Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/642

 630 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) pied the territory where that stream is found. This is external evidence. Both kinds of evi- dence in this case conduct us toward the con- clusion that the Celts and Saxons contributed materials to the formation of the language. The Celtic Element. In the English vocabu- lary are found basket, from the Celtic basged; mattock, from matog ; pail, from paeol ; and other words of like derivation. Moreover, a large part of the names of the mountains, lakes, and rivers in the British isles are sig- nificant only in some Celtic dialect. The Celts emigrated westward from central Asia in the early ages. They were probably pressed on- ward by other tribes, until they reached the seaboard and passed over the English channel into Great Britain. Their descendants are still found in Wales and in Cornwall, as well as in Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, in the isle of Man, and in Brittany. The English lan- guage has few Celtic words, and no Celtic con- structions. The Latin Element. In the Eng- lish vocabulary are found street, from the Latin stratum ; master, from magister; state, from status; April, from Aprilis ; and many other words of like derivation. The Romans under Julius Caesar invaded England, 55 B. C., and afterward under Agricola completed its conquest. The forms caster, cester, and ches- ter, which appear so frequently in the names of places, as Lancaster, Worcester, and Win- chester, are merely the Latin castra, camp, and show that the Romans held military possession of the whole country, establishing their forti- fied camps in the most favorable positions, around which in time grew up towns and cities. Roman law and magistracies were everywhere established, and the Christian re- ligion was introduced by those who spoke the Latin language. But for the most part the Latin words in the language were not intro- duced during the 400 years that the Romans had possession of Britain, but afterward, while the Anglo-Saxons bore sway, or later still. A large number of Latin words were introduced by monks and learned men, relating to theolo- gy and science. Words of Latin origin consti- tute a very important part of the language, whether introduced directly or through the Norman French. The following is the devel- opment of the Latin portion of the language : 1, stem verbs, or roots, as bib, carp, cede, urge; 2, stem adjectives, as bland, brute, brev (short) ; 3, stem substantives, as arc, barb ; 4, primary derivatives, as final, factor ; 5, secondary de- rivatives, as valuable, moderate ; 6, derivative words with prefixes, as abode, allude ; 7, com- pound words, such as leopard. The Anglo- Saxon Element. Whether we take into view the number or the sorts of words, the Anglo- Saxon is less an element than the mother tongue of the English. In the English lan- guage there are about 38,000 distinct words, of which some 23,000 in common use are from this source. The names of the greater part of the objects of nature, as sun, moon, day ; all those words which express bodily action, as to stand, to stagger ; all those words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest con- nections, as father, mother, brother, sister, are Anglo-Saxon. Most of those objects about which the practical reason is employed in common life, nearly all English pronouns, a large proportion of the language of invec- tive, humor, satire, and colloquial pleasantry, are Anglo-Saxon. English grammar is occupied almost exclusively with what is of Anglo- Saxon origin. The English genitive, the gen- eral mode of forming the plural of nouns, and the terminations by which we express the com- parative and the superlative of adjectives (er and est), the inflections of the pronouns and verbs, and the most frequent termination of adverbs (ly), are all Anglo-Saxon ; so are the auxiliary verbs. In fact, the Anglo-Saxon im- parted so much of itself to the language, that the proximate origin of our tongue is to be sought in Germany, and its remote origin in central Asia, where was spoken the primitive tongue which may be regarded as the parent of the affiliated Indo-European languages, spo- ken by the successive tribes which migrated westward into Europe. The natural develop- ment of the Anglo-Saxon portion of our lan- guage has .been nearly as follows : 1, instinctive forms and pronominal elements, as ah, oh; 2, stem words or roots, as bend, swim ; 3, stem nouns, as blank, band; 4, reduplicate forms, as chit-chat, sing-song ; 5, primary derivatives, as chatter, toilsome; 6, secondary derivatives, as carefully, tiresomeness; 7, words with prefixes, as arise, forbid ; 8, compound words, as earth- quake, pick-purse ; 9, disguised compounds and derivatives, as daisy, not. The .Danish Element. Many hundred words, especially names of places, are Danish, introduced during the incursions and occupation of England by the Danes. A portion of these words are pro- vincial, being confined to the northern and northeastern counties of England, the regions most exposed to Danish visitation. The Anglo- Norman Element. An etymological analysis of the language shows that the Anglo-Norman element enters very largely into its composi- tion. This element, which is composed of the Celtic, the Latin, and the Scandinavian, was first introduced (1066) by the Normans, under William the Conqueror. Norman French was spoken by the superior classes in England from the conquest to the time of Edward III. (1327). The laws and the proceedings in parliament and in courts of justice were in that language. In the 13th century, during the progressive mixture of the two races, a literature sprang up in which the two languages were more or less blended. In the 14th century the Anglo- Saxon element seemed to have gained the upper hand. In the 15th the Anglo-Norman seemed to be gaining the preponderance ; but the proportions still continued to vary until it became fixed in the age of Elizabeth. Words were generally adopted into the common Ian-