53. Interjections usually have no grammatical connection with the phrases or sentences in which they stand.
Sometimes, however, a substantive is connected with an interjection by means of a preposition ([p. 155]).
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
English is a member of the great Indo-European Family of languages, which is so called because it includes well-nigh all the languages of Europe and the most important of those found in India. Within this family, English belongs to the Teutonic (or Germanic) Group, which contains also German, Dutch, the Scandinavian tongues (Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish), and some others.
English of the oldest period is called either Anglo-Saxon or Old English. This was the speech of certain piratical tribes whose home was in northern Germany, on the eastern and southern shores of the North Sea, but who invaded Britain about A.D. 450, and subdued the Celtic inhabitants of the island in a series of fierce wars. The most considerable of the invading tribes were the Angles and the Saxons. Their dominion was well assured by the beginning of the seventh century, and their language, which they usually called “English” (that is, “the tongue of the Angles”), gradually spread through England and most of Scotland. In Wales, however, the native Britons have maintained their own Celtic speech to the present day; and in the Scottish Highlands, Gaelic—which is akin to Welsh and practically identical with the native language of Ireland—is still extensively used.
At the time of the invasion, the Angles and Saxons were heathen, and the Britons, who had been for four centuries under the sway of the Roman Empire, were Christians, and much more highly civilized than their conquerors. Indeed, they had adopted many features of Roman culture, and Latin was spoken to some extent, at least in the larger towns. By the end of the seventh century, however, the Anglo-Saxons also had embraced Christianity and had made remarkable advances in literature and learning. The language of the Britons exerted but slight influence upon that of the Anglo-Saxons. The Celtic words in English are few in number, and most of them were borrowed in comparatively recent times.
The Norman Conquest (1066) marks a highly significant date in the history of our language. The Normans were a Scandinavian tribe who had been in possession of Normandy (in northern France) for about a hundred and fifty years. They had abandoned their native tongue, and spoke a dialect of French. From 1066 to about the year 1400, two languages were therefore common in England,—English, which was employed by the vast majority of the people, and French, which was the language of the court and the higher orders. French, however, was never a serious rival of English for supremacy in the island. It was the speech of a class, not of the nation, and its use gradually died out, except as an accomplishment. By the time of Chaucer (who was born about 1340 and died in 1400), it was clear that the English tongue was henceforth to be regarded as the only natural language for Englishmen, whether they were of Anglo-Saxon or of Norman origin.
Still, the Norman conquest had a profound influence upon English. It is not true—though often asserted—that the multitude of French words which our language contains were derived from the Norman dialect. Comparatively few of them came into English until after 1300, when Normandy had been lost to the English crown for a hundred years. Since 1300 we have borrowed freely—not from Norman, however, but from Central (or Parisian) French, which had become the standard to which the English descendants of the Normans endeavored to conform. The effect of the Conquest, then, was not to fill English with Norman terms. It was rather to bring England into close social and literary relations with France, and thus to facilitate the adoption of words and constructions from Central French.
Further, since literature was in the middle ages dependent in the main upon private patronage, the existence of a ruling class whose interest was in French, discouraged the maintenance of any national or general standard of English composition. Every English writer had recourse to his local dialect, and one dialect was felt to be as good as another.
By 1350, however, the dialect of London and the vicinity had come, apparently, to be regarded as somewhat more elegant and polished than the others. All that was needed was the appearance of some writer of supreme genius to whom this dialect should be native. Chaucer was such a writer, for he was born in London. To be sure, Chaucer did not “make modern English.” None the less, he was a powerful agent in settling the language. Since his time, at all events, the fact of a “standard of literary usage” has been undisputed. Dialects still exist, but they are not regarded as authoritative. Educated speakers and writers of English, the world over, use the language with substantial uniformity.[69]