writer, "have a taste and talent for language. Your dictiona ries, and grammars, and lexicons, and exegetical works, do great credit to your national literature." Moreover, our scholars are educated in the same linguistic principles as English scholars, and they have before them the same high models. And though we have our fears, yet we also have our hopes, that diversities, and vulgarisms, and slang will not greatly or permanently increase. If the Anglo-Saxon race are destined to become a mighty continental nation, the system of common school education, the use of the same text-books in the institutions of learning, and of the same periodicals and reading-books in families, the mighty power of the press, urged on by those who have "drunk from the wells of English undefiled," and brought to bear upon the whole population, will help to keep the people of the United States one in language as one in government. And though it should be conceded that the best authors and public speakers in England have the advantage of many of the leading minds in our own country in idiomatic raciness and finished eloquence, it should, in justice, be claimed that the great mass of the people of the United States speak and write their vernacular tongue with more correctness than the common people of Great Britain. Having, in the preceding chapters, examined the historical and dialectical relations of the English language, we are now prepared to estimate its general character. QUESTIONS UNDER CHAPTER V. 1. What is a dialect? 2. What advantage is there in studying the English dialects? 5. What are some of the characteristics of the dialect of the Northern counties? 6. What are some of the characteristics of the dialect of the Eastern counties? 7. What are some of the characteristics of the dialect of the Southern counties? 8. What are some of the characteristics of the dialect of the Western counties? 9. Give some account of the Cockney dialect as to phonology, derivation of words, composition of words, inflection, syntax. 10. Mention the causes of existing dialectical diversities in the United States. 11. Give the classification of Americanisms, namely, the three divisions and their subdivisions. 12. Is there an American-English dialect? 13. What are some of the peculiarities of language in the Eastern States? In the Southern States? in the Western States? I CHAPTER VI. CHARACTER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMPOSITE. § 98. In the history of the English language, we have seen that the principal elements which enter into its composition are, 1. Celtic words, found either in the older branch of the Gaelic or in the younger branch of the Cambrian. 2. Latin words, introduced at different periods. 3. Saxon words, of the Low-Germanic division of the Teutonic branch of the Gothic stock. These constitute the great body of the language. 4. Danish words, of the Scandinavian branch of the Gothic. 5. Norman words, a mixture of French and Scandinavian. It is also enriched by contributions from the Greek and Hebrew, the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the German, and other languages. "We Britons," says HARRIS, "in our time, have been remarkable borrowers, as our multiform language may sufficiently show. Our terms in polite literature prove this, that they came from Greece; our terms in music and painting, that these came from Italy; our phrases in cookery and war, that we learned these from the French; and our phrases in navigation, that we were taught by the Flemings and Low Dutch." Though our comparison might be bold, it would be just if we were to say that the English language is a conglomerate of Latin words bound together in a Saxon cement; the fragments of the Latin being partly portions introduced directly from the parent quarry, with all their sharp edges, and partly pebbles of the same material, obscured and shaped by long rolling in a Nor man or some other channel."-WHEWELL'S History of the In ductive Sciences. CAMDEN observes: "Whereas our tongue is mixed, it is no disgrace. This theft of words is no less warranted by the privi lege of a prescription, ancient and universal, than was that of goods among the Lacedæmonians by an enacted law; for so the Greeks robbed the Hebrews, the Latines the Greeks (which filching CICERO, with a large discourse, in his book De Oratore defendeth), and, in a manner, all Christian nations the Latine. The Italian is pleasant, but without sinewes, as still, fleeting water. The French delicate, but even nice as a woman, scarce daring to open her lippes for fear of marring her countenance. The Spanish majestical, but fulsome, running too much on the o, terrible like the Divell in the play. The Dutch manlike, but withal very harsh, as one ready at every word to picke a quarrell. Now we, in borrowing from them, give the strength of the consonants to the Italian; the full sound of words to the French; the variety of terminations to the Spanish; and the mollifying of more vowels to the Dutch; and so, like bees, we gather the honey of their good properties, and leave the dregs to themselves. And thus, when substantialnesse combineth with delightfulnesse, fullnesse with finenesse, seemlinesse with portlinesse, and currentnesse with staydnesse, how can the language which consisteth in all these sound other than full of all sweetnesse ?"-CAMDEN'S Remains, p. 38. In allusion to having advantageously borrowed from other languages, a Danish poet by the name of HARDERUS compliments the English in the following elegant allusion: Perfectam Veneris faciem picturus Apelles, Quicquid in electis pulchrum vel amababile formis Repperit, in Paphiæ transtulit ora deæ. Excessit nová forma modum; se pluribus una Debuit, at cunctis pulchrior una fuit, Effigies Veneris, quam sic collegit Apelles, COPIOUSNESS. § 99. From its composite character, we are prepared to expect that it would be copious in its vocabulary and phrases. What CAMDEN says of the Anglo-Saxon is more strikingly true of the English, enriched as it has been by contributions from the Norman, the Latin and Greek, and other languages. Indeed, there are large classes of words derived from the Norman or other languages, or from the classical languages, which are, in common parlance, synonymous with words derived from the Anglo-Saxon, so that a writer may have his choice whether to use the Romanic or the Gothic elements. Thus it has happened that, from the composite character of the language as well as from its natural growth with the growth of knowledge, there are abundant materials for every species of writing. It is said by DE PAW that no book can be translated into the Algonquin or the Brazilian languages, nor even into the Mexican or Peruvian, solely from their want of words. On the other hand, the vocabulary of the English language is perhaps as copious as any other. It contains, in WEBSTER's and WORCESTER's dictionaries, something like one hundred thousand words. THE NUMBER OF ANGLO-SAXON WORDS. § 100. Whether we take into view the number or the sorts of words, the Anglo-Saxon is less an element than the mothertongue of the English. In the English language there are as many as twenty-three thousand words of Anglo-Saxon origin. From an examination of passages from the Bible, Shakspeare, Milton, Cowley, Thomson, Addison, Spenser, Locke, Pope, Young, Gibbon, Johnson, it appears that in one thousand four hundred and ninety-two words in sentences taken from these authors, there are only two hundred not Saxon. Upon this basis of calculation, it appears that four fifths of the words in actual use are of Anglo-Saxon origin. See § 108. THE KIND OF ANGLO-SAXON WORDS. § 101. The names of the greater part of the objects of nature; as, sun, moon, stars, day, light, heat; all those words which express vividly bodily action; as, to sit, to stand, to stagger; all those words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest connections; as, father, mother, brother, sister, are Anglo-SaxMoreover, all those words which have been earliest used, and which are invested with the strongest associations; most of those objects about which the practical reason is employed in common life; nearly all our national proverbs; a large proportion of the language of invective, humor, satire, and colloquial pleasantry, are Anglo-Saxon. While our most abstract and on. |