LANGUAGE 185 



it would be just as if we were to say that the have never hesitated to put ourselves under 

 English language is a conglomerate of Latin words obligation to all strangers coming to our shores, 

 bound together in a Saxon cement; the frag- or whose shores we have visited. The history 



ments of the Latin being partly portions intro- 

 duced directly from the parent quarry, with all 

 their sharp edges, and partly pebbles of the same 

 material, obscured and shaped by long rolling 



of the English language is, in fact, but the his- 

 tory of the English people, and of their doings. 

 The early British language was under debt 

 to the Kelts, first of all ; and we find in our pres- 



A I 11 1 1 . T * 1 



in a Norman or some other channel." Whewell. 1 ent-day vocabulary such words as apply to Keltic 

 The English language is a conglomerate, j things, as, bard, shamrock, whiskey, clan, dirk. 

 Whenever there is an invention made or a I cromlech, kilt, etc. The Anglo-Saxons, while 



psychological truth discovered, or a new article 

 of commerce i- introduced, or contact or inter- 

 course with a new nation or people is estab- 

 lished, a new word or set of words is added to 



they ea 

 as did t 



eagerly discarded words of Celtic origin, 

 I the French later, enriched their language 

 from the Latin. The Roman occupation of 

 Britain from A. D. 43 to A. D. 418, bequeathed 



our vocabulary. Every new game or fashion | to us five or six terms: castra, a camp, has been 

 creates new names. Our complex civilization j retained in Dpncaster, Lancaster, Gloucester, 

 i- reflected in a complex vocabulary or Ian- ! Winchester, Bibchester, Exeter, formerly Ex- 

 guage. It is important that we should familiarize j cestre; strata, a paved road, in street, Park 

 ourselves with the sources of our language, and | street, Stratford, Stretford, Streatham, Strad- 

 with the sources of its strength, and each do! broke; colona, a colony, in Lincoln; portus, a 

 hi- share towards preserving it in its purity harbor, hi Portsmouth, Porchester. Portsea; 

 and beauty. W T e should have an intelligent : pons, a bridge, in Pontefract; fossa, a bridge, 

 intere-t in'our mother tongue in order that we in Fossway, Fossbridge; vallum, a rampart, 



may use it intelligently. We must spend a 

 lit tie time in the study of the past of our lan- 

 guage, because it is only in the light of that past 



in Wallbury. 



The conversion of the British to Christianity 

 is marked by another influx of Latin words or 



that the present is intelligible. Few of us are I terms relating to the Church : abstinence, avarice 

 cious of the changes taking place now, yet ' bounty, cardinal virtues, conscience, charity, 



changes must be taking place, for ours is chastity, confession, consistory, contemplation, 



the same language used by Chaucer, yet how contrition, indulgence, recreant, relic, reverence, 



different. New words are coming in, and old sanctity, spiritual, unity, etc. Then the Danes 



ones becoming obsolete every year. lent a hand, giving us: to plough, to ask, cross. 



Slang is responsible for the introduction of Nor is it without a strange irony that the 

 many new words. W r hen we first hear a slang lawless Vikings gave us our word "law." The 

 phrase, we are surprised; but in this day of great early supremacy of the Dutch in agriculture, 



surprises, we quickly grow accustomed to it, in horticulture, and in ship building is made 



and soon adopt it as an integral part of our evident by the fact that a large proportion of 



language. We use it as though it were not a the English words, dealing with the farm, the 

 thing of yesterday, but had existed as long as garden, and the ship are of Dutch origin, and 



the language itself. Later, we shall examine were borrowed from the brave little republic 



some of these, and see which have been incor- when the English went to school to the II 1- 



porated into the language, and so have a right lander, to learn what he had to teach. A few 



to be used in polite society and in serious com- of the words they give us are: ahoy, aloof, bal- 



ion. last, bluff, blunderbuss, boom, house, brack. 



Trench says that if the English language were brackish, brandy, bruin, dot, duck, golf, growl, 



to be divided into a hundred parts, "forty-five hoarding, hope, knapsack, landscape, leaguer, 



ot these might be Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, loiter, manikin, mea-le-. mope, mumps, pink. 



>me prefer to call them; forty-five sheer, slim, sloop, swab, switch, uproar, wagon, 



Latin (including, of course, the Latin which has yacht, dock, hull, skipper, fly boat. 



come to us through the French i; five perhaps During the First Century that followed the 



would be Greek. We should, in this way. have Conquest in 1066, the language of the native 



allotted ninety-five parts, leaving the other five population was. as they were themselves, utterly 



to be divided among all the other languages, crushed and trodden under foot. The Con., 



which have made tneir smaller contributions revolutionized our language as it did our life, 



to the vocabulary of our English tongue." It A foreign dynasty, speaking a foreign tongue. 



will be interesting to find what classes of words and supported by an army of foreigners, was on 



come from the different sources. the throne of England; Norman ecclesiastics 



The Anglo-Saxon is the basis of the English filled nil the high places,,! the Church, and places 



;aire; it i- the warp \shile the Latin is the of honor ami emolument. This meant that 



\\oot. The monosy|l;,blrs in nre:it part are French became the language of the 



Anglo-Saxon* The article-, conjunction-. pn> -..nety. and even of the many Norman families, 



nouns, prepositions, numeral-, and auxilliary who employee! the Saxons as servants. Hut 



verbs are Saxon. Verbs of action and word's the masses of England still spoke their native 

 that relate to the primary action of the senses ! tongue. 



are Saxon; a*, think, feel, sing, see, talk, walk The better or richer families of the Anglo- 

 run, and the like. i Saxons began to adopt the French faahkxii and 



Kver since the English language began we manners, and to speak the | r.-n.-h language, 



have been fillibusters; we have plundered every as a mark of gentility The many clmrcfiei 



other tongue for words to make our meaning and ca-tle-. which tin- Normans built in different 



plain; we have raided where we would, and parts of England, meant that the French would 



