Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

by Nicholas Ostler

  40. Arthur J. O. Anderson, Psalmodia Christiana (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993), p. 33.

  41. Motolinía (1990 [1541]: i.15).

  42. León-Portilla (1992: 301).

  43. Trans. Frances Karttunen and Gilka Wara Céspedes, Tlalocan, vol. ix (1982), pp. 119-27.

  44. Father Francisco Mercier y Guzman, Sermon for Friday of Lent, July 1765. Quoted in Albó and Layme (1992: 40-1).

  45. Dietrich (1995: 289); Tovar (1964: 249). Tovar offers a different etymology for the money word, as cua repotí, ‘piece of dross’.

  46. ’Una muy buena cosa aconteció a un clérigo recién venido de Castilla, que no podía creer que los indios sabían la doctrina cristiana, ni Pater Noster, ni Credo bien dicho; y como otros españoles le dijesen que sí, él todavía incrédulo; y a esta sazón habían salido dos estudiantes del colegio, y el clérigo pensando que eran de los otros indios, preguntó a uno si sabía el Pater Noster y dijo que sí, e hízosele decir, y después hízole decir el Credo, y díjole bien; y el clérigo acusóle una palabra que el indio bien decía, y como el indio se afirmase en que decía bien, y el clérigo que no, tuvo el estudiante necesidad de probar cómo decía bien, y preguntóle hablando en latín: Reverende Pater, cujus casus est? Entonces como el clérigo no supiera gramática, quedó confuso y atajado’ (Motolinía 1990 [1541]: iii.12.389).

  47. Lastra and Horcasitas (1983:267); Quilis (1992:44).

  48. Cerrón-Palomino (1987: 343-4).

  49. ibid.: 346, 67-75.

  50. ’Los ministros eclesiásticos que no procuran adelantar y extender el idioma castellano y cuidar que los indios sepan leer y escriber en él, dejÁndolos cerrados en su nativo idioma, son en mi concepto, enemigos declarados del bien de los naturales, de su policía y racionalidad…’ Cartas pastorales y edictos, Mexico, 1770, p. 47.

  51. Rosenblat (1964: 210).

  52. Lorenzana, Cartas pastorales y edictos, Mexico, 1770, quoted in Triana y Antorveza (1987: 504).

  53. Deputy Mateos in 1910, quoted in King (1994: 58).

  54. José María Morelos, Sentiments of the Nation, quoted in English translation in King (1994: 57).

  55. King (1994: 59).

  56. Rosenblat (1964: 212).

  57. Grimes (2000: 100).

  58. Rosenblat (1964: 214).

  59. Rubin (1985: 111-12).

  60. Grimes (1996: 115).

  61. Quilis (1992: 46).

  62. ibid.: 79-80.

  63. ibid.: 82.

  11 In the Train of Empire: Europe’s Languages Abroad

  1. Oliveira Marques (1972: 343).

  2. Anquetil du Perron (first translator of the Iranian Zend Avesta), in Recherches historiques et géographiques sur l’Inde, vol. ii, pp. xii-xiii, quoted in Lopes (1936: 60).

  3. Santarém (1958 [1841]), and Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Wyndham, Thomas (compact edn, p. 2343).

  4. Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, ii, p. 345 (Glasgow 1905 [1625]), quoted in Lopes (1936: 32).

  5. Mandelslo, Voyages célèbres et remarquables faits de Perse aux Indes Orientales, p. 33 (Amsterdam, 1727), quoted in Lopes (1936: 38).

  6. Peregrinaçáo, xci (Lisbon, 1614), quoted in Tarracha Ferreira (1992:432-3).

  7. This is from the Charter of the VOC (the Dutch United East India Company) of 1698, quoted by Revd Frank Penny,

  The Church in Madras, vol. i, pp. 190-2 (London, 1904), and thence by Lopes (1936:47).

  8. Jean Brun, La véritable Religion des Hollandais (Amsterdam, 1675), p. 267, quoted in Lopes (1936: 48).

  9. François Valentijn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien (Amsterdam, 1724-6), quoted in Lopes (1936: 48).

  10. Vásquez Cuesta and Mendes da Luz (1971: 151).

  11. Grimes (2000).

  12. Barraclough (1978: 166).

  13. Father Antonio Vieira, Sermon of the Holy Spirit (Oporto, 1683), quoted in Tarracha Ferreira (1992: 480-4).

  14. Fernáo Cardim, Tratados da terra e gente do Brasil, p. 121, quoted in Johnson and Nizza da Silva (1992: 481). Sao Vicente is on the southern coast of Brazil, near Sáo Paulo.

  15. Grimes (2000). The estimate for current speakers of Tupinambá (now known as Nhengatu), the old língua geral, is just five thousand.

  16. Israel (1995: 321).

  17. Nauwkeurige beschryving van de Guinese Goud-, Tand- en Slave-Kust (Amsterdam, 1704), quoted in Boxer (1969: 106).

  18. Grimes (2000).

  19. Israel (1995: 941).

  20. François Valentijn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien, iii, 1, pp. 35-44 (Amsterdam, 1724-6), quoted in Hoffman (1979: 66).

  21. Hoffman (1979: 66-8).

  22. ibid.: 70.

  23. Discourse delivered at a Meeting of the Society of Arts and Sciences in Batavia, on 24th day of April 1813 …Verhandelingen van het [Koninklijk] Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 7, Batavia, 1814, p. 13. Quoted in Hoffman (1979: 73).

  24. Hoffman (1979: 74-5).

  25. Bijblad op het Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indië, 1904, no. 5821, pp. 78-9; Charles Adriaan van Ophuijsen, Maleische Spraakkunst, Leiden, 1910. The context is described in Hoffman (1979: 87-92). It was reformed in 1947 and 1972, ironing out most differences with the spelling used in Malaysia.

  26. Jean, in his translation of Boethius. He was in fact a native of Meun-sur-Loire, near Orléans.

  27. Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterěts, Art. 111: ’Et pour ce que telles choses sont souventes fois advenues sur l’intelligence des mots latins contenuz esd. arrestz, nous voulons que doresnavant tout arrestz, ensemble toutes autres procedures, soient de noz courtz souveraines ou autres subalternes et inférieurs, soient des registres, enquestes, contractz, commissions, sentences, testamens et autres qielzconques actes et exploictz de justice ou qui en deppenden, soient prononcez, enregistrez et delivrez aux parties en langage maternel fronçois et non autrement.’

  28. Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 29).

  29. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 11. 124-6.

  30. Quoted in Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 143).

  31. Descartes, Discours de la méthode, troisième partie: ’suivant les opinions les plus modérées et les plus éloignées de l’excès qui fussent communément reçues en pratique par les mieux sensés de ceux avec lesquels j’aurais à vivre…tšcher toujours plutôt à me vaincre que la fortune, et changer mes désirs que l’ordre du monde …’

  32. ibid., quatrième partie: ’je jugeai que je pouvais prendre pour règle générale que les choses que nous concevons fort clairement et fort distinctement sont toutes vraies …’

  33. Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 154).

  34. ibid.: 150.

  35. Leclerc (2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760), pp. 2,4) gives an estimate of about 2500 French in 1663, as against 80,000 English and 10,000 Dutch even in 1627. In 1754, his figures are 69,000 French (55,000 in Nouvelle-France, 10,000 in Acadie, and 4000 in Louisiane) against 1 million English colonists with their 300,000 slaves.

  36. ‘Colbert qui rěvait de voir ces indigenes et ces Français de la Nouvelle-France ne former «qu’un mesme peuple et un mesme sang», se plaint à Talon en 1666 qu’on n’ait pas obligé les sauvages à «s’instruire dans notre langue, au lieu que pour avoir quelque commerce avec eux nos français ont été nécessités d’apprendre la leur»’ Dorion and Morissonneau (1992).

  37. He was Le Sieur de Bacqueville et de La Potherie, and he actually wrote: ’On y parle ici parfaitement bien sans mauvais accent. Quoiqu’il y ait un mélange de presque toutes les provinces de France, on ne saurait distinguer le parler d’aucune dans les canadiennes’ (Leclerc 2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760), pp. 4, 5).

  38. ’Les paysans canadiens parlent très bien le français’ (Leclerc 2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760), p. 9).

  39. Barraclough (1978: 208).

  40. Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 64).

  41. Grimes (2000). The figure for Pondicherry comes from Leclerc (2001, Les États où le français est langue officielle ou coofficielle, <
www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/Langues/2vital inter francaisTABLO.htm>).

  42. Unfortunately for them, the Muslim majority was also growing at a comparable rate, from 2 to 8.7 million in the same period (Picoche and Marchello-Nizia 1989: 86, 104).

  43. F. M. Dostoyevsky, Collected Works, vol. 21, in Writers Diary for 1880-81, iii, pp. 517-18. The Cyrillic spelling has not been modernised. These words were written in reaction to a celebrated Russian victory over the Turkmens at Gök Tepe (’Blue Hill’), on which Lord Curzon also commented: ‘The terrifying effect of such a massacre as Geok Tepe survives for generations’ (Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question, London: Frank Cass, 1967, p. 386).

  44. Hosking (1997: 5-6).

  45. ibid.: 379.

  46. ibid.: 369.

  47. Lieven (2000: 334).

  48. Hosking (1997: 18): Gen. Rostislav Fadeyev, 60 Tbilisi 1860, p. 9.

  49. These figures are calculated from those in Grimes (2000). Evidently, Russian is very widely known and used as a second language in these countries (e.g. Grimes quotes 30 per cent for Armenia).

  50. Roy (2000: 30-31).

  51. ibid.: 32.

  52. This figure is calculated from those in Grimes (2000).

  53. This figure is calculated from those in ibid.

  54. Archpriest Avvakum, quoted in Hosking (1997:69).

  55. Lieven (2000: 255, 435, 278 and 437); he relies strongly on Gudrun Persson’s 1999 London University PhD thesis: The Russian Army and Foreign Wars 1859-1871.

  56. Hosking (1997: 187).

  57. ibid.: 36, quoting Erik Amburger, Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917, 1966, pp. 502-19, and Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany, 1965, pp. 40-1.

  58. Hosking (1997: 309-10).

  59. ibid.: 402; Comrie (1981: 28).

  60. Hosking (1997: 311), quoting Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia learnt to read: literary and popular culture, 1985.

  61. Fisher (1978: 100-4).

  62. Comrie (1981: 28).

  63. ibid.: 1.

  64. M. I. Isayev, National Languages in the USSR: Problems and solutions, 1977, pp. 300-1, quoted in Comrie (1981: 36-7).

  65. Roy (2000: 169).

  66. Barraclough (1978: 140).

  67. Tsurumi (1984:277).

  68. Chen (1984: 242), quoting Ken’ichi Kondō (ed.), Taiheiyō senka no Chōsen oyobi Taiwan, ‘Korea and Taiwan during the Pacific War’, Tokyo, 1961.

  69. Tsurumi (1984: 303), paraphrasing Aoyagi Tsunatarō Keijō (Seoul), Shin Chōsen, ‘New Korea’, 1925.

  70. See Miyawaki (2002): he notes a married couple in Micronesia, still using Japanese as a convenient means of communication that their children will not understand.

  12 Microcosm or Distorting Mirror? The Career of English

  1. T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (1942), ‘Little Gidding’, part 2.

  2. Brandt (1969: 374).

  3. Smith (2000: 164).

  4. Crowley (2000: 15). The original Norman French reads: ’III. Item ordine est et establie que chescun Engleys use la lang Engleis et soit nome par nom Engleys enterlessant oulterment la manere de nomere use par Irroies et que chescun Engleys use la manere guise monture et appareill Engleys solonc son estat et si nul Engleys ou Irroies [conversant entre Engleys use la lang Irroies] entre euxmesmes encontre cest ordinance et de ceo soit atteint soint sez terrez et tentz sil eit seisiz en les maines son Seinours immediate tanque qil veigne a un des places nostre Seignour le Roy et trove sufficient seurtee de prendre et user la lang Engleis…et auxiant que les beneficers de seint Esglise conversantz entre Anglois use la langue Engleis et sils ne facent eint leur ordinaries les issues de leur benefices tanque ils usent la langue Angloise en le maniere susdit et eient respit de la langue Engloise apprendre et de celles purvier entre cy et le feste seint Michael prochin avent.’

  5. Act of Union 1536, section xvii, as quoted in Evans (1992: 298).

  6. S.P.Hen. VIII to the Town of Galway, 1536, as quoted in Evans (1992: 296).

  7. Crowley (2000: 19).

  8. Proclamation of Henry III, 18 October 1258; Patent Rolls, 42 Henry III m. 1, n. 1, Public Record Office, London; as reproduced in Mossé (1962: 234).

  9. Trevisa re. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, i, 59. The text is given in the (London) form published by William Caxton in 1482, since this is substantially easier to read than Trevisa’s own Cornish dialect. The punctuation and capitalisation are also adjusted for ease of modern reading. The relevant words of Higden are: ’Haec quidem nativae linguae corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus; quod videlicet pueri in scholis contra morem caeterarum nationum a primo Normannorum adventu, derelicto proprio vulgari construere Gallice compelluntur; item quod filii nobilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad Gallicum idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines assimilari volentes, ut per hoc spectabiliores videantur, francigenare satagunt omni nisu.’

  10. Cursor Mundi, Assumption of Our Lady, II.51-4.

  11. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseide, v, **II. 1793-9.

  12. From William Caxton, Prologue to Eneydos, 1490.

  13. The most celebrated was Johann Clajus, Grammatica Germanicae linguae…ex Bibliis Lutheri Germanicis et aliis ejus libris collecta, Leipzig, 1578. These last two paragraphs are heavily dependent on Febvre and Martin (1958: 481-91).

  14. They are listed in Nicolson (2003: 247-50), along with many of their Continental contemporaries, starting with the first printed Bible in Czech in 1488.

  15. By the 1620s, all the gentry could read. By the 1640s, so could 45 per cent of the yeomanry, and perhaps 5 per cent of labourers. Literacy was higher among men than women, and in London than in the provinces (Nicolson 2003: 122).

  16. Sir John Seeley, The Expansion of England, Lecture I.

  17. Keynes (1930: 156-7).

  18. Ferguson (2003: 11).

  19. ibid.: 13.

  20. Williams (1643: chs i, vi, viii). The full title is: ‘A Key into the Language of America, or An help to the Language of the Natives in that part of America called New England. Together with brief Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships, &c of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death. On all of which are added Spirituall Observations, Generall and Particular, of the Authour, of chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions,) to all the English Inhabiting those parts; yet pleasant and profitable to the view of all men.’ The author was expelled from Massachusetts for his liberal opinions, but went on to found Providence, Rhode Island.

  21. Williams (1643: chs iii and xvii).

  22. Examples derived from Silver and Miller (1997: 319). Penobscot, referred to there, is a variety of Abenaki.

  23. Eliot (1666). Although a formal grammar, it does not pass up the odd opportunity for improving comments, e.g. p. 7: ‘And hence is that wise Saying, That a Christian must be adorned with as many Adverbs as Adjectives: He must as well do good, as be good. When a man’s virtuous Actions are well adorned with Adverbs, every one will conclude that the man is well adorned with virtuous Adjectives.’

  24. Eliot (1663): this has the distinction of being the first translation of the Bible in the Americas, although the Spanish, with their Catholic approach to Christianity, had been publishing prayers and confessionals in American languages since 1539. See Chapter 10, ‘First chinks in the language barrier: Interpreters, bilinguals, grammarians’, p. 341.

  25. Cotton Mather (1663-1728), quoted in (indirectly) Bailey (1992: 73).

  26. Barraclough (1978: 221).

  27. The border with Mexico was finalised a little later, by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, which added a southern sliver to the modern states of Arizona and New Mexico to field a new route for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

  28. Quoted in Milner et al. (1994:168). The acquisition of the west was immediately cemented by the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in northern California in January 1848, and the world’s most famous gold rush. The resulting jump in population accelerated California’s acquisition of statehood to a
period of two years, a new record.

  29. Quoted in ibid.: 146.

  30. Quoted in Sharon Gangitano, Indian Language ().

  31. US Census Bureau, quoted in Wright (2000: 266).

  32. US Census Bureau 1989, 1994, quoted in Crawford (1998).