The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-08 00:00:00

West of Europe by succeeding nations; and lastly, about
the dawn of history, and at various epochs afterwards, the
other great tides poured in, i.e. Pelasgic, Teutonic, and
Selavonic;
My present business is, however, with the mother tongue,
and I have only alluded to the great family of other lan-
guages to show the birth, grow th, and kindred of our
own. The large map of Europe before you, which I have
coloured " glosso-graphically, ' shows you the present
localities of the Indo-European languages. The Indian
and Medo-Persian branches belong to Asia; and I have
made Scandinavian a distinct division. The table
beside the map contains five columns, ono for each great
stem, with its languages and dialects ranged below. It is
to the second, the Teutonic or Germanic (and to the Frisian
Variety thereof) that English must be traced, though it has
borrox ;red largely from the Graeco-Roman stem, and a little
from other languages. Its kindred are the ancient Meese-
Gothic., Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic. with modern German,
Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. The growth of the
English tongue may be best shown by this diagram,
divided into nineteen equal parts representing centuries.
The white portion at the head stands for the Celtic, once
the only language in the island. The small dotted lines
indicate the Roman element, blending with the Celtic for
nearly 400 years, and then disappearing. From A.D. 450,
you will observe the inroad and steady growth of the
Saxon (marked by stars), till all Southern Britain except
'ales, Cumberland, and Cornwall loses its Celtic. The
Danes too made frequent raids (from 800 to 1066), leaving
a decided impress on some of the provincial dialects. In
1066 came Norman French, which prevailed in the palace,
the castle, the courts of law, and even the grammar-
schools, Saxon holding its own as the speech of the people
of the landf and Latin being the language of the Church
and of literary men. For two hundred years the work of
mingling went on, till at last the Teutonic, richer in itself,
and also the speech of the majority, overcame the French
of the Normans ; and in the 13th century, English,
Which had all along existed under an Anglo-Saxon garb,
took something like its present shape, though very far
from possessing its modern richness, flexibility, and
Power. During the next two hundred years it had gathered
strength enough to furnish the prose of Wycliffe and the
Poetry of Chaucer. From Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne,
or rather from Shakespeare to Addison, English may be
regarded as substantially the language of our own day;
though many words have become wholly or entirely obso-
lete, and thousands of new ones have been introduced. We
hare thus a completely formed, if not absolutely stereotyped
language—one rarely inferior to the classical tongues, often
their equal, and occasionally their superior—one which
abundantly justifies the well-known eulogium of Grimm,
The English tongue possesses a veritable power of ex-
pression such as perhaps never stood at the command of any
other language of man."
I have hitherto spoken of literary English, the language
of books and of the educated classes. All members of the
middle and upper ranks speak English, though it may be
in some instances with imperfect grammar, or with marked
provincial accent. But I must now invite you to notice
another kind of English, vernacular or dialectic, besides the
other languages still spoken in these islands, though totally
distinct from English. This map of Great Britain and Ire-
land, Coloured on the same plan as that of Europe, will
make this evident. The portion south of a line drawn from
the Mersey to the Humber represents the region of English
Proper (Mercian, as distinguished from Dano-English),
ts nine 'dialects the nearly unmixed legacies of our
Saxon forefathers. From the North of Derbyshire to the
Scottish border we have Dano-Saxon or Northumbrian with
eti dialects, Saxon in most of its roots, but strongly
tingedd with Danish, and slightly with Celtic. Between Car-
Norse Glasgow, Border Scotch prevails, a mixture of
, Dano-Saxon, and Celtic, the last a feeble remnant of trathclyde and Cumbria. The whole east of Scotland repre-
lints the Lowland Scotch, i.e., Saxon with a stronger infu-
-1(:41 of Norse, the latter once the sole speech of the Orkneys
4Q Shetlands. In Ireland, English is the language of the mi-
taority, being found chiefly in Ulster and on the eastern coast.
Isla x,
under the various names of. Erse, Gaelic, Welsh,.. and.
;`.ax, is daily used by nearly six millions in the British
'Winds. The Armorican or Cornish perished last century;
and the Cumbrian, the language of a kingdom once ex-
tending from the Mersey to the Clyde, died out long ago,
at a date unknown.
Prom this rapid sketch you will easily infer that literary
English is not the speech of the great mass of the people.
Deduct six millions of Celts and fifteen millions using pro-
Vincial dialects, and there remains barely a third part of our
Population able to understand the language of books and of
the educated classes.
Tho table I now exhibit shows the proportion of Anglo-
Saxon in written English. The Bible of 1611 has 97
per cent. of Anglo-Saxon, Shakespeare 85, and even
Gibbon, our most Latinised writer, 55. The inference is
obvious. And if the genius of our tongue is Teutonic in
writing, it is still more so in speaking. The lower we de-
scend in society, the more the Saxon element prevails, till
amen.. the peasantry, Latin words " of learned length and
thundering sound" are practically " an unknown tongue."
Whoever, then wishes to find his way into the heads and
hearts of Englishmen, I mean not merely the tillers of the
ground, but the masses of the people, must clothe his
thoughts not in the elegant phraseology and elaborate
Periods of Roman origin, but in that clear, strong, glowing
n.Pecch first brought to our shores by the fair-haired
I,9llowers of Hengist and Horsa. I trust, however, that
shall not be misunderstood in thus contending for a
greater use of Saxon. English as it now exists is a com-
Posite language, in which, while Saxon has undoubtedly
the largest share, Latin, Greek, and other tongues play no
tune
parts, and serve as vehicles of ideas, for whose
e;Pression unaided Saxon can furnish no suitable terms.
•nal. exclusive use of Saxon derivatives is therefore, Practicable. Even Even those purists who contend for the
Saxon element, employ a full proportion of Latin or
French terms in the very sentences in which they plead
Inst earnestly for the Germanic words I It is quite true
that justice has not hitherto been done in our schools and
colleges to our old English tongue, but the ends of justice
are never promoted by overstating the merits of a case.
The reader can scarcely judge by mere detached
Passages, such as the foregoing, of the general ex-
ellence and siundjudgmentby which Mr.D'Orsey's
lecture is marked from the beginning to the end ;
but we trust we have said enough in its favour to
induce the public, but especially educators and pro.
fessional
'volume and men generally, to read Al. D'Orsey's little
own conclusions. We are much mistaken if th
conclusions will not be the same as those comeose to
by M. D'Orsey himself, and in which we do not
hesitate to express our hearty concurrence.