Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/1059



APPENDIX II.

TO PART SECOND, OR ETYMOLOGY.

OF THE DERIVATION OF WORDS.

Derivation, as a topic to be treated by the grammarian, is a species of Etymology, which explains the various methods by which those derivative words which are not formed by mere grammatical inflections, are deduced from their primitives. Most of those words which are regarded as primitives in English, may be traced to ulterior sources, and many of them are found to be compounds or derivatives in the other languages from which they have come to us. To show the composition, origin, and literal sense of these, is also a part, and a highly useful part, of this general inquiry, or theme of instruction.

This species of information, though insignificant in those whose studies reach to nothing better,--to nothing valuable and available in life,--is nevertheless essential to education and to science; because it is essential to a right understanding of the import and just application of such words. All reliable etymology, all authentic derivation of words, has ever been highly valued by the wise. The learned James Harris has a remark as follows: "How useful to ETHIC SCIENCE, and indeed to KNOWLEDGE in general, a GRAMMATICAL DISQUISITION into the Etymology and Meaning of WORDS was esteemed by the chief and ablest Philosophers, may be seen by consulting Plato in his Cratylus; Xenophon's Memorabilia, IV, 5, 6; Arrian. Epict. I, 17; II, 10; Marc. Anton. III, 11;" &c.--See Harris's Hermes, p. 407.

A knowledge of the Saxon, Latin, Greek, and French languages, will throw much light on this subject, the derivation of our modern English; nor is it a weak argument in favour of studying these, that our acquaintance with them, whether deep or slight, tends to a better understanding of what is borrowed, and what is vernacular, in our own tongue. But etymological analysis may extensively teach the origin of English words, their composition, and the import of their parts, without demanding of the student the power of reading foreign or ancient languages, or of discoursing at all on General Grammar. And, since many of the users of this work may be but readers of our current English, to whom an unknown letter or a foreign word is a particularly uncouth and repulsive thing, we shall here forbear the use of Saxon characters, and, in our explanations, not go beyond the precincts of our own language, except to show the origin and primitive import of some of our definitive and connecting particles, and to explain the prefixes and terminations which are frequently employed to form English derivatives.

The rude and cursory languages of barbarous nations, to whom literature is unknown, are among those transitory things which, by the hand of time, are irrecoverably buried in oblivion. The fabric of the English language is undoubtedly of Saxon origin; but what was the particular form of the language spoken by the Saxons, when about the year 450 they entered Britain, cannot now be accurately known. It was probably a dialect of the Gothic or Teutonic. This Anglo-Saxon dialect, being the nucleus, received large accessions from other tongues of the north, from the Norman French, and from the more polished languages of Rome and Greece, to form the modern English. The speech of our rude and warlike ancestors thus gradually improved, as Christianity, civilization, and knowledge, advanced the arts of life in Britain; and, as early as the tenth century, it became a language capable of expressing all the sentiments of a civilized people. From the time of Alfred, its progress may be traced by means of writings which remain; but it can scarcely be called English, as I have shown in the Introduction to this work, till about the thirteenth century. And for two or three centuries later, it was so different from the modern English, as to be scarcely intelligible at all to the mere English reader; but, gradually improving by means upon which we need not here dilate, it at length became what we now find it,--a language copious, strong, refined, impressive, and capable, if properly used, of a great degree of beauty and harmony.

SECTION I.--DERIVATION OF THE ARTICLES.

1. For the derivation of our article THE, which he calls "an adjective," Dr. Webster was satisfied with giving this hint: "Sax. the; Dutch, de."--''Amer. Dict. According to Horne Tooke, this definite article of ours, is the Saxon verb "THE," imperative, from THEAN, to take; and is nearly equivalent in meaning to that or those, because our that is "the past participle of THEAN," and "means taken."--Diversions of Purley'', Vol. ii, p. 49. But this is not very satisfactory. Examining ancient works, we find the word, or something resembling it, or akin to it, written in various forms, as se, see, ye, te, de, the, thá, and others that cannot be shown by our modern letters; and, tracing it as one article, or one and the same word, through what we suppose to be the oldest of these forms, in stead of accounting the forms as signs of different roots, we should sooner regard it as originating in the imperative of SEON, to see.