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Title: The English Language
Author: Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865-1946)
Date of first publication: 1912
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Henry Holt;
   London: Williams & Norgate, 1912 (copyright date)
   [Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, vol. 40]
Date first posted: 16 July 2013
Date last updated: 16 July 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1093

This ebook was produced by Marcia Brooks, Fred Salzer
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
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HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY




  HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
  OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

  No. 40


  _Editors:_

  HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.

  PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D.,
    LL.D., F.B.A.

  PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.

  PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.




  THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE

  16mo cloth, 50 cents _net_, by mail 56 cents

  _LITERATURE AND ART_

  _Already Published_

  SHAKESPEARE                         By JOHN MASEFIELD
  ENGLISH LITERATURE--MODERN          By G. H. MAIR
  LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE      By G. L. STRACHEY
  ARCHITECTURE                        By W. R. LETHABY
  ENGLISH LITERATURE--MEDIEVAL        By W. P. KER
  THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE                By L. PEARSALL SMITH

  _Future Issues_

  GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA            By W. P. TRENT and JOHN ERSKINE
  THE WRITING OF ENGLISH              By W. T. BREWSTER
  ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE      By ROGER E. FRY
  GREAT WRITERS OF RUSSIA             By C. T. HAGBERT WRIGHT
  ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL              By MISS JANE HARRISON
  THE RENAISSANCE                     By MRS. R. A. TAYLOR




  THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

  BY
  LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH, M.A.

  AUTHOR OF
  "LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON," ETC.

  [Illustration: colophon]


  NEW YORK
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

  LONDON
  WILLIAMS AND NORGATE




  COPYRIGHT, 1912,
  BY
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY


  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




CONTENTS

   CHAP.                                            PAGE

      I  THE ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE           7

     II  FOREIGN ELEMENTS                             30

    III  MODERN ENGLISH                               62

     IV  WORD-MAKING IN ENGLISH                       81

      V  MAKERS OF ENGLISH WORDS                     109

     VI  LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE EARLIEST PERIOD   126

    VII  LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE DARK AND THE      152
         MIDDLE AGES

   VIII  LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE MODERN PERIOD     188

     IX  LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT                        214

         BIBLIOGRAPHY                                253

         INDEX                                       255




THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE




CHAPTER I

THE ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE


Among the many living forms of human speech, and those countless others
which have arisen and perished in the past, the English language, which
has now spread over so large a portion of the world, is as humble and
obscure in its origin as any other. It is, of course, in no sense native
to England, but was brought thither by the German tribes who conquered
the island in the Vth and VIth Centuries; and its nearest relations
are to be found among the humble dialects of a few barren islands on
the German coast. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors came first to ravage
Britain, and finally to settle there, they found the island inhabited by
a people weaker, indeed, but infinitely more civilized than themselves.
For several centuries the Celts in England had enjoyed the benefits of
Roman government, and shared in the civilization of the Roman Empire;
they lived in walled cities, worshipped in Christian churches, and spoke
to a certain extent, at least, the Latin language; and it is possible,
if this Teutonic invasion had never happened, that the inhabitants of
England would be now speaking a language descended from Latin, like
French or Spanish or Italian. It is true that English has become almost
a half-sister to these "Romance languages," as they are called, and a
large part of its vocabulary is derived from Latin sources; but this
is not in any way due to the Roman conquest of Britain, but to later
causes. In whatever parts of Britain the Teutonic tribes settled, the
Roman civilization and the Roman language perished; and we find at first
a purely Germanic race, a group of related tribes, speaking dialects
of what was substantially the same language--the language which is the
parent of our present English speech. This Anglo-Saxon or (as it is now
preferably called) "Old English" language belonged to the great Teutonic
family of speech, which in its turn was separated into three main
families--East Germanic, now extinct; Scandinavian, or old Norse, from
which Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish are descended; and West Germanic,
from which are derived the two great branches of High and Low German.
High German has become the modern literary German; while Low German
has split up into a number of different languages--Frisian, Dutch, and
Flemish. It is to the last of these groups that English belongs, and its
nearest relatives are the Frisian dialect, Dutch, and Flemish.

But the Teutonic tongues themselves form one branch of another great
family, the Aryan or Indo-European, which is spread from India in the
East to Ireland in the West, and includes Sanskrit, Persian, Greek,
Latin, Celtic, and several other languages. The grammatical structure of
English and German, and a large element of their vocabularies, proves
their relationship to these other tongues, though in the course of their
wanderings from their primitive home, forms were changed or dropped,
the pronunciation of some of the vowels and consonants shifted, many
old words perished, and many new ones were acquired. The study of the
relationships between these various languages forms the subject of the
science of Comparative Philology, a science almost entirely based in
its turn on what is called "Phonology," the study of changes in sound,
and the elaborate laws by which they are governed. It is only, indeed,
since the discovery of these laws that the science of language or
"linguistics" has become possible, and it is on the careful and accurate
study of sound-changes that is founded the modern historical conception
of English, its relationship to other languages, and its development
from the early speech of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

This early speech was, as we have seen, a Teutonic or German language.
Although our modern English has been derived from it by a regular
process of change, it was in its character more like modern Dutch or
modern German. Its vocabulary was what is now called a "pure" one,
containing few foreign words, and its grammar was even more complicated
than that of modern German. It retained the elaborate system of genders;
its nouns were masculine, feminine, or neuter; they had five cases and
various declensions, and the adjectives, as in German, agreed with the
nouns, and were declined with them; and in the conjugation of the verbs
there were twice as many forms as in modern English. It was, therefore,
like Latin and Greek and German, an inflected language; while in
modern English inflections have almost disappeared, and other means of
expressing grammatical relations have been devised.

As this loss of inflections is one of the main characteristics of
modern English, and illustrates a tendency of language which has been
carried further in English than in any other form of European speech, it
will be well, perhaps, to say a few more words about it. To the older
philologists, when the change of language, from the earliest tongues
down to the present day, was at last unfolded before their eyes, the
long and uninterrupted history of grammatical losses which they found,
the perishing of one nice distinction after another, seemed to them an
uninterrupted process of ruin and degeneration. But this view of the
history of language--a continuous advance, namely, in richness and
accuracy of expression, accompanied and produced by a continual process
of decay--is too paradoxical to be maintained, and it is coming to be
realized more and more that the disappearance of grammatical forms is
not a loss, but a gain; and that they have been superseded by a means of
expression which renders them more or less superfluous, and is itself
vastly more expressive and convenient. This means of expression is
called "analysis," and consists in stating the relations once expressed
by verbal terminations by separate words of an abstract character;
by prepositions for the cases of nouns, and by auxiliaries for the
tenses of the verbs. If we look in a Latin grammar we shall find, for
instance, that to translate one Latin word, _fuissem_, four words, "I
should have been," are used in English; that is to say, the different
notions combined by inflection in one Latin word are taken out from the
conglomerate whole by analysis, and are expressed each of them by a
separate word.

The development of analysis in language, the habit of using a separate
word for the expression of each separate element in a complex notion,
is one that we can trace throughout the whole history of language. In
primitive forms of speech whole complexes of thought and feeling are
expressed in single terms. "I said it to him" is one word, "I said it to
her" another; "my head" is a single term, "his head" a different one.
My head is, of course, to me an enormously different thing from his
head, and it is an immense advance in the clearness of thought when I
analyse the thought of "my head" into its different parts, one of which
is peculiar to me, and named "mine," the other that of "head," which
I share with other human beings. Simplicity of language is, in fact,
like other kinds of simplicity, a product of high civilization, not a
primitive condition; and the advance of analysis, the creation of words
expressing abstract relations, is one of the most remarkable triumphs
of the human intellect. This development of analysis had already,
of course, reached a high point in languages like Greek, Latin, and
Anglo-Saxon; but it has been carried even further in modern forms of
speech, and reaches in Europe, at least, its furthest limit in modern
English. We see it, in the first place, in the greatly increased use of
prepositions, _of_, and _to_, and _for_, and _by_, and still more in the
use of the auxiliary verbs _have_, and _do_, and _shall_, and _will_,
and _be_, by means of which we are now able to express almost every
shade of thought which was formerly rendered by changes in the form of
the verb.

Along with this creation of new grammatical machinery, modern English is
remarkable for the way in which other superfluous forms and unnecessary
terminations have been discarded. In the first place, we must note the
loss in English of grammatical gender. The absence of this in English
is more extraordinary than we always realize. For this irrational
distinction, which corresponds to no distinction in thought, and
capriciously attributes sex to sexless objects, and often the wrong
gender to living beings, is yet found, as a survival of barbarism and
a useless burden to the memory, in all the other well-known languages
of Europe. With the loss of gender we have also discarded the agreement
of adjectives, of possessive pronouns and the article, with their
nouns. An Englishman can say, for instance, "my wife and children" while
the Frenchman must repeat the possessive pronoun, as in _ma femme et
mes enfants_. If we regard it as the triumph of culture to fit means
perfectly to ends, and to do the most with the greatest economy of
means, we must consider this discarding of the superfluous as a great
gain in modern English.

Another great characteristic of modern English, as of other modern
languages, is the use of word-order as a means of grammatical
expression. If in an English sentence, such as "The wolf ate the
lamb," we transpose the positions of the nouns, we entirely change
the meaning of the sentence; the subject and object are not denoted
by any terminations to the words, as they would be in Greek or Latin
or in modern German, but by their position before or after the verb.
This is one of the last developments of speech, a means of expression
unknown to the rich and beautiful languages of antiquity. This tendency
to a fixed word-order was more or less established in Early English,
as it is in modern German, in spite of the richness of inflections
in these languages; and it is a debatable point whether the decay of
inflections made it necessary, or its establishment made the inflections
superfluous, and so brought about their decay. Probably each acted on
the other; as the inflections faded, a fixed word-order became more
important, and the establishment of this order caused the inflections to
be more and more forgotten.

How is it, then, that these amazing changes, this loss of genders, this
extraordinary simplification, have happened in our English speech? For
five hundred years after the invasion of England, the language of our
Anglo-Saxon ancestors remained, as far as we can judge, practically
unchanged. Then a transformation began, and in three or four centuries
what is practically a new language somewhat suddenly appears. In
the first place, as an answer to this question, is the fact that
simplification is the law of development in all languages, and has
influenced more or less all European forms of speech. At the time that
English changed, the other languages of Europe were changing too. That
this process was carried further, and proceeded faster in England
than elsewhere is not, however, due to any special enlightenment or
advance of civilization in the English nation. For, as a matter of fact,
education, culture, and enlightenment, although they help progress in
other ways, are intensely conservative in matters of speech; and while
for their own purposes the educated classes have to connive at changes
in vocabulary, any grammatical advance is opposed by them with all the
powers they possess. We know how intensely repugnant to them are any
proposals for the reform of our absurd and illogical system of spelling,
and we can imagine the outcry that would arise, should any one dare to
suggest the slightest and most advantageous simplification in English
grammar. In our plurals _these_ and _those_, for instance, we retain,
as Dr. Sweet has pointed out, two quite useless and illogical survivals
of the old concord of attribute-words with their nouns. For if we do
not change our adjectives or possessive pronouns for the plural, and
say _his_ hat and _his_ hats, why should we change _this_ and _that_
into _these_ and _those_ in the same positions? And yet the whole force
of education and culture would furiously oppose the dropping of these
superfluous words, if, indeed, they could be brought to consider any
such proposal. As a matter of fact, the progress in English is due not
to the increase of education, but to its practical disappearance among
those who used the national speech. It is the result, not of national
prosperity, but of two national disasters--the Danish invasion and the
Norman Conquest.

The first district of England to attain any high degree of civilization,
according to the standards of that time, was the north, where
Christianity and culture were introduced from Ireland, where literature
and scholarship flourished, and where the local or Northumbrian dialect
seemed likely to become the standard speech of England. It was,
indeed, from the Angles settled here and their Anglian dialect, that
our language acquired the name of "English," which it has ever since
retained. This Northumbrian civilization, however, was almost utterly
destroyed in the VIIIth and IXth Centuries by a new invasion of pagan
tribes from across the German Ocean. The Danes, who now came like the
Angles and Saxons, first to harry England and then to settle there,
were near relatives of the inhabitants they conquered, and came from a
district not far from the original home of the earlier invaders. Their
language was so like Anglo-Saxon that it could be understood without
great difficulty; so when the two races were settled side by side, and
when before long they became amalgamated, it was natural that mixed
dialects should arise, mainly English in character, but with many Danish
words, and with many differing grammatical forms confused and blurred.
As there was no literature nor any literary class to preserve the old
language, the rise of these mixed dialects would be unchecked, and we
can safely attribute to this settlement of the Danes a great influence
on the change in the English language. It is in the districts where the
Danes were settled that the English language became first simplified,
so that in the process of development their speech was at least two
centuries ahead of that of the south of England. But this effect was
only local, and did not at first affect the language as a whole. When
the Northumbrian culture was destroyed, the kingdom of Wessex became
the centre of English civilization; and under the scholarly influence
of King Alfred, and the revival of learning he promoted, West-Saxon
became the literary and classical form of English, and almost all the
specimens of Early English that have been preserved are written in this
dialect. Classical Anglo-Saxon, therefore, with its genders and its rich
inflectional forms, was not affected by the Danish invasion; and had it
suffered from no further disaster, English would probably have developed
much as the other Low German forms have developed, and we should be now
speaking a language not unlike modern Dutch.

But for the third time a foreign race invaded England, and the language
of Wessex, like that of Northumbria, was in its turn almost destroyed.
The effect, however, of the Norman Conquest, although quite as
far-reaching, was more indirect than that of the Danish. The Normans did
not, like the Danes, break up or confuse Anglo-Saxon by direct conflict;
but their domination, by interrupting the tradition of the language, by
destroying its literature and culture, by reducing to it the speech
of uneducated peasants, simply removed the conservative influence of
education, and allowed the forces which had been long at work to act
unchecked; and English, being no longer spoken by the cultivated classes
or taught in the schools, developed as a popular spoken language with
great rapidity.

Each man wrote, as far as he wrote at all, in the dialect he spoke;
phonetic changes that had appeared in speech were now recorded in
writing; these changes, by levelling terminations, produced confusion,
and that confusion led to instinctive search for new means of
expression; word-order became more fixed; the use of prepositions and
auxiliary verbs to express the meanings of lost inflections increased,
and the greater unity of England under the Norman rule helped in the
diffusion of the advanced and simplified forms of the north. We even
find, what is a very rare thing in the history of grammar, that some
foreign pronouns were actually adopted from another language--namely,
the Danish words _she_, _they_, _them_, _their_, which had replaced
the Anglo-Saxon forms in the north, and were gradually adopted into
the common speech. From the north, too, spread the use of the genitive
and plural in _s_ for nearly all nouns, and not only for those of one
declension.

Although the development of English was gradual, and there is at no
period a definite break in its continuity, it may be said to present
three main periods of development--the Old, the Middle, and the Modern,
which may be distinguished by their grammatical characteristics. These
have been defined by Dr. Sweet as first, the period of full inflections,
which may be said to last down to A.D. 1200; the period of Middle
English, of levelled inflections, from 1200 to 1500; and that of Modern
English, or lost inflections, from 1500 to the present time.

Although the grammar of the language by the end of the Middle English
period was fixed in its main outlines, there has, nevertheless, been
some change and development since that time. Thus the northern _are_
for _be_, spread southwards in the early part of the XVIth Century, and
became current towards its end, where it appears in Shakespeare and
the Authorized Version of the Bible, and it has now in modern times
almost supplanted the southern _be_ in the subjunctive mood. The use of
auxiliary verbs to express various shades of meaning, although it had
begun in the Old, and developed in the Middle English period, has been
greatly extended in modern times. The distinction in meaning between
_I write_ and _I am writing_, between the habitual and the actual
present, is a modern innovation; and another modern development which
expresses a useful shade of meaning is that of the emphatic present
with the auxiliary _do_, "I do think," "I do believe," as contrasted
with the less emphatic "I think," "I believe." Both forms existed in
Old English, but until the XVIIth Century no clear distinction was made
between them, as we see in the biblical phrase "and they did eat and
were all filled." The XVIIth Century saw also the adoption of the neuter
possessive pronoun _its_, which is first found in 1598, but which is not
used in the Bible of 1611, nor in any of Shakespeare's plays printed in
his lifetime. The use of nouns as adjectives, the "attributive noun,"
as it is called, as in "garden flowers," "railway train," etc., is
a new and most useful innovation, which has come into use since the
period of Old English, and has been greatly developed in modern times.
There is nothing quite like it in any other language except Chinese,
and it is a great step in advance towards that ideal language in which
meaning is expressed, not by terminations, but by the simple method of
word position. And following also this line of development we find a
curious case in modern English when the termination used for inflection,
the _s_ of the English genitive, has become detached from its noun
and used almost as a separate word. This is the group genitive, as in
"the King of England's son," instead of "the King's son of England,"
and in colloquial speech we can even use a phrase such as "the man I
saw yesterday's hat." Here the _s_ of the genitive has become detached
from its noun, and made into a sign with the abstract character of a
mathematical symbol. One of the most modern developments of English
grammar, which dates from the end of the XVIIIth Century, is a new
imperfect passive, as in the phrase "the house is being built," for the
older "the house is building," or "is a-building."

These modern instances will prove that the development of grammar is
not a matter entirely depending, as has sometimes been thought, upon
historical causes, or upon phonetic change. Historical accidents, and
the decay of terminations, no doubt help in the creation of new forms,
but are not themselves the cause of their creation. Behind all the
phenomena of changing form we are aware of the action of a purpose, an
intelligence, incessantly modifying and making use of this decadence
of sound, this wear and tear of inflections, and patiently forging for
itself, out of the dbris of grammatical ruin, new instruments for a
more subtle analysis of thought, and a more delicate expression of
every shade of meaning. It is an intelligence which takes advantage of
the smallest accidents to provide itself with new resources; and it
is only when we analyse and study the history of some new grammatical
contrivance that we become aware of the long and patient labour which
has been required to embody in a new and convenient form a long train
of reasoning. And yet we only know this force by its workings; it is
not a conscious or deliberate, but a corporate will, an instinctive
sense of what the people wish their language to be; and although we
cannot predict its actions, yet, when we examine its results, we
cannot but believe that thought and intelligent purpose have produced
them. This corporate will is, indeed, like other human manifestations,
often capricious in its working, and not all its results are worthy
of approval. It sometimes blurs useful distinctions, preserves others
that are unnecessary, allows admirable tools to drop from its hands;
its methods are often illogical and childish, in some ways it is unduly
and obstinately conservative, while it allows of harmful innovations in
other directions. Yet, on the whole, its results are beyond all praise;
it has provided an instrument for the expression, not only of thought,
but of feeling and imagination, fitted for all the needs of man, and far
beyond anything that could ever have been devised by the deliberation of
the wisest and most learned experts.

When the early physicists became aware of forces they could not
understand, they tried to escape their difficulty by personifying
the laws of nature and inventing "spirits" that controlled material
phenomena. The student of language, in the presence of the mysterious
power which creates and changes language, has been compelled to adopt
this medieval procedure, and has vaguely defined, by the name of
"the Genius of the Language," the power that guides and controls its
progress. If we ask ourselves who are the ministers of this power,
and whence its decrees derive their binding force, we cannot find
any definite answer to our question. It is not the grammarians or
philologists who form or carry out its decisions; for the philologists
disclaim all responsibility, and the schoolmasters and grammarians
generally oppose, and fight bitterly, but in vain, against the new
developments. We can, perhaps, find its nearest analogy in what, among
social insects, we call, for lack of a more scientific name, "the Spirit
of the Hive." This "spirit," in societies of bees, is supposed to direct
their labours on a fixed plan, with intelligent consideration of needs
and opportunities; and although proceeding from no fixed authority, it
is yet operative in each member of the community. And so in each one
of us the Genius of the Language finds an instrument for the carrying
out of its decrees. We each of us possess, in a greater or less degree,
what the Germans call "speech-feeling," a sense of what is worthy of
adoption and what should be avoided and condemned. This in almost all of
us is an instinctive process; we feel the advantages or disadvantages
of new forms and new distinctions, although we should be hard put to it
to give a reason for our feeling. We know, for instance, that it is now
wrong to say "much" rather than "many thanks," though Shakespeare used
the phrase; that "much happier" is right, though the old "much happy" is
wrong, and that _very_ must in many cases take the place once occupied
by _much_. We say a picture was _hung_, but a murderer was _hanged_,
often, perhaps, without being conscious that we make the distinction;
and we all of us, probably, observe the modern and subtle difference
between _borne_ and _born_, the two past participles of the verb to
_bear_, as when we write "_borne_ by a slave mother," but "_born_ of a
slave," although few of us realize the subtle distinction between actual
bringing forth, and the more general notion of coming into existence, on
which this difference is based.

One of the most elaborate and wonderful achievements of the Genius of
the Language in modern times is the differentiation of the uses of
_shall_ and _will_, a distinction not observed in Shakespeare and the
Bible, and so complicated that it can hardly be mastered by those
born in parts of the British Islands in which it has not yet been
established.

Grammarians can help this corporate will by registering its decrees
and extending its analogies; but they fight against it in vain. They
were not able to banish the imperfect passive "the house is being
built," which some of them declared was an outrage on the language;
the phrase "different to" has been used by most good authors in spite
of their protests; and if the Genius of the Language finds the split
infinitive useful to express certain shades of thought, we can safely
guess that all opposition to it will be futile. Better guides are to
be found in our great writers, in whom this sense of language is highly
developed; and it is in them, if in any one, that this power finds its
most efficient ministers. But even they can only select popular forms,
or at the most suggest new ones; but the adoption or rejection of these
depends on the enactments of the popular will, whose decrees, carried in
no legislature, and subject to no veto, are final and without appeal.




CHAPTER II

FOREIGN ELEMENTS


If the Norman Conquest had but an indirect influence on the development
of English grammar, on the other part of the language, the vocabulary,
its effect was so great as almost to transform the character of our
speech. Old English contained but a small proportion of borrowed words;
but when it ceased to be a literary language, and almost all its
learned compounds perished, their place was gradually taken by words
borrowed from the French speech of the Norman invaders.

The character of the words now borrowed, the objects and ideas they
denoted, are full of significance for our early history, and they
will be treated from this point of view in a later chapter. We are
now concerned, however, for the present, more with their formal
aspect--their shapes, the sources whence they were derived, and the
transformations they had undergone before they reached us. The conquest
of England by the Normans was the third invasion of this island by a
Teutonic race from countries across the German Sea; for the Normans
were closely related both to the Anglo-Saxons and to their subsequent
Danish conquerors, and originally they spoke a language allied to the
Anglo-Saxon. But they had travelled far, and acquired much, since they
had left their remote Scandinavian birthplace. For 150 years before
they came to England they had been settled in Normandy, where they had
lost almost all memory of their original speech, and had adopted a
new religion, a new system of law and society, new thoughts and new
manners. They therefore came practically as Frenchmen to their English
and Danish cousins; and it was the speech of France, the civilization
of France that they brought with them. But the speech of France was
a very different language from Modern French as we know it; indeed,
there was not, at this time, any recognized and classical French, but
only a number of dialects, among which that of Normandy was the one
which was first introduced into England. These French dialects were
descended from the popular and colloquial Latin once common in most
of the Roman Provinces, but which underwent divers changes in various
regions--changes which have produced the various related forms of
speech--French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.--which are united
under the common name of Romance languages. These Latin words suffered
many transformations in becoming French; many of the consonants and
vowels were so changed, and the words were so shortened and clipped by
the omission of unaccented syllables, that their connection with their
Latin ancestors is often not very apparent. As later in the history of
English many of these words came into the language in forms more nearly
approaching their Latin originals, we can see by comparing them with
those adopted from the French, after they had undergone the process of
phonetic decay, how greatly they had been changed in that process. Thus
_compute_ and _count_ both descend from the Latin _computare_; _secure_
and _sure_, _blaspheme_ and _blame_, _dominion_ and _dungeon_, _dignity_
and _dainty_, _cadence_ and _chance_ are others among these "doublets,"
as they are called, in which the longer form of the word in each case is
more directly from the Latin, while the shorter has suffered a French
transformation.

But the French language has undergone considerable and more recent
changes since the date when the Normans brought it into England. Some
words that we borrowed have become obsolete in their native country,
some consonants have been dropped, and the sound of others has been
changed; we retain, for instance, the _s_ that the French have lost in
many words like _beast_ and _feast_, which are _bte_ and _fte_ in
Modern French. So, too, the sound of _ch_ has become _sh_ in France;
but in our words of early borrowing, like _chamber_, _charity_, etc.,
we keep the old pronunciation. We keep, moreover, in many cases forms
peculiar to the Norman dialect, as _caitiff_, _canker_, _carrion_,
etc., in which _c_ before _a_ did not become _ch_, as it did in the
Parisian dialect; _cark_ and _charge_ are both from the same Latin word
_carricare_, but one is the Norman and the other the Parisian form of
the word. In many cases the _g_ of Norman French was changed to _j_ in
the Central dialects, and our word _gaol_ has preserved its northern
spelling, while it is pronounced, and sometimes written, with the _j_ of
Parisian French.

When in the year 1204 Normandy was lost to the English Crown, and the
English Normans were separated from their relatives on the Continent,
their French speech began to change, as all forms of speech must change,
and developed into a dialect of its own, with some peculiar forms, and
many words borrowed from the English. This was at first the language of
the court and law in England; it was taught in the schools and written
in legal enactments, and continued to be used by lawyers for more
than three hundred years. Indeed, in the form of what is called "Law
French" it continued in use down to quite recent times. An attempt was
indeed made in the XIVth Century to replace French by English in the
law courts, but the lawyers went on thinking and writing in French, and
developed little by little a queer jargon of their own, which continued
in use down to the end of the XVIIth Century. From this dialect or
technical law-jargon many words were adopted into English, not only
strictly legal terms like _jury_, _larceny_, _lease_, _perjury_, etc.,
but other words which have gained a more popular use--as _assets_,
_embezzle_, _disclaim_, _distress_, _hue and cry_, _hotchpotch_,
_improve_. One of the most curious of these is the word _culprit_, which
is a contraction of the legal phrase "_culpable; prest_," meaning "(he
is) guilty (and we are) ready (to prove it)."

It was, then, from this Anglo-or Norman French that the earliest of
our French words were derived, and the greater part of those borrowed
before 1350 were probably from this source. In the meantime, however,
the Central or Parisian French dialect, having become the language of
the French Court and of French literature, began to be fashionable in
England, and many words were adopted from it into English. It is by no
means always easy to distinguish between the sources of French words,
whether they came to us from Anglo-or Parisian French. In many cases the
forms are the same, but as a rule the early and popular words may be put
down to Anglo-French, and the later adoptions and the learned words to
borrowings from the literary language of Paris.

In addition to these two classes, the first borrowings from
Anglo-French, and the later ones from the Parisian French, we have in
English a third class of words borrowed from French in more recent
times. Speaking in general terms we may say that down to about 1650
the French words that were borrowed were thoroughly naturalized in
English, and were made sooner or later to conform to the rules of
English pronunciation and accent; while in the later borrowings (unless
they have become very popular) an attempt is made to pronounce them in
the French fashion. The tendency in English is to put the accent on
the first syllable, and this has affected the words of older adoption.
But in words more recently borrowed, like _grimace_, _bizarre_,
etc., we throw the accent forward to imitate as nearly as we can the
French accent. Words have sometimes been borrowed twice, as _gentle_
and _genteel_, _dragon_ and _dragoon_, _gallant_ and _gallnt_; and
the older can easily be distinguished from the later by the position
of the accent. If words like _baron_, _button_, _mutton_, had been
recent and not old borrowings we should have pronounced them _baroon_,
_buttoon_, _muttoon_, as we pronounce _buffoon_, _cartoon_, _balloon_,
and many others derived from the French words ending in _on_. In these
modern borrowings, moreover, we preserve as much as we can the modern
pronunciation of the French consonants, as we can see in the soft _ch_
of _chandelier_ and _chaperon_ (as compared with the older _chandler_
and _chapel_) and the soft _g_ in _massage_, _mirage_, _prestige_, while
the older sound is kept in _message_ and _cabbage_.

There are no words in English so unfixed and fluctuating as these late
borrowings from the French, and there is often no standard by which
we can decide how we are to speak them. Some, like _envelope_ and
_avalanche_, have two pronunciations, one English, and one as nearly
French as possible, and one word, _vase_, is spoken in at least three
ways. As so often in the case of language, we find two tendencies at
work, one following the old rule to pronounce the words as English
words, to give the vowels and consonants their English sounds, and to
throw back the accent. This affects words which have become popular and
familiar and are in common use, like _glacier_ and _valet_. The other
tendency, which seems to be growing stronger in recent years, is to keep
as much as possible the foreign sounds and accent, as in _promenade_,
_croquet_, _trait_, _mirage_, _prestige_, _rouge_, _ballet_, _dbris_,
_nuance_. This tendency, due, perhaps, to the wider study of French,
has had a curious effect in changing the pronunciation and spelling of
a number of old-established and long-naturalized words. Thus _biscuit_,
which, in the form of _bisket_, is found as an old English word, has
recently put on a French costume, although its pronunciation has not yet
been changed, and _blue_ has been altered from the older _blew_ owing
to French influence. Several old words have had their accent changed by
the same cause. _Police_ is an old word in English, and still retains
its English accent (like _malice_) in parts of Ireland and Scotland;
and our old word _marine_ has had its pronunciation changed, owing to
the influence of the French _marine_. Even a word like _invalid_, of
Latin origin, has (when used as a noun) thrown its accent forward to
correspond to the French _invalide_. This tendency to give a foreign
character to old-established words is a curious manifestation of that
capricious force called the Genius of the Language; when a word has what
we may call a French or foreign meaning, as in _rouge_ or _ballet_, a
foreign pronunciation, or an attempt at it, may perhaps make it more
expressive; but there is surely no reason why such words as _trait_
and _vase_ should not be pronounced after the English fashion; and we
might well be spared the discomfort and embarrassment of our attempts to
keep the nasal sound of the French _n_ in words like _encore_, _ennui_,
_nonchalant_, _nuance_.

As we have seen, the main additions to the English language, additions
so great as to change its character in a fundamental way, were from the
French, first of all from the Northern French of the Norman Conquerors,
and then from the literary and learned speech of Paris. But the French
language, as we have also seen, is mainly based on Latin--not on the
Latin of classical literature, but the popular spoken language, the
speech of the soldiers and uneducated people; and the Latin words were
so clipped, changed, and deformed by them (not, however, capriciously,
but in accordance with certain definite laws) that they are often at
first unrecognizable. From early times, however, a large number of Latin
words were taken into French, and thence into English, from literary
Latin; and as they were never used in popular speech, they did not
undergo this process of popular transformation.

But when we speak of learned words adopted from the Latin, we must not
suppose that the scholars and literary men of that time borrowed, as
we should now borrow, from the classical Latin studied in our schools,
the language of the great orators and poets of Rome. The Latin from
which they borrowed was not a dead, but a living language, a language
which they spoke and wrote, and which, although it was descended
from classical Latin, and preserved many of its forms, yet differed
from it in many ways, and was regarded as barbarous by the scholars
of the Renaissance. It was the speech of a small minority, of a few
thousand learned men, almost all in religious orders, an aristocracy
intellectual and cosmopolitan, who preserved in the Dark Ages something
of the literary tradition of classical times, and made to it important
contributions of their own. It was a universal language for the scholars
of all Europe; and, even in England, men from different districts
could converse in it better than in their local and often mutually
unintelligible dialects. It disappeared at last in the XVIth Century,
owing to the efforts of the Humanists and the Ciceronians to restore
the classical language of Rome, but not before it had had an immense
effect on modern French and English. By far the greater part of the
learned Latin words adopted into French, and from French into English,
from the IXth to the XIVth Centuries are derived from this Low Latin;
many of them are, of course, classical in form, but many, especially the
abstract words, have been formed by the addition of terminations in the
medieval Latin. In the XIVth Century, however, when the first effects of
the classical renaissance began to make themselves felt, words began to
be borrowed into French direct from Classical Latin: this process went
on with increased rapidity in the XVth Century; and towards its end, and
at the beginning of the XVIth Century, almost a new language formed on
classical models was created in France.

With the importation, therefore, of the French vocabulary into English,
many of the learned words borrowed first from Late, and then from
Classical Latin, were adopted into our language. But in England also
Latin was spoken by the clergy and learned men of the country, the Bible
and the service-books were in Latin, and historical and devotional books
were largely written in it. When these Latin books were translated into
English, or when a scholar writing in English wished to use a Latin
word, he followed the analogy of the Latin words that had already come
to us through the French, and altered them as if they had first been
adopted into French. It is often, therefore, difficult to say whether
a Latin word has come to us through the French, or has been taken
immediately from the Latin.

A curious tendency, due not so much to the genius of the language as to
the self-conscious action of learned people, has affected the form of
Latin words both in English and French, but more drastically, perhaps,
on this side of the Channel. From early times a feeling has existed that
the popular forms of words were incorrect, and attempts more or less
capricious, and often wrong, have been made to change back the words to
shapes more in accordance with their original spelling. Thus the _h_ was
added to words like _umble_, _onour_, _abit_, etc.; _b_ was inserted
in _debt_ (to show its derivation from the Latin _debitum_), and _l_
in _fault_, as a proof of its relation to the Latin _fallere_, and _p_
found its way into _receipt_ as a token of the Latin _receptum_. These
pedantic forms were either borrowed direct into English from the French,
or in many old words the change was made by English scholars; and in
some words, as for instance _debt_ and _fault_, their additions have
remained in English, while in French the words have reverted to their
old spelling. These changes, as in _honour_, _debt_, _receipt_, do not
always affect the pronunciation; but in many words, as _vault_, _fault_,
_assault_, the letters pedantically inserted have come gradually to be
pronounced. _Fault_ rhymed with _thought_ in the XVIIIth Century, and
only in the XIXth Century has _h_ come to be pronounced in _humble_ and
_hospital_. More inexcusable are the many errors introduced into English
spelling by old pedantry, and among our words which have been deformed
by this learned ignorance may be mentioned _advance_ and _advantage_
(properly _avance_ and _avantage_) and _scent_ and _scissors_, which
should have been spelt _sent_ and _sissors_.

The borrowing of words direct from the Latin, which began first in
prehistoric times, continued in the Anglo-Saxon period, and only
attained large proportions in the XIVth and XVth Centuries; but it has
continued uninterruptedly ever since, until perhaps one-fourth of the
Latin vocabulary has been transplanted, either directly or through
the French, into the English language. While most of these words are
re-formed in English according to definite usage, nouns being taken
from the stem of the accusative, and verbs from that of the past
participle, there is really no absolute rule save that of convenience
about the matter. The nominative form appears as in _terminus_, _bonus_,
_stimulus_, etc., the ablative in _folio_, the gerund in _memorandum_
and _innuendo_, different parts of the verb as in _veto_ and
_affidavit_. _Recipe_ is the imperative directing the apothecary to take
certain drugs, and _dirge_ is from another imperative, the _dirige_,
_Domine_ of Psalm v. 8, used as an antiphon in the service for the dead.

As French was full of learned Latin words, so Latin in its turn abounded
in expressions borrowed from the Greek, and thus Greek words were
through the Latin adopted into French and English. With one or two very
early exceptions to be mentioned later, all the Greek words found in
English before the XVIth Century are derived from Latin sources, and
are spelt and pronounced, not as they were in Greek, but as the Romans
spelt and pronounced them. The Greek _u_ became a _y_ in Latin, and the
_k_ a _c_; when after the Roman time _c_ lost the sound of _k_ before
_e_ and _i_ and _y_, the pronunciation of many Greek words was changed,
and we get a word like the modern _cycle_, which is very unlike the
Greek _kuklos_. Other Greek words have been early adopted into the
popular vocabulary, and have undergone the strange transformations
that popular words undergo. Learned names for diseases and flowers are
peculiarly liable to be affected by this process; thus _dropsy_ stands
for the Greek _hydropsis_, _palsy_ for _paralysis_, _emerald_ for the
Greek _smaragdos_; _athanasia_ has become _tansy_, and _karuophyllon
gillyflower_ in English. This process still goes on whenever a Greek
word comes into common and popular use; _pediment_ is believed to be a
workingman's corruption, through _perimint_, of _pyramid_; _banjo_ has
come to us through the pronunciation of negro slaves from the Spanish
_bandurria_, which is ultimately derived from the Greek _pandoura_; and
we are now witnessing the struggle of the Genius of the Language with
the popular but somewhat indigestible word _cinematograph_.

By the middle of the XVIth Century, Greek was so well known in England
that scholars began to borrow from it directly, without the intervention
of French and Latin. These were all learned adoptions, and they were for
the most part conducted in an absurdly learned way; these old scholars
took a pedantic pride in adorning their pages with the actual Greek
letters, and thus words like _acme_, _apotheosis_, and many others are
in XVIth and XVIIth Century books often printed in Greek type. Very
lately in the XIXth Century a tendency has shown itself to adopt words,
not with the Latin, but with the original Greek spelling (as nearly as
we can reproduce it), and now, with our modern passion for correctness,
and the modern weakening of the traditions of the language, words,
especially scientific terms, tend to keep their Greek appearance, as we
see in a word like _kinetics_, which would have become _cinetics_ had it
been borrowed earlier.

This short account of the Greek element in English must suffice for the
present, although the enormous influence of Greek on our language is
by no means to be measured by the number of Greek words in English.
For a very large part of our vocabulary of thought and culture comes
from Greece by means of literal translations into Latin. Of these words
we shall speak when we come to the history of thought and culture,
and in that division of our subject we can best treat of our later
borrowings from modern languages, such as Dutch and Spanish, and all
the travellers' words brought into English from Indian, African, and
American languages. There remain, however, three other elements of early
English--the Celtic, the Scandinavian, and the Teutonic words that have
come to us through French or Italian channels.

It is one of the puzzles of English philology that so very few words
of Celtic origin have been adopted into the language. The Teutonic
invaders found and conquered a Celtic race dwelling in England; there
is evidence to show that the conquered race was not entirely massacred,
but that a large portion of it was united with the conquerors, and yet
the number of Celtic words adopted into English before the XIIth Century
is less than a dozen, and several of these were probably imported from
Ireland or the Continent. _Bin_ and _dun_ (a colour), _coomb_ (a small
valley), and one or two more words are the only ones that seem to have
been derived from the native British; and _down_ (a hill) may have been
borrowed from them, or perhaps brought by the Anglo-Saxons into England.
Since 1200 more words have been adopted from Irish or Scotch Gaelic, but
most of these, like _brogue_, _bog_, _galore_, _pillion_, _shamrock_,
are of fairly recent introduction; and it is certainly very curious that
no word of any great importance has been borrowed by the English from
their Welsh-speaking neighbours. Many more Celtic words have come into
our language indirectly through French channels. The Romans borrowed
a few Celtic terms; the original inhabitants of Gaul were Celts, the
Bretons still speak a Celtic language, and from these sources a number
of Celtic words have found their way into French, and from French into
English. Among these words of probable or possible Celtic origin may be
mentioned _battle_, _beak_, _bray_ (of a donkey), _budget_, _car_ (and
its derivatives, _career_, _cargo_, _cark_, _carry_, _cart_, _charge_,
_chariot_, etc.), _carpenter_, _gravel_, _league_, _mutton_, _tan_,
_truant_, _valet_, _varlet_, _vassal_. Many more words than these are
commonly given as being of Celtic origin, but the tendency of modern
scholarship is to decrease the number of Celtic words in English: and
even in the above list many are considered to be very doubtful. One
curious and charming form is found in the Irish-English with which we
have been delighted lately, namely a literal translation of Celtic
idioms into English, as in such phrases as "Is herself at home?" "Is it
reading you are?" "He interrupted me, and I writing my letters."

The French not only brought us a number of Celtic words, but an even
larger number of native Teutonic terms came back to our Teutonic speech
through French channels--words that we had lost, words that had arisen
in Germany after our ancestors came to England, or Frenchified forms
which supplanted the Anglo-Saxon words derived from the same source.
The Teutonic barbarians who served in the Roman armies added some words
to the Latin language; the Franks who conquered France and gave their
name to that country, the Gothic and Burgundian invaders, enriched the
French language with many terms of war, of feudalism, and of sport; and
finally the Norman Conquerors of the XIth Century added a few terms,
mostly nautical, of their original Scandinavian speech, such as _equip_,
_flounder_ (the fish), and perhaps the verb to _sound_. Nearly three
hundred Teutonic words altogether have come to us from French sources,
and form no inconsiderable or unimportant addition to the language.
Moreover, if we compare these travelled words with their stay-at-home
relations, we can in many cases see what richness of meaning they have
gained by being steeped in the great Romance civilization of Europe.
_Park_, for instance, is a Teutonic word, ennobled by French usage far
beyond the meaning of its humble native cousin _paddock_; _blue_, by
passing through southern minds, has acquired a brilliance not to be
found in our dialect _blae_, of dark and dingy colour; our _bench_ has
become through Italian the _bank_ of finance, and has given rise to
_banquet_; and among other homely old German words thus embellished
by their foreign travels may be mentioned _dance_, _garden_, _gaiety_,
_salon_, _harbinger_, _gonfalon_, _banner_, and _herald_.

The other great Teutonic addition to the English language is that from
Scandinavian sources. When the Danes came to England, they brought with
them a language now called "Old Norse," which was closely related to
Anglo-Saxon. Many of the words, however, were different, and a large
number of these were ultimately taken into English. As, however, our
earliest English literature was almost all written in the dialect of the
South, where the Danes did not settle, but few Scandinavian words appear
in English before the XIIth Century. When, however, the language of
the Midlands and the North, where there were large Danish settlements,
began to be written, the strong infusion of Scandinavian elements became
apparent. And from the northern dialects, which abound in Old Norse
words, standard English has ever since been borrowing terms; a great
army of them appear in the XIIIth Century, words so strong and vigorous
as to drive out their Anglo-Saxon equivalents, as _take_ and _cast_
replaced the Anglo-Saxon _niman_ and _weorpan_, and _raise_ has driven
the old English _rear_ into the archaic language of poetry. Even when
the English words have survived, they have sometimes been assimilated
to the Scandinavian form, as in words like _give_ and _sister_. Other
familiar words of Scandinavian origin are _call_, _fellow_, _get_,
_hit_, _leg_, _low_, _root_, _same_, _skin_, _want_, _wrong_. The
familiar everyday and useful character of these words shows how great is
the Danish influence on the language, and how strongly the Scandinavian
element persisted when the two races were amalgamated. This drifting
into standard English of Scandinavian words from northern dialects still
goes on; the following words are possibly of Scandinavian origin, and
have made their appearance from dialects into literary English at about
the dates which are appended to them: _billow_ (1552), to _batten_
(1591), _clumsy_ (1597), _blight_ (1619), _doze_ (1647), _gill_ or
_ghyll_ (a steep ravine, Wordsworth, 1787), a _beck_ (a stream, Southey,
1795), to _nag_ (1835), and to _scamp_ (1837).

It is from these and some other minor sources, to be mentioned later,
that English has derived its curiously mixed character, and the great
variety and richness of its vocabulary. No purist has ever objected to
the Teutonic words that have come to us from Scandinavian or French
sources; but the upsetting of so large a part of the French, Latin,
and Greek vocabularies into English speech is a more or less unique
phenomenon in the history of language, and its supposed advantages
or disadvantages have been the subject of much discussion. Writers
who attempt to criticize and estimate the value of different forms of
speech often begin with an air of impartiality, but soon arrive at the
comfortable conclusion that their own language, owing to its manifest
advantages, its beauties, its rich powers of expression, is on the
whole by far the best and noblest of all living forms of speech. The
Frenchman, the German, the Italian, the Englishman, to each of whom his
own literature and the great traditions of his national life are most
dear and familiar, cannot help but feel that the vernacular in which
these are embodied and expressed is, and must be, superior to the alien
and awkward languages of his neighbours; nor can he easily escape the
conclusion that in respect to his own speech, whatever has happened has
been an advantage, and whatever is is good.

It will be as well, therefore, in regard to this question of a mixed
vocabulary, to state as impartially as is humanly possible the
considerations on which the two opposing ideals are based--the ideal of
a pure language, built up as much as possible on native sources, and
that of a comprehensive speech, borrowing the words from other nations.

Let us begin with the ideal of "purity," which in many European
languages, such as German, Bohemian, and modern Greek, is leading to
determined efforts to keep out foreign words, and to drive out those
that have already been adopted. The upholders of this ideal maintain
that extensive borrowing from other nations is a proof of want of
imagination, and a certain weakness of mental activity; that a people
who cannot, or do not, take the trouble to find native words for new
conceptions, show thereby the poverty of their invention, and the
weakness of their "speech-feeling." The desire to use foreign terms
comes, these patriots of language believe, partly also from vanity, to
show one's familiarity with foreign culture; and they claim that the
use of native compounds for abstract ideas is a great advantage, as it
enables even the uneducated to obtain some notion of the meaning of
these high terms. They maintain, moreover, that just as an old-fashioned
farmer prided himself on procuring the main staples of life from his own
farm and garden, and found a fresher taste in the fruit and vegetables
of his own growing, so we find in words which are the product of our
own soil, and are akin to the ancient terms of our speech, an intimate
meaning, and a beauty not possessed by exotic products. These words
breed in us a proud sense of the old and noble race from which we are
descended; they link the present to the past, and carry on the tradition
of our nation to the new generations. The Main upholders of this view
are the modern Germans, who take a great pride in the purity of their
language, and compare it to that of Greece, which, in spite of the
immense influence on it of Eastern civilization, and the great number
of ideas and products it borrowed from thence, yet has so strong a
feeling for language, and so great a pride of race, that the Greek of
classical times possessed no more than a few hundred words borrowed from
other tongues.

In Germany, therefore, since the XVIIth Century, a deliberate effort
has arisen to make the language still more pure, and societies have
been formed for this especial purpose. This movement has grown with the
growth of national unity, and a powerful society, the _Sprachverein_,
has been recently founded, and has published handbooks of native words
for almost every department of modern life.

Although English is so hopelessly mixed a language that any such
attempt to "purify" it would be hopeless, nevertheless the use of Saxon
words has often been advocated among us, and even here lists have been
suggested of native compounds that might replace some of our foreign
terms; as _steadholder_ for lieutenant, _whimwork_ for grotesque,
_folkward_ for parapet, and _folkwain_ for omnibus.

Those, however, who defend a mixed language like Latin or English,
maintain that the ideal of purity is really in its essence a political
and not a philological one; that it is due to political aspirations
or resentments; that the Germans desire to banish, with their French
words, the memory of the long literary and political domination of
France over their native country; that for the same reason the Bohemians
wish to rid themselves of German words, the modern Greeks of Turkish
terms. They hold that the patriots in language are the victims also of
a fallacy which all history disproves--the fallacy, namely, that there
is some connection between the purity of language and the purity of
race; that most modern races, however pure their language, are of mixed
origins, and that many races speak a tongue borrowed either from their
conquerors, or from the peoples they have themselves subdued. And as
we are all of mixed race, so our civilization is equally derived from
various sources; ideas, products, and inventions spread from one nation
to another, and finally become the common inheritance of humanity, and
they hold it, therefore, a natural process for foreign names to spread
with foreign ideas, and to form a common vocabulary, the beginnings of
an international speech, in which we can all, to some extent, at least
understand each other. An independent nation, conscious of its strength,
and not afraid of being overwhelmed by foreign influences, does well,
therefore, in their view, to welcome the foreign names of foreign
products. It does not thus corrupt, but really enriches its language;
and even when, as in English, it possesses a multitude of synonyms,
partly native and partly foreign, for more or less the same conceptions,
this variety of terms is a great advantage; for the Genius of the
Language, which works more by making use of existing terms than by
creating them, is enabled to give to each a different shade of meaning.
Thus, as Mr. Bradley points out, the subtle shades of difference of
meaning, of emotional significance, between such pairs of words in
English as _paternal_ and _fatherly_, _fortune_ and _luck_, _celestial_
and _heavenly_, _royal_ and _kingly_, could not easily be rendered in
any other language. While the upholders of this view would admit that
the words of Saxon origin are as a rule more vivid and expressive,
they maintain that this expressiveness is largely due to the existence
with them of less vivid synonyms from the Latin, and that these words,
moreover, can be appropriately employed for statements in which we wish
to avoid over-emphasis, a force of diction stronger than the feelings
we wish to express, which is a fault of style as reprehensible and
often more annoying than inadequate expression. The great demand,
moreover, in an age of science is for clearness of thought and precise
definition in language rather than for emotional power, and it is often
an advantage for the expression of abstract ideas, to possess terms
borrowed for this purpose only from a foreign language, which express
their abstract meaning and nothing more, unhindered by the rich but
confusing associations of native etymology. From this point of view
abstract words like our _intuition_, _perception_, _representation_, are
much clearer than their German equivalents; _osteology_ and _pathology_
to be preferred to _bonelore_ and _painlore_, which have been suggested
by Saxon enthusiasts to take their place. And even for the purposes of
poetry and association, they believe that it is no small gain that the
descendants of rude Teutonic tribes, inhabiting a remote and northern
island, should become the inheritors of the traditions of the great
Greek and Latin civilization of the South. These traditions, the rich
accumulations of poetic and historic memories, are embodied in, and
cling to, the great classical words we have borrowed; _magnanimity_,
_omnipotence_, _palace_, _contemplate_, still give echoes to us of the
greatness of ancient Rome; and the arts and lofty thought of Greece
still live in great Greek words like _philosophy_, _astronomy_, _poem_,
_planet_, _idea_, and _tragedy_.

These, then, are the two opposing ideals--nationalism in language, as
against borrowing; a pure, as opposed to a mixed, language. To those
for whom nationalism is the important thing in modern life, and who
could wish that their own race should derive its language and thought
from native sources, a "pure" language is the ideal form of speech;
while those who regard the great inheritance of European culture as
the element of most importance in civilization, will not regret the
composite character of the English language, the happy marriage which
it shows of North and South, or wish to deprive it of those foreign
elements which go to make up its unparalleled richness and variety.




CHAPTER III

MODERN ENGLISH


The flooding of the English vocabulary with French words began, as we
have seen, in the XIIIth Century, and reached very large proportions
in the century that followed. At the same time Anglo-French, which had
maintained itself for two hundred years or more as the language of the
governing classes, gradually fell into disuse, and in 1362 English
was adopted in the law courts, and at about the same time in the
schools. And yet, properly speaking, there was before the latter part
of the XIVth Century no English language, no standard form of speech,
understood by all, and spoken everywhere by the educated classes. When
such restraining and conservative influence as was exercised by the
West-Saxon language of the court had been removed at the Conquest, the
centrifugal forces, which are always present in language, and tend to
split it up into varieties of speech, had begun to assert themselves;
and the old dialects of England diverged, until the inhabitants of each
part of the country could hardly understand each other. The dialects
of this period can be roughly divided into three main divisions, which
correspond to the divisions of speech in the pre-Conquest period, but
are called by new names. In all the country south of the Thames, what
is called the Southern dialect was spoken, and this was a descendant
of the West-Saxon speech which, under Alfred the Great, had become
the literary language of England. North of the Thames there were two
main dialects: the Midland, corresponding to the Old Mercian; and the
Northern, extending from the Humber to Aberdeen, and corresponding to
the Old Northumbrian. In each of these districts authors, as far as they
wrote in English at all, wrote in their own native dialect; and in the
middle of the XIVth Century it must have seemed that the development
of no common form of English speech was possible. But as at first the
Northern, or Northumbrian, dialect had developed in the VIIIth Century
into a literary language, and then had been replaced by the Southern
or West-Saxon, so now the neglected speech of Mercia, the Midland, was
destined to attain that supremacy which it has since never lost. The
Southern dialect was very conservative of old forms and inflections; in
the Northern, owing to the Danish settlements, changes had been rapidly
going on, so that these two had become almost separate languages.
The Midland, however, less progressive than the Northern, but more
advanced than the Southern, stood between the two, and was more or less
comprehensible to the speakers of each dialect. Moreover, the Midland,
being the speech of London, naturally became familiar to men of business
and of the educated classes, who frequented the capital; and it was the
language of the two great universities as well. Philologists divide this
Midland dialect into two subdivisions: West Midland, which was more
conservative and archaic in type; and East Midland, which had been more
affected by Danish influence, and was somewhat more progressive than the
West. It was, then, this East Midland, spoken in England and in Oxford
and Cambridge, which was adopted as our standard speech.

This result was no doubt greatly helped by the greatest man of literary
genius in this period, the poet Chaucer. The part played by Ennius in
the formation of classical Latin is well known; Dante did much to form
modern Italian, the German language owes an immense debt to Luther; and
in the same way Chaucer has been claimed as the "Father of the English
language." This view has, indeed, been recently disputed, and it is
now admitted that the Midland dialect would have become the standard
speech, even if Chaucer had never written. At the same time, but for
his influence, and the great popularity of his writings, this process
would probably have been more hesitating and slow. He found, indeed,
an already cultivated language in the Midland dialect, but he wrote it
with an ease, an elegance and regularity hitherto unknown; giving it
the stamp of high literature, and making it the vehicle for his wide
cultivation and his knowledge of the world. A Londoner of the citizen
class, a courtier as well, a traveller and diplomatist, he was admirably
fitted to sum up and express in modern speech the knowledge and varied
interests of his time; and when we add to this the splendid accident of
genius, and the immense popularity of his poems, we see how great his
influence must have been, although the exact character of that influence
is not quite easy to define.

Probably in addition to the ease and polish he gave the language,
Chaucer's greatest contribution was the large number of words he
borrowed from French and naturalized in the language. It has, indeed,
been said that there is no proof that any of the foreign words in his
writings had not been used before; and this is, of course, strictly
true, as it is impossible to prove a negative of this kind. But as the
_Oxford Dictionary_ shows, the number of these words not to be found in
any previous writings now extant is really immense; to his translation
of Boethius, to his work on Astrology, to his prose and poems, are
traced a large number of our great and important words, besides many
learned terms, _attention_, _diffusion_, _fraction_, _duration_,
_position_, first found in Chaucer, and then not apparently used again
till the XVIth Century. Almost equally important in their influence on
the language were the Wyclif translations of the Bible, made public at
about the same time as Chaucer's poems. Wyclif, like Chaucer, wrote in
the dialect of the East Midlands; like Chaucer he possessed a genius for
language, and in number and importance his contributions to the English
vocabulary seem (according to the results published in the _Oxford
Dictionary_) to have almost, if not quite, equalled those of Chaucer.
While Chaucer borrowed mainly from the French, Wyclif's new words are
largely adaptations from the Latin of the Vulgate; and, as he finds it
necessary to explain many of these words by notes, it is fairly certain
that he himself regarded them as innovations.

With the growing importance, then, of the East Midland dialect, and with
the stamp set upon it by Chaucer and Wyclif, and the immense popularity
of their writings, we witness at the end of the XIVth Century what we
may consider to be the birth of the English language as we know it.
Despised, ruined, and destroyed; for three centuries ousted from its
pride of place by an alien tongue, and then almost swamped by the inrush
of foreign words, yet, like the fabled bird of Arabia, it arose swiftly
from its ashes, and spread its wings for new and hitherto unequalled
flights. The English of Chaucer and Wyclif was now accepted as the
standard language of the country, and all the other and rival dialects
sank to the level of uneducated and local forms of speech, with the
exception of one variety of the Northern or Northumbrian dialect, which
was developed into the Scottish language, received a considerable amount
of literary cultivation, and remained the standard speech of Scotland,
until the union of the two countries at the death of Queen Elizabeth.

But although Chaucer's English is substantially the language that we
speak, and there are whole pages of Chaucer that a person of ordinary
education can read with little difficulty, such a reader will perceive
at once great differences between the English of the XIVth Century and
that of our own day; and should he not read, but have read to him,
Chaucer's poems, with their correct and contemporary pronunciation,
the difference would seem still more startling. For no language, of
course, ever remains unchanged, but undergoes a perpetual process of
transformation; the sounds of many vowels and consonants are slowly
shifted; the old words become outworn or change their meaning, and new
terms are needed to replace them; and with the passing of time, fresh
experiences are acquired, and new ways of thought and feeling become
popular, and these also demand and find their appropriate terminology.
Grammar also becomes more simple, but on the whole the change of English
since Chaucer's time has been a change in vocabulary; and to this we
shall return in a later chapter. There are, however, certain changes
of a formal character which should be mentioned before we approach the
history of the language in its connection with the history of culture.

By the end of the XIVth Century, as we have seen, the Midland dialect
was established as standard English; the introduction of the printing
press in the XVth Century, and especially the works printed and
published by Caxton, made its supremacy undisputed, and practically
fixed its form for the future. Caxton's English is, as we might expect,
more modern than that of Chaucer; the spelling, although to our eyes
old-fashioned, is more definite and settled, and any one of us can read
Caxton's English with very little difficulty.

Two influences of the XVIth Century had a marked effect on the English
language, one European and the other national. The revival of learning,
the renewed study of classical Latin, the growth of the cosmopolitan
Republic of learned humanists who drove out the old Low Latin of the
Middle Ages and devoted themselves to the cultivation of an elegant and
Ciceronian prose, made at first the enthusiasts of the new learning
somewhat disdainful of their mother tongues. They saw how rapidly these
native languages were changing, and naturally believed that to write in
the vernacular was to write in a local and perishing speech--awkward,
moreover, and barbarous, and unfitted to embody high thoughts and
scholarly distinctions. While, therefore, these scholars somewhat
neglected their native tongues, or wrote in them with apologies and
condescension, their study, nevertheless, of classical models, their
care for the art of speech, their love of apt and beautiful words and
rhythms and phrases, did much to mould the literary languages of modern
Europe, and added to them many graces of style, expression, and music.
Towards the middle of the XVIth Century another and opposing influence
began to make itself felt. With the Reformation, and the growth of
national feeling under Henry VIII and his Tudor successors, English
scholars began to value more highly the institutions and the language of
their own country.

The Church services were now in English; English translations of the
Bible were printed, and the beauty of these services and translations
opened men's eyes to the value and expressiveness of their native
tongue. English became what it had never been before--the object
of serious study; and the native element, which had tended to be
overshadowed by the Latinity of the Humanists, was now more valued under
the Teutonic influence of the Reformation. There were now patriots who
started the ideal of a pure language, freed as much as possible from
foreign elements; while others attempted, often too successfully, as
we have seen, to remodel words of foreign derivation. We now reach,
in fact, the stage of a self-conscious language, no longer allowed to
develop at its own free will, unbound by rules or study, but affected,
both for good and evil, by the theories and ideals of writers and
learned men. In the Elizabethan period, however, when the influences of
the classical revival and of the growth of national pride in England
and things English both reached their highest mark, and were mingled
together by the exuberant vitality and creative force of the time,
the new ideal of "correctness" could as yet make but little headway
against the opposing forces of innovation and experiment. The language
was still in a plastic and unformed state; writers and speakers with
a whole world of new thoughts to express, reached out eagerly and
uncritically to every source from which they could derive means of
expression--"ink-horn" terms, strange coinages, pedantic borrowings,
fashions and affectations, were mingled with archaisms and sham
antiques; while the needs of popular preaching and discussion brought
into common and even literary use many colloquialisms and homely old
Saxon words.

The result was a language of unsurpassed richness and beauty, which,
however, defies all rules. To the Elizabethans it seemed as if almost
any word could be used in any grammatical relation--adverbs for verbs,
for nouns or adjectives, nouns and adjectives for verbs and adverbs.
Thus, as Dr. Abbot points out in his _Shakespearian Grammar_, "You can
_happy_ your friend, _malice_ or _foot_ your enemy, or _fall_ an axe
on his neck." _A he_ is used for a man, _a she_ for a woman, and every
variety of what is now considered bad grammar--plural nominatives with
singular verbs, double negatives, double comparatives (_more better_,
etc.), are commonly employed.

The end of this period of Tudor English and the beginning of modern
English coincides with the appearance of a Revised Version of the
English Bible, published in 1611. In the earlier part of the XVIIth
Century the borrowing of learned words, especially from the Latin,
though now also to a certain extent direct from the Greek, went on
apace. Indeed, by now the English had adopted far more new material
than it could assimilate; and at the Restoration, when a new ideal of
language prevailed, and speech tended more towards the easy elegance
of a cultivated man of fashion, the vocabulary was sifted, and many of
these cumbrous and tremendous terms of XVIth and XVIIth Century thought
and theology fell into disuse.

With the Restoration also came a new wave of French influence. Charles
II and his Court had lived long in France; French fashions were supreme
at the English Court, polite speech and literature was once more fitted
with French expressions; and it became now, as we have seen, the custom
not to naturalize these borrowed words, but to preserve as much as
possible their native pronunciation. The structure of the English
sentence, moreover, was modified owing to French influence; and the
stately and splendid old English prose, with its rolling sentences
and involved clauses of dogmatic assertion or inspired metaphor,
gave place to a more and more concise, easy, and limpid statement,
without the eagle-high flights of the old English, but also without
its cumbersomeness, awkwardness, and obscurity. With the learned Latin
words that were now discarded, many old English terms fell into disuse,
and the English language in the XVIIIth Century suffered something of
the same "purification" or impoverishment which in the XVIIth Century
reduced the literary vocabulary of French by an enormous number of
native words.

With the Romantic Movement, however, at the end of the XVIIIth and
the beginning of the XIXth Century, and with also the increased
historical sense and interest in the past, many of these old words
were revived; and we are probably now much nearer to Chaucer, not
only in our understanding of his age, but also in our comprehension
of his language, than our ancestors were at the time when Dryden and
his contemporaries found it almost incomprehensible without special
study. Indeed, the fifty years between the death of Shakespeare and the
Restoration created a much wider gulf between the courtiers of Charles
II and those of Elizabeth than the three hundred years which divide
us from that period, and Shakespeare and Spenser are much more easily
comprehended by us than by the men of letters who were born not many
years after the death of these great poets.

Besides the shifting of the English vocabulary and the extinction of
superfluous words, another and more subtle process has been steadily
going on, and has done much to enrich our language. Owing to its varied
sources our language was, as we have seen, provided with a great
number of synonyms--words of different form, but expressing the same
meaning. But this superfluity of terms was soon turned to a good use
by the ever vigilant Genius of the Language; little by little slightly
different meanings began to attach themselves to these different
words; each gradually asserted for itself its separate sphere of
expression, from which the others were excluded; until often two words
which could originally be used indifferently have come to have quite
separate and distinct meanings. This differentiation, or, as it is
called, "desynonymization," of words is most plainly seen where two
words, one from a Saxon and one from a Latin or Greek source, have
begun with identical meanings, but have gradually diverged, as _pastor_
and _shepherd_, _foresight_ and _providence_, _boyish_ and _puerile_,
_homicide_ and _murder_. Often, however, the two words are derived
from the same language, as _ingenuous_ and _ingenious_, _invent_ and
_discover_, _astrology_ and _astronomy_, and many others. Or one word
with two different spellings, both of which were used indifferently,
has become two distinct words, each of which appropriates a part of the
original meaning. Thus our word _human_ was generally spelt _humane_
till the beginning of the XVIIIth Century, though _human_ occasionally
appeared. Then, however, the distinction between what men are, and what
they ought to be, arose, and _human_ was adopted for the first, and the
old spelling _humane_ for the other idea. So _divers_ and _diverse_
were originally the same word, and not distinguished in spelling till
the XVIIth Century; and the distinctions between _corps_ and _corpse_,
_cloths_ and _clothes_, _flour_ and _flower_ were not established before
quite modern times.

These are obvious distinctions, which we can all understand at once,
although the exact process which produces them remains, like so much
in language, somewhat mysterious and unknown. But, as we have seen
in the development of grammatical distinctions, the Genius of the
Language is often extremely subtle and delicate in its analysis, so
subtle that although we feel instinctively the discriminations that it
makes, we cannot, without some effort, understand the distinctions of
thought on which they are based. Often, indeed, our usage will be right
when the reason we give for it is entirely mistaken. The human mind,
half-consciously aware of infinite shades of thought and feeling which
it wishes to express, chooses with admirable discrimination, though by
no deliberate act, among the materials provided for it by historical
causes or mere accidents of spelling, differing forms to express its
inner meaning; stamps them with the peculiar shade it wishes to express,
and uses them for its delicate purposes; and thus with admirable but
unforeseen design, finds a beautiful and appropriate and subtle clothing
for its thought. To take a simple instance of these distinctions in the
use of words, we would all speak of _riding_ in an omnibus, a tramcar,
or a farmer's cart, in which we were given a lift on the road, but of
_driving_ in a cab or carriage which we own or hire; many of us would
not, however, be aware that the distinction we make between the two
words is really due to the sense that in the case of the omnibus or
farmer's cart the vehicle is not under our own control, while the cab
or carriage is. So also in modern standard English (though not in the
English of the United States) a distinction which we feel, but many of
us could not define, is made between _forward_ and _forwards_; forwards
being used in definite contrast to any other direction, as "if you move
at all, you can only move forwards," while _forward_ is used where no
such contrast is implied, as in the common phrase "to bring a matter
forward."

Distinctions and nice discriminations of this kind are continually
arising and attempting to establish themselves in the language, and
we can all witness now the struggle going on to define the usages
of the three adjectives _Scots_, _Scottish_, and _Scotch_. Another
distinction now tending to establish itself is between the terminations
of agent-nouns in _er_ and _or_. We speak of _sailor_, but of a boat
being a good _sailer_; of a _respecter_ of persons, but an _inspector_
of nuisances; or a _projector_, and the _rejecter_ who opposes him.
Here, again, the distinction is a somewhat subtle one, the agent-noun
in _or_ implying a trade or profession or habitual function, while that
in _er_ has no such special meaning. It is in instances of this kind,
in the variations of our own speech, and that of others, that the study
of words enables us to observe in little the processes and somewhat
mysterious workings of those forces to which are due the perpetual
change and development of national ways and usages and institutions.




CHAPTER IV

WORD-MAKING IN ENGLISH


It is not merely by borrowing from abroad, or by discriminations between
already existing words, that our vocabulary is increased. New words can
easily be created in English, and are being created almost every day;
and a large part of our speech is made up of terms we have formed for
ourselves out of old and familiar material. One of the simplest ways of
forming a new word is that of making compounds, the joining together of
two or more separate terms to make a third. This method of making words
was very commonly employed in Greek, but was rare in classical Latin,
as it is rare in French. In German it is extremely common, where almost
any words can be joined together, and compounds are formed, often of
enormous length. In the facility of forming compounds, English stands
between the French and German; the richness of old English in this
respect has been modified by French and Latin influence; and here, as
in vocabulary, English is partly Teutonic and partly French. The most
common of our English compounds are those in which two nouns are joined
together, the second expressing a general meaning, which is somehow
modified or limited by the first. Thus, to take modern instances, a
_railway_ is a way formed by rails, a _steamboat_ is a boat propelled
by steam, a _school board_ is a board which controls schools, a _board
school_ is one of the schools managed by that board. Words compounded
in this way preserve for a while the sense of their separate existence;
soon, however, they come to be spelt with a hyphen, like _lawn-tennis_
or _motor-car_, and before long they are joined into one word like
_rainfall_ or _goldfield_; and sometimes we cease to think of them as
compounds at all, and the form of one or other of the words is forgotten
and transformed, as _day's eye_ has become _daisy_, and _Christ's mass
Christmas_.

But compounds can be formed by joining together almost any parts
of speech, and sometimes more than two words are combined in a
compound, as in the old _hop-o'-my-thumb_, and in the XIXth Century
_rough-and-ready_, _hard-and-fast_, _daddy-long-legs_. We have also in
English a curious kind of compound verb, where an adverb is used with a
verb without actual union, as to _give up_, to _break out_, etc. In this
kind of formation the XIXth Century was especially rich, and gave birth
to many such modern expressions as _to boil down_, _to go under_, _to
hang on_, _to back down_, _to own up_, _to take over_, _to run across_.
Verbs of this kind, though often colloquial, add an idiomatic power to
the language, and enable it to express many fine distinctions of thought
and meaning.

On the whole, however, the formation of new compounds is not of enormous
importance to modern English; and the language has certainly lost some
of its original power in this respect. Compounds, moreover, tend to die
out more quickly than other words; the Genius of the Language seems to
prefer a simple term for a simple notion; and a word made up of two
others, each of which vividly suggests a separate idea, is apt to seem
awkward to us unless we can conveniently forget the original meanings.
Word-composition really belongs to an earlier stage of language, where
the object of speech was to appeal to the imagination and feelings
rather than to the intellect; and we find, perhaps, the most vivid and
idiomatic of English compounds in words of abuse and contempt like
_lickspittle_, _skinflint_, _swillpot_, _spitfire_. The excitement of
passion heats more readily than anything else the crucible of language
in which is fused, ready for coining, the material for new words; and
the abusive epithets of a language are always among its most picturesque
and most imaginative words.

For the poets also, who, like the vituperators, make their appeal to
feeling and imagination, this method of making words is most valuable;
and, being allowed great freedom in this respect, they have, by their
beautiful and audacious compounds, added some of the most exquisite
and expressive phrases to the English language. Chaucer and the
earlier poets hardly employed this method of coining epithets; but
with the influence of the classical renaissance, and the translations
from Homer and the Greek poets, whose works are so rich in compound
epithets, this method of expression was largely adopted, and has
added to the language many compound adjectives which are little poems
in themselves--Shakespeare's _young-eyed_ cherubims, for instance, or
Milton's _grey-hooded_ even, or _coral-paven_ floor.

The commonest way of making new words is by what is called derivation.
We are all familiar with this method by which a prefix or suffix is
added to an already existing word, as _coolness_ is formed by adding the
suffix _ness_ to _cool_, or in _distrust dis_ is prefixed to _trust_.
Many of these affixes we know to have been originally separate words, as
_dom_, in _freedom_, _kingdm_, etc., represents the Anglo-Saxon _dm_,
"statute, jurisdiction," and _hood_ in _childhood_, _priesthood_, etc.,
is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _hd_, meaning "person," "quality,"
or "rank." Our affixes, however, are no longer words by themselves,
but carriers of general ideas, which we add to words to modify their
meaning. Thus, if we take the old English word _cloud_, we find a verb
formed from it, to _becloud_, adjectives in _cloudy_, _clouding_,
_clouded_, an adverb in _cloudily_, a substantive in _clouding_, an
abstract noun in _cloudiness_, and a diminutive in _cloudlet_. Or if
a word like _critic_ is borrowed, and finds a soil favourable to its
development, it soon puts forth various parts of speech, an adjective
_critical_, an adverb _critically_, substantives abstract and concrete,
in _criticalness_ and _criticism_, and a verb in _criticize_, which
in its turn begets a noun and adjective in _criticizing_, and another
agent-noun in _criticizer_.

A full list of the affixes in English will be found in any book of
English philology or grammar, with their history and the rules, as
far as there are definite rules, for their correct usage. They can be
divided into two classes--those of native and those of foreign origin.
The most ancient of our derivative words, the small handful from the
rich Anglo-Saxon vocabulary which has survived, are all, of course,
formed from native affixes, and many of these affixes, _ness_, _less_,
_ful_, _ly_, _y_, etc., are still in living use. But when in the XIIIth
Century a large number of French words were borrowed, a great many of
these brought with them their derivatives, formed on French or Latin
models, and, as Mr. Bradley says, "when such pairs of words as _derive_
and _derivation_, _esteem_ and _estimation, aud_ and _laudation_,
_condemn_ and _condemnation_, had found their way into the English
vocabulary, it was natural the suffix _ation_ should be recognized by
English speakers as an allowable means of forming 'nouns of action'
out of verbs." In this way a large part of the French machinery of
derivation has been naturalized in English--we freely form other nouns
in _age_ (_porterage_, etc.); in _ment_ (_acknowledgment_, _amazement_,
_atonement_); in _ery_ (_bakery_, _brewery_, etc.). We form adjectives,
too, in _al_, _ous_, _ose_, _ese_, _ary_, _able_, etc.; verbs in _fy_,
_ate_, _ize_, and _ish_. These French suffixes are for the most part
derived from the Latin; _ard_, however, in _coward_, etc., and _esque_
in _picturesque_, came into French from a German source; _ade_, in
_arcade_, _balustrade_, _crusade_, is from the Spanish or Italian; while
_ism_, _ize_, _ic_, and the feminine suffix _ess_ are ultimately derived
through Latin from the Greek.

It is often maintained by the purists of language that these borrowed
affixes should only be used for foreign words, that for our own native
words only our native machinery should be employed. Letters continually
appear in the newspapers denouncing this or that new formation as a
hybrid, and begging all respectable people to help in casting it out
from the language. There is, no doubt, a certain truth in the point of
view; and the linguistic sense of all of us would be rightly shocked
by such an adjective as _fishic_ or _fishous_ for _fishy_, or such
a noun as _dampment_ for _dampness_. But a little examination of
the linguistic usage will show that no such rule can be absolutely
enforced. Latin borrowed Greek affixes, French borrowed them from
German, and freely used them in forming new French words; many of our
noblest old English words, as _atonement_, _amazement_, _forbearance_,
_fulfilment_, _goddess_, etc., are formed by adding foreign suffixes
to English words; while English suffixes have been freely added to
foreign words, as _ful_ in _beautiful_, _grateful_, _graceful_. And
when we wish to form a noun out of French or Latin adjectives ending
in _ous_, we generally employ our native _ness_ for the purpose, as in
_consciousness_, _covetousness_, etc. The foreign prefix _re_ has been
completely naturalized, and used again and again with native words, and
the modern _anti_ and _pro_ are added to English words with little
consideration of their foreign birth, and one of our suffixes, _ical_,
is itself a hybrid, combined out of Greek and Latin elements. The
established usage of the language, stated in general terms, seems to
be that foreign affixes, that have no equivalent in English, are often
thoroughly naturalized and used with English words; and that this, too,
sometimes happens when the foreign affix is simpler and more convenient
than our native one, as the Latin _re_ has replaced the old _again_,
which we find in the old verb to _again-buy_ and other similar words.
When, also, borrowed words have become thoroughly naturalized and
popular, and they are then treated as if they were natives--_cream_,
for instance, comes to us ultimately from the Greek, but it has been so
long at home, and seems so like an old English word, that it would be
insufferable pedantry to form an adjective like _creamic_ from it. So
the correct _incertain_, _ingrateful_, _illimited_, have been replaced
by the hybrids _uncertain_, _ungrateful_, _unlimited_, and _schemer_ has
taken the place of the older and more correct _schemist_. On the other
hand, where words are obviously foreign in character, we can note a
tendency, which has been at work for the last two or three centuries,
to prefer what is called "linguistic harmony"; to choose, among two
competing forms, the one which is homogeneous throughout. Thus, in
Wyclif's words _unsatiable_, _unglorious_, _undiscreet_, the native
_un_ has been replaced by the Latin _in_; _unpossible_ is used in the
Bible of 1611, but has been changed to _impossible_ in later editions;
while old hybrids like _frailness_, _gayness_, _scepticalness_,
_cruelness_ have given way to the more correct, and generally more
modern forms, _frailty_, _gaiety_, _scepticism_, _cruelty_. This change
has been rightly claimed as an instance of the unconscious exercise of
a linguistic instinct by the English people; it has not been brought
about by the efforts of learned men, but by the choice of the people at
large, and is one of the manifestations of the Genius of the Language,
which, in its capricious way, dislikes at times the incongruity in words
composed of diverse elements.

This tendency, with the modern and more diffused study of language,
has grown stronger in the XIXth Century, and with the exception of
thoroughly naturalized affixes like _al_, _ize_, _ism_, _ist_, etc.,
new hybrids, unless very convenient and expressive, find it hard to
withstand the hostile and often furious abuse and opposition which
awaits them. Since, however, such words abound in languages like late
Latin and French, on which so much of English is modelled, and since
many of our most beautiful old words are hybrids, and there was, indeed,
no objection to them in the greatest periods of English, and our great
poets and writers like Shakespeare and Milton have freely coined them,
it is possible that a wider knowledge of the history of the language
will modify this feeling, and they will in the future be judged, not by
abstract principles, but each one on its merits.

Another curious thing about these affixes, due to the inscrutable
working of the Genius of the Language, is the way in which some of
them live and remain productive, while others, for some mysterious
reason, fall into disuse and perish. _Th_, for instance, which was so
freely employed to form nouns, as in _health_, _wealth_, etc., is no
longer employed, though _growth_ was formed as late as the time of
Shakespeare; and Horace Walpole's _greenth_ or Ruskin's _illth_ could
never have had the least chance of acceptance. So, too, the prefix _for_
(corresponding to the still active German _ver_) which we find in so
many old words like _forbid_, _forgo_, _forgive_, _forlorn_, is now, in
spite of its great usefulness, quite obsolete; and if we take many of
our oldest suffixes such as _dom_, _ship_, _some_, etc., we shall find,
as we approach more modern times, that they are more and more falling
into disuse. Old words can be, and often are revived, but when an affix
perishes it seems as if no effort can restore to it its old life. Which,
then, of these instruments of verbal machinery are still living? A
collection of the most important XIXth Century coinages will show that
out of our great wealth of native suffixes but a few are still active,
while almost all our good old prefixes have fallen out of use. _Y_ is
still, of course, used, as in such modern words as _plucky_, _prosy_;
we still form adverbs with _ly_, as _brilliantly_, _enjoyably_, and
adjectives in _less_ or _ful_ or _ish_ or _ing_, as _companionless_,
and _tactful_, and _amateurish_, _exciting_, _appalling_, etc. The
most living of all our native suffixes is the old _ness_ for abstract
nouns; _boastfulness_, _blandness_, _absent-mindedness_, are all XIXth
Century words, and _ness_ has also been freely added to words of Latin
origin, as _astuteness_, _saintliness_. This suffix has almost entirely
taken the place of _ship_, as _gladness_ for _gladship_, _cleanness_
for _cleanship_; and _ship_, which has given us such beautiful words in
the past as _friendship_, _worship_, _fellowship_, is almost dead now,
_chairmanship_ being, perhaps, the only current word formed from it in
the XIXth Century. _Ness_ has also replaced _head_ or _hood_ in many
words, and also _dom_; for the XIXth Century attempts to revive _dom_,
as in Carlyle's _duncedom_, _dupedom_, have not, with the exception of
_boredom_, met with any permanent or popular success.

The Latin suffixes in English show much more vitality. Probably the most
common of them in XIXth Century formations is the use of the suffix
_al_ for forming adjectives or nouns. _Preferential_, _exceptional_,
_medieval_, are, with many others, XIXth Century words; _phenomenal_ is
a hybrid of Greek and Latin, and the nouns _betrothal_ and _betrayal_
are compounds of Latin and English. Other adjectives are freely formed
with _ous_, as _malarious_, _hilarious_, _flirtatious_; with _ive_,
as _competitive_, _introspective_; less frequently with _ary_, as
_documentary_ and _rudimentary_. _Ation_ and _ment_ are the commonest
Latin suffixes for forming nouns, as _centralization_, _mystification_,
_enactment_, _bewilderment_, and there are many new nouns ending in
_ability_ as _conceivability_, _reliability_, etc. The Latin prefix
_re_ is employed more than ever; _multi_, which was not common till
the middle of the XVIIth Century, is much used now; _counter_ is also
living; _intra_ has become popular, _pre_ and _non_ are much used, and
quite recently _pro_ as a prefix has sprung into sudden popularity, as
in _pro-Boer_, _pro-Russian_, etc. There is no precedent or analogy in
Latin for this use of _pro_, meaning "in favour of"; it seems to have
arisen from the phrase _pro and con_; we find it first in _pro-slavery_
about 1825, but it was rare until about 1896, since when, however, it
has abounded in the newspapers as a useful antithesis to the popular
_anti_. The French _age_, as in _breakage_, _cleavage_, _acreage_; and
_esque_, derived through French from the Teutonic _ish_, and used in
such words as _Dantesque, omanesque_, are still living. But by far
the most active of our affixes are Greek in origin. The suffixes _ic_,
_ism_, _ist_, _istic_ and _ize_, and _crat_ and _cracy_, are fairly
modern additions to the language, and obviously suited to the XIXth
Century, with its development of abstract thought, and its gigantic
growth of theories, creeds, doctrines, systems. With them also, to
differentiate more nicely between various shades of thought, we find,
principally in the XIXth Century, a great use is also made of Greek
prefixes like _hyper_, _pseudo_, _archi_, _neo_, besides a great number
of prefixes used in more strictly scientific terms like _dia_, _meta_,
_proto_, etc. Of all these _ism_ is the most productive; it came to
us through the French, who had adopted it from Latin; and as early as
1300 a few words from the French, like _baptism_, make their appearance
in English. By the XVIth Century _ism_ became a living element in our
language; and since then it has rapidly grown in popularity, until in
the XIXth Century more new words were formed from it than from any
other affix, and practically all the old English suffixes once used
in its place have, with the exception of _ness_, been swallowed up
and superseded by it. It is now used, not only in modern words of
Greek origin, like _hypnotism_, and still more in Latin words like
_pauperism_, _conservatism_, _commercialism_, but also for words
from other sources, as _feudalism_, _Brahminism_, etc. This is also
true of agent-nouns in _ist_ (as in the XIXth Century _scientist_,
_opportunist_, _collectivist_); of adjectives in _ic_ (_Byronic_,
_idyllic_, etc.), and of verbs in _ize_, as _minimize_, _bowdlerize_,
and many others. The XVIIth Century gave us one or two instances of
curious hybrid verbs formed with the Latin prefix _de_ and the Greek
suffix _ize_, as _decanonize_, _decardinalize_; but since the period
of the French Revolution gave birth to the verb _demoralize_, words of
this formation have become extremely popular in French and English,
and our modern vocabulary abounds in verbs like _dechristianize_,
_decentralize_, _deodorize_, _demagnetize_, etc.

This short account of the decay of our English methods of
word-formation, and the invasion of foreign affixes, which seem,
like the foreign weeds in English rivers, to be checking our native
growths, can hardly be very cheerful reading for a lover of the old
English language; and he cannot but regret the disappearance of many
of those vivid syllables to which we owe in the past so many of our
most expressive words. But as elsewhere in modern language, where
reason and imagination are at war, imagination must give way to the
claims of the intellect. Modern language is for purposes of use, not
beauty, and these abstract terms in _ism_, _ist_, and _ize_, dull and
dreary and impossible for his purposes as the poet finds them, are
yet indispensable for the hard thinking of science, and of social and
political theory.

There are other ways of forming new words, not by addition, but by
taking away one or more of the syllables or letters of which they are
composed. One of these processes is by what is called "back-formations."
Sometimes a word has a false appearance of ending with a well-known
suffix, and, to those ignorant of its character, seems to imply the
existence of an original word from which it has been formed. Thus the
old adverb _darkling_ seems like an adjective formed on a supposed verb
to _darkle_, and from this supposition such a verb arose. _Husht_,
which was originally an exclamation like _whist!_ seemed to imply, and
therefore gave rise to, a verb to _hush_; and the old singulars _pease_,
_cherise_, _skates_, being regarded as plurals, have begotten new
singulars in _pea_, _cherry_, and _skate_.

We are all familiar with the process called "shortening," by which
words much used in conversation and hurried speech are clipped of one
or more of their syllables; though we are probably not all of us aware
of how much the English vocabulary has been enriched in this way. But
to the process which has given us in recent times such words as _cab_,
_photo_, _cycle_, _bus_, we owe the older words _size_, from _assize_,
_sport_, from _disport_; and the dignified _consols_, from _consolidated
annuities_, has lost almost all traces of the mutilation which it has so
recently undergone.

Names of places are also a fruitful source of new words, for the Genius
of the Language, when it has a gap in its vocabulary to fill, is apt to
seize on any material ready to its hand. _Worsted_ is from Worstead, a
village near Norwich, and _canter_ is, of course, an abbreviation of
Canterbury. Persons also have sometimes the good or bad luck to add
their names to the language. _Tawdry_ is from the Anglo-Saxon Saint
Audrey, who was famous for her splendid attire; the names of an English
earl and a Scotch murderer are preserved in _sandwich_, and the verb
to _burke_; and the English word which in recent times has been most
widely adopted into other languages is from the patronymic of an Irish
landlord, Captain Boycott. From fictitious characters come _quixotic_,
_dryasdust_, the verbs to _hector_ and to _pander_, while _pamphlet_ is
from the name of a character in a XIIth Century comedy.

But many of our commonest and most familiar terms cannot be explained by
any of the above methods, and have, as far as is known, no etymology in
the true sense of the word. This history of all living languages shows
the continual appearance of new terms, which cannot be traced to any
familiar root or previously existing formation. Among words of this kind
which appear in the Anglo-Saxon period are _dog_ and _curse_; while such
common words as _girl_ and _boy_, _lad_ and _lass_, _pig_, and _fog_
and _cut_ appear in the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries. _Bet_ and _jump_
and _dodge_ are not found before the XVIth Century, while the XVIIIth
Century saw the appearance of _capsize_, _donkey_, _bore_, and many
others. None of these words can be traced with any certainty to words
of previous formation. In the XIXth Century _rollicking_ and the verb
to _loaf_ have appeared in England, while _rowdy_, _bogus_, _boom_, and
_blizzard_ are of equally obscure American formation. The same process
has been going on in foreign languages, and many of our words of this
class are borrowed from abroad. _Risk_ and _brave_ and _bronze_ seem to
be of Italian origin, while _flute_, _frown_, and _gorgeous_, and the
XIXth Century _rococo_ have apparently arisen on French soil.

These new words were a considerable difficulty to the older
philologists, who believed that all new words were descended from
ancient roots, formed in times beyond the ken of history, when our
ancestors possessed the root-creating faculty--a pure productive energy,
which their descendants, it was believed, had long since lost. It is
one of the discoveries, however, of more recent philology that this
faculty is by no means lost; that wherever language finds itself in its
natural state, new words appear--words which have all the character of
fresh-created roots, and which soon take their place side by side with
terms of long descent, and are used, like them, for the formation of
derivatives and compounds. Although further research may discover the
origin of some of these "obscure" words, as they are called, there can
be no doubt that most of them are new creations, fresh-minted in the
popular imagination.

The simplest of these new words are created by the process called by
the awkward name of "onomatopoeia," which means literally name-making,
but is used to describe the process by which a word is made, imitating
in its sound the thing which it is intended to describe. This imitation
of natural sounds by human speech can never be an absolute imitation,
although some of the cries of birds and animals have almost the
character of articulate speech; and in words like _cuckoo_ and _miaow_
we do approach something like perfect representation. This means of
word-making is illustrated by the old story of the foreigner in China,
who, sitting down to a covered dish, inquired "quack-quack"? and
was promptly answered by "bow-wow" from his Chinese attendant. But
direct imitations of this kind are rare, and for the most part the
sounds of nature have to be translated into articulate sounds which
do not imitate them, but which suggest them to the mind. Thus the
noise of splashing water has been represented by such divers sounds
as _bil-bit_ and _glut-glut_; the nightingale's song by _bul-bul_,
_jug-jug_, and _whit-whit_, and the noise of a gun going off, which we
now describe by _bang_, was originally rendered by the word _bounce_.
This symbolism of sounds, the suggestive power of various combinations
of vowels and consonants, has never been very carefully studied, but
certain associations or suggestions may be briefly stated. It is
obvious, for instance, that long vowels suggest a slower movement than
the shorter vowels, and that vowels which we pronounce by opening the
mouth convey the idea of more massive objects; while those which are
formed by nearly closing the lips suggest more slight movements or more
slender objects. Thus _dong_ is deeper in sound than _ding_, _clank_
than _clink_, and _chip_ is a slighter action than that described by
_chop_. More subtle are the suggestions provided by consonants; thus
for some reason there are a number of words beginning with _qu_ which
express the idea of shaking or trembling, as _quiver_, _quaver_, and
_quagmire_. The combination _bl_ suggests impetus, and generally the use
of the breath, as _blow_, _blast_, _blab_, _blubber_; _fl_ impetus with
some kind of clumsy movement, as _flounder_, _flop_, _flump_; from the
combination _gr_ we get words like _grumble_, which express something
of the same meaning as _groan_, _grunt_, _grunch_, _grudge_, and the
modern word of military origin to _grouse_. From _scr_ we get a number
of words expressing the sense of loud outcry, as _scream_, _screech_,
_screek_, _scrike_. A "stop" consonant like _k_ or _p_ at the end of
words suggests a sound or movement abruptly stopped, as _clip_, _whip_,
_snip_, _clap_, _rap_, _slap_, _snap_, _flap_; while _sh_ in the same
place describes a noise or action that does not end abruptly, but is
broken down into a mingled mass of smashing or rustling sounds, as in
_dash_, _splash_, _smash_, etc. The comparison of _smack_ and _smash_,
_clap_ and _clash_ will show this difference. Words ending in _mp_,
like _bump_, _dump_, _slump_, _thump_, convey the sense of a duller and
heavier sound, stopped in silence but more slowly. This suggestive power
is due partly to direct imitation of natural sounds, but more to the
movements of the vocal organs, and their analogy with the movements we
wish to describe; an explosive sound describes an explosive movement, as
in _blast_ or _blow_, while a sound suddenly stopped suggests a stopped
movement, and a prolonged sound a movement that is prolonged also. But
probably these analogies are mainly formed by association; a common word
established in the language describes a sound or action, and its sound
comes to be connected with the thing that it describes. Other words are
formed on its model, and finally the expressive power of the sound,
suggesting as it does so many other words of similar meaning, becomes a
part of the unconscious inheritance of those who use the same form of
speech.

Among the older onomatopoeias in English may be mentioned, in addition
to those already quoted, _hoot_ and _chatter_; the XVIIIth Century gave
us _fuss_ and _flimsy_; and _pompom_, a word which arose in the South
African War, is one of the latest additions to the list. It is very
rare, indeed, that a word is deliberately and consciously made out of
sounds arbitrarily chosen, but this has sometimes been successfully
accomplished, as in Spenser's word _blatant_ and in _gas_, which was
formed by a Dutch chemist in the XVIIth Century. _Laudanum_ was perhaps
an arbitrary term made by Paracelsus, and _ogre_ is found without known
antecedents, in the writings of one of the earliest of French fairy-tale
writers. Manufacturers and inventors have sometimes, as we all know too
well, adopted this method of naming their wares; and to them we owe at
least one useful word formed by this process--the word _kodak_, which
has been borrowed from English into several foreign languages.

A still more curious class of new words are those in which two or more
terms are combined, or, as it were, telescoped into one; this is an old
process in language, and verbs like to _don_ (do on) or to _doff_ (do
off) are examples of it in its simplest form. Other words supposed to
have been formed by this process are _flurry_, from _flaw_ and _hurry_;
_lunch_, from _lump_ and _hunch_; while _flaunt_ is perhaps combined
out of _fly_, _flout_, and _vaunt_. Lewis Carroll amused himself by
creating words of this kind, and has thus added at least two words to
the English language--_chortle_, probably formed by suggestions of
_chuckle_ and _snort_, and _galumph_, out of _gallop_ and _triumphant_.
In a large number of our new words, however, it is difficult to define
the definite associations or analyze the elements that give them
their expressive meaning. They seem to be creations of the most vital
faculty in language, the sense of its inherent and natural fitness of
the name with the thing. The old words _bluff_, _queer_, and _lounge_
are examples of this process, which, in the XVIIIth Century, gave us
_cantankerous_ and _humbug_, and several other similar words. Sometimes
a word possesses a vague, undefined expressiveness, which seems capable
of embodying various meanings, and words of this kind have been
employed for different purposes before their final use is settled. Thus
_conundrum_, which probably originated in Oxford or Cambridge as a piece
of jocular dog-Latin, was first the appellation of an odd person, then
used by Ben Jonson for a whim, then for a pun, and finally settled down
to its present meaning at the end of the XVIIIth Century. The old word
_roly-poly_ has acquired in the course of its history the following
meanings: a rascal, a game, a dance, a pudding, and finally, a plump
infant. The expressive word _blizzard_ seems to have floated about the
United States in the vague sense of a "poser" until the great winter
storm of 1880 claimed it as its own.

When Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, came to recent words of racy
character and popular origin, like _coax_ and _fun_, he labelled them
"low words," and we have inherited from him a somewhat fastidious and
scornful feeling about them. And yet a little study of the history of
literature will show us that the most admired writers of the past took
a very different attitude towards popular creations of this kind, and
that words like _rowdy_, _bogus_, _boom_, and _rollicking_, at which we
boggle, would have had no terrors for the greatest of our old poets.
Spenser and Shakespeare, for instance, adopted at once the then recent
and probably Irish expression _hubbub_. The onomatopoeic _bump_ and
the dialect _dwindle_ make their first appearance in Shakespeare's
plays; and he often uses the word _hurry_, which, save for one doubtful
instance, was not known before his time. Other words of a similar
character--_bang_ and _bluster_, _flare_ and _freak_, _huddle_ and
_bustle_--were all apparently of XVIth Century origin, and all appear
in the writings of Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton. The first known
instance of _gibber_ is in Horatio's lines--

                             "The sheeted dead
  Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,"

and Hamlet, when he thought of killing his uncle, was not too fastidious
to say--

  "Now I might do it _pat_, now he is praying."

The true function of the poet is not to oppose the forces that make for
life and vividness in language, but to sift the new expressions as they
arise, and ennoble, in Shakespeare's fashion, those that are worthy of
it, by his usage.




CHAPTER V[1]

MAKERS OF ENGLISH WORDS


Every time a new word is added to the language, either by borrowing,
composition, or derivation, it is due, of course, to the action,
conscious or unconscious, of some one person. Words do not grow out of
the soil, or fall on us from heaven; they are made by individuals; and
it would be extremely interesting if we could always find out who it was
who made them. But, of course, for the great majority of new words, even
those created in the present day, such knowledge is unattainable. They
are first, perhaps, suggested in conversation, when the speaker probably
does not know that he is making a new word; but the fancy of the hearers
is struck, they spread the new expression till it becomes fashionable;
and if it corresponds to some real need, and gives a name to some idea
or sentiment unnamed or badly named before, it has some slight chance of
living. We witness, almost every day, the growth of new words in popular
slang, and the process by which slang is created is really much the same
as that which creates language, and many of our respectable terms have a
slang origin.

[1] A portion of this chapter was published in the _English Review_ of
August 1911, and is here reproduced by kind permission of the editor.

When, however, we come to learned, as opposed to popular words, the
case is somewhat different. These for the most part make their first
appearance in writing, and some of them are deliberate formations, whose
authors have left on record the date and occasion of their creation.
Our words _quality_ and _moral_ are descended from Latin words made
by Cicero to translate terms used by Aristotle; _deity_ is from a
creation of St. Augustine's; _centrifugal_ and _centripetal_ are from
Latin compounds formed and first used by Sir Isaac Newton. Many of our
more recent words are also deliberate creations. Jeremy Bentham has
left on record his formation of the word _international_; _agnostic_
and _agnosticism_ were made by Huxley; Coleridge confesses to have
made the verb to _intensify_, and he also formed anew _aloofness_,
although it had been used at least once before his time. _Cyclone_
was the deliberate creation in 1848 of a meteorologist who wished for
a word to describe the phenomenon of circular or whirling winds, and
_anti-cyclone_ was suggested about twenty years later by Sir Francis
Galton. _Constituency_ was an invention of Macaulay's, for which he
apologized; _scientist_ was deliberately made by Whewell, as there
was no common word till then to describe students of different kinds
of science. Other XIXth Century words which we know to have been
deliberately created are _Eurasian_, _exogamy_, _folklore_, _hypnotism_,
_telegraph_, _telephone_, _photograph_, besides a whole host of more
strictly scientific terms.

But most words never possessed, or have soon lost, their
birth-certificates; and it would seem at first sight impossible to
discover how they arose. Since, however, the publication was begun of
the _Oxford Dictionary_, whose army of over a thousand readers has
carefully searched, for many years, the records of the language, and
has traced, as far as is humanly possible, each new word to its first
appearance, a great body of new information has been made available for
the student. Any one who will make from this work a collection of modern
words and note their origin, cannot help being struck by the fact that
many of our most expressive and beautiful words are first found in the
writings of certain men of genius, and bear every sign of being their
own creations. Of course we can never know for a certainty, unless he
distinctly states it, that a writer has created the new word which is
found for the first time in his writings. He may have derived it from
some undiscovered source, or he may have heard it in conversation;
all we can know is that the word was introduced, and became current
at about the time that it makes its first appearance in his work. On
the other hand, if we find among a number of contemporary writers in
whose works few or no new words are found, one to whom hundreds of new
formations are traced; if these are learned words, not likely to be
used in conversation; if no earlier trace of them has been discovered,
and if, moreover, they are the sort of words we should expect this
writer to create--if they seem to bear, like the coinage of a king,
the stamp of his personality impressed on them,--then surely there is
at least a strong presumption in favour of the belief that he created
or first borrowed them himself. Let us, for example, take the instance
of Sir Thomas Browne. In 1646 he published that odd and interesting
book, the _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, and although his other works are not
lacking in new formations, this book contains them by the hundred, and
has probably given currency to more words in the English language than
any one book since the time of Chaucer. And these words are almost all
just the words that we would expect him to create--long, many-syllabled
words derived from the Latin, and are often expressive of his own musing
and meditative mind--_hallucination_, _insecurity_, _retrogression_,
_precarious_, _incontrovertible_, _incantatory_, _antediluvian_--the
complete list would fill a page or more of this book, and would be a
sufficient proof that a writer like Browne makes for himself a large
part of his own vocabulary. And it is a proof, moreover, of his genius
for word-making that many of these new creations--words like _medical_,
_literary_, _electricity_--have become quite indispensable in modern
speech.

Many new words are found also in Milton's writings (the greater
number of them in _Paradise Lost_), words like _dimensionless_,
_infinitude_, _emblazonry_, _liturgical_, _ensanguined_, _anarch_,
_gloom_, _irradiance_, _Pandemonium_, _bannered_, _echoing_, _rumoured_,
_impassive_, _moonstruck_, _Satanic_. These words, too, bear the stamp
of his coining, and proclaim themselves the offspring of his genius.

In Shakespeare's plays, partly owing to their immense popularity, but
quite as much to his unequalled sense for language, more new words are
found than in almost all the rest of the English poets put together; for
not only is our speech full of phrases from his plays, but a very large
number of our most expressive words are first found in them. And in
Shakespeare we find that rarest and most marvellous kind of word-making,
when in the glow and fire of inspiration, some poet, to express his
thought, will venture on a great audacity of language, and invent some
undreamed-of word, as when Macbeth cries--

  "No, this my hand will rather
   The multitudinous seas incarnardine";

where _multitudinous_ and _incarnardine_ (as a verb) are new words; or
where Romeo speaks of the "yoke of _inauspicious_ stars," or Prospero of
"_cloud-cap't_ towers" and "the _baseless_ fabric of this vision."

Of the new words in Chaucer and Wyclif we have already spoken; a
large number of new terms are first found in the works of their
contemporaries Gower and Langland, and in those of Lydgate and
Caxton in the XVth Century; and Caxton in especial seems to have
introduced a large number of words from standard or Parisian French.
The new words, indeed, found in these earlier authors are almost all
borrowings from foreign languages; and it was hardly before the XVIth
Century that English writers began to form compounds freely. But in
the works and translations of Coverdale and Tindale, we find a number
of new compounds: _loving-kindness_, _blood-guiltiness_, _noon-day_,
_morning-star_, _kind-hearted_, in Coverdale; _long-suffering_,
_broken-hearted_ and many others in Tindale. _Scapegoat_ was a
mistranslation of Tindale's--one of those happy errors which have added
so many useful and expressive words to the English Language. In the
Revised Version of 1611 we do not find many new words; but the effect of
this version in preserving old-fashioned terms from extinction has of
course been very great.

With Spenser we reach the period of self-conscious care for the English
language. While previous writers have been content to write in the
English of their time, only occasionally borrowing or forming new
words when they needed them, Spenser deliberately formed for himself
a kind of artificial language, made up partly of old forms, partly of
dialect expressions, and partly of his own inventions. We find in him
for the first time a process to which the English language owes much
of the present richness; the deliberate revival of old-fashioned and
obsolete words; and even many of his new formations like _drowsihead_,
_idlesse_, _dreariment_, _elfin_, _fool-happy_, have often an archaic
character. Like most men of letters who revive old words, he frequently
made mistakes about their form or meaning; _derring-do_ is not a noun
but a verbal phrase in Chaucer and Lydgate, whence he took it; and
_chevisance_, which he used for "enterprise," was really a word meaning
shiftiness; and he employed the archaic verb _hight_ in a number of
senses very different from its true meaning.

With the Elizabethan writers and dramatists, like Nashe, Greene, and
Chapman, we come on yet another class of innovators, whom we may call
eccentric word-makers. These writers seem to love innovation for its
own sake, and to invent new words, not because they are well formed
or necessary, but simply for the sake of novelty and oddness. Their
works provide immense lists of words which are only used by their own
creators, and have never found general acceptance. The XVIIth Century
abounds in writers of this kind, whose poems and prose-writings are full
of strange formations. But even these eccentrics performed a certain
service to the language, for by continually experimenting, they would
sometimes form in English or adopt from Greek or Latin a word that
deserved to live: thus _dramatist_ and _fatalism_ are first found in
Cudworth, and in the enormous list of strange formations traced to
Henry More are a number of current words like _central_, _circuitous_,
_decorous_, _freakish_, and _fortuitous_.

Even more fortunate were two secular writers of this period, Evelyn and
Robert Boyle. Evelyn felt, as he states in his Diary, the need for the
importation of foreign words; and of the large number, found for the
first time in his writings, many were no doubt first naturalized by
him. They belong, for the most part, to the vocabulary of art, or are
descriptive of the ornaments of life: _outline_, _attitude_, _contour_,
_pastel_, _monochrome_, _balustrade_, _cascade_, _opera_.

The new words found in Boyle's writings are, of course, of a different
character, being for the most part scientific terms, such as _pendulum_,
_intensity_, _pathological_, _corpuscle_, _essence_ in the sense of
extract, and _fluid_ as a noun.

Dryden's works contribute many new words; a large number of French
phrases were imported by the Restoration dramatists, and with the reign
of Queen Anne came a new enrichment of the language. Pope's list of new
words is the longest in the time of the early Georges; and Dr. Johnson,
in spite of his declaration that he had rarely used a word without the
authority of a previous writer, would seem, if we are to judge by the
_Oxford Dictionary_, to have added a considerable number of learned
words to the language. Among these may be mentioned _irascibility_,
and the modern meanings of words like _acrimonious_, _literature_,
and _comic_. When we find words like these, with the exclamation
_fiddlededee_, traced by the Dictionary to Dr. Johnson; _etiquette_,
_friseur_, _picnic_, and _persiflage_ to Lord Chesterfield; _bored_ and
_blas_ to Byron, _propriety_ in its modern use to the eminently proper
Miss Burney, and _idealism_ in its non-philosophical sense to Shelley,
it begins to seem as if authors had a tendency to invent or import,
or at least to use first in print, words descriptive of their own
characteristics.

Of other XVIIIth Century writers, Fielding, Sterne, and Gibbon were
not word-creators; but Burke seems to have possessed this faculty,
and it is to him, apparently, that we owe a considerable part of
our political vocabulary--words like _colonial_, _colonization_,
_diplomacy_, _federalism_, _electioneering_, _expenditure_, _financial_,
_municipality_, and our modern use of _organization_, _representation_,
and _resources_.

The rise, at the end of the XVIIIth Century, of the Romantic Movement
made a demand for words not needed in the previous century. This took
for the most part the form of the revival of old and obsolete words,
like _chivalrous_, which Dr. Johnson had described in his Dictionary as
out of use. Sir Walter Scott was the greatest of these word-revivers,
and when we meet with fine old swash-bucklers' words like _raid_,
_foray_, and _onslaught_, they are very likely to come out of his
poems, or the Waverley Novels. _Fitful_, which had once been used
by Shakespeare, in the phrase "after life's fitful fever," he also
revived, and _bluff_ and _lodestar_; _gruesome_ he introduced from
the Scotch, and the romantic word _glamour_, which is derived from
_grammerye_ (another of his revivals), and meant, in the Middle Ages,
grammar-learning, the study of Latin, and thus in ignorant minds soon
acquired, like _philosophy_, a magical meaning.

Both Coleridge and Southey were great experimenters in language, and
both almost equalled the XVIIth Century divines in their old, learned,
and outlandish formations. But among Coleridge's strange words we find
_pessimism_, _phenomenal_, and _Elizabethan_, and many others have
become popular and current.

Wordsworth and Shelley have not contributed much to our modern
vocabulary, but Keats, who in his love of unusual words showed often
more enthusiasm than taste, was nevertheless a genuine word-maker. It
is true that of the many old words he revived, few or none have become
popular, and some of his own inventions, like _aurorean_ and _beamily_,
are not happy creations. But the poet who could find such expressions
as winter's "pale _misfeature_," "_globed_ ponies," and linen "smooth
and _lavendered_," must plainly have had a genius for word-creation,
and would have done much, had he lived, to enrich the English language.
And Keats, like Milton and Shakespeare, possessed that rare gift of the
great poet, the power of creating those beautiful compound epithets
which are miniature poems in themselves, _deep-damasked_, for instance,
and _dew-dabbled_, and the nightingale's _full-throated_ ease.

After Keats the faculty of word-creation shows a remarkable decline, and
with the exception of Carlyle, the harvest of new words from the works
of the other XIXth Century authors is a poor and scanty one. Tennyson's
compound epithets, like _evil-starred_, _green-glimmering_, and
_fire-crowned_, are sometimes beautiful, and we owe to him apparently
_Horatian_, _moonlit_, and _fairy tales_. But Tennyson cannot be claimed
as a great word-creator; and still less can be said for Browning,
whose odd formations like _crumblement_, _febricity_, _darlingness_,
_artistry_, _garnishry_, can hardly be considered valuable additions to
the language.

In Carlyle, however, the Victorian era possessed one great word-creator,
one who could treat language with the audacity of the old writers,
and could, like them, fuse his temperament into a noun or adjective,
and stamp it with his image. _Croakery_, _gigmanity_, _Bedlamism_,
_grumbly_, _dandiacal_--would any one but Carlyle have invented words
like these? He had a genius for nicknames, his _pig-philosophy_ and
_dismal science_ are still remembered, and his eccentricities and
audacities would fill many pages. But his contributions were not all of
this personal character; like Sir Walter Scott, he introduced words like
_feckless_, _lilt_, and _outcome_ into England out of Scotland; and a
number of current words like _environment_ and _decadent_ are traced to
his writings.

When we come to living authors, one searches the dictionary in vain
for any serious contributions to our vocabulary from their works.
Although at least twenty new words are added to our current speech
every year, and although in countries like France or Germany, authors
and men of letters make at least an attempt to provide their age
with expressive terms for their new experiences, in England writers
seem to be somewhat unduly conservative, and to leave this task to
others, to the newspapers, or to chance. At the present day our only
deliberate word-makers are the men of science, and the popular interest
in their discoveries and inventions tends to give great currency to
their new formations. As, moreover, in this age of newspapers we make
the acquaintance of our new words by reading, and not as of old,
through speech, these new formations do not undergo the processes of
transformation and assimilation by which words were naturalized in the
past, but keep their clear-cut and alien forms, and so tend to produce a
learned scientific jargon, which is not, as of old, gradually translated
into English by popular speech, but tends, on the contrary, to extend
itself over our old English, and cripple or destroy the methods and
machinery of the ancient language. This, from the point of view of
literary or idiomatic English, cannot but be regarded as a misfortune,
although an inevitable one, for which as long as the present state of
things continues, no remedy can be suggested. For there can be no doubt
that science is in many ways the natural enemy of language. Language,
either literary or colloquial, demands a rich store of living and vivid
words--words that are "thought-pictures," and appeal to the senses, and
also embody our feelings about the objects they describe. But science
cares nothing about emotion or vivid presentation; her ideal is a kind
of algebraic notation, to be used simply as an instrument of analysis;
and for this she rightly prefers dry and abstract terms, taken from some
dead language, and deprived of all life and personality.

However, if these and other dangers seem to threaten the English
language, we must remember that it has passed through greater dangers,
and suffered from far worse misfortunes in the past. It has been
mutilated as hardly any other language has been mutilated, but these
mutilations have made place for wonderful new growths; its vocabulary
has been almost destroyed, but new and better words have been found
to make good these losses; foreign influences, French and Latin,
have threatened its existence, but it has in the end conquered its
conquerors, and enriched itself with their spoils; and we may rest
confident that as long as the English nation remains vigorous in thought
and feeling, it will somehow forge for itself a medium of expression
worthy of itself, and of the great past from which it has inherited so
much.




CHAPTER VI

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE EARLIEST PERIOD


We have hitherto treated the subject of the English language more in its
formal aspect, without much regard to the thought of which it is the
expression, and which fashions it for its instrument. The last, however,
is the most interesting, and certainly the most important, aspect of
the subject; but, save for the earliest period of our race-history,
it has not yet occupied the attention of many scholars. The study of
"Semantics," as it is called, the science of meaning, the development
of life and thought as embodied in language, is yet in its infancy; and
indeed, until the partial completion of the great _Oxford Dictionary_,
in which every word is traced as carefully as possible to its origin,
and all its changes of meaning registered in their chronological order,
no such study could have been usefully undertaken in regard at least to
the later periods of English history.

Every sentence, every collection of words we use in speech or writing,
contains, if we examine its component parts, a strange medley of words,
old or modern, native or foreign, and drawn from many sources. But each
possesses its ascertainable history, and many of them bear important
traces of the event or movement of thought to which they owe their
birth. If, therefore, we analyze our vocabulary into its different
periods, separating our earliest words from the later additions, we
shall find the past of the English race and civilization embodied in its
vocabulary, in much the same way as the history of the earth is found
embodied in the successive strata of geological formation. For it is not
too much to say that a contradiction between language and history rarely
or never occurs. When a new product, a new conception, a new way of
feeling, comes into the thought of a people, it inevitably finds a name
in their language--a name that very generally bears on it the mark of
the source from which it has been derived.

Let us, then, take our modern English civilization in a few at least of
its broadest and simplest aspects, and attempt, by means of language,
to study its elements and proximate sources, and the periods when they
were accepted into the consciousness of the race.

By far the oldest deposit in the English language is a little group
of words inherited from the ancient Aryan language, which was spoken
when our ancestors, and those of the Greeks, the Romans, the Slavs,
the Persians, and Hindoos all dwelt together in some unknown place, at
some remote date, far in the prehistoric past. Although the belief in
a homogeneous Aryan race is now generally abandoned, the evidence of
language shows a continuity, if not of race, at least of culture; and
these wrecks and fragments of speech, preserved by some happy accident,
are by far the oldest documents we possess concerning our civilization.
We have little or no historical knowledge of any of the Aryan peoples
before about 1000 B.C.; beyond that period, to the time of the primitive
Aryans, there stretches a gap, probably of many thousands of years,
which we can only cross on this frail bridge of words. The earliest
pioneers in the study of language, followed this track into the unknown
past with more enthusiasm than caution, and created for themselves out
of a few old and battered words the picture of a beautiful golden age, a
kind of terrestrial paradise, which they located in the centre of Asia,
where, five or six thousand years ago, they believed that the ancestors
of the Aryan races dwelt together in pastoral and poetic simplicity and
plenty. Recent criticism, however, has destroyed much of that beautiful
picture; and it is not now believed that the evidence of language is
sufficient to enable us to reconstruct, save in the barest outline, the
conditions of this early culture. Even the Asiatic home of the Aryans
is no longer generally believed in; and the most widely accepted of
current views is probably that which places their home in the southern
steppes of Russia, whence, at their separation, the Indian and Persian
branch wandered towards the East, the Slavs and Teutons into the German
forests, and the Greeks towards Greece; while the ancestors of the Celts
and Romans followed the course of the Danube towards Italy and Gaul.

It would be beyond our scope, however, to treat of this whole subject
of the Indo-European languages and the primitive Aryan civilization; we
must confine ourselves to the words existing in our English vocabulary
which have been derived from that language, and which are evidence of
the earliest known stage in the culture of our race. For we find in
this primitive deposit of language, not only the original forms of
words like _knee_, _foot_, and _tooth_, and terms for our simplest acts
and perceptions, but others more indicative of a definite state of
civilization. The numerals up to ten descend to us from this period;
the words _father_, _mother_, _daughter_, _sister_, _brother_, _son_,
_widow_ and our old word _neve_ (now replaced by the French _nephew_)
show that family relationships had been considerably developed. _Hound_
is an Aryan word, and with _goat_, _goose_, _sow_, and a word for horse,
_eoh_, which we once possessed, but which has long since perished in our
language, have been taken as a proof that these animals had been more or
less domesticated. But the most important of these names of domesticated
animals are connected with the flocks and herds of pastoral life, and
seem to show that cows and sheep were the main property and means of
subsistence for this ancient people. _Ewe_, _wether_, and _wool_, _cow_,
_ox_, _steer_, _herd_, have been traced back to the early Aryans, and
another word _fee_, which in Old English and other Teutonic tongues
meant both cattle and money, and which is related to the Latin _pecu_,
from which _pecuniary_ descends. Indeed, the accumulated evidence of
language proves almost beyond a doubt that the Aryans were a nomadic
race, similar in habits to the modern Tartars, driving their herds of
cattle with them on their wanderings, dependent for the most part on
their meat and milk for food, and on their skins for clothing. The words
_wheel_, _nave_, _axle_, _yoke_, and a root from which our _wain_ and
_wagon_ descend, are regarded as a proof that wheels had been invented,
and that the Aryans travelled in carts drawn by cattle. They possessed
only one word for any kind of metal (our word _ore_ descends from it)
and this is taken to stand for copper, which is often found in a form
easily hammered into use by primitive peoples. No Aryan words for
_sea_ or _fish_ have come down to us; but our verb to _row_, and our
word _rudder_ (which originally meant a paddle) seem to show that the
original race had learned some primitive forms of river navigation,
probably in a canoe, dug out from the trunk of a tree, like the canoes
of other primitive people. _Door_ is a very ancient word; _timber_ is
derived from an Aryan root; and _thatch_ comes from an old verb meaning
"to cover." These words are regarded as a proof that the Aryans, like
their Germanic descendants in the time of Tacitus, had begun to build
some kind of wooden or wicker huts for themselves, without, however,
windows, for which no term, common to the related languages, is found.
Our word _mead_ is found in many Aryan languages, and shows that this
primitive people possessed a drink made from honey. The verb to _weave_
is of equal antiquity and seems to show that some art of making cloth,
or at least of plaiting, had been early acquired. Words showing a
knowledge of agriculture are few and of doubtful meaning, and form
a strong contrast to the terms connected with flocks and herds and
wagons. The word _tree_, the names of _birch_ and _withy_ are widely
distributed; the words _wolf_, the _hare_, the _beaver_, the _otter_,
the _mouse_, _feather_, _nest_, are of great antiquity, and _night_ and
_star_, _dew_ and _snow_, _wind_ and _thunder_, _fire_ and _east_, are
primitive terms, or ones that descend from early roots.

The greater part of the words which have come to us from this early
period are of a homely and some even of a coarse character, and we are
not accustomed to feel any specially romantic interest in them. And yet
they are of importance as forming the first deposit of human experience
in our race of which we have any knowledge; the nucleus of life around
which our present civilization has slowly grown. From them we can
make for ourselves a dim picture of our primitive ancestors, dwelling
in wattled huts, or loading their goods and chattels on their wooden
oxcarts, and driving their herds of cattle and flocks of sheep as they
wandered out to seek new pasture-lands, and new temporary habitations.

And when we consider that a large part of these words are still spoken,
not only almost all over Europe, but in some of the remote languages
of the East, we can find in them a bond which makes, if not the
whole, at least a great part of the world kin, and joins our English
civilization with those of Persia and India. When, too, we remember the
unknown antiquity of these words, we come to associate them with the
other remains of an unknown past that we still carry with us--old rites
which are still practised, superstitions which still haunt our minds,
and the antique agricultural implements, the wheels and ploughshares
and shepherds' crooks, which we still see in use about us. The XIXth
Century, which has added to modern life many material conveniences,
has also enriched it with at least one new way of feeling, one new
intellectual pleasure--the projection of our thoughts and sympathies
through thousands of years into the primitive past, beyond all dates
and records. Our modern knowledge of the antiquity of our Aryan words
does much to open for us these vistas and vast avenues of time; and
terms like _mother_, _father_, _brother_, _sister_, _night_ and _star_
and _wind_ are all the more beautiful and dear to us, because we know
that they belong to the innermost core of our race-experience, and are
living sounds, conveyed to us by the uninterrupted speech of countless
generations out of the silence and darkness that lie far beyond the dawn
of history.

The next step in the history of our primitive civilization is one
that we also learn of from the history of language. After an unknown
period the Asiatic group, the peoples from whose speech those of the
Persians and Indians are derived, split off from the original Aryans;
and we find the European races still dwelling together, and acquiring
in common terms that betoken a certain advance in civilization. There
is reason for believing that this European branch had made their way
from treeless steppes and pasture-lands into a country of forests; for
we find that in this West-Aryan or European period, when the ancestors
of the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts, and Teutons were still closely
connected, a number of words for trees and birds make their first
appearance. Our words _beech_, _hazel_, _elm_, _sallow_, _throstle_,
_starling_, and _finch_ have been traced with more or less certainty
to this period, and we also find a number of agricultural terms are
common to two or more of the West-Aryan peoples--_corn_ and _furrow_,
_bean_ and _meal_, an _ear_ of corn, the verb to _mow_, and the old word
for ploughing, to _ear_, which is now obsolete save in certain English
dialects, although it is used in the Revised Version of the Bible. This
increase of agricultural terms is believed to be additional evidence of
the migration, at this time, from a treeless to a wooded country; for
nomadic peoples despise agriculture, and only the pressure of necessity
will make them abandon for it their pastoral life. It was probably,
therefore, when our ancestors found themselves in the dense primeval
forests of Europe, with their scanty pasture-lands and stagnant streams
and wide marshes, that they were forced to supplement the easy life of
shepherds and cattle-breeders by the much more laborious occupations of
agriculture. If we are to believe the evidence of language, it is at
this period, too, that our ancestors became acquainted with the sea,
for which the Asiatic and European languages had no common word. Our
word _mere_, which is still used in poetry and which forms the first
part of the word _mermaid_, corresponds to the Latin _mare_, from which
we derive our borrowed word _marine_; and _salt_ and _fish_ are terms
common to the European group.

At what period this early group of European tribes separated from each
other we have no knowledge; but it was long before the earliest records
of European history that our ancestors made their way into the German
forests, while the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans moved towards the
shores of the Mediterranean. There are strong linguistic grounds for
believing that the ancestors of the Celts and Latins travelled for a
while together, and those of the Slavs and Teutons, while the Greeks
formed a group of their own; for the Celtic languages are believed
to be more nearly related to Latin than Latin is to Greek, and the
Slav and Teutonic speeches have certain elements in common. But the
next important stage in the history of our race is that marked by the
group of languages called Teutonic, to which High and Low German,
English, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish belong. This third and
Teutonic stratum of our civilization, following on the scanty Aryan
and West-Aryan deposits, is a very rich one, and shows very marked
advances in primitive civilization. To treat the whole subject of
Teutonic life would be beyond our limits, but some aspects of it as
shown by the common Teutonic vocabulary may be briefly noted. There is
a large addition to the vocabulary, not only of forest-terms, names of
trees, birds, and beasts, but also to that of agriculture, and a great
part of the words we use in farming date from this period. _Bowl_ and
_brew_, _broth_, _knead_, _dough_, _loaf_, are words common to our
Teutonic ancestors, and with _hat_, _comb_, and _felt_, _house_ and
_home_, are marks of an advancing civilization. The word _borough_ was
still used for a fortified place, but it had perhaps, even in this
early period, come to acquire a meaning something like that of town
or civic community; while _king_ and _earl_ show the advance of civil
organization, although these words had not of course, like many of
the others, the developed meanings we attach to them now. The words
_buy_, _ware_, _worth_, and _cheap_ (which originally meant barter) are
evidence of the growth of trade, while in the early vocabulary of the
Teutonic tribes the sounds and sights of the sea are very apparent,
and show how our ancestors, in their home by the Baltic and the North
Sea coasts, acquired the arts of seamanship, and that familiarity with
natural phenomena which is so important to sailors. The words _sea_,
_sound_, and _island_, _flood_, _cliff_, and _strand_ belong to this
period, and with them _ship_, _steer_, _sail_, and _stay_. The names of
the points of the compass, _North_, _South_, _East_, and _West_, are a
common inheritance of the German languages, and they possess in common,
too, words like _storm_, _shower_, and _hail_, the name _whale_ for any
large sea-beast, _seal_, and _mew_ for the sea-gull, and even a name for
an imaginary water-demon, which survives in the German _Nixe_, and in
our old and half-forgotten word _Nicker_.

The discovery of the metals is rightly regarded as a great turning-point
in the history of culture; nothing has a greater influence on the
development of civilization than the use of metals and metallic
instruments; and archologists divide the different stages of
prehistoric culture according to the presence or absence of copper,
bronze, and iron. The primitive Aryans possessed, as we have seen,
but one term for metals, which they used to designate copper, the only
metal that they knew. But the Teutonic tribes, before our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors separated from them, had acquired words for _gold_ and
_silver_, _lead_, _tin_, _iron_, and _steel_, and the sinister and
magical character of blacksmiths in old German legends is a proof of the
wonder with which the new art of forging was regarded. Other words that
show a great advance in civilization are _leech_, a healer, and _lore_,
and also _book_ and _write_--words which have acquired new meanings in
the course of time, but which date from this Teutonic period, when, as
we know from other sources, the rudiments of the art of writing had
been acquired. _Book_ (which is thought to be derived from _beech_)
originally signified a writing-tablet, probably of wood, and _write_
(which is related to the German word _reissen_, to tear) meant to cut
letters in bark or wood.

If we examine the commonly accepted etymologies of others of these
Teutonic words, we can get some little glimpses into the ways of our
far-off Teutonic ancestors. We note, first of all, a group of words that
seem to have grown out of the experience of those wanderings which were
so important a part of primitive life. _Fear_, for instance, is believed
to be derived from the same Aryan root as _fare_, and could therefore
suggest the dangers of travel in the early forests; _learn_ has been
traced to an early root meaning to "follow a track," and _weary_ to a
verb meaning "to tramp over wet grounds and moors." There are other
words that take us back to bygone ways of life--our verb to _earn_,
for instance, is derived from an old word meaning "field-labour," and
is cognate with the German _Ernte_, harvest; _gain_, although it has
come to us from French, is descended from a Teutonic verb meaning "to
graze, to pasture," and also "to forage, to hunt or fish." _Free_ comes
from an Aryan root meaning "dear" (whence also our word _friend_), and
meant, in old Teutonic times, those who are "dear" to the head of the
household--that is, connected with him by ties of kinship, and not
slaves or in bondage. Our important religious word, _bless_, carries us
far back into the pagan and prehistoric past; _bless_ is derived from
_blood_, and its original meaning, which was "to mark or consecrate
with blood," is evidence of the ritual use of blood, which is so common
among primitive peoples. Our word _mirth_ has been given a curiously
psychological derivation, for it is traced, with its related adjective
_merry_, to a word meaning "short," and is supposed to designate "that
which shortens time, or cheers."

We must, however, in all these old words, especially those describing
thoughts and feelings, beware of the anachronism of reading into them
their modern meanings. Thus _fear_ had the objective sense of a sudden
or terrible event till after the Norman Conquest; the early meaning of
_mirth_ was "enjoyment, happiness," and could be used in Old English of
religious joy; while _merry_ meant no more than "agreeable, pleasing."
Heaven and Jerusalem were described by old poets as "merry" places; and
the word had originally no more than this signification in the phrase
"merry England," into which we read a more modern interpretation.

The progress of civilization has been well compared to the course of
a river having many sources, some undiscovered; and for historians
of culture those points at which a broad tributary joins the main
stream have, of course, an especial interest. We have now traced our
ancestors from their original and unknown home, to the coasts and
forests of Germany, where, at the period at which we now arrive, they
were still savages, in spite of their notable advances in the arts
of life, and still dwelt in rude huts or underground excavations, or
migrated, as of old, on their ox-carts. They had doubtless borrowed
from neighbouring tribes many of their new arts, and learnt from them
the use of new products. There are scholars who hold that the knowledge
of iron came, with its name, from some Celtic race; and that the word
_silver_ was derived from Salube, a town on the Black Sea, mentioned in
the _Iliad_ as the original home of silver. The words _rat_ and _ape_
are also believed to be very early borrowings, but their sources have
not been discovered; and it is difficult or impossible to trace, in
the dark night of prehistoric time, the influences, the contacts with
neighbouring peoples, from which these new products and the names of
these new animals were derived.

But we are now approaching one of the great meeting-places of history,
when our ancestors were about to come in contact with races, and fall
under the spell of influences, which were to transform their life in a
marvellous manner, and to create, out of ignorance and savagery, our
modern world of culture. When the primitive European group of the Aryans
was broken up, and our Teutonic ancestors lost themselves for hundreds
or thousands of years in the deep forests of Germany, their related
tribes, from whom the Greeks and Romans were descended, made their way
more or less directly to the Mediterranean; and on these propitious
shores, the birthplace of modern thought and life, they came in contact
with the ancient civilization of Egypt and the East. They learnt the
arts of building in stone, of mining and navigation; they took from the
East the beginnings of art, of writing, of mathematics, and built up the
wonderful edifice of classical civilization which, first led by Greece,
and then by Rome, settled the main elements and outlines of human
culture. The light shines very clearly on this page of ancient history,
when the highest forms of thought and life were developed in the great
centres of Athens and Rome, and spread their luminous influence over
wider and wider areas; the darkness in which, on the other side of the
Alps, our ancestors were involved, seems pitchy black by comparison,
and it would be beyond our task to describe how, little by little, that
darkness was partially dispelled. All we can do is to trace, by certain
words early borrowed by the Northern barbarians from the polished
nations of the South, some gleams of light that penetrated northward in
this early period, before the tribes of the Angles and Saxons invaded
England. These gleams are faint and uncertain, and there is considerable
doubt about many of our earliest borrowings. Taking them, however, for
what they are, we may gain a little hypothetical knowledge, at least,
concerning this early period. To try, moreover, to arrange the words
chronologically is also highly precarious, as there is always the
possibility that a word which appears in several cognate languages did
not belong to the original stock before their separation, but has spread
from one to the other of the tribes since that date.

Following, however, the opinion of the best authorities, we may take the
word _Csar_, the title of the Roman Emperor, as probably the earliest
Latin word adopted into the Teutonic speech. This word, however, in the
form in which they borrowed it, has become obsolete in English, and has
come to us again from Latin. Other early terms which show some contact
with the forces of Rome are of a military character--_pile_ and _camp_
and _drake_ (an old word for dragon), which was borrowed probably to
describe the dragon-banners of the Roman cohorts. _Drake_ still lives in
the compound _fire-drake_; _pile_ has since lost its original meaning
of "a heavy javelin," such as the Roman soldiers carried; and _camp_
no longer signifies for us battle, or field of battle, and, indeed,
only survives in the name of "camp-ball," or, in the dialect phrase of
provincial athletics, "to camp the bar"--our modern "camp" being a much
later borrowing from the French. _Street_ (from _strata via_, a paved
way) and _mile_ and _wall_ and _toll_, are also believed to be early
borrowings, showing that our ancestors were familiar with the roads,
fortified camps and regulations of the Roman Empire. Perhaps even
earlier than these are _cat_, _mule_, and _ass_; and a group of words
which remain as a testimony of the visits of wandering traders from
the South--_chest_ and _ark_ (which meant originally a box or chest);
_pound_, as a measure of weight; _inch_; and _seam_, an old word for the
load of a pack-horse, which still survives in various technical uses.
_Monger_, in _ironmonger_ or _fishmonger_, comes to us from a borrowing
of _mango_, a Latin name for a trader; _copper_ was perhaps taken from
his copper coins, and the word _mint_ (which kept the meaning of money
till the XVIth Century) was also borrowed, being derived, like the later
_money_, from the name of the goddess Moneta, in whose temple at Rome
money was coined. Among the names for the foreign products brought by
these early traders we find _wine_, and an old word _ele_, for oil.
_Pepper_ is an early borrowing; it has been traced back to India, and
is among the first of those ancient, far-travelled words that have come
into the English from remote sources in the Orient--words like the later
_ginger_, _silk_, and _orange_, redolent of deserts and caravans, far
mountains, and Eastern seas. These early words give us a dim picture of
Roman traders, travelling with their mules and asses along the paved
roads of the German provinces, their chests and boxes and wine-sacks,
and their profitable bargains with our primitive ancestors.

Civilization begins, however, not so much by the importation of foreign
products (which can be found in the most savage communities) as by
the imitation of foreign arts and technical processes. We possess in
English a small group of words which show that our ancestors had begun
to take this step before they left the Continent. _Chalk_, in the
sense of lime, has been taken as a proof that they learnt the art of
building with mortar from the Romans; and they also borrowed the word
_pit_, which seems to have meant, in early times, a well or spring built
round with masonry. _Table_ and _pillow_ speak for themselves; _mill_
is an important borrowing, and the word _kitchen_, _kettle_, _dish_,
point to a revolution in cooking arrangements. _Cheese_, and perhaps
_butter_, may be regarded as words whose adoption signifies, not the
appearance of new objects, but of new and improved methods of producing
them. Other words that show an advance in civilization are connected
with agriculture, and especially with the cultivation of fruit-trees.
_Apple_ is probably a very early borrowing, but its origin is unknown,
although some have traced it to the town of Abella in Campania, famous
in antiquity for its apples. Better established borrowings are _pear_,
_cherry_, and _plum_, the two latter being ultimately derived from
Greek. Our words _imp_ and _plant_ are believed to be early adoptions,
and to show that the art of grafting fruit-trees was acquired at this
time, for the original meaning of both these words was that of a shoot
or slip used in grafting. The German language has preserved some Latin
words, proving that the culture of the vine was established at an early
date in the German provinces, and _poppy_ and _mint_ are prehistoric
borrowings of the names of plants. _Anchor_ seems to be the only
sea-term they took from the Latin, for, as we have seen, they had a
developed sea-vocabulary of their own.

Although before the IIIrd Century of the Christian era the Rhine
lands had become a centre of Roman civilization, with Roman roads,
fortresses, stone-built houses and marble temples, the above list
of words will show that the German tribes borrowed from these rich
storehouses of culture only such things as their barbarian minds
could appreciate--not ideas, but homely instruments, useful plants,
and methods of production. But there are a few very interesting words
which made their way into the language at this early date, and which
show the beginning of the influence of ideas, and the dawning of that
great world of thought and feeling, the Christian religion, which was
destined to absorb and transform the primitive culture of these Teutonic
tribes. The most important of these terms is the word _church_, which
is in itself an historical document of great interest. While most of
the other languages of Europe received from Latin Christianity the word
_ecclesia_ for church (as we see in the French _glise_, the Italian
_chiesa_), _church_ (the Anglo-Saxon _cirice_, _circe_) is believed to
be derived ultimately from the Greek _kuriakon_, meaning "the Lord's
House," a name not uncommon for sacred buildings in the provinces of
Eastern Christianity. This Greek word was probably learnt by the German
mercenaries in the Eastern provinces, serving, as so many served, in the
Roman armies, or by the Goths who invaded lands where Greek was spoken.
From the IVth Century onward Christian churches, with their sacred
vessels and ornaments, well-known objects of pillage to the German
invaders of the Empire, and the pagan Angles and Saxons borrowed this
Greek name for the churches they sacked, centuries before they entered
them as believers.

_Angel_, and less certainly _Devil_, are words of Christianity which
were perhaps directly borrowed from the Greek: the names of supernatural
spirits pass easily from tribe to tribe, and these words perhaps reached
our ancestors in this way. It is not for more than a thousand years that
we find again any direct borrowing from Greek into English, and then the
words are taken from books by enlightened scholars of the Renaissance,
not whispered from ear to ear by superstitious barbarians.

The Christian Church was divided at this time by the great Aryan heresy,
and these Greek words came to our ancestors from the heterodox East.
But they were also affected by a second stream of influence from the
orthodox Church of the West, which reached them through the Christians
of Gaul and Germany; and from these, before they came to England, our
ancestors are believed to have borrowed the words _alms_, _bishop_,
_monk_, and _minster_ (the name for a monastery or a monastic church),
and also the word _pine_, from which our verb to _pine_ descends, and
which, being derived from the Latin _poena_, was used in the early
Church to describe the pains of hell. It was with these dim and vague
notions in their heads that they embarked in their warlike boats to
cross the sea to England.




CHAPTER VII

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE DARK AND THE MIDDLE AGES


We have, in the previous chapter, traced the evidence, embedded in the
English language, of the culture of our ancestors, and their progress
in civilization up to the time when they left the Continent to settle
in their English homes. From the Roman civilization of Britain, which
they destroyed, and from its Celtic inhabitants, whom they massacred
or enslaved, they received, if we are to believe what language tells
us, practically nothing. The Latin word _castra_, which survives in the
name of Chester, and the ending of many other names, such as Doncaster,
Winchester, etc., is almost the only word they can be proved to have
taken from the Romanized Britons; while from the Celtic speech, as we
have already seen, their borrowings were equally scanty.

The next great stratum in our language, the next great deposit of
civilization, is that left by the conversion of the Angles and Saxons to
Christianity in the VIth and VIIth Centuries. By their conversion they
were transformed into members of the community of Europe; and at this
point the two streams of Teutonic race and classical civilization at
last met and mingled. In the VIth Century, however, Europe was plunged
in the night of the Dark Ages; it was not the culture of Athens and
free Rome, the literature and philosophic thought of the great classical
tradition, that the Christian missionaries brought to England, but
the rites and the doctrines of the Church as they were preached and
understood in the obscure period of the late Roman Empire. The effect on
English life and thought was nevertheless immense, and we must test it,
not only by the foreign words which were brought by Christianity into
our language, but also by the change of meaning in our native words due
to Christian influence. The early missionaries, in order to make their
simpler and more fundamental doctrines clear to the understandings of
their hearers, chose native words nearest the meanings they wished to
express; and thus much of our religious vocabulary is formed out of
old words filled with new significance, words such as _God_, _heaven_,
_hell_, _love_, and _sin_. The Anglo-Saxons, indeed, like the modern
Germans, preferred to translate, rather than to borrow foreign terms,
and some Christian words were rendered by native equivalents which
have since become obsolete, as _rd_ or _rood_, the native word for
the Latin _cross_. Many Christian words were, nevertheless, borrowed
from Greek and Latin, and still remain in the language as witnesses of
that great transformation. Among them may be mentioned _altar_, _alb_,
_candle_, _cowl_, _creed_, _disciple_, _font_, _nun_, _mass_, _shrine_,
and _temple_, from Latin. _Acolyte_, _archbishop_, _anthem_, _apostle_,
_canon_, _clerk_, _deacon_, _epistle_, _hymn_, _martyr_, _pentecost_,
_pope_, _psalm_, _psalter_, and _stole_ are words borrowed at the same
time, which are of Greek origin, but which were adopted in Latin, and
came from Latin into English.

If we examine the vocabulary of Continental Christianity, so large
a part of which has been imported at various times into English, we
shall see that most of the terms belong to the classical languages of
Greece and Rome, but that they have been curiously transformed, and
have acquired new and strange significations, by being made the medium
of Christian thought and feeling. The Greek language did not possess
terms to describe the deeper experiences of religious life; still less
were such words to be found in the speech of the practical and warlike
Romans. The task, therefore, set before the early Christians was to
forge from these materials a new language capable of expressing a whole
new world of thought--the beautiful or dark conceptions of Oriental
mysticism and introspection, the dizzy heights of Oriental poetry, and
the joys and terrors of the soul. This task they accomplished with
amazing success. Partly by changing the meaning of old words, partly
by the formation of new derivatives, partly by violent translations
of Hebrew idioms, and to a certain extent by borrowing Hebrew words,
they found means to express such conceptions as _charity_, _salvation_,
_purgatory_, _sacrament_, and _miracle_, and many others. _Sabbath_ was
borrowed from the Hebrew, _abbot_ from the Syriac; the Greek word for
"overseer," _episcopos_, became our _bishop_; the _daimon_, the god
or divine power of the Greeks, was changed into the medieval _demon_;
_eidolon_, a word for "image" or "phantom," became our _idol_; and the
_aggelos_, or messenger, the _diabolos_, or slanderer, were transformed
into the great figures of _Angel_ and _Devil_.

There remain two other Christian words which deserve more than a
passing mention. One of these is _Easter_, in which is preserved the
name of a pagan goddess of the dawn or spring, and of a pagan spring
festival, which Christianity adopted to its purposes. The other word
is _cross_, which embodies in its form an important aspect of English
history. The word _crux_, which denoted an instrument of execution in
classical Latin, and which was given by Christianity so tender and
miraculous a meaning, was translated into Anglo-Saxon, as we have said,
by the native word _rd_. _Cross_ is a form borrowed by the Irish
from the Latin _crux_, and spread by them, in their great missionary
efforts among the Danish populations whom they converted in the north of
England. It appears first of all in northern place-names like Crosby,
Crosthwaite, etc., and finally makes its way from the northern dialects
into literary English. The word _cross_, therefore, which we employ
in so many and often such trivial uses, is a memorial for us of the
golden age of Irish civilization, when Ireland was the great seminary of
Europe, whence missionaries travelled to convert and civilize, not only
the pagan north of England, but a large part of the Continent as well.

The conversion of England meant, however, not only the introduction of
a new religion. The flood of Christianity flowed from sources deep in
the past of Greece and Asia, and brought with it much of the secular
thought and knowledge which it had gathered on its way; and the union
of England, moreover, to the universal Church opened for our ancestors
the door into the common civilization of Europe. Of the effect of
these influences on Anglo-Saxon culture, the growth of literature and
learning, before the Conquest, it is hardly within our province to
speak; the Anglo-Saxon language, with its multitude of terms formed
from native elements, was partially destroyed, as we have seen, at the
Norman Conquest, and almost all its learned words perished--we are
only concerned with the deposit left in our living English speech by
this first great flood of European culture. With the Bible came words
redolent of the East, like _camel_, _lion_, _palm_, _cedar_, and terms
of drugs and spices, like _cassia_ and _hyssop_, and _myrrh_, which was
one of the offerings of the Magi to the infant Christ. _Gem_, too, is
a Bible word, and _crystal_, which our ancestors used not only for the
mineral, but for ice as well, as they believed rock-crystal to be a form
of petrified ice. The more secular part of the early deposit of borrowed
words from other sources resolves itself very largely, like the earlier
Continental borrowings, into the names of useful instruments, animals,
plants, and products. _Cup_, _kiln_, _mortar_, _mat_, _post_, _pitch_,
_fan_ (for winnowing), _plaster_ (in its medical use), are among the
early English borrowings, and with them the names of _capon_, _lobster_,
_trout_, _mussel_, and _turtle_ (for turtle-dove), and of useful
plants like _cole_ (cabbage), _parsley_, _pease_, _asparagus_, _beet_,
_fennel_, _radish_, with trees like _pine_ and _box_.

The _lily_ and the _rose_ are also Anglo-Saxon borrowings, but seem
to have been used first in literary allusions. The names _India_ and
_Saracen_ reached England before the Norman Conquest; and there are two
far-wandered words like the earlier _pepper_, and the later _orange_,
which travelled to Anglo-Saxon England from remote sources in the East.
One of them, our familiar word _ginger_, is derived from the Sanskrit,
and believed to belong ultimately to one of the non-Aryan languages of
India. Ginger was imported into Greece and Italy from India, by the way
of the Red Sea; ancient merchants brought its name with them, whence it
came to us through Greek and Latin. _Silk_ is believed to have come all
the way from China, and to have reached us from Greece and Rome through
some Slavonic language, and by means of early traders in the Baltic
provinces. _Phoenix_, the name of an imaginary bird, and _adamant_, used
in literature to describe a half-fabulous rock or crystal, combining
the qualities of the diamond and the loadstone, were, with the earlier
_drake_, the first of the names of the legendary animals and jewels to
reach us from the East. _Purple_, being the name of the royal cloth worn
by kings, was, like the earlier _Csar_, a reminiscence of the Roman
Empire; _school_, _scholar_, _verse_, _philosophe_, are faint gleams,
penetrating in the dark ages of this remote island, from the light of
Athenian civilization. The words _circle_ and _horoscope_ borrowed
late in the Old English period, are traces of the interest which the
Anglo-Saxons took in mathematics and astrology. But among the words
of learned borrowing that seem to have survived the Norman Conquest,
not a few were really forgotten with their companions, and were adopted
again from the French. Thus the antique and noble word _philosopher_,
which King Alfred had taken from the Latin in the form of _philosophe_,
appeared again in the XIVth Century in the French form of _filosofe_;
_circle_ and _horoscope_ also perished, and were re-borrowed in the same
century; and our word _scholar_ probably comes to us not from Early
English, but from the later French.

While the terms, therefore, for the common and unchanging experience
of life, for the most vivid of human conceptions, sun and summer,
moon, stars and night, heat and cold, sea and land, hand and heart,
and for the commonest human ties and strongest human feelings, remain
in English substantially unchanged from the terms that the Angles and
Saxons inherited from a prehistoric past, practically all our terms of
learning and higher civilization have been borrowed from the Continent,
and especially from France. The conquered island of England was for
centuries a pale moon, illuminated by the sun of French civilization;
and it must now be our task to trace the penetration of that light
into the English language and the common consciousness of the English
people. For the influence of France before the Conquest language gives
little evidence. We find two or three French names for drugs or herbs
in learned works, and at the time that _ginger_ was borrowed from the
Latin, _galingale_ came through France after even a longer journey,
having travelled through Arabia and Persia all the way (it is believed)
from China, where it was, in its original form, _Ko-liang-kiang_, "mild
ginger from Ko," a place in the province of Canton.

Two other French words borrowed before the Conquest are of considerable
interest. These are _pride_, which appears about A.D. 1000, and _proud_,
which came in about fifty years later. They are both derived from the
French _prud_ (_preux_ in modern French), which descends from the first
element in the Latin verb _prodesse_, "to be of value." These words,
which in French had the meaning of "valiant, brave, gallant," soon
acquired in English the sense of "arrogant, haughty, overweening."
This change of meaning was due, perhaps, to the bearing of the "proud"
Normans who came over to England before the Conquest in the train of
Edward the Confessor, and the aspect in which these haughty nobles and
ecclesiastics presented themselves to the Englishmen they scorned.
Another word introduced at this time, and no doubt by Edward the
Confessor, is _Chancellor_--a word full of old history, which, for all
its present dignity, is derived ultimately from _cancer_, the Latin
word for crab. How the _cancellarius_, a petty officer of the Eastern
Empire, stationed at the bars or crab-like lattices (_cancelli_) of
the law courts, rose from an usher to be notary or secretary, and came
to be invested with judicial functions, and to play a more and more
important part in the Western Empire, belongs, however, to European, and
not to English history; but the word is of interest to us as being one
of the three or four French terms that found their way into English in
Anglo-Saxon times.

Before we dismiss the subject of Anglo-Saxon borrowings, there are a
few words of Danish derivation that should be mentioned. The greater
part of the Scandinavian words in English have not much historical
significance, save in so far as they are a record of the Danish
invasions, and the large Danish element in the English population. The
great word _law_, however, and such terms as _moot_, _hustings_, and the
names for the divisions of counties, _wapentake_ and _riding_, all of
which appear in English in the late Anglo-Saxon period, are memorials of
the fact that England was once partly settled and ruled by Danes.

We now come to the Norman Conquest, which was destined to change
and transform our language in so radical a manner. Of its effect on
English grammar we have already spoken; its influence on the English
vocabulary was still greater, but did not make itself felt for a
considerable period of time. For nearly one hundred and fifty years
the two languages, Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, ran side by side
without mingling; French being the language of the government and the
aristocracy, while English was reduced almost to the condition of a
peasant's dialect. Some relics, however, of written English during the
first hundred years after the Conquest have been preserved, and after
the year 1150 these grew somewhat more numerous; although, as we have
seen, it was not till the XIVth Century that a standard English was
established, and authors ceased to employ in writing their own local
dialects.

The largest class of words adopted into English between the Conquest and
the year 1200 are of an ecclesiastical character, and show the influence
of the Norman devotion to the Church. These words in approximately
chronological order are _prior_, _chaplain_, _procession_, _nativity_,
_cell_, _miracle_, _charity_, _archangel_, _evangelist_, _grace_,
_mercy_, _passion_, _paradise_, _sacrament_, _saint_--words that we
may associate with the solemn abbeys and cathedral churches of Norman
architecture, which were then being built in so many parts of England.
The remaining words are almost all connected with government and war
and agriculture. _Court_ and _crown_, _empress_, _legate_, _council_,
_prison_, _robber_ and _justice_, _rent_ in the sense of property, are
the terms of government; while for military words we find _tower_ and
_castle_, _standard_, _peace_, and _treason_. _War_, another early
borrowing, is a word adopted into French from old German; it came to us
in its Norman form, but has become (with the common change of _w_ to
_gu_) _guerre_ in modern French.

In the XIIIth Century the process of borrowing went on with great
rapidity, and hundreds of French words were adopted into English, which
now began to assume the composite character which it has ever since
retained. An analysis of these words will give some notion of the
character of this period, beginning with the turbulent reign of King
John, and continued during those of his son Henry III, and his grandson
Edward I. In the first place we find a great accession, especially
in the first half of the century, to the vocabulary of religion. The
earlier of these represent Catholicism more in its formal and outward
aspect; but shortly after the coming of the preaching friars to England,
when the effects of the great religious revival of the Continent
were brought home to the villagers and poor townsfolk, we find other
words representing the inward and personal aspect of religious faith,
_devotion_, _pity_, _patience_, _comfort_, _anguish_, _conscience_,
_purity_, _salvation_. These words we may call, not perhaps too
fantastically, "early Gothic" words, as their introduction coincides in
date with the great churches, such as Salisbury Cathedral, and the great
monastic houses, which were then being erected in what is called the
"Early English" period of Gothic architecture.

Another religious movement of about this period, that of the Crusades,
has left its mark on the English language. By the Crusades the gulf
between Europe and the Orient was again bridged, and Eastern products
and Eastern ideas began to spread over Europe. The East was from of
old the home of jewels, rich dyes, and splendid stuffs, and among the
Arabian or Persian words that came to us from this new intercourse with
the Orient, are terms like _azure_ and _saffron_, of _scarlet_, which
was at first the name of a rich cloth, and _damask_, from the name of
the town Damascus. To this period we owe also the Arabian names, and
our modern knowledge, of two of the great staples of modern trade,
_cotton_ and _sugar_; and the word _orange_, which (like _sugar_) came
from Sanskrit through the medium of Persian and Arabic, found its way
to the West in the train of the Crusaders. Others of the Crusaders'
words are _assassin_, _Bedouin_, _hazard_, _lute_, _caravan_, and
_mattress_, from Arabian sources; _miscreant_, and perhaps _capstan_ of
French or Provenal formation. _Assassin_ is, like _Bedouin_, a plural
noun, meaning "hashish-eaters." It was used by the Crusaders for the
murderers who were sent forth by the Old Man of the Mountains to kill
the Christian leaders, and who were wont to intoxicate themselves with
hashish or hemp before undertaking these attempts. _Hazard_ (originally
a game played with dice) has been traced to the name of a castle,
Hasart, or Asart, in Palestine, during the siege of which the game is
said to have been invented. _Miscreant_ (misbeliever) is a term of abuse
for the Mohammedans, invented by the French Crusaders; _Capstan_ is a
nautical term from Provence, and as it appears earlier in English than
in French, it was perhaps borrowed at this time by English seamen at
Marseilles or Barcelona.

These Crusaders' words, however, drifted into English at various times,
for the most part long after the XIIIth Century; of words actually
adopted at this time, the most important, after the religious terms
already mentioned, are terms of law, government, and war. It was in the
XIIIth Century that English law and English legal institutions began to
take the form that they were destined to keep for the future, and we
find now in English (for the most part borrowed from the Anglo-French
language of law), such words as _judge_ and _judgment_, _inquest_,
_assize_, _accuse_ and _acquit_, _fine_, _imprison_, _felon_, _hue and
cry_, _plea_, _pleader_ and to _plead_, with a number of other terms
relating to property or feudal usages, such as _manor_, _heir_, _feoff_,
_homage_. It is in this century, too, that the English Parliament
assumed substantially its present form, and the great word _Parliament_
makes its first appearance. The campaigns of Edward I against the Welsh
and the Scotch seem to have familiarized his subjects with many military
terms in the latter part of the XIIIth Century, and it is now that
_battle_, _armour_, _assault_, _conquer_, and _pursue_ are first found
in the vocabulary of English.

If in the XIIIth Century the degraded and poverty-stricken English
language had begun to enlarge and enrich its vocabulary with terms of
religion, law, government, and war, in the following century it became a
fit vehicle at last for thought, learning, and speculation, and absorbed
into its texture practically all the vocabulary of medieval culture.
We find first of all those names of exotic animals that figured so
fantastically in the medieval imagination. The _ostrich_, the _leopard_,
the _panther_, already made their appearance in the XIIIth Century;
these in the next hundred years were followed by the _crocodile_, the
_hippopotamus_, the _elephant_, the _dromedary_, the _rhinoceros_,
the _camelopard_, the _hyena_, the _tiger_, and the _pard_. But with
the names of these real beasts came a host of fabulous and fantastic
creatures, equally real, however, to the medieval mind, the _monoceros_
or _unicorn_, the _syren_, who was half woman and half fish, the
_onocentaur_, with the head of a man and the body of an ass, the
_griffin_, with an eagle's wings and a lion's body, the _salamander_,
which lived in flame, the fire-breathing _chimera_, the _basilisk_ or
_cockatrice_, which was hatched by a serpent from a cock's egg, and
whose glance was fatal, the _dipsas_, whose bite produced a raging
thirst, and the _amphisboena_, a serpent with a head at either end. And
even of the authentic and actually existing animals their beliefs were
almost equally fabulous; to them the camelion was a combination of the
camel and the lion, the camelopard had the body of a pard and a lion's
head; the elephant was supposed to hide its offspring in deep water to
protect it from dragons; and our phrase, "crocodiles' tears" is due to
the belief that crocodiles wept while they sated themselves on human
flesh.

With the knowledge of these exotic beasts and serpents, came also the
names of many jewels and precious stones, with their supposed magical
qualities. The _carbuncle_, which shone in the dark, the _amethyst_,
which preserved its possessor from intoxication, the _jacinth_ which
warded off sadness, and which, with the _chrysophrase_, was found
in the heads of Ethiopian dragons, the _sapphire_, which gave its
possessor the power of prophecy, appear in the English of the XIIIth
Century; while in the XIVth are found the _beryl_, which preserves
domestic peace, the _diamond_, which discovers poison, _jasper_, useful
against fevers, and _coral_ against enchantments, _chalcedony_ against
ghosts and drowning, and the names of other precious materials such as
_amber_, _ebony_, _alabaster_, _jet_, and _pearl_. When, however, we
examine the vocabulary of medicine, we find ourselves in a less fabulous
world. The medical lore of the Middle Ages was somewhat more directly
founded on experience, and already in the XIIIth Century we find such
words as _medicine_, _ointment_, _poison_, _powder_, _diet_, _physic_,
_physician_, _dropsy_, _gout_, _malady_, with approximately their modern
and scientific meanings. This medical vocabulary is increased in the
XIVth Century by _apothecary_, _artery_, _pore_, _vein_; the names of
drugs like _opium_, and of diseases such as _asthma_, _quinsy_, _palsy_,
and _dysentery_.

But if we examine the theory of medicine on which the practice of these
medieval physicians is based, we find ourselves far removed indeed
from modern science. This theory is in the main the Greek theory of
"humours" which reached Europe in the XIth and XIIth Centuries from
the great schools of Arabian medicine. According to this theory the
body of man contains four "humours," or liquids: blood, phlegm, yellow
bile (or choler) and black bile (or melancholy), the last of which is
a purely imaginary substance. The excess of one of these humours might
cause disease, or make a man odd or fantastic; and hence we have the
_humours_ of the Elizabethan drama, our phrases _good-humoured_ or
_bad-humoured_, and our modern use of _humorous_ and _humour_. That
the Latin word for a liquid or fluid has come to mean a mood, or a
quality exciting amusement, and that we can even speak of "dry humour,"
is due, therefore, to this old physiology, which has left many other
marks on the English language. An examination of some of our commonest
expressions will show how many of them bear the impress of medieval
thought, and how great is the deposit left in the English language by
the science and culture of the Middle Ages. Thus our names for different
temperaments, _sanguine_, _phlegmatic_, _choleric_, and _melancholy_,
are derived from the supposed predominance in each one of the four
humours. The word _temperament_ itself, which has become so popular of
late, is derived from the Latin _temperamentum_, meaning "due mixture,"
and was used at first for the mixture of these humours; and the familiar
word _complexion_ (derived from the Latin _complexionem_, formed from
the verb _plectere_, to weave or twine) had originally the same meaning
as _temperament_, although now it is mainly used for the appearance
of the skin. As the temperament or complexion, sanguine, bilious,
phlegmatic, or melancholy, could be best observed in the face, this step
from a man's physical condition to its appearance in his face, was a
natural one, although it requires some knowledge of medieval notions to
trace the relation of the modern adjective _complex_ and such a phrase
as "a fair complexion."

Closely connected with the four humours were the four elementary
"qualities": dryness and moisture, heat and cold. There were also
qualities of the "humours," and by their mixture produced various
complexions and temperaments: _temper_ itself was originally a due
mixture or proportion of these qualities, and this use has survived in
such words as _distemper_, and "good" or "bad" _tempered_. As _temper_
was most frequently used in combination with words like "ill," "bad," or
"violent," it has acquired in the XIXth Century (in such a phrase, for
instance, as "an outburst of temper"), the very opposite of its original
meaning. For an outburst of temper would have meant "an outburst of
composure"; and while we keep the old meaning in the phrase "to keep
one's temper," our other phrase, "to have a temper" exactly contradicts
it. _Spirited_, _animal spirits_, and _good spirits_ are other phrases
due to the physiologists of the Middle Ages, who regarded the arteries
as air-ducts, containing ethereal fluids distinct from the blood of
the veins. Of these "spirits," there were supposed to be three, the
_animal_, the _vital_, and the _natural_. The "animal," being named
after the soul or _anima_, was the highest, and controlled the brain and
nerves. When _animal_ in the XVIIth Century became restricted in meaning
to living creatures lower than man, _animal spirits_ changed with it,
and came to mean the joy of life we share with animals. Phrases such as
_cold-blooded_, in _cold_ or _hot blood_, or my _blood boils_, are due
also to the old view, derived from the sensations of the face, that
the blood is heated by excitement; while an immense number of words and
phrases, _hearty_, _heartless_, _to take to heart_, _to learn by heart_,
and _cordial_ (from the Latin word for heart) are due to the old belief
that the heart was the seat of the intellect, the soul, and feelings.
So, too, _hypochondriacal_, and its modern abbreviation _hipped_, come
to us from the medieval belief that the region of the hypochondria,
containing the liver, spleen, etc., was the seat of the "melancholy"
humour. Another medical error is embodied in the old word _rheumatic_,
as rheumatism was believed to be a defluxion of rheum to the affected
part; and there is a reminiscence of medieval psychology to be found in
_common sense_--the _common sense_ being a supposed "internal" sense,
acting as a common bond or centre for the five "external" senses.

The XIIIth Century word _lunatic_ is evidence of the early belief
that mental health was affected by the changes of the moon; while the
adjectives _jovial_, _saturnine_, _mercurial_, are due of course to the
astrological belief that men owed their temperaments to the planets
under which they were born. Indeed, the large deposit left by medieval
astrology in the English language is a sufficient proof of the great
part that celestial phenomena, and the supposed influence of the stars
on the affairs of men, played in the imaginative life of the Middle
Ages. _Influence_ itself (derived from the Latin _influere_, to flow
in), was at first a term of astrology, and meant the emanation from the
stars to men of an ethereal fluid, which affected their characters and
fates; and our modern word _influenza_ embodies the old belief that
epidemics were caused by astral influence. _Disaster_ and _ill-starred_
need no explanation; _ascendant_, _predominant_, _conjunction_, and
_opposition_ are other words of astrology; _aspect_ meant originally
the way the planets look down on the earth; and men derived their
_dispositions_ from the "dispositions" or situations of their native
planets. Even our current word _motor_ has descended to earth from the
heavens, for it was first used to describe the _primus motor_ or _primum
mobile_, the imaginary tenth sphere, added by the Arabian philosopher
Avicenna, to the nine spheres of the Greeks.

_Amalgam_, _alembic_, _alkali_, _arsenic_, _tartar_, are alchemists'
words which made their first English appearance in the XIVth Century;
_quintessence_, which appears a little later, was another alchemists'
term, describing the imaginary fifth essence added by Aristotle to the
four, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, of the early Greek philosophers. The
XIVth Century word _test_, and the later _alcohol_, are also terms of
alchemy. _Alcohol_ meant originally a fine powder; and _test_ is derived
(through _testum_) from the Latin word _testa_, an earthen vessel or
pot, which, through ancient slang, has become _tte_, the French word
for "head." It was used by the alchemists to describe the metal vessel
in which they made their alloys. From such a phrase as Shakespeare's
_tested gold_ has arisen the verb to _test_, which is now commonly used
in England, although it was regarded as an Americanism not many years
ago.

The names of the seven liberal sciences of medieval teaching, the "arts"
of the universities, _Grammar_, _Logic_, _Rhetoric_, _Arithmetic_,
_Geometry_, _Music_, _Astronomy_, were early adopted into English from
the Latin in which they were taught, and with them came in the XIIIth
and XIVth Centuries a number of terms of learning and culture, such as
_melody_, _rhyme_, _comedy_, _tragedy_, _theatre_, _philosophy_, and
_history_. These words belonging as they do to the culminating period
of the Middle Ages, may be associated with the rich and decorated forms
into which Gothic architecture flowered at about the same period.

The learning and science of the Middle Ages, or at least that part of it
which was assimilated during the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries into English
thought, can be, perhaps, as fairly estimated by the lists of these
learned borrowings as by any other method. Some of them were no doubt
mere ink-horn terms, and had no current use at that time outside the
books in which they are found; the greater part appear, however, in the
works of popular writers like Chaucer and Gower, and so must have become
familiar to the educated contemporaries of the poets.

An etymological analysis, moreover, of this vocabulary of medieval
culture will show, with surprising accuracy, the sources from which
that culture was derived, and the channels through which it passed on
its way to England. We find in the first place that practically all
these words were borrowed from the French; that the French borrowed
them from Latin, and that, with the exception of some Arabian words,
the ultimate source of almost all of them was Greek. They represent,
indeed, the wrecks and fragments of Greek learning which had been
absorbed into Roman civilization, and which, after the destruction
of the classical world, were handed on through the Dark Ages from
compilation to compilation, growing dimmer and more obscure, more
overlaid with errors and fantastic notions, in this process of stale
reproduction. Such as it was, however, this body of learning, derived
for the most part from abridgments of Aristotle, was not questioned;
medieval science was based, not on the observation of Nature, but on the
study of the ancients; and a writer of natural history in this period
felt it necessary to quote the authority of Aristotle in support of so
elementary a statement as that eggs are hardened by heat, or hatched by
the brooding of their female parents.

In the XIIIth Century, however, this body of learning had been much
increased by a great accession from Arabian sources. We have already
mentioned the effect of the first contact, during the Crusades, between
the East and West; by means of the peaceful intercourse which followed,
Europe drew immense profit from the high culture of the civilized
Arabs, who, in the East or in Spain, kept the torch of learning alight,
while Europe was still enveloped in comparative darkness. The Arabs had
preserved through Syriac versions the works of Aristotle, and much of
the astronomical and medical learning of ancient Greece; in the XIIIth
Century this body of learning reached Europe by means of translations
from Arabic into Latin. This accession of knowledge from Eastern sources
accounts for the greater part of the Arabic words adopted into English.
_Zero_, _almanac_, _algebra_, _cipher_, _azimuth_, _nadir_, _zenith_,
_alembic_, _alkali_, _camphor_, _alcohol_, _amber_, are Arabian words.
_Alchemy_, _alembic_, and perhaps _amalgam_, are Greek words given an
Arabic shape by passing through that language. The rest of this early
vocabulary comes in the main, as has been said, from Greek sources. The
names of jewels and precious materials, of animals real or imaginary,
are Greek; _pard_ and _sapphire_, and perhaps _tiger_, _ebony_, _beryl_,
and _jasper_, are words early borrowed by the Greeks from Oriental
languages; _alabaster_ and _ammoniac_, and perhaps _alchemy_, came to
Greece from Egyptian sources; while _ostrich_ is a hybrid word, formed
in popular Latin from the Latin _avis_, and _strouthion_, the Greek name
for ostrich.

The medical vocabulary is for the most part Greek, and the Latin
medical words are in the main translations from Greek. The vocabulary
of astronomy is more largely Latin; but almost all these words also are
direct translations from Greek, and are no proof of additions made by
the Romans to this science. Save in war, politics, law, and agriculture,
the practical and unimaginative Romans made few or no additions to
culture; and the study of languages, as well as other studies, leads
us sooner or later back to Greece, to the art and thought of that
small and ancient people, from which almost all that is highest in our
civilization descends.

There is, however, one more department of medieval thought which,
owing to its effect on English life and language, must by no means be
omitted in this hasty survey. This is the study of logic, which more
than any other subject absorbed the intellectual energies of the Middle
Ages. Philosophy was in a sense the passion of the XIIIth Century in
Europe, when Scholasticism formed the mould of thought which lasted till
the revival of learning. About Scholasticism, with its quibbles and
quiddities, there still lingers much of the ridicule poured on it at the
Renaissance, and this is no place to do justice to this great medieval
effort to understand the metaphysical basis of thought, and to reconcile
reason and the Christian faith. It can only be said that there can be
no more pervasive, permanent, and important influence on civilization
than metaphysical discussion, barren and abstract and fruitless as it at
first appears. In the scholastic disputes of the Middle Ages, habits of
accurate reasoning were formed; the intellect was trained to deal with
abstract ideas, and terms were borrowed or coined for their expression.
Preachers, educated not in secluded monasteries, but in secular
universities, visited or took up their residence in English villages,
and through their sermons familiarized their hearers with at least some
of the great abstractions and distinctions of Aristotelian thought.
By this means, and by means of the lawyers, and of Wyclif's popular
writings, a great part of the scholastic terminology was absorbed into
the English language. Indeed, our present vocabulary of philosophic
terms is very largely a production of Scholasticism, and owes its
admirable clearness and definiteness to the hard-thinking of these old
logicians, and already in the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries we find in
English writings such words as _accident_, _absolute_, _apprehension_,
_attribute_, _cause_, _essence_, _existence_, _matter_ and _form_,
_quality_ and _quantity_, _general_ and _special_, _object_ and
_subject_, _particular_ and _universal_, _substance_, _intelligence_,
and _intellect_.

Medieval philosophy, like the rest of medieval learning, can make no
great claims to originality; its basis was the Aristotelian logic, and
its vocabulary, although almost entirely Latin, was formed for the most
part by the literal translation into Latin of Aristotelian terms. It
cannot, however, be said that Scholasticism made no contributions to
human thought; the distinction, for instance, between Free Will and
Determinism was not clearly defined in Greek philosophy, but was fully
developed by the medieval philosophers and theologians. _Predestination_
is a word first found in St. Augustine, and _Free Will_ an English
translation of the Latin phrase of a Church Father. By means, moreover,
of the disputations and the subtle distinctions of the scholastic
logicians, much that was latent or obscure in Greek philosophy was
brought into greater clearness; and a large number of words were formed
in Low Latin to express these conceptions and distinctions. _Entity_
and _identity_, _majority_ and _minority_, _duration_, _existence_,
_ideal_, _individual_, _real_ and _reality_, _intuition_, _object_,
_motive_, _tendency_, _predicate_, are among the words that English owes
to late, and not to classical Latin. Our word _premise_ or _premises_ is
a term of logic, which came into use originally as the translation into
Latin of an Arabic word meaning "put before." From the premises of a
syllogism, it acquired a legal meaning, and used for "the aforesaid" in
legal documents, it soon was applied to "the aforesaid houses, lands or
tenements" mentioned in the "premises" of the deed, and so acquired its
present use of a house with its grounds or other appurtenances.

Whenever, indeed, a large number of new words, however learned and
abstract their character, make their appearance in a language, the
genius of popular speech is sure to appropriate some of them, in its
own illogical and often absurd way, to its own practical uses. We are
all familiar with the "horn" of a dilemma, though few of us trace it
to the _argumentum cornutum_ of scholastic argument. _Quiddity_ is a
scholastic word, and perhaps, _quandary_ also; and even the modern
_locomotive_ is formed from the medieval translation of a phrase of
Aristotle. _Species_, one of the great words of scholastic logic, was
soon appropriated in the early form of _spice_ by the medieval druggists
to describe the four kinds of ingredients in which they traded--saffron,
cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs. But the main agents in the distribution
of these words were the lawyers of the Middle Ages. Scholastic words and
scholastic distinctions found their way into Anglo-French, and then
into English. "While as yet there was little science and no popular
science," Prof. Maitland writes, "the lawyer mediated between the
abstract Latin logic of the schoolmen and the concrete needs and homely
talk of gross, unschooled mankind. Law was the point where life and
logic met."

If, therefore, we were to study the history of almost any of the great
terms of ancient or medieval philosophy, and trace all the varied and
often remote uses to which it has been applied, we should be able to
observe the effect of the drifting down, into the popular consciousness,
of the definitions of high and abstract thought. We should find that
many of our commonest notions and most obvious distinctions were by no
means as simple and as self-evident as we think them now, but were the
result of severe intellectual struggles carried on through hundreds of
years; and that some of the words we put to the most trivial uses are
tools fashioned long ago by old philosophers, theologians, and lawyers,
and sharpened on the whetstone of each other's brains.




CHAPTER VIII

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY--THE MODERN PERIOD


By the end of the XIVth Century the English language had absorbed into
itself the greater part of the vocabulary of medieval learning, and had
been formed into a standard and literary form of speech for the whole
nation. But from the point of view of vocabulary, the XVth Century marks
a pause. England, exhausted and demoralized by its disastrous conflicts
abroad in France, and by the Wars of the Roses at home, had little
energy to devote to the higher interests of civilization; literature
languished, and the vocabulary of this period shows but little advance
on that of the previous age. Some medical and chemical terms were added
to it; the poems of Lydgate at the beginning, and the works printed by
Caxton at the end of the century contain many new words; but we cannot
find in them many signs of new conceptions, or of any great additions to
life and thought.

Perhaps the most curious of these new terms are the words derived
from medieval games and sports, and the large accession of sea-terms,
borrowed from the Dutch, which make their appearance at about this time.
Among hawking terms had already appeared, in the previous century, the
word _reclaim_, derived through the French from the Latin _reclamare_.
_Reclamare_, however, meant in Latin "to cry out against," "to
contradict"; it acquired in hawking the technical sense of calling back
a hawk to the fist, and so the notion of calling back or "reclaiming"
a person from a wrong course of action. Among XVth Century hawking
words may be mentioned _rebate_, which meant to bring back to the
fist a "bating" hawk; to _allure_, from the older _lure_ (of obscure
etymology), an apparatus for recalling hawks, and to _rouse_, used first
for the hawk's shaking its feathers. _Haggard_ is a somewhat later word,
and being used of a wild hawk, has been derived from the French word
for hedge, _haie_; but this etymology is doubtful. Among early terms
borrowed from the chase is the word to _worry_, which meant "to seize
by the throat," and the curious verb to _muse_, which is believed to
be derived from the same word as _muzzle_, and to mean originally the
action of a dog holding up his nose or _muzzle_ to sniff the air when
in doubt about the scent. The early word _scent_ (derived ultimately
from the Latin _sentire_) was first a hunting term; and the later word
_sagacious_, meant originally in English "acute of scent." _Retrieve_,
the French _retrouver_, is also a hunting term, and our verb to _abet_
is supposed to come through the French, from the Norse _beita_, "to
cause to bite"; and if so is, perhaps, like _tryst_, another hunting
term, one of the few Scandinavian words preserved by the Normans after
their settlement in France. Its original meaning was "to bait or hound
dogs on their prey"; and then, from the action of inciting some one
to commit a crime, it acquired its present meaning. A _relay_ was
originally a set of fresh hounds posted to take up the chase; a _couple_
was a leash for holding two hounds together; _ruse_ (which is the same
word as _rush_) was a doubling or turning of the hunted animal; and the
hounds were said to _run riot_ when they followed the wrong scent. Our
verb to _rove_ is a term of XVth Century archery, obscure in origin; it
meant originally to shoot arrows at a mark selected at random, and has
no connection with _rover_, a sea-term word borrowed from the Dutch, and
cognate with our old word _reaver_ or robber.

These words give us a little glimpse into the sports of our medieval
ancestors; and we may add to them the verb to _check_ or _checkmate_, a
chess term, derived through the Arabian from the Persian _Shah_ or king.
The later terms derived from sports are _bias_, the colloquial phrase
to _bowl over_, and the word _rub_ in the familiar phrase "there's
the rub"--all from the game of bowls: while _crestfallen_ and _white
feather_ come to us from the cockpit.

Our language shows the close connection that existed from early medieval
times, between England and the Low Countries. _Pack_ (from which
_package_ and _packet_ are derived) is an early word in English, used
in the wool trade, and apparently came to us in the XIIth or XIIIth
Century from the Dutch or Flemish traders. _Spool_, _stripe_, and
the verb to _scour_ are thought to be technical terms brought by the
Flemish workmen whom Edward III settled in England to improve English
manufactures. _Tub_ and _scum_ are possibly early brewing terms borrowed
from the Dutch or Flemish, like the word _hops_, which came to us from
the Low Countries in the XVth Century. But many of the most important
Dutch words in English are sea-terms; indeed, our nautical vocabulary is
largely Dutch in origin, and shows how much our early sailors owed to
the mariners and fishermen of the Low Countries. Among the words that
have been traced, with more or less certainty, to Dutch, Flemish, or Low
German sources, _bowsprit_ and _skipper_ are found in the XIVth Century,
while in the XVth appear _hoy_, _pink_, _scout_, _keel_, and _lighter_,
for the names of boats; _pump_ and _leak_ (both first found in nautical
use), _orlop_, _marline_, _freight_, and _buoy_. The connection between
Dutch and English sailors long remained a close one, and among later
additions to the English sea-vocabulary which are probably Dutch in
origin, are _reef_, _belay_, _dock_, _mesh_, _aloof_, and _flyboat_,
which appear in the XVIth Century; and the XVIIth Century words
_sloop_, _yacht_, _commodore_, _yawl_, _cruise_ and _cruiser_, _bow_ and
_boom_, _keelhaul_, _gybe_, and _avast_.

If the XVth Century made but few additions to the vocabulary of
English thought and culture, the century that followed this period of
intellectual barrenness was one of unexampled richness and splendour.
It was in this century that the effects of revival of learning reached
England, and the study of classical Latin and Greek soon exerted
a powerful influence on the language. Although the learned words
borrowed in the XIVth Century were most of them ultimately derived from
classical antiquity, they may yet be compared to the architectural
forms and ornaments which were borrowed by Gothic architecture from
Roman buildings, but which were transformed and assimilated by the
Gothic spirit. These words were Greek or Roman in origin, but medieval
in sentiment and meaning, and served, like the borrowed architectural
forms and ornaments, to build up the great religious and Gothic edifice
of medieval thought. But now, just as classical forms began to replace
Gothic architecture, so Latin and Greek words began to appear in
English, not borrowed through the medium of Low Latin or medieval
French, but taken direct from the classics. We note in this century
the appearance of many Renaissance words like _Arcadian_, _Dryad_,
_Hesperian_, _Elysian_, which brought with them the echoes of the great
poetry of Greece and Rome. At the same time a secular meaning was given
to many old words which had had hitherto only a religious use and
signification.

It was, indeed, in this century that the foundations were laid of
the new and modern world in which we live; old words were given new
meanings, or borrowed to express the new conceptions, activities, and
interests which have coloured and formed the life of the last three
centuries. To the more fundamental of these conceptions, and their
immense effect on the vocabulary of English, we must devote a special
chapter; but first it will be well to mention the deposit of words left
in the language by the various historical and religious movements and
events of the XVIth and the succeeding centuries.

The first great modern movement was, of course, the Protestant
Reformation. The name _Protestant_ came to England, probably from
Germany, the old word _Reformation_ was given a new use, and the
derivatives _reformed_ and _reformer_ were made from it. _Evangelical_
and _sincere_ were new words much used by Protestants of their
doctrines; and now, by their unfortunate identification of the Hebrew
_Sabbath_ with the Christian _Sunday_, they fastened on that day the
sabbatic law of the Old Testament. _Godly_ in its modern sense is first
found, with the new derivatives, _godliness_ and _godless_, in Tindale's
writings; _religion_, which was used before of rites and observances or
of monastic orders, was given by the Protestants its new and important
abstract meaning of belief, and the state of mind it induces; _pious_
was another of their new words, and the old _piety_, which had been
sometimes used for _pity_, acquired from them its modern meaning.
These words are a testimony of the new and inner religious life of the
Protestants; and the Roman Catholic words _mission_ and _missionary_
(which were first used of the Jesuit missions) show the zeal of their
opponents. This zeal showed itself also in a new crop of controversial
words; _pernicious_, _faction_, and _factious_ first appear in the
writings of Catholic controversialists, who, however, were soon eclipsed
by the superior linguistic powers of the Protestants. It is in terms of
abuse, as we have already noticed, that the gift for language is most
vigorously displayed; and Tindale, Coverdale, and Latimer, to whom the
English Bible and the Church Service owe so much, made liberal use also
of their word-creating faculty to invent terms of obloquy for those who
opposed their views.

_Dunce_ (which was derived from the name of the scholastic philosopher,
Duns Scotus) first appears, with _Romish_, _popery_, _popishness_,
in the works of Tindale. _Duncely_, _monkery_, _popishly_, were used
by Latimer; Luther's word _Romanist_ was apparently introduced by
Coverdale, who also seems to have invented for his own use _duncical_,
_Babylonical_, and _Babylonish_. Other terms of Protestant vituperation
which belong to this period are _Babylonian_, _malignant_, _papish_,
_papistical_, _monkish_, with terms that are now obsolete, such as
_popeling_, _duncery_, and the once common _abbey-lubber_. _Bigoted_
and _bigotry_ are words of Protestant abuse of a somewhat later date.
The history of _Roman Catholic_ is a curious one. The terms _Roman_,
_Romanist_, and _Romish_, had acquired by the end of the XVIth Century
so invidious a meaning, that the need for a non-controversial term
was felt, and _Roman Catholic_ was adopted for this purpose. It was
employed, as the _Oxford Dictionary_ states, for conciliatory reasons in
the negotiations for the Spanish marriage of Charles I, and thus found
its way into general use.

While still engaged in their quarrel with the old faith, the Protestants
soon began those controversies among themselves by which the English
vocabulary has been enriched; and already in the XVIth Century we note
the words _Puritan_, _precise_, and _precision_, and also _libertine_,
which was first used as the name of the antinomian sect of Anabaptists.
_Reprobate_ is a sinister word which belongs to this period, being a
Calvinist term for souls rejected by God, and foredoomed to eternal
misery.

To turn, however, from these old controversies to secular matters, we
find that the English language became, after the middle of the XVIth
Century, greatly enriched by far-fetched and exotic words, gathered
from the distant East and West by the English travellers, merchants,
and adventurous pirates. The English people, who had so long used their
energies in the vain attempt to conquer France, found now at last their
true vocation in seamanship, and their true place of expansion in the
trade, and finally the empire, of India and America. The exotic words
that had found their way into English before this date, had, as we have
seen, come almost entirely at second hand by the way of France; but now
that England was forming a more independent civilization of her own,
and Englishmen were getting for themselves a wider knowledge of the
world, the French influence, although still strong, was not paramount,
and these travellers' words were borrowed either directly from native
languages, or from the speech of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spaniards,
who had preceded English sailors in the distant countries of the East
and West. Of our words belonging to this period, and derived from the
languages of India and the Far East, _calico_ was taken from the name
of Calicut; _coolie_ and _curry_ seem to have come through Portuguese;
the Malayan words _bamboo_, _cockatoo_ through Dutch, _junk_ through
Spanish or Italian, and _gong_ (another word from Malay) was probably a
direct borrowing. _Indigo_ is from Portuguese; _monsoon_ is believed to
be an Arabian word, but it came to us from the Dutch, who had borrowed
it from the Portuguese. _Typhoon_ is also Arabian, but ultimately Greek
in origin. From the near East, _coffee_ is an Arabian, and _dervish_ a
Persian word, reaching us through Turkish, while _harem_ and _hashish_
and _magazine_ were borrowed direct from Arabian. _Banana_ is supposed
to be a native African word from the Congo district; it reached us,
like _negro_, through Portuguese or Spanish. The early words from the
languages of the West Indies, Mexico, and South America, all come to us,
as we might expect, from the language of the early Spanish conquerors
and explorers of these countries. _Alligator_ is a popular corruption
of the Spanish name for the lizard, _el_ or _al lagarto_; _chocolate_,
_cocoa_, _tomato_, are Mexican; _cannibal_, _hurricane_, _hammock_,
_savannah, aize_, Caribbean words; while _canoe_, _tobacco_, and
_potato_ are from the island of Hayti, and _guano_ from Peru. All these
come to us through the medium of Spanish.

_Cannibal_ and _canoe_ are of interest to us, as words brought back
to Europe by Christopher Columbus; and in _cannibal_, as in the name
_West Indies_, and in _Indian_ for the American aborigines is embodied
the geographical error of the time, when Columbus believed that in his
voyage across the Atlantic he had reached what are now called the East
Indies. For when he heard the name Caniba (which is simply a variant of
Carib or Caribes) he thought that it signified that this savage people
were subjects of the Grand Khan of Tartary, whose domains he believed
to be not far distant. Other words associated with early travellers
are _mulatto_, which is first found in the account of Drake's last
voyage, and _breeze_, which in the XVIth Century was an adaptation
of the Spanish _briza_, a name for the north-east trade-wind in the
Spanish Main, and which first appears in the account of one of Hawkins's
voyages. With these old sailors' words we may associate the words
brought back to England by Captain Cook from the Pacific in the XVIIIth
Century, _tattoo_, _kangaroo_, and _taboo_. _Sassafras_ seems to be
the earliest word borrowed from North America (if, indeed, it be not
a corruption of the Latin _saxifraga_), and came into English through
the Spanish. The XVIIth Century words from North America, _moccasin_,
_persimmon_, _opossum_, _tomahawk_, _hickory_, _terrapin_, were borrowed
directly from Indian speech by the English settlers of North America.

There is much in the history and etymology of words that is merely
curious and quaint, and possesses little but an archological interest.
That _trowsers_ should be traced back to the Greek _thyrsos_, and that
_banjo_ and _goloshes_ should also be able to boast of an illustrious
Greek descent, is certainly interesting; but these associations can do
but little to add poetic dignity to such words. Other words there are
that gain immensely in value when we know their history; and among them
must be counted these exotic words of Elizabethan travel and adventure,
_cannibal_, _hurricane_, _alligator_, _savannah_, _breeze_, _monsoon_;
and we still may feel some of the strangeness of remote people and
places that echoed in them, when far-travelled seamen brought them back
to English seaports from the Indian Ocean or the Spanish Main.

To the war with Spain in the reign of Elizabeth we owe the Spanish words
_embargo_ and _contraband_, and the Dutch word _freebooter_. Among other
Dutch or Flemish terms that were, perhaps, brought back to England by
soldiers from their campaigns in the Low Countries may be mentioned
_furlough_, _cashier_, _leaguer_, _sconce_, _onslaught_, _drill_, and
_domineer_. _Comrade_ is a Spanish word, but seems to have been a
soldiers' term learnt in the Low Countries; and _forlorn hope_ is a
military phrase, being the Dutch _verloren hoop_, in which _hoop_ means
a troop, and is cognate with our word "heap."

The separation from Rome, the founding of a National Church, the war
with Spain, and the great victory over the Armada, did much to awaken
Englishmen to a sense of national pride and consciousness. In the Middle
Ages England shared in the cosmopolitan civilization of Europe, with
its Catholic Church and its ideal of a universal empire; dynastic
pretensions were paramount to those of nationality, and even the claim
of English kings to the French Crown was supported by a considerable
part of the population of that country. But in the XVIth Century the
ideal of nationality, of political unity and independence, began to take
the prominent place in men's thoughts and feelings which it has since
preserved, and we can trace this growth in the curiously late appearance
in the English language of what we may call "patriotic" terms. _Nation_
was an early word, but it was used more with the notion of different
races than that of national unity, and was indeed commonly employed to
describe any class or kind of persons. It gained its present meaning
in the XVIth Century, and late in that century we find the adjective
_national_ formed from it; and we can note at about the same date the
appearance of such terms as _fellow-countryman_ and _mother-country_.
_Fatherland_ and _compatriot_ appear a little later, and _patriot_ and
_patriotic_ belong to the middle of the XVIIth Century, but did not
acquire their present meaning until a hundred years later, at which
time _patriotism_ is found. _Public_ in the sense of "public-spirited"
belongs to the early XVIIth Century, but _public-spirit_ and
_public-spirited_ are somewhat later.

If we turn to literature, we find, as we might expect, that the age
of Skakespeare brought with it a large accession to our literary
vocabulary, _lyric_, _epic_, _dramatic_, _blank verse_, _fiction_, and
_critic_. We note, too, in the XVIth Century, the beginning of our
modern political vocabulary; _political_ itself belongs to this period,
and _politics_, and _politician_ (in the older and more dignified
meaning of statesman) and _Secretary of State_ and the adjective
_parliamentary_. This political vocabulary was largely increased with
the growth of political institutions in the XVIIth Century. The words
_politician_ and _minister_ began to acquire their present meaning in
its earlier years, and _legislator_ was borrowed from Latin in the same
period. _Cabinet Council_ was apparently introduced at the accession
of Charles I in 1625, and we hear of _the Cabinet_ about twenty years
later. _Privy Councillor_ and _cabal_ belong to the period of the Civil
War and the Commonwealth; and the phrase _the Army_ came gradually into
use with the formation of a standing army at this time, and was first
applied to the Parliamentary forces in 1647. We can trace, too, to this
period, the first beginnings of the vocabulary of modern democracy.
_Populace_ was, indeed, borrowed in the XVIth Century by means of France
from the Italian _popolaccio_, but like other Italian words ending in
_accio_, it was a term of abuse; "the populace" was used in England as
an equivalent for "mob" or "rabble"; and the adjective _popular_ had
something of the same depreciatory meaning. _The people_, however, in
its modern sense appears during the Civil War, when Parliament made
a solemn declaration that "the people are, under God, the original
of all just power." It was at this time, too, that the late Latin
word _radical_, used first in medieval physiology for the inherent
or "radical" humours of plants and animals, and in the XVIth Century
applied to mathematics and philology, came to acquire something of its
modern meaning of "fundamental" or "thorough." It was, however, at this
time a theological term, being used in the Puritan phrase _radical
regeneration_. It was not definitely applied to politics till about
1785, and soon became, in the reaction after the French Revolution, a
term of low reproach, more or less equivalent to "blackguard"--a meaning
it is said still to preserve in some remote or exalted regions.

_Scriptural_ is a Puritan word of the XVIIth Century; and so also are
_independent_ and _independence_, which soon acquired a political
meaning; while _demagogue_ is a Royalist term which first appeared in
the _Eikon Basilike_. As this defence of Charles I was supposed at the
time to have been written by the King himself, the great word-coiner
Milton, in his answer to it, abused it as a "goblin word," and declared,
somewhat illiberally, that the King could not "coin English as he could
money." _Plunder_ is a German word meaning originally "bedclothes" or
"household stuff"; it was much used during the Thirty Years' War, and
became familiar on the outbreak of the Civil War, being especially
connected with Prince Rupert's raids--the "plunderous Rupertism" of
Carlyle's eccentric coining. _Tory_ was originally a term of reproach
for the half-savage bog-trotters in Ireland supposed to be in the
King's service; _Royalist_ and _Roundhead_ date, of course, from this
period; _Cavalier_ was adopted by the Puritans as a term of abuse
for the swashbucklers on the King's side, to whom also applied the
Protestant word _malignant_. _Prelatry_, _prelatize_, _goosery_,
_fustianist_, were terms coined in the controversies of this time by
Milton, who was as highly gifted for vituperation as he was for poetry.
_Sectarian_ was first used by the Presbyterians for the Independents,
but was soon applied by the Anglicans to the Nonconformists. _Cant_,
as we use it now, and _fanatic_ are abusive terms introduced by the
Royalists; and although they were defeated in the field, we must on the
whole give them the crown of victory in this linguistic contest, as
their terms of vituperation have been more widely accepted, and have
gained a much larger circulation than those of their Puritan opponents.

At the Restoration, when Charles II returned to England, he brought the
spirit of mockery with him; and in the reaction against the austerity
and zeal of the pious Puritans, a large number of mocking words arose
or became current. To this period belong the verbs to _burlesque_, to
_banter_, to _droll_, to _ridicule_; nouns like _travesty_, _badinage_,
and adjectives like _jocose_ and _teasing_ in their modern use; while
_prig_ was borrowed from rogue's cant to describe a Puritan or a
non-conformist minister. As typical of this time we may quote Anthony
 Wood's description in 1678 of a new set in academic circles, the
"banterers of Oxford," "who make it their Employment to talk at a
Venture, lye, and prate what Nonsense they please; if they see a Man
talk seriously, they Talk floridly Nonsense, and care not what he says;
this is like throwing a Cushion at a Man's Head, that pretends to be
grave and wise."

Of the more serious side of the Restoration period, the immense
revolution in thought caused by the foundation at that time of modern
science, and the growth of a scientific vocabulary and of a scientific
view of the world, we shall speak in another chapter; there remain,
however, a few words in which are embedded events or aspects of XVIIth
Century history. _Bivouac_, like "plunder," is a word that arose
in the Thirty Years' War, although it did not come into English
until the beginning of the XVIIIth Century; _campaign_, _recruit_,
_commander-in-chief_, and the military sense of _capitulation_ appear
in the Civil War; and many other military terms, _parade_, _pontoon_,
_patrol_, _bombard_, _cannonade_, _barracks_, _brigadier_, _fusilier_,
etc., were borrowed in the later part of the XVIIth Century from the
French, who were now the masters in the military art, as indeed in most
of the arts at this period. _Refugee_ came into the language with the
Huguenot refugees; _excise_ is apparently a Dutch word and, although
borrowed earlier, came into general use when this system of taxation
was borrowed from Holland in 1643; it long remained unpopular, and Dr.
Johnson defined it in his Dictionary as a "hateful tax," "levied by
wretches." _Drub_, used originally of the bastinado, is supposed to be
an Arabic word, brought, in the XVIIth Century, from the Barbary States,
where so many Christians suffered captivity, and where they learnt the
expression from the cudgelling of their Mohammedan captors. We can
trace, moreover, to the XVIIth Century the beginnings of our modern
commercial vocabulary. _Capital_, _investment_, _dividend_ belong to the
earlier, _insurance_, _commercial_, and _discount_ to the later part of
the century, and the great words _bank_, _machine_, and _manufacture_
begin to acquire their modern meaning.

This commercial vocabulary was largely increased in the XVIIIth Century;
_bankruptcy_, _banking_, _currency_, _remittance_, appear before 1750;
in this period the old word _business_ acquires its present meaning, and
we hear of _bulls_ and _bears_, and of trade being _dull_ or _brisk_.
After 1750 _consols_, _finance_, appear, and _bonus_ and _capitalist_.
The vocabulary, too, of modern politics grows with the development of
political institutions; we hear of the _Ministry_ in the reign of Queen
Anne, of the _Premier_ in that of George I, while in the early years of
George II's reign the _administration_, the _budget_, the _estimates_
appear, with _party_, as the word is now used. _Prime Minister_ was
borrowed from the courts of despotic sovereigns and applied to Walpole
as an abusive term, but this title was expressly disowned by him, as it
was by Lord North under George III. It fell more or less out of use,
being replaced by _Premier_ or _First Minister_, until about the middle
of the XIXth Century, and it only received official recognition in 1905.

At the end of the XVIIIth Century and the beginning of the XIXth, some
of the vocabulary of the French Revolution was imported into England;
_aristocracy_ came now to be contrasted, not with _monarchy_, but
_democracy_; the words _aristocrat_ and _democrat_ were borrowed from
French, and the old word _despot_ acquired its present hostile meaning,
and _despotism_ was enlarged from the rule of a despot to any arbitrary
use of unlimited power. The verb to _revolutionize_ and the slightly
later _terrorize_, with _royalism_ and _terrorism_, are words of the
French Revolution; _conscription_ gained its present meaning from the
conscriptions of the French Republic, and _section_ in its geographical
use, and the XIXth Century word _sectional_, are derived from the
division of France into electoral sections under the Directory.

Even the most superficial survey, however, of the XVIIIth Century must
not be dismissed without a reference at least to its contributions
to our vocabulary of literature and social life. _Literature_ itself
only acquired the sense of literary production in this century, and
_literary_ (which is not included in Johnson's Dictionary) has till this
time only the meaning of "alphabetical." Of new-formed words, or old
words that acquired their present meanings between 1700 and 1800, may be
mentioned _editor_, _novelist_, _magazine_, _publisher_, _copyright_,
the verb to _review_, and the great word the _Press_. Of social life,
in this Golden Age of good society, we find, as we might expect, many
new characteristic terms, the words _season_, _polite_, and _club_ take
on new meanings, we hear of _callers_ and _visiting cards_; and the
immense number of compounds formed from the word "tea" (_tea-room_,
_tea-party_, _tea-drinker_, etc.) would afford much material for the
student of social customs. In the new compounds, moreover, which
were now formed from the old word _sea_ (_sea-beach_, _sea-bathing_,
the adjective _seaside_, and the use of _sea-air_ as a cause not of
sickness but of health) he would find evidence of that discovery of
the sea as a source of pleasure and well-being which we also owe to
this period. The earlier sea-terms in English, _seaman_, _seafaring_,
_seacoast_, etc. (many of which date from the Anglo-Saxon period), are
all of a practical and unromantic character. The Renaissance compounds,
_sea-green_, _sea-god_, _sea-nymph_, are translations from the classics,
and show the influence of the classical feeling for the sea. Although
Shakespeare's epithets for the sea, _rude_, _dangerous_, _rough_, etc.,
are generally hostile, he yet shows in such adjectives as _silver_ and
_multitudinous_, and in phrases like _beached margent_ and _yellow
sands_, a sense of its beauty beyond that of most of his contemporaries.
The popular love, however, for the sea and its shores dates from the
XVIIIth Century, and finds its latest expression in XIXth Century
compounds like _sea-smell_ and _sea-murmuring_, which we owe to
Tennyson.

The XIXth Century has provided us with an amazing wealth of
characteristic terms; and a chronological list of these, and of the ones
which have made their appearance since 1900, would, if we had space to
give it, show us a curious picture of our own age, and all its interests
and developments. But there is another aspect of the subject which is
even more important--the development, as mirrored in our language, of
modern ways of thought and feeling--and to this we must devote our last
chapter.




CHAPTER IX

LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT


If we were given what purported to be a transcript of a medieval
manuscript, and should find in it words like _enlightenment_ or
_scepticism_, we should not hesitate to pronounce it a glaring and
absurd forgery; and we should reject with equal promptness a pretended
Elizabethan play in which we came upon such phrases as an _exciting
event_, an _interesting personality_, or found the characters speaking
of their _feelings_. Or when we read in the famous cryptogram, supposed
to have been inserted by Bacon in Shakespeare's and his own writings, of
_secret interviews_, _tragedies of great interest_, and _disagreeable
insinuations_, we begin to doubt Bacon's authorship of these phrases;
a doubt which is considerably strengthened when we find him speaking
of his _affaires de coeur_ and the _lone garden of his heart_. These
are extreme instances; but there are thousands of other words and
phrases which we feel belong to definite periods, and would never have
been used at an earlier date. The reason for our feeling is only to
a slight extent philological; as far as their form is concerned, the
greater part of these words would have been perfectly possible--it is in
their meanings, the thoughts they express, that they are such obvious
anachronisms.

This curious sense of the dates of words, or rather of the ideas that
they express, comes to us from our knowledge, grown half-instinctive,
of the ways of thought dominant in different epochs, the "mental
atmosphere" as we call it, which made certain thoughts current and
possible, and others impossible at this time or that. This study of
the social consciousness of past ages is perhaps the most important
part of history; changes of government, crusades, religious reforms,
revolutions--all these are half-meaningless events to us unless we
understand the ideas, the passions, the ways of looking at the world,
of which they are the outcome. It is also the most elusive thing in
history; we gain enough of it, indeed, from literature to make us aware
of any glaring anachronism; but we are too apt to read back modern
conceptions into old words, and it is one of the most difficult of
mental feats to place ourselves in the minds of our ancestors, and to
see life and the world as they saw it. It is here that language can give
the most important aid to history; if we know what words were current
and popular at a given period, what new terms were made or borrowed, and
the new meanings that were attached to old ones, we become aware, in a
curiously intimate way, of interests of that period. We cannot, it is
true, always trace by means of language the ultimate source of all new
ideas; they may have been inherited from Greece or Rome, they may have
been discovered by some pioneer long before they became current; but the
date at which they are absorbed into the common consciousness is shown
fairly accurately by the new words to which they give birth, or the
change in meaning which they produce in old ones. One of the best tests
of the importance and popularity of words is the number of compounds and
derivatives which in a given period are formed from them. We find, for
instance, that many compounds from the word _church_ (_church-bell_,
_church-door_, _church-book_, etc.) were formed in the Anglo-Saxon
period, that many derivatives were formed from _court_ and _crown_
(_courtier_, _courteous_, _courtesy_, _crowning_, _crownment_), in the
XIIIth Century, and that religious words like _bless_ and _damn_ also
produce many new terms in the early Middle Ages. On the other hand, an
old word like _rational_, which dates from the XIVth Century, forms no
derivatives until the XVIIth, when we find _rationalist_, _rationality_,
and several others; while _rationalism_, _rationalize_, _rationalistic_,
belong to the XIXth Century.

Taking, then, this test of language, and relying in particular on those
words that take root and multiply at various periods, let us start with
the Middle Ages and see what light we can get on the growth, through
the intervening centuries, of our modern view of ourselves and the
universe.

It is a commonplace to say that the dominant conception of modern times
is that of science, of immutable law and order in the material universe.
This great and fruitful conception so permeates our thought, and so
deeply influences even those who most oppose it, that it is difficult
to realize the mental consciousness of a time when it hardly existed.
But if we study the vocabulary of science, the words by which its
fundamental thoughts are expressed, we shall find that the greater part
of them are not to be found in the English language a few centuries ago;
or if they did exist, that they were used of religious institutions or
human affairs; and that their transference to natural phenomena has been
very gradual and late. _Order_ is, indeed, a very old word in English,
and appears in the XIIIth Century in reference to monastic orders, and
the heavenly hierarchy, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, etc., of Christian
theology. It acquires some notion of fixed arrangement in the XIVth
Century, but it is not till the XVIth Century that its derivatives
_orderliness_ and _orderly_ are found. _Ordered_ meant "in holy orders"
till this period, when we also find the noun _disorder_. _Regular_ is
a XIVth Century word, but was also used of monastic orders (being the
opposite of _secular_) until 1584; while _regularity_, _regulation_,
and the verb to _regulate_ belong to the following century. _Method_
and _system_ are also modern words, with the adjectives _methodical_,
_systematic_, and _uniform_. The verb to _arrange_ is an old word, and
was used like _array_ in a military sense; but it does not appear in
Shakespeare or the Bible, and did not acquire its present meaning until
the XVIIIth Century, at which time _arrangement_ is also found. The verb
to _classify_, with _classification_, belongs to the XVIIIth Century,
_organism_ to the XVIIth, at which time the slightly earlier _organize_
and _organization_ acquired their present meanings.

If we take the great word _law_, we do not find it applied in English
to natural phenomena before the Restoration, although its Latin
equivalent _lex_ was employed in this sense by Bacon earlier in the
XVIIth Century. The Roman and medieval phrase _natural law_ (_lex
naturae_ or _naturalis_) meant the law of God implanted in the human
reason for the guidance of human conduct; and even the _laws of nature_,
by those who first used the phrase in our modern sense were, as the
_Oxford Dictionary_ tells us, regarded as commands which were imposed
by the Deity upon matter, and which, as we still say, were "obeyed" by
phenomena.

Many other instances could be given, but the above will suffice to show
how the notion of law and order in nature and visible phenomena spread
in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, replacing the older notions of magic
or divine interference. Partly produced by this sense of law and order
in nature, and probably still more the cause of it, we notice also, at
this time, a great increase in the vocabulary of observation. Speaking
generally, the names of the abstract reasoning processes--_reason_,
_cogitation_, _intuition_, etc., belong to the Middle Ages, while
those which describe the investigation of natural phenomena belong
to the modern epoch, or only acquire, at that time, their present
meaning and their popular use. To _observe_ meant to obey a rule, or
to inspect auguries for the purpose of divination, until the XVIth
Century, when it acquired the meaning of examination of phenomena;
_observant_ and _observation_ were old religious words meaning the
obedience to religious laws, until the same time; _perception_ meant
the collection of rents until the XVIIth Century, and _scrutiny_ was
only used of votes until that period. _Experiment_ and _experimental_
are old words used in alchemy, but experiment as a process (as in
the phrase _to try by experiment_) is modern, and _experimental_ had
hardly more than the vague meaning of "observed" until the XVIth
Century. The verbs to _analyse_, to _distinguish_, to _investigate_,
appear in the same period, and in the next hundred years to _remark_,
to _inspect_, to _scrutinize_; to _notice_ is an old verb meaning "to
notify," but it fell out of use, and was only revived and given its
present meaning in America at about the middle of the XVIIIth Century.
We may also note that while words expressing belief--_certainty_,
_assurance_, _credence_, etc., are generally old in the language, those
that suggest doubt, questioning, and criticism, almost all belong to
the modern period. _Doubt_ is, of course, an old theological word, and
_doubtful_ appears in the XIVth Century; but _doubtfulness_, _dubious_,
_dubiousness_, _dubitable_, with _sceptic_, _sceptical_, _scepticism_,
are of modern formation; and in this period, too, the old verbs to
_dissent_ and _disagree_ became applied to matters of opinion or
conviction.

This conception of order in the material universe, and the spirit of
investigation and inquiry, resulted of course in a great increase of
knowledge about natural phenomena. This increase of knowledge, and
its popular diffusion, shows itself very clearly in the large number
of words that now come into use to describe the qualities of matter.
We note in the XVIth Century a new use of words like _tenacity_ and
_texture_, while in the following century we find _cohesion_, _tension_,
_elasticity_, and _temperature_. At this time, too, the word _force_
acquired its physical meaning; and _energy_, a word of Aristotle's
creation, which was first employed in English as a term of literary
criticism, was applied to the material world, although its precise
modern use was not defined before the XIXth Century.

But it would be outside our scope to trace in detail the formation of
the vocabulary of modern science; we can only note that the experimental
study of nature began, in modern Europe, in the XVIth Century, and that
many observations were made, and much material collected; and that
then, after the check caused by the Civil War, when men's minds were
turned at the Restoration from theological controversies to the affairs
of this world, an immense and unprecedented advance was suddenly made
in scientific knowledge. All the somewhat disconnected observations
collected by previous generations were now ordered and systematized, and
modern science sprang into existence and began to extend its domain over
the whole universe.

But this conception of science was not so much a new discovery as
the revival of ancient thought which found, at the Renaissance, an
atmosphere favorable to its fruitful development. The order, however,
which the ancients found in the universe was a fixed and unchangeable
one; the belief in progressive change, in evolution, is modern, and
forms, perhaps, the most essential difference between our view of the
world and that of the Greeks and Romans. We do not, perhaps, always
realize how very modern the conception is, but if we take the words
by which it is expressed--_advance_, _amelioration_, _development_,
_improvement_, _progress_, _evolution_, we shall find that none of them
can be found in English with their present meaning before the XVIth
Century. _Advance_ and _advancement_ are old words in English, with the
meaning of promotion from a lower to a higher office; and only acquire
the sense of progress after the Middle Ages. _Improve_ and _improvement_
were terms of Law French, originally employed to describe the process of
enclosing waste land and bringing it into cultivation; they acquire the
sense of "making better" in the XVIIth Century, and one of the earliest
uses of "improve," with this modern meaning, is found, appropriately
enough, in the title of "the Royal Society of London for Improving
Natural Knowledge," founded about 1660.

_Evolution_ is, of course, a modern word in English; it appeared
first in a military sense in the XVIIth Century, and acquired its
present meaning and its immense development from the work of Darwin
and Herbert Spencer in the XIXth Century. Indeed, it is not too much
to say that although the Middle Ages had words like _regeneration_ and
_amendment_, with reference to the notion of personal conduct and its
reform, there were at that time no general terms to express the ideas
of continuous improvement, of advance to better and better conditions.
The reason that there were no such terms is, of course, that they were
not needed. The idea of progress may have visited the thoughts of a
few lonely philosophers, but it obtained no general acceptance, and
found no expression in the language. The social consciousness was not
favorable to it, being dominated as it was by the religious belief
in the degeneracy of a world fallen from grace, and fated to worse
deterioration before its sudden end, which might come at any time.
Even at the Reformation the ideal, as the word _Reformation_ shows,
was that of a return to the purity of primitive and uncorrupted times;
and the conception of continuous evolution, of an advance beyond the
limits set by the past, is one which has appeared at a late period in
the history of thought. Indeed, the application of this thought to
human society, the belief in human progress, hardly became diffused and
popular before the middle of the XVIIIth Century. _Progress_ is an old
word for a journey, a "royal progress"; it began to acquire the meaning
of continuous improvement in the time of Shakespeare, at which time the
verb to _progress_ appeared, and the adjective _progressive_, which
was used by Bacon in his _Essays_. The verb, however, became obsolete
in English, and was introduced again from America after the notion
of progress, taken into their systems and popularized by the XVIIIth
Century philosophers had found its way into the popular imagination, and
had given birth to the great new hope of modern times, the modern belief
that human society is advancing, or can advance, to better and better
conditions.

We have given a summary account, in the previous chapter, of the
deposits left by various historical events in the English language--of
words as historical documents. Still more interesting is the evidence
of language about the growth of the sense of history itself, the change
that the modern conceptions of order and progress have produced in our
way of regarding past ages. If we examine our historical vocabulary,
the words and phrases by which we express our sense that the past was
not the same, but something different from the present, we shall find
that they are all of them modern, and most of them, indeed, of very
recent introduction. Men in the Middle Ages were fully conscious of
antiquity; but, save for the sense of increasing deterioration, no
clear distinction existed in the popular mind between the life of the
present and the past; feudal institutions and medieval ways of thought
were attributed to the Greeks and Romans, who were always pictured as
dressed in medieval costumes. Probably the first word in which our
modern historical sense finds expression is the word _primitive_, as
applied by the Reformers to the early Church. Indeed, the effect of the
Reformation, in turning men's thoughts, not only to past events, but
to the customs and institutions of earlier ages, did much to create
a sense of history. This was increased by the revival of learning,
and a truer understanding of classical times; the distinction between
_ancient_ and _modern_ appears in Bacon's writings; and the word
_classical_, with something, though by no means all, of the meaning we
give it, is found not much later. The Puritans, by adopting from the
Church Fathers the distinction between the Old and the New Testament
_dispensations_, increased the sense of historical perspective, and the
words _epoch_, _century_, _decade_, with the adjectives _antiquated_,
_primeval_, _Gothic_, _old-fashioned_, _out-of-date_, show its growth
and spread in the XVIIth Century. It is not, however, till the XVIIIth
Century that the sense of the past embodies itself in phrases like
the _Middle Ages_, the _Dark Ages_, the _Revival of Learning_, while
_medieval_, _feudalism_, _Elizabethan_, the _Renaissance_, belong to the
XIXth Century. _Anachronism_ was used in the XVIIth Century for an error
in computing time; its modern meaning, first found in Coleridge, is
very significant, and conveying as it does the idea of a thing which is
appropriate to one age, but out of harmony with another, it expresses
a thought, a way of feeling, which is very modern, and which would not
have needed expression at an earlier period. The latest addition to our
historical vocabulary is the word _prehistoric_, which is first found
in 1851, and which represents the opening up of an immense new field of
investigation, the history of mankind before the existence of written
records.

With this growing sense of the past, and its difference from the
present, we find, as we might expect, the growth of a romantic and
sentimental attitude towards bygone ages of English history. The earlier
attitude of the XVIIIth Century toward the Middle Ages, which is
expressed in phrases like the _Dark Ages_, and _barbarous_ or _Gothic_,
to describe everything medieval, was not long after succeeded by the
Romantic movement, and its revival, which we have already mentioned,
of old and half-forgotten words. But these words of the Romantic
revival--_chivalry_, _chivalrous_, _minstrel_, _bard_, etc., have now
taken on a romantic glamour they by no means originally possessed.
_Minstrel_ was a name for a buffoon or juggler, as well as a musician
in early times; while _bard_, as a name for a Gaelic singer, was used,
with "beggar" and "vagabond," as a term of contempt, until it became
associated with the classical use of the same word, and was idealized by
Sir Walter Scott. Our modern use of _chivalry_ as an ideal of conduct
dates no further back than Burke's famous phrase, "The age of chivalry
is gone."

The above instances of modern ways of thought and feeling will give us
some slight notion of the words we must delete from our vocabulary,
the ideas we must dismiss from our mind, should we wish to enter into
the spirit and popular consciousness of the Middle Ages. Should we
succeed in our attempt, we should find ourselves in a world strangely
different from the world which modern thought has created for us--a
world not governed by impersonal law, but expressing supernatural
purpose, and subject to constant supernatural intervention. The sense
of past and future, the looking before and after of modern times, the
historical sense, which makes the past so different from the present,
and fills our minds with speculations and ideals for the future, would
drop from us. The present would be for us the same as the past, and
our future prospect would be that of a more or less swift destruction
of the world and human society. Our modern universe is a vast process
of ordered change and regular development; theirs was a definite and
almost unchanging creation, formed in a moment out of nothing, and
destined to end as suddenly as it began. But perhaps what would impress
us most would be the absorption of thought in immediate practical
considerations, the absence of curiosity about natural objects, save
in so far as they ministered to man's service. We should find that the
movements of heavenly bodies were mainly of interest for their supposed
effect on the destinies of human beings; the plants that were useful,
or supposed to be useful in medicine and magic, were the ones that were
known and named; zoology was important for the moral lessons to be drawn
from the ways of animals, mineralogy consisted largely in a knowledge
of the magical powers of jewels, chemistry was pursued for the purpose
of transmuting metals into gold; and even the philosophy of the Middle
Ages was an effort not so much to arrive at truth as to reconcile reason
and revealed religion. We should find plenty of speculation about the
practical uses of things, and many words to describe their nature from
this point of view; but words to describe their qualities, apart from
their uses, would be almost entirely wanting. Even the vocabulary of
another side of disinterested observation, the sense of beauty, would be
scanty, for words like _admiration_ and _beautiful_ belong to the XVIth
Century and not to the Middle Ages.

It is this practical or utilitarian spirit which would probably most
oppress us; and our minds would feel imprisoned in the small box of
the medieval universe, with its confining spheres, its near, monitory
stars, and didactic animals. And yet, should we thoroughly enter into
the atmosphere of that time, and find mankind and ourselves, not the
temporary and accidental inhabitants of a remote planet, but standing
at the centre of a universe whose unifying principle was not mechanical
law, but justice and divine grace, and whose end and purpose were the
fulfilment of human destiny, we might feel that our life had gained a
dignity and gravity which modern science has taken from it; and that in
the spiritual, and not in the natural world, was to be found, after all,
the true home of the human soul.

There is another change in our vocabulary pointing to a change in
thought and feeling quite as profound as that produced by science, and
the sense of law and order in the material universe. The great pioneers
of the Renaissance discovered not only the world of natural phenomena,
but another world, equally vast and varied and new--the world of man.
Man had indeed been placed by medieval thought at the centre of the
universe, and nature made subservient to his needs, but it was not
man as he is in himself that was regarded, but man in his relation to
society or the Church. The natural man, with his individual variation
from the inherited type, was hardly considered; he was subordinated to
the great and dominant scheme of theology, and he was thought of not so
much as a person as of a soul to be saved or lost.

Probably to each of us the sense of his own personality, the knowledge
that he exists and thinks and feels, is the ultimate and fundamental
fact of life. But this sense of personality, of the existence of men
as separate individuals, is one of the latest developments of human
thought. Man in early societies is not thought of as an individual,
and there are savage languages that possess no word for "I" or for
the conception of "myself." An examination of those words by which we
express this notion of personality, and their history, will show that
this simple fundamental conception, like most other simple conceptions,
was a late fruit of daring thought, and was only reached by devious
ways, and after much abstract speculation. The word _individual_
(literally "inseparable") was a word formed in scholastic Latin from
the earlier _individuum_, which meant an indivisible particle or atom.
_Individual_ was used in medieval logic for a member of a class or
species, and also as a theological term with reference to the Trinity,
and did not acquire its present meaning in English before the time of
Shakespeare. The great classical and medieval word _person_ has an even
more curious history. It is, in its origin, one of those many words
(_scene_, _scenery_, _landscape_, _attitude_, _contrast_, _character_,
_expression_, _costume_, etc.) which have come to us from the arts, and
show how conceptions and distinctions, first achieved by art, are found,
like those thought out by philosophy, to be of useful application to
life and natural phenomena. For _person_ was originally a dramatic term,
the Latin _persona_ (derived, it is believed, from the verb _personare_,
"to sound through") meaning an actor's mask. From this it acquired
the meaning of actor's part, or of one who performs or acts any part,
and especially a "personage," one who plays an important part on the
stage of life. Its next meaning was legal, a man's personal rights and
duties which depend upon his position in life, and it did not acquire
the meaning of an individual human being till late in Roman times. This
was probably helped by the use of the word in Christian theology for
a Person of the Trinity; and we may say in general that the notion of
personality, though of Stoic origin, was greatly developed by Christian
thought, with its sense of the infinite worth of the individual human
soul. This conception, then, had already been achieved by medieval
thought, and the words _person_, _personal_, _personality_, belong to
this period. They have, however, received in modern times an immense
extension of meaning, and another whole group of words has been created
or adopted to express the various new conceptions to which the idea of
personality has given birth.

The _ego_, with _egoism_, are terms introduced by French philosophers
in the XVIIth Century, and _egotism_ is another French term. These were
borrowed at various periods; _egotism_, which is used by Addison, being
the first to appear in English, while _egotistical_ belongs to the
XIXth Century. But before this the old word _self_, like a germ that
finds a soil and atmosphere favourable to its multiplication, began
to form compounds in enormous quantities. _Self-liking_, _self-love_,
_self-conceit_, _self-assurance_, _self-regard_, _self-destruction_,
_self-murder_, belong to the later part of the XVIth Century, and
these are followed in the next hundred years by _self-contempt_,
_self-applause_, _self-confidence_, _self-esteem_, _self_-_defence_,
_self-command_, and many others. The multiplication of these words has
gone on steadily ever since; _self-help_ and _self-assertion_ are
characteristic of the XIXth Century, and _self-culture_ has come to us
from the strenuous climate of New England. _Selfish_ and _selfishness_
are Puritan words, formed by the Presbyterians about 1640, to express
a notion for which the older _self-love_ was too vague, and _philauty_
from the Greek, and _suicism_ from the Latin too pedantic for popular
acceptance, though both of them were tried.

The self, or ego, is not, however, a simple object, but possesses many
aspects and attributes. The more abstract qualities of human reason
found their names as, we have seen, in scholastic philosophy, but
_fancy_ and _instinct_ belong to the time of Shakespeare, and _impulse_
to the XVIIth Century. The distinction between _talent_ and _genius_ is
a modern one, and the evidence of language throws considerable light
upon its origin. The word _genius_ appears first in English, early in
the XVIth Century, in the classical sense of a tutelary god or attendant
spirit; it then acquired the meaning of the "spirit" or distinctive
character of an age or institution, and then of the natural ability
or capacity of a man. Its modern use for extraordinary and mysterious
creative power was slowly developed in England in the XVIIIth Century,
and was, perhaps, helped by the use of _genius_ to translate the Arabian
_Jinn_, the supernatural beings of the _Arabian Nights_. Our modern
use was not, however, recognized in Johnson's Dictionary, and was only
received in its full definition in the Romantic period of _Sturm und
Drang_ in Germany, where the distinction between genius and talent was
strongly emphasized, and whence it was brought back, by students of
German literature, to England in the XIXth Century. The Germans, on the
other hand, imported, in the XVIIIth Century, our word _original_, which
in the phrase _original composition_ had recently acquired in England a
new meaning, and had given birth to the modern word _originality_. Our
use of the old words _temperament_ and _personality_, in phrases such
as _artistic temperament_, or a _strong personality_, are still more
modern, and the _subconscious_ or _subliminal_ self are very recent
additions to our vocabulary.

But before this conception of personality found its full development,
the human mind had awakened to a vivid sense of the multitudes of
individuals, with their various characters and passions, who go, as
we say, to make up the world. The human vocabulary of the Middle Ages
is somewhat poor and meagre, and it is only now and then in the works
of a great writer like Chaucer, that we get glimpses of the rich and
varied secular life of this period. We have names for religious or
military characters, terms descriptive of noble or base condition,
pride or humility, courage or cowardice; and, in addition to the oldest
feelings of human nature, _hate_, _fear_, _love_, and _joy_, we find
a large vocabulary of the emotions sanctioned by religion, _remorse_,
_repentance_, _anguish_, _delight_, _despair_, _compunction_. But when
men freed themselves from the bonds of theology, at the same time that
they broke through the confining spheres of the Aristotelian heavens,
they saw the whole universe of varied human nature spread before them.
The human intelligence, like Adam naming the animals in the Garden of
Paradise, found terms for the secular characters, with their passions
and peculiarities, which passed before it in motley procession. This
process of observation and naming has continued ever since; and a list
of these words, arranged according to the dates of their appearance,
would help us to enter into the feelings of the different generations,
and to understand their likes and dislikes, and what they thought worthy
of praise or condemnation. Such a study would, however, expand this book
to undue proportions, and we will confine ourselves to a short account
of the terms of abuse or depreciation, as these are the ones in which
the spirit of an age mirrors itself most vividly, and in these, too, the
genius of the language is most completely manifested. Medieval terms of
abuse--_villain_, _churl_, _boor_, _knave_--are very largely derived
from the names of people in a humble condition, and form a striking
opposition to _kind_, _free_, _gentle_, _gentleman_, etc., which signify
noble birth. There is, however, one word, _dangerous_, which, like
the adjective _proud_, we may contrast with these. For _dangerous_ is
derived ultimately from the Latin _dominus_, "lord" or "master," and
its earliest meaning in English was that of "haughty," "arrogant,"
"difficult." In Chaucer's time it was used to express another aspect of
lordly character, coming to mean "fastidious," "delicate," "dainty," and
it is not found with the meaning of "perilous" or "risky" before the
XVth Century.

Among later terms, we have already mentioned those of Protestant
controversy, and to these may be added the characteristic adjectives,
_credulous_ and _superstitious_, words that, if they had existed, would
have had no abusive sense before the Reformation. Of words describing
secular characteristics, _cold-hearted_, _affected_, _indiscreet_,
_bold-faced_, and _moody_, as we use them now, are first found in
Shakespeare, and _revengeful_, _cynical_, _absurd_, also belong to
this period. In the XVIIth Century words, _fanciful_, _fatuous_,
_callous_, _disingenuous_, _countrified_, we find a somewhat nicer if
more superficial observation; and, omitting the Restoration terms of
abuse (which have already been mentioned), we notice in the XVIIIth
Century adjectives, _prim_, _demure_, _prudish_, _gawky_, _bearish_,
and _impolite_, all of which refer to qualities objectionable in the
intercourse of society, which was so highly developed in this period.
There are two other words that are very characteristic of the XVIIIth
Century, _enthusiastic_ and _intolerant_. _Enthusiastic_ and the noun
_enthusiasm_ were first used at the English Renaissance, with the
historical and pagan meaning of possession by a god or divine frenzy;
but they came in the XVIIIth Century to be abusive terms for religious
fanatics and religious fanaticism, and _enthusiastic_ only recovered a
good meaning at the more romantic end of the century. If _enthusiasm_
was repellent to this "enlightened" age, _intolerance_, which is apt to
accompany it, was equally repellent; and we find that _intolerant_ and
_intolerance_ both make their appearance now--indeed, there would have
been no need for them before the Restoration, nor would they have been
abusive words at an earlier period. These XVIIIth Century words form a
curious contrast to the earlier terms of abuse--_miscreant_, _renegade_,
_libertine_--in which wrong or liberal views on religious subjects were
taken to imply moral delinquency.

But the study of human nature can be pursued from two points of view;
we may observe our fellow-men and their ways and characters; or we may
turn within and study our own selves. "Know thyself" was an exhortation
inherited from antiquity, but its complete realization has only been
accomplished in modern times. Speaking generally, we may say that the
men of the Renaissance devoted their minds to observing their fellow
human beings; and that men did not turn to the study of themselves, the
second great chapter in the book of life, until more than a century had
passed. This great revolution in thought--this discovery of the inner
life and feelings--was due to many influences. Protestantism, by making
the experience of each individual the foundation of religion, was one
of its causes; and it was no doubt helped by the writings of a man like
Montaigne, who was the first in modern times to devote himself to the
study of his own moods and thoughts. This change in point of view gained
also impetus from the great revolution in philosophy when, in the XVIIth
Century, Descartes turned the world inside out, and defined the activity
of consciousness, the certainty of the thinking self, as the most
immediate fact of existence.

But all these and many other influences were partly the cause, partly
the symptoms, of this shifting of thought to a new centre. Our object
is to consider it for a moment, not in its ultimate sources, but in its
growth and diffusion in English life, as shown by the English language.
This can be well seen in the history of the word _conscious_ and its
derivatives. _Conscious_ was borrowed from the Latin poets in the time
of Shakespeare, with the sense of sharing knowledge with another,
and was used of inanimate things, as Milton's _conscious night_. The
word is first found in Ben Jonson's _Poetaster_, who ridicules it
as a modern and affected term. It was used by Locke of thoughts and
feelings, and finds its full extension and definition early in the
XVIIIth Century, when we read of "conscious beings." _Consciousness_,
first found in 1632, attained its philosophical definition late in
the XVIIth Century, when it was described by Locke as "perception of
what passes in a man's own mind." To Locke also we owe the use of the
compound _self-consciousness_ (then recently formed) in its modern
sense; and at about this time the old word _subjective_ shifted its
meaning from the scholastic sense of "existing in itself" and took on
the meaning of "existing in consciousness or thought." _Self-knowledge_,
_self-examination_, _self-pity_, and _self-contempt_ belong to the
"self" words of the XVIIth Century, and with them appear a swarm of
what we may call "introspective" words--words that describe moods and
feelings, as seen from within, as part of our own inner experience.
The older kind of names for human passions and feelings we may call
"objective," that is to say, they are observed from outside, and named
by their effects and moral consequences. These names are apt to be moral
labels, stuck on dangerous tendencies, to warn us of their ultimate
results. Most people must have felt at one time or another the grotesque
incongruity of ugly names like _greed_ or _malice_ for feelings
delightful at the moment; and a non-human observer from another planet
might be puzzled to find that the passions and propensities that were
called by the least attractive terms were the ones that mankind most
persistently indulged.

The more modern and "sympathetic" names for human feelings, derived from
introspection and self-analysis, only begin to appear in large numbers
about the middle of the XVIIth Century. _Loneliness_, indeed, and
_disgust_ and _lassitude_ are a little earlier; but at this time words
like _aversion_, _day-dream_, _dissatisfaction_, _discomposure_, make
their appearance; _depression_ is transferred from material objects to a
state of mind, and the old word _reverie_, which had first meant "joy"
and then "anger," acquires its modern and introspective meaning. This
vocabulary of moods and feelings was increased in the XVIIIth Century by
_ennui_, _chagrin_, _homesickness_, _diffidence_, _apathy_, while the
older words, _excitement_, _agitation_, _constraint_, _embarrassment_,
_disappointment_, come to be applied to inner experiences. With these
words we find a curious class of verbs and adjectives which describe not
so much the objective qualities and activities of things as the effects
they produce on us, our own feelings and sensations. To _divert_, to
_enliven_, to _entertain_, to _amuse_, to _entrance_, to _fascinate_,
to _disgust_, to _dissatisfy_, with the adjectives _entertaining_,
_exhilarating_, _perplexing_, _refreshing_, and many others, are all
modern words, or old words given a new and modern meaning. Some of them,
indeed, are very recent, and our use of the common adjectives _amusing_
and _exciting_ is not found before the XIXth Century.

Perhaps the most characteristic of all these modern adjectives is the
word _interesting_, which is put to so many uses that we can hardly
imagine how life or conversation could be carried on without it. And
yet _interesting_ is not found before the XVIIIth Century, when it
first meant "important," and its first use with its present meaning
appears, characteristically enough, in Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_,
published in 1768. About the same time the verb to _bore_ appeared; and
we who are so often _bored_, or _interested_, must, if we wish to enter
into the state of mind of past ages, try to imagine a time when people
thought more of objects than of their own emotions, and when, if they
were bored or interested, would not name their feeling, but mention
the quality or object that produced it. This change is a subtle and
yet an important one; it is due to our increased self-consciousness,
and our greater sense of the importance of the inner world of feeling.
One of the latest products or by-products of this change is the
modern habit of taking a conscious pleasure in our own emotions. This
"sentimental" attitude is well dated for us by the appearance of the
word _sentimental_ itself about the middle of the XVIIIth Century. It
soon became fashionable; and, carried abroad by Sterne's _Sentimental
Journey_, it was borrowed by the French, and translated by the Germans;
thus showing, as many other instances would show (had we the space to
give them), that these changes of language, thought, and feeling were
not confined to England, but belonged to a general movement in which
the whole of civilized Europe took part--one nation borrowing from
the other as new developments arose. The contributions of England to
European civilization, as tested by the English words in Continental
languages, _bifteck_, _pudding_, _grog_, _jockey_, _tourist_, _comfort_,
_sport_, etc., are not, generally, of a kind to cause much national
self-congratulation. We may be justly proud, however, of our political
terms _parliament_, _bill_, _budget_, _meeting_, _speech_, and we can
at any rate claim the "sentimentality" of modern Europe as a product of
this age of XVIIIth Century "sensibility" in England, when the words
_affecting_ and _pathetic_ acquired their present meanings, and when our
ancestors began to speak of their _feelings_ and _emotions_.

Our account of these developments of modern thought, the growing sense
of individuality and self-consciousness, has been necessarily somewhat
hurried. In any study of this kind we must be on our guard against
hasty generalizations; and we should test, moreover, the changes in one
country with those in the languages of other countries which share with
us in the general civilization of Europe. We must also guard against the
notion that men, at any period, did not possess certain thoughts and
feelings because they had no words to express them. The investigation
of the character of different ages by the study of the words used in
them is apt, unless it be pursued with caution, to lead to strange and
often absurd conclusions. It has ever been seriously argued, from the
vagueness and insufficiency of his colour-words, that Homer, as well
as all his contemporaries, was colour-blind. But, as it has been well
pointed out, "the fact that the Homeric Greeks have no expression for
'green' does not prove that they did not see the colour, but that they
did not want the word"; and so, if the Elizabethans had no word for
_disappointment_ and _home-sickness_, we cannot assume that they did not
experience these feelings, but only that they were not interested in
expressing them.

But this difference, this change of value and interest, is a very real
and very important one. Vague feelings and thoughts that lurk, dim and
unexpressed, in the background of the mind become very different and
much more important when our attention is directed to them and they
appear sharply defined in consciousness. The change of thought from one
generation to another does not depend so much on new discoveries as the
gradual shifting, into the centre of vision, of ideas and feelings that
had been but dimly realized before. And it is just this shifting from
the background to the centre of thought, that is so important and yet
so elusive, which is marked and dated in the history of language. When
anything becomes important to us it finds its name; and in the history
of these names in the English language can be traced many changes in
English life, many developments of thought, which would yield a rich
reward to patient and careful study.




BIBLIOGRAPHY


The best introduction to the study of the English language is _The
Making of English_, by Henry Bradley (1904). I am glad to express my
obligations to this admirable book. Other works of a short and general
character are _The History of the English Language_, by O. F. Emerson
(1910); _Words and Their Ways in English Speech_, by Greenough and
Kittredge (1902); _The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue_, by H.
C. Wyld (1907), and his shorter book, _The Growth of English_ (1907).
These last two works are mainly concerned with the history of English
phonetics. Jesperson's _Progress in Language, with Special Reference to
English_ (1894), and his _Growth and Structure of the English Language_
(1905) give the interesting appreciations and criticisms of a foreign
scholar. Of longer works, Sweet's _New English Grammar_ (1892), and
Skeat's _Principles of English Etymology_ (1892) are indispensable. For
the study of language in general Sweet's _History of Language_ (Temple
Classics, 1901) is an admirable introduction; other important works
are Whitney's _Language and the Study of Language_ (1875), his _Life
and Growth of Language_ (1886); Sayce's _Introduction to the Study of
Languages_ (1880); and Paul's _Principles of the History of Language_,
translated from German by H. A. Strong (1888). With the exception of
Archbishop Trench's little book _On the Study of Words_ (New Edition,
1904), little has been written in English on the connection between
language and thought and history; but Schrader's important work, _The
Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, has been translated
(1890), and is of great importance for the earliest period. Weise's
_Language and Character of the Roman People_ has also been translated
from German (1909), and gives a vivid picture of the character of the
Romans as mirrored in their language. Two French books of a more general
character which have been translated are Darmesteter's _The Life of
Words_ (1886), and Breal's _Semantics_ (1900). Many new facts about the
sources and histories of English words have been recently discovered,
and the statements in all save the most modern books should be
checked by reference to the latest dictionaries, to the new edition of
Skeat's _Etymological Dictionary_ (1910), to his _Concise Etymological
Dictionary_ (1901), and to the _Century Dictionary_, but above all to
the great _New English_ or _Oxford Dictionary_, which is now in process
of publication, and which contains an immense amount of new information
of the greatest value for the student of English civilization.




INDEX


  AMERICAN words, 199

  Analysis, 12, 25

  _Angel_, 151, 156

  Anglo-French, 33

  Anglo-Saxons, the, 7

  Arabian words, 167, 181, 199

  Arbitrary formations, 105

  Aryans, the, 9, 128-34

  Astrology, 176


  Back-formations, 97

  Bible, the English, 74, 90, 116

  _Bless_, 141

  Boyle, R., 118

  Browne, Sir T., 113

  Burke, 119, 230


  Carlyle, T., 122

  Caxton, 70, 115

  Celtic words, 48, 153

  _Chancellor_, 163

  Chaucer, 65-7, 75

  Christianity, 150, 153, 165

  Church, 150

  Coleridge, 121

  Columbus, 200

  Commercial terms, 210

  Commonwealth, the, 204

  Compounds, 81-5

  Coverdale, 115, 196

  _Cross_, 157

  Crusades, the, 167


  Danes, the, 19, 21, 52, 164

  Derivation, 85-96

  Desynonymization, 77

  _Devil_, 151, 156

  Doublets, 33

  Dutch words, 191-3, 198, 202


  Eighteenth-century words, 241

  Elizabethan English, 72

  Evelyn, J., 118

  _Evolution_, 224


  Fourteenth-century words, 170-9

  French language, the, 32-9, 74, 180

  French Revolution, the, 211


  Gender, grammatical, 14

  _Genius_, 237

  "Genius of the Language," 25, 39, 76, 78

  German language, the, 8, 16, 56

  _Ginger_, 159

  Grammar, 11, 22-5

  Greek, 45-8, 151, 180-2


  History, terms of, 227

  "Humours," the, 172-4

  Hunting terms, 190

  Hybrid words, 87-91


  _Individual_, 234

  _Interesting_, 247

  Irish words, 49, 157

  _Its_, 23


  Johnson, Dr., 107, 119, 209


  Keats, 121


  Latin, 32, 40, 146


  Middle English, 22, 63

  Midland Dialect, the, 64

  Milton, 114, 206-7


  Nineteenth-century words, 83, 92-6, 111, 213, 237

  Norman Conquest, the, 20, 30, 164

  Norman French, 32, 34


  Old English, 8, 10, 20, 22, 30

  Onomatopoeia, 101-4


  Patriotism, 203

  Pepper, 147

  _Person_, 235

  Phonetic change, 10, 25, 69

  Political terms, 204, 210

  Puritan words, 206

  Purity in language, 54-62


  Reformation, the, 71, 195, 225, 241

  Renaissance, the, 70, 193, 233

  Restoration, the, 74, 207, 223

  Revival of words, 116, 120, 229


  Scholasticism, 183-7

  Science, terms of, 123, 219

  Scott, Sir W., 120, 230

  Scottish terms, 120, 123

  Sea terms, 131, 136, 139, 192, 212

  _Self_, compounds of, 236

  Self-analysis, 245

  _Sentimental_, 248

  Shakespeare, 76, 107, 114, 213

  Shortening, 98

  _Silk_, 160

  Spanish words, 198-202

  Spelling, 17, 43

  Spenser, 76, 116


  Teutonic languages, 9, 137-43

  Thirteenth-century words, 166

  Tindale, 115-16, 196

  Travellers' words, 198-202

  Twelfth-century words, 165


  West-Aryan words, 135

  Word-order, 15

  Wyclif, 67




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

This text has been preserved as in the original, including archaic and
inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except that obvious
printer's errors have been silently corrected.

The footnote reference at Chapter V title was relocated to the end of
the first paragraph in the chapter.





[End of The English Language, by Logan Pearsall Smith]
