A Book About Words

by G. F. Graham

Another cause of this leaning to the French may have been the number of French words introduced by Chaucer. The English language (if, indeed, it then deserved that name) was in the latter part of the reign of Edward III. only just beginning to be formed. The Saxon element, which ever since the Conquest had been crushed, was now lifting its head, whilst the French was somewhat discouraged. But the language was not then fit for literary, especially for poetical, purposes; and, therefore, at the very time when it first appeared as English, a large influx of French words took place.

But this result was assisted by other circumstances. The number of Huguenot refugees who found shelter in England after the massacre of St. Bartholomew added materially to the French population of this country, and assisted in swelling the French vocabulary of the English language.

In the seventeenth century the marriage of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria of France could not fail to produce some effect on the language and literature of the age, and though this French taste received a check during the rule of Cromwell, it returned with double force at the Restoration. The foreign tastes acquired by Charles II. in his wanderings on the continent mainly contributed to this state of things, and on the return of the Stewarts, the general tone of the court and nobility, as well as the literature of the age, was French.

But this was as nothing when compared with the consequences of Louis XIV.’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. We are told by Mr. Smiles that, in consequence of this cruel and impolitic act, as many as 400,000 French emigrants found an asylum in this country. It is impossible that this could have been without effect on the English language, and although statistics on the subject are wanting, we may confidently conclude that this immigration considerably increased the French element of the English language.

There can be little doubt that the style of Latinity which Johnson adopted also led to the abandonment of many words of Saxon origin. He was the most weighty authority in England in all things regarding language, style, and literature, till the year of his death, 1784; and his numerous imitators, maintaining his peculiarities of style, still further contributed to the same state of things. Add to all these influences the general leaning of most writers of the present day, and we shall not be surprised at the condition of the English language.

When we consider the numerous and continual attacks which the Saxon element of English has thus sustained, we may be inclined to wonder that there should be any of it left—that it should not have been utterly crushed and annihilated by these raids. But this wonder will be increased when we find that it not only exists, but constitutes to this day by far the larger portion of our language. This is surely sufficient to prove the innate depth, force, and vigour of that element; and we may fairly conclude that if it has so far been able to make head against these innovations, it retains an intrinsic power to resist future attacks of the same nature.

In truth, Saxon is not so much an element as the very basis and foundation of English. The great body of articles, pronouns, numerals, conjunctions, prepositions, signs, auxiliaries, &c.—in fine, all the framework and joints of the language—are drawn from that source.

There are, however, some French philologists who would have it that the majority of words in English is much in favour of French. M. Thommerel gives himself great pains to prove this conclusion, but apparently on very insufficient grounds; and M. Génin, who has written some valuable works on his own language, says, in his ‘Variations du langage Français,’ that the English are indebted to the French for more than three quarters of their language! ‘Les Anglais,’ he writes, ‘ne sont riches que de nos dépouilles; si l’on se mettait à cribler leur langue, et à reprendre ce qui nous appartient, il ne leur resterait pas même de quoi se dire: “Bonjour! comment vous portez-vous?” Leur fameuse formule, How do you do? est volée à la France.’ The tone of this remark is pretty evident, and he surely here allows his patriotism to get the better of his good sense; for he certainly ought to have known that, though our language is enriched with many French words, the main body of English, since the fourteenth century, has been, and is at the present moment, drawn from a Saxon and not a French source. In the case of ‘How do you do?’ however, he is probably right. He quotes from several ballads of the twelfth century the expression ‘Comment le faites-vous?’ as then used in the English sense of ‘How do you do?’ to prove that we have adopted—or rather, as he says, stolen—this form from the French. It has been suggested that the verb do, in this phrase, is derived from the Saxon ‘dugan,’ to prosper or prevail, from which comes the more modern ‘doughty;’ as in ‘a doughty knight.’ According to this explanation, ‘How do you do?’ is equivalent to ‘How do you get on, or prosper?’ But Mr. Wedgewood, in his ‘Dictionary of English Etymology,’ rejects this view. He agrees here with M. Génin, that it is a close translation of the old French ‘Comment le faites-vous?’ And so the matter now stands.