in which they first were introduced among us; they were made to drop
their foreign termination, or otherwise their foreign appearance, to
conform themselves to English ways, and only so were finally incorporated
into the great family of English words{51}. Thus of Greek words we have
the following: ‘pyramis’ and ‘pyramides’, forms often employed by
Shakespeare, became ‘pyramid’ and ‘pyramids’; ‘dosis’ (Bacon) ‘dose’;
‘distichon’ (Holland) ‘distich’; ‘hemistichion’ (North) ‘hemistich’;
‘apogæon’ (Fairfax) and ‘apogeum’ (Browne) ‘apogee’; ‘sumphonia’
(Lodge) ‘symphony’; ‘prototypon’ (Jackson) ‘prototype’; ‘synonymon’
(Jeremy Taylor) or ‘synonymum’ (Hacket), and ‘synonyma’ (Milton, prose),
became severally ‘synonym’ and ‘synonyms’; ‘syntaxis’ (Fuller) became
‘syntax’; ‘extasis’ (Burton) ‘ecstasy’; ‘parallelogrammon’ (Holland)
‘parallelogram’; ‘programma’ (Warton) ‘program’; ‘epitheton’ (Cowell)
‘epithet’; ‘epocha’ (South) ‘epoch’; ‘biographia’ (Dryden) ‘biography’;
‘apostata’ (Massinger) ‘apostate’; ‘despota’ (Fox) ‘despot’;
‘misanthropos’ (Shakespeare) if ‘misanthropi’ (Bacon) ‘misanthrope’;
‘psalterion’ (North) ‘psaltery’; ‘chasma’ (Henry More) ‘chasm’; ‘idioma’
and ‘prosodia’ (both in Daniel, prose) ‘idiom’ and ‘prosody’; ‘energia’,
‘energy’, and ‘Sibylla’, ‘Sibyl’ (both in Sidney); ‘zoophyton’ (Henry
More) ‘zoophyte’; ‘enthousiasmos’ (Sylvester) ‘enthusiasm’; ‘phantasma’
(Donne) ‘phantasm’; ‘magnes’ (Gabriel Harvey) ‘magnet’; ‘cynosura’
(Donne) ‘cynosure’; ‘galaxias’ (Fox) ‘galaxy’; ‘heros’ (Henry More)
‘hero’; ‘epitaphy’ (Hawes) ‘epitaph’.
The same process has gone on in a multitude of Latin words, which
testify by their terminations that they were, and were felt to be, Latin
at their first employment; though now they are such no longer. Thus
Bacon uses generally, I know not whether always, ‘insecta’ for
‘insects’; and ‘chylus’ for ‘chyle’; Bishop Andrews ‘nardus’ for ‘nard’;
Spenser ‘zephyrus’, and not ‘zephyr’; so ‘interstitium’ (Fuller)
preceded ‘interstice’; ‘philtrum’ (Culverwell) ‘philtre’; ‘expansum’
(Jeremy Taylor) ‘expanse’; ‘preludium’ (Beaumont, _Psyche_), ‘prelude’;
‘precipitium’ (Coryat) ‘precipice’; ‘aconitum’ (Shakespeare) ‘aconite’;
‘balsamum’ (Webster) ‘balsam’; ‘heliotropium’ (Holland) ‘heliotrope’;
‘helleborum’ (North) ‘hellebore’; ‘vehiculum’ (Howe) ‘vehicle’;
‘trochæus’ and ‘spondæus’ (Holland) ‘trochee’ and ‘spondee’; and
‘machina’ (Henry More) ‘machine’. We have ‘intervalla’, not ‘intervals’,
in Chillingworth; ‘postulata’, not ‘postulates’, in Swift; ‘archiva’,
not ‘archives’, in Baxter; ‘demagogi’, not ‘demagogues’, in Hacket;
‘vestigium’, not ‘vestige’, in Culverwell; ‘pantomimus’ in Lord Bacon
for ‘pantomime’; ‘mystagogus’ for ‘mystagogue’, in Jackson; ‘atomi’ in
Lord Brooke for ‘atoms’; ‘ædilis’ (North) went before ‘ædile’;
‘effigies’ and ‘statua’ (both in Shakespeare) before ‘effigy’ and
‘statue’; ‘abyssus’ (Jackson) before ‘abyss’; ‘vestibulum’ (Howe) before
‘vestibule’; ‘symbolum’ (Hammond) before ‘symbol’; ‘spectrum’ (Burton)
before ‘spectre’; while only after a while ‘quære’ gave place to
‘query’; ‘audite’ (Hacket) to ‘audit’; ‘plaudite’ (Henry More) to
‘plaudit’; and the low Latin ‘mummia’ (Webster) became ‘mummy’. The
widely extended change of such words as ‘innocency’, ‘indolency’,
‘temperancy’, and the large family of words with the same termination,
into ‘innocence’, ‘indolence’, ‘temperance’, and the like, can only be
regarded as part of the same process of entire naturalization.
The plural very often tells the secret of a word, and of the light in
which it is regarded by those who employ it, when the singular, being
less capable of modification, would have failed to do so; thus when
Holland writes ‘phalanges’, ‘bisontes’, ‘ideæ’, it is clear that
‘phalanx’, ‘bison’, ‘idea’, were still Greek words for him; as ‘dogma’
was for Hammond, when he made its plural not ‘dogmas’, but ‘dogmata’{52};
and when Spenser uses ‘heroes’ as a trisyllable, it plainly is not yet
thoroughly English for him{53}. ‘Cento’ is not English, but a Latin word
used in English, so long as it makes its plural not ‘centos’, but
‘centones’, as in the old anonymous translation of Augustin’s _City of
God_{54}; and ‘specimen’, while it makes its plural ‘specimina’ (Howe).
Pope making, as he does, ‘satellites’ a quadrisyllable in the line
“Why Jove’s _satellites_ are less than Jove”,
must have felt that he was still dealing with it as Latin; just as
‘terminus’, a word which the necessities of railways have introduced
among us, will not be truly naturalized till we use ‘terminuses’, and
not ‘termini’ for its plural; nor ‘phenomenon’, till we have renounced
‘phenomena’. Sometimes it has been found convenient to retain both
plurals, that formed according to the laws of the classical language,
and that formed according to the laws of our own, only employing them in
different senses; thus is it with ‘indices’ and ‘indexes’, ‘genii’ and
‘geniuses’.
The same process has gone on with words from other languages, as from
the Italian and the Spanish; thus ‘bandetto’ (Shakespeare), ‘bandito’
(Jeremy Taylor), becomes ‘bandit’; ‘ruffiano’ (Coryat) ‘ruffian’;
‘concerto’, ‘concert’; ‘busto’ (Lord Chesterfield) ‘bust’; ‘caricatura’
(Sir Thomas Browne) ‘caricature’; ‘princessa’ (Hacket) ‘princess’;
‘scaramucha’ (Dryden) ‘scaramouch’; ‘pedanteria’ (Sidney) ‘pedantry’;
‘impresa’ ‘impress’; ‘caprichio’ (Shakespeare) becomes first ‘caprich’
(Butler), then ‘caprice’; ‘duello’ (Shakespeare) ‘duel’; ‘alligarta’
(Ben Jonson), ‘alligator’; ‘parroquito’ (Webster) ‘parroquet’; ‘scalada’
(Heylin) or ‘escalado’ (Holland) ‘escalade’; ‘granada’ (Hacket)
‘grenade’; ‘parada’ (J. Taylor) ‘parade’; ‘emboscado’ (Holland)
‘stoccado’, ‘barricado’, ‘renegado’, ‘hurricano’ (all in Shakespeare),
‘brocado’ (Hackluyt), ‘palissado’ (Howell), drop their foreign
terminations, and severally become ‘ambuscade’, ‘stockade’, ‘barricade’,
‘renegade’, ‘hurricane’, ‘brocade’, ‘palisade’; ‘croisado’ in like
manner (Bacon) becomes first ‘croisade’ (Jortin), and then ‘crusade’;
‘quinaquina’ or ‘quinquina’, ‘quinine’. Other slight modifications of
spelling, not in the termination, but in the body of a word, will
indicate in like manner its more entire incorporation into the English
language. Thus ‘shash’, a Turkish word, becomes ‘sash’; ‘colone’
(Burton) ‘clown’{55}; ‘restoration’ was at first spelt ‘rest_au_ration’;
and so long as ‘vicinage’ was spelt ‘voisinage’{56} (Sanderson),
‘mirror’ ‘miroir’ (Fuller), ‘recoil’ ‘recule’, or ‘career’ ‘carriere’
(both by Holland), they could scarcely be considered those purely
English words which now they are{57}.
Here and there even at this comparatively late period of the language
awkward foreign words will be recast in a more thoroughly English mould;
‘chirurgeon’ will become ‘surgeon’; ‘hemorrhoid’, ‘emerod’; ‘squinancy’
will become first ‘squinzey’ (Jeremy Taylor) and then ‘quinsey’;
‘porkpisce’ (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more accurately hogfish{58}
will be ‘porpesse’, and then ‘porpoise’, as it is now. In other words
the attempt will be made, but it will be now too late to be attended
with success. ‘Physiognomy’ will not give place to ‘visnomy’, however
Spenser and Shakespeare employ this briefer form; nor ‘hippopotamus’ to
‘hippodame’, even at Spenser’s bidding. In like manner the attempt to
naturalize ‘avant-courier’ in the shape of ‘vancurrier’ has failed.
Other words also we meet which have finally refused to take a more
popular form, although such was once more or less current; or, if this
is too much to say of all, yet hazarded by good authors. Thus Holland
wrote ‘cirque’, but we ‘circus’; ‘cense’, but we ‘census’; ‘interreign’,
but we ‘interregnum’; Sylvester ‘cest’, but we ‘cestus’; ‘quirry’, but
we ‘equerry’; ‘colosse’, but we still ‘colossus’; Golding ‘ure’, but we
‘urus’; ‘metropole’, but we ‘metropolis’; Dampier ‘volcan’, but this has
not superseded ‘volcano’; nor ‘pagod’ (Pope) ‘pagoda’; nor ‘skelet’
(Holland) ‘skeleton’; nor ‘stimule’ (Stubbs) ‘stimulus’. Bolingbroke
wrote ‘exode’, but we hold fast to ‘exodus’; Burton ‘funge’, but we
‘fungus’; Henry More ‘enigm’, but we ‘enigma’; ‘analyse’, but we
‘analysis’. ‘Superfice’ (Dryden) has not put ‘superficies’, nor
‘sacrary’ (Hacket) ‘sacrarium’, nor ‘limbeck’ ‘alembic’, out of use.
Chaucer’s ‘potecary’ has given way to a more Greek formation
‘apothecary’. Yet these and the like must be regarded quite as
exceptions; the tendency of things is altogether the other way.
Looking at this process of the reception of foreign words, with their
after assimilation in feature to our own, we may trace, as was to be
expected, a certain conformity between the genius of our institutions
and that of our language. It is the very character of our institutions
to repel none, but rather to afford a shelter and a refuge to all, from
whatever quarter they come; and after a longer or shorter while all the
strangers and incomers have been incorporated into the English nation,
within one or two generations have forgotten that they were ever ought
else than members of it, have retained no other reminiscence of their
foreign extraction than some slight difference of name, and that often
disappearing or having disappeared. Exactly so has it been with the
English language. No language has shown itself less exclusive; none has
stood less upon niceties; none has thrown open its arms wider, with a
fuller confidence, a confidence justified by experience, that it could
make truly its own, assimilate and subdue to itself, whatever it
received into its bosom; and in none has this experiment in a larger
number of instances been successfully carried out.
* * * * *
{Sidenote: _French at the Restoration_}
Such are the two great enlargements from without of our vocabulary. All
other are minor and subordinate. Thus the introduction of French tastes
by Charles the Second and his courtiers returning from exile, to which I
have just adverted, though it rather modified the structure of our
sentences than the materials of our vocabulary, gave us some new words.
In one of Dryden’s plays, _Marriage à la Mode_, a lady full of
affectation is introduced, who is always employing French idioms in
preference to English, French words rather than native. It is not a
little curious that of these, thus put into her mouth to render her
ridiculous, not a few are excellent English now, and have nothing
far-sought or affected about them: for so it frequently proves that what
is laughed at in the beginning, is by all admitted and allowed at the
last. For example, to speak of a person being in the ‘good graces’ of
another has nothing in it ridiculous now; the words ‘repartee’,
‘embarrass’, ‘chagrin’, ‘grimace’, do not sound novel and affected now
as they all must plainly have done at the time when Dryden wrote.
‘Fougue’ and ‘fraischeur’, which he himself employed--being, it is true,
no frequent offender in this way--have not been justified by the same
success.
{Sidenote: _Greek Words Naturalized_}
Nor indeed can it be said that this adoption and naturalization of
foreign words ever ceases in a language. There are periods, as we have
seen, when this goes forward much more largely than at others; when a
language throws open, as it were, its doors, and welcomes strangers with
an especial freedom; but there is never a time, when one by one these
foreigners and strangers are not slipping into it. We do not for the
most part observe the fact, at least not while it is actually doing.
Time, the greatest of all innovators, manages his innovations so
dexterously, spreads them over such vast periods, and therefore brings
them about so gradually, that often, while effecting the mightiest
changes, we have no suspicion that he is effecting any at all. Thus how
imperceptible are the steps by which a foreign word is admitted into the
full rights of an English one; the process of its incoming often
eluding our notice altogether. There are numerous Greek words, for
example which, quite unchanged in form, have in one way or another ended
in finding a home and acceptance among us. We may in almost every
instance trace step by step the naturalization of one of these; and the
manner of this singularly confirms what has just been said. We can note
it spelt for a while in Greek letters, and avowedly employed as a Greek
and not an English vocable; then after it had thus obtained a certain
allowance among us, and become not altogether unfamiliar, we note it
exchanging its Greek for English letters, and finally obtaining
recognition as a word which however drawn from a foreign source, is yet
itself English. Thus ‘acme’, ‘apotheosis’, ‘criterion’, ‘chrysalis’,
‘encyclopedia’, ‘metropolis’, ‘opthalmia’, ‘pathos’, ‘phenomena’, are
all now English words, while yet South with many others always wrote
ἀκμή, Jeremy Taylor ἀποθέωσις and κριτήριον, Henry More χρυσαλίς, Ben
Jonson speaks of ‘the knowledge of the liberal arts, which the Greeks
call ἐγκυκλοπαδείαν’{59}, Culverwell wrote μητρόπολις and ὀφθαλμία,
Preston, φαινόμενα--Sylvester ascribes to Baxter, not ‘pathos’, but
πάθος{60}. Ἠθος is a word at the present moment preparing for a like
passage from Greek characters to English, and certainly before long will
be acknowledged as an English word{61}. The only cause which has
hindered this for some time past is the misgiving whether it will not be
read ‘ĕthos,’ and not ‘ēthos,’ and thus not be the word intended.
Let us trace a like process in some French word, which is at this moment
becoming English. I know no better example than the French ‘prestige’
will afford. ‘Prestige’ has manifestly no equivalent in our own
language; it expresses something which no single word in English, which
only a long circumlocution, could express; namely, that magic influence
on others, which past successes as the pledge and promise of future
ones, breed. The word has thus naturally come to be of very frequent use
by good English writers; for they do not feel that in employing it they
are passing by as good or a better word of their own. At first all used
it avowedly as French, writing it in italics to indicate this. At the
present moment some write it so still, some do not; some, that is,
regard it still as foreign, others consider that it has now become
English, and obtained a settlement among us{62}. Little by little the
number of those who write it in italics will become fewer and fewer,
till they cease altogether. It will then only need that the accent
should be shifted, in obedience to the tendencies of the English
language, as far back in the word as it will go, that instead of
‘prestíge’, it should be pronounced ‘préstige’ even as within these few
years instead of ‘depót’ we have learned to say ‘dépot’, and its
naturalization will be complete. I have little doubt that in twenty
years it will be so pronounced by the majority of well educated
Englishmen{63},--some pronounce it so already,--and that our present
pronunciation will pass away in the same manner as ‘obl_ee_ge’, once
universal, has past away, and everywhere given place to ‘obl_i_ge’{64}.
{Sidenote: _Shifting of Accents_}
Let me here observe in passing, that the process of throwing the accent
of a word back, by way of completing its naturalization, is one which we
may note constantly going forward in our language. Thus, while Chaucer
accentuates sometimes ‘natúre’, he also accentuates elsewhere ‘náture’,
while sometimes ‘virtúe’, at other times ‘vírtue’. ‘Prostrate’,
‘adverse’, ‘aspect’, ‘process’, ‘insult’, ‘impulse’, ‘pretext’,
‘contrite’, ‘uproar’, ‘contest’, had all their accent on the last
syllable in Milton; they have it now on the first; ‘cháracter’ was
‘charácter’ with Spenser; ‘théatre’ was ‘theátre’ with Sylvester; while
‘acádemy’ was accented ‘académy’ by Cowley and Butler{65}. ‘Essay’ was
‘essáy’ with Dryden and with Pope; the first closes an heroic line with
the word; Pope does the same with ‘barrier’{66} and ‘effort’; therefore
pronounced ‘barríer’, ‘effórt’, by him.
There are not a few other French words which like ‘prestige’ are at this
moment hovering on the verge of English, hardly knowing whether they
shall become such, or no. Such are ‘ennui’, ‘exploitation’, ‘verve’,
‘persiflage’, ‘badinage’, ‘chicane’, ‘finesse’, and others; all of them
often employed by us,--and it is out of such frequent employment that
adoption proceeds,--because expressing shades of meaning not expressed
by any words of our own{67}. Some of these, we may confidently
anticipate, will complete their naturalization; others will after a time
retreat again, and become for us avowedly French. ‘Solidarity’, a word
which we owe to the French Communists, and which signifies a fellowship
in gain and loss, in honour and dishonour, in victory and defeat, a
being, so to speak, all in the same bottom, is so convenient, that
unattractive as confessedly it is, it will be in vain to struggle
against its reception. The newspapers already have it, and books will
not long exclude it; not to say that it has established itself in
German, and probably in other European languages as well.
{Sidenote: _Greek in English_}
Greek and Latin words also we still continue to adopt, although now no
longer in troops and companies, but only one by one. With the lively
interest which always has been felt in classical studies among us, and
which will continue to be felt, so long as any greatness and nobleness
survive in our land, it must needs be that accessions from these
quarters would never cease altogether. I do not refer here to purely
scientific terms; these, so long as they continue such, and do not pass
beyond the threshold of the science or sciences for the use of which
they were invented, being never heard on the lips, or employed in the
writings, of any but the cultivators of these sciences, have no right to
be properly called words at all. They are a kind of shorthand of the
science, or algebraic notation; and will not find place in a dictionary
of the language, constructed upon true principles, but rather in a
technical dictionary apart by themselves. Of these, compelled by the
advances of physical science, we have coined multitudes out of number in
these later times, fashioning them mainly from the Greek, no other
language within our reach yielding itself at all so easily to our needs.
Of non-scientific words, both Greek and Latin, some have made their way
among us quite in these latter times. Burke in the House of Commons is
said to have been the first who employed the word ‘inimical’{68}. He
also launched the verb ‘to spheterize’ in the sense of to appropriate
or make one’s own; but this without success. Others have been more
fortunate; ‘æsthetic’ we have got indeed _through_ the Germans, but
_from_ the Greeks. Tennyson has given allowance to ‘æon’{69}; and ‘myth’
is a deposit which wide and far-reaching controversies have left in the
popular language. ‘Photography’ is an example of what I was just now
speaking of--namely, a scientific word which has travelled beyond the
limits of the science which it designates and which gave it birth.
‘Stereotype’ is another word of the same character. It was invented--not
the thing, but the word,--by Didot not very long since; but it is now
absorbed into healthy general circulation, being current in a secondary
and figurative sense. Ruskin has given to ‘ornamentation’ the sanction
and authority of his name. ‘Normal’ and ‘abnormal’, not quite so new,
are yet of recent introduction into the language{70}.
{Sidenote: _German Importations_}
When we consider the near affinity between the English and German
languages, which, if not sisters, may at least be regarded as first
cousins, it is somewhat remarkable that almost since the day when they
parted company, each to fulfil its own destiny, there has been little
further commerce between them in the matter of giving or taking. At any
rate adoptions on our part from the German have been till within this
period extremely rare. ‘Crikesman’ (Kriegsmann) and ‘brandschat’
(Brandschatz), with some other German words common enough in the _State
Papers_ of the sixteenth century, found no permanent place in the
language. The explanation lies in the fact that the literary activity of
Germany did not begin till very late, nor our interest in it till later
still, not indeed till the beginning of the present century. Yet
‘plunder’, as I have mentioned elsewhere, was brought back from Germany
about the beginning of our Civil Wars, by the soldiers who had served
under Gustavus Adolphus and his captains{71}. And ‘trigger’, written
‘tricker’ in _Hudibras_ is manifestly the German ‘drücker’{72}, though
none of our dictionaries have marked it as such; a word first appearing
at the same period, it may have reached us through the same channel.
‘Iceberg’ (eisberg) also we must have taken whole from the German, as,
had we constructed the word for ourselves, we should have made it not
‘ice_berg_’, but ‘ice-_mountain_’. I have not found it in our earlier
voyagers, often as they speak of the ‘icefield’, which yet is not
exactly the same thing. An English ‘swindler’ is not exactly a German
‘schwindler’, yet the notion of the ‘nebulo’, though more latent in the
German, is common to both; and we must have drawn the word from
Germany{73} (it is not an old one in our tongue) during the course of
the last century. If ‘_life_-guard’ was originally, as Richardson
suggests, ‘_leib_-garde’, or ‘_body_-guard’, and from that transformed,
by the determination of Englishmen to make it significant in English,
into ‘_life_-guard’, or guard defending the _life_ of the sovereign,
this will be another word from the same quarter. Yet I have my doubts;
‘leibgarde’ would scarcely have found its way hither before the
accession of the House of Hanover, or at any rate before the arrival of
Dutch William with his memorable guards; while ‘lifeguard’, in its
present shape, is certainly an older word in the language; we hear often
of the ‘lifeguards’ in our Civil Wars; as witness too Fuller’s words:
“The Cherethites were a kind of _lifegard_ to king David”{74}.
Of late our German importations have been somewhat more numerous. With
several German compound words we have been in recent times so well
pleased, that we must needs adopt them into English, or imitate them in
it. We have not always been very happy in those which we have selected
for imitation or adoption. Thus we might have been satisfied with
‘manual’, and not called back from its nine hundred years of oblivion
that ugly and unnecessary word ‘handbook’. And now we are threatened
with ‘word-building’, as I see a book announced under the title of
“Latin _word-building_”, and, much worse than this, with ‘stand-point’.
‘Einseitig’ (itself a modern word, if I mistake not, or at any rate
modern in its secondary application) has not, indeed, been adopted, but
is evidently the pattern on which we have formed ‘onesided’--a word to
which a few years ago something of affectation was attached; so that any
one who employed it at once gave evidence that he was more or less a
dealer in German wares; it has however its manifest conveniences, and
will hold its ground. ‘Fatherland’ (Vaterland) on the contrary will
scarcely establish itself among us, the note of affectation will
continue to cleave to it, and we shall go on contented with ‘native
country’ to the end{75}. The most successful of these compounded words,
borrowed recently from the German, is ‘folk-lore’, and the substitution
of this for popular superstitions, must be esteemed, I think, an
unquestionable gain{76}.
To speak now of other sources from which the new words of a language are
derived. Of course the period when absolutely new roots are generated
will have past away, long before men begin by a reflective act to take
any notice of processes going forward in the language which they speak.
This pure productive energy, creative we might call it, belongs only to
the earlier stages of a nation’s existence,--to times quite out of the
ken of history. It is only from materials already existing either in its
own bosom, or in the bosom of other languages, that it can enrich itself
in the later, or historical stages of its life.
{Sidenote: _Compound Words_}