Just as English was enriched by contact with French, so it has been improved, though to a less extent, by attrition and contact with its sister dialects. By elbowing its way to the front through the various dialects which jostled it, the dialect which developed into standard English naturally lost by attrition most of the grammatical peculiarities that hampered it. It was, of course, a decided advantage to the London dialect, in its struggle for the distinction of the standard speech, to throw off such inflections as proved a hindrance to its complete development. Most philologists used to regard the loss of superfluous inflections a symptom of decadence in a language. Now, however, such a process is regarded a sign of virility and progress. “The fewer and shorter the forms, the better,” affirms the eminent Danish philologist Jespersen. “The analytical structure of modern European languages is so far from being a drawback to them that it gives them an unimpeachable superiority over the earlier stages of the same language.” This high authority even goes so far as to declare that “the so-called full and rich forms of the ancient languages are not a beauty, but a deformity.”
Thus in the process of its development standard English was gradually freed of many of its pristine grammatical encumbrances, to take its place in the front rank of living tongues as the best equipped for a universal language. And the end is not yet. For the work of simplifying is still in progress. The history of our speech from the fifteenth century down to the present day proves nothing more conclusively than that English tends ever to become more and more simple in inflection and syntax. Witness the dwindling use of the subjunctive mood, which has been almost driven from the field of modern English syntax by the constantly encroaching indicative. Another example in point is the transfer of the function of the absolute case from the dative, an oblique case, to the nominative. This shifting has been accomplished since the time of Milton, who represents the transitional period. It is evident then that the tendency of standard English is in the direction of simplicity, and its future growth will, no doubt, be along the line of least resistance. Certainly its vis inertiae seems destined, unless acted upon by some violent external force, to move in that direction.
It need hardly be added that standard English, like every spoken language, has undergone change, from age to age. Some words become obsolete and drop out of the vocabulary. New words are coined to take their places, and if, after a period of probation, they prove acceptable, they are received into good usage and are recognized as standard. In this manner the waste that necessarily occurs in living English, as in every living language, is repaired. Thus the English speech grows, adapting itself to the many and varied conditions which are exacted of it as the medium for the communication of thought for the millions of people in every quarter of the globe who use it. Here and there slight variations from the normal, slight departures from the standard, are made. But unless the locutions which constitute these departures possess extraordinary vitality and force, unless they persist with dogged tenacity and supply a real need in the language, they are doomed to perish without leaving any appreciable effect upon the standard speech.
What, then, determines standard English? The reply, in a nutshell, is the usage of the best writers and speakers. Standard English is determined by the habitual manner the learned and cultured employ to express their thoughts and feelings in words. The customary mode of expression now in vogue among the most careful users of English has been inherited from the generations of writers and speakers who have employed our speech in the centuries past as their vernacular. The leading English authors from Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Johnson and a host of others, down to the living writers, have each in his way contributed to make our standard literary language. Each of these, it is true, has influenced standard English in some degree. No one can fail to see the impress which such an eccentric writer as Doctor Johnson, the literary dictator of the eighteenth century, stamped upon the standard English of his age. Our speech shows no less distinctly marked traces of the influence of Addison. For Addison’s admirable style, with its characteristic grace, crispness and lightness of touch, even Johnson himself warmly commended, although the great Cham’s innate tendency to the stilted, the turgid and the ponderous prevented him from approximating in his practice what in his preaching he so ardently held up for the imitation and emulation of others. To mention another concrete example, in more recent times standard English has been swayed somewhat by Macaulay’s passionate love of antithesis and of the periodic structure of the sentence. Attention might be called, likewise, to the influence of Gibbon’s chaste and classic style (albeit a trifle heavy and wearisome at times) upon our standard literary language, or to the influence of another prominent author whose style is still more unique and distinctive—Thomas Carlyle. Away back in the early history of English one may observe in the style of the West-Saxon translator of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” a trick of repetition which has made a lasting impression on our standard speech; and it still survives in such familiar tautological phrases as “really and truly,” “bright and shining,” “pure and simple,” “without let or hindrance,” “toil and delve,” “confirm and strengthen,” and “lord and master.” All of these locutions, as Professor Kittredge informs us, in his suggestive book, “Words and Their Ways in English Speech,” are in high favor, and are recognized as standard English. Euphuism is a movement that swept over Elizabethan English in the wake of the tidal wave of ink-horn terms, materially affecting the standard speech. Even Shakespeare could not quite resist the fashion of Euphuism, and his English is indeed slightly colored thereby. Another trick of style which has cropped out here and there, from the days of Spenser down to the present age, is that of employing archaic terms with the intent to revive them. On the score of this affectation the most flagrant sinner among modern authors is William Morris, whose writings furnish a veritable treasure-trove of curious and amusing archaisms. But it is not worth while to multiply examples. Let those already given suffice to illustrate how standard English has been swayed, from time to time, even by the devices and attractions of dame fashion.
It is to be noted, in conclusion, that standard English is no longer confined to the usage of any given locality, as was the case in the early history of the language. The English language spoken in London does not now enjoy the distinction of determining the standard universally accepted. A special mode of utterance or a special idiom is not now regarded proper simply and solely because it is sanctioned by London usage. Indeed, that British metropolis appears rather to have broken with its enviable past and worthy traditions in the matter of its English, for London is now recognized as the home of the “cockney” dialect. Nowhere more than on the lips of the native Londoner is the purity of our noble tongue in jeopardy. Strange to say, the English vernacular of the native Londoner has, of late years, fallen into disrepute by reason of its abounding improprieties, its teeming provincialisms and its solecisms. No educated man who professes English as his mother-tongue would, to-day, think of making his speech conform to the usage of London as reflected in the local dialect. It used to be the custom to take London English as a model; but not so now, since the local speech has become so corrupt as to prove a constant menace to the purity of the living tongue. Perhaps it should be added, in order to forestall adverse criticism, that standard English is, of course, heard in London, as elsewhere, upon the lips of the educated and cultured. But it is worth while to emphasize this fact, even at the risk of repetition, that standard English is no longer confined to any given locality or to any one country, for the matter of that, but is written and spoken in America, in far-off India, and in other remote parts of the world as well as in the British Isles. For wherever the English language is employed, whether written or spoken, in accordance with the best traditions of that rich, flexible and copious tongue, there standard English is found, in whatever quarter of the globe it may be.
Transcriber’s Notes
Page [10]: “linguistc ideal” changed to “linguistic ideal”
Page [14]: A missing footnote anchor was added.
Page [29]: “St. James Gazettte” changed to “St. James Gazette”
Page [73]: “early pronunication” changed to “early pronunciation”