By RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D. New
York: Redfield. 1859. pp. xi., 218.
8. _Rambles among Words; their Poetry, History, Wisdom_. By WILLIAM
SWINTON. New York. Scribner. 1859. pp. 302.
The first allusion we know of to an Americanism is that of Gill, in
1621,--"_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur, ut_ MAIZ _et_ KANOA."
Since then, English literature, not without many previous wry faces,
has adopted or taken back many words from this side of the water. The
more the matter is looked into, the more it appears that we have no
peculiar dialect of our own, and that men here, as elsewhere, have
modified language or invented phrases to suit their needs. When Dante
wrote his "De Vulgari Eloquio," he reckoned nearly a thousand distinct
dialects in the Italian peninsula, and, after more than five hundred
years, it is said that by far the greater part survive. In England,
eighty years ago, the county of every member of Parliament was to be
known by his speech; but in "both Englands," as they used to be called,
the tendency is toward uniformity.
In spite of the mingling of races and languages in the United States,
the speech of the people is more uniform than that of any European
nation. This would inevitably follow from our system of common-schools,
and the universal reading of newspapers.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333