AMERICANISM. 



AMHARIC LANGUAGE. 



part* of America, a* they are still used in various provinces of England ; 

 and new words. 



As to the use of words now obsolete hi England, they are mainly 

 confined to conversation, fur every one is aware that there i* very little 

 in the style of a good American writer, except perhaps a greater degree 

 of ornament, by which we can distinguish it from that of a good 

 R"gt'*' writer. But a* the Americans write a great deal in public 

 journal*, and are the most prolific people hi the world in producing 

 inaugural speeches, oration*, and all the various mode* of addressing 

 an audience, we should look at that part of their language in order to 

 form a complete judgment of ita whole condition, as well a* at those 

 specimens of composition which are of a less showy but more valuable 

 and permanent nature. 



The number of words now used in a different sense from that w In. li 

 they have in England ia but small among writers of good authority ; 

 the li*t of those used in con venation would be somewhat larger. We 

 have heard the word their used aa the paat tense of the verb to thotc ; 

 the form is now obsolete in England, but may be found in our older 

 writers. In some parts (for we are aware that in so extensive a country 

 scarcely any remark of this kind con be general), the word balance in 

 the spoken language U employed to express the remainder, or the rett : 

 thus people speak of the " balance of the professor*," meaning " the 

 rest of the professors." The word mutton is sometime* used, as it once 

 was in England, to signify a sheep. Dr. Webster remarks, that this 

 sense ia obsolete or ludicrous : it is not either obsolete or ludicrous 

 in the spoken language of some districts. The word buy is used (see 

 Webster) in it* original sense of *fy ; and the old verb proyrett, which 

 the Americans use very often, and pronounce proyrtu, is now beginning 

 to be again adopted in it* native country, though we think we could 

 very well do without it In judging how for words used in America in 

 different significations from wliat they have in England have been 

 sanctioned by authority, and established in the written language, we 

 cannot perhaps take a better guide than Dr. Webster's ' Dictionary,' 

 and we shall find the number by no means small Cooper, in his 

 Mohican*,' speaks of a " lake having Jtotctd its usual banks." Webster 

 sanctions this usage under a transitive sense of the word fiatc, which he 

 makes equivalent to orerjloic. (See Webster's ' Dictionary,' under fiow; 

 and the example.) Against this usage we take the liberty of protesting. 

 In the ' National Intelligencer,' March 2, 1826, we find" for providing 

 a jurisdiction convenient to the scene of almost all the shipwrecks ; " 

 this English-provincial and Irish use of am an 'nut in the sense of near 

 i* properly omitted by Webster. The verb rent bos the double mean- 

 ing in Webster of granting on leate, as a proprietor does, and taking on 

 Icate, a* a tenant does. Nullification is not in Webster, but ha* been 

 defended on the ground of analogy, and by a reference to the use of 

 nullify in Flavel. The usage of the word locate is familiar to all who 

 read American papers or public documents : we say " that a man has 

 located (that is, has selected, surveyed, and marked out) a hundred acres 

 in Alabama." The word expect is often used in a strange sense in some 

 part* of America, but certainly nearly altogether in conversation, as 

 in the following instance given by Webster : " I expect it was." The 

 American lexicographer justly condemns this usage, which is of pro- 

 vincial English origin. The word yuea in the sense of beliere is another 

 conversational expression. The word lenythy some critics object to as 

 being of American origin : we rather doubt if it be. Still it is a good 

 word, well made, and weU adapted to express the weorisomenesa of 

 listening to a long speech or discourse of any kind : we presume that 

 in this, a* in some other instance*, the Americans did not call the word 

 into use till they felt the absolute necessity of it. For other American 

 usages which are somewhat peculiar, the reader may refer to the fol- 

 lowing word* in Webster : mtyon (tcayyon) ; stud-kurie ; tuiaerre ; 

 defer (Webster's account of the English use of this word ia incomplete) ; 

 notify ; graduated, Ac. The American uses of creek, girdle, section, ic., 

 may be seen in Webster, firebar, in Webster, for fife-barrel, U a mere 

 vulgarism. Mr. Pickering, in a work published at Boston in 1816, bos 

 traced a great number of words and phrases, which have be. 

 nidered as Americanisms, to the counties of the mother-country. \\\- 

 recollect one word at present, which we can only trace to Holland. In 

 Virginia, va/d-caka are often made ; a similar cake, with the same 

 name, tcafel, U very common in Holland. 



There are some words of which the use is exclusively American, and 

 are little understood in England. We select two of the moat common. 



1. Illinium, the origin of which is thus described : A member of the 

 lower House of Congress, from a district which included the county of 

 Buncombe (in which county he resided), whose style of speaking pro- 

 duced a very common effect of driving the members from the hall, was 

 one day addressing the House, when, as usual, the coughing and 

 sneezing commenced, and the members began to leave. He paused 

 awhile, and assured the House that there need be no uneasiness on 

 their port, and that for himself it mattered not how many left, for he 

 was not speaking to the House, but to Bunkum. It ia now under- 

 stood to mean the constituent body, a* distinguished from Congress. 



2. Cauna is thus explained : On the 2nd of March 1770, a quarrel 

 took place at the premise! of John Gray, a rope-maker, between a 

 soldier and a man in the employ of Gray, and the former was severely 

 beaten. Two affrays in consequence took place, in which the soldiers 

 fired upon the people of the town, lu.*e of whom were killed and five 

 wounded. These occurrence* induced the rope-makera and calkcm, 



whose occupations brought them in contact, to form a society, and at 

 it* mofitingi the most violent resolution* were passed against the British 

 government and it* agents in America. The torie*, in derision, deno- 

 minated th*e assemblies of the members of this society calker 

 meetings; and the word in time became corrupted to CHUCK*, which 

 i* the term still used in Boston to denote a general meeting of a party. 



As to new words, the number used in the written language i* not 

 great. The word bindery, meaning " a place where books are bound," 

 is in Webster. We believe it is a new, but it certainly U not a bad 

 word. In American advertisement* we observe the word book is 

 generally prefixed : thus we might Ray, a bookJtindery. Sparte is. for 

 anything we know, a new word, and well applied ; the American* say a 

 panc instead of a fatleretl population, and we think the term ha* a 

 more precise meaning than scattered, and is the proper correlat 

 dente. The danger of new words is, that the ignorant will w- 

 without knowing their meaning, a* we may observe in some of tl,. 

 inferior American newspaper*. The number of new words that may 

 be gradually creeping into the American spoken language, we nuipect, 

 is not inconsiderable. This arise* hi some measure from intermixture 

 with foreigners, and must produce some effect, though it may not lx> 

 much. We have heard the German word plunder vulgarly applied t 

 baggage or heavy commodities. The term cookie also, used for a specie* 

 of tea-cake, is evidently derived from the German kitchen ; and filibuster 

 U from the French, through the German, embodied entirely from 

 flibuster, a buccaneer or pirate. 



We suspect that many words of a moral import are beginning to vary 

 considerably as to the signification attached to them in England .1110! 

 America. Highminded, a word not much used in Great Britain, 

 implies something elevated or noble in enduring : in the conversation 

 language, at least, of some part* of America, it U applied as a t 

 praise to action often impetuous, and sometime* unjust. Lady .in-i 

 (ienllemau are terms that come under the sunn- j . aa to 



difference of import. 



The orthography of the English language is liable to more eh..: 

 America than in England : the Americans, a* a general rule, 

 observe orthography so strictly as the English, of which any readi r i 

 American papers may convince himself. We refer to American 

 palters, because they ore, more than in England, used as a common 

 medium for addressing the public on all subjects, and form a large part 

 of the reading of the community. 



AMHA'RIC LANGUAGE has ite name from Amh.-ir.i. in Ai>.< 

 where it is or was spoken in its greatest purity. lni'uir dialect* of 

 the Amhoric are spoken in the province* of Gojam, Angot, Ki'at . Shoa . 

 Bageuider, Samen, &c. The Amharic is supposed to be meant by 

 Agatliarchides when he speaks of a language called Honiara. (Hudson, 

 ' Geogr. Min.' t. i. p. 46.) The Amharic began to prevail in Abyssinia 

 over the Geez language when Icon Amlak, about the year 1 300, having 

 overcome the Zsgtean dynasty, ascended the throne of his ancestors, 

 and removed the residence of the royal court from Axuin to Shoa, 

 where he hod lived in exile. A knowledge of the Amharic enables a 

 traveller to make himself understood in nearly every part of Abyssinia, 

 although there are numerous dialects, of which no complete classifica- 

 tion has yet been accomplished ; of these the TignS resembles much 

 more the ancient ecclesiastical Ethiopic or the Gees language, than the 

 Amharic. The Arabian writer, Mukri/.i, counts 50 dialects. It will 1- 

 probably quite as difficult to define the exact number of Ethiopian, OH 

 of Arabic, modern Greek, am) English dialects, or the number of 

 languages in general The king of Abyssinia, his councillors, eccle- 

 siastics, monk*, and every well-educated Abyssinian, know the Geez 

 language, in which documents and letters are usually composed. 

 Therefore the Geez is called letana tnntj/iif, or metshafcna, that in, the 

 language of letters or books. 



The British and Foreign Bible S.> published a ' Psalterium 



l>a\idis Amharice,' London, 1833, large ISmo; and Novuui Testa- 

 mentum in Linguam Amharicam, vert.it Abu Rumi Habessinus, edidit 

 Thomas Pell Platt,' London, 1829, foolscap 4to. The New Tent.-iiii.-ni 

 and the Psalms have been circulated by Mr. Gobat and 

 missionaries in Abyssinia, and have been sometime* transcribed by the 

 natives who could not be provided with printed copies. The French 

 consul at Cairo, Asselin de Cherville, caused Abu Rumi, on old Abys- 

 sinian, who hod been the instructor of Bruce and Sir William 

 to translate the whole Bible into Amharic. This is the translation 

 which U in the possession of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

 The circumstance* under which they obtained it are ill-tailed in their 

 report*, and in the ' Christian Researches in the Mediterranean from 

 1815 to 1820,' by the Rev. W. Jowett, pp. 197213. 



The Amharic ia said to be a degenerated Semitic dialect, the 

 grammatical itructure of which ha* preserved its character, though 

 it* lexicographical contents are mingled with African words. It i. 

 likely that the Amharic and other dialects of the Kthiopie an- derive,! 

 from the old Arabic of the Himyarite* in Yemen. The Amharic adds 

 to the twenty-six characters of the Geec seven others, which ore mere 

 modifications in order to express some characteristic sounds. The 

 vowels are expressed by variations in the shape of the letters, so that 

 each character or letter U in fact a syllable, being a consonant followed 

 by a vowel, thus : U, U, It, Id, IA, It, lo. The Amharic, with other 

 Ethiopic dialects, is written from the loft to the right hand, like tin- 

 European languages. 



