, 1879-01-05

Cu4dACE GAC t1AO6QNAAt3 VI AA1O VAI4A0 PootA0s
THE FATHER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
The remarkable book entitled g The
Origin, Progress, and Destiny of the English
Language which we had the pleasure Of
reviewing some weeks ago, contained chap
ter upon CHAucEn and his influence upon
Early English that merits fuller notice than
we were able to give it at that time. CHAUcER
was crowned the Father OF English Poetry
by DRYDEN, than whom. no wiser judge on
such subject could be found. Before this,
CAxToN and Mi1ToN had testified to his ex-
cellence, and nearly every critic since, in
c1uding ADDISON, DR.. JOHNSON, Co1ERDaE,
HA11Aa1, and our own LOWELL, has pointed
out new beauties in his pages. But it is not
CHAUcER. He has other pre-eminent claims
to notice. He was not merely the Father Of
English Poetry, but, in some sense, the
Father of English Prose. When he wrote,
the English language was in a transit
ton period The complete fusion
between Anglo-Sa1on and Norman French
Was about taking place: The provin-
cialisms and other Irregularities of the
former language were dropping out and
clearing away. Meanwhile, there was no
fixed standard of taste, and no settled rules
by which style could be tried. ANY writer
could introduce, within limits, such novel;
ties rs he desired. A bad writer could de-
form English, and good one could i'm
prove it without exciting strong opposition.
Under these circumstances, CHAuoEn, who
happened to be man of poetic genius and a
scholar of high linguistic attainments, under
took for his own;~part the reform Of En-
glish.* It is impossible to say whether ho
realized the effect his example would have
upon future ages. Probably he did not.
Being modest man, lie could never have
imagined that the popularity Of The Can
te1bury Tales" would continue unabated for
five centuries. It is more likely that be re-
formed the English he used for his own
convenience. a. methodical man, and
q travelled man withal, he thought it
suitable to have his poems harmonious and
consistent throughout, instead Of following
local usnges widely at variance with each
other, and in many instances self-contradic-
tory.
CHAUcEn was the first to nuke IN efFectual
compromise between Norman-French and
Anglo-Saxon. The Canterbury Tales con-
tain more than 1000 French words of inhe-
rent meaning. Many of them have been
transferred bodily from one language to the
other, and the majority Of the rest are only
slightly altered. These words are important
contributions to the language. It has been
said that CuAucEn sfdumped q cart-load Of
new words " into English. II he did so,
that cart-1oad was the richest accession any
Language ever received =. j"
CnAucERs reforms were almost all in the
direction of simplided grammar. Many
times they consisted only in dropping
useless forms. Hence they recommend
ed themselves to the favor Of writ
ers who came after him. It was
easier to adopt them than not. He
reformed the definite article by dropping
thirty-four infections and replacing them by
the monosyllabic "the" Those who have
puzzled over the irregular Greek "Ho,"
"Hay,"' TO-" "Hoi, ~" Hal" "Ta," or the
French ssle, n" la," "les," or the German
"der,"" " di e, "s'das," can realize how great
gift CHAUcER's simple "the" for all cases
and both numbers is to the English Ian
guagc. He also introduced ga" rs the in
definite article. Next, he performed similar
service for the adjective, dropping the seven
infections to denote gender, number, and
case. Let the schoolboy calculate again
how much time he has spent in learning the
Infections Of ."agathos' or 'bonus," and
estimate what is saved to him in this respect
in English. CHAucEn reduced the ninety
seven changes Of the personal and possessiye
pronouns to about twenty-ole. He retained
but two of the twenty three infections that
marked the gender, number, and case in the