y guessing the meaning, that is to say, by
perceiving that he was expected to enter then and there into a new
covenant as to the meaning of the symbols that were presented to
him, understanding what this covenant was to be, and acquiescing in
it.

On the other hand, no ingenuity can torture "language" into being a
fit word to use in connection with either sounds or any other
symbols that have not been intended to convey a meaning, or again in
connection with either sounds or symbols in respect of which there
has been no covenant between sayer and sayee. When we hear people
speaking a foreign language--we will say Welsh--we feel that though
they are no doubt using what is very good language as between
themselves, there is no language whatever as far as we are
concerned. We call it lingo, not language. The Chinese letters on
a tea-chest might as well not be there, for all that they say to us,
though the Chinese find them very much to the purpose. They are a
covenant to which we have been no parties--to which our intelligence
has affixed no signature.

We have already seen that it is in virtue of such an understood
covenant that symbols so unlike one another as the written word
"stone" and the spoken word alike at once raise the idea of a stone
in our minds. See how the same holds good as regards the different
languages that pass current in different nations. The letters p, i,
e, r, r, e convey the idea of a stone to a Frenchman as readily as
s, t, o, n, e do to ourselves. And why? because that is the
covenant that has been struck between those who speak and those who
are spoken to. Our "stone" conveys no idea to a Frenchman, nor his
"pierre" to us, unless we have done what is commonly called
acquiring one another's language. To acquire a foreign language is
only to learn and adhere to the covenants in respect of symbols
which the nation in question has adopted and adheres to. Till we
have done this we neither of us know the rules, so to speak, of the
game that the other is playing, and cannot, therefore, play
together; but the convention being once known and consented to, it
does not matter whether we raise the idea of a stone by the words
"lapis," or by "lithos," "pietra," "pierre," "stein," "stane" or
"stone"; we may choose what symbols written or spoken we choose, and
one set, unless they are of unwieldy length, will do as well as
another, if we can get other people to choose the same and stick to
them; i