DEPARTMENT V HISTORY OF LANGUAGE 



(Hall 4, September 20, 2 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR GEORGE HEMPL, University of Michigan. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR T. R. LOUNSBURY, Yale University. 



PRESIDENT BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, University of California. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS OF 

 THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE 



BY THOMAS RAYNESFORD LOUNSBURY 



Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, Professor of English, Yale University, b. Jan- 

 uary 1, 1838, Ovid, New York. A.B. Yale College, 1859; LL.D. ibid. 1892; 

 ibid. Harvard College, 1893; L.H.D. Lafayette, 1895; ibid. Princeton, 1896. 

 Instructor in English, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, 1870-;71. 

 Edited complete edition of Charles Dudley Warner's Works, with biographical 

 sketch. Author of Life of James Fenimore Cooper; Studies in Chaucer; History 

 of the English Language; Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Shakespeare and 

 Voltaire; Standard of Pronunciation in English.] 



IT is only within comparatively recent times that the principles 

 which underlie the development of language have been clearly under- 

 stood. By those who went before us speech was usually regarded, 

 not as an emanation from us, not as an expression of us, but as some- 

 thing outside of us, a sort of mechanism with which we had to do; 

 which was sometimes good, sometimes bad, but having largely an 

 independent life of its own. Hence it could improve or degenerate 

 without much regard to the character or attainments of those who 

 spoke it. All that it behoved these to do was to improve it, and so far 

 as that could be done, perfect it. When that happy result was 

 reached care was to be taken that no further changes were to be made 

 in it; but preserved as much as possible unimpaired, be transmitted 

 to posterity, and so continue the length of years it was permitted to 

 live. 



For along with this belief existed another. Every language, it was 

 supposed, went through the same sort of experience as the individ- 

 uals to whom it was a possession. It had its period of birth, of growth, 

 and of maturity. Then followed the inevitable decay. This could be 

 retarded, but it could not be averted. The generally accepted view 

 was expressed by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary. 

 "Life," he said, "may be lengthened by care, though death cannot 

 be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural 



