Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/329

Rh country. But the transplanted tongue, having a new and different habitat, began at once to adapt itself, however imperceptibly, to its changed environ and new conditions. Nor was the connection with the parent stock a sufficiently close and vital bond of union to prevent the English speech on American lips from undergoing at least some slight modification in the course of time, as a natural consequence of the altered conditions in the new world.

It is a well-established linguistic principle that a language inevitably undergoes a slight change, determined by the varying conditions, as long as it is spoken. When a tongue ceases to be spoken, then and only then does it cease to change and become a dead language, as, for instance, Latin and Greek. This fact of the gradual change in a living language is demonstrated through the difficulty one experiences in understanding the English of Chaucer, or even of Shakespeare, for the matter of that, although he is not so far removed from the present age. If a living tongue underwent no alteration with the lapse of years, then why should not Anglo-Saxon be as readily intelligible to us as modern English?

Furthermore, a language is affected in its development by contact with a foreign tongue and by outside influences, such as the climate. The first of these reasons is so apparent to all that it hardly deserves comment. But not so the second. Yet the influence of climate on a living language is very fruitful of change. Ready proof of this is furnished in our own country in the soft, musical utterance of the south in contrast with the rather shrill and forceful habits of enunciation characteristic of the north. In Europe, for example, the vast preponderance of the harsh, guttural character of the German tongue offers a glaring contrast to the smooth, liquid notes of the pure Tuscan speech. This is the reason why Italian appeals so strongly to music lovers and to all who have an ear trained to be especially sensitive to sound. Now, this difference between German and Italian, as respects the musical character of the two languages, is doubtless to be explained in large measure as the result of climate conditions extending through many long centuries. If by some violent political upheaval the Italians were transported to the extreme northern part of Europe, it is altogether probable that their speech in the course of centuries would lose much of its native vocalic development, much of its melody, and become harsh and strident, somewhat like the Russian language. It follows, therefore, that the English speech on American soil has undergone some slight modification, in consequence of climatic influence. Perhaps this explains the variation of the American pronunciation of the long o-sound as in 'stone' and 'bone' from the British norm. But the difference in climate between the two countries is not sufficiently marked to produce any very radical departure.