In his brief critical biography of Rutebeuf, M. Clédat pointed out that
for long years the only important literature in Europe was the French,
and that the French language had on three several occasions almost
established itself as the language of European civilization--once in the
thirteenth century, again in the seventeenth, and finally when Napoleon
had made himself temporarily master of the Continent. The earlier
universities of Europe were modelled on that of Paris, where Dante had
gone to study. Frederick the Great despised his native tongue, spoke it
imperfectly, and wrote his unnecessary verses in French. Even now French
is only at last losing its status as the accredited tongue of diplomacy.
The French made their language in their own image; and it is therefore
logical, orderly, and clear. Sainte-Beuve declared that a 'philosophical
thought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all its
illumination until it is expressed in French'. As the French are noted
rather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are the
acknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is more
disputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their language
exhibits the varied refinements of a cultivated society where
conversation is held in honour as one of the arts. The English speech,
like the English-speaking peoples, is bolder, more energetic, more
suggestive, and perhaps less precise. From no language could English
borrow with more profit to itself than from French; and from no language
has it borrowed more abundantly and more persistently. Many of the
English words which we can trace to Latin and through Latin to Greek,
came to us, not direct from Rome and Athens, but indirectly from Paris.
And native French words attain international acceptance almost as easily
as do scientific compounds from Greek and Latin. _Phonograph_ and
_telephone_ were not more swiftly taken up than _chassis_ and _garage_.
But _chassis_ and _garage_ still retain their French pronunciation, or
perhaps it would be better to say they still receive a pronunciation
which is as close an approximation to that of the French as our
unpractised tongues can compass. And in thus taking over these French
words while striving to preserve their Frenchiness, we are neglectful
of our duty, we are imperilling the purity of our own language, and we
are deserting the wholesome tradition of English--the tradition which
empowered us to take at our convenience but to refashion what we had
taken to suit our own linguistic habits.
'Speaking in general terms,' Mr. Pearsall Smith writes, in his outline
history of the English language, 'we may say that down to about 1650 the
French words that were borrowed were thoroughly naturalized in English,
and were made sooner or later to conform to the rules of English
pronunciation and accent; while in the later borrowings (unless they
have become very popular) an attempt is made to pronounce them in the
French fashion.' From Mr. Smith's pages it would be easy to select
examples of the complete assimilation which was attained centuries ago.
_Caitiff, canker_, and _carrion_ came to us from the Norman dialect of
French; and from their present appearance no one but a linguistic expert
would suspect their exotic ancestry, _Jury, larceny, lease, embezzle,
distress,_ and _improve_ have descended from the jargon of the lawyers
who went on thinking in French after they were supposed to be speaking
and writing in English. Of equal historical significance are the two
series of words which English acquired from the military vocabulary
of the French,--the first containing _company, regiment, battalion,
brigade, division_, and _army_; and the second consisting of _marshal,
general, colonel, major, captain, lieutenant, sergeant_, and _corporal_.
(Here I claim the privilege of a parenthesis to remark that in Great
Britain _lieutenant_ is generally pronounced _leftenant_, than which no
anglicization could be more complete, whereas in the United States this
officer is called the _lootenant_, which the privates of the American
Expeditionary Force in France habitually shortened to '_loot_'--except,
of course, when they were actually addressing this superior. It may be
useful to note, moreover, that while 'colonel' has chosen the spelling
of one French form, it has acquired the pronunciation of another.)
Dr. Henry Bradley in the _Making of English_ provides further evidence
of the aforetime primacy of the French in the military art. '_War_
itself is a Norman-French word, and among the other French words
belonging to the same department which became English before the end of
the thirteenth century' are _armour, assault, banner, battle, fortress,
lance, siege, standard_, and _tower_--all of them made citizens of our
vocabulary, after having renounced their allegiance to their native
land. Another quotation from Dr. Bradley imposes itself. He tells us
that the English writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries felt
themselves at liberty to introduce a French word whenever they pleased.
'The innumerable words brought into the language in this way are
naturally of the most varied character with regard to meaning. Many of
them, which supplied no permanent need of the language, have long been
obsolete.'
This second sentence may well give us heart of hope considering the
horde of French terms which invaded our tongue in the long years of the
Great War. If _camion_ and _avion, vrille_ and _escadrille_ supply no
permanent need of the language they may soon become obsolete, just as
_mitrailleuse_ and _franc-tireur_ slipped out of sight soon after the
end of the Franco-Prussian war of fifty years ago. A French modification
of the American 'gatling' was by them called a _mitrailleuse_;
and nowadays we have settled down to the use of _machine-gun_.
A _franc-tireur_ was an irregular volunteer often incompletely
uniformed; and when he was captured the Prussians shot him as a
guerrilla. It will be a welcome relief if _camouflage_, as popular five
years ago as _fin-de-siècle_ twenty-five years ago, shall follow that
now unfashionable vocable into what an American president once described
as 'innocuous desuetude'. Perhaps we may liken _mitrailleuse_ and
_franc-tireur, vrille_ and _escadrille, brisance_ and _rafale_, to the
foreign labourers who cross the frontier to aid in the harvest and who
return to their own country when the demand for their service is over.