“Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove”,
must have felt that he was still dealing with it as Latin; just as ‘terminus’, a word which the necessities of railways have introduced among us, will not be truly naturalized till we use ‘terminuses’, and not ‘termini’ for its plural; nor ‘phenomenon’, till we have renounced ‘phenomena’. Sometimes it has been found convenient to retain both plurals, that formed according to the laws of the classical language, and that formed according to the laws of our own, only employing them in different senses; thus is it with ‘indices’ and ‘indexes’, ‘genii’ and ‘geniuses’.
The same process has gone on with words from other languages, as from the Italian and the Spanish; thus ‘bandetto’ (Shakespeare), ‘bandito’ (Jeremy Taylor), becomes ‘bandit’; ‘ruffiano’ (Coryat) ‘ruffian’; ‘concerto’, ‘concert’; ‘busto’ (Lord Chesterfield) ‘bust’; ‘caricatura’ (Sir Thomas Browne) ‘caricature’; ‘princessa’ (Hacket) ‘princess’; ‘scaramucha’ (Dryden) ‘scaramouch’; ‘pedanteria’ (Sidney) ‘pedantry’; ‘impresa’ ‘impress’; ‘caprichio’ (Shakespeare) becomes first ‘caprich’ (Butler), then ‘caprice’; ‘duello’ (Shakespeare) ‘duel’; ‘alligarta’ (Ben Jonson), ‘alligator’; ‘parroquito’ (Webster) ‘parroquet’; ‘scalada’ (Heylin) or ‘escalado’ (Holland) ‘escalade’; ‘granada’ (Hacket) ‘grenade’; ‘parada’ (J. Taylor) ‘parade’; ‘emboscado’ (Holland) ‘stoccado’, ‘barricado’, ‘renegado’, ‘hurricano’ (all in Shakespeare), ‘brocado’ (Hackluyt), ‘palissado’ (Howell), drop their foreign terminations, and severally become ‘ambuscade’, ‘stockade’, ‘barricade’, ‘renegade’, ‘hurricane’, ‘brocade’, ‘palisade’; ‘croisado’ in like manner (Bacon) becomes first ‘croisade’ (Jortin), and then ‘crusade’; ‘quinaquina’ or ‘quinquina’, ‘quinine’. Other slight modifications of spelling, not in the termination, but in the body of a word, will indicate in like manner its more entire incorporation into the English language. Thus ‘shash’, a Turkish word, becomes ‘sash’; ‘colone’ (Burton) ‘clown’[55]; ‘restoration’ was at first spelt ‘restauration’; and so long as ‘vicinage’ was spelt ‘voisinage’[56] (Sanderson), ‘mirror’ ‘miroir’ (Fuller), ‘recoil’ ‘recule’, or ‘career’ ‘carriere’ (both by Holland), they could scarcely be considered those purely English words which now they are[57].
Here and there even at this comparatively late period of the language awkward foreign words will be recast in a more thoroughly English mould; ‘chirurgeon’ will become ‘surgeon’; ‘hemorrhoid’, ‘emerod’; ‘squinancy’ will become first ‘squinzey’ (Jeremy Taylor) and then ‘quinsey’; ‘porkpisce’ (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more accurately hogfish[58] will be ‘porpesse’, and then ‘porpoise’, as it is now. In other words the attempt will be made, but it will be now too late to be attended with success. ‘Physiognomy’ will not give place to ‘visnomy’, however Spenser and Shakespeare employ this briefer form; nor ‘hippopotamus’ to ‘hippodame’, even at Spenser’s bidding. In like manner the attempt to naturalize ‘avant-courier’ in the shape of ‘vancurrier’ has failed. Other words also we meet which have finally refused to take a more popular form, although such was once more or less current; or, if this is too much to say of all, yet hazarded by good authors. Thus Holland wrote ‘cirque’, but we ‘circus’; ‘cense’, but we ‘census’; ‘interreign’, but we ‘interregnum’; Sylvester ‘cest’, but we ‘cestus’; ‘quirry’, but we ‘equerry’; ‘colosse’, but we still ‘colossus’; Golding ‘ure’, but we ‘urus’; ‘metropole’, but we ‘metropolis’; Dampier ‘volcan’, but this has not superseded ‘volcano’; nor ‘pagod’ (Pope) ‘pagoda’; nor ‘skelet’ (Holland) ‘skeleton’; nor ‘stimule’ (Stubbs) ‘stimulus’. Bolingbroke wrote ‘exode’, but we hold fast to ‘exodus’; Burton ‘funge’, but we ‘fungus’; Henry More ‘enigm’, but we ‘enigma’; ‘analyse’, but we ‘analysis’. ‘Superfice’ (Dryden) has not put ‘superficies’, nor ‘sacrary’ (Hacket) ‘sacrarium’, nor ‘limbeck’ ‘alembic’, out of use. Chaucer’s ‘potecary’ has given way to a more Greek formation ‘apothecary’. Yet these and the like must be regarded quite as exceptions; the tendency of things is altogether the other way.
Looking at this process of the reception of foreign words, with their after assimilation in feature to our own, we may trace, as was to be expected, a certain conformity between the genius of our institutions and that of our language. It is the very character of our institutions to repel none, but rather to afford a shelter and a refuge to all, from whatever quarter they come; and after a longer or shorter while all the strangers and incomers have been incorporated into the English nation, within one or two generations have forgotten that they were ever ought else than members of it, have retained no other reminiscence of their foreign extraction than some slight difference of name, and that often disappearing or having disappeared. Exactly so has it been with the English language. No language has shown itself less exclusive; none has stood less upon niceties; none has thrown open its arms wider, with a fuller confidence, a confidence justified by experience, that it could make truly its own, assimilate and subdue to itself, whatever it received into its bosom; and in none has this experiment in a larger number of instances been successfully carried out.
French at the Restoration
Such are the two great enlargements from without of our vocabulary. All other are minor and subordinate. Thus the introduction of French tastes by Charles the Second and his courtiers returning from exile, to which I have just adverted, though it rather modified the structure of our sentences than the materials of our vocabulary, gave us some new words. In one of Dryden’s plays, Marriage à la Mode, a lady full of affectation is introduced, who is always employing French idioms in preference to English, French words rather than native. It is not a little curious that of these, thus put into her mouth to render her ridiculous, not a few are excellent English now, and have nothing far-sought or affected about them: for so it frequently proves that what is laughed at in the beginning, is by all admitted and allowed at the last. For example, to speak of a person being in the ‘good graces’ of another has nothing in it ridiculous now; the words ‘repartee’, ‘embarrass’, ‘chagrin’, ‘grimace’, do not sound novel and affected now as they all must plainly have done at the time when Dryden wrote. ‘Fougue’ and ‘fraischeur’, which he himself employed—being, it is true, no frequent offender in this way—have not been justified by the same success.
Greek Words Naturalized
Nor indeed can it be said that this adoption and naturalization of foreign words ever ceases in a language. There are periods, as we have seen, when this goes forward much more largely than at others; when a language throws open, as it were, its doors, and welcomes strangers with an especial freedom; but there is never a time, when one by one these foreigners and strangers are not slipping into it. We do not for the most part observe the fact, at least not while it is actually doing. Time, the greatest of all innovators, manages his innovations so dexterously, spreads them over such vast periods, and therefore brings them about so gradually, that often, while effecting the mightiest changes, we have no suspicion that he is effecting any at all. Thus how imperceptible are the steps by which a foreign word is admitted into the full rights of an English one; the process of its incoming often eluding our notice altogether. There are numerous Greek words, for example which, quite unchanged in form, have in one way or another ended in finding a home and acceptance among us. We may in almost every instance trace step by step the naturalization of one of these; and the manner of this singularly confirms what has just been said. We can note it spelt for a while in Greek letters, and avowedly employed as a Greek and not an English vocable; then after it had thus obtained a certain allowance among us, and become not altogether unfamiliar, we note it exchanging its Greek for English letters, and finally obtaining recognition as a word which however drawn from a foreign source, is yet itself English. Thus ‘acme’, ‘apotheosis’, ‘criterion’, ‘chrysalis’, ‘encyclopedia’, ‘metropolis’, ‘opthalmia’, ‘pathos’, ‘phenomena’, are all now English words, while yet South with many others always wrote ἀκμή, Jeremy Taylor ἀποθέωσις and κριτήριον, Henry More χρυσαλίς, Ben Jonson speaks of ‘the knowledge of the liberal arts, which the Greeks call ἐγκυκλοπαδείαν’[59], Culverwell wrote μητρόπολις and ὀφθαλμία, Preston, φαινόμενα—Sylvester ascribes to Baxter, not ‘pathos’, but πάθος[60]. Ἠθος is a word at the present moment preparing for a like passage from Greek characters to English, and certainly before long will be acknowledged as an English word[61]. The only cause which has hindered this for some time past is the misgiving whether it will not be read ‘ĕthos,’ and not ‘ēthos,’ and thus not be the word intended.