extremely averse to superfluous effort and supremely indifferent to the purity of their
native language -- the formula is still further curtailed by the use of "to feel" in a technical sense, meaning, "to recommend-for-the-purposes-of-feeling-and-being-felt"; and at this moment the "slang" of polite or fast society in the upper classes sanctions such a barbarism as "Mr.
All that they lacked was, the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolising, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's
native language. These fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked Heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, the Tongue of Flame.
"Speak in your
native language," he said to the sufferer; "I understand it, and it will fatigue you less."
"The pale faces make themselves dogs to their women," muttered the Indian, in his
native language, "and when they want to eat, their warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness."
"It doesn't sound at all like the
native language," said the girl, "but there is something familiar about it.
Thus, at eighteen, we find him, an English lordling, who could speak no English, and yet who could read and write his
native language. Never had he seen a human being other than himself, for the little area traversed by his tribe was watered by no greater river to bring down the savage natives of the interior.
~It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to brutalize every noble faculty of man.~ An American sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, at the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted and stultified--he had lost all reasoning power; and having forgotten his
native language, could only ut- ter some savage gibberish between Arabic and Eng- lish, which nobody could understand, and which even he himself found difficulty in pronouncing.
Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their
native language, and while they writhed we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles.
We attended divine service in the chapel of Pahia; part of the service being read in English, and part in the
native language. Whilst at New Zealand we did not hear of any recent acts of cannibalism; but Mr.
Having learnt to read and understand his
native language (though not to speak it), in the earlier days of our intimate companionship, I now suggested to him that he should express himself in Italian, while I used English in putting any questions which might be necessary to my enlightenment.