The English Language Part 1

The English Language.

by Robert Gordon Latham.

PREFACE

The first edition of the present work was laid before the public, with the intention of representing in a form as systematic as the extent of the subject would allow, those views concerning the structure and relations of the English language, which amongst such scholars as had studied them with the proper means and opportunities, were then generally received; and which, so being received, might take their stand as established and recognized facts. With the results of modern criticism, as applied to his native tongue, it was conceived that an educated Englishman should be familiar. To this extent the special details of the language were exhibited; and to this extent the work was strictly a Grammar of the English Language.

But besides this, it was well known that the current grammarians, and the critical philologists, had long ceased to write alike upon the English, or {vi} indeed upon any other, language. For this reason the sphere of the work became enlarged; so that, on many occasions, general principles had to be enounced, fresh terms to be defined, and old cla.s.sifications to be remodelled. This introduced extraneous elements of criticism, and points of discussion which, in a more advanced stage of English philology, would have been superfluous. It also introduced elements which had a tendency to displace the account of some of the more special and proper details of the language. There was not room for the exposition of general principles, for the introduction of the necessary amount of preliminary considerations, and for the _minutiae_ of an extreme a.n.a.lysis. Nor is there room for all this at present. A work that should, at one and the same time, prove its principles, instead of a.s.suming them, supply the full and necessary preliminaries in the way of logic, phonetics, and ethnology, and, besides this, give a history of every variety in the form of every word, although, perhaps, a work that one man might write, would be a full and perfect _Thesaurus_ of the English Language, and, would probably extend to many volumes. For, in the English language, there are many first principles to be established, and much historical knowledge to be applied. Besides which, the particular points both of etymology and syntax are far more numerous than is imagined. Scanty as is the amount of declension and conjugation in current use, there are to be found in every department of our grammars, {vii} numerous isolated words which exhibit the fragments of a fuller inflection, and of a more highly developed etymology. This is well-known to every scholar who has not only viewed our language as a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon, and observed that there are similar relations between many other languages (_e. g._ the Italian and Latin, the German and Moeso-Gothic, &c.), but who has, also, generalized the phenomena of such forms of relations.h.i.+p and derivation, and enabled himself to see in the most uninflected languages of the nineteenth century, the fragments of a fuller and more systematic inflection, altered by time, but altered in a uniform and a general manner.

The point, however, upon which, in the prefaces both of the first edition of the present work and of his English Grammar, the writer has most urgently insisted is the _disciplinal_ character of grammatical studies in general, combined with the fact, that the grammatical study of one's own language is almost _exclusively_ disciplinal. It is undoubtedly true, that in schools something that is called English Grammar is taught: and it is taught pretty generally. It is taught so generally that, I believe, here are only two cla.s.ses of English boys and girls who escape it--those who are taught nothing at all in any school whatever, and those who are sent so early to the great cla.s.sical schools (where nothing is taught but Latin and Greek), as to escape altogether the English part of their scholastic education. But {viii} what is it that is thus generally taught? not the familiar practice of speaking English--that has been already attained by the simple fact of the pupil having been born on English soil, and of English parents. Not the scientific theory of the language--that is an impossibility with the existing text-books. Neither, then, of these matters is taught. Nevertheless labour is expended, and time is consumed. What is taught? Something undoubtedly. The facts, that language is more or less regular (_i. e._ capable of having its structure exhibited by rules); that there is such a thing as grammar; and that certain expressions should be avoided, are all matters worth knowing. And they are all taught even by the worst method of teaching. But are these the proper objects of _systematic_ teaching? Is the importance of their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, and the displacement of more valuable subjects, which are involved in their explanation? I think not. Gross vulgarity of language is a fault to be prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit--not rules. The proprieties of the English language are to be learned, like the proprieties of English manners, by conversation and intercourse; and the proper school for both, is the best society in which the learner is placed. If this be good, systematic teaching is superfluous; if bad, insufficient. There _are_ undoubted points where a young person may doubt as to the grammatical propriety of a certain expression. In this case let him ask some one older, and more instructed. Grammar, {ix} as an _art_, is, undoubtedly, _the art of speaking and writing correctly_--but then, as an _art_, it is only required for _foreign_ languages. For our _own_ we have the necessary practice and familiarity.

The claim of English grammar to form part and parcel of an English education stands or falls with the value of the philological and historical knowledge to which grammatical studies may serve as an introduction, and with the value of scientific grammar as a _disciplinal_ study. I have no fear of being supposed to undervalue its importance in this respect. Indeed in a.s.suming that it is very great, I also a.s.sume that wherever grammar is studied as grammar, the language which the grammar so studied should represent, must be the mother-tongue of the student; _whatever that mother-tongue may be_--English for Englishmen, Welsh for Welshmen, French for Frenchmen, German for Germans, &c. This study is the study of a theory; and for this reason it should be complicated as little as possible by points of practice. For this reason a man's mother-tongue is the best medium for the elements of scientific philology, simply because it is the one which he knows best in practice.

Now if, over and above the remarks upon the English language, and the languages allied to it, there occur in the present volume, episodical discussions of points connected with other languages, especially the Latin and Greek, it is because a greater portion of the current ideas on philological subjects {x} is taken from those languages than from our own.

Besides which, a second question still stands over. There is still the question as to the relative disciplinal merits of the different _non_-vernacular languages of the world. What is the next best vehicle for philological philosophy to our mother-tongue, whatever that mother-tongue maybe? Each Athenian who fought at Salamis considered his own contributions to that great naval victory the greatest; and he considered them so because they were _his own_. So it is with the language which we speak, and use, and have learned as our own. Yet each same Athenian awarded the second place of honour to Themistocles. The great cla.s.sical languages of Greece and Rome are in the position of Themistocles. They are the best when the question of ourselves and our possessions is excluded. They are the best in the eyes of an indifferent umpire. More than this; if we take into account the studies of the learned world, they are second only to the particular mother-tongue of the particular student, in the way of practical familiarity. Without either affirming or denying that, on the simple scores of etymological regularity, etymological variety, and syntactic logic, the Sanskrit may be their equal, it must still be admitted that this last-named language has no claims to a high value as a practical philological discipline upon the grounds of its universality as a point of education; nor will it have. Older than the Greek, it may (or may not) be; more multiform than the Latin, it may (or may not) be: but equally rich in the attractions {xi} of an unsurpa.s.sed literature, and equally influential as a standard of imitation, it neither has been nor can be. We may admit all that is stated by those who admire its epics, or elucidate its philosophy; we may admire all this and much more besides, but we shall still miss the great elements of oratory and history, that connect the ancient languages of Greece and Italy with the thoughts, and feelings, and admiration of recent Europe.

The same sort of reasoning applies to the Semitic languages. One element they have, in their grammatical representation, which gives them a value in philological philosophy, in the abstract, above all other languages--the _generality_ of the expression of their structure. This is _symbolic_, and its advantage is that it exhibits the naturally universal phenomena of their construction in a universal language. Yet neither this nor their historical value raises them to the level of the cla.s.sical languages.

Now, what has just been written has been written with a view towards a special inference, and as the preliminary to a practical deduction; and it would not have been written but for some such ulterior application. If these languages have so high a disciplinal value, how necessary it is that the expression of their philological phenomena should be accurate, scientific, and representative of their true growth and form? How essential that their grammars should exhibit nothing that may hereafter be unlearned?

_Pace grammaticorum dixerim_, this is not the case. Bad {xii} as is Lindley Murray in English, Busby and Lilly are worse in Greek and Latin. This is the comparison of the men on the low rounds of the ladder. What do we find as we ascend? Is the grammatical science of even men like Mathiae and Zump _much_ above that of Wallis? Does b.u.t.tmann's Greek give so little to be unlearned as Grimm's German? By any one who has gone far in comparative philology, the answer will be given in the negative.

This is not written in the spirit of a destructive criticism. If an opinion as to the fact is stated without reserve, it is accompanied by an explanation, and (partially, perhaps) by a justification. It is the business of a Greek and Latin grammarian to teach Greek and Latin _cito, tute, ac jucunde_,--_cito_, that is, between the years of twelve and twenty-four; _tute_, that is, in a way that quant.i.ties may be read truly, and hard pa.s.sages translated accurately; _jucunde_, that is, as the taste and memory of the pupil may determine. With this view the grammar must be _artificial_. Granted. But then it should profess to be so. It should profess to address the memory only, not the understanding. Above all it should prefer to leave a point untaught, than to teach it in a way that must be unlearned.

In 1840, so little had been done by Englishmen for the English language, that in acknowledging my great obligations to foreign scholars, I was only able to speak to what _might be done_ by my own countrymen. Since then, however, there has been a good {xiii} beginning of what is likely to be done well. My references to the works of Messrs. Kemble, Garnet, and Guest, show that my authorities are _now_ as much English as German. And this is likely to be the case. The details of the syntax, the ill.u.s.trations drawn from our provincial dialects, the minute history of individual words, and the whole system of articulate sounds can, for the English, only be done safely by an Englishman: or, to speak more generally, can, for any language, only be dealt with properly by the grammarian whose mother-tongue is that language. The _Deutsche Grammatik_ of Grimm is the work not of an age nor of a century, but, like the great history of the Athenian, a [Greek: ktema eis aei]. It is the magazine from whence all draw their facts and ill.u.s.trations. Yet it is only the proper German portion that pretends to be exhaustive. The Dutch and Scandinavians have each improved the exhibition of their own respective languages. Monument as is the _Deutsche Grammatik_ of learning, industry, comprehensiveness, and arrangement, it is not a book that should be read to the exclusion of others: nor must it be considered to exhibit the grammar of the Gothic languages, in a form unsusceptible of improvement. Like all great works, it is more easily improved than imitated. One is almost unwilling to recur to the old comparison between Aristotle, who absorbed the labour of his predecessors, and the Eastern sultans, who kill-off their younger brothers. But such is the case with Grimm and his fore-runners in philology. Germany, that, in {xiv} respect to the Reformation, is content to be told that Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched, must also acknowledge that accurate and systematic scholars of other countries prepared the way for the _Deutsche Grammatik_,--Ten Kate in Holland; Dowbrowsky, a Slavonian; and Rask, a Dane.

Nor are there wanting older works in English that have a value in Gothic philology. I should be sorry to speak as if, beyond the writers of what may be called the modern school of philology, there was nothing for the English grammarian both to read and study. The fragments of Ben Jonson's English Grammar are worth the entireties of many later writers. The work of Wallis is eminently logical and precise. The voice of a mere ruler of rules is a sound to flee from; but the voice of a truly powerful understanding is a thing to be heard on all matters. It is this which gives to Cobbett and Priestley, to Horne Tooke as a subtle etymologist, and to Johnson as a practical lexicographer, a value in literary history, which they never can have in grammar. It converts unwholesome doctrines into a fertile discipline of thought.

The method of the present work is mixed. It is partly historical, and partly logical. The historical portions exhibit the way in which words and inflections _have been_ used; the logical, the way in which they _ought to be_ used. Now I cannot conceal from either my readers or myself the fact that philological criticism at the present moment is of an essentially {xv} historical character. It has been by working the historical method that all the great results both in general and special scholars.h.i.+p have been arrived at; and it is on historical investigation that the whole _induction_ of modern philology rests. All beyond is _a priori_ argument; and, according to many, _a priori_ argument out of place. Now, this gives to the questions in philology, to questions concerning the phenomena of concord, government, &c. a subordinate character. It does so, however, improperly. Logic is in language what it is in reasoning,--a rule and standard. But in its application to reasoning and to language there is this difference. Whilst illogical reasoning, and illogical grammar are equally phenomena of the human mind, even as physical disease is a phenomenon of the human body, the illogical grammar can rectify itself by its mere continuance, propagation, and repet.i.tion. In this respect the phenomena of language stand apart from the other phenomena of either mind or organized matter. No amount of false argument can make a fallacy other than a fallacy. No amount of frequency can make physical disease other than a predisposing cause to physical disorganization. The argument that halts in its logic, is not on a _par_ with the argument that is sound. Such also is the case with any bodily organ. No prevalence of sickness can ever evolve health. Language, however, as long as it preserves the same amount of intelligibility is always language. Provided it serve as a medium, it does its proper work; {xvi} and as long as it does this, it is, as far as its application is concerned, faultless. Now there is a limit in logical regularity which language is perpetually overstepping; just as there is a logical limit which the reasoning of common life is perpetually overstepping, and just as there is a physiological limit which the average health of men and women may depart from. This limit is investigated by the historical method; which shows the amount of lat.i.tude in which language may indulge and yet maintain its great essential of intelligibility. Nay, more, it can show that it sometimes transgresses the limit in so remarkable a manner, as to induce writers to talk about the _corruption of a language_, or _the pathology of a language_, with the application of many similar metaphors. Yet it is very doubtful whether all languages, in all their stages, are not equally intelligible, and, consequently, equally what they ought to be, viz., mediums of intercourse between man and man; whilst, in respect to their growth, it is almost certain that so far from exhibiting signs of dissolution, they are, on the contrary, like the t.i.thonus of mythology, the Strulbrugs of Laputa, or, lastly, such monsters as Frankenstein, very liable to the causes of death, but utterly unable to die. Hence, in language, _whatever is, is right_; a fact which, taken by itself, gives great value to the historical method of inquiry, and leaves little to the _a priori_ considerations of logic.

But, on the other hand, there is a limit in logical regularity, which language _never_ oversteps: and as {xvii} long as this is the case, the study of the logical standard of what language is in its normal form must go hand in hand with the study of the processes that deflect it. The investigation of the irregularities of language--and be it remembered that almost all change implies original irregularity--is a.n.a.logous to the investigation of fallacies in logic. It is the comparison between the rule and the practice, with this difference, that in language the practice can change the rule, which in logic is impossible. I am sure that these remarks are necessary in order to antic.i.p.ate objections that may be raised against certain statements laid down in the syntax. I often write as if I took no account of the historical evidence, in respect to particular uses of particular words. I do so, not because I undervalue that department of philology, but because it is out of place. To show that one or more writers, generally correct, have used a particular expression is to show that they speak, in a few instances, as the vulgar speak in many. To show that the vulgar use one expression for another is to show that two ideas are sufficiently allied to be expressed in the same manner: in other words, the historical fact is accompanied by a logical explanation; and the historical deviation is measured by a logical standard.

I am not desirous of sacrificing a truth to an ant.i.thesis, but so certain is language to change from logical accuracy to logical licence, and, at the same time, so certain is language, when so changed, to be {xviii} just as intelligible as before, that I venture upon a.s.serting that, not only _whatever is, is right_, but also, that in many cases, _whatever was, was wrong_. There is an antagonism, between logic and practice; and the phenomena on both sides must be studied.

AN INTRODUCTION

TO THE STUDY OF

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PART I.

GENERAL ETHNOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER I.

GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--DATE.

-- 1. The first point to be remembered in the history of the English Language, is that it was not the original language of any of the British Islands altogether or of any portion of them. Indeed, of the _whole_ of Great Britain it is not the language at the present moment. Welsh is spoken in Wales, Manks in the Isle of Man, Scotch Gaelic in the Highlands of Scotland, and Irish Gaelic in Ireland. Hence, the English that is now spoken was once as foreign to our country as it is at present to the East Indies; and it is no more our primitive vernacular tongue, than it is the primitive vernacular tongue for North America, Jamaica, or Australia. Like the English of Sydney, or the English of Pennsylvania, the English of Great Britain spread itself at the expense of some earlier and more aboriginal language, which it displaced and superseded. {2}

-- 2. The next point involves the real origin and the real affinities of the English Language. Its _real_ origin is on the continent of Europe, and its _real_ affinities are with certain languages there spoken. To speak more specifically, the native country of the English Language is _Germany_; and the _Germanic_ languages are those that are the most closely connected with our own. In Germany, languages and dialects allied to each other and allied to the mother-tongue of the English have been spoken from times anterior to history; and these, for most purposes of philology, may be considered as the aboriginal languages and dialects of that country.

-- 3. _Accredited details of the different immigrations from Germany into Britain._--Until lately the details of the different Germanic invasions of England, both in respect to the particular tribes by which they were made, and the order in which they succeeded each other, were received with but little doubt, and as little criticism.

Respecting the tribes by which they were made, the current opinion was, that they were chiefly, if not exclusively, those of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.

The particular chieftains that headed each descent were also known, as well as the different localities upon which they descended. These were as follows:--

-- 4. _First settlement of invaders from Germany._--The account of this gives us the year 449 for the first permanent Germanic tribes settled in Britain. Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, was the spot where they landed; and the particular name that these tribes gave themselves was that of _Jutes_. Their leaders were Hengist and Horsa. Six years after their landing they had established the kingdom of Kent; so that the county of Kent was the first district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Germany.

-- 5. _Second settlement of invaders from Germany._--In the year 477 invaders from Northern Germany made the second permanent settlement in Britain. The coast of Suss.e.x was the spot whereon they landed. The particular name that these tribes gave themselves was that of _Saxons_.

Their leader {3} was Ella. They established the kingdom of the South Saxons (Suss.e.x); so that the county of Suss.e.x was the second district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Northern Germany.

-- 6. _Third settlement of invaders from Germany._--In the year 495 invaders from Northern Germany made the third permanent settlement in Britain. The coast of Hamps.h.i.+re was the spot whereon they landed. Like the invaders last mentioned, these tribes were Saxons. Their leader was Cerdic. They established the kingdom of the West Saxons (Wess.e.x); so that the county of Hants was the third district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Northern Germany.

-- 7. _Fourth settlement of invaders from Germany._--A.D. 530, certain Saxons landed in Ess.e.x, so that the county of Ess.e.x was the fourth district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Northern Germany.

-- 8. _Fifth settlement of invaders from Germany._--These were _Angles_ in Norfolk and Suffolk. This settlement, of which the precise date is not known, took place during the reign of Cerdic in Wess.e.x. The fifth district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English was the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk; the particular dialect introduced being that of the _Angles_.

-- 9. _Sixth settlement of invaders from Germany._--In the year 547 invaders from Northern Germany made the sixth permanent settlement in Britain. The south-eastern counties of Scotland, between the rivers Tweed and Forth, were the districts where they landed. They were of the tribe of the Angles, and their leader was Ida. The south-eastern parts of Scotland const.i.tuted the sixth district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Northern Germany.

-- 10. It would be satisfactory if these details rested upon cotemporary evidence; in which case the next question would {4} be that of the relations of the immigrant tribes to each other _as Germans_, _i.e._ the extent to which the Jute differed from (or agreed with) the Angle, or the Saxon, and the relations of the Angle and the Saxon to each other. Did they speak different languages?--different dialects of a common tongue!--or dialects absolutely identical? Did they belong to the same or to different confederations? Was one polity common to all? Were the civilizations similar?

Questions like these being answered, and a certain amount of mutual difference being ascertained, it would then stand over to inquire whether any traces of this original difference were still to be found in the modern English. Have any provincial dialects characteristics which are Jute rather than Angle? or Angle rather than Saxon?

It is clear that the second of these questions is involved in the answer given to the first.

-- 11. _The accredited relations of the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons to each other as Germans._--These are as follows:--

1. That the geographical locality of the Jutes was the Peninsula of Jutland.

2. That that of Angles, was the present Dutchy of Sleswick; so that they were the southern neighbours of the Jutes.

3. That that of the Saxons was a small tract north of the Elbe, and some distinct point--more or less extensive--between the Elbe and Rhine.

4. That, although there were, probably, dialectal differences between the languages, the speech of all the three tribes was mutually intelligible.

-- 12. a.s.suming, then, the accuracy of our historical facts, the inference is, that, without expecting to find any very prominent and characteristic differences between the different inhabitants of England arising out of the original differences between the Germanic immigrants, we are to look for what few there are in the following quarters--