Evening star., 1899-04-08
THE TERM "ANGLo-sAxoNx
And the Matter of s4American Citizen.
allip."

fA.aeA eAAS 1AANNCE Ol .lnHSEACAh
NIip."
Mr.. J. D. O'Conneil sends to The Star
communication upon the subject of "Ameri-
can Citizenship" that h too long for use in
this paper, but from which the following
is taken:
''You give altogether too much credit to
the Anglo-Saxons for the English language.
For instancs, in the sCentury Dictionary,
under the word Anglo-Saxon,' a place is
given to some extracts from Professor
Marchs paper upon that subject, where he
asserts that the Angio-Saxon language is
SO different from modern English as to de-
serve separate nane;' that 1t differs
from our English in phonology in vocabu-
larry, IN infections, in the derivation Of
words, in syntax, in verSificatfon and in
modes of thought that the English is AN
analytic mixed speech of Roman cultiva-
ton, with other periods of growth and
classic regularity and progress that "a
chaos separates the two languages and
that the term Angfo-Saxon Is of senti-
mental origin, because 1t Is thought to
magnify the English language and the
race. But, says the learned philologist,
Americans are taught to believe In mixed
races, and 1t magnifies the English most in
our eyes to represent 1t in the old fashion
as formed by the junction Of the two great
languages, the bearers of the best cultiva-
tion OF the TeutoThc and Romantic races
For now much our language owes to the
latter ask the philosophers and scientists
from what language can they best express
and define their best thoughts and discov-
cries. Could they express them in Anglo
Saxon? No; 1t Is not the language of prog
ress, nor is any Teutonic tongue. Why,
therefore, use that hyphenated misnomer,
'Anglo-Saxon, in respect to our institutions
or modern civilization, or, in fact, to any
thing American or to any American citizen?
You object to any hyphenated name for the
latter, and agree with you that the term
American Is not only good enough, but
also the only proper one for our people.
Nevertheless, we may properly use a hy-
phen before 1t to denote the nationality of
our ancestors or the birthplace of our nat
uralized citizens, but never as race term.
For example, 1t is eminently proper to use
the terms 1rish-American, German-Ameri
can-the two preponderating elements of our
populauon-or like terms to denote the an
cestry of other Americans from a national
but not race, point of view; whereas no
one whose opinion is worth anything will
admit that the term 'Anglo-Saxon' is a
proper one to describe any modern nation
language or nationality. Why, then, should
1t be descriptive of anything American?
Let him who uses the nisnomer with any
thought of magnifying his own importance
over rGerman-Americans or IriSh-Americans
or so-called Latin-Americans be sure that
he is himself a man of the Anglo-Saxon
type, or else. tn the language of that fa-
NOUS Celt, Shakespeare, let him write him
self down an ass. 1t Is true that we have
in our makeup some Americans of the Ger
manic Anglo-saxon type-fair- haired and
bue-eyed people of English Irish and
Scotch ancestry-who are in no respect su-
perior to their fellow-citizens. If there be
anything to boast of in ancestry of that
type, for heavens sake. Mr.. Editor. let
those blue-eyed blondes have all the glory
of 1t, and do not insist upon pinchbecking
the mass of the American people as Anglo
Saxons. Let the dark haired, blue-eyed
Americans, who are in the majority and
who are of Celtic origin. retain their race
identity and remain free from what they re-
gard as reproach-being called Anglo-Sax-
cns-on no better grounds than because they
speak modern English.