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American Language

Page 86

by H. L. Mencken


  As we have seen in Chapter VIII, efforts to remedy the irrationalities of English spelling have been under way for many years, but so far without much success. The improvement of English in other respects must await a revolutionist who will do for it what Mark Twain tried to do for German in “The Awful German Language” — but with much less dependence upon logic. “If English is to be a continuously progressive creation,” said Dr. Krapp,60 “then it must escape from the tyranny of the reason and must regain some of the freedom of impulse and emotion which must have been present in the primitive creative origins of language.… Suppose the children of this generation and of the next were permitted to cultivate expressiveness instead of fineness of speech, were praised and promoted for doing something interesting, not for doing something correct and proper. If this should happen, as indeed it is already beginning to happen, the English language and literature would undergo such a renascence as they have never known.” Meanwhile, despite its multitudinous defects, English goes on conquering the world. I began this chapter with the pessimistic realism of Richard Mulcaster, 1582. I close it with the florid vision of Samuel Daniel, only seventeen years later:

  And who in time knows whither we may vent

  The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores

  This gain of our best glory shall be sent,

  T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?

  What worlds in th’ yet unformed Occident

  May come refin’d with th’ accents that are ours?61

  1 See The Geography of Great Languages, by E. H. Babbitt, World’s Work, Feb., 1908; and The System of Basic English, by C. K. Ogden; New York, 1934, p. 5.

  2 Cosmopolitan Conversation, by Herbert Newhard Shenton; New York, 1933, p. 315. When Dr. Shenton asked the secretary of the International Shipping Conference, representing 17 countries, what language was used at its meetings, the reply was: “The Conference is perhaps more fortunate than other bodies in that it has from the start [1921] adopted the simple unwritten rule that English is the only language to be employed, and as practically all the members are expert in that language we have no difficulty.”

  3 See The American Language in Mexico, by H. E. McKinstry, American Mercury, March, 1930; Sports Slang in Latin-America, by Richard F. O’Toole, the same, Nov., 1930; and Spain’s Waning Cultural Influence Over Hispanic-America, by Earle K. James, American Speech, Sept., 1926.

  4 English Influence on Japanese; Tokyo, 1928, p. 165. See also The Impact of English on Japanese, by Lionel Crocker, English Journal, April, 1928, and Anglicized Japanese, by Frederick W. Brown, Quarterly Journal of Speech Education, Feb., 1927.

  5 4th ed.; Tokyo, 1930.

  6 On Chinese Borrowings From English and French, in The Basic Vocabulary, by C. K. Ogden; London, 1930, pp. 86–95.

  7 A lecture before the Literary and Social Guild of Peiping, Jan. 13, 1931. I borrow the quotation from C. K. Ogden’s Debabelization; London, 1931, p. 133.

  8 Hispania, May, 1935. I am indebted here to Dr. William H. Shoemaker of Princeton University.

  9 I am indebted for the 1926 figures to Mr. S. S. Shipman of the Amtorg Trading Corporation, New York. During 1935 the newspapers reported from Moscow that the population of Russia was estimated to be 162,000,000, but Russian estimates are always likely to be optimistic. Outside the national boundaries, of course, Russian is spoken hardly at all, save by emigrants who are rapidly losing it.

  10 The relative ranking of Italian and Portuguese is in dispute. Portugal itself, including Madeira and the Azores, had but 6,698,345 inhabitants in Dec., 1930, but Brazil was estimated officially, in 1935, to have 42,345,096. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine accurately how many of the people of Brazil really speak Portuguese, and how many of the people of the Portuguese colonies. Senhor Ed-gard Schwery of São Paulo, Brazil, sent me, under date of May 28, 1935, an estimate that there was then 56,460,128 Portuguese-speaking persons in the world, and Senhora Edith del Junco, also of São Paulo, ventured upon 57,514,856 on June 5. The Italian census of April 21, 1932, showed 41,176,671 persons in Italy, but it did not include the inhabitants of the Italian colonies, or the large number of Italian-speaking persons in Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Malta and other Mediterranean countries and islands.

  11 The population of India was 351,399,880 on Feb. 26, 1931. How many of its people speak some dialect of Hindi is not known precisely, but probably not more than half. Dr. George William Brown, in Language, Sept., 1935, p. 271, estimates the number at 100,000,000. The language, however, serves the commercial classes as a lingua franca, and efforts are under way, led by the Mahatma Gandhi, to make it universal. It is already either in use or optional in thirteen of the eighteen Indian universities.

  12 In my third edition, 1923, p. 382 ff, I printed various estimates of the number of persons speaking the principal languages at different periods, ranging from 1801 to 1921. Others for earlier periods, going back to 1500, will be found in Growth and Structure of the English Language, by O. Jespersen, 3rd ed.; Leipzig, 1919. F. Max Müller’s estimate, c. 1870, is in his On Spelling, p. 7. Other estimates are given in Debabelization, by C. K. Ogden; London, 1931, p. 41 ff, and by Frank H. Vizetelly in the World Almanac, 1935, p. 242.

  13 Eli B. Jacobson, professor of American literature and history at the Second Moscow University, 1929–30. The quotation is from his The American Language Fights for Recognition in Moscow, American Mercury, Jan., 1931.

  14 The English Language for Estonia, London Spectator, July 6, 1929, p. 11. The anonymous author of this article says that German, which was formerly the second language of the country, would be displaced faster if it were not for the fact that German text-books are cheaper than English text-books.

  15 English in Portugal, by J. Da Providéncia Costa and S. George West, London Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 28, 1935, p. 124.

  16 English for the Turks, London Nation and Athenaeum, Nov. 16, 1929.

  17 For this I am indebted to Dr. José Padín, commissioner of education for Puerto Rico. He says: “On the whole, I should say that about 400,000 people out of a total population of 1,600,000 speak and read English and, in a lesser degree, write it.” See also his English in Puerto Rico; San Juan, 1935.

  18 The English Language in the Philippines, by Emma Sarepta Yule, American Speech, Nov., 1925.

  19 New York, 1933. This is a large work. A brief statement of Dr. Shenton’s findings, prepared by himself, is to be found in International Communication, edited by C. K. Ogden; London, 1931.

  20 The consequences of this situation, and of like situations elsewhere, are discussed by Dr. Otto Jespersen in An International Language; London, 1928, p. 15 ff. Clemenceau, says Dr. Jespersen, “gained an undue ascendancy because he was practically the only one who had complete command of both languages.”

  21 English, Aug., 1919, p. 122. He adds: “Before the war German was widely spread among medical men, university professors, scientists, the army officers, and politicians. The political ideas of those who built modern Japan were inspired by German thought.… Apart from this, everything is English (British or American). The foreign language for the Navy, of course, is English. There is little use for the French language.” At the first World’s Congress of Engineering, held in Tokyo in 1929, all the sessions were conducted in English, and not a single one of the 900 papers, including 400 presented by Japanese delegates, was translated into Japanese.

  22 The English in India; London, 1932, p. 18.

  23 Some Notes on Indian English, S.P.E. Tracts, No. XLI, 1934, p. 22.

  24 For a more detailed account of the spread of English see Debabelization, by C. K. Ogden; London, 1931. p.53 ff.

  25 How many persons are studying it today it is not easy to determine. Dr. Janet Rankin Aiken (American Mercury, April, 1933, p. 426) puts the number at 80,000,000, counting in the children in the English-speaking countries, but this is probably an overestimate. Dr. Aiken says that 500,000,000 people, “or more than one-fourth of all on earth,” now live u
nder governments which use English.

  26 Alexander M. Thompson: Japan For a Week; Britain Forever!; London, 1910.

  27 English as Europe’s Esperanto, by Harold Callender, New York Times Magazine, Aug. 24, 1930.

  28 Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache, a lecture delivered before the Berlin Academy of Sciences, Jan. 9, 1851. Reprinted in Auswahl aus den kleineren Schriften; Berlin, 1871.

  29 Growth and Structure of the English Language, 3rd ed.; Leipzig, 1919, p. 2.

  30 But certainly not in that of the United States, save maybe in the Boston area and parts or the South.

  31 Linguistic Laconism, American Journal of Philology, Vol. XLVIII, 1927, p. 34.

  32 When I printed a brief account of Dr. Kirkconnell’s research in The Future of English, Harper’s Magazine, April, 1935, a number of correspondents challenged his conclusion. One of these was Mr. Louis Rittenberg, editor of the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune, who put in a plea for Hungarian. “Whenever,” he said, “I am called upon to estimate the length of a Hungarian novel for translation into English, there is invariably an increase in wordage of between 20% and 25%, and this is so recognized by publishers for whom I have performed such tasks at one time or another.” (Private communication, June 6, 1935.) Similar caveats were filed in behalf of French, Russian, Spanish, and even German. I leave Dr. Kirkconnell to fight it out with his critics.

  33 Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards; London, 1928.

  34 Mark Twain’s comparison of English and German, in A Tramp Abroad, Appendix D; Hartford, 1880, will be recalled: “Our descriptive words have a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents seem thin and mild. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, ex-plosion: they have a force and magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with. Would any man want to die in a battle called by so tame a term as schlacht? Would not a consumptive feel too much bundled up in a shirt-collar and a seal ring who was about to go out into a storm which the bird-song word gewitter was employed to describe? If a man were told in German to go hölle, could he rise to the dignity of feeling insulted?”

  35 W. R. Inge: More Lay Thoughts of a Dean; London, 1932.

  36 The Measurement of Spelling Ability; New York, 1915.

  37 The literature of Basic is already extensive. The most comprehensive textbook is The System of Basic English, by C. K. Ogden; New York, 1934.

  38 Among its most ardent partisans is Mr. Crombie Allen, one of the dignitaries of Rotary International. He printed its 850 words on the back of his New Year’s card for 1935, and says under, date of May 6, 1935: “Alighting from a plane on a 20,000-mile airplane tour of Rotary Clubs in Latin-America after flying across the Andes, I found the club at Mendoza (Argentina) studying Basic from my New Year’s greeting.”

  39 The sharpest criticism is in A Critical Examination of Basic English, by M. P. West, E. Swenson and others; Toronto, 1934. The authors argue that the vocabulary of Basic, when all the various forms and different meanings of its words are counted in, really runs to 3925 words. See also Thought and Language, by P. B. Ballard; London, 1934, p. 166 if, and Basic and World English, by Janet Rankin Aiken, American Mercury, April, 1933. In A New Kind of English, American Mercury, April, 1933, Dr. Aiken takes what seems to be a rather more favorable view. The latter article is written in Basic.

  40 One is Swenson English, invented by Miss Elaine Swenson, chief of the Language Research Institute at New York University. Another is the invention of H. E. Palmer, educational adviser to the Japanese Department of Education and chief of the Institute for Research in English Teaching, Tokyo. The latter has been called Iret, after the initials of the institute. Both are examined critically in English as the International Language, by Janet Ranjdn Aiken, American Speech, April, 1934. Dr. Aiken has herself lately (1935) put forward a rival to Basic under the name of Little English. It has a vocabulary of 800 words, or 50 less than Basic.

  41 The latest is Panamane (1934), invented by Manuel E. Amador, P. O. Box 1055, Panama, R. P., son of the first President of Panama. It seems to be a mixture of English and Spanish. Here is the first sentence of Lincoln’s Gettisburgo Adress, translated by Señor Amador himself: “Kat skori ed sept yaryen ahgeo, nos padri brenguuh foth aupan esty kontinente un noe nasione konsibo na libertya ed dediso am propossya ke tui manni son kreo egale.”

  42 The most persuasive argument that I am aware of against the feasibility of setting up an artificial international language is to be found in Interlanguage, by T. C. Macaulay, S.P.E. Tracts, No. XXXIV, 1930. And the best argument for it is in An International Language, by Otto Jespersen; London, 1928, Pt. I. English as a World Language, by Michael West, American Speech, Oct., 1934, is a judicious discussion of the elements that must enter into any international language, whether purely artificial or an adaptation of English. See also English as the International Language, by Janet Rankin Aiken, above cited, and English as an International Language: A Selected List of References, by Lois Holladay; Chicago, 1926.

  43 English as Esperanto, English, Feb., 1921, p. 451.

  44 Anglic: A New Agreed Simplified English Spelling, by R. E. Zachris-son; Upsala (Sweden), 1931, p. 7.

  45 English As She Will be Spoke, Atlantic Monthly, May, 1932. The quotation following is from The English Language, by the same author; New York, 1929, p. 9.

  46 Esperanto, American Speech, Sept., 1926.

  47 The process is described at length in Modern English in the Making, by George H. McKnight; New York, 1928. See also Modern English, by George Philip Krapp; New York, 1910, especially Ch. IV; and A History of the English Language, by T. R. Lounsbury; rev. ed.; New York, 1894. “English,” says Harold Cox in English as a World Language, London Spectator, May 10, 1930, “has the great advantage that it more or less represents an amalgam of languages. It is largely Scandinavian in origin, but it also embodies a vast number of words directly derived from Latin, and many others coming to us from French and Italian, besides not a few coming from German.”

  48 Its influence upon the English of Australia and of South Africa is already marked. In a glossary of Australianisms appended by the Australian author, C. T. Dennis, to his Doreen and the Sentimental Bloke; New York, 1916, I find the familiar verbs and verb-phrases, to beef, to biff, to bluff, to boss, to break away, to chase one’s self, to chew the rag, to chip in, to fade away, to get it in the neck, to back and fill, to plug along, to get sore, to turn down and to get wise; the substantives, dope, boss, fake, creek, knockout-drops and push (in the sense of crowd); the adjectives, hitched (in the sense of married) and tough (as before luck), and the adverbial phrases, for keeps and going strong. In South Africa many Americanisms have ousted corresponding English forms, even in the standard speech.

  49 William McAlpine, New Republic, June 26, 1929.

  50 The Awful English of England, American Mercury, Sept., 1933, p. 73.

  51 American Leadership in the English Idiom, Literary Digest International Book Review, March, 1926. See also Shall We All Speak American?, by Frank D. Long, Passing Show (London), July 13, 1935.

  52 “It is amusing to note,” added Matthews, “that in this last sentence the British reviewer used two Americanisms — putting new words over and every time; and apparently he used them quite unconscious of their transatlantic origin.”

  53 Standards of English in Europe, American Speech, Feb., 1934.

  54 The Future of the English Language, American Speech, Dec., 1933.

  55 The Future of English, in The Knowledge of English; New York, 1927 p. 537.

  56 By Dr. Rankin herself in A New Plan of English Grammar; New York, 1933, Ch. XIX.

  57 English as the International Language, American Speech, April, 1934, p. 104.

  58 The reference is to the third edition of the present work; New York, 1923. The quotation, and the one following, are from Otto Jespersen’s Growth and Structure of the English Language, 3rd ed.; Leipzig, 191
9.

  59 American as a World-Language, Literary Digest International Book Review, April, 1924, p. 342.

  60 The Future of English, above cited, p. 543.

  61 Musophilus, 1599. Musophilus is a dialogue between a courtier and a poet, in which the latter defends the worldly value of literary learning.

  APPENDIX

  NON-ENGLISH DIALECTS IN AMERICAN

  I. GERMANIC

  a. German

  The so-called Pennsylvania-Dutch area of Pennsylvania and Maryland covers about 17,500 square miles. It began to be invaded by Germans before the end of the Seventeenth Century, and by 1775 nearly 90,000 had come in. They came “almost exclusively from Southwestern Germany (the Palatinate, Baden, Alsace, Württemberg, Hesse), Saxony, Silesia and Switzerland,”1 with the Palatines predominating. Pennsylvania-Dutch is based mainly upon the Westricher dialect of the Palatinate, and in the course of two centuries has become extraordinarily homogeneous. In the heart of its homeland, in Lehigh, Berks and Lebanon counties, Pennsylvania, between 60% and 65% of the total inhabitants can speak it, and between 30% and 35% use it constantly.2 The fact that it has survived the competition of English for so many years is due mainly to the extreme clannishness of the people speaking it — a clannishness based principally upon religious separatism. This theological prepossession has colored their somewhat scanty literature, and most of the books they have produced have been of pious tendency. They printed the Bible three times before ever it was printed in English in America.3 Their language was called Dutch by their English and Scotch-Irish neighbors because the early immigrants themselves called it Deitsch (H. Ger. Deutsch), and not because they were mistaken for Hollanders. To this day their descendants frequently use Pennsylvania-Dutch instead of -German in speaking of it. It has been studied at length by competent native philologians.4

 

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