Excerpt from An Elementary Grammar of the Italian Language: Progressively Arranged for the Use of Schools and Colleges The study of languages offers to a discriminating observer not only a collection of words and idioms, but the knowledge of customs, tastes, and national peculiarities. It is true that there are general principles which may be applied in common to all languages, - the system of ideas having everywhere the same foundation, - but these are, in their application, subjected to conditions peculiar to each people. The formation of words, the construction of phrases, and the modulation of sounds, are but the results of the national character pervading the minutest details of a language. The Italian language, like all others, has national characteristics. The strength of its metaphors, the conciseness of its phrases, its flexible adaptability to thought, its sonorous terminations, expressive articulation, and musical prosody, are the living monuments of a people eminently artistic, and endowed with a high organic sensibility. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.