The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-25
CHANGES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Brogues and Slang Have a Powerful
influence For Notifications.
4 The Kansas CITY Star.

FROM the Kansas City star
What the English language has been in
the past, and indeed how it came to be
at all, has been made the subject of in
Vulnerable treatises, and, in fact, of text
| DOCKS TO be studied in the common schools:
pul there remains a wide field for specu-
lation as to the changes which the lam
guage may undergo in the future
1t is reasonable supposition that what
ever mas changed may change further.
ana we all know that English has under
gone numerous alterations. The Lord $
prayer IN the sort of English Wyclf used
would undoubtedly be Ineligible to heaV-
emily ears, but hardly to those of a mod
erh English-speahng person We talk
apout the English of Shakespeare as be-
ing our own yet some ingenious person
mas supported the theory that the Eng
llsh or Shakespeare's time as spoken was
equivalent to the Irish brogue OF to-day
and that Hamlets soliloquy when first
pronounced lin public on the stage" sound
ed as "Shamus O'Brien'' does now when
given by the ordinary elocuuonist The
historical theory underlying this is, OF
course, that the Irish continue to speak
English as they hear 1t when extensively
introduced In Ireland in the days of Eliz-
aDeth, while in England and other Eng
lsh-speakinG countries it has changed to
the English as she Is spoke" al present
whatever that may be.
The English language, more especially
as spoken has suffered change, and why
should 1T not? An American grandfather
and grandson seated at the same table
DO not speak the language with precise
similarity, and why should they? The
people who complain of the "corruption"
and ''perversion" of the English lam
guage, If by those expressions they mean
It's change, murmur without sufficient
cause A language is but a human in
strument, which may be changed. amend
ed, enlarged and restricted at the will of
those who use il in their business. Posi-
bly, If Chaucer could revisit the earth he
might pick up a volume of Tennyson's
poems and conclude that English had been
nightly perverted" and "corrupted''
since the time he wrote verses. But would
he have any just ground for complaint?
But admitting that the English Ian
guage, as we know it in America, has vet
to undergo change, what is likely to be
the nature of the change or changesf
There is colloqual expression, He talks
like book" and 1t may be said that the
great change to be made in colloquial Eng
hsh, in America at least will be In the
general conformation of spoken English
to book English" The effect of this win
be the gradual dying out and loss Of sec
tonal and local dialects, which will be a
loss indeed. The world will be the more
monotonous when the man from Maine
speaks the English language with the
same pronunciation and accent as the man
from Alabama; when the colored Ameri-
can from Cherokee Georgia" speaks the
same English as his brother in black
from Savannah, neither of them using
what we vaguely call the negro dialect"
of to-day. Yet there is reason to believe
that such time will come, and from a
very evident cause, viz-the establish
ment throughout the country, and in
every part and portion of it, of the same
system of common schools. Why should
not generation speak alike or approx
mate common standard which uses the
same spelling book ard reader? THE
book English" being the same through
out the United States, spoken English
will approach conformity.
The English language is not merely a
changing language, but growing one.
Every new edition OF every standard die
tionary is proof of this. With the years
we gather words and words Are we to
infer from this that the ordinary vocab-
ulary of the talking citizen is to be great
ly increased in the future? Not neeessar-
lily. The added words are largely tech
nieal and scientific, resulting from the
immense acquisitions of knowledge i'm the
field of the arts and sciences. The list of
words which an English-speaking man
absolutely must have to express joy. grief,
hatred, contempt, affection and so on has
not been materially increased. This may
be seen in the history of profanity. Our
ancestors INDUCED in imprecations and
elaborate blasphemies unknown in this
age, but what may be called plain swear
ing" is in the same terms as for ages past
and wherever English is spOken