Linguistic purism

“ It is further conceivable that a particular linguistic potentiality should be inherited and become as good a race mark as any other. As a matter of fact, it is not proven that the linguistic potentialities of all men are the same. ”

“ I shall not here inquire whether this condition of English is an evil. There are many cases where a complex and cunningly-devised machine, dexterously guided, can do that which the congenital hand fails to accomplish; but the computing, of our losses and gains, the striking of our linguistic balance, belongs elsewhere. Suffice it to say, that English is not a language which teaches itself by mere unreflecting usage. ”

“ A new language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue of learning a totally new grammar and vocabulary. ”

“ To make out a satisfactory scheme of arrangement for all human tongues upon the ground of their comparative value, accordingly, will be a task of extreme difficulty, and one of the last results reached by linguistic science. It will require a degree of penetration into the inmost secrets of structure and usage, an acuteness of perception and freedom from prejudice in estimating merits of diverse character, and a breadth and reach of learning, which will be found attainable only by a few master-minds. ”

“ In short, though we can only prove it with regard to a minority of the multitudinous languages spoken on the globe, this minority embraces all the languages known to us for so long a period that we can talk of their history, and we may, therefore, confidently maintain that what may be briefly termed the tendency towards grammatical simplification is a universal fact of linguistic history. ”

“ Beyond all question, it is this coincidence of method which has confused some of the votaries of linguistic science, and blinded their eyes to the true nature of the ultimate facts upon which their study is founded, leading them to deny the agency of man in the production and change of language, and to pronounce it an organic growth, governed by organic forces. ”

“ If we meet in different tongues with words which are clearly the same word, notwithstanding differences of form and meaning which they may exhibit, we cannot help concluding that they are common representatives of a single original, once formed and adopted by a single community, and that from this they have come down by the ordinary and still subsisting processes of linguistic tradition, which always and everywhere involve liability to alteration in outer shape and inner content. ”

“ All cloudy meanings, most of the tautological forms, all trivial, mean, low, and contemptible words should be cut out and forgotten. This can not be done without knowledge; linguistic discipline is essential. Keenness of perception, sensitiveness to good and evil words and forms of speech are necessary to those who would conserve the best elements of their tongue whilst eliminating the unworthy elements. ”

“ Too often the idea of the purity of a tongue is purely a matter of prejudice. A foreign word that is needed—one that is fit—one that adds to the powers, the subtleties of expression, to the readiness of understanding, to the utility, or to the beauty of a language, should be introduced into that language without affectation or reserve.
One disadvantage of adopting foreign words is owing to the absence of the time-factor. Words of the best kind are old enough to have acquired associations in the thought of the folk using them. ”

“ An author’s diction is pure when he uses such words only as belong to the idiom of the language. The only standard of purity is the practice of the best writers and speakers. A violation of purity is called a barbarism.
Unlike the Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, the English is a living language, and, like all living organisms, manifests its life by taking in new material and casting off old waste continually. Science, art, and philosophy give rise to new ideas which, in turn, demand new words for their expression. ”

“ His linguistic philosophy also, his view of words as inventions, of each language as an aggregation of these inventions, a national institution, and of the science of language as a branch of human history, made it a matter of course that he should regard language as a field for improvements, like other inventions and institutions. ”

“ Scientific methods applied to linguistic research have separated the abstract entities from the concrete: the soul of a word no longer is confused with its form in sound or with its graphic sign; the spirit of a tongue is not confounded with its sustentacular principles. Many difficulties have been cleared away, which formerly obscured the unities of the concrete and the abstract phenomena of linguistics. Modern methods have enabled some of the more intelligent of our specialists to discuss, with a semblance of reason, such things as values, realities, entities, and identities. ”

“ In the 19th century, again, especially about the middle of it, we anew meet with conscious and energetic efforts after purism both in the formation of new words and in the adoption of words from the old language (id, diligence, mäla, to speak, fylking, battle-array, &c.) , and from the dialects (bliga, to gaze, flis, flake, skrabbig, bad, &c. ) . Consequently, the present vocabulary differs to a very great extent from that of the literature of the 17th century. ”

“ Surely, to render a work from a dead tongue into a living language and specially such a language as English with all its resources, is literally taking it from its narrow and circumscribed sphere of influence, and placing it before the world at large—in fact, making it the common property and heritage of all mankind. ”

“ The intermingling of different peoples, more general to be sure in our own day than in past ages, has nevertheless been sufficiently great in every age to make the tracing of linguistic forms a task of great difficulty. In special cases where both the civilization and language of one people have become lost in that of another the test must of course fail utterly. With all these restrictions however the adoption of the linguistic method by modern criticism has been practically universal. Its defence, if it requires any, is apparent. ”

“ Time, however, has demonstrated fully that the fears of those purists were unwarranted and that their dire predictions as to the future of English were founded on a very imperfect knowledge of linguistic development. A cursory examination of Beattie’s lists reveals the fact that of the verbal innovations and offending phrases which he put under the ban, the genius of the language has adopted not a few, and that, too, without impairing in the least the purity of the English tongue or its capacity for expressing the finest shades of thought. ”

“ Surely the mental habit of people who express their thoughts in so very different a manner, the one rapid, the other slow, the one plain, the other embarrassed, the one trailing, the other striding, cannot be essentially the same. The English language, strange compound as it is, with its want of inflections, and with all the difficulties which this want of inflections brings upon it, has yet made itself capable of being, in good hands, a business-instrument as ready, direct, and clear, as French or Latin. ”

“ Thus, while language in general may be classed as a natural phenomenon, a particular tongue must be regarded as an acquired means to an end—an artifice of conventionality—one, therefore which is subordinate to the purposes of society—one that is superior but helpful to the individual ”

“ Such is the life of language in a state of nature; and in a similar manner, we have a right to conclude, languages grew up which we only know after the bit and bridle of literature were thrown over their necks. It need not be a written or classical literature to give an ascendency to one out of many dialects, and to impart to its peculiarities an undisputed legitimacy. ”

“ What may now sound to us like a perverted sense is often historically correct, for whereas learned influences, the introduction of foreign words—which makes for further specialization and differentiation of meaning—and the general march of civilization affecting manners, customs, and habits of thought, all tend to divert the normal course of language, the dialects have meanwhile kept the noiseless tenor of their way unmolested. ”

“ Before we know a new language truly, we have to realize that the words which at first seem equivalent to words in our own language often have a totally different atmosphere, a different rank or dignity from that which they occupy in our own language. It is in learning this difference in the moral connotation of a language and its expression in literature that we reap the real benefit of knowing a foreign tongue. ”

“ The principles of grammar lie at the root of all languages, and preside over their formation. But these principles do their work in the dark. No man's intellect traces their secret operation, while the language is being moulded by their control. Yet the mind of every man, who uses the language with propriety and effect, is imbued with these principles, although he has no knowledge of their existence. ”

“ The first therefore is unrelated to every thing but to the genius of language in general; the second hath an intimate connexion with the fashions, notions, and opinions of that people only, to whom the language is native.
‘Let us consider then the constant way which illiterate men take to acquire the knowledge of a foreign tongue. Do they not make it their principal, and, at first, their only study, to treasure up in their memory the signification of the terms? Hence, when they come to talk or write in the speech thus acquired, their language is found to be full of their own native idioms. ”

“ Tho’ I have affirmed that our language is more perfect now than in any past period—yet there is still much left in it to be corrected.—Indeed there are some defects in all languages, which have crept in by degrees, and are so sanctified by custom, that they can never be corrected. ”

“ Is it possible that, in the mesmeric trance, the mind in some cases rejects as artificial fabric all the educated conventionality of tongues, and resumes unconsciously the original and genuine dialect of the world? ”

“ But the natural condition of language is diversity and change, and it is only under the artificial influences of civilization and culture that a language becomes uniform and stationary. As soon as the coercive hand of civilization is removed it breaks out again into a plentiful crop of dialects. ”

“ It will be readily admitted that the pleasures of reading and conversing, the advantage of accuracy in business, the necessity of clearness and precision in communicating ideas, require us to be able to speak and write our own tongue with ease and correctness. But there are more important reasons, why the language of this country should be reduced to such fixed principles, as may give its pronunciation and construction all the certainty and uniformity which any living tongue is capable of receiving. ”

“ I am aware that all dialectical arguments which have been or may be alleged against the probability of forging a language, would be of no avail against well-proved facts, that languages have been forged, and that works, written in them, exist. ”

“ The principle which ought to govern can be stated simply. English should be at liberty to help itself freely to every foreign word which seems to fill a want in our own language. It ought to take these words on probation, so to speak, keeping those which prove themselves useful, and casting out those which are idle or rebellious. And then those which are retained ought to become completely English, in pronunciation, in accent, in spelling, and in the formation of their plurals. ”

“ The natural application of these principles to the acquisition of our native language offers us an infallible guide and simple processes of marvelous efficacy. By what perversity or blindness are we kept from, the route traced for us by Nature? Why not avail ourselves of those powerful instincts, curiosity and imitation—especial sources of progress in the acquisition of language? Providence has given them to man to accomplish his destiny. It is an aberration of the human mind, it is almost an impiety, to reject them and seek other means for learning a second language. ”

“ The most difficult task now to be performed by the advocates of pure English, is to restrain the influence of men, learned in Greek and Latin, but ignorant of their own tongue; who have laboured to reject much good English, because they have not understood the original construction of the language. ”

“ In general, we may say that for a given conception there are as many spoken representatives as there are languages, or even dialects, in the world; for even in nearly related dialects the pronounced form tongue, and as readily and naturally as they and their kindred. As a human being, he is capable of acquiring any human language; naturally the possessor of none, he may become by education the possessor of one as well as another; toward any given one he stands in a relation not perceptibly different from that of every other human being. ”

“ CORRUPTIONS AND POPULAR ETYMOLOGIES If we are to avoid on the one hand the danger of regarding a dialect as nothing better than a wilful perversion of standard English, we yet must not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the smooth-running course of true sound-laws, or the rural charm of quaint words, into the opposite error of supposing that irregularities and distortions do not exist. ”

“ And if, as I before remarked, we should in vain seek for that common and original language, from which all those now spoken on the face of the earth can be derived, both ethnographically and geologically, may we not still find in art a universal language intelligible to all men? ”