A Handbook of the English Language by Robert Gordon Latham (books for men to read .txt) 📖

The investigation of this is a matter of literary curiosity rather than any important branch of philology.

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

Ancient Nubian.—Barbarous.

Ancient Egyptian.—Ammonia.

Ancient Syrian.—Cyder.

Ancient Lycian.—Pandar.

Ancient Lydian.—Mæander.

Ancient Persian.—Paradise.

§ 86. Again, a word from a given language may be introduced by more lines than one; or it may be introduced twice over; once at an earlier, and again at a later period. In such a case its form will, most probably, vary; and, what is more, its meaning as well. Words of this sort may be called di-morphic, their dimorphism having originated in one of two reasons—a difference of channel or a difference of date. Instances of the first are, syrup, sherbet, and shrub, all originally from the Arabic, srb; but introduced differently, viz., the first through the Latin, the second through the Persian, and the third through the Hindoo. Instances of the second are words like minster, introduced during the Anglo-Saxon, as contrasted with monastery, introduced during the Anglo-Norman period. By the proper application of these processes, we account for words so different in present form, yet so identical in origin, as priest and presbyter, episcopal and bishop, &c.

§ 87. Distinction.—The history of the languages that have been spoken in a particular country, is a different subject from the history of a particular language. The history of the languages that have been spoken in the United States of America, is the history of Indian languages. The history of the language of the United States is the history of a Germanic language.

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

Let a word be introduced from a foreign language—let it have some resemblance in sound to a real English term: lastly, let the meanings of the two words be not absolutely incompatible. We may then have a word of foreign origin taking the appearance of an English one. Such, amongst others, are beef-eater, from bœuffetier; sparrow-grass, asparagus; Shotover, Chateauvert;[35] Jerusalem, Girasole;[36] Spanish beefeater, spina bifida; periwig, peruke; runagate, renegade; lutestring, lustrino;[37] O yes, Oyez! ancient, ensign.[38]

Dog-cheap.—This has nothing to do with dogs. The first syllabic is god = good transposed, and the second the ch-p in chapman ( = merchant) cheap, and Eastcheap. In Sir J. Mandeville, we find god-kepe = good bargain.

Sky-larking.—Nothing to do with larks of any sort; still less the particular species, alauda arvensis. The word improperly spelt l-a-r-k, and banished to the slang regions of the English language, is the Anglo-Saxon lác = game, or sport; wherein the a is sounded as in father (not as in farther). Lek = game, in the present Scandinavian languages.

Zachary Macaulay = Zumalacarregui; Billy Ruffian = Bellerophon; Sir Roger Dowlas = Surajah Dowlah, although so limited to the common soldiers and sailors, who first used them, as to be exploded vulgarisms rather than integral parts of the language, are examples of the same tendency towards the irregular accommodation of misunderstood foreign terms.

Birdbolt.—An incorrect name for the gadus lota, or eel-pout, and a transformation of barbote.

Whistle-fish.—The same for gadus mustela, or weasel-fish.

Liquorice = glycyrrhiza.

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

§ 89. Sometimes the transformation of the name has engendered a change in the object to which it applies, or, at least, has evolved new ideas in connection with it. How easy for a person who used the words beef-eater, sparrow-grass, or Jerusalem, to believe that the officers designated by the former either eat or used to eat more beef than any other people, that the second word was the name for a grass or herb of which sparrows were fond; and that Jerusalem artichokes came from Palestine.

What has just been supposed has sometimes a real occurrence. To account for the name of Shotover-hill, I have heard that Little John shot over it. Here the confusion, in order to set itself right, breeds a fiction. Again, in chess, the piece now called the queen, was originally the elephant. This was in Persian, ferz. In French it became vierge, which, in time, came to be mistaken for a derivative, and virgo = the virgin, the lady, the queen.

§ 90. Sometimes, where the form of a word in respect to its sound is not affected, a false spirit of accommodation introduces an unetymological spelling; as frontispiece, from frontispecium, sovereign, from sovrano, colleague from collega, lanthorn (old orthography) from lanterna.

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

§ 91. In lambkin and lancet, the final syllables (-kin and -et) have the same power. They both express the idea of smallness or diminutiveness. These words are but two out of a multitude, the one (lamb) being of Saxon, the other (lance) of Norman origin. The same is the case with the superadded syllables: -kin being Saxon; -et Norman. Now to add a Saxon termination to a Norman word, or vice versâ, is to corrupt the English language.

This leads to some observation respecting the—

§ 92. Introduction of new words and Hybridism.—Hybridism is a term derived from hybrid-a, a mongrel; a Latin word of Greek extraction.

The terminations -ize (as in criticize), -ism (as in criticism), -ic (as in comic)—these, amongst many others, are Greek terminations. To add them to words not of Greek origin is to be guilty of hybridism. Hence, witticism is objectionable.

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

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

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

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

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

§ 93. A true word sometimes takes the appearance of a hybrid without really being so. The -icle, in icicle, is apparently the same as the -icle in radicle. Now, as ice is Gothic, and -icle classical, hybridism is simulated. Icicle, however, is not a derivative but a compound; its parts being is and gicel, both Anglo-Saxon words.[39]

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

Now all this is what actually takes place in words like hæmo-ptysis (spitting of blood), sema-phore (a sort of telegraph). The Greek imparisyllabics eject a part of the root in the nominative case; the radical forms being hæmat- and sæmat-, not hæm-and sæm-.

Incompletion of the radical is one of the commonest causes of words being coined faultily. It must not, however, be concealed, that even in the classical writers, we have in words like δίστομος examples of incompletion of the radical.

§ 95. The preceding chapters have paved the way for a distinction between the historical analysis of a language, and the logical analysis of one.

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

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

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

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

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

Let the word smiðum illustrate this. Smið-um, the dative plural of smið, is equivalent in meaning to the English to smiths; or to the Latin fabr-is. Smiðum, however, is a single Anglo-Saxon word (a substantive, and nothing more); whilst its English equivalent is two words (i.e., a substantive with the addition of a preposition). The letter s, in smiths, shows that the word is plural. The -um, in smiðum, does this and something more. It is the sign of the dative case plural. The -um in smiðum, is the part of a word. The preposition to is a separate word with an independent existence. Smiðum is the radical syllable smið + the subordinate inflectional syllable -um, the sign of the dative case. The combination to smiths is the substantive smiths + the preposition to, equivalent in power to the sign of a dative case, but different from it in form. As far, then, as the words just quoted is concerned, the Anglo-Saxon differs from the English by expressing an idea by a certain modification of the form of the root, whereas the modern English denotes the same idea by the addition of a preposition; in other words, the Saxon inflection is superseded by a combination