The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-03-24
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
HENRY NJ. WHITNEY.

back on that homely, but hearty, ypori ms Sa10r
idio, which has always been dear to the mass of the
people. NOT that we would undervaue the French
ana Latn elements of our language They are inds
pensaoie Tor science for all abstract or nbosonh;o
thought, and for the arts of higher civilization
But we are wandering from our subject 1t was
during the thirteenth and fourteenth century that the
English language began to take its nresent f,r,, -
was then that national literature began to rise and
OF ali agencies that can be brought bear on Ian
guage none more powerful than literature By con-
trolling hitherto lawless tongue checking its wild
growth, and developing its hidden riches and power
Dante or Luther may well be said to have Gre
ated or at least formed language. 1t was not one
but many authors, that formed the language of Enp
land yet the greatest merit in this great work is due
to GeoffreY Chaucer, for wnom some critics claim as
founder fmodern English, the same honor that Ger
many gives to her Luther. Although of the
world, a scholar and a courtier, at a time when
French was the court language he chose the humble
dialect of the people, in which write those Canter-
bury tales, never equaled before since for their
humor and pathos, their simplicity and picturesque
beauty.
He the friend and admirer of wickliffe, the
first eminent English prose tcrifer And perhaps no
class of men did greater service, in preserving the
language from foreign corruption, than the Reformers
from Wicklife TO Latimer. Sprung as they were
from the people, and writing for the masses, they
kept their works remarkably free from foreign infu
and did much to preserve the racy doms of the
Saxon. But certainly single book has exerted
such an influence our language as the authorized
English version of the Bible. That translation itself
IS proof Of the power and beauty of Saxon English
We have reason to be thankful that it was made not
by pedants, but by men who understood the genius
of their mother tongue We refrain from
quoting regard il, the eloquent words of Clri-
nal Wiseman- % W no will not say that the uncom-
mon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant
Bible is of the great strongholds of heresy in
this country. Ii lives on the like n music that
can never be forgotten, like the sound of church
bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can
forego. Its elicites almost be things rather
than mere words. The memory of the dead passes
into it, The potent traditions of childhood
otyped in its The power of all the griefs and
trials of a man are hidden beneath its words 1t is
the representative of his best moments and all there
has been about him of soft and gentle and pure and
pentent and good speaks to him forever out of his
SarOn Bi6fe.'' Such the touching words in
which this eminent scholar and preate expresses his
deep sense of what he has lost in abandoning the
Protestant version 1t is the least of the second
ary and incidental benefits of that version to the
Ango-Saxon that It has been as were sheet
anchor the English language, holding it fast to its
moorngs amid the winds and currents of innovation,
of fashion and pedantry,
And surely such influences as those OF which We
have spoken needed in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries, for .' the enemy came in like
food.'' With the revival of learning, element
introduced into the English language, consisting
of words imported directly from the Latin, and not
through the medium of the French. Such writers as
jeremy Taylor Sir Thomas Browne, Cudworth and
Barrow, who recluse men, living far from the
world, and writing for the people, but for the
small class of learned introduced Latin words,
not sngly, bat by thousands
1t was at this time that the English enriched
with such words iAcOmmeasurnbitity,i incompre-
hensibIy teIfg,5iiity, and hundreds of others
$. of learned length and laundering sound Surely
if diyines and pedants could ruin language, 1t
would have been done then The reactive powers ot
the language, however, displayed themselves in
throwing off these iInpOriations, that hundreds,
net thousands, of them were rejected.
The Latin words of this age can easily be dIstin-
guished from those which came in with the Norman
he latt
moulded to suit the genius of the French language
T. c. Secure and both come from the Lain
but the latter came secondhand through tne
French So regal and royal are both from the Latin,
the first directly, the latter Indirectly through the
French. Persecute Is Latin, pursue French-re-
denptiOn Latin, and rGnsom French
Nor have these Latin words ever become so thor
ouahly naturalized in the language as those which
came in with the Conquest. Compare them with
their Norman or Saxon duplicates. and you will feel
the indifference.
How much more English is the French word enemy
than the Latin inimicaI both derived from 6 lnn-
icus'' Compare the Saxon (riendfy with the Laun
auicabIe 6urdensome with oaeroas, 6oy.sh with
pueriIe, shady with outrageous, hihgiy with resat'
and happiaess with felicity Hence it was not WITH
ont GOOD reason that Lord Brougham exhorted the
students of the University of GLASGOW to aVoid al
words ending Osity and alton. We cannot there-
fore oyerrate the service rendered by the Engsh ne
fsrs nv the translators of the Bible and by such
Srxon poets as Spenser and Shakespeare, IN mainta-
;ng tbe puritv and strength of our mother tongue.
Refor
Fnolish language became fixed III all ITS essehtlii
f1fures Though it could not remain stationary YET
its subsequent changes have been cohpar"'i'e'
slight IT ,,u,, - q stock
= Vra,cb words and phrases, and this French innu-
ence seen less in single words than In the s,ruo
81 sentences can be traced ip most oil the VI
the 18th century. But the opening vi ."v Pr
,,,rv witnessed n revolution. both political anu IN
,eIisc,1al. Art science. literature, all receiver a
mighty impulse. Our language aiso' snaieu ~ II Ia
moyemenr and shook oil much OF the io' 49, hn
mannerisrn that fettered II, ana mas ever si"I g,
-, more simple direct and earnest. In iao'
this has been the guiding principle IN all It's -
Uo.t of it's radical words have been cut uo"n ~
onoevIIables In this way many letters na'e u
a siIent which are still retained In wrihn =, anu
s no 20 arisen the hopeless irregularities Oh Eng
T.b speIiing The principle OF the laueuis iis Ill
70 produce the greatest possible enect VIZ, - Mil
70 Posib1s means T. g. Take these lines oil NIL
| ton:
6ef many PaSf frozen many fiery Alp DEATH
| Rocks. caves, lakes, iens, ooss' uei7' ~ ~
A universe Of death T"
xvL.-s ia the language that in the same NUMBER 0,
svlIables can present such picture OF 7.", In
| n, the same principle of economy the Ens ,h, 81
guage has gradually dropped us s .Ta Ssyon we
r. ix deciensions and four cases OF tne oaAon
VI. onIv the ending s to distinguish the possesse
ase So too Saxon adjectives had various 49, re
| Dress GENDER number and case' an oi m Ero
| - discarded. Once the SAXON hhe o - L;sh
mean languages, had its a."
Il is now happily free g tho English is its
Another nd ass;milative power 1t is aggressive
d n;ratica like the that speak it. s1su shs
ana rords from hun red sources, strips anga
OF OF their foreign costume and bids the" appear '
/ ;,s hammers as native supJects' -. amy laden
It's NAV be compared to victorious army wSose
,a as sDos and trophies of its cOnquests, IN mnouo
are enlisted Of every es Of
der In its center a0d 'n eveled pkes
tnss nrae and pomp Of glorious with hs Rses e are
Pnons waving and lances in rest; on .ie ;rad vet
Pen", por,an on oles borne by the gray n,iiT ~