ON MIXTURE IN LANGUAGE.
There are two senses in which we may speak of mixture in language--the
broader sense in which every speaker must influence those who hear him,
and be influenced by them in turn, and the narrower sense in which one
language or one dialect is influenced by another with which it is but
distantly connected.
In order to understand the process of such mixture as this, we ought to
observe, in the first place, what passes in the case of individuals. The
circumstances leading to such mixture may be best observed in the case
of persons who speak more than one language. Bi-lingualism on a large
scale, of course, is best seen where a community resides upon the
confines of two linguistic areas, as on the borders of England and
Wales. It may, again, be due to the sojourn of a person in a foreign
country: it becomes more marked still when persons pass from one country
and settle in another; and still more when large masses of people are
permanently transferred under foreign domination by conquests and by
colonisation, as in the case of the inhabitants of British India or the
French population of Lower Canada.
The knowledge of a foreign tongue may also be imparted by writing, as
when we learn classical Latin and Greek; but in this case, the
influence exerted by the foreign tongue is felt only by the better
educated classes of society.
In all cases where nations have been brought into contact, and have been
mixed on a large scale, bilingualism is common. It is natural to expect
that, of the two languages employed, that of the more prominent nation
will gain a preponderance over the other, whether its prominence be due
to its power, or industrial or intellectual capacity. There will be a
change, in fact, from bilingualism to unilingualism; and the process
will leave traces more or less marked on the superior language.
An instance of this process on a large scale was afforded by the Roman
Conquest of Gaul, the consequence of which was a struggle between the
tongue of the Latin conquerors and that of the Celtic conquered race.
The result was that the Latin ousted the Celtic, but not without leaving
traces of the Celtic idiom in certain words, in the pronunciation, and
the construction of the language.
But it will be found that the mixture will not easily affect single
individuals, so as to transform their diction into a language made up of
elements equally, or nearly equally, taken from either of the two
conflicting languages. Even assuming that a person is perfectly master
of both languages, and that he may pass from one to another with perfect
ease, he will yet adhere to one language for the expression of a clause
or a sentence. Each tongue may, however, exercise a modifying influence
upon the other in the way of affecting its idioms, its accent, its
intonations, etc. It may happen that the influence of one tongue may be
predominant in particular areas of language, as we see that the English
is in Lower Canada in matters of commerce. This leads to such
expressions as _jobbeur_, _cheurtine_ (shirting), _sligne_ (sling),
_charger le jury_, _forger_, _cuisiner les comptes_, etc.: see American
Journal of Philology, vol. x., 2.[213] Of course, where one of two or
more languages has been learnt as the mother tongue, this will always
have more influence over foreign languages, however perfectly acquired,
than the latter will have over the mother tongue; but we must not
under-rate the influence which a foreign language may have upon the
mother tongue, especially when it is looked upon as fashionable, or as
the key to an important literature. The influence of the foreign tongue
may obviously spread to persons who are wholly unacquainted with it, by
the contact of these with persons who have adopted or assimilated the
foreign elements.
The two principal ways in which a foreign idiom may influence the mother
tongue are these. In the first place, foreign words may be adopted into
the mother tongue and retained, commonly speaking, in a more or less
altered form. The English language has borrowed words of this kind from
numerous languages. Thus, from Dutch, we get the word _sloop_ (_sloep_,
itself a loan-word from Fr. _shaloupe_; whence we, again, have borrowed
_shallop_), yacht: _yam_, from some African language, through the
Portuguese: from Spanish---_flotilla_, _cigar_ (Sp. _cigarro_),
_mosquito_: from Italian--_domino_, _casino_, _opera_, _stucco_: from
Persian--_chess_ (Persian _sháh_, a king, through O.Fr. _eschac_),
_orange_, _shawl_, _rice_, _sugar_. India gives us _sepoy_; Germany,
_meerschaum_; Russia, _a steppe_; China, _tea_; etc.[214]
In the second place, the method of connecting and arranging the
sentences, and the idioms used by the mother tongue may be taken from
the foreign language, and this, even though the material of the language
be maintained intact.
The chief cause for the adoption of foreign words into the mother tongue
is, of course, the need felt for them in the mother tongue. Words are
constantly adopted for ideas which have as yet no words to express them.
The names of places and persons are the most common among such adopted
words, to which may, of course, be added the names of foreign products,
such as _tea_, _sago_, _chocolate_. The names of such products may be
taken from the language of communities in a very low state of
civilisation. On the other hand, when a language finds it necessary to
introduce technical, scientific, religious, or political terms, it is
fair to suppose that the language which lends the words must be that of
a nation in a higher state of culture than the language of the nation
which borrows them. There are many words relating to social subjects
imported into English from French which may serve to give a good idea of
the weak point of the nation which borrows, and of the strong point of
the nation which supplies them. Such are numerous works having reference
to ease in conversation, such as _bon-mot_, _esprit_, ‘wit;’ _verve_,
‘liveliness; ‘_élan_,’ spring;’ etc.; and it will be correspondingly
found that the language whence such supplies are drawn is very rich in
the qualities for which it possesses such abundance of names.
But languages may be tempted to borrow beyond their actual needs when
the foreign language and culture is higher prized than the native, and
when, accordingly, the usage of such words is considered fashionable or
tasteful. Instances in point are the numerous Greek words introduced
into classical Latin, such as _techinæ_ (Plautus, Most., II. i. 23),
and the numerous French words borrowed by German and English, such as
_étiquette_, _chaperon_, _à outrance_.
If a speaker has an imperfect mastery of a foreign tongue, he will be
apt to employ, when endeavouring to speak it, numerous loan-words from
his mother tongue. He will, in fact, insert into the foreign tongue any
number of words which may serve the purpose of expressing the idea which
he feels necessary. Such loan-words, of course, take time before they
become usual. They cannot become usual unless they are often repeated,
and, as a rule, unless they proceed spontaneously from several
individuals as the expression of a general need. Even then they may only
become current in particular circles: as when, for instance, such
technical terms as those applicable to music are borrowed. Such words,
when fairly accepted by the language, are treated like other words in
the language, and are regarded by the speakers of it as native, and
inflected as such. Foreign words, when borrowed, are commonly treated
thus. There are no two languages in which the two stocks of sounds are
precisely identical. Consequently, the speaker will, as a rule, replace
the foreign sounds by those which he conceives most nearly to represent
them in his own language; and, in cases where the foreign language
possesses sounds not known in his own, he will fail to pronounce these
correctly, at least till after much practice. It is well known how very
seldom any one masters a foreign tongue so as to speak it without some
incorrect accent. Thus it happens that in the cases where a conquering
language spreads over a nation speaking a different language, the
original language of the conquered people must leave some traces in the
production of sounds, and changes will occur in other ways as in
accentuation, etc. Numerous instances might be cited of where such
invasion of a conquering tongue has occurred on a large scale, as in the
case of the Moorish invasion of Spain, the Latin invasion of Gaul, the
Norman-French invasion of Saxon England.
In cases where one people merely comes into contact with another in the
course of travel or of literary intercourse, the number of those who
acquire the language of the foreign people will be necessarily small.
The word will, therefore, from the outset, be pronounced imperfectly;
the persons who first introduced the word or those who immediately
accepted it will insert sounds with which they are familiar among the
foreign ones. It thus happens that when a foreign word has once made its
way into a language, it commonly exchanges its proper sounds for those
native to the language which borrows it. Even those who know the foreign
language most perfectly, and are aware of the proper pronunciation of
the loan-word, have to conform to the pronunciation of the majority, at
the risk of passing for affected or pedantic. For instance, in English,
in spite of all the numerous loan-words which occur in the written
language, very few new sounds have been introduced, such as the nasal
_m_ in _employé_; and even these sounds are dispensed with among the
uneducated, and imperfectly reproduced by many of the better educated.
One common result of the adoption of a foreign word into another
language is that popular etymology begins to operate, causing the word
to appear less strange to those who have borrowed it, as in the familiar
instance _rose des quatre saisons_, ‘rose of the four seasons,’
transformed by English gardeners into _quarter sessions rose_.[215]
The changes which naturally affect foreign words upon their reception
into the language, must of course be kept distinct from those which
affect them after they have become an integral part of the language,
when they change according to the laws of sound-change of the language
into which they are adopted. In fact, it is often possible to tell the
epoch at which a word has passed from one language into another, by
noting whether it has or has not participated in certain laws of
sound-change. Thus, where in Old High German the Latin _t_ is
represented sometimes by _t_, and sometimes by _z_ (as _tempal_ =
_templum_), ‘temple’ as against _ziagil_ (= _tegula_ = ‘till’), the form
with _z_ represents an older stage of borrowing than the form in _t_;
and, again, words in which the Old High German represents the Latin _p_
by _ph_ or _f_, must be held to represent an older stage of borrowing
than those in which it is found as _p_ or _b_: cf. _pfeffer_, ‘pepper;’
_Pfingsten_, ‘Pentecoste,’ as against _pîna_, (Lat. ‘pæna’): _priester_
(Gk. ‘presbuteros’).
Similarly, such a word as _chamber_, or _chant_, must plainly have been
borrowed before the period of sound-change when the sound of _ch_
regularly took the place of the Latin _c_; and this we know to have been
the history of the _c_ sound in the dialect of the Ile de France, whence
those and other similar forms come to us.
But foreign words are exposed, after their adoption, to the same
assimilating forces as when they are first adopted: and one of the
transforming forces which should be mentioned is the transference of the
native system of accentuation to foreign words. In English, a study of
Chaucer or Langland will show us how French words originally adopted and
pronounced according to the French method of accentuation, by degrees,
and not till after a period of vacillation, passed over to the system
common in Teutonic languages: thus Chaucer has _lánguage_ and _langáge_;
_fórtune_ and _fortúne_; _báttaile_ and _battáile_; _láboure_ and
_labóur_: thus Pope accentuates _gallánt_. Of course, words may be so
far phonetically modified as to become unrecognisable even by persons
who know the language whence they are borrowed. Who, for instance, would
recognise in the word _pastans_[216] the French _passé-temps_, our
_pastime_; or in the common Scotch word _ashet_, the French _assiette_.
Thus, in the same author, Gavin Douglas, we find _veilys_ (calves),
representing the old French word, _véel_ (vitellus). The strangeness may
be increased still more by changes which have occurred in the language
from which the word is borrowed. Thus our word _veal_ represents an
older form of the French language than _veau_; and the German
pronunciation of many French words is that of an older period of French
pronunciation; as _París_, _concért_, _offizíer_. German words adopted
by Romance languages have been even more violently transformed: who, in
the French words _tape_, _taper_, would recognise the German _zapfen_;
in the Italian _toppo_, the German _zopf_; in the French _touaille_, the
South German _zwehle_; in the Italian _drudo_, the German _traut_? In
the same way, the signification of the word in the parent speech may
change; as in the case of the French _emphase_, ‘bombast,’ as against
_emphasis_; _biche_ (‘hind’), etc. Finally, it may disappear in the
parent language and survive as a loan-word in the language which has
borrowed it; as, for instance, the French word _guerre_, ‘war,’ in which
survives the Old High German _werra_, ‘quarrel,’ the same word as our
_war_.
The word may be borrowed several times at different periods. It appears
in different forms, of which the more recent bears the stamp of the
parent language, while the older has been exposed to phonetic changes
which have more or less violently acted upon its form. It will generally
be found that the meaning attaching to the word when it is borrowed a
second time will differ from that which it bears on the first occasion.
These words which are more than once borrowed are commonly called
doublets; they are very numerous both in French and English, and have
been treated of at length by Bréal and Skeat. Instances of such are
_priest_, _presbyter_; _champagne_, _campaign_; _preach_, _predict_;
_prove_, _probe_. Proper names constantly afford instances of repeated
forms of borrowing processes; cf. _Evans_, _Jones_, _Johns_;
_Thomasson_, _Thomson_; _Zachary_, _Zachariah_. It sometimes happens
that a loan-word long since naturalised in a language receives a partial
assimilation to its form in the language whence it originally came; a
good instance of this is seen in such forms as _honor_, _color_, etc.,
which, especially in America, are often so written, instead of _honour_,
_colour_, etc. Sometimes words are adopted into a language from two
kindred languages; the signification will then be similar, and the sound
will differ but little--the sense, as well as the form, contributing to
keep the two words together. German has several of such loan-words
borrowed from the French and Latin; as, _ideal_ and _ideell_; _real_ and
_reell_; which at a former period had an actually identical meaning, but
now are differentiated. In English, _spiritual_ and _spirituel_ differ
like _spiritus_ and _esprit_. Some words, again, are borrowed from a
language in which they already occur as loan-words. Thus the French have
borrowed from English the word _square_, O.Fr. _esquarré_. Thus, again,
Greek words come to us through the medium of the Latin: whence it is
usual to write such forms as _Æschylus_, _Hercules_, instead of
_Aischulos_, _Heracles_. Thus, again, Latin words borrowed from Greek
have come into English through the medium of French--cf. such words as
_music_, _protestant_, _religion_, etc.; and also such proper names as
_Horace_, _Virgil_, _Ovid_, and _Livy_. Persons conversant with the
original naturally refer such words to the language through which they
came; and thus, in adopting Greek words, they employ the Latin accent
and the regular English termination which represents that French
termination whence the English one came. Such words are _alopecy_,
_academy_, etc.
Derivatives formed with unusual suffixes often receive in addition the
regular normal suffix. This is specially the case when a native
synonymous suffix is added to the foreign one: as in Waldensian,
Roumanian, sometimes the native suffix is substituted for the original
suffix of the foreign language; as, _Sultana_, for _Sultaneh_. Words are
borrowed in their entirety; but not suffixes, whether derivative or
inflectional. When, however, a large number of words is borrowed
containing the same suffix, these range themselves into a group, and
fresh formations are formed upon the analogy of these. Thus, in English,
after the analogy of such words as _abbey_, _rectory_, etc., we have
such words formed as _bakery_, _tannery_, _brewery_: and, again, we find
Romance words like French _mouchard_, ‘a spy,’ Italian _falsardo_,
‘impostor,’ with the Teutonic suffix: and very many English words with a
French suffix; as, _oddity_, _eatable_, _drinkable_, _murderous_: and,
again, _poisonous_, as against _vénéneux_ in French. In English, again,
we find such suffixes as _-ist_ in _jurist_ forming fresh additions to
their group by analogy, mostly, however, in educated circles; as,
_Elohist_ and _Jahvist_, though such words spread eventually to the
whole nation, as in the case of _protectionist_. _-Ism_ is another of
these, as in _somnambulism_; and _-ian_, as in _Hartingtonian_.
Inflectional terminations are also thus adopted, but more rarely, and
only between nations that have been in close contact. In German it is
common to use _Christi_ as the genitive of _Christus_, and often the
French plural in _s_ is applied to German words, as in _Frauleins_. In
English, we speak of _phenomena_, etc., and we employ _indices_ in a
mathematical sense. The English genitive ending has found its way into
Indo-Portuguese, as in _Hombres casa_, ‘the man’s house.’ The gypsy
dialects have adopted the inflectional terminations of each country
where they are spoken.
Words are sometimes affected in their meaning by other languages; and
further, the idioms peculiar to one language are affected by those
current in another. This influence is called the influence upon
_linguistic form_. The most common instance of the effect of one
language upon another in this case, is where, when two words partially
coincide in meaning, they are assumed to exactly tally in the whole
extent of their meaning. This is, of course, one of the most common
faults in translation. Thus an English child, learning French, will
often be heard to use expressions like ‘Cela n’est pas le _chemin_,’ for
‘That is not the _way_;’ a German will say ‘_brought_ a leading
article,’ for _wrote_; a Frenchman, ‘Can you _conduct_?’ for ‘Can you
_drive_?’ Sir Charles Dilke, in his Problems of Greater Britain,[217]
gives an interesting account of the French Language as spoken by the
French settlers in lower Canada. It appears that the more educated of
these speak a somewhat archaic and very pure French, but that the
peasant or shopkeeper will say _Je n’ai pas de change_, for ‘I have no
change.’ He will describe dry goods on his sign-board as _marchandises
sèches_, and will call out when busy ‘J’ai un _job_ à ramplir.’ In
public meetings we hear of ‘les minutes,’ and the seconder of a
resolution is called officially ‘le secondeur.’ The ‘speaker’ is
_l’orateur_, and ‘Hear! Hear!’ is rendered by _Ecoutez_.
Sometimes a word is coined in one language after the model of one
existing in another language, to supply a want felt by the language
which borrows. This is especially the case with technical terms, as when
accusative, ablative, etc., are introduced into English from the Latin
model; and such words as these are liable to be misunderstood, as they
may only tally with one portion of the meaning of the original word, or,
indeed, in some cases be a mistranslation, as where, _genetivus_, ‘the
begetting case,’ was taken as the Latin equivalent of γενικός, ‘the
general case,’ and _accusativus_, ‘the accusing case,’ of αἰτιατική,
‘the conditional case.’ Another instance is the word _solidarity_, which
we have coined to express the French _solidarité_.
Again: entire groups of words, or idioms, are literally translated from
one language into another. Thus we hear, in the mouths of Irishmen, such
expressions as _I am after going_, this being the literal translation of
the Irish idiom for the rendering of the future tense. Thus the
Austrians say _Es steht nicht dafür_, for ‘it is not worth the trouble,’
because the Bohemians express this phrase by _nestojé za to_. The
following idioms are current in Alsace;[218] it will be seen that they
are literal French renderings of German phrases. _Est-ce que cela vous
goûte?_ ‘Does that please your taste?’ _Il a frappé dix heures_, ‘It has
struck ten;’ _Il brûle chez M. Meyer_, ‘There is a fire at M. Meyer’s;’
_Ce qui est léger, vous l’apprendrez facilement_, ‘That which is easy,
you will learn it easily;’ _Cher ami, ne prends pas pour mauvais_, ‘Dear
friend, do not take it amiss;’ _Pas si beaucoup_, ‘Not so much;’
_Attendez; j’apporterai une citadine_, ‘Wait; I will bring a citadin
(drink).’ On the other hand, the South-West Germans employ phrases after
the French model; as, _Es macht gut wetter_, ‘It is fine weather.’
Finally; the syntax of one language may exercise an influence over that
of another language. An instance of this has been already given. The
form of the French language, which is a Romance language grafted on to a
Celtic stock, has been much influenced by Celtic syntax (cf. the mode of
expressing numerals, _soixante-dix_ = 60 + 10, parallel to Celtic 3
_scores_ + 10; _quatre-vingts_ = 4 × 20 = Celtic 4 _scores_, etc.).
Again: as the Slavonic languages can employ one form for all genders and
numbers of the relative, we find in Slavo-German the word _was_ (what)
correspondingly employed; cf. _ein mann, was hat geheissen Jacob: der
knecht, was ich mit ihm gefahren bin_.
Of course authors may consciously imitate a foreign idiom with the view
of producing a particular effect, as when Milton wrote ‘and knew not
eating death;’ ‘Fairest of all her daughters Eve.’
In the case of dialects, almost the same remarks hold good as in the
case of different languages. Word-borrowing is the most common process.
Such words are most readily borrowed as are needed by the borrowing
dialect for its own purposes; such as the Scotch words _dour_, _douce_,
_feckless_, etc. Sounds, on the other hand, are not easily influenced by
kindred dialects. The nearest native sounds are commonly substituted for
those of the alien dialect. Of course the case may occur where two
dialects have, in the course of their development, so far parted that
words etymologically connected have lost all connection in sound. In
this case, the sound of the alien dialect will as a rule be maintained.
An instance of this is the Scotch _unco’_ in the phrase _unco’ guid_,
which is really the same as _uncouth_; but the accent has shifted, and
this tends to disguise the origin of the word.