illiterate white, it matters not whether the latter be from New
England, or from the South, one will find that, excepting certain
provincialisms peculiar to their respective homes, their language has
much in common, and to the student of historic English, it exhibits
indisputable evidence of its affinity with the English of the
seventeenth century. This is obvious from such words as _hand-kercher_,
_ar_ (air), _pint_ (point), _pison_ (poison), _gwine_ (going), _arrant_
(errand), _cratur_ (creature), _arth_ (earth), all of which are common
alike to the “Yankee dialect” and to the negro dialect. The student who
is familiar with the development of the English tongue will at once
recognize these as standard, according to the received pronunciation
of the seventeenth century. But in the development of the language,
these pronunciations subsequently fell into disuse and were discarded
by standard English. They still survived, however, in the lower stratum
of society among the poor and illiterate who, denied the privileges
and advantages of an education and therefore ignorant of the most
elementary principles of grammar, inherited this speech from their
ancestors and handed it down, with but little change, from generation
to generation to their children.
The language of the seventeenth century was brought to America by the
early settlers and was taught the slaves, and the tongue which the
illiterate negroes then learned to speak they have preserved, without
any material change, down to the present generation. Since this is
the case, we can not then be surprised to find upon examination that
many of their dialectal pronunciations and locutions are to be traced
back to classic authors of an earlier period, yea, to Shakespeare
himself. In this sense it is doubtless true that many of the fossilized
pronunciations of our illiterates are much nearer the language of, and
would therefore be more intelligible to, Shakespeare and Milton than
present standard English.
Every one who has ever heard the old negro preacher giving an
“exhortation” at the close of his fervid “sarmon” knows very well that,
though the old man’s heart was perhaps right and himself on the way
to the kingdom, his conscience never for a moment troubled him about
his loose grammar. Notwithstanding his sanctification and his ecstatic
anticipation of the joys of the kingdom for which he was bound, he
had no conscientious scruples about “axin’” his “ole marster” if the
latter was at all tardy in offering him the desired help. Perhaps many
of those who were so familiar with the lingo of the old preacher never
reflected that his language, like his heart, was, after all, not very
far wrong and entirely without precedent when he “axed” for something.
He was but obeying the scriptural injunction, which, according to
Tyndale’s version, reads: “Axe and it shall be geven you.” Nor do they
know that he was following, all unwittingly, to be sure, the example
set by the first English printer, Caxton, who, in the preface to his
edition of Vergil’s Aeneid, used precisely the same expression. If then
the old parson blundered, as, according to our modern standard, he did,
he at all events blundered in good company.
In Chaucer, “the first finder of our faire language,” as his ardent
disciple Occleve rapturously, though quaintly, called him, we find the
same word. Here we find also forms long since fossilized, though still
preserved in the speech of the untutored, such as _kiver_, _driv_,
_holp_, _writ_, _rid_, etc. In “Much Ado About Nothing” Dogberry,
albeit he dislocates the dictionary in speaking of that villain who,
he prophesies, would be condemned to everlasting redemption, yet uses
grammar which, for his day, was above reproach, when he exclaimed: “O
that I had been writ down an ass!”
So we must acknowledge that no violence was done to the language,
however our sense of propriety may be shocked, when a century or so
ago a Londoner remarked to his friend who had come up from his home
in the country to see the play of “Orpheus and Eurydice,” and who was
copiously bespattered with mud, as a result of his ride: “You came up
to town, I suppose, to see Orpheus and _you rid I see_.” It would be
difficult to find in the literature of that period a more felicitous
illustration of a perfectly legitimate play on words which the
contemporary pronunciation permitted.
Shakespeare, who could not resist the temptation to make a pun whenever
opportunity offered, furnishes additional evidence of his versatility
and ingenuity in his apt recognition of the obsolete pronunciation of
many words of his time, which he turned to good account. Hence so many
of his witticisms. In “Henry IV,” for instance, Falstall says: “If
reasons were a plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason
upon compulsion,” thus playing upon the old pronunciation of _raisins_
with which we are all familiar upon the lips of the unlettered. Thus
he plays upon the antiquated pronunciation of _Rome_ as _room_, when,
in “Julius Caesar,” Cassius says of Caesar’s vaulting ambition which
o’erleaped itself:
“Now is it Rome indeed and Roome enough,
When there is in it but one only man.”
One of the conundrums of that period, which, by the way, could only
have belonged to that period, illustrates the antiquated pronunciation
of _chair_ as _cheer_, still current among the illiterate. “Why is a
stout man always happy?” The answer was, “Because he is cheerful (chair
full).”
It is needless to multiply random illustrations. We owe a lasting
debt of gratitude to the philologists who have labored in this field
and illuminated this subject which before was enveloped with almost
Cimmerian darkness. These amenities of philology which have been
mentioned above are but an incident of the arduous and laborious
pursuits of those philologists. Let us consider for a while some of
the results of their research which prove how the English language has
changed.
Every student who has given any attention to the historical development
of our speech knows that it has changed from age to age no less in
form than in pronunciation. Indeed, it could not be a living tongue if
it did not constantly change. The oldest form of the language which
we call Anglo-Saxon gradually changed in form and sound till Middle
English times, and then it continued to change even more rapidly
till modern times. It has undergone no small change even since the
days of Elizabeth, when our great dramatists spoke and wrote it. So
great are these changes through which our vernacular has passed that
a modern could not converse with one of his Saxon forebears of the
time of the good and great King Alfred except through an interpreter
of his own mother-tongue. If any man is skeptical on this point,
let him test himself by trying to modernize offhand a passage from
one of Alfred’s own works. Indeed, it is not necessary to go so far
back. For Shakespeare, not to mention Chaucer, may prove a rock of
offence and would no doubt appear to most of us to speak in an unknown
tongue, could we hear him speak. Surely the commentators find no end
of difficulties in interpreting his writings which have been preserved
to us. Even were we to approach Shakespeare from the vantage ground
of the famous Tieck and Schlegel translation which some patriotic
German scholars with more zeal than knowledge assert is better than the
original, no doubt, we should still encounter many hard sayings in the
master dramatist’s language. Much less therefore should we be able to
understand his spoken tongue, since spoken speech, in the very nature
of things, changes far more than written language.
However, it is not our purpose here to use Shakespeare as a concrete
illustration to show how our speech has changed even in the last few
centuries. We have chosen two other authors who flourished long after
the voice of the “sweet swan of Avon” had ceased to sing and his bones
had moulded back to dust in the quaint parish church of Stratford.
These writers are the distinguished satirists, the vigorous Dryden
and the didactic Pope. Their rhymes are a fairly accurate index to the
standard contemporary pronunciation.
Dryden has often been taxed with a certain laxity in his rhymes,
and to one not recognizing the difference between the pronunciation
current in England in the seventeenth century and that accepted at
the beginning of the twentieth century, the criticism would appear to
be well founded. But it must be borne in mind that the sounds of the
English vowels, especially, have undergone a considerable change since
Dryden’s day. We should not be surprised then if, when we apply the
present standard of English pronunciation to his rhymes, they seem
somewhat imperfect. However, this is not intended to extenuate Dryden’s
false rhymes, of which there are confessedly some; for he had neither
a sensitive ear nor a tender conscience in his work for the stage. His
motto expressed in his own words was,
“He who lives to please, must please to live.”
Yet Dryden was, after all, no greater sinner in this respect than
others of his day, or even of the present day, whose verses furnish
such monstrosities as _has_ rhyming with _was_, _love_ consorting with
_move_,--rhymes which “keep the word of promise to the eye and break it
to the ear.” Let us now cite a few of the received pronunciations of
the seventeenth century as indicated in the rhymes of that day. It will
be observed that where these are still lingering in our speech to-day,
they are regarded simply as vulgarisms.
Such words as _please_, _these_, _seize_, _severe_, _sea_, _speak_,
_complete_, and the like were pronounced, in the seventeenth century
and in the first half of the eighteenth, in a way which, to the modern
ear, is decidedly suggestive of the Irish “brogue.” For both Dryden and
Pope pronounced these words _plase_, _thase_, _saze_, _savare_, _say_,
_spake_, _complate_: and this was the received pronunciation during
that period. Pope, therefore, whose delicate ear was easily fascinated
by the vigor and musical cadence of his master Dryden preserves but the
aroma of the old tea, in that heroic couplet upon a mock heroic subject:
“Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.”
Likewise, again he says:
“Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea.”
Dryden pertinently asks, in his Absalom and Achitophel:
“But when should people strive their bonds to break,
If not when kings are negligent or weak?”
So Pope likewise pronounced _weak_ rhyming it with _take_. Both he and
Dryden offer numerous examples of _speak_ rhyming with _wake_, _sphere_
with _bear, hear_ with _care_, _retreat_ and _complete_ with _great_,
and _treat_ with the French _tête_, as in Pope’s imitation of Horace:
“The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the mice sate, tête-à-tête.”
In the Hind and the Panther Dryden uses the now vulgar pronunciation of
_clear_ thus:
“The sense is intricate, ’tis only clear
What vowels and consonants are there.”
But this was a perfectly faultless rhyme then and was sanctioned by
the best usage. So the vulgar pronunciation of _key_ is the only open
sesame to this perfect rhyme in Dryden’s time:
“’Twere pity treason at his door to lay,
Who makes heaven’s gate a lock to its own key.”
Here also occurs the obsolete pronunciation of _says_ rhyming with
_days_, and _said_ is wedded to _maid_ and even _have_ consorts with
_slave_ and _wave_, all of which pronunciations have long ago been
repudiated by standard English and survive now only in the speech of
the rustics and upon Irish lips.
The story is told of an old Scotchman who, like some others not of
Scotch descent, occasionally draw their inspiration from an illicit
source that during a spell of serious illness he was visited by the
good minister who pointed out to him his weakness and endeavored
to persuade him to leave off his bibulous habit. When the minister
told the erring Scotchman that in heaven whither he was going there
would be no wine, he impulsively exclaimed: “I dinna ken, but I think
it would be but _dacent_ (decent) to have it on the table.” This is
precisely the way Dryden and Pope pronounced the word _decent_, and the
pronunciation still lingers as a provincialism.
Pope rhymes _nature_ with _satire_ and makes Craggs exclaim in a
dialogue:
“Alas, if I am such a creature
To grow the worse for growing greater.”
This rhyme at that time was perfect to the ear, though false to the
eye. Again, Pope wishes--
“That all mankind might that just mean observe,
In which none e’er could surfeit, none could starve.”
As for the atmosphere, Pope called it _aar_, making the word rhyme
with _star_, and _are_ and _were_ he pronounced occasionally _air_ and
_ware_. These pronunciations, it is interesting to note, are still
heard now and then from the lips of educated men, either as an affected
archaism or more probably from sheer force of a habit of utterance
acquired in youth.
There is another vulgarism with a pedigree which is especially to be
noted because it is never heard now except from the unlettered. Yet in
the seventeenth century this was the standard pronunciation. We refer
to the obsolete pronunciation of such words as _oblige_, _join_,
_poison_ and the like. In his Epistle to Arbuthnot in which Pope
pilloried so many of his contemporary poetasters and there left them to
the vulgar gaze of all subsequent ages, among others he damned Addison
with faint praise as--
“Dreading e’en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne’er obliged.”
Our _join_, _poison_, _point_, _soil_, _spoil_, and so on, would have
offended the ear of Dryden and Pope, who invariably said _jine_,
_pison_, _pint_, etc. In this respect the speech of our rustics is the
speech which Dryden and Pope spoke, though their faith and morals are
probably not those which these authors held.
In the words of Pope himself:--
“Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying sense, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march and energy divine.”
“Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
“’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;
In all you speak, let truth and candor shine.”
“In grave Quintilian’s copious work we find
The justest rules and clearest method join’d.”
It is interesting to observe that we still say _choir_. These words
with the _oi_-diphthong are well-nigh all of Anglo-French origin,
except _boil_, in the sense of tumor, where the Anglo-Saxon _byle_
proves that its development into the now vulgar _bile_ is regular. But
in standard English the word has been wrested from its normal course
of development, probably through association in the popular mind with
the verb _boil_, or to avoid confusion with _bile_ (secretion of
the liver), and its spelling has been changed to _boil_ to satisfy,
in Lowell’s apt phrase, the logic of the eye. But let it be said
parenthetically that logic is among the least potent factors in the
development of a language.
In the light of these facts, then, we appreciate more fully the
significance of the words of Ellis, in his monumental work on Early
English Pronunciation: “For the polite sounds of a past generation
are the _bêtes noires_ of the present. Who at present, with any claim
to “_eddication_” would _jine_ in praising the _pints_ of a _picter_?
But certainly there was a time when _education_, _join_, _points_ and
_picture_ would have sounded equally strange.”
In the Yankee dialect, as we learn from Lowell’s admirable essay on
this theme in the introduction to his Biglow Papers, “the _u_ in the
ending _ture_ is always shortened, making _ventur_, _natur_, _pictur_,
and so on. This was common also among the educated of the last
generation. I am inclined to think it may have been once universal, and
I certainly think it more elegant than the vile _vencher_, _naycher_,
_pickcher_, that have taken its place, sounding like the invention
of a lexicographer to mitigate a sneeze.” When Lowell wrote these
words, very little attention had been given to the study of dialects
and their significance as exhibiting fossilized forms of a language.
But since the publication of Ellis’s excellent work on the early
pronunciation of our mother-tongue, a flood of light has been shed upon
the tortuous path of the history of English sounds. Thus we can be
sure that the speech of our illiterates, however vulgar and antiquated
it may sound to our twentieth century ears, is, at least in many
instances, the polite pronunciation of the seventeenth century. It is
the English which the Pilgrim Fathers brought over with them when they
landed on the shores of the New World.
So much for the dialect of our illiterates, the _lingua rustica_. Let
us now consider the Irish dialect which is another fruitful source
of vulgarisms with a pedigree. A moment’s reflection will suffice to
convince the reader that this speech is very closely allied in origin
with the English brought to America by the early settlers.
It is well known that the English language, as spoken by the Irish,
has a peculiarity of utterance commonly called “the Irish brogue” and
differs materially from standard English. Why this clearly marked and
distinctive mode of utterance which differentiates the English speech
on Irish lips from the same language as spoken in England and America?
As a matter of fact the English spoken by the educated sons of Erin is
the same as that used in England and America. But the language of the
Irish in the rural districts of Ireland and of those who have emigrated
to America is something quite different, and varies considerably in
idiom and pronunciation from standard English. It is this which is
usually termed “the Irish brogue.”
To get at the origin of this lingo we must go back to the time when
Ireland was settled by the English. The tongue originally spoken in
Ireland was of course the Old Irish, or Gaelic, and this was very
closely related to the Welsh and the speech of the ancient Britons who
resisted the Roman invasion under Julius Caesar. This was the tongue
of the whole of Britain when our Saxon forefathers first found their
way across the Channel from Northern Germany. This therefore was the
vernacular of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table mentioned
in the Arthurian legends.
As far back as the twelfth century, history records that the English
began to plant colonies on the Emerald Isle and to settle parts of it,
such as Forth and Bargay. But these were unimportant from our present
point of view. The English settlements in Ireland from which the
English language spread and diffused itself over the country were those
made in Ulster and the north during the reign of James I, in 1611. This
English emigration was re-enforced by the invasion of Cromwell, in
1649. So then it was during the seventeenth century that the domain of
the Irishman’s native tongue was invaded by the English speech.
It will be recalled that, inasmuch as Ireland was originally populated
by the Celtic race, it follows that the genuine Irishman is really a
Celt, not a Saxon, although he now speaks English as his venacular. He
was therefore of the same race and blood as the ancient Britons whom
our Saxon forefathers found in possession of the country when they
first came to Britain from the Continent. The British people represent
a fusion of these two races--Celtic and Saxon--with the Saxon element
predominating. According to Matthew Arnold’s dictum, it is from the
Celtic blood flowing in the veins of the Englishman that he gets his
sentiment. In his composite being, the modern Englishman combines
with his original steady-going Saxon temperament something of the
Celt’s instinct for sentiment, love of beauty, charm and spirituality,
together with something of the Norman’s tact for business. According
to Matthew Arnold, therefore, there is a commingling of these three
streams in the English race, the Celtic and the Norman both being
merged in the Saxon. As the defect of his qualities the Celt had
ineffectualness and self-will,--qualities which still mark the Irish
genius. The words of that eminent nineteenth century critic are very
suggestive as indicating the influence of the Celtic spirit upon the
Saxon, whether we are prepared to share his opinion or not. “If I
were asked,” remarks he in his admirable essay On the Study of Celtic
Literature, “where English poetry got these three things--its turn for
style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for
catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and
vivid way--I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its
turn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much
of its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that
from a Celtic source it got nearly all of its magic.”
But to return to the language of the Irish. When the English settlers
emigrated to Ulster, they carried with them the English speech of the
seventeenth century. A moment’s reflection teaches us that this was the
pronunciation of the days of Milton and Dryden which was transplanted
into Ireland. Now, it must be borne in mind that the English of that
century was transferred to a country where the native speech and method
of utterance were entirely different from those employed in England.
The effect of this was to cause some modification in the transplanted
language when the English speech came into actual contact with the
native Irish tongue on Irish soil. When English was diffused over
Ireland the native speech of which differed both in its body of sounds
and in its distinctive method of enunciation from the triumphant
language, the natives learned to speak the new tongue with their own
characteristic mode of utterance. It was but natural therefore that
the English speech should undergo a considerable alteration on Irish
lips. In similar circumstances the supplanted tongue always produces a
greater or less change in its victorious rival, not only in form, but
also in construction and idiom. Witness here the triumph of Anglo-Saxon
over the Celtic of the native Britons. As an illustration of the change
in idiom take this example of “Pidgin-English,” spoken in the treaty
ports of China. In one of those ports, an enterprising merchant with
a keen relish for the English shillings, but with little feeling for
the English tongue, is reputed to have put out over his shop door a
sign with this legend: “Groceries for sale, retail and whole-tail!” An
illustration of the difference in mode of utterance between two tongues
is furnished by the German, or even the French, method of pronouncing
our English _th_-sound. What inherent difficulty a native German or
Frenchman, in his unstudied utterance, encounters in pronouncing
such simple words as _the_, _then_, _kith_, etc.! On the other hand,
one whose vernacular is English experiences as great embarrassment
in pronouncing, without studied effort and practice, the German
_ch_-sound, as in _Bach_, _Ich_, etc., or the characteristic French _u_
sound as in _fût_, _eut_, _pu_, etc.