...considered as a striking confirmation of the observation of Dr Juhr.son, in the preface to his Dictionary, that " the language most likely to continue long without...totally employed in procuring the conveniences of life." Literature. There is still very little known in Europe of the state of literature in China, and of...

...meaning." The only languages spared the traumatizing change would be those used in precommercial countries, "raised a little, and but a little above barbarity, secluded from strangers, and totally employed in procunng the convemencies of life." Under these conditions, as Johnson imagines, everything would be...

...not without a certain wistfulness, to a world in which his labor would not even have been necessary: The language most likely to continue long without...totally employed in procuring the conveniences of life; either without books, or like some of the Mahometan countries, with very few: men thus busied and unlearned,...

...stability in language, it is inevitable that as society changes, so too will language. Johnson continued: The language most likely to continue long without...barbarity, secluded from strangers, and totally employed with securing the conveniences of life. . . . But no such constancy can be expected in a people polished...

...Change, far from being a cause for lamentation over a fleeting past, can be a mark of civilized progress: "The language most likely to continue long without...raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity." Some words can therefore be relegated to the dustheap with impunity: "Nor are all words which are not...