Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/170

148 be understood, and which we might not therefore imitate, if intelligibility were all that we had to consult in our word-making. But we are obliged also to have m view-the prepossessions of the community; and this is not a thing which they are used to and will approve. The whole process of language-making and language-changing, in all its different departments, is composed of single acts, performed by individuals; yet each act is determined, not alone by the needs of the particular case, but also by the general usages of the community as acting in and represented by the individual; so that, in its initiation as well as its acceptance and ratification, it is virtually the act of the community, as truly conventional as if men held a meeting for its discussion and decision.

We have hitherto considered chiefly the effect of circumstances upon the growth of language, its enrichment with the means of designating new conceptions and representing new judgments. We have also briefly to examine their influence upon linguistic decay, upon phonetic change and grammatical corruption. These, as has been already sufficiently pointed out, are the result of the defective tradition of language; by carelessness in the acquisition of words, or by inaccuracy in their reproduction, men change from generation to generation the speech which they transmit. It is evident, then, that everything which assists the accuracy of linguistic tradition tends to preserve the phonetic and grammatical structure of language from alteration. Where speech is most unconsciously employed, with most exclusive attention to the needs and conveniences of the moment, with least regard to its inherited usages, there its changes are rifest. Any introduction of the element of reflection is conservative in its effect. A people that think of their speech, talk about it, observe and deduce its rules and usages, will alter it but slowly. A tendency to do this sometimes forms a part of a nation's peculiar character, being the result of qualities and circumstances which it is well-nigh or quite impossible to trace out and explain; but often it is called forth, or favoured and strengthened, by very obvious conditions; by admiring imitation of the ways and words of