The old "Knickerbocker" names of the Middle States have, in most instances, retained their Dutch spelling intact, but have generally been subjected to a similar process of adaptation in sound. The same may be said of the French names in this country. Their spelling has, as a rule, been preserved, while their sound has been Americanized. In this way De Rosset has acquired the pronunciation Derrozett, and Jacques has come to be called either Jaquess or Jakes. Many French patronymics, such as the old South Carolina Huguenot name Marion, exhibiting nothing peculiarly French in their forms, are now pronounced entirely in accordance with our rules, and their national origin is preserved by tradition alone. Some French titles, however, having undergone only a partial change in pronunciation, survive in a hybrid form as to sound, though their spelling remains unaltered. Specimens of this class may be found in such names as Huger, pronounced "Huzhée;" Fouché, commonly called "Fooshée;" and Deveraux or Devereux, now converted into "Débro" or "Dévroo." The only very noticeable change that has taken place in the orthography of our French names is that the article has been joined to the noun in many cases where they were originally separate. In this way La Ramie, La Rabie, La Reintrée, etc. are now usually spelled Laramie, Larabie (or, in some instances, Larrabee), Lareintree, etc.; the pronunciation of the newer form being Americanized in the usual way. But this change in form is one which might easily have occurred even in France.
Most of these French and Dutch names have been in the country for a comparatively long time, and, indeed, many of them date back to the early colonial period. Like the Spanish-American names of Texas, California, Florida and Louisiana, to which the same rule generally applies, they belonged to members of organized foreign communities, proportionately large enough to preserve their names from a complete assimilation with the ideas of the English-American population. And in a lesser degree this is also true of those early German emigrants, mainly from the Palatinate, who settled in Pennsylvania, Western Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley.
The tendency at the present day, however, seems to be strongly in favor of the process mentioned first—that of changing the sound of the names to suit American ears, and altering the spelling so as to conform to the new pronunciation. There is every indication that this will be done with regard to a very large majority of the foreign surnames that have been introduced among us within the last fifty years, or which may be brought into our country in the future. And as the changes so made are quite arbitrary, the result will be that the future student of American nomenclature will often be sorely puzzled by some of the surnames to which his attention shall be drawn.
W.W.C.
THE NEW FRENCH ACADEMICIAN.
No institution of its kind holds so eminent a place in the esteem of a great country as the Académie Française. The elections are always a matter of interest, largely shared by the cultivated Revue-des-Deux-Mondes-reading world of both hemispheres; and the last election was one which excited fully as much attention as most of its predecessors. M. John Lemoinne, who at length summoned up courage to present himself as a candidate, was born in London in Waterloo year, 1815, and has for a long period, probably thirty years, been, through the Journal des Débats, in some sort a European power. His selection to fill the seat of M. Jules Janin is in every way appropriate. Indeed, it seems strange that he should have been contented to wait until he was sixty-one to come forward for that distinction.
The foundation of the Academy is directly traceable to the meetings of men of science at the house of M. Courart—who, early in the seventeenth century, was for forty years its first secretary—but it unquestionably owes to Richelieu a habitation and a name. It was formed with the special object of preserving accuracy in the French language, to which Frenchmen have been wont to pay an almost exclusive attention, but by the election of M. Lemoinne the Academy will have at least one member who is no less acquainted with another tongue.
Every one will remember old Miss Crawley's rage when she found that Becky was trading on her connection with the democratic-aristocratic spinster to make her way into the Faubourg St. Germain. Too impatient to write in French, the old lady posted off a furious disavowal of the little adventuress in vigorous vernacular, but, adds the author, as Madame la Duchesse had only passed twenty years in England, she didn't understand one word. It may be hoped that the new Academician will, in conjunction with the new minister of public instruction, Mr. Waddington, who is a Rugby and Cambridge man, have some effect in arousing his countrymen to the study which they have heretofore so strangely neglected of a tongue which threatens to obliterate in time the inconveniences occasioned by the Tower of Babel. English is every day more and more spoken, and French less and less.
In delivering his address of welcome to M. Lemoinne, M. Cavillier Fleury said: "You are one of the creators of the discussion of foreign affairs in the French papers: you gave them the taste for interesting themselves in the concerns of foreign countries. Few of us before steam had shortened distance really knew England. Voltaire had by turns glorified and ridiculed it; De Staël had shown it to us in an agreeable book; the witty letters of Duvergier de Hauranne had revealed the secrets of its electoral system. Your correspondence of 1841 completed the work." He might pertinently have added, "Because you are about the only French newspaper writer who ever thoroughly understood the English language, and could thus avoid ridiculous blunders."