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MODERN ENGLISH

ITS GROWTH AND PRESENT USB

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MODERN ENGLISH

ITS GROWTH AND PRESENT USE

BY

GEORGE PHILIP KRAPP, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI AUTHOR OF "THE ELEMENTS OP ENGLISH GRAMMAR"

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON

CopjT-ight, 1909 By Charles Scribner's bona

To BRANDER MATTHEWS

MASTER OF MODERN ENGLISH

THIS VOLUME

IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND AND DEBTOR

THE AUTHOR

C)

^(0S6

PREFACE

This book is not designed to do away with the neces- sity for using the dictionaries, grammars, and detailed histories of the English language, but to prepare the way for the more profitable and intelligent use of these books. The grammars and the dictionaries are the mines in which the crude materials, the natural resources, of the language are stored ; the principles of development appearing in language, the opinions which men hold with respect to the use of language, these are the appliances and the machinery by means of wliich the riches of the dictionaries and encyclopedias of fact may be made avail- able for effective command over language. Some of the more important of these principles and opinions it is the purpose of this book to present.

The generahzations here set forth are some of them the commonplaces of the historical study of language. For stating them again in his own way, the author does not feel that any apology is necessary. They are given as simply as possible for the advantage of those readers and students who wish to be informed as to the results of the modern scientific study of language, but who are not themselves professional linguists. The book is untechnical, but, the author hopes, not unscholarly. Attention is called in the brief bibliography at the end of the volume to representative works which may be

viii PREFACE

consulted by those who wish to enter into the sub- jects treated more fully than the limits of this volume permitted.

Perhaps fuller citations of literary authorities may be expected in discussions of points of divided use than liave been given. In general, however, it does not seem to the author that the appeal to literary authority is the proper method of attack in examining disputed ques- tions of speech, spolien or written, and that very little is gained by an elaborate assemblage of examples from literaiy sources to confirm or to disprove a point of present use. Where there is a real difference of prac- tice — and this, it may be pointed out, is relatively infrequent — nine times out of ten it would be as easy to support one side as the other by the testimony of literary authority. Past literary use is only one of many tests that must be applied in determining present use. The reading of literary English should strengthen tlie habitual and unconscious feeling for expression by which one acquires a large, a sure, and a varied sense of the possible values of language. It should suggest what may be done with language by showing what has been done with it. Literary English, indeed, should be re- garded in the same way as spoken Englisli. Both are forms of expression wliich have to be reduced to natuial and unconscious habit before they can be said to have ))een mastered. Now nothing hinders such mastery so much as a meticulous respect for the authority of litei-ary practice. De Quincey once said that authors are a dangerous cLiss for any language. lie meant, of course, that the literary habit of mind is likely to prove dangerous for a language. It is likely to prove dangerous because it so often leads a speaker or writer

PREFACE IX

to distrust natural and unconscious habit, even when it is right, and to put in its stead some conscious theory of literary propriety. Such a tendency, however, is directly opposed to the true feeling for idiomatic Eng- lisli. It destroys the sense of security, the assurance of perfect congruit}^ between thought and expression, which the unliterary and unacademic speaker and writer often has, and which, with both literary and unliterary, is the basis for all expressive use of language. The source of authority in deciding questions of propriety in form, questions which naturally arise less and less frequently as one acquires a sure sense of the expressive value of language, lies not in past use, but in what might be called future use, that is, in the effectiveness of the expression upon the minds of those who are to be the receivers of it. But enough — perhaps too much — has been said upon this subject in the body of the book, and it may be left here with the statement that altho good modern English derives much from tradi- tional literary Englisli, the final test of its goodness or its badness is to be found always in immediate and not in past use.

To the various excellent histories of the English language by Emerson, Lounsbury, Jespersen, Toller, and Bradley, as well as to more specialized studies and essays, the autlior gratefully acknowledges his general indebtedness. Wherever this indebtedness is specific, the endeavor has been to give the credit where it is due. Above all, the New English Dictionary has been con- stantly and unfailingly helpful. This work really holds the mirror up to nature. It does not use the language of the imagination, but it is an amazing record of the workings of the imagination. One who wishes to know

X PREFACE

the English language cannot do better than give his days and his nights to the study of the New English Dictionary. To those friends who have discussed with liim the ideas which the volume contains, the author acknowledges an indebtedness not compensated by this formal recognition. Among these friendly disputants he would mention in particular Prof. A. H. Thorndike, of Columbia University, Mr. J. G. Bowman, Secretary of the Carnegie Foundation, and Mr. C. M. Baker, Headmaster of Latin in the Horace Mann School.

G. P. K

The University op Cincinnati June, 1909

CONTENTS

Page

I Introduction 3

II The EnOtI.ish Pkoplk la

III Thk English Language 44

IV English Inflections 56

V English Sounds 99

VI English Words 183

VII English Grammar 286

VIII Conclusion .... 325

APPENDIX

The Old English Chronicle, fol. 1\ The Par- doner's Tale, fol. 306^ Thk Fiust P\)lio of

Shakspere. Lycidas, ll. 165-193 .... 335

Bibliography 343

Index of Subjects 349

Index of Words 353

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Old English Chronicle, Land MS. 636, fol. 1" . . 25 (hancer's Pardoner's Tale, Cambridge Univ. MS. G. G.

4. 27, fol. 306 81

Shakspere, First Folio, Merchant of Venice, IV^ 1,

119-152 161

Autograph of Milton's Lycidas, 11. 165-193 .... 307

MODERN ENGLISH

\ I

INTRODUCTION

1. History and Politics. History, according to the saying of a distinguished modern historian, is past politics. To the contemporary observer, the practical measures supported and opposed by the various rival political parties seem of only passing significance be- cause they arise out of the immediate daily problems and needs of actual life. When these same measures, however, are viewed in the perspective of years, they are seen then not to be independent and unrelated. More or less unconsciously to themselves, the practical politicians help or retard certain large principles of development in the life of a people. Present politics is history in the making.

2. The History of Language. In the same way the history of a language is merely the record of the practi- cal every-day speech of successive generations. Every person who speaks or writes a language, who hands on from one speaker to another any of the traditions of the language is, in so far, a factor in the historical growth of the language. And the whole history of the language is made up of the sum of the individual acts of all those who in past times have used the language in response

4 MODERN ENGLISH

to the immediate practical needs of life. Just as poli- tics is history in the making, so present, every-day speech and writing is the history of the language in the making.

Another conclusion of the modern political historians is applicable to the history of language. It is a very general opinion among historians that the justification of the study of the history of past periods is to be found in the application of the results of such study to the conditions of present life. Man learns to know himself better, to conduct the affairs of his public and private life better, from having observed the consequences of the actions of men in other days. So also by the study of the history of his speech he learns to adjust himself more wisely to the conditions of present speech. He learns that contemporary speech is not, on the one hand, a chaos of individual instances, nor is it, on the other, governed according to the decrees of a rigid, theoretical system. He perceives that it is a living thing, and that the principles which it illustrates in its growth have all the flexibility and variety of life. To enable a speaker or writer to realize this spirit, or life, of his own present speech is one of the main ends of the historical study of language.

3. The Function of Language. The effort to under- stand this spirit, to find out what the tendencies of one's native speech are, good and bad, is beset with many difficulties. The uncertainty of the bearing of present events always makes difference of opinion possible. If we knew exactly the future significance of an action, whether in politics, in personal conduct, or in speech, we should doubtless all hold the same opinion with respect

INTRODUCTION 5

to that action. But the future does not so easily yield up its secrets, and our only guides are inferences drawn from the observation of the past and the present. There is always one ground of inference, however, which offers a firm foothold. Our opinions with respect to an action are naturally determined by the value of that action in attaining the end towards which the actor is striving. Our attitude towards any question of lan- guage should consequently be determined by the pur- pose and the function of language, just as the value of any political action is determined by its serving or not serving the purpose for which the state exists. What, then, is the function of language? Briefly answered, language is a form of social custom and its function is the expression of social ideas. Language as social cus- tom means that it has been slowly developed by man- kind in the social relations of men to each other. It is closely paralleled in its development by other kinds of social custom. The laws governing rights of property, of individual liberty, of self-defense, the moral laws, such as those directed against lying, deception, and in- sincerity, the rules of conduct in minor matters, such as have to do with behavior and good breeding, — all these have grown up as the result of the intercourse of man with man in social life. The habits, or the rules, of such intercourse, through a long succession of genera- tions have fixed themselves in the life of the people as their social customs. Whether they are reduced to writing, as is generally the case with criminal law, or are merely held as the traditional rules of conduct of a people, they are always in their origins the customary rules of action which have arisen out of the practical

6 MODERN ENGLISH

exigencies of one man's trying to live on terms of social understanding with another.

4. Speech as Social Custom. The special function of speech as social custom is the expression of social ideas. If men are to live with each other, if they are not to be like stocks and stones, then they must have some means of conveying to each other their needs, their desires, their ideas, their aspirations. This they might do by various means. So long as the ideas were simple and primitive, they might be conveyed by very crude means, A brandished club might serve to indi- cate one's sense of the right of possession in a piece of disputed property. But it is one of the characteristics of man as man that the ideas which he wishes to con- vey to his fellow-men have not remained thus simple and crude. The social intercourse of men has become extremely complex, both emotionally and intellectually, and, corresponding to this complexity, there has been an equal growth in the variety and the subtlety of the customs of speech. Out of the practical needs of com- munication has arisen the vast fabric of human lan- guage. Manifestly, then, the best language being that which most adequately realizes the function of lan- guage, that is the best which enables men to express themselves most fully and satisfactorily in their rela- tions to each other. This is the ideal towards which language strives. In the animal world we speak of degeneration when certain functions of the organism necessary to the preservation of its life and the exist- ence of its species become weakened. In the same way we may speak of degeneration in a language when it changes in such a way that it becomes less capable of

INTRODUCTION 7

performing the functions for which language exists ; and, on the other hand, we may speak of growth and improvement in language as it becomes more and more effective in enabling men to undeistand each other,

5. The Speech of a Democracy. The necessity of realizing in an ever-increasing degree this ideal function of language is one that is peculiarly incumbent upon a democracy. The best national speech for a democracy is that which enables it to be most fully self -expressive. It is in itself that the fate of a democracy lies. From its own members must emanate all its laws, its ideals of conduct, of whatever nature. It must have confidence in the value of its united opinion ; and its prime duty consists in such a free and liberal exchange of ideas that there shall be a united opinion. A democracy which is not self-expressive and self-determining is not a real democracy. Anything in speech, therefore, which pre- vents the democratic nation from realizing itself as a self-determining body is harmful. Thus the national speech of a democracy cannot be sectional; if there is not one uniform speech acceptable to the whole nation, then the speech of one region must have equal authority with that of another. The speech of a democmcy can- not be a class speech ; it cannot be a traditional literary speech, the so-called " best English " of a special limited academic or literary class. Its roots must go deeper. They must strike down into the region of the practical daily life of the citizens whose vote and whose opinion make the country what it is. If it is to have any en- during vitality it must rest upon the basis of national custom where national custom is made. The duty of making these customs sound and good is one that rests

8 MODERN ENGLISH

on all alike. The welfare of the speech of a democracy can no more be left in the hands of a few preservers or regulators than its political government can be left in the hands of a few self-appointed directors or dic- tators. In both a diffused intelligence is the prime requisite to a healthy national life.

6. Speech and Education. The obstacles that stand in the way of the realization of the ideal of a democratic speech are confessedly numerous and great. It is difficult, in the first place, to determine just how much value should be ascribed to tradition. Old ways are not good merely because they are old ; and of course the same can be said of new ways. It is a fair con- servative assumption, however, that what has served man's purpose in the past will continue to serve it best in the present, until changed conditions demand new ways. But again one must take heed not to be so blinded by old customs as not to perceive when the conditions actually are changed. In the second place, democracy works from the bottom up, and not from the top down. Consequently, popular education when it is diffused over the whole body of society, as society is at present constituted, is likely to be a somewhat thin and inadequate kind of education. It thus hap- pens that there are people who rest content with very imperfect education, who take the dry husks of tlic mere rudiments of education for the reality itself. We find persons who think that the secret of good English consists merely in expressing themselves in a certain prescribed way, in using a certain intonation of voice or a certain quality of vowel sound when they speak, or one form of phrasing, or even of spelling, rathei'

INTRODUCTION 9

than another, when they write. They fail to realize that the conventional customs of speaking and writing, important as the knowledge of them is, are neverthe- less the mere preliminaries, the elementary mechanics, of a good use of language. English which is merely correct cannot claim very high praise. Going a little lower in the scale of intelligence, we may find that a man who has come from generations of ancestors who could not write, is likely to think that the simple ability to write is the pinnacle of education. But for him per- haps it is; and all that democratic education can offer to any large body of people in different stages of de- velopment is the opportunity for each to realize what at a given moment is the highest and best thing for him to do. The general level cannot be raised by a single act, or by the acts of a few, but only by the sum of all the acts of the people who make up the whole. In spite, therefore, of the low ideals of certain members of the body politic, it must always remain the hope of a democracy that the average plane of its life will rise higher and higher from generation to gen- eration. And so long as the life of the people remains vigorous, so long as their minds and their wills are energetic and stirring, this will remain a well-founded hope.

7. The Best Tendency in Speech. In speech, there- foie, the ideal attitude of mind is that which leads the speaker to unite himself to those customs and tenden- cies which, in his opinion, make for the welfare of the national idiom in the most effective manner. If speech arises, as we have said, out of the immediate social rela- tions of man with man, it will be seen that therein lies

10 MODERN ENGLISH

the final test of its value. It will be seen, also, that those tendencies of speech with which a speaker or writer wishes to unite himself are merely manifestations of general social tendencies. Shall our ideal social tendency be one that makes for exclusiveness, for the development of limited class distinctions ? Or shall it be a broader and more liberal tendency, one that is dem- ocratic and generously inclusive ? In speech shall we endeavor to cultivate refined and more or less arbitrary distinctions which shall enable us to make a strict divi- sion between conventional and literary English, on the one hand, and what may be called natural and self- determining English on the other? Is the best English that which is acquired by learning and following an ex- ternal rule, or is it the English wliich is acquired by fol- lowing social custom, the best, as each views it, and as each is brought into contact with it, in the actual proc- esses of living, speaking, and writing ? These are some of the questions which each of us must answer for him- self. Necessarily every speaker and every writer must follow some tendency of the speech of the community, whether this be conscious or unconscious. Every one of us is always following, at the same time that he is helping to make, custom. In what direction shall we throw our influence ? Before we can answer this ques- tion we must have some knowledge of the conflicting customs and tendencies of our speech, and as this knowl- edge grows in breadth and certainty, the answer to the question will become, according to our sympathies, cor- respondingly easy and unhesitating.

8. Literary and Spoken Language. In all study of language as expression, it is now generally conceded,

INTRODUCTION 11

by those who have given much thought to the matter, that the spoken, as compared with the written or literary- language, is of far the greater importance. It is mainly in the speech of men and women as they come into direct social relations with each other that language de- velops and grows in a natural, untrammeled, and effec- tive way. The language of literature is merely an approximate transcription, more or less remote, of the language of speech. It is from the latter that the lan- guage of literature is derived, and it must always return to its source to renew itself when, as it constantly tends to do, it becomes attenuated and outworn. This being granted, it readily follows that it is speech which we should study, not only for effectiveness in conversation, but also for effectiveness in literature. The popular opinion is not usually in accord with this statement. It is often believed that the language of literature is some- thing different from and better than the language of speech. This latter, being the common possession of all, is looked down upon as something ignoble, or at least not admirable. Because it is familiar, it is regarded as contemptible. It is supposed that the ability to use the English of literature is a special and acquired accom- plishment, and that one learns the language of literature as one learns a new art, like playing the piano or paint- ing. Being a special and higher accomplishment, the language of literature is thus often regarded as furnish- ing the model for the language of speech, and the theory is held that the latter should be made to conform as fully as possible to the former. One need only " talk like a book " to realize the absurdity of such a belief. On the other hand it is no credit to the language of lit-

12 MODERN ENGLISH

erature to read like a book. Literary language which \s bookish we do not regard as admirable ; on the con- trary, when we want to praise an author's style, we rather say that it is true, natural, real. The fact is that literature endeavors merely to transcribe life, to give in the permanent form of words and sentences the passing experiences, thoughts, and emotions of men. According as it does this the more directly and truly, the greater literature it is. There is no need to prove that language is one of the most characteristic expressions of human life. It is as speaking beings that men think of them- selves. The writer, therefore, who wishes to transcribe human life, must transcribe it in the forms of speech in which it finds its most immediate expression. His task is parallel to that of the artist. When a portrait painter wishes to paint a portrait, he must study the features of the human face and the lines of the human figure ; when a landscape painter wishes to transfer to canvas his impressions of sea or land, he must go into the open and study clouds, trees, and atmosphere. Both are said to follow nature, because it is their impressions of the reality in nature which they endeavor to record. In the same way the literary artist must follow nature, not only by studying the inner moods and actuating motives of men, but also the ways in which these moods and mo- tives find their most natural and effective expression. It is true, of course, that literary language has customs and conventions, for example, meter in poetry, which are peculiar to itself. In the same way painting has cer- tain devices, tricks of method, which in themselves are untrue to nature, but which are used because to the beholder they produce or heighten the effects of nature.

INTRODUCTION 13

The painter's concern is to cause the illusion of nature, since he cannot actually create the counterpart to na- ture. So also the literary artist attempts to produce the illusion of reality in language. All that is appro- priate to speech is consequently not necessarily ap- propriate to all forms of literature, and, on the other hand, some things are appropriate to certain kinds of literature which are not appropriate to speech. But whenever the customs and conventions of literature be- come so peculiar to it that they are purely literary, or academic, as we say, when they produce the effect of being untrue to, or remote from, nature, then they are appropriate neither to the literary nor to any other lan- guage. It is to the natural, spoken language that we make our final appeal. And it is interesting to observe that just those periods of English literature have been greatest in which the language of literature stood near- est to the language of speech. Chaucer's literary style became more and more natural as he grew older, until in the Canterbury Tales, his latest work, we almost think we hear his characters speak. The language of Shak- spere is the language of the drama, and whatever con- ventions the language of the drama may have, its prime requisite is that it shall be true to life. The poets of a third great period of English literature, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge, made the imitation of the simple speech of daily life their first principle. Their art on the side of language consists largely in a return to nature as exemplified in speech. What is true of English, is true of literature generally. Students of Greek tell us that much of the charm of Greek litera- ture consists in the intimate dependence of the language

14 MODERN ENGLISH

of literature upon the language of speech ; Greek liter- ary style is not a special caste language for literary pur- poses, but rather an extension of the spoken language to written uses. Moliere, the only Frenchman worthy to rank as the fellow of Shakspere, owes much of his power to the naturalness of his style. Hating as he did hypocrisy and affectation in every form, we should ex- pect to find him natural and real in his writing. In short it is a false standard of value to assume that the test of highest excellence is to be found only in printed and written words. These are merely makeshifts and substitutes for the reality. They serve, to be sure, a very important purpose. For one thing, they preserve what otherwise might become lost if intrusted only to oral transmission. They perform a tremendous service to humanity also by extending the bounds of individual experience. In a library of books we can commune at will with the spirits of all ages and all places. Indeed the ability to write is so highly regarded by mankind that perhaps no other kind of fame is so generally and so eagerly desired as literary fame. Yet this glory should not blind one to the fact that literature is not self -producing, but grows out of nature. The aspirant for literary fame must not only know letters, above all he must know life. If he wishes to write for his age, he must know how the men of his age speak. He must not expend all his energy and admiration upon books, but must turn to that form of the language which, above the language of books, is the most wonderful, the most dignified, and the most worthy of i-espect, the flexible, subtle speech of men in the infinite relations of human life.

II

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

1. Speech and Race. The English language is one of the most widely distributed languages of the modern world. Centered originally in the little kingdom of England, the speech has spread to all the four corners of the globe. It has become the speech of two of the most powerful nations of modern times, and is now the speech of the most numerous civilized people of the world. In the course of its histor}--, it has imposed itself upon peoples originally speaking many different languages and originally of very diverse racial origins ; and altho each new body thus incorporated has affected the whole, the stock of the language has remained es- sentially the same to the present day. It shall be our first task to take a survey of the history of the English language from this ethnological or racial point of view.

2. Celtic Britain. In the first century before Christ, when the island of Great Britain first became well known to the Romans, who were then the most power- ful as well as the most highly civilized nation of Europe, it was occupied by a race of Celtic people, speaking a Celtic language. This race had been pre- ceded in Britain by various different, prehistoric races concerning which little is known ; it was one of these prehistoric races, however, which reared the great monoliths at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. The

16 MODERN ENGLISH

Celtic iiihabitants of the island called themselves Brit- ons, and from this name of the people the country was called Britannia by the Romans, whence is derived our modern Britain. The Celts of Britain were merely a branch of a greater Celtic people which then dwelt in Gaul and in Spain, the Celts of Gaul being the prede- cessors of the Franks, a Teutonic people from whom the country derived its modern name of France. On the Continent the Celts have been almost completely absorbed by the Roman and Teutonic conquerors of their countries. But in England to this day they have maintained a more or less separate existence, and their speech still survives in the Gaelic of the Highlands of Scotland, the Welsh of Wales, and also in the Irish of Ireland. Until comparatively recent times a Celtic speech was also spoken in Cornwall.

3. The Roman Invasions. The first military inva- sion which the Romans, the world conquerors, made against the Celts of Britain, was in the years 55 and 64 B. C, under the leadership of Julius Ceesar. This was more in the nature of an excursion from Gaul, however, where Caesar was then campaigning,^ than a settled attempt to conquer the country. The serious conquest of Britain was not undertaken until about a century later, A. D. 42, under the Emperor Claudius ; and about the year A, D. 80 the country was organized as a Roman province, under the command of the Roman general Agricola. The portions of the country occupied by the Romans were chiefly tliose central, southern, and eastern parts which later became the kingdom of England. Tlie mountainous regions of Wales in tlie

» See Gallic War, Books TV and V.

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 17

West and of Scotland in the North were sought out as a place of refuge by the Celts who had been driven out of the more fertile regions of the lowlands. In these fastnesses they maintained an independent and hostile existence. As a protection against Celtic invasions from the north the Emperor Hadrian (A. D. 120) built a wall, parts of which are still standing, between the Firth of Solway and the mouth of the river Tyne. A second wall was later built by Antoninus Pius, extending from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth ; and still later these walls were further extended by the Emperor Severus, who came to Britain in the year 208. In the protected regions the Roman civilization in Britain was prosperous and highly developed. The ground was cultivated, and sheep and cattle were raised. The mines of Cornwall and of Northumberland were worked and an extensive commerce with the Continent was carried on. The Ro- mans built houses, temples, theaters, altars, and baths after the style of the buildings of their home country, and ruins and relics of these houses that have been pre- served to modern times show that some of them must have been very luxurious. They built also highways (as for example Watling Street, extending the whole breadth of England from Canterbury to Chester), some parts of which are in use to this day. Our word " street," derived from Latin strata, in the phrase strata via, " paved way," was borrowed from the Roman soldiers, both on the Continent and in Britain. These highways were built, in accordance with the usual policy of the Romans, as military roads to facilitate the passage of troops from one section of the country to another. Walled cities were also established at various advantageous points in

18 MODERN ENGLISH

Britain, and many of these have likewise lasted to modern times, some of them still preserving parts of the old Roman defenses. They were called castra, and this word, in its modified forms, appears in the names CheS' ter, Winchester, Doncaster, Gloucester, Worcester, Exeter (in Anglo-Saxon times known as Exanceaster), and in many other names of towns and places. The language which was spoken by the Romans in Britain was the Latin language in a popular or colloquial form, being the ordinary language of the soldiers and merchants who constituted the larger part of the population. It was the same language as that spoken in Gaul by the Roman conquerors of that country, and if the Romans in Eng- land had continued in uninterrupted residence, as they did in Gaul, it is quite probable that the language of Great Britain to-day would be a Romance speech instead of English.

The Roman occupation of Britain, however, came to a sudden end. In the fourth and fifth centuries A. D., the pressure of the northern tribes upon Italy and Rome bc' gan to make itself felt, and Rome was compelled to strengthen her home defenses. To do this it was neces- sary to call in certain of the legions that were stationed in the provinces, and naturally the most distant were the first thus to be given up. In the year 407 the greater part of the Roman soldiery left Britain ; in the year 410 the last Roman legion was withdrawn, and the Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the people of Britain in which he told them to take charge of their own defense. Since the Roman civilization in Britain had been al- together military in character, the withdrawal of the legions immediately prepared the way for the breaking

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 19

down of the whole Roman system of government and for the next important and dramatic episode in the history of the island, the coming of the English.

4. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest. Besides their her- editary enemies, the Celts of the mountainous regions of Wales and Scotland, the Romans in Britain had had another foe to contend with. These were certain Ger- manic Saxon tribes who were in the habit of crossing over from north Germany and ravaging tlie eastern coast of Britain, known as the Saxon Shore because it was ex- posed to the attacks of the Saxons. While the Roman soldiers were still stationed in Britain these predatory bands of warriors could be easily held in check. With the departure of the legions, however, the state of affairs was altered. The Celts of the highlands, finding that the defenses of the country had been weakened by the withdrawal of the Roman soldiery, swarmed down from their rocky fastnesses, and immediately began the task of regaining their ancestral kingdoms. It is probable that the Roman citizens left behind in the towns after the departure of the legions were an unwarlike population. The defense of the country had so long been left in the hands of a professional military class that when this class was removed there were none left trained in the arts of war to take its place. At any rate the inhabit- ants of the Roman towns and the dwellers in the Roman villas were no match for the rude and warlike Celts. They were thus placed between two fires, the Celts on the one side and the marauding Germanic tribes on the other. Thinking to seize the more favorable horn of the dilemma, they turned to the Germanic invaders and asked them to come over and help them subdue their

20 MODERN ENGLISH

enemies. In response to this invitation, extended by Vortigern, king of the Roman Britons, tradition tells us that two Saxon chiefs, Hengest and Horsa, with their followers, landed on the island of Thanet, on the coast of Kent, in the year 449. True to their compact they first aided the Roman Britons to drive back the Celts, but the story goes that, observing the weakness of their allies and the richness of the land, they sent word back to their countrymen at home that they should come over and assist them, that they might together possess the land. The warriors who came in response to this request were of three tribes of north Germans, the Angles, who lived in the region of modern Holstein, the Jutes, who lived in the region of modern Jutland, and the Saxons, who lived in the region of modern Schleswig. The story of the conflict between these Teutonic tribes and the Roman Britons, with whom the Celts now be- came united against the common foe, has been but im- perfectly reported by history. We know that the struggle was stubborn, but it is plain that the Britons were unable to stand out against their barbarous foe- men. Battle after battle was fought, but always with the result that the Britons were driven further inland and up into the mountainous regions to which the Ro- mans several centuries before had driven the original Celts. Later tradition has developed in great detail the story of King Arthur, the heroic leader of the Britons, and of his twelve great battles against the Teutonic heathen. But there are no authentic recoi-ds of these twelve battles, or of King Arthur, that wo\ild enable us to build up a connected story of the events. All we know is tliat out of the welter and confusion of these

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 21

wars, a new Teutonic England, consisting at first of a number of separate kingdoms, arose from the ruins of the old Celtic and Roman Britain. The first Anglo- Saxon kingdom to be founded was that of Kent. In 519 occurs the first mention of a West Saxon kingdom, and 547 is the date of the first Northumbrian king. By the middle of the sixth century, therefore, we may say that the Saxon conquest of Britain was complete. This does not mean that the whole island was under Saxon control, for Wales and Scotland were still Celtic, as they had been all through the period of Roman occu- pation. From their retreats in the mountains the Celts continued to make frequent forays into the Saxon country, and the story of the complete reduction of Celtic Britain would carry us far down into modern times.

The three tribes who had thus become masters of the fairest part of the island of Britain, settled each in a separate region. The Jutes, who were the smallest of the three tribes, settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight. The Angles settled the regions north of the Thames to the Firth of Forth, exclusive of the region immediately north of the mouth of the Thames. The two main kingdoms of the Angles were Northumbria and Mercia. As the most numerous and best organized of the tribes and the one in which a literature was first developed, the Angles in time gave the name to the whole country, Englaland^ " land of the Angles," and to the speech, Englisc, " EngHsh," or " the English speech." The Saxons settled the regions south of the Thames, ex- cepting those parts occupied by the Jutes, and the re- gion just north of the mouth of that river. Tlie chief

22 MODERN ENGLISH

Saxon kingdoms were Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons ; Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons ; Sussex, the kingdom of the South Saxons; and Middlesex, the kingdom of the Middle Saxons. For a long time these various Anglian, Jutish, and Saxon kingdoms main- tained separate existences. They were tirst unfEe3"into a loose sort of confederaiiofl by Egbert, who came to the throne of Wessex in the year 802, but it was not until the beginning of the tenth century that the union became complete and lasting. This united people, as has been stated, called itself the English people. They are also known by the name Anglo.-.S.axoLQS, a composite name made up of the two most important tribes that united to form the nation ; this name, however, is an invention of scholars and historians of later times, and altho it is a convenient descriptive name, it should be remembered that the Anglo-Saxons in their own period called them- selves English and their country England.^ To bring out the fact of the direct sequence of the later periods of English history after the earlier, it is often convenient to speak of the Anglo-Saxon period as the Old English period, and of the language of the time as Old English. This terminology thus runs parallel to the succeeding Middle English and Modern English periods.

1 The words England, English are pronounced as though they were written Ingland, Inglish. As a matter of fact in earlier periods they were often so written, the pronunciation being then in accord with the spelling. In Anglo-Saxon the words were written Englaland, Englisc, and were pro- nounced as written. Hut the vowel e before ng changes regularly in Middle English to i', Anglo-Saxon strenge, for example, becoming " string." Thus England, English became Ingland, Jnglish and were so written for a time. Later this phonetic spelling was " reformed " to agree with the original Anglo-Saxon spelling, Eng- , altho the pronunciation has re- mained Ing. These two words are the only ones in English in which the combination eng is pronounced ing.

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 23

5. The Civilization of the Anglo-Saxons. At

the time of their arrival in England the Anglo-Saxons were a heathen people, worshipping the gods Thor and Woden, and the many other divinities of the Teutonic mythology and religion. They were seamen and war- riors, and gained a large part of their livelihood, like the Danes of a later period, by making plundering expedi- tions upon the coasts of neighboring countries. With their settlement in England, however, a great change came over this wild and barbarous people. Having now a rich and fertile land in their possession, they were no longer impelled to live by robbery and violence, but settled down to the peaceful occupations of farming and raising sheep and cattle. They soon became rich, and with this increase in wealth naturally came a greater development of the arts and of the more humane aspects of life. The greatest civilizing influence, however, to which they were subjected was that of Christianity, in- troduced to them by the Roman missionary Augustine, and his assistants, in the year 597, The response to Augustine's preaching was immediate and enthusiastic, and in a short time the whole of Anglo-Saxon England became Christian. Gradually, also, the newcomers worked out a political system, and from being a discon- nected group of tribal kingdoms or states, they became, in the time of Alfred and his successors, a nation in the true sense of the word, with one king and a strongly centralized government to hold them together. Their speech was, of course, Germanic, and it was closely related to that spoken in Germany and other parts of northern Europe (see pp. 46-50). In course of time this speech also became the vehicle for literary expression, both in verse

24 MODERN ENGLISH

and in prose. As is almost always true of the begin- nings of a national literature, Old English poetry pre- ceded prose. As early as the beginning of the seventh century Old English poetry was probably composed and written down in England, altho all the manuscripts which have been preserved to modern times are copies which date from a period considerably later. Most of this poetry is highly traditional in character ; for altho the Anglo-Saxons by this time had generally turned to quiet agricultural and pastoral pursuits, their poetry nevertheless is very warlike in tone ; and altho they had long since ceased to follow the water extensively, the sea, its dangers and its attractions, is one of their most frequent poetic themes. This is true not only of their 'lative heroic poetry, as for example the great epic poem Beoivulf, which is the most important literary monument of the Old English period that has come down to us, but also of the later poetry of the school of Csedmon, written about the middle of the seventh century, and of the school of Cynewulf, written about the middle of the eighth century, which is strongly under Christian influ- ence and the subject matter of which is Christian story and legend. This poetry also is cast in the old epic warlike mould of the earlier native verse. The expla- nation of this is to be found in the fact that all Old Eng- lish poetry is popular in its origins — that is, it goes back to the early warlike periods of the race when poetry was handed down by oral tradition from minstrel to minstrel. And as poetry is always very conservative, it is natural that when the period of written literature began the old poetic; traditions and conventions should be preserved by the side of much that was new. The

■5c htctn<t5cm 3t3iui3tm''6a.fqt5«nt |»A^^^^tt|*<^3p ^qi^on Jn|* Umi nop J»<m ycAjih^ fayioiya^t^ \jtc n^ &on bptroif. jY>a vc <fjt cpcioti 'Anb ^ i3yht5ir hcom obff don j>ip tCTTtoroim. on |>«t^3c:iiii^ ft'bfjcatttonbcoji/ kync imM^onya^yif haaXya^' y\n htol^on yva. latrse, yy^nn • 1 jjd "je l4tnp hfc intbc 3eA|vt ^ttut^ J^taoKOL

The Old Engi,ish Chronicle

From the Bodleian niauuscript, Laud 636.

(For description, see Appendix.)

26 • MODERN ENGLISH

great body of Old English poetry is preserved in three volumes, or codexes, of miscellaneous content, Manu- script Junius XI in the Bodleian Library at Oxford ; the Vercelli Book, found in the year 1822 in an out-of- the-way library at Vercelli, Italy, where it is still pre- served; and the Exeter Book, the property of Exeter Cathedral in England.

Old English prose, on the other hand, the body of which was not written until the ninth century and later, is completely under the dominance of the new order of thought. There is nothing primitive and tra- ditional about the prose, but, on the contrary, it is all distinctly Christian in tone and, for its period, very modern. It consists mainly of historical, philosophical, and religious or exegetical writings, and centers chiefly about the name of Alfred, who died in 901, and of -^^If- ric, who died near the close of the Old English period about the year 1020. One of the most important prose documents is the Old English Chronicle^ the earliest attempt at the consecutive writing of history in the English tongue. It was probably compiled under the direction of King Alfred about the middle of the ninth century, but it was continued in various forms by later hands, the Laud version, of which the opening is here reproduced, coming down as late as the middle of the twelfth century.

On the whole one must say that between the arrival of Hengest and Horsa in 449 and the close of the Old English period with tlie coming of William the Con- queror in 1066, the Anglo-Saxons had developed a relatively higli civilization. Tliey were well governed, they liad an enlightened religion, they cultivated learn-

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 27

ing and letters. In some of the arts, for example the making of enameled jewelry, they were famous, and the embroidery of ecclesiastical garments done by the Anglo-Saxon women had even a Continental reputation. The people lived in comfort and often in luxury, some of the satires of the times showing that then, as always, extravagance in dress and the table accompanied pros- perity. One must not think, therefore, of the Old English period as barbarous and uncivilized. It was indeed the period of the beginnings of English speech and English literature, but even in their beginnings our language and literature afford much that may and should be studied, not only for its historical interest, but also for its intrinsic wisdom and beauty.

6. The Danish Invasions and the Danish Con- quest. In the midst of their peaceful development, however, the Anglo-Saxons were called upon to meet a great danger. History repeated itself ; for just as the weakened Britons several centuries before had yielded to the attacks of the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, so now these latter, also weakened by the refining influences of civilization and by the gradual decay of their warlike habits, were compelled to meet the advances of certain kinsmen of theirs from the Continent, the Danes. The method of thd Danish invasions was practically the same as that of the original Anglo-Saxon invasion. They first came on marauding expeditions, returning each time to their own country. About the year 850, however, they began a campaign of conquest and settlement, and, in a short time, they gained control of all England except the little kingdom of Wessex, south of the Thames, which was held and defended by the heroic Alfred. After

28 MODERN ENGLISH

Alfred's death in 901 his son and successor Edward, and after Edwaixi, Alfred's grandson ^thelstan, succeeded in winning back the greater part of England from the Danes. But this success was only temporary, for, in the reign of iEthelred the Unready (978-1016), the Danes and Northmen came over to England in ever- increasing numbers and gained possession of the en- tire land.

In the year 1017 Cnut became king of England, and a Danish king occupied both the EngHsh and Danish throne at the same time. Cnut was succeeded by his son Hardacnut (1039-1042), and Hardacnut was succeeded by Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), in whose long and peaceful reign the Dane and Anglo-Saxon in England became fused into one people. Closely related in blood and speaking languages which had a great deal in common, the two peoples, the conquered and the conquerors, readily united. With that remark- able vitality which has always characterized it, the Anglo- Saxon language succeeded in crowding out the Danish, and tho modified in some respects by the influences to which they had been subjected, it was an English language and an English people that arose again out of the Danish Conquest.

7. The Norman Conquest. After the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain in the fifth century, un- doubtedly the event most far-reaching in its later effect upon the speech and the institutions of the people who inhabited the island was the Norman Conquest under William the Conqueror in 1066. The Danish Conquest had not been without its effect; but owing to the closo relationship in blood and speech that existed between tlu;

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 20

Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, and the consequent ease with which they fused into one people, the Danish addition to the English population may be regarded rather as strengthening the original stock than changing it or turning it in new directions. The Norman Con- quest, however, was entirely different; for it not only succeeded after a time in imposing a 'new social and political system upon the English people, but even in putting the English language in the second place tempo- rarily and in profoundly affecting it permanently. The Normans who came to England in the train of Wilham spoke Norman French, a dialect of the French language spoken in the province of Normandy. By birth and descent, however, they were not primarily Franks, but were nearly related to those Teutonic Danish and Scan- dinavian tribes who, in the reign of jEthelred, had be- come masters of England. The name Norman is merely a contraction of Northman, and the Normans were Scan- dinavian seafarers who had settled in northern France just as, and at the same time that, the Danes and North- men were settling in England. Like their kinsmen in England, the Northmen in France gave up their native speech, and as the former had accepted Enghsh, so they accepted French. We have, therefore, the curious spectacle of a people of the same blood producing all the effect of a foreign race upon their kinsmen, merely because of a difference in language — a striking illustra- tion of the fact that speech is thicker than blood. But it should be remembered that with the French language the Normans had imbibed all the ideas and ways of thinking of the French, and consequently had become as much French as the Franks themselves.

30 MODERN ENGLISH

The first effect of the Conquest upon England was to place Normans in the positions of authority in the country, and thus to make French the language of the court and the ruling classes. But there is no indication that William or any of his successors attempted to coerce the native English-speaking population into using French, and at first the growth of the Norman French influence upon English was very slow. There is every reason to believe that if the relations between France and England had ceased with the Conquest, it would have been but a short time before the Norman French were as completely fused with the English as the Danes had be- come. But the Norman French influence upon Eng- lish, altho it was at first slow, was increasing. French was not forced upon the English by any edict of law, but its use was encouraged by an even more powerful force, social custom. As the language of the ruling class, French came to be regarded as the polite and cultivated language. Instruction was, after a time, no longer given in English, but those who studied at all, studied French, and, if any other language, Latin. Even when Normandy was lost to England in the year 1204, and later when, in the middle of the century, the separation between the two countries became more complete by the decrees of King Louis IX of P^rance and Henry III of England, the latter prohibiting Englishmen from holding estates in Normandy, and the former prohibiting Normans from holding estates in England, the cultivation of French continued. In spite of these decrees, there must have been a continual freshening of the stream of influence by the passing back and forth of Frenchmen, not only Nor- mans but Frenchmen of other parts of France, to and

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 31

from England. The ties of blood could not be disre- garded, even tho political conditions had changed. Another main reason for the increasing influence of French upon English is to be found in the way in which Englishmen themselves came to regard French. The great body of Englishmen, the plain people who were little influenced by questions of fashion or education, never spoke anything but English. In the middle and the higher social, literary, and educational life, however, French acquired a special distinction. As the language of the ruling class its authority was naturally great. It was, moreover, commonly regarded as the politest lan- guage of Europe. The University of Paris, founded about 1170, was a place of resort for the scholars of all Europe. In the French language was written a great and growing literature, which other nations, the English especially, strove to imitate and absorb. It was the lan- guage also of polite intercourse, and the French capital was regarded not only as the seat of learning and of letters but also of refinement. There grew up thus in England a sort of Gallomania, as it may be called, a sense of respect and admiration for everything French because it was French. The height of this fashion was not reached until between the years 1300 and 1350, but it is this fashionable fad more than anything else that accounts for the powerful influence of French, in this early period, upon English. The French which was imi- tated in the fourteenth century was of course no longer Norman French, but the French of Paris. For it Eng- lish was even in danger for a time of being given up altogetlier as the language of literature and polite conver- sation. Those who continiipcl (n use Encjlish strove often

32 MODERN ENGLISH

to make it as near like French as possible. The imita- tion consisted in the borrowing of words and phrases, in the adaptation of French locutions and idioms to English usage, in the carrying over of French pronunciation to English words and even in such mechanical matters as spelling and handwriting. This use of French spelling and writing was in a way forced upon English. Since instruction in English was no longer given in the schools, but only in French, when one wished to write English the rules of French spelling and the style of French writing were simply transferred to English. The extent to which this Gallicizing of the English language was carried may be seen from the usage of the writer of the collection of saints' lives known as the Early South English Legendar}^ written about 1280. The author, or compiler, of this legendary, judging from the sentiments he expresses, was undoubtedly a patriotic Englishman, but his patriotism did not prevent him from following French fashions. Thus he seems to have pronounced his final th's in English words like breath, death, etc., with a very faint and almost disappearing sound, as a Frenchman, to whom the th sound was strange and difficult, would have done. He even rimes words which have final th with words which do not, as for example, standeth and lande.^ In imitation of French spellings like langue, morgue, etc., in which u is written after the g to indicate the hard quality of the sound, we have spell- ings such as jinguer for finger, Hngue for king, and doggue for dog. Such spellings have not indeed entirely disappeared from English to tliis day. We still spell tongue^ which is Old English tunge, and which accord-

* The final e of IcDidf is of course pronouured.

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 33

ingly should give Modern English tung^ like liuff/ ; but both the o instead of u, and the u after the ,^, are sui'vivals of these French spellings. Other in- stances of French gu in EngUsli words are guilt, guild, guess.

Toward the middle of the fourteenth century, how- ever, tliis mad admiration for everything French began to suffer a decline and English began to rise again to the ascendency. Thus in 1362 it was decreed that all pleadings in the law courts in England should be made in English and not in French, and in the same year the English Parliament for the first time was opened with an English speech. French still continued to be culti- vated as a polite accomplishment, as indeed it is to this day, but from this time on English came to be more and more the language of literature and scholarship, as well as of the higher official and court life in England, and by 1500 (the end of the Middle English period) French had long ceased to be a serious rival of English. It should be remembered, however, that the English which thus came to the front again was very different from the literary English of the period before the French inva- sion. English had been so long neglected in favor of French that the feeling for it as a standard literary lan- guage had largely died out. It became for a time almost altogether a popular dialect. Consequently when English began again to rise into supremacy, it was this popular transformation of the older English that grad- ually assumed the rank of the new standard speech. The new English of the Middle English period is therefore the Old EngHsh of the Anglo-Saxon period as this latter was modified, first by the influence of French, and

8

34 MODERN ENGLISH

second by its passage through the transforming bath of the popular speech.

8. Summary of the Influence of the Norman Con- quest. The influence of the Norman Conquest and its consequences upon the English language and the English people was profound. The racial distinction between Norman and Englishman was soon lost ; for the Norman when he had accepted England as his home, and even more when he had accepted English speech, became to all in- tents and purposes English. So completely were English and Norman assimilated that the third or fourth genera- tion after the Conquest must often have been unable to distinguish between the two elements of the population ; all were alike English. It was, however, a new English and a different England that gradually emerged after the Conquest. The speech and the whole body of thought of the nation, as a result of the direct and indirect influence of the Conquest, had undergone a remarkable change. In the first place, from a comparatively highly inflected language, English became a language of few in- flections (see pp. 77 ff.). The vocabulary of the language changed from a " pure " vocabulary, that is, one made up of words of the same linguistic stock, to a bilingual vocabulary, a vocabulary made up of Teutonic and Romance elements. The influence of F'rench extended also to the phrasing of English, the grouping of words in the sentence, and in many ways, direct and indirect, which are difficult to follow, the new tendencies affected the whole tone of English thought and expression. The language after it has been subjected to the French influence is more supple ; it is the vehicle for more varied forms of expression than it had been before. In

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 36

this it was merely following the change in the intellec- tual life of the English people, which after the Conquest was richer and touched many more sides of life than it ever had in the Old Englisli period. This new spirit in English thought and letters received its fullest ex- pression in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 (?)- 1400). In Chaucer we have one who was not only a consummate artist in the use of language, but one also wlio, instead of the simple Old English themes of war- fare and religion, could sound the whole gamut of human emotion, love, pathos, humor, chivalry, the dra- matic instinct, the feeling for nature, in short all those shades of thought and feeling which the English heart is capable of experiencing or the English tongue of expressing.

9. Modern England. The England of the close of the Middle English period was never again subjected to foreign invasion or to any great external racial influences. The thouglit and language of the people followed in general a peaceful line of development, accompanying the intellectual, industrial, and political growth of the country and of the world as a whole. The periods in modern times that have been most important for the history of the language are the Renascence period, from about 1500 to the death of Shakspere in 1616, in which the main purpose was that of " enriching " the language (see pp. 234 ff.); the period of Dryden (1631-1700) and Pope (1688-1744), the so-called Augustan period of English literature, in which much thought and attention was given to " polishing " and " purifying " the language ; and the most recent period of scientific, industrial, commercial, and political expan-

36 MODERN ENGLISH

sion, with its marvelous extension of the bounds oi human thought and activity. Of these later influences perhaps the most significant are those which arise from the commercial and colonial expansion of the English people, and concerning these a word in especial may be said.

10. World English. History makes few appeals to the imagination stronger than that presented by the pic- ture of the little kingdom of England reaching out step by step until now its speech and its civilization circle the globe. Beginning with the union of Scotland and England under one king in 1008, and the conquest of Ireland under Elizabeth, the three countries, which by later acts of union formed the kingdom of Great Brtiain and Ireland, entered on a period of territorial and racial expansion that almost passes belief. By the settlement at Jamestown in 1607, and the later settlements in other parts of this country, the national speech of the Conti- nent of North America was determined as English, a fact assured by the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm in 1759. The separation of the colonies from the mother country in 1776, and the later opening of their gates to almost countless hosts of foreign immigrants have not availed to change tlie destiny of the English language ill the United States. It is to-day as much the national speech of the country as it is of Canada or of England herself.^ By the English settlement of Australia in the

* Perhaps the opinion of au En<»lishman on this point may be worth quot- ing. It is that of E. A. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest, who, in liis fmpressions of the United Slates, London, 1 883, speaks as follows : " To me tlie English-speaking Commonwealth on the American mainland is simply one part of the great p:uglish folk, as the English-speaking king- Joni in the European island is another part. My whole line of thought

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 37

early nineteenth century, the speech of that country also became English. Jn India, which was first con- quered by the English in the middle of the eighteenth century, the native speech of the country, already a highly developed language in which a great literature was preserved, has maintained its existence as the popular and native language. English is, however, the official lan- guage of the country, and is becoming more and more the language of business, commerce, and education. Other colonies, or offshoots of colonies, in which English is spoken, are South Africa, New Zealand, and Jamaica.

The English language is coming to be used also more and more in countries whicli are not under English domination. It is to a large extent now the language of cosmopolitan intercourse in Europe, and there are few cities in which English is not sufficient on the main roads of travel to meet all a traveler's needs. English is thus slowly taking the place formerly filled by French. Eng- lish is also, to a considerable extent, the language of international commerce. Nautical and manufacturing terms, words derived from Enghsh social customs, from English sports and games, in Germany, France, and in other nations, are evidence of the growing prestige of English. 1 In the Far East, in China, Japan, and the

and study leads me to think, more perhaps than most men, of the everlast- ing ties of hlood and speech, and less of the accidental separation wrought by political and geographical causes. To me the English folk, wlierever ihey may dwell, whatever may he their form of government, are still one people. . . . And so, to my mind at least, the thought of the true unity of the scattered English folk is a thought higher and dearer than any thought of a British Empire, to the vast majority of whose subjects the commou speech of Chatham and Washington, of Gladstone and Garfield, is an un- known tongue."

1 For lists of English words in German and French, see below, pp. 255-257.

38 MODERN ENGLISH

neigliboring islands, English occupies a unique position as an almost pan- Asiatic language. It is spoken in a corrupt and simplified form, known as Pidgin English, b}' merchants and sailors all along the coasts. It is also, however, the language of oriental diplomacy to a con- siderable extent, and it is significant that the modern educational movement both in China and Japan lays great stress on the cultivation of the English language. American possessions in the Philippines will serve to strengthen the position which English takes in the Far East.i

It has been estimated that the number of people speaking English as their native tongue is at present between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty millions. The number who speak German is estimated at about eighty millions, and the number of Russians at about the same. The numbers speaking French, Spanish, and Italian are estimated to be about fifty millions each. The rate of increase of English in the last century has been much greater than that of any other language. Since English is spread over such a wide extent of territoiy and is the language of rapidly growing and developing countries, it is altogether hkely that this proportionate rate of increase w'ill continue to be as great in the future as it has been in the past. Added to this the fact that English is the speech of an

^ President (then Secretary) Taft, in a report submitted to Congress in January, 1908, calls attention to the fact that in the decade of the American occupation of tlie Philippine Islands, English had come to be spoken by a greater number of natives than liad been the case with Spanish in the several centuries of Spanish occupation, — a striking illus- tration of the difference between English and Spanish methods of (■•(ionization.

THE KXGLISII PEOPLE 39

aggressive and venturesome })eople, that because of the simplicity of its structure and of its bilingual character as a Romance and a Teutonic tongue combined, it is the most easily acquired of all the languages of the western world, obviously English has a better chance than any other living language of becoming a world-language. Even the traditional national vices of insularity and con- ceit make for this result. The Engish and Americans are, undoubtedly, the greatest travelers of modern times, and the tenacity with which they hold to their native speech and native customs in foreign lands, while it often justly exposes them to the charge of complacency and provin- ciality, at the same time makes them effective distributors of English ideas and traditions. If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, then tlie mountain must come to Mohammed. That English will ever become the lan- guage of familiar daily intercourse in non-English countries is, of course, beyond the range of possibility. There is no indication that any country will ever alto- gether give up its native idiom for another, except through the gradual method of complete national and racial assimilation. But that English may become the language of international science, of international di- plomacy, of international travel and commerce, is quite within the limits of the possible. In the medieval pe- riod the various nations each learned one other language besides their native idiom for the purpose of interna- tional communication, and this second language was always Latin. Later the place of Latin tended to be taken by French. Within the last two or three genei-a- tions, however, French has begun to yield to English, and the universal language of the future is more likely

40 MODERN ENGLISH

to be English than any other of the tongues of modern or ancient Europe.

11. Artificial Language. Of recent years a great deal has been said about a universal language. In all projects of this nature the attempt is to manufacture an artificial language which shall be free of the defects of existing languages, and which, because of its reason- ableness and economy, will induce the nations of the world to accept it in the place of their native speech. Artificial languages are not of recent origin. Such lin- guistic experiments have been made from the earliest times, some of them extremely ingenious, but none that ever realized in the slightest degree the hopes which their creators had for them.i In England the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were pro- ductive of a niunber of artificial languages. One, as set forth by Sir Thomas Urquhart in a volume published in London in 1653, bore the alluring title Logopandec- teision, or an Introduction to the Universal Language digested into six books, published both for his own utili- tie and that of all pregnant and ingenious spirits. In our own day various " ingenious spirits " have promul- gated schemes of universal language, Volapuk, Esper- anto, Glanik, and others, literally to be numbered by the dozen, and all different. Why have none of these experiments succeeded? In the firet place, because the attempt to foist an artificial language upon a people runs counter to all the principles of development that have governed the growth of a people. A native speech arises in a community as the intimate accompaniment

^ For a full description of all these endeavors, see Couturat et Lean, Histoire. de la lanrjue universellc, Paris, 1903.

THE EN(iLISH PEOPLE 41

of all its social customs. It is a gradual and largely unconscious growth, arising out of the unmediate ex- periences of life. No speech, as we shall have continual occasion to point out, has ever submitted to the S3'S- tematizings of the theorist, no matter how reasonable and consistent these seemed to be. The attempt, there- fore, to bring about the acceptance of an artiiicial lan- guage on reasonable gi-ounds is not likely to succeed, because of the simple fact that a language is not under the control of the direct reason. It is a common social possession, and a people fortunately does not, and can- not, change its social customs and habits by a sudden act of will. Moreover, one may doubt whether an arti- ficial language, the best that can be devised by an indi- vidual or a group of individuals, ever can be as good as a natural language. A natural language which has developed through thousands of years has acquired possibiUties of expression, in thought and especially in feeling, which no language manufactured in cold blood can hope to equal. The wisdom of the nation is greater than the wisdom of an individual, and a national lan- guage sums up all the past wisdom of the people. Yet again, a universal language, to remain universal after it had once been accepted by all peoples, must not be allowed to change. But if anything can be learned from the history of language, it is just this, tliat all languages are continually subject to change, and that nothing can prevent them from changing. The advo- cates of a universal language must accordingly not only perform the initial miracle of getting tlieir language accepted, but they must then perform the second mir- acle, a continuous one, of keeping that language per-

42 MODERN ENGLISH

manent and fixed. In short, no artificial language, no matter how skilfully it is constructed, is likely ever to extend beyond the small group of theorists with whom it originates, and these will continue to pursue it only until their attention is attracted to some more divert- ing theory. The way languages spread is not through theory, but through their use. And the reason why the English language is one of the most widely distributed of the modern world, is that men who have spoken English have made their way to all corners of the earth, have carried with them their ideals of life and conduct, and, with these ideals, the speech in which they find expression. Artificial languages are well enough as playthings for "ingenious spirits,'' but a re ' .anguage is formed in the market places and by the firesides of a living world.

If, on the other hand, an artificial language is devised only for the expression of simple and impersonal ideas, such as might arise in international, commercial, or even scientific communication, then the matter becomes im- portant only to a relatively small number of people. An artificial language of such kind is of not much more sig- nificance than a cable code or a system of signals. Most of the languages which have been fashioned for such purposes have been constructed on the basis of Latin, as, for example, the at present much exploited Esper- anto. Latin is chosen as the basis because it is, in one form or another, a natural inheritance of all southern Europeans, it forms a large part of the English vocabu- lary, and third, it is the language which most edu- cated persons are likely to know — or to have known — besides their native speech, if tliey know any. But

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 43

obviously, if you do not know Latin, and it is hardly a warrantable assumption that everybody knows Latin, you must first learn it, if you want to apply it to the understanding of an artificial language based on Latin. One might thus have to learn Latin, supposedly a more difficult language, in order to prepare the way for learn- ing an easy, artificial language. But no artificial lan- guage has yet been made effective for international, scientific, or business communication, and it is not only doubtful if it can be, but also if it were made generally effective, whether more would not be lost than would be gained. Certainly an artificial language would be harm- ful if it should in any way prevent or limit the study of the natural languages. There is an old saying that a man is as many times a man as he has languages. No artificial language will ever take the place of a knowl- edge of the natural languages; at most it can only make the undiscriminating satisfied with an inadequate substitute.

in

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1. The Classification of Languages. One of the

important results of the modern study of language has been the classification of the various languages of the world into groups according to their relationships. Altho the science of language has not been able to confirm the Scriptural story of the original creation of language, nor, as yet, even to arrive at any altogether satisfactory theory of the beginnings of speech, it never- theless has done a great deal in discovering lines of evo- lution and development in those languages of which we have record. It has discovered that there has been a continual change and growth in language, that the lan- guages of modern times are each of them a historic product which developed slowly and regularly out of preceding stages. Moreover, it has shown that many apparently dissimilar languages are really closely related and are the descendants of some single original stock. It has thus divided languages into families.

2. The Indo-European Family of Languages. One of the largest and most carefully studied groups or families of languages is that known as the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic family. This group comprises certain of the languages of Asia and practically all the languages of Europe. The original unified Indo-European lan- guage from which they are all theoretically derived is no

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 45

longer in existence. Its former existence is inferred, however, from the comparative study of the various Indo-European languages, since no theory serves so well to explain the many similarities which exist among them as the theory of a common origin. It should not be for- gotten, however, that the theory of a common original language from which the various Indo-European lan- guages were derived does not carry with it the theory of a common and single racial ancestry of all the Indo- European peoples. In the course of its development the primitive Indo-European speech undoubtedly imposed itself upon peoples of widely different race, very much as the branch languages, French or English, have done in later periods. We accept, therefore, a common speech ancestiy for the Indo-European peoples, but not neces- sarily a common race ancestry. The period and the place in which this common original language was spoken are matters of very uncertain inference, and, indeed, are matters of comparatively slight importance. It concerns us much more to know the history, the changes and de- velopments which have brought about the differentia- tion of the various languages of which we have specific knowledge. These languages have been carefully studied, so that now we are enabled to classify them according to their branches and subdivisions in an orderly fashion. The folloNving is a list of the main members of the family, beginning with the languages farthest east in Asia and proceeding thence in order to the languages of western Europe :

1. Indo-Iranian. This branch is subdivided into (a) the Indian languages, including Sanskrit, the ancient literary language of India, and Prakrit and Pali, the modern native

46 MODERN ENGLISH

dialects of India ; and (b) the Iranian languages, including Persian and Avestau in their various periods, besides several other languages of the tablelands of Central Asia.

2. Armenian, spoken in parts of Asia Minor.

3. Greek, which may be subdivided into the various Greek dialects, Ionic, Attic, Doric, etc.

4. Albanian, spoken in the limited region of Albania, north of Greece.

5. Italic. The main language of this branch is Latin, from which are derived the modern Komance languages, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Proven9al, and several other less known languages besides.

6. Celtic. This branch may be subdivided into Gallic, the language of the people of ancient Gaul, of which little is known ; British, the language of the original inhabitants of Britain ; Welsh, the language of Wales ; and Gaelic, includ- ing the language of the Scotch Highlands, Irish, and Manx.

7. Teutonic or Germanic. This branch, the one we are particularly interested in, falls into three main subdivisions, as follows :

(a) East Germanic, the main dialect of which is Gothic,

known chiefly from fragments of a translation of the Bible, made in the fourth century by Ulfilas, the bishop of the West Goths.

(b) North Germanic, including Icelandic, Norse, Swed-

ish, and Danish.

(c) West Germanic, including the following languages :

I. Engli.sh, in its various periods of Anglo-Saxon, or

Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.

II. Frisian, in the two periods of Old and Modern Frisian.

III. Franconian, the chief modern representatives of which are the languages of Holland and Flanders.

rV. Low German, tlie modern representative of which is Platt<hnitHch.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 47

V. High German, in its three periods of Old High German, Middle High German, and New High German, the language of modern Germany. 8. Balto-Slavonic. This branch falls into two main divi- sions (a) the Baltic languages, including Old Prussian, Lithu- anian, and Lettic ; and (A) the Slavonic languages, including Russian, Bulgarian, Illyrian, Bohemian, and Polish.

3. The Principles of Classification of Languages.

The question arises, How do we know that these lan- guages are related ? What are the points of difference and resemblance which justify us in holding together the languages of the Indo-European family in a single group, and at the same time in dividing this group into the eight branches indicated above, with their further sub- divisions? In answering the question, it should be noted, first, that the Indo-European family is consti- tuted a group apart from the other languages of the world by certain features which all the languages of the family have in common, but which are unknown to lan- guages outside the group. Thus, first of all, the lan- guages of the Indo-European family are all inflectional in structure, that is, they indicate the relations which words bear to each other in the sentence by the use of case, gender, number, tense, voice, and other endings. This seems to those whose native speech is inflectional such a natural characteristic of language that it is often supposed that all languages make use of this device. Such is not the case, however, and there are certain lan- guages, like the Chinese, which have no inflection at all, and others, like the Turkish, which have a kind of inflection that is so different from our kind of inflection that it has to be put into an entirely separate class from it.

48 MODERN ENGLISH

111 the second place, it has been found that the Ian guages of the Indo-European family have a considerable number of words in common that are not found in other languages, and the number and the character of these words are so significant as to lead one almost necessarily to the inference that they are a common inheritance from a common original stock. The study of the languages of the Indo-European family from the point of view of their sounds and of their syntax confirms the results of the study of vocabulary and inflection, and makes un- avoidable the conclusion that we have in them a group of closely and mutually related languages.

The method by which the division of the family into its branches has been obtained is similar to that which deter- mined the classification of the family as a whole. It has been found that, altho all the branches of the family have certain characteristics in common, which hold them together as a family, at the same time each branch has its own individual characteristics, due to the special de- velopment it has followed and the special influences to which it has been subjected. It would carry us too far at present to attempt to sliow all the sj^ecial characteris- tics of each branch, for example, liow Greek differs from Latin and how Celtic differs from both ; all we can do is to point out the main characteristics wliich distinguish the Teutonic or Germanic branch, the one in which our special interest lies,

4. The Teutonic Languages. The main cliaracter- istics wliich the Teutonic languages liave in common as features distinguishing them from tlie other Indo-Euro- pean languages are four : (a) a regular shifting or change of consonants, known us Grimm's Law ; (b) the Teu-

THP: ENGLISH LANGUAGE 49

tonic classification of the verb as strong and weak (or ir- regular and regular) ; (c) the twofold declension of the adjective as strong and weak ; (d) the Teutonic system of word-accent. The last three of these characteristics need only a word of explanation, but the importance of Grimm's Law makes it deserving of a more extended discussion, and we shall therefore leave it to the last.

A comparison of the Modern English verb, which is representative of the Teutonic verb in general, with the Latin as representative of the original Indo-European verb, will show the distinguishing features of the Teu- tonic verbal system. The English verb consists of two classes, the weak, or regular verb, which forms its past tense by adding cZ, or ed (sometimes assimilated to f) to the present or infinitive stem, as for example, ivalk^ ivalked, walked; and second, the strong, or irregular verb, which forms its tenses by an internal change of the radical vowel of the word, as in the verb sinff, sang, sung. The Latin verb, on the other hand, falls into a number of different classes, dependent to be sure on the formation of the principal parts, but in which can be found no such simple principle of tense formation as that which distinguishes the English verb.

The twofold declension of the adjective has been lost in Modern English, inasmuch as the declension of the adjective (except for comparison) has been lost alto- gether. Li the Old English period of the language, however, the full declension of the adjective was still maintained, as it is in New High German to this day. The simple principle of it is this — that when the adjec- tive is preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or a definite article, it is declined in one way, called weak, and when

4

50 MODEKX ENGLISH ■

not preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or a definite article, it is declined in another way, called strong. Thus the phrase These young hoys would take the weak form of the adjective in Old English, pas geongan cnaj^an ; but the phrase Young boys would take the strong form, G-eonge cnapan. Latin, like Modern Enghsh, would take the same form of the adjective in both phrases.

The Teutonic system of word-accent is sufficiently illustrated by Modern English usage. The rule there is that words of native origin usually take the stress on the root syllable, and this root syllable, except in the case of prepositional compounds, is almost always the first sylla- ble of a word. Moreover, the accent of English words is fixed^ that is, a noun has the same accent, no matter what its case may be, and a verb keeps the same accent through all its various inflections. Latin, on the con- trary, which is again representative of the Indo-European accent, has what is called a/rgg or variable accent, chang- ing with the various forms of a word. Thus the nomi- native is stressed imperdtor, but the accusative is imper- atdrem. The English derivative word, " emperor," has a fixed accent on the first syllable.

5. Grimm's La'w. This law is named Grimm's Law because it has become generally known through its for- mulation in the year 1822, by the German scholar, Jacob Grimm , who was not only the writer of the famous fairy tales, but was also a philologist of great industry and learning. It is called a law, but it is purely an empiri- cal law. That is to say, by observation the discovery was made that a definite set of linguistic phenomena operated in a certain regular way, and the generalization drawn from this obsei-vation was formulated as the law.

\

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 51

or rule, of the phenomena. This kind of law does not imply that the plienomena must act in a certain way, that there is a compelling law-giver or power back of the law which controls its action. It simply states what does happen, or what appears to our observation to hap- pen. The ultimate explanation of the cause of the series of phenomena known as Grimm's Law is one that, so far, has escaped the scientific students of language. The facts as they are we accept because we observe them, but no satisfactory theory in explanation of these facts has yet been brought forward.

The phenomena which are the facts upon which Grimm's Law is based are certain regular changes in sounds. It was observed that where Indo-European words (as represented say by Greek or Latin) appeared with certain consonants, the same word in the Teutonic languages appeared with different consonants, always, however, according to a regular scheme of equivalents. Thus Indo-European p became regularly Germanic/, and d became regularly t ; the relation of English /oof to Greek ^08-09 (pod-os) is therefore obvious. Other illus- trations of the change oi p to / are Latin pater, English father ; htitin pellis, English /e?Z. The change of Indo- European d to t \s further illustrated by English tooth, Latin dent-is; English ten (Old English tigon'), Latin decern. Another regular change, which has been illus- trated by the word-pairs English /af/i^r, \j2bt\i\ pater, and English tooth, Latin dent-is, is that of Indo-European t to Teutonic th. Further illustrations are Latin tres, English three; Latin tenuis, English thin; Latin tu, English thou. Another regular change is that from Indo-European c to Teutonic h, as in Latin corn-its, Eng-

\

52 MODERN ENGLISH

lisli Jiorn; Latin coU-is, English hill. Illustrations of these changes might be increased indefinitely. Instead of adding others, however, it will suffice to make a gen- eral statement of all the consonants affected by the law and their correspondences. They may be grouped as follows :

The IndorEuropean labial consonants bh, 6, p became re- spectively the Teutonic consonants &, p^ f.

The Indo-European dental consonants dh, d, t became re- spectively tlfe Teutonic consonants d, t, th.

The Indo-European palatal and guttural consonants gh, g, Jc (c), became respectively the Teutonic consonants g, k, h.

It should be understood, of course, that this is a very general statement of Grimm's Law, and that, as thus ex- pressed, it is open to numerous exceptions and to the qualifications of some important sub-laws. Moreover, it should be remembered in tracing back English words to their cognates in the other Indo-European languages which are not subject to this shifting of consonants, as for example, Latin, that these other languages may also have had each its own peculiar development in its consonant system which may serve to obscure the simple opera- tion of the law. It is also apparent that only those Eng- lish words which are of native origin, that is, only that lialf of our bilingual language which is Teutonic and not late borrowed Romance, can be subject to Grimm's Law. Despite its various restrictions and qualifications, however, Grimm's Law is one of the most valuable lin- guistic principles which we possess. It enables us not only to group the Teutonic languages together, but also often to determine the history and etymology of the vo- cabularies of the various Teutonic languages, to tell

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 63

what words are native and what are foreign. Moreover, the study of Grimm's I^-aw has carried in its wake the discovery of many other linguistic laws and principles which are of the greatest interest and importance, but which cannot be entered into at present.

6. English and German. The exact relation be- tween Modern Englisli and Modern German should be clearly understood. Of course one is not derived from the other, as is so frequently the popular belief. The number of words in the German language which were directly borrowed from English is comparatively small, most of them having been taken over of recent years, and the same is true of the German words in the Eng- lish language.^ The two languages are, however, of the same stock, and they resemble each other because they, like the other Teutonic languages, are derived from some common original Teutonic mother speech, which is no longer in existence and which has left no written records, but the existence of which we infer from the comparative study of the various Teutonic languages, just as we infer the former existence of a parent Indo- European speech for all the different Indo-European languages. German and English, therefore, have much in common because they inheiit their language from a common ancestral speech. They differ, on the other hand, from each other, because throughout centuries of development each has followed its own course and has been subject to its own special influences. The most important special development of German, which differ- entiates it from English, is what is known as the second shifting of consonants. English and German alike are

' For a list of theae words, see oelow, pp. 255-256.

54 MODERN ENGLISH

subject to Grimm's Law, or the first shifting of conso- nants, but the German consonants which resulted from the operation of Grimm's Law have undergone a further change, a shifting which is peculiar to that language, and which is one of the things which justify the linguist in setting off that language as a special subdivision of the Teutonic language. Thus where English has jt?, German usually has/or jo/in cognate words, as in Eng- Hsh help, German lielfen ; English ship, German schiff ; English sleep, German schlafen ; English sheep, German schaf ; English sap, German sapf. Likewise where Eng- hsh has d German usually has t, as in the following pairs of words : dead, tot (formerly spelled todt) ; deaf, tauh ; deal, theil (the h being silent in pronunciation) ; do^ thun ; cold, kalt ; hold, halten ; and so with many others. English t frequently appears as German z or tz^ as in to, zu ; tin, zinn ; tooth, zahn ; tongue, zunge ; write, ritzen ; cat, katz ; sit, sitzen. English v appears in cog- nate German words as b, as in over, oher ; leave, (er-) lauhen ; grave, grab ; shove, schieben ; love, liehe ; knave^ knabe.

7. Periods of English, From the seventh century, the earliest period of which we have any knowledge of recorded forms of English, the language has been subject to constant change. In this it merely partakes of the nature of language in general, for speech, so long as it is living in actual unconstrained use, is continually growing and developing. It is only in the so-called " dead " languages that language can be drawn up into a system once and for all. From the earliest Indo- European times, therefore, down to the present day, it is safe to say that the language which we now know

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 55

as English has been ceaselessly, tho often impercepti- bly, dropping old and assuming new forms. Since this process has been unbroken from the beginning, it is in a way illogical to divide the history of the language into periods. There have been, liowever, certain times at which changes took place more rapidly than at others, owing to special attendant circumstances, and provided we keep always in mind that the dates by which we divide a language into periods are more or less arbi- trarily chosen, they will serve the convenient purpose of indicating roughly the large general divisions in the de- velopment of the language. In this way we may indi- cate three great divisions in the history of English :

I. The Old English, or Anglo-Saxon period, beginning with the coming of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons to England and ending with the Norman Conquest in 1066, or better, about 1100. II. The Middle English period, extending from 1100 to about 1500. III. The Modern English period, extending from 1500 to the present time.

The language in each of these periods is distinguished by developments which are to a large extent characteristic of the respective periods. These developments affect all the various sides of the language, — sounds, inflec- tions, words, and syntax, and it will be the purpose of the following chapters to give an account of the changes in the language from these several points of view.

IV

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS

1. The Nature of Inflection. It has already been pointed out (pp. 47 ff.) that inflection is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the family of Indo- European languages. The extent to which these vari- ous languages make use of inflection differs greatly, and there is often considerable variation, as in English, even in the periods of one and the same language. Broadly defined, inflection is the change or variation in the forms of a word for the purpose of indicating corresponding variations in its meaning and use. This definition implies that there is a certain root element which remains constant, but which is given specific application and meaning by additions to this element. This definition, however, is too broad for the traditional use of the term inflection, since it includes not only inflection for person, number, case, gender, tense, and so forth, but also such word-changes as stvift, adjective, to 8wift-ly^ adverb. The term usually employed, how- ever, to designate such a change as that of s^vift to swiftly is derivation or composition. By composition one means the placing together of two word elements each of which has a more or less separate and inde- pendent existence. The degrees of this independence may vary greatly. A compound like house-hoat is made up of two words, each of wliich may be completely

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 57

independent. On the other liand the -ly of the com- pound swiftly, the -do7n of kingdom, the -7iess of kind ness, are not really complete separate words. They have, however, more meaning as independent elements in the word than true inflections, as for example the plural -s of books, the preterite ending -ed in differed, and the participial ending -en in spoken. It is not always easy, in fact it is not always possible, to draw the line between composition and inflection, and it is altogether probable that a good many inflectional ele- ments are merely weakened forms of earlier composi- tional elements of words. The two things run into each other imperceptibly, and a hard and fast division between them cannot be made. It is best to regard inflection as the geneiul term, including inflection proper and derivation, and to use the specific term derivation, or composition, for those instances in which the elements of a word are plainly felt to have separate existence.^

Inflection may be of three kinds, initial, internal, or end inflection. In former stages of the language initial inflection was used to form the past tenses of certain verbs, known as reduplicating verbs ; this was a method of tense formation similar to the use of augments in Greek. It has been completely lost in later English and is only very sparingly represented in Old English. A

1 A definition of inflection is often made to the effect that inflection inchides only those variations or changes in the form of a word for the expression of different uses within its own part of speech ; when the part of speecii is changed, tlieu we liave composition. But the noun king + dom gives kingdom, which is still a noun; man + hood, gives manhood', also a uoun. Again the numeral adjective o/ic by the addition of -ly becomes ordy ; the word only may be an adjective, as in the only man, or an adverb, as in //'/ only knew. Siiall we call the change of one to only inflection when only ia used as an adjective, and composition when it is used as an adverb'

58 MODERN ENGLISH

kind of initial inflection is used in Modern English to indicate gender, as in man-servant and maid-servant, cock- sparrow, hensparroiv. It is better, however, to regard such words as compounds, or derivatives, since the two elements of which each is composed have separate exis- tence. The word woman, which looks as tho it were the feminine of man with the feminine inflectional sylla- ble wo-prefixed, is originally a compound word which has become obscured. It is Old English wif-, the Modern English " wife," + man = wifeman. The words male and female also look like inflectional forms of the same word, but historically they are not. The word male comes through the French from the Latin maseulus, a word of the same meaning. The word female comes from Latin femella, a diminutive oifemina, "woman," This word should give in English the iovmfemell, which indeed is the form that Chaucer and his contemporaries used. The word femell, however, became confused with male and the second syllable of it was supposed to be the same as male, hence the form female. The syllable fe-, consequently, altho it originally had no such value, is now practically felt to be a feminine forming inflec- tional prefix to male.

Inflection in English is commonly, however, either inter- nal or end inflection. Examples of internal inflection are sin(jf, sang, sung; man, men; tooth, teeth. The most general method of inflection in English consists in the addition of inflectional elements at the end of a word, as in (/) sing, {he) sings; cat, cats; walk, walked.

There are three other ways of showing the different uses of a word which are not true inflections, but make- shifts to take the place of inflections. The first of these

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 69

is the use of the mechanical device of the apostrophe in the possessive case, as in boy^s^ hoys'; so far as the sound of these words is concerned they cannot be distinguished from the nominative and objective plural, hoys, and the value of the apostrophe is purely visual. The second device is that of using altogether different words for the various values of a part of speech, as for example ^o, went, gone; am or is, was, heeri, for the tenses of the verb ; had, worse, worst; good, hetter, hest, for the degrees of the adverb or adjective ; /, you, he for the persons of the peraonal pronoun. The third equivalent for true in- flection is the device of using a phrase as, for example, more swift, most swift in the comparison of the adjective and adverb; (Ae) has gone, (he) had gone, etc., in the conjugation of the verb. English has been driven to use these devices very extensively to make up for inflections which it has lost.

2. English as a " Grammarless Tongue." The his- tory of English inflections has been one of continuous loss. As far back as we can go in the history of the English language we can trace a gradual breaking down of the inflectional system. And even when we arrive at the earliest periods of Old English, there are sure in- dications that the language is already in a transitional stage, and that the tendency towards inflectional loss in English is one that goes far back into the prehistoric periods of the language. This tendency toward inflec- tional loss is not to be regarded as a degeneration of the language. The language of less highly civilized peoples and eras is often more elaborately inflected than the lan- guage of a more highly developed people and civilization. Thus to-day the language of certain tribes of African

60 MODERN ENGLISH

savages is infinitely more complex in grammatical struc- ture than that of any of the European nations. In his speech, the savage makes use of a great deal of unneces- sary machinery, and, as is almost always true of the rude and uncultivated, he makes a tremendous physical effort in attempting to express the content of his mind.

The development in the English inflectional system has, of course, been altogether unconscious, so far as the users of the language are concerned. The language changed to meet the needs of those who spoke it, and no conscious theory of improving the language by getting rid of unnecessary inflections has ever been in operation. Inflections were lost because, in the practical use of the language, men tended to express themselves as briefly as possible. In English, furthermore, the language has de- veloped freely and unrestrainedly from the earliest times down to the Modern English period. This would not have been the case, at least with literary English, if we had had a great classic literature in the Old English period, which was set up and retained as a model for all later periods, as classical Latin literature became the model for all later generations of Romans. If that had taken place our language would now probably have the comparatively elaborate Old English inflectional system, instead of the present Modern English one, which is almost completely devoid of inflection.

The number of Modern English inflections is so small that they may be very briefly summarised. The only parts of speech which are capable of inflection are the noun, the pronoun, the verb, and for the single characteris- tic of comparison, the adverb and the adjective, altho comparison might just as well be called composition

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 61

or derivation. Of these the noun inflects for number, singular and plural, and for one case, the possessive, singular and plural, the other cases being all alike. The personal pronoun inflects for three persons, for three genders, for two numbers, and in some forms for three cases, nominative, possessive, and objective. The other pronouns inflect only for number and case. The verb inflects more elaborately than the noun, but less elab- orately than the personal pronoun. The present tense usually has two forms, one for the third person, singular number, and another for all other uses of the present. There is a distinctive form for the past tense, which is the same, however, for all persons and botli numbers. The past participle sometimes has a distinctive form {see, saw^ seen), but usually it is the same as the form of the past tense {walk, walked, walked; hind, hound, hound). In a few instances, that is, he and were, the present and past of the verb to he, and the third person singular of the present tense of other verbs, there are special forms for the subjunctive mood ; but these are rarely used.

So few are the inflections of Modern English as com- pared with those, for example, of Latin or Greek, or even of Old English, the earlier stage of its own lan- guage, that it has been characterized as a "grammarless tongue." This characterization is approximately true of course only if we think of grammar as meaning the same thing as inflection. In Greek and Latin grammar, inflection, or accidence as it is sometimes called, does play a large part, inflection and the rules of concord being the two important divisions of classical grammar. Through its loss of inflections, however, English has

62 MODERN ENGLISH

also simplified its rules of concord, and it consequently does not present the same kind of grammatical system as the classical languages. That it is a "grammarless tongue," however, in the true sense of the word gram- mar, is not at all true. The language has its struc- ture and its rules of right and wrong, and it is as necessary to observe them as it was for Greek and Roman to observe their inflectional system and rules of concord.

3. The Inflections of the Old English Period. It is convenient to divide the history of English inflections into three chronological periods, corresponding to the three great stages in their development. The first is the Old English period, from the earliest records to about 1100 ; tliis is the period of full inflections. The second is the Middle Enghsh period, from 1100 to about 1500 ; this is the period of leveled inflections. The third is the Modern English period, from 1500 to the present time, and this is the period of lost inflections. The periods of course pass over into each other gradually, altho at the two main dividing lines, at 1100 and 1500, changes took place more rapidly than during the central portions of the periods. There is, therefore, both in the Old Eng- lish and in the Middle English period, a fairly stable and fixed central or classical form of the language which we shall briefly describe.

The Old English is called the period of full inflections because the inflections of the language at that time were not only relatively more numerous than they were in later periods, but were also pronounced with a full and distinct sense of the values of the various vowels in the inflectional endings. Since the inflectional endings bore

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 63

no accent, it will be seen that this method of pronounc- ing the inflectional vowels is very different from the tendency of Modern English (or even of Middle Eng- lish), where we regularly obscure final unaccented syllables in pronunciation. One or two illustrations will suffice to make this point clear. In Old Enghsh a noun in the nominative singular might end in -a, as hunta, "hunter"; or -e, as tunge, "tongue"; or -u, as sunu, " son " ; or -o, as wlenco, " pride," Now these various endings were all given distinctly and clearly the values of the vowels -a, -e, -u, and -o, and were not obscured and slurred as they would be in our Modern English pronunciation. The same principle holds true when the inflectional syllable consists of a vowel followed by a consonant or consonants. The noun sta% " stone," has a genitive singular stanes and a nominative and accusa- tive plural stanas^ each of which is clearly distinguished by the value of its vowel. In short, we may say that the inflectional ending was treated with a great deal more respect and consideration in the Old English period than in later periods. There was more feeling for it and consequently a stronger tendency making for its preservation.

The tendency which kept the vowels of the inflec- tional syllables full and clear, served naturally to pre- vent the loss of inflectional endings. The extent of inflection in the Old English period may be briefly indi- cated, choosing for this purpose the West Saxon dialect in the early West Saxon period, that is, English between the years 800 and 900, in the central and southern parts of England. The noun inflected for three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, and gender in Old

G4 MODERN ENGLISH

English, as in Modern German or Latin, was still gram- matical, not natural or logical, as it has become in Modern English. That is, gender in Old English refers to the way in which a noun is inflected, not necessarily to the sex of the person or object designated by the noun. Thus Old English nouns ending in -a are masculines, and this includes such names of inanimate objects as mona, '* moon " ; noma, " name " ; steorra, " star." ^ The noun inflected also foi* two numbers, singular and plural. It inflected for five cases, nominative, genitive (from which is derived the modern possessive), dative (lost in Modern English), accusative (the modern objective), and instru- mental (also lost in Modern English). Furthermore it inflected for class or type of declension, there being two main types of noun declension, the strong and the weak, and each of these classes consisted of several sub-types or classes. The somewhat complicated state of affairs may be best represented by the following table of the different inflectional endings which the nouns of the various genders and types may tiike. Words which appeared in certain cases without any inflectional end- ing are indicated merely by the dash. Since the in-

1 The distiuction between the grammatical gender of Old English, based upon the forms of words, and the natural gender of Modern Englisli, based upon the meanings of words, should be clearly appre- honiled. Tu Old P^uglish, adjectives have gender as well as nouns, since they are inflected in forms to agree with their nouns. With the loss of inlleetions, Modern English has given up the distinctions of grammatical gender, and uses the term now for the much simpler and more natural purpose of indicating sex. This ex])lains why Englishmen often find it difficult to understand why the possessive pronoun must be feminine in a French sentence like 1/ a jtenlu xa femme, " He has lost his wife." But tiie possessive sa is an adjective, and as such it must take the feminine form when it modifies a feminine noun, no matter what its antecedent may be, or what its logical meaning may be.

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 65

strumental is always the same as the dative in the noun, it is not mentioned specifically in the table.

SiNODLAR. PLUSAI..

Nominative -, -u, -a, -e, -o. Nominative -, -as, -u, -a, -e, -an.

Genitive -es, -e, -an. Genitive -a, -ena.

Dative -, -e, -an, -o. Dative -urn.

Accusative -, -e, -an, -o. Accusative same as the nominative.

An examination of this table will show that the inflec- tional system of the Old English noun is not distinctive for all uses, that the same ending has sometimes to do duty for various values of the noun. Thus the ending -e may appear in any case of the singular, or in the nomi- native or accusative plural ; and there are other endings also which have to be used several times, the ending -an, for example, being used five times. The most distinc- tive and characteristic endings are the -es of the genitive singular, which appears only in the genitive singular; -as, which appears only in the nominative and accusa- tive plural ; and -urn, which is always the ending of all nouns in the dative plural. It will be seen later that these endings are just the ones that are important in the further development of the inflectional system. The de- clension of the strong masculine noun stdn, " stone " ; the strong feminine noun Idr, "lore, learning"; the strong neuter noun hof, " court " ; and the weak masculine noiiit steorra, " star " ; and the weak feminine noun tunue. " tongue," may be cited in illustration of the declension of five large groups of Old English nouns, altho these five are not exhaustive of all the different Old Eng- lish declensions. The declensions of stmi and steorra are typical of by far the greatest number of nouns in Old EngUsh.

5

66

MODERN ENGLISH STRONG.

Snrauuut. Masculine. Fem. Neu.

Nominative stan lar hof

Genitive stanes lare hofes

Dative stane lare hofe

Accusative stan lare hof

Masculine. Fem. Neu.

stan as lare hofu

stan a lar a or larena ho fa

stanum larum hofum

stan as lare hofu

WEAK.

Nominative Genitive Dative A ccusative

SmsviiAB.

Masculine.

steorra

steorran

Feminine.

tunge tungan tungan tungan

Plvbal.

Masculine. Feminine.

steorran steorrena steorrum steorran

tungan tungena tungum tungan

There are various minor declensions of the noun in Old English besides the above five types, but most of these have been more or less completely assimilated in later English to the type forms represented by stan and steorra. Only one has left considerable traces in Modern English, nouns in which the plural number was formed by mutation of the radical vowel. For example, Old English /J^, gos, mils, broc, etc., formed their plurals fet, ges, mys^ brek, corresponding to Modern English foot, feet ; goosey geese; mouse, miee. The word Jroc has disappeared in the singular in Modern English, which should have brook; its plural is retained, however, in breeches, which has the old mutation of the vowel to indicate the plural, but which has also added the regulur plural -s ending of nouns like stan. Some other words which in Old English belong to this class of mutation plurals have been attracted completely into the larger class of regular nouns. Thus Old English boc, bee should give regularly Modern English book, with the plural beek, like goose, geese. But by analogy to the

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 67

large class of plurals in -s without mutation of the vowel, heek was changed to books.

The Old English adjective differs from the Modern English adjective in that it inflects for all those forms for which the noun inflects, for gender, number, case, and type or class, as strong and weak. The rules of concord also demand that an adjective shall agree in its inflection with the gender, number, and case of the noun which it modifies. The main inflections of the adjective, for all genders and types, are as follows :

BlNQULAB. FlUBAL.

Nominative -, -a, -e. Nominative -, -e, -a, -an.

Genitive -es, -re, -an. Genitive -ra, -ena.

Dative -iim, -re, -au. Dative -um.

Accusative -, -ne, -e, -an. ^ccusa<tj;« same as the nomhiative.

With the adjective should be grouped the definite article, for this part of speech in Old English is a real adjective, inflecting like the adjective and like the Modern German article, for gender, number, and case. The inflections of the article are as follows :

BmOULAB. PI.DBAL.

Masculine. Feminine. Neuter . Masculine. Feminine. Neuter.

Nominative	se, " the " seo	paeti	I'a
Genitive	p^s, "of the" t'aere	pses	para
Dative	pjeni, " to the " [r'sere	psem	pam
A ccusative	pone, "the" pa	past	Pa
Instrumental	J:y, " by or with the "		...

1 The symbol p, also written ?5, (called " thorn ") is equivalent to th ; the symbol ce (called the digraph) has the sound of Modern English a in hot, the value of Oki English a, as for example in stdn, being the same as the a in Modern English /at her.

68

MODERN ENGLISH

The Old English personal pronoun differs mainly from the Modern English in that it has preserved remnants of an old dual number, the only survival in any period of English of an inflection which probably, in prehistoric stages of the language, appeared also in the noun, the adjective, and the verb; and secondly, in that it has only one form for the second person, S;7, Modern Eng- lish " thou," with its various case forms. The dual number survives only in the personal pronoun of the first and second persons. The inflections of the Old English personal pronoun, followed in each case by its Modern English derivative or equivalent when it has one, are as follows:

FiBST Febsom SmeuLAB.	Srcond Pbb80n Binoulab.
Nominatwe	ic,	"I"	Nominative "Su, " thou "
Genitive	niin.	" mine "	Genitive	•Sin, "thine"
Dative	me.	" me "	Dative	Se, "thee"
Accusative	me,	"me"	Accusative	«e, "thee"
		Dual.		Dual.
	Nominative	wit	Nominati	ve git
	Genitive	imcer	Genitive	incer
	Dative	unc	Dative	inc
	Accusative	unc	Accusative inc
	Plubal.		Plural.
Nominative	we,	"we"	Nominative	ge, "ye"
Genitive	ure	or iiser, "our'	Genitive	eower, "your'
Dative	us,	((	us"	Dative	eow, "you"
A ccusative	lis,	((	us"	Accusative	eow, " you "
			Thibd Person Singular.
		Masculine.	Feminine.	Neuter.
Nominative	he,	" he "	heo, "she" hit, "it"
Genitive		his.	"his"	hi ere, *' her '	his, " its '■
Dative		him.	"him"	hiere, "lier'	him, " it "
A ccusative	hine,	"him"	hie, " her '	hit, "if

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 69

	Pluiul.
	Meu, Fern. JVea.
Nominative	hi, or hie,	"they"
Genitive	hiera.	"their"
Dative	him,	" them "
Accusative	hi, or hie,	"them"

These forms of the personal pronouns were simplified in several ways in the Middle English period. In the first place the dual forms disappeared, and with them the last traces of the dual number in English. The form ie, since it generally stood in unstressed position, tended to assume a weakened form, which later became conventionalized in spelling as capital /. ^ The genitives mm, Siw, persisted as mine, thine, but there also devel- oped forms without final -w, that is, my, thy, which were used before words beginning with a consonant, the full forms being used before vowels and in the absolute po- sition. The dative and accusative fell together under

^ The use of the capital for the pronoun of the first person, nominative case, in English, a custom not shared by any other European language (cf. German ich, French je, Italian lo, Spanish yo), is due to purely me- chanical reasons, and not, as it is sometimes invidiously said, to the ego- tism of the English people. The custom arose in the late Middle English period, when in order to distinguish the letter / in cursive writing, which as a single stroke of the pen might easily be mistaken as part of another letter, it was commonly written as J or I. The origin of the period over i is the same ; the period was used to indicate that this stroke of the pen over whicli it stood was tlie letter (', and not merely a preliminary stroke to some other letter. It was thus originally a mechanical device similar to that now in use in printing offices, where in manuscripts a stroke is placed over an n, i. e. n, and under a «, i. e. n, in order to prevent mistaking one for the other. With the invention of printing, the form I was carried over from writing as the symbol for the letter when standing alone, al- tho in the early days of printing both the capital and the small letter were thus used. Gradually, however, with the establishment of fixed con. ventions in printing and writing, the capital letter came to be the only recognized form for this purpose. For the importance of stress as affect- ing the development of a sound, see below, pp. 142-148.

70 MODERN ENGLISH

the forms me, thee, us, and you. Like the first person singular, because it was in tlie unstressed position, Old English us developed a weak form with short vowel, Modern English us, although regularly u should give ou (^cf. Old English has. Mod. Eng. house, etc.). The forms of the third person were variously modified. The dative and accusative singular were simplified under one form, for the masculine him, the old dative, for the feminine her, likewise the old dative. The neuter dative- accusative form became hit, " it," the old accusative, the old dative, him, not being used here as the dative was in the masculine and feminine because of its identity with the masculine form. The genitive singular of the neuter, his, was also gradually discarded because of its identity ''Tith the genitive singular of the masculine, and in its place was developed a new genitive singular neuter formed by adding the regular -s ending of genitives to the uninflected form of the nominative. In all these developments it will be seen that the tendency was towards a limitation of the number, but also towards a stricter definition of the value of forms. Old English permitted identit}'' of forms in different grammatical cat- egories, his, for example, for both masculine and neuter genitive ; but the tendency, at least, of later English development has been in the direction of a single form for each grammatical category. This tendency was helped in the present instance by the change from gram- matical to logical gender. So long as gender was a purely grammatical distinction, as in Old English, one might use the same form for masculine and neuter ; but when gender came to mean a real difference in the nature of the objects designated, as in Modern English, it was

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 71

obviously necessary to have distinctive forms for the different genders. The plural forms did not persist because of their similarity in form to singulars, hi of the plural not being readily distinguishable from he of the singular, hiera from hiere, " her," and him being identical in singular and plural. For the Old English forms were consequently substituted the forms they^ their, them, probably under the influence of the Scan- dinavian forms, which begin with th, and perhaps also partly out of recollection of the plural forms of the defi- nite article, which also begin with th. The first person singular of the feminine became she, in which there is probably to be seen an amalgamation of the Old English feminine article seo with the pronoun heo, which might otherwise have been confused with the masculine he.

The adverb in Old English does not differ greatly from its use in Middle and in Modern English, in all three stages of the language being susceptible of inflection only for the purpose of showing degrees of comparison. Various inflections, however, which were lost in later English, were used in Old English with the power of forming adverbs. Thus the dative singular ending -e, added to an adjective formed an adverb, e. g., soft, ad- jective, softe, adverb ; the dative plural ending was simi- larly used, e. g., hwil, " time," Modern English " while," with the dative plural inflection, hivilum, was used with sense of Modern English " at times," " from time to time." The genitive singular ending -es also often had adverbial value, as in dceg, " day," dceges, " by day." With the gradual disappearance of inflections, these inflectional adverbs ceased to be used, their place being taken largely by the compositional adverb with -h/-

72 MODERN EXGLISH

The adverb in -um persists, however, in the archaic form " whilom " ; the -es adverb of genitive origin is not now distinguishable from the plural form. But in construc- tions like " Evenings is the best time to see him," the word " evenings " is a direct survival of the old genitive adverb construction. With the loss of final inflectional -g, adverbs like softe could no longer be distinguished from the adjective form soft. This type of adverb formation also persists in Modern English in adverbs without ending, as in constructions like "Go sZow"; " He fought AarcZ, but there was no hope for him " ; and very commonly in Biblical and poetic English in phrases like " exceeding glad," " the sun shone cold upon the earth."

The inflection of the Old English verb differs from that of the Modern English verb only in having a larger number of specific forms for the various persons, tenses, etc. There was considerable variety among the dialects of Old English in their treatment of the inflections of the verb, the most conservative dialect being the West Saxon, which is made the basis of this description. In Old English, verbs are classified as weak, the Modern English regular verbs, and strong, the Modern English irregular verbs (see above Chapter III, § 4). Besides, they inflect for the three persons ; for two numbers ; for three moods, indicative, imperative, and optative or sub- junctive, the last mood being used much more exten- sively in Old English than it is in Modern English ; for the formation of the verbals, the participle and the infin- itive ; and for two tenses, the present and the past or preterite. The forms of the present tense are also psed with the value of the future, and besides the

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 73

simple inflectional tenses, as in Modern English, there are a number of phrasal verbs, formed with the auxili- aries habban, " have," sculan, " shall," willan, "will," beon^ "be," etc., joined to the infinitive of the main verb. Old English, like Modern English, has no real inflec- tional passive, but only a compound or phrasal passive, formed with the help of the verb beon, " be," " was," etc., joined to the past participle of the verb. The in- finitive ends usually in -aw, singan, " to sing," but occa- sionally also in -ian, endian^ " to end." The preposition " to " is not used in Old English merely as the sign of the infinitive, as in Modern English, but when used it is followed by the inflected form of the infinitive, in the dative case, the whole being virtually a prepositional phrase indicating purpose, e. g., to singanne, " for the purpose of singing," to endianne, "in order to end." The present participle ends in -ende^ singende ; the past participle of the strong verb ends in -en, sungen, " sung," of the weak verb in -ed, -od, frequently carrying also the prefix ge-, e. g., ge-fglled, " filled," ge-endod, " ended." The personal endings are few in number. For the pres- ent tense indicative singular they are -e, -est, -e?S ; ic singe, 5?i singest, he singeti. All persons of the plural end in -ac5 ; we, ge, hie singa'S. But most verbs, whose infini- tives end in -ian, have -aS in the third person singular, and -ia3 in all persons of the plural. In the optative or subjunctive all singulars end in -e and all plurals in -en. In the past tense the first and third persons of strong verbs have no endings : io sang, he sang ; but the second person has the ending -e, and likewise in the root of the word takes over the radical vowel of the plural, 'tSu sunge. The plural has the ending -on for all persons, we.

74 MODERN ENGLISH

ge, hie sungon. In the weak verb the second person singular of the past tense has the -est ending of the pres- ent, ?Su fglledest; the first and third are ic fgllede, he fgllede, and the plural we, ge, hie fylledon. The subjunc- tive forms are the same for the past as for the present, -e for the singular, and -en for the plural. The only other forms which need be noted are those of the imperative, which appear in the singular either without ending or with the endings -e or -a, and in the plural with the end- ing -a3, or -ia15.

4. The Inflections of the Middle English Period. The language of the Middle English period underwent a great number of changes, affecting not only inflections, but also vocabulary, sounds, and the whole structure of the language. The causes of this development, this thorogoing reconstruction of the language, are very complex. So far as inflections go, however, one of the main causes was pretty certainly a change in the way words were accented in the Middle English period. The only kind of word stress which could have preserved the full inflectional endings of the Old English period is a general or distributed stress, spread over the word as a whole. But in the Middle English period apparently the stress of words began to become more like that of Modern English, to be placed strongly and heavily on the first syllables of words, with a consequent obscuring and weakening of the later syllables of the woi-ds. A second main cause of inflectional change in the Middle English period was the condition of general social and political unrest which accompanied the period of the Danish Conquest, and, a little later, the Norman Con- quest. The result of these two conquests was the

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS T5

complete overthrow of the English social and political system. For a period of several generations there was a time of great confusion; the standards, the traditional rules and habits of the English people of Britain, in speech and in other matters, were forgotten and broken down. The result was that the constraints of a rigid social custom, of conventional education and good breed- ing, being to a considerable extent removed, the language was allowed to develop in an untrammeled and popular way. The usages of the radical, the ignorant, and un- educated part of the people were not held in check and the result was that when English began to reassert itself, it was no longer the English of the Old English period, but an English that had been modified by passing through a period of popular and natural development. The situation was very much as tho what we now call " good English " should for some reason or other be given up, say as a result of a Japanese conquest of America. For a time Japanese would have the upper hand. Americans would all try to learn Japanese, to talk Japanese, to act like Japanese, because the Japa- nese would give tone to everything and would be the con- trolling power in the country. English would no longer be taught in the school or the home, and the only persons who would use English would be the populace, who would not of course come into close contact with the new ruling civilization of the country. They would speak their natural speech, the English of the people, and the old " good English " would become extinct and would be crowded out by the " incorrect English " of the uneducated and heedless part of the population. All who spoke English at all might then say "You was,"

76 MODERN ENGLISH

instead of " You were " ; " He ain't," instead of " He isn't"; perhaps "He done it," instead of "He did it " ; and a thousand similar uses which are now held in check by the standards of careful English would be- come general. For a time, then, we should all together be " uneducated " and " popular." But suppose now that after several generations this Japanese invasion and the prestige of things Japanese should pass over, and that English should begin to reassert itself. Soon the educa- tive and conservative instinct would set to work. The more thoughtful part of the people would again con- struct a system of the language, and again we should have rules of grammar, a correct speech, at the side of an incorrect one. But the new correct speech would be based simply upon the usage of the people of this later generation, and consequently it would contain much that the earlier generation regarded as incorrect. After the language had passed through the popular stage and had emerged again into a cultivated stage, " You was," " He ain't," and " He done it " might very well be the only possible correct forms. This, as has been said, is what happened in the Middle English period. The old stand- ards of conventional propriety and correctness were more or less forgotten, the language followed the free and un- regulated impulses of the people, and consequently when it rose again to the position of a stable and classical lit- erary language in the time of Chaucer and his predeces- sors, it was a very different language from what it had been in the time of Alfred and ^Ifric. It is not neces- sary, however, or even reasonable, to regard the language of the Middle English period as a corrupt and degener- ate form of Old English, for these terms suppose that

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 77

the language of the later period is less admirable and effective than that of the earlier. It is better to speak of it as a development from, or an evolution out of, Old English. For it does not follow tliat the popular dialect of a language is any less capable of doing all that lan- guage is expected to do than the conventional " correct" speech. It often happens that it is more capable, and one of the main sources of strength in the English lan- guage is the frequency and the ease with which it renews its vigor by drawing from the living and ever-flowing well of popular speech.

The inflections of the Middle English period are largely the inflections of the Old English period in a disappearing stage. Owing to that change in word ac- cent which has just been mentioned, the final syllables of woi-ds, especially inflectional syllables, tended to be- come weak and indistinct in pronunciation. This tend- ency is already apparent in the late Old English period, manifesting itself first in the ending -um of the dative plural of nouns and of adjectives, in the time of -^Ifric. This ending gradually became vague and uncertain, appearing in the various forms -un^ -on, -en, -an, the last form becoming the predominating one by the end of the Old English period. The most important inflec- tional development, however, of the early Middle Eng- lish period consisted in the leveling of all unstressed end vowels under the vowel -e (pronounced hke the second syllable of "sooner," with the r silent, i. e., " soon-uh"). The effect of this change upon the inflec- tional system of the noun, for example, will be seen by substituting this vowel -e for the various vowels given in the table of noun endings in § 3. The result would

78 MODERN ENGLISH

be the following scheme of noun inflections in Middle English :

SlMSULAB.		PLTTBAL.
Nominative -, -e.		Nominative -, -e,	-es,	-en.
Genitive -e, -es,	-en.	Genitive -e, -ene.
Dative -, -e,	-en.	Dative -en.
Accusative -, -e,	-en.	Accusative -, -e,	-es,	-en.

Several important consequences followed this leveling of the distinctive Old English vowel endings under the vowel -e. In the first place, the grouping of the nouns into classes, or types, of declension had largely to be given up, for the principle of this classification was the difference in vowel ending. The two classes which re- mained were the class of the strong and weak nouns, the strong nouns being those that formed their genitive sin- gular and nominative and accusative plurals in -es, the weak nouns those that used the ending -en for these and other forms. Moreover, with the breaking down of the different classes of declension passed away also gram- matical gender. All inflections being leveled under the general inflections -e, -es, -en, there was no longer any reason, or indeed any means, for keeping up the dis- tinctions of grammatical gender, and words were used as they are in Modern English, without gender, except in so far as they state, by their logical meaning, the sex of the objects which they designate. The inflection of a typical strong noun in Middle English is that of ston (the vowel a having changed to o in the Middle Enghsh period), of a typical weak noun, that of sterre, " star," in the following paradigms ; letters which are enclosed within parentheses are such as are sometimes dropped

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 79

in the early Middle English period and are altogether dropped in the later Middle English period.

SiHOULAR.		SiKaULAB.
Nominative	ston		Nominative sterre
Genitive	stones		Genitive sterre(n)
Dative	ston(e)		Dative sterre (n)
A ccusative	ston		Accusative sterre(n)
Plubal.			Plubal.
Nominative	stones		Nominative sterren
Genitive	ston(en)e,	stones	Genitive sterr(en)e
Dative	stonen, stones	Dative sterren
Accusative	stones		Accusative sterren

The tendency of all nouns was to fall into these two groups, the ston-stones group, and the sterre-sterren group. The ston-stones group, as the more numerous group, tended to impose itself upon the sterre-sterren group, so that besides these forms and contemporary with them are often found the forms sterre^ sterres.

The loss of grammatical gender in the noun naturally led to the loss of agreement in inflection between the noun and its adjective, so far as gender is concerned. The same leveling of inflectional endings took place in the adjective as in the noun ; the only one which per- sisted after the loss of those indicative of gender was tlie vowel -e, which served to mark the plural number and tlie weak inflection of the adjective. The inflection of the Middle English adjective god, "good," would, therefore, be as follows:

Sthono. Wbak.

Singular, all cases and genders, Singular, all cases and genders,

got I. go fie.

Plural, all cases and genders, Plural, all cases and genders,

gode. ijitile.

80 MODERN ENGLISH

An example of a strong singular would be the phrase A yong Squyer (from Chaucer's Prolog to TJie Canter- bury Tales, 1. 79) ; a strong plural would be and smale fowles (ibid., 1. 9 ; it should be remembered that every vowel is pronounced in Middle English) ; a weak singu- lar is the phi'ase The yonge sonne, and a weak plural, the pln-ase The tendre croppes (both ibid., 1. 7).

In the case of the definite article, the forms with ini- tial s, that is 8e and seo, gave up this « for ]> (th), by anal- ogy to the majority of the forms of the article, which begin with J). This gave for the nominative singular forms \>e, peo, ])cet. But by a regular phonetic development, the vowel of ]>eo became the same as that of ])e, and with the loss of grammatical gender in the noun, the separate neuter form pcet was given up as an article, its place being taken by the form pe of the masculine and feminine ; no longer needed as an article, the form Ipcet itself per- sisted with changed value as a demonstrative pronoun. Having gone as far as this, analogy then operated still further, and there being little need felt for inflecting the article in the other cases and for gender, since it was readily assumed that the article was of the same case and gender as the noun with which it went, the single fixed form J»e (the) established itself for all genders, numbers, and cases of tlie article. The main principle, therefore, which operated in the simplification of the definite arti- cle is that of substitution, one single type form crowding out all the dozen or more inflections of the Old English article.

Inflection of the verb as strong and weak, or irregular and regular, persisted in the Middle English period, but from early Middle Englisli times there was a tendency

aiid

a fTtniJvrrpe \\?Gi(lK>nt 6v»dR*: h antipi^mjv « rjvt- (?rtf^a Rv'*\Jj« ^ tiCucni;>«

lid <tc.i9riniPc arjo oiii»r Gctv "»r?t"

\»5rri) miw tfjjtt 8cirj>eF:tijj)fc^airjrc*! \8;»fc

33 p fimffii^tc rtK>muit»tf(<:

[?cix oti)j6 Gccn Jo iiixctc a (o JJantyiidSfc

©f)dt: It Id tfixrfcfi^ foi w (ktv fic fv&ctc

Oiirc 0f^ff<§< 6i»ie R>^ tff<v to tcrc

I^ctii t^ow;te t6at"V^»?i^ urtitt ^^ nor] ooihjK

The Beginning of Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale."

From Cambridge University Library MS. G. G. 4. 27, folio 306.

(For description, see Appendix.)

82 MODERN ENGLISH

on the part of strong verbs to become weak, for example, Old English wepan, tveop, beside Middle English tvepen, ivepte, " weep," " wept." This tendency, which was de- veloped still further in the Modern English period, and which is still operative, was due to the fact that the weak verbs were the more numerous, as well as being the simpler and more readily apprehended manner of tense formation. The weak verbs thus tended to become the type form, crowding out by analogy to them many old strong verbs and attracting to their class all new verbs that entered the language. Examining the de- scription of verb inflections for the Old English period given above, it will be seen that the general rule of the leveling of inflectional vowels under the vowel -e affected a considerable number of verb forms. The end- ings -aS, -mS of the present plural became -e3, like the third singular. The endings -e, -a, and -aS, -iaS of the imperative became respectively -e and -etS. The infinitive endings -an, -ian, -anne became -en, -enne. In the pret- erite plural the -on, -don endings became -en, -den. Other changes were due to different causes. The end- ing of the present participle -ende tended to fall to- gether with certain nouns naming actions which ended regularly in -ung, -ing, e. g., langung, " desire, longing," and which in Old English were distinctly felt as nouns and not as parts of the verb. Their similarity in form, however, and also in meaning, attracted the present participle to these nouns, with the result that the -ende participial inflection was given up, and the noun in -^ing, -ing, and the present participle became indistinguishable in form, both with the ending -ing. Another simplifica- tion that tended to take place affected the preterite

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 83

tenses. In the Old English strong verb, the preterite plural stem was frequently different from the preterite singular, and the past participle often differed from both. In Middle English the three preterite stems tended to be- come alike, to simplify under one form, just as the forms of the article all tended to simplify under the type form the. Thus the Old English verb bindan, hand, bundon, bunden, became in Middle English binde, bound, bound. This leveling never became complete, as in the case of the article, and we still have in Modern English verbs like sing, sang, sung ; drive, drove, driven ; the simplifica- tion, however, affected a considerable number of verbs.

5. The Inflections of the Modern English Period. Altho the Modern English period is called the period of lost inflections, it should be understood that this term is used with relative, and not absolute, meaning. All inflections have not been lost in the Modern English period, altho compared with those of the Middle Eng- lish or the Old English period they have dwindled to a very small number. Nevertheless the language still re- mains an inflectional language, and for the expression of certain ideas no other means than inflection has been devised. The developments in the Modern English period arise from the further carrying out of the two tendencies of the Middle English period, first the tend- ency towards obscuring the vowels of inflectional syllables, and second, the tendency towards simplifica- tion by the substitution of one type form in the place of a variety of forms. In the passage from the Middle English to the Modern English period, the language did not again become merely a popular dialect which later was elevated to the dignity of a standard literary

84 MODERN ENGLISH

language, as had occurred in the transition from the Old English to the Middle English period. On the contrary, from the end of the Middle English time to the present day the language has been watched with increasing care and vigilance. It has been systematized, regulated, purified; in short, it has tended to become more and more an established and settled literary and conventional language. The changes, consequently, which have taken place in the Modern English period have been comparatively slow and comparatively few in number. The difference between the English of the year 1900 and the year 1500 is much less than that between the Eng- lish of the year 1250 and the year 1000. The Modern English has been a regulating, refining, systematizing period, rather than a revolutionizing, reconstructing period.

The final result, in the early Modern English period, of the weakening of inflectional vowels was, as has been stated, their complete loss. Thus starting with the Old English dissyllabic noun nam-a, "name," we get in Middle English the form 7iam-e, still a dissyllable ; but in Modern English we have name, a monosyllable, the final -e having no other value than to indicate the length of the radical vowel. Likewise the Old English plural stan-as, the Middle English ston-es, becomes Modern English ston(e)s ; and the Old English genitive stan-es, Middle English ston-es, is Modern English ston(^e')s, with an apostrophe as a mechanical device to distinguish the possessive from the plural. With the loss of the final -e disappeared also the last remnant of concord between the adjective and its noun. For where Middle English indicated agreement in plural number

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 85

and indicated the weak inflection of the adjective by the inflectional -e, Modern English, through the loss of this inflection, lost also the grammatical distinctions, and uses now only one adjective form in all positions. The def- inite article, having leveled all its forms under the type form the.) had already in the Middle English period developed as far as possible. The verb underwent the same changes in the loss of final syllables that other words experienced : thus the Old English infinitive wep-an became Middle English wep-en, and this by the loss of the final syllable and the regular change in the radical vowel became Modern English weep.

As important as these changes due to inflectional loss, are those which were brought about by substitution. Thus in the nouns the two type declensions which were preserved in Middle English, the strong and the weak, the strong forming its plural by means of the ending -es, the weak by means of the ending -en, tended to sim- plify under the type of the strong nouns, which were the more numerous. The result was that where Chaucer wrote treen, "trees," been, "bees," shoon, "shoes," and so with a great many other nouns, we now use the com- mon -s ending for all plurals. The only exceptions to this rule (aside from a few words like tooth, teeth, which form their plurals by internal inflection) and the only survivals of the old weak inflection in Modern English are the words ox-en, plural of ox, children, and brethren^ plurals of child and brother.

Substitution affected the old genitive, our modern possessive, in a remarkable way. The genitive ending -es in Old English was the mark of the genitive singu- lar, masculine and neuter, of the noun. It then became

86 MODERN ENGLISH

a type form for all genitives, feminine as well as mascu- line and neuter, in the singular. The Old English geni- tive plural inflection for all genders was -a, -gna, which in Middle English became -e, -ene. In Modern English, inflectional loss would have deprived the genitive of any ending in the plural. Instead, however, the genitive singular ending became typical not only for all genders of the singular, but for the plural as well. The ending -es was felt, therefore, as a generalized inflection stand- ing for the genitive or possessive relation. We get, con- sequently, as the general type form of the singular noun in Modern English, stone^ except stone'' s, the genitive or possessive, which in writing and printing has an apos- trophe before the -s to distinguish the word from the plural. A similar mechanical device is used to mark the genitive or possessive plural from the possessive sin- gular and the other forms of the plural ; here, however, the apostrophe is placed after the -s, as in stones', tho the phonetic value of the word is the same as that of the possessive singular. We have, therefore, as type of the plural inflection, the common form stones, with the pos- sessive plural stones' . This use of the apostrophe as a mechanical device to indicate the possessive is of com- paratively late origin. It became established only at the end of the seventeenth and in the early eighteenth centuries as a result of the growing influence of printing and of printers' rules. It is of course a device for the eye and not for the ear. Before the use of the apostro- phe, however, another method of indicating the posses- sive had become pretty general in writing, the use of the pronoun his instead of tlie genitive ending -«, as in Crod his wrath, for GoiTs wrath. This pronoun Ids was never

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 87

pronounced in spoken speech, but, like the apostrophe it served merely as a visual symbol to indicate the pos- sessive relation. In proof of this the remark of the Elizabethan versifier, Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Spenser, may be cited. Harvey is complaining that the English spelling of his day was misleading to the poet, because often words were spelled as dissyllables but pro- nounced as monosyllables, and continues thus : " But see what absurdities thys yl fauored Orthographye, or rather Pseudography, hatlie engendred, and howe one errour still breedeth and begetteth an other. Haue wee not Mooneth for Moonthe^ sitherice for since^ whilest for whilste, phantasie for phansie^ euen for evn, Diuel for Divl, God hys wrath for Goddes wrath^ and a thousande of the same stampe." ^

Modern English has developed special forms of the possessive when the possessive stands in absolute position, that is, when it is not immediately followed by the noun which it modifies. Thus we say, " This is my hat," or, in the archaic form, " This is thy hat " ; but " This hat is mine, thine." In their origins the thine, mine forms of the possessive are direct survivals of the Old English geni- tives, 3m, mm. Formerly, that is, in the Middle English period, these full forms were retained before words begin- ning with a vowel sound, as they are still in Modern Eng- lish poetry, e. g., "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the

1 Gabriel Harvey, Of Reformed Versifying, written in 1579-1580, and re- printed in Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 120. Notice in this pas- sage how freely and inconsistently Harvey uses the final -e, e. g., hathe, howe, moontke, whilste, thousande, stampe. Of course none of these final -e's were pronounced. At the close of the Middle English period when the final -e's had lost all phonetic value, they were often retained in spell- ing, but also often dropped, and even were indiscriminately added to the spelling of words to wiiich they had never really belonged.

88 MODERN ENGLISH

coming of the Lord " ; but the abbreviated forms my^ ihy^ tended to become general, especially before words begin- ning with a consonant. When special forms were required for the possessive in absolute position, the full forms mine^ thine, were naturally chosen, and my, thy, his, our, and your became the only forms for the possessive in adjective position. But the forms his, her, our, your, and their, in absolute position, also underwent a change. In Old English there were not two forms of these pro- nouns, the same form being used in both the adjective and absolute positions. In Middle English the un- changed forms continued to be used for some time, as in the Wycliffe- Purvey Bible, Luke vi, 20 : the kyngdom of God is youre. But gradually a distinctive genitive ending for these absolute possessives was felt to be necessary, and two forms came into use. The first was made by adding the regular -s genitive ending, as the type indication of the possessive relation, giving ours, yours, and of course his, which needed no addition. But by analogy to the mine, thine forms, influenced perhaps also by the possessive adjective oivn, possessives with an -n ending were formed, giving mine, thine, ourn, yourn, theirn, etc. Examples of this second kind of formation are found in the Wycliffe-Purvey Bible, as in Mark xii, 7 : the eritage schal be ourun ; Matthew v, 3 : the kyng- dom of hevenes is heme. This form of the absolute possessive persists in Modern English only in popular speech, the standard or conventional use having become yours, hers, theirs, etc.^

^ Some of the dialects of England have carried this method of possessive formation over into the nominative, e. g., shisn, composed of the nomina- tive she, to which are added first the possessive -s, and then the absohite uossessive -n endings. Sec Wright, English Dialext Gramm<ir, p. 275.

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 89

Substitution affected also the forms of the personal pronouns in an interesting way. In the first person, the correspondence between Modern English and the earlier periods is close, Modern English /, mine, me, and we, our, us, being the direct representation of Old Eng- lish ie, mm, me, and we, ure, us. In the second person, however, the difference is great. This change started with the nominative plural, Old English ge, which gave our Biblical English ye, as in What went ye out for to seep For this ye, however, was early substituted the form you, which was the form for the dative and accu- sative, derived from Old English eow. The possessive form was also your from eower, and the preponderance of the spellings you, you-r naturally led to its substitu- tion in the nominative, giving you. In the singular the old forms 3u, 8m, Se gave regularly our Biblical English tliou, thine, thee. In the late Middle English period, however, the thou, thine, thee forms tended to be given up for the yoii, your, you forms of the plural. This sub- stitution was brought about through the influence of the French language, in which the plural form of the pronoun was the polite form, even in addressing a single individual. The singular pronoun was used only in familiar address, in the conversation of intimate friends or the members of a family. Both forms of the singular have persisted to modern times, but the forms thou, thine, thee are now used in literary speech, and then only in poetry and elevated discourse ; the

The New English Dictionary cites the following example from the Hampshire dialect : " Let thee and I go our own waay, and we '11 let she go shisn." Another analogical formation, sometimes heard in the lan- guage of children, is the possessive mies for my ,• mies is to my, as yours, tAeiVs are to your, their.

90 MODERN ENCxLISH

real siDgular is now you, your, you. In some dialects, especially in England, the tliou, thine, thee forms also persist in popular spoken use. In the earlier Modern English period, in the time of Shakspere, and as late as the early eighteenth century, the two forms thou and you existed in good English side by side, and they could be and were used in current colloquial speech with good effect. The form thou was used in the conversation of friends, or of a husband and wife, the transition to you indicating a slightly more formal tone in conversation. Thus, for example, in the come- dies of Etherege and Vanbrugh, two men friends or two women friends (but not a man and a woman, unless they are husband and wife), usually address each other as thou, but to others they are you. In Etherege's She Would if She Could, Sir Frederick, a boisterous swash- buckler, noisy and familiar, uses thou to Mrs. Rich, the effect being one of a sort of friendly, good-natured im- pertinence, Mrs, Rich being only his friend and there- fore properly to be addressed by you. In speaking to servants and those of inferior social rank, and in giving orders, thou was also the form used. It was likewise used in contemptuous language, as in Sir Toby's advice to Sir Andrew Aguecheek, " If thou thou 'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss" {Twelfth Night, III, 2). All this is what we >sliould expect, for the language of familiar intercourse, of friendship, and of contempt is all on somewhat the same plane — that is, it is all the language of strongly colloquial and familiar color. It is interesting to observe that the forms thou, thine, and thee have been at all periods the ones used in prayer and generally in elevated discourse, and this is true even of

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 91

those periods in which thou is used as a mark of famili- arity or of contempt. The polite forms you^ your^ you have never been used in addressing the Deity, probably, first of all because there was originally a feeling of in- congruity in using what was fashionable or courtly lan- guage for this purpose ; and now, of course, you is no longer courtly or fashionable, but too familiar to be used for lofty purposes. Moreover the language of poetry and prayer is always strongly traditional and conserva- tive; it would consequently tend to preserve the old historical usage of the English tongue, and once the use of thou was fixed in sacred language, as in the prayer book and the English translation of the Bible, it would naturally be very influential in maintaining that usage through later periods. This feeling for thou as the only proper form to be used in addressing the Deity is well brought out in a passage of a sixteenth century work, A Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence^ printed in 1564.^ A beggar, Mendicus, appears at a door soliciting alms, and recites part of the Lord's Prayer as follows : " Our father whiche art in heauen, hallowed be your name, your kyngdom come, your will be dooen in yearth as it is in heauen," etc., upon which he is ridiculed by Civis and Uxor, the gentlemen from whom he is soliciting alms, one of whom remarks, " Me thinke I doe heare a good manerly Begger at the doore, and well brought up. How reuerently he saieth his Pater Noster I he thous not God, but you[s] him."

The discrepancy between the plural form you as a word of address to a single person disturbed greatly the peace of mind of the founders of the Society of Friends

1. Early English Text Society, Extra Series, Vol. LIT, p. 5.

92 MODERN ENGLISH

or Quakers. The}^ observed that the Bible, meaning of course the English translation, always used thou to one and you to many. They thought it not fitting, therefore, that men should use a more dignified form of expression in addressing each other than they used in addressing the Lord. Moreover you as a word of address to a single person is not consistent with the well-known rule of grammar, according to which you is plural, and therefore on that score also its use as singular was wrong. Thi? is just the kind of linguistic crotchet which we might expect to stick in the mind of a half-educated person like George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends ; and it is not surprising to see him come forth in defense of TJiou to One and You to Many^ to use his own battle-cry. He published a work called " A Battle- Door^ for Teachers and Professors to learn Singular and Plural ,■ You to Many, and Thou to One : Singular One, Thou; Plural Many, You," which was printed in London, for " Robert Wilson and to be sold at his Shop at the Signe of the Black-spread-Eagle and Wind-mil in Mar- tins le Grand, 1660." The teachers and professors of his day Fox takes to task in the following fashion: " Do not they speak false English, false Latine, false Greek, false Hebrew, false Caldee, false Syriack, and Arabick, false Dutch, false French ; and false to the other Tongues, that followes here in this Book, that doth not speak thou to one, what ever he be, Father,

1 A battle-door, as the word is used here, means a primer. Literally the word means a wooden bat, shaped somewhat like a tennis racket. But it is used in this metaphorical sense because the early primer, or horn-book, consisted of a cardboard with the abc, etc., on it, surrounded by a wooden rim with a handle, and covered with a transparent piece of horn, the whole being shaped somewhat like a flat bat or racket,

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 93

Mother, King, or Judge ; is he not a Novice and Un- mannerly, and an Ideot and a Fool, that speaks You to one, which is not to be spoken to a singular, but to many? O Vulgar Professors and Teachers, that speaks Plural when they should Singular, lapis, a stone, lapides, stones, that is, more than one. Come you Priests and Profes- sors, have you not learnt your Accidence ? " ^

This avoidance of you as a pronoun of address in the singular has persisted to this day among the Friends. But the old, and historically the correct, form thou as nominative has been given up for the type form thee, used for both nominative and objective, as in " Thee will have to get thee another coat." In thus using the objec- tive thee as the type form, the Friends have done exactly what the standard language has done, since the nomina- tive here is historically ye and the objective is you, from Old English ge and eoiv, the two forms being sim- plified under one, the objective form you.

Substitution has also contributed largely to the sim- plification of the Modern English verb system. The limiting of the principal parts by reducing the preterite tenses to one type form has already been mentioned. The personal inflections have also been simplified, es- pecially in the present tense. Here, through the com- bined influence of inflectional leveling and loss, and of substitution, working through several dialects of the Middle English period, all forms have been reduced to a single type, e. g. (/, you, we, you, they) sing, with the exception of the third singular, (Ae) sings, which has an inflectional -s. The elevated language has been more conservative, preserving the special forms for the

I Fox, A Battle-Door for Teachers, pp. 2-3.

94 MODERN EXGLISH

singular (/) sing, (thou) singest, (Ae) singeth, but the plural is the same in both elevated and normal style.

6. Conclusions. The general effect of inflectional loss and substitution has been to change to a consider- able extent the structure of the English language. From a language in which each word was closely and formally united to some other word by agreement in grammatical form, that is from a synthetic language, Enghsh has developed into a language in which the words, so far as formal concord or agreement goes, are almost altogether free and independent. The language has developed type forms which can stand in any posi- tion, their relationships being indicated largely by the order of the words as they are put together, not by inflectional elements. This kind of language is called analytic, in contrast to synthetic, because in its struc- ture it is made up of independent units which may be easily detached from each other, whereas in the syn- thetic structure, the language binds the word group into a whole in which all the words are mutually dependent for their form on their place in the group. This will be made clear by an illustration. The adjective old in our modern analytic language may modify any noun of any gender, number, or case; it is a perfectly free, universal word-unit. In a synthetic stage of the lan- guage, however, as in Old English, the adjective old had to take on various forms according to the gender, number, and case of the noun, and according as it was inflected strong or weak. Thus the Modern English phrases the old man and the old men, changes only the word mayi, the other words being type forms that modify the plural as well as the singular. In ,01d English,

EN(iLISH INFLECTIONS 95

however, we should have to change all tliree words, se ealda man for the singular, and pa ealdav men for the plural.

It will be seen from this example that the modern analytic language has in many respects gained in econ- omy over the older synthetic language. By the use of type forms, the modern language saves much useless repetition. Thus in the two Modern English phrases cited in the preceding paragraph, the ideas of singular and plural are each expressed once by man and men, and need not, so far as power of conveying the thought is concerned, be expressed l)y the modifying words. But in Old English not only does man express the singular idea, but it is expressed also by the inflection in se and ealda; and in the case of the plural, the idea of plurality is expressed three times as well, once by men, once by ealdan and once by \>d. Nothing is gained by this threefold repetition of the idea of plurality, and Modern English is much the simpler and more reason- able in .allowing it to be assumed that when one uses the noun men, adjectives which limit this noun are plural also. In the same way the synthetic language has to repeat the idea of gender or of case with each new modifying word, whereas in Modern English this repetition is likewise avoided by the use of type forms for all genders and cases.

One further illustration of the change from synthetic to analytic structure, and the advantage of the latter over the former, may be cited, the example being taken from Modern English and Latin, the latter a more highly inflectional, and therefore more synthetic, language than any period of English. The English relative pronoun who

96 MODERN ENGLISH

is a type form, expressing merely the interrogative idea without limitation of gender or number. To translate the English sentence, Who did itf into Latin, however, we should have to give four sentences, Quis hoc fecit? the pronoun being the singular masculine interrogative ; Quae hoc fecit ? the pronoun being the singular feminine ; Qui hoc fecerunt ? the plural masculine ; and Quae hoc fecerunt? the plural feminine. Since the question Who did it ? usually contains no implication of gender and number, and is merely a question for information, it is manifestly better to have a general type form in which to cast the question, than to be compelled to make it specific as to gender and number as the Latin must do. The English analytic form of expression answers more exactly to the logic of the situation, and is consequently to be regarded as better than the synthetic form of expression.^

The question naturally arises whether Modern English has carried the process of simplification and substitution as far as it can, and if not, if it is likely to carry it further. As to the first half of this question, it is ob- vious that there is room for further simplification in the English language, and that the language would be the gainer by further simplifications. These simplifying sub- stitutions are indeed carried out in strata of the language which do not feel the restraining force of the conven- tional and standard speech. Thus we have all observed that children strive to substitute the type plural in -s for those few irregular plurals that survive in English,

* See Jespersen, Progress in Language, pp. 30-31 ; and see Jespersen's book, passim, for a detailed consideration of the advantages of an analytic language over a synthetic one.

en(;lisii inflections 07

giving thus foots^ tooths, for feet^ teeth, etc. It is a general tendency with children also to substitute the regular or weak forms for all the irregular or strong forms of the verb, giving grou\ growed, yrowed, for grow, grew, grown; drive, drived, drived, for drive, drove, driven, etc. These usages of child language may all be paralleled by usages of uneducated adults, since children and the uneducated are on the same plane so far as the restraining power of rule or convention in language is concerned. Thus the very common tendency of the un- educated to use only one form for the past tense and past participle of the verb, usually the past participle being made to do duty for both, as in He done it, and / seen him, is exactly this process of type substitution. Logically there is no reason why we should have more than two principal parts in the verb, one for present time and one for past time, I do, and I did, or do7ie, I see, and / saw, or seen, with wliich the auxiliaries can then build up the various compound tenses and forms. The regular verbs, like walk, walked, walked, and man}'' of the irregular, have and need only two principal parts. The substitution of seen for saw and done for did is exactly similar in kind to other substitutions which took place in earlier periods, and which have been accepted into the standard language. Thus the verb cli7ig, cluni/, clung, historically should have three parts, cling, clang, clung, like sing, sang, sung ; ring, rang, rung, etc. So also the verb shine, shone, shone is derived from the Old English verb sclnan, scan, scinon, scinen, which should have given regularly shine, shone, shinnen, like ride, rode, ridden; write, wrote, written, and numerous other verbs. Instead, however, it has substituted a type form

98 MODERN ENGLISH

for the preterite tenses, using for this purpose the regu- lar form of the preterite singular.

But the question whether or not Modern English will carry out further these simplifications by type substitu- tion is one which does not depend upon precedent, or, to any considerable extent, upon the reasonableness and advantage of such changes. The English language of to-day has become so fixed by long use, by the systematic statements of it which have been made by the gram- marians and rhetoricians, by the conventionalizing ten- dencies which always accompany the higher forms of civilization, that changes in such obvious features of language as inflection find it extremely hard to make their way into good use. The popular dialects will con- tinue to grow and develop in a freer and less trammeled way, but the cultivated speech, tho no less subject to continuous change, is more likely to change in subtler ways than by the direct substitution of one form for another.

V

ENGLISH SOUNDS

1. The Study of English Sounds. Altho one of the most recent branches of linguistic study, the study of sounds, or phonetics, to give the subject its tech- nical name, has been one of the most productive of valuable results. The study of the sounds of past pe- riods has made the science of etymology possible, and it has been one of the chief means of determining the rela- tionships of languages. Grimm's Law, for example, is a phonetic law. The study of contemporary sounds also is helpful in various ways. It is of great practical value to all who have anything to do with foreign languages, or with the earlier stages of their own language. There is no quicker or more certain way of apprehending an unfamiliar sound than by observing how, that is, by just what positions and movements of the vocal organs it is made, and then by repeating these positions and move- ments for one's self. Another reason for the study of the sounds of contemporary speech is based on the gen- eral principle that we all owe it to ourselves to know what we do, and to choose to do those things that will conduce most to our happiness and welfare. It might seem that it could l^e taken for granted that every one naturally knew just how his speech sounded, without giving any special attention to the matter. Experiment and observation have shown, however, that this is far

100 MODERN ENGLISH

from being true. One who has not given considerable attention to the study of speech-sounds does not usually liear liis own speech accurately and justly. He needs the gift to hear himself as others hear him. Time and again it has been shown that a person thinks he says one thing when actually the sound which he utters is different. Often if one's speech could be recorded on the disc of a phonograph, when reproduced it would not be recognized and would be disclaimed by the person who uttered it.

The practical bearing of all this is obvious. Pronun- ciation and grammar are without doubt the most gener- ally applied, and, on the whole, the simplest and most effective tests of cultivation and education. As Holmes in the Autocrat says, " a movement or a phrase often tells you all you want to know about a person." No doubt there is danger of drawing too sweeping inferences from the speech of others, a danger to which all, the critic and the criticised, are equally liable. Nevertheless, in the end speech remains the surest and most convenient index of the social habits and the intellectual life of the person who uses it. It behooves all, therefore, to take cognizance of the matter of their speech, especially of the subtle and elusive matter of pronunciation. Every person owes it to himself to know what the facts of his pronunciation are and how these facts impress other per- sons with whom he is thrown in contact. When he has a just appreciation of all these facts, he can then oitler his conduct as seems wisest and best to him. Before we can proceed, however, to the intelligent discussion of historical sound changes or of specific questions of con- temporary pronunciation, it will be necessary, first, to

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ENGLISH SOUNDS ^ 101

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describe briefly the organs lol-speech ,and the method of sound-production in speaking, and, second, to settle upon some terminology, or representation, of sounds by which the various sounds may be certainly designated and distinguished.

2. The Production of English Sounds. Sound, so far as we are concerned with it in the study of lan- guage, may be defined as the sensation of hearing pro- duced by the modifications of a column of air in its passage from the lungs through the organs of speech. The specific character of the sound varies as the column of air is variously modified by the different organs through which it passes. The production of speech- sound, therefore, is essentially not different from the production of musical sound in a wind instrument, as a horn or a clarinet.

Phonetics, however, which is the study of the sounds of language, is not concerned with all the sounds which the human organs of speech are capable of producing, such as shrieks, cries, groans, and so forth, but only with articulate sounds, that is, those sounds which are joined together, or articulated, for the formation of syllables, then of words, phrases, and sentences. Moreover, a language, English for example, does not use all the pos- sible articulate sounds which the voice can produce, but makes a selection from a compai-atively much larger number, which become then the sound material of the language. Different languages make a choice of different sounds ; and we have sounds in English which are not used in French and German, and French and German, on the other hand, have sounds which we do not use in English. Yet we know from the fact that Englishmen

102 MODERN ENGLISH

learn French and German, and Frenchmen and Germans learn EngUsh, that all, with practice, are equally capable of producing all the sounds of the various languages. Each special language, therefore, makes what seems to be an arbitrary choice of a certain number of possible sounds ; and we may consequently define English pho- netics as the study of the sounds used in the construction of English speech.

The organs mainly concerned in the production of speech sound are the lungs ; the larynx, in which are the glottis and the vocal chords; the cavity of the mouth, in which the tongue, the palate, the lips and the teeth are important modifiers of sound; and the cavity of the nose. The lungs are concerned with the produc- tion of sound only in that they send forth the column of air which later is modified by the more special organs of voice so as to produce sound. When one produces sound by playing a wind instrument the column of air passes unmodified by the speech organs into the more distant modifying agent, the horn, or flute, or whatever the instrument may be. Under normal conditions it is only the expiratory column of air that is used in the production of speech sound, the inspired air being pro- ductive of sound only in the case of sighing and a few interjections.

The larynx, or voice box, is the first place at which the air from the lungs on its passage outward may meet with any obstruction. The larynx is really a part of the windpipe, or trachea, and leads from the rear end of the opening of the nose and mouth to the lungs. From the back of the mouth a second tube, the gullet, or esoph- agus, leads into the stomach. The common space at the

ENGLISH SOUNDS 103

back of the mouth from wliich these two canals branch is called the pharynx. The entrance to the trachea, or windpi[)e, is provided with a valve or lid, called the epiglottis, which can be lowered in the act of swallow- ing so as to prevent food from passing down the trachea. When for any reason tlie epiglottis fails to work, as it does some times, and portions of food or water make their way into the trachea, we perform the operation popularly known as " swallowing by the Sun- day throat."

The larynx itself is a circular, or nearly circular, and tubular combination of cartilages and muscles. The largest of these cartilages, the thyroid or shield-like cartilage, forms the main structure of the larynx ; it can be felt from the outside of the throat, and is commonly known as the Adam's apple. Another important carti- lage is the cricoid, or ring cartilage, which forms the base of the voice box or larynx, and to which the vocal chords are attached. The muscles of the larynx pass from one cartilage to the other and have as their chief function the contraction and loosening of the vocal chords. These chords are two in number, and they are attached to the base of the larynx, passing approximately over the middle of the opening of the larynx. They are not to be thought of as chords like violin strings, for one side of each is completely attached to the sides of the voice box. The vibrating part is only the free outer edge of each, which, as has been stated, can be tightened or loosened by the aid of certain muscles. The space be- tween the two outer edges of the vocal chords, which varies of course in width according to the tension of the chords, is called the glottal rift, or rima glottidis. When

104 MODERN ENGLISH

the edges of the chords are relaxed, allowing a wide rift between them, the breath from the lungs passes through tliis space without setting the chords in vibration, and, consequently, no sound is produced in the larynx. This liist qualification is important, because the air from the lungs may still meet with some obstruction from the organs of the mouth or nose, in which case sound would be produced. If it does not, it passes out of the nose or mouth almost noiselessly, and the process is simply that of breathing. When the rift is narrowed, however, by the stretcliing of the vocal chords, the passage of the air makes the chords vibrate, and the sound which we call voice is produced. It should be clearly understood that the word voice is here used in a restricted and special sense. It does not mean any sound produced by the or- gans of speech, but only those sounds in the production of which the vocal choi-ds are set in vibration. Such sounds are called voiced sounds, others are voiceless. In whispering, voiceless sounds are produced in the same way as when they are given their full resonance ; but in the whispering of voiced sounds the vocal chords do not vibrate, or vibrate only slightly, altho they are made tense, and the glottal rift is accordingly narrowed, as in the production of the full-voiced sounds.

We may now pass to those organs above the larynx which are important for the production of speech sound. They are the pharynx, the cavity of the mouth, and the cavity of the nose. These three spaces are together known as the resonance chamber^ and they are of the greatest importance in the production of sound, because no column of air can proceed from the lungs which is not modified in some way by the resonance chamber. In

ENGLISH SOUNDS 105

fact, all voice as it comes from the vocal chords would be the same, except for differences in loudness and soft- ness, and it is the resonance chamber which determines the specific value of this sound as one vowel rather than another. By changing the shape of the resonance chamber, the speaker gets different vowel effects, just as the musician gets different tone effects from a tuba and a cornet, because the two instruments have tubes of different shapes and sizes, that is, have different resonance chambers. After it has passed through the larynx and into the pharynx, the breath from the lungs may then enter the cavity of the mouth, or of the nose, or both together. We shall consider, first, the cavity of the mouth, and, second, the nasal cavity.

The roof of the mouth is divided into two parts, the soft palate, or velum, at the back part of the mouth, and the hard palate at the front part. The hard palate is fixed and motionless, except as it moves with the motion of the jaws. But tiie velum (a Latin name meaning " veil ") may be raised or lowered. When it is raised, it closes the entrance to the nasal cavity, when lowered it permits the air from the lungs to pass out equally through the nose and the mouth. Within the mouth the most important of the movable muscles is the tongue, the parts of which need no description. Beside the pal- ate and tongue, the teeth, gums, and lips are also used in the production of sounds.

The nasal cavity or passage is a membrane-lined pas- sage with no movable or muscular parts. It leads out from the pharjTix and is narrower at both ends than at the middle, forming thus a good resonance chamber. The passage is divided in the nose by a septum or par-

106 MODERN ENGLISH

titioii, into a right and a left portion. As has been stated, the entrance to the nasal passage can be closed by raising the velum, in which case all breath passes out through the mouth. " Talking through the nose " is a popular misconception of the facts. The truth is that when one " talks through the nose," one does n't talk through the nose, as one should, but the velum is then raised, or the entrance to the nasal passage is closed be- cause of the swelling due to cold or some other disturb- ance of normal conditions, and the unpleasant effect which results is due to the lack of that resonance which the sound should have received by passing through the nasal chamber. A " nasal twang " is due to the same cause. It is a general principle that all sounds should be given as much resonance as they are capable of receiv- ing, and the speaker who has allowed himself to fall into the habit of speaking with the flat, unmusical quality of sound which results from the closing of the nasal pas- sage, should cultivate a more open method of sound production. The difference between the closed and the open nasal passage may be easily observed by first imi- tating the speech of one suffering from a cold and then speaking with the full quality of sound which normally characterizes the correct use of the voice.

3. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds. Having de- scribed the main organs of speech, we may proceed now to some account of the modifications of sound produced by these various organs. The first important distinction is that between voiced and voiceless sounds. Voiced sounds, which are also called sonant sounds, are those in the production of which the vocal chords are set in vibration. All vowels are voiced, because vowels are

ENGLISH SOUNDS 107

produced by the vibration of the vocal chords, the dif- ference between vowels being caused by modification of the sound produced by these vibrations through chang- ing the configuration of the resonance chamber. Some consonants are voiced, others are voiceless. Examples of voiced consonants are g in go^ h in hoy, d in day.

In the production of voiceless sounds, which are also called surd sounds, the vocal chords are not set in vibra- tion, but the sound is produced through modification of the column of air by the various organs of speech, teetli, tongue, and lips, after it has passed through the rift of the glottis without moving the vocal chords. Examples of voiceless consonants are p in pay, t in tin, k (c) in king, can. By placing the finger on the Adam's apple one can, with a little practice, easily feel the vibration of the voice box in the production of voiced sounds, and can thus distinguish sounds which are voiced from those which are not, thus confirming the testimony of the ears. In pronouncing a voiceless consonant one should distinguish between the consonant and the vowel that accompanies it. The name of the letter t, for example, consists of the voiceless consonant t, followed by a vowel which is the same as the vowel in tea, he, see, etc. In forming consonants for the purpose of observing them, always distinguish between the consonant and any accom- panying vowel.

4. Vowels and Consonants. When the passages through the mouth and through the nose are left open, so that the air, passing through the larynx and there set- ting the vocal chords in vibration, may continue without further obstruction through these passages to the outer air, a vowel sound is produced. The passage is widest

108 MODERN ENGLISH

open in pronouncing the vowel a in father ; it is vari- ously modified in pronouncing the other vowels, but at no time is it completely closed, coming nearest to being so in pronouncing the vowel ee in seen^ keen^ etc. It should be noticed that vowels can be lengthened indefi- nitely in pronunciation, the only question being the amount of breath one has at one's disposal.

When the column of air from the lungs, as it ap- proaches the outer air, is (a) completely stopped, or (b) completely stopped at one point but allowed to escape at another, the sound produced is a consonant. In the first case, when the column of air is completely stopped, the consonant produced is called a stop consonant or explosive, both names being descriptive of the method of formation of these sounds. Examples of stop or ex- plosive consonants are g^ 5, c?, ^, p, t. Stop consonants, since they are produced by a sudden and momentary explosion of the breath, cannot be lengthened.

In the second case, when the column of air is only partly stopped in its escape to the outer air, the conso- nant produced is called a continuant consonant. Contin- uants are of various kinds, caused by the interference of different parts of the speech organs. They consist (1) of spirants, caused by the interference of the teeth and Kps with the column of air ; spirants may be voiced, as, for example, v in vat ; 8 (2) in phrase ; th in father ; or voiceless, like / in fat ; c (s) in place ; th in thin ; (2) of liquids or Unguals, caused by the interference of the tongue with the column of air, as, for example, I and r ; (3) of nasals, caused by the complete obstruction of the exit through the mouth, causing thus all the air to pass through the nose ; the examples are m and n ; (4) of

ENGLISH SOUNDS 109

labials, caused by the interference of the lips, as in w. The continuants, like the vowels, may all be continued in- definitely in pronunciation as long as the breath holds out. 5. Classification of Consonants. Beside the clas- sification of consonants as voiced and voiceless, stop or continuant, consonants are further classified and named according to the part of the mouth or nasal passage which is chiefly concerned in their production. Thus we have

(a) Labials or lip consonants. These may be either bi- labials, e. g., 5, j>, m, to, in which both lips are instrumental in forming the respective sounds ; or labio-dentals, e. g., /, v, in which lips and teeth are the main obstructions. . (6) Alveolar, or tongue and gum sounds. Examples are d, t, z, s. These sounds are formed by pressing the tip of the tongue against the gums just back of the upper front teeth. They are sometimes wrongly called dental consonants, on the supposition that the tongue in forming them is placed against the upper front teeth ; this, however, is not the case in the normal Einglish formation of these sounds, tho the French t is a. real dental, the tongue being pressed hard against the upper teeth in the pronunciation of it.

(c) Dental, or tooth and tongue consonants. In the formation of this sound, found in English only in th as in thine or father, the tip of the tongue is pressed against the roots of the upper front teeth.

(d) Palatals, or tongue and palate consonants. These consonants are usually grouped in two classes: (1) those formed by the tongue and hard palate, called front palatals, as, for example, g in give : k in keen ; ch in chin ; dg in ridge ; sh in sheen ; z (spelled .s or z) in azure, pleasure ; (2) those formed by the tongue and the back or soft palate, called back palatals, or gutturals, or velars, as in g in gone ; k (written c) in cough, cold. Note ctuefuUy the difference

no

MODERN ENGLISH

between the initial consonants in keen and cold ; geese and gold.

(e) Lingual, or tongue consonants, in which the tongue is chiefly instrumental in forming the sounds, as in ^, r. There are various kinds of I and r in English, but I is usually alveo- lar-lingual, that is, the tongue is placed against the upper gums, and r is usually hard palate-lingual.

(/) Nasal or nose consonants, in the formation of which the nose and lips, or the nose and some other part of the mouth, are instrumental. Nasal consonants may be classified as (1) bilabial, as m in man: (2) alveolar, as n in near ;

(3) front palatal, as ng in king (observe that ng is pronounced as a single nasal consonant, not two consonants, n and g) ;

(4) back palatal or guttural, as ng in long (again pronounced as a single consonant).

In fully describing and naming a consonant, there- fore, it will be observed that there are three things to be noticed, first, whether it is a voiced or voiceless con- sonant ; second, whether it is a stop or continuant; and, third, what parts of the vocal organs are chiefly instru- mental in its formation. The following table gives a list of the most important English consonants from these three points of view:

		Bila- bial.	Labio- dental.	Dental.	Alveo- lar.	Front palatal.	Back palatal.	Lingual.	Nasal.
(	Voiced	b			d	g (as in geme)	g(a»in gold)
stops. J I	Voice-				t	k (as in	k (c) (as
	less	P			keen)	in cold)		. I •
						dgCasin		1
^	y . ,			th(aain	z (as in	ridge)
				father)	please)	z (as in
Con-						azure)
tinu- ■ ants.						shCasin
Voice-		f	th(as		iheen)
\_	less		in thin)		ch (as
						in chin)

ENGLISH SOUNDS 111

6. Classification of Vowels. The vowels lend them- selves less readily to description and classification than the consonants, because the positions and movements of the organs of voice in the production of vowels are less easily observed and stated than they are in the produc- tion of consonants. Somewhat loosely, vowels are often spoken of as (a) front palatal vowels, in which the voiced sound is modified by narrowing the passage of the mouth by means of raising the tongue towards the hard palate, and (b) back palatal or guttural vowels, formed further back in the mouth, by the tongue and the soft palate. Front palatal vowels are a (in man) ; e (in let) ; a (in hate) ; ey (in they) ; ay (in say) ; i (in kin) ; i (in machine) ; ee (in seen). Back palatal or guttural vowels are oo (in food) ; oo (in wood^ good) ; 0 (in bone); o (in not); i (in mine); a (in father); a (in full). A loose distinction often made is that between close and open vowels, the tongue in the close vowel being raised further toward the roof of the mouth than in the open vowel. Thus the vowel o is said to be close in note., but open in not; the vowel e is said to be close in the borrowed word fete (or in the case of the same sound with different spelling, in the native words mate, late, etc.), but open in the word men. The mechan- ical device of placing the cedilla beneath the vowel to indicate the open quality is sometimes used, as in 9, e. The classification of vowels as close and open is not a good one, however, since o and o, e and e, are, so far as sound goes, which is the essential matter, really two quite different vowels, tho written alike, and each, in an exact system, should have its distinctive name. Another distinction which is often loosely and incor-

112 MODERN ENGLISH

rectly made is that between long and short vowels. The vowel o of not is said to be the short vowel, the long of which is exemplified in note ; so also the vowel of met is said to be the short e sound, the vowel of they, the long e sound. But an examination of these sounds will show that o of not is not merely the o of note short- ened, nor is e of met merely the shortened sound of the vowel of they. The difference is not merely that of length, but also of quality; and we have to do with two entirely separate and different vowel sounds in each case. In using the terminology long and short, care should be taken that the vowels so described are really of the same kind. Thus the first vowel of the word motive is the short sound of the vowel in note.^ the two sounds differing only in the degree to which they are prolonged, and the long vowel sound of fate is short in the first syllable of the compound pay-roll.

A real distinction which should be observed is that between simple vowels and diphthongs. A simple vowel, as its name indicates, is one which consists of only one vowel sound; a diphthong is a double sound which begins with one vowel quality and shades off at the end into another. The vowels of note, of fate^ of food are all simple vowels; but the vowel of house, now, slough is a double sound, starting with the sound of a in father, and ending with tlie sound of w, giving the combination an (so spelled in (lerman haus, hint, etc.). Tlie otlier English diplithongs are the vowel of tr//, huy, ride, com- posed of a + /, equivalent theiefore to ai, and the diphthong o + i, that is oi, as exeni[)lified in boil, boy, coin. It should be noted that simple vowels are some- times written with two lettcu-s, as, for example, the

ENGLISH SOUNDS 113

simple vowel in greats pair^ lead, pay, tho(ii.gVf, and many others ; and, on the other hand, that diphthongs are often written with one letter, as in ride, try, etc. One should observe always, therefore, the sound and not the spelling in determining whether a vowel is a diphthong or not.

7. Alphabet and Sounds. The symbols or letters of which our alphabet is composed are, it is obvious, quite conventional and arbitrary. There is no inherent reason why the symbol T, with its variant forms t and [5 5 or the symbol D, with its other forms d and Xl» should stand each for its own sound. So far as the appropriate- ness of the symbols to the sounds goes, they might be interchanged without loss. Originally alphabetic sym- bols may have had some peculiar appropriateness to the sounds which they represented, either as a sort of " visible speech," indicating the position of the vocal organs by the shape of the symbol, or as " picture writing," like the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, indicating objects which bore definite relations to the various sounds. The English alphabet, however, has long since passed out of any such stage of development, and is now a set of in- trinsically meaningless symbols to which specific values are arbitrarily attached.

It is also obvious that the number of sounds used in speaking the English language is greater than the number of symbols available for representing sounds. A conservative estimate would make the number of clearly distinguishable different English sounds about forty ; the number of symbols in the alphabet is twenty- six. The language, therefore, has not at its command a sufficient number of characters to represent all its sounds,

8

114 MODERN ENGLISH

and is driven consequently to use the same symbol for different sounds, as, for example, the vowel a in the words hat^ hate, path, bare, ball, about. The conven- tional symbols of the alphabet, it is thus seen, may vary as to their significance within certain pretty wide limits.

If we turn now to the sounds of the language them- selves, we shall find them in many ways very imperfectly and inconsistently represented. Thus we may have a simple sound represented by two symbols, as the vowel ea of seat, or the consonant th of thing. Or the same sound may be represented by several different symbols or groups of symbols, as, for example, the sound of s (c) in race and erase ; or of k in call, king, quell, shock, box ; or the vowel sound which appears in the words late, pay, great, fail, veil, they, fete. Or the same group of letters may represent such various values as ough in bough, through, thought, cough, hiccough, enough. Letters are frequently used, also, without any value, the so-called silent letters, like the e of bare, the c of scissors, the k of knife, the s of island, aisle, the w of write, the g of foreign, sovereign.

If these facts are held in mind, we shall be understood when we say that English is not a phonetic language. It is of course true that our alphabet does represent for us the sounds of the language ; but it represents these sounds in an imperfect and inconsistent way. A per- fectly phonetic language would be one in which every sound had its appropriate symbol, and no symbol more than its single value. Needless to say, neither the English language nor any other language ever in prac- tical use has been thus perfectly phonetic. Languages vary in the degree of consistency and completeness with

ENGLISH SOUNDS 115

which they endeavor to represent their sounds, and the earlier periods of English were much more sensitive in this respect than modern English is. Of the modern European languages, Italian is the most phonetic, French and Gennan coming between English and Italian at the two extremes. But even Italian is not completely pho- netic, and all we can say of the existing languages is that one is more phonetic than another. For the prac- tical uses to which language is usually put, the carrying of a complete and exact system of sound representation would be an unnecessary burden. It is not important that every minute difference of sound should have its own particular symbol, since the language would be made no more intelligible thereby. Practical utility, however, demands that a language be phonetic to a certain degree, and without question it is a grave defect in the English language that the gap between its written and printed symbols, that is its spelling, and the actual sounds of the words of the language, is so great. Indeed the values of the letters of our ordinary alphabet are so various and uncertain, that it becomes necessary to settle beforehand upon some scheme of sound representation before it is possible to discuss matters which have to do with sound changes, pronunciation, and spelling.^

8. A Phonetic Alphabet. The purposes for which a phonetic alphabet may be devised are various. The

^ English has an adverb too, a preposition to, and a numeral two. What shall we say in writing, that there are three too's, or three to's, or three two's, in English? In fact there is of course only one of each. The idea we want to express is that there is a single phonetic word-form which has three logical values ; hut to express this unequivocally, we need to he able to express the phonetic form uf the words merely as sound, not as one word or the other.

110 MODERN ENGLISH

scientific student of plionetics may elaborate some scheme whereby the minutest shades of difference in the quality and stress of sounds shall be indicated ; such a system would be almost phonographic in its exactness. Or the " phonetic reformer " may invent a " practical " alphabet which he would have take the place of our present alphabet in daily printing and writing. The ideal of the scientific student is beyond our present purpose ; and the vain hope of the phonetic reformer we may set aside as belonging to the group of those vision- ary projects, the realization of which is neither possible nor desirable. But the modest needs of the every-day student of language demand also some system of pho- netic representation, one that is simple and intelligible, and at the same time capable of recording the essential characteristics of English sounds. It will be understood that the alphabet which is here presented is for this purpose ; it is intended merely as an aid in the discussion of pronunciation, of spelling, and of sounds in general.^ The alphabet makes use, so far as possible, of the ordi- nary letters of our English alphabet. Long vowels are indicated by the circumflex ('). No sound has more than one symbol, and no symbol has more than one value. The number of sounds, and consequently the number of symbols, is forty-five, eighteen being simple vowels, four being diphthongs, and twenty-three being consonant sounds. Arranged in alphabetic order, they are as follows :

1 The alphabet is a slightly modified form of that recommended in the Report of a Joint Committee representing the American Philological Associa- tioii, and the Modern Language Association of America, on the Subject of a Phonetic English Alphabet. New York, 1904.

ENGLISH SOUNDS 11^

Lbttib. Kby-words.

& (a)rt, p(a)rt, h(ea)rt, f(a)tlier,

c(a)lm.

a (a)rtistic, h(o)t, r(o)ck, n(o)t.

se b(a)re, h(ei)r, st(ai)r.

ae h(a)t, ra(a)tter, h(a)s.

d (a)8k, p(a)th.

b (b)e.

d (d)o.

e m(a)te, th(ey), s(ay).

e m(e)t.^

f (f)ee.

g (g)o.

q 8i(ng).

h (h)e.

i mar(i)ne, s(ee).

i t(i)n.

J (=d5) (j)aw.

e(-tj) (ch)ew.

k (k)iii.

1 (l)et.

m (m)et.

n (n)et.

e f(a)ll.

e (au)tuLnnal.

6 n(o)te.

o d(o)nation.

P (P)it.

r (r)at.

s (s)et.

J (sb)ip.

t (t)en.

1 For practical purjxises it lius not been deemed necessary to make here tlie distinction hetwcen ilnse and open e, noted above. The .same ap- plies to / and I'.

118 MODERN ENGLISH

Lkttbb. Ket-woboi.

Jj (th)iu.

5 (th)at.

ft iii(oo)d.

u p(u)sh.

u h(u)t.

8 (a)bout.

V (v)at.

w ..... (w)in.

y (y)es.

z (z)e8t.

J a(z)ure, plea(s)ure, lei(s)ure.

ai r(i)de, s(i)gh, (ey)e, b(uy).

au h(ou)se.

ei b(oi)l.

iu t(u)be.

The use of most of these symbols is self-explanatory, over half being exactly as one would most readily in- fer from their use in the Modern English alphabet. Of the others, however, a few words of explanation are needed. In the first place, it should be noted that the symbols a, e, i, 6, u have what is known as their conti- nental values, that is, the values which they have in all the European languages except English, and which in the earlier periods of English they had also in that language. The vowel a has, therefore, the value of the vowel in father, e that of the vowel of fate^ i that of the second vowel of machine, o that of iiote, and u that of food. The five different sounds with which the alphabet opens seem a bit confusing at first. But a3, as in at, is our familiar sound, found in numberless words like cat, fat, that, immaculate, infatuate, etc. The long value of this sound appeal's in words like air, there, lair, pare^

ENGLISH SOUNDS 119

pear^ etc. The value of a is the broad sound which appears in father ^ palniy oalm^ retard^ and a is its cor- responding short sound. The vowel intended by the symbol d is a transition vowel between a in father and ee in hare. It is pronounced by many Americans in words like path^ bath, </rass, master, France, glance, raft, laugh, calf, that is, in words in which the vowel conies before a voiceless continuant, /, s, ih, or a nasal followed by a voiceless continuant. In some communities, however, the vowel in these words is pronounced flat, like ge, and in others it is pronounced very broad, like a (see § 11 for a further discussion of this sound).

The symbol q represents a nasalized g, as in sing, thing. It is a simple sound, altho it is written, in our conven- tional spelling, with the two letters ng ; if these two letters were actually pronounced, however, we should have a word of the phonetic form sin-gd, thin-gd. In a word like finger, which is pronounced fing-ger, not fin-ger, we have a nasalized g (that is, r)) followed by the regular g. The different sounds here described should be practiced until the distinctions are perfectly clear.

The symbol c is invented to express the continuant consonant usually represented by ch in the regular alphabet. A phonetic alphabet should have its sj-mbols consist of but single letters, and it was necessary there- fore to invent one for the purpose of representing this sound. The four sounds of o are easily distinguish- able. Other examples of e are aive, awful, aught, ought all, lord, form, storm, dog, cloth. The corresponding short sound 9 does not occur frequently ; examples are the first syllable of audacious, autocratic, auditor. The 6

120 MODERN ENGLISH

of note^ boat, vote, loan, snow, hoe, tho(ugh), toll, etc., is a very common sound ; the corresponding short sound, o, is usually found in dissyllables or polysyllables ; examples are the first syllable of poetic, bohemian, rotation, co- operate, also the second syllable of window, furlough, borrow. The contniuant usually represented by sh in the regular alphabet has again to have a new symbol, J.