The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-09-12
LATIN ELEMENT IN ENGLISH.
IFederheld in New Yotk Pos,l

IuuY Ot 1FCCk ana L-aun, one or &nlCn furnishes large par, of the terminology of scieoce. aud the other supplies four ten,hs of the vocabulary of English liter ature, has been called in question" etc The remaining part of this statement which teteTs to Latin might be thought 10 oe that tue i'm -oriancs ot the Latin sss- ment in English IS represented by four parts in ten. This IS a gross exaggsra~ ton, but the real meaning ot the words is much mlldeT statement, and Is strictly true, If, however. the Latin words arc counted in English writings, instead of ln English vocsbularies, they wili fall far tracts from Genesis, St. ohn's gospel, SpenseI, Shakespeare, Milton. Cowley.
 Thomson. Addison, Locke, Pope, Young Sw,f, Robertson, Hume, Gibbon and Johnson, iu which Sharon Turner noted the orlg,n of ,he words, contained d a total exeluclng proper names, of 4a7 words of which only c9I. or about twenty pei cent, were no, Saxon.
 or those used by Shakespeare it is said that 5 Ny per cent, are ot Saxon or- gin Snd the ratio is about the same for the common version of the bible. But in most literary works of the last two cen,u. ries the fotetsu element IS certainly laTg- CT; in gene,Al, doubtless, |, would be found, if reckoned in this way,,o equal or exceed the Saxon Bat it, instead of counting only distinct words as they would be gwen in vocabulary, we count all the words of writer AS they stand on his page, we shall obtain very different ratios, The SAxon words will now be tound in large majority, varying from sx.y 10 mere than ninety per cent. of the whole number. The style of Johnson abounds m words of Latin origin but in the preface to his dictionary there are seventy-two per cent of SAX m words. .n Milton's poeucal works about two thirds of the vocabulary are foreign; but in the $ h book of Paradise Lost four tifhs ot all the words arc S1xon. "- /ime, HadAr m T B,ttf iH hry o( fhr Englnh Lan&gage' ptcftfd Co IKtb- sH,'s Di.I onaty
 The importance of the Latin element IS rated no higher than the following:
 As to the actual proportion of the va riouS elements, Ii is pIobl ole that ongi nal Enghsh words to not now form more than third or perhaps fourth of the total entues in fuIl English dicti nary and il might seem strange, therefore, that we still identity the language with that oi the ninth century, and class II as mem Der of the 10 German division. But this explains itself when we consider that of the total words of dictionary only small portion are used by any one indi VI iual Tn speaking or even in writing that thi, portion includes all or nearly all the Anglo Saxon words, and but small fraction of the others. The latter are in tact almost all names. the vast majority names of things (nouns), smaller mum Der names of attributes and actions ad JectIves and verbs) aud, from their very n4tuie, names of things, attributes anu iciions which come less usnally or very rarely under our notice. Thus in an or dinary book, novel or story, the foreign element will amount to from ten 10 fifteen per cent. Of the whole as the subject be comes more Iccondile or technical theiI number wal increase till in work or chemistry or abstruse mathematics tho proportion may be over forty per cen, - /dMcf 4 H Murray, fH EH6y B,H
 cannot suppose that Mi. Whrton wishs d his statement to be misunderstood as meaning more than it really does, nor can prove that anotaer champloa of the classics desired to mislead in saying that "a language sixiy-eight per cent o' whose vocabulary is Ct.r O. Latina sic thirty per cent Anglo-Saxon and two pc, cent Celtic surely deserves much larH CT portion of tune and attention than has nithc''o been given to It's elements growth, literature and history. The large percentage of its elements being of elassie ongiD may suggest, even to unculuvatec minds, that possibly there may be nor, wisdom and worth Tn an ercndcd and thorough study of these dead languages so berated by the jealous advocates oi scientific studies than they themselves were aware or even dreamed"
 This IS a consideration often advanced and the only one, may say which yield me any cons, atlon for my own years no unple4santly wasted oyer CEiaT. Vngil and Horace, H.nophon, Homer and Plato. Bu, why Is the argument invaria- ply stated m such manner that il is more likely than not to produce an i'm pression exaggerated by one hundre per cent. The only way for some classicisis to escape the impu,ation Of dIsingenuous- ness IS by pleading inability 10 make readily understood in Eng lish.
 Sentences can be found in most eulo- gies of he dead languages which would g've color to the plea. Mir. Whiton's sen. tence, which 1 have quoted. IS decidedly awkward. The study of Greek and the study of Latin re, at first, united to form a collective subject they are then wrenched apart oy the relative clause. and the reader must stop to rsunite them when he reaches the verb The pamphlet rom which my last quotation is taken IS 90 full Of mixed metaphors, awkward ar ran enent, misuse of words, and even pad spelling that feart.e writer, grad u te of Dartmouth and of Andover Semi- nary, and a, hls death Emeritus profes- sor of Creek in western college, mus, have been failing intellectually when he wrote II, and refrain from further crti c,Sm- I must, however, quote one bit