Questions at Issue in Our English Speech

by Edwin W. Bowen

There is one marked Hibernicism which has now passed far beyond the Irish dialect. Probably many of those from whose delicate mouths we hear it so frequently are not aware of its Irish origin. Let it be said by way of parenthesis that the writer does not intend this remark as an impeachment of that charming pronunciation which boasts the sanction of those arriving at their conclusions by instinct rather than reason; nor is the remark made in a spirit of stoical indifference to refined and delicate feelings like that of Balthazar, the infatuated chemist in Balzac’s Search for the Absolute. When the beautiful eyes of his devoted wife filled with tears as she pleaded with him not to sacrifice all his fortune and even herself in his search for diamonds, he ruthlessly exclaimed: “Tears! I have decomposed them; they contain a little phosphate of lime, chloride of sodium, mucin and water.” The Hibernicism in question is the pronunciation of “gyirl,” so wide-spread and carefully cultivated by delicate mouths in Virginia as to be regarded a shibboleth of those “to the manner born.” (It is of course the prerogative of woman to change her mind,—and her name, too, if she so elects.) Other examples of this Hibernicism are cyart, cyarve, scyar, gyarden, gyarlic, gyuide, cyow and nyow, which last approximates a feline note if uttered in a falsetto. The Irish pronunciation of sure extends far beyond that jargon now. Perhaps the reader has heard the story of the good bishop’s wife who twitted her husband about saying shore for sure, and who, when reminded that she pronounced the word the same way, indignantly replied, “Why, to be shore, I do not!”

It must not be inferred from what has been said that the English spoken in all parts of Ireland is uniform. On the contrary, it differs vastly and varies with the locality. In some parts, indeed, English is not spoken at all. But where it is spoken, it bears a striking resemblance, as has been pointed out, to the English of the times of Dryden and Pope, which was fossilized by emigration. The “brogue” itself is due to the characteristic Celtic habit of utterance, and consists mostly in the intonation, “which appears,” according to Murray, “full of violent ups and downs, or rather precipices and chasms of force and pitch, almost disguising the sound to English ears.”

Thus it is evident that not a few of the expressions which now survive only as provincialisms, or vulgarisms, in the speech of the illiterate were once in entire accord with polite usage. Many of the locutions heard now in the negro dialect can boast really an aristocratic pedigree and, several generations ago, enjoyed the sanction of the highest orthoepical authority. But these pronunciations, somehow, drifted out of the main current of standard speech and at present appear only as jetsam and flotsam in the back-water of our English tongue. Yet they serve to indicate how extensively our language has been altered and modified even in modern times, after it found its way to the New World. The modifications and changes, however, both in idiom and pronunciation, would have taken place, even if the English speech had never been transplanted into foreign territory. Conclusive proof of this is furnished by a comparison of present-day British English with the English of two centuries ago as spoken in the mother country; and this, though not explicitly stated, is implied in the discussion of the theme in the foregoing paragraphs.

BRITICISMS VERSUS AMERICANISMS.

It is a recognized fact that there is a considerable variation in the English language as spoken by the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. The English people differ from the American people in the use of our common speech not only in their characteristic mode of pronunciation and orthography, but they also differ from us in no less striking a manner in the use of certain idioms and household phrases, which constitute the small change of our every-day speech. This difference is the natural outgrowth of the separation of the two peoples by the estranging ocean, which is of necessity a great barrier to complete intercourse. To be sure, the fact that the English people and the American people have distinct national entities with the resulting difference, during the last hundred years, of national ideals and pursuits, has had the natural and inevitable effect of widening the breach between the speech of the two countries. No doubt the present variation will be accentuated more and more as the years go by, and the language of Great Britain and of America, far from becoming absolutely identical in pronunciation and idiom with the flight of centuries, will go on developing with an ever-increasing divergence from the common standard. If this be true—and certainly the facts as to the present tendency seem to warrant such a conclusion—the final result may be the unique linguistic phenomenon of two separate and distinct tongues, if such a thing be not an impossibility.

Before pointing out the variations of our American English from British English, it may be interesting to note the source of our American vernacular, and the contributing causes of the chief variations from the authoritative standard of the mother country.

When our Saxon forefathers found their way to the shores of this western continent and here established their permanent abode, the settlers naturally brought with them the language of their native country. This was, of course, the noble tongue of Shakespeare and Milton. Our British cousins who criticize our English so freely and cast reproach upon it as if it were a mere jargon, a barbarous patois, evidently lose sight of the fact that it boasts the same high pedigree as their own much-vaunted Elizabethan speech. When the English language was first transplanted in American soil, it was identical in orthography, orthoepy and idiom with the speech of the mother country. But the transplanted tongue, having a new and different habitat, began at once to adapt itself, however imperceptibly, to its changed environ and new conditions. Nor was the connection with the parent stock a sufficiently close and vital bond of union to prevent the English speech on American lips from undergoing at least some slight modification in the course of time, as a natural consequence of the altered conditions in the new world.

It is a well-established linguistic principle that a language inevitably undergoes a slight change, determined by the varying conditions, as long as it is spoken. When a tongue ceases to be spoken, then and only then does it cease to change and become a dead language, as, for instance, Latin and Greek. This fact of the gradual change in a living language is demonstrated through the difficulty one experiences in understanding the English of Chaucer, or even of Shakespeare, for the matter of that, although he is not so far removed from the present age. If a living tongue underwent no alteration with the lapse of years, then why should not Anglo-Saxon be as readily intelligible to us as modern English?

Furthermore, a language is affected in its development by contact with a foreign tongue and by outside influences, such as the climate. The first of these reasons is so apparent to all that it hardly deserves comment. But not so the second. Yet the influence of climate on a living language is very fruitful of change. Ready proof of this is furnished in our own country in the soft, musical utterance of the south in contrast with the rather shrill and forceful habits of enunciation characteristic of the north. In Europe, for example, the vast preponderance of the harsh, guttural character of the German tongue offers a glaring contrast to the smooth, liquid notes of the pure Tuscan speech. This is the reason why Italian appeals so strongly to music lovers and to all who have an ear trained to be especially sensitive to sound. Now, this difference between German and Italian, as respects the musical character of the two languages, is doubtless to be explained in large measure as the result of climate conditions extending through many long centuries. If by some violent political upheaval the Italians were transported to the extreme northern part of Europe, it is altogether probable that their speech in the course of centuries would lose much of its native vocalic development, much of its melody, and become harsh and strident, somewhat like the Russian language. It follows, therefore, that the English speech on American soil has undergone some slight modification, in consequence of climatic influence. Perhaps this explains the variation of the American pronunciation of the long o-sound as in “stone” and “bone” from the British norm. But the difference in climate between the two countries is not sufficiently marked to produce any very radical departure.

A striking feature of the English speech on American lips is the leveling of the long a-sound heard in such words as “past,” “fast,” “plant,” “command,” “dance,” “path,” etc. This could hardly be the result of climatic influence, however, for it does not appear that the climate has had the effect of producing any modification in the pronunciation of such terms in any part of America. The prevailing pronunciation of these terms is the same, at the south and at the north alike. Such a variation must, therefore, be inherent in the natural growth of the English language on American soil. For it must be borne in mind that just as the English speech, as any other living organism, has been growing and developing during the centuries in England, so, likewise, in America it has been growing and developing during the last three centuries, but not necessarily in the same manner. Those employing the language in Great Britain and in the United States are no longer a homogeneous people with the same national ideals and destiny. On the contrary, they are two separate and distinct nations with different forms of government and with different aims and aspirations. Add to this the fact that the nations have been estranged by political differences which resulted in wars and that they are separated by the physical barrier of a vast ocean. In the face of these obstacles it is not at all surprising that the English speech has not gone on developing pari passu on both sides of the Atlantic. The wonder is that the present variations are not really greater and more striking than they are.