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I present you with a Key : I have not heard of the like yet framed, since it pleased God to bring that mighty continent of America to light. Others of my countrymen have often, and excellently, and lately, written of the country, and none that I know beyond the goodness and worth of it.
This Key respects the native language of it, and happily may unlock some rarities concerning the natives themselves, not yet discovered.
--
Preface

 

Roger Williams

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One outcome of the Norman Conquest was the making of the English language. ...the speech of Alfred and Bede, was exiled from hall and bower, from court and cloister, and was despised as a peasant's jargon... It ceased almost, though not quite, to be a written language. ... Now when a language is seldom written and is not an object of interest to scholars, it quickly adapts itself in the mouths of plain people to the needs and uses of life. ...it can be altered much more easily when there are no grammarians to protest. During the three centuries when our native language was a peasant's dialect, it lost its clumsy inflexions and elaborate genders, and acquired the grace, suppleness, and adaptability which are among its chief merits.

 

G. M. Trevelyan

 

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.
High hills shut it off on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. It was alive with lions and leopards and poisonous snakes. Its untouched mazes of matted jungle had as yet invited no hardy pioneer from the human beasts beyond its frontier.

 

Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

[T]he natives that were imprisoned on Carnac Island have completely outwitted their guards; a boat was incautiously suffered to remain at the island before night, when they managed to get into it, and were miles off before their escape was discovered; and as there was no boat for pursuit, they reached the land. Their boat was found at Woodman's Point, with one oar; but no natives have been seen since. This occurrence is extremely provoking, as a knowledge of their language would soon have been acquired by us; and they were rapidly learning to make themselves intelligible. I understand they were very accurate in describing the rivers which lie to the north. Mr. Lyon, who superintended the native prisoners at Carnac, says they describe several rivers to the north; one of them large, and abounding with fish; but they could not be understood in their description of distances. It seems that the land is all parcelled out into districts among themselves, and that they rarely travel far from their own homes. The chief of this district is called "Worragonga": Ya-gan is the son of Worragonga. I write this from recollection; but it is no great matter [?147?]if I should have made a false heraldry in blazoning his pedigree.

 

Yagan

 

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

 

John F. Kennedy

 

There are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492.

 

Rush Limbaugh