Growth and Structure of the English Language

SKETCH1.It will be my endeavour in this volume to character- ize the chief peculiarities of the English language, and to explain the growth and significance of those features incite structure which have been of permanent impor- tance.The older stages of the language, interesting as their study is, will be considered only in so far as they throw light either directly or by way of contrast on the main characteristics of present-day English, and an at- tempt will be made to connect the teachings of linguistic history with the chief events in the general history of the English people so as to show their mutual bearings on each other and the relation of language to national character.The knowledge that the latter conception is a very difficult one to deal with scientifically, as it may easily tempt one into hasty generalizations, should make us wary, but not deter us from grappling with problems which are really both interesting and important.My plan will be, first to give a rapid sketch of the language ofjmr own days, so as to show how it strikes a foreigner -a foreigner who has devoted much time to the study of English, but who feels that in spite of all his efforts 1 -u (/ .J 2 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE lie is only able to look at it as a foreigner does, and not exactly as a native would-and then in the following chapters to enter more deeply into the history of the language in order to describe its first shape, to trace the various foreign influences it has undergone, and to give an account of its own inner growth. 2.It is, of course, impossible to characterize a language in one formula ; languages, like men, are too composite to have their whole essence summed up in one short expression.Nevertheless, there is one expression \ that continually comes to my mind whenever I think of the English language and compare it with others: it \ar yVy seems to me positively and expressly masculine, it is the language of a grown-up man and has very little childish or feminine about it.A great many things go together to produce and to confirm that impression, things phonetical, grammatical, and lexical, words and turns that are found, and words and turns that are not found, in the language.In dealing with the English language one is often reminded of the characteristic English hand-writing ; just as an English lady will nearly always write in a manner that in any other country would only be found in a man's hand, in the same manner the language is more manly than any other language I know.ct ^j 3. First I shall mention the sound system.The English lish consonants are well defined ; voiced and voiceless con- sonants stand over against each other in neat symmetry, and they are, as a rule, clearly and precisely pronounced.You have none of those indistinct or half-slurred con- sonants that abound in Danish, for instance (such as those in hade, ha#e, livlig), where you hardly know whether it is a consonant or a vowel-glide that meets the ear.The only thing that might be compared to this PRELIMINARY SKETCH 3 in English, is the r when not followed by a vowel, but then this has really given up definitely all pretensions to the rank of a consonant, and is (in the pronunciation of the South of England) either frankly a vowel (as in here) or else nothing at all (in hart, etc.) .Each English consonant belongs distinctly to its own type, a t is a t, and a k is a k, and there an end.There is much_less modification of a consonant by the surrounding vowels .than in some other languages, thus none of that palatalization of consonants which gives an insinuating grace to such languages as Russian.The vowel sounds, too, are comparatively independent of their surroundings, and in this respect the language now has deviated widely from the character of Old English and has become more clear-cut and distinct in its phonetic structure, although, to be sure, the dipthongization of most long vowels (in ale, whole, eel, who, phonetically eil, houl, ijl, huw) counteracts in some degree this impression of neatness and evenness. 4.Besides these characteristics, the full nature of which cannot, perhaps, be made intelligible to any but those familiar with phonetic research, but which are still felt more or less instinctively by everybody hearing the language spoken, there are other traits whose importance can with greater ease be made evident to anybody possessed of a normal ear. 5.To bring out clearly one of these points I select at random, by way of contrast, a passage from the language of Hawaii: 'I kona hiki ana aku ilaila ua hookipa ia mai la oia me ke aloha pumehana loa.' Thus it goes on, no single word ends in a consonant, and a group of two or more consonants is never found.Can anyone be in doubt that even if such a language sound pleas- antly and be full of music and harmony, the total im- PRELIMINARY SKETCH 5 was followed by a real g, which has been retained in stranger.6.In the first ten stanzas of Tennyson's Loclcsley Hall, three hundred syllables, we have only thirty-three words ending in two consonants, and two ending in three, certainly no excessive number, especially if we take into account the nature of the groups, which are nearly all of the easiest kind (-dz: comrades, Pleiads; -mz: gleams, comes

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