[6.] In the present century there are many influences specially worth noting as affecting the language:
(i) Social and Political Causes.—Society is a complex thing, continually growing. New facts and ideas are perpetually making themselves felt, necessitating new words, or a more extending meaning in old words. In this province, then, changes in language are incessantly required. Hence the need for such new words as extradition, neutralisation, secularisation; even for such unhappy coinages as burke. On occasion of the great volunteer reviews of 1881, words like entrain and detrain, applied to troops, could be noticed creeping in. Closure and clôture were rivals for currency during the debates of 1882; and Boycott began to present serious claims to permanent citizenship in the English tongue.
(ii) Popularising of Technical and Scientific Terms.—One of the most marked features of the nineteenth century is the great diffusion of scientific knowledge, and the application of it to the uses of practical life. The highest scientific results are becoming common property; and the discoveries of science have been made to satisfy the common needs of men. The result is that terms once unknown or exclusively technical have gained the widest currency in the popular speech. There is no need to mention such familiar words as telegraph, photograph, or even telephone or photophone. The old noun wire has now established its right to be used as a verb. In other spheres such terms as objective, subjective, æsthetics, now fulfil important functions; æsthete also seems too useful a word to be dispensed with.
(iii) Revival of Archaisms.—In many of our recent poets there has been a tendency to revive some of the old Spenserian or Shaksperian words. But as these are purely literary terms, with no currency in the common speech, they need not be dwelt on.
(iv) Introduction of Scotticisms and Americanisms.—The right of the Scottish tongue to be considered one of the worthiest varieties of the genuine old English or Saxon tongue is now generally recognised. But apart from that, the intrinsic merit of such words as eerie, glamour, sough, bonnie, douce (both of which last, however, are of French origin), will probably secure them a permanent place in our language. The influence of America will also be more and more felt on the common English language, whether through its stock of old Saxon phrases which have been preserved in America, through the innovations made by its humorists, or the new experiences in its social and political life.
(v) Further borrowing from Foreign Languages.—Even the most remote and unlikely make important and familiar contributions to our tongue. From the Malays we have (along with the thing) borrowed the words bamboo, gong, sago; from the Australians we have boomerang and kangaroo; and from South African tongues, gnu, quagga, kraal.
CHAPTER IV.
Words adopted from Foreign Languages.
1. FROM AFRICAN DIALECTS.—Chimpanzee, gnu, gorilla, karoo, kraal, zebra.
2. FROM AMERICAN TONGUES.—Buccaneer, cacique, cannibal, canoe, caoutchouc, cayman, chocolate, condor, guano, hammock, jaguar, jalap, jerked (beef), llama, mahogany, maize, manioc, moccasin, mustang, opossum, pampas, pemmican, potato, skunk, squaw, tapioca, tobacco, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, yam.