# An Independent Nation Needs a Language System of Its Own by Noah Webster > “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.” > **— Noah Webster**, *Dissertations on the English Language, 1789* ## Sources and Context - **Primary source:** Noah Webster, [*Dissertations on the English Language: With Notes, Historical and Critical*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45738/45738-h/45738-h.htm) (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Company, 1789), Dissertation I; Project Gutenberg transcription of the first edition. - **Exact original:** “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be *our* standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.” The source italicizes *our*; the Reminder removes the italics for poster and social text, and the words are unchanged. - **Context:** Webster continues that Britain is also “at too great a distance to be our model, and to instruct us in the principles of our own tongue,” and predicts that American English will diverge from the language of England as Dutch, Danish and Swedish diverged from German. - **Article use:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] quotes the full passage as America's first claim to authorship of the West, and quotes the fragment “whose children we are” beside Marco Rubio's 2026 description of America as “a child of Europe.” ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/The Real No Kings Moment and Who Wrote the Super-intelligence Ban|The Real No Kings Moment and Who Wrote the Super-intelligence Ban]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Noah Webster|Noah Webster]] - [[wiki/An American Dictionary of the English Language|An American Dictionary of the English Language]] - [[wiki/Charter Civilization|Charter Civilization]] - [[wiki/Lexicographic Succession|Lexicographic Succession]] - [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.” — Noah Webster, Dissertations on the English Language, 1789 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-noah-webster-independent-nation-language-system ```