A Handbook of the English Language Part 10

The ultimate known origin of many common words sometimes goes back to a great date, and points to extinct languages--

_Ancient Nubian._--Barbarous.

_Ancient Egyptian._--Ammonia.

_Ancient Syrian._--Cyder.

_Ancient Lycian._--Pandar.

_Ancient Lydian._--Maeander.

_Ancient Persian._--Paradise.

-- 86. Again, a word from a given language may be introduced by more lines than one; or it may be introduced twice over; once at an earlier, and again at a later period. In such a case its form will, most probably, vary; and, what is more, its meaning as well. Words of this sort may be called _di-morphic_, their _dimorphism_ having originated in one of two reasons--a difference of channel or a difference of date. Instances of the first are, _syrup_, _sherbet_, and _shrub_, all originally from the _Arabic_, _srb_; but introduced differently, viz., the first through the Latin, the second through the Persian, and the third through the Hindoo. Instances of the second are words like _minster_, introduced during the Anglo-Saxon, as contrasted with _monastery_, introduced during the Anglo-Norman period. By the proper application of these processes, we account for words so different in present form, yet so identical in origin, as _priest_ and _presbyter_, _episcopal_ and _bishop_, &c.

-- 87. _Distinction._--The history of the languages that have been spoken in a particular country, is a different subject from the history of a particular language. The history of the languages that have been spoken in the United States of America, is the history of _Indian_ languages. The history of the language of the United States is the history of a Germanic language.

-- 88. _Words of foreign simulating a vernacular origin._--These may occur in any mixed language whatever; they occur, however, oftener in the English than in any other.

Let a word be introduced from a foreign language--let it have some resemblance in sound to a real English term: lastly, let the meanings of the two words be not absolutely incompatible. We may then have a word of foreign origin taking the appearance of an English one. Such, amongst others, are _beef-eater_, from _buffetier_; _sparrow-gra.s.s_, _asparagus_; _Shotover_, _Chateauvert_;[35] _Jerusalem_, _Girasole_;[36] _Spanish beefeater_, _spina bifida_; _periwig_, _peruke_; _runagate_, _renegade_; _lutestring_, _l.u.s.trino_;[37] _O yes_, _Oyez!_ _ancient_, _ensign_.[38]

_Dog-cheap_.--This has nothing to do with _dogs_. The first syllabic is _G.o.d_ = _good_ transposed, and the second the _ch-p_ in _chapman_ ( = _merchant_) _cheap_, and _Eastcheap_. In Sir J. Mandeville, we find _G.o.d-kepe_ = _good bargain_.

_Sky-larking_.--Nothing to do with _larks_ of any sort; still less the particular species, _alauda arvensis_. The word improperly spelt _l-a-r-k_, and banished to the slang regions of the English language, is the Anglo-Saxon _lac_ = _game_, or _sport_; wherein the a is sounded as in _father_ (not as in _farther_). _Lek_ = _game_, in the present Scandinavian languages.

_Zachary Macaulay_ = _Zumalacarregui_; _Billy Ruffian_ = _Bellerophon_; _Sir Roger Dowlas_ = _Surajah Dowlah_, although so limited to the common soldiers and sailors, who first used them, as to be exploded vulgarisms rather than integral parts of the language, are examples of the same tendency towards the irregular accommodation of misunderstood foreign terms.

_Birdbolt_.--An incorrect name for the _gadus lota_, or _eel-pout_, and a transformation of _barbote_.

_Whistle-fish_.--The same for _gadus mustela_, or _weasel-fish_.

_Liquorice_ = _glycyrrhiza_.

_Wormwood_ = _weremuth_, is an instance of a word from the same language, in an antiquated shape, being equally transformed with a word of really foreign origin.

-- 89. Sometimes the transformation of the _name_ has engendered a change in the object to which it applies, or, at least, has evolved new ideas in connection with it. How easy for a person who used the words _beef-eater_, _sparrow-gra.s.s_, or _Jerusalem_, to believe that the officers designated by the former either eat or used to eat more beef than any other people, that the second word was the name for a _gra.s.s_ or herb of which _sparrows_ were fond; and that _Jerusalem_ artichokes came from Palestine.

What has just been supposed has sometimes a real occurrence. To account for the name of _Shotover-hill_, I have heard that Little John _shot over_ it.

Here the confusion, in order to set itself right, breeds a fiction. Again, in chess, the piece now called the _queen_, was originally the _elephant_.

This was in Persian, _ferz_. In French it became _vierge_, which, in time, came to be mistaken for a derivative, and _virgo_ = _the virgin_, _the lady_, _the queen_.

-- 90. Sometimes, where the form of a word in respect to its _sound_ is not affected, a false spirit of accommodation introduces an unetymological _spelling_; as _frontispiece_, from _frontispecium_, _sovereign_, from _sovrano_, _colleague_ from _collega_, _lanthorn_ (old orthography) from _lanterna_.

The value of forms like these consists in their showing that language is affected by false etymologies as well as by true ones.

-- 91. In _lambkin_ and _lancet_, the final syllables (-kin and -et) have the same power. They both express the idea of smallness or diminutiveness.

These words are but two out of a mult.i.tude, the one (_lamb_) being of Saxon, the other (_lance_) of Norman origin. The same is the case with the superadded syllables: -kin being Saxon; -et Norman. Now to add a Saxon termination to a Norman word, or _vice versa_, is to corrupt the English language.

This leads to some observation respecting the--

-- 92. _Introduction of new words and Hybridism._--Hybridism is a term derived from _hybrid-a_, _a mongrel_; a Latin word _of Greek extraction_.

The terminations -ize (as in _criticize_), -ism (as in _criticism_), -ic (as in _comic_)--these, amongst many others, are Greek terminations. To add them to words not of Greek origin is to be guilty of hybridism. Hence, _witticism_ is objectionable.

The terminations -ble (as in _penetrable_), -bility (as in _penetrability_), -al (as in _parental_)--these, amongst many others, are Latin terminations. To add them to words not of Latin origin is to be guilty of hybridism.

Hybridism is the commonest fault that accompanies the introduction of new words. The hybrid additions to the English language are most numerous in works on science.

It must not, however, be concealed that several well established words are hybrid; and that, even in the writings of the cla.s.sical Roman authors, there is hybridism between the Latin and the Greek.

Nevertheless, the etymological view of every word of foreign origin is, not that it is put together in England, but that it is brought whole from the language to which it is vernacular. Now no derived word can be brought whole from a language unless, in that language, all its parts exist. The word _penetrability_ is not derived from the English word _penetrable_, by the addition of -ty. It is the Latin word _penetrabilitas_ imported.

_In derived words all the parts must belong to one and the same language_, or, changing the expression, _every derived word must have a possible form in the language from which it is taken_. Such is the rule against hybridism.

-- 93. A true word sometimes takes the appearance of a hybrid without really being so. The -icle, in _icicle_, is apparently the same as the -icle in _radicle_. Now, as _ice_ is Gothic, and -icle cla.s.sical, hybridism is simulated. _Icicle_, however, is not a derivative but a compound; its parts being _is_ and _gicel_, both Anglo-Saxon words.[39]

-- 94. _On incompletion of the radical._--Let there be in a given language a series of roots ending in -t, as _saemat_. Let a euphonic influence eject the -t, as often as the word occurs in the nominative case. Let the nominative case be erroneously considered to represent the root, or radical, of the word. Let a derivative word be formed accordingly, i.e., on the notion that the nominative form and the radical form coincide. Such a derivative will exhibit only a part of the root; in other words, the radical will be incomplete.

Now all this is what actually takes place in words like _haemo-ptysis_ (_spitting of blood_), _sema-ph.o.r.e_ (_a sort of telegraph_). The Greek imparisyllabics eject a part of the root in the nominative case; the radical forms being _haemat-_ and _saemat-_, not _haem-_and _saem-_.

Incompletion of the radical is one of the commonest causes of words being coined faultily. It must not, however, be concealed, that even in the cla.s.sical writers, we have in words like d?st??? examples of incompletion of the radical.

-- 95. The preceding chapters have paved the way for a distinction between the _historical_ a.n.a.lysis of a language, and the _logical_ a.n.a.lysis of one.

Let the present language of England (for ill.u.s.tration's sake only) consist of 40,000 words. Of these let 30,000 be Anglo-Saxon, 5,000 Anglo-Norman, 100 Celtic, 10 Latin of the first, 20 Latin of the second, and 30 Latin of the third period, 50 Scandinavian, and the rest miscellaneous. In this case the language is considered according to the historical origin of the words that compose it, and the a.n.a.lysis is an historical a.n.a.lysis.

But it is very evident that the English, or any other language, is capable of being contemplated in another view, and that the same number of words may be very differently cla.s.sified. Instead of arranging them according to the languages whence they are derived, let them be disposed according to the meanings that they convey. Let it be said, for instance, that out of 40,000 words, 10,000 are the names of natural objects, that 1000 denote abstract ideas, that 1000 relate to warfare, 1000 to church matters, 500 to points of chivalry, 1000 to agriculture, and so on through the whole. In this case the a.n.a.lysis is not historical but logical; the words being cla.s.sed not according to their _origin_, but according to their _meaning_.

Now the logical and historical a.n.a.lyses of a language generally in some degree coincide; that is, terms for a certain set of ideas come from certain languages; just as in English a large proportion of our chemical terms are Arabic, whilst a still larger one of our legal ones are Anglo-Norman.

CHAPTER II.

THE RELATION OF THE ENGLISH TO THE ANGLO-SAXON, AND THE STAGES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

-- 96. The relation of the present English to the Anglo-Saxon is that of a _modern_ language to an _ancient_ one: the words _modern_ and _ancient_ being used in a defined and technical sense.

Let the word _smium_ ill.u.s.trate this. _Smi-um_, the dative plural of _smi_, is equivalent in meaning to the English _to smiths_; or to the Latin _fabr-is_. _Smium_, however, is a single Anglo-Saxon word (a substantive, and nothing more); whilst its English equivalent is two words (i.e., a substantive with the addition of a preposition). The letter s, in _smiths_, shows that the word is plural. The -um, in _smium_, does this and something more. It is the sign of the _dative case_ plural. The -um in _smium_, is the part of a word. The preposition _to_ is a separate word with an independent existence. _Smium_ is the radical syllable _smi_ + the subordinate inflectional syllable -um, the sign of the dative case. The combination _to smiths_ is the substantive _smiths_ + the preposition _to_, equivalent in power to the sign of a dative case, but different from it in form. As far, then, as the words just quoted is concerned, the Anglo-Saxon differs from the English by expressing an idea by a certain _modification of the form of the root_, whereas the modern English denotes the same idea by _the addition of a preposition_; in other words, the Saxon _inflection_ is superseded by a _combination_ of words.

The sentences in italics are mere variations of the same general statement.

1. _The earlier the stage of a given language the greater the amount of its inflectional forms, and the later the stage of a given language, the smaller the amount of them._ 2. _As languages become modern they subst.i.tute prepositions and auxiliary verbs for cases and tenses._ 3. _The amount of inflection is in the inverse proportion to the amount of prepositions and auxiliary verbs._ 4. _In the course of time languages drop their inflections, and subst.i.tute in its stead circ.u.mlocutions by means of prepositions, &c. The reverse never takes place._ 5. _Given two modes of expression, the one inflectional_ (smium), _the other circ.u.mlocutional_[40] (to smiths), _we can state that the first belongs to an early, the second to a late, state of language._